Line of Succession: A Thriller

by William Tyree

  Night had fallen, and Hezbollah had stepped up their rocket attacks to the north while the Syrian fighter-bombers continued their assault from the northeast. In Jerusalem, the Palestinians had met the Iranian armored divisions with open arms, and together they controlled both sides of the city, as upwards of twenty-thousand armed citizens and HAMAS soldiers alike walked behind six battalions of Iranian tanks.

  The bridge phone rang. The Ensign picked up and passed the phone to Captain White. White listened wordlessly for less than two seconds. “I see,” he said finally. “Thank you.” He hung the phone back on its cradle and turned to the Ensign. His face was suddenly ashen.

  “That was the Admiral,” he said. “President Hatch has been killed.”

  “Killed? Killed how?”

  He leaned against the bulkhead. The bad news out of the States never seemed to end. “I don’t know. They’re saying it was someone from Yemen.”

  White sat down. He did not feel grief, exactly, nor sadness. Like most everyone in the military, he hadn’t voted for Hatch. But he felt shock.

  “Yemen?” the Ensign said incredulously. “Why couldn’t it be someone from Iran, or Palestine? At least then we could attack.”

  Arlington Cemetery

  6:20 a.m.

  Rays of orange sunlight broke through a layer of wispy clouds. Several ragged figures slouched up the hillside, threading themselves like needles through the endless rows of majestic, identical headstones. Without binoculars, Speers could not be sure that Agent Carver and Eva were among them. Don’t move a muscle, he told himself. Not until you are sure.

  He sat on the slope known as Section 26, just below Arlington House. It was here, in General Robert E. Lee’s former front yard, that the cemetery’s first Civil War veterans had been interred in the 1860s. Speers was careful not to sit directly on top of any of the graves. He positioned himself on the edge of one of the burial rows, behind a hedgerow that provided camouflage as well as a view of the city.

  He counted nine helicopters combing the skies above the Capitol. They were concentrated in the airspace above the western district, Georgetown, Turkey Run Park and Rock Creek Park. Looking for Agent Carver, no doubt.

  The Eternal Flame, where President Kennedy and his immediate family were buried, wasn’t far down the hill. President Hatch would soon be getting a memorial here somewhere, Speers thought, albeit a much smaller one. He tried to remember the names of all the Presidents that had died in office. Kennedy, Lincoln, Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, Garfield, Harrison and McKinley. And now President Hatch. Speers did the math. That meant about 18% of all Presidents never left the job alive. Wow. Being President was the most dangerous job in America.

  The fugitives grew closer. He distinctly recognized Eva’s tall, composed gait, and Agent Carver’s athletic strides. Behind them, O’Keefe pulled and prodded Angie Jackson up the hill. Angie’s face was a frozen mask of pain and her eyes were half-shut and without focus, as if she was under hypnosis. But with O’Keefe’s steady guidance, Angie’s feet moved, albeit slowly. Speers’ insides filled with dread as he wondered what to say when she asked him where her son was.

  Speers whistled and waved from behind the hedgerow. When they reached Section 26, O’Keefe gave the Chief a hug. “I’m glad you’re alive,” she told him.

  “It’s nice to see some friendly faces,” he admitted.

  “You lost weight,” Eva told him.

  “It’s the new three-day diet,” Speers replied. “You can eat anything you want, but you spend the entire time running from bad guys.”

  The distant hum of helicopter rotors grew measurably louder. Speers hiked up the hill, leading them behind Arlington House and to what had once been General Robert E. Lee’s back door. He let them into the Hunting Hall, a high-pitched, rustic room adorned with taxidermied deer.

  “Is my son here?” Angie said.

  Before Speers could respond, Carver glimpsed something terrifying from the south-facing window: Ulysses Bradleys pulling up Memorial Drive.

  “It’s a trap,” Carver said. A pair of attack helicopters came in so low that he could see the faces of the pilots.

