William Tyree - Line of Succession

The President didn’t stop to look at Speers. “Not now, Chief.” Speers wasn’t about to take no for an answer. He ran alongside the President like a spaniel chasing a truck. “Sir, please. It’s urgent.”

Exasperated, the President finally stopped and ducked into Mary Chung’s office. The 68-year-old grandmother of eight was eating a lox and bagel sandwich as she typed at blistering speed. “I need a moment,” the President said, which was a long-understood code that meant he was taking over the room and wanted her to leave. Mary rose and scrambled out of her own office to give him privacy. The President leveled his gaze at Speers. “So where’s the fire, Chief?”

“The witness we told you about. He’s been murdered. Right under our nose.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the President said. “By who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Julian, I need evidence. Find another witness.”

“Sir, the deceased had been talking to Congressman Bailey.”

The President’s eyebrows shot up. “You can prove that?”

“Not the way we’re going about this. It’ll never hold up in court. We need an executive order to legitimatize the investigation.”

“I will not look like an ass on the Hill. Speaker Bailey, like everybody else, is on vacation. He’s probably back in West Virginia playing horseshoes and eating barbecue, which is probably what you should be doing.”

“I could — “

“Julian, you need some perspective. I’m ordering you to get your ass on a plane out of D.C. You are not to return to your office for at least three days. Do you understand?”

Speers understood. But he disagreed. He didn’t think that anyone in the White House should be going anywhere during wartime, and especially with predators right in their own government. But he realized he had pushed the limits of his freedom. As the vacant chairs in the Cabinet room illustrated, President Hatch had no trouble terminating long-term relationships once he felt they weren’t serving his interests. Speers had no choice but to agree. “Yes, Mister President.”

Speers stood pondering his options as the Commander-in-Chief exited down the hallway. Mary re-entered her office and put her hand on Speers’ shoulder. The two had first been colleagues at the Governor’s mansion in Virginia eight years earlier. “Need to talk about it?”

“Nah. I’ll be okay.”

“The President just asked me to help with your travel arrangements. He said not to take no for an answer.”

“Okay, Mary. I won’t argue with you. Please get me on the next flight to Charleston, West Virginia.”

Mary squinted on him. “Who in their right mind vacations in West Virginia in August?”

Pennsylvania Avenue

8:15 a.m.

Corporal Hammond drove Wainewright’s black armored BMW SUV in silence up Pennsylvania Avenue. Hammond was a pencil-thin 21-year-old who hailed from Bakersfield, California, spent his vacations cruising bathhouses in West Hollywood, and had ambitions of one day leveraging his experience in the Pentagon to negotiate a hefty salary as an analyst at Ulysses USA.

He had learned early on in his post at the Chairman’s Pentagon offices not to speak until the General spoke to him first. This rule was especially important after National Security meetings at the White House. Wainewright was always especially tense before and after these meetings. Hammond glanced at his boss in the rear view mirror. Sure enough, his left eyelid twitched. It always did when he was upset.

“Fact,” General Wainewright said without preamble, “thirty-six states will face severe water shortages in the next ten years.” In private moments, the General tended to say odd things out of the blue. Corporal Hammond had still not gotten used to it.

“I didn’t know that, sir,” Hammond replied. He had learned never to offer his own views on any subject the General threw his way. Wainewright was easily upset.

“You’re from California,” Wainewright continued. “Your state is using way more than its share of the world’s clean drinking water. And who do you think pays for that?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.”

“The rest of us! And the President’s doing nothing about it.”

Hammond looked into the rear view mirror. The whites of his boss’ eyes were pink and his pupils looked as sharp as pencil points. He prayed that the General’s phone might ring.

“Are you religious?” Wainewright said without segue.

“Yes sir,” Corporal Hammond said. “My parents brought me up Presbyterian.”

“Do your parents love Israel? Do they believe in defending it?”

“They visited the Holy Land when I was fifteen,” Hammond said hesitantly. “It was a dream trip for them, sir.”

Wainewright leaned forward and spoke to the back of Hammond’s head. “Pop quiz: what was the root cause of the Six-Day war between between Israel and Syria?”

“I don’t believe we covered that in school, sir.”

“Take a wild-ass guess.”

“Anti-Semetism, sir?

“Water rights.”

“Good to know, sir.”

“Most people would say the war was started by Syrian terrorist attacks. But what was the root cause of that terrorism? Israel was diverting water from the River Jordan to the Sea of Galilee. People were afraid they were going to die of thirst, Corporal. ”

“Very interesting, sir.”

“Fact: The United States pays Egypt and Israel billions of dollars in foreign aid each year not to fight each other.”

“I didn’t know that, sir.”

“We call it peacekeeping. You have any idea what kind of water-conserving technology we could make if we weren’t paying the Middle East not to self-destruct?”

“Not a clue, sir.”

“Fact: There are certain powerful evangelical groups that support Israel not because they embrace or even tolerate Judaism, but because they believe the Biblical prophecies stating that Jews have to be in certain settlements for the End of Days.”

Hammond thought they had been discussing water rights. Now he had no idea what the common thread of this conversation was about. He chose to remain silent.

The General sighed and said, “You understand what I mean by the End of Days?”

“No sir. I mean not exactly, sir.”

Wainewright laughed darkly. “Fact: The creation of Israel was an evangelical wet dream. Luke 21:20–33. Look it up. Jews will be judged and subsequently wiped out, just as the Christians will be judged and ascend to heaven to sit at the right hand of God. In order for the prophecies in the Bible to be fulfilled, Israel must continue to exist.”

The Corporal was still a small town boy at heart. He hadn’t met anyone in the military that was so openly critical of the Church. He tried to remain polite. “Thank you for the information, sir.”

“Shut up.” Wainewright pulled an open bottle of sparkling water from his drink holder, took a long sip and looked out the window. “Pull over in front of the park. We’re taking a meeting.”

Hammond merged into the right lane and pulled into a curbside spot in front of James Monroe Park, a sliver of green space where local yuppies took their dogs to poop on the grass. “Is this good, sir?”

“Put up the divider.”

Thank God. Corporal Hammond pressed the divider button. A layer of tinted soundproof glass rose between the front and back seat. He caught movement in his peripheral vision and saw a man in an oversized black button-down shirt and sunglasses approach the car from the passenger side. The man, who seemed to have trouble walking, hobbled toward the BMW’s rear passenger door and tapped a gold-tipped cane on the glass.

*

Jeff Taylor’s Stanford MBA had done little to prepare him for his job as a Blackwater executive during the American occupation in Iraq. He escaped three ambushes during his first months in the country. In his sixth month, an IED detonated under his SUV, killing two of his colleagues and vaporizing his own legs above the knee. Taylor spent the next three months enduring various surgeries, then a few more learning how to walk with his new artificial legs.