Rodriquez’ resolve wavered momentarily. He would rather have done anything than kill more friendlies. But the chance for redemption was too great. “Sir, yes sir. I’ll do anything to protect my country, sir.”
“Good.” Wainewright looked to Farrell. “General Farrell here is now responsible for the success of this mission. You will report directly to him.”
*
Deep in the bowels of the Rapture Run complex, the elevator descended to the isolation wing. Dex Jackson stepped off the elevator. Twenty cells sat along a corridor lit with blue LED lamps. A lone MP straightened himself. He recognized the Secretary of Defense and snapped to attention.
“Where’s my son?” Dex snarled.
The MP took him to LeBron’s cell, where the kid was curled up in fetal position on a mattress, wearing a regulation white t-shirt and underwear. He was shivering. “We acted on Corporal Hammond’s orders,” the MP explained. “He said the boy couldn’t sleep with the soldiers. He said it was for the boy’s own safety, sir.”
Dex delivered a chopping blow to the MP’s Adam’s apple. The soldier fell to the floor, gripping his neck, struggling to get air back into his crushed windpipe. Dex opened the cell door. LeBron sat up on his elbows. For once, he was happy to see his father.
Burlington, North Carolina
12:20 a.m.
Nico was asleep by the time Madge pulled the truck into the driveway of her three-bedroom home. “Nico,” she called gently. He opened his eyes, taking in the beauty of the moonlit v-neck of her plus-size floral blouse. Madge blushed, and then said, “You flatter me. Now let’s hit the hay for real. It’s way past my bedtime.”
The living room was adorned with school photos of her nieces and nephews, as well as a life-size print of the Shroud of Turin. “You’ll have to pardon the house,” she said, although the house was very tidy. “I wasn’t exactly expecting guests.”
“I’m beat,” Nico said.
“You’ll be in there.” She pointed to the guest bedroom, where a day bed was covered with a homemade comforter with a cowboy theme. “I know it doesn’t make much sense given what happened and all, but I don’t feel right about sleeping in the same bed.”
“No worries,” Nico said. “I get it.” He actually didn’t get it at all. But he had bigger things to worry about right now. His eyes were already fixed on the computer and tiny desk in the living room corner. “Uh, do you have an Internet connection?”
Madge’s eyes were serious for the first time tonight. She looked at the computer, then back at Nico. “I was wondering how long you were going to be able to stay away from it.”
“I don’t want to make trouble,” Nico said.
She kissed him on the forehead. “Go on. Use it. But if you find yourself tempted to fall back into old patterns, wake me up. I’ll get up and pray with you.”
Washington D.C.
1:17 a.m.
Speers crept along dark Georgetown side streets in hopes of avoiding the Ulysses patrols. He had kept his phone off for the past several hours in fear that Wainewright’s people might use it to track him. But as he came within sight of the George Washington University campus, he spotted one of the last remaining public phones in the city. He went to it. He called Eva.
Eva answered right away, although the connection was shaky. “Where are you?” he said.
“At about thirty-five-thousand feet,” she said. “We’re on our way to Rapture Run.”
“Eva, listen to me. You’ve got to get off that plane.”
“The Joint Chiefs reached out,” Eva said over the scratchy connection. “And I have a prisoner here who claims that the attack on Dex was —”
“Faked,” Speers said. “I know. Corporal Hammond sent me some very illuminating items.”
“I’ll need the Joint Chief’s assistance to get resources on this. I need to convince them in person.”
“Eva, you’ve got it wrong. The Joint Chiefs are keeping Dex in the dark. Even now, he probably thinks his wife is dead.”
Speers’ words didn’t compute. “Chief, I can’t comment on Dex’s situation, but General Farrell acknowledged that I’m next in line.”
“Next in line for the cemetery, maybe.” Speers looked over his shoulder as a Ulysses patrol rambled down the far end of the street. It was time to end the conversation before it got ended for him. “Eva, trust me. Just get off that plane.”
