by D C Alden
Ray scooped up the hotel stationary from the carpet, the one that said, I am infected with the H-1 virus. I am locked in the bathroom. Do not open! Call the police! He left the phone on the bureau and unpacked the Powerbook. He ordered more coffee and after it arrived he sat at the writing desk and began to type. At exactly three p.m., the Samsung rang, vibrating on the dark mahogany bureau.
Ray’s heart rate began to climb. He got to his feet and picked up the phone. He swiped to answer it, then waited in silence as he looked out across the snowy expanse of Lafayette Park, and at the White House beyond.
‘Ray Wilson?’ asked the voice on the other end of the line.
‘Who’s this?’
The line hissed. ‘Am I talking to Ray Wilson?’ The voice was edgier now, more insistent.
’This is he.’
More silence, then what sounded like an exhale of breath. ‘You made it out of Lubbock. I can’t tell you how pleased I am.’
’Not as pleased as me,’ Ray shot back.
‘I saw the White House press conference. The President was very upset.’
‘How would you know?’
‘I was there,’ the voice said.
The more he spoke, the more familiar the man sounded. Ray wracked his brain, trying to nail it down. ‘We’ve met, right?’
‘Not officially.’
More silence. Ray was getting impatient. ‘Well, you have my attention, sir, and time is short. Who are you and what is it you want?’
At the other end of the phone Ray heard the man clear his throat. When he spoke again it was in a calm, measured tone.
‘My name is Erik Mulholland, President Coffman’s Chief of Staff. Along with several others, I’m responsible for the deaths of millions and before I hand myself in I’d like to go on the record.’
Ray’s hand tightened around the phone. For the first time in many years, he found himself unable to speak.
Bitch Slap
Coffman felt as if she’d been trapped in the Situation Room forever.
The weight of the mountain was pressing down on her, and she saw that same pressure reflected on the faces of her Cabinet and National Security Council, their knotted brows and worried words, all of them squeezed by the tension between the granite walls.
Up on the video wall, satellite imagery from Shanghai was being fed onto several screens. It was recognisable only by its geography and the twists and turns of the Huangpu River. Everything else was gone, a city not just flattened but obliterated. The surface burst had left a crater two-hundred feet deep and four-hundred wide, and nothing stood for three miles in any direction. Far outside the city, firestorms raged around the horizon, sweeping through damaged and densely-populated districts. Shanghai had been effectively wiped off the map.
Understandably, the talk in the room was all about China. The Chinese premiere wasn’t taking any calls, not even from the President of the United States, a snub that had infuriated Coffman. Quietly, she prayed the Beijing outbreak would begin soon. She was irritable and restless. The people around her grated on her nerves. The truth was, she was deeply troubled.
As Grady delivered yet another Homeland Security update to the room, Coffman’s phone buzzed with an incoming message. She got to her feet, cutting Grady off in mid-sentence.
‘Charlie, Karen, can I get a moment please?’
Schultz and Baranski followed Coffman out of the room. Her Secret Service detail formed a protective box around her as they hurried along the smooth stone hallway. China was now only the second country in history to have detonated a nuke in anger. Granted, it was in self-defence, but international tensions were high and Coffman was eager to calm them. There was no point inheriting an irradiated world.
Bob Blake waited for her in her private suite. He was standing by the huge windows overlooking the plateau below when she entered. He met her halfway across the room.
‘Madam President, I hope I haven’t — ’
Coffman whipped back her hand and slapped Blake around the face. He staggered backwards, eyes wide, a hand nursing his glowing red cheek.
‘Where is she?’ Coffman yelled at him.
‘Who?’
‘Marion, you fucking retard. Where is she?’
Blake shook his head. ‘She hasn’t checked in.’
Coffman held up her phone. ‘You told me that already. Do the Chinese have her?’
‘There’s no way of knowing.’
‘So, she’s probably talking.’
‘Or she could be dead. The city shut down pretty fast, ma’am. Besides, the only person she can implicate is Matt, and he’s barely conscious right now.’
