Line of Succession: A Thriller

by William Tyree

  Suddenly, the overhead lights flickered out, followed by the computer and printer. Speers went to the window, hoping it was some type of blackout. It wasn’t. The streetlights in the surrounding buildings were all on.

  A banging noise sounded from one of the lower floors. Speers grabbed the few pages that had come out of the printer, crammed them into a folder and escaped down the hallway just as red laser targeting beams cut through the darkness.

  Escape routes were few and far between. Getting downstairs to the tunnels would be tricky. The building had several staircases, but they were probably crawling with Ulysses. Elevators were also out of the question.

  His thoughts turned to the late Vice President’s office in the large corner suite facing the White House’s West Wing. The office featured a hand-operated dumb waiter from a bygone era that was large enough to hold an entire Thanksgiving meal. The kitchen staff used it to send a regular stream of coffee and snacks up to the office whenever the Veep was in residence.

  Speers made it to the corner office and found that the dumb waiter was deployed. Good. But as the building’s emergency lighting finally kicked in, he found that the contraption looked smaller than he remembered. Speers climbed in head-first and crammed his legs into the rickety platform, cursing himself for not losing the 30 pounds his doctor had prescribed last winter. Once his limbs were safely tucked in, he gripped the steel cable and began cranking himself slowly down.

  His forearms were cramping by the time he arrived in the basement kitchen. He unfolded himself, wrung his hands and went once again to the tunnel entrance. He stooped and held his eye open for the retina scanner. “Access Granted,” the scanner said pleasantly as the portal opened.

  Once back in the tunnels, Speers allowed himself a moment to rest. It was then that he realized how much pain he was really in. His body wasn’t cut out for this. His arms ached. His sinuses felt ready to burst. The balls of his feet were swollen and his socks were wet with the pus from the broken blisters on his toes and heels.

  He eventually made his way through the tunnels until he came upon the portal to the Metro Center subway station. There he slipped seamlessly into the stream of passengers rushing to get home before the 8 p.m. curfew. The Blue Line to Franconia swooshed into the station.

  Ulysses could not be far behind. Speers cut to the head of the line. Despite a palpable agitation among the passengers enduring a third night of martial law, nobody challenged him. In fact, his fellow commuters gave him wide berth. What was this, some show of respect? He wasn’t used to being recognized on the street. Outside the Federal Buildings, he was a nobody.

  When the subway pulled in and Speers glimpsed himself in the car’s metallic reflection, he understood. He saw the chigger bites on his neck and head. The grass-stained shirt. The mud-caked shoes. The Albert Einstein hairdo. He smelled the mildew on his shirt. Nobody got out of his way out of respect. No. Quite the opposite.

  Fort Campbell Gym

  Elvir Divac writhed on the tattered brown incline weight bench. Agent Carver stood over him and clamped his dental pliers around one of Divac’s rear molars. The Bosnian was close to cracking.

  Torture was far from Carver’s standard operating procedure. During his career with CIA, he had gladly employed psychological conditioning tactics to weaken prisoners’ resolve. He had never resorted to physical torture, however, and although the Supreme Court had decided that pulling a prisoner’s perfectly healthy teeth was simply called dentistry, Carver had no such illusions. What he was doing was not just morally repugnant; it was evil.

  But the country was not merely suffering terrorist attacks from some foreign coalition or a few madmen. This was far more serious. Carver didn’t have the luxury of time, and he was willing to do anything he had to – including hurting Elvir Divac for a while – to get to the bottom of it.

  Carver gave the molar a final yank and stood with the bloody prize between the tool’s pincers. Divac screamed so loud that Carver could hardly hear himself speak. “That’s two,” Carver said as he dropped the molar to the floor, where it bounced like a wet marble. “Just twenty-six more to go.”

  Divac pursed his lips, determined not to let Carver’s pliers back into his mouth. Carver took hold of Divac’s right nipple, squeezed and turned it to the left. He waited until Divac screamed, then jammed the pliers in and gripped a third molar. He put his knee on the prisoner’s chest for leverage, and then began to tug on the tooth in earnest.

