by Rawlin Cash
Fawn was livid. She couldn’t believe Hunter had thrown them into Meredith’s hands. Central Cell Block was located in the Henry J. Daly Building on Indiana Avenue, one of the most decrepit and poorly maintained buildings in the entire municipality of Washington DC. Built in 1941, it had served several municipal departments over the years. Its sole remaining tenant was the Metropolitan Police Department, who had spent forty years turning it into what the Washington Post called a twilight zone of bureaucracy, and the worst building in the city’s entire portfolio. The building had witnessed its share of drama. In 1994, a murder suspect escaped his restraints and shot dead a DC homicide detective and two FBI agents before killing himself on the front steps. More recently, it had been the subject of protests by community activists who called its cells inhumane and unfit for human occupancy.
Fawn didn’t pay much attention to local politics, but she sure as hell wouldn’t forget the state of the Henry H. Daly building now.
The cell she was in had to be one of the worst prison cells in the country. There were cockroaches on the walls, she was sure she could hear rats in the vents behind her back, and someone had smeared human feces on the far end of the wooden bench she’d been sitting on for almost twenty-four hours.
From time to time, another woman was brought into the cell and removed after an hour or two. Fawn was the only one who’d been there all night. As the day waned, she shuddered at the thought of being there a second night.
There was a television in the corridor on a trolley and Fawn wondered if it was there for her benefit. It was showing CNN, which was going nuts with coverage of what it called the Merry Widow’s Purge, and she saw news reports of her own arrest as well as those of other high-ranking CIA members.
Meredith’s address, which was already being referred to by the White House Press Secretary as the State of the Union, was to take place at nine pm, the time traditionally reserved for it, and to Fawn it looked as if Meredith was purposefully trying to provoke someone into challenging her legitimacy.
As she stared at the television, she couldn’t help get the feeling Meredith had ordered it put there.
She presumed Hale was in the same building but she didn’t know for sure.
A female guard came down the corridor.
“How long is this going to go on?” Fawn said.
The guard said, “It’s your lucky day.”
“You’re letting me out?”
“Sorry sweetie. Just a transfer.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Anything’s better than this, right?”
Fawn nodded. She’d have done anything to get out of that cell. She was sure the rats were minutes away from breaking through.
“Where are you taking me?”
“I can’t say.”
“Don’t I have a right to know?”
“Not tonight, sweetie.”
“Where’s Hale. Jeff Hale. He was taken in with me.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” the guard said.
They waited for the guard’s colleague, a three-hundred pound man with a limp and a clipboard, and he called out Fawn’s name.
“Am I supposed to say present?”
“Just identify yourself.”
Fawn rolled her eyes. “Here,” she said.
The guard checked his clipboard and told Fawn to turn around. She turned and they cuffed her and escorted her to prisoner transport. She climbed into the back of the vehicle and through a small window with a wire mesh she watched the nighttime city pass by. They could be bringing her anywhere. It might be the last time in a very long while that she saw the city. She knew all too well about the extra-judicial holding facilities available to the government.
She watched out the window as they crossed the Potomac into Virginia and she knew before they got there where she was going. They passed the gates of the Pentagon and she was brought to the underground receiving area for the secret detention facility. She tried to speak to her guards but no one said a word to her.
They processed her and brought her into the building. She saw on a clock in the corridor that it was eight thirty. She knew she wouldn’t be staying long. She wasn’t received according to procedure. No one signed her in. She wasn’t scrubbed down or put into a jumpsuit.
They brought her to a small room and cuffed her to a plastic chair behind a table. Fawn had seen the cells before. She knew the routine. There was a one-way viewing window and she assumed someone was on the other side watching her. There was a television again. It wasn’t mounted to the wall but was on one of those media carts they used in high schools. It was also playing CNN.
The guards left and she was alone with the television.
She wondered if Hale was in the same building, in a similar cell, also being forced to watch CNN.
She’d been there a few minutes when a guard came in with a tray of food. She recognized the tray from the cafeteria. She’d eaten there many times. She wondered how far she was from the Starbucks in the west lobby.
“Beef and gravy okay?” the guard said.
Fawn wanted to protest. She’d been unlawfully arrested, hadn’t been read her Miranda rights, hadn’t been given access to a phone or an attorney. Nothing was okay.
Instead, she said, “What are my chances of getting a cup of black coffee?”
The guard left and she picked at the food. She should have been starving but was too tense to eat. She was surprised when he returned with a cup of coffee.
The guard left her alone and she waited, half-watching the television until it was time for Meredith’s State of the Union. The scene on the television was of the congressional chamber, full to capacity with all the same people who’d been at President Walker’s address a few days earlier.
Fawn shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She wished she’d asked the guard for a cigarette, not that he’d have given her one.
She’d been allowed to use the washroom twice at Central Cell Block and she wondered if she’d be able to get someone’s attention if she needed to go again.
