“Because, Mr. President, you didn’t name a Vice-President to replace you, and you won’t be around long enough to apply for the job.”
Outside The Oval Office, The White House, Washington, DC
White House Press Secretary Timothy Humble pretended to check a text message but instead activated the video camera on his phone, holding it upside down in his hand, his palm hiding the device, his fingers splayed enough for the lens to not be obscured. He had heard the shouts from the Oval Office while sitting, waiting for what garbage he’d be told to spew to the media at the next press briefing. He had once loved his job, and had even been happy to continue in the role when the General requested it, but as things progressed he began to realize he was too often the public face of announcements that he simply didn’t support, couldn’t support.
And then he was forced to defend them as part of his job.
A job which General Thorne had refused to relieve him of. “The country is in crisis and it needs a familiar face to help steer it through these troubled waters.”
And thus he had become this new military government’s patsy, the public face delivering and justifying one civil liberties violation after another.
It made him sick.
But he went home at the end of the day, still a free man, admittedly feeling far safer now than a week ago. His kid had gone to school today for the first time since the crisis had begun and the stock markets were open and moving up for the first time in weeks.
Americans were beginning to feel safe again, those to blame apparently caught up in the Muslim net that had been tossed across the country.
What really disturbed him though was the fact he hadn’t seen or heard from the President since power was handed over until a few minutes ago. He had apparently requested no contact and had been staying in the residence the entire time. Humble found that hard to believe. He had never really had much respect for Starling—Humble’s President would always be Bridges. He found Starling to be an opportunist, his campaign to succeed Bridges already well underway.
And an opportunist didn’t just shut himself up in his bedroom.
The voices were muffled, but the fact that at least one person was shouting was obvious, and if he knew Thorne, it wasn’t him. When Starling had strode by him he had been shocked, barely returning the nod. It had made him wonder if this was the first time Starling had actually been out of the residence.
It also made him wonder if Starling had been sent for, or had requested the meeting with Thorne.
Suddenly the door opened again, the two guards who had entered only minutes before now escorting a grim, red faced Starling between them, their hands firmly gripping the President by the arms. Starling made eye contact with Humble but said nothing. Humble too kept his mouth shut, as did everyone, a stunned silence falling over the normally bustling office as their President, leader of the Free World only days before, was led away like a common criminal.
And Humble slowly turned his cellphone, he hoped keeping the President in the frame.
The phone buzzed on the secretary’s desk and everyone jumped. She answered, then replied, “Yes, General,” hanging up the phone. She looked at Humble, her face ashen. “He’ll see you now.”
Humble nodded and willed himself toward the door, his legs not wanting to cooperate for they were now existing in a new reality, a reality of horror and shock.
Where the rightful President of the United States had just apparently been arrested.
Which meant this was no temporary state of martial law.
It was a military coup d’état.
And he was the public face of it.
CNN Washington Bureau, Washington, DC
“Jack, you’ve got to see this!”
Jack Steinbeck looked up from his desk. The large black circles under his eyes were shared by many, the news fast and furious and the frustration levels increasing with each passing hour. Their military assigned Press Officer was vetting all their stories and it was getting more and more difficult to actually report on what was happening. Stories from around the world were fine, entertainment, sports, fluff pieces, but actual news about the roundups, the terrorist attacks, the security being imposed on the streets were limited to approved sound bites with little to no footage.
So he didn’t really care what Nick Dyson had. If it was any type of scoop, it would never make it past the censors.
He was holding a memory stick in his hand, the door to Steinbeck’s office already closed, followed soon by the horizontal blinds.
“What’ve you got?” he asked, no enthusiasm or energy available to make him sound like he even cared.
Dyson handed him the memory stick. “Watch this.”
Steinbeck took it and was about to insert it into the USB slot on his computer when Dyson stopped him, shaking his head. “Not that one, it’s networked. Use your laptop but put it in airplane mode first.”
Steinbeck sighed, shifting slightly as he took the requested precautions, automatically turning off all communications capabilities of the laptop, essentially isolating it from the outside world. He inserted the USB key then opened the lone video file. A shaky upside down image appeared. “What the hell am I looking at?”
“I got it from Tim Humble just a few minutes ago.”
“The White House Press Secretary?”
“You know another Tim Humble?”
Steinbeck ignored the jab—they were all testy, but it was soon forgotten as he watched the video of President Starling being led out by two uniformed private security.
“Is he under arrest?”
“Yes! For sedition!” Dyson’s voice was now a harsh whisper and Steinbeck didn’t blame him. They had no way of knowing who was listening in now or who was monitoring their computers, but he thanked God that Dyson had made him use the laptop and isolate it.
“How did he get it to you?”
“In person, a few minutes ago. He said that he saw Thorne immediately after and was told to tell the press that President Starling would be going to Camp David for the interim of the crisis with his family. When Tim questioned him about the apparent arrest, Thorne threatened him and said he’d have him arrested for sedition just like the President.” Dyson lowered his voice even further. “Tim’s terrified. He asked me if there was any way we could get his family to a safe house.”
