House Divided

by Jack Mars

  “You ready?” Luke said.

  “Born ready, white man,” Ed said.

  Luke looked at Dunn. He hadn’t moved at all. He lay on his side, his head resting on his pack. His eyes were half-closed. He looked like he could fall asleep at a moment’s notice.

  “What about you, Dunn? You feel like taking a ride? I think we can probably use you. And if you hang around here, about all you’re going to do is get yourself arrested.”

  Dunn nodded slowly. “I’ll take a ride.”

  “Good,” Luke said. “Then do me a favor and get your butt in gear.”

  He turned back to Trudy and Swann. Now they were on the move, and although he was tired, he was starting to feel better about things. They could rest on the airplane.

  Trudy was hanging up the phone.

  “How’s the plane?” Luke said. “We ready to rock?”

  Trudy shook her head. “There was a delay. They’re just starting to refuel now. They said give them half an hour.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  9:15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time

  The Situation Room

  The White House, Washington, DC

  Susan walked to the elevator with Kat Lopez, their shoes clattering on the marble floors of the West Wing hallway.

  “You know the deal with Putin,” Kat said. “He speaks English, but not as well as he’d like. He is likely to speak through an interpreter, probably the man named Vasil.”

  Susan nodded. “I know.”

  She had spoken to Putin through Vasil before, and Stone claimed to have met him once inside a secret underground bunker. He said Vasil dressed a lot like a young stud waiting in line to get into Studio 54 sometime during 1977—dress shirt with a wide open collar along with tight, form-fitting dress pants. That thought made Susan smile.

  “When Putin speaks, he often makes long drawn-out speeches with barely a pause, and the person he’s speaking with has to wait to hear the entire translation.”

  “Been there,” Susan said.

  Susan took a deep breath as they entered the elevator. She had tangled with Putin before. At this point, she had tangled with lots of people over the phone. It seemed like not too long ago that she used to dread these calls. These international power-players, especially the men, seemed to be so ruthless, so aggressive, so commanding, that how could a little girl like her possibly stand up to them?

  Well, somewhere along the line, she had learned to stand up. She had even learned to kick a little ass when the occasion demanded. Even so, her body was trembling the slightest amount. Call it a surge of adrenaline before the match.

  Boy. It was a long road.

  The elevator descended. Kat went on. “As you know, Putin used to dismiss you, probably because you were a woman, and refer to you in public as the Fashion Model.”

  “Yes,” Susan said. “What does he call me now?”

  Kat smiled. “Sometimes he calls you My Friend, the American President. And sometimes he calls you the Tough Guy.”

  Susan laughed out loud. “God, he’s a piece of work.”

  After the Turkish nuclear crisis, she and Putin had pledged to speak on the telephone every week, even if they had nothing to talk about. They were leaders of the two most powerful countries on Earth, both countries were bristling with nuclear weapons, and there was a lot of water under the bridge.

  They had overlapping spheres of influence and… who were they kidding? They were both deeply absorbed in a not-so-friendly chess game for world domination. The threat of flare-ups and misunderstandings was constant. It was a good idea to keep in touch. Except it hadn’t happened.

  After three months of talking regularly, they had lapsed into their previous patterns. Things came up. President—of Russia or the United States—was a busy, twenty-four-hour-a-day job. As it happened, at this moment, Susan hadn’t talked to Putin in five or six months.

  The elevator door opened.

  Kurt Kimball was there at the head of the conference table as they entered. He was ready. Kurt was always ready.

  “Ready, Susan?”

  There were exactly eleven people in the Room. Kurt and his aide, Amy, Haley Lawrence, General Loomis and one aide in military dress, Susan, and Kat. There was a man to operate the phone system, and two Secret Service agents standing on either side of the door. Also, Dr. Bartner from DARPA was still here.

  All eyes were on Susan.

