The White House: A Flynn Carroll Thriller (32 page)

Flynn contemplated what was probably his greatest problem: He was out of bullets.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“STAY BEHIND
me,” Flynn said. “If they belong to Aeon, they're likely to open fire without warning.” Hands up, he took a careful step forward.

Both agents moved to draw their pistols.

“Hey, hold it,” Flynn said.

“You hold it. Stop right there.”

Flynn kept walking, one step, two, three.

“Stop! Now!”

Flynn obeyed. He was not quite close enough to take them before they could pull their triggers. He needed a couple more steps.

“Please identify yourselves,” one of the agents said. He was older, heavy around the edges, balding. His partner was young and vacant enough to be a biorobot.

“Maintenance,” Flynn said. “There's a drainage issue.”

This brought a slight smile to the face of the older agent. “Which would be why you two smell like you've been in a sewer.”

Flynn took a casual step closer. “Sorry about that. Look, I don't know what's going on in there, but we need to open a valve in the men's room or they're gonna be real unhappy real soon.”

“Where's your equipment?”

Flynn nodded. “Back there. Don't need it for the valve.” He took another step.

The second agent's jaw clenched and his muscles tightened. His hand began moving toward his jacket. If he drew his weapon, he would certainly fire; his fixed stare, bright with menace, told that story very clearly. The older agent was still smiling.

When the younger agent started to bring his gun out of its shoulder holster, Flynn delivered a blow to his throat. He crumpled, coughing and gagging.

The older man's mouth dropped open. He looked down at his partner, then back at Flynn.

“Sorry about that,” Flynn said. “No guns, please.”

The agent held his hands away from his body. “No guns, OK.” He regarded Flynn with the eyes of a terrified mouse.

Flynn reached down, picked up the comatose agent's gun, and slipped it into his pocket.

“Watch out,” Diana said.

The older agent was going for his pistol. Flynn reached out with lightning speed, took it, and handed it to Diana.

The agent stared at his hand, then started rubbing it. “You're that weird guy that's been hanging out in the Residence at night. The alien.”

“I'm not an alien.”

“You still can't go in there, mister. Don't you know we're at DEFCON 4?”

“We've been buried in work, we didn't know.”

“How the hell did you get in here, anyway?”

“Somebody left a grate open.”

The agent frowned.

Flynn put his hand on the handle of the door. Diana braced the agent's gun at him. Hands raised, he backed up a step. “Take it easy,” he said. “I know you people are on our side.”

“Not him,” Flynn said, indicating the fallen agent with his chin. “He's gonna wake up in three or four minutes and he's gonna come after us. You stop him, do you understand?”

“How can I stop a kid like that? Look at him.”

He looked like a SEAL on steroids. Flynn could kill him easily. Break the neck right now. But he had no way to be certain of what he was, and he wasn't willing to kill an innocent human being whose only mistake was to believe that he was doing his duty.

“Get ready,” Flynn said to Diana. “All hell's gonna break loose when we go in.”

She came up beside him. She was silent.

The PEOC is dominated by a long room centered on a conference table. On the walls around this table are a dozen flat-screen monitors. It is at this table that the National Security Council, the president's Chief of Staff, and the Joint Chiefs sit during times of crisis, and it was here that they would be sitting now. Deeper in the facility is a communications area manned by specialists from the National Reconnaissance Office and the Joint Military Communications Command. Beyond these rooms, there is a presidential suite and a number of more spartan living facilities for aides. These, along with a communal dining area, a medical facility that is equipped with everything from Band-Aids to radiation monitoring equipment, and a wash-down decontamination unit, comprises the facility. If a nuclear warhead detonated two thousand feet over the White House, this bunker would take a severe shock, but it would survive, as would most of its inhabitants, give or take a few broken bones and shattered eardrums. Only a bunker buster, driving down through the fifty feet of concrete above it, would take it out.

Flynn opened the door and stepped inside, Diana behind him. He then closed it and twisted the lock.

