The Devil's Hand

by Carr, Jack

  “He didn’t actually say that. He was much more eloquent,” Sawyer corrected.

  “Oh, I know. Rahm Emanuel had to dumb it down for the masses, but the point remains.”

  “Learning from your enemy, Senator?”

  “That’s not just for you military types, Erik.”

  Sawyer’s secure desk phone rang.

  “Excuse me, Senator.”

  “Can you bring me another drink while you are up?”

  “Of course.”

  Sawyer took a seat behind the massive oak desk and picked up the receiver. He listened intently, then said “stay on them” before hanging up and making the senator his drink.

  “Emergency?” Thwaite asked, as Sawyer handed him his third martini.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. James Reece and Dr. Haley Garrett just landed at Dulles. Reece placed a secure call to the CIA, which we intercepted. They believe they have evidence to suggest that the virus isn’t airborne.”

  * * *

  When the senator finished his tirade and finally left the building to return to his office to call the president, Sawyer bent down to pick up the broken shards of what just moments before was a chilled martini glass.

  Thwaite was prone to these outbursts when things did not go his way, but this latest tantrum was worrisome. Thwaite was convinced the virus was real and spreading. All the science suggested this was true. The liberal-minded president was looking for an excuse not to do his duty. The senator believed Christensen was too weak to do what was necessary. The president was going to bring the republic down with him. He was going to destroy almost two hundred and fifty years of freedom and sacrifice; James Reece was handing him the excuse he needed. For Thwaite, this was not a difficult decision. The few would be sacrificed to save the many. The country would survive; the senator’s party would ascend to power once again with Thwaite leading the way. He would take his rightful place and finally occupy the most powerful office in the land.

  Sawyer dropped the shards of glass in the trash and refreshed his cognac. Heading for his desk, he stopped and turned toward his bookshelf, approaching Remnants of an Army. He sipped his drink, examining the wounded doctor portrayed in the classic Victorian painting. Dr. Brydon was clearly in anguish; a section of his scalp had been removed by an Afghan blade in battle, his horse shot and near death.

  Sawyer turned to the large television. It was paused on the IR video of James Reece on the side of the Maryland highway, rifle in hand, staring at the camera, the black-and-white image intensifiers giving him the look of a creature from Hell.

  The former Army Ranger searched his book titles. There, next to a first edition of T. E. Lawrence’s Revolt in the Desert, was the Peter Hopkirk classic The Great Game. Sawyer pulled it from the shelf and turned to chapter twenty. The book fell open easily at the binding, Sawyer having spent much time with it over his years of sending contractors to Central Asia. He read slowly, respectfully internalizing every word from a section titled “Massacre in the Passes.” Almost a hundred miles of terror through snow-covered mountain passes the Army of Indus marched toward the British garrison at Jalalabad, Afghan warriors snatching souls at every turn, the savages tearing apart the sixteen thousand troops and camp followers as they pushed forward through freezing temperatures. Raids. Sniper fire. Horror. Until a week later, one sole survivor was sighted approaching the fort, wounded on a dying horse.

  Sawyer looked at the television and then back at the painting. This time he saw something different. He saw himself on the horse, wounded, clinging to life, trying to make it inside the gates before being struck down, the savage Reece putting his finger to the trigger of a precision rifle, Sawyer in the crosshairs. The Navy SEAL sniper wasn’t a man in this vision, he was an apparition, a black-and-white specter of death.

  He sat down at his desk and placed The Great Game to his left. Sawyer had been in the business of killing for most of his adult life. After Somalia he’d learned how to profit from it. As with any enterprise, success in this business meant diversification. The lucrative U.S. military, intelligence, and diplomatic contracts might only last so long. Washington was a machine. The leadership of both political parties was fickle, all part of the same swamp apparatus, cogs in a Deep State machine.

  In business, one had to remain on a trajectory of continual growth. Masada had expanded into worldwide mining security operations and training, advising, and assisting entities who could pay. Precious metals, conflict diamonds, and oil all fell under the Masada profile and Sawyer’s purview. On occasion, he had used certain men to solve problems. One of these men had a vested interest above and beyond money in seeing James Reece in the grave. Sawyer had used him over the past two years to eliminate problems in the Middle East and Africa. He was connected to the Russians and currently living in Montenegro on the Adriatic Sea.

  Sawyer pulled out a pen and paper and began to write a letter to enlist the services of a sniper.

  CHAPTER 60

  Russell Senate Office Building

  Washington, D.C.

  THE FEAR AND CHAOS that had gripped the nation had similarly engrossed the capital.

  Rumors were spreading that the executive branch was close to bold and devastating action to contain the virus in Richardson and Aurora. A mass exodus was under way in Atlanta while some took to the streets to take advantage of the lawlessness, looting and destroying at will. Speculation, conspiracy theories, and doomsday scenarios flooded the airways and social media channels. If you were against containment and eradication, you were branded as being for the death of the nation. If you were a politician in favor of those measures, you were in the position of supporting the deaths of your own constituents. Elected representatives from Texas and Colorado were in a state of paralysis. Every answer and decision tied to the virus was rooted in death. Ambassadors from countries not yet affected by the pathogen were clamoring for information. Representatives to the United Nations gave speeches calling for the United States to act to protect the global community of nations.

