“We already confirmed it by dispatching the National Guard and closing off the city. You don’t do that unless there is a serious threat. I agree with Colonel Hardy. We need to issue a statement at least,” Powers directed, no longer disputing with the Chief of Staff, rather looking directly to the President for action.
As the PEOC awaited a decision to be made from the President, a deep, internal clinching started in his gut and climbed its way up his chest and then to his throat. He turned from the conference table quickly coughing into his shirt sleeve. Hooper stepped down from the platform holding the conference table and paced around in the shadows for a moment, until the coughing cleared. He ambled across the grey floor, head down in a seemingly contemplative posture. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see concerned glances back at the conference table. A short second later Jacobs stepped down to meet the President, but Hooper was already returning to the conference table.
“Mr. President…” Hooper dismissed his Chief of Staff’s address.
“I’m fine Marty, just a tickle in my throat…” Hooper turned back to business immediately. “Director Fangold send the FBI to BNA with a warrant. I want your men to pick that place apart. Someone hacked their network and incited panic over the airwaves. We need to know if the terrorists did it or if it is some other organization as they suggest. BNA is a crime scene, make no mistake about it.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Fangold replied.
The President’s vision lowered to the maps sprawled out over the main conference table. The map marked the positions of confirmed blockades while the bank of computer monitors on the opposite wall illuminated constant Intel updates from the NSA.
“Now, what do we have on the riddle?” the President directed, ignoring the fact that his coughing fits had been progressing over the last forty-five minutes.
“Black and white could be a metaphorical black and white. Like right and wrong. Six colored lines weaving could speak to the space between right and wrong. He’s a philosopher by nature. It’s important for us to consider the rhyme in this way,” CIA Director Hunterson suggested.
“Grab your post, could refer to one of the many obelisks around the DC metro area. Also, it could refer to a position. He has already targeted a man at his post, Lieutenant Walker at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It could be another military outfit that he targets,” Colonel Hardy suggested.
Uncertainty silenced the room. The President’s index finger pressed on his chin as he considered the theories. His eyes roamed the four-line rhyme already displayed on the far monitor.
“The truth comes clearer as the lies grow darker,” he whispered to himself. The room awaited the thought to develop.
“What lie are we telling?” A perplexed room looked back at the President. He explained further. “He keeps talking about the truth. The truth shall make you free. The truth comes clearer as the lies grow darker. What truth is he talking about? We need more on Ezra, we need to know what makes him tick. It would seem to me that he is seeking vengeance on some government secret.”
Marty Jacobs joined in.
“Project Sparta, Mr. President… We took him at age 16 and trained him to be a spy. We faked his death to extract him from that training program. And under the handling of Senator Bashfield, rest in peace, he was burned and stranded in the Afghan desert. Do you not think this government has been unfair to him?” Jacobs assumed the role of prosecutor.
Hardy stepped up as the defendant.
“Ezra got brainwashed by an Islamic fundamentalist while he was over there. He came back here with the help of Bashfield to make an attack on innocent American citizens. I hardly believe that we have to be emphatic to him. He’s a terrorist. Plain and simple.”
“Mr. President, my suspicion is that the truth he’s referring to is Islam. He wants to convert people, no matter how unorthodox the means,” Janet Powers spoke up.
“If he’s a Muslim terrorist, why hasn’t he gotten on his knees and prayed to the east all day?” Jacobs asked referencing the feed of the Compound, showing Ezra sitting in the glass cell.
The debate ended in a stalemate, while President kept the discussion on track. “Marty has a point. Are we not just assuming that he is a Muslim? Not all terrorists are waging Jihad.”
Upon governing the discourse, the President’s throat seized up and a string of violent coughs exploded out from his esophagus. He could feel the mucus rip from his chest and clog his throat. An open palm came to his mouth to catch the bacteria from escaping his mouth. After a few more moments the President was able to get a handle on himself and attempted to return to business again.
“Mr. President…” Jacobs tried again to address the elephant in the room.
“Marty, I appreciate your concern, but I am fine—”.
“George!” Jacobs interrupted the President, his eyes intense, staring down the man who seemingly opposed his advice at every turn. He would no longer have it, especially if it meant jeopardizing the other lives in the room.
The President consulted the hand that covered his mouth. Inside its palm was a wad of blood. He looked up from his hand to see the entirety of the room looking on in dismay.
The situation could no longer be ignored. The President’s demeanor lowered from a charging leadership to a sullen obedience. Without a word, he nodded and slowly lifted from his seat. He stepped down from the platform and followed Jacobs into a small side office equipped with a monitor, a table and a phone. As soon as the door closed, Jacobs changed from Chief of Staff to best friend.
“George… How ya doin’?” he asked the way people do when they visit patients in the hospital.
“I’m infected, aren’t I?” the President asked, immediately venturing to the thought of his wife and daughter.
“It appears you’ve caught the bug.” Jacobs tried to keep the moment light with a smile.
“How long do I have?”
“Well, our Intel suggests that it is different for every person, but no one has survived after 12 hours of infection. I think we should get you out of here. We need to get you to a hospital.”
