Lauren made a soft sound of exasperation. “The doctors say Sam accidentally took Victoria’s pills, but I don’t know how that could happen. I know his morning routine, and I don’t think he could ever be that absentminded.”
“It was early on a Saturday morning,” Daniel reminded her. “And if he knew about the missing nukes, he had probably been up all night. All that, coming so soon after the explosion—”
“That’s what they’re saying, that he was tired and distracted by the reports about the terrorists. They say he grabbed Victoria’s nitroglycerin pills from the vanity instead of his St. John’s Wort, then went straight in to face the cameras. One of the agents even went into the bathroom and found a container of her pills on the counter.”
Daniel glanced at her. “It sounds believable, so why don’t you buy it?”
Lauren lifted her chin. “Because Victoria never kept her nitro pills in the medicine cabinet. She kept them in her purse.”
Daniel drove for a moment in silence. “If he didn’t take her pills that morning—”
“He didn’t, Daniel. Have you ever seen one of those pills? They’re tiny. The president is not a fool; no matter how distracted, he could certainly tell the difference between St. John’s Wort and a small nitro pill.”
“Nitroglycerin, moreover, acts almost immediately,” Brad said, leaning forward. “There was a ten-minute lapse from the time the president came out of the bathroom until he sat down at the desk in his office. Give him another five minutes for the speech, and another two or three minutes before he was really sick. That’s eighteen minutes. If he had overdosed on nitroglycerin in the bathroom, he’d have collapsed long before that.”
“Then how did he—?”
“He was drinking coffee while the cameras got into position.” Lauren answered his unfinished question. “Someone could have ground up the drug and put it in his coffee cup. He drank it after his televised speech and collapsed almost immediately.” She lifted her chin in a defiant gesture. “I talked to Francine, his secretary. She said she handed him the coffee at the last minute. One of the camera crew thought it would make him look more relaxed. But he didn’t touch it until after the taping was done.”
“Did she pour the coffee?” Brad asked.
“No.” Lauren frowned. “She said someone handed her the mug, but she didn’t recall who. There were too many people in the room, and everything was off-kilter because it was Saturday. General Archer and his senior staff had been there since five—that’s when Romulus called with news of the nukes.”
“You think someone poisoned the president?” Daniel moved into the right lane, then glanced over his shoulder at Brad. “Do you have any idea how medieval that sounds?”
“I know it’s crazy, but it’s entirely possible.” Lauren raked a hand through her hair. “We didn’t think anyone could penetrate the White House, but someone planted that bomb in the limo. And someone has bugged the offices. Why couldn’t we assume that someone managed to slip something into the president’s coffee?”
Daniel looked up and caught Brad’s eye in the rearview mirror. “I suppose you’ve questioned the steward, the chef, the kitchen staff—”
“Everyone.” Brad stared mindlessly at the passing scenery. “You can’t get within ten feet of the White House gate without the proper security clearance, so someone has to be working both sides of the fence.”
“Who’s on the other side?” The question hung in the air, unanswered.
“You need to pull over because I have some things to show you,”Brad said, after a long minute. “But first you’ve got to lose the black sedan on our tail.”
“Right.” Daniel glanced at Lauren. “Seat belt on, honey?”
“Yeah.” She sank down in her seat and braced herself against the door. “I’m ready. Let’s lose ‘em.”
Daniel pulled to the left lane and slammed his foot to the gas pedal, handling the car—and the agents behind him—as if they needed to be taught a lesson.
Once the black car disappeared, Daniel pulled off in a residential neighborhood near Georgetown. He parked on a quiet street lined with row houses, then turned as Brad pulled a sheaf of photographs from his briefcase.
“You see these?” Brad divided the photos between Daniel and Lauren. “They are surveillance photos taken by the Keyhole-9 satellite affectionately known as Big Bird. You’re looking at three military bases in Chechnya where several of these suitcase nukes have been stored since the Cold War.”
