The location was chosen for two important reasons. First and foremost, Arlington House was located high on a bluff on the Potomac River. It overlooked all of Washington D.C. and was in a direct line of sight to the National Mall, where the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Jefferson Memorial gleamed bright in the morning sun across the river. The gamma radiation could be directed toward the east, its effects would be felt to the White House beyond the National Mall, and as far away as Union Station and the Capitol. From the blast site and as far east as the horizon beyond the Capitol, the bomb would have its intended effect: it would render all vehicles with electronic parts inoperable, and all electronic communications would be cut off, along with the power grid that supplied electricity to the area.
The second important factor was a failing of security. Inside Washington, within the beltway, the president was the most protected person on earth. From across the Potomac, high on a hill from Virginia, he and the giddy audience for the inauguration were more vulnerable to attack than their collective imaginations could anticipate. The shaped waves of the electromagnetic pulse would direct heat, light, and gamma radiation on over a million people in a microsecond, and their lives would be transformed into a new reality in less time than it would take to blink an eye.
Darkhorse had arranged it that way, meticulous in the planning of it. As he drove along the Beltway away from Washington, he ran through a mental checklist of his handiwork. The bomb was shielded from detection inside the lead-lined metal canister of its air compressor disguise, and it could be triggered by a cell phone call from any location. It would be the last unshielded cell phone call from the Washington area for weeks or months if the device served its purpose. This would be his biggest attempt at widespread mayhem, and he reveled in the adrenaline the thoughts produced. It was a sexual urge for him. He knew it well. It was what he lived for.
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CHAPTER 42
P
ryor stood on a podium in the spacious ballroom of his mansion in the Hamptons. He wore a tuxedo identical to the other forty men in the room. He held a remote which operated four monitors located on the massive walls which surrounded
them. What appeared to be large oil paintings by Albert Bierstadt and other painters from the Hudson River Valley School of Art in the nineteenth century were actually holographic images of original landscapes that hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The canvases were distinctive due to their size: each one was six feet tall and eight feet wide, and all were indistinguishable from the paintings that had hung in the gallery at the Met for more than a century. When he tired of one image, he could replace it with more than a million others from a database designed for the super-rich; it was grand in taste and guaranteed to satisfy even the most fickle of buyers.
Each of the attendees was summoned to the Pryor estate for a purpose, and art appreciation had nothing to do with it. It was Inauguration Day, and their host had promised that it would be an event that they would remember.
“I called for you to witness Masterson’s crowning from the comfort of my home,” Pryor announced in a loud, grating voice. He had been a powerful voice in his years as Director of Homeland Security, but in his career, he had never made a speech. His power was wielded behind the scenes, out of sight from the world, and he demanded anonymity. From his position, he had controlled the nation’s largely enigmatic security force without addressing the public. He loathed the common folk who comprised a majority of the country, choosing to control others through threats and intimidation. Anyone who stood in the way could be ruined with a call to the right people. For decades he had ruined lives in the interest of maintaining the status quo for himself and the members of the elite group assembled before him.
“We under-estimated Masterson’s appeal to the voters, and today, we will have our revenge.” He activated the remote and the oil paintings disappeared, replaced by live broadcasts of the inauguration from multiple angles. Overhead cams were stationed on tall poles throughout the Mall, and the effect was to provide a continuous view of the action from every angle. Max was seen walking through the massive crowd, Rachel on his arm, beaming with his now worldfamous visage. His face had yet to show his age. His dimpled cheeks, strong jaw line and dark, wavy hair brought his admirers to draw comparisons of his look to John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Errol Flynn, but it was an image all of his own. Pryor detested it.
“During my years with Homeland Security,” he continued, “We came upon a shipment of a new type of terrorist device that was brought into this country through Canada. These babies came from the Ukraine, and were invented before the Soviet Union collapsed. A soldier guarding a Soviet research facility stole them and sold the devices for kitchen appliances and food for his starving family… can you imagine that?”
They all laughed at the feeble attempt at humor. Each of the privileged in the room had no concept of starvation or deprivation, having never experienced the slightest delay in satisfying their needs. If they wanted it, it was provided to them by the many that served them.
“We intercepted the shipment at a dock on the U.S. side of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Until then, we had never seen anything like it. Our tests showed that each one was capable of emitting electromagnetic radiation, identical to the gamma radiation emitted by the Sun during solar flares, but it could be focused on targets and detonated without destroying people or buildings. It simply makes all of the electrical and electronic devices and all of the power grid go bye-bye.” Pryor was beginning to show excitement as he explained his plot, his voice rising.
“It came in two sizes, a little one that you will see in action in a few minutes, and a big one that can take out an entire city,” he explained, being careful to keep his explanations simple. His audience was mega-rich, but few of them had pursued higher education to get to their station in life. They had inherited their wealth, not earned it, and an appreciation for noetic science was notably lacking from their educations.
