When his team was assembled, Harry Harrison told them about the call he had received. “I’m going to be sworn in as President this afternoon at three p.m.,” he said. “It’ll be low key. The Chief Justice asked me where I wanted the ceremony and I chose the Oval Office. Now folks, let’s spend the next hour going over everyone’s tasks and responsibilities going forward.”
One after another his people reported on task lists that had been theoretical but were now ready to implement. The Chief of Staff had assigned projects to ten staffers who made up the team. They had run two scenarios – one with Harry Harrison remaining Vice President but being appointed “interim President” with expanded powers in the President’s absence. The other was in preparation for exactly what was going to happen – their boss becoming the next President.
“What happens if Chapman shows back up in a week or two?” one staffer asked.
“The Chief Justice told me they had unanimously agreed this had to be a permanent transition of power. It’s too complicated otherwise. It could potentially create a major problem with allies and enemies alike. We can’t be seen as weak and leaderless. He said for the good of the country and the American people I would assume the presidency for the remainder of President Chapman’s term. That’s what I agreed to do.”
As much as anyone could be a friend of the irascible John Chapman, he and Vice President Harrison had been amiable colleagues before the campaign and remained so afterwards. They had served together in the Senate and worked closely on major legislation. Chapman had involved his second-in-command in strategic decisions much more than previous Presidents had done. Harrison had even had input into the selection of the President’s cabinet. All that would be helpful as Harry Harrison assumed the highest office in the nation.
The team’s immediate focus was on the swearing-in ceremony to be held in less than six hours. They sought the Vice President’s guidance on who would attend and whether there would be any sort of gathering of friends and family afterwards. Harrison’s first address to the nation was also critical. It had to happen immediately after he assumed the presidency – one staffer left the meeting after getting feedback on what Harry Harrison wanted. He had work to do, quickly. He was the man who would draft the new President’s acceptance speech.
At three p.m. on the seventh day after the disappearance of John Chapman, he was officially removed from office and replaced by President William Henry Harrison IV of Oklahoma. The Chief Justice administered the oath of office before a small group of people including former First Lady Marianne Chapman, Harrison’s wife and two children, the leaders of both houses of Congress, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all members of the Cabinet. It was a somber occasion – there was no jovial backslapping. The congratulatory handshakes were muted and subdued. It was not a happy time. It was a time when the American people didn’t know if they should mourn or be hopeful. Was the President dead? No one knew, but life had to go on. Especially at the summit of the greatest and most powerful nation on earth.
Harry Harrison sat in the Oval Office at five p.m., having just finished his first speech as President of the United States. It had gone well – mostly it was an assurance to the people that things would continue as they had been – the programs of the government, its commitments to allies and negotiations with those who stood against it – these would proceed without major change. The new President had expressed regret that his Presidency came as part of such a horrifying event and had offered a prayer for John Chapman and his wife.
The entire oration was crafted in an attempt to calm the nation. There was a growing faction of people who was incensed that President Chapman was being “dethroned” through no fault of his own. Many people were outraged at the President’s removal from office despite the country’s need for a leader and the uncertainty of Chapman’s situation. Some of those people had demonstrated their anger in dangerous ways. In the past few days there had been bomb threats, men with handguns arrested near the White House fence, intelligence chatter from terrorist groups who believed it was time to strike the wicked and leaderless America while it was floundering.
From the minute Chapman disappeared security in the nation’s capital had been increased dramatically. Everyone was on heightened alert and the President expected things would continue this way until there was an answer about John Chapman’s disappearance. He just hoped that answer would come soon.
The hardest thing for the FBI to imagine was that someone had planned the leader’s kidnapping with no desire to extract anything from America because of it. But the total lack of communication was puzzling. The new President and the FBI director discussed “what-if’s” – what if Chapman had been locked away in a hidden location, perhaps even buried in a box underground, then the kidnapper had somehow died? What if no one alive knew the President’s whereabouts? Why had no one heard a word? Could it be possible this wasn’t a kidnapping at all, but the President had instead fallen somewhere inside a passage in the ruin and become trapped? The country could go years – perhaps forever – without an answer if one of these things had happened.
The frustration of the United States Ambassador to Mexico was growing by the hour. The staff of the Embassy in Mexico City had been issued specific orders by the Ambassador himself. They were instructed to obtain permission to probe the depths of the temple. John Chapman had gone in and never come out. There was something else there and the United States was going to use every means in its power to find out what.
So far nothing had worked. While sympathetic to the situation, the Mexican authorities refused to be pushed into allowing the FBI or American archaeologists to invasively explore the ancient rooms below the Temple of the Inscriptions. Two calls from the Vice President had done nothing to change the mind of the Mexican government.
Now that he was inaugurated Harrison had the full power of the highest office in the nation. He spoke with the U.S. Ambassador then called the President of Mexico. In the harshest words imaginable Harrison stated his case. It had been seven days since President Chapman disappeared from one of two chambers, both of which appeared impregnable. The FBI had been allowed to scour the walls, ceilings and floors and to use non-invasive devices to attempt to see what lay behind the stones, but the Mexican government would not grant permission to destroy walls or floors in order to ascertain where the President might have gone.