‘You mean Matt Sorenson? An American citizen closely tied to the US defence industry and the Coffman administration? Is that the Matt Sorenson you’re referring to?’ Coffman gave him a cold, hard stare. ‘You made all this sound so fucking easy, Bob.’
Blake held up his hands. ‘Everything is still on track, I can assure you.’
‘Oh really? Philip is dead and Marion is missing, possibly captured. Four countries should be on the brink of collapse right now, but instead, three of them are business as usual and the fourth is an irradiated wasteland. How the fuck are things still on track, Bob?’
‘Ma’am, the deployment team is waiting at the ranch as we speak. With Matt so sick, I’ll need to get down there, brief them, assign targets, travel documents and infected materials, then send them on their way. It could take some time.’
Coffman took a step closer. She folded her arms and looked into Blake’s eyes. She saw an eyelid flutter in anticipation of another slap, but Coffman had no intention of hitting him again. Not today at least.
‘Where are the H-1 stockpiles?’
‘We’ve got two one-hundred litre drums. One is at the ranch in Arizona, the other in a climate-controlled room at the house in Seattle.’
‘Is the ranch secure?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Fifty Northridge contractors are working external security, Peruvians mostly, and there’s another dozen covering the main house and outbuildings. It’s all very discreet, no uniforms, lots of CCTV, and way off the beaten path.’
Coffman chewed her lip, deep in thought. Finally she said, ‘I need you to do two things for me, Bob.’
Blake stood a little straighter. ‘Anything, Madam President.’
‘Firstly, I need that deployment team on the move asap. I want to see those outbreaks all over the news. I want to see Istanbul, Cairo and Beirut in flames and I want to see Nigeria become twice the hellhole it already is.’
Blake didn’t argue. In fact, Coffman thought he looked relieved.
‘And the other thing, ma’am?’
‘I need you to take care of Matt. Unplug his respirator, squeeze an air bubble into his vein, whatever. Just make sure he expires before someone makes the connection. Can you do that for me, Bob?’
Blake tipped his large head. ‘I’ll be doing the poor bastard a favour.’
Coffman raised an eyebrow. ‘So what’re you waiting for?’
Blake took the hint and hurried from the room. Coffman invited Schultz and Baranski to join her at the dining table.
‘Any word from Erik?’ she asked. The looks on their faces told her all she needed to know. ‘Me neither. No phone calls, no messages, no emails, nothing. So, we must assume the worst. Erik is talking, which means we’re all going to prison for the rest of our lives. If we’re lucky.’
Baranski’s face had turned as white as the snow outside the window. ‘I just can’t see him betraying you, ma’am. He adores you, always has. He wouldn’t do this.’
‘Don’t be naïve, Karen. Erik isn’t coming back. This is a damage-limitation exercise now, so we need to undermine any testimony, discredit him personally.’
Schultz winced. ‘Ma’am, with all due respect, this isn’t going to be a wrongful termination lawsuit. Erik literally knows where the bodies are buried. When they come for us, it’ll be with guns and leg irons. Like they did with your pre
decessor.’
‘Oh my God,’ Baranski whispered.
Coffman rapped her knuckles on the table. ’Focus, Karen. I want a file on Erik, as thick as you can make it. Drug use, sexual impropriety, dubious contacts with foreign nationals, anything you can think of. Oh, and his recent mental health issues of course. Depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, you know the drill. Go, get to work.’
Baranski left the room without another word. Coffman rested her elbows on the table and rubbed her face. The last week had taken a heavy toll, and it wasn’t over by a long chalk. This is what you wanted, she reminded herself, but now there was nowhere she could run, no place to hide. If this blew back on her, there was only one way out.
‘Are you okay, ma’am?’
Coffman opened her eyes and offered the admiral a weak smile. ‘Not really, Charlie.’ She took a deep breath and folded her arms on the table. ‘So let’s play this out. China first. Let’s assume they have Marion, and that she’s talking. She implicates Matt, and when she does, the Chinese will begin to suspect our involvement.’
‘Sorenson won’t be a factor at that point.’
