by Rawlin Cash
Neither of them said anything then. Hale watched Hunter and he knew he was running things over in his head, trying to figure out the memories, unscramble the maze.
They finished the coffee and still they sat there.
It wasn’t until Fawn entered the room that Hunter spoke.
“Maybe I will,” he said.
Twenty-Nine
Hunter was agitated. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like being distracted when there was so much at stake. The owner of the Greenbrier was a man in his seventies and Hunter had to get a read on him as quickly as possible. One wrong word from him and everything could go to shit.
He looked at the man, tried to pierce him with his gaze. He was old. He was straightforward. He was open. Good body language. Good eye contact.
Fawn showed him to the president’s room.
“Mr. Vine, this is Jennifer Blackmore.”
“I know who you are, Ma’am,” the old man said. “You’re very welcome here.”
“Thank you,” Jennifer said.
“My family took our obligation to the government very seriously,” Vine said.
“It’s unfortunate that the secret got out in the end,” Jennifer said.
“It was the government that had the leak. Someone in the Energy Department spoke to the Post. It was never us.”
“I’m reassured to hear that,” Jennifer said.
“We kept that secret for fifty years,” Vine said. “We had an agreement to sign over all thirteen thousand acres to the government the moment an attack struck. We were ready to do it too.”
“Well, it looks like that moment might have arrived after all.”
“I thought for sure threats like this were gone,” Mr. Vine said. “When the wall came down, Gorbachev, all that.”
“It appears there’s always a new threat,” Jennifer said. “And I can assure you I’m very grateful for your help in this crisis.”
“Fifty years,” Vine said. “My father would be astounded to see we were finally being called upon to meet our vow. He was heartbroken when the story leaked and the arrangement was terminated.”
“You know,” Hale said, “that secrecy is of the utmost importance. We’re out here on our own. It’s going to take time for the government to secure the location. We need to get the president down to the bunker without anyone knowing.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Vine said. “I can have the museum closed for maintenance. We can get the president down through a service elevator. All the old systems are intact. They’re a bit old and dusty, but the bunker has its own water, power, ventilation, everything you need. It’s completely self-contained. You can even broadcast from down there.”
“Well,” Hale said, “let’s make the call and get the tourists out. I’d like to get down there as soon as possible. I can’t notify anyone in DC until we’re secure.”
Hunter and Vine went to the bunker to make sure everything was ready. At the front desk, Vine told his staff there was a problem with the air quality and the bunker had to be cleared out.
“We got a carbon monoxide warning,” Vine said. “Make sure no one goes back in.”
As it happened, there were no tourists or staff down there anyway. It wasn’t the attraction it had once been.
They went through the hotel lobby, through a private door, and along a hundred yard corridor that led to a huge, steel blast door.
“Twenty-five tons,” Vine said.
Hunter looked at it. It was a work of art. He pushed it with his hand and it swung as easily as if it was the door of a small safe.
“Very smooth,” he said.
“They built this place right,” Vine said, leading the way through the museum.
The whole place looked like a movie set. Everything was set up exactly as it had been in the fifties. It was during Eisenhower’s presidency that the facility was at its most ready.
They walked past dated wallpaper, upholstered furniture, and floor lamps with velvet shades. There was a snack area with formica counters and old-style vending machines. Even the snacks in the machines were preserved.
“Those candy bars been there the whole time?” Hunter said.
“We changed nothing,” Vine said. “The government preserved everything and when they handed it over to us we just kept it the way it had been. It was sealed off for years before we decided to open it to the public.”
“Are the plans publicly available?”
“Only for part of it. We had to send them to the local fire department and they became public record.”
There were signs of periodic modernization. The government had maintained the facility as a potential relocation site until the nineties and the phones and comms had been upgraded, but the décor hadn’t.
“What portion is public knowledge?” Hunter said.
“Only about a quarter was ever open to the public. The rest hasn’t been seen.”
“By anyone?”
“Only by government contractors. They come in from time to time and do some surveys or maintain things. The government never completely abandoned the place.”
“They like to keep their options open.”
“Well, I think it’s useful to them to see how their work holds up over time. The decontamination chambers and labs were state of the art. Designed to last decades. Apparently, they use some of the same systems to this day at other secure locations.”
“So overall, there’s what, a hundred thousand square feet?”
“A little more. There’s sleeping accommodation for over eleven hundred people.”
“What about fuel, food, water?”
“It’s got its own well so water won’t be a problem. Power is on the public grid. The generators and fuel are long gone.”
“And food?”
“There’s a small restaurant for visitors. It’s probably stocked.”
“Okay. I need schematics and I need you to make sure no one comes down here. No one at all. Not staff. Not visitors. If word gets out there’s anything going on down here, if anyone finds out the president is here, her life is in danger.”
“I understand,” Vine said.
“This country can’t afford to lose another president. The system can’t take it.”
“I understand.”
