Line of Succession: A Thriller

by William Tyree

  Carver smiled. “Still kicking at ninety-six. He doesn’t teach regular classes anymore, but he had nine private students last semester. All from out of state.”

  Baltimore

  2:15 p.m.

  Angie Jackson sat slumped against the living room wall. Her hands were still duck-taped behind her. One of Elvir’s associates – a thick-bellied goon with low-rise jeans that left half of his rear end showing – sat on the carpet beside her, cradling a 9mm while watching the never-ending crisis coverage on TV. Between commercials, Angie could hear the residents of the apartment next door screaming at each other in Spanish.

  The Market Report was on TV. The anchor rested her chin on her thumb and forefinger, gazing into the market analyst’s eyes. “What advice do you have for people who are afraid? We’re hearing from a lot of people who are of the mind that they should cash out while they still can.”

  The analyst: “It’s never smart to panic. If you think you’re in for a fall, it’s much better to simply move your money into new opportunities in the market. Historically, you look at World War Two, even 9/11, the people who put their money into high tech, aircraft manufacturers, defense contractors, by and large, they did very well.”

  The anchor was momentarily distracted. Someone was obviously speaking into her earpiece. Her face turned serious as she turned to face the cameras. The animated red/white/blue logo for A Day of Terror: America Mourns swept onscreen. The anchor seemed genuinely stunned as she announced to the country, for the first time, “Government officials have just confirmed rumors that the Vice President has succumbed to his wounds.”

  A patriotic video montage of the late Vice President began, accompanied by a narration track that had clearly been prepared well in advance. The dead bolt on the living room door began to turn. The goon leaped up and positioned himself behind the door as it opened.

  He put the gun down. It was only his boss, Elvir.

  Elvir shut the door quickly behind him, opening it one last time to peek down the hallway and make sure he hadn’t been followed.

  “Where’s Ali?” the goon demanded in Muskogee.

  “It was a setup,” Elvir replied in his native Bosnian. He tossed his backpack onto the floor, unholstered a pistol from within his jacket and slumped into the lone armchair in the room.

  “Where’s Ali?” the goon repeated.

  Elvir shook his head. “He gave me no choice.”

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” The goon smacked his forehead repeatedly. He sat, enveloping his little head in his huge hands for a moment. “Listen to me Elvir. I have a friend with a small plane. He can get us to Mexico, and from there, we can get back to Bosnia.”

  Elvir shook his head. He switched back to Muskogee. “If we run, we’ll never get our money.”

  “But how can we ever get the money now?”

  Elvir looked at Angie and saw dollar signs. “They’ll be very interested in our guest here,” he explained.

  Norman, Oklahoma

  4:30 p.m. Central

  They flew into the University of Oklahoma’s Westheimer Airport under dark, threatening skies. All commercial traffic had been suspended since the attacks, rendering the tiny airport deserted. There were no aircraft controllers in the tower to guide them in, nor were there landing strip personnel to meet the Cessna U-27A as it taxied off the runway.

  A hard summer rain fell as Agents Carver and O’Keefe exited the little military turboprop. O’Keefe turned to help Nico out of the aircraft. He was cuffed at the wrists and dressed in street clothes that were a little baggy on his slight frame. They sprinted to the main building where, as expected, the lone rental car counter was unmanned.

  Carver jumped the counter and searched behind it until he found a locked cabinet. One hard tug busted the flimsy lock, revealing the keys to twenty Ford economy cars attached to numbered key rings. “Lucky number?” he said to O’Keefe.

  “Eleven.”

  He chose the #11 key.

  Fifteen minutes later they pulled up Cavalry Street in the blue rental car. “That’s it,” O’Keefe said, pointing to a modest two-bedroom Craftsman with faded blue shingles.

  Carver parked the rental car a short distance down the street. He adjusted his rear view mirror and glanced at Nico, who sat in the back seat. He figured they had no reason to fear their white collar prisoner. But Nico was still a flight risk, and if this operation turned into a door-buster, or a shootout, they wouldn’t be able to keep their eyes on him.

