William Tyree - Line of Succession

“Like those odds,” Abrams said as he opened a protein drink. After shooting down Marine One and personally assassinating the leader of the free world, Abrams equated himself with Iron Man and the rest of his crew as slightly lesser, but still lethal, superheroes. So far, their engagements on U.S. soil had been vastly easier than anything they had been asked to do in North Africa or Iraq. They were careful to always maintain the element of surprise. The constant intermingling of corporate defense contractors such as Ulysses and the traditional armed forces had nearly wiped out any suspicions that might have existed previously.

He parked the Hummer right behind the others, so that the vehicles looked to be part of the same convoy. The crew readied their weapons and approached the building on foot. Now it was time to divulge the details of the mission to his crew.

Abrams pulled three photographs of Angie Jackson from his pocket and handed them to the men.

“She goes by Angie,” Abrams explained. “Make sure she’s dead. We’ll take the body with us.”

“What if she’s in pieces?”

“We’ll vacuum her up if we have to. Don’t leave a single scrap of DNA.”

*

In Apartment 309, Angie Jackson sat in the living room propped up against two floor pillows. Her ankles and wrists were duct-taped together and the television had been her only companion for hours. The pundits on TV, a pair of retired Generals who had once served under General Wainewright, paraded on-and off-screen like a couple of buffoons trained to recite from the same script. “ The foreign press wants you to believe these strikes in Yemen are somehow reckless or without justification. But let's recap what we know about Yemen. First off, it's long been a harbor for terrorists. Second, the government has been openly sympathetic to extremism.”

Elvir entered the room looking like he had just woken from a too-short nap. He had large puffy circles under his eyes. An M4 was strapped around his shoulder.

“I gotta pee,” Angie told him.

“When don’t you have to pee?”

He sighed and helped her to her feet.

“I can’t feel my fingers and toes,” she complained.

He used a kitchen knife to cut the duct tape around her wrists and ankles and walked behind her to the bathroom. They passed the apartment’s lone bedroom, where two men slept on a floor mattress snuggling machine guns like teddy bears.

Angie went into the sparse, windowless bathroom and shut the door behind her. She stooped to look under the door to see if Elvir was waiting outside. As evidenced by his boots, he was. She turned the sink faucet on full and opened the medicine cabinet as quietly as she could. She wasn’t sure what she hoped to find — something sharp, maybe- but the cabinet was empty. Deflated, she sat on the commode and peed and, when she realized that she had to do much more than just urinate, noticed that the toilet paper roll was gone. In its place, a magazine with several pages ripped out rested sadly on the vanity. She dreaded the feel of the glossy pages against her bottom.

She mindlessly tapped her feet, a habit she had picked up as a child when her mother taught her how to make sure her feet didn’t fall asleep on the toilet. Then she felt it — something cool and round grazing the ball of her foot.

*

In apartment 209, the unit directly below 309 where Elvir Divac held Angie Jackson, Agent Carver stood on a living room table. He used a whisper-quiet drill with a two-foot masonry bit to bore a quarter-inch hole in the ceiling between the two apartments. He had not needed the masonry bit after all. The ceiling was impossibly thin and the insulation was non-existent.

209’s residents sat on a loveseat in the corner watching him work. Like many other elderly couples, they were too broke to move out of the crime-infested building. Carver had urged them to go downstairs, where they would presumably be out of the line of fire, but they had insisted on keeping an eye on their possessions.

Carver inserted a 20-inch fiber optic probe into the hole. Then he attached a small viewfinder to the end. By twisting the probe in a circular motion, he saw the entirety of 309’s living room. The apartments’ floor plans were identical. Carver saw the newscast on the TV in the living room and circled the probe around slowly. The room looked empty.

One of his men whistled twice from the bedroom. Carver dismounted the table, made his way down the hallway and regarded the Green Beret standing atop the old couple’s bed. He was looking into an identical viewfinder. “Two men,” the soldier whispered while keeping his eyes on the prize. “Both asleep. Both armed.” He twisted the optic another two inches. “Another in the hallway. Just outside the bathroom. Also armed.”

Carver went into the bathroom, where another solider stood on a crate. The soldier put his fingers to his lips. “Female in the bathroom,” the soldier twanged in a hushed Louisiana accent.

“Is she armed?”

“No sir. I’d say civilian.”

“Hostage?”

“Sir, I’d…” the soldier stopped. His face turned red. He turned away from the viewfinder.

“What’s the problem?”

“She's on the crapper, sir.”

Carver frowned. There was no time for chivalry, privacy concerns or squeamishness. He pushed the soldier aside, stood on the milk crate and peered into the fiber optic probe for a moment. Then he stepped down, astonished.

“That woman,” he said, “is Angie Jackson.”

“Who?”

“Angie Jackson. As in Mrs. Dexter Jackson.”

“The SECDEF’s wife? No sir. She’s dead. Saw it on the news.”

“Believe nothing.” Carver twisted the optic and took another look. This time he found himself looking directly into Angie Jackson’s brown eyes. “Uh-oh. She’s onto us.”

*

Angie grabbed the optic probe and tugged on it. She managed to get about ten inches of it above the carpeted bathroom floor — just enough to realize that she was holding a tiny camera. She was being watched. Or videotaped. In the bathroom. She dropped the fiber optic and pulled up her pants.

Elvir knocked at the door. “What are you doing in there?”

“My stomach’s upset,” she called through the door. Were her captors actually videotaping her bathroom visits?

She tried to push the probe back down into the carpet. No dice.

“No more time,” Elvir said. “I’m coming in.”

Angie took the magazine from the counter and tossed it onto the floor just as the door handle began to turn.

*

Chris Abrams forced a grin as he slowly opened the Hamilton Arms lobby door. He and his men walked upright, at ease. Although their rifles were live, with rounds in the chamber, they did not assume an attack posture. Looking like friendlies was key to their success.

There were four Green Berets in the lobby, kneeling behind a barricade of stacked furniture. Their backs were to the main lobby door, rifles trained on the building’s primary escape routes — elevator and stairwell. When Abrams’ men came into view, sporting U.S.-issue weaponry, Ulysses uniforms and shaved heads, the Green Berets stood and dropped their weapons to their sides.

“Who called in Ulysses?” one of them cracked.

Abrams’ reply was a burst of M4 fire that cut two Green Berets across their waists and sent the other two diving over a couch. Both were quick to respond with grenades, which was a risky move at such close proximity. Abrams’ crew dropped and rolled to either side, seeking cover.

Both grenades went off simultaneously. Abrams felt a stinging jab to his left side that stunned him. He opened his eyes in time to see a long, square segment of metal ventilation shaft falling from the ceiling. He rolled behind it as the surviving Green Berets sprayed the cloud of smoke, dust and bodies with gunfire. He pressed his hand to his aching side. Though his uniform on that side was frayed, and his fingers pressed through the riddled body armor to his tenderized flesh, there was no blood.