by Rawlin Cash
It would change history.
But now, this fat fuck of an imbecile, one out of the king’s literally hundreds of cousins, a man who couldn’t find his ass if you handed it to him on a silver platter, was about to stick his grubby hands into it and mess everything up.
“I can’t take new orders,” he said, and then belatedly added, “sir.”
“This is straight from the Crown Prince. You must see to it personally.”
“The Crown Prince wouldn’t ask me to do anything today.”
“He’s worried about the Merry Widow.”
“He’s always worried about her.”
“He’s got a lot invested in her.”
“I know,” Jamal said. “I’m the one who checks in on that investment.”
“Well, that’s what he wants you to do today.”
“Today?”
“Yes, today. And don’t speak to me like I’m an idiot, Al-Wahad. My cousin might think you’re valuable, but I’m not nearly as infatuated with you.”
“You’re sure, Adel? Today?”
“Yes, today. He says there’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time to make sure she’s ready to keep up her end of the bargain.”
“The speech is in seven hours,” Jamal said.
“And it’s all for nothing if Meredith Brooks is on the wrong page.”
Five minutes later, Jamal was on the street hailing a cab. He couldn’t believe it. The top brass in Riyadh were more nervous than he’d realized. They were checking and double checking so much that it would cause someone to make a mistake. Jamal had seen it too many times in the field. The last thing you wanted a soldier to do before the heat of battle was check his gun. The time for checking had passed. Now was time for action.
But he didn’t dare disobey a direct order.
He hailed a cab and told the driver to take him to Hill East, next to the Congressional Cemetery. He checked his phone on the drive. A tracker had been placed on the target’s car months ago and he needed to see if it was still working. It was. The car was at Meredith’s house in Silver Spring.
The target was a lawyer. If the situation was different, he might have been useful in his own right. He worked for a lobbying firm that had a number of major weapons manufacturers as clients. They also represented the United Arab Emirates. There was information there that the Crown Prince would have enjoyed having access to.
But that wasn’t what they were after. For now, the most important thing about this target, this Mark Caplan, age forty-one, weight one-eighty, height six-one, was that he was dating Meredith Brooks, the Merry Widow, the woman that all the Crown Prince’s plans hinged on.
The government of Saudi Arabia had a lot tied up in that woman and today was the day they were coming to collect. The Crown Prince wanted Jamal to personally make sure she was fully aware of the consequences of any breach of faith.
Keeping tails on her daughter was one thing, but she had to be reminded that they did more than make threats. They were a dog that knew how to bite.
There was a garage at Potomac and Nineteenth. Across Nineteenth Street was the DC Correctional Facility, crawling with security cameras, but the garage opened onto Potomac and no cameras covered the angle.
Jamal knew because he’d made sure of it when he signed the lease.
He unlocked the garage door and swung it open. Inside was a ten-year-old Dodge Charger with fake license plates. The manufacturer’s computer chip had been altered to remove identifying information and the vehicle’s serial number had also been removed.
The car had a full tank of gas, a handgun in the glovebox, and a crowbar in the trunk. There was a pair of leather gloves and a ski mask on the driver’s seat.
The key was in a safe in the garage and he opened it and got the key, unlocked the car, and got inside. In the driver’s seat he put on the gloves and started the engine. He let it run for a moment listening to the engine then drove onto the street, got back out, and locked up the garage.
He used his phone to watch the target’s location and drove toward Silver Spring along Georgia Avenue. As he neared the neighborhood, the target’s car started to move. That was convenient. His job was to send a message to Brooks. The easiest way to do that would be to kill Caplan, a bullet in the chest, there was nothing simpler, but that wasn’t the cleanest way. The last thing the embassy needed at this time was a police investigation. Something in the car, an accident, even a hit and run, would be less risky.
Jamal Al-Wahad was good at his job. He took pride in it. He was a professional. He watched movies and read books about top-notch hitmen and liked to think of himself as one of them. He did research. He read. He wasn’t a mindless thug. The Crown Prince only hired the best of everything, the best lawyers, the best accountants, the best killers.
Jamal knew, for instance, that in the DC area, the murder of a white man in Mark Caplan’s position would draw in dozens of investigators and log hundreds of hours of police time. Because of Caplan’s job, the FBI could potentially be called in. The best forensics teams would be used, all witnesses would be spoken to, extreme scrutiny would be placed on Meredith Brooks, potentially ruining her for the role the Crown Prince had carved out for her.
A murder was a simple thing, but a dogged police investigator could be a major pain in the ass.
On the other hand, a car accident, even one involving fatalities and a driver fleeing the scene, would barely draw in more than a handful of cops. There would be two detectives max, and they would be working multiple other cases simultaneously.
Jamal knew what so many thugs and drug dealers could have benefitted greatly from knowing. That if you wanted to kill a rich, white man in Washington DC, the best way to do it was with a vehicle.
Caplan was on the beltway heading in the direction of his home. Jamal figured that was the most likely destination. He drove through Woodside and got on the beltway just before Forest Glen. He knew he had time to catch up to Caplan and didn’t rush. He was over the speed limit, he was driving aggressively, but no more than any other asshole in a hurry. He wove in and out of the traffic for a few miles and soon saw Caplan’s car ahead of him.
