President Elect, page 9
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
3:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
34th Floor
The Willard Intercontinental Hotel, Washington DC
“Mr. O’Brien?” a voice said.
It was a young female voice, just outside his door. Gerry the Shark sat behind his vast desk. He could picture the face, and the body, without having to see them. Her name was Katie, and she was a campaign aide, actually an intern. Good-looking, fresh-faced.
Fresh meat.
She had joined this movement, and gotten this close to the action, because her father was a rich, hardcore true believer in business-friendly conservative dogma—trickle down economics, tax breaks, union busting, rollbacks of environmental and workplace regulations. Gerry was fine with all that stuff, to the extent he thought about it, which wasn’t much.
It was all beside the point, and the girl’s father was a loud, ignorant blowhard. But he was also an early supporter and a major financial contributor to the campaign. So it probably wouldn’t do to eat his precious daughter as a late afternoon snack, would it?
Gerry smiled to himself. He was sitting in here with the lights off. It was late afternoon, and the day outside had turned bleak and overcast. So it was getting a little bit dark in here, dim was probably a more accurate word, and the girl was afraid to come in. In truth, Gerry sat in the dark a lot. He did his best thinking in the dark. His mind could clear. There were fewer distractions. Nothing to look at. Everything fell away, leaving pure concentration.
Gerry knew what the kids in the organization thought of him. He was some kind of dark lord from a fantasy story, or the Star Wars movies. He could read people’s minds. He was an evil genius. He could kill people just by thinking about it.
Funny. This was also exactly how he saw himself.
They probably drew straws to see who had to enter here and report to him.
“Come in,” he said.
She slipped through the crack in the door without opening it. She stood on the far side of the room from him. He looked her up and down, taking his time. She had long straight hair. He could tell that she was self-conscious about her body. Her sweater was rather tight. Her skirt was a little short. Of course. There were young men on the campaign as well. She was advertising for them, but not for him.
“What can I do for you…” He snapped his fingers, as if he had forgotten her name. She was so far below him, you see, just one more young face among many. It was hard to keep track of them all.
“Katie, sir.”
“Yes, Katie. What can I do for you?”
Sharing the information put her back in her element—this was what she was here to do. “We just got word from one of our leakers inside the White House. He confirmed the rumors you had already heard. Susan Hopkins is going to make an announcement this evening. They are starting to alert the media. It looks like it will be set for six o’clock.”
“What is the announcement?” Gerry said.
She shook her head. “He isn’t sure. They’re keeping it tight-lipped. But he thinks she is planning to step down and hand over the presidency to Marybeth Horning.”
Gerry didn’t answer. He just stared at the girl, letting his eyes roam all over her body. A moment passed. The light in here was growing fainter all the time.
“Mr. O’Brien?”
“Yes.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes, Katie. Thank you.”
She slipped out, much the way she had come in. Gerry barely moved. Little Katie left his thoughts almost as quickly as she had entered them. He made a tent on his desk with his fingers. Marybeth Horning, the ultra-liberal. It would almost seem like a step backward, having her take charge of the dying administration. But it was actually a step in the right direction.
He pictured her, a caricature of the mousy college professor, who was anything but. She was tough, she was a passionate speaker, she was a leader not just of women, but also of men. She would press on with the election machine fraud and voter suppression investigations—he knew she would. She would resist any calls to step down. She might even try to turn the Patrick Norman murder investigation back on them.
She would make a formidable opponent.
Without warning the door to the office burst open and the lights came on. Gerry blinked against the sudden stark brilliance of the lighting. He fought the urge to cover his eyes with his hand.
Jefferson Monroe stood, ramrod straight and tall near the doorway. He had excellent posture for a man his age. His steely eyes looked at Gerry.
“I never understand why you sit in the dark all the time,” he said.
“Helps me think.”
“Okay, thinker, have you heard the latest?”
“Of course.”
“And? I’m not sure how trading one fire-breathing liberal for another helps us.”
Gerry took a deep breath. Jefferson Monroe was a great American, but not always the brightest bulb in the package. Sometimes he needed other people to do his thinking for him. “Jeff, today was the best day yet. Obviously, it was tragic that the Secret Service elected to kill a police officer, but it plays right into our hands again. They are in full retreat. They lost their Secretary of Defense today, and also their head of security, so I hear. Meanwhile, Marybeth Horning is not Susan Hopkins. She’s not the chess player Hopkins is. She could be one day, I suppose, but that’s a worry for another time. I predict that she’s not ready for the big stage. The Hopkins administration is falling apart, and Horning won’t have time to put her own team together. We will roll right over her.”
He paused and stared up at the President-elect.
“The brass ring is almost within our grasp,” he said.
“I hope you’re right about that.”
Gerry shrugged. “I know I’m right. Once Horning is done, that leaves the third in line of succession, the Speaker of the House. That’s Karen White, she of the funny hats and inappropriate clothing choices. She’s one of ours. She’s also a lightweight, as you well know. She will invite us inside with her, and soon after, she will hand us the reins.”
