Flynn and Diana got out of the Audi.
“Hey,” Cissy said to Flynn. Then, with just a shade of curtness, “Hello, Diana.”
They followed her into the empty lobby, then through to the outdoor colonnade and into the Residence. They were stopped by a Secret Service officer stationed at the entrance. Flynn had not seen him before. He wore the usual dark suit. He was trim and muscular. He said nothing, but he scrutinized Flynn and Diana with a professional eye. He hadn’t been on duty when Flynn was here previously, so there was no sign of recognition.
“They’re friends of mine, Henry,” Cissy said. “We’re gonna play some bridge.”
“Three-handed?”
“Ginny will join us.”
He stood silently regarding them. He wasn’t going to let them pass, not just yet. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I need ID.”
“On my friends? Since when?”
“Since these are friends I’m not recognizing.”
Was Flynn looking at a biorobot here? Was this trim and polished thirty-something actually Aeon? He had lost his temperature sensor in his fall.
Flynn went for the Grauerholtz ID. Thankfully, it hadn’t been taken from him.
“These are my friends, Henry. We don’t do this with my friends.”
“They’re not in the book. There’s no prep.”
“They are my damn friends, Henry, come on!”
“No, it doesn’t matter, Cissy,” Flynn said as he held out the passport.
That was enough for Henry, and he let the three of them pass.
Once they were in Cissy’s room and the door was closed and locked, Cissy faced Flynn with shattered eyes. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Busy. Problems that couldn’t wait.”
“The only problem that can’t wait is right here in this building. Daddy’s in the Lincoln going slowly crazy and Mom’s full of pills.”
“What were they told?”
“That you and Di should never have been thrown out.”
“Any details beyond that? Were you there?”
“I was there. They were told that Aeon is real and it’s dangerous. Then we got the switchboard to look for you, Flynn. You’re unfindable! Not even Boxy could find you.” She turned to Diana. “Did you know where he was?”
“I knew why he was out of communication. But he’s here now.”
“What’s the lay of the land, Cissy? Your mom’s on pills and your dad’s haunting the Lincoln because?”
“They know something’s wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong! And they don’t understand and it’s driving them crazy.”
“I can understand that.”
“Can you? To be the most powerful man in the world and know something horrific is going down but not know what? Can you even begin to imagine what that would be like? Billions of lives might be in your hands and you have no idea what to do. That’s stress, Flynn, and you belong right here because you might be able to help. You actually might.”
“Look, I’ve known Bill for a while, at least from a distance. I have to ask: Is he drunk?”
“Not yet.”
“Does he have the football?”
She nodded.
He got up and left the room. She came right after him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Bill’s got the football. That’s where I’m going.”
“Wait a second. Am I understanding you that you’re concerned because he has it? You don’t think he’d do anything with it?”
“I don’t know.”
She blocked his way. “I said he was going crazy with worry. He’s not insane, Flynn.”
“He’s alone with it and apparently very scared, so I need to get in there.”
Shaking her head, she stood aside. “I don’t know what came over me. Of course you do.”
“What came over you was the fact that you’re no longer just the daughter of Wild Bill Greene. You’re the daughter of the President of the United States.”
The three of them went down to the Lincoln Bedroom.
A Secret Service agent stood at the door. “I’m sorry,” he said, raising an arm to block their passage.
“Dave, don’t do this.”
“Miss Greene—”
“Stand aside.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Look, these are friends from Texas. They’ve known him since college.”
“Our orders come directly from him.”
Flynn didn’t want to incapacitate this man, but time was not on their side. “We’ll have to go in,” he said.
The man was now stone, staring fixedly. It was a rough situation for him, and he obviously wanted to be just about anywhere else. Something like this could easily break a Secret Service career.
Flynn said gently, “You didn’t get an order, you got a request, am I right?”
“The president doesn’t give orders. He doesn’t have to.”
“Right now, he needs help, and it’s your duty to help him. We’re help.”
The agent raised a finger to his earpiece. He was going to take this up the ladder.
“No,” Flynn said. “We need to be in there right now.”
The finger hesitated.
“We’ve been friends for years. That’s why Cissy here called us. When Bill gets into a state like this, he needs support. He’s got a really rough decision to make and he’s having trouble. That’s why he’s closed himself off in there. If we don’t intervene, he’ll start hitting the bottle. You don’t want to get your ass blamed for letting that happen.”
The tightly constructed young face had gone pale.
“You can’t prevent his daughter from seeing him.”
Slowly, the hand came away from the earpiece. He stood aside.
The room was dark, even the faint light from outside shut away by heavy curtains. The familiar Lincoln Bed that Lincoln hadn’t actually slept in appeared to be empty.
There came a voice from across the room. “Flynn?”
“Bill?”
“Close the door.”
Cissy shut it and locked it.
“Where in hell have you been?”
“At Malmstrom.”
“Kill anybody?”
“I think you know what I did. I think you’ve gotten a briefing and you’re getting some things figured out.”
“You’re very damn good at killing. It’s what you do, I mean. Professionally. Back at UT, I always saw you as a wimp. You and that pretty girl you were running after with your tongue on the ground. Whatever happened to her?”