Rapture Run
1:21 a.m.
The lone surviving Marine One helicopter was docked in a subterranean hangar that was concealed fifty yards below ground and built to withstand a direct hit by a ten megaton nuke. Wainewright and Farrell sat inside as a crew readied the deluxe chopper for the flight to Washington. Despite the late hour, the Generals wore full dress uniforms. In just a few hours, they would be orchestrating the most dramatic political event ever to appear on live television.
Dex Jackson and his son came to the door and peered inside the spacious cabin. “My son will be joining us,” Dex said in a tone that reeked of resentment.
Wainewright looked at the boy. “Very well. Sit up front with the pilot.”
The pilot started the chopper’s engines. The massive hangar roof parted overhead. Cornstalks fell over the side into the hangar and were shredded into confetti as they passed through Marine One’s churning rotors.
Dex took a seat in the booth opposite the Joint Chiefs and buckled himself in as the chopper rose steadily.
“Whose idea was it to put LeBron in the isolation ward?” Dex said. “At least you’d give a bum a blanket and a hot meal.”
“I asked that he sleep separately for his own safety,” General Farrell said.
“Well I expect the MP on duty to be court martialed.”
“Consider it done,” Wainewright said. He pushed a document across the table. “Your inauguration speech.”
Dex flipped through the speech’s first pages and pushed it back to Wainewright. “When JFK was assassinated, Johnson had the decency not to turn the passing of the torch into a spectacle.” Wainewright nudged the speech back across the table. “And he spent the rest of his term running JFK’s playbook.”
Dex scanned the speech’s first page more closely: We gather here at the Lincoln Memorial to usher in a new era. The idea of such a public gala still did not sit right with him. He looked up. “What about security?” he said. “The people that tried to kill me are still out there.”
“Trust me,” Wainewright said. “So long as you stick to the script, your life is not in danger.”
Over West Virginia
1:22 a.m.
Captain Rodriquez, aka Bearcat, flew his F-35 Lightning at 35,000 feet near the Kentucky/Virginia border. He had been given the expected trajectory and altitude of the Gulfstream G650 jet, as well as the ideal intercept location. Rodriquez wondered how so much could be anticipated about the flight plan of a government jet that was supposedly full of mutinous traitors.
Bearcat was forbidden from making radio contact with any entity – airborne or terrestrial – except CENTAF, which was operating from Rapture Run. He was only to intercept the target, take it down, and return to the unnamed private airfield in rural West Virginia where he had taken off.
“Bearcat this is Escort Six,” the CENTAF controller said to him over the radio. “You should register the target on your screen in four…three…two…”
Right on cue, a blip appeared on Rodriquez’ radar some 20-odd miles in the distance. It was flying at 12,000 feet.
“Please confirm that the target is in range,” CENTAF said. “Bearcat, do you copy?”
“Copy that, Escort Six,” Rodriquez said. “Closing in for visual confirmation.”
“Negative, Bearcat. The FAA has grounded all commercial aircraft. This is a CENTAF-authorized target.”
Rodriquez’ voice grew edgy. “Protocol for a hijacked friendly requires a visual.”
“Negative, Bearcat. General Wainewright has authorized a long-range kill...Do you copy?”
&nbs
p; *
The Gulfstream co-pilot looked nervous. He was on the radio trying to hail CENTAF. They had not received the scheduled coordinates update. It had been more than twenty minutes since their last communication. Something was wrong.
Eva and Agent Carver approached the Gulfstream’s cockpit and sat in the two crew seats behind the pilots. “Where are we?” Eva demanded.
The co-pilot turned. “We just crossed into West Virginia.”
The radar bleeped to announce an approaching aircraft. “Single F-35,” the pilot called out. “Twenty miles out and closing fast.”
Relief shot across the co-pilot’s face. “Must be an escort.”
“Why would they send just one?”
“That’s no escort,” Carver broke in as he buckled himself into the crew seat. “Does this thing have any anti-radar or anti-missile capability?”