Monroe raised his index finger, a very common gesture for him. Sometimes during interviews, he wagged that finger in admonishment. Gerry loved it when he did that on TV. In person, not so much.
“That’s if Marybeth steps down, and only if she does so abruptly, without choosing a new Vice President before she goes. We could end up playing a game of Russian dolls with these people, a new one popping up as each one leaves.”
Gerry shook his head.
“Leave Marybeth Horning to me. If I were you, I’d stop worrying and start getting ready.”
He looked right at Monroe.
“Within forty-eight hours, we’re going to be inside the White House.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
6:07 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
The Press Briefing Room
The White House, Washington DC
The suit didn’t agree with him.
Luke stood near the front of the packed media room. He wore a dark blue suit. A small man with a bald head, thick glasses, and a measuring tape had come and fitted him for the suit this afternoon. Within an hour, a courier had brought Luke the suit, a new pair of shoes, and a selection of five ties to choose from.
He wore his own leather shoulder holster, outfitted snugly with his own Glock nine-millimeter, under the open suit jacket. He imagined that the suit fit him perfectly. It was just that clothes like this had always made him feel constrained.
Total freedom of movement was important to Luke. It had saved his life many times. A suit did not provide this.
To Luke, a suit might as well be a straitjacket.
It occurred to him how much he would like to tell Gunner about it. Gunner’s younger self would have found it funny. On a whim, Luke pulled out his cell phone, snapped a quick photo of himself, and sent it in a text to the number that was once Gunner’s. He typed a quick caption for it.
Your dad in his clown costume.
He sent it into the void without hope of hearing back, then focused in on his environment again.
He scanned the crowd. He would guess that the room had about a hundred seats. It had a gradual slope, upward from the front, as though it doubled as a movie theater. Every seat was taken. Every space along the back wall was taken. Dense throngs of people stood in the wings on both sides of the stage.
The people—the Washington press corps—looked hungry. Their eyes were on fire with anticipation. It was as if they were sharks and there was blood in the water. Ever since the shooting earlier today, there had been a Susan Hopkins Deathwatch on.
How much longer would she be President? Las Vegas bookmakers were giving odds and taking wagers. Even money said she would be out by nine a.m. tomorrow. Luke had considered trying to place a bet himself—he happened to know that she would be gone half an hour from now. Her husband had already sent a private airplane to take her home to California. The Marine One helicopter was waiting on the White House pad to take her to Joint Base Andrews, where her plane awaited.
It was time for Luke to begin thinking about what he was going to do. He was back among the living for the first time in a long time. It had been very brief episode, and it was a little sad to watch Susan’s time as President come to an end like this. But she was moving on with her life, and he should do the same. It was a big world, and it was an open book to him. Africa, Europe, Asia… he could go almost anywhere, and do almost anything. He could survive—and thrive—in any environment.
There was a sudden flurry of activity, almost a commotion. It was Susan. She came out from the side entrance, flanked by big Secret Service men.
As Luke watched, she went to the podium: Susan Hopkins, the former supermodel, the former Vice President, who had taken the Oath of Office after the President had been murdered, and who had once spent a long night escaping one assassination attempt after another. She had shown courage that night, and had governed with intelligence, toughness, and flexibility. She had turned out to be a lot more than anyone first thought.
This would be her last address to the American people as President. She wore a pale blue suit for the occasion, her blonde hair in a bob. The suit seemed bulky, a telltale sign she was wearing bulletproof material beneath it. Of course she was—half the country was howling for her blood right now.
On the podium, she was nearly surrounded by bulletproof glass panels. Secret Service agents flanked her on the stage. Marybeth Horning, who had been standing at the front edge of the crowd, made her way up to the podium as well. Luke knew that this was the first time since Marybeth had become Vice President that the two women were in the same room together.
The crowd of the reporters barked like dogs, their raised voices a mad Babel.
“Madam President!”
“Ms. Hopkins!”
“Susan, over here!”
“Did you murder Patrick Norman?”
“What did you know and when did you know it?”
Susan held her hands up, like twin STOP signs, asking for quiet. Her face was serious, stern. The Susan Hopkins that people once knew was nowhere to be seen—the enthusiastic, gung-ho queen of daytime talk shows, of community 5K fun runs and political rallies? That woman was gone.
She looked tired, drawn, diminished. She had always been short—now she looked small. They had finally sucked the essence out of her. Even so, she stood as tall as she could muster. She looked like someone ready to go out with dignity.
A crackpot scheme to deliver a fake arrest warrant had led to the death of a young hothead who pulled his gun while covered in the laser sights of world-class marksmen. That was the final straw, the thing that brought the grand Susan Hopkins experimental flying machine crashing back to Earth.
Luke shook his head. He wasn’t political, and never had been. He had worked for conservative and liberal administrations. His job was keeping Americans safe. Everybody else could argue over what that meant.
But this? This was a shame.