Their time was spent in the appreciation of the finer things in life. Their most pervasive interest was preservation of the status quo: the maintenance of their wealth from the oil oligarchy and the banking, insurance, shipping, and fueling infrastructure that went with it. This secretive group of mega-wealthy were not entrepreneurs in any respect; their wealth had been accumulated by long-dead ancestors, and through the use of family trusts, offshore investments, and numbered bank accounts in foreign countries, they passed their bounty within their respective families from one generation to the next.
They were the idle product of a system which thrived on resisting change, and with the defeat of the Blythe administration, they had lost the control of government that they and their families had maintained for centuries. It was that perceived lack of control of that caused them to assemble at the time and place, and they placed their trust in Blythe to rid them of the renegade who would soon occupy the White House.
They stared at the monitors in silence as Max and Scarlett ascended the stage to take the oath of office.
“Repeat after me,” said Chief Justice Robertson. “I , Maximum Masterson, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Max repeated it, his right hand steadfastly placed on the Masterson family bible. When he had finished taking the oath of office, he took two steps backward. The Chief Justice turned to Rachel and ceremoniously delivered the bible and a copy of the oath to her. She pressed the bible to her chest tightly. Even though she was delighted to be next to Max on this occasion, her grim expression betrayed her feelings. She was overwhelmed by the enormity of it.
Max caught her eye, and leaned toward her as Scarlett took the oath of office. “Holding up OK?” He whispered the words so only she could hear.
“I’d rather be flying over this crowd than be stuck right in the middle of it. Please tell me we won’t
have to do this every day. I’m afraid to scratch my nose out of fear that my picture will end up on the front page of the Times,” she responded. “I can see it now, banner headlines, President’s Girlfriend Picks Nose, Inauguration Ruined.”
“Not every day. Just most days, and I forbid you to pick your nose in public,” he said with a smile.
She looked startled, realized he was joking, and grabbed his arm for reassurance. “What comes next,” she whispered.
“You get to walk with me in a big parade, and then I get to make a speech over there on the front steps,” said Max, gesturing toward the Capitol. “Then we have to hang out for about an hour while Scarlett makes a speech, and then everyone can go back to partying for a few days, while we entertain. It’s going to be fun.”
Rachel was itching to get out of the pressures of the huge crowd and wished she could go for a flight in the old Beech seaplane that had been restored and sat inside a hangar on the Potomac near Alexandria, Virginia, a short drive from Fairlane. The freedom she felt while flying was her favorite pleasure that Max couldn’t provide. But in a way, he had. The seaplane was Max’s inherited aircraft, even though he had never flown it. He claimed that his mind couldn’t absorb too many stimuli at once or he would short-circuit his brain, a thought that she considered hilarious.
Contained in his casual statement was the universal truth that she felt made women superior to men: while men are stronger and linearly driven to accomplish great things, women can attend to details that get things done. One without the other accomplished nothing.
She smiled, and the cameras clicked. Her smiling face was the image that would survive the day. The inaugural parade proceeded past the Roosevelt Memorial, led by the Marine Corps marching Band. When they reached the Lincoln Memorial, they halted for a precision drill, leaving Max and Rachel surrounded by security. Both of them took the pause to change into walking shoes designed for the parade, which looked identical to the uncomfortable patent leather formal shoes worn for the swearing-in.
“I wish I could slip on my running shoes to do this, but red and white Nikes don’t go with a tux. I suppose they’ll want to dress me every day I’m in office,” Max mused. The lack of privacy and independence that went with his position was a major sacrifice he had come to accept, but he didn’t have to like it, and he resolved to resist every effort of his protectors and advisors to keep him cocooned.
“You’re looking very pretty in your Jackie Kennedy outfit today, Ms. Rachel,” he teased. She laughed, and the sound of her laughter gave him a butterfly feeling inside. For all of the pomp and circumstance of the occasion, she was unpretentious, a quality he valued in a woman. He doubted whether he would find anyone better, and he treasured every moment they could spend together. For the first time in his eclectic relationships with women, he felt he had found a soul-mate.
“Mr. President, I am charmed to make your acquaintance, and you just wait until I get you home,” she flirted in her best effort at mimicking a Southern aristocrat.
The procession resumed, winding its way around the Lincoln Memorial and onto Constitution Avenue. Both sides of the wide promenade were a wall of people, all shouting and moving flags in a semi-synchronous wave. It was a patriotic gesture by the American people, a welcome entrance into the most responsible job of Max’s lifetime. He stifled an urge to burst forward in a sprint to the Capitol, recalling earlier days when he ran the same route in the Marine Corps Marathon. This time, instead of trudging along in running clothes in a loose pack of anonymous athletes, he settled for being the center of attention.
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CHAPTER 43
A
re you going to let us down like the last guy?” a loud baritone voice bellowed. The crowd turned to the source of the sound, and Max could see a large man in a hooded sweatshirt, hands in his pockets. Sensing danger, the Secret Service
converged on the man from multiple directions, and hustled him to the back of the crowd. The man fought back, swinging wildly. “I didn’t do nothing wrong,” he bellowed. “I just asked him a question is all,” he yelled as he was brought to the ground.
