Line of Succession bc-1

by William Tyree

  It wasn’t a question. She was just rubbing their noses in it. Rather than endure Eva’s wrath, Carver decided to change the conversation. He pulled Chris Abrams’ Ulysses ID out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Eva.

  “He was in Baltimore today,” Carver added. “We’re working under the assumption that he was there to kill Angie Jackson.”

  Eva held the ID, but she couldn’t focus on it. Nico Gold was on the lam. Years of effort down the tubes. Once the crisis was over, she would need an army of programmers to safeguard the nation’s security grid.

  Colonel Madsen entered the room with a sealed envelope. He was out of breath. “General Farrell sent this by personal messenger from Rapture Run. He asked me to run this across base personally. You’re supposed to open it right away.”

  Eva did. There was a sheet of paper inside, on which Farrell had handwritten a ten character alphanumeric pass code and a domain name. Eva recognized it from a National Security Council meeting. It was a private video chat site to be used in case of national emergency.

  Fort Campbell Gym

  The old gym was located behind the stadium track in a red brick building that had not been entered for six years. Carver picked the front door deadbolt and flipped the switch. Three dusty fluorescent tubes flickered to life and twittered like strobe lights on a dance floor.

  Carver lifted the dust cover off an ancient incline weight bench. Like all the equipment in the once-flooded gym, its legs were badly rusted. Carver figured it would still support a lightweight like Elvir Divac.

  He placed the still-comatose prisoner on the incline weight bench. His hospital gown hung open, revealing post-surgery bandages around his thigh and groin. He cuffed the prisoner’s wrists to a barbell mounted on the rack above his head. Two hundred pounds in free weights were mounted on either side.

  He poured ice water on Elvir’s face. The native Bosnian, who was still under general anesthesia, coughed in his sleep but didn’t wake. Carver had anticipated this. He pulled a syringe from his pocket, raised the hem of Elvir’s gown and injected his prisoner in the thigh. The serum was a favorite among CIA interrogators.

  Elvir came suddenly awake, screaming at operatic volume, his eyes dilated like big black saucers. He struggled mightily against his handcuffs, nearly dislodging the barbell from the rack over his chest.

  Carver leaned over the barbell and looked down at him. “What do you think of our wake-up serum? I’ve heard the sensation is like falling from a skyscraper.”

  Elvir tried to spit. His mouth was too dry.

  “Tell me who sold you the Stingers,” Carver said. “Then you can sleep. Promise. I’ve got a drug for that too.”

  Elvir muttered something in Bosnian.

  “Drop the act,” Carver said. “I know you understand English. We have your file. You were born in Bosnia. Crossed enemy lines and joined the U.N. Forces during the war in Croatia. Applied for amnesty in the U.S. First you were denied, then they made you a deal — citizenship in exchange for five years in the Army. After 9/11, the Army was looking for anyone who spoke Arabic. They put you in Special Forces in Afghanistan. Then six months in Iraq. You were discharged for battle fatigue syndrome. Benefits paid crap.”

  “You like the sound of your own voice,” Elvir said in English.

  “Chime in at any time.”

  “My attorney’s name is Thomas Myers. He lives in Fairfax.”

  Carver pulled a pair of dental pliers from his pocket. He had bought the pliers, along with some other medical supplies, from a subway station sale in Tokyo, where a vendor sold enamel scrapers right alongside kitchen knives. At-home dentistry struck Carver as somewhat bizarre in a westernized country. Carver had always assumed fear of the dentist was a worldwide phenomenon. The thought of an untrained family member doing it was even scarier.

  “I’m going to ask you again,” Carver told Elvir. “Lies cost one molar each. Ask for an attorney again, and it’ll cost you one of those beautiful front incisors.”

  *

  Eva entered the 10-digit login Colonel Madsen had given her into the computer. She was immediately launched into a video conference session. General Farrell appeared onscreen. Although they had been to dozens of Security Council meetings together, this was the first time Eva had looked him square in the face. His teeth were yellower than she remembered. The President had once said that Farrell was a hero during the 1980s invasion of Panama, but he said very little at the Security Council meetings. Mostly he seemed to be Wainewright’s yes man.

