Primary Command

by Jack Mars

  “You can’t do this. I am the presi—”

  The probes spent, the man used the Taser’s touch stun feature to give the president another jolt. David’s entire body thumped along the ground. His head banged off the same polished stone that Lawrence Keller had once gone sliding on.

  His eyes opened again. He stared at the man. There was anger in those eyes. David Barrett was famous for his temper tantrums. He swallowed.

  “You…” he said.

  Then he rode the juice again.

  A moment later, the four men lifted David Barrett’s limp body and carried it carefully down the stairs. His head drooped.

  Parked on the plaza at the bottom of the stairs was a large black SUV with smoked windows. It hadn’t been there a moment ago. Its engine was running, just a bit of steam coming from its tail pipe. The men carried David Barrett to the car, loaded him in the back, and climbed in behind him.

  The SUV’s headlights came on and it pulled away slowly.

  Lawrence Keller watched it go. A moment later, the sound of footsteps came up behind him. Keller didn’t even turn around. He knew how these things went. Either they would reward him for his help, or they would kill him. Try as he might, there wouldn’t be much he could do about either thing. It was out of his hands.

  A man in a three-piece suit with slicked-back hair appeared next to him. He was a handsome man in a very generic way. Five minutes after meeting him, you would have trouble describing anything about his face. His shoes were polished to such a high sheen they almost seemed like patent leather.

  He was a CIA agent whose specialty was domestic spying, misinformation, and psychological operations. He was a shock doctor. When bad news happened, something traumatizing, something that threw entire populations off balance, he probably wasn’t far away. Some people called him the Dirty Trickster.

  “Wallace Speck,” Keller said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  The man put a finger to his lips. Shhhhh.

  “Hello, Lawrence.”

  “What happens now?” Keller said.

  The man shrugged. “You wanted a return to relevance? You got it.”

  Keller gestured toward the SUV that was no longer there.

  “What about David?”

  “Oh, he’ll be okay,” Speck said. “We’ll get him the help he needs. Anyway, you don’t have to worry about that. Focus on you. Your country needs you. Expect a call, probably not today, but maybe tomorrow. There’s always a place near the top for a proud American who’s also a loyal servant.”

  “And who will I be serving?” Keller said.

  Speck smiled. “Who else? The president of the United States.”

  “As chief of staff?”

  Speck’s shoulders slumped. “Come on, Lawrence. You know Mark has his own people in place. But there’ll be something good on the table for you. I promise.”

  Suddenly, back toward the White House, there was a loud explosion. A rumble, a long rolling BOOM like thunder, came to them. The floor beneath their feet trembled the slightest amount. The sky lit up over there.

  “Well, I see the fun has started,” Wallace Speck said. “That’s my cue to leave.”

  He looked at Keller. “Lawrence, if I were you, I’d go home, relax, and be ready for that call. Big things await you.”

  Speck turned to go, but then stopped.

  “And Lawrence?”

  Keller looked at him. Speck’s eyes were hard. Worse than hard, they were blank. Keller had often heard policemen and FBI profilers talk about eyes like these, in a face like this. It wasn’t a heartless face. It wasn’t cruel. It was empty.

  Lack of affect was what the cops called it. The face of someone for whom killing no longer meant anything, if it ever did. Keller didn’t want to give that face even a drop of satisfaction. He also didn’t want to give it any reason to become angry.

  The sirens had started. Everywhere at once, sirens were approaching. A lot of them. A gunshot rang out. Then another. Then a burst of automatic fire.

  Hue City, Lawrence thought. That place was never far from his memory.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “Be a good boy and try not to rock the boat this time.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  5:01 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time

  Queen Anne’s County, Maryland

  Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay

  Luke was beat.

  “Beat” didn’t even really get to the heart of the matter. He was beyond tired. Other than dozing on airplanes, he had barely slept in the past two days. He had driven here asleep with his eyes open. Thankfully, there was no one on the roads this time of night.

  He got a piece of good news as he pulled into the gravel driveway of the house. Becca’s beat-up Subaru station wagon was there in the glow of his headlights. Audrey’s Mercedes sedan was nowhere to be seen.

  Could it be? Luke almost didn’t dare to hope.

  Could Audrey have gone home?

  He killed the engine and the headlights, and just sat in the dark for a long moment. It was still an hour before sunrise, a beautiful time of day. Lights shimmered on the water. On the other side of the bay, the lights of a larger community gave off a pale glow. He closed his eyes and allowed his body to relax.

  Somewhere far away, there was a distant rumble of thunder.

  The painkillers weren’t really working anymore, but that was okay. Pain was something he had long ago learned to live with. It was almost comforting.

  He was under suspension, but still on the payroll. He was hopeful he would be cleared of any wrongdoing, but according to Don, the case could take a month or more. A month! Or more!

  A wave of elation washed over his exhausted body.

  A month here at the cabin. On the water. In the middle of summertime. Just him, Becca, and the baby. Sunset on the patio. He could buy a little outboard motorboat. Hell, Swann was under suspension, and Big Ed was bound to be, whenever he got back. He could have them out here for barbecues. Ice cold beer.