Max wondered how many members of the crowd were there to protect him and how many were there to wish him well. “I don’t want him arrested or hurt, and if you don’t find any weapons on him, let him go and apologize for the inconvenience,” he stated with conviction.
“Yes sir, Mr. President, we’re checking him for weapons now,” responded the closest agent. Although scanners and security checkpoints were placed at access points to the parade route, the size of the crowd had made any security measures inadequate, and Max was perceived to be in greater danger whenever he ventured outside.
Satisfied that the man was harmless, they released him, but twenty minutes had elapsed. By the time he made his way back to the front, the parade was blocks ahead. He stood dejected and resentful as the Florida A&M Rattlers performed at the back of the procession, and then he drifted with the crowd toward the Capitol. There the parade would pass by the grandstand, followed by long-awaited speeches by Max and Scarlett. He was in a dark mood, after being tackled and detained for asking a simple question, one that burned in his mind. He wasn’t the only one to wonder, and he was far from the last. He approached a line of satellite trucks where the press sat, observing activity on monitors, filtering the newsworthy from the mundane. The closest technician looked up from editing and casually observed the man in the hooded sweatshirt as he flowed past. He looked at the footage, looked up, looked back again, and hollered, “It’s him! Willie! Today is your lucky day!”
Willie B. Somovich was preoccupied with combing his hair over his unibrow and shellacking it in place before the cameras went live. Without diverting his eyes from the mirror, he responded, “Vince, if you interrupt me one more time…”
“No, Willie…it’s the dude the Secret Service tackled…He’s right there! Get him before he gets away!”
Willie launched his rotund body from his stool in front of his lighted makeup table, and slammed the aluminum door of the trailer open with a metallic crash. He didn’t wait to descend the steps, launching himself into space as the broken door tumbled to the ground in splinters of glass. If he hadn’t stubbed his toe on the threshold, he would have landed on his feet, but the stubbing changed his trajectory from a leap to a face-first lunge, and he skidded to a stop at the feet of the startled man.
“Sir, sir, may I have a moment of your time?” Willie was facedown, his face inches from the man’s Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars. His white dress shirt was covered in grass stains and dirt, but his famous coif was immaculate. His investment in lacquered hairspray was his salvation.
“Are you that fella who is on the TV, who insults everybody all the time, that Willie B. Right ?” In the man’s world, he was in the presence of royalty. He extended a meaty hand to Willie, and he pulled Willie to his feet in one powerful yank.
“Well, yes, yes I am, and I would like to interview you for my program. You are about to become famous, my friend,” Willie responded, sensing that he was about to scoop his competitors with the first exclusive interview of the man who had the guts to confront the president with the question that would define the Masterson legacy.
“Me? Why me?” Today, he was newsworthy for the first time in his average life.
CHAPTER 44
M
ax’s encounter with the man and the response by the Secret Service was viewed at every angle by an estimated one billion people. By the time he reached the podium on the Capitol Grounds where the inaugural speeches were to be
made, he had a half hour to run the man’s words through his mind a dozen times. Could he satisfy the nation? Would he let them down? How could one person make a difference? He realized that the same questions were being asked of him, and he needed to address them immediately.
The press had been diligent in researching the man’s background, and the monitor showed his driver’s license picture, a mug shot from a 2012 arrest for d
isorderly conduct where he pleaded no contest, and a continuous loop of commentary wrapped around the man’s words, “Are you going to let us down like the last guy?” followed by more commentary. By day’s end, he would be interviewed in special reports and featured on popular talk shows. With one fortuitous question, he had become an instant celebrity.
Pryor watched the events with particular delight. If his plot went as planned, Max would stand helpless as the cameras went black, before he could assure anyone that he could lead the nation. “I plan to make Masterson look like an incompetent fool in front of a billion people,” he announced to his tuxedoed audience. As Max approached the podium, Pryor held the digital communicator over his head in a grandiose gesture of defiance. The entry of three digits would autodial the number that would detonate the bomb concealed in front of Robert E. Lee’s mansion across the Potomac.
Max took the stage and began his inaugural address. “America, thank you for being here, and for those of you who are watching from home, welcome.” The applause caused a prolonged pause, and Max waited patiently for the opportunity to speak again. Finally, he continued. “I had some words written here that I thought you needed to hear.” He pulled a paper pad from his coat pocket, and laid it on the podium. “But as I walked here in my first duty as president, I felt the love, and the hope, and the joy, and the expectations that you have for me. Especially, the expectations.” Max paused again, and let the sound settle. “I sought, and was elected to, the most difficult and unforgiving job in the world, one for which I have been trained all of my life. My father gave me the training, and my mentor prepared me for this role, and the experiences of my life brought me here. But I was unprepared for the question one man, no different from any of us, asked me on my way to this podium. He said, ‘Are you going to let us down like the last guy?’”
No Corner to Hide (The Max Masterson Series Book 2) Page 13