Vine left and Hunter made a tour of every part of the bunker. The whole place was a silent testament to the paranoia of the Cold War. It had four entrances, each with blast doors capable of withstanding a nuclear detonation at point blank range. It had water and air purification chambers, power plants, decontamination units, and laboratories so that in the event of a nuclear holocaust, government scientists could study the effects of the radiation and figure out when it would be safe to re-emerge from the bunker. There was a pharmacy, a dental clinic, and a hospital fitted with the most advanced equipment of the time.
There was even an interrogation room, and when Hunter stepped inside it, he was instantly brought back to the black site in Kabul. The windowless room, tiled on all four walls as well as the floor and ceiling. The steel chair. The observation area with its one-way glass.
He remembered pulling the heads of the unconscious Mantis operatives from the ground by the hair. He remembered putting the gun to the base of their skulls. He remembered pulling the trigger, over and over, seven times.
And he remembered his decision to kill Jeff Hale.
Thirty
Once they had Jennifer safely installed in the bunker, everything else followed like clockwork. Hale made the call to DC and within minutes, the entire Greenbrier hotel was being evacuated. Soldiers stationed in the vicinity secured the massive compound and the airspace was immediately taken over by the Air Force.
The army secured the grounds using action plans that had been drawn up in 1958 to secure the location in the event of a nuclear holocaust. No one was allowed to approach the Greenbrier itself or the bunker until the secret service got on site. It took a few hours and by that time the major cabinet officials, congressio
nal leaders, and military officials were all nearby.
The entire center of power had moved from DC to West Virginia in the space of four hours.
Hale personally met each and every person at the decontamination chamber on the east side of the compound. Fawn then escorted them to the president. Because of the previous security breaches, no secret service agents were allowed inside the bunker. The compound and bunker entrances were secured from the outside, but only the two agents and the helicopter pilot who’d been with the president all along were permitted inside the actual bunker.
Hale figured they’d had plenty of opportunity to kill her already. If they hadn’t by now, they were clean.
Hunter was the final line of defense. He was by the president’s side at all times.
The first people to enter the bunker were Antosh, Fitzpatrick, and the President of the Senate, Meredith Brooks. Meredith was also known as the Merry Widow. The attorney general, Hank Orr, was also brought in.
“The first order of business,” Jennifer said, “is to get me sworn in. That’s still the plan, am I right?”
“Of course,” Meredith said. “Absolutely, Madam President.”
“I didn’t know if it had changed.”
“Absolutely not,” Hank Orr said. “The constitution is clear on succession.”
He’d been a constitutional law professor for forty years at both Harvard and Yale and had written the seminal book on the subject before accepting his appointment as Attorney General. He was from Iowa, he was in his early seventies, and he had unusually bushy eyebrows. He also had a habit of twitching his eyes like there was always something in them.
“It starts to get fuzzy if these assassinations keep happening,” Jennifer said.
“Yes,” Hank said. “The chain is designed for instances where the president is killed, or in extreme situations, where a number of people in the line of succession are killed at once. We call that a common calamity. It was never designed for a case of successive assassinations.”
“If they keep killing presidents,” Jennifer said, “there’s a risk of multiple people having conflicting claims on various positions, am I right?”
Hank cleared his throat. He was aware they weren’t merely hypothesizing, but actually discussing the very real risk of Jennifer’s death.
“If presidents keep getting killed after they’ve been sworn in, the line actually gets recalibrated each time, and with so many swearings happening so close together, there’s a very real danger of the line getting muddied.”
Everyone in the room looked at him, waiting for him to keep going.
“It gets even more complicated if someone is killed before they’ve been sworn in,” he added. “In that case, we could be looking at real challenges to who actually the president is, which could obviously lead to political instability.”
“Or worse,” Hale added.
“Are we all certain I’m actually next in line?” Jennifer said.
“I’m certain,” Hale said. “Any uncertainty on a thing like that and we could very plausibly be looking at civil war.”
“Oh, come on,” Antosh said. “Let’s not get carried away.”
“No one’s getting carried away,” Hale said. “I’m just looking down the road. It’s my job. Confusion on who’s president could put everything in question. The whole delicate edifice. I’ve seen it happen in enough countries not to doubt it could happen here.”
Antosh shook his head. “Please, Hale.”
“I’m just saying, there can be no question ever, ever, on who the rightful president of this country is. Am I clear? Not inside this room. Not outside it.”
Everyone in the room looked around. They were the most powerful people in the country. They controlled the massive organs that together made up the most powerful collective organization in human history. But it was delicate. It all relied on people doing their jobs, obeying orders. Any wavering, any flinching by the people in that room, and it could all come toppling down. It was Hale’s job to protect against that eventuality at all costs.