  “Down here,” Speers called out. He began down a rickety set of stairs to a 19th century wine cellar. Save for a few low-wattage light bulbs, the white-walled cellar had been restored to its former glory. Oak barrels stacked along the far wall, perfuming the room with their scent. Speers lifted one of the barrels, revealing an ancient wooden trap door over the stone floor. He opened it.

  “What is this place?” Eva said.

  “Trust me.” Speers helped her down a wooden ladder that descended into a dark, cool dirt-floor chamber. She was followed by Carver and O’Keefe.

  Angie trembled as Speers helped her descend the ladder. As he closed the trap door behind her, he heard broken glass and footsteps on the floorboards upstairs.

  Carver whipped out his cell phone and used the screen’s backlight to illuminate the otherwise pitch-black chamber. Nudging past Eva, Speers shined his phone on a large security portal that looked just like the one he had first entered yesterday underneath Union Station.

  He punched his code into the door and it pushed open. At the second entry point, he held his right eye up to the retina scanner. He had performed the routine so many times in the past several hours that it was practically second nature.

  Unlike the tunnels linking Union Station with the Eisenhower Building, there was no emergency lighting. “Light ‘em up,” Carver said as he waved his phone to reveal the claustrophobic passageway. “Don’t worry – you can’t make any calls down here, which means Ulysses can’t track the signal.” They all pulled out their phones except Angie, who had lost hers in Chesapeake Bay three days earlier.

  This stretch of tunnel was six and a half feet high, providing barely enough headroom for Carver and Speers, and just four-feet wide. The floor was a mixture of hard-packed clay and mud, and the roof and sides were lined by oven-baked bricks and mortar. Many of the bricks had crumbled away from the walls during the past 150 years, forced out by tree roots that, at some places, had grown completely across the width of the tunnel.

  Speers stumbled in the half-light, then recovered and set a pace that he hoped his sore feet could handle. He and Carver walked up front, with Eva in the middle and O’Keefe prodding Angie Jackson along in the rear.

  “I’ve heard rumors about these tunnels,” Eva said as they trudged along in the near-darkness. “I thought they were a myth.”

  “Nixon actually believed the Russians were going to park a sub in the Potomac,” Speers explained. “He spent millions linking Lee’s tunnels to the ones under the city.”

  “Who else has the code?” Carver asked.

  “The question is, who that has the code is still alive?”

  “Correct.”

  “Besides me? Hector Rios. And General Wainewright.”

  They heard the rats long before he spotted them. Thousands of tiny clawed feet swarming the tunnel walls, squeezing in and out of the cracks and breaches that had been created by tree roots and seismic tremors. Carver shined his cell phone light ahead and waited for the wave of vermin to pass.

  They moved on, the blue glow of their cell phones lighting only four or five feet in front of them at any time. The tunnel floor gradually became an ankle-deep sludge that grew several inches deeper with each passing minute. But it was much wider now. Up to 10 feet wide in some places. Carver welcomed the elbow room. But not the water.

  “I don’t like the looks of this.”

  “It goes under the Potomac,” Speers explained.

  “The Holland Tunnel goes under the Hudson. But it doesn’t leak.”

  “You try getting budget to waterproof a tunnel that nobody ever uses.”

  “Get us out of here alive,” Eva chimed in, “and I’ll give you as much budget as you need.”

  They kept moving, slowly and without much speaking, as the water levels continued to rise. Something swam against Carver’s leg. He
decided not to say anything to the others.

  He could not get his mind off the fact that General Wainewright had a code. If they were caught in a narrow section of the tunnels, they would be easily trapped, unable to flee or fight. Carver was not afraid of dying.

  Carver believed in the afterlife. He was sure that his soul would be separated from his body and ascend to some blissful spirit world where Mormons and Athiests and Muslims and Jews would comingle with scant memory of what had divided them on Earth. But his greatest, most irrational fear lay in the mechanics of the soul’s journey. When exactly did the soul separate from the body? Could it move through solid rock, or did it need a clear path to ascend to some unseen parallel universe? He did not want to die here, in a tiny tunnel far below ground. He did not like the idea of his soul roaming these dark tunnels for all eternity, endlessly looking for a way out.

