Andrews chuckled. He'd come to enjoy talking to Linda Yarrow. Unlike so many women in powerful jobs, she didn't try to roll over everyone she talked to. But she didn't back down, either. She just called it like she saw it. “Ok, Director, I'm with ya' on that. His name is David Benoit, and he lives in Clearwater, Florida.”
“Thanks. And now, I'm gonna have to be rude and kick you out. Too much else to do, not enough time. Let me know if you make any more progress.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
August 6, 2012: Guatemala
“Yeah, nice to see you again too, Yum. You mind pointing that thing somewhere else?”
Simon couldn't quite believe his own calm as Cimil stood over him with the gun. The memories of their time together in college poured into his brain. The voice sounded the same, the arrogant tone and utter self-confidence. He used to respect it. Not any more. He'd seen what the man was capable of all those years ago. But if he ever needed to hide his feelings, now was the time.
“Sure thing, Simon. A thousand apologies. Please don't be offended when Andrea here frisks you before you get up. It's nothing personal.”
Andrea leaned over Simon. She didn't linger anywhere, but checked all the logical places where he could have hidden a weapon, not sparing the groin area. As he'd surmised, a professional. She stood up, and nodded at Cimil. He lowered his weapon, and extended a hand to Simon.
“No hard feelings?”
“Well, you bastard, I'm not gonna give you a big hug after you tried to blow us up. But I do understand the gun.”
“Come now, I didn't try to blow you up. I tried to blow up everyone except you and Braxton and the lovely Ms. Richards. It didn't work out the way I planned, but all's well that ends well, right? Let's go inside.”
He turned on his heel and headed through the massive front door. Braxton had regained his feet and taken more of his pills. His face was still red, but looked to be recovering. Andrea motioned with her M95, and Richards, Braxton, and Simon followed Cimil inside.
The building seemed like a pretty typical office building, minus windows. First they came to a reception desk and a large area with a fountain. Stairs curved their way to the second and third floors, and a bank of elevators provided an additional option. Cimil led the way up the stairs, and opened the first door on the right. They entered a large conference room, at least fifty feet by thirty feet, with a long table, chairs and a giant projection screen on the wall. A huge window overlooked an interior courtyard with a well-tended tropical garden. Simon noted that no one outside the compound could reasonably target the window, another sign of how seriously Cimil took his security.
Cimil sat at the head of the table. He said nothing, and for an awkward moment they all stood there staring at him until Richards shook her head and sat down. Simon and Braxton followed her lead, while Andrea and one other soldier remained stationed on either side of the door with their weapons in their hands.
Cimil grinned like a gambler on a hot streak. “So, Ms. Richards. You requested this meeting. What is it that I can do for you?”
“What the hell kinda game are you playin', Cimil? You're not just gonna walk away from killing a bunch of Secret Service agents.”
“My delicious friend, I told you to bring a minimal presence. You should have listened. And who's gonna get me? I own the Guatemalan government. Will you send bombers into our airspace? I can assure you we'd shoot at them. Maybe a covert mission to take out this compound? I'll grant that it's possible. But you certainly wouldn't manage to kill me or even disrupt my business. Trust me, love, by the time you leave here, you won't be concerned about retaliation.”
Simon decided that Cimil's control of the conversation had to stop. He remembered how the Guatemalan dominated everyone with whom he spoke. “Speaking of business disruption. What's this I hear about you and a nuclear weapon?”
Cimil's mask of arrogance fell away, replaced with an expression of surprise.
“A nuclear weapon? What would I want with a nuclear weapon?”
“I don't know, Yum, you tell us. Something about a Georgian general came to our attention.”
Cimil leaned back in his chair and spread his hands behind his head.
“I don't know any Georgian generals, although we do business with a number of groups in Georgia. But it seems to me that a nuclear weapon wouldn't be a bad thing to have given how unstable the world is. I can't see why it's OK for America to have them but not Guatemala.”