  Divac muttered something that sounded like surrender. Carver pulled the pliers out and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The prisoner spit a mouthful of blood and saliva out onto his hospital gown.

  Carver let him catch his breath, then asked for the third time, “Who gave you the Stingers?”

  “They’re going to kill me for this.”

  “I’ll kill you too, but much, much slower.”

  The Bosnian spit more blood. His left cheek was puffy, pushed out by the swelling of his gums. “I was back from my third tour,” he started. “They had me in Walter Reed Hospital. I applied for a visa back to Bosnia. I just wanted to go home. One day a man came. I swear I don’t know his name.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “His head was smooth…shaved. He looked like he worked out a lot. I could see his muscles even in his neck, his face. Like one of those muscle men, sort of. But he also looked a little thin. And a little sick. I don’t know how to explain.”

  Chris Abrams, Carver thought. He seemed to be everywhere. “Why did he come see you?”

  “I thought it was for the visa, but no. Instead he offered seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “For what?”

  “To learn a dead language. And stage a mock attack on the Secretary of Defense.”

  “Mock attack?”

  “In Chesapeake Bay, yes. Secretary Jackson was to believe his life was threatened. But no one was to get hurt.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Divac was insulted. “I have fifty-six kills between Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. I shot down four helicopters. All my kills were by sniper rifle or Stinger Missile. Sometimes in winter weather. I ask you, how could I miss a white fishing boat on such a clear day?”

  Carver heard the door. He looked up and saw Colonel Madsen. Eva was close behind him. She surveyed the bloody scene with an expression that was somewhat cold and practical.

  The doctor was not so forgiving. He ran in behind her, spotted the bleeding prisoner, and pushed Carver away. “This is a war crime!” he said as he searched his medical kit for a piece of gauze. “I’ll be reporting this.”

  But Eva had no time for it: “Doctor, get Mister Divac ready to travel. And you’ll be coming too.”

  “Travel?” the Doc shot back. “This man has been tortured!”

  “He’s living, breathing proof of a conspiracy to overthrow the government,” Eva said. “I’m not about to go into Rapture Run empty handed.”

  Washington D.C.

  11:10 p.m.

  Just a block away from the typically hopping Adam’s Morgan nightlife, Speers crawled from a storm drain, scurried to the dark side of the street and stretched his back. The sidewalks were empty. Somewhere in the distance, machine gun fire crackled for an instant and then went silent. He eventually straightened himself and began walking cautiously toward home.

  It was another hot and humid evening in the swampy Capitol city. The Chief got to his feet and made his way to the sidewalk. For the first time in years, Speers’ pants were actually a little loose around his waist. He stopped to tighten his belt a notch and fell off-balance, realizing his own exhaustion. Apart from the lollipop that he salvaged from his Eisenhower Building office, he had not eaten a meal in nearly twenty-four hours, and he had eaten only sparingly in the day and evening before that.

  He spotted a water fountain. It had been at least eight hours since he had taken a drink of anything. He bent over the fountain’s cool stream of city-treated water and stood there a good l
ong while to quench his thirst until his belly was so full that he felt the water sloshing inside as he began walking again.

  Someone whistled. Speers looked left and saw a man with a dirty face peering out from a cardboard box. The man motioned him closer, but Speers kept his distance. “Stay out of the light,” the man called out. “They’re patrolling this street every couple minutes. They tried to knife me, but I got away from the bastards.”

  “Who?”

  “Ulysses!” the man cried. “It’s martial law, loser! Where’ve you been?”

  Speers crossed to the other side of the street, where there were fewer lights. He stank of perspiration. He had been absentmindedly scratching the chigger bites on his neck, arms, legs and thighs for hours. He needed a shower and fresh clothes, and more than anything else, shoes. But the stores had long closed, and Speers reckoned it was perhaps fifteen minutes walking to his Georgetown brownstone. Problem was, his home wouldn’t be any safer than his Eisenhower Building office had been.

