Selected: A Thriller

by J. Allen Wolfrum

  Susan’s face hardened. “What do you mean by ‘unintended consequences’? I want to put President Rosinski in a position where he’s forced to cooperate with us, whether he likes it or not.”

  “Well, if we start putting sanctions on foreign companies and exports, we are bound to raise some eyebrows at very powerful corporations. And very powerful corporations have significant influence over governments in foreign countries. If I had to guess, you’d be getting a lot of very upset leaders of foreign countries calling you to voice their concerns. And the extreme end of that is disrupting foreign economies.”

  Susan sighed. “Seems like that isn’t going to solve any of our other problems with the Soviet Union.”

  “What other problems are you talking about?”

  “Well… the Soviets have activated a large number of reserve troops and seem to be moving them toward the western borders with Ukraine, Latvia, and Belarus.”

  Senator Reynolds leaned forward. “Do we know why?”

  “No, not really. But General LeMae thinks it might have to do with the annexation of Crimea and the construction of an oil and gas pipeline.”

  Senator Reynolds rubbed his hand over his chin. “Makes sense to me. If they own the natural resources, they need a way to get them out to customers.” Senator Reynolds looked down at the ground for a moment before continuing the conversation. “This is all starting to tie together. Have you heard of Pacific International?”

  Susan furrowed her brow and shook her head. “No, doesn’t ring a bell. Why?”

  “When we were working through the financial details with the NSA, trying to find targets for sanctions, the company kept coming up. Pacific International was listed as the owner of a substantial number of the shell companies we were tracing. I haven’t done all the homework but it seems like they’re heavily invested in Eastern European manufacturing, raw material, and transportation companies.”

  Susan leaned back in her chair. The question reminded her of the flash drive with dangerous information about corporations colluding with the government that General LeMae warned her about back in Idaho. She brushed off the question. “Hmm… I can have Mason look into it.”

  “Susan, there’s something else you should know. I really don’t want to bring this up, but you know people are upset about the pilots. And it’s starting to be a problem. There are some representatives that think we should be doing more to get them back. There’s a lot of discontent being spread around the Senate and Congress.”

  “I know people are upset. We’re doing everything we can.” Susan saw Mason Adams walking toward them. “Here comes Mason.”

  Senator Reynolds glanced toward Mason as he walked toward them. “What is he wearing?”

  Susan laughed. “Those are his happy colors. You need to loosen up, Mr. Lawyer. You have something against bright blue bow ties and pink socks?”

  Susan smiled to herself on the walk back into the White House with Mason.

  Later that evening, Vice President Wilkes met with his contact, Mr. Jones, who’d called the meeting at the last minute and deviated from their usual library meeting locations. They met in a dark Italian restaurant in a corner booth near the rear exit. Mr. Jones arrived twenty minutes before Vice President Wilkes to scout the location.

  Vice President Wilkes sat down in the booth across from Mr. Jones and nervously scanned the room. “I’ve been making the drops. Why are we changing locations? If someone sees us—”

  Mr. Jones interrupted. “Calm down and stop looking around the room.” Mr. Jones slowly pointed his index finger to his face. “Look at me. Act normal and everything will be fine.”

  “What do you want?”

  “The audio recordings have been very helpful. Keep the device in place—we need to know who she’s meeting with and—”

  “What are you doing with those recordings?”

  Mr. Jones calmly raised his index finger. “I’m asking the questions. Understood?”

  Vice President Wilkes pursed his lips in frustration and nodded his head.

  “As I was saying, I’ll keep passing you instructions when we meet, nothing changes. What I need now is for you to start the legislative paperwork for impeaching President Turner.”

  Vice President Wilkes cocked his head in disbelief. “For what?”

  “None of your business. Tomorrow morning at ten, three lawyers will meet you in your home office. Find a reason to be there. If anyone asks, the lawyers are there to help you draft the education reform bill. The lawyers will take care of the paperwork; all you need to do is strengthen your list of President Turner’s enemies. We need a majority vote in the Senate and House to impeach President Turner. Make sure we have it. Understood?”

  Vice President Wilkes grimaced and stared at Mr. Jones before answering, “Yes.”

  “Good, I’ll expect an update at our next meeting. If you’re thinking about double-crossing us… remember, we still have the tapes. What you did to those kids…” Mr. Jones paused and snarled, “The tapes go to your wife first. I want her to know what you did. You don’t deserve to have anyone grieve for you.” Mr. Jones slid out of the booth and walked silently out the back door of the restaurant.

  Vice President Wilkes closed his eyes and fought back tears.

  28

  Susan made a point to be at Greg and Tommy’s first indoor soccer game of the season. At halftime, she walked back to the stands with two soft pretzels, cheese dipping sauce, and one root beer. Susan handed Earl a pretzel and Rose the root beer. “Now we’re even.”

  He squinted in confusion and grabbed the pretzel.

  “Well… I did kind of strong-arm you two into moving with me to Washington, DC.”

  Rose smiled and put her arm around Earl. “I think it turned out to be the right choice.”

  Earl smiled and agreed. “Sometimes us old folks get stuck in our ways and we need a push to get going.”

  After the game, Susan, Earl, and Rose stood in the lobby waiting for Greg and Tommy. Susan and Rose discussed the logistics of dinner for the boys; they still needed to eat and get their homework done before bedtime.

  Before the boys made it out to the lobby after the game, a Secret Service agent interrupted Susan’s conversation with Rose. “Madam President, General Gillingham is on the phone for you. Are you available to take the call?”

  Susan excused herself and took the cell phone from the agent. “This is President Turner