“Christ,” muttered Steinbeck. “You realize what this means.”
Dyson squatted, his voice barely a whisper. “That this has turned into a coup.”
A shiver raced up Steinbeck’s back at hearing his own thoughts vocalized. It was terrifying. The very thought of it made his stomach churn. He shoved his fingers into the bundle of nerves under his left wrist and massaged them firmly, the old Chinese pressure point trick having kept him from vomiting for decades. Today it would need to work harder than ever. He finally spoke, first double checking that nobody was looking in, finding Dyson had done a thorough job. “The public have no idea. Our latest polling shows they’re almost ninety percent in favor of what’s going on.”
“But they don’t know the truth. They’d never support this if they knew what was really going on.”
“But what do we know? We know the President was apparently arrested but we have to take Tim’s word for that. The video just shows him being led out. They could whitewash that and they’d shut us down within minutes.”
“There’s something else,” said Dyson, looking around nervously. “I’ve been monitoring some of the, shall we say, questionable news sources.”
“Today they’re probably more reliable than us. What did you find?”
“Something’s going on. There’s apparently some secret message that’s been sent to military personnel who are opposed to what’s happening.”
“What message?”
“I don’t know the details, nobody does. If you’re supposed to know, then you know where to look to find the details. It sounds like Special Ops soldiers around the country might be prepping for so
mething. Something big.”
“What do you know?”
“Tim told me that the CIA has been surrounded and completely cut off from the outside world. Troops are apparently searching it, Thorne claims they’ve got at least one mole inside and doesn’t trust the CIA to find them because he doesn’t know how high up it goes.”
“Can we get some footage?”
“I can send Dan. He’s a special kind of crazy. It will have to be cellphone footage, but if anyone can get it, he can.”
“Okay, we’re going to put together a burst package. We need to convey as much information to the American people as we can, as quickly as we can, with the most important stuff up front just in case we get cut off.”
“What about our Press Officer? He’s armed.”
Steinbeck pulled open his bottom desk drawer halfway, revealing a Beretta. “You can never be too safe,” he said as he closed the drawer.
“You’re going to shoot him?” Dyson seemed shocked, his jaw dropping as he paled slightly.
“No, you idiot. The guy’s just doing the job he was assigned. I can’t see him being involved in any grand conspiracy. We’ll just hold him at gunpoint then our shutdown will have to come from outside sources.”
“What about the affiliates?”
“We’ll just push the feed as part of a regular broadcast that they all use. As soon as we air I want every news outlet in the country hit with notification from us and a copy of the video with permission to rebroadcast, and I want it put out on all of our social media connections. We’ll have one shot at this then I suspect we’re going to prison for a very long time.”
Dyson nodded. “I’ll get Dan out right away.” He stood up and pointed at the memory stick. “That’s the only copy we’ve got.”
Steinbeck quickly copied the video to his laptop, then handed the memory stick to Dyson. “Guard this with your life. I’ll make a couple of copies and let you know where they’re hidden. Don’t tell anyone about anything.”
“What do I tell Dan?”
“The truth. We heard a rumor about Langley and want some footage. Don’t get caught and don’t tell anyone. Loose lips sink ships.”
Dyson stepped toward the door, his hand on the doorknob when Steinbeck stopped him. “What was the message that you found on the boards?”
Dyson paled slightly as he spoke the words.
“Bring the rain.”
“The Bunker”, CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
“Sir, somebody just Tweeted that the President’s been arrested.”
Both Leroux and Morrison spun toward Sonya Tong. She pushed the Tweet to one of the main screens. “It went live about ten minutes ago from a new account. It’s getting retweeted like crazy around the world by the looks of it. Not a lot within the US, at least not as much as you’d expect. But there’s this weird phrase that keeps popping up.”
“What is it?” asked Morrison.
“Bring the rain.”
Leroux’s eyebrows jumped. “How many times?”
“A few dozen in reply to this post. I’m running search algorithms now and I’m finding thousands of references all over the internet.”
Morrison pursed his lips. “It’s a pretty common phrase among our soldiers.”
“These are all in the past twenty four hours, building rapidly.”
Leroux’s eyes narrowed. “Can you trace it back to the source?”
“The earliest reference is on Twitter from a new account with only the one post. I’m trying to access the Twitter servers now.”
“How long?”
“A few hours probably, but once I’m in, we’ll have everything.”
Leroux was intrigued. “How are you trying to access them?”
Tong grinned. “I’m using the Chinese back door. I just need to find a router that has one.”
Leroux smiled in appreciation. With most of the world’s routers manufactured in China, the Chinese military was known to occasionally divert shipments and place their own tech inside. This was used to then access any number of civilian, military and government computer systems. A panic a few years ago when this was discovered had sent the Pentagon and Washington scrambling to vet all their hardware, but civilian organizations were still very vulnerable.
