by Steve Berry
* * *
Malone had to end this fast.
He’d seen no aluminum case and the destroyed brick wall could only mean one thing, that the bomb was in place, the trigger heating.
Zorin broke free and came to his feet.
He did, too, but was met by a fist that twisted his head and sent a jolt through his jaw. Another punch to the solar plexus buckled him. But he shook off the blow and butted his head into Zorin’s nose, hearing a groan, then followed it with his right fist.
Zorin staggered back, but quickly regained control, lunging, his thrusts cobra-quick. Atop a concrete block sat a length of thick steel chain, which Zorin quickly grabbed and whipped his way. He ducked, the metal whizzing by so close he felt its wake. Chips of brick flaked off the wall where the chain struck, sending out a shower of dust. Zorin whipped the chain again in a wild arc, which he dodged with leaps back.
This man knew how to fight.
But so did he.
He planted his feet and punched, planting blow after blow. Zorin tried to muster the strength to swing the chain again, but an upward palm thrust into the jaw stunned the big man, then two blows to the kidneys caused Zorin to lose his grip and the chain dropped away.
Malone’s knuckles hammered away at the face and he tore a gash above one eye. Blood continued to pour from Zorin’s nose. He sensed that his opponent was weakening, so he focused on the midsection and slammed a fist into the stomach, catapulting Zorin off his feet and to the floor.
He leaped down and wrapped his right arm around the throat and clamped his left hand tight in a choke hold. Sweat poured from his brow. He blinked away the wetness and increased pressure. Zorin tried to break free but he held firm.
He squeezed tighter.
Breathing became jerky, then rough.
The grip from Zorin’s hands, locked onto his arms trying to break the hold, slowly weakened. Blood pounded in his ears as if he heard Zorin’s heartbeat rather than his own. He’d never killed a man with his bare hands, but an urgency drove him forward. Zorin had to be eliminated. With no question, no remorse, no delay. In his head he was counting down the time and knew that he had only a handful of minutes left.
Zorin’s muscles tightened, the body tugged with fluttering fringes at the iron vise. He heard gagging, then the feet shuffled in a gallow’s dance. The head lolled to one side, then everything went limp.
He released the hold and crawled from the body on all fours, gasping for air. Drums drowned his ears, purple curtains blocked his vision. Zorin lay still, the mouth agape, blood still oozing from his nose, the face covered in pits and shadows.
He checked for a pulse.
None.
Then he realized.
Zorin had made a show of protest, struggling, but only for form’s sake. Like Kelly, this KGB officer had booked a one-way ticket. He planned to die here in the blast, so having the life choked from him accomplished only one thing. More time for the bomb to prime itself.
He cursed his stupidity.
Dangerous seconds had ticked away.
He brushed aside the cobwebs and sprang to his feet, rushing toward the maw in the cellar wall. Sharp pain ached in his ribs, a duller version radiating in his back. He found the flashlight Zorin had discarded, then climbed down the tunnel’s entrance.
Hurry, he told himself.
He entered the blackness.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Stephanie could see central DC ahead. The chopper was flying in from the west, past the Pentagon over the Lincoln Memorial. Many thousands of people filled the National Mall, all within the blast range. No way to get them to safety. She could only hope that Litchfield had cleared the White House of Fox and his vice president. Knowing Danny, he hadn’t gone anywhere.
“Do we have clearance?” she asked the pilot through the headset.
“Yes, ma’am. Straight to the North Lawn.”
“Make it fast.”
She caught sight of the White House.
* * *
Cassiopeia rushed out of the north gate onto crowded Pennsylvania Avenue, where the babel of thousands of indistinguishable voices rose from people waiting for noon. But above it all she heard the sound of a helicopter cutting through the air. Turning back, she saw a military version swoop in over the White House and descend quickly, flurrying up snow in its downdraft before landing. Its rear door swung open and she saw Stephanie hop out, carrying what looked like a book. She raced back to the gate, which the guard reopened, calling out and grabbing Stephanie’s attention.
“Litchfield told no one and left the premises,” she said as they drew close.
Shock filled Stephanie’s face. “They’re all still in there?”
She nodded. “Cotton is after Zorin at the church. I’m going there now.”
“I’ll do what I can inside.”
They hustled off in opposite directions.
* * *
Malone kept pressing ahead, the weak beam from the flashlight barely leading the way. The tunnel, though tight, remained relatively unobstructed. What he did not like was that he would have to go several hundred yards into the ground—a long way—nothing ahead or behind but utter blackness. If he switched off the light he would not even be able to see his finger touching his nose.
His watch read 11:50.
Zorin probably activated the trigger somewhere between five and ten minutes ago, surely planning to keep the explosion as close to noon as possible. He tried to focus on that urgency, fighting a rising swarm of panic that was rapidly taking control of his mind and body. Never had he experienced any trouble in an elevator, revolving door, or tiny bathroom. Not even inside the cockpit of a fighter, crammed into its tight space, unable to see the ground. Just beyond the canopy had always been open sky, and the force of acceleration from the afterburners had never triggered any feeling of being trapped.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
There he’d felt freedom.
