The 13: Fall

by ROBBIE CHEUVRONT

  “Your private e-mail? I wasn’t aware that you had private e-mail.”

  President Grant smiled. “Not too many people are. That’s why it’s called private.”

  She feigned a chuckle. “Yes, I guess it is. Go on. What did this message say?”

  She held her breath waiting for what was coming next.

  “Some man calling himself a prophet was on video saying that God was going to destroy the United States.”

  Immediately a mix of panic and relief swept over her. She said the first thing that came to mind. “Sounds like some religious fanatic.” Then, “No offense, sir.”

  “None taken.”

  “I’ll have someone look into it immediately.”

  “I’m not sure it has anything to do with anything really. But it’s why I asked Bill and Kevin to meet with me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I realize that I was out of line. I shouldn’t have blown up at you the other day in my office. I apologize for that. The American people have spoken on the issue of our law enforcement agencies, and I’ll respect that. For now. I still disagree with the entire law. But until it is changed or removed, I will respect it. So I am sorry that I did not come to you before going to them.”

  She still didn’t know where this was leading. And she absolutely didn’t trust this apology. The two of them had been political adversaries for over a decade. And she still had no idea what was going on here. Did he know something? Was this a fishing expedition?

  “And what is it you asked of them?”

  “Nothing that I’m not entitled to, as president. I assure you. I asked them to provide an agent, each. A computer specialist and a field operative.”

  “For what purpose, may I ask?”

  “Just to look into it.”

  “Do you think there is a credible threat to you or this nation? If so, you are required to inform me, so I can do my job effectively.”

  “Ms. Levy, you give me a threat assessment every morning. Do you not?”

  “I do. Are you suggesting that perhaps it’s inaccurate?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you. With all due respect, of course. Is there anything I should be worried about? Is there anything that perhaps you’ve been tracking you just haven’t felt is worth mentioning?”

  Just then there was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” she said, perhaps a little too quickly.

  The secretary entered, carrying a small tray with coffee and an assortment of muffins. Levy was relieved for this interruption. It gave her a moment to gather her thoughts quickly. And she had to do it fast. The girl would only be there a few seconds. She tried to take a deep breath and calm herself, but her chest felt constricted. There was no way anyone could know what she’d been doing these last few weeks. She was in control of every intelligence agency in the country. What was going on here? She quickly decided that he must not know anything. If he did, she would’ve already been taken out of there. No, this was a fishing expedition.

  The secretary smiled and closed the door on her way out.

  “So is there anything I should be worried about?” President Grant said, taking a sip of his coffee.

  She had to play this cool. She mustered up her best worried look—not too hard under the circumstances.

  “Mr. President, you know what I know.”

  President Grant pursed his lips and nodded. “Okay, then.”

  “Okay, then,” she agreed.

  “So you don’t have a problem with me having these agents look into this private matter. Do you?”

  “I’m not sure that I would classify this as a private matter just yet. Why don’t you send me the video, and I’ll have some of my best people look into it?”

  “Like you said, it’s probably just some poor, misguided soul. I already gave the video to the two agents. No need to worry yourself or your resources on this. I’ll make sure Bill and Kevin report back to you if anything they find suggests otherwise.” He stood up and grabbed his suit coat. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  She waited for nearly five minutes after he was gone, a million different scenarios racing through her mind. Was this just an innocent visit? No, it couldn’t be. He was baiting her. No, that couldn’t be it. If he knew anything she would be in a nine-by-nine concrete cell in Gitmo right now. Then what? It couldn’t be a coincidence. She couldn’t just let it go. She had to find out. She grabbed her phone and punched in the number. It rang only once.

  “I thought you weren’t going to need me.” Ms. Smith said.

  “Change of plans.”

  “Sorry, Marianne. I’m at home. Can’t help you right now.”

  “Then get back here. Now! We have a problem.”

  CHAPTER 29

  President Grant rode back to the White House in silence. He was still upset over the phone call he’d received from Boz a few days ago. An accident? Didn’t sound like an accident to him. Keene and Taylor had almost been killed. Boz assured him everyone was fine; it was more Keene’s fault than anything. They had spent that night at the hospital with Megan just to make sure. What had he done? What had he sent those kids out to do? And now it was almost a week later and still no word on who or where this man was.

  His meeting with Marianne Levy hadn’t gone any better. The woman made his skin crawl. And he hated the thought that he’d just given her any information she could use against him. But this Prophet wasn’t going away. Grant tried to close his eyes and pray that God would give him discernment in this, but there were too many distractions. He hadn’t had a moment of focused prayer in days. And other than a building blowing up in Chicago, he had no substantial evidence this Prophet was real. That, however, was about to be questioned once again.

  When he got back he went upstairs to check on Tess. She had been to the doctor this morning already. He’d tried to have her stay home. Being the First Lady had its benefits: she was fully entitled to receive any treatment she needed at home. But Tess argued that the drive and being outside were good for her spirit. She insisted on going there. But that had its drawbacks, too. It made her even weaker after the treatment, because she had to be transported back, a trip that took most of thirty minutes.

