by Jon Land
“Make yourself comfortable,” he said, starting to ease Blaine toward the stretcher.
“Not me—you.”
“Me?”
“We’re trading places. I’ll take things from here.”
The contents of a full canteen included in the pack had had a miraculous effect on McCracken. He felt alert and strong, lost bodily fluids at least partially replenished.
“A car will be waiting for you at the entrance of the road leading in to Whiteland,” the familiar voice of the leader advised him. “A black Mercedes.”
“Who are you?”
“Friends.”
Blaine tightened his gun belt. “They’ll figure this out.”
Two of the men lifted the stretcher bearing the third upward.
“We won’t be far behind.”
They moved away and McCracken started off in the opposite direction. In the light of day, even with the chaos, it was only a matter of time before someone recognized him, an easy task since the guards were virtually all clean-shaven, whereas he wore a beard. The sooner he got out of Whiteland, the better. The cover of troops already spreading outward to search for him would have to be enough.
Blaine followed a phalanx through an open gate into the nearby brush and trees. Around him men hacked at the brush and bushes to ease their search for the escaped prisoner. McCracken kept his distance, already angling to circle back for the road. His best chance lay in keeping to the woods for as long as possible. He picked up his pace, straining to maintain his sense of direction.
His route took him into the path of a team slicing through the brush in the direction he had come from. He tried to escape recognition by mimicking their hacking motions, thereby keeping his face and beard covered. But he couldn’t avoid a familiar figure that appeared suddenly before him.
“You!” bellowed Colonel Smeed.
His pistol came up as McCracken lunged forward. He managed to knock the hand aside, but a shot rang out and echoed in the air. Blaine lashed out with a palm-heel strike that mashed Smeed’s nose and pitched him over. The damage, though, had been done, the gunshot certain to draw much of the AWB to this area. Blaine jumped over the colonel’s body and began to run.
Footsteps converged upon him from the sides and rear. Blaine could not afford any tricks or feints. His only chance was to reach the road and the black Mercedes, not knowing who waited inside it nor what exactly his fate would be upon reaching it.
McCracken’s mouth had gone desert dry again. He pushed his weary, battered body through the brush. Adrenaline swept through him. He grew stronger with each step.
The road appeared and Blaine lunged through the last of the trees onto it. If his bearings were correct, he had covered a good half mile in the woods outside Whiteland, that much more to traverse in the open before he reached the Mercedes. McCracken pushed himself into a sprint that had brought him almost all the rest of the way when he heard truck engines coming fast in his wake. Refusing to slow up, he clung to the road’s side in case he had to take refuge in the woods once more and ran with pistol in hand.
He could see the head of the road now, a black Mercedes backed into the woods for cover, its nose alone visible. He chanced a quick glance over his shoulder and found the trucks were still a hundred yards behind him. Turning back to the Mercedes, he saw a pair of black men holding automatic rifles emerge from the front seat of the car, while a familiar figure slid out of the back.
“Hurry!” screamed Kristen Kurcell.
McCracken was twenty-five yards away when the black gunmen opened fire on the lead truck that had just spotted McCracken. Its windshield shattered and it spun across the road. A second truck rammed into it. The gunmen kept firing, starting to move back for the car as Blaine reached Kristen. She hugged him and dragged him into the backseat of the car while the two gunmen jumped into the front.
“Thank God,” she moaned. “Thank God.”
Waiting inside the back was another man who grinned tightly at Blaine.
“We seem to share the same enemies, Mr. McCracken,” said Bota Matabu.
CHAPTER 33
The Mercedes screeched away, one of the gunmen keeping a vigil on the rear while the other drove.
“They are not behind us,” he reported, the relief clear in his voice.
Kristen watched Blaine’s eyes sweeping about the car’s interior. “A phone! Does this car have a phone?” he demanded of Matabu.
“No.”
“Then get me somewhere that does!”
“I have a small substation thirty minutes from here,” Matabu offered. “That is as close a place as any where there will be a phone.”
McCracken shifted nervously about, aware that this was the man who had obviously arranged to save his life. Thanks would have to come later. Blaine looked back at Kristen.
“How much does he know?” he asked Kristen.
“Everything I do,” she replied. “Which apparently needs some filling in.”
“I’ll say,” McCracken acknowledged.
“Sir, the helicopter is prepped to leave,” General Cantrell announced at six A.M. sharp Friday morning. “An identical chopper will take off five minutes before yours and a second identical chopper will follow five minutes after. All three will receive identical air support in the form of gunships.”
“What about the rest of those bound for Mount Weather?”
“They will all have received the order before we take off. Pickup vehicles, other choppers mostly, will be waiting at the assigned rendezvous points.”
“You move fast, General,” the President complimented.
“We’ve been prepared for a much worse scenario for generations,” Cantrell reminded.
“Everything’s relative, I suppose,” the President said as he rose. “I’d better get a move on.”