Harry Harrison listened as the President of Mexico responded. The government’s position had not changed, the President said. The tomb and the chamber with the artifact were too archaeologically significant, ancient and fragile to allow tampering, even for something as important as this.
“Realistically, President Harrison,” the leader of Mexico said, “there is no way President Chapman is still inside the tomb. It just defies logic. Somehow he made his way out or was taken away. I assure you that our officials are presently looking into every possibility and checking all means of entering or leaving the structure. But for now that is all I can give you. We will keep trying but we will not allow alteration or destruction of our monument for any reason. Period.”
And there was nothing the United States could do about it.
Chapter Nine
Friday
Eight days after the disappearance
Brian Sadler walked the twenty or so blocks from his Upper West Side apartment to Bijan Rarities, the antiquities gallery he owned on Fifth Avenue. This morning the weather was unseasonably cool for early June but the forecast was for a warm afternoon. Brian enjoyed cutting through Central Park; you avoided a lot of pedestrians on the sidewalks and he found the park peaceful and beautiful as the trees sported new leaves for summer.
He exited the park and walked four blocks south on Fifth Avenue. The buzz and excitement of Manhattan still got to him even though he’d been a resident for several years. He would always be a Texan at heart – they say you can’t take the country out of a boy – but he had adapted very well to life in the Big Apple. He felt fo
rtunate that he had the resources to enjoy everything the city had to offer.
It was almost 8:30 a.m. when Brian unlocked the front door and disarmed the gallery’s elaborate security system. He walked to a massive vault door and entered a series of numbers that would begin the sequence of disarming the time delay lock.
Brian’s second-in-command, Collette Conning, would be coming in around 9:45 – unless he had an early meeting Brian always timed his arrival an hour or so ahead of her. It was his quiet time to read a couple of papers and catch up on email. Most people in their thirties had long since stopped reading the newspaper in hard copy – everyone seemed to get his news online these days – but there was something comforting to Brian about sitting at his desk, reading page after page of the Times and the Wall Street Journal, marking things he would later ask Collette to clip, file or research for him.
Bijan Rarities had expanded dramatically since the days when the gallery’s founder Darius Nazir and Brian had teamed up. Nazir’s untimely death and a generous bequest had given Brian the chance to strike out on his own, leaving the highflying world of stocks and becoming a major player in the rarities markets around the globe. Brian had obtained the Bethlehem Scroll, one of the most significant objects ever discovered. He had engaged his passion for archaeology by visiting remote sites in the Middle East and South America. He and his girlfriend Nicole Farber had gone to Belize and Guatemala to find Mayan artifacts in an ancient city high in the clouds. Things had gotten out of hand quickly – Brian was trapped hundreds of feet below the surface in a Mayan cave and his and Nicole’s subsequent kidnappings could have cost them their lives.
Adventure intrigued Brian. His harrowing experiences only made him yearn for more. Dallas and New York, the cities Nicole and Brian respectively called home, were exciting and fun for him but he frequently found himself thinking how he could get to the places he considered really exciting. Back to the jungle – back to ancient things and the thrill of being on yet another search for antiquities.
He fixed a cup of coffee and sat at his desk. The headlines of both papers spoke of Vice President Harry Harrison’s ascension to the Presidency. Brian read the stories closely because of his personal interest in Harrison. The pictures showed a somber group of attendees, a stoic Harrison raising his right hand as he recited the oath of office and excerpts from the speech he had given to the nation afterwards. Brian had listened to every word of that speech; since it had been given during a busy workday for Brian, he had recorded and watched it in bed last night.
For yet another day, there was no news about the whereabouts of former President John Chapman. It was as though he had dropped off the face of the earth. Several times Brian had been to Palenque and the Temple of the Inscriptions, the place from which Chapman disappeared. Brian had read the stories telling about the strange chamber found below the tomb of King Pakal and the artifact that had been discovered there fascinated him.
But where was President Chapman? He had gone into the temple, descended into its bowels and never returned. The news reporters said the FBI had tried searches with ground-penetrating radar to determine if more chambers existed beside or beneath the one recently discovered. The technology had proven useless because of the building’s solid rock walls.
There had to be another way out. The President hadn’t just vaporized into thin air, so if he went in but didn’t come back up the same stairway, he had to have gone somewhere else. But there was no place else. So far, eight days after his disappearance, no one had discovered what or where that place was.
Hearing five beeps, Brian walked to the vault door, entered a code and unlocked it. He swung it open, revealing a jail-like wall of bars with a gate. Inside the vault were shelves and pedestals with Bijan’s most precious pieces. When Collette arrived, some of these would be moved to the showroom floor for display to the public.
Brian’s office phone quietly rang. He went to his desk and saw a blinking light indicating it was his private line, a number that very few people had. He glanced at his watch – it was just after nine – and picked up the phone.
