William Tyree - Line of Succession

Eva sat in her office studying bond market reports that the Under-Secretary had faxed in from her home in rural Virginia. She had been able to establish contact with a half dozen members of her staff, most of whom were now working from home or coffee shops. The Joint Chiefs had ordered all Federal Agency Internet and VOIP networks shut down, citing security threats. The fact that military bases were conveniently unaffected wasn’t lost on her.

In the desk drawer sat a prescription for Ativan, an anti-depression and anti-anxiety drug that she had taken with some success after her husband’s death. The base pharmacy had graciously sent it over without a prescription. The fact that it was there was comforting. But she tried to think of it as a fire extinguisher, glass only to be broken in the event of an extreme emergency. Important decisions had to be made. Her judgment had to be sound. The question was whether her critical thinking skills were more effective with or without the pills.

Madsen appeared in the doorway. He was red-faced and slightly out of breath. “We just hit targets in Yemen,” he said without preamble.

Eva sat upright and ran both hands through her brunette hair. “We?” she said. “According to whom?”

“Rapture Run.” He tossed a memo onto the pine desktop. “The U.S.S. John McCain launched cruise missiles against Allied Jihad training camps. There’s an announcement going to the press as well.”

“Didn’t they get our intel report? We advised them last night that the tape couldn’t be authenticated as Allied Jihad!”

“They got the report. They just didn’t like what it said.”

Eva stood, paced once around the perimeter of her desk, then leaned over it and rested on her elbows. Despite her official role as Treasury Secretary, she was accustomed to having the President’s ear in every foreign policy situation. The fact that she was so far removed now, when the world was coming unglued, was unbearable. “Let’s get Rapture Run on the line,” she said.

Madsen shook his head. “They’re still not taking our calls. General Wainewright’s little assistant — what’s his name, Hammond? — he said ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’”

Rapture Run

General Wainewright sat behind a collapsible desk in Rapture Run’s Executive Quarters. It wasn’t exactly the Oval Office, but it was roughly three times as large as Dex Jackson’s quarters, complete with a full-size bed and private shower and satellite television feeding into three monitors.

Wainewright sat working on the Presidential Inauguration Speech. Lincoln’s opera glasses sat on the desk beside his computer. He heard footsteps in the corridor and reached instinctively for his sidearm. He never sat with his back to the door, nor did he stray more than an arm’s length from a loaded weapon. During the first Iraq war, after his tank battalion had crushed the Iraqis under the leadership of General Schwarzkopf, he had been celebrating with the officers one night when a psychotic tank commander — who had come unhinged at the sight of several charred Iraqi bodies — tossed a grenade into the tent, killing two of his colleagues. Wainewright had escaped with metal fragments in his thigh.

The lesson wasn’t lost on him. He knew that there might be some among his staff who were plotting to kill him even now. He carried his sidearm at all times. And Lincoln’s opera glasses. Always the glasses.

Corporal Hammond entered. He was ashen-faced and his waistline looked tinier than usual. “General,” he said, “I have something.”

“Shut the door.”

Hammond entered and closed the door behind him. The General pressed a button on his desk that frosted the glass.

“It’s Angie Jackson, sir. She’s alive.”

He handed Wainewright a message he had received from Elvir Divac, along with a full-color photograph showing Dex Jackson’s wife on a carpeted floor against a bare wall. Looking glumly into the camera, she held a copy of that day’s Baltimore Sun with the headline PRESIDENT URGES CALM IN TV ADDRESS. A man in a mask stood behind her holding a machine gun.

“They’re asking for a great deal of money,” Hammond said. The Corporal took comfort in the General’s unflinching expression as he absorbed the message. There was no fear in him.

“We could both use a drink,” Wainewright said finally. “At ease.”

Hammond sat in a plastic folding chair on the other side of the General’s desk. Wainewright pulled a mostly empty bottle of Irish whiskey from his desk drawer and poured the remainder into two glasses. He picked up one of the glasses and raised a toast at the photograph of his dead son in uniform.

“Did I ever tell you how he died?” the General said.

“No sir.”

“Hezbollah was firing rockets into Israel,” Wainewright said. His voice was softer than Hammond had ever heard it. “We had a few clandestine units in Lebanon, though we had plausible deniability in case they were captured. My son was a Second Lieutenant. He located the rocket launchers, called in the air strikes that saved Haifa. He was a hero.”

The General paused to finish the rest of his whiskey, then resumed in the same melancholy tone. “A few hours into it, an Israeli pilot comes in, drops his bombs fifty yards out of the target zone. Takes out my kid’s entire unit. And for what? Hezbollah was back within days. Hamas was back in months. Syria still wants revenge. And what do we get for our blood?” He looked at Hammond earnestly, still speaking from somewhere dark and deep within himself. “I’m asking you as a man, Corporal. What do we get for my son’s death?”

Wainwright stared at him for a moment, awaiting a response. Hammond was too timid to provide one. The General sighed and picked up the photo of Angie Jackson that Elvir Divac had sent.

“Anyone else seen this?” he said in a much louder voice.

“By your directive, I share sensitive information with you and you alone, sir.”

Wainwright detected a lie. “I’m glad I can trust you,” he told Hammond. “There’s another bottle of whiskey in that footlocker. Fetch it for us.”

Obedient as ever, the Corporal scurried alongside the General’s desk and bent down to open the footlocker. Wainewright kept a 14-inch long, heavy black flashlight, the type that the Military Police had used long ago, in his desk. As Hammond bent fully over, Wainewright grabbed the flashlight, turned and cracked the unsuspecting Corporal on the back of his skull as hard as he could. Hammond fell unconscious. The General turned Hammond over with his foot, then took the pillow off his bunk and smothered him with it until he stopped breathing.

The General calmly went to the door and locked it. He returned to his desk, picked up the phone and the ransom note, and dialed Farrell.

He hung up before Farrell could answer. The news about Angie Jackson was far too sensitive, he decided. It would be better if Farrell stayed focused on his own tasks.

Instead, he dialed Chris Abrams directly. Abrams answered on the first ring. “Baltimore has turned out to be more enterprising than we imagined,” the General said into the receiver. He looked down at the Corporal’s body, which lay slumped on the floor. “Don’t delegate this, Mister Abrams. I want you to take care of the problem personally.”

Professor Hitchiti’s Home

5:30 p.m. Central

Professor Hitchiti’s stiff corpse sat upright in the armchair in the living room, awaiting an agency forensics team. Carver and O’Keefe wore latex gloves as they sifted through the murdered professor’s files and mail. From the scant knowledge of forensics Carver had picked up over the years with CIA, he figured that the professor had been dead more than one day but no more than three. The lack of stink and the presence of maggots told him that much.