“Yeah? Well neither did I.” Ryan rocked forward in his chair, and regurgitated the same arguments that had been wielded against him. “Can you—in good conscience—remain on the sidelines and allow the country to burn?”
“I believe my skills are more valuable at the NSA—”
“I’m nominating you because you won’t cave to The Consortium and stab me in the back.”
The Admiral’s eyelids fluttered shut in exasperation. “I could never win congressional approval and the vacancy will ensure that Johanna Krupp is first in the line of succession. And according to game theory, she is far more dangerous to the Republic than General Quenten.”
“Yeah, that game theory worked out really well for Kyle and Bradley. Why can’t I just come out and tell the American people the truth? And use the power of the people to force Congress to stop obstructing?”
Rone’s skin crinkled, adding a decade of age in seconds. “As long as the mockingbird media control the narrative, we have to play the game—”
“You see, this is why I hate politics,” Ryan scoffed. “We need to stop treating the public like children and give it to them straight.”
“Fine!” Rone barked, matching his tone. “Tell the American people that The Consortium is working on a secret high-tech project that can read and record their thoughts; that can control their bodily functions and movements; that can inject sounds and visions that aren’t real into their minds—and you will be article twenty-fived before the sun sets!”
Ryan knew the Admiral was right. The Consortium would question his mental capacity and invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
Hell, I didn’t even believe Bradley when he told me about the owl. The public would have to experience it firsthand before they’d believe it.
Sensing that the helicopter was landing, he peered out the window. “Where are we?”
“White-Jefferson Air Force Base in Ohio.”
“Ohio? How the hell did we get to Ohio so fast?”
A droll smile tweaked the corners of Rone’s mouth. “To an outside observer, this may look like a VH-60N White Hawk with a max speed of 183 miles per hour, but it’s actually a classified imposter.”
Ryan awakened his napping wife and helped her maneuver her unruly center of gravity out of the leather chair and through the narrow aisle.
“What if Franny goes into labor?” he asked Rone.
“I took the liberty of relocating the first lady’s obstetrician to White-Jefferson.” Rone led them into a two-story building used to train Pilots, then a siren began to wail. Marines grabbed onto Ryan and transported him through several corridors and into a hidden elevator. Franny, Rone, and four more Marines piled in behind him, then the steel door slid shut.
“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded as the metal cage began to descend. “Is The Consortium attacking the base with fighter jets?”
Rone rotated his encrypted satellite phone, and Ryan gaped at the message.
Inbound ballistic missile threat. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.
71
South of District Nine, California
“DROP YOUR WEAPON ...”
Abby pivoted toward the voice and sank into a prone shooting position, ignoring the protests of her tender breasts. Songbirds and insects fell silent, and even the swish of the wind ceased as if Mother Nature was holding her breath.
Abby scrutinized every tree trunk and boulder, surveyed every rolling hill, and came up empty. Whoever was stalking her had professional training.
Are The Consortium’s roving guards patrolling outside the Athenian Grove property line?
“... And that’s an order, Webber!”
The voice sounded familiar, but Abby wasn’t about to take any chances. She shouted, “No!”
Interpreting no as the abbreviation for the word number, her stalker immediately responded with the countersign, “Seventeen!” and emerged from behind a twenty-foot redwood trunk.
“Cozart?” she asked, lowering her rifle. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“What AM I doing here?” He punctuated the question with a snorting laugh and marched toward her. “Better question. Why did you steal a Humvee?”
Abby’s gaze swept the landscape as if searching for a credible excuse. Needed some time alone? Felt like taking a hike? Always wanted to see the giant redwoods?
She sighed, realizing that she had to tell him the truth.
Throat muscles thrumming, Cozart listened as she rambled about the chalk bullet, the microdot message, the coordinates of Athenian Grove, and the wolf moon.
His fingers raked his reddish-blond hair, and a benevolent anger was shining in his brown eyes. “So you sneak into a Consortium stronghold by yourself? Are you out of your f-f-flipping mind?”