On the television, officials were standing by the rostrum and the floor was full of the usual gaggle of reporters and correspondents.
Everyone was waiting for the president.
Fawn shook her head. How was Meredith Brooks president? She knew she’d fucked up. She should have pulled the trigger when she had the chance. Maybe she’d have gone down as a terrorist or crazed lunatic. Maybe she’d have been recognized as a hero. Maybe she’d have been able to quietly go back to work as Hale and Fitzpatrick covered up the act and installed a president of their own. Whatever happened, it couldn’t have been much worse than this.
The president was a Saudi puppet.
She knew it.
Hunter might have wanted more proof but Fawn already had enough. There was no doubt in her mind. It was all too convenient. The dots connected too perfectly.
Just before the speech began, the guard came back in. Fawn looked at him. He said nothing. Fawn didn’t ask him anything. He didn’t look like he knew anything. He took the chair that had been facing her and pulled it over to the corner and sat on it.
She looked at him and he looked back.
“I’m just here to watch you,” he said.
“Is it normal for there to be a television in these cells?” she said.
He shrugged.
Fawn knew it wasn’t normal. This was Meredith’s idea. Her way of showing Fawn the new reality.
“Turn it up at least,” she said.
The guard sighed and got up from his seat. He got the controller from the cart and turned up the volume. Then he sat back down and pulled his chair around so he could watch too. Along the bottom of the screen, with the stock tickers and sports scores, was one headline, repeating over and over.
“President Brooks Addresses Plot.”
Plot, Fawn thought. What bullshit plot was this bitch about to sell? She had an inkling that whatever it was, it wouldn’t bode well for her and Hale.
&n
bsp; Fawn stretched out in the seat. She felt dirty. She needed a shower and a change of clothes. Her butt was numb from sitting so long.
She felt like she’d been on a flight from hell, a twenty-four hour economy seat with no chance to stand up.
“I need to use the washroom,” she said.
The guard shook his head. The speech was about to start. “I’ve got to make sure you watch this,” he said.
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, ma’am.”
Fawn shook her head. She couldn’t believe it.
When Meredith stepped onto the chamber floor, the audience rose and gave her a standing ovation. It was surreal. Meredith was the fourth president in as many days. How was anyone supposed to have confidence in her?
But that was what the constitution called for.
The twenty-fifth amendment had not been designed to withstand an onslaught of this magnitude. The concern of the Founding Fathers had been to replace a dead president as quickly and as surely as possible. The procedure was for the next person in line to be sworn in rapidly. There were no safeguards for slowing down that process or for running the types of checks a Senate confirmation would usually entail.
The passage of the presidency down the line of succession was automatic and immediate.
And now, this woman, barely five and a half feet tall, with tightly curled dark hair and the voice of a habitual smoker, was addressing congress as Commander in Chief. No one really knew who she was. No one knew what she stood for. They didn’t know her motives. They didn’t know her policies. And they sure as shit didn’t know who was behind her ascent to power.
Yet there they all were, applauding.
But then, the presidency was always a game of chance. Putting the fate of the nation in one person’s hands, the most powerful nation in the history of humanity, a nation with weapons that could end the planet, it was a roll of the dice.
Anyone could do evil.
Anyone could go insane, or psychotic, or psychopathic.
Was Meredith Brooks a Saudi puppet? Who knew? Roll of the dice.
Meredith started her speech. “My fellow Americans,” she said, “we have been the victims of a plot.”
The chamber grew quiet.
“No assassin could get this close to us without help from the inside.”
She paused. You could have heard a pin drop.
“During the past twenty-four hours, I, with the help of my cabinet, have taken steps to contain any further infiltration of our government. To that end, I have ordered the arrest of two justices of the supreme court.”
Fawn’s eyes widened.
Meredith continued, “Six senators. Fourteen members of congress. The director of the FBI. The director of the NSA. The director of the CIA. Three generals.”
Fawn wasn’t sure if what she was hearing was real. The list went on and on.
Meredith had placed in custody the entire ruling class of the nation’s security apparatus. Fawn could see the strategy. She’d seized power and immediately arrested the people who could have opposed it.
“Hey,” she said to the guard. “Do you see what’s happening? She’s stealing the presidency.”
The guard said nothing.
“How many others do you have in custody here?”
“Please, ma’am,” the guard said, opening his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I clocked in two hours ago, grabbed a donut, and they told me to come in here and watch you. There’s no point giving me a hard time.”
“A hard time? Do you know I’ve been arrested illegally?”
“All I know is what I’m told.”
“I’m telling you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t you want to do something?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, without making any sign that he did.
The president was still reading her list, naming dozens more security officials, military officers, federal judges, members of congressional committees with security oversight. Fawn wondered if she would ever stop.
“What’s going on?” she said to the guard. She was beginning to panic. She tried to stand.
“Ma’am,” the guard said.
“Let me out of here,” Fawn said, her voice rising.
