by Tom Abrahams
So when Blackmon’s longtime supporter, Sir Spencer Thomas, suggested to him they could eventually effect change as long as he played the game, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs eased his pursuit of policy change and instead took the president up on his offer of friendship. And when the vice president was diagnosed with a non-operable malignant brain tumor, the talk began that Foreman might eventually nominate Blackmon to the number two spot.
Serendipity was at work. Within months, they would be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Foreman’s popularity and the other party’s disorganization assured he would be a shoo-in at the next general election. Or, if Foreman’s popularity waned, Sir Spencer was certain there were other measures they could take.
Then the unthinkable happened. The vice president hung on for months with the help of experimental drugs, and after his death the nomination process stalled for weeks. And Foreman dropped dead before Blackmon could assume the vice presidency.
If the aneurism had waited to pop just a day later, Blackmon would likely have ascended to the throne without even trying.
He was crushed. But then his friend, the knight, proposed an outlandish plot, suggesting Blackmon file suit to stall the installation of the Speaker of the House. While the courts hammered out the constitutional questions, the knight assured the secretary they could figure out a way to take control regardless.
The secretary was not a huge fan of violence, but it was what it was. He was happy to do his part if it meant becoming the leader of the free world.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper about the size of a business card. On it, the knight had written a ten-digit number.
Blackmon picked up his cell phone from his lap and pressed the numbers one at a time. He took a deep breath and pressed SEND.
He looked out of his window toward the National Mall. He waited. Nothing.
“Mr. Secretary.” The flight attendant was standing in front of him. She was girl-next-door cute. “Could you please turn off your phone until we’re in the air? We’re ready for take-off.”
He nodded at the flight attendant and held up his index finger, asking her to wait just a moment. This was a charter flight; she could play by his rules.
Blackmon checked the series of numbers and realized he’d misdialed. Quickly, while smiling wryly at the attendant, he dialed the correct series of numbers and pressed send. He pulled the phone to his ear and heard it ring once.
Chapter 45
Matti walked quickly from the lobby security desk to the chrome and glass sliding doors at the building’s entrance.
“Let me explain,” she began, addressing her boss. He was closest to her as she rushed to the sidewalk. The Metro police officers were leaning up against the taxi. “Arlington was never the target. It’s the Capitol. They’re trying to blow up the Capitol with everyone inside. I’ve got the proof, sir. A stack of journals is in the trunk of the taxi here.” She motioned to the cab. The driver had gotten out of his seat, opened the door, and was standing against his car in the street, concerned he might not get paid. He was smart enough not to say anything yet.
“The bombs are triggered by cell phones. I’ve targeted a handful of towers and attempted to get the owners to shut them down to prevent the detonation calls from connecting.” Matti was speaking quickly and was losing her breath. She was afraid her boss would use the slightest pause to interrupt her.
“I convinced the people here to shut down the tower on top of this building until the memorial service is over. It’s a shot in the dark, sir. But I am hopeful the call connects through this tower and the attack is stopped.” Matti glanced over the supervisor’s shoulder and could still see a black column of smoke rising in the distance. “Well, at least I was hoping to stop the attack at the Capitol.” She followed the smoke upward as it turned to gray and dissipated. She thought about Bill Davidson, wondering if she’d failed him. She worried she’d failed her country.
Matti was certain she’d ruined her career.
“We know,” her boss responded, uncharacteristically sympathetic.
Matti’s eyes narrowed. “I’m confused, sir.”
He stepped closer to her and lowered his voice. “After your little escapade last night, the FBI determined you needed to be watched. They’ve been following you, with my knowledge, since you left headquarters. We know you went to the Hanover Institute. We know you went to the coffee shop. We knew, before your cabbie did, where you were headed. We weren’t sure of the order of your stops. But we knew.”
“How did you know where I’d be going?” Matti slipped her hands into the front pockets of her jeans and wrapped the fingers of her right hand around her cell phone. “Were you tracking me through a cell locator?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Remember the guy with the computer in the coffee shop?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s one of us. Well, he’s FBI. He was a tail. When you asked to use his laptop, it worked out perfectly for us. He quickly checked your keystrokes and the sites you visited. We knew you were looking for cell towers, and we knew which three addresses you’d highlighted.”
Matti felt silly for not having known the scruffy college student was an agent. Then again, he wasn’t sporting a high-end handbag like the woman at the art opening.
“We knew you were onto something,” he admitted. “My superior wanted me to give you a long leash. I wasn’t convinced, but we couldn’t follow official protocol on this.”
“What about Arlington?”
“That came as a surprise. We didn’t expect it. When Metro police got an ‘anonymous call’, they alerted Arlington. Arlington, in turn, notified the FBI. The backpack bomb was set to trigger with a cell phone. It’s disarmed. The man arrested was Ings. He didn’t give any good intel. But with a sudden knowledge of the bomb’s makeup and the information you were gathering, we felt confident the Daturans would similarly trigger any subsequent attacks.”
“What happened at Hanover?”
“We couldn’t coordinate the shutoff quickly enough.”