It was Meredith Brooks who broke the silence that followed Hale’s warning. “President Walker named no vice president,” she said. “He couldn’t do so without congressional confirmation. We know with absolute certainty that never happened. There wasn’t time. If it had, that person would have succeeded him. Since it didn’t, Jennifer, third in line after Jackson, was second in line after Walker. She’s up. Am I correct, Hank?”
Hank nodded. “I’m glad to see someone in the room knows how the constitution works.”
“Who succeeds me?” Jennifer said.
Antosh said, “I’m sure it won’t come to that.”
“Let’s not sugar coat things,” Hale said. “She asked a simple question.”
“I want to know,” Jennifer said. “Hale is right. We need to know we’re all on the same page in case the worst happens,” and then added, “again.”
Hank rubbed his eyes. Hale wondered if it was allergies. “Right now, it would be the president of the senate,” he said.
Everyone turned to Meredith.
She shrugged. “The Merry Widow,” she said. “Imagine the headlines.”
“I’m not sure the nation could survive two female president’s back to back,” Antosh said.
“Ha ha,” Jennifer said. Then to Hank she said, “You said Meredith was next in line, right now. What did that mean?”
“It means there are a number of things that could change the order of succession. If the House was to elect a new speaker, that person would take precedence.”
“And that vote is already scheduled, is it not?”
“If it hasn’t been, it will be soon,” Hank said.
“And what if I name a vice president?” Jennifer said.
“On confirmation, that person would take precedence over the new speaker, and over Meredith.”
Jennifer took it all in and nodded. She was ready.
“Do we have a bible?” she said.
Hunter went to the bedroom and checked the table by the side of the bed. The Gideons had done their job and a copy of the King James Version was in the drawer. He brought it back and handed it to Hank.
They all watched as President Jennifer Blackmore took the oath of office and became the next president of the United States.
“There are two things I want to accomplish,” she said as soon as the oath was administered. “We need to stop the assassin and we need to address the nation and tell the people they have a president.”
The second task was the easier of the two. The broadcast facility in the bunker wasn’t completely operational, a live broadcast couldn’t take over the airwaves by force as had been the original intent. Not only was some of the equipment missing, but the broadcast system no longer operated in that manner. Raw signal power wasn’t enough. However, a team had already been preparing for broadcast functionality outside the hotel, and using the hotel’s network, everything necessary had been set up.
“We can make a broadcast right now,” Hale said.
“From inside the bunker?” Jennifer said.
“Absolutely,” he said.
Hunter, Hale and Meredith escorted Jennifer down the concrete corridor to a broadcasting studio that had been set up for President Eisenhower’s use in case of nuclear attack.
“I don’t think this backdrop sets the right tone,” Jennifer said. It depicted the national mall with congress in the background as it appeared in 1950. There were old cars visible and the men on the sidewalk were wearing hats. Also, while it might have done the trick in the 1950’s, it was nowhere near detailed enough for modern cameras.
There was a second studio with a more modern podium in the style of the White House press room. It was from the late eighties and was fairly timeless, with the president’s seal on the front of an oak podium and a plain white backdrop flanked by two flags.
“Let’s use the podium,” Jennifer said.
“Do you need time to prepare?” Hale s
aid.
Jennifer shook her head. “I’ve been thinking of what I’d say since I watched Walker deliver his address.”
“This is the third presidential address in as many days,” Meredith said. “The first saw the president get shot live on air, and the second was this morning. I don’t know what you could possibly say.”
“It will come to me,” Jennifer said.
“Good luck,” Meredith said, and Hunter nodded in agreement.
Thirty-One
Hunter was in the bunker’s broadcast studio with Jennifer and Meredith. Between the two of them, he felt the situation was under control. He watched Jennifer closely and found she annoyed him less than some of her predecessors had. The nation could have done worse, he thought. Whoever was mounting this attack, if their objective had been to destabilize the government, for now at least, it wasn’t working.
The two women were revising Jennifer’s speech. They looked calm.
Fawn entered the room and stood next to Hunter. She leaned against the wall and watched Jennifer and Meredith.
“You made me a promise,” Hunter said.
“The kid? I know.”
The child was still in Puerto Peñasco with Antonia. Fawn had promised not only that the child would get a good home, but that she would see to it personally.
“I know there’s a lot going on here, but I expect you to figure out a way to keep that promise,” Hunter said.
Fawn nodded. She glanced at her watch as if checking to see if she had time for a quick flight down to Mexico.
The president got up from the desk and turned to Hunter.
“I think I’m ready,” she said.
Hunter nodded. They went into the studio. Some CIA technicians had been granted access to the bunker to manage the broadcast and Hunter watched them like a hawk. They worked on their equipment and told Jennifer they were ready.
The situation felt strange to Hunter. Apart from Fawn and Meredith, no one else was present. Hale wasn’t there. Fitzpatrick wasn’t there. They were close by, overseeing security arrangements, but they weren’t in the studio. There were no aides. No lawyers. Just Jennifer and Meredith.