Line of Succession: A Thriller

by William Tyree

  The two men did not know each other. With Abrams’ crew having been killed in Baltimore, he had been forced to choose a wing man from the few available Ulysses MPs on duty at the Pentagon. None had any covert ops experience to speak of. Abrams knew only that Smith had done three years for Ulysses in Afpak after flunking out of ROTC. Not exactly the rock star he had hoped for, but at least he had actual combat experience, which was more than he could say for the others.

  Abrams cursed under his breath as they came to a fork where the tunnels branched off into three directions. They were under instructions to follow the tunnels north until they found the HVTs, or High Value Targets. Wainewright had said nothing about a fork. They didn’t have a map, and they were too far underground for their GPS to work.

  Then he heard it – a faint scream. A woman’s scream. Then at least one deeper voice, maybe two. It was impossible to tell how far away. But it was coming from the left fork. Abrams looked at Smith and pointed toward the left tunnel and moved his rifle from the dry carrying position to a dry firing position, with the barrel pointed in the direction they were walking and the stock resting firmly against his shoulder.

  Twenty yards further, the water receded to waist-level. Abrams stopped and motioned for Smith to do the same. The voices had stopped, but a faint blue glow appeared in the distance. He pointed Smith to the tunnel’s far side, while he took up a firing position on the opposite wall. Abrams slipped once but managed to get his feet under him without splashing.

  The distant light flared strangely through his goggles. He lifted them up to try with his naked eyes. Then the HVTs came into view – four cell phones and five humans, perhaps eighty yards ahead. Abrams licked his busted lower lip and stretched his neck from side to side. He felt a dull pain in his belly and realized it was hunger. It had been a little more than two hours since he had eaten.

  “How much longer?” a woman’s voice echoed. Abrams kept as still as death.

  The tunnel curved in a serpentine path, and from Abrams’ perspective the HVTs drifted in and out of view. It was unclear whether there were additional forks in the tunnel.

  After the failure in Baltimore, Abrams had vowed never again to engage in a firefight with the esteemed Agent Blake Carver. They would wait until the HVTs were very close. Then they would slaughter them. All of them.

  Abrams put his goggles back on and looked at Smith. He held his left hand in front of his face and balled it up into a fist – hold position. He then held his pinkie and thumb out and wobbled them from side to side to signal that they would ambush the targets. Then he flashed the numbers one and five, meaning they would wait until the targets were within fifteen yards to attack.

  Abrams’ right index finger danced around the M4s trigger as the HVTs slogged toward them. They were, for the most part, single file, and as they came closer, their cell phones created halos around their bodies. The target walking point was brandishing a handgun.

  Abrams found her in his scope, placed gentle pressure on the trigger and tried to regulate his breathing as he waited for the targets to come within range. Ten more yards, and he’d put two rounds into the point target and reset his aim to one foot above the water. Combatants in water instinctively went neck deep when attacked. Rarely did they have the composure to hold their breath and swim underwater.

  Then the unthinkable happened – Smith lost his footing and slipped below the surface. The sound of his splashes cut through the tunnel’s silence like the ringing of church bells, spoiling the element of surprise.

  “Lights out!” one of the HVTs shouted. The targets froze twenty five yards out and shut off the backlights of their cell phones. The glow lingered in Abrams’ night vision goggles.

  He pulled the trigger and placed two rounds squarely into one of the target’s chest. Then he moved his barrel to the right and fired another burst, but the targets were not where they were supposed to be; they had dispersed to each side of the tunnel and vanished from view.

  A lone body floated on the water’s surface.

  Smith got to his feet and, although his rifle was waterlogged, blasted half his magazine indiscriminately at the now-dark tunnel before him. Abrams braced for return fire, but none came. He was afraid that Carver & company would take advantage of the tunnel’s winding path and slip away. He motioned to Smith to move quietly forward. Abrams hung back several feet, deciding to let Smith take the point.