  Throughout the turmoil, the White House remained remarkably quiet, weighing the most momentous decision ever faced by an American president.

  Security, press, aides, interns, staff, senators and representatives, caseworkers, legislative correspondents, schedulers, and communications directors crowded the hallways as Senator Edward Thwaite made his way to his office in the Russell Senate Office Building.

  Leaving his assistant holding his coat, Thwaite barged past his receptionist and into his office, slamming the door behind him.

  He went right for the gin, attempting to make a martini of the same class he’d downed at Sawyer’s building. He ended up forgoing the bitters and lemon twist and emptied what was left of his last bottle of Bombay Sapphire in a glass with ice and a dash of dry vermouth. Unable to find any olives, he swatted a cabinet shut and took a seat in his high-backed leather chair behind the same desk his father had used.

  It was up to him to save the country, save the world. He took two oversize gulps of his concoction to acquire some liquid courage before hitting the button for his receptionist.

  “Caryn, please connect me to the White House switchboard.”

  It still annoyed the senator that he did not have the president’s direct line or cell number.

  “Yes, Senator. Right away.”

  Thwaite tapped his middle finger against his leather desk mat. After five minutes of tapping he emptied his glass and began fidgeting with the Cross pen he thought he’d be using to sign bills as president.

  “Senator?”

  “Yes.”

  “The operator informed me that the president is not taking calls right now.”

  “What? In the middle of a national emergency he’s hiding in his bunker? Call back and tell the operator to put you through to the chief of staff… wait, tell them to put you through to Greg Farber. Tell them this has national security implications that impact Richardson and Aurora and that I have information on the reports connecting
the president to Commander James Reece.”

  “One moment, Senator.”

  Thwaite’s eyes surveyed his dark office, taking in the artifacts of two generations in the political spotlight: photos of history-making legislative moments, books he hadn’t read, a portrait of his father.

  This could all be gone if the president doesn’t take the necessary steps to save the nation. Delay means more death, inevitably the destruction of more cities. Richardson and Aurora, maybe even Atlanta, must be sacrificed to save the rest of us.

  “Senator, please hold for the president,” his receptionist said through the speaker.

  Thwaite straightened up in his chair, took the phone from its cradle, and cleared his throat.

  After fifteen excruciating minutes, a voice from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue said: “Please hold for President Christensen.”

  A moment later the leader of the free world’s voice cracked across the line.

  “Senator Thwaite.”

  Thwaite loosened the Windsor knot at his throat and pulled the tie to the side.

  “Mr. President, thank you for taking my call.”

  “Of course. We are in the middle of weighing the options regarding the virus, so forgive me if I ask you to get right to the point.”

  “That is the purpose of my call, Mr. President. It has come to my attention that you may be delaying the inevitable and unenviable decision of eradicating the virus in Aurora and Richardson.”

  “That is a callous way of referring to the deaths of a half million of our fellow countrymen, Senator.”

  “I mean no disrespect, Mr. President,” Thwaite said, biting his tongue.

  “Then you will understand why I remain dedicated to protecting the nation including those in Richardson and Aurora.”

  “Mr. President, if I may be blunt, without the sacrifice of two cities you are putting the rest of the nation at risk. You are signing the death warrants of millions more. This is time for decisive leadership.”

  “May I ask where you come by your information, Senator?”

  “This town talks, Mr. President. If you waver from doing what needs to be done, my party will have no choice but to take our case to the American people. You are neglecting your duties as commander in chief, putting the future of the nation at risk.”

  “Rest assured, I will do what needs to be done in the interests of the American people and I will exhaust every effort to spare those innocent lives in Aurora and Richardson,” the president responded, his tone cold and measured.

  “Every second you delay, the chances increase of the virus escaping containment.”

  “Thank you for your counsel, Senator. I will take it under advisement. I was told you have information on tonight’s story about Commander James Reece.”

  “An unfortunate connection, I’m sure, Mr. President. An irresponsible news media running with only the hint of impropriety.”

  The president remained silent.

  “It would be devastating to the nation if the current emergency was compounded with a scandal. Some might say you took the drastic measures of destroying two entire cities to take focus away from your connection to a CIA assassin. The American people and your administration need to stay focused on the crisis at hand: stopping this virus.”

  “Anything else, Senator?”

  Thwaite had not managed to fluster the boy president in the least.

  “There is something else, Mr. President. I have sources who tell me that this murderer James Reece is connected to your administration and has concocted a theory that the virus is not airborne. I’d hate to think the president was taking medical advice from a discredited murderer when the fate of the nation, and the world, hangs in the balance. These latest murders I just watched on the news seem to fit a pattern for Commander Reece. Some might call him a serial killer. It would be best for everyone if he was locked up in the supermax prison in Florence.”