The presidential chopper, flanked by a pair of protective gunships, hovered over the Mount Weather helipad that was visible only from directly overhead. Although it had been cleared to land, wind conditions were not favorable and the pilot had to continue hovering until a window opened up.
The President sat along with Cantrell, Charlie Byrne, Angela Taft, and a team of personally selected Secret Service agents in the passenger hold. At last they felt the chopper’s landing pods touch down and watched a phalanx of guards from within Mount Weather sprint into positions around the helipad to join those already posted upon the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains. Cantrell stepped out first and made sure all were in place before signaling the President to join him.
“Faster!” Matabu ordered as they came to the final stretch leading to his substation.
His driver swung onto the hardpacked dirt road, pushing the big car even more and jostling its passengers. The road led to an isolated farm, and Blaine was out through the rear door before the Mercedes had come to a complete stop. A pair of black men with shotguns sprinted out of the house at the sight of his AWB uniform.
“No!” ordered Matabu, as he emerged in McCracken’s wake. “Let him in!”
Matabu helped Kristen from the backseat and followed Blaine toward the house.
McCracken charged through the door and quickly reached the living room. Scanning the room he spotted a phone resting on an end table. Within seconds of picking it up, he reached an international operator. In just a few moments more, the direct line the President had provided him with was ringing.
“Emergency Communications,” a voice greeted.
“What?”
“You have reached Emergency Communications or EMER-COM,” the voice continued. “State your name and designation.”
McCracken had never heard of EMER-COM. “My name is McCracken and I don’t have a designation.”
“Please vacate this line. Failure to do so—”
“Look, the President gave me this number. I’ve got to reach him.”
“You are in violation of national security.”
“Bullshit! Check the exchange this call was routed from. You’ll find it�
�s the President’s private number. He gave it to me so I could relay certain information directly to him. I’ve got that information now and I need to pass it on, which means you’ve got to patch me the fuck through to him wherever he is!”
The man hesitated, Blaine certain he was checking the original routing, but keeping his fingers crossed nonetheless. “Patch-through being effected now.”
McCracken heard the soft clacking of what sounded like computer keys on the other end and settled himself to wait.
The call came in over the chopper pilot’s headset when the security detail leading the President through the stiff wind was halfway to the elevator built into the mountain.
“EMER-COM for the President.”
“We’ve just landed at Mount Weather. He’s on his way into the installation.”
“Catch him, please.”
The pilot leaped down from the bridge and cupped his hands in front of his mouth before calling out. The strong winds swallowed his shout. He yelled again to no avail. The presidential entourage boarded the elevator, and the black steel door closed behind them.
“Sorry,” he said into his mike after climbing back into the chopper. “I missed him.”
“The President is no longer accessible,” EMER-COM informed McCracken.
“Christ … He’s entered Mount Weather then, hasn’t he? No, don’t bother answering. Just patch me through to him inside the mountain. Patch me through to anyone inside the mountain.”
The elevator descended a hundred feet into the Blue Ridge Mountains. Its doors opened to reveal a long corridor with guards stationed at attention on both sides.
“Very impressive, General,” the President complimented Cantrell.
“These are special operations troops who were moved in to supplement standard security only yesterday. They’re here just in case our opposition elects to try taking Mount Weather itself as a last desperate act.”
“I feel safer already.”
“Mount Weather Communications Control.”
“Go ahead,” EMER-COM instructed McCracken.
“Please put the President on the line.”
“He has just arrived on station.”
“Get him. Tell him the balls are cracked again.”
“What?”
“You heard me. That’s the message. Do it!”
The President advanced down the corridor toward the nerve center of Mount Weather flanked by Charlie Byrne and General Cantrell. Angela Taft brought up the rear just ahead of the quartet of Secret Service agents. Suddenly a man in uniform appeared before them and saluted.
“Sir,” he addressed the President, “a call for you has been relayed through Emergency Communications. It’s on the line now.”
“From who?”
“The caller said to tell you … the balls are cracked again.”
“McCracken!” the President realized, looking at General Cantrell. “Where can I take it?”
“Down here, sir.”
The President had started after him when Cantrell nodded almost imperceptibly to the troops closest to the group. In the next instant, their guns were leveled directly at the President, Charlie Byrne, Angela Taft. The Secret Service agents who had accompanied the group instinctively formed a protective shield around the President, flirting with the notion of drawing their weapons.
“Don’t do it, gentlemen,” Cantrell ordered and drew his own pistol. “My men have orders to shoot as soon as they see steel.”
The agents’ hands froze, then slowly dropped.
“Now back off,” Cantrell told them, “hands in the air.” After they had obeyed, he addressed the special troops lining the corridor. “Detain all base personnel and secure the communications station!”
A portion of his troops dashed off to complete their prearranged assignments.
“You’re a son of a bitch, General,” the President said, face-to-face with the Delphi traitor who had penetrated his inner circle.
