Standing in the main corridor that led into the mountain, Sara had stopped to think. No way to get down to the executive office level. She’d already tried. The elevator was guarded and she didn’t have the access codes. He wasn’t coming to the Supreme Court wing; it was pretty obvious he’d set up his office somewhere else. And why wouldn’t he? Who would want to sleep and work in an empty chamber, only to be reminded constantly of his dead friends? Where else could he be? The gym? Not likely. Jefferson was five-foot-seven and pushing 240 pounds; it had been a few legal briefs since he’d seen the inside of a gym. The central cafeteria? Maybe. But surely they provided food services on the executive level. Would he really come up here? The recreation hall? She’d already been down there. Rows of Ping-Pong™ tables, computers, arcade games, poker tables, a couple of billiard tables, banks of televisions that were mounted on the wall. It was pretty obvious that Raven Rock designers expected recreation to be the last thing on the minds of its long-term occupants. No, he wasn’t going to show up there.
Which left her with nothing.
Finally, after wandering the halls for a while longer, she’d taken up a table near the back of the cafeteria from which she could survey the hall. There she waited. And hoped.
Now it was approaching midnight and she had nothing.
More than four thousand people had been crammed into the underground complex. What were the chances she might see him in the cafeteria in the middle of the night?
Not very good, Sara knew that.
And even if she found him, how would she ever get him to listen to her, let alone convince him to leave the safety of Raven Rock and venture in their cause?
FOUR
Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania
Sara didn’t know where to sleep. They had hoped that she would have found him and gotten out before it mattered. But here she was, the middle of the night, and she had nowhere to go.
There were temporary quarters for guests and newly assigned members of the underground compound, but they required written orders. She had them, but they would have to be verified, and she didn’t want to chance it. She simply couldn’t stomach the thought of another encounter with a security guard. She had already decided that she would sleep in the women’s restroom before she’d take the chance of checking into the visitors’ quarters.
Time passed. The cafeteria stayed equally busy, the pace of operations fairly consistent from night to day. Looking around her, she realized there were many others working at tables. Staffing had reached war-footing levels and she wasn’t the only one who didn’t have a place to work.
Sara glanced at her watch: 1:20 in the morning.
Resting her head on her arms, she fell asleep.
* * * * * * *
Twenty minutes later she woke up. Something inside her made her tense, and the soft hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Her heart raced and she felt disoriented as she struggled to come awake. She kept her head down, trying to understand what had jarred her.
Then Sara heard it. His voice was deep, resonating and distinct enough to jolt her from her sleep—the voice of an old friend, a man she and Neil had known since his first assignment at the Pentagon.
He was the national security adviser to President Fuentes now. She had seen his picture just a couple of days before when Brucius Marino had shown her photographs of the meeting of conspirators that had taken place somewhere overseas.
This was the man that was responsible for the previous president’s death.
She kept her head down, her heart slamming in her chest.
If he saw her, he would recognize her.
If he saw her, she was dead.
She kept her head buried in her arms, wishing she could tunnel under a pile of papers, wishing she could climb under the table, wishing she could disappear.
She didn’t move. She kept her head down, her shoulders shaking.
Ten minutes later, she finally looked up and he was gone.
FIVE
Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania
She’d waited as long as she could stand it, but it had been almost fifteen hours and Sara simply couldn’t wait for him any longer.
She stood up from the cafeteria table she’d been monopolizing for almost half a day, then headed down the main hallway. At the elevator, she pushed the button for the executive suites. Two stories above the presidential level, this floor was accessible but dangerous for her to venture. She knew she had no other choice, and she might find Jefferson there.
The elevator opened to a dark blue office suite. A receptionist was seated behind a small desk and a guard was standing there. Sara flashed her badge to them while glancing at her watch, pretending to ignore them. It was 12:39 in the afternoon. They let her pass.
As she glanced at the armed guard, her heart skipped another beat.
She didn’t know where it was, but she guessed, not wanting to indicate that she hadn’t been on the executive level before. Down the main hallway and to her left, she found it: the executive dining hall.
Looking through the etched glass, Sara took a deep breath. This had to be one of the most dangerous places she could be. It was far more likely that she would be recognized here than in the crowds upstairs, but she didn’t care anymore. She was running out of time, and she had already run out of nerves. Better to get it over with than to die a thousand deaths of fear.
Sara pushed into the small dining room, stopped, and looked around. Tables with white linen and yellow flowers spread before her. She searched the sparse crowd and found Jefferson sipping coffee while reading at a table in the far corner of the room. She almost cried out in relief. Walking quickly, she moved toward him, coming to a stop beside the table. He looked up, irritated at the intrusion, then realized who was standing there. His expression immediately changed to one of shock and he quickly looked around. “Sara Brighton!” he mouthed. “What are you doing here?” His eyes darted again, sensing danger.
He made no motion toward the chair across from him, but Sara sat down anyway. “Daniel, I need to talk to you.”