She struggled to get to her feet. It was awkward with the restraints and she held herself up using the desk in front of her.
“You need to sit down.”
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Ma’am, you need to calm down.”
“On who’s authority am I being held?”
“DoD, ma’am.”
“DoD, my ass. The president did this.”
“If you don’t sit down I’ll use force,” the guard said.
Fawn felt herself swoon. This wasn’t possible. This was the United States of America. The president couldn’t just lock up whoever might oppose her.
“I demand to know on what legal basis I’m being held?” Fawn said. “It’s been over twenty-four hours.”
The guard simply shrugged.
She knew it was no good.
She looked back at the television.
The president was still speaking. She said, “These arrests are simply a precaution while we narrow down exactly where we’ve been infiltrated.”
It was utter bullshit. This was not the way to root out a mole. It was a publicity stunt.
Meredith moved on to the topic of Vice President.
“Today,” she said, her voice cold and clinical, “I am putting forward for confirmation to the Vice Presidency a man who needs no introduction. He is a hero to this nation. He has led our armed forces through two wars. He has more combat kills than any other four-star general in the country. He has served this nation tirelessly and proven himself to be a true servant of the interests of America.”
Fawn blinked. Combat kills were not usually used to justify important political appointments. It was obscene.
Someone in the audience was coming forward and the people around him were making room. Everyone was applauding, but Fawn couldn’t help suspect there was something false in the applause. With so many officials being purged so rapidly from government, they were simply reacting to the sword that was above their heads.
And then the camera zoomed in on the man stepping forward.
At first, Fawn didn’t recognize him. Then she did.
“I am putting forward for confirmation,” Meredith continued, “General Craig S. Abrams. General Abrams has served our country tirelessly as Commander of US Central Command, coordinating our military operations in the Middle East during what has been one of the most turbulent periods in our history. He led our forces during Operation Freedom’s Sentinel and Operation Inherent Resolve, and given the current state of emergency, is the only man capable of bringing justice to whoever is responsible for this unprecedented attack on our democracy.”
Fawn remembered where she’d met him. It was at the CIA office in Baghdad. She’d worked closely with him, coordinating the CIA with the military across Afghanistan and Iraq. He’d worked with Hunter too.
Fawn felt it in the gut. She felt betrayed. Was this man in the pocket of the Saudis also?
Meredith looked down at the audience and everyone in the chamber applauded. It wasn’t a real applause. It was icy. False. Fawn knew this was the completion of the coup. If anything happened to Meredith now, Abrams would continue her work.
“For my first official act as president,” Meredith said when the applause died down, “I am taking the fight back to our enemies.”
She paused and another round of applause broke out. Fawn couldn’t believe her eyes. Congress, the supreme court judges, the members of the cabinet, all of them seemed literally afraid not to applaud.
“As I am speaking, our representative at the Swiss embassy in Tehran have been instructed to inform the Supreme Leader of Iran that our two nations are in a state of war.”
More applause.
“Air strikes targeting Iran’s air
defense and missile systems, as well as key military and civilian infrastructure, have already commenced.”
They watched as Meredith wrapped up her address and then the guard turned off the television.
“What is the meaning of this?” Fawn said to him.
He looked at her and for the briefest second she saw his gaze soften.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Maybe if I knew, I’d be as angry as you are.”
Forty-Six
Hunter was on the roof of the Watergate. He had no option but to follow his instincts. He’d allowed Hale and Fawn to be arrested on instinct. He’d come here on instinct. He couldn’t let doubt enter the equation.
And he wouldn’t let more innocent blood stain his hands.
If Meredith was dirty, he’d kill her. He’d pull the trigger. But he had to know for sure.
During the past twenty-four hours, he’d watched the political process in the capital completely collapse. The House Judiciary Committee announced an investigation into the circumstances of Meredith’s ascent to power and four hours later, the three highest ranking members of the committee were in custody. A federal judge criticized the speed at which the vice presidential nomination was going through the senate and he was hit by a car and killed outside his home in Georgetown.
Both the CIA and the NSA were in disarray, with their leadership in DoD custody.
Hunter knew it was on him, and him alone, to fix the problem.
He wasn’t a political creature. He had no aptitude for the intrigues and connivances of the capital.
He was an assassin.
And to an assassin, all problems start to look like targets.
And his first target was Jamal Al-Wahad, the man doing the Saudi’s dirty work. He was the one most likely operating the sniper system, which made him the first man to assassinate two US Presidents. Possibly three if he was also behind the bombing at Site-R. He might not be the world’s best marksman, but with the weaponry he had, he could take out just about anyone.
Hunter, on the other hand, was armed with a tried and true M2010 enhanced sniper rifle, prototyped and brought into production by the government’s PEO Soldier organization. It was a quality piece of American equipment, designed to ensure dominance on the battlefield, and what it lacked in advanced technology it made up for in quality materials and precision machining.