It was too easy. He didn’t even have to make sure Caplan died. All he had to do was fuck with him, send the Merry Widow a message.
Caplan was in the fast line doing about seventy. Jamal gunned his engine, cut in front of him, and then jammed the brakes.
Caplan was paying attention. He braked immediately but Jamal had slowed down so drastically that Caplan was still forced to swerve into the next lane to avoid a collision.
Caplan’s car, a Jeep with a soft top, lost traction and began skidding wildly. He flew past Jamal. Jamal watched, fully prepared to ram into him.
But he didn’t need to. A huge semi plowed right into Caplan’s vehicle and then began to jackknife. Another car slammed into the semi. And another.
Jamal sped up and kept going, but even in his rearview mirror he could see a pileup forming that Caplan would be lucky to walk away from alive.
Eight
The State of the Union was the president’s best chance to get the attention of the nation. It was one of the most highly anticipated events of the political calendar, was carried by all the major networks, and enjoyed a sense of history and prestige that was impossible to recreate at a rally or press conference.
Since George Washington’s first address in 1790, it was a moment all president’s instinctively knew held special potency. In 1823, President Monroe used it to announce the Monroe Doctrine, which ever since, had been a defining tenet of US foreign policy. Roosevelt used the 1941 address to commit the United States to protecting the Four Freedoms around the globe. Lyndon B Johnson used it in 1964 to launch the War on Poverty. In 2002, Bush used it to refer to North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as the Axis of Evil for the first time.
Jackson knew it had to be tonight. If he blew this speech he wouldn’t get another chance. It was the beginning of his fina
l year in office and the election hype machine was already in full gear. In another few months they’d be calling him a lame duck.
He sat across the table from Emily, the two of them having a private dinner in the last hours before the speech. Jackson hadn’t touched his food.
“You don’t like beef now?” Emily said.
Jackson was distracted. He didn’t respond immediately, and when he did, it was to say, “Gary’s already down there.”
The State of the Union took place each year before a joint session of Congress at the invitation of the Speaker of the House. To accommodate the crowd, which included senators, members of congress, cabinet officials, supreme court justices, and hundreds of official guests, the House of Representatives, which was the larger of the two congressional chambers, was the venue.
Emily poured herself a glass of chilled Chardonnay.
“Have you spoken to Blackmore and Brooks?” she said.
“I spoke to them.”
“And?”
“They’re still good. Nothing’s changed.”
“Well, that’s good.”
Jackson nodded. He looked at his watch. “We better get ready,” he said.
Emily finished her wine before getting up.
The chamber of the House of Representatives made up the southern half of the US Capitol building. It was connected to the senate by the rotunda and huge dome overlooking the national mall. It had all been burned to the ground in 1814 by the British and rebuilt, larger and grander. The copper-clad dome was a hundred feet in diameter and the cast iron statue at its top weighed over four tons.
Thirty minutes before the start of the speech, 430 congress members took their seats, along with their guests, security personnel, journalists and camera crews from every major news outlet in the country.
Jennifer Blackmore was in her speaker’s seat behind the rostrum, dressed in a white gown. She looked like something out of a Renaissance religious painting. Next to her was the vice president.
The room hummed with chatter.
In accordance with long-established protocol, the sergeant-at-arms approached the rostrum and Jennifer handed him the list of congress members who would accompany the president into the chamber.
“You look dashing,” Walker said to her.
He was wearing a bolo tie and ornate leather boots and looked more like JR Ewing than the vice president of the country.
“You’re a charmer, Gary.”
“I could be,” he said.
“We could all be a lot of things,” Jennifer said.
“I mean it, Jennifer. We should get together soon.”
Jennifer had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. That was a gesture that was sure to go viral with so many cameras on her.
She looked out across the chamber. The lights reminded her of her theater days back in college.
Five members of the house and three senators were not in their seats. It wasn’t because they’d skipped the occasion, but because of designated survivor measures enacted in the aftermath of 9/11. They were being held in separate, undisclosed locations under the protection of the secret service, to continue the work of congress in the case of an attack.
The presidential line of succession was also being safeguarded with its own designated survivor. This year’s lucky winner was Adnan Hashim, the Secretary of Agriculture. It had been noticed by not a few commentators that if something actually were to happen and the designated survivor was relied on, the presidency would fall for the first time to a practicing muslim.
The president had shrugged when Jackson brought that up. “What do I care?” he said. “I’ll be dead.”
The sergeant-at-arms came back out and announced the Dean of the Diplomatic Corp, the Justices of the Supreme Court, and the members of the Cabinet. They filed in and took their assigned seats in the front row.
Jennifer caught Walker’s eye and leaned in to him.
“You fellas sure you want to go through with this?” she said.
He laughed. “Kind of late to back out now.”
The first lady was being escorted to her seat. That was the signal that things were about to begin. Jennifer looked to the side door and saw the sergeant-at-arms.
He stepped inside and, raising his voice, said, “Madam Speaker, the President of the United States.”
