by S L Shelton
The President nodded.
“When Homeland Security claimed that Wolfe and those SEALs had gone rogue, taking money from the accounts and abducting Heinrich Braun…well, it was easy to just pause the investigation,” he looked up. “We’d already lost two key people on that investigation. With the bombings at Langley and TravTech, no one thought to question it after Wolfe was declared a traitor. It just sort of disappeared.”
The President nodded. “How’s Maggy now?”
The question disoriented him for a second. “She’s doing better. Still not who she was before…probably never will be. But she’s part of the family again.”
“You know, the organization that Spryte ran has a history of abducting and blackmailing family members. There is a high probability that her predicament was engineered by the very same people who then had you back off that investigation.”
“That thought had crossed my mind, months later after I’d already accepted their cover-up and payment for her treatments.”
The President nodded and looked down at his hands, turning them over slowly as if his next words were etched on them. “We’re taking our country back…today.”
Daniels nodded.
“It’s going to be bloody, and ugly, and embarrassing for the whole country, but it must be done…and it must be done in the open where everyone can see it.”
“I understand, sir,” Daniels said.
“You’re still my Attorney General. And as my Attorney General, I want you to order all federal law enforcement to standby. Tell them that evidence is about to be presented that will require them to arrest people they know and have worked with for years, leaders they respect, celebrities who will use their outlets to try to subvert our sworn duties.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will then take a list that we will provide you, of trustworthy department heads, prosecutors, judges, and agents. You will deliver to those trusted few the list of over ten thousand names, and the evidence that accompanies those names…and you will order those trusted few to arrest every single goddamned one of those bastards for treason.”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir.”
“And then, you will hand me your resignation and yourself over to those trusted few.”
Daniels’s chin fell to his chest, and he began to weep, but he nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Now get out of my sight.”
Nick didn’t wait for Daniels to rise. He grabbed him by the arm and lifted him from the chair before propelling him through the door. “Can I get you anything, sir?” Nick asked.
“Send someone in with some morphine.”
Nick smiled and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Nick followed Daniels down the hall and opened a door to a smaller compartment with bunk beds.
“I’ll need a phone and the list,” he said.
“You’ll get your phone when the list arrives,” Nick said, not even trying to disguise his disgust in his tone. “Until then, you’re to stay in here and not talk to anyone.”
Daniels nodded and sat on the bunk. As soon as Nick closed the door, he began to cry in earnest. He folded his hands over his face and wept the way he had when William Spryte had shown him the drug-fueled pornographic images of his little girl.
**
9:55 a.m. — Mount Weather National Security Facility, Bluemont, Virginia
ALBERT EMRICK, tossed in his bed, coated in a thick sheen of sweat. In his ears, his pulse thrummed beyond his ability to ignore. It had become the only focal point in his universe. The glands on the side of his throat burned, swollen and aching with whatever malady afflicted him. Through the pounding in his head seeped a chorus of whispers, singing, hissing the same damnable rhythm over and over.
Unintelligible for the most part, the message obscured in the ringing of his ears only rose above the cacophony for brief instants of clarity; “Kill them all,” only to fade away to a confused whisper once again.
A knock at his door roused him from bed as if some Pavlovian response controlled his actions, and he walked to the small bathroom in his undersized suite. More than two hundred feet below the ridge of the mountain, the cold of the concrete seeped into his bare feet through the thin, industrial carpet.
In the bathroom, he turned on the tap and ducked his head under the spigot. Unlike the unwelcome cold of the concrete, the cool of the chemically treated, infinitely recycled water refreshed his mouth.
After getting his fill of water, he lingered, letting the stream pour over his face and the sides of his head. It didn’t stop the pounding whisper of his tormented mind—the same phrase, over and over, “Kill them all. Kill them all. Kill them all.”
The pounding at his door persisted.
“What, for fuck’s sake?!” he screamed at the door.
Kill them all, his mind whispered.
“Sir, Director Richards needs you in operations. There’s an issue.”
“Ned fucking Richards can kiss my ass,” he muttered. That bastard had stuck him in this dungeon of a suite, treating him as if he were simply an extension of the enhanced assets Emrick was there to monitor.
The pounding at the door again. Or is that my head?
Kill them all.
“Sir?!
“I’m coming!” He screamed, red-faced, pressing his hands to his ears.
From his bag, he pulled three bottles; two antivirals and Clonazepam, an antianxiety medication.
He poured an unmeasured number of pills from each bottle and popped them into his mouth before drinking from the spigot again.
As if swallowing the pills had worked its magic, the pounding and whispers faded to tolerable levels. After dressing, he shoved the bottle of Clonazepam in his pocket then left his room.
His footfalls created a rhythmic clacking on the concrete floors and an echo along the tubular hallways as he made his way to the elevator. The muted beat of his heart in his ears distracted him as he stepped onto the elevator and then descended to the Operations level. He closed his eyes as the whispers swelled again.
