Experience

by Brandt Legg

  Get ahold of the Wizard. Tell him I need something that will allow me to have conversations with people without the REMies overhearing. Something like the SonicBlock drive I use to talk with him, but for a whole room.

  Schueller looked up at his dad after reading the words. Hudson pulled out Hamilton’s note and handed it to him. Although Schueller raised an eyebrow at the prospect of his dad meeting with Fonda, he understood that the Wizard’s SonicBlock drive didn’t give him the flexibility to communicate in person.

  Schueller wrote on the same piece of paper, under Hudson’s request.

  Why not just ask the Wizard using the SonicBlock?

  Because this is too important, Hudson wrote, while at the same time asking Schueller out loud if he had any gigs lined up.

  “I’ve sort of had to give up gigging,” Schueller said. “Security issues are just too big a concern for all the small venues I usually play.”

  “Sorry about that,” Hudson said. “I guess it’s a good thing you took the record deal then?”

  Shortly before the election, Schueller had been offered a record deal that was almost too good to be true. They believed it originated from Vonner in an effort to distract Schueller from his father’s campaign. At first, he wasn’t going to accept, but Hudson had pushed his son to take it. At the time, he’d hoped it would keep Vonner from finding out they were on to him, but as Hudson had already confronted the billionaire, that no longer mattered. “Either way, it’ll be exciting to get your songs out there, and who knows where it could lead,” Hudson had told his son. “It might even help us with the REMies. Stranger things have happened.”

  “Yeah, I’m going into the studio later this week,” Schueller said. He had signed the contract contingent on being able to record in a facility near Washington. As it turned out, it actually had helped in their crusade against the REMies. The record label was using DC-area session musicians to back Schueller, but the singer-songwriter had been able to insist on including two of his own bandmates. Schueller had been playing with one of them for years, the other was a man he’d never met before. His name was Walt Dungan, but everyone called him by his hacker name, Crane. He’d been Zackers’ partner—the Wizard had found him after he’d broken the encryption of Zackers’ drive. Crane had rented a tiny apartment in the DC suburb, Silver Spring, Maryland, and would pretend to be a musician. He was digging in and relentlessly going after REMie data.

  Hudson scribbled one last question: What did you think of the letter? He’d given it to Schueller to read the day before.

  “I agree with your conclusion,” Schueller said, and then wrote, I think you need to meet with the last president asap.

  The NATO secure-live-feed (SLF) conference had been dominated by a once unthinkable topic—war with China. The rich communist government had grown more and more interested in projecting its might and influence. NATO believed an all-out conflict was unlikely, but the member states had resolved to prepare for all eventualities and to consider every contingency.

  Hudson headed back to the Oval Office to sign Rochelle’s pardon. Fitz was waiting. He could tell by the expression on his chief of staff’s face that something was wrong.

  “NorthBridge?”

  Fitz shook his head. “Worse. Rochelle Rogers has escaped.”

  Hudson leaned back in the leather chair, disbelieving. For several moments he said nothing, he just stared at the ornamental ceiling of the Oval Office. “She didn’t escape.”

  “I just spoke to the Bureau of Prisons. They confirmed it.”

  Hudson laughed bitterly. “I don’t care what they confirm, Rochelle Rogers did not escape.”

  Fitz let out an exasperated sigh. “Believe what you want, she’s not in her cell. Rochelle Rogers is no longer in federal custody.”

  “Isn’t that just wonderfully convenient?” Hudson said sarcastically. “Problem solved.”

  “Sort of,” Fitz said. “But that depends on where she is.”

  “Twenty-five years she rots in a prison cell, and the day I’m going to pardon her, she escapes?” Hudson picked up his communicator, which provided a secure and direct line to Vonner.

  Vonner claimed he knew nothing about the escape until Hudson told him. For the first time, Hudson hung up on the billionaire.

  “I’m getting out of here,” Hudson said.

  “What? Fitz sputtered. “Where are you going?”

  “Do you people think I’m an idiot?” He headed out the east door to the Rose Garden. A surprised but stalwart Marine guard watched as the president headed down the West Colonnade toward the residence. Along the way, Hudson called his personal secretary and informed her he needed to go to West Virginia. Without question, she immediately began the process of ordering Marine One.

  Once in the private sitting room, adjoining the presidential bedroom, he turned on a computer and was about to insert the SonicBlock drive to contact the Wizard when Melissa rushed in.

  “What are you doing here?” Hudson asked. “I thought you had that thing with the veterans?”

  “Fitz called me,” she said breathlessly.

  “Did he tell you Vonner snatched Rochelle?”

  “He told me BOP is saying she escaped. Fitz also said you’re going somewhere?”

  “She was being held at Hazelton. You know, the federal prison in West Virginia.”

  “Of course I know. And you’re going there, why?”

  “To find out what happened.”

  Melissa touched Hudson’s shoulder. “Not a good idea.”

  “I’m going to find out what Vonner did!”

  “Why would it be Vonner? What if NorthBridge took her?”

  “What?” It hadn’t occurred to him. “Why? How could they know?” Then he remembered Vonner had known, and NorthBridge seemed to be better at uncovering secrets than anyone.