  He considered DC310, the field house where there was an entire closet full of new shoes. But any government location was fraught with its own set of risks. Besides, Ulysses’ people had already been there to kill Lieutenant Flynn.

  Then he thought of his neighbor, Mrs. Tenningclaus. The morning of the attacks, he had promised he’d look in on her cats. That had been Sunday. Three days ago. He hoped they hadn’t clawed each other’s eyes out from hunger.

  He kept to the shadows until he reached his own neighborhood. He cut through a neighbor’s driveway and jumped a fence into Ms. Tenningclaus’ back yard. Hers was a three-story brownstone directly across from Speers’ condo. He went to her back door, finding the hidden key under the rock where Ms. Tenningclaus had left it for him.

  The odor of soiled kitty litter hit him instantly. The cats wailed and emerged from the shadows to rub with feverish intensity against his pant legs. They soon turned, hissing savagely when Speers tried to pet them. By the amber glow of the nightlight in the kitchen, the Chief saw that their bowls were empty. He fed them and poured some fresh milk before seeking anything for himself.

  Mrs. Tenningclaus’ fridge was empty except for a granola bar and a Mountain Dew. Speers took them and went upstairs and – careful not to turn on any lights – perched himself by the attic window. His own condo was directly across the street, and he watched his kitchen window closely as he ate. His windows were dark except for the faint amber hue of the stove light in his kitchen. Initially, he saw no cause for alarm. He began to yearn for his own bed, his own clothes, his own shower.

  But he was patient. He chewed slowly. He drank slowly. Some three minutes later, the light in his window changed ever so slightly. To Speers’ astonishment, he watched as his fridge opened. He could make out the silhouette of a man. That man is waiting to kill me, Speers thought. The Grim Reaper. And he’s raiding my fridge.

  Speers retreated to the safety of Ms. Tenningclaus’ guest bathroom and took a long shower by candlelight. He was tired of running. But he had no choice. He couldn’t stay here. He noticed a used razor sitting in an empty soap dish.

  It took him fifteen minutes to erase the Van Dyke goatee he had worn since college. He then found some scissors and went to work on his hair, cutting it into short, choppy locks. He slid the shower curtain open and gazed at himself in the mirror. He didn’t recognize himself.

  When he was finished, he used baby powder talc from head to toe and tended to his abused feet with Aloe Vera gel and bandages. For the red welts from his chigger bites, he found calamine lotion in the medicine cabinet.

  Ms. Tenningclaus’ husband had died less than two years earlier, at the age of sixty-three. When Speers went to the master bedroom, he was relieved to find Mr. Tenningclaus’ wardrobe still completely intact. Speers pulled on a pair of too-large Khaki chinos and cinched them tightly at the waist with a leather belt. He went commando, for he could not stand the thought of wearing a dead man’s underwear. Then he donned one of Mr. Tenningclaus’ classic navy polo shirts, which fit perfectly. Shoes were not an option – Mr. Tenningclaus was a size 12, two full sizes larger than his own. Stuck with the footwear he had come in with, he wrapped the beaten soles with duct tape from Mrs. Tenningclaus’ hall closet.

  He sat briefly on the edge of the mattress to plot his next move. His eyes burned. He closed them for a moment. That was all it took for exhaustion to overcome him. He slipped quickly into REM sleep, falling into the recurring nightmare that had haunted him for two years – a military coup in the United States that cost the President his life.

  Speers’ eyelids snapped open twelve minutes later. One of the cats was curled up on his chest. He petted it to confirm it was real. Then he touched his face and felt the clean shaven skin. He got up and went to the window to look across the street at his condo. The assassin had turned on the stove light and sat at the kitchen table, wearing green latex gloves, flipping through the August issue of National Journal.

  PART IV

  Over Kentucky

  Wednesday 12:09 a.m.

