William Bernhardt - Capitol Conspiracy

“Mike!” he shouted to no avail, desperately trying to locate his best friend. “Mike? Where are you?”

Stumbling backward, crying, coughing, lost in the sudden cloud of smoke, he was so confused and distraught he crashed into the EMTs who were moving a female body from the stage to someplace away from the fray.

They were moving Emily Blake. Not that there was anything they could do for her now.

The first lady was dead.

Christina McCall pulled at her long strawberry blond locks so hard, she feared she might pull them out by the roots. “Where is he?”

Jones looked at her sympathetically. “Where do you think.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I’m about to go nuts, mon ami. ” She was wearing a red body stocking with a fur collar, a short red skirt with a scalloped hem, black and white striped tights, and boots-which for her was a fairly conservative look. Her hair was pulled forward in Bettie Page bangs. “I’ve been dealing with calls from constituents, demands for action, expressions of sympathy, all very difficult and demanding, and all of it directed toward the only surviving senator from the great state of Oklahoma. Except-guess what? I’m not the senator!”

Jones laid a hand on her shoulder, trying to quiet her. “I’m sure he’ll turn up soon. You know how the Boss gets sometimes.”

“I certainly do. And pardonnez-moi, but that’s no excuse.” She slumped into the nearest available chair and stared out the window. Her normally chipper, freckled face was drawn and haggard. The crow’s-feet around her eyes were more pronounced than their sparkling blue color. “Did I mention that I’m supposed to be on my honeymoon?”

Jones felt a tug at his heart. Even his normally acerbic exterior was melting. “You didn’t have to.”

“I’m supposed to be sipping French wine in a Parisian cafe, having a tete-a-tete with my grande passion. Not dealing with the worst security crisis on American soil since 9/11.” Her shoulders sagged. “I’m tired of talking on the phone.”

Jones sat beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll take your calls.”

“And I’m tired of trying to explain why Senator Kincaid isn’t in his office.”

“I’ll make up a story.”

“And I’m sexually frustrated.”

Jones removed his hand. “That you’re going to have to handle on your own.” Christina’s head drooped even lower. “Did I mention that I was tired?”

“I’m pretty sure you did.”

“I can’t do this by myself. I mean, I appreciate your help, Jones. You’re the best aide-de-camp in the building, as far as I’m concerned. But it’s too impossible. Loving is still off with that Trudy woman, right?”

Jones coughed into his hand. “Loving is still with, um, Trudy, yes.”

“And Ben hasn’t been in the office since the attack. He has to take control of this situation. He has to decide if he’s going to run for reelection. He has-” Her voice choked. “He has to take me on my honeymoon, damn it.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

Jones squeezed her hand, then returned to his station where his phone was ringing off the hook, while Christina continued to stare blankly at the office around her. She had put a lot of effort into improving the decor here during the past few months. Even though the name on the door and the desk read BENJAMIN J. KINCAID, she knew she couldn’t leave the interior decoration to him. The office would end up resembling a monk’s cell: two chairs and a dead plant. At best, it would be a reproduction of his office back in Tulsa, and that was not a work space that deserved the opportunity to reproduce. So despite the budgetary restrictions that accompanied working for an unelected senator with no war chest and a law practice that had not practiced for months, she tried to improve the joint. On weekends, she frequented flea markets-there were dozens of them in the Washington, D.C., area-looking for salvageable furniture and knickknacks. She nurtured plants at her apartment until she thought they were strong enough to survive Ben’s negative botanic energy. Christina even replaced some of the fixtures, which apparently hadn’t had any attention since before the first World War. Her efforts had turned a sterile government office into a cozy workplace.

Today it seemed colder than a tomb.

She knew the specifications of the building all too well; she heard a tour guide leading a group of citizens down the corridor or around the rotunda almost every day. She knew this capitol building covered 153,112 square feet, which worked out to about three and a half acres. Somehow, though, it managed to have a floor area of more than fourteen acres. And 435 rooms, 554 doors, 679 windows.

Didn’t matter. It was still a tomb. The first lady was dead, along with eight Secret Service agents and four civilians, one a little girl of three. Two U.S. senators. And Mike…

She closed her eyes tight. She couldn’t allow herself to wallow in the misery that had blanketed the country. Someone had to keep this office together.

But who was going to keep her together?

“We just got a memo,” Jones said, back at his desk by the front door. “Want to hear the latest?”

“You tell me, Jones. Do I?”

He made it succinct. “DEFCON Three.”

There it was. Just as she had feared. The Strategic Air Command and the associated military alerts had been ratcheted up another notch. Christina knew that had happened only three times since the DEFCON system had been devised: first during the Cuban Missile Crisis, then after 9/11, and now.

The attack on the president, the slaying of the first lady, not to mention so many Secret Service agents and civilians, had sent shock waves rippling through the nation. Homeland Security had issued its first-ever Red Alert. The Dow Jones had gone into a free fall; airports shut down; most retail businesses had closed and remained closed. There was no point in being open. Few people were leaving their homes if it was not absolutely necessary. Even if it wasn’t entirely rational-there was no sign that anyone other than the president had been or would be targeted-the horrific incident had left such an imprint on the country that most people just felt more secure staying home.

The upward spiral in hate crimes against Americans of Middle Eastern descent-or in some cases, dark-skinned souls some redneck thought were Middle Eastern-was equally frightening. All across the country, people were lashing out, venting their fear in the form of violence. International tensions were at a fever pitch; the hostility between the United States and the Arab world never seemed so ominous. Many foreign leaders had spoken out, demanding reprisals, asking for the president to make a public statement.

So far, the president had remained silent.

The entire United States intelligence community was making a concerted effort to work together and discover who was behind the heinous attack. The FBI, CIA, NSA, and Homeland Security were acting as one, sharing information on a daily basis at Pentagon and White House rendezvous, wiretapping and spying and making the most of their international allies. Diplomatic inquiries were being made wherever possible, though no one had much hope that they would be useful, because no one really believed the attack had been orchestrated as a formally sanctioned act of a foreign power. The military top brass were engaged in major saber rattling. The Pentagon was requesting permission to employ new high-tech weapons and eavesdropping equipment. On CNN, analysts were saying that it wasn’t a question of whether America would go to war-only when. Public support was clearly there; so in all likelihood the politicians would accommodate once the identities of the perpetrators were known. Pundits predicted that the U.S. military readiness standard could go all the way to DEFCON 1 inside of a week, depending on the temperament and inclination of the president.