“Sure. All the new DOD-owned Gulfstreams do.”
“Crank ‘em up. And take us down to a thousand feet.”
The co-pilot reached for the radio. “Let me check with CENTAF once more.”
There was no time to convince the pilots that their own government was trying to kill them. That would have to come later. Carver unfastened his holster, pulled out his SIG and pressed the gun metal against the back of the co-pilot’s head. “Don’t touch that radio.”
Nothing commanded obedience quite like a drawn weapon. The co-pilot crossed his heart as the plane began a rapid descent. “Kill the running lights,” Carver said. While Carver had never taken flying lessons, he had sat through enough closed security briefings to know what happened in battle once a pilot’s radar failed him. He would try to establish a visual. “Kill the running lights,” he demanded.
An eerie howl arose from the fuselage as the plane began its plunge and disappeared into the night sky.
Marine One
2:08 a.m.
They were less than fifteen minutes from Washington, where they planned to survey inauguration preparations on the National Mall. General Wainewright sat quietly annotating a touch-screen map of the D.C. area. Several major security enhancements would be needed after the inauguration. In particular, he was worried about the growing number of privately-owned submarines on the market. It would be so easy for the Allied Jihad to park one 50 miles offshore and launch a dirty bomb into the Capitol. He planned to grant Ulysses a massive contract to install a state-of-the-art undersea detection network around New York and Washington. It was just one of many similar projects. There was so much that had been neglected during the last administration. It might take a decade or more of military control to truly make the country safe again.
He sensed he was being watched. He turned and saw General Farrell’s eyes on him. Farrell was holding a small computer, and his eyes looked suddenly hollow. Something was wrong. “What is it?” Wainewright snapped.
“Eva’s plane,” Farrell began. His droopy eyes drifted downward as he completed his thought: “They disappeared from radar. We don’t have a visual confirmation, but we expect to find wreckage.”
Wainewright knew he had just been lied to. Or at least there was more to the story than Farrell was letting on. Wainewright had realized from the start that his Number Two was far from the most courageous man in the military, but he could not tolerate lies. He resolved to contact Rapture Run to get more details. As for Farrell, he would deal with him later. Today was not a time to make rash decisions about senior personnel.
Marine One’s videoconference system hummed. The words CAPTAIN JAMES WHITE: DO YOU ACCEPT? appeared on the wall-mounted monitor. Wainewright sighed and accepted the session. Captain White’s tan face appeared onscreen. White was Captain of the Carrier Strike Group U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, the youngest CSG Captain in recent history.
“Captain White,” the Chairman growled, “this is highly irregular. You report directly to Admiral Bennington. You’ve got no business hailing this aircraft. I’d like to know who at the Pentagon put you through.”
White proceeded reluctantly. “Sir, I apologize. No disrespect to the Admiral is meant. But I have an emergency situation and I have been unable to reach him.”
“Go on.”
“We’re tracking five divisions of Iranian armor on the Israeli-Syrian border. All hell’s raining down from Southern Lebanon. The U.S.S. Reagan is standing by to begin Operation Wailing Wall, and –”
“Operation Wailing Wall is cancelled,” Wainewright said. “Direct the entire strike group to move out to international waters.”
White couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “General, as the POTUS must be fully aware, our NATO pact dictates that an attack on one member is an attack on all.”
“Move away from the war zone, Captain.”
“With all due respect,” White said, “If we’re defying NATO, shouldn’t the POTUS announce it publicly?”
Wainewright’s face flushed red. Had the Captain not been two oceans and thousands of miles away, he might have used his fists to get his point across. “Fact: I am the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Fact: I am temporary Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces during this crisis. Fact: We are at war, and as such, I am ordering you to take orders as directed, upon penalty of death.”
Captain White’s disconcerted stare froze onscreen for a full second before the monitor cut to black.