The general held his pistol on him while a team of his remaining troops slammed the Secret Service agents up against the wall and checked them for additional weapons. “And you’re under arrest, sir.”
Several minutes had passed before a different voice came on the line from inside Mount Weather. “The President is not available.”
“Did you give him the message?” Blaine demanded. “Wait a minute, who is this?”
“We can reach you from this end when he is settled if you give us your number.”
McCracken hung up the phone.
“What’s wrong?” Kristen asked from the doorway, Bota Matabu alongside her.
“They’ve got him,” Blaine said flatly. “We were too late.”
Kristen exchanged a glance with Matabu, both aware of what that meant.
“It’s called the hole theory,” Blaine had explained back in the car after relating the substance of what he had heard above Dreyer’s office the night before.
“The what?” asked Kristen.
“Has to do with using a perceived threat to make someone withdraw to where he thinks he’ll be safe, into a hole, so to speak. But the hole is really a prison, and the subject falls into a trap.”
The Delphi had contrived to use the White House’s discovery of their original plan to their best advantage. The Evac would closet the entire government in secure locations, presumably to wait out the coming battle in safety. But those secure locations would now be turned into detention centers little different from Sandcastle One, where those charged with running the country would be trapped, to be either incarcerated or killed.
Kristen stood watching as McCracken hovered over the phone. “What happens next?”
“The Delphi presides over the destruction of Washington with the blame cast elsewhere, prepared to emerge from the rubble as the only effective governing body. The country will be forced to accept them——even be glad to accept them. And Dodd too, of course, because there’s no alternative. They’ve got nowhere else to go.”
“Like us …”
Blaine’s eyes bulged, thoughts triggered. “Maybe not.”
He picked up the receiver again and dialed another long-distance number, pressing out the digits as quickly as he could recall them.
“Who are you calling?” Kristen asked, perplexed.
“An army of our own.”
“You killed Clifton Jardine,” the President snapped at Trevor Cantrell, inside the office that would serve as his, Charlie Byrne’s, and Angela Taft’s cell.
“He didn’t realize how close his man Daniels had come to us. He called me for my input prior to the meeting he had scheduled with you.”
“And now …”
“You know the drill as well as I do, Mr. President. And now we ravage the city of Washington. By this time tomorrow, the occupants of both Greenbrier and Site R, as well as the others slated to arrive here, will be under detention. The government will have been effectively unseated.”
“So Sam Jack Dodd can move in after your fireworks show is finished.” The President’s rage began to boil over. “How many innocent people do you plan to kill? How many will it take to scare the country into supporting what you have to offer?”
“Enough, sir, so that they won’t be sorry when order is restored at last.”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me. I think we can dispense with your facade of respect.”
Cantrell looked honestly hurt. “It’s no facade, Mr. President. My respect for you carries over into the office you hold and the nation itself. What I’ve done, what we’ve done, is for the long-term good of that nation.”
“Right,” the President agreed wryly, “because the Delphi see themselves as the only ones capable of running the entire world.”
“That’s the point, sir: only by running the world can we successfully run the country. Unification, centralization—enemies controlled by dependence.”
“Meaning those fascists the Delphi’s sleeping with.”
Cantrell’s eyes narrowed in suspicion and then
widened in understanding. “Obviously McCracken uncovered more than you let on to us.”
“Held back on his advice.”
“All academic at this point, in any case. Call them whatever you want, but we’ll accept any bedfellows who can help us make our country strong again. As for you, sir, I’m afraid it was just bad timing. It could have been anyone.”
“Well, it wasn’t anyone; it was me. And I’m betting you’re all going to fall on your asses. Do you honestly think you can just ride in and take Washington?”
“Not exactly, sir,” Cantrell said confidently, backing up toward the door, “because we’re already there and no one’s left to stop us.”
“You’re forgetting someone, aren’t you?”
The general stiffened. His hand stopped short of the knob. “McCracken? We’ll deal with him when he comes to effect your rescue.”
“I don’t think he’ll come for me, General. I think he’ll be coming to stop you. In Washington.”
Cantrell tried to look confident. “Then he’ll die with any others who try to provide resistance.”
“We’ll see, General.”
“Yes, sir, we will, because Mr. Dodd has arranged a satellite feed to allow us to view tomorrow’s proceedings. I’ve saved you a front-row seat.”
PART FIVE
THE BATTLE OF WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON:
SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1994; NOON
CHAPTER 34
“You mean these are the only people you can call on?” Kristen Kurcell shook her head. “With all your contacts, this is the best you can do?”
McCracken leaned back against his seat in the Washington-bound Metroliner’s first-class compartment. With Union Station just minutes away, he had finally explained to Kristen who he hoped would be awaiting them in the capital. Her reaction had not been terribly surprising.
“Let’s wait and see if I’ve done anything at all,” he said flatly.