  “Where is my son?” Angie suddenly cried out. The voice loosened Carver from his own obsessions. He looked back. Angie was hyperventilating and her eyes darted around at frightening speed. This was someone who belonged under a psychologist’s care. O’Keefe had been at her side since they left Fort Campbell, and the wear and tear was starting to show in her face.

  “My turn,” he said as he took Angie’s arm. “We’re getting closer with every step,” he told her. His voice seemed to soothe her. “We need to keep going.”

  O’Keefe took the point. She drew her weapon. They kept moving.

  The Pentagon

  6:35 a.m.

  From their private conference room adjacent to the NMCC, Wainewright and Farrell heard a wave of applause, followed by several ear-piercing whistles. The Generals burst into the room to see what good fortune had come their way. They found Dex Jackson standing in the middle of the NMCC, surrounded by Pentagon communications staffers who were lining up to shake his hand.

  “Genius PR,” Farrell whispered into Wainewright’s ear. “Genius!”

  During the past seventy-two hours, the Joint Chief’s communications department – under the careful guidance of General Wainewright – had remade Dex from a bully Defense Secretary into a sympathetic hero who had lost his wife in the attacks but managed to save his son. Having been only drip-fed meaningful crisis information, and cut off from any other people-related stories that made for riveting television, the networks had lapped up every morsel of Dex’s fabricated plight for survival in Chesapeake Bay. Dex Jackson was a household name. Wainewright would have what he wanted – a popular President that he could control.

  “Back to your stations,” Wainewright called to the staffers. As the applause petered out, Wainewright put on his best smile and crossed the room to shake Dex’s hand. “You had us worried,” he said.

  “I need to see LeBron,” Dex said. “Now.”

  Wainewright guided him into the conference room. General Farrell opened a silver titanium briefcase containing a tablet computer. Farrell switched it on. A time-stamped digital photo of LeBron appeared. It had been taken not thirty minutes earlier. The image had all the charm of a jailhouse mug shot, down to the dazed, depressed expression on the boy’s face.

  “He’s waiting for you,” Wainewright said. “Do what you promised, and you’ll see him.”

  “And my wife?”

  Wainewright shook his head. “In heaven, Dex. Where else?”

  “I’ve heard different.”

  “You know, Dex, being a bachelor and the leader of the free world at the same time could have its upside. There’s a lot of pretty White House interns who would give it up for a night in the Lincoln Bedroom.”

  Dex lunged at Wainewright’s jugular with both hands. Farrell sprung into action, ramming his shoulder hard into Dex, managing to knock the much larger Defense Secretary off balance and into the door. A groundswell of boots pounded the floor outside.

  “We’re okay!” General Wainewright shouted through the door as he slicked his hair back with his hand. “Everyone back to their stations!”

  Dex freed himself from Farrell’s grip and retreated to his corner of the room. “All this will come to light,” he said. “You’ll be tried for treason.”

  Wainewright touched the photo screen and dragged his finger across it, grossly enlarging LeBron’s face. “I don’t think so. Your first act as Commander-in-Chief will be to direct the National Archives to seal all documents and testimony pertaining to this crisis for fifty years.”

  Then General Farrell slid a yellow forty-six-page document in front of him. It was a supply order totaling $272 million in communications and security equipment for Ulysses to use in creating Rapture Run. It had Dex’s signature on it, as well as that of Ulysses CEO Jeff Taylor. Dex remembered signing a document much like it more than a year earlier. He remembered Corporal Hammond bringing it to him personally, telling him that the order was for Raven Rock. He was accustomed to signing entire stacks of multi-million dollar contracts at a time, and he had undoubtedly signed this one after only a quick skim. It was all too easy for Dex to imagine how the Joint Chiefs would use it to prove that Dex had conspired with Ulysses to build the secret operations center without the National Security Council’s permission. He figured it was just one of many smoking guns they would hold to his head if he chose not to cooperate.

  Wainewright did not bother to explain what was already understood. “After the inauguration,” he continued, “your security detail people will be staffed by personnel of our choosing. Just to make sure you don’t get too big for your britches.”

