William Tyree - Line of Succession

O’Keefe eyed the title of Nico’s book. “Conversational Cornish?”

“Cornish is a Celtic language,” Nico explained. His voice dripped with condescension.

“It’s also a dead language.”

“What else am I gonna do, pump iron?”

Carver opened his briefcase and pulled out a folder marked CLASSIFIED. He threw it on the table in front of Nico. The prisoner opened it and began pouring over the scramble of letters and phonetic characters.

Nico’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “Oh,” he said with cynical delight. “You’re coming to me with a problem?”

“Coded transmissions,” Carver explained. “Our geeks got past the encryption phase, but the code is something else.”

Nico looked for only a moment more, then rose from the table and walked to the door. He put his mouth to the tiny opening near the top of the door and yelled “Guard!”

O’Keefe was flabbergasted. ”What’re you doing? This meeting isn’t over.”

Nico turned to her. “You’re not the first spooks to come in here looking for help. If you’re serious, put an offer in writing and submit it through my attorney.”

Carver reached into his briefcase once more, whipped out a pre-written negotiated deal. He handed it to Nico. “Official enough for you? It’s signed by a federal judge.”

Nico scanned the document, shrugged. “What else ya got?”

“Full disclosure,” Carver went on, “There’s no time for negotiations. We think we have a major terrorist threat on our hands.”

Nico looked the agents over, sensing leverage. O’Keefe stood with her arms across her chest, biting her lip to the point of drawing blood. Nico smiled, clearly delighted. “Y’know, the Russians have a saying: Smart wolves don’t chase deer. They just wait by the river.”

Carver had expected this, and he was ready with the carrot. ”Help us catch these guys and I’ll cut your sentence in half.”

“Uh-uh. Come back to the river when you’re thirsty.”

Carver heard footsteps and saw the guard’s eyes fill the door window once again. He turned to Nico. “You want high stakes? Fine. You break the code before anyone gets hurt and I’ll get you a Presidential pardon. Anything less and we double your sentence.”

The guard spoke through the opening in the door. “Everything okay here?” he said.

Nico turned to the door and smiled. “Ask the concierge to send down my things. I’ll be checking out today.”

Carver and O’Keefe took some air outside the prison’s main office as Nico was processed for release into their custody. Carver took a pack of mint-flavored gum from his pocket and offered her a piece. “Sugarless,” he said.

“Figures.” O’Keefe smiled and took a piece. She had long given up on coaxing the nutritionally pious Agent Carver to try so much as a donut. “Have you ever even had a cavity?”

“Nope.”

She stepped closer to him. Close enough so he could smell her peppermint shampoo. Carver felt a chill on his neck. It always happened when O’Keefe invaded his personal space.

“So,” she said. “Losing any sleep over this?”

It had been a long time since he had been with a woman. Even longer since he had been in a relationship. He had allowed his work to completely devour him. It was nearly impossible to get close to anyone with a normal life with his schedule. And unlike many of his colleagues, he had absolutely no taste for one night stands or hookers. O’Keefe was the first woman he had felt a connection to since coming back from Afpak, and it had taken a mountain of willpower to keep the relationship professional. He had gone down that slippery slope with her once, and barely escaped with the professional relationship intact.

He stepped back slightly. “Losing sleep over what?”

“The investigation. Someone died on our watch, and you did God knows what to clean it up. I’m wondering if that bothers you at all.”

“No,” Carver said. “Not in the slightest. We don’t even know Lieutenant Flynn’s motivation for doing what he did, but at the very least, he assisted in the killing of a soldier under his direct command, and coordinated weapons that got into the wrong hands, putting hundreds more in danger.”

She shook her head. “He was still a human being. Not a piece of garbage.”

“Look,” Carver said with an edge that took her off guard. “If you feel you can’t perform up to your potential on this case because of your political beliefs…”

She scowled. “Don’t give me that. You know my work ethic. I’m asking your personal opinion.”

“My personal opinion doesn’t count.”

“I’m asking as a friend.”

“Tell me why it matters.”

“Because I’ve got a right to know who I’m working with.”

Carver grinned. “Good answer. Okay then. I think the President is generally well-meaning. But he’s also a narcissist with lousy taste in friends. Starting these wars was a bad idea, and outsourcing the fighting is even worse. If we get half a chance, I’ll gladly feed any of these Ulysses execs head-first into a wood chipper.”

Monroe, West Virginia

10:57 a.m.

Faruq Ahmed sat parallel parked in his Ford F-450 on Main Street. Exactly one quarter-mile in the distance, at the end of the street, he could see the clock tower at Holy Grace Baptist Church. It was nearly show time.

As had become his habit during practice runs at Gatlin Raceway, he sat clutching a stopwatch. The.38 rested on his lap. The Koran lay on the seat next to him. Ammonium nitrate filled the truck bed, which was covered with a leather snap-down bed cover. Last night he had completed the final step — removing the front driver airbags and replacing them with a concentration of C-4 that had been molded to fit the airbag cavities.

He was proudest of this development. In the past, too many suicide vehicles had failed to detonate upon impact. For this reason, the latest Allied Jihad manual had instructed its jihadists to install a hot button on the steering wheel, which the driver would manually trigger a split-second before impact. Ahmed found this unacceptable. For one, it would leave too much to chance. God forbid he should crash on his way to the target, be knocked unconscious, captured and drugged for information. Also, he could be sure that if he could take the Ford into the church’s front doors, he would be assured complete destruction and maximum casualties. Pre-crash detonation would leave too many wounded. That had been the beauty of 9/11, Ahmed, thought. The New York City hospitals had waited hours for the wounded to arrive. But there were no wounded. Only dead.

Ahmed had wired the front-impact crash sensors directly to the C-4, leaving nothing to chance. As a secondary precaution, he had doused the ammonium nitrate in gasoline.

He watched each passing car closely. It was already 10:58. The service was to start at 11:00. Congressman Bailey had a reputation for being on time.

Less than a minute later, the black sedan with Washington D.C. plates finally passed him. The windows were tinted too darkly to see inside, but he was sure this was the car. He clicked the stopwatch and started the truck engine, patiently watching as the seconds ticked by.

Finally he put the truck into gear. “May Allah’s will be done,” he said.

*

Julian Speers’ rental car navigation system barked its final directive: “ Drive straight ahead one half-mile.” He drove slowly. There was little that amused him more than reading signage in the deep South. Biblical dogma was infused with everything from commerce to politics. A church: JESUS WANTS OUT OF THE UNITED NATIONS . An appliance store: ALL DISHWASHERS 50 % OFF! REVELATIONS 11:18 — NOW THE TIME HAS COME FOR THE DEAD TO BE JUDGED.GET YOUR KENMORE TODAY!