President Elect, page 11
“Do you believe that?” Luke said. “He was trying to get her attention by pretending to fire a gun at her, in a room full of heavily armed Secret Service agents, one second before a real shooter started firing? That would be quite a coincidence.”
Berg shook his head. “I don’t believe it, but that’s what they’re putting out to the public. I think they were working together. Unfortunately, we have no way to prove that at this moment. What seems to back up this story is that he has no record of gun ownership, no military training, and there’s no evidence out there that he knew the other shooter at all. He’s just a guy who has written for newspapers since he was in college. And he’s crazy.”
“Who was the real shooter?” Luke said.
“Michael Benn,” Chuck said. “Twenty-nine years old, former Army, discharged early for reasons that are unclear. Honorable, though.”
“What division?” Luke said.
“Tenth Mountain.”
“Deployments?”
“Iraq, but in a support capacity based inside the giant embassy compound we have there. He never saw combat.”
“What else?”
“He’d been writing for a small, liberal-leaning news website for the past few years. The White House press people liked him, liked what he was writing. So he got into the briefing room with the big players from the New York Times, CNN, FOX, and the Washington Post. They do that—they sprinkle some friendlies in, no matter how small-time. It guarantees decent coverage and at least a couple of softball questions. We vetted him. I don’t remember anything in the file to suggest a threat. Just a young guy, a veteran, with a decent record and ambitions to become a newspaper reporter. Now this. A bloodbath. It doesn’t make sense.”
“How did he get the gun inside the White House?” Luke said.
Berg stared at Luke a long minute. He shook his head. “He didn’t. There’s no way he could have. You can’t walk into the White House briefing room with a gun. You’d never even come close.”
“Do you know what you’re saying?”
Berg nodded. “It was an inside job. Someone brought the gun in for him. One of our people. One of my people.”
Luke thought back to the Secret Service agent who seemed to step out of the way when the shooting started. Would he recognize that guy if he saw him again? You bet he would. And the guy would wish he hadn’t.
“What happens next?”
“Do you feel like walking?” Berg said.
“If I can manage it.”
“Then come take a look.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
9:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
South of Canal Street
Chinatown, New York City
“They’ve started.”
His name was Weng Kaibo. Here in the United States, he went by the name Michael. Michael Wing. It was easier for the Americans to deal with this. Many Chinese living in the West did it—reverse the order of the names, and change them to something more familiar. He had stuck with his real name for a while, but he grew tired of people calling him “Mr. Kaibo.”
He gazed out his fourth-story window at the activity going on down in the street. He and his family lived just a few blocks south of Canal Street, the historic northern border of Chinatown.
One block away from here a fence was going up. There was a construction crew out there, protected by the police. Of course the police. The Chinese were dangerous now. Two Chinese gangsters had killed the Gathering Storm protestors two nights ago. Of course, dozens of Gathering Storm thugs had attacked helpless people in the street. They had demolished storefront windows. And one night later, a white man had killed the President and the Vice President. But it was the Chinese who must be fenced in.
The lights at the construction site were very bright, and the sounds were very loud. The heavy trucks rumbled, shaking the ground the smallest amount. Wing could feel his building trembling beneath his feet. When the trucks went backward, they emitted a high-pitched beeping noise that cut through all other sounds. BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…
Wing was glad that he lived a block away. People living at the end of the street must feel they were inside a nightmare right now.
Wing was inside the nightmare, too. He knew that.
The men had dug a narrow trench over there. And slowly they were erecting a fence. The bottom of the fence fit into the trench. As he watched, a group of men tilted the high fence up, guided it into the trench, then stood it up tall. As the men held it up, other men came and filled in the trench again, pouring wet concrete to stabilize it.
Wing found that he was fascinated by the work being conducted. He could stare at it all night and never look away. He was watching himself become a prisoner, and it was happening in slow motion. Not just himself—his wife, his two children, all his neighbors, his extended family and his friends. Everyone. Everyone was being imprisoned.
The fence was a see-through metal hurricane fence, maybe two stories high. It would not be hard for a young man to climb up and over. This suggested to Wing that the fence was only temporary, a fast and imperfect solution that would nevertheless be an effective cage for most of the people. And something more permanent would be along soon enough.
As he watched, another length of the tall fence tilted upward. The work seemed to happen slowly, but in fact the fence was going up rapidly. Ten crews as diligent as this one could probably encircle the entire neighborhood by dawn.
He turned back inside the apartment.
His wife sat on the sofa with their youngest child—the girl, Kira—on her lap. They both stared absently at flickering images on the TV.
“Everyone must report to the public school to get electronic bracelets fastened to their ankles,” his wife said. “Starting tomorrow. We are to be monitored, even the children. We will be charged a small tax for each bracelet. It is not very much—ten dollars per week, a total of forty dollars each week for our family.”
Wing shook his head. “Rumors. I don’t believe it.”