“Somebody had to do something,” she snapped. “Fitz wasn’t going to raid Athenian Grove—”
“Because a chalk bullet to the ass doesn’t rise to the level of probable cause! You could be court-martialed for this!”
Matching her team leader’s glare, she said, “I’m already facing a tribunal for the black op. What are they going to do? Hang me twice?”
“Damn it, Abby! This isn’t just about you. Think about your baby growing up an orphan! And do I need to remind you what’s happening in orphanages these days?”
Abby recoiled, stunned. Humiliation, shame, and outrage fused into a toxic fervor, and words shot from her mouth. “Are you spying on me?”
Cozart stared at her, baffled by her accusation. “No-o. I saw the pregnancy test in the trash the night you fainted—”
“And now you’re following me?”
Flustered, his cheeks puffed and expelled a noisy burst of air. “I saw you lurking near the Humvee, looking guilty as hell. I knew you were up to something, so when you hightailed back to your apartment, I decided to tag along for the ride.”
“So you hid in the back of the Humvee?” Abby demanded, spitting the words at him. “Instead of just asking me where I was going?”
“Because I knew I wouldn’t get a straight answer.” Cozart rubbed a hand over his stubble-coated chin. His gnarled brow relaxed, and his gaze met hers, warm and gentle and glistening with genuine affection. “I care about you,” he said softly. “Both of you ... And ... and you don’t have to go through this alone.”
Abby’s emotions teetered between flattered gratitude and aggrieved resentment, and she sighed. “I need to do this.”
“And what is THIS, exactly? A vigilante mission? Suicide by Consortium?”
“No! It’s strictly a recon mission ... to get the evidence Fitz needs to shut down Athenian Grove ... and save more children from these butchers.”
Cozart looked away, lower jaw rocking side to side in contemplation. He hated these satanists just as much as Abby did. It was evident in the set of his shoulders and the frustration in his eyes.
I shouldn’t be putting him in this position, Abby thought. I can’t ask him to jeopardize his career.
“Cozart, take the Humvee back to Edgar and erase this conversation from your memory.”
“Not happening,” he said, reestablishing eye contact. “So here are your options ...”
72
3,000 feet below White-Jefferson Air Force Base, Ohio
WHEN THE ELEVATOR doors retracted, Ryan and Franny were whisked past a pair of 23-ton blast doors and escorted into an electric vehicle. The tunnel stretched for more than a mile and dead-ended at a complex of three-story buildings. Each free-standing structure cleared the rock walls by eighteen inches and sat atop hundreds of giant springs engineered to isolate the buildings in the event of an earthquake or bomb blast.
The vehicle braked to a stop.
“The Marines will get your wife settled inside the presidential residence,” Rone told him. “Don’t worry. She’s in good hands.”
Ryan kissed Franny, a passionate just in case the world ends kind of kiss, and was ushered into the largest of the buildings.
The command post was a massive room with rows of computer stations and banks of monitors, and he followed Rone up a flight of stairs to a mezzanine-style office.
Squinting at the trajectory of a ballistic missile that had originated in the Gulf of Mexico, Ryan muttered, “Little Rocket Man in North Korea?”
“It’s a false flag. The Consortium is trying to frame the dictator.”
“Since when does The Consortium have submarines and nuclear-tipped missiles?”
Rone stiffened. His complexion reddened. “I believe Senator Daniel K. Inouye summed it up best when he said, ‘There exists a shadowy government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.’ These people have lots of names: Illuminati, elites, powers that be, Khazars, Jesuits, Ashkenazis, Zionists.”
Ryan’s eyes widened; his head shook in disbelief. “Are you saying we’re about to be nuked by Israel? Our most steadfast ally in the Middle East? And God’s chosen people?”
“Don’t confuse the Jews with this cabal,” Rone cautioned. “These evil bastards masquerade behind Judaism to further their goal of global governance.”