“Sir?”
He looked up to see the elevator had stopped and the doors had opened. Outside, two airmen waited, confused by Emrick’s delayed exit.
He walked out of the lift and strode toward the Command Center in Operations. Outside the door, one of his Jaggers stood watch, Jagger 37.
No, 39…right? Jagger 39.
“Kill them all.”
Emrick stopped in front of the enhanced killer. “Why are you out here? What the hell do you think you’re guarding out here?”
“I was ordered to stand here,” he replied, emotionless.
Emrick shook his head and reached for his pass key-card, which normally hung around his neck on a lanyard. It was missing—he’d left it in his room.
“Shit,” he muttered then looked at the Jagger. “Open it.”
The Jagger turned and swept his card over the pad and the door clacked open.
Emrick stepped in and was assaulted by the low hum of voices and machine noise inside. Added to the auditory chaos, his own thoughts tormented him through the haze with the whisper, “Kill them all.”
On the raised platform across the room, Ned Richards stood, hands on his hips like a child about to throw a temper tantrum.
Emrick walked over to him. “You sent for me?”
Richards turned, confusion furrowing his shiny forehead. “I did not.”
Emrick clenched his jaw. “Why are you wasting my Jaggers guarding empty hallways in secure facilities?”
Richards tipped his head sideways, a sneering grin on his face. “I’m sorry. I was under the impression that my position as Director of the CIA gave me a little latitude as to where I could station bodies that were in my way. I wasn’t aware that I had to check with you before making decisions.”
Emrick clenched his jaw again. Kill them all.
“Should I plug your secure line into my contacts so I can check with you before making future plans?”
Emrick cle
nched his fists. “I have over four hundred million dollars’ worth of assets in this facility and another six billion worth in the field, slowly being eaten away like—”
“So that’s a yes,” Richards snapped. “I should put your number in my phone so I can clear my decisions with you.”
Emrick turned and walked away. “Kill them all.”
“You’re not going to give me your number?” Richards asked at his back, dripping smug sarcasm.
“Sir. The assistant director of DHS is on line three,” a woman said within Emrick’s earshot.
Emrick reached the door, about to exit, when Richards called out again.
“Emrick. I may need you after all.”
Emrick closed his eyes tightly as if trying to press the noise from his ears.
He took a deep breath and turned. “What?”
“Our Attorney General missed a briefing this morning,” Richards said without turning from the big screen in front of him.
“So now I’m the missing persons’ bureau?”
Richards looked back at Emrick then pointed at the map that had materialized on the large screen on the wall. “His vehicle is in Leesburg.”
“So?!”
Richards curled his lip in disdain. “At the airport. And his Secret Service detail isn’t responding to their radios or phones.”
Emrick walked back to the raised platform and stared at the screen, a small blue circle pinged concentric circles like a persistent drop in still water. “Do you have satellite imagery for this region?”
Richards looked down at a tech who immediately went to work searching for an answer to Emrick’s question. After a moment, she nodded. “Two SATs on grid in range. One NOAA and one Air Force just leaving the window.”
“Put the NOAA SAT image up,” Richards said.
On the screen, a live overhead image appeared, then oriented so that north pointed to the top of the monitor as it zoomed in. In a matter of seconds, the Attorney General’s SUV came into view, parked next to an RV. Two other vehicles parked nearby and men, some in suits, some in civilian casual attire stood facing out into the distance.
“Can we get an ID on that RV?” Richards asked.
“No, sir. Bad angle.”
Emrick stepped behind the tech and reached over her shoulder, zooming out to view the entire airport. A moment after stepping back, a jet came into view on the screen and landed on the runway.
“Get me the ID on that plane,” Emrick said.
After a few keystrokes and mouse clicks, the tech looked up at the screen and the air traffic tag appeared on the plane. “It’s a Bombardier CRJ200, fifty seat charter, leased by the State Department for the Secretary of State.”
Richards shook his head. “This is bad. This smells like big trouble.” Richards looked down at the tech. “How far from that airport are we?”
She zoomed out, and a line appeared on the map. “Thirty minutes at posted speeds.”
Richards turned to Emrick. “You, take a team and go. I want to know why the Secretary of State and the Attorney General are meeting on a podunk airstrip outside of DC.”
Emrick pressed his lips together tightly. About to erupt at the ridiculous suggestion that he should lead a tactical team, his whispers surged in his ears. “Kill them all. Kill them all.”
Instead, he turned and walked out.
“An acknowledgment would be nice!” Richards yelled at his back.
“Sir, yes, sir!” Emrick shouted as he left the command center. Outside the door, he glanced at the Jagger. “You’re with me. Wake five of your brothers and sisters and meet me at the north entrance with two vehicles.”
The Jagger nodded and peeled off down an intersecting corridor. Emrick reached the elevator and got on, the clutter of noise in his ears rising to an overwhelming distraction. He pressed his hands to his ears again and screamed, “Shut up!”