“So…?”
“So they blew it up.”
“Is Bill Davidson dead?”
“We think so. He never left Hanover after you did. The Secretary of Energy was also killed. Though we don’t know who triggered the bomb, we believe he was targeted because of his position in the line of succession.”
“What happens now?”
“We’re confident from the makeup of the backpack bomb that whatever is in the casket will not detonate as long as cell transmission is blocked. Even if someone tries using a satellite phone to trigger the bomb, the receiving phone is a cell. It won’t work. With the help of several cell phone carriers and a federal magistrate, we’ve begun to shut down all cellular communication in the Metro region. We were too late with the coordination to prevent what happened at Hanover. But we think the threat is contained.”
He spoke too soon.
Matti felt the ground shudder and heard a loud explosion. She was disoriented, not sure what had happened. As she got her wits about her, she looked in the direction of the Capitol and saw smoke pluming upward into the sky.
Matti looked back at her boss. He was pale and stared at the smoke with the same disbelief Matti imagined her face had conveyed just seconds before. Even the cab driver was distracted from his fare. He couldn’t take his eyes off the smoke.
Matti’s boss dialed his phone, attempting to ascertain exactly what had happened, but he couldn’t get a signal.
She stepped next to her boss and leaned against the car. His eyes searching the sky in disbelief, he put his arm around her and they watched the blackness fill the sky. Matti was exhausted. She replayed the last three days of her life, the rules she’d broken, the instincts she followed and those she ignored. She felt light-headed. How could she have betrayed her beliefs for good and ultimately fail while at the same time, a vile group of men could hold true to their foul beliefs and succeed? Matti finally unde
rstood there was no black and white. Right and wrong were not mutually exclusive. Everything was in the eye of the beholder.
She realized then her mother’s death was just an accident. She realized at that moment she couldn’t have saved either of her parents.
In the distance she could hear sirens.
Maybe she was never meant to be the hero.
*
Within a millisecond of the explosion, and for a moment thereafter, the heat inside the Capitol Rotunda reached 6900 degrees Fahrenheit, two-thirds the surface temperature of the sun. At detonation the Semtex instantaneously transformed into high-pressure gas that expanded rapidly into a blast wave. The pulse of that wave resulted in what explosives experts called brisance. It shattered all material within the immediate range of the blast, exerting a force on anything in its outward path that equaled fifteen times Earth’s gravity.
The pressure of the blast then reversed itself and morphed into the final phase of the explosion, the blast wind, which moved at a rate of one thousand yards per second until it hit the walls of the rotunda. The length of the explosion from beginning to end was ten milliseconds.
Atop the rotunda, two hundred sixty-nine feet above the Capitol’s east front plaza, the fifteen-thousand-pound Statue of Freedom had stood proudly since 1863. Its bronze classical female figure held a laurel wreath of victory and protective shield in one hand, the hilt of a sheathed sword in the other. Her fringed robe was secured with a brooch inscribed with the letters “U.S.” Within seconds of the explosion, she lay in pieces on the ruptured rotunda floor. The cast-iron globe upon which she had long rested was snapped. The encircling words E and Pluribus were separated from Unum.
All thirty-six windows surrounding the dome were shattered. The sandstone walls extending upward forty-eight feet from the rotunda floor and the separating Doric pilasters were crumbled such that the fireproof cast-iron upper half of the walls collapsed upon them. Each of the eight niches, containing large scenes depicting the Revolutionary War and early exploration, were unrecognizable as small fragments of the canvasses smoldered amidst the rubble.
The statues and busts lining the walls were reduced to large chunks of marble. Vinnie Ream’s Lincoln and Houdon’s Washington were indistinguishable from those of Garfield, Grant, or Hamilton. The gold replica of the original Magna Carta, a gift from the British government in 1976, melted from the explosive flash of heat.
There was a large thirty-foot-wide hole in the floor where President Foreman’s casket was perched upon the catafalque. He would have no burial at Arlington.
After the dome collapsed onto itself, what had been the 1.3 million cubic feet of the rotunda was silent. There were no screams or calls for help, no moaning or crying.
Nobody within the immediate blast range survived the percussive wave. If the pressure didn’t crush their bodies or the gases ravage their lungs, the heat, shrapnel, and debris finished them.
George Edwards had guessed correctly. Three bricks of Semtex were enough. In the confined space of the Capitol Rotunda, they had accomplished exactly what the Daturans had hoped they would. The damage to the dome itself was as great as any one of the six conspirators could have imagined.
*
The eight-seat plane picked up speed as it moved down the runway. Its thirty-six-foot wingspan sliced through the air almost silently. From his window, John Blackmon had seen the large flash and a column of thick black smoke from the east end of the National Mall.
The secretary felt a simultaneous rush of excitement and disbelief. It had worked. The knight was right. All of the players had performed their roles perfectly. The Daturans had succeeded where Al-Qaeda had not. They brought down the Capitol and with it the incestuous breed of legislators and lobbyists who had, for far too long, corrupted the Republic.
