Line of Succession: A Thriller (28 page)

“
Chris Abrams?”

“
Cha-ching. But strangely, there is no VA file for Chris Abrams, which I thought was odd for a Ulysses consultant, since they tend to hire veterans as a rule. So I looked him up on the Social Security database, and there was no man by that name within his age group.”

O’Keefe wriggled in her seat. “I know I’m a captive audience, but you’re boring me. Cut to the chase.”

“
On page eighteen of your program, you’ll find what I discovered in the log files of a site called
PrivateMilitaryNews.com
.”

O’Keefe turned to the printout. It was a photo of General Wainewright with Chris Abrams. The article caption:
General Wainewright with Chris Abrams, one of Ulysses’ top guns in Indonesia
.

“
This is the guy?”

“
It is. But what’s interesting is that nobody knows this page still exists. It never made it to the live site. It was held in an editor’s queue in the Web site’s content management system, but it still lives on through the wonders of Web dev versioning software.”

“
Just tell me what it means!”

“
The article’s a smear piece, showing that Wainewright owned millions in Ulysses stock options and was thus violating anti-trust laws by pitching them DOD-financed contracts. Abrams’ inclusion as a Ulysses employee in the pic was just a happy accident.”

“
Proves nothing,” O’Keefe said. “General Wainewright is very open about how pleased he is with Ulysses’ performance.”

“
With one crucial exception. The General’s photo with Chris Abrams. I found myself wondering why someone went to such lengths to make sure it didn’t get published.”

“
What lengths?”

“
Double homicide.”

“
You lost me.”

“
Turn to page twenty-six.” O’Keefe did. “I looked up the name of the journalist to see if there were any follow-up pieces that saw the light of day. Instead, I found what you’re holding on page thirty-two.”

O’Keefe flipped to the page. It was an obituary. “Go on.”

“
The writer was stabbed in a supermarket parking lot the day before the article was due to be published. That night, his editor was killed by a hit and run driver.”

Had she not been cuffed to the table, O’Keefe could have kissed him. Nico had found a direct link between Eva’s would-be assassins and Ulysses, and it even had a name – Chris Abrams. Even if Abrams was just a blunt instrument, O’Keefe figured if they dug deeper, there would be a connection to their own investigation of Ulysses as well. She shuffled anxiously through the rest of the files Nico had printed up.

Static hum erupted over the room speaker. Then the Desk Sergeant’s voice cut in: “Riots in 8th Precinct. All hands reports.”

Right on time. Nico himself had hacked into the precinct messaging account moments before waking O’Keefe and issued the emergency broadcast.

He stood. “So I guess this is goodbye.”

O’Keefe nodded. “Thanks, Nico. This was nice of you. All things considered, I mean.”

He slipped out of the soundproof room and switched off the light on his way out. Around the corner, he found the open cabinet with a half dozen riot helmets, Kevlar vests, and shields. He put a helmet on first. Then, as police ran past him, he calmly dressed in full riot gear and made his way toward the building’s entrance, where similarly costumed police officers were making their way to the street. Walk with purpose, he told himself. Stay with the pack. You are a cop in riot gear. Be the riot gear.

He continued following the other officers until he saw a public phone in front of a library. He went to it and lifted the shield on his riot helmet and picked up the receiver. When the operator came on, Nico said “Collect call to Burlington, North Carolina, please. Margaret Howland. H-O-W-L-A-N-D. You’ll have to look up the number.

Rapture Run

10:49 a.m.

General Farrell felt his intestines tighten as he entered Wainewright’s quarters. He was accustomed to being the calming influence in Wainewright’s life. But he didn’t feel calm now. Wainewright looked up and saw the rage in Farrell’s face. “Shut the door,” he said as he pressed a button on his desk to frost the door glass.

“
Why wasn’t I told about Angie Jackson?” Farrell demanded.

Wainewright leaned back in his chair. “Your plate’s full. You didn’t need any more distractions.”

“
Abrams’ crew failed, and now Eva Hudson’s people have Angie. I think we can count on Eva going public with this.”

“
We can’t let that happen.”

Farrell’s voice turned wobbly. “We’ve already played our hand. We’ve got to tell Dex his wife is alive. What choice do we have? Better that he hears it from us first.”

“
Calm down.”

“
Don’t tell me to calm down. Eva’s alive, and that means she’s next in line. Maybe before we could’ve forced Dex into office, but not now. We’re going to have to make some kind of deal with Eva. Maybe tell her we’ll support her presidency in exchange for immunity. We could maybe give her Jeff Taylor. Or Abrams.”

Wainwright peered up at Farrell with red eyes. “You’ve completely lost it.”

“
Don’t you see how this is going to look? The plan was to blame this on the Allied Jihad. That’s falling apart now. It looks bad. We look bad.”

The Chairman remained calm. “Get a grip. We look golden. Besides, if we give up now, the country would be right back where we started. Bogged down in the Middle East for a generation. Vilified by the world. Buying our water from Canada or going to war with Mexico to get it.” He stood, walked around the circumference of his desk and spoke mere inches from Farrell’s face. “The most patriotic men in America are standing right in this room. I really believe that. And I’m not afraid to put my reputation, and my very life, on the line for the good of our country. Are you?” He poked his index finger into the middle of Farrell’s chest. “Are you? Because it sounds to me like you’re only concerned about saving your ass.”

Farrell stepped back. He took an unfiltered cigarette out of his pocket and lit up. Thick ropes of smoke roiled throughout his esophagus and lungs.

TEN MONTHS EARLIER

Northern Colorado

The Chairman’s private hunting cabin was nestled within sixty private acres of golden windswept plains and dense aspen forests. It was not accessible by road. Being an avid hunter, General Farrell had been angling for an invitation for more than a year. With armies in three war zones, a single weekend off for any of the Pentagon brass was a rarity.