The whispers faded to muted background noise.
At the surface level, he exited the lift and wound through the hallways to the portcullis covered north entrance. Momentarily forgetting why he had gone there, he wandered onto the asphalt, disoriented. His breaths became short, eliciting a tightness in his chest. He jammed his hands into his pocket and pulled out the bottle of Clonazepam. With shaking hands, he wrestled with the top before spilling the contents to the ground.
He dropped to his knees and scrambled to pick the pills from the ground, popping three in his mouth as he moved. When he’d retrieved the majority of them, he placed the last one in his mouth as well and swallowed hard. There he sat on his knees, shaking his head, his anxiety reaching a crescendo.
In front of him, two black GMC Yukons sped around the corner and stopped several feet away. His Jagger messenger got out, opening the back door on the lead vehicle.
Emrick stood, brushed his knees, then walked with his chin jutted forward to the SUV. He got in and the Jagger closed the door before returning to the driver’s seat.
“Go,” Emrick said.
They rushed forward, bumper-to-bumper, winding their way out of the secure facility toward the main gate.
“Specify the destination,” the Jagger said, looking in the rearview mirror.
Kill them all.
“Leesburg Airport. North entrance, at the base of the runway.”
The Jagger in the front seat punched in the location in a handheld device, then looked up. “There is no entrance there.”
“Then we’ll bloody well make one, won’t we,” Emrick snapped. Kill them all, kill them all.
**
10:35 a.m. — Leesburg Executive Airport, Leesburg, Virginia
I stepped out of the RV after our briefing for the President. Petty Officer Whalen had his hands full tending to the wounds of the Air Force One disaster victims, including the burns on the President’s chest, back and legs. I was just in the way, and despite the confidence I projected in the meeting, I still had little memory of the people who surrounded me—with the exception of John Temple. Fragmented memories of our relationship continued to surface, grinding like a grist mill as recent events stewed in my mind.
The calls to our list of trusted law enforcement department heads and prosecutors had begun. If all went according to plan, special holding facilities would have to be arranged to contain them all. It had been suggested that military training centers could be used to house the detainees, but the President had quickly dismissed that notion, pointing out that it would give the appearance of utilizing military on civilians.
I reminded everyone that FEMA had a great deal of experience feeding and housing unexpected masses that had been displaced by disaster. With an appropriate level of law enforcement presence, there were any number of facilities large enough to contain the traitors in each region.
Apparently, that had been a good idea and became our plan A.
Exhausted, I nodded at Cooper and a suited Secret Service Agent as I walked into the hangar behind the President’s RV. Kathrin remained lethargic, opting to curl up and sleep once more on a stack of runway tarps, neatly folded and stacked in a corner.
Storc was already busy distributing the Combine ledgers to multiple cloud sites.
“How’s it going?” I asked as I plopped down on the floor beside him.
“Almost done,” he said without looking up from his screen. “What do you want me to do about the access to the Intelligence Data backup site?”
“Nothing yet. We still aren’t in the clear.”
“Close though, right?”
I nodded. “So close we can taste it.”
“All I can taste are those nasty MREs we ate a little while ago.”
I chuckled. “Don’t complain. The Secretary of State didn’t have time to get a catering crew on the plane before she came and got us.”
He shook his head as he typed. “What are we paying taxes for then?”
Just then, the back door opened, and John Temple rolled toward us, Whalen pushing his chair. He nodded his head toward the corner and I got u
p to join him.
“Thanks, Doc. Give us a minute,” John said.
I sat on a stack of empty pallets next to John. “What’s up?”
“The President is getting ready to move out,” he said in a quiet voice. “He’s taking the two of us with him to answer any questions that pop up.”
I nodded and leaned back. “He doesn’t want to wait until they have the White House secured from the new administration?”
John shot me a hard glare. “Not everyone is in on the treason. It’s not regime change.”
“Technically, it was as soon as that F-15 pilot took a shot at Air Force One.”
John shook his head. “There aren’t any pilots strafing the White House. With the FBI present, it’ll just be another morning walking into the oval office.”
“If you say so.”
“Thirty minutes,” he said, wheeling away, clearly perturbed by my insubordination. Our roles had reversed again.
“Hey, John,” I said to his back. “Can I ask you something?”
He stopped and turned around.
“Where’d you learn to speak Russian?”
His brows bent to meet in the middle. “What?”
“Your Russian. Where’d you learn it?”
He shrugged. “Naval intelligence…remember, I was a Cold War naval officer.”
“Did they teach you the accent too?”
He rolled closer, a flit of distress rippling across his features in microexpressions. “What are you poking around for? Why is that important today?”
“Yesterday, actually.”
Confusion bent his cheeks up, incredulous. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Let’s circle back around to that in a minute. First, I want to tell you about some of my spotty memories.”
“Now?!”