Now they could control the nation’s future. They could return it to the path of controlled spending and relative pacifism. It was a dream realized. He could now be the face of a revolution. He would be the Washington or the Jefferson of the twenty-first century. The nation would return to its intended roots where citizen representatives could serve the greater good. The government would again be of the people and for the people. It was a new day.
Blackmon began to process the work he had ahead of him. He could picture his inauguration in his head. It would be a small affair, in the White House. Family, friends, close associates, cabinet members.
Wait! he thought. The cabinet is gone. I’ll have to replace all fourteen of them plus me! He began making mental notes of who might be best to head the different departments. He’d have to move quickly with the transition. Congress, or what was left of it, would rubber stamp anyone he picked if he issued the nominations quickly. They’d back him without pause as they had for George W. Bush after 9/11.
He’d need to pick a new vice president, have to find a chief of staff. There was so much to do, and he already felt behind schedule. It was invigorating, this newfound power. He was the leader of the free world. Blackmon knew it likely the rest of the Daturans might end up in prison, but they’d never connect him to the plot. They needed him to run the country so that their dreams of a more perfect union could be realized. That was the beauty of the plan. Despite his vocal protest to the contrary in his meetings with Sir Spencer, Blackmon knew he had the most to gain and so little to lose.
Of course, he’d have to leave Miami as soon as they landed there. He’d probably be shuttled around to various hidden locations until the Secret Service could assure his safety. Once he returned to Washington, he’d have to play martyr and savior all at once. That would be a daunting and politically tricky task. The secretary knew of only one man who’d pulled that off successfully and he had a virgin mother. However, he’d have the bully pulpit. And that ultimately was worth the test.
Blackmon felt the slight push of takeoff press him against his seat, and the plane lifted into the sky. The sixth Daturan leaned his forehead against the window next to him and watched the black pillows of smoke rise into the air, inwardly smiling at what he’d done to better his country.
*
Felicia Jackson could taste the grass in her mouth. It was earthy and ripe. She tried spitting it out as she rolled over onto her side and faced the Capitol. She closed her eyes and opened them again, hoping that would erase the image. It did not. She was lying on the ground roughly one thousand yards from the flags encircling the Washington Monument and could smell the acrid smoke rising above her.
She winced at the sting in her nostrils and tried to pull herself to her knees. Her left shoulder ached and her left ankle throbbed. Her heels were on the ground next to her where she’d dropped them when the Capitol exploded.
“Are you okay, Madam Speaker?”
She looked up and squinted at one of the men on her security detail. His voice was muffled and was difficult to hear against a high-pitched tone resonating in her ears.
She was disoriented by her senses flooding back to her all at once.
“Are you okay?” The man reached down and helped her sit upright. “Can you hear me?”
“A little.” She was speaking much more loudly than was necessary. But the blast had temporarily muffled her hearing. Felicia scanned the scene in front of her. There were dozens of people, if not more, lying or sitting on the damp ground of the National Mall, all of them blown off their feet by the explosion.
The closer the people were to the Capitol, she noticed there was less movement among those on the ground. They were hurt or dead.
How could this have happened? Who had done this?
Through the fog in her head, Felicia couldn’t decide what incensed her more: the attack or her lack of knowledge that it was imminent.
One moment she was delivering the political equivalent of a eulogy and the next her security detail was literally carrying her from the Capitol. In the confusion she saw others scrambling to make their way from the rotunda and out of the building. She’d never heard the warning or the order to lea
ve. It all happened too fast.
As she moved hurriedly past the Grant Memorial, she saw some wading through the reflecting pond on its western side. They were splashing and falling down as they pushed through the water. There were those moving faster than her as she reached the National Gallery of Art buildings. There were those who’d run out of steam and were huffing as far as they could away from the Capitol. What took six minutes felt like an instant.
When she was maybe a half mile from the building and halfway to the Washington Monument, she felt a shove across the full of her back, was pushed forward, and fell. At first she thought someone had thrown her to the ground. And then she realized it was the blast of the bomb. She felt the earth rattle as she planted her face into the ground. Digging her fingers into the dirt, feeling it collect under her nails, she turned her head to the left, too disoriented at first to process it. In the distance, framing the Mall, she could see the façade of the Hirshhorn Museum.
The Hirshhorn was home to artist Auguste Rodin’s most famous public sculpture, The Burghers of Calais. It told the story of six men expecting death at the hands of King Edward III during the Hundred Years War. The work depicted the men in various states of despair after losing the battle and before they learned their lives were to be spared by the Queen. Felicia loved the piece. It meant to her that women ultimately control the fate of men. It was a self-serving interpretation. In this case it was right.
As she would soon learn, the line of succession was saved because a woman named Matti Harrold had a gut instinct and had followed it. She’d been thrown into an impossible situation under false pretenses and succeeded. She’d gone against every instinct to gain and act on viable intelligence. Without Harrold’s fortitude, everyone in the Capitol would have died. Instead, the twenty-nine-year-old’s persistence had saved dozens if not hundreds of lives.