The President snapped at this suggestion. “Not a chance! There is a crisis going on out there. I need to be here. The only way to save me is to cure this and the only way to find the cure is to play his game.” Jacobs granted his point.
“You should stay quarantined in here for the time being.” The President finally agreed with his Chief of Staff.
“Doesn’t look like you are getting on camera in front of the world any time soon,” Jacobs quipped.
“I’ll issue a statement… a letter from the desk of the President… Marty, they need leadership…” the President explained.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea at this point. How about we let your Press Secretary do her job first.” The President didn’t have the energy to fight him on the suggestion. “You need to rest. I’ll lead the joint task force, we’ll get the cure… you’re gonna be alright, George” Jacobs reassured him.
“Don’t tell my wife yet… she’ll get all worried as she does.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
After a few minutes, Marty Jacobs walked out of the small conference room and approached the large bunker full of worried faces. He stood upright with his chest out and his chin up. He made his way back up to the platform with the conference table where everyone awaited his update.
“It is our concern that the President has indeed been infected with this contagion. For precautionary measures, he will stay quarantined from the rest of us. Medical personnel are on their way and will administer to his needs We need to notify the Vice President and the Speaker of the House. I have been told to not release this information to anyone else, including his wife. The best chance we have of saving his life is to find the cure.” He looked over the room that now took orders from him. His gaze over the officials steadied over each one individually. His jaw flexed as his molars clamped down on each other. His temple’s pulsated with his elevated heart rate
. He maintained a calm intensity and offered three words of leadership to the room.
“Let’s get to work.”
Chapter 32
Donegal’s Pub
Washington, DC
12:45AM
The three casually dressed operatives stood in an alley at a side door to Donegal’s pub. Seamus lifted a fist and pounded out a knock. A small sliding panel screeched open at eye level.
“We need to see Lucky.” The man’s dark brown eyes looked over the three people. On command a muffled voice from behind the door responded with the script.
“There’s no such thing as luck, only fate.”
“Don’t ya know we make our own fate,” Seamus responded.
The panel slid shut, the door’s hinges began to creak, and it flung open. They walked into an abandoned downstairs bar with varnished wood accents and typical pub décor. The atmosphere struck the balance between dive bar and classy professional hangout. Seamus proceeded to a back office – the others followed. They came to an old wooden door with a translucent window, showing a silhouette morphing toward them.
The door swung open.
“Come in,” a grumpy Irish brogue anticipated their arrival. Upon seeing the operatives, Lucky’s face dropped to immediate anxiety.
“Oh shit… anytime I see ye Seamus storm clouds are gatherin’,” Seamus clasped both sides of Lucky’s head and pulled it in for a kiss on the cheek.
“Good to see ya brother.” After a short moment, the smiles faded and business took the lead.
“We need to arm up,” Seamus implored. Lucky looked him over as if scanning him for a level of seriousness. He shuddered as he spotted it and without a word he led them out of the bar into the back alley. Along the back alley were different garbage docks. He climbed up one with the Spartans and fished out a set of clanging keys from his pocket. After a couple of jingles, he found the correct one.
After checking either side of the alley, he fed the key into the padlock and turned. The garage door slid up to reveal a full armory crammed into a small closet door. Xander and Seamus selected the MK17 SCAR, a special forces combat assault rifle, while Ashton opted for the Barrett M82, her signature Sniper Rifle. They loaded up, strapping magazine clips, incendiary devices, and other miscellaneous tactical supplies, to their person. As they suited up, Xander received a message in his ear.
“Go ahead, Hardy…” Xander stepped away from the arsenal with a finger in his ear. After a moment of listening, he turned back to his team.
“The National Guard has sealed the city,” he updated.
“What the hell? The whole city?” Seamus asked bewildered, seeming more surprised than Xander.
“Word is that someone hacked BNA studios, forcing the airing of a video, trying to incite panic,” Xander explained, already having processed the White House’s reasoning.
“These streets are about to get wild…” Ashton predicted.
“Yeah… this doesn’t shift our focus guys. We handle the clues, find the targets, find the cure… that’s it. Let the professionals deal with crisis management. Got it?” Xander arched his eyes at his comrades. They returned a nod and continued to strap up.
“Alright then, let’s focus on the clue… grab your post and solve…” Xander reiterated the rhyme.
“How many telephone poles are there in the city? Maybe there is a puzzle on one in particular in the city…” Ashton posited, dropping a bulletproof vest over her shoulders.
“You can’t grab a post…” Xander reflected. “You man a post or guard a post, like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
For a moment his focus zoomed out of the moment and he approached it in a broader manner. When he saw the situation for what it was hate boiled in his heart for his fellow recruit. He remembered the moment Ezra pulled the trigger, releasing a bullet into Jooles’s head – the raving lunatic with a bomb strapped to his chest – the prisoner his wife currently stared down, held in a glass cell. He then recalled Ezra in a much different way – as the friend he once had. The memory of his first meeting with Ezra in the Compound on day one of Project Sparta surfaced. Ezra was solving a crossword puzzle and could barely focus on their orientation to Project Sparta.
