[Luke Stone 02.0] Oath of Office

by Jack Mars

  The arena would become quiet. But there would be the swell of anticipation.

  A voice would come on. “And now… your Los Angeles Lakers!”

  The crowd would go berserk. The music would become louder than ever. The drums would shake the very air.

  And as the players took the court, a man would appear in the darkness, away from the spotlight. He would have a fog machine strapped to his back. He would run up and down the edge of the court, firing his fog cannon.

  It would seem almost normal, of course. Maybe the fog cannon was more appropriate for a rock concert, but hey, basketball was just another form of entertainment, wasn’t it? And the fog was just another part of the show. It was part of the tremendous excitement. The music… the lights… the great athletes… the fog.

  He nodded to himself. It would all seem perfectly normal at first, and then it would begin to seem strange.

  He would spray the very rich people at courtside, who had paid thousands of dollars each for their tickets. He would spray the less rich people three and five and ten rows deep. He would spray the players and the coaches. He would spray all the VIPS and the visiting dignitaries. He would spray the courtside announcers and the food vendors alike.

  And he would get sprayed a little himself too, wouldn’t he?

  Yes, he would. That was okay. It was good and it was right. He would die surrounded by his enemies, as he had dreamed of doing since he was a young man. Perhaps a panic would set in, and there would be a terrified stampede to exit the stadium. Or maybe everyone would remain docile, the game would begin, and only after a little while, as people became sick, would anyone realize what was happening.

  The man would be interested to see.

  As he reached the stairwell that lead upstairs to the arena floor, he felt a nervous tickle in his stomach. The stairwell was darkened. Shadows played on the walls.

  He was the last one left. He knew that. The mission depended on him. Everything, the whole world, was counting on one solitary man. He had tried to pray about it earlier today, but he found himself without words. He asked for guidance and for courage. He asked for the strength to shoulder the burden. It was the best he could do.

  Above his head, he could hear the opposing team’s introductions beginning.

  “… Cleveland Cavaliers!”

  A roar greeted this name. The man couldn’t tell if it was a roar of approval or one of derision.

  A black man in a wheelchair rolled out of the darkness. He was a very big man, very muscular. He reminded the fog spraying man of people who lose the use of their legs, perhaps in a war, and then build immensely strong upper bodies and become wheelchair racers. The wheelchair man blocked the path between the fog spraying man and the staircase.

  “Hey,” the wheelchair-bound man said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I work here,” the man said. “I am wanted upstairs in just a few moments.”

  The black man gestured with his head. “What do you have in that tank?”

  “Fog. For the pregame introductions.”

  “You got a virus in there? I mean, mixed in with the fog?”

  “A virus?” the fog man said. “Why would I have a virus?”

  “Because you’re a terrorist,” the black man said. “And you want to kill a lot of innocent people.”

  The fog man had a moment when he could not understand what the other man was saying to him. It was impossible that anyone could know what he was doing. He was simply a long-time employee of the arena. The only person who knew anything else about him was a man named…

  “Adam sent me,” the black man said.

  The fog man’s hand strayed to the trigger on the fog cannon. He removed the safety locking device. He could fire the cannon here in the stairwell. It would not be as good as firing it upstairs in the arena. It would not be nearly as good.

  “Back away or I’ll kill us both,” he said.

  “No you won’t,” the black man.

  “Yes, I will.” He didn’t want to spray it here. He wanted to make his way past this big strange man and his wheelchair.

  The black man shook his head. “No. I know you won’t do it.”

  The fog man was curious enough to ask. Perhaps he could play this riddle game for thirty seconds, and somehow bluff his way past. He would still make it to his destination in time.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because you’ll already be dead,” another voice said.

  The fog man turned to his right. A blond-haired man with red, bloodshot eyes stood there. They were the kind of eyes that hadn’t slept in days. The face itself betrayed no emotion, and certainly no mercy.

  The man held a gun with a silencer attachment. He held it pointed directly at the fog man’s face.

  The fog man only had time for one thought.

  He didn’t think of how his finger caressed the trigger on his fog cannon.

  He didn’t think of the family he had left behind more than ten years ago.

  He didn’t think of waking up in paradise.

  He thought: “No!”

  *

  “Would you say that was cold-blooded?” Luke said.

  He stared at the body on the concrete floor of the stairwell. The smell of gunpowder rose in the confined space. Luke stepped well away from the pool of blood spreading around the ruined head, in case the man had already infected himself with the virus.

  Ed sucked his teeth. “I’d say he was going to try and kill thousands of people. I’d say that failing that, he was ready to spray us both down with Ebola as a consolation prize. With those two things in mind… no, not cold-blooded. What else were you supposed to do? Arrest him?”

  “I don’t know, man,” Luke said. “It’s been a long couple of days. Sometimes I get tired of killing. Ever feel that way?”

  Ed shook his head. “Luke, I get tired of innocent people dying. Like all those people in Charleston.” He gestured at the man on the ground.

  “This guy… nah.”

  Above their heads, thousands of people pounded their feet again.

  BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM…

  And thousands of people started screaming, not in terror—but in delight.

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  June 14th

  9:15 a.m.

  Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia

  Row upon row of white gravestones, thousands of them, climbed the green hills into the distance.

  Six young Army Rangers carried the casket, draped in the American flag, to the open gravesite. Luke recognized three of them—they were the remains of his B team that dropped onto Omar bin Khalid’s yacht three days before. They carried their friend Charlie Something to his final resting place.

  The boys looked sharp in their dress greens and their tan berets, but they also looked young. Too young. Not for the first time, Luke marveled at their youth. Their faces were hard with the pain of loss.

  Just to his right, Gunner, wearing his dark blue suit, saluted the casket as it passed.

  A three-man team of riflemen fired a volley into the air. Then another. Then another. Behind them, perhaps thirty yards away, a lone bugler played taps.

  Fifty servicemen stood in formation near the grave. Perhaps another hundred people, most of them young, fanned out on the grass. They looked just like high school kids. Sommelier had only graduated last year.

  Near the front was a row of white folding chairs. A middle-aged woman dressed in black was comforted by another woman. Near her, an honor guard made up of three Rangers, two Marines, and an Airman carefully took the flag from the casket and folded it. One of the Rangers lowered to one knee in front of the grieving woman, and presented the flag to her.

  Luke and Gunner were close enough to hear what the Ranger said. In Luke’s mind, it was important for Gunner to hear what was said.

  “On behalf of the President of the United States,” the young Ranger said, his voice breaking, “the United States Army, and a grateful nation, ple
ase accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your son’s honorable and faithful service.”

  Luke took a deep breath. He had been to too many military funerals in his time. He had been to too many funerals period. He had seen too many dead people.

  When it was over, he and Gunner held hands and walked the hilly grounds. After a short time they found themselves at the John F. Kennedy gravesite. They stood for a moment at the edge of the two-hundred-year-old flagstones and watched the fire of the eternal flame.

  “Who is this?” Gunner said.

  “Well, this is the memorial for John F. Kennedy. His wife is also buried here, and his brothers Robert and Edward.”

  “John F. Kennedy was the President, wasn’t he, Dad?”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “Did you work for him like you work for the new President?”

  Luke shook his head. “President Kennedy died before I was born.”

  Gunner seemed to think about that. A time before his dad was born? That must have been a long time ago.

  Luke’s eye wandered to the low granite wall at the edge of the memorial. Just above the wall, he could see the Washington Monument across the river. The wall itself had numerous inscriptions taken from Kennedy’s inaugural address. Among several more famous lines from the speech, Luke kept returning to one section in particular:

  LET EVERY NATION KNOW

  WHETHER IT WISHES US WELL OR ILL

  THAT WE SHALL PAY ANY PRICE

  BEAR ANY BURDEN

  MEET ANY HARDSHIP

  SUPPORT ANY FRIEND

  OPPOSE ANY FOE

  TO ASSURE THE SURVIVAL

  AND THE SUCCESS OF LIBERTY

  Luke stared at those words until he felt a sharp tug on his hand.

  “Dad?” Gunner said.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you want to go fishing with me today?”

  Luke smiled.

  “Yeah, monster,” he said. “More than anything.”

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  7:45 p.m.

  The Capital Grille, Washington, DC

  “How’s your steak?” Ed said.

  The restaurant glimmered with wealth. DC power brokers huddled up in booths along the walls. Waiters in black vests hustled to and fro. Luke was surprised to see so many people out. The city was still under heightened security. Men in hazmat suits manned the streets corners, taking the temperatures of passersby with infrared thermometers, and watched over by squads of National Guard from four states.

  Life went on, he supposed.

  Luke and Ed sat at a round table for four with a white tablecloth and a small lamp in the middle of it. They had a bottle of wine and two fat steaks in front of them. Luke looked up at a large photograph of Jimi Hendrix on the wall. Ed’s crutches leaned against the table.

  “It’s good,” Luke said. “Really good.” He didn’t have the heart to tell Ed that he was more of a ninety-nine-percent-fat-free chicken kind of guy.

  “I love it here,” Ed said. “It’s great food.”

  “You eat a lot of steak?” Luke said.

  Ed smiled. “You kidding? I eat steak and eggs for breakfast.”

  Luke took a swig of his wine. He chewed on a lump of meat and some garlic mashed potatoes. He had to admit the food was good. It was thick and heavy and good.

  Ed was drinking tonight. He was talking more than Luke was accustomed to.

  “How’s the wife?” Ed asked.

  Luke shrugged. “She let me take my son out today. That’s a start.”

  Ed’s eyes had a devilish glint. “And Trudy?”

  “I called her yesterday. I told her if they really break up the Special Response Team, she can probably write her own ticket. I’ll give her the highest recommendation, tell anyone and everyone there’s nothing to this whole Don Morris thing.”

  Ed shook his head. “Not exactly what I’m talking about.”

  Luke didn’t like where this was going.