He looked at her and shook his head. “I can’t imagine you have anything to say that I’m going to want to hear.”
“Maybe not. But you’re going to listen. There’s far too much at stake for you not to at least hear why I’ve risked my life to find you.”
SIX
Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania
Sara leaned across the table and whispered to Jefferson. “Brucius Marino is alive. He’s going to fight to claim the presidency. He will not let this stand.”
Daniel Jefferson, the last surviving member of the U.S. Supreme Court—at least as far as he knew—stared at his old friend, his eyes wide, then looked around anxiously. He sensed that there was danger, though it wasn’t clear from what.
“Secretary Marino has found two other members of the Supreme Court,” Sara blurted out, all of her carefully prepared remarks fleeing from her now. “He’s taking them to his headquarters at an Air Force base in the Midwest. The impeachment proceedings that convicted him were based on forced and fabricated testimony. Secretary Marino is going to ask the two surviving justices to overrule the impeachment proceedings or at least to allow him to defend himself.”
She stopped. How much should she tell him? She didn’t know. Jefferson raised an eyebrow. “And how do my colleagues feel about this, I wonder?”
Sara nervously fingered the cuff of her dark suit, deciding to tell him the truth. “It is difficult to really know. Right now, it seems the two justices may be in disagreement. One is sympathetic, the other is on the fence. We need you to come and join us. To put it simply, we need your vote.”
There was much more to it, of course, but that was the essence of why she had risked everything to find him, and she wanted to lay it out.
Jefferson stared at her, his eyes narrowed to careful slits. Sara looked
around at their surroundings. She was scared, her eyes always moving, her face tight, her hands almost trembling on the table before him. He considered her behind the hood of his heavy eyelids, keeping his emotions in check. Then he started asking questions. Some of them, she answered. Some, she kept the answers to herself.
Twenty minutes later, he ordered another coffee, sat in thought for a long moment, then said, “You’re in great danger here. You spread that danger to me when we’re together. Go now. I’ll think about it and let you know.”
Sara watched him. He had clearly already thought about it. This was his way of telling her to get lost. “Please come with me,” she begged him. “If you’ll just—”
“Go, Sara. It is dangerous for you to be here. I’ll consider—”
“No, Daniel,” she insisted. “You can’t push me away like this. I know what you’re thinking, I know that this is difficult, but please, you’ve got to understand!” She stared at the emptiness above his head, searching for the right thing to say. She could beg him, she could plead and reason and maybe threaten, but none of that would matter. Jefferson was a proud and independent man. He’d been an independent and even rebellious thinker all his life, and nothing she could say to him was going to change his mind. None of her persuasion, no thoughtful or reasoned argument was going to convince him now.
The only thing she had to offer was in her heart. “When I was asked to come and talk to you, I accepted the assignment with enormous trepidation,” she whispered honestly. Jefferson watched, listening, and she took another breath. “I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be the one who talked to you. I didn’t want the responsibility. What if you wouldn’t listen? What would happen if I failed? But I was the only option. You and I were—are—friends. At least I hope we are. You’ve known Neil and me for many years. We all thought that maybe you would trust me, and that’s all that I can do now, talk to you and hope.”
Jefferson wrapped his fingers around his mug of coffee, letting the warmth soothe the arthritis in his hands. He felt a rising brooding. Part of him wanted to stand up and walk away from her. He wasn’t a fool—he could see the terror in her eyes. She shouldn’t be here. How did she get in? And it was a dangerous message that she brought, which made him angry at her. He wished that she would just go away. And yet, part of him wanted to listen to her. He wasn’t afraid of a good fight. He’d been a fighter all his life.
She looked at him, sensing his rising impatience and darkening mood, then went on as quickly as she could. “This day is fraught with peril. The state of our nation is unsure.”
“Sara, you don’t have to tell me that,” he said. “I’ve been up there.” He leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “You just came from up there. I can see it in your eyes and smell it in your clothes. We both know what’s going on up on the surface. It’s terrible now and it’s going to get much worse. There’s simply no way around that. Who knows how many people are going to die. But these guys,” he nodded toward the hallway behind him, “they’ve got a plan. It isn’t pretty, I’ll give you that, but it might be necessary. And right now, it’s the only thing we have. Yes, things are going to change, but that’s only because things have already changed. They didn’t do that. We didn’t do that. These days were thrust upon us. All we can do is try to pull it all together and rebuild from the pieces that have been left us—”
“Into what? What are you rebuilding, Daniel? What do you have in mind?”
The Supreme Court Justice looked at her squarely and answered, “That’s not for me to decide. My role is very simple. Are they complying with the Constitution? That’s all that I can do.”
“But you know what they’re proposing! It will rip our Constitution into shreds!”
Jefferson sat back again, his agitation growing. “I’ve heard rumors, same as you have. I don’t believe it. They can’t be true, and if they attempt to implement any of the things people are saying they might have considered, we will stop them in their tracks.”