Our lives would never be the same and the guy couldn’t put down the crossword puzzle.
Xander stopped suddenly, slammed a clip into his MK17 and slung it on his back. Turning to his comrades, his face brightened in revelation as the light bulb had shattered in his head.
“You can grab a post!”
Xander followed the thought across the alley way and into Donegal’s. He busted through the door and jogged up the steps to the main floor bar where a few older patrons sipped on stouts. They all looked at the man in full tactical combat gear and quickly but quietly excused themselves from the bar. Left behind, atop one of the bar stools sat a folded-up newspaper. With a quick glance, he checked the date to confirm it was the present day’s issue and held it up for his fellow Spartans to see.
“Grab your post…” The newspaper read at the top: The Washington Post. Ashton marveled as the pieces to the jigsaw snapped together.
“Solve to find the meaning?” Seamus asked, not seeing where it was going. Xander immediately flipped through the newspaper until he found the section he needed.
“Ezra is obsessed with crosswords…” Xander explained. He flipped the paper over to reveal their next clue.
Across:
Diagonal:
Down:
3) To Complete A Search- 4 letters
2) Middle Linebacker Keuchly - 4 letters
1) Morrison’s Resting place - 5 letters
6) Ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter - 2 letters
4) 360 degrees - 6 letters
3) MacDonald’s Home - 4 Letters
9) Prokaryotic Microorganisms - 8 letters
5) Octopus’ weapon - 3 letters
8) Small Woody Plant - 5 letters
10) Officiators of the Diamond - 7 letters
7) Measures of Electrical Resistance - 4 letters
9) The Cleaning Type of Boy - 3 letters
12) Comes in A’s, C’s and D’s but no B’s. - 9 letters
16) Thank God It’s _______ - 6 letters
11) The Man Behind the Brush - 6 letters
13) Apple Computer Brand - 3 letters
19) Armpit, anatomically - 6 letters
14) Players in a story - 10 letters
15) Only Prez to be Chief Justice - 4 letters
21) Me possessive - 2 letters
18) Pluto’s Greek Equivalent - 5 letters
17) Ender’s Author - 4 letters
23) Lorne’s 40 year enterprise, abbrev. - 3 letters
22) Slang: An emotional person - 3 letters
20) To make taller - 8 letters
25)Kubrick/Spielberg Collaboration - 2 letters
28) Pb in some tables – 4 letters
24) October 1962 – Cuba’s Missile 6 letters
26) South American Rodent – 4 Letters
26) King’s Killer Clown - 2 letters
27) Musk’s 1st Business Pay-____ - 3 letters
Chapter 33
Navy Mess
The White House
1PM
The Navy Mess on the ground floor of the West Wing held 35 quarantined White House staffers. The dimly lit dining room was lined wall to wall with mahogany. Small lamps shined up on the artwork of different historical vessels. An assortment of dining tables were placed throughout the small room while low-backed blue armchairs played off the nautical artwork, tying the dining quarters together.
The quarantined had all begun to cough and sweat. The air was filled with the bacteria and any breath only brought in more of the contagion. Stacey Chapman sat against the far wall, reaching for breath as the blood continued to pour from her nose. Her infection had progressed the furthest in the room. The fellow quarantined had banged on the door for medical assistance but their cries for help remained unanswered by the
Secret Service. They watched Stacey Chapman in horror as their impending fate unfolded before their eyes. Moaning cries sounded over the coughs, terrified of the bloodied woman against the far wall.
“I…I’m… Sorry…” Stacey fought over her ailments. An infected Marine named John Minick came to her aid. Despite a coughing fit, he ran a smooth comforting hand over her back.
“It’s not your fault.” His compassion mirrored a Catholic nun bathing a leper.
“Y…yes… it is. I brought this into the White House. I…I… didn’t feel g…g…good this morning,” she wiped the layer of blood from her mouth. Minick shooshed her, continuing to rub her back. Chapman did not listen to him and continued her explanation.
“I…I… don’t know how… I got… sick,” she replayed the blurry memory in her head of the bar she went to, the live music, the walk home and a freezer truck. The snapshots in her mind did not string together to form any kind of memory, rather they remained disjointed and perplexing.
“You’re going to be okay, Stacey.” Minick took his formal jacket off and wrapped it around her. She had been bleeding ever since the lockdown. Her complexion was flushed and pale. Her eyes looked up over her hand and met Minick’s eyes with weakness. The depth in them conveyed a silent Thank You.
Who else did I infect?
A memory surfaced quickly like it was happening before her. As if her brain was hyperactive and recalled things with pinpoint precision. She was back at the entrance into the White House. She jogged to the front door, fighting the throbbing headache that had laid root. Approaching the employee entrance, she flashed her badge to the military guard on duty. She walked in past the check-in, saying good morning to Jerry, her favorite security guard. She stopped in the hall and brought out her compact to consult her reflection. As she made a few adjustments, trying to salvage her appearance, she felt a tug at the bottom fringe of her military uniform.
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