“Good morning, Mr. Sadler,” a pleasant female voice said. “This is the White House with a call from President Harrison. May I put the call through, sir?”
Brian smiled. “Of course,” he said. She put him on hold.
After less than a minute he heard, “Well hello, Brian. I guess you’ve heard about my promotion.”
“Mr. President, I want to offer congratulations, even though I know it’s a tough way for you to become the Chief Executive.”
“Absolutely. And Brian, when it’s just us we can drop the ‘Mr. President’ stuff? I appreciate your respect for the office but you and I go too far back. And we’ll never hurt each other, will we?”
That made Brian laugh. Since they were roommates at the University of Oklahoma they had joked that each of them had “the pictures” and neither of them could afford to hurt the other. The “pictures” didn’t exist but there were a lot of crazy, stupid escapades the two college friends had done together that the general public didn’t need to know about. And wouldn’t.
“No, Harry. We’ll never hurt each other. But I know you’re a busy man – in fact I guess yesterday afternoon you became the busiest man in the world. What do you need from your old roommate? I don’t think there’s much I have that you could use at this point.”
“You’re wrong about that, Brian. The night I became Vice President you asked me not to forget you. And I haven’t. You have something I need. You have to help me find John Chapman.”
Chapter Ten
When Brian Sadler graduated from high school in Longview, Texas and went to Oklahoma University, he had thought about majoring in the subject he found most fascinating – archaeological studies. His father, editor of the local newspaper, had wisely advised him that a major in archaeology might be satisfying and fun but it probably wouldn’t pay the bills. Becoming a university instructor would be the likely result of an archaeology degree. Although he would have liked to be another Indiana Jones, more realistically Brian probably would have struggled to find the time and money to get out of the classroom and into the jungle while trying to keep up with the “publish or perish” demands placed on university professors. So he had majored in finance, a subject that ultimately helped him decide to become a stockbroker.
In June before his freshman year at OU the university sent him paperwork asking if he wished to choose his roommate or be randomly matched. Brian had a couple of friends from high school who were also heading north to Norman, Oklahoma, but he decided he wanted to expand his horizons. He didn’t want to be around his home-town people and the same old routine. He wanted to make new friends and have new experiences. So he opted for a random match. Within two weeks he received the name of his roommate in a letter from the university. And his father was impressed by the name he read: William Henry Harrison IV from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
“Do you know who William Henry Harrison III is?” Brian’s father asked him after reading the letter.
“I’ve heard of him. Isn’t he a Senator or something?”
“He is in fact the senior Senator from the state of Oklahoma. He’s a great-grandson several times removed of William Henry Harrison, the ninth president and the first to die in office, and also of Benjamin Harrison, our twenty-third president.”
Brian’s dad was a history buff and he knew his presidents. He went on to point out that Brian’s roommate was undoubtedly the Senator’s son. At his mother’s suggestion, Brian sent Harrison a brief note telling him about himself and saying they’d meet at OU in a few weeks. He got a short note back in an almost illegible script. It said, “Call me Harry. See you soon. Boomer Sooner!”
When Brian and his parents arrived at the university on move-in day they found a tall skinny boy standing in Brian’s assigned dorm room at Adams Hall, the tower reserved for freshmen. The boy’s parents were there too – Brian recognized his roommate’s father from pictures Bri
an’s dad had shown him.
“Senator,” he said, sticking out his hand, “I’m Brian Sadler. And you must be Harry.” Brian and Harry shook hands vigorously.
The boys’ mothers introduced themselves and sat on one of the twin beds, talking about how to arrange the tiny room and then making it happen. The ladies had spoken by phone a couple of weeks earlier and had picked sheets and towels that were the same for both boys. This sort of thing mattered more to girls but the moms wanted the guys to at least have some small sense of order in what would otherwise be the chaos of an all-male dormitory.
Senator Harrison and Brian’s father went downstairs to the parking lot and helped their sons offload boxes and suitcases. They carried them up three flights of stairs rather than waiting on two banks of elevators that were never available due to the crush of eight hundred boys moving in at the same time.
Harry opened a box packed to the brim with CDs. Brian immediately stopped what he was doing and began looking through the titles.
“I brought a lot too,” he told Harry, “but from what I can see we don’t have that many duplicates.” They talked about their favorite singers and songs. They learned they had both been at the Michael Jackson concert in Dallas six months ago, along with twenty thousand others.
After two hours of unpacking, arranging, and rearranging the mothers declared the project basically finished. “Let’s go grab a bite to eat,” Senator Harrison said. Brian’s parents didn’t know Norman at all so they deferred to the legislator’s suggestion, a place called Legend’s that he said was the best in town. As they waited to be seated several patrons who were leaving spoke to Senator Harrison. He had been an Oklahoma politician for over thirty years, serving first as state Senator, then Governor and now in Washington. He was well known and highly respected by many people in this conservative state.
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