  The water broke just ten yards out. Ten more rounds flared out the end of Smith’s rifle in less than two seconds. Both men retreated to the sides of the tunnel. Moments later, something floated to the top. The eviscerated remains of a massive carp. It twitched violently as some ancient-looking tunnel creature gnawed at it.

  A figure rose up in Abrams’ peripheral vision, impossibly close. The tunnel lit up once again with the flare of gunfire. Abrams recognized Carver’s determined face only feet from his own.

  Abrams’ torso listed, throwing his return fire well off the mark. Hot blood pumped out his neck and chest. His legs split into a widened stance as he managed to stay upright long enough to watch Smith slip under water for the last time. Thousands of tiny tadpoles swam around him, eager to pick at his flesh.

  *

  Carver reached into the water and pulled the assailant’s corpse to the surface. Abrams’ face was ghoulish in the blue cell phone illumination and he wore a Pentagon security badge around his neck. Carver put the badge into his jacket pocket for safe keeping. If they made it out of here alive, he was going to link Abrams to every dirty Pentagon official he could find.

  Something flipped on the surface. Carver felt a force pulling Abrams’ body away from him. Carver fired into the tunnel water. Whatever it was let go and swam away.

  Behind him, Speers cradled Agent O’Keefe’s floating body. Her green eyes stared endlessly upwards. Strawberry-blonde hair bloomed around her like kelp.

  Carver had lost plenty in his career. He had been at the scene of terror attacks, where civilian guts were splattered about like so much paint. He had even cut Lieutenant Flynn’s corpse into luggage-size pieces for the sake of national security. But he could not look. This was O’Keefe. This one hurt. He should have never let her walk point. He should have never demanded that she take weapons training. He should have taken her home and made love to her that summer night at the train station. He should have said and done so many things.

  “Blake,” Speers said softly, “There could be more of them in the tunnel. We have to get going.”

  “Shut up,” Carver snapped as he clung to Abrams’ corpse. He had to think about next steps. That was how he was going to get through this. Next steps. Thought, action, result. Focus on what to do with the bodies. The Army always retrieved their dead, but it was different for intelligence agents working off-the-grid cases. Protocol was to strip the body of identification and destroy it. Like it never happened. Like the person had never lived at all.

  But Carver could not bear the thought of surrendering O’Keefe to whatever tunnel creatures lived in this cesspool. He stowed his weapon in his shoulder holster and reached out to touch her hair. The skin of her scalp was still slightly warm.

  “Blake,” Speers tried again. “The inauguration…We have to move.”

  He looked past Speers’ shoulder, where Angie stooped behind Eva like a frightened child. “We’ll buddy up,” Carver said at last. “Eva, you’re with Angie.”

  Carver sized up Julian. The Chief wasn’t strong enough to carry O’Keefe’s body out. Carver took her in his arms and swung her over his right shoulder. With his free hand, he pulled Abrams’ body toward Speers. “Julian, you’ll take Abrams.”

  The Chief was mortified. “Why don’t we leave this a-hole here? He’s fish food.”

  “No. When this is over, the Pentagon is going to say Abrams never existed.”

  “So take a DNA sample.”

  “No. We need a full set of teeth, fingerprints, everything.”

  Speers gripped the dead man’s collar and f
loated the body behind him. On the other side of the tunnel, something was boiling the water near where Mr. Smith had gone under. “Leave him,” Carver said. “He’s too small to keep.”

  Capitol Hill

  8:40 a.m.

  Special Agent Jack McClellan opened the door to the tiny backyard. His miniature Doberman Pinscher bounced past him and lifted his leg to pee on the wooden fence. The home was located just a few blocks south of the Library of Congress. Back in 1994, McClellan purchased the two-bedroom row house for $80,000 and became the first white homeowner on his block in twenty years. Now the house was worth more than ten times that. It was a good thing. Considering what happened at the Willard last night, he figured he could kiss his pension goodbye. He was going to have to sell the house just to make ends meet.