Daniel frowned at the grainy images. They showed the rooftops of buildings, a few scattered vehicles, and a dark and rugged landscape. Not the kind of place where you’d want to spend a vacation. “Where did you get the photos?”
“The National Photographic Interpretation Center. The folks who work there spend their days analyzing information from spy satellites. When I asked them for shots of the Russian bases that had lost their nuclear demolition packages, these were just a few of the shots they gave me.”
“What does this mean?” Lauren pointed to a hand-written notation in the corner of each shot.
Brad nodded. “Whenever you see the word constant, it means that the computer and the navy interpreter have decided that nothing has changed—no strange vehicles on the property, no unusual building or movement, nothing out of the ordinary. The photo is pretty much identical to the one preceding it.”
“These all say constant.” Daniel shuffled the photos in his hand. “I can’t see anything different.” He glanced up at Brad. “So where are the new pictures?”
“The ones that show the theft?”
“Exactly.”
Brad’s mouth twisted in bitter amusement. “You’ve got the new pictures. You’re holding pictures taken from July 15 to August 5. Yesterday. If something had changed, Big Bird would have recorded it.”
Lauren tilted her brow and looked at Brad with an uncertain expression. “So you’re saying—”
“Romulus is lying. There were no stolen nukes, but maybe the enemy managed to buy the one detonated in Italy. I doubt that there is a Morning Star Trust, unless Romulus himself invented it. There may not even be a criminal mastermind named Lucius Joshua.”
“Hold that thought.” Daniel shifted in his seat. “Brad, will you pull my laptop from my briefcase? Thanks.” He glanced at Lauren as Brad brought out the computer. “I wondered if this wasn’t some kind of hoax. Brad and I talked a few days ago about what it would take for a dictator to seize power on the current world stage, and Brad said he’d have to invent some kind of threat to bring the world together.”
“But I suggested aliens, not nuclear warheads,” Brad said, grinning as he handed the laptop to Daniel. “Personally, I’d rather fight little green men than worry about nuclear bombs. I know that nuclear warheads can destroy the earth. With aliens, there’s always the thrill of the unknown.”
“Actually, I think the consensus of popular hysteria now dictates that they be little gray men,” Daniel muttered, booting up the machine. “About four feet tall, with big slanting eyes.”
As the computer whirred and loaded its programs, Daniel’s gaze moved outside the car. Beyond a row of sprawling dogwood trees, stone-faced houses of two and three stories crowded together. A pair of young boys hugged the shade beneath a dogwood not far away and sweated beneath their baseball caps. The air outside was steamy and wet, too hot to play ball.
It was also too hot to hide in a parked car.
“Brad.” Lauren’s voice sounded uneasy. She sat sideways in the seat, facing Daniel, but her eyes scanned the road behind them. “A car just parked on the other side of the street. There are two suits inside, and neither man is getting out.”
“They’re onto us.” Brad leaned forward as if to hurry Daniel along. “What do you have there, Danny boy?”
“A new program I whipped up this week.” Knowing that a laser within the surveillance car could pick up their words, Daniel turned on the ignition, cranked up the air, and scanned the radio dial for a soft
rock station. As Whitney Houston belted out a promise to always love somebody-or-other a little too loudly for the car’s small interior, Daniel spoke in a hushed voice. “You’re familiar with the digital imaging technology used by police to aid with suspect identification?”
Lauren and Brad nodded.
“Watch this.” Daniel snapped a key, and the screen filled with a blank oval. “I asked this program to analyze all current data on the world’s registered population—statistics we’ve gathered to help design the Millennium Chip. I’m now going to assemble digitally a face with the world’s most predominant eye shape and color, nose shape and size, mouth and chin configuration. It will also fill in other details such as the predominant skin tone, hair thickness, facial hair, etc.”
Daniel tabbed through several choices, selecting the default for each field, then clicked the enter key. As the computer filled in the required features, he looked at Brad and Lauren, then resolutely pressed his finger to his lips.
The cheery sound of a bell chimed along with Whitney, and Daniel heard Lauren draw in a quick breath as she and Brad studied the computer screen. The face before them, a full-color, photo-realistic composite, was a mirror image of Lucius Joshua.