  “Eva!” Farrell exclaimed as if he were happy to see her.

  “General.”

  “You look a little worse for wear.”

  “You really know how to charm the ladies.”

  “Word is you’ve got the brass at Fort Campbell on bended knee,” he said. “They’re calling you Queen Eva.”

  “I’d say what they call you, but the FCC might revoke my video conference privileges.”

  Farrell’s face fell. ”Madam Secretary, we’re reconvening the Security Council in a few hours. We need you at Rapture Run.”

  Eva had reason to be suspicious. Angie Jackson was in the infirmary and she didn’t know who to trust. ”I’m afraid my hands are full here, General.”

  The General didn’t hide his exasperation. “Eva, don’t make me spell this out on video conference.” Eva put on her best poker face. She stared straight ahead, saying nothing. “Fine,” Farrell finally snapped. “You must have heard about the POTUS by now. You’re next in line. We need you here with your team ASAP so we can begin the transition.”

  There, he had said it. They wanted to swear her in. She was going to be the next President of the United States. “General, you can imagine how that sounds. I’ve been completely stonewalled for two days. You can imagine how it looks from here.”

  “Paranoia is understandable. The truth is, we don’t know who to trust. It took some time for us to clear you.”

  “Clear me?”

  “Everyone has been re-screened. We think there’s someone high up within the Pentagon working against U.S. interests. We feel you’ll be safest here. My personal plane is landing at Fort Campbell as we speak to bring you to Rapture Run.”

  “I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of going to a bunker that was built without Security Council authorization. I suggest we meet at the White House instead.”

  Farrell shook his head. “Out of the question. It’s a security risk. Until we find the conspirators, the government will operate from Rapture Run.”

  Eva shook her head. “I’ve assembled a very effective Joint Operations task force right here.”

  “You really have no choice. Are you really going to make me send the Secret Service to extract you?”

  “I haven’t accepted the job.”

  The General didn’t hesitate. “If you’re not up to the job, Madam Secretary, Dex Jackson is.”

  She sighed. She wasn’t about to concede the country to the likes of Jackson. “Very well. I’ll be bringing my team.”

  “And another thing…We’d like you to bring Angie Jackson.” Eva’s poker face betrayed her. How could they know about that? “I’m sure she’d like to see her son. He’s here with Dex.”

  The video screen cut to black. Eva ran her fingers through her hair. She picked up her desk phone and dialed the infirmary. The Doc answered. “Get the prisoner ready to travel,” she said.

  The Doc was silent for a moment. “Madam Secretary, I was told he was with you.”

  Hagerstown, Maryland

  7:32 p.m.

  The Greyhound Bus Station had been a hub for Hagarstown’s homeless population ever since the local government started issuing free “Go West” vouchers. The vouchers, which provided free one-way bus tickets to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix, were the principal means by which Maryland sought to solve its homeless problem. The program was a miserable failure. As word of the vouchers spread, Hagarstown quickly became the hottest homeless destination on the East Co
ast.

  Margaret Howland drove her truck into the Greyhound lot. Her headlights panned slowly across the dozens of hungry, unshaven faces. She rolled her window down. “Anybody seen a guy named Nico?”

  “Hey lady,” a veteran in a fungus-tainted Army uniform yelled. “I’ve got a bus ticket with your name on it. L.A.’s beautiful this time of year.”

  “God bless you,” Madge called back diplomatically. The truck’s headlights finally found Nico’s clear-framed eyeglasses and thin lips and slight chin. He stepped out from the curb wearing ill-fitting khakis, a gray t-shirt and blue sneakers that he had found at Goodwill that afternoon. He opened the truck’s passenger door and took in the sight of her. She wore the same size-fourteen floral print blouse she had worn during her last visit to the prison. Her hair was up in a bun. And as usual, she had not tweezed her eyebrows and her nails were unpainted. She was just the way Nico liked them — plain, round and unpretentious.