“We got married.”
“All the best, Mr. Murderer. Is that why you’re here? Boxy sent you because I’m unstable? Incompetent? I got elected by the American people, fella. Boxy and Glass and that odd creep came over this afternoon. Told me I needed to listen to you.”
Flynn said carefully, “I don’t kill people.”
Bill got up from the chair where he’d been sitting. Flynn saw the football beside it.
“I’ve been doing some snooping,” he said as he came toward Flynn. “The kind of thing I can do only when Lorna’s not peering over my shoulder.” He laughed, a sinister sound. “She’s not right in the head, you know. What we used to call them—inverts? She’s like Eleanor Roosevelt, with a girl in there warming her bed at night. I guess it’s a tradition in the White House, am I right? Call it the sexual intensity of the place. Power makes the juices run.” He glanced back at the football. “They’re after me, Flynn. The tiger is in the tall grass. My own people don’t think I can do this.” He went over and picked up the football. “They think I can’t captain this ship, but they’re wrong. Did you know that the Soviets have a sub in the English Channel right now? Why is that there? You know that the bastard Chinks have two more off the West Coast? Again, I ask why? You could fire a missile off one of those things and in three minutes, L.A. is done. Three minutes, Flynn!”
Diana’s secure phone buzzed. She held it to her ear.
“Dad
,” Cissy said, “there are no Soviets. It’s the Russian Federation.”
“Same damn difference. So what do the saucer people think, Flynn?”
“Aeon is extremely dangerous, Bill. I’m glad you’ve been made aware of that.” Greene had to be gotten out of here right now, and secretly, and taken to a surgical facility to be scanned. If brain surgery was called for, then that had to be done, too. Tonight. Right now.
Diana said, “Just got word in that the incursions have ceased. Not a one in the past fifteen minutes, anywhere in the world.”
“Di, how do we move the President of the United States without the Secret Service interfering?”
“Move me? Goddamnit, I’m not a piece of furniture!”
Flynn decided to try the straightforward approach. “We need an MRI. We need surgeons standing by. But not in a place where you’d be expected.”
“Am I supposed to understand this?”
“Trust us, Bill,” Diana said.
“Come on, Bill, we need to get this done.”
He drew back. “Come on? Come where?” He held the football to his chest, both arms clutching it tightly.
“You need medical attention.”
He put the football down. The desperation in his eyes was terrible to see—raw, stricken, roiling with panic. “They come in my dreams,” he said. “It’s Moscow; the bastards have done something to me, the Commie shits!”
“Dad, there is no Soviet Union!”
Slowly, his lips peeling back away from his teeth like an uneasy dog’s, he went to his daughter and put his arm around her shoulder. “You let me live and I’ll go quietly. I ain’t no president, Flynn.” He shook his head. “I have absolutely no damn idea about anything.”
“We need to go, Mr. President.”
“Don’t call me that!”
Diana said, “The Chrysler’s at the private entrance.”
“Secret Service?”
“They’ve been told you’re headed for a drunk farm in Virginia.”
“You have a MRI facility ready?”
Diana nodded.
Would they ever be able to accomplish this under all the watching eyes—the Secret Service; foreign powers with various agendas; Iranian intelligence, which still had murderous agents running free in Washington; and, above all, Aeon? His conflicts with the aliens had always been a chess match, but never one this difficult. Then again, in the end, it had always come down to a physical confrontation, and he had always won that part of the battle. But so far this time he had not once had the opportunity to resolve anything important with weapons. And it was too bad, because Bill was right: He was a killer. It’s what he did well.
Bill was also right about another thing. When he’d said, “I don’t want to hear any spy bullshit, it mixes me up,” he had been dead-on.
They headed down the Grand Staircase, toward the main entrance where the car waited.
“I still don’t understand this. Why are we in motion?”
“Bill, we’re going to resolve this,” Diana said.
“Is this it? Am I going to be taken to some garage and shot like a gangster?”
Cissy took his hand.
Flynn said, “I will not hurt you, and I will immediately kill anybody who tries.”
They reached the bottom of the stair. Flynn could see the car waiting outside, its black surface gleaming.
“How dare you!”
Lorna’s voice echoed through the silence, stopping everybody. She stood on the staircase. Her heels clicked on the steps like gunshots as she came down. She wasn’t steady, and Flynn saw that her pupils were dilated. Lorna was indeed stoned, which was a real surprise, and a mystery.
She went up to Bill. “Just where do you think you’re going, out to scratch for a whore?”
“Mother!”
“And you, you whore.” She shot an ugly look at Flynn. “This dog’s beneath your station, Cissy. Is that why you want him to fuck you?”
Cissy walked up to her, positioned herself carefully, and slapped her mother so hard it sounded like a firework exploding. Lorna gasped, then choked out a cry. Her hands clawed at her reddening cheek. Then her face collapsed and she went to her knees before her daughter and threw her arms around her waist.
“Ciss, baby, forgive me. Forgive your mother.” Her eyes shifted to Flynn, and he was shocked to see the sorrow in them, and the devastated emptiness of a defeated human being. “You. You’re a good man,” she moaned. While Cissy held her mother’s head against her waist, Lorna reached toward Diana. “You stay with this man, and you two will drink of the water and the wine.”