  Carver climbed into the back seat, flipped out a small blade from his pocketknife and cut into the fabric rooftop until he hit a piece of metal framing. He then cinched Nico’s right cuff around it, effectively locking him in the car. “Where’s the love?” Nico protested. “You can’t do this. It’s against the law to leave me in a car by myself.”

  “Who’s going to stop me? Child Protective Services?”

  The two agents cut diagonally across the front yard’s Kentucky Bluegrass lawn. “Door’s ajar,” O’Keefe said.

  Carver put his hand on O’Keefe’s shoulder. His touch sent butterflies swarming in her belly. “Let me take point,” he told her.

  “You don’t have to do that. I’m wearing Kevlar.”

  Carver thunked his knuckles against something hard under his shirt. “I’m wearing armor. Besides, you have to let me be chivalrous once in a while.”

  They drew their pistols and approached the front entry. Carver went in first and regarded the ancient-looking man with long gray hair and eyeglasses in the overstuffed armchair. “Professor Hitchiti?”

  The old man didn’t answer. As O’Keefe cleared the other rooms, Carver drew closer and switched on a lamp.

  A single bullet hole gaped on the Professor’s forehead. Flies buzzed in and out of the wound.

  Fort Campbell

  Eva sat in her office studying bond market reports that the Under-Secretary had faxed in from her home in rural Virginia. She had been able to establish contact with a half dozen members of her staff, most of whom were now working from home or coffee shops. The Joint Chiefs had ordered all Federal Agency Internet and VOIP networks shut down, citing security threats. The fact that military bases were conveniently unaffected wasn’t lost on her.

  In the desk drawer sat a prescription for Ativan, an anti-depression and anti-anxiety drug that she had taken with some success after her husband’s death. The base pharmacy had graciously sent it over without a prescription. The fact that it was there was comforting. But she tried to think of it as a fire extinguisher, glass only to be broken in the event of an extreme emergency. Important decisions had to be made. Her judgment had to be sound. The question was whether her critical thinking skills were more effective with or without the pills.

  Madsen appeared in the doorway. He was red-faced and slightly out of breath. “We just hit targets in Yemen,” he said without preamble.

  Eva sat upright and ran both hands through her brunette hair. “We?” she said. “According to whom?”

  “Rapture Run.” He tossed a memo onto the pine desktop. “The U.S.S. John McCain launched cruise missiles against Allied Jihad training camps. There’s an announcement going to the press as well.”

  “Didn’t they get our intel report? We advised them last night that the tape couldn’t be authenticated as Allied Jihad!”

  “They got the report. They just didn’t like what it said.”

  Eva stood, paced once around the perimeter of her desk, then leaned over it and rested on her elbows. Despite her official role as Treasury Secretary, she was accustomed to having the President’s ear in every foreign policy situation. The fact that she was so far removed now, when the world was coming unglued, was unbearable. “Let’s get Rapture Run on the line,” she said.

  Madsen shook his head. “They’re still not taking our calls. General Wainewright’s little assistant – what’s his name, Hammond? – he said ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’”

  Rapture Run

  General Wainewright sat
behind a collapsible desk in Rapture Run’s Executive Quarters. It wasn’t exactly the Oval Office, but it was roughly three times as large as Dex Jackson’s quarters, complete with a full-size bed and private shower and satellite television feeding into three monitors.

  Wainewright sat working on the Presidential Inauguration Speech. Lincoln’s opera glasses sat on the desk beside his computer. He heard footsteps in the corridor and reached instinctively for his sidearm. He never sat with his back to the door, nor did he stray more than an arm’s length from a loaded weapon. During the first Iraq war, after his tank battalion had crushed the Iraqis under the leadership of General Schwarzkopf, he had been celebrating with the officers one night when a psychotic tank commander – who had come unhinged at the sight of several charred Iraqi bodies – tossed a grenade into the tent, killing two of his colleagues. Wainewright had escaped with metal fragments in his thigh.

