Camel Club 01 - The Camel Club

by David Baldacci

“I’m sure you’ll be successful in getting every last morsel of information from him,” Stone said confidently.

  “And Hemingway too,” Gray added.

  “Let’s go!” Alex barked.

  As the others were heading out, Stone knelt down next to Simpson as Gray looked on. Stone touched the woman’s hair and then put her still-warm hand in his. He turned the hand over and looked at the crescent scar on the palm. It appeared remarkably the same as it had when she cut her hand all those years ago. He saw the scar when he picked up her change on the street that day. Tears slid down his cheeks. They were the tears of his nightmare, of losing his daughter in a dream. And now for real, which was immeasurably worse. He kissed her on the cheek.

  Stone looked up at Gray, who just stood there, hands dangling uselessly at his sides. “You will make sure that her body is returned for proper burial,” Stone said firmly. Gray nodded dully. Then Stone walked past the man without another word.

  Outside, they followed Gray’s men to a nearby clearing where the chopper sat.

  The pilot leaned out. “Where are we headed?”

  “To Medina,” Hemingway called out.

  “What?” the pilot exclaimed.

  “The address is in my shirt pocket,” Hemingway said.

  One of the guards pulled out the piece of paper and read it. He shot Hemingway a glance. Stone had read the paper over the man’s shoulder. He’d been right.

  Hemingway settled into his seat in the rear of the chopper. A split second later he head-butted the guard closest to him, shattering the man’s nose and right cheek. Then Hemingway kicked the seat in front of him with such force that it tore loose from its base and the guard sitting in it was thrown forward. In another instant Hemingway was running, wounded leg and all, toward the woods.

  Alex raced after Hemingway as fast he could while tree limbs, bushes and vines ripped at him. The guy had been shot in the damn leg, and Alex couldn’t catch him? He heard a shout ahead and he increased his pace. He broke free of the trees and skidded to a stop just before he would have plummeted over the side. He was standing on the edge of a long fall. He couldn’t see what was at the bottom, but as he stood there listening, Alex thought he heard a splash. As other guards raced up to join him, he pointed down into the abyss and shook his head.

  Tom Hemingway was gone.

  CHAPTER

  69

  ACTING PRESIDENT BEN HAMILTON was watching the screen in the Oval Office as people hovered around. The film footage was grainy and jerky—all professional news-gathering services had already fled the country—yet clearly showed the complete chaos that now was Damascus. The roads were clogged with cars, the streets with desperate, terrified Syrians. It was reported that people were sprinting down the runway of the airport, trying to grab onto the last few planes that were taking off. Law and order had long since disappeared. People were merely trying to get away. And as the hours wound down and that hope vanished, things were turning very ugly.

  Hamilton and his group watched the screen as parents ran down the streets carrying their children and screaming in terror while soldiers pushed through the panicked masses using bullhorns to tell the crowds to evacuate. Yet, with less than one hour left under the United States’ deadline, none of these people were going to survive. There was a jarring video segment of looters being beaten to death by angry citizens. Hamilton watched until he saw a group of small children become separated from their families and then being trampled underneath the fleeing crowds.

  “Turn the damn thing off,” Hamilton ordered, and the screen instantly went dark.

  Hamilton’s desk was covered with official pleas from all over the world begging him not to pull the trigger. Millions of Americans across the country were out in the streets, some in support of Hamilton’s decision, but most opposed. The White House switchboard had been overwhelmed.

  Secretary of Defense Joe Decker sat down next to his commander in chief. Hamilton looked at him in desperation.

  Perhaps sensing his boss’s wavering, Decker said, “Sir, I know that this is more pressure than a person should have to endure. And I know what the world is telling you. But if we back down now, we will lose all credibility with these people, and if that happens, then we’ve already lost.”

  “I understand that, Joe,” Hamilton said slowly.

  “There’s another development, sir.”

  Hamilton stared wearily at him. “What?”

  “There’re some very unusual atmospheric conditions occurring over the Atlantic right now. The navy reports that satellite communication with the Tennessee could well be compromised in a few minutes.”

  “If that’s the case we shouldn’t launch the missile.”

  Decker shook his head. “These conditions will have no effect on the launch. The D-5 has inertial guidance. It takes two star sightings after separation of the final rocket motor, then it’ll maneuver to optimal location to deploy the warheads for free fall onto the target. The problem is only with maintaining contact with the sub.”

  “So what are you saying, Joe?” Hamilton asked.

  “I’m strongly suggesting that we just get it over with before we lose contact.”

  “What? Launch now?” Hamilton checked his watch. “There’s still fifty-two minutes left.”

  “And what difference will that possibly make, Mr. President? If they were going to release him, they would’ve done so by now. In fact, this just gives the other side more time to plan how to strike back at us. And if we don’t do it now, the Tennessee might not be reachable.”

  “Can’t we use another nuclear asset?”

  “That sub is in the ideal place with the ideal ordnance to hit Damascus, and it’s prepped and ready to go. Our other subs in the Atlantic would face the same communications problems in any event.”

  “Well, just tell the Tennessee to fire when the deadline ends unless they hear from us.”

