“Yes,” Adam said. “He wants to declare California an independent state that, I guess, he can rule over on his own.”
The guards glanced at each other. Then the sandy-haired one spoke again. Adam guessed he was the mouthpiece, and the other one was the muscle. Their body types certainly seemed to confirm that idea.
“We suspected that already,” the guard said. “We aren’t going to go along with it. One day, when this is all over, we’re going to want to put our country back together. We’re going to want to put the world back together.”
That’s optimistic, Adam thought, but he didn’t bother voicing disagreement. After all, what did he know? Maybe the guard was right. Maybe this would all be over some day, and maybe they would be able to return to a world more like the one they had all known before.
But that didn’t matter. There were bigger problems.
“General Thompson has a nuclear weapon at his disposal,” Adam said.
The guards looked at each other again.
“Would a nuke even work after the EMP?” the muscled one asked.
“I don’t think so,” said the sandy-haired one.
“He seems pretty confident that it’s going to work,” Adam said. “He’s had a nuclear scientist working on it. It’s at a power plant, and he’s rigged the old equipment with bombs, or something…I don’t know how it works, exactly. But I’d take this seriously if I were you.”
“Even if it is true,” the guard said, “there’s no way for him to bomb us here. He can’t possibly have a missile delivery system in place with all the power out.”
“He doesn’t,” Adam said. “He’s threatening to blow the bomb where it sits.”
“That would take out all of his people too.”
“He knows that,” Adam said. “He’s banking on the fact that you’ll flinch first. He says the water table would be contaminated, even all the way out here, and that you wouldn’t be able to survive.”
“He wants Californian independence that badly?” the guard asked.
“Apparently.”
“Then he definitely shouldn’t have it,” the muscled guard interjected. “How can we allow an independent nation state ruled over by such a maniacal person? We can’t let it happen.”
“It’s not for us to decide,” the sandy-haired guard said.
“You have to take it to the president,” Adam said.
They glanced at him, and then away.
“I know you’re thinking about keeping me here,” Adam said. “I know you—Vice President Knight—I know you don’t want to let me go back. But you have to let me go. There are people waiting on me, not far away from here, and if I don’t come back when I said I would, they’re going to take that as a no. They’re going to assume General Thompson’s request was denied, and they’re going to take that answer back to him.
Neither guard responded.
“Don’t delude yourselves into thinking that Thompson won’t do what he says he’ll do,” Adam said. “I don’t know what your experience with him is, but I can tell you that he’s a man who means what he says. He is committed to this course of action. He knows what the cost will be if he goes through with it, and he’s already decided that he doesn’t care.”
“He’s insane,” the sandy-haired guard murmured.
“Yes.” Adam felt, surprisingly, a sense of relief. This was the crucial point that he had feared they might not understand. “That’s exactly right. He’s insane.”
“What can we do?” the guard asked. “How can we stop him?”
“You need to let me speak to the president,” Adam said. “You need to let me tell him the story I’ve just told you. And then he is going to have to send me back to General Thompson with a letter or something that will convince the general he’s agreed to his terms.”
“Do you think Thompson will stand down if we do agree?” the muscled guard asked.
“I do,” Adam said. “He has no desire to use his weapon. He doesn’t want to be the man who ends the world. He’s just…very sure that this is necessary, that there’s no point to living unless he and the people in his state separate from the rest of the country.”
The guards exchanged glances again.
“We’re going to step outside and confer,” the sandy-haired one said to Adam. “We’re going to leave you in here while we make a decision about whether or not you’ll be permitted an audience with the president.”
Adam nodded. “I hope you’ll make the right decision,” he said.
The guards went out into the hall, leaving him alone in the little room. Adam looked around. It was clearly a makeshift medical facility, and probably the cleanest place Adam had been since before all this began. The cleanliness made him feel vaguely uncomfortable, as if he was imposing somewhere that he didn’t belong.
How lucky it had been that he’d been picked up and brought directly here.
And it seemed to be going well so far, he had to admit. At the very least, it was going far better than Adam had expected it would. No one had threatened him with death or incarceration. The worst think they seemed to have in store for him was keeping him here indefinitely.
Not that that wouldn’t be awful. He thought of Ella, waiting for him to come back, going through the motions of cooperating with the militia and aching for escape. But at least they’re not doing it to be unkind to me. It’s not vengeful or vindictive or cold. In that way, these people are already better than Thompson’s militia.
What was more, they seemed to be believing what he’d had to say. He’d been half afraid that he would be laughed at and sent on his way when he arrived here, but it seemed like that wasn’t the case. They were actually listening to him.
Maybe I can hope for a good result here. Maybe there’s a chance they’ll actually agree to Thompson’s demands.
The door swung open and the guards returned. They both wore expressions of doubt and uncertainty. Adam’s heart twanged. What had they decided?
If they don’t let me talk to Riddick, he thought, it’ll mean certain death for all of us.
