William Tyree - The Fellowship

As Nico would discover later, when he found himself serving 20 years, he had messed with the wrong lady. Eva Hudson had been the head of the IMF in those days. And once she learned the identity of the person who had stolen from their coffers, she was relentless in her pursuit.

“August 21 is widely considered to be the first day of the Ulysses Coup,” Gonzales continued. “You saw Mr. Gold that day, didn’t you?”

The Ulysses Coup. Carver shuddered at the name, which missed the point completely. It had only taken a few days with a TV network using the catchphrase before it had become a modern-day Watergate.

In what appeared at first to be coordinated terror attacks by religious extremists, a group of conspirators had succeeded in decapitating the presidential line of succession, an act of congress that had last been amended in 1947. President Hatch, his vice-president, the president pro tempore and the secretary of state were all killed. Of those in the immediate line, only treasury secretary Eva Hudson had escaped. Ulysses USA Inc., a security multinational that had grown to dwarf the once-mighty Blackwater Corporation, had only been the tool of the crime, not the cause of it. The complete information about the perpetrators and how they had infiltrated the president’s inner circle was still known only to a small group of Washington insiders, and, by executive order of the president, those names would likely be sealed for many years to come.

It sickened Carver to think about the countless history teachers who would no doubt build curricula around the crisis in the coming years, only to get its most fundamental elements completely wrong. But that was neither here nor there. Ulysses USA Inc. was done for, even if all its puppet masters weren’t. And the official line of succession had been reinstated, making Eva Hudson, the fifth in line, the unlikely Commander-in-Chief.

One thing was for sure: For Carver, the memories of those six days in August were still too raw for his liking. The horizontal scar on his neck — he’d been grazed by a bullet while defending the White House — was a daily reminder.

The rent-a-lawyer was whispering something in his ear, but Carver wasn’t listening. He sat forward again. “About all I can tell you, Congressman, is that Nico Gold was critical in helping us with the national security crisis we faced that day.”

“Our records indicate that on August 21 last year, you arrived at Lee Federal Correctional Facility at 10: 30 a.m., with the intention of recruiting Mr. Gold.”

“It was 10:41 a.m. when I signed in.”

“You remember that precisely?”

He did indeed. What Carver’s small-town doctor had once diagnosed in Carver as a photographic memory, was now known in the medical community as super-autobiographical memory, or hyperthymesia.

In short, it was the ability to recall an unusually high number of experiential moments in his life. He could point to most any day on the calendar and recall what he had for lunch, what the people he was with had been wearing, and what had been on the news that day.

Hyperthymesia was often regarded as a problematic condition more than a gift. Some people found the constant recall of archived memories emotionally crippling. Others found that the constant influx of the past impaired their ability to experience new things.

Carver was lucky. Although he occasionally had problems with focus, he was mostly able to wield the extreme amounts of data located within his brain to his advantage. His was a medical condition with benefits.

“Yes,” he continued. “My partner and I signed in at 10:41. We were with Nico for approximately 17 minutes, during which time we were able to convince him to serve the very country that had incarcerated him.”

Cindy Blick (R-Wyoming), a 55-year-old woman with a red beehive haircut, spoke into the microphone mounted before her. “Agent Carver, what I’m trying to understand is why you would enlist the help of a convicted felon when you had access to more than 20 qualified government and private cryptologists, including some from the NSA.”

The attorney covered the microphone with his right hand and leaned in to offer advice. Carver nudged him away.

“They may have been qualified,” Carver stated, “But they were ineffective. The cryptologists at my disposal had been working on the case for weeks without any progress. We’re living in an age where one truly gifted person with a computer can do more in a day than a roomful of PhDs could in a year.”

“I’m not disputing that Nico Gold is a smart person. But in this case, when you chose to enlist the help of a felon, you made a mistake.”

He hated them. He hated this . His thoughts drifted to Operation Crossbow, which had only just gotten interesting. One of the world’s most powerful bioengineers had said that he had the capability to clone a human being, and then had gone missing. Whatever country or organization had nabbed him now had a tremendous intellectual asset at their disposal, and you could bet they weren’t going to use it for a good cause.

“Agent Carver?” Blick said. “We’re waiting.”

Carver quickly rediscovered his train of thought. “My only mistake was bringing Nico in too late. If it hadn’t been for him, you might not be sitting up there today.”

Gonzales leaned forward. “Save the speeches, Agent Carver. The committee will determine, upon learning more details, whether those choices were justified.”

“No it won’t. The committee is incapable of making that determination without all the facts, and those facts are sealed.”

“Is that so? Then I’d like to hear Mr. Gold’s heroics from his own mouth.”

“I bet you would.”

“Do you know where we can find him?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

Blick took off her glasses and peered down at Carver, her eyes darting back and forth between the federal agent and his attorney. “To be blunt, Agent Carver, we have evidence that you forged a judicial order to arrange for Mr. Gold’s unlawful release. Out of respect for your service, the White House has strongly recommended that we look the other way on this transgression, which we are inclined to do despite the fact that nobody will tell us why you’re such a value to our intelligence community, or even what agency you currently answer to. Despite this, we might be persuaded to comply with this request providing you help us return Mr. Gold into federal custody.”

The double doors at the back of the room opened. Julian Speers blew in, nodding at Carver as he walked past the table and made a beeline for Rep. Gonzalez. The congressman leaned over the wood paneling to get a quiet but spirited earful from the DNI.

Gonzalez’ face turned a shade of pink before he abruptly spoke into the microphone. “The director has just advised me the president has suspended these hearings in the interest of national security. Naturally, we will use every feasible legal and constitutional option to reverse this decision.”

As the committee erupted into chaos, Speers motioned for Carver and started for the door.

Carver waited until they were in the hallway before speaking. “Took you long enough,” he grumbled as they speed-walked. “Things were getting pretty heated in there.”

“I didn’t bail you out for your benefit,” Speers said. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d have told them how to find Nico Gold.”

“Then why are you here?”

“The president asked for you personally. We have a mess on our hands.”

5th Street Northeast

Washington D.C.

The inside of Speers’ black Highlander was just as Carver had remembered it. It smelled like a candy store and was littered with chewed lollipop sticks and fast-food wrappers. The only new wrinkle was the pair of child car seats in the vehicle’s second row. The babies were the result of a torrid relationship Speers had with a DOJ analyst named Lydia. Within four months of dating, Speers had gotten her pregnant with twins. Before he knew it, he needed a wedding planner, a financial planner and a real estate agent.