William Tyree - Line of Succession

“Where are we headed?” Eva said.

“Arlington,” Carver shouted back, knowing they wouldn’t be able to drive there without leading the bad guys straight to Speers. He had to ditch the car.

A mile later he saw the exit for Turkey Run Park, where he often went running on weekends. He took the exit and wound the car under the first bridge, skidding to a stop under cover of the 200-foot long overpass.

O’Keefe and Eva jumped out. Carver helped Angie out of the car and pulled her by the hand toward a section of wooded green space.

They picked up a jogging trail that stretched under a thick canopy of poplar trees. Following Carver’s lead, they went as fast as they could for the length of a football field before stopping. Angie was still foggy, but she moved well with O’Keefe’s help. Carver crouched to peer between a pair of shrubs. The traffic helicopter was still hovering over the bridge where the car was parked. It had been joined by two Army Huey attack choppers.

“We don’t have long,” Carver said. “They’ll have boots on the ground within ten minutes.”

“It would suck if they released dogs,” Eva said.

“We’re one hill away from the Potomac Heritage trail. There’s an oak and beech forest not far from there that runs all the way to Arlington. It’s our only shot.”

Washington D.C.

5:15 a.m.

Agent Rios led Dex and LeBron to the Metro Center station entrance as the day’s first orange line train was about to arrive. The mid-career secret service agent’s hands trembled. Sixty-six hours ago he had shot two assassins dead on Martha’s Vineyard. For that, he had no regrets. It was the prospect of using his weapon again that bothered him.

They passed the turnstiles without incident and descended the steep escalator toward the platform. Rios’ senses were highly attuned to the few souls scurrying about the station. He heard the conversations of strangers at impossibly long distances. He could smell the trash on the other side of the tracks. Everything seemed magnified.

His phone buzzed. The caller ID displayed a variation of a Pentagon telephone number. He answered.

“This is General Wainewright,” the voice on the other end said.

It took all Rios’ willpower to remain polite. The Secret Service did not answer to the Pentagon, but rather, to Homeland Security. Still, he realized all that could change depending on who occupied the White House by nightfall. It was best to be cautiously subservient. “Yes sir,” he answered.

“Are you alone?”

“No sir.” Rios did not elaborate further.

“I’m glad you didn’t lie to me, Agent Rios. I hate liars.”

Rios put his hands on Dex’s and LeBron’s shoulders and backed them up against a concrete column. He looked left and right, but did not see any cameras or enemy agents. He returned the phone to his ear as the train entered the station slowly and loudly.

“Is there something I can do for you, sir?” Rios told the General. “I’m about to get on the subway.”

“Yes, Agent Rios. You and Secretary Jackson can report to me at the Pentagon and join my team.”

“I work for the White House, sir. It’s really not my choice.”

“Don’t play dumb,” the General said calmly. “This is your last chance to play on the winning team.”

The train doors swooshed open before them. Rios ushered Dex and LeBron inside with him. He motioned for them to stand near the doors, in case they had to jump off at the last moment. He took a moment to inspect the surrounding seats. Behind him, a masked Chris Abrams emerged from behind one of the wide concrete columns on the platform. He kicked Dex in the back and plucked LeBron from the train just as the doors began to close. Rios lunged for the exit. The doors clamped around his left wrist. His hand was saved only by a safety feature that caused the door to hiccup open for an instant before sealing again.

Dex managed to get to his feet to catch a last glimpse of LeBron struggling in Abrams’ clutches as the train headed into the tunnel.

Agent Rios screamed into the phone. There was nobody there. Like LeBron, General Wainewright was long gone.

Burlington, North Carolina

5:20 a.m.

While Madge slept, Nico sat at her computer in the living room, navigating past a series of firewalls that would lead him to the Pentagon’s virtual inner sanctum. As always, he did not attack his target head on. He had begun by finding the name of the IT firm that the Pentagon had hired to service their legacy network systems. He quickly found Novi Technical Group, a small company in nearby Fairfax. A look at the source code from their corporate site — a quick WC3 diagnostic racked up more than thirteen-hundred coding errors — told him that the company’s employees had little time to spend on themselves. While the IT firm had undoubtedly been very meticulous in securing the DOD’s formidable intranet, it was likely that the firm’s employees were too overworked to spend any time on their own corporate security, where a copy of their work for DOD would certainly reside. It was a classic case of a hairdresser with bad hair.

By four a.m., Nico had hacked into the company’s internal network and located an unencrypted Excel document containing one employee’s login information for a variety of sensitive federal systems.

The old rush was returning. He felt invincible. Bulletproof. As fervent in his belief in what he was doing as ever. He hadn’t felt this way in Oklahoma, where Agent Carver had asked him to break into the old professor’s email. Nor had he felt it in Baltimore, when he had broken into the DOD’s personnel files for Colonel Madsen.

This was personal. This was about ideology. Much as he hated the idea of anyone continuing President Hatch’s foreign policy, the idea of military rule was far worse. But crippling the Pentagon’s communications with a virus wasn’t the answer. If only he could broadcast a simple message inside the Pentagon’s network that would make the Pentagon sheep think twice about what they were doing.

The breaking news ticker flashed across the bottom of Madge’s customized desktop: Tragedy in Washington: President Hatch killed. Successor to be sworn in. Details forthcoming.

So the Joint Chiefs were going public. The world was about to change. He had to hurry.

Washington D.C.

5:35 a.m.

Speers surfaced from the tunnels under Roslyn Station, where Agent Rios was due to deliver the Defense Secretary. He pulled the baseball hat low over his face as he stood in the shadows and watched the platform. A few early bird commuters — mostly men wearing gray suit jackets and ties despite the uncomfortably hot weather — stood staring into the screens of their mobile phones. The rumble of an approaching subway car shook the concrete. He spotted Agent Rios and Dex, both peering anxiously through the glass, as it rolled in. There was no sign of Dex’s son.

Dex charged off the train and threw a looping right hook that cracked Speers on the cheekbone. Speers fell back and covered up, more stunned by the audacity of Dex’s punch than hurt by it. Rios grabbed Dex from behind, easily subduing the much smaller man.

“They took LeBron,” Rios explained as Dex retreated to a corner of the platform to compose himself.

Speers dusted himself off and touched his face, which was already beginning to bruise and swell.

“You said my wife was alive,” Dex said. “You sure as hell better not be lying.”

“She’s with the two best federal agents in the entire country,” Rios offered.

“I’d like to hear it from him,” Dex said, pointing at Speers.

Speers wiggled his jaw from side to side. It seemed safe to talk. “Okay then. The so-called terrorists that attacked your boat were led by an ex-military man of Bosnian descent named Elvir Divac. They weren’t supposed to hurt anybody. The Joint Chiefs hired them to make you a believer.” Speers knew the story sounded crazy, but it was clear by the look of enlightenment on Dex’s face that it rang true. “When Angie fell overboard, they didn’t know what to do. They saved her because they were afraid they wouldn’t get their money. But they were wrong. The Joint Chiefs were going to eliminate them either way.”