Designated Survivor

by John H. Matthews

  The van turned on to a dirt trail that ran to a decrepit warehouse in the middle of a dusty field. A rusty garage door began to open and the van drove into the building and the door started closing behind them.

  Out of the van, the team began to lay out all the weapons they’d brought with them and ones they’d acquired from the ETTF and the downed SEALs on a row of tables along the back wall. Several cars were parked along the side of the large open space. Grace continued through the run down building.

  “Put Jason in a holding cell downstairs until I figure out what to do with him,” Grace said. He turned and began walking.

  Ben struggled to keep up with Grace. “So is this your headquarters?”

  “It’s where we are when we aren’t anywhere else,” Grace said. “It’s here today but might not be tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” Ben said. “Didn’t know I was working with the Riddler.”

  They went up an old iron stairwell that hung off the brick wall. Up one level Grace walked to a door and tapped a series of numbers on a high tech keypad that didn’t even try to blend in to the wall around it.

  The door opened. Grace walked in and Ben followed. The lights began to come on one row at a time. Ben stood, his breath held, as the room was slowly illuminated by the dozens of LED bulbs hanging from metal structures suspended from the old wood beam ceiling. As the last row of lights came on Ben looked across the entire room.

  “What a . . . ” Ben exhaled. “Shithole.”

  “Yeah, we haven’t done much with it,” Grace said.

  The floor was splintered wood left over from the building’s construction in the 1950’s. A few random folding tables were set up with computers on top, some still with large CRT monitors rather than the thin flat screen LCDs.

  “I expected . . . ” Ben said. “More.”

  “This isn’t Homeland Security, Ben. This is the SCS,” Grace said. “We’re not trying to impress members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Our existence was only made known when Ed ‘Shitface’ Snowden made it known. We run black ops with money hidden from the public through a dozen different shell companies. Every federal dollar we spend has the chance of landing us on the front page of the Washington Post, so we don’t spend any. Most of this shit was borrowed or stolen. A majority of our funding comes from cash we confiscate on missions overseas. We aren’t the first to operate this way, and we won’t be the last.”

  “Do you get paid?” Ben said.

  “We’re all government employees of one sort or another,” Grace said. “But our compensation wouldn’t afford any of us a studio apartment with running water anywhere in the DC area. We have a system of supplementing our income without going overboard. Nobody’s driving Ferraris here, but we aren’t hurting either.”

  “What about me?” Ben said.

  “Right now you’re still an employee of Homeland Security,” Grace said. “If we all get to the other side of this alive and my team thinks you would make a good permanent addition, and you’re interested, then a similar arrangement would be made for you.”

  “They didn’t seem to like me much,” Ben said.

  “That’s because they’re all assholes,” Grace said. “But for a good reason. We rely on the person beside us everyday to get us home again. Anyone we bring into this circle has to be trusted like that. Netty’s our newest and they’re just warming up to her.”

  “How long has she been on the team?” Ben said.

  “Almost a year,” Grace said.

  “Shit,” Ben said.

  “Your table is over there,” Grace pointed. “It’s the best machine we have. Check it out and get it set up to access anything we need. If there’s anything specific you need, let Netty know and she’ll acquire it for you.”

  “Is it a secure connection?” Ben said.

  Grace turned and looked at him.

  “It’s like we’re not even on the network here,” Grace said. “We’re masked from looking like we exist.”

  “Cool,” Ben said.

  “Now get to work,” Grace said.

  “What do you need first?” Ben said.

  “I don’t need anything first. I need everything now,” Grace said. “But I need you to keep going through phone records and look into Cunningham Construction.” He picked up the shirt he’d found while raiding apartments and tossed it to Ben.

  CHAPTER 18

  The lights in the motel room were off but the sun lit up the cheap, sheer curtains that hung in the window. Below the windows, hot, dry air blew out of the heater built into the outside wall, forcing the curtains to dance in the artificial breeze and causing bright January sunlight to flash into the room. Specks of dust and other materials floated in and out of the stream of sunlight, invisible to the eye when they weren’t illuminated.

  Arash Abbasi sat on the edge of the one queen sized bed with a cellphone in his hand, waiting on the call he knew was coming any moment. On the small round table by the window were several guns and a closed brown leather satchel that held a passport, a change of clothes and enough cash to get him out of the country. He stared at the bag, contemplating using it to get away. He had bank accounts in three countries and could disappear easily. The contract had been lucrative but had now turned too dangerous and he wanted out. The client was pushing back on the final payment that would allow him to pay his team then disappear for another year until he decided to work again.

  The phone rang in his hand and he waited until the fourth ring to answer. He pressed the button and raised it to his ear without saying anything and just listened. As the caller spoke, Abbasi nodded his head as if the person on the other end could see him.

  “This was not part of the contract,” Abbasi said. “We were not to meet again.”

  He listened more, still nodding.

  “I understand,” he hung up the phone and walked to the window. Pulling the curtain back he looked out over the drained kidney shaped swimming pool below, the strip mall lined with stores selling alcohol, hookahs and lottery tickets across the street and in the distance, the smoke coming from the United States Capitol Building.