  “Senator, I want to thank you for your call of support. Before I go, I do have a question for you.”

  “Yes?”

  “Have you ever looked James Reece in the eye?”

  Thwaite’s mind drifted to the black-and-white image from the video, a specter looking straight through him.

  “No.”

  “Well,” the president said calmly, “before you threaten James Reece, you might want to do some research. Had you ever looked him in the eye, you’d rethink your approach.”

  Before he could respond, the line went dead. The president had ended the call and left Edward Thwaite holding an empty phone.

  * * *

  President Christensen folded his hands and brought them together in quiet contemplation.

  Visions of two American cities burning, possibly a third, haunted him. Innocent men, women, and children incinerated; 500,000 killed on his orders to save 280 million others. He thought of Lincoln; over 800,000 dead on his watch. A country divided. A country at war with itself. Christensen would be responsible for almost as many American deaths in seconds as Lincoln was in four years of civil war.

  You must save the country.

  By killing half a million of your fellow citizens.

  How do you live after making that kind of a decision?

  If you don’t you are responsible for 280 million deaths. Preventable deaths.

  The president swiveled in his chair and looked out at the Rose Garden, then closed his eyes.

  His predecessor had told him it was lonely at the top. He had been right.

  Did Senator Thwaite really know something about James Reece and his connection to the president’s personal mission? Or did he just say that to get through the barriers and connect to the president to pressure him to order the virus eradication option? Was Thwaite linked to the video and media spin of Reece’s engagement in Maryland? It was no secret that the senator felt Christensen had stolen the election. If Christensen ordered the destruction of Aurora and Richardson, he was finished politically. If he didn’t give the order, not only was he finished politically but the entire country was at risk of infection from a disease with a 90 percent mortality rate. Either way, his presidency would be a single term. One decision to save millions of lives at the expense of two cities.

  Unless…

  Unless what?

  Unless Reece could prove the theory conjured up by a doctor at the CDC whose idea was not based on science, but upon conjecture and airline manifests.

  The president had cut as much red tape as he possibly could, bypassing all established protocols with a direct line of communication to Reece through the CIA’s Special Activities Center. As soon as he received word on the possibility the virus was an aerosolized version of Marburg Variant U, he had immediately ordered a briefing. He was still waiting on confirmation that the military had an original sample of Marburg Variant U. In a system of government as top heavy as the United States, even the president had to wait. All his senior medical advisors agreed that the science pointed to a natural hemorrhagic outbreak in Angola that was now spreading rapidly on U.S. soil. The high infection rate of hospital workers caring for the sick and dying seemed to verify that assertion. He did not have time to wait on an inept bureaucracy for answers. If the virus was spreading as the experts believed, he had no choice but to eradicate it before it killed ninety percent of the country. If it wasn’t, he needed to know now.

  Christensen turned back to his desk and hit the button connecting him to his receptionist, who worked just feet from the Oval Office.

  “Alice, connect me to Vic Rodriguez at the CIA.”

  CHAPTER 61

  Fairfax, Virginia

  “WELL, HOW DO YOU want to play this?” Reece asked.

  They had landed at Dulles, where the Agency also kept a fleet of Tahoes and Suburbans at the ready, and had pulled up to the curb outside of Haley’s Fairfax, Virginia, home. The modest split-level house was built on a corner lot surrounded by trees and not overly close to the neighbors. The first level was brick and housed a single-car garage at the
end of a short driveway. A row of hedges obscured a screened-in, well-lit front porch. The second level’s vinyl siding looked like it had been dropped on as an addition by someone more concerned with functionality than aesthetics.

  “Just as we discussed. Let me go in. I’ll explain. My husband is more doctor than colonel, if that makes sense to you.”

  “It does. Let’s hope the doctor part is on duty today.”

  “I’ll break it down for him and then I’ll open the door and you can come in. But, listen to me: no guns, no jiujitsu, just logical and pragmatic discussion.”

  “Check.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Ten-four. Understood.”

  “Okay, then. Wait here.”

  Reece watched Haley walk up the drive. Motion-activated lights illuminated the darkness as she passed the garage, stepped up onto the porch, and entered her home.

  The street was silent. Even without a mandatory curfew or lockdown orders, citizens were self-isolating in their homes. The uncertainty surrounding the new virus coming so quickly on the heels of the COVID-19 restrictions had beaten a traditionally fiercely independent citizenry into submission.

  Maybe it’s just an overabundance of caution? Reece thought.

  I hope that’s all it is.

  Reece kept his head on a swivel.

  If the president delayed dropping the FAEs on Aurora and Richardson and the virus was in fact a respiratory-spread airborne virus, then almost 300 million Americans would die. The commander in chief couldn’t delay while a bureaucracy figured out the ramifications of admitting to the world that the United States had an active biological weapons program in violation of international law. By the time pulling back the curtain was approved, if it was approved, the fate of the country would already be sealed. With cases popping up in Atlanta, the countdown timer was almost at zero hour.

  Reece looked from shadow to shadow wishing he had a set of NODs and a thermal.