“Sure, there probably has been some moral grays along the way—”
“There are no such things as moral grays,” Ezra interjected.
“Of course, there is.”
“Moral grays are what people call them to exempt themselves from culpability. Tell me this… what two colors make the color gray?” he asked.
“Black and white,” she answered perplexed.
“Exactly! If you look closely enough at a moral gray you will be able to see its black and white components. You will be able to see the truth that is difficult to see at first glance,” he explained.
“So, we are supposed to look closer to find the truth?” Ezra did not offer a dissent, but rather arched his eyebrows confirming her logic.
“But why this game at all? Why don’t you just tell us what the government is hiding from us and we’ll be the judge?” Fiona asked, almost pleading for the future lives that would be taken.
“If I tell you, you will dismiss it immediately, call it general bias against homegrown terrorists, you see? But if Xander and you are led to discover it yourselves…” his voice trailed.
“Why do you have to kill innocent people, though?” Fiona’s curious façade had faded.
“Innocent people are sometimes collateral damage to a much more important operation, just ask your own government about that one.” Ezra cracked a maddening grin. Fiona, frustrated with his defenses, broke her approach. Her fist tightened, her blood boiled. She darted up from her chair and chucked the chair across the Compound floor.
“What gives you the right to do this?!” she yelled an inch from the glass. A moment passed as their sights remained deadlocked. The glass fogged from her breaths. Ezra, calm and composed as ever, began to recite.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” She stumbled back from the glass as if punched in the gut by the words. She then saw a familiar maniacal smile curling Ezra’s lips as he cited the source of the quotation.
“The Declaration of Independence.”
Chapter 25
Safe House #29
South DC
9:45 AM
The sunlight illuminated the apartment flat in strips from between the blinds into Mac’s apartment. They had just pulled an all-nighter, following dead end leads from Geneva. A brewing coffee pot in the small kitchen, sighed as it finished and released an aromatic roast into the air. Cusick and Mac now had access to the traffic camera grid but had no luck in finding the Hyman Seafood truck. Morale was dropping as the hunt was beginning to run cold.
“So, Ezra has confirmed that the targets are in the DC metropolitan area but finding this truck in the city is like finding a needle in a haystack, or should I say a needle holding deadly bacteria in a haystack the size of Washington, DC.” Mac glanced behind him.
“Get it?” he asked, almost immediately giving up on the joke, seeing Cusick consumed in his computer screen. Mac wiped the exhaustion from his face and then slapped his face. After a few silent moments Cusick chimed up.
“Got it!”
“It took you that long to get it, come on man. I thought that was pretty clever.” Mac smiled.
“No, I got it!” Mac turned from his chair to face Cusick with a quizzical expression.
“The truck...” Cusick explained. Mac jumped out of his chair, eyeing the laptop monitor.
“When is this?” Mac asked, already over Cusick’s shoulder. His finger tapped on the feed’s time stamp. 10:09PM. They watched the truck park and wait alongside H Street outside the Rock and Roll Hotel. Cusick fast forwarded the footage to see Harak Khan get out of the truck, wait at the truck’s backside for a young lady to walk by. The two hackers were shocked to see the sedative driven into her neck and her limp body thrown into the back of the truck. Mac gaped at the feed. He leaned forward and focused in on the next breadcrumb of the trail, tapping his screen with peaked curiosity.
“Who is that girl?”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Stacey Chapman was running down the street, buttoning up her military formals. She brought the phone to her ear as she rushed down the sidewalk. After a couple quick rings, an impatient voice answered.
“Stacey, where the hell are you?”
“I am on my way! I am so—” Stacey surrendered to another fit of coughing. She then crossed over an intersection and turned – the building where she worked was now in sight.
“Are you okay?” the voice asked over the phone.
“Yeah! I’m fine!” she exhaled gasping words, as she kept her pace up.
“How long until you get here?”
“I’m walking through the door now, I swear! I am so sorry.” Stacey’s apology was hoarse and discordant, as she battled the infection taking hold of her. She shook off any bit of unprofessionalism, straightened her military blouse and walked through the door.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The clocks populated the Situation Room monitor on the far wall. There were isolated discussions throughout the room as they hypothesized the meaning of them.
“2:04, 51, 53, 11:46, 2, 11” The President read the clocks, bewildered. “Are they times to an attack? 51, 53, 2, 11. These numbers may indicate trains departing from Union Station,” he hypothesized.
“On it, Mr. President!” Powers consulted the Amtrak schedules of the day.
“They could be referring to different clocks around DC, marked by that time.” Hardy suggested.
“It’s definitely a possibility…Director Deacon, I want the NSA checking the city’s surveillance for any reference to those times,” the Commander-in-Chief ordered.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Xander?!” Hooper spoke up over the comm unit.
“Yes, sir?”
“There is no sign of anything at Langley, so you once again you have proven yourself to have the best instinct here, so tell me what’s your instincts telling you about this?”
“I’m curious as to why there are only two times. The two sets of three go: hour, minute, second, hour, minute, second. The problem is that the hours indicated are fractional. It is not 2 o’clock on the dot, its 2:04…” Xander formulated. Hooper could see Ashton and Seamus joined him from the feed.