  The Doberman’s ears pricked up. Someone was at the door. The dog darted past McClellan and went to the front door. He didn’t bark or growl. He wagged his tail. It was someone he knew.

  McClellan peered through the peephole and saw Special Agent Rios staring at him. Of course it would be Rios. The last person he wanted to see.

  He opened the door anyhow and looked up at his hulking colleague, who was still in his clothes from the night before.

  “I’d like to explain about last night,” Rios said. He looked past McClellan into the home, hoping the old veteran wouldn’t make him beg for an invitation.

  McClellan opened the door just wide enough so that Rios could turn sideways and squeeze in. Rios sat in the chair closest to the door. The Doberman came to him and laid at his feet, hoping for some attention.

  “You know they suspended me for that bullcrap,” McClellan said. He had whiskey on his breath.

  “Not just you,” Rios said. “They sent everybody home.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. There are no Secret Service agents in the White House. Uniformed Division, ERT, nothing. They’ve all been expelled. Right now, the White House is surrounded by about a hundred Ulysses MPs. Several hundred more are deployed on the National Mall.”

  McClellan sat back in his seat. “Well what the hell do you make of that?”

  Rios told him all Speers had told him about Ulysses and the Joint Chiefs. When McClellan had absorbed that bit of news, Rios explained why he had snuck the DEFSEC out of the Willard.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before,” McClellan said. “They planned this thing perfectly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Summer recess,” McClellan said, referring to the yearly ritual of Congress, the Executive branch and just about every other federal agency in Washington clearing out of the Capitol each August. “Homeland Security deployed six hundred agents to the President’s ranch in advance of the recess. That’s double the usual number. Another three hundred were sent out to Wyoming for Number Two. Made no sense. They only had a hundred acres to secure there. Another fifty were traveling with the Secretary of State in Hungary. Then you consider that half the Service takes their own vacations in August.”

  Rios shook his head in disbelief. “How many agents do you think we actually have in the Capitol right now?”

  “Maybe a hundred White House Police and twenty Special Agents, but God knows what state they’re in. Half of ‘em are probably hung over.”

  “We’ll need every single one,” Rios said. “I’ll get on the phone.”

  McClellan stood up. “No. let me do it. I know you were head of First Team and all, but when it comes to respect…”

  Rios was more than happy to step aside for a moment and give Jack McClellan’s ego its due.

  “Fine, Jack. Go ahead. Round up a posse.”

  The Lincoln Memorial

  9:15 a.m.

  Chief Justice Stanford P. Dillinger stood behind a pane of bulletproof glass at the top of the Lincoln Memorial steps, where members of DOD, Congress and Ulysses executives milled about, gossiping in the already stifling morning air. Dillinger had trimmed his massive gray beard for the occasion. The Chief Justice was a reluctant one-man receiving line as the VIPs cleared security in pairs and came up the steps.

  Jowly Ulysses CEO Jeff Taylor rolled toward him in a gold-plated wheelchair, the glint from his diamond cuff links momentarily blinding the Chief Justice. “So you’re the voodoo priest that’s gonna bless this shotgun wedding?” Taylor said as he shook Dillinger’s hand. But Dillinger, all-too-conscious of the news network cameras and the power of long-range microphones, did not smile or comment. He concentrated instead on a two-star General coming up behind Taylor.

  This wasn’t Justice Dillinger’s first inauguration. He had administered the oath of office to President Hatch some six years earlier, and again for the President’s second term. He recalled the first inauguration as being filled with hobnobbing members of congress, celebrities, billionaires and religious leaders, all hoping to be part of Hatch’s broadly themed Crusade for Change. Hatch’s second presidency was made possible only because his opponent had been diagnosed with untreatable brain cancer just two months before the election. The irony – that the very disease that had taken his wife had made him a two-term President – was far from lost on him.