Every head in the room turned toward them, but he was really only interested in one person. Lorna, who was sitting beside the president, started to leap to her feet, but then checked herself.

A voice filled the room from over the telephone in the president's hand. “We will launch in three minutes.”

Flynn recognized that it was Benjamin Netanyahu.

Lorna leaned close to Bill and whispered. Flynn heard enough to know that she had counseled him to let it happen.

“Excuse me,” DCIA Boxleitner said. He backed away from the table, stood, and came striding up to Flynn. The president looked over, frowned, and went back to the call.

“I want this man arrested,” Boxleitner shouted. “Where's the Secret Service?” He came closer to Flynn and said more quietly, “What is this about?”

Flynn pushed past him, walking deeper into the room. Seeing the bulge in Flynn's pocket, Admiral Delaney of the Joint Chiefs came to his feet. “There's a gun,” he said. His voice was shaking, but he kept his composure very well, Flynn thought. Tough guy.

“Just sit back down. Everybody stay tight here. Bill, you're going to listen to me now, not to Lorna.”

The president muted the phone. “Flynn, what the hell are you doing this time?”

“OK, Bill, everybody—there's already been an alarm put in. The Secret Service is converging right now. They're going to burst through that door in about a minute. Bill, if you do one single thing wrong, you will start a chain of events that will lead to a massive worldwide nuclear exchange and the death of the human species.”

Netanyahu said, “We're launching now.”

“The missile will not create blast effect.”

General Hamelin of the air force scoffed. “It's a hydrogen bomb! It's going to wreck the whole of Semnan Province.”

“The weapon has been altered. They've all been altered. It is now something like a neutron bomb. It will emit a horrendous sheet of short half-life radiation and leave infrastructure mostly intact.”

Lorna said, “All right, let it happen, then.”

“The Russians will react,” Boxleitner yelled. “They'll hit Israel.”

“They won't,” Flynn said. “This will defuse a situation that's got to be terrifying Putin, because if he launches against Israel, he has to think we'll launch against him.”

“Which we will not,” Bill said. “I'm not starting World War Three.”

“We'll cross that bridge,” Lorna muttered.

NRO Chief Henry Fielder said, “We have recon showing the Iranians are running out four more missiles.”

The president said, “Get Putin on the line.” Then, into the phone, “Benjamin, we have no objection to your launching against Semnan.”

Netanyahu's voice boomed out into the room. “Mr. President, we launched already. We were watching them preparing four more missiles. We have also directed Speed Wind against them.”

Flynn said, “Get it on satellite. Visual.”

A moment later a satellite view of the Iranian missile complex appeared in detail and in color on four of the screens around the room.

Fielder said, “Russian missile silos opening. Thirty mobile units in motion.”

“Bill,” Lorna said, “we have to preempt.”

This was exactly what Flynn had expected her to say. This was the moment that Aeon had planned for. From here, the whole terrible chain of events was supposed to start.

Homeland Security chief William Apel announced that they were moving to
DEFCON
5 and warning the country.

Flynn knew that for all but a tiny handful of people in the military and the intelligence communities, the country and the world would be taken by surprise.

“Sir, prime ministers and presidents are lined up on the horn.”

“Britain, France, Germany, Italy, three minutes each. The rest in a conference call,” Secretary of Defense Cornyn said.

Bill Greene's cell phone began buzzing. Cissy, who was sitting behind him in the advisory line, took it. Flynn heard her talking to Bob Doxy, her voice quiet and intense. He was getting a blow-by-blow from her, one of the perks of being an eight-figure contributor.

Boxleitner said, “We have reports from the Kremlin that Putin will hit Israel.”

“We must preempt,” Lorna said, her voice startlingly calm and even reassuring, rich with authority.

Events were about to outrun Flynn. Lorna was winning, but if he killed her right now, he would lose anyway. He had to get them to listen to his argument, and that depended on what happened to the Israeli missile that had just launched.

“Two minutes to impact,” Fielder said.

“Sir, we have the Russian president.”