  Everyone is listening in on everyone.

  “When you told me about that night Rochelle was raped, you said you saw the vacant look in her eyes.”

  “It haunts me.”

  “Maybe more than you know, because if you saw into her eyes, she could have seen into yours.” Melissa paused until she saw her words register on Hudson’s face. “She knows you saw it. She knows you know everything.”

  “My God.”

  “Yes,” she spoke slowly, “that makes her incredibly valuable to anyone who doesn’t want you to be president.”

  Chapter Nine

  For the next two days, Hudson did everything he could to locate Rochelle. Although he took Melissa’s advice and did not go to the prison, he did have several calls with the warden, the head of the Bureau of Prisons, and Justice Department officials, including the director of the FBI. The director had already been a source of frustration for Hudson with the Bureau’s failure to make any headway in the NorthBridge investigation. He suspected that the director, like those before him, was a REMie loyalist.

  Not surprisingly, Vonner continued to deny any knowledge of Rochelle’s whereabouts. And, as always, he seemed convincing, even offering his security agents’ help in the search. The billionaire pressed the president on what Rochelle might know. “Can this fugitive hurt you?” he’d asked.

  Hudson gave nothing to Vonner, but considered the situation desperate enough to call on the Wizard to use his connection to Booker to get in touch with Linh. As the leader of the Inner Movement, she allegedly had psychic abilities. Although he didn’t believe in them, he would try anything to locate Rochelle.

  The Wizard came through and arranged a video call, which Hudson took in his private study, utilizing the SonicBlock drive.

  “Thanks for taking my call,” Hudson said, immediately mesmerized anew by Linh’s eyes. Although they had remained clearly in his memory, each time he saw her again, her eyes were always more distracting than he remembered—at once magnetic and piercing, ancient and swirling with energy.

  “You’re the president,” she said with a soft smile.

  Hudson suddenly recalled he’d seen Linh i
n the crowd a moment before he was shot at the basketball stadium during the campaign. Until that moment on the video call, the memory had faded into the chaos and blur of the awful attack. “You were there, at the stadium,” he said, gasping the words.

  “Was I?” she asked, not the least bit coy.

  “Yes, you were,” he replied firmly. “Were you there to help?” he asked, and then, although it made no sense to him, he added in a whisper, “You saved me, didn’t you?”

  “You overestimate me, Mr. President.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m glad you’ve recovered.”

  He nodded, still trying to recall that moment between seeing her face and feeling the first bullet enter his body. Her expression had been filled with so much emotion. She had to know the attack was coming.

  “Linh, do you know where she is?”

  “Who?”

  It was a fair question; how would she know who he was asking about? Yet ,somehow, he thought she might. “A woman I went to school with, from my home town. She was in prison, and now she’s disappeared. Rochelle Rogers.”

  Linh shook her head. “There are bigger problems.”

  “There are always bigger problems.” Hudson knew this was true, but Rochelle had haunted him for so long, and now, hours before his redemption in her release, she was gone. At the moment, he couldn’t think of anything more important. He thought of what NorthBridge or Bastendorff could do with her information. “My presidency could depend on finding her,” he said. And my sanity certainly does, he thought.

  “Your life is at stake.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” He didn’t mean to sound flippant, but he’d been targeted in at least three assassination attempts, there were bullet holes in his body, he’d sustained permanent injuries, and a powerful, clandestine terrorist group trying to spark a revolution had sworn to kill him. These were realities he had already gotten used to, at least as much as one could get used to assassins and coups. “Is Rochelle alive?”

  “Once again, Mr. President, you’re overestimating me.”

  “Am I?”

  Linh nodded. “They are pushing the world into a catastrophic war.”

  Now she’s talking about China? “We’re seeking all diplomatic solutions, but sometimes war is necessary. China will back down. They cannot win.”

  “Neither side will win this war. You must stop it.”

  Hudson read the quote from the papers that Schueller had given him. The words, having come from William Casey, CIA director under President Reagan, chilled him. Hudson remembered Vonner telling him that Reagan had not known the truth about the power of the presidency, and that the REMies were really in control, until six weeks after his inauguration. But the meeting at which the Casey quote originated had taken place within just a few weeks of Reagan taking office. The new president had asked each of the cabinet secretaries to tell him what goals they had for their departments or agencies. Casey said: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

  Hudson shook his head, disbelieving that the CIA director’s words had been made public three decades earlier, and yet it was still going on. He recalled an interview with NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, in which the fugitive had said that his biggest fear wasn’t for his own safety, but rather that people would find out that the US government was eavesdropping on its citizen’s communications—every phone call, email, and text—and no one would care; nothing would change.

  He’d been right. It had only gotten worse, with the current 3D surveillance system and who knew what else. The government not only had the ability to track every citizen, they were doing it. And now that he was president, he was also doing it. He had to find a way to stop it.