Brad groaned. Daniel silently closed the laptop and passed it to the back seat, then shifted the transmission into drive. They had other things to discuss, but this location was no longer safe. Daniel nudged the rental car onto the street, then paused and waved farewell to the agents parked at the opposite curb.
They drove for ten minutes through twisting streets, effectively losing the tail, then headed back out to the busy Beltway. Once they were riding in heavy traffic, Brad dared to speak up. “So this Lucius Joshua character is a complete fake?” he asked, sinking back into his seat. “Man, I must have worked a hundred calls on him just in the District. People are seeing him everywhere.”
“They only think they’re seeing him,” Daniel pointed out. “The face you saw is every man’s face. The eyes of one man, the nose of someone else. But it’s a truly generic profile and is virtually guaranteed to remind everyone of someone.” He shook his head. “It’s really a clever ruse. The age is even right—I’d guess that the man known as Lucius Joshua is between forty and fifty-two, and that’s the peak of the American baby boomer years.”
“So if this man doesn’t exist, who’s the fellow they caught in Brussels?” Lauren glanced back at Brad. “What does the NSA know about it?”
“The NSA knows nothing about the man in custody or his bomb.” Brad’s voice was flat and harsh. “For all we know, he’s one of Romulus’s own aides . . . or maybe a traitor they’d happily sacrifice to the cause. But I’d bet my pension that he never makes it to trial. He’ll be killed in prison, die in his sleep, or escape in a prison transfer. But his reported existence gives credibility to Romulus’s story.”
Daniel drove in silence for a while, then exited the Beltway and turned into the mammoth parking lot of a country restaurant that especially appealed to wide-eyed tourists. “This public enough for you, Brad? I’m hungry.”
Brad’s smile widened in approval. “This is great. I can use the pay phone to call Christine. She’ll wonder where I am.”
After they had been seated in the noisy restaurant and Brad had called home, Daniel lowered his menu and looked across the table. “Brad,” he lowered his voice, “what do you know about the Antichrist?”
Brad’s dry smile flattened. “You mean the beast? Six-six-six, and all that?”
Lauren parked her chin in her hand and moved closer to the table.
Brad looked away and sighed. “I don’t know, the usual stuff I guess. He’s the evil guy that’s supposed to lead the world into great tribulation and Armageddon.”
“That’s right.” Lauren nodded. “He’s the world dictator of the last days. He will make everyone take a mark, without which no one can buy or sell. He will head up a global government, economy, military, even a one-world religion.”
Brad pointed at Daniel. “See? I told you religion would play into it.”
“Brad,” Daniel glanced at Lauren, “we think Romulus might be the Antichrist. And if he is, there’s probably no way to stop him.”
“There is no way,” Lauren interrupted, her eyes meeting Daniel’s. “The Bible is true, and God’s word cannot be changed. The prophecy will be fulfilled.”
Brad looked at Lauren. “You’re sure about this?”
She shrugged. “As sure as I can be. I felt there was something about Romulus from the beginning, and the more I read about prophecy, the more convinced I am. President Stedman never trusted him, and neither did Victoria.”
Brad’s eyes shifted to Daniel. “Are you convinced?”
Daniel closed his eyes. “I’m 98 percent sure. I wasn’t convinced even a few days ago, but now I don’t know. Maybe my mother is right—she keeps saying this is the beginning of the end.”
Brad sat silently for a moment, his hand rhythmically tapping the table. The waitress, a tall, buxom blonde, came to the table and swiped a stray hank of hair out of her eyes. “Are y’all ready to order?”
“Not yet.” Brad gave her a friendly smile. “Maybe later. We’re trying to save the world right now.”
“Oh, you!” She slapped at his shoulder in a friendly, flirtatious way, then tucked her pad and pencil away. “I’ll come back in a minute, then. Y’all want more iced tea? Sweet or unsweet?”
“Nothing right now.” Daniel smiled, too. “We’ll be ready in five minutes.”