She shrugged. “You thought the fence was a rumor.”
He said nothing. It was true. Until just a few hours ago, he had dismissed the idea of a fence. All day, he had dismissed it to anyone who would listen. “They will never build a fence,” he said. “This is America. It’s impossible.”
His wife went on mechanically, not even looking up. The colors from the television lit upon her face. “If you do not arrive to receive the bracelet within two days, it will be assumed that you are a criminal, and you will be subject to arrest. Perhaps you are in the country illegally, or are wanted by the police. Only a criminal would not want his location known.”
“We will not wear bracelets,” Wing said. “I will go back to China before I see anyone in my family wear a bracelet.”
She looked at him now, her eyes cold and dead. She was so beautiful, and the look in her eyes shattered his heart. He did not know if he would ever be able to pick up all the pieces. How would he protect her? How would he protect their children?
“What makes you think they will let you leave?” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
10:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
Deep Underground
Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia
“Tim Rutledge has been arrested.”
Luke limped into a small, ultra-modern command center, walking with an aluminum cane. He wore surgical scrubs and a pair of cheap flip-flops on his feet. He also wore an orange fuzzy sweater—it was cold down here. His taped-up midsection was impossibly sore—it felt like he would never bend at the waist again. His left arm throbbed, even through the painkillers. Next to him, Chuck Berg seemed like the picture of health and vitality.
Kurt Kimball looked up as they entered. He seemed very much himself—tall, bald, strong, in dress pants and dress shirt and a blue windbreaker jacket. The only thing about him that belied the circumstances was the dark rings under his eyes.
“Here comes the hero team,” he said. “The two men who once again saved the President’s life.”
“We call it winning ugly,” Chuck said.
Luke didn’t say a word. Any uglier a victory and he’d be dead.
“Hello, Agent Stone,” Kurt said. “I didn’t realize you were even awake. Up and about already?”
Luke shrugged stiffly. “I thought I’d check the place out. You know, take the grand tour. Then Chuck and I are going to do some wrestling. After that, maybe some wind sprints in the corridors.”
The room was white, oval-shaped, with an oval conference table. Kat Lopez was here, and some young staffers. It was a small group, half a dozen people. There was a large flat video monitor at the head of the table, with smaller ones embedded in the table at each seat placement.
“What’s the situation?” Luke said.
“The world has been turned on its head,” Kurt said. “Care to sit down? I’ll give you the rundown.”
Luke settled gingerly into one of the conference chairs. “You guys have anything to eat?” he said. “Seems like a while since I’ve been fed.”
“We have premade sandwiches,” an aide said. “Chicken salad. Tuna salad. They’re not bad. Small bags of chips. Cans of soda or bottles of water. Coffee.”
Luke made his order. Basically, all of it. He looked at Kurt.
“I’m ready.”
Behind Kurt, his screen came alive. “We are in hiding down here,” he began. “We are going on the assumption, unproven thus far, that the shootings in the press briefing room were a decapitation strike carried out by Jefferson Monroe’s organization. The intent was to eliminate Susan and Marybeth Horning, and thus install the third in line of Presidential succession, the Speaker of the House, as the new Acting President.”
“The Speaker is…” Luke said.
“Karen White of North Dakota. Fifty-four years old, unmarried, from a safe Republican district, and with a wholly unremarkable career as a Representative. She has mostly been known for her eccentric fashion sense. She took the Oath of Office sometime last night. Since then, Monroe and his minions moved into the White House and have the run of the place. We assume that she is little more than their puppet.”
“Your assumptions seem to have some basis in reality.”
“Yes.”
“What have they been doing since they took over?” Luke said.
“More than you might imagine anyone could do in less than thirty hours. They have quietly pulled the plug on the White House investigation into election fraud and voter suppression. They have declared Susan dead, and claimed that they are keeping her body in an undisclosed location in preparation for a state funeral.”
Luke thought about it for a few seconds. He found that he was easing into this. Until the shooting, he had been skeptical of Susan’s claims of a stolen election. And it hadn’t mattered that much to him—politics were politics. They didn’t interest him. Conservative President, liberal President. Ebb and flow. Things changed, the people got fed up, and things changed back. Meanwhile the republic lumbered along, most of it on a sort of autopilot run by the vast federal bureaucracy and state-level politicians.
But this? This was different.
“They have to do that,” he said. “Susan being dead legitimizes their early takeover.”
Kurt nodded. “Yes.”
“Which suggests that they know she’s alive, but just don’t know where.”
“Bingo.”
“Which also suggests they’re looking for us.”
Kurt nodded again. “Naturally.”
Luke looked around the room. “We should get out of here.”