  Turning to the table, he grabbed the handle of the brown satchel and paused. He’d never backed out on a contract before. Going into it he knew the risks were great, but the client hadn’t anticipated the failure. The meeting could only mean a change in the terms of the deal. It was rare to meet a client face to face once, and this would be the second time. The chances of being seen or caught on surveillance cameras increased greatly.

  He considered going to the meeting and putting a bullet in the head of the client and walking away with the money he’d received, half of the contracted amount. There would be far less left after paying his team, but they would be done.

  He released the satchel and picked up the two automatic assault rifles and a Beretta nine-millimeter and put them into a green duffle that hung on the back of one of the two chairs.

  CHAPTER 19

  The roof of the building in Buzzard Point was littered with debris from the former moving company warehouse below as well as with beer cans, fast food cups and bags, more than a few used syringes. There was a campfire that had been built and burned at one point before his team had added security to the building and surrounding field when they bought the land and structure through a small management company based out of Richmond that was owned by them.

  It was the third building Grace had built up for his team over the years. Different factors weighed in to the decision to move, the biggest being getting discovered. The smallest being the paranoia that was always present in the back of his mind. He was protective of his team, his only family, and wanted to watch out for them.

  Grace used the roof to clear his mind and work through details that he otherwise couldn’t do with his team around to distract him. The view of downtown across the water was calming to him as well as a reminder of what he’d accomplished in 16 years.

  He sat on the edge of the roof, his feet hanging off the side
three floors up, and watched the smoke still floating over the Capitol. Occasionally a siren could be heard and police and military helicopters were a constant sight as the mess was getting cleaned up, the bodies of the soldiers, agents and policemen pulled from the rubble. Teams were using sonar to try to find any survivors from the Special Forces teams but none had been found.

  He was 24 years old when Jeffrey Morton had first approached him and 26 before he decided to join the NSA. By then Derek Arrington’s predecessor had died of a heart attack from the stress of the job as well as from the overdrinking and lack of sleep caused by the job. It was Arrington’s calmness that sealed it, compared to the hyper state of Jeff Morton, showing him that you could be in that world without being overtaken by it.

  Three days earlier he’d made the phone call that would change his life forever and now he waited for the man that would make that happen.

  He had sat in the back pew of an old wooden Methodist church in Mississippi. The bench was hard and cold as winter air found its way into the building. It was only used for baptisms and special events now; the new church was down the road and made of brick, glass and granite, a monument to the money that flowed into the coffers every Sunday morning.

  The tall black man walked in and sat beside him. He could smell the hint of expensive cologne worn behind the man’s ears.

  “So you’ve decided?” Arrington said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You know what it means, all of it?” Arrington said. “The secrecy, the danger.”

  “I do.”

  “Any questions?” Arrington said.

  “Yeah. What’s next?”

  “There’s a car waiting outside for you,” Arrington said. “It will take you to a private airstrip where a plane will transport you to the farm. You’ll be there until you’re ready for us.” The Central Intelligence Agency maintains a large area of land called The Farm near Williamsburg, Virginia used to train its clandestine operators.

  “And after that?”

  “After that you’ll work with several other teams to prepare you,” Arrington said. “Then you’ll come back to me. If at any time any one of the people training you informs me you aren’t making it, you’ll be dropped off at a train station with a one-way ticket wherever you want to go.”

  “Won’t happen.”

  “I like your confidence,” Arrington said. “You’ll never come back here, you know.”

  “Fine with me. Nothing left for me here.”

  Derek Arrington nodded his head. He knew the young man’s story well. His mother had died when he was only three and his father was doing a life sentence at Parcham Farm after killing a young mother and her children in a drunken car crash.

  “Shall we?” The man stood.

  They walked out the front door of the building. Two black cars were waiting out front with several men in black suits nearby. They stopped beside the first car.

  “One more thing,” Arrington said. “You’re giving up your identity. Nobody can be able to track you to your former self, starting right here, right now. You get to pick what you’re called, unless you prefer we do that for you.”

  He looked around then up at the sign by the road then at the building they’d been in then back to the NSA director.

  “Grace,” he said.

  “Okay. Is that a first name or a last name?” Arrington said.

  “Just . . . Grace.”

  Arrington nodded. “I like it. Most of the guys go over the top.” He opened the car door and let the newly named Grace in and closed the door. The window buzzed down.

  “I’ll see you soon,” Grace said

  “I hope so,” Arrington said. “I have big plans for you.”

  Grace looked out the back window as the car pulled away. He looked at the tall man who’d just hired him to work as a spy for the National Security Agency and at the sign in front of the building behind him for Grace Emmanuel Methodist Church.

  CHAPTER 20

  Grace’s phone vibrated and he glanced at the screen then turned and went back inside and down the stairs from the roof. He tapped the code into the keypad, and entered the room where Ben Murray was working.

  “What is it?” Grace said.