“Five minutes?” Lauren’s voice cracked with humor as the waitress moved away. “We’re supposed to save the world in five minutes?”
“What can we do?” Daniel asked, crossing his arms on the table. “If all this is supposed to happen, there’s not much we can do but sit back and watch.”
“We can spy on them.” Brad lifted his glass of iced tea and pressed it to his forehead. “They certainly have been interested in our whereabouts. We ought to turn the tables.”
“If we ever find out who they are.” Daniel rested his head in his hands, feeling strangely defeated. “They might even be our own people, right? If someone high up gives an order, they won’t think about the reason for it, they’ll just obey. Those guys in the car this afternoon could have been FBI or CIA, just ordinary guys doing their jobs. They probably think we’re the anti-American element.”
“Leave it to me.” Brad took a sip of tea, then lowered the glass to the table. “I have a few trusted men under my command. I’ll see what I can dig up.” He lifted a brow in Daniel’s direction. “What about you?”
“Maybe I can sabotage.” Daniel’s mind went back to the incident that set off Desert Storm. He had invented a hardware virus to confuse the Iraqis; perhaps there was something he could do to thwart Romulus. “Maybe Romulus does have to rise to power, but that doesn’t mean we can’t warn people about him.”
“You have to warn them not to take his mark.” Lauren’s eyes had gone soft with pain. “The Bible says that anyone who takes his mark will lose his soul forever. He will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb.”
Daniel glanced at her in surprise. “You’ve been studying.”
“Yes.” Her voice softened. “And I was afraid at first because I thought the Millennium Chip might actually be the mark of the beast. If it is, I’m already doomed because I’ve got a chip, and so does the president. Even Mrs. Stedman had one.”
“But now you think it’s not?” Daniel was surprised at the feeling of relief stirring in his own chest.
Lauren nodded. “It’s definitely not. There must be another mark of some kind, a tattoo or a brand, perhaps something that will come later to show that a person’s Millennium Chip has been approved and entered into the Antichrist’s religious organization. The Bible says that the people who take the mark will be publicly identifying themselves with the Antichrist, marking themselves with his name or insignia. That situation doesn’t fit with the Millen
nium Chip.”
Daniel leaned back, astonished at the sense of release he felt. His mother’s concern that he might have helped usher in the end of the world had disturbed him more than he had realized.
“So what do we do?” he asked, looking at the others. “Sabotage and scrutinize? Warn everyone we can?”
“We don’t say anything until we’re sure,”Brad said, his face going grim. “Unless you want to end up in prison—or dead. Until we know for sure, we play along, we parrot the party line.”
Lauren picked up her menu as the waitress approached. “So we wait and pray. For the president, and for the world.”
Daniel slipped his arm around her shoulders. “I almost forgot to ask— what is your boss’s prognosis?”
“Guarded, at best.” Despite her attempt to appear calm and collected, Lauren’s voice was thick and unsteady. “They can remove the overdose by ipecac emesis and activated charcoal, but it will take time. And his system has been through so much, with Victoria’s death and everything else—”
“Did y’all save the world yet?” The smiling waitress was back.
“Not quite, but we’re coming up with a plan.” Daniel squeezed Lauren’s arm, then glanced over her shoulder at the menu. “What’s good here, Miss?”
“Everything’s good, especially if you’ve got your Millennium Chip.” The waitress tilted her head at a jaunty angle, then batted her lashes at Brad. “We’re giving a 10 percent discount to anyone who pays with a debit card and Millennium Chip instead of cash. You can even put your tip on the bill.”
Brad chuckled. “What is the world coming to?”
“Honey, you wouldn’t believe what they can do with a computer these days.” She pulled out her pen and pad, then turned the full warmth of her baby blues on Brad. “So—what’ll you have, sugar?”
“Something good,” Brad said, his eyes falling to the glossy menu. “Something nice and old-fashioned.”
THIRTY-ONE
8:45 P.M., Tuesday, August 10, 1999
Flee The Darkness Page 33