‘But his legacy will be. A proud American and patriot, that’s how he portrayed himself. Beijing is paranoid at the best of times. So we drop it all in Matt’s lap.’
‘How?’
Coffman pinched her lip, deep in thought. ‘The Brit. The one they captured in Vienna. He becomes our star witness.’
‘But they’ve never met,’ Schultz pointed out.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll make sure he’s coached. And when he’s ready he’ll make a statement, tell the world about Matt’s cancer, of how the guilt began to eat him up.’
‘Guilt?’
‘Yes, Charlie. Kroll weapons have been dropped on America’s enemies countless times. With death knocking on Matt’s door, the guilt secretly ate him up, twisted his mind. The Brit will confirm his descent into madness and his determination to reshape the planet before he checked out. To punish us all.’ Coffman shrugged. ‘Something along those lines anyway. Start working the problem, Charlie.’
Schultz shook his head. ‘Beijing won’t buy it, ma’am. Accusations will be made. Tensions will rise — ’
‘Meanwhile Bob will get one or more of his people over their border and release the virus. Then it won’t matter. Let’s keep spitballing.’
Schultz drew his chair in a little closer. ‘Okay, so Sorensen dies and the Chinese are thrown off the scent, but that still leaves Erik. His confession will be more devastating than that Shanghai nuke.’
‘Agreed, and I know Erik better than anyone; he would’ve thought this through before he made his move, which means he’s holding a get-out-of-jail card. Audio, video, something deeply incriminating and irrefutable.’
Schultz lowered his voice. ‘Every conversation we had pertaining to H-1 was electronically scrambled. Audio equipment would not have worked.’
‘I had many private conversations with Erik,’ Coffman confessed, ‘and I didn’t always take precautions.’ She saw the look on Schultz’s face and shrugged. ‘I never doubted Erik’s loyalty for a second.’
‘So, what do we do?’
‘We need to find him before anyone else. If I can speak to him, we might have an opportunity to get this thing back on the rails.’
‘That could prove difficult. If he’s spilling his guts they’ll have him buried somewhere deep.’
‘Are you saying we can’t find him, Charlie?’
Schultz leaned across the table. ‘Ma’am, I’m saying that the Feds could be on their way here right now. Coming for us.’
Coffman pushed her chair back and stood. Charlie was right, the wheels for their arrest might already be in motion. Might. Because the chance still existed Erik had suffered some sort of breakdown and gone into hiding. The question was, could she take that chance? No, her inner voice told her.
‘Then we go to plan B.’ Coffman lowered her voice, even though she knew the room was clean. ‘We stage another outbreak, here at home, in Los Angeles. The place is a cesspit anyway, and it’ll ease pressure on the border if Lubbock hasn’t made people think twice already. No containment this time, and when the infection spreads, we suspend the constitution, shutting down any potential investigation, and invoke martial law. And while attentions are diverted, we find Erik and make him disappear.’
Schultz’s face paled. ‘This is it, then? We go all in?’
‘Or it’s the perp walk, Charlie. In those leg irons you mentioned.’
‘Fuck me,’ he whispered.
Coffman smiled. ’Time to go all in.’
‘We need to speak to Bob, work out the details.’
Coffman bit her lip. ‘I shouldn’t have hit him. He won’t forget that.’
‘He deserved it.’
‘Maybe, but we need him more than ever now. We need his people on the move, we need China to fold and we need America to panic. LA has to make Lubbock look like an outbreak of head lice in a kindergarten.’
‘That’s a lot of spinning plates,’ Schultz said, grimacing.
‘It’s nothing we can’t handle. In the meantime, Karen will keep a discreet eye on the Judiciary and the FBI, see if she can pick up any whispers. Don’t forget, we’ve got a lot of friends, Charlie. We need to reach out to them, discreetly, find out if there’s anything in the wind.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Schultz got to his feet. Coffman came around the table and squeezed his arm. ‘It’s going to be okay. We keep our heads, and we keep our ears open. Bob will take care of the rest.’
‘I hope you’re right, ma’am.’