Flynn knew that it was time to take charge. Above all, he had to keep them on mission. He lifted Lorna to her feet. “I’ll need you to come with us.”
She nodded, her head bowed, her face hidden behind her fallen hair.
Secret Service agents opened the doors of the car as they approached. Ahead and behind, there were black SUVs.
Flynn went around to the driver’s side of the Chrysler and said to the agent behind the wheel, “Out.”
When the agent looked up at him, he recognized Flynn at once. “You’re that weird guy, the alphabet spook.”
“Which is why you need to follow my orders. Out of the car and the escort stands down.”
“No can do.”
Flynn raised his voice. “OK, guys, go through the formalities—you can’t let us just leave without an escort, that’s out. You can never allow that. But now you have to. I’m ordering you to stand down. Get the lead car out of the way, and do not follow, not even at a distance, not if you value this president’s life.”
Another agent came running around the corner of the building, an older guy. He looked like he was wearing a tractor tire under his tentlike suit jacket. Flynn recognized Simon Forde.
“Director! Good to see you again.”
“What in holy hell is going on?”
“The president’s being taken to an undisclosed location in the hope of saving his life.”
“What?”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but you have to remain out of the loop.”
“Out of the loop? Are you nuts? The President of the United States doesn’t go anywhere without us. Not anywhere, sir!”
There was only one person who could stand them down. “Bill—”
“Yeah, boys, there’s big dutch. Big. You stay at home.” He nodded toward Flynn. “This guy—he’s all I need, believe me. He’s a real-life Superman.”
Flynn could have cursed him to hear that. He was just as vulnerable and scared as anybody, and he had to live on the front line. But at least one thing was going in his favor right now. As long as he had the president, the president couldn’t activate the football.
Aeon would know this. How long would they wait?
Forde looked into Flynn’s face. It seemed a long way up. “If you get him hurt—so much as a hair on his head—or her, or that beautiful young daughter of theirs, I swear to you that I will personally see to it that you get the needle. Do you understand me?”
Flynn stared back into the desperately frightened eyes. “He’s safer with me than anywhere else on the planet.” And he thought, “Oh God, if only that were true.”
They got in the car, Flynn driving, Bill beside him. Diana and Cissy kept Lorna, who was crying unashamedly, between them in the backseat.
As they set off, Flynn thought that this was one vehicle Aeon would not disturb, not with Bill Greene in it. But what if the implant was found and removed, and Bill came to his senses? What then?
“Where’s the football?” Bill asked.
Flynn had not wanted it anywhere near them. “You can bet that the Secret Service will be following at a distance. They’ll get it and bring it.”
“They’d better.”
The bitter finality of the president’s tone worried Flynn. He had plans for the thing, that seemed obvious.
He drove on, glancing behind him from time to time, looking for tails. Soon enough, the Secret S
ervice was there. They have two responsibilities. The first is to protect the president. The second is to obey his orders. If one contradicts the other, protection always wins.
Flynn wished that the nuclear triggering system was buried somewhere, locked away, destroyed. Anything to keep it far away from Bill Greene, and from Aeon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE UNITED States is a secret society with an open society floating on its surface like uneasy sea foam on a mysterious deep. The surface country, with its noisy press, its raging Internet, and its fickle, confused population, is controlled by the deep, hidden currents that are the actual power of the state.
Maybe Flynn Carroll could not have put this into so many words, but he understood it in his blood and bone, so when they arrived at the “hospital” that Diana had chosen for the MRI scans, he was not too surprised to find a dark, nondescript storefront in a Bethesda strip mall on the outside, and a glittering, multimillion-dollar diagnostic center behind the worn old doors.
It was to places like this that the very wealthy and the very powerful came for treatment, and why a rich person in America who is part of the inner circle has a life expectancy far longer than average.
As they pulled into a parking spot in front of the karate studio next door, the First Family was unsurprised. Officially, the president is treated at Walter Reed, but if he needs a tumor neutralized or his heart rebuilt, it is to a nameless, superexclusive place like this that he will come.
To all appearances, an ordinary Chrysler 300 pulled up and took a parking space. Some kids came out of karate with their parents and went off down the sidewalk toward a yogurt store. It had rained earlier, and the sidewalk gleamed. The air was touched by the sweetness and fires of autumn. Off in the dark there were storms, and leaves were racing. Flynn caught himself wondering if other beings might soon enter this place and marvel at the wealth of diagnostics here, and ask themselves if they would ever figure out all human secrets, or comprehend the meaning of mankind.
Inside, they were met by a doctor, late middle age, in a Savile Row suit. That and the watch told Flynn he was wearing an easy twenty-five thousand dollars. Money didn’t mean a thing to Flynn. He had more of it than Bill Greene or the doctor or anybody he might meet. He didn’t know how much, but probably well into the nine figures, maybe dancing around ten. In an expensive month, he spent ten grand. Mostly, it was a lot less. He kept his extensive charities to himself.
The White House: A Flynn Carroll Thriller Page 22