He’d read a lot about claustrophobia. How adrenaline surging through the body triggered either a run or a resist impulse. But where neither act was possible, only panic resulted.
Like now.
He stopped and absorbed a few seconds of breathless silence. The darkness seemed even more profound, the air cold and cheerless.
The first time he ever recalled this feeling was as a teenager. He and another friend had hidden in the trunk of a car, sneaking into a drive-in movie. He’d freaked, kicking out the backseat and escaping. Years of occasional recurrence had made him realize that it wasn’t a fear of tight places. No. More a fear of restriction. Of being stuck. Never had he liked the window seat on a commercial flight. And where he kidded Cassiopeia about her fear of flying, he’d always known that his weakness was more than a fear. Fears could be overcome. Phobias were paralyzing.
Acrid bile filled his throat.
Tendrils of fetid air swirled in his nostrils.
He doubted this tunnel had seen much ventilation in a long time.
He started moving again.
But a fireball ripped upward from his belly and assaulted his brain.
The terror was starting.
* * *
Stephanie entered the White House though the north doors. The building buzzed with quiet conversation and an aura of expectation. The swearing-in was only a few minutes away. Edwin Davis waited for her, surely drawn by the helicopter’s arrival.
“It’s underneath us,” she said. “A tunnel dug by the Society of Cincinnati, after the War of 1812.” She gestured with the journal she held. “It’s all in here. I alerted Litchfield, but he left, telling no one.”
And then she realized.
“Bastard. He told me that, under the 1947 Act, he’s in line to succeed. I’m betting that the AG is higher on the list than today’s designated survivor. If this place goes up, Litchfield is president.”
“Then let’s make sure it doesn’t go up.”
She stared out through the glass doors, past the portico, o
ver the North Lawn, to the fence and the people beyond. When she’d called Litchfield there’d been a chance to protect Fox and at least some of them.
Now nothing could be done.
A six-kiloton blast would annihilate everything within a mile.
“It’s all up to Cotton now.”
* * *
Malone could not stop. He had to keep going. But an appalling sense of dread had invaded his mind and clouded all thoughts save one.
Escape.
Weakness crept into every muscle. He clamped his eyes shut and retreated into himself, trying to quell panic’s irrational bloom. He hadn’t experienced this helplessness in a long time.
But the familiar panic had returned.
A suffocation, as if his clothes fit too tight. Dizziness. Disorientation. The walls closing in, compressing by the second. Someone told him once that it was a control issue.
Bullshit.
It was like a cage, within a cage, within a cage.
Horrible.
The only saving grace was that no one would see him like this.
The tunnel had begun to narrow, the ceiling definitely inching closer. Some compression and collapsing here. He hadn’t counted his steps, but he was a long way in, surely past Lafayette Park, maybe even Pennsylvania Avenue. How had this thing escaped detection all these years? Amazing. Yet here it was. Intact. The farther in he went the more deterioration he saw. He tried to focus on that and trick his mind, but no luck. The tunnel felt like a python squeezing the sanity from him. Terror shot out of the darkness and struck him like a dart.
Ahead, he saw where the path had caved in, the space no more than three feet square. He’d gone from hunched over on two feet, to crouched, to now scrambling on all fours. But before him, only a few feet away, stretched a space where he’d have to wiggle on his belly.
Like a slit in the ground.
He shone the light inside.
And saw an aluminum case.
Ten feet away.
My God.
But getting to it?
In every nightmare he’d ever experienced this was the worst-case scenario. The one that always jarred him awake in a cold sweat.
But he had no choice.
* * *
Cassiopeia found St. John’s Church, the grounds wrapped by a tall construction fence, which she quickly scaled. On the other side she swung around to the north end and spotted steel panels swung open. She made her way to them, then down concrete steps, through an open door, into the church basement. A warm, sickly aroma instantly made her stomach queasy. She spotted its source. A body on the far side.
She rushed over.
Zorin.
Dead.
Cotton was nowhere to be seen, which meant he had to have headed into the tunnel.
So she followed.
* * *
Malone inched forward on his belly, hands thrust ahead pushing the flashlight along. The confines were so constricting he could not even bring his arms back to his sides. He was easing his way toward the case, clutches of dirt coming away in his grip with each inch of ground gained. His throat choked up, his lungs felt as though they were filled with fluid. He coughed, trying to get air. Dirt from the ceiling cascaded and caused him to stop. He wondered if his efforts might cause a cave-in.
That thought paralyzed him.
He reminded himself that a nuclear bomb lay just a few feet away. If it exploded he would be utterly vaporized. The only saving grace would be that this torture—and that’s what it was—would be over. But he could not allow that to happen. Too many people above were counting on him. So he kept crawling, shoulders passing his elbows, kicking with his toes.
He made it to the bomb.
The chute here was maybe twenty-four inches tall at most. Not much room to even open the case. Jostling it around, trying to pull it back for more room to work would take time and could be catastrophic. He saw that its latches were free. He laid the light where it held the case in its beam and carefully opened the lid enough so that his hand could enter.