“Maybe they are counting down to something?” FBI Director Fangold posited.
“No, that can’t be, these clocks aren’t moving.” Seamus joined the discussion.
“Frozen in Time.” Xander reminded them of the rhyme.
“Take out the time component and consider them as number strings: 2045153, 1146211,” Ashton offered. The Situation Room jumped at the lead.
“Search the depths of each agency’s database for these numbers,” the President directed. “Do they indicate an agent in the field? A mission number? A passcode? I want everything you got, immediately.” Hooper received a chorus of ‘yes sirs’.
Marty Jacobs rubbed his temples and loosened his collar. Hooper noticed his odd behavior.
“Are you okay, Marty?”
“Yes, Mr. President. I’m fine. I could just use some water.” He cleared his throat and then hit the intercom button on the phone before him.
“Can we get some water in here?”
“It’s not a time. It’s a location.” Xander’s voice calmly came over the speaker. There was a composure in his tone that only came from certainty. Everyone stopped in their tracks in the Situation Room. They reached a collective silence and awaited further explanation.
“It’s a location! There are 360 degrees on a clock,” he spoke the disjointed thought over the comm channel. The Situation Room only grew more perplexed, unable to follow Xander’s chugging train of thought. The feed remained transfixed on the clocks as Xander connected the dots.
“Degrees, minutes, seconds…” he whispered.
“Xander, can you explain?” The Presid
ent reminded him that they were listening and needed to be walked through his logic.
“The first clock doesn’t give a time. It gives an angle, the second gives a minute, the third gives a second. Degree, minute, second.”
“Longitude and Latitude, they are coordinates.” Ashton marveled over the comm.
“How do you calculate the degree?” Seamus added the next natural question.
“The angle is equal to ½(60H+M) – 6M,” Xander recited as if he was reading from an SAT prep book. “1/2(120+4) – 24. 62-24 = 38.”
He verbally performed the arithmetic. “The first angle is calculated as 38, so that makes the longitude 38 degrees, 53 minutes, 51 seconds.” Hardy in the Situation room scribbled down the string of numbers.
“11:46,” Ashton noted the second time for Xander to process. The Situation Room was silent, marveling as the puzzle pieces connected.
“1/2 (706) – 46(6). 353 – 276 = 77. The second angle is 77. Latitude is 77 degrees, 2 minutes, 11 seconds!” Hardy jotted down the coordinates.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Cusick looked over the surveillance feed as he focused in on the female, abducted on the footage. A filter ran over her grainy face, adding clarity to her features. After the filter repeated multiple times, a pretty young woman came into view. Cusick ran a facial profiling software over her clear image. A file popped up showing her ID picture.
“Stacey Chapman, Date of Birth: March 8, 1985, Harvard grad, Political Science Masters. She currently works at –” The next words on the profile cut through the screen, rendering Mac and Cusick aghast.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Alright, I have Longitude: 38 degrees, 53 minutes, 51 seconds. Latitude: 77 degrees, 2 minutes, 11 seconds.” Hardy double checked the coordinates over the comm. At that moment, a beautiful blonde woman quietly came into the Situation Room, dressed in slightly wrinkled military formals with a carafe full of water. She filled the glasses before each person, unnoticed amidst the shuffle. She placed a filled glass before the President.
“We’re inputting the coordinates now!” Hardy typed quickly, the monitor showed a satellite view of America. He hit enter to zoom into the exact coordinate of Ezra’s next target. The staffer with the water resisted the urge to cough in the President’s company. But her throat seized on itself - the itching urge grew unbearable. She pulled her elbow up and coughed hard into it by the President’s chair.
“Excuse me, Mr. President…” she spoke a soft apology. His eyes pried away from the screen to meet the staffer next to him. He flashed her a polite smile, despite the chaos that was unfolding.
His eyes met the staffer. Knowing the names of all the White House staffers he had no problem recalling the name of the girl before him.
“It’s okay…Ms. Chapman.”
Stacey nodded and excused herself from the Situation Room.
The monitor continued to zoom toward the East Coast until it broke the clouds over Washington DC. Then it focused on a rectangular building near the middle of the city. The name of the building came into view.
The White House.
A horrifying revelation dawned on the Situation Room as they read the screen.
With great difficulty, the President accepted what it indicated.
“We are the target. The disease is already here.”
Marty Jacobs’s trembling hand already had the phone to his ear and issued the lockdown order to the Secret Service on the other end.
“Code Black – Crash. Seal off the building.”
Chapter 26
The White House
Washington, DC
10AM
Immediately, three, armed Secret Service agents burst into the Situation Room and grabbed the President from under each arm. The third agent shoved a gas mask over his face. In a mere moment, they were out of the room with his task force following far behind, shepherded by two other agents. The three, armed agents led the way, sweeping the White House halls for any other threat. They jogged the basement corridors toward the East Wing of the White House.