  “That other thing?” Luke said. “She told me it was a mistake. I agreed with her.”

  “She said she loved you. That’s what I heard right before you jumped out of the chopper.”

  Luke nodded. “She said she meant that part. She loves me like a brother, the brother she never had.”

  Ed nodded. “Uh-huh.” He took another sip of his wine. It looked like blood in his glass. “You think they’re going to break up the Special Response Team? For real?”

  “I’m not sure if I care,” Luke said. “I’ve been talking about retiring a lot. Maybe it’s time. I’m toying with teaching college.”

  Ed smiled. “I think you’ll make a lousy college professor.”

  Just then, Luke’s phone started to ring. It was on the table in front of him. He had it on ringer and vibrate at the same time. On each ring, the phone shook and moved a quarter of an inch along the table.

  Luke looked at it. He saw the number on the screen and his gut twisted.

  It was the President.

  “You going to answer that?” Ed said. “Or you want me to?”

  He stared across the table at Ed.

  “It’s her.”

  Ed shrugged. He shoved a thick chunk of steak into his mouth. “Who else?”

  A moment passed, and it continued to buzz. What could it be now, Luke wondered? A congratulations? Another crisis?

  This time, he didn’t want to know. It was time to live his life again. He’d earned it.

  Luke reached out and placed the phone face down on the table. Then, before it could buzz again, he powered it off.

  Ed smiled back at him.

  “More wine?” he asked, gesturing to the waiter.

  This time, Luke smiled back.

  “More wine,” he replied.

  NOW AVAILABLE!

  SITUATION ROOM

  (A Luke Stone Thriller—Book #3)

  CHAPTER ONE

  August 15th

  7:07 a.m.

  Black Rock Dam, Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina

  The dam sat there, immutable, gigantic, the one constant in Wes Yardley’s life. The others who worked there called it “Mother.” Built to generate hydroelectric power in 1943 during the height of World War Two, the dam was as tall as a fifty-story building. The power station that operated the dam was six stories high, and Mother loomed behind it like a fortress from some medieval nightmare.

  Wes started his shift in the control room the same way he had for the last thirty-three years: he sat at the long half-circle desk, plunked his coffee mug down, and logged into the computer in front of him. He did this automatically, without thinking, still half-asleep. He was the only person in the control room, a place so antiquated it resembled a set from the old TV show Space 1999. It had last been remodeled sometime in the 1960s, and it was a 1960s version of what the future might look like. The walls were covered with dials and switches, many of which hadn’t been touched in years. There were thick video screens which no one ever turned on. There were no windows at all.

  Early morning was normally Wes’s favorite part of the day. He had some time to himself to sip his coffee, go over the log from the night before, check the electricity generation figures, and then read the newspaper. Often enough, he would pour himself a second cup of coffee about halfway through the sports pages. He had no reason to do otherwise; after all, nothing ever happened here.

  In the past couple of years, he had taken to reading the want ads as part of his morning ritual. For seventeen years, since computers had come in and the control room had gone automated, the big brains at the Tennessee Valley Authority had talked about controlling this dam from a remote location. Nothing had come of it so far, and maybe nothing ever would. Nothing had come of Wes’s want ad perusals, either. This was a good job. He’d be happy to go out of here on a slab one day, hopefully in the distant future. He absently reached for his coffee mug as he leafed through last night’s reports.

  Then he looked up—and everything changed.

  Along the wall ac
ross from him, six red lights were blinking. It had been so long since they blinked, it took him a full minute to remember what those lights even meant. Each light was an indicator for one of the floodgates. Eleven years ago, during a week of torrential rains up north, they had opened one of the floodgates for the better part of three hours each day so the water up top didn’t breach the walls. One of those lights blinked the entire time the gate was open.

  But six lights blinking? All at the same time? That could only mean…

  Wes squinted at the lights, as if that might help him see them better. “What the..?” he said in a quiet voice.

  He picked up the phone on the desk and dialed three digits.

  “Wes,” a sleepy voice said. “How’s your day going? Catch the Braves game last night?”

  “Vince?” Wes said, ignoring the man’s banter. “I’m down in the box, and I’m looking at the big board. I’ve got lights telling me that Floodgates One through Six are all open. I mean, right now, all six gates. It’s an equipment malfunction, right? Some kind of gauge error, or a computer glitch. Right?”

  “The floodgates are open?” Vince said. “That can’t be. Nobody told me anything.”

  Wes stood and drifted slowly toward the board. The phone cord trailed behind him. He stared at the lights in awe. There was no readout. There was no data to explain anything. There was no view of anything. It was just those lights, blinking out of unison, some fast, some slow, like a Christmas tree gone a little bit insane.

  “Well, that’s what I’m looking at. Six lights, all at once. Tell me that we don’t have six floodgates open, Vince.”

  Wes realized he didn’t need Vince to tell him. Vince was in the middle of speaking, but Wes wasn’t listening. He put the phone down and moved along a short narrow hallway to the observation room. It felt as if his feet were not attached to his body.