Wainewright finally relented in early October, just in time for deer season. They had come in on a Wednesday morning by private helicopter. The 110-year-old outpost had been a remote ranger station until the late 2000s when the State of Colorado, its tax revenue crippled by the housing bubble collapse, had been forced to sell off chunks of prime public land. Wainewright snapped the place up for just over a million in cash.

The Pentagon’s most powerful duo spent the afternoon in an aspen grove overlooking a busy game trail. They saw deer by the dozen and elk by the truckload. By dusk they had both bagged big bucks. They butchered the animals themselves, hauling the prime cuts out on their backs and leaving the rest for the coyotes.

They spent the evening eating venison, drinking 12-year-old cognac and smoking Dominican cigars by firelight. As always, the conversation eventually turned to politics. Wainewright was candid about his feelings about the President’s policies. That was no surprise. He waited until Farrell’s third glass of cognac to veer into the unexpected.

“
Ed,” he said, using Farrell’s first name for the first time in ages, “There’s a movement among certain members of congress to remove the President.”

Farrell shook his head. “There’s not enough votes for impeachment. Trust me, I’m following it too.”

“
I’m not talking impeachment,” Wainewright said.

The Vice-Chairman sipped his liquor. “Then what are you talking about?”

“
Removal.”

Farrell laughed. “Careful,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, it sounds like you’re talking—”

“
Removal
,” Wainewright confirmed.

Farrell was quiet for a moment as the implications of the conversation dawned on him. He set his drink on the table, extinguished the cigar in an ash tray and replaced it with an unfiltered cigarette. “I take it you didn’t bring me out here just to hunt.”

The Chairman puffed his cigar and looked up at a bison head that his great-grandfather had killed. “If it makes you uncomfortable, we don’t have to discuss it. No pressure at all.”

Farrell knew better. Wainewright had no patience for anyone that wasn’t rowing in the same direction that he was. This conversation was a test. If he didn’t seem amenable, he’d find himself out of the Joint Chiefs – or worse – by the end of the year.

“
General,” Farrell said, “you’re a registered Republican, right?”

“
I’m beyond the party system, Ed.”

Farrell took that to mean that Wainewright now considered himself a revolutionary. “So these members of Congress…” Farrell said, treading as lightly as he could. “They theoretically advocate drastic measures.”

“
Not theoretically. It’s real, Ed. It’s obvious to everyone that the executive branch has accumulated too much power. Fact: we’re on track to suffer twelve thousand combat casualties this year, and we’ll have nothing to show for it but more enemies. Fact: our annual foreign aid to Israel and its neighbors alone costs us more in one year than it would cost to fix social security for the next ten years.”

“
I’m sure that’s true. But still—”

“
Fact: twelve states are running out of clean drinking water, and the President is doing nothing to stop it.”

The Vice-Chairman tried to make sense of what he was hearing. Was this the cognac talking, or was Wainewright for real?

“
General,” he began, not quite comfortable with calling Wainewright by his first name, “these member of Congress you mentioned. Maybe we could help them get the votes they need.”

“
Impeachment?” Wainewright laughed. “The Vice-President would just continue the same policies.”

“
Point taken. But the line of succession would be the same regardless of how the President left office.”

Wainewright smiled. “We think alike, my friend. Which is why I told them that their plans were far too conservative. Removal by assassination is too short-sighted. They’re not thinking big.”

Farrell felt dizzy. “Big?’

“
We’ve known each other for thirty-five years. You know I’m no secessionist, and I’m sure as hell not a socialist. You know I love this country. But you have to admit that we’re being outmaneuvered by emerging governments that combine free markets, a strong military and strong central government.”

“
You mean China.”

Wainewright nodded. “Not just China. Fact: Russia is buying our debt and selling it back to us at prices we can’t even afford.” He pounded his fist on the table. “Russia, Ed!”

Farrell lit another cigarette. “I think it’s important to remember that we still live in the greatest country in the world.”

“
Not even close. We’re at best the nineteenth or twentieth greatest country in the world. But there’s a powerful movement afoot, Ed. The fog is lifting.”

That night, Farrell went to bed so shaken that he could not sleep. By morning he had developed several stress boils on his neck, shoulders and back.

The cabin phone rang at 10:36 a.m. with the news that a car bomb in Santa Monica had killed 170 people. The Joint Chiefs were summoned to the White House for an emergency Security Council meeting. A helicopter took them to Fort Collins, where they boarded a private jet bound for Washington.

The NSC convened five hours later at the White House, where President Hatch informed them that, in response to Indonesian radicals claiming responsibility for the bombing, they would open up a new military front in Indonesia. The decision came despite the fact that the U.S. military was already stretched beyond capacity. It came without any proof whatsoever that Allied Jihad forces battling the government in Indonesia were behind the bombing. It came without any room in the country’s three-trillion-dollar deficit. But the public wanted revenge and the President had decided to take the fight to the terrorists. He wasn’t interested in the Joint Chiefs’ arguments to the contrary.

After the meeting, the two Generals shared a car back to the Pentagon. They were quiet until they entered the Pentagon parking garage. “About what you said last night,” Farrell said. “I’d like to discuss that more.”

Eleven days later General Farrell received an invitation to attend a private dinner at General Wainewright’s home near Alexandria. He was specifically instructed not to bring his wife or any other date. Upon pulling up to Wainewright’s home – a six-bedroom estate with Greek columns in front – a parking attendant led him inside, where Wainewright’s assistant, Corporal Hammond, swept his clothes with a metal detector and placed his phone in a safe near the front door.