William Tyree - Line of Succession

The tunnels had been upgraded in each succeeding administration. Now the Union Station tunnel entrance required both a code and a retina scan, and there were but five retinas in the Hatch administration that could gain access: President Hatch, the Vice President, Speers, Agent Rios, and General Wainewright. Speers felt both honored and grateful to be in possession of one of those precious eyeballs.

Three customers perused Capitol Book’s magazine rack. Speers pushed past them, stepping on toes, past the checkout counter and into the back of the store, where a single employee on break watched a TV show on his cell phone. The employee leaned against an unassuming white door with a digital keypad.

“Excuse me,” Speers said, and when the employee didn’t move, he used his forearm to clear the employee out of the way. The startled clerk pulled the headphones out of his ears and watched Speers punch a string of numbers into the keypad. On the advice of the previous administration’s Chief of Staff, Speers had kept the code extremely simple — it was his late mother’s birthday, the same code he used at ATM machines. The logic behind the easy-to-guess code was that it was likely to be used just once — and that was only if things got really bad. Under conditions like these, five-digit codes were way too easy to forget. Besides, the real security was in the retina scan behind the first door. And the fact that only a handful of people in the world knew of the tunnels’ existence.

“You management, huh?” the employee said. “Ya’ll got an executive toilet back there or somethin’?”

The door opened. Speers wasted no time. As he turned to close the first door behind him, he spotted a tall jarhead in plainclothes talking into his radio. The guy was clearly reporting Speers’ position. He fumbled with the knob and pushed the door shut.

Speers came to a set of stainless steel blast doors. He bent his frame slightly to put his eye to the retina scanner. The scanner had been specific to one eye. But which eye?

Behind him, the doorknob to the store entrance jiggled, causing Speers to blink. The scanner buzzed and displayed an error message: COULD NOT READ. Behind him, the door shook with a series of heavy blows. It sounded like someone was pounding the lock with an anvil. Speers steadied his nerves and waited for the scanner to reset. Then he bent again and held his eye open with his thumb and index finger. The door displayed another error message: FALSE MATCH. Ugh. Wrong eye.

The door was throbbing now. It sounded as if someone on the other side was throwing dozens of kitchen sinks at it. Speers’ hands shook as he waited for the scanner to reset. As the error message once again transformed to read READY, he tried his right eye, again holding the lid open so as to avoid blinking.

That did it. The scanner lit green. The door locks whirred and the entrance to the tunnels beneath Union Station swooshed open just long enough for him to get through. The five-foot thick portal closed behind him. It was built to withstand a nuke. He was safe. At least for now.

The station tunnel was eerily spotless, perfectly silent and lit with amber LED lamps that branched off in four directions. And narrow. Four feet wide and eight feet tall.

On each tunnel branch were cryptic signs in painted white lettering. The first read “Pickup Silver,” code name for a baseball field in Silver Springs, Maryland. The second tunnel read “Salon,” which led to a secret entrance beneath the Capitol Building. This portal was intended to evacuate members of Congress in the event of a direct biological or terrorist attack. The third tunnel was labeled “Camelot,” which led to the President’s personal fallout shelter beneath the White House itself. Speers’ main office was right next to the President’s private study in the West Wing, but he was betting that Ulysses agents were already waiting for him there. The fourth tunnel was marked “Papa,” codename for the Eisenhower Building, where Speers maintained a second office for days when he needed a quiet place to work. In order to prevent pop-in traffic, he had purposely kept its exact location a secret from all staffers except Mary Chung and the President. He was hoping it would keep Ulysses guessing for a few more hours.

Fort Campbell Infirmary

7:20 p.m.

Elvir Divac was far paler and smaller than Eva had envisioned. His nostrils were filled with clear oxygen tubing. An IV was spiked into his arm and his ankles were shackled to the bed frame. A lone physician checked his vitals. His disheveled white lab coat and stained t-shirt rankled Eva. One of the few things she appreciated about the military was the ability to know someone’s status by the stripes on their sleeves or the brass on their lapels.

“Where’s your uniform?” she asked the doctor.

“This is it. I’m a civilian. My company’s on contract with the base.” He fished a business card out of his white coat and offered it to Eva.

She turned her gaze back to the prisoner. “Wake him up.”

The doc shook his head. “He’s under general anesthesia. We just dug a bullet out of his groin.”

He motioned Eva behind a tall white divider, where Angie Jackson also lay unconscious. So it was true. Eva didn’t know Angie well, but they had exchanged pleasantries at a few State dinners. Eva examined the yellow plastic ID bracelet around Angie’s wrist. It read Jane Doe .

“We just sent some hair to the lab as a DNA sample,” the doc said. “The poor thing was in shock. She thinks she’s the Defense Secretary’s wife.”

Eva heard the thumping cadence of Agent Carver’s voice in the background. He was arguing with the MP at the door.

“Let the Feds in,” Eva told the doc. “Then clear the infirmary.”

There was a slight hunch in O’Keefe’s posture as she followed Carver around the white divider. She barely made eye contact as she looked across Elvir’s bedside. Eva’s arms were folded across her chest and she wore her judgment like armor.

“Madam Secretary,” O’Keefe said, “Nico’s escape was entirely my fault.”

”No,” Carver said. “I take full responsibility. I’ll find him personally.“

After all the gut-busting globetrotting, food poisoning, vaccinations, time and resources she had spent tracking down Nico Gold and putting him on trial, Eva wasn’t about to relieve the federal agents of their shame. “The world’s most dangerous cyber criminal is on the loose, and you think you’re just going to turn over some rock and find him? You really have no idea who you’re dealing with, do you?”

It wasn’t a question. She was just rubbing their noses in it. Rather than endure Eva’s wrath, Carver decided to change the conversation. He pulled Chris Abrams’ Ulysses ID out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Eva.

“He was in Baltimore today,” Carver added. “We’re working under the assumption that he was there to kill Angie Jackson.”

Eva held the ID, but she couldn’t focus on it. Nico Gold was on the lam. Years of effort down the tubes. Once the crisis was over, she would need an army of programmers to safeguard the nation’s security grid.

Colonel Madsen entered the room with a sealed envelope. He was out of breath. “General Farrell sent this by personal messenger from Rapture Run. He asked me to run this across base personally. You’re supposed to open it right away.”

Eva did. There was a sheet of paper inside, on which Farrell had handwritten a ten character alphanumeric pass code and a domain name. Eva recognized it from a National Security Council meeting. It was a private video chat site to be used in case of national emergency.

Fort Campbell Gym

The old gym was located behind the stadium track in a red brick building that had not been entered for six years. Carver picked the front door deadbolt and flipped the switch. Three dusty fluorescent tubes flickered to life and twittered like strobe lights on a dance floor.