  “It doesn’t work that way with nukes, sir. For lots of reasons, it’s only when we tell them to launch that they launch. They don’t watch clocks. And we could scramble something else, but it likely would be past the deadline by the time it’s ready. And if we don’t fire the missile within the time frame we’ve set out, then we’ve lost all credibility, sir.”

  “So that’s how it’s going to be from now on? We hit them; they hit us. What? Until we’re all gone?”

  “With all due respect, sir, we have far more to hit them with than they do us. And I have every confidence that we will win in the end.”

  Hamilton glanced up to see all gazes in the room upon him. May God have mercy on me. He said, “Get in touch with the Syrians first. Give them one last chance.” He put his head in his hands as everyone in the room looked down.

  Suddenly, Andrea Mayes jumped up. “Wait! Please. Sir, why wouldn’t they give him back if they had him? Why would they let millions of their own people die?”

  Decker snapped, “Because they’re terrorists. That’s how they think. And according to their faith, all those people will go right to paradise. And let’s not forget that they attacked us. They took our president. And right now he’s almost certainly dead. We have no choice. We have to strike back in a way that will leave no doubt as to this country’s resolve. Anything less will give them courage to escalate their attacks on us. And there’s no better way to do that than with a nuclear weapon. Japan only surrendered after we dropped two on them. It ended up saving millions of lives.”

  He failed to mention that the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had also killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians and left both cities radioactive for decades.

  Hamilton looked away, and the secretary of state slumped back in her chair.

  Decker grabbed a secure phone and ordered the final demand be made to the Syrians and Sharia immediately. A few minutes later he had his answer.

  Hamilton looked up. “Well?”

  “The sanitized version is that God will strike us down for the evil we’re a
bout to do,” Decker replied. “So am I authorized to contact Command Authority, sir?”

  Hamilton suddenly looked indecisive. Mayes seized on this to say, “Mr. President, please think about what you’re about to do. If we annihilate Damascus there will never be peace. Never.”

  Decker moved in front of her. “Mr. President, we don’t have peace now. And if you fail to carry through on your demand America will be robbed of all its power. To the world we will become a laughingstock, inept and emasculated. I know that you are not that kind of leader.” He paused and added firmly, “We have to do this.”

  Hamilton rubbed his eyes, glanced at Mayes and then nodded at Decker. “Make the call.”

  Hamilton stood and gazed out the window while Decker picked up another phone and gave the order to the National Command Authority, which instantly relayed it to the Tennessee. The mighty Trident missile would launch shortly thereafter, accelerating out of the water’s depths with such incomprehensible speed and force that a protective wall of gas would enclose it. As it passed through hundreds of feet of ocean depths, not even a single drop of water would touch its metal hide. At a cruising speed of fourteen thousand miles an hour, the Trident missile would hit Damascus less than thirty minutes after launch with the force of a thousand category 5 hurricanes all rolled into one. There would be nothing left.

  At first the ringing phone didn’t register. Then slowly, Hamilton looked up. It was that phone. He raced over and snatched it up.

  “Yes?”

  His face paled and he grabbed at his side. Most in the room thought he was about to have some sort of attack.

  “They have him,” he screamed to the room. “They have Brennan.” He whirled on Decker. “Call off the launch. Call it off!”

  Decker quickly spoke into the other phone and ordered the Tennessee to stand down. However, the secretary of defense suddenly paled. “What? That can’t be.”

  Everyone’s gaze was riveted on him.

  Decker looked ashen-faced as he said, “The atmospheric conditions over the Atlantic have started disrupting satellite communications. The Tennessee acknowledged and confirmed the order to launch, but now Command Authority is having trouble contacting the sub again.”

  Hamilton shouted at Decker, “I knew we should have waited the full eight hours. You idiot!”

  Andrea Mayes said shakily, “Oh, my God.”

  Hamilton grabbed the phone from Decker and roughly pushed the man out of the way. Into the phone he said, “This is Acting President Hamilton. You have to get in touch with that damn sub and tell them not to launch. I don’t care how you do it, just do it.” He held on to the edge of the Resolute Desk for support as his knees started to buckle and sweat glistened his brow.

  A stricken-looking Decker stood holding his shoulder from where Hamilton had shoved him against the wall.

  Hamilton yelled into the phone again, “Blow the goddamn sub out of the water if you have to.” He shrieked, “Just stop it! Stop it!”

  Seconds ticked by, and not one breath could be heard in the Oval Office, because every last person was holding theirs. Finally, Hamilton replaced the phone receiver in its cradle and sank to his knees. He looked very close to passing out now.

  Hamilton slowly looked up at his subordinates. “They stopped the launch,” he managed to say before staring directly at Decker. “With . . . one . . . damn . . . second to spare.”

  There were no cheers in the Oval Office; all of them were frozen.

  However, somewhere underneath the Atlantic Ocean 155 American sailors screamed in relieved joy.

  The safe return of President James Brennan at an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Medina, Ohio, rocked the world yet again. The more than fourteen thousand American military and special operatives deployed to Medina in Saudi Arabia slipped away as quietly as possible. In the president’s pocket had been found a typed note that read simply: “From great sacrifice comes great opportunity.”