  Agent Carver felt the Gulfstream G650 bank hard to the south. They had been in the air just a few minutes. He rose from his seat and went to the cockpit entrance, where two Air Force pilots were snuggled into black leather seats, surrounded by an instrument panel and console that wrapped around them on both sides like a tightly tailored jacket. It was an impressive but cramped, womb-like enclosure that was a far cry from the roomy luxury in the main cabin. Unlike the civilian Gulfstream jets, the military version had been retrofitted with seating for two additional crew members directly behind the pilots. Carver sat and stared out the two-piece curved cockpit window at a layer of wispy clouds gleaming in the moonlight.

  “Evening, gentlemen,” he said. “What’s our ETA?”

  The co-pilot, who looked nearly as weary as Carver, turned and shook his head. “We don’t even know our destination. CENTCOM is drip-feeding us new coordinates every fifteen minutes.”

  A hand on Carver’s shoulder broke his irritation. It was O’Keefe. He could smell the sharp bite of caffeine emanating from her pores. “Eva would like to see us.”

  Carver turned and followed O’Keefe back through the cabin, where Elvir and Angie Jackson were both asleep in their seats. In the back of the plane, Eva and Colonel Madsen were gathered in an airborne office with an actual desk and computer.

  “Sit down,” Eva told them. “This is going to be a difficult conversation. I know we’ve all had our suspicions, but I can tell you now that they were correct. The President is dead.”

  The news wasn’t a surprise, but Eva’s composure was. “And you’ve been sitting on this for how long?” Carver said.

  “The Chief told me this morning. But frankly, I was reluctant to believe him. He said he had only heard it secondhand. General Farrell confirmed the news about an hour ago.”

  O’Keefe spoke up. “So what happens now?”

  “I’m next in line,” Eva said with no trace of pleasure in her voice. “The Joint Chiefs have established a secure operations base at Rapture Run. They’re going to swear me in.”

  Carver’s eyes got wide. “Or at least that’s what they told you.”

  Rapture Run

  Air Force fighter pilot Alexandro Chuy Rodriquez, whose call sign was Bearcat, was led down the blue-lit corridor leading to the senior officers’ quarters. He had not seen the light of day in the four weeks since he had unwittingly killed eight Ulysses soldiers in a friendly fire incident in Indonesia. Friendly fire incidents were an unfortunate reality of war, but Captain Rodriquez had hardly been without fault: he had been flying while under the influence of locally grown opium. In the weeks since the incident he had been made to describe the events over and over again, beginning with his shooting the drug into his buttocks before takeoff and ending with his air-to-ground missile slamming into an American transport.

  The Ulysses MPs escorted him into Wainewright’s quarters, where the General’s eyes seared through him from behind the b
unker’s largest desk. By now Rodriquez had grown quite used to constant hostility from his fellow soldiers. He braced himself for more of the same.

  General Farrell sat in a corner of the room, holding a very small computer. Rodriquez saluted out of protocol, but he did not really know who Wainewright or Farrell were. The Joint Chiefs operated from such lofty heights that they were only recognizable to soldiers that closely followed Washington politics. And after all, Rodriquez had been in the presence of Four-Star Generals before – the military seemed to have hundreds of them. He had to admit, however, that he had never seen so many decorations on anyone’s uniform.

  “Been a rough month for you,” Wainewright began in a voice that was almost sympathetic. Rodriquez showed no emotion and, as his attorney had advised him, spoke humbly and robotically in hopes of receiving a light sentence. “I have no excuses, sir. I am ready to be held accountable for my actions.”

  “You know,” Wainewright said softly, “my own son died in a friendly fire incident.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir.” Rodriquez waited a few seconds, but there was nothing further from Wainewright. “Interrogative, sir: Am I here to begin my court martial, sir?”

  Wainewright smacked his lips. “You’re here to redeem yourself.” He paused to see if the Captain would bite, but there was no response except for a slight quiver of the Captain’s lip. “If you do one job for me, I’ll personally make sure that you never stand trial. Sound good?”

  “Sir, yes sir.”

  “Your assignment is to shoot down a government jet.”

  “Interrogative, sir: a jet from which government, sir?”

  “Ours.”

  Rodriquez paused. “May I ask why?”

  “The passengers are traitors that threaten our national security.”