  She sat down at the head of the table. The red phone was in front of her—the direct line to the Kremlin. It was red, just as advertised. It was heavy, and old. It was an anachronism in the sleek, high-tech Situation Room, teleported here from an earlier time, a time when Dwight D. Eisenhower stepped confidently through black and white newsreels. It had no numbers or dialer wheel—you just picked up the receiver.

  “Susan?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I’m ready.”

  “Okay,” Kurt said. “Before we make the call, here’s the thirty-second update on Vladimir Putin.”

  One photo of Putin appeared, standing on a dais at an international event. Justin Trudeau of Canada stood next to him, although neither man seemed to acknowledge the presence of the other. Trudeau was a full head taller than Putin, maybe more, and appeared vastly younger and more vital. Neither man was smiling.

  “As you know, Putin is basically a dictator, with a fist of iron. The rest of the Russian government exists to rubber stamp and carry out his directives. He recently won a rigged election by a landslide, giving him six more years in office. It looks like he will be President for life, if he wants. Indeed, our own intelligence scenario planners now assume this will be the case, and have begun preparing for the inevitable scramble for power after Putin dies.

  “In the meantime, he is fully in his power, and has cracked down on anything resembling dissent, either within Russia, or from abroad. Last month, the exiled Russian oligarch Dmitry Aleksandr, a harsh critic of Putin, died suddenly and under mysterious circumstances on his yacht in the Greek Isles. In the aftermath of his death, members of his entourage claimed that they immediately buried Aleksandr at sea, in accordance with his wishes.”

  Kimball paused.

  “They dumped his body overboard, if that isn’t clear. It hasn’t been found, which also suggests they weighted it before doing so. This has had an understandably chilling effect on criticism from other quarters.”

  Susan stared at the red phone. It loomed there on the table, large and menacing. The longer they waited, the more Kurt talked, the less delightful this call seemed. Susan needed to press the man for state secrets. She might even need to accuse him of collusion with terrorists. Why ponder how ruthless he was?

  Ah hell, let’s just talk to him, shall we?

  But Kurt wasn’t done.

  “Under Putin’s leadership, and partially as a result of spikes in the prices of oil and natural gas—which Russia has in great abundance—Russia has come roaring back as both a world military power and, to a lesser extent, an economic power. They have signed bilateral trade and energy agreements with both China and India, and are negotiating a new one with the European Union. Syria is stabilizing under the Assad regime, which is once again creating a solid, pro-Russian arc in the Middle East—essentially most of the Shiite Islamic world, extending from Lebanon on the Mediterranean Sea, to Iran.”

  Kurt paused. He glanced at a sheet of paper on the table in front of him.

  “Oh yeah. One last thing. Our intelligence suggests that as his power has grown, Putin has increasingly reached into the pockets of the oligarchs still operating inside Russia. Do you want to control and loot a Russian industry, without government oversight, and without suddenly finding yourself in jail as an enemy of the state? If so, then you are going to pay Vladimir Putin for the privilege. We believe that in the past several years, as a result of this mafia-style protection racket, Putin has become not just one of the most powerful individuals on the planet, but also one of the richest.”

  Kurt stopped talking.

&nb
sp; Susan shrugged. They stared at each other for a moment.

  “I have nothing to add,” she said. “You can bad mouth him all you want, but Vladimir Putin is a friend of mine.”

  The room was quiet.

  “Amy, what time is it in Moscow?” Kurt said.

  Amy consulted her tablet. “A little after five p.m.”

  Susan took one last deep breath. She had that nervous feeling, butterflies fluttering in her stomach, as if she were going on stage. That was fine. At this point in her career, she had been on this stage many times.

  “Okay,” she said. “Are we ready?”

  “The line is open,” Amy said. “You can pick up anytime.”

  Susan nodded. “Now is good.”

  “Your speaker is on,” Kurt said. “All other phones are muted.”