Suddenly he was wishing heartily that he’d somehow managed to bring Ella along with him on this journey. He would have very much liked to have a friend at his side right now.
The sandy-haired guard spoke. “We’re going to take you to see the president now,” he said. “But we’ll be in the room the whole time, and if your story changes at all—if anything changes—we’ll be ready to set the record straight. Is that understood?”
“Understood,” Adam said.
“Fine,” the guard said. “Come with us, then.” And he turned and led the way out of the room.
Chapter 17
The guards led Adam down a long hall. For one claustrophobic moment, he was reminded viscerally of how it had felt to be underground with the nuclear weapon.
How much of what matters in the world these days is taking place underground? he wondered. Is anything real happening on the surface?
It was a disorienting thought. He had been through so much over the past few months. Was it possible the real battle was being fought down here the whole time?
And how many other bunkers might there be in the world? Adam and Ella had both been surprised by how few people they’d seen when they had returned to the mainland. Maybe that lack of people was in part because everyone had retreated to bunkers like this.
That isn’t right, Adam thought. You know that isn’t right. This place was designed for government use. It probably had millions of tax dollars behind it, back in the day. Nobody has building facilities like this at their private homes.
But he remembered John, the man he’d had to kill to protect himself and Ella. John had had a bunker, of sorts. It was nothing like this one, but there had been a couple of rooms and a wealth of supplies. It had been sufficient.
How many of those might exist around the world?
The guards stopped in front of a surprisingly heavy-looking oak door, and one of them stepped forward and knocke
d.
“Come in,” a voice called.
Adam was shown inside. Vice President Knight sat behind an expensive-looking desk. He looked up as Adam entered.
“You’ve made a decision, then?” he asked his guards.
The sandy-haired guard nodded. “You should talk to him,” he said. “Apparently General Thompson has rigged a nuclear weapon, and he’s planning to set it off if we don’t grant Californian independence.”
Knight sighed. “I was afraid something like that might happen.”
Adam found that hard to believe. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vice President, but…you were afraid of a nuclear weapon? Even after the EMP?”
“Not that specifically,” Knight said. “But I was certainly concerned that Thompson would find some way of attacking us, something that we wouldn’t be able to stand against. You’d better sit down, Mr. Parkhead.”
Adam took a seat opposite Knight.
“Leave us for a while,” Knight said to his guards.
They hesitated.
“Go on,” Knight said. “Courmier checked him when he was brought in. He’s not armed.”
The guards nodded and retreated.
Adam spoke first. “Mr. Vice President, I really need to speak with President Riddick about what’s going on in California.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Knight said.
Adam’s heart plummeted. “But it’s very important,” he insisted. “Unless the president is willing to personally guarantee California’s independence, General Thompson is going to detonate that bomb. Thousands of people will die—if not immediately then later, once their water supply is contaminated—and you and I will be among them.”
Knight shook his head. “You misunderstand,” he said quietly. “You can’t speak to President Riddick because he’s dead.”
“What?” Adam breathed.
“President Riddick died months ago,” Knight said. “He was among those who elected to get the nanobot injection, thinking that the bots would restore him to perfect health. Of course, we all know now how that turned out.”
Adam nodded. He could still remember those early days, when people had celebrated the fact that their health concerns were over. He remembered seeing a young man who’d been diagnosed with cancer interviewed on a talk show, talking about the miracle of having his life given back to him when he’d been sure he was going to die.
But President Riddick…
“He couldn’t have gotten the injection,” Adam said woodenly. “People would have known if he had. Pretty much everyone who got that injection went public. And President Riddick…”
He cut himself off. What could he say to the man in front of him? He couldn’t tell Knight what he really thought of Riddick—that the man had been a show-off. Riddick had gone on television to brag every time it was conceivable to do so, and Adam had gotten into the habit of changing the channel at the sight of the man’s face. There’s no way he got that injection and didn’t brag about it. There’s no way.
But Knight was shaking his head. “He wasn’t allowed to speak publicly about it,” he said. “It was deemed a security measure, and it’s policy for the administration not to comment on security measures taken to protect the president. But the bots turned on him, as they did on everyone else, and he was dead within weeks of the outbreak of the virus.”
“But…” Adam frowned. “That would have been weeks prior to the EMP being set off.” That might even have been before I left home for Cody’s yacht.
“That’s right,” Knight agreed.
“He was still on TV,” Adam said. “He was still on the radio. I heard him. We used to listen to his reports.” He remembered crowding around the radio with Artem and Sara on the yacht, trying to piece together what was happening on the mainland. He remembered the sound of President Riddick’s voice, loud and confident as always. Sometimes, when things had felt particularly dark, that voice had reassured him.
But Knight was shaking his head again. “It wasn’t him,” he said. “We doctored old recordings of his voice. We chopped up old speeches and stitched them together into the messaging we wanted to convey.”
“Why?” Adam asked. “Why would you do that? Why bother?”