“So we’ve got fake news disseminated by fake Jews?” Ryan asked, temper flaring. “Why am I just hearing this NOW?”
“The truth can be hard to swallow, and frankly, you didn’t have a need to know.”
This is why the country has run off the rails, Ryan thought. Unseen, unelected Deep State operatives have elevated themselves above the law.
The inbound ballistic missile streaked across the monitor and disintegrated into a cloud of glowing fragments.
Awed by the technology, Ryan said, “Was that a space-based laser?”
“Negative. An F-16 neutralized it.”
“Since when can our fighter jets shoot ballistic missiles out of the sky? And why did The Consortium bother launching a nuke if they knew we would shoot it down?”
“We’ve clandestinely wrested control of The Consortium’s most advanced special weapons packages—courtesy of Volkov’s stellar research.”
Imagining Crooked Carter Sidney’s shell-shocked expression brought a smile to Ryan’s face, but the sense of victory was short-lived. “Tactically, this doesn’t make sense. Why kill me with a nuke when they could wait sixteen days, launch their mind-control satellite, and hijack my words and actions?”
Rone contemplated the question. “Assassinating you in a nuclear conflagration would allow them to frame North Korea for the attack and goad humanity into World War III.”
Is that how The Consortium plans to depopulate the planet? Through a nuclear holocaust?
“Sir, are you okay?”
Ryan’s attention snapped back to Rone. “How did they acquire the undisclosed location? I didn’t even know until we got to Ohio.”
“Traitors are everywhere, Mr. President. Within the alphabet agencies, within the halls of Congress, and, regrettably, even within the military.”
A familiar blend of fury and betrayal was rippling along Ryan’s spine. He was fed up with treasonous assholes. They all needed to face justice. Now.
Rone roused a computer from sleep and pecked at the keyboard with two fingers to access a real-time newscast.
“... An anonymous GNN source has now confirmed that the emergency notification sent out to District Five residents, warning of an inbound nuclear missile, was in fact a false alarm. The mistake occurred when an employee accidentally pushed the wrong button, but the panic was real. Frightened civilians scrambled for shelter ...”
The Admiral muted the broadcast. “The Consortium has chosen their countermove. Denial and disinformation. How do you want to respond?”
Ryan’s head bobbed forward. “Really ...? The President gets to weigh in on a national security issue?”
“Sarcasm duly noted.” The Admiral’s expression clouded, and Ryan sensed that he was still holding back information.
“Mr. President, the corruption we face is so vast that it would take weeks to convey all the knowledge I’ve accumulated. It is more expedient to brief you as events unfold.”
Ryan eased himself onto a desk chair, hunkering down for a lengthy discussion. “Okay. Back to the submarine ... I suggest we accidentally push the wrong button, sink their entire fleet, and pretend like nothing happened.”
Rone proffered a toothy grin. “Right away, Mr. President.”
“And I want a full briefing on these Ashkenazi motherfuckers,” he said, his index finger jabbing the air. “And an update on the UC-35A recovery mission. That owl would be a force multiplier.”
The door to the mezzanine office hissed open, and General Quenten peeked inside. “Mr. President, Admiral, I’m sorry to interrupt, but the first lady has been taken to the medical clinic ...”
73
South of District Nine, California
ABBY LAY NESTLED beside Cozart inside the cavelike opening of a giant redwood tree. According to her California-born-and-raised team leader, it was called a “goose pen” since early settlers housed geese and fowl inside these openings. Some were large enough to stable goats and horses, and they were usually created by blunt-force traumas, lightning strikes, or forest fires.
The wooden cave was the size of a small bedroom, but the opening was narrow, forcing Abby to be cozier with Cozart than appropriate. Initially, she’d been infuriated by his presence, a sentiment that dissolved as soon as he’d checked the goose pen for snakes.