  Franklin Hemingway had penned those words thirty years earlier, and his son could think of no better message to leave with the leader of the free world.

  Carter Gray was hailed as a national hero for figuring out where Brennan was going to be released. While somewhat vague on the details, Gray explained that it was a combination of hard work, reliable informants and a lot of luck. “However, the kidnappers were true to their word,” he said. “Because the president was in Medina, only about seven thousand miles away from the one we thought it was.”

  Gray had spent an emotional night with Senator Simpson and his wife, comforting them on the loss of their only child. The official version of what had happened, and the only one her parents had received as well, was that Jackie was the victim of a deadly carjacking while driving along Interstate 81 very late at night. There were no suspects, and Gray knew there would never be an arrest. The only other development was the unexplained disappearance of three NIC agents. Gray would take care of that too.

  On a positive note Captain Jack had talked. And talked and talked. Carter Gray now had quite a lot of ammo to use against North Korea.

  James Brennan triumphantly returned to the White House as huge crowds surrounding the area cheered. He gave televised remarks to the nation, thanking Carter Gray for his exemplary work, having no idea that the man had seriously contemplated killing him and blaming it on the Syrians. Brennan also thanked his beleaguered vice president for a job well done. Finally, he expressed his gratitude to the American people for being stalwart and true throughout the crisis.

  They would never know that a mere second had been the margin of error in the commencement of a worldwide apocalypse. His chief of staff stood by beaming. With the crisis over, her attention had returned fully to the election. The latest polls showed Brennan with a historically high eighty-six percent approval rating. Barring something catastrophic her candidate would easily win the election and have four more years to build his legacy.

  Brennan received a full briefing on all that had happened, but no one could shed light on who’d kidnapped him. It now appeared clear that neither the Sharia Group nor Syria had had anything to do with the abduction. In the colder light of reason the Sharia Group had no assets in the United States capable of having orchestrated such a scheme. The body of one of the group’s leaders had been found, and the man had obviously died of torture. And no one had explained how so many skilled Arabs could have infiltrated the United States with America’s intelligence sector having no record of any of them.

  Damascus was still in shambles, but not nearly as bad as it would have been if the Trident had hit it. The Syrians and the rest of the Middle East were still understandably shell-shocked, but it seemed that with the world so close to the abyss people were looking at things with a more cooperative eye. It remained to be seen if this mood had permanence, though.

  Vice President Hamilton had taken some time off from his official duties. Coming within a second of being the first American president since Harry Truman to order the use of a nuclear bomb was more pressure than any person should have to bear, and it had taken its toll on the man. However, Hamilton was expected to make a full recovery.

  Brennan had been astonished to learn that the kidnappers had died nearly to a man while intentionally not inflicting any casualties on the United States. While he was still contemplating this stunning news, the president watched a recording of one of his favorite political roundtable shows that had been broadcast while he was still missing. Each of the four pundits on the show concluded that what was going on was a trick of some sort.

  “And if the president is delivered back safely?” the moderator asked.

  All of the pundits said that that would be another trick of some sort.

  “With what goal in mind?” the moderator asked. “They sacrificed over twenty people. They could have killed the president quite easily at any time. And if they return him safely, what have they gained?”

  “You have to understand, these people will stop at nothing,” one of the pundits
declared. “First they tried killing us. But that didn’t work. We fought back and are winning the war on terror. So they’ve clearly changed tactics.”

  “And now they’re trying the ploy of not killing us?” the bewildered moderator asked.

  “Precisely,” the smug pundit answered.

  Brennan had received a copy of the kidnappers’ demands and spent a long time in his private quarters going over them. He also reviewed with horror the details of how close the U.S. had come to launching a nuclear strike against a nation that, it turned out, was innocent of the alleged wrongdoing. While Brennan praised his vice president publicly, he was shocked when he learned how quickly Hamilton had been persuaded to authorize the use of nuclear weapons and how close he’d come to launching one. Brennan was now thinking seriously of other VP candidates.

  He held lengthy meetings with his various experts in Muslim affairs and other Western leaders and spent long hours with his wife and family. He went to church several times in one week, perhaps seeking divine advice for the secular problems of humankind.

  Now that the president was safely back, the international press started to report more openly about the kidnappers’ demands. Throughout the capitals of Europe, South America and Asia, people were actually focusing more on the substance of the demands, since, for once, they didn’t have an accompanying pile of human bodies and rubble to overshadow them.

  Finally, Brennan called a meeting of his cabinet, his National Security Council and his top military advisers. There he brought up his abductors’ demands.

  His national security adviser immediately protested. “Sir,” the NSA said, “it’s absurd. We can’t comply with any of them. It’s beyond preposterous.”

  Secretary of Defense Decker spoke up. “Mr. President, to even consider those demands is a sign of weakness on behalf of this country.”

  Brennan’s response was terse. “We came within seconds of killing six million people on what turned out to be deeply flawed evidence.”

  “We didn’t start this thing. And there’s always risk involved,” Decker countered.