  “I’m going through call histories for the Secret Service officers while researching that construction company you found the shirts for,” Ben said.

  “Multi-tasking? You might have to show the rest of the team what that is,” Grace said.

  “I’ve found several more matching numbers,” Ben said.

  “You trace them?”

  “Sure did,” Ben said. “And one is still pinging.”

  “What?” Grace said.

  “It’s active and on the move right now,” Ben said. He pulled up a map on the larger of the two flat screens connected to his computer. A red circle would update every few seconds as it moved through Washington DC. At it’s latest refresh it was tracking down Massachusetts Avenue past the rows of embassies.

  Grace pulled his phone, dialed then spoke when Netty answered. “Two fast cars, ready for anything, leaving in two minutes.” He hung up.

  He walked to a shelf on the other side of the room and grabbed some equipment and put it on Ben’s desk.

  “Gonna need you to stay here,” Grace said. “We’re going to go find that phone. Here’s an earpiece and a radio. Be on with us to tell us where to go.”

  Grace walked out of the room and took the stairs down two at a time. As he reached the garage, Netty and Avery were already pulling a pair of cars outside.

  “What’s up?” Holden said.

  “We’re going hunting,” Grace said.

  Grace walked over to the red Cadillac sedan and climbed in the passenger seat beside Netty.

  “You know I hate red cars,” Grace said.

  “Yup,” she said.

  Holden and Corbin were in the backseat. Netty hit the gas and started down the dirt trail away from the building. Behind her a Mercedes E350 with Avery at the wheel followed, Chip beside him and Levi in back. The cars hit the paved road, turned left and accelerated.

  “Head to northwest, Embassy Row,” Grace said. He tapped the button on his radio. “Ben, you get wired yet?”

  “I did,” Ben said.

  “Is the signal still on the move?”

  “It is,” Ben said. “Took a right on Nebraska, headed north.”

  Grace glanced to his left to see if Netty heard. She gave a slight nod and sped up.

  “Ben, see if you can patch into the city traffic cameras,” Grace said. “I want to know what car to look for before we’re right on top of it.”

  “Will do,” Ben said.

  Grace’s body slammed into the passenger door as Netty took a hard left, swearing out loud as she did.

  “What the hell?” Grace said. “We need to be going the other direction.”

  “Everything near the mall is shut down because of the explosion,” Netty said. “It’ll be faster to cross the river.”

  “When is it ever faster to go into Virginia?” Grace said.

  “Just trust me,” she said.

  “Stay up with us, Avery,” Grace said.

  “I’m right behind you, Chief,” Avery said. “She’s not gonna lose me.”

  The cars merged onto 395 and crossed into Virginia then exited and headed up the Potomac on the George Washington Memorial Parkway past the Pentagon and Arlington Cemetery. She led them onto Highway 66 and across the Roosevelt Bridge back into Washington DC.

  “Through downtown, really?” Grace said.

  She took the E Street exit on the left then turned right to get onto Rock Creek Parkway. A line of cars was stopped to make the difficult turn across traffic. Netty put the car far left into the empty oncoming lane, her right hand on the horn. Avery followed. At the front of the line she cut off a Miata and made the right onto the Parkway.

  “Ben, where is it?” Grace said.

  “Still headed up Nebraska in traffic,” Ben said. “Just got into
the cameras and am waiting for the phone signal to hit the intersection at Connecticut.”

  “Big intersection, might not be able to ID which car,” Grace said.

  “I’ll compare to the cars at the next corner,” Ben said.

  Netty had them speeding up Rock Creek Parkway then took the right exit onto Beach Drive. The curving two-lane road kept them right through the middle of the long park. She would move left into the oncoming lane of traffic to pass cars that got in her way. Without notice she cranked the wheel and turned right onto Blagden Avenue

  “Where are you going?” Grace said. “You’re headed east.”

  “So are they. They’re just going the long way around,” Netty said. “They’re probably following a GPS that keeps them on primary roads. We can close the distance using the secondary roads.”

  “Grace,” Ben’s voice came into the team’s ears. “The cellphone signal turned right on Military. Comparing to the cars at the last light it looks like it’s a white Range Rover with dip plates.”

  “Shit,” Grace said. “Had to be a diplomat. What country?”

  “Looking it up . . . ”

  “What are the first two letters?” Grace said.

  “DM,” Ben said.

  “Double shit,” Grace said. “Iran. Okay. Let me know if they turn. We’re headed east on Blagden. You can tap into the GPS on my phone to track us.”

  “Already did,” Ben said. “The Range Rover will hit 16th in a few minutes if they keep moving. You won’t be far behind if you hang a left on 16th and get north as fast as you can.”

  Netty glanced at the Mercedes driven by Avery behind her then hit the gas and began passing every car. Cars swerved right to avoid hitting her head on, a taxi went off the road and up into the trees.

  “Just got a visual at 16th,” Ben said. “The Rover turned north, but I don’t think it’s alone.”

  “What do you mean?” Grace said.

  “There were two other SUVs following when it made the right onto Military, and they’re still in tow,” Ben said.