  “I can’t believe you came.”

  “It’ll cost ya,” Madge said with a wink. “Get in here.”

  Nico climbed into the truck. He kissed her tentatively at first. Then again, and with more confidence. She smelled like tea tree oil shampoo.

  They drove wordlessly through town toward the I-81 South. Madge did not ask Nico how he happened to be out of prison some fifteen years ahead of schedule. The Lord worked in mysterious ways.

  Madge was a mid-level programmer for a local Methodist Children’s Hospital. Two years earlier, she had been moved by a story written in Technology Weekly about Nico’s exploits called “Rise and Fall of an Activist Hacker.” The next week, she had written him a letter that began, “Dear Mister Gold, I read about the unfortunate turn of events in your life, and would like you to know that I for one am praying for your eternal soul.”

  Although Nico was an atheist, he did not mind Madge’s attempts to convert him to Christianity, which had never waned in the sixty-one letters and fourteen visits to the Federal Penitentiary that followed their first contact. He found her relentless devotion to faith fascinating, even comforting. He was attracted to her earnestness. And while he knew that Madge was far from the coding genius that he was, the common language of programming gave them something to talk about.

  They entered the I-81 South toward Burlington. “Are you hungry?” Madge said.

  “No,” Nico replied, although in truth he was famished. The last thing he needed was to get recognized in some roadside diner.

  Twenty miles down the road, they pulled into a truck stop. Nico waited in the pickup while Madge went inside, purchased four microwavable burritos, nuked them, and brought them out to the truck with a pair of cokes. They sat eating them in the parking lot until, having forgotten to grab napkins, Madge licked one of her chubby fingers. Nico grabbed her hand and licked her other fingers for her. One thing led to another in the expanse of the king cab’s spacious back seat.

  “I didn’t plan that,” Madge said as she buttoned up her shirt, “and I’ll have to pray on it. But Jesus my savior knows that my heart’s been with you for a long time. It’s only the liberal justice system that’s kept us apart.”

  A few more miles down I-81, they passed a Ulysses convoy. “Isn’t it terrible what’s been going on?” she said.

  “Awful,” Nico said. He did not elaborate. He knew that if he told Madge what had really happened — that the President was dead, and that there was no such terrorist cell in Yemen responsible for all the carnage — that she would not believe him. That’s tomorrow’s conversation, he thought. Enjoy tonight.

  Eisenhower Building

  7:35 p.m.

  Speers emerged from the tunnels through the narrow portal in the Eisenhower Building’s basement stairwell. The massive blast-proof door slammed behind him, and he froze. He held his breath and listened for boots, voices or gunfire. The Old Executive Building was an extension of the White House itself. It flanked the West Wing and had been renamed the Eisenhower Building decades ago, although most people still used the old name. The building had been completed in 1888 and was originally the State, War and Navy Building. Speers kept a cubicle in the West Wing for times when it was strategically important to be near the President. But on most days, he preferred to work here, where there were fewer interruptions.

  Having heard nothing but the frantic booming of his own heart, Speers decided it was safe to proceed. He pulled his security badge from his pocket and swiped it on the elevator panel. The doors swung open. The elevator arrived at the third floor. Speers held the doors open. He craned his neck into the corridor to see if anyone was there.

  By the look of the office, it was clear that the staff had been evacuated in a hurry. Doors were flung open. Lights were left on. Personal items — gym clothes, unused movie tickets, grocery lists — were out in plain sight. Piles of shredded paper and partially eaten breakfasts were everywhere.

  Speers was famished. He could not resist a half-eaten Danish sitting on a colleague’s desk. He shoved the rubbery pastry into his mouth as he made his way toward his own office.

  It was a relief to see that the office had not been ransacked. He booted up his computer and unlocked his lower desk drawer, which was full of grape lollipops. He unwrapped one and popped it into his mouth. His eyes rolled back into his head as the sugar began flowing through his body.

  “Curfew in twenty minutes,” a voice boomed. “You have twenty minutes to get indoors. This is a zero tolerance curfew.” Speers peered out the blinds and looked down on 17Street. The voice was coming from a speaker mounted atop a Ulysses patrol vehicle.