The Mediterranean
The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan floated in the middle of a vast Carrier Strike Group 14 miles off the coast of Israel. The stench of burning oil mingled with the salty Mediterranean air, and the seamen of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan had been suited up and waiting for the order to engage since last night. At 0900 hours local time, two fighter pilots had gone to the bridge demanding to know why Captain White would not give the order to attack. The Captain refused to see them.
Three dozen carrier pilots sat on the flight deck, most squatting on their helmets, watching the pyrotechnics display along the Israeli coast as Syrian and Iranian jets dropped ordnance directly into civilian areas. Rows of F-18 Hornets queued for takeoff, each fitted with AGM-84 Harpoon air-to-surface missiles for enemy tanks, as well as AIM-120s for air-to-air combat.
It was the ease with which the enemy planes hit Israeli targets that surprised and disturbed the sidelined American pilots. While the Israeli Air Force was equipped with aging F-16 Fighting Falcons, the Iranians were thought to have only a handful of Russian-made MIGs scattered amongst the hundreds of ancient American-made F-5s and F-14 Tomcats given to them in the 1970s when the U.S. armed them to fight Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The intelligence was dead wrong. The IAF had its hands full fending off the Iranian armored battalions pushing through the Holy Land to the east, and recent acquisitions from China and Russia had brought Syria and Iran into the modern age. Of particular usefulness to the Iranians were dozens of new lightweight, radar-evading MIGs that were designed to emulate a crashed F-117 that the Russians had fished out of a Venezuelan jungle.
On the carrier’s bridge, some 50 feet above the flight deck, Captain White raised his binoculars to take a last look at the Israeli coast’s crumbling majesty. It wouldn’t be long until black smoke rising up from the cities fully obscured his view. Nearby, a Hebrew translator sat with headphones on, listening to Israeli military air traffic controllers as they coordinated the counterattack.
The translator took off his headphones. “Sir,” he said, scratching his neck, “the Israeli planes have been ordered to abandon ground targets. They’re focusing on the enemy MIGs attacking Haifa.”
The Captain heard the Ensign’s boots come up behind him.
“Captain,” he said, “The pilots asked me again —”
“No,” the Captain said. “I already went over the Admiral’s head. What part of penalty of death don’t you understand?”
Just as soon as he said it, the phone chirped the pre-programmed ring tone – four bars of Wagner’s Flying Dutchman concerto – of the Admiral of the Navy. Out of habit, the Captain’s heels snapped together and his posture straightene
d as he answered.
“Yes Admiral,” he said into the receiver. He listened for a moment as the Admiral chewed him out for going over his head and contacting the Chairman directly. Then he said again, “Yes Admiral,” and hung up.
“Sir?” the Ensign said.
Captain White kept his gaze on the erupting coastline. “We’re moving out to international waters. Tell the crew.”
The Ensign was aghast. He flinched as a series of cluster bombs fell on a coastal village that, from this distance, sounded like a string of erupting firecrackers. “Sir,” he said, “I got relatives over there. All my neighbors back in L.A. got people over there.”
Being privy to far more intelligence than his men, the Captain knew the situation was far more dire than the Ensign even knew. Iranians and Syrians were attacking from the northeastern front. Palestinians were coming in from the east and south. Hezbollah agents were everywhere. Without U.S. support, he gave the nation of Israel three days max.
Washington D.C.
2:45 a.m.
Speers surfaced from the tunnels underneath Arlington Station like some artful rodent that kept cheating death. There was no activity in the station. The last trains had stopped running hours earlier under the disquieting spell of martial law. The Chief stole across the vacant platform, hopped the turnstile and made his way, slowly, silently, up the motionless escalator. As he crept out onto Memorial Drive, he found the humidity absolutely overpowering. The night air felt textured and heavy as it flowed into his body. But there were no Ulysses patrols in sight, and that was a relief. The streets were empty of pedestrians or cars, and there was virtually no noise except for the nagging buzz of mosquitoes flitting around his head.
Line of Succession: A Thriller Page 24