  Tess assured him that she was fine, just tired, and that he should get back to running the country. He kissed her forehead and told her he would check in on her again around lunchtime. Because he still had a little time before having to be downstairs, he went to his private desk and took out his Bible. He read a few passages and said a quick prayer for his day. He promised that he would spend the night alone, in the Word, and in quality, focused prayer time.

  Before he left, he had the notion to turn on the computer on his desk.

  He had five more minutes. He opened the mail server and watched the spinning wheel of death, as he liked to call it, twirl around as it searched for any new messages. The thing chimed, notifying him he had one new message. There was no subject line, nor was there a return address. Before he even clicked the mouse, he knew what was coming.

  A window appeared on the screen with a video player. He clicked the PLAY button and held his breath as it began to play. The Prophet appeared on the screen and began to speak.

  “Mr. President, for months now, I have been warning you to tell the American people the messages I’ve given you. You have ignored these warnings. Why? I know you are a man of God. You know that what I have said the Lord can bring to pass. Why do you hesitate? Why do you not plead with the people to put away their idolatry and return to Him?

  Therefore, thus says the Lord: ‘You, America, have ignored Me. You have put other gods before Me. I am a jealous God. I have given you all that you have, and yet you do not acknowledge Me. So that you may know I am God, I will remove these other gods. And I will give this nation into another’s hands, lest you turn back to Me.’”

  The screen went blank.

  President Grant cradled his head in his hands and began to weep. He had no idea what to do. How could this
be real? Could this Prophet be a true messenger of God? Or was this some deep conspiracy to destroy his administration and ruin everything he had worked for? He was a man of God. He did try to do what he believed God would have him do, concerning matters of state. He had been open about his faith. He hadn’t compromised his integrity in any way. How could this be happening?

  He had to collect himself. He was needed downstairs in just a minute. He wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. He would go and honor his appointments for the day. But something had to be done about this. And it had to be done quickly. He reached for the phone and dialed the number.

  “It’s me,” he said when the line was answered. “Tell the networks I would like thirty minutes tonight at seven o’clock.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Bradley Forester III was already into his fourth meeting of the day. As CEO of one of the nation’s two largest banks, his day was already in full swing. The meeting that he was about to enter wasn’t really a meeting, more a social gathering.

  Every other week, he had coffee with the CEOs of the five largest banks and investment firms on Wall Street. They made small talk, going through the gambit of family: kids, wives, mothers-in-law—just for levity’s sake—and then they would talk about the important stuff. Many of the men were members of the same social and sporting clubs, so they would take ten minutes to gossip about their golf games and the like. After that, they finally got to business. All together, they’d usually spend about an hour with each other.

  He was looking forward to today’s gathering. Just yesterday, he had shot a sixty-eight on the course, breaking Tim Crandle’s club record of sixty-nine. Crandle, who was his direct competitor as CEO of the nation’s largest bank, was his friendly nemesis in all things. Especially golf.

  The perfunctory, familial conversation was coming to a close, and it was time to make his friends jealous. He cleared his throat and called for everyone’s attention.

  “Everyone! If you please, I have an announcement to make.”

  There were smiles all around, as everyone, even Crandle, knew what was coming.

  “As you know, yesterday, I had my usual ten o’clock tee time, and—” He felt the buzz in his pocket. This was unusual. His secretary knew not to disturb him during this time. And since he had all of his phone calls forwarded to her during business hours, even personal calls, there was no reason for this to be happening. He slid the touch screen bar across the screen to unlock the phone, revealing a text message: 911.

  Slightly bewildered, he said, “I’m sorry. Please excuse me.”

  The others shrugged it off and returned to their chatter. But as Forester was dialing the office to call in, one by one the others’ jackets and pockets began to buzz as well. Everyone had received the same message: CALL IN. IMMEDIATELY!

  Forester was first to make his call, so he got the information first. But it only took seconds for the information to spread across the room. It seemed everyone there was aware of the same thing. Forester hung up the phone and looked at the other men with genuine fear in his eyes.

  “You, too?” he asked them.

  There was a round of nods. Not because no one wanted to speak. But because they were unable to.

  “We have to go,” Forester said.

  Nobody moved. They were all still stunned.

  “Now!” he screamed.

  CHAPTER 31

  Megan swatted away the doctor’s hand for the third time.

  “I’m fine!” she said. “Please get that thing out of my face.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Taylor,” the doctor objected, waving the otoscope. “But I told you this follow-up was necessary. If I’m to release you from further examinations, you need to let me look and make sure I don’t see any blood in your ears or cloudiness in your eyes. I know it’s been a couple days now, but I want to make sure.”

  “Let the woman do her job so we can get out of here.” It was Keene.

  “You’re the reason I’m in here!” Megan reminded him.

  Boz came into the room, momentarily diffusing the situation. “Everything okay here, doc?”

  The doctor clicked off the little light-emanating instrument and said, “Looks okay. But I’d still recommend a few days of light duty and lots of rest.”