Sara looked at him, her eyes widening in surprise. In that moment, she knew that they were going to kill Justice Daniel Jefferson. They would keep him for as long as he was useful, but they would never let him stop them. No one was safe from their wrath.
In an agony of fear, she leaned forward and took his hand. “You have to fight them,” she whispered across the table. “You have to fight them, Daniel. Please, don’t let them win.”
He sat back and pulled an unlit cigar from his jacket pocket. Stuffing it in his mouth, he sucked the wetted tip. Only half a box of the illegal Cubans were left now. No way of getting any others. He had to treasure every one. “It’s not that easy anymore, Sara. It’s not like it used to be. It’s much more complicated now. And it might be time to make some needed changes anyway. It might be time to move beyond the mistakes of the past. We are the most despised nation on the earth at the moment. No one trusts us. No one likes us. We can’t function like that any longer. We have to make some changes; I think that’s a given. We’ve made mistakes—far too many—to pretend it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s time we paid the price now. Maybe our dues have finally come.”
Sara shook her head. “No, no, no. This isn’t about international politics and power. This is about America. Americans. Nothing else. We live or die together. There’s no way around that now.”
“Sometimes I wonder, Sara. Sometimes in the past few weeks I’ve wondered if any of it’s worth saving anymore,” Jefferson said.
She narrowed her eyes defiantly and squeezed his fingers so tightly the skin turned white. “I say this with great assurance,” she assured him. “The United States of America is a special place. It will always be worth saving! The world needs us. We are the only hope they have.
“Think about it, Daniel. Maybe they don’t teach these kinds of things at Ivy League schools anymore, but what would have happened to Europe during either of the World Wars if not for the United States? What would Japan or the Pacific Rim be like under totalitarian regimes? The Philippines, Korea, Afghanistan, to say nothing of Israel? What would those places be like if it were not for the United States? It’s impossible to overstate the positive effect the United States has had on the world over the past one hundred years.
“Yes, we have fought many wars, but we are not a warring people. We don’t fight to conquer nations; we fight to set nations free. We don’t fight to enslave a people; we fight to set a people free. And the only territories we’ve ever kept are the tiny pieces of pasture where we bury our dead soldiers.
“This country is a beacon in the darkness, but its future is not assured. We have to fight to save it, but its future is worth fighting for.” She gestured angrily toward the hall. “Some of them don’t believe that. They think they have a better way. But I know you, Daniel—I know you don’t think like that. You’ve walked through the military cemeteries, you’ve touched those stone-cold markers, you’ve recognized the sacred ground.
“Think about that, Daniel. Think about what’s going on. We can’t betray those dead now. Think of all those who died in Washington! We can’t let them die in vain.” She lifted her eyes, indicating the topside world. “Think of all those who are dying right now. They look to us for hope!”
Jefferson lifted his coffee and sipped, realized it was only warm, and gulped it, taking down half the cup. He was old now, overweight, balding, with red patches dotting his cheeks. The truth was—and even he would admit it—he shouldn’t have been on the U.S. Supreme Court any longer. He had trouble hearing and concentrating, and was generally more concerned about the length of time between bathroom breaks than about the arguments before him. He was old and cranky to the point of being ostracized by his peers—little love and less respect between them. There was one element of the Constitution that he held most inviolate and dear: Supreme Court justices served for life. Didn’t matter their mental, physical, or emotional health, they took their place on the bench until their bodies were cold and dead. Such an attitude guaranteed him
power, but it certainly wasn’t endearing to either his friends or his enemies.
Worst of all, over the years Jefferson had taken the journey from being a proud defender of civil rights and extreme liberalism to becoming a hard-core cynic. Few things mattered much to him anymore. He’d lost faith in his government. In his nation’s people, in the law.
That was why, Brucius Marino and his people knew, the conspirators had decided to let him live.
Sara looked intently at her old friend, searching for the bit of life that used to shine in his eyes, her mind flashing back to dinner parties around Washington, D.C., where he used to argue, his deep voice booming, for the oppressed and the minorities.
Was that patriot still alive inside him?
From the blank look on his face, she didn’t know.
She searched herself a final time, seeking desperately for the right words to say. But nothing came. Her mind was blank.
She stared vacantly at her trembling hands, then cleared her throat and looked at him again. “This is the Promised Land, Daniel. I don’t know any other way to say it. It isn’t perfect—far from it, I know—but there is nothing else even close. God has guarded His work in this magnificent cause, for He knew it was essential for this country to survive so that it might guarantee the same freedoms to other people. Think about it, Justice Jefferson. It started as early as Jamestown. For years they struggled against starvation, disease, hunger, danger, a sometimes hostile Indian population there. Eighty percent died in the cause. Yet, despite this overwhelming failure, God saw that it was good and He helped the seed survive. Within just a couple of generations, the United States had the highest per capita income of any nation in the world.
Sunrise: Wrath & Righteousness: Episode Ten Page 3