Coffman cocked her head. ‘Go. Get to work.’
She heard the door hiss closed behind him. She crossed to the drinks cabinet and poured herself a large glass of Argentinian Malbec. She dimmed the lights and sat by the fire, imagining a life without Erik Mulholland. The thought saddened her. The truth was, she felt alone without him. She’d assumed he’d always be with her, standing by her side as she became the world’s first global leader, then later, as her companion. He’d always been there, in her plans, her thoughts, and sometimes her dreams. Yes, part of her was in love with him, despite his homosexuality. He was smart, warm, cultured, fiercely loyal, occasionally hilarious and pleasing to the eye. He was the reason she’d never taken a life partner. No other man could live up to the promise of Erik Mulholland.
Now he was gone, and Coffman couldn’t shake her mounting loneliness. She thought about his murder, and it made her feel nauseous. There were other ways, of course. A private plane, a day or two under the knife of a plastic surgeon, a period of rehabilitation on a private island somewhere. She knew one or two people who had taken that path and wondered if Erik could be persuaded to do the same, because the truth was, his death would haunt her far more than the millions she’d already caused.
She sipped her wine, savouring its flavour as she stared into the flames. Everything was a gamble, including life itself. The world was filled with winners and losers, and Coffman had always worked the angles to ensure she remained on the winning side.
This time would be no different.
The city of Cumberland in the state of Maryland is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Located on a bend in the Potomac River close to the Appalachian mountains, the city once served as a major staging post for those travelling west across the country, where horses, wagons and supplies could be procured, and where hardy souls saddled up and headed out west, to the vast, untamed land beyond the wooded mountains.
Now Cumberland was in decline, abandoned by trade and industry for more strategically commercial locations on the east coast. But it was still a proud city, one steeped in history, and its inhabitants seemed pretty happy. At least that was the impression Mulholland got during his time as a new resident.
He’d blended in well too. He downgraded his wardrobe and rented a modest apartment in a former warehouse, with exposed-brick walls, metal-framed windows and off-street parking, which meant Mu
lholland could keep his friend’s car hidden from passing eyes. The landlord had taken cash with a conspiratorial wink and no questions asked.
He’d settled in and waited, calling the burner twice a day, once at ten a.m. and again at three p.m. He hadn’t expected an answer, assuming the man was dead, but he was top of Mulholland’s list. He’d keep trying until his death was made official, then start moving down his list of trusted reporters.
But Ray Wilson had made it out of Lubbock and answered the phone. For that, Mulholland was grateful. Now it was in the lap of the gods.
The diner was called City Lights and was located downtown, right on Baltimore Street. It was pretty upmarket for Cumberland, and Mulholland had claimed a booth that offered an unrestricted view of the door. It was also close to the kitchen, just in case he had to make a fast exit.
It wasn’t quite lunchtime but a few old folks drifted in, a lot of checked shirts, denim and baseball caps, accompanied by their overweight wives. Mulholland settled back and waited, nursing a coffee. He’d been there for less than fifteen minutes when the man walked in. Mulholland raised his hand and the man veered towards him. He saw him frown as he approached the booth.
Mulholland smiled. ‘Did you think I’d be wearing my Tom Ford?’
He wasn’t, of course. Instead he wore scruffy jeans and an old hoodie, a baseball cap and cheap glasses. The sophisticated urbanite was gone, replaced by poor white trash. Mulholland held out his hand and the man took it.
‘Mister Wilson, thank you for coming.’
Wilson took off his cap and coat and sat opposite. Coffee was served. Mulholland took a sip and settled back in his seat.
‘No one knows you’re here, right? You’ve not discussed this meeting with anyone else, especially over the telephone or via the internet, correct?’
Wilson nodded. ‘I’ve done this before.’
‘Not at this level.’ Mulholland glanced over Wilson’s shoulder and watched a younger couple enter the premises. They smiled at the waitress and took a seat across the restaurant. Mulholland couldn’t tell if they were genuine or not. He just didn’t have that type of experience. He turned his attention back to Wilson.