  The fury in Dex’s eyes turned to resignation. It was obvious that the Joint Chiefs held all the cards.

  “Honestly, Dex,” Farrell added, “once you accept this, you’ll see we’re giving you everything you wanted. We could have chosen anyone. The Number Two, Eva Hudson, even Congressman Bailey. But we chose you because we agreed with all your foreign policy arguments. You wanted a rebuilt military? You’ll get it. You wanted out of Indonesia? Done. You wanted out of the Middle East? Except for the new base in Dubai, you’re getting that too. All you have to do is be a good boy and do as you’re told.”

  Abrams pushed the door open. He was scowling even more than usual. “We have a problem,” he said. “My men had the targets cornered at Arlington House. Julian Speers was with them too. They all disappeared inside. Gone without a trace.”

  “Did you say Arlington House?”

  “Yes.”

  Wainewright knew immediately where Speers had taken them. “Grab a wing man and some night vision gear,” he told Abrams as he headed for the elevator. There was a tunnel entrance beneath the Pentagon. And he had a code.

  Washington D.C.

  7:02 a.m.

  Agent Rios leaned against a tree near Lafayette Square, just blocks from the White House. He was exhausted. Up the street, a Ulysses patrol loudspeaker called for residents to avoid gathering in large groups. It was an absurd request on any day, much less this one. The city had woken up to the news that President Hatch had been assassinated.

  Something cold and wet brushed Rios’ hand. A Schnauzer muzzle. The dog was attached to a woman in her mid-40s with kind eyes and wide ankles. “Excuse me,” she said. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Me?” Rios said.

  “Well I see you work for the government.” She gestured toward Rios’ earpiece and black suit and tie. Rios pulled the transmitter out of his ear. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Sorry ma’am. I may know less than you do.” It was the truth. He was completely out of the loop. There were a dozen messages on his phone demanding that he appear at Homeland Security headquarters to explain his actions. Suspension from the Secret Service was certain. Dismissal without pension was likely.

  “My sister called from Peru,” the woman added. “She said Israel is being invaded.”

  Rios shrugged. He hadn’t seen or heard any international news. His phone buzzed and displayed a headshot of Mary Chung, President Hatch’s longtime executive assistant.

  “Thank God you’re alive
,” she said, choking back tears. “Can you talk?”

  “Depends,” Rios said. “Did someone ask you to call me?”

  “Heavens no,” Mary said without hesitation. “I’m just trying to make sense of the Pentagon’s press release.”

  “Haven’t seen it.”

  “They say that Eva Hudson died at Camp David. But I knew that the President had asked you to shadow Eva on Martha’s Vineyard.”

  “Eva wasn’t at Camp David. The President never made it there either. I need you to tell me everything you know.”

  “I was just at the White House. The Uniforms are all gone,” Mary said, using the shorthand for the Secret Service’s Uniformed Division, otherwise known as the White House Police Force.

  “Gone? You mean there’s no security at all?”

  “Oh there’s security,” Mary said. “Just not ours. The mansion is surrounded by Ulysses soldiers.”

  Rios wished he was surprised. “Go on.”

  “I went to the staff entrance,” Mary said. “I was told my credentials were no longer valid.” Rios waited as Mary choked up, then regained her composure. “But the strangest thing…”

  “What?”

  “Secretary Jackson’s kid.”

  “LeBron Jackson? You saw him?”

  “Saw him? Hector, they ushered LeBron right past me. He’s in the White House right now.”

  The Tunnels

  7:28 a.m.

  Chris Abrams and Elijah Smith moved slowly and silently through the chest-level water. They had been in the tunnels for forty-five minutes, and all they had seen so far was a water moccasin as big around as a human thigh. They wore night vision goggles and held their M4s across the tops of their shoulders to keep them dry. The tunnel had widened to about twelve feet at its widest point, but seemed to be getting narrower again. The soles of Abrams’ boots were slippery against the mossy tunnel floor. He longed for a pair of waders and the felt-bottomed boots that he wore on occasional river fly-fishing trips back to Idaho.