Aided by night-vision goggles and the glow of the full moon, Abby peered into the valley. A manmade triangular lake shimmered a hundred feet below and butted against a rustic stage, creating an unusual amphitheater. An ominous focal point lurked at center stage: a three-story stone carved into the likeness of an owl.
Moloch, Abby thought. Their need for symbolism will be their downfall.
She activated her scope camera and recorded the monstrous megalith then zoomed in on a solitary torch burning at the base of the statue, an indication that the creepy site remained in use.
Are they waiting for zero hundred hours? she wondered since the term midnight ritual had been mentioned by her former captors.
A rogue wind gust rustled the redwood’s canopy, and a formidable sequence of noises began burbling through the trunk, groans and creaks and crackles.
If one of those branches comes down, she thought, heart rate skyrocketing.
“Relax,” her team leader said. “A forty-mile-per-hour gust is nothing for a redwood.”
Annoyed that Cozart always seemed to know what she was thinking, Abby said, “I can’t believe this tree can survive with a gaping hole at its base.”
“The only living tissue is a thin layer beneath the bark,” he told her. “So as long as the tree has enough strength to remain upright and enough tissue to transport water and nutrients to the needles, life goes on.”
Those last three words evoked thoughts of Bradley and triggered an emotional landslide. Abby’s jaw quivered, her eyes welled, then she ground her teeth together to forestall another embarrassing display of waterworks.
“Sorry,” Cozart apologized. “Lousy choice of words.”
She nodded and distracted herself with another surveillance circuit. Abby couldn’t afford to fall apart in enemy territory. She had to be strong. For the children.
“Do you think it would’ve been easier if I’d never shown you that e-mail?” Cozart asked.
Would I be at peace, believing that Bradley loved me until the day he died?
Grateful for the wonderful, amazing moments we shared?
Or bitter over the future that was stolen from us?
“Abby?” Cozart prompted.
“What’s done is done,” she muttered. “Speculation is just a waste of—shit! Armed sentry headed our way.”
“The tree is masking our heat signature. Maybe it’s just a routine patrol.”
Abby guided her scope, shadowing the
sentry’s movements, keeping the crosshairs on his chest. “Doubtful. Maybe we were tracked by one of those damn blackbird drones.”
The gunman skulked from tree to tree with the stealthy strides of a predator.
“Balaclava, NVGs, and an AK-47,” she whispered.
“Night Sector.” Cozart expelled a resigned sigh, clambered onto his knees, and retrieved a nonmilitary-issue pistol from his waistband.
“Where did that come from?” Abby asked.
“Ryan Andrews’ tutelage regarding traitors.” Her team leader shifted into a squat. “I’ll circle around and lure him away. No matter what, DO NOT return fire—and that’s an order!”
Abby understood that even with a suppressor, the report of her rifle would attract every Night Sector soldier within earshot, but his edict defied her instincts. As a Sniper, she was supposed to protect him from threats.
“But—”
“But nothing!” he snapped in a furious whisper. “As soon as I distract him, you haul ass back to the Humvee and get out of here!”
“At least take my NVGs—”
“No! You’ll need them to navigate. End of discussion!”
She watched her team leader zigzag between tree trunks and boulders, moving at a forty-five-degree angle relative to the Night Sector sentry, and braced herself for the boom of a gunshot.
If anything happens to Cozart, it’ll be my fault.
Her scope drifted back to the gunman.
Shit!
He was gone!
Irritated over losing her prey, Abby scanned the perimeter in a deadly game of peek-a-boo that elicited memories of Sugar Lake. Pitted against two Iranian snipers, she’d failed to save Gramps, and a sickening sense of déjà vu began churning inside her stomach.
Her scope pivoted back to Cozart.
The balaclava-clad figure rose from behind a boulder, swiftly and silently like a spectral entity. His rifle lurched forward, and the butt stock slammed against Cozart’s skull, generating a muted crack. Then her team leader drooped below the crest of a hill.
Mind Power- America Awakens Page 28