They passed through the basement lobby, through the East Room and out onto the East Colonnade. President Hooper was ushered with such force that he found himself hovering over the ground, pedaling to make contact with the floor. The seam in his suit jacket ripped, as one of his Secret Service agents yanked him around a corridor corner. The Kennedy Garden passed in a green and red blur as they bustled into the lobby of the East Wing. After turning down another hallway, they headed straight for a wall at the end of the hallway.
“Open the elevator!” Agent Callahan instructed up his sleeve – 50 paces from the wall. After a moment, the wall opened to reveal a red door, which as they approached closer opened itself. Hooper tumbled into the red elevator with his agents and the door snapped shut behind them. The President lost his stomach from the pressure shift as they started descending to safety.
“My team is to be let in, Callahan,” he demanded of his lead Secret Service agent, shrugging them off and tightening his hands into clenched fists.
“I suggest that we have them checked by medical before they are granted access,” Callahan responded.
“No. We are in the middle of a crisis. They are to be let in immediately.” He tore the gas mask off his face and beamed at Callahan. The President’s pulse could be seen, pounding up and down his jugular. His lead Secret Service agent conceded after seeing that the President was not open to negotiations on the matter.
“The elevator will make one more trip for any necessary personnel you need. Only people in the Situation Room will be allowed down, we cannot risk any infected to come in contact with you. There is no telling what parts of the White House have been exposed.”
“Where is Jeanne?!”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The First Lady paced through the main floor of the West Wing past the Press Secretary’s office and the Cabinet Room on her left. She dictated orders to her assistant, regarding the recycling campaign she had launched at the beginning of the term.
“We have been scheduled on Ellen for three weeks from now,” her assistant briefed from her Day-Timer.
“Good… think of a prank or something I could do to her. We need to make it fun or no one will pay attention,” she added. “It needs to be YouTube worthy…”
“What do you think about throwing pieces of her set away in a large recycle bin? Take the furniture, the props anything and everything on set and throw it in the recycling.” The First Lady stopped in the middle of the hallway and froze on Sally.
“That’s pretty damn good, Sally…Plan it caref—” At that moment her Secret Service detail swept through the hall.
“Mrs. Hooper?” Cushioned steps from down the hall approached quickly.
“What is this Jimmy?” She eyed the head of her detail.
“We have a Code-Black Crash.” The First Lady stopped in her tracks, her expression fell to a grave concern. “Code Black?”
“Yes ma’am. The President has been taken down to the bunker.” Jeanne didn’t know how to react as lockdowns happened often but never this severe.
“How bad is it, Jimmy?”
“We don’t know,” he answered arduously. The First Lady had to remain strong for she was the matron of her house.
“Where are we setting up?” she asked throwing her hands up in there as she proceeded toward the end of the hallway.
“The Oval Office is the closest quarantine zone.” Agent Jimmy Doughty led her with one open hand. They walked through the President’s secretary’s office into the open space of the Oval Office. The First Lady’s eyes met the most prominent man amid the small crowd that had been gathered in the quarantine.
“Tom? What are you doing in here?” the First Lady asked, surprised to see her husband’s Vice President.
“Hi Jeanne… I had to get a file, I was heading down to the Situation Room to meet the President, but I guess I didn’t make it in time.” He ascended to his feet and offered her a greeting kiss on either cheek.
The First Lady grabbed a seat in the middle of the room on one of the loveseats. She surveyed the room and took note of the many worried expressions around.
I’m going to be playing hostess today, aren’t I?
After the thought, her face lit up in a warm smile for all to see. The low murmurings around were broken by her own clear voice.
“I wish I had my Soduku book, this could be a while…” she quipped. The room’s laughter responded as her eyes slowly descended to the floor, knowing her husband was somewhere below her, and wondered what the day’s crisis could be. She had to remind herself to breathe as a portentous feeling consumed her. The day she always dreaded had arrived.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Sorry, Mr. President,” the other Secret Service agent said, nodding toward the ripped shoulder seam of his suit coat. The President finally noticed and tugged at the bottom fringe of his suit in an attempt to restore order to his appearance. He ran a combing hand through his hair as the elevator continued its quick descent. Upon reaching a depth of 120 feet below ground, the elevator opened to a large corridor of cement foundation. The Secret Service agents bustled out of the elevator and approached a fingerprint scanner on the wall before two large red doors, marked by the Presidential Seal. After scanning his fingerprint, Callahan typed a five-digit code, causing the doors to slide open with a gasp.
The Presidential Emergency Operations Center, or the PEOC, opened up before them. The interior walls encased the bunker in the drabby gray of cement reinforcement and stood as a complete contrast to the lavish furnishing in the residence above them. There was no artwork, no carpets or any regal décor of any kind for it was not a space for diplomacy, rather it was a space for survival.
A constant dimness hung over the bunker – the only lights in the room came from the hanging fluorescents overhead and monitors illuminated on the high wall. The feed had already been transferred from the Situation Room. The President ascended to a central stage platform where the fluorescents hung over a long cedar conference table with leather chairs. As he took his place at the head of the table, he surveyed the monitors and stopped on one feed, showing Ezra in the glass cell in the Compound.
Project Apollo Page 12