He felt the stainless-steel cylinder.
Hot.
He recalled what Daniels had advised and flicked the toggle but, to be sure, his fingers probed and found the wires springing from the battery poles.
He yanked them free.
Sparks triggered inside.
His eyes went wide.
He waited for a blast as hot and bright as the sun, a blinding phosphorous light he’d see only for a millisecond.
But nothing.
Another few seconds.
Still nothing.
His prison was ice-cold, the air nearly impossible to breathe. He was truly in the bowels of the earth. He lay still and stared at the case, his hand resting inside. He moved his fingers and again found the cylinder. Already not nearly as hot. Only warm and fading fast. He kept touching, then gripping. Touching, gripping.
The cylinder was definitely cooling.
He’d made it.
The damn thing was disarmed.
Time to leave.
He tried to back out, but couldn’t. He tried again, but the ultratight space restricted his movements. When he tried to force it, dirt fell, clogging the air. Suddenly everything around him seemed to be contracting even more, bearing down, crushing him.
More earth rained down on his spine.
The chute seemed to be resenting his intrusion.
He was stuck.
Mother of God.
What the—
The chute collapsed.
And he screamed.
* * *
Cassiopeia hustled as fast as the tunnel would allow, using her phone for illumination. She could only imagine what Cotton was experiencing. He hated tight places. This was tough even for her, and she wasn’t necessarily bothered by them. She’d moved a long way into the ground, maybe a hundred meters, the tunnel becoming progressively smaller, when she heard a shriek.
From ahead.
Not far.
She increased her pace and finally saw where the tunnel became more of a slit, closed onto itself.
There was movement.
Shards of light seeped out.
Oh, God.
Cotton was buried.
* * *
Malone lost it.
He could not remember the last time, if ever, he’d screamed. He felt silly and weak. The stink of his own fear had finally hammered him into submission. He closed his eyes as the reality of the situation washed over him. He heaved at his leaden body, arms and legs cramping with pain. He was buried, barely able to breathe, his brain locked with only one thought.
Get out.
How could—
“Cotton.”
He grabbed hold of himself.
A voice.
Firm, resonant, authoritative.
And familiar.
Cassiopeia.
Just hearing her yanked him back from the precipice.
“I’m here,” he said, trying hard to keep control.
Hands grabbed his shoes. The sensation of her touch calmed him. The dual grip on his ankles told his addled brain that he might be okay.
Hold on. Take it easy. Help is here.
“I’m sealed. I … can’t get out.”
“You can now,” she said.
* * *
Cassiopeia had dug her way in, tossing dirt out behind her, burrowing furiously until she’d found Cotton’s feet. She now kept a firm grip on his ankles and wiggled herself back out of the chute. Being smaller gave her a few more precious centimeters in which to maneuver.
The scream had been his, and she knew why.
If there was any concept of hell, which she did not necessarily believe in, this would be Cotton’s.
* * *
Malone wiggled his way backward, Cassiopeia helping things along with solid pulls on his legs. Just a few more feet and he’d be free of this coffin. He’d left the case and flashlight. Others could retrieve them later. He just wanted out. His feet and l
egs escaped the chute, back into the cramped three-by-three-foot tunnel, which seemed like Grand Central Station compared with where he’d just been.
He was on his knees, his breathing ragged but calming. A light came on from a phone and he saw Cassiopeia’s face. Like an angel.
“The bomb?” she asked.
“I got it.”
“You okay?”
He heard the concern and nodded.
But he wasn’t.
He dragged air into his aching lungs and fought a coughing fit, his whole body heaving, throat still filled with bile and fear.
She reached over and clasped his wrist. “I mean it. Are you okay? It’s just you and me here.”
“I was … buried.”
He knew his dirty face reflected pain and pleading, his features clawed with terror, but he did not try to hide any of it. Why? She’d heard his scream, revealing a vulnerability that someone like him would never want exposed. But they’d made a pact. No more bullshit.
So he decided to honor it.
He stared into her eyes, grateful for what she had done, and said what he felt. “I love you.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
WHITE HOUSE
MONDAY, JANUARY 21
5:45 P.M.
Stephanie studied the Oval Office, the room now clear of anything to do with the administration of Robert Edward Daniels Jr. Warner Scott Fox had taken the oath, as prescribed by the Constitution, yesterday at 12:00 noon. She’d stood just outside the Blue Room and watched, everything broadcast live to the world. The whole time both she and Edwin had wondered if they’d all be blown to dust from an underground nuclear explosion, but nothing had happened.
Cotton had done his job.
Which had allowed for the second ceremony today outside the Capitol. Fox had spoken in the cold for half an hour with a surprising eloquence, energy, and courage. The new president had enjoyed the inaugural parade, then returned to Blair House to prepare for an evening on the town, he and his wife moving from one ball to another. But first Danny had asked to speak with him, choosing here, in his old haunt, for a final conversation.
The gang was all there.
Cotton, Cassiopeia, Edwin Davis, and herself.
She’d reported everything to Danny yesterday, just after the swearing-in. She’d wanted to tell Fox, but Danny had vetoed that idea.