Cimil grinned and directed his next comment to Richards.
“You never know when some large nation will decide to violate Guatemala's sovereignty.”
Richards snorted. “Well, there is the little matter of the non-proliferation treaty that your country signed.”
“Yes, well that was an unfortunate occurrence. Personally, I don't think the treaty is worth the paper it's printed on. But of course I'm only a private citizen.”
Simon realized that the direct approach had failed. Time to be a little more subtle.
“What I'm wondering, Yum, is whether you're still into that whole ancient Maya thing. I know you were big on it back in college. Something about the Fifth World?”
“Ah, the Fifth World. Just a few short months, and the world as we know it will cease to exist. Not a moment too soon if you ask me.”
“You seem pretty certain there, Yum. What exactly is gonna happen?”
Cimil smiled. “That's simple. You're all gonna die.”
He turned to Richards. “Which is a particular shame in your case, Madame President. Or may I call you Susan?”
“You may not.”
Cimil frowned, but there was no pain in the expression.
“You really know how to hurt a guy. I still will be sorry to see you go. When the earth burns and the gods clean house, only a few of us will be left to enjoy the Fifth World.”
Simon kept pushing. “You wouldn't be thinking of helping the process along, would you?”
“What is foretold cannot be altered. Even by descendants of the gods like me. And we're not the only ones who believe that the end is near. Even some of your own Christian groups agree with us, although they obviously have the details wrong.”
Richards allowed her anger to explode into words. “And what the hell makes you so certain? Maybe those Christian groups have it right and you're the ones who're just whistling Dixie.”
Cimil's laugh sounded like a James Bond villain. “I don't think so. I love your American colloquial, though. Whistling Dixie. Haven't heard that one since I was up at Williams.”
Simon's voice didn't quite cut him off.
“C'mon, Yum, cut the crap. Tell us about the Fifth World. Especially how you manage to survive while everyone else fries.”
Cimil shook his head, a trace of anger appearing for the first time.
“Simon, we're old friends, but I really won't tolerate this rudeness. I'll tell you what, though.”
He nodded to Andrea at the door and she approached him.
“Andrea here will take you and the imminent heart attack sitting next to you out to more secluded quarters. The lovely Ms. Richards and I will dine together and I can fill her in.”
Cimil stood up. Andrea motioned to Simon with her gun. He scanned the room. No options. Maybe he could take out Andrea, though even that was a long shot, and he'd surely die in the process. But he couldn't take out the guard at the door as well. He relaxed, not interested in fighting the inevitable. Braxton looked like he wanted to say something, but then sighed and dipped his head. Andrea followed the two of them out of the room, and back down the stairs, the other guard behind her.
Braxton stopped at the bottom and turned to her. “Andrea, is it? Does your mother know that you kill people?”
Andrea chuckled. “Mr. Braxton, I left home when I was fifteen. Now move your ass.”
They went into the elevator, and Simon sensed the downward movement. The doors opened into a small room with a bed, two chairs and all white walls. No windows and no doo
rs. Andrea and the other guard did not leave the elevator. “We'll be back for you in a couple of hours for the trip back to Air Force One.”
The elevator doors closed. Braxton looked at Simon, fear in his eyes. “What do we do now?”
Simon looked at the elevator door. He ran his hands along the seam on one side, searching for a place to get some sort of grip. Any way to get them open. He shook his head, walked to one of the chairs, and sat down.
“We wait, Dennis. We wait.”
Back in the conference room, Cimil smiled at Richards. “I thought they'd never leave. Now we can get to know each other better.”
“In your dreams, Cimil. Don't believe your own hype.”