The applause began, louder from the president’s own side of the aisle. He walked slowly toward the rostrum, his congressional escort following behind. He paused to shake hands with members of congress as he passed.
He walked to the House Clerk’s desk and received two manilla envelopes. They contained the speech, the final draft, the one he was happy with.
It was a showstopper. He was sure of it. If this speech didn’t secure his legacy, if it didn’t put him in the history books, nothing would.
He handed one of the envelopes to Walker and the other to Jennifer. Her smile when he handed her the speech seemed off. Sarcastic maybe. Self-satisfied.
She stood up next to him.
“Members of Congress,” she said in her gravelly voice.
If it wasn’t for her voting record on big tobacco, he’d have sworn she was a closet smoker.
“I have the high privilege,” she continued, “and distinct honor of presenting to you the President of the United States.”
The applause filled the chamber. A thousand people got to their feet. The powerful and the wise, the lords and the saints, the mighty and the proud.
This was what Jeremiah Jackson lived for. The elites of the most powerful nation on earth. The most powerful people in the history of the species. These people could vote to end the planet if they wanted.
If that didn’t make them gods, what did?
“My fellow Americans,” he said.
He paused for more applause.
He looked around the room. He looked over his shoulder at Walker and Jennifer. The two of them looked thick as thieves sitting there together.
He turned back to the crowd.
“The state of the union has never been more precarious.”
The applause stopped.
“We are not safe.”
A murmur began among some quarters of the room.
“We are not safe on our streets. We are not safe in our beds. We are not safe in our cities. We are not safe at our border.”
Photographers snapped furiously. The cameras zoomed in on the president. It was going exactly as he’d hoped.
“There is more blood on our streets today than at any time in our history. Last year, we suffered more casualties in our own territory than all the combat casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria combined.”
He looked up.
All eyes were on him.
“Our forces are pressed everywhere. In Europe, a resurgent Russia is straining against the territorial shackles of her borders. Incursions against our allies in the Caucasus and Eastern Europe are destabilizing the entire region.”
There were murmurs of agreement from his strongest supporters.
“The People’s Liberation Army of China has two million active service personnel. Their military budget, advanced technology and power projection capability is rapidly catching up to our own. In the South China Sea, they are threatening regional territorial settlements and global shipping patterns in a manner that puts them on a collision course with our own strategic interests.”
There was stronger applause, from both sides of the aisle this time.
“Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and all my fellow Americans. Tonight, I present to you our path forward. For too long have we let our enemies grow in strength, for too long have we turned the other cheek while they sharpen their sabers and provoke our retribution. Tonight, that meek, cowardly stance comes to an end.”
He waited. The chamber was very quiet. Gary, that fucker, was supposed to lead the applause. Jennifer was supposed to follow his lead. He didn’t dare look over his shoulder
at them. The silence was deafening.
Had he misjudged the sentiment of the nation?
He looked down at the speech. He was about to move on when a single person began to applaud from the front row.
It was Emily.
He looked at her and felt a lump in his throat.
Slowly, the people in her row joined in the applause and before long, the entire chamber was applauding.
He cleared his throat.
“In the aftermath of the Second World War, two super powers emerged from the ashes. The Soviet Union, and the United States. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Communist system, that left us alone as the sole super power. Ladies and gentlemen, that position was a Trojan horse. It bred complacency. It caused us to let down our guard. It made us weak.”
He paused and looked at the crowd. They were quiet again.
“Tonight, I have the grim task of coming before Congress to report on the state of our union. I have to tell the truth. I do not have the luxury of sugar coating facts that are already threatening our very survival. So here it is.”
He paused again. He could have heard a pin drop.
“The United States has lost its position as the world’s only super power. We are no longer living in the era of American hegemony. We are now living in a Second Cold War. A war of information, of espionage, of increasing military might and futuristic military technology, a war of economics and of culture. And make no mistake, this struggle will decide not just the future of America, but the future of human political and cultural development for decades to come.”
He paused. The room was so quiet, so rife with tension, he didn’t know if he was about to have the biggest success of his presidency, or the biggest disaster.
“We are engaged in a war of the highest order, and we are fighting multiple foes.”
A final pause. This was it. This was the moment he would be remembered for. There was no going back now. He’d ratcheted everything to breaking point. He could see it already in the faces of the crowd. He’d arrived.
“We are at war, a new Cold War, with a handful of major nations around the globe who are actively challenging our position in the world. I include Russia on that list, but I also include China, and North Korea, and Iran, and Venezuela, and Syria. These nations have diverging interests, but they are coalescing around a single cause. They seek to form a counterweight to our power. And they are growing in strength by the day, pulling in new, lesser powers who oppose our interests all over the globe. In Cuba, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Bolivia, in Nicaragua, new forces are rising up who’s interests are diametrically opposed to our own. And more join forces with them every day. It is happening at a time when our own grip on the world is weakening. The ties that bind NATO are unraveling before our eyes. The alignment of our interests with strategic partners like Saudi Arabia and Japan are weaker than ever. Formerly neutral or friendly states like Brazil, India, and Nigeria are increasingly unreliable. The European Union is growing closer to Russia. The Saudis are acting against Israel. The international framework we set up after the Second World War is on its knees.”