  The Wizard had told him, “REMies use the NSA and other agencies to filter the data they collect. Three-D is bigger than just cameras in public spaces. They use your phone, computer, television, and even other appliances to track you and watch you. They know who you know, what you like, where you go, what you buy . . . They were in on the creation of Facebook and other social networks. People voluntarily signed up to be under a surveillance state. The internet is a double-edged sword; it allows you to connect and access the world, but it allows the state to track and watch everyone’s every move.”

  The warnings had all been there, Hudson thought. He recalled talks and interviews he’d seen years earlier, even before 3D put it all together.

  “Linkability. They use credit and debit cards, cell phones, metro cards, rewards programs, and cameras, to match you with other people; one piece of data linked to another,” Jacob Appelbaum, a cyber security expert, had explained. “They can recreate your steps and who you talked with to paint a picture that is made up of facts, but not necessarily true. You may have been on the corner, but it doesn’t mean you did the crime.”

  Hudson sat alone in his private study located next to the Oval Office. The tension and the sleepless nights kept him popping extra-strength aspirins. The job, the depth of corruption, the forces aligned against him, were all much greater than he had expected. He needed someone he could trust working with him inside the White House. So far, he’d discovered that was almost impossible. Hamilton could be trusted, but the bright twenty-four-year old was just too young and inexperienced to be of much help in any advisory role. Melissa, his most ardent supporter, was extremely busy being first lady of the United States, and wanted him to “ease up on chasing the conspiracies.”

  Although he did have complete faith in the Wizard, he wouldn’t fit in. While laughing at the thought of the Wizard in a Cabinet meeting, Hudson suddenly thought of someone he had known almost as long, someone extremely qualified to advise him on a whole range of matters, and, most importantly, someone he would trust with his life.

  Hudson went to his secretary and gave her the name. “He shouldn’t be too hard to track down. Interrupt me as soon as you get him on the line, no matter what I’m doing.”

  An hour later, as Hudson came out of a meeting with agricultural leaders, she told him his call was waiting. Although the president suspected his secretary had timed it so he wouldn’t be interrupted, it didn’t matter. He was relieved and excited to connect with his old friend.

  “Enapay Dranick, is that you?” Hudson asked.

  “Mr. President,” Dranick began. “Quite an honor hearing from my commander-in-chief.”

  “Dranick, it’s me! Drop the formalities.” It had been maybe five years since they’d last spoken, but the former army buddies had shared too much for Dranick to be calling him “Mr. President.”

  The two had first met in the army when Colonel Enapay Dranick was just a private, and the president was also an enlisted man. Hudson and Dranick could not have been more opposite; Hudson, a reserved, conservative, white kid from the Midwest, and Dranick, a wild, screaming, liberal, Native American from the wilds of northern Arizona. They did, however, share two things: the same humor, and a deep sense of honor and patriotism.

  After forming a strong friendship, they wound up together in the wrong place at the wrong time—Iraq. After a surprise attack, Dranick, critically injured, buried in shrapnel, debris, and bodies, found himself surrounded. Hudson fought off the insurgents, pulled him out, and carried his buddy to medics, saving his life.

  Dranick was upset when Hudson didn’t re-enlist, but he understood. Sometimes the razor’s edge-action drew a soldier back for more, but more often it repelled him, sending him home forever changed. They’d remained close as Hudson built his career in hardware and Dranick rose to the rank of colonel in the Green Berets. Then another tragic circumstance solidified their bond even more when they both lost their wives to cancer within two years of each other.

  “It’s mighty good to hear your voice again, Mr. Pres—uh, Hudson. How’ve you been, aside from the assassination attempts, becoming the leader of the free world, and that sort of thing?”

  “It’s a complicated bu
siness,” Hudson said, relying on their friendship and history to know that Dranick would pick up the layers of meaning in his statement. “Can you come to Washington? I have something I need your help with.”

  “When do you need me?”

  “Weeks ago. When can you get here?”

  “You’re my commander-in-chief.”

  “Then I’ll see you in the morning. One of my assistants will make all the arrangements.”

  As president of the United States, Hudson had thousands of employees in the executive branch, and millions more technically working for him in the federal government. A shortage of staff was not the problem; knowing which ones he could trust was. Having Dranick on board was not only key to his ability to change things, it also might mean the difference in his survival.

  Chapter Ten

  Having reread the letter from his predecessor for the umpteenth time, Hudson quietly asked his secretary to set up a meeting with the past president.

  “Perhaps golf?” she asked.

  “Perfect,” Hudson replied, wondering if she might actually be trustworthy.

  She’d also opened a slot in his schedule for his meeting with Dranick, which he’d decided to hold on the White House grounds in the trees between the swimming pool and the putting green. Even though Hudson was fairly certain they couldn’t be overheard, he still spoke in hushed tones after dispensing with the initial pleasantries of two old friends who hadn’t seen each other for several years.

  Hudson gave Dranick a quick and condensed version of what he was up against while gauging his old army buddy’s reaction.

  “My grandfather always told me never to trust the white man’s government,” Dranick said with a slight smile.

  “A government you spent your life serving.”

  “I have served the people of America, and protected its lands—lands which my people were pushed off of, but are still part of us,” Dranick said as they walked under the trees, heading toward the tennis court. “And a government that you now lead.”