  The lesson wasn’t lost on him. He knew that there might be some among his staff who were plotting to kill him even now. He carried his sidearm at all times. And Lincoln’s opera glasses. Always the glasses.

  Corporal Hammond entered. He was ashen-faced and his waistline looked tinier than usual. “General,” he said, “I have something.”

  “Shut the door.”

  Hammond entered and closed the door behind him. The General pressed a button on his desk that frosted the glass.

  “It’s Angie Jackson, sir. She’s alive.”

  He handed Wainewright a message he had received from Elvir Divac, along with a full-color photograph showing Dex Jackson’s wife on a carpeted floor against a bare wall. Looking glumly into the camera, she held a copy of that day’s Baltimore Sun with the headline PRESIDENT URGES CALM IN TV ADDRESS. A man in a mask stood behind her holding a machine gun.

  “They’re asking for a great deal of money,” Hammond said. The Corporal took comfort in the General’s unflinching expression as he absorbed the message. There was no fear in him.

  “We could both use a drink,” Wainewright said finally. “At ease.”

  Hammond sat in a plastic folding chair on the other side of the General’s desk. Wainewright pulled a mostly empty bottle of Irish whiskey from his desk drawer and poured the remainder into two glasses. He picked up one of the glasses and raised a toast at the photograph of his dead son in uniform.

  “Did I ever tell you how he died?” the General said.

  “No sir.”

  “Hezbollah was firing rockets into Israel,” Wainewright said. His voice was softer than Hammond had ever heard it. “We had a few clandestine units in Lebanon, though we had plausible deniability in case they were captured. My son was a Second Lieutenant. He located the rocket launchers, called in the air strikes that saved Haifa. He was a hero.”

  The General paused to finish the rest of his whiskey, then resumed in the same melancholy tone. “A few hours into it, an Israeli pilot comes in, drops his bombs fifty yards out of the target zone. Takes out my kid’s entire unit. And for what? Hezbollah was back within days. Hamas was back in months. Syria still wants revenge. And what do we get for our blood?” He looked at Hammond earnestly, still speaking from somewhere dark and deep within himself. “I’m asking you as a man, Corporal. What do we get for my son’s death?”

  Wainwright stared at him for a moment, awaiting a response. Hammond was too timid to provide one. The General sighed and picked up the photo of Angie Jackson that Elvir Divac had sent.

  “Anyone else seen this?” he said in a much louder voice.

  “By your directive, I share sensitive information with you and you alone, sir.”

  Wainwright detected a lie. “I’m glad I can trust you,” he told Hammond. “There’s another bottle of whiskey in that footlocker. Fetch it for us.”

  Obedient as ever, the Corporal scurried alongside the General’s desk and bent down to open the footlocker. Wainewright kept a 14-inch long, heavy black flashlight, the type that the Military Police had used long ago, in his desk. As Hammond bent fully over, Wainewright grabbed the flashlight, turned and cracked the unsuspecting Corporal on the back of his skull as hard as he could. Hammond fell unconscious. The General turned Hammond over with his foot, then took the pillow off his bunk and smothered him with it until he stopped breathing.

  The General calmly went to the door and locked it. He returned to his desk, picked up the phone and the ransom note, and dialed Farrell.

  He hung up before Farrell could answer. The news about Angie Jackson was far too sensitive, he decided. It would be better if Farrell stayed focused on his own tasks.

  Instead, he dialed Chris Abrams directly. Abrams answered on the first ring. “Baltimore has turned out to be more enterprising than we imagined,” the General said into the receiver. He looked down at the Corporal’s body, which lay slumped on the floor. “Don’t delegate this, Mister Abrams. I want you to take care of the problem personally.”

  Professor Hitchiti’s Home

  5:30 p.m. Central

  Professor Hitchiti’s stiff corpse sat upright in the armchair in the living room, awaiting an agency forensics team. Carver and O’Keefe wore latex gloves as they sifted through the murdered professor’s files and mail. From the scant knowledge of forensics Carver had picked up over the years with CIA, he figured that the professor had been dead more than one day but no more than three. The lack of stink and the presence of maggots told him that much.