  She picked up the receiver to the red telephone. The handset was oversized and attached to the phone by a spiral cord. It made her hand seem small—she pictured Eisenhower’s big hand holding it instead. She held the handset to the side of her head.

  “The President of the United States is on the line,” a male voice said.

  “Hold one moment for the President of the Russian Federation,” came another voice.

  Susan looked at Kurt. He was standing with a remote telephone to his ear. All around the room, people were holding remote phones.

  Several seconds passed.

  “Hello? This is Vladimir Putin.”

  “Vladimir,” Susan said. “This is Susan Hopkins. It is a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you for receiving my call.”

  “Susan,” Putin said. “It is very nice to hear your voice again. You know, I was just yesterday thinking we should speak soon. I must be…” He trailed off, then said something in Russian to a person in the room with him.

  “Yes, I must be a psychic.”

  He paused. “Susan, it is difficult. You will please excuse me if I…”

  “Yes,” Susan said.

  “…speak through my…”

  “Yes, of course. Vasil. That’s fine.”

  Vasil came on the line. He had a deep, gravelly voice, which at the same time was clipped and cultured. He spoke slowly, and enunciated each word carefully.

  “Madam President? This is Vasil.”

  “Hi, Vasil.”

  “Hi. How are you?”

  “Good,” Susan said. “How are you?”

  Susan rolled her eyes at finding herself trapped in pleasantries with Vasil. But she had spoken through him many times, and he seemed like a nice young man. It was almost like they were friends.

  “I’m great,” Vasil said. “Thank you.”

  “May I talk to the President?”

  “Of course.”

  Immediately, Putin jumped in and began talking.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure of this call?” Vasil said.

  Might as well get right to the point.

  “Vladimir, our intelligence sources have picked up a potential threat to our eastern coastline.”

  After a few phrases, Vasil jumped in, instantly translating Susan’s words into Russian.

  “American covert operators in Africa have discovered that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has obtained what we believe is a weapon developed by the Soviet Union during the 1980s.”

  Vasil spoke in Russian for several more seconds.

  Putin barked out a short reply.

  “Yes?” Vasil said. “That is interesting. What is the weapon, if you don’t mind?”

  “We believe it is a so-called tectonic weapon, possibly an electromagnetic pulse or sound wave weapon, capable of producing earthquakes. It was developed by the Soviet Academy of Geosciences. We believe Al-Qaeda may use it in an attempt to collapse the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands. It is possible this would cause an enormous tsunami to cross the Atlantic Ocean and hit New York. We need your help. We’re wondering if the weapon described is even something…”

  Vasil was still translating, but already Putin was laughing. A few other people in the background with him were laughing as well.

  Vasil finished his translation. Putin said something in response.

  “With great respect, Susan, is this a joke?” Vasil said. “You are pulling my leg, as they say in English. Surely this is a science fiction story?”

  Susan looked at Kurt and shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “We’re very serious.”

  Putin was talking again.

  “I have never heard of this,” Vasil said. “Nor have any of my closest aides.”

  Putin said something and the people with him laughed again.

  “Except in the funny papers.”

  Now he was talking again, a longer statement, perhaps one of his fabled lectures. Vasil waited a beat, listening before jumping in again.

  “As you know, the Soviet Union was a long time ago. I was a junior intelligence officer in those days, and few people who held real power then remain alive today. It was a great nation, which sometimes, in the name of science, engaged in somewhat ridiculous fantasies. To set your mind at ease, I can just say that—”

  “Vladimir, the only way to set my mind at ease—”

  “Please,” Vasil said. “I will finish.”

  Susan sighed. “Of course.”

  Vasil went on. “I can just say that the Soviet Union indulged many Flash Gordon daydreams, from particle-beam weapons to anti-gravity devices and teleportation to other planets, yet none of these came to fruition. I am certain your tectonic device, if they ever researched it at all, will fall into this category.”