  That inauguration had been considerably less jubilant. Gone were all the celebrities and religious leaders. But Washington’s elite had returned, along with big business, if only to call in favors they felt the President owed them.

  Congress had gone into recess a week earlier for vacation. It was now Wednesday and they still had not been recalled to Washington. Dillinger looked around and envisioned his future in the burgeoning police state.

  He surveyed the mall, where a few dozen carefully vetted members of the media, and around five thousand invitees from various federal agencies, were solemnly gathering. Huge crowds were gathered along Constitution Avenue, kept at bay by Ulysses troops. Ulysses soldiers stood at the Memorial steps like bouncers at a concert trying to prevent fans from getting onstage. They also stood atop guard towers that had been hastily thrown up overnight using construction scaffolding. D.C. Metro Police helicopters hovered overhead. Dillinger found it curious that there were no Secret Service agents on hand.

  “Harry,” someone said, tapping Dillinger from behind. He turned and saw Justice Dominquez, President Hatch’s most recent appointment to the bench. Dominquez had been closest to Hatch in terms of ideology, and he pulled no punches. “We’ve been talking,” he said, meaning himself and the other Justices. “We think the terms of the inauguration are unacceptable. We think the Court should abstain from this ceremony.”

  “Oh?” Dillinger feigned surprise. He knew damn well that the terms were less than ideal. He was only doing this for fear that the country would otherwise descend into chaos. And only because Wainewright had promised to install a sitting cabinet member. The alternative was permanent military rule. “This isn’t a constitutional matter,” Dillinger correctly pointed out. “The Succession Act of 1947 is a congressional matter, and with congress in recess, I have a larger duty to the people of the United States to ensure that the country continues to operate with some sense of normalcy.”

  “You have a duty to make sure that the right person is sworn in.”

  “I have to go with my conscience,” Dillinger argued. He had known General Wainewright for twenty years. Although he suspected that the Chairman had pulled off nothing less than a military coup, he knew going against him now would mean paying the ultimate price. He, for one, had no love for President Hatch, nor his Treasury Secretary-cum-girlfriend Eva Hudson, and he wasn’t willing to succumb to Riacin poisoning – or sacrifice the Supreme Court – to preserve their legacy.

  A groundswell of chatter rose up from the crowd. Justice Dillinger saw an armored stretch Humvee pulled up in the drive beside the Memorial. A company of armed Ulysses MPs sprinted toward it, assembling in two lines of security that stretched between the Humvee and the Memorial steps. General Farrell stepped out first, followed by Dex Jackson. They waved to the crowd, and then made their way up the
steps.

  Dillinger moved to the Inaugural Podium and readied the Presidential Bible.

  Lincoln Memorial Archives

  10:05 a.m.

  Dust kicked up in a far corner of the six hundred-square foot archive room. Agent Carver ducked through a wooden door frame that would have been far too diminutive for Lincoln himself. His clothes were soaked to the chest with brackish tunnel water. He crouched there near the doorway with his weapon as his eyes adjusted to the room’s harsh yellow lighting.

  The room was a tall maze of wooden shelves packed with airtight containers. The unmistakably tinny sound of AM radio chatter came through an open doorway at the other end of the room. “We are perhaps moments away from a landmark moment in history,” a radio voice said. “There really is no precedent for what the country is seeing right now. In a few moments the Secretary of Defense will ascend to the Presidency.”

  The others were still waiting in the tunnel. Eva Hudson and Angie Jackson had both been reported as dead. So long as Carver could keep them alive, they alone were proof of a conspiracy to deceive the public and overthrow the government.

  Carver waited until his eyes adjusted to the lighting and then proceeded to secure the room. He walked slowly to the end of the row, stopping every so often to peer through gaps in the containers. The sound of the radio grew louder as he approached the doorway. “If memory serves, this moment has some indirect precedent. I’m referring to the time when President Ronald Reagan was shot in the 1980s and Defense Secretary Alexander Haig declared himself in charge.”