  Speers turned his attention back to his computer as his mail came online. He spotted the message he had been looking for:

  FROM: Corporal Hammond, Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff TO: Julian SpeersFW: RE: CONFIDENTIAL

  There were two attachments. Speers clicked on the first, a document containing a series of mechanical diagrams that were annotated in Farsi. The engineering schematics were beyond him, but he switched on a Farsi-to-English translator in his browser and soon realized that he was looking at a proposal for a state-of-the-art, Iranian-built desalination plant that had been prepared for General Wainewright. Further into the document, he came upon a map of the California coast. Xs near Mendocino, Eureka and Cambria seemed to mark future desalination plant locations.

  The second attachment triggered a video on a private Web server. It took Speers several seconds to recognize Angie Jackson holding a copy of yesterday’s newspaper. She had the vacant look in her eyes of someone who had resigned herself to certain death. The video’s sound was scratchy as she put the newspaper down and began reading from a prepared script. Speers boosted the volume on his desktop speakers.

  “Yesterday,” she began, “I was rescued from Chesapeake Bay. It was clear that these men had no reason to harm me.”

  Suddenly, the overhead lights flickered out, followed by the computer and printer. Speers went to the window, hoping it was some type of blackout. It wasn’t. The streetlights in the surrounding buildings were all on.

  A banging noise sounded from one of the lower floors. Speers grabbed the few pages that had come out of the printer, crammed them into a folder and escaped down the hallway just as red laser targeting beams cut through the darkness.

  Escape routes were few and far between. Getting downstairs to the tunnels would be tricky. The building had several staircases, but they were probably crawling with Ulysses. Elevators were also out of the question.

  His thoughts turned to the late Vice President’s office in the large corner suite facing the White House’s West Wing. The office featured a hand-operated dumb waiter from a bygone era that was large enough to hold an entire Thanksgiving meal. The kitchen staff used it to send a regular stream of coffee and snacks up to the office whenever the Veep was in residence.

  Speers made it to the corner office and found that the dumb waiter was deployed. Good. But as the building’s emergency lighting finally kicked in, he found
that the contraption looked smaller than he remembered. Speers climbed in head-first and crammed his legs into the rickety platform, cursing himself for not losing the 30 pounds his doctor had prescribed last winter. Once his limbs were safely tucked in, he gripped the steel cable and began cranking himself slowly down.

  His forearms were cramping by the time he arrived in the basement kitchen. He unfolded himself, wrung his hands and went once again to the tunnel entrance. He stooped and held his eye open for the retina scanner. “Access Granted,” the scanner said pleasantly as the portal opened.

  Once back in the tunnels, Speers allowed himself a moment to rest. It was then that he realized how much pain he was really in. His body wasn’t cut out for this. His arms ached. His sinuses felt ready to burst. The balls of his feet were swollen and his socks were wet with the pus from the broken blisters on his toes and heels.

  He eventually made his way through the tunnels until he came upon the portal to the Metro Center subway station. There he slipped seamlessly into the stream of passengers rushing to get home before the 8 p.m. curfew. The Blue Line to Franconia swooshed into the station.

  Ulysses could not be far behind. Speers cut to the head of the line. Despite a palpable agitation among the passengers enduring a third night of martial law, nobody challenged him. In fact, his fellow commuters gave him wide berth. What was this, some show of respect? He wasn’t used to being recognized on the street. Outside the Federal Buildings, he was a nobody.

  When the subway pulled in and Speers glimpsed himself in the car’s metallic reflection, he understood. He saw the chigger bites on his neck and head. The grass-stained shirt. The mud-caked shoes. The Albert Einstein hairdo. He smelled the mildew on his shirt. Nobody got out of his way out of respect. No. Quite the opposite.

  Fort Campbell Gym

  Elvir Divac writhed on the tattered brown incline weight bench. Agent Carver stood over him and clamped his dental pliers around one of Divac’s rear molars. The Bosnian was close to cracking.