  “Vladimir,” Susan began again. “The only way to set my mind at ease is to tell me everything about the weapon, how it works, how to find it, and how to disable it. Also, if you don’t mind, you can tell me how it managed to get loose and find its way into the hands of Islamic militants.”

  “We know nothing about this weapon,” Vasil said.

  “Listen, buster,” Susan said. “I need you to take this seriously. If this weapon exists, and it is used against us, what choice am I going to have? I’m going to hold you responsible. You are the heirs to the legacy of the Soviet Union. For years after the Soviet collapse, it was Russia that followed lax procedures for safeguarding Soviet weapons, not to mention Soviet stocks of uranium, plutonium, and other dangerous—”

  “It was Yeltsin, the great friend of the Americans, who was entrusted with those weapons. Not my government.”

  Susan wanted to scream. There he went, cutting her off again. Vasil hadn’t even finished translating for her, and now he was speaking for Putin again.

  “Vladimir, if that weapon gets used against us, we are going to consider it an act of war, not by the Islamists, but by Russia. And we will respond in kind.”

  Vasil finished translating that thought. His voice trailed off. There was a long pause on the other side. Eventually, Putin spoke. His voice was curt.

  “Good day, Susan. We will look into it.”

  The line suddenly went dead.

  Susan hung up the phone. She looked around the room. Everywhere, people were hanging up their own telephones.

  Susan sat back and sighed.

  “Well, I just threatened to attack Russia,” she said. “That seems like progress.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  4:03 p.m. West Africa Time (10:03 a.m. Eastern Standard Time)

  The Skies above the Sahara Desert

  Near the border of Mali and Mauritania

  The SRT jet streaked west.

  Ed and Dunn were up front, sprawled out across the seats, sleeping the best they could. They were the smart ones.

  Luke sat in the back of the long narrow cabin, staring out at the bright sky and vast, endless desert far below them. His open window shade was the only source of light in the airplane. Leaving Niger had been the right thing, as far as he was concerned. They were the Special Response Team, and in Luke’s mind, the special in that name meant a lot of things.

  It meant hard-hitting, ce
rtainly. It meant the potential for a wide range of activity, from intelligence gathering to hostage rescue, to commando raids. It meant flexible. And it also meant rapid. In this case, Susan and her people in Washington were dithering, seemingly unable to make up their minds about how to handle this threat, or if it even existed in the first place.

  They hadn’t even given him a directive, and that was frustrating. Sit around and wait was not a directive, in his opinion, not when time was of the essence. And time was always of the essence.

  As he sat there, he began to drift a bit, and he welcomed the feeling. Maybe he would even fall asleep for a while.

  Images flitted through his mind. Rebecca as a young woman, laughing, with the big baby Gunner on his lap, spoon-feeding him green baby food from a tiny bottle. Gunner as a tow-headed nine-year-old boy, in blue pajama pants and some black, horribly garish zombie T-shirt. Susan bouncing out of bed in the morning with the energy a teenage cheerleader, the middle-aged former supermodel, her body still almost impossibly youthful. Real teenage girls being hacked apart by a crazed man with a machete, Luke walking up quickly, gun in hand, pointing…

  “Bang,” he whispered now, shaking his head.

  Memories were a hard thing for Luke Stone. They always seemed to take strange, unpleasant turns. There were too many of them, for one thing, and too many of them were bad.

  On the seat next to him, the phone rang. He had it on vibrate, and it wasn’t loud. Even so, he picked it up on the first ring.

  “Stone,” he said in a low voice.

  A musical female voice came on. “Luke, it’s Trudy.”

  He knew that. “Mmmm-hhhmm.”

  “The White House has called twice. They are wondering where you are. Apparently, the President would like to talk to you.”

  “Well, tell them I left, I’m en route, and currently unavailable. I’m resting before the next phase of this operation.”

  “Where did you go?”

  Luke smiled. “The Canary Islands. That’s where we decided the weapon went, right? So that’s where I’m going.”