“What ever do you mean? I merely wanted to continue our earlier conversation. Something about Christian end-times cults. And about a recent meeting that took place in Maryland at a secure location. I believe you know the place. It's called Camp David.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
August 6, 2012: Guatemala
Roughly two hours after losing contact with the agents attached to the President, Linda Yarrow made a decision. Four agents would leave the airport in the remaining Suburbans, and retrace the planned route. The President had a tiny tracking chip implanted in her shoulder, which indicated that she was at Cimil's compound. However, Yarrow didn't want to send all of her remaining agents into a likely hostile situation, so the other four would stay on the plane with the pilot and crew. And the man with the nuclear football. Dear God, Richards had even left him behind.
The huge Chevys roared down the Guatemalan highway, touching a hundred miles an hour in spots. Two thousand miles away in Washington, the call from Richards came to Yarrow.
“Linda, it's the President.”
Yarrow nearly swallowed the cap of the pen she was chewing on. “Are you all right? What the hell happened? Where are you?”
“We met some armed resistance. But I'll tell ya more about it later. Right now, I need ya to get the guys from the airport to head up towards Cimil's and meet us. We need to get home. I'm assuming you didn't take it upon yourself to inform the V.P. and send bombers to Guatemala?”
“That was my next call. My butt was already headed for prison if you were hurt. The two remaining cars are on their way, actually gotta be gettin' pretty close. Tell me what they should look for. And Jesus, where's Alcott and all the other agents?”
“They're dead, Linda. All dead. The cars blew up. Right now worry about getting us outta here. Cimil's got two bright yellow Land Cruisers, if you can believe it. Probably visible from orbit. I'm signing off now, send your guys as soon as you can.”
“Ma'am, wait!” Richards was gone. For a moment Yarrow fought the urge to smash her satellite phone into the desk. All those agents dead. If you told her yesterday that she'd lose more than twenty agents but FROLIC would survive unharmed, she'd have said OK. That's the job. But this, this was too much. What exactly had happened?
She refocused and opened her phone again. Another one rang in Guatemala. A female agent answered, surprisingly calm considering she was inside a Suburban traveling seventy on a narrow two-lane road. “Phoenix here. What's the status?”
“FROLIC is okay. But all our people are dead.” Yarrow's voice cracked as she said it. “You can slow it down. You should meet her vehicles any minute now. Two yellow Land Cruisers.”
The agent named Phoenix paused. “Um, copy that, ma'am. Are there any hostiles we need to be concerned about?”
Yarrow sighed. “That's an excellent question, and I don't have an answer. I think they'll let you take FROLIC and leave you alone when you return to the plane. They're driving to you voluntarily. But in truth I don't know. Don't treat them as hostile unless they act that way, but don't bet FROLIC's life on their good will, either. It's an impossible situation. We've lost two dozen of our own. If that's not hostile, I don't know what the hell is.”
Technically the status under international law of a president's entourage on Air Force One is murky, as is the status of the aircraft itself. The American government considers it to be U.S. soil and for the most part it effectively receives the same treatment as an embassy. The personnel are trickier. Active members of the military do not enjoy diplomatic immunity when their role shifts from supporting the president to actual combat. When the press travels on Air Force One, they are protected by yet another set of laws.
None of these protections, including the sacrosanct nature of an embassy, means much of anything if an enemy is determined to strike. Except, of course, for the perception that the U.S. will treat any action against Air Force One or its occupants as an Act of War.
The finer points of law notwithstanding, everyone felt relieved to be back on board. The pilot didn't request clearance. Instead he informed Air Traffic Control that he would be lining up as soon as his wheels could get him to the main runway. A small exercise of power on a day when the American government had managed to exercise precious little. More than a few Spanish invectives colored the air in the Tower, and in two planes which executed missed approaches far later than comfortable. But no one risked pissing off the 800,000 pound gorilla that was this particular 747.
Once in the air, Simon closed his eyes, the post adrenaline fatigue hitting him hard. Richards sat next to the window, a violation of Secret Service directive that seemed quaint after the events of the day. On the way down from D.C., she had been talkative, engaging. Now she stared out the window. Understandable, and yet … Simon knew he wouldn't sleep until he at least asked the question.