  “Yeah, I’ll take that into consideration,” Megan said.

  She knew it really wasn’t Keene’s fault. But she was angry. She’d told him that the place was going to blow up. Heck, the note told them the place was going to blow up! Why she hadn’t just walked out and left him there was the real question. She immediately answered it for herself: if anything had happened to him, she would have felt guilty for the rest of her life.

  “Hey,” she said, hopping down from the examination table, “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to jump on you like that. It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is,” Keene said. “And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you in that situation.”

  “I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.”

  “I wouldn’t say a big girl.” Keene smiled. “I’d say athletic with good muscle tone.”

  “Ha ha. Funny!” she said. “Can we go now?”

  “Waiting on you.”

  “Any word on the computer from the Internet café?” she asked.

  “I just talked to Franks,” Boz said. “He said it’s fried, and they’ve got nothing.”

  “There’s got to be something on there,” Megan said. “I need to go check it out.”

  “It’s a dead end,” Keene said. “Let’s go.”

  “It’s only been a couple days,” Megan argued. “And I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. Maybe I can find something.”

  “We’ve been here for four days. We’ve been all over this city trying to chase down this guy. I’m telling you. He’s gone. Doesn’t matter what you find on that computer. You said yourself that he wouldn’t risk using it for anything other than sending you that e-mail. The manager said he’d never seen the guy before. We’re spinning our wheels here. We need to regroup and figure out what’s next.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “But first, I’m starving. I need something to eat.”

  They walked down the street to an old-fashioned diner, the kind that looks like a huge, silver train car. Once they were seated, the waitress came and took their orders and disappeared again.

  There was a television hanging above grill, with a local morning news program on. The sound was down but the hosts were talking with a guy Megan recognized as an author. His book was on the small coffee table facing the camera. She had been meaning to read it—something about a lawyer who went into the Witness Protection Program.

  Keene and Boz were talking, but Megan was watching when the interview was interrupted. A graphic for breaking news flashed on the screen, and the feed was instantly switched to New York City. A reporter was standing in front of the iconic statue of the bull on Wall Street.

  “Hey,” she shouted to the person behind the counter. “Turn that up.”

  The young man behind the counter looked at her as if he had been asked to dig a ditch. She pulled her badge out and walked over to him. “I said, turn that up, please.”

  The kid reached under the counter and produced a remote control. Keene and Boz were already out of their seats standing beside her.

  “What’s going on?” Keene asked.

  The volume on the TV slowly crept up. The reporter looked to be in a big panic.

  “… word here,” he was saying, “is that the European market showed no sign of this during their trading session all day. This is coming as a huge surprise, Dave. I haven’t had a chance to speak with any of the executives yet, but I’m told someone will be making a statement soon.”

  The image went to split screen, and a man behind an anchor desk appeared.

  “Chris, we haven’t heard anything from Washington yet. Can you tell us anything else?”

  “Only that this all started about a half hour ago. If you can pan around behind me, you’ll se
e the police tape there. Local law enforcement is on the scene, and they’re trying to keep everyone back.”

  “Okay, Chris, well we’ll keep in touch with you there, as we try to figure out what’s going on. Thanks.”

  The screen went full again. This time with the anchor.

  “So there you have it, folks. Horrible tragedy in the wake of this sudden and horrifying news. Once again, if you’ve just joined us, it appears that the CEO of American Financial Mutual bank, Bradley Forester III, has committed suicide by jumping out of his forty-second floor office. This on the heels of the market taking a devastating dive this morning. Still no word on what this means for the immediate future right now. But it’s beginning to look like total chaos here in New York at the moment. Now, I believe we have our correspondent in Washington on the phone. Michael, are you there?”

  Megan looked at Keene and Boz, who were still-faced. She didn’t know what this had to do with anything, but she had a gut feeling it wasn’t good. “What do you make of that?” she said.

  “Don’t know,” Keene said. “But I’d bet it has everything to do with this attack. We need to go.”

  “Where?” Megan asked.

  Neither of them had an answer.

  “Okay, then,” she said. “I’ll call and get us a ride. Boz, see if you can get President Grant on the phone and find out anything.” Then to Keene, “Jon, you get our food to go.”

  “What!” Keene said. “You kidding me? Get the food?”

  Megan looked at him. “I’m not going anywhere without some food. I’m starving. Besides, remember what you said, ‘Never pass up the chance to sleep or eat’?”

  Keene rolled his eyes. Apparently, they were back on first names again. “Get on the phone and get us a ride. I’ll meet you outside.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Ms. Smith sat on her bed, watching the television above the fireplace and packing her bag again. She’d left the United States shortly after meeting with Marianne and had taken her private chartered plane to Quebec. It was good to get a few nights’ sleep at home. She had planned on taking more than just these last few days. Enjoy the quietness of the country. Just twenty miles north of Montreal, her place was far enough out of the city to be private but close enough to get anything she needed quickly. But all of that was not to be.