“Because the nation was in turmoil,” Knight said. “Things were divisive enough when he was elected. I’m sure you remember.”
Adam did remember. It had been a close election, and neither Riddick nor his opponent had been well-liked. There had been a lot of anger surrounding the results of the election.
“With everything that was happening in the world,” Knight said, “the spread of the virus and the deaths of so many people, we wanted America to be able to put faith in a strong leader.”
“But he didn’t even exist,” Adam protested. “He was dead. You must have known that people would find out eventually.”
“Eventually, yes. And we had a plan for that. We began by leaking the truth to a few top-level military personnel.”
“Does General Thompson know?”
“We don’t know,” Knight said. “Thompson’s superior at Edwards was told the truth, but we don’t know if he passed that information along. We don’t know what Thompson knows.”
“I’ll have to tell him,” Adam realized, feeling cold. “I’ll have to tell him the truth about what’s going on here, that you’re serving as president now. If I’m not honest about that, he might think I’m lying about having been here at all.”
“I imagine that’s true,” Knight said. “But we might be able to discuss some alternative options, ways of dealing with the situation that would protect you and allow us to preserve secrecy.”
“Is that necessary at this point?” Adam asked. “I understand that you were trying to create a sense of a stable government before, but now that’s got to be a moot point, right? People are hardly aware of the existence of a government at all, so what difference does it make?”
“At this point, we’ve lied for too long about who we are,” Knight said. “We’ve let people believe that President Riddick is still in control. You’re new to General Thompson, but I’ve dealt with men like him all my life. They hate being misled, and they hate the idea that anything is ever out of their control.”
“That does sound like Thompson,” Adam agreed.
“We’d like to put an end to martial law someday,” Knight said. “At some point, we’d like to be able to rebuild the civilian government and take things back to the way they were before all this happened. But the only way martial law ever ends is if the military is willing to give up control. They’re so well regimented—and so well armed—that they can easily hold onto their power indefinitely if that’s what they choose to do.”
“You’re afraid martial law will last forever?”
“There’s every chance it will,” Knight said. “Even if Thompson doesn’t find out he was lied to about President Riddick, he’s shown his cards now. He doesn’t want California to secede because he’s so protective of the citizens of California. He wants it because he thinks he’s best suited to lead, and he never wants to give up the measure of control he’s found.”
“In that case, why not just let him go?” Adam asked. “Let him take California. Isn’t that a better result than having to fight with him for control of the nation as a whole?”
“Absolutely not,” Knight said.
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
“Terrorists?” Adam hadn’t thought to apply that word to General Thompson. And yet, now that he heard it spoken aloud, it fit the man all too well. He was threatening to kill thousands of people, including the president, in order to get what he wanted.
“If I let California secede,” Knight said, “Thompson will still have that bomb at his disposal. And what’s more, he’ll know that the threat of setting it off is enough to make me cave to his demands. Who knows what he’ll decide to ask for next? I have to show him that I can’t be swayed, not even by the t
hreat of attack.”
Adam was surprised. He’d never thought of Knight as a particularly strong or opinionated man. As vice president, he had largely stood in Riddick’s shadow, never voicing an opinion or daring to disagree. But ascending to power must have changed him. Adam had to admit that he felt a degree of respect for what Knight was saying.
This is the kind of man we need in charge at a time like this, he realized. Someone steady. Someone confident. Someone who’s more concerned with doing what’s best for the nation than with having a spotlight.
Was he falling into the same old trap he’d almost fallen into at General Thompson’s base? It was hard to be sure. Adam’s fatal flaw, he knew, was his eagerness to trust people. He wanted to believe that Knight was a good man, someone who cared for the remaining survivors and wanted to do what he could to build a safe and happy new world. He wanted to believe that he had at last found someone in power who he could align himself with.
What would Ella say if she were here?
He needed her perspective. Ella was the one who could see the danger in these situations. Ella was always the one who was able to point out problems, to help Adam see why someone he’d thought was trustworthy was actually a risk.
I wish she was here right now.
But if he was ever going to get back to Ella, he was going to have to convince Knight to cooperate with Thompson’s demands.
“Mr. President,” Adam said. “I think your concerns are valid. But let me assure you—he may be borderline insane, but General Thompson doesn’t want to set off that bomb any more than you want him to. I don’t believe he’ll use it as a bargaining chip in the future. He’s got his heart set on Californian independence, and he’ll go to the mat for it, but if he gets what he wants on this issue, I don’t think he’ll bother you again.”
“I can’t take that risk,” Knight said. “You must understand why I can’t.”
“You can’t tell him no,” Adam protested. “He will set off the bomb in that case, sir. He won’t just learn that threats don’t work. And if he sets that bomb off, there won’t be anything left to rebuild. It won’t matter that you didn’t give in to a terrorist, because you’ll be dead, and so will the rest of the government, not to mention everyone west of the Rocky Mountains.”
Escape The Dark (Book 4): Caught In The Crossfire Page 13