“Ma'am, what exactly did Cimil say to you after they took us away?”
Richards turned her head, but didn't make eye contact. Simon couldn't quite place her expression. Doubt? Concern? Or maybe just lost in thought. For sure, the combative and intense attitude he'd seen over the past day was gone. She spoke in a soft monotone.
“Not much. He went on about the Fifth World, how the end times are coming. How the Maya will be great again. The rest of us are doomed. He bragged about his control of the Guatemalan government. Even bragged about the food we ate, like it was something special. I did enjoy it, but still.”
“But did he say anything about the nukes?” Braxton joined the conversation, unable to contain his impatience.
“The nukes. No, nothing.” Her voice trailed off.
“Ma'am? Madame President?” Braxton stood up, looking ready to both breach etiquette and alarm the Secret Service by putting a hand on the President's shoulder.
“Let it go, Dennis.” Simon closed his eyes, but could still feel Braxton's anxiety as a palpable force in the air. “We've been through a lot today, and we could all use some rest.”
Thirty seconds later he began snoring.
Richards closed her eyes as well, but did not sleep. She had a lot to think about. She'd planned on steering Cimil into an alliance of sorts, but had not expected Cimil's first words after the others had left.
“So Susan, tell me more about this Reverend Goldsmith.”
His intelligence was good, and she hadn't bothered to deny it. When she'd first heard of Cimil, she'd suspected that he represented a divine message. Now she knew for sure. Like Goldsmith, Cimil believed the world would end soon. Like Goldsmith, Cimil believed that God expected more than sitting and waiting for it. Unlike Goldsmith, Cimil had a clear plan to confront the issue with action. She didn't kid herself that he'd told her everything, but his proposal for a cooperative relationship had both disturbed and exhilarated her.
Right now, she had no concrete answers. Cimil was unstable, but that didn't mean he was wrong. He would need to be stroked, led to believe that he controlled everything. Richards felt a bit of self-satisfaction at this conclusion. She knew that the single most important skill for achieving power as a woman in a man's world was the ability to get men to do your bidding while making them believe it was their own idea. Richards possessed this skill in abundance.
An hour later, the plane began its descent. Before it did, the President of the
United States reached a decision. An alliance could work, but only based on deception. She'd let Cimil cause a certain amount of destruction, enough to convince America to start preparing for the second coming. It would involve some major American casualties, but she knew they were a small price to pay for salvation. She'd let Cimil believe he controlled everything, then she'd step in and have him eliminated before things got out of control. This could really work.
For the first time since leaving the compound in the jungle, Susan Richards smiled.
Linda Yarrow paced outside the hangar at Andrews Air Force Base. Her service-issue Sig P229 pressed into her flesh through the shoulder holster. She hadn't worn the gun in a while, but she relished the feeling. Administrative duties required her to be armed with paperwork, not a cartridge full of 125 grain projectiles. But on this day, with all that had happened, she kept her weapon close as she watched Air Force One touch down on the runway.
Five dozen agents waited with her. The situation demanded a show of force as the Commander-in-Chief returned home. Yarrow had spent some time on the ground in the Office of Protective Operations, but most of her career had involved working with counterfeiting. This marked the first time she'd ever directly protected the President, and she felt numbers were appropriate under the circumstances.
She had another goal as well. The disaster in Guatemala was largely Richards' fault, and Yarrow would use every bit of leverage in her power to extract guarantees that her agents would never wind up in that position again. Protection against a wide range of unpredictable threats was one thing. Heading into a foreign location without sufficient recon was entirely different.
Agent Phoenix stepped out of the plane with her weapon drawn, lowering herself onto the top step of the stairs. Even female agents wore the stereotypical sport coats, and she exuded competence as she scanned the area. Soon enough, she proceeded down the steps, and Richards followed. Yarrow walked to intercept the President.
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