Kat Lopez was standing now. She shook her head. “Logistically, it would be very hard. We can’t even use our cell phones for fear of being detected by ECHELON, the NSA’s data-mining operation. The way this bunker is set up is essentially as a satellite location of Pierre Michaud’s company. The phones are rerouted extensions of his office in suburban DC. The emails are internal communications. Everything is firewalled from outside penetration. If we try to move, we will call attention to ourselves. Anyway, there’s nowhere else to go, certainly nowhere near as secure as this. Security is such a major concern that although Pierre knows we’re here, he hasn’t made any move to come here yet. In fact, he’s still in California, in an undisclosed location. His representatives are making official inquiries about Susan’s body.”
“What happens when they find us?” Luke said. “When someone in the know leaks the information?”
Kat just shrugged. “We haven’t gotten that far yet.”
“There is reason to believe they’re working on exactly that,” Kurt said. “Several members of Chuck’s White House security team have been arrested, all on suspicion of helping the shooter get his gun inside the White House. Haley Lawrence, Susan’s former Secretary of Defense, has also been arrested, but we know he didn’t help the shooter. And so has Tim Rutledge, Susan’s campaign manager.”
“They’re going to try to work them over until they give up our location,” Kat said.
Luke nodded. “Do any of them have this location?”
“A couple of my people do,” Berg said. “But they’ll hold out a long time before they divulge it.”
Luke let that one go. He imagined Chuck had never seen anyone waterboarded before. Anyway, they probably hadn’t gotten to that point yet—waterboarding Secret Service agents was a big step to take. If they had taken it, this place would already be crawling with Jefferson Monroe’s goon squad.
“What else is happening?” he said.
Video footage appeared on the monitor. The screen was split into four quadrants, each one showing a construction scene.
“Immediately upon assuming office, they started erecting barriers around Chinatowns in four major cities—New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. It was one of Monroe’s major campaign promises, and he’s making good on it right away. Earlier today, they began implementing a surveillance protocol—residents of the Chinatowns will have to wear digital monitoring devices on their ankles, much like those worn by individuals remanded by the courts to house arrest.
“Residents of the Chinatowns will have to apply for permits to leave the neighborhood, and their whereabouts will always be known. The precedent for these moves, obviously, are the Jewish ghettos imposed by the Nazis during World War II, and the yellow stars the Jews were forced to wear to identify them. All of it updated for the modern era, of course. They’ve also declared that they’re going to issue a ruling on the Chinese island-building in the South China Sea, sometime in the next twenty-four hours.”
“A ruling?” Luke said.
“That’s what they’re calling it.”
“That’s what they do in Iran and Saudi Arabia,” Luke said. “They issue rulings.”
It was shocking to imagine these things happening in the United States. To the extent he thought about issues of this nature, what he’d been fighting for all these years was to protect an open and free society. Not autocrats who holed up inside the White House and issued fatwas against their many enemies.
He shrugged to himself. The changes wouldn’t stand. He wouldn’t allow them to. He would die fighting them, if need be.
“What else?” he said.
A video image appeared of Don Morris leaving the federal supermax facility in Colorado. The Rocky Mountains loomed in the background as Don, dressed in a blue suit, stepped into a waiting black limousine.
“Karen White pardoned several of the Mount Weather conspirators today, including your old boss Don Morris. There is even talk of releasing Bill Ryan, though they haven’t done that yet. The public outcry would be too large.”
“Do they have ties to that conspiracy?” Luke said.
Kurt shook his head. “We don’t think so. We think instead that they are simply seeking to undermine the legitimacy of Susan’s rule. If the conspirators are no longer guilty, then Susan never should have become President.”
For a moment, Luke had the sense of staring across the Grand Canyon. The scope of their audacity was breathtaking.
“What ties do they have to the shooter?” he said.
“None that we know of. The shooter himself is a bit of a mystery. We know he was in the military starting at eighteen, but his early life is murky, to say the least. It seems he was taken from his mother by Child Protective Services when he was a boy, and that he bounced around in foster homes and child welfare facilities. Most of those records have either been lost because they were from before computerization, or they’ve been expunged. But there are large time gaps in his childhood, his military service, and his adulthood that need to be filled in. If we had that information, we believe we’d have a clearer picture of what the relationship is.”
“What are they saying about him?” Luke said.
“That he was a fan of Susan’s,” Kat Lopez said.
“That’s great,” Luke said. “Another number one fan, pointing a gun at her.”
“The story goes that when he found out how corrupt she was, and how she had murdered Patrick Norman, he was so bitterly disappointed in her that he decided to kill her. Apparently, he had been viciously criticizing her around his office the past twenty-four hours. It was quite a turn-around for a man who had spent the past two years singing her praises in print.”
Luke began to see what his role here might be. Perhaps Kurt was leading him to the realization. If they could tie the shooter to Jefferson Monroe, they could take down his Presidency. If they couldn’t, there wasn’t much hope of doing anything. Certainly not while hiding underground.
“You think Michael Benn was a plant of some kind. A mole, sitting and waiting for the order to kill Susan. And the other guy was sent to run interference for him.”
Kurt nodded. “We think it’s possible.”
