William Tyree - Line of Succession

“You know,” Wainewright said softly, “my own son died in a friendly fire incident.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.” Rodriquez waited a few seconds, but there was nothing further from Wainewright. “Interrogative, sir: Am I here to begin my court martial, sir?”

Wainewright smacked his lips. “You’re here to redeem yourself.” He paused to see if the Captain would bite, but there was no response except for a slight quiver of the Captain’s lip. “If you do one job for me, I’ll personally make sure that you never stand trial. Sound good?”

“Sir, yes sir.”

“Your assignment is to shoot down a government jet.”

“Interrogative, sir: a jet from which government, sir?”

“Ours.”

Rodriquez paused. “May I ask why?”

“The passengers are traitors that threaten our national security.”

Rodriquez’ resolve wavered momentarily. He would rather have done anything than kill more friendlies. But the chance for redemption was too great. “Sir, yes sir. I’ll do anything to protect my country, sir.”

“Good.” Wainewright looked to Farrell. “General Farrell here is now responsible for the success of this mission. You will report directly to him.”

*

Deep in the bowels of the Rapture Run complex, the elevator descended to the isolation wing. Dex Jackson stepped off the elevator. Twenty cells sat along a corridor lit with blue LED lamps. A lone MP straightened himself. He recognized the Secretary of Defense and snapped to attention.

“Where’s my son?” Dex snarled.

The MP took him to LeBron’s cell, where the kid was curled up in fetal position on a mattress, wearing a regulation white t-shirt and underwear. He was shivering. “We acted on Corporal Hammond’s orders,” the MP explained. “He said the boy couldn’t sleep with the soldiers. He said it was for the boy’s own safety, sir.”

Dex delivered a chopping blow to the MP’s Adam’s apple. The soldier fell to the floor, gripping his neck, struggling to get air back into his crushed windpipe. Dex opened the cell door. LeBron sat up on his elbows. For once, he was happy to see his father.

Burlington, North Carolina

12:20 a.m.

Nico was asleep by the time Madge pulled the truck into the driveway of her three-bedroom home. “Nico,” she called gently. He opened his eyes, taking in the beauty of the moonlit v-neck of her plus-size floral blouse. Madge blushed, and then said, “You flatter me. Now let’s hit the hay for real. It’s way past my bedtime.”

The living room was adorned with school photos of her nieces and nephews, as well as a life-size print of the Shroud of Turin. “You’ll have to pardon the house,” she said, although the house was very tidy. “I wasn’t exactly expecting guests.”

“I’m beat,” Nico said.

“You’ll be in there.” She pointed to the guest bedroom, where a day bed was covered with a homemade comforter with a cowboy theme. “I know it doesn’t make much sense given what happened and all, but I don’t feel right about sleeping in the same bed.”

“No worries,” Nico said. “I get it.” He actually didn’t get it at all. But he had bigger things to worry about right now. His eyes were already fixed on the computer and tiny desk in the living room corner. “Uh, do you have an Internet connection?”

Madge’s eyes were serious for the first time tonight. She looked at the computer, then back at Nico. “I was wondering how long you were going to be able to stay away from it.”

“I don’t want to make trouble,” Nico said.

She kissed him on the forehead. “Go on. Use it. But if you find yourself tempted to fall back into old patterns, wake me up. I’ll get up and pray with you.”

Washington D.C.

1:17 a.m.

Speers crept along dark Georgetown side streets in hopes of avoiding the Ulysses patrols. He had kept his phone off for the past several hours in fear that Wainewright’s people might use it to track him. But as he came within sight of the George Washington University campus, he spotted one of the last remaining public phones in the city. He went to it. He called Eva.

Eva answered right away, although the connection was shaky. “Where are you?” he said.

“At about thirty-five-thousand feet,” she said. “We’re on our way to Rapture Run.”

“Eva, listen to me. You’ve got to get off that plane.”

“The Joint Chiefs reached out,” Eva said over the scratchy connection. “And I have a prisoner here who claims that the attack on Dex was — ”

“Faked,” Speers said. “I know. Corporal Hammond sent me some very illuminating items.”

“I’ll need the Joint Chief’s assistance to get resources on this. I need to convince them in person.”

“Eva, you’ve got it wrong. The Joint Chiefs are keeping Dex in the dark. Even now, he probably thinks his wife is dead.”

Speers’ words didn’t compute. “Chief, I can’t comment on Dex’s situation, but General Farrell acknowledged that I’m next in line.”

“Next in line for the cemetery, maybe.” Speers looked over his shoulder as a Ulysses patrol rambled down the far end of the street. It was time to end the conversation before it got ended for him. “Eva, trust me. Just get off that plane.”

Rapture Run

1:21 a.m.

The lone surviving Marine One helicopter was docked in a subterranean hangar that was concealed fifty yards below ground and built to withstand a direct hit by a ten megaton nuke. Wainewright and Farrell sat inside as a crew readied the deluxe chopper for the flight to Washington. Despite the late hour, the Generals wore full dress uniforms. In just a few hours, they would be orchestrating the most dramatic political event ever to appear on live television.

Dex Jackson and his son came to the door and peered inside the spacious cabin. “My son will be joining us,” Dex said in a tone that reeked of resentment.

Wainewright looked at the boy. “Very well. Sit up front with the pilot.”

The pilot started the chopper’s engines. The massive hangar roof parted overhead. Cornstalks fell over the side into the hangar and were shredded into confetti as they passed through Marine One’s churning rotors.

Dex took a seat in the booth opposite the Joint Chiefs and buckled himself in as the chopper rose steadily.

“Whose idea was it to put LeBron in the isolation ward?” Dex said. “At least you’d give a bum a blanket and a hot meal.”

“I asked that he sleep separately for his own safety,” General Farrell said.

“Well I expect the MP on duty to be court martialed.”

“Consider it done,” Wainewright said. He pushed a document across the table. “Your inauguration speech.”

Dex flipped through the speech’s first pages and pushed it back to Wainewright. “When JFK was assassinated, Johnson had the decency not to turn the passing of the torch into a spectacle.” Wainewright nudged the speech back across the table. “And he spent the rest of his term running JFK’s playbook.”

Dex scanned the speech’s first page more closely: We gather here at the Lincoln Memorial to usher in a new era. The idea of such a public gala still did not sit right with him. He looked up. “What about security?” he said. “The people that tried to kill me are still out there.”

“Trust me,” Wainewright said. “So long as you stick to the script, your life is not in danger.”

Over West Virginia

1:22 a.m.

Captain Rodriquez, aka Bearcat, flew his F-35 Lightning at 35,000 feet near the Kentucky/Virginia border. He had been given the expected trajectory and altitude of the Gulfstream G650 jet, as well as the ideal intercept location. Rodriquez wondered how so much could be anticipated about the flight plan of a government jet that was supposedly full of mutinous traitors.