William Tyree - Line of Succession

Wainewright did not bother to explain what was already understood. “After the inauguration,” he continued, “your security detail people will be staffed by personnel of our choosing. Just to make sure you don’t get too big for your britches.”

The fury in Dex’s eyes turned to resignation. It was obvious that the Joint Chiefs held all the cards.

“Honestly, Dex,” Farrell added, “once you accept this, you’ll see we’re giving you everything you wanted. We could have chosen anyone. The Number Two, Eva Hudson, even Congressman Bailey. But we chose you because we agreed with all your foreign policy arguments. You wanted a rebuilt military? You’ll get it. You wanted out of Indonesia? Done. You wanted out of the Middle East? Except for the new base in Dubai, you’re getting that too. All you have to do is be a good boy and do as you’re told.”

Abrams pushed the door open. He was scowling even more than usual. “We have a problem,” he said. “My men had the targets cornered at Arlington House. Julian Speers was with them too. They all disappeared inside. Gone without a trace.”

“Did you say Arlington House?”

“Yes.”

Wainewright knew immediately where Speers had taken them. “Grab a wing man and some night vision gear,” he told Abrams as he headed for the elevator. There was a tunnel entrance beneath the Pentagon. And he had a code.

Washington D.C.

7:02 a.m.

Agent Rios leaned against a tree near Lafayette Square, just blocks from the White House. He was exhausted. Up the street, a Ulysses patrol loudspeaker called for residents to avoid gathering in large groups. It was an absurd request on any day, much less this one. The city had woken up to the news that President Hatch had been assassinated.

Something cold and wet brushed Rios’ hand. A Schnauzer muzzle. The dog was attached to a woman in her mid-40s with kind eyes and wide ankles. “Excuse me,” she said. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Me?” Rios said.

“Well I see you work for the government.” She gestured toward Rios’ earpiece and black suit and tie. Rios pulled the transmitter out of his ear. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“Sorry ma’am. I may know less than you do.” It was the truth. He was completely out of the loop. There were a dozen messages on his phone demanding that he appear at Homeland Security headquarters to explain his actions. Suspension from the Secret Service was certain. Dismissal without pension was likely.

“My sister called from Peru,” the woman added. “She said Israel is being invaded.”

Rios shrugged. He hadn’t seen or heard any international news. His phone buzzed and displayed a headshot of Mary Chung, President Hatch’s longtime executive assistant.

“Thank God you’re alive,” she said, choking back tears. “Can you talk?”

“Depends,” Rios said. “Did someone ask you to call me?”

“Heavens no,” Mary said without hesitation. “I’m just trying to make sense of the Pentagon’s press release.”

“Haven’t seen it.”

“They say that Eva Hudson died at Camp David. But I knew that the President had asked you to shadow Eva on Martha’s Vineyard.”

“Eva wasn’t at Camp David. The President never made it there either. I need you to tell me everything you know.”

“I was just at the White House. The Uniforms are all gone,” Mary said, using the shorthand for the Secret Service’s Uniformed Division, otherwise known as the White House Police Force.

“Gone? You mean there’s no security at all?”

“Oh there’s security,” Mary said. “Just not ours. The mansion is surrounded by Ulysses soldiers.”

Rios wished he was surprised. “Go on.”

“I went to the staff entrance,” Mary said. “I was told my credentials were no longer valid.” Rios waited as Mary choked up, then regained her composure. “But the strangest thing…”

“What?”

“Secretary Jackson’s kid.”

“LeBron Jackson? You saw him?”

“Saw him? Hector, they ushered LeBron right past me. He’s in the White House right now.”

The Tunnels

7:28 a.m.

Chris Abrams and Elijah Smith moved slowly and silently through the chest-level water. They had been in the tunnels for forty-five minutes, and all they had seen so far was a water moccasin as big around as a human thigh. They wore night vision goggles and held their M4s across the tops of their shoulders to keep them dry. The tunnel had widened to about twelve feet at its widest point, but seemed to be getting narrower again. The soles of Abrams’ boots were slippery against the mossy tunnel floor. He longed for a pair of waders and the felt-bottomed boots that he wore on occasional river fly-fishing trips back to Idaho.

The two men did not know each other. With Abrams’ crew having been killed in Baltimore, he had been forced to choose a wing man from the few available Ulysses MPs on duty at the Pentagon. None had any covert ops experience to speak of. Abrams knew only that Smith had done three years for Ulysses in Afpak after flunking out of ROTC. Not exactly the rock star he had hoped for, but at least he had actual combat experience, which was more than he could say for the others.

Abrams cursed under his breath as they came to a fork where the tunnels branched off into three directions. They were under instructions to follow the tunnels north until they found the HVTs, or High Value Targets. Wainewright had said nothing about a fork. They didn’t have a map, and they were too far underground for their GPS to work.

Then he heard it — a faint scream. A woman’s scream. Then at least one deeper voice, maybe two. It was impossible to tell how far away. But it was coming from the left fork. Abrams looked at Smith and pointed toward the left tunnel and moved his rifle from the dry carrying position to a dry firing position, with the barrel pointed in the direction they were walking and the stock resting firmly against his shoulder.

Twenty yards further, the water receded to waist-level. Abrams stopped and motioned for Smith to do the same. The voices had stopped, but a faint blue glow appeared in the distance. He pointed Smith to the tunnel’s far side, while he took up a firing position on the opposite wall. Abrams slipped once but managed to get his feet under him without splashing.

The distant light flared strangely through his goggles. He lifted them up to try with his naked eyes. Then the HVTs came into view — four cell phones and five humans, perhaps eighty yards ahead. Abrams licked his busted lower lip and stretched his neck from side to side. He felt a dull pain in his belly and realized it was hunger. It had been a little more than two hours since he had eaten.

“How much longer?” a woman’s voice echoed. Abrams kept as still as death.

The tunnel curved in a serpentine path, and from Abrams’ perspective the HVTs drifted in and out of view. It was unclear whether there were additional forks in the tunnel.

After the failure in Baltimore, Abrams had vowed never again to engage in a firefight with the esteemed Agent Blake Carver. They would wait until the HVTs were very close. Then they would slaughter them. All of them.

Abrams put his goggles back on and looked at Smith. He held his left hand in front of his face and balled it up into a fist — hold position. He then held his pinkie and thumb out and wobbled them from side to side to signal that they would ambush the targets. Then he flashed the numbers one and five, meaning they would wait until the targets were within fifteen yards to attack.

Abrams’ right index finger danced around the M4s trigger as the HVTs slogged toward them. They were, for the most part, single file, and as they came closer, their cell phones created halos around their bodies. The target walking point was brandishing a handgun.