  It kept getting better.

  No commute. He had surrendered a service weapon (he had others). More to the point, he no longer had his agency ID or his key card. He couldn’t get into the SRT offices if he wanted to.

  “Well, I guess I’m just stuck out here,” he said under his breath, and smiled.

  Okay. It was time to go inside. He left his bags in the car. He would deal with them tomorrow sometime. He walked silently to the door. Somewhere nearby, an owl was hooting.

  “Hoo?” it said. “Hoo, hoo?”

  Luke smiled again and let himself inside. He was careful not to let the screen door bang. He took his shoes off and moved around in the dark in his socks. He was careful not to let the floorboards creak. If Becca and baby Gunner were sleeping, he didn’t want to do the slightest thing to disturb them. It was absolutely silent in here.

  He navigated by the nightlight above the stove.

  There was a piece of card stock paper folded like a tent on the kitchen table. On its face, in her big, capital letter, childlike scrawl, it said: LUKE.

  He picked it up and read it in the dim light.

  Babe, we decided to go to Mom and Dad’s, to be closer to the doctors, and for more room, and so Dad could be with the baby. We all went in Mom’s car. I miss you. I hope you are alive and okay. Let me know when you get in. Love you.

  She had drawn a simple heart with an arrow through it at the bottom.

  Luke grunted like he had been punched.

  Becca’s mother and father lived ten minutes from the SRT offices. Not that Luke could turn up there in the middle of the night, and not that he would want to. He didn’t want to spend any more time at their house than was absolutely necessary.

  Okay, no one was home here. He hadn’t known that because his mission was classified and he couldn’t be in touch while he was away. That was all right. He was home, he was safe, they were safe, and they were at Audrey and Lance’s house.

  Luke went to the refrigerator, less conce
rned about noise now. He pulled out a beer, went to the couch, and sat down. He cracked the beer and took a sip. Yikes, that was good. He simply sat for a few moments, sipping his beer and staring at nothing.

  The exhaustion began to settle in again. Every time he stopped moving, it seemed to catch up with him.

  There was an old wooden grandfather clock here in the living room. That thing was ancient, and with age came quirks. It ticked along, never quite on the right time. It tended to gong sometimes. There was no rhyme or reason to it, just whenever it was in the mood.

  Luke put his beer down on the floor. He let himself lie across the couch. It was a great couch, comfortable and big enough to accommodate his body.

  He realized he didn’t want to be down here when that grandfather gong went off. He’d better get off this couch and force himself to go upstairs to bed.

  It was a good idea, and he was going to do it.

  Any minute.

  He just wanted to get a few things straight in his mind.

  He closed his eyes and was asleep in seconds.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  5:05 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time

  Near the Northeast Gate

  The White House

  Washington, DC

  “I’m down here, God damn it! Cease fire!”

  Agent Ricky Saviello screamed into the mouthpiece of communications headset. He lay flat on his stomach thirty yards from the blown out remains of the fencing just to the right of the Northeast Gate.

  Something was on fire on the other side of the fence, perhaps a van or a truck. Twisted, flaming metal lay strewn all over the lower lawn and on the nearby stretch of the Pennsylvania Avenue pedestrian mall.

  That vehicle looked like it had been hit by a missile. If there was anybody inside there, they were roasted. Bright orange flames and black smoke towered into the sky.

  Single gunshots and what sounded like heavy automatic weaponry still rang out, seemingly from behind him, back up toward the house. Live rounds were flying over his head. He kept his face to the grass.

  “I’m down here! I’m down here! Stop shooting!”

  Saviello was of Afro-Dominican descent. Wearing a navy blue suit, he was blending in well with the dark tonight, a little too well for comfort.

  “Do you people see me?”

  There’d been an attack of some kind. That’s all he knew. When the explosions and the shootings started, he had raced downhill toward the action. But the situation was strange. There didn’t seem to be any perpetrators. Just a lot of gunfire, coming downhill , from our side. Also, he had caught a glimpse of the president’s tiny dog, running frantically through the firelight.

  The gunfire died down.

  Saviello waited. His service weapon was out, pointed toward that giant hole in the fence. He scanned the sloping hillside for unfriendlies, then focused on the fence again.

  Suddenly, a man appeared there, a silhouette walking slowly out of the smoke and flame. His hands were at his sides.

  “Don’t shoot!” the man shouted. “Don’t shoot! I have no gun!”

  “Stop right there!” Saviello shouted from the ground. He had a perfect shot at the guy if he needed to take it. He put his sights right on the man’s center mass. “Raise those hands where I can see them.”

  The man stood in place. “I cannot raise my hands.”

  The flames of the burning van crackled in the night.

  “Raise those hands!”

  “I cannot! They are tied!”

  “You better raise those fu—”

  A series of shots rang out. The man did a sputtering dance and fell to the ground right where he stood. Oh yeah. That guy was gonna be dead. Saviello had seen the spray of blood and bone as the kill shot took off the top of the man’s head.