“I wonder if you would let me speak a moment?” Susan said. She stood at the podium, studiously ignoring their questions.
Gradually, the room started to quiet down. There was no sense continuing to yell at her if she wasn’t going to respond. It got quieter and quieter. She was ready to speak. She stepped to the microphone again.
Then everything changed.
“Susan, look at me!” someone shouted.
The sound was shrill, almost a scream.
All eyes turned to the source, including Luke’s. Before he could quite focus, a collective gasp went around the room. A reporter stood there, in the midst of a group of reporters just like him. He was an overweight man in a dress shirt, a red tie hanging askew, and a windbreaker jacket. He was pointing something at Susan.
Suddenly, people were ducking, moving away from the man. He pointed his arm directly at Susan, not more than twenty yards from her.
The Secret Service dashed toward him.
Instinctively, Luke stepped between the man and Susan. He stood directly in the man’s line of sight. For a split second, he was sure the man had a gun. What else could it be? Then it resolved into something else. It became…
“BANG!” the man screamed. “BANG, BANG, BANG!”
…a smartphone.
An instant later, Secret Service agents tackled the man, big heavy bodies driving him to the ground.
Luke looked at his own chest. If it had been a gun, there would now be blood appearing there, but there was nothing.
BOOM!
Luke turned just in time to watch Marybeth Horning’s skull come apart, brains and blood and bone exploding out the back as a high-caliber round hit her head.
People screamed and ducked. People crawled on the ground. A logjam of bodies piled up at the exit doors.
There was another shooter. Another shooter? How could two shooters get in here? This was the White House! How could one get in?
But the first one… was not a shooter.
Luke turned, scanning the room. The shooter was tall, well-dressed in a three-piece suit. Luke darted back the way he had come, stepping in front of Susan from the new angle. He drew his gun, crowd be damned.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Luke fancied that he could feel the breeze from the first two shots. The third one went through his upper arm. The pain there was searing.
Just behind him, Susan Hopkins stumbled backward, her body shuddering as the third round hit her. Why was she still standing? The Secret Service should have had her on the floor by now. One agent seemed to step away from her just before she was hit.
Luke was distracted by the activity behind him.
“Get her on the floor!” he screamed.
BOOM! Another shot hit him, this time in his midsection. He looked down. It was real. There was blood on his white shirt.
Right behind him, Susan was still standing—he felt her there. He had eaten that one for her.
He looked back at the shooter. Another one like that and Luke was going to have real problems. He aimed his own gun.
BANG! He hit the guy chest high, right side.
The man spun around sideways, almost fell, but didn’t. He grabbed a young woman standing there in shock, pulled her closer, and used her as a shield.
Luke tried to get another shot at him. He sighted, but he didn’t have a shot. The woman’s head, her body mass, was in his way.
Suddenly the man’s head exploded, spraying blood upward in a fountain. The man dropped straight down, like a trapdoor had opened beneath him, and the woman ran screaming. Luke looked to his left and saw that Chuck Berg had worked his way to the guy’s blind side and taken him out.
Adrenaline surging, Chuck was inside the fog of battle—Luke could see it in his eyes. Chuck was a good agent, but he was making split-second decisions, and at this moment he couldn’t tell friend from foe. Now he aimed at Luke.
Luke dropped his gun and raised both his hands.
“Chuck,” he croaked. “It’s Stone. Good guys. I’m one of them.”
Suddenly his tongue was thick in his mouth.
His arm and shoulder ached dully, but that wasn’t the issue. He glanced down at his chest. The blood was a pool of red on the white background of his dress shirt, and spreading fast. In a few seconds it was a lake. Soon it would be an ocean.
He sank to his knees.
Man, this was dumb.
He had come in to help Susan out, a favor for old times’ sake. Now he was hit, a worse injury than any he had sustained in years of combat.
People were still screaming. Their wailing sounded like sirens. Other people were crying. People crawled like worms, and like dogs. They squirmed over each other like a new birth of tadpoles—an explosion of writhing bodies.
Chairs had collapsed. There was blood all over the floor. Luke stared at the scene around him, but couldn’t make sense of it.
His hands were numb. Suddenly he felt cold. That was not a good sign.
He was no longer on his knees. Now he was on his back, staring up at the ornate ceiling. There were words carved into the molding. He tried to read them.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people…
He began to fade, darkness coming in from the edges. The President was shot, maybe dying. The Vice President was definitely dead.
Was he dying? He thought maybe he was. There was no fear in that thought, but also no comfort.
The darkness spread around him. It seemed to reach for him, envelop and encase him. The scene faded.
Then it turned completely black.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Timeless
Between Alive and Dead
He drifted, listening to sounds that were just beyond his hearing. There seemed to be voices murmuring somewhere nearby.
Then it seemed to him that he was sitting in a bright room, almost like the waiting room at a doctor’s office, or an emergency department at a hospital. The room was cold and sterile, antiseptic. He was still wearing his tailor-made blue suit and bloodstained dress shirt. He noticed he was in a lot of pain.
