The House of War: Book One Of : THE OMEGA CRUSADE (29 page)

“We’ve been kidnapped by FEMA?”

“We should be so lucky,” the President answers while helping Lamar up to his feet. “We could count on them to botch things up and make good our escape. These people haven’t introduced themselves yet, but I’d say we can safely rule out FEMA. It’s the cabal, no doubt about it. Come along. Take a look for yourself.”

The President leads the congressman out into a corridor. His room is the third in a row of five rooms. Another five doors like his run along the hall’s opposite wall. To his right, the corridor ends in a metal and glass door behind which are stairs that ascend into darkness. To his left the hall opens into a large, half-moon shaped room. The far, curved end is made up of a dozen, eighteenfoot tall glass panels. Looking through them, Lamar’s attention is drawn down to a control room comparable to anything he’s seen at the NSA or CIA, except that the chamber is carved out of solid rock. There is a glass door on the right hand end of the glass arc. Behind the door is a metal stair case that leads to the large, circular room beneath their balcony. Dozens of soldiers, men and women, man computer consoles and move in and out of the room through the four cave-like openings around it. They are all wearing standard US military uniforms but their heads are all topped with camouflage Santa caps complete with white fur trim and pom-pom. Their age and ethnic make-up is as mixed as one would find on any military base. Except for the pointed Santa caps, there is nothing that Lamar can see that distinguishes them from any other grouping of American troops. The sight of American soldiers pointedly ignoring their Commander-in-Chief is unnerving. He doubts that he can ever look at a uniform the same way again.

A young, black woman in corporal stripes glances up at him as she crosses the floor with a pair of three-ring binders tucked under one arm. They lock gazes for a long moment. Reed catches sight of a spreading smile on the soldier’s face before she disappears beneath one of the tunnels leading out of the control room.

Lamar turns around. O’Neill and his security detail are all looking at him, waiting on his reaction. Congressman Reed turns his attention back towards the room in which he awoke. His corridor is the middle one of three. The other two halls are identical, five rooms on either side, ending in a metal and glass door. He looks from the corridors to the President and the two Secret Service agents still regarding him quietly.

“I take it we’re locked in?”

“We sure are,” Morton Gallagher says.

“Have we tried to talk to them?”

“Your assistant, Ms. Cooper spent a few minutes banging on the glass and yelling at them,” the President answers. “All they did was look up once or twice. That’s all.”

“Where is Annie?”

“I sent her to wake the others,” Morton says, hooking a thumb behind him.

Congressman Reed turns back to the scene beneath him. President O’Neill steps beside him.

“It doesn’t look like much,” the President says. “But that’s because we’re in the deepest part of the mountain. That’s the command core we’re looking at. This installation is one of the older ones; it’s quite large and quite deep. It was built to withstand a direct nuclear strike. It’s impenetrable, I dare say; stocked to the rafters with food, supplies and ammunition. It even has its own mountain fed water source. A couple of thousand people could hole up in here for years.”

“Wonderful,” Reed says. His tone belies the sentiment. He looks across the cavernous room. There are twelve, large screens against the far wall arranged in four columns. The first two rows show various shots of DC. The capital, he realizes with a shudder, is being occupied. On the third row Lamar sees what he recognizes as images of the UN Border Bases, only rather than Peacekeepers on the grounds, he makes out American soldiers. The last line of screens show exterior shots of what the congressman assumes is the exterior compound of
the Mount Weather installation. Above their heads, on their side of the balcony, a six-foot, flat screen television is centered on the glass wall. Lamar spares it a glance. It is playing an old Christmas movie whose title escapes him at the moment, though he recognizes the scene of the boy sitting on Santa’s knee. The spectacled kid will be asking Saint Nick for a rifle, he remembers. Guns and Christmas, he thinks, how appropriate.

“Did you notice that?” O’Neill asks, pointing straight down the face of the glass wall.

Lamar presses his forehead against the glass and looks down.

“Jesus Christ…”

18:29:43

When Joe Corelli left his office at the NSA earlier in the evening, he was looking forward to some Macallan and McCormick. The former, is his favorite scotch; the latter, is his favorite Debbie. Deborah McCormick is an Agency field operative and the only love interest in Joe’s life since college. The two of them hooked up after the Christmas party two years ago. They merrily repeat their tryst whenever Debbie is in Washington. Her work takes her away from the capital for long stretches of weeks at a time so it is not often enough for his liking. McCormick, an extremely guarded woman, seems better suited to the ‘friends with benefits’ relationship of theirs. It is just as well Joe tells himself. His job and his own workaholic drive don’t allow for anything more meaningful.

Although it was Debbie that Joe was looking forward to bedding, it was thoughts of Sandi and the sun-bright memories of their long weekend in Destin that he dreamed of until Annie Cooper woke him with a pair of sharp kicks to his mattress. Jarred awake, the image of Sandi’s naked body evaporates from his mind’s eye. The dream is replaced by Annie’s scowling face.

“What the…?”

“Get up.”

“What’s going on,” Joe asks, struggling to sit up in a bed he doesn’t recognize. The room spins lazily a couple of times as his focus returns. “Where are we?”

“Santa’s other workshop.”

“Huh?”

“You’ll see.”

As Joe looks around the small room, memories of the night return to him. He recalls the assassination attempt, the mad Beltway ride and the flight on Marine One. He swings his legs around and slips his feet into his shoes. He doesn’t bother to lace them up but instead makes for his jacket folded atop a large dresser across the room.

“Don’t worry about that now,” Annie says. “It’s not there.”

“What’s not there?”

“Your phone, wallet, PalmPal,” she says. “Whatever it is you’re looking for is gone. They left us the clothes on our backs; that’s all.”

“Who?”

“You’ll see,” she says and walks out the room.

Corelli follows her out and down a corridor to a glass enclosed balcony. The congressman is there with the President and his four Secret Service agents. They are seated on the long, cushioned bench centered in the half-moon-shaped room. Joe looks at them only long enough to acknowledge everyone, for his attention is drawn to the control room beneath the balcony. Annie Cooper gestures him towards the wall of glass.

“Oh, my God,” he says, approaching the arc of glass panes.

“Funny you should say that,” Annie says behind him. “Look down, won’t you?”

“I am looking down.”

“No, straight down,” Annie insists and pushes his head against the glass with more force than she needs to.

Joe is about to complain, but the protest dies in his throat.

Corelli is suddenly looking down on a life-size Crucifix. It is hanging on the wall beneath the balcony. A few feet beneath the Crucifix, on the floor of the control room, he makes out a life-sized Nativity scene. For many long moments, Joe looks from the bloody and thorn-crowned head to the soldiers manning the consoles. His mind goes blank and his is not entirely sure that he is not still dreaming. At first glance, except for the silly, camouflage Santa caps, the collection of soldiers look no different than what he would expect to find on any military installation. Looking closer however, he spots an unfamiliar patch on a few uniforms. The round patch is stitched to their shirts on the right shoulder. The insignia, on a field of black, is made up of a golden cross, its base
curving into a beveled sword point and a red, Omega draped over the cross bar. Written in a ring around the symbol are the words:
In Hoc Signo Vinces
. He translates it from the Latin.
By this sign, you shall conquer
.

“I told you they were Christians,” Annie says behind him.

“Yes, you did,” Joe whispers.

He stares down for another silent minute at the dozens of soldiers in the rock-hewn war room. No one, so much as, glances up at him. Corelli lifts his gaze. A dozen large screens face the balcony from the control room’s far wall. He looks from one to the other, searching for something, anything that will make sense of the scene for him. There are aerial shots of DC in the first row. Troops spread throughout the city, securing downtown, block by block. There are different videos from, what he figures are three different sections of the Southern border playing on another column. The third row of screens is cycling through a slideshow of the United Nations Tower and its surrounding streets. In the first screen of the last column, Joe watches a police officer exiting a building. The images on the column’s other screens places the cop at the cultural center of the Ikhwan Mega-Mosque in Dearborn Michigan. The officer looks warily left and right before sprinting to a waiting squad car. He climbs into the passenger seat and the squad car drives away with its lights off.

Corelli’s gaze sweeps over the pictures again and again but nothing jumps out at him with which to thread the disparate images. Joe is about to ask his party what their thoughts are when he spots Earl Forrester enter the control room. Cane in hand, the Chief of Homeland Security limps briskly across the floor, escorted by a dozen soldiers. Joe has never seen their like. Black, combat plate armor covers them from head-to-toe, only their eyes are visible through the raised visors of their helmets. Compact sub-machine guns are holstered at their thighs. Stun-Rods are held at the ready as they march. More ominous however, than either the rods or the guns, are the red, eight-pointed crosses emblazoned on the soldier’s breastplates.

“Congressman,” Joe says. “Mr. President, Earl Forrester is here.”

Everyone rises from the bench and join Joe at the window.

“Forrester is in on it,” Annie says. “Why am I not surprised?”

Behind the column follows a large, red headed man who trades handshakes, high-five slaps and thumbs-up with the soldiers at their consoles.

“That’s Quinn, Mr. President,” Morton Gallagher says. “The red head in the back, that’s the shooter, Carlton Quinn.”

President O’Neill doesn’t say anything. He merely stares coldly at Forrester and his party as they make their way up the stairs to the balcony. The soldiers in the front collapse their rods, sheath them and pluck the compact, sub-machine guns from their holsters. It is that half a dozen soldiers who enter first, automatic weapons drawn. Gallagher and his crew ring O’Neill with their bodies. Earl Forrester limps onto the balcony, followed by Quinn and the other six soldiers. The latter half-dozen horseshoe the Chief of Homeland Security. Unconsciously Joe and Annie step back, drawing close to the congressman.

Forrester smiles warmly and broadly. “Good evening, all.”

“Merry Christmas, boss.” Carlton Quinn says from behind the Chief, a lopsided grin spread across his wide face.

“You’ll be shot for this, Quinn,” Gallagher threatens.

“Not today, boss,” Quinn responds, never losing the smile. “Not today.”

“Earl, you will release us immediately,” the President orders, his voice even and calm.

“You will all be released at the end of Christmastide,” Earl says.

“That’s in twelve days, to you heathens,” Carlton Quinn adds.

“I said immediately,” O’Neill insists.

“And I said, twelve days,” Forrester repeats.

“This is treason, Earl,” the President says through gritted teeth. “Treason!”

“Until you’re able to have us fitted with nooses, Mr. President,” Earl says with a smile. “We will call it a Revolution.”

“You can’t expect to get away with kidnapping the President, Chief,” Lamar says.

“Oh, but I do, Congressman Reed,” Forrester says. “At least I intend to try to get away with it and more. In the meantime, try to make yourselves comfortable. The mess hall is through the tunnel under the big screens.” The Chief of Homeland Security hooks a thumb behind him.

“The balcony door will be opened for you between 0:900 and 16:00 hours every day so you can get something to eat,” Earl continues. “It being Christmas Eve and all, we’ll open the door at 0:100 if you care to join us for grub after Mass. I’ve also been instructed to extend an invitation to attend the Midnight Mass to any who might care to partake.”

“Shove your mass,” Annie says.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no thank you,’ Ms. Cooper,” Forrester says.

“I’ll tell you what else you can take from me, you fascist…”

Annie lunges at Forrester. Two soldiers close in to block her. She sidesteps the first with a quick cross-shuffling of her feet and kicks the Stun-Rod out of the second soldier’s hand. Her leg still raised, she recoils it rapidly and snap kicks the disarmed soldier square in the chest. He stumbles backward, tripping over the first. Gallagher and his Agents tighten their ring around O’Neill. Joe and Lamar step forward, whether to help Annie or stop her, Corelli doesn’t know. They both hesitate for one frozen second as the six soldiers on the room’s perimeter snap their submachine guns into firing position in perfect unison. It is all the time two of the Stun-Rod wielders need to rush Lamar and Joe and pin them against the nearest wall. Annie is intercepted by a third soldier meanwhile. She kicks at him but he ducks under her fast flying foot. With a quick spin of an outstretched leg, he sweeps her one, planted foot out from under her. Annie lands hard on her back. The soldier she sidestepped originally has pivoted to face her. He jabs her with his Stun-Rod. Annie convulses for a moment as the electric charge flares through her body. She then goes limp.

Chief of Homeland Security Earl Forrester did not flinch through the whole melee.