  Saviello hadn’t even touched his trigger.

  “Cease fire,” he said into his mic. “He’s down.”

  There were no more gunshots. Saviello gave it an extra moment just to make sure. Then he climbed slowly to his feet and moved toward the body.

  “Nobody shoot. I’m going to check the subject.”

  He moved down the slight incline to where the man had been standing. The grass was spongy and wet with early morning dew. The dead man lay on the wet grass, his body askew, his legs out at strange, unnatural angles. Just as Saviello expected, half of his head was gone, from the eyebrows up.

  Strangely, the man’s arms were still at his sides. Saviello looked closer. The man’s wrists were shackled, secured to his sides with a thick chain that looped around his waist. The set-up reminded Saviello of the way corrections officers secured inmates for travel from one facility to another.

  “Something odd here,” he said into the mic.

  He glanced uphill toward the White House. He felt the bullet pierce his chest before he heard the gunshot.

  “Wait…”

  There was another shot, then another. He heard them echoing across the White House grounds and the surrounding streets and parks. They were long rolling booms, like waves crashing at the beach late at night.

  Three shots. He counted them.

  Then he was on his back in the wet grass. He realized his life was ebbing away. How could it be?

  Friendly fire. It happened sometimes.

  But he told them not to shoot.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  6:45 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time

  The Oval Office

  The White House

  Washington, DC

  Mark Baylor glanced around the office.

  Three tall windows, with drapes pulled back, still looked out on the Rose Garden. Light was just beginning to fill the sky. Near the center of the office, a comfortable sitting area was situated on top of a lush carpet adorned with the Seal of the President. In the corner, the Resolute Desk was there in its customary spot.

  Standing at the closed double doors were two Secret Service agents. Another dozen people, including more Secret Service, fanned out across the room.

  Baylor loved everything about this office. His office.

  Just in front of him, a man and a woman stood. Photographers snapped pictures of them. One of the men was short and bald. He wore a long dark robe. He was Clarence Warren, Chief Justice of the United States. At just sixty-four years old, he was expected to remain Chief Justice for a long time to come.

  The woman’s name was Kathy Grumman. She wore a dark blue suit and a frown on her face. She was holding a Bible open in her hands. She had been David Barrett’s Chief of Staff, and might still be.

  Everything was happening on the fly. The White House had been attacked in the night, and David had gone missing. The house and its grounds were now thought to be secure, but David still hadn’t turned up. Maybe he would materialize later, or maybe he was dead. No one seemed to know.

  Mark Baylor knew a bit about what was going on, who was involved, and where their allegiances lay. He knew much more than he let on. But even he didn’t know if David Barrett was still among the living. Whoever had taken David Barrett, Mark Baylor was not sure of their plans.

  In the meantime, someone had to be president, and quickly. That someone was Vice President Mark Baylor. The country was in crisis, and he was the perfect man for the job. He was decisive, an actor rather than a thinker. In that way, he and David couldn’t be more different.

  In the night, there had been a dogfight between American and Russian jets in the Bering Strait. No one knew who fired first. We claimed they did. They claimed we did. But we knew they had crossed into American airspace. And we knew that after our airplane had been shot down, a formation of five of our fighter jets had destroyed all three Russian planes in the vicinity.

  And when Mark Baylor became president a moment from now, he was going to act instead of think. He was going to order the Pentagon to move to DEFCON 3 worldwide, as they had requested yesterday.

  Truth was, he was going to give the military anything they wanted. They needed latitude to fight a war against a dangerous
enemy, and they were going to get it. He breathed deeply at the thought. It was a proud time to be an American.

  This would be the second time he’d taken this oath in less than two months. He thought it was a nice touch to have Kathy Grumman hold the Bible. He felt that it demonstrated his loyalty to his friend David. Also, with the early hour of the morning, the evacuation, and the sudden, unexpected need to administer the Oath of Office, there just weren’t that many people around.

  Baylor stood with his left hand on the Bible. His right hand was raised.

  “I, Mark Twain Baylor,” he said, “do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States.”

  “And will to the best of my ability,” Judge Warren prompted.

  “And will to the best of my ability,” Baylor said.

  “Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

  Baylor repeated the words. For his second go-round, and even more abruptly than before, he became president of the United States.

  Don’t come back this time, David.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  7:25 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time

  Georgetown

  Washington, DC

  Lawrence Keller awoke with a start.

  In his dream, he and his squad of Marines had been camped down by the Perfume River in Hue City. It was February 1968. No one told him this, he just knew it. He knew that month like he knew his own name. Everything in the dream was sepia toned and old-timey, everything except the blood.

  The blood was bright red, garish, like neon paint, like the wave of blood that flowed out of the elevator and onto the little boy in The Shining.

  The whole squad was being sliced apart by something Keller could not see. It made no sound. His men were just… falling apart, disintegrating in great big foundations of electric red. And Keller was in a bathroom. He turned to look in the mirror, and he was bathed in the blood of dead men.