  Nico sat at the kitchen table hunched over the murdered professor’s computer. He quickly located, on a Ukrainian hacker’s site, an old spyware program called Thor that he had once used for desktop intrusion. Thor was hardly the latest or greatest, but Nico knew it well and figured it would be adequate for resurrecting any files that the 93-year-old professor had deleted.

  The screen went blank for a moment, then came back with an image of a hammer squashing a hapless rodent. “Oh the power!” Nico said, shooting his hands up into the air. “You don’t even know!”

  Seven seconds later, he spotted something in the professor’s deleted instant message files. “The Professor sent a study pack to someone named Elvir Divac. The address is in Baltimore.”

  Carver went to his side. ”How recent?”

  “Five months ago. It’s the same address used by another one of the professor’s students. The Hamilton Arms in Baltimore. Apartment 309.”

  “Who’s the other guy?”

  “Ali Lahari.”

  Carver sat down to think, angling his chair so that it faced the door. They would need to go to Baltimore, and they would need plenty of backup. He didn’t dare go to DOD, and Speers was completely AWOL. He would need Eva’s help, but he still couldn’t divulge details of the investigation. Not without Speers’ consent.

  “Nico,” Carver said, “Eva just got a brand new dot mil email account for use on base. She’s been using it to boss Madsen’s staff around. How hard would it be to spoof it?”

  “So…You’re asking me to forge a military email message in Eva’s name?”

  Agent O’Keefe shook her head. “I don’t think that’s what Agent Carver meant.”

  “It’s exactly what I meant,” Carver said. “And Eva doesn’t know it yet, but she’s going to thank me later. So can you do it or not?”

  Nico smiled. “The Chinese have a saying: If you’re born with fangs, don’t pretend to be a panda.”

  Washington D.C.

  7:42 p.m. Eastern

  Apartment 3C was answered by a woman with a pierced lip and a neck tattoo. Special Agent Rios figured her for a student. Even in this day and age, Washington was too conservative for someone like that to get any sort of real job. Even the President made waves when he dared to work without a suit jacket in the Oval Office.

  “You must be Hector,” the woman said. “Come in. I’m Jenna. Haley’s sister.”

  Rios stooped his six-foot-ten frame low enough to squeeze under the doorway. The apartment was fully furnished, but only half as nice as he had expected for a woman of Ellis’ position. He had no
idea what she made over at NIC. Low six figures at least.

  “I’ll tell Haley you’re here,” the sister said. “You want something to drink?”

  “No thanks.”

  The sister disappeared into the rear of the house. Rios stood in the living room and looked over a collection of books on a shelf. They were mostly political biographies, but there were a few mainstream romances thrown in too. And some sailing books. He and Ellis had lunched together at least fifty times over the past two years. Rios had never heard anything about sailing.

  Moments later, Haley Ellis appeared in the kitchen. It was the first time Rios had seen her long raven hair out of a pony tail. He liked the way the wispy ends flared around her shoulders, framing her angular face.

  She hugged him like she meant it. Why was it, Rios wondered, that athletic women with curves gave warm, lasting hugs, while skinny women acted as if they were afraid of touching anyone?

  “You look awful,” she told him.

  “You don’t,” he said.

  “Stop!” she said. “Thanks for coming. You want some tea?”

  “I’d love some,” he said, “but curfew’s at eight.” He tapped his watch. “Don’t have much time.”

  “Curfew?” she said. “Don’t tell me curfew applies to the Secret Service.”

  “Those Ulysses guys, they shoot first and run credentials later. Know what I mean? Better to play it safe.”

  “Hector, the reason I called…I had a disturbing incident in the NMCC. Just after the attacks. After that we were evacuated from our offices and I’m unable to get onto the network. My entire address book is on that network. I haven’t been able to get hold of anyone. The Director’s still not taking my calls.”

  “Join the club,” Rios said. “It’s chaos right now. Agencies are pretty much not doing anything, and that’s across the board. So much for disaster preparedness.”