It was just a matter of finding one of these routers which Tong was now doing.
“Good work,” said Leroux, turning to Morrison. “This could be related to what Kane and Bravo Team are up to.”
“I’m guessing it is. They mentioned a possibility of additional support. I have a feeling that this is a coordinated effort on their part to try and take action all at once.” Morrison turned to Tong. “We need to figure out when they plan to get started. See if you can trace when the first message was sent and if any others from the same location were sent. We need to time our video evidence release to help them as much as possible.”
“The video is ready, sir,” replied Tong. “I can post it whenever you want. But if we’re trying to get maximum exposure as quickly as possible, we might need to go bigger than my social network.”
Morrison nodded. “I’ve got an idea on that.” He pulled out his secure phone and looked up a contact. He snapped his fingers as if remembering something. “And somebody find out if the President actually has been arrested.”
Unknown Location
“Where’s my family?”
President Starling sat in what he would describe as a barracks room. Simple single bed with thin mattress and pillow shoved in the corner, a utilitarian night stand with a lamp bolted to the wall over the head of the bed, and an empty bookshelf and a desk with one hard metal chair. A single overhead light showed off the uniform grayness of the entire affair. A metal door with a small glass window with embedded wire mesh was now open, a private security “agent” standing in it with a tray of food in his hand, another behind him, weapon at the ready.
“There will be no communication with the prisoner,” was the almost robotic response as the food was put on the desk and the door closed. A face appeared in the window then just as quickly disappeared, leaving him once again alone. The smell of what looked like from his bedside perch to be meatloaf with gravy and probably instant mashed potatoes and canned peas was sadly enticing.
He was starving.
He didn’t know how long he had been here, but it had been hours. Many hours if the level of his hunger were any indication. He eyed the food and debated for a moment whether or not a hunger strike was in order, but with no press to even hear about it, he decided martyring himself to the silence of the room was pointless.
He rose and shoveled the food in his mouth, hoping it wasn’t drugged.
Then again if it were, would that be such a bad thing?
His primary concern now was his family. He couldn’t bring himself to think that these people would harm them, but then again, they had taken over the United States by murdering thousands for their cause. He wondered if his wife and kids were still at the residence or had they been moved with him. Or moved to an entirely different location.
One thing was certain—he had no clue where he was. The White House corridors had been cleared, very few staff seeing him, and most of those who had were either military or from this private security outfit. He had been led to the large underground garage and placed inside an unmarked car with blacked out windows, a hood put over his head.
All he knew was he wasn’t far, the journey taking less than twenty minutes. He also knew he had crossed a bridge about halfway through. He was still in the DC area, but where was anybody’s guess.
But he hadn’t lost all hope. Not yet. He had faith in America. He had faith in his fellow Americans. He knew it was only a matter of time before the truth got out, before the people began to question their new leaders and the honest, patriotic American soldiers now enforcing that power began to question what they were doing.
It would take time.
Time that General Thorne certainly had implied he didn’t have.
/>
But again, he hadn’t lost all hope.
Because he had seen the phone hidden in Humble’s hand, the camera lens visible between his fingers. And judging from the look of fear on Humble’s face, he was doing something dangerous.
Like filming the arrest of his President.
Which meant that video could soon be public, which might be enough for the public to rise up against their new oppressors.
For if there was one thing the American people loved, it was their President. Not necessarily the man, but the institution. And if they knew their current President had been arrested, they would then assume that their previous President had been assassinated by the same people, along with the congressional leaders assassinated at Capitol Hill.
No, it was just a matter of time before his country would be saved by its own citizens.
He just prayed he was around to see it.
A woman screamed nearby, her agony obvious.
And a little doubt crept into the confidence which had just been so strong.
Outside of Chevy Chase, Maryland
Senior Chief Chuck Skerritt pored over the plans for Fort Myer and the surrounding area. There were multiple points of entry that they could take advantage of, but they had an unknown number of men available to them. He currently sat with about a dozen of his fellow Navy SEALs and he knew many more were on their way. He had been in contact through encrypted phones with various other groups and the coordinated effort called for by a fellow brother in arms from the Delta Force, Command Sergeant Major Burt “Big Dog” Dawson was to begin at 2100 hours tonight at Fort Myer.
Beyond that he knew nothing.
What he did know was that Dawson was a top notch soldier, the best, and he had to believe that Fort Myer was the center of this current mess otherwise he would have named another location.
But he also knew command and control meant communications, which was why he and his team were reviewing every set of plans they could get their hands on. He and as many likeminded soldiers he could gather would assault Fort Myer if needed, but he was already coordinating with others to take out communications centers in and around Washington, DC. Their aim to disrupt all White House, Pentagon and Fort Myer communications simultaneously.
Death to America (A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller, Book #4) Page 22