“Vladimir, we must be very careful here,” Bill said.

Flynn was amazed at how presidential he was sounding. Was the office transforming him? The beer-and-joke guy was not present in this room, and neither was the scared, confused amateur way out of his depth. Harry Truman had risen to the challenge of the office. So had Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, both men seemingly poorly prepared for challenges that they turned out to handle well.

Putin's translator's voice filled the room. “We will respond carefully. The Iranians have fired first, therefore we will not fire unless the Israelis do more than destroy the missile base.”

“You're running out your missiles.”

“As you know, many of ours are liquid-fueled. We cannot prepare as quickly as you can.”

“Run them in. This gives you a preemptive capability that we cannot tolerate.”

Lorna said, “For the love of God, preempt now! He's going to hit us!”

“Vladimir, please respond to me.”

Greene was pouring with sweat, his forehead gleaming, his whole face pulsing red. Would he have a stroke? A heart attack? Flynn thought that the pressure was literally unimaginable.

“We will remain in static defense,” Putin said at last. “You must not fire, William.”

“He's lying,” Lorna practically screeched.

An enormous flash filled the room. The satellites trained on the Iranian missile site had just transmitted the explosion not of a neutron weapon, but of a conventional hydrogen bomb.

“See,” Lorna said, “get that crazy man out of here!”

Bill looked toward Flynn. “I've got ten Secret Service agents on the other side of the door, Flynn. I think you and Diana had better go.”

Cissy leaned forward. “Dad, she's not loyal. She's
trying
to start a war. Everything she says points to it.”

Lorna turned around and slapped her hard, the smack of it like a shot, giving back ten times over what she'd gotten a few hours before.

Silence fell.

“How dare you,” she said into it. “We are trying to save the United States of America and you side with this nut job and his crazy lady!” She looked around the room. “You heard the president. Get them out of here.”

“I'm assuring you,” Flynn said, “the other bombs will destroy infrastructure. They will not emit blast effect.”

“Missile rising from Iranian region Noje.”

“What in hell! Vladimir, are you seeing this?”

“We have it.”

Netanyahu came back on the line. “There's a launch from outside of the Speed Wind umbrella. Unknown launch.” There was a pause. “It will impact fifty miles north of Tel Aviv. We're tracking it with Iron Dome, but interception is unlikely.”

“Vladimir, are you hearing this?”

“If they launch against Iran, we launch against them.”

Flynn said, “This missile is off its programmed course, which was Tel Aviv. It is intended to devastate Galilee. It will
NOT
—I repeat, NOT—emit blast effect. There will be a short-term, extremely intense radiation emission.” He raised his voice. “Mr. Netanyahu, you get your citizens in basements, in whatever shelter they can find. Prepare radiation recovery teams.”

“Who is that?”

Lorna shrieked, “Somebody shoot that man!”

“Gentlemen,” the president said, “if this—”

“Iron Dome launches,” Fielder said. “Iron Dome detonates. No joy. Iron Dome—standby. Warhead … detonates. Blast effect estimate one tenth of a kiloton at altitude sixty-one thousand feet.”

A voice from communications said, “Israel off-line.”

“What's going on?” the president pleaded. “Vladimir, are you still there?”

“We're evaluating,” he said.

Lorna said, “He's lying. They're going to launch their mobiles, Bill. For the love of all that's holy, fire Minuteman!”

At that moment, the door burst open and Secret Service agents and White House police burst in, wearing full SWAT gear and carrying automatic rifles, stun grenades, gas, you name it.

Diana, who had been standing near the door, ran to the far end of the room. Flynn took three quick shots at the upper shoulders of the three lead agents. This would graze their armor and dislocate their shoulders, but not kill them.

Putin's translator said, “We want to know what's happening.”

“It's under control,” Greene shouted. Then, “Stand down! All of you, stand down!”

They came on, and Flynn realized that they were not Secret Service at all, none of them. His next shot took off the head of the one nearest him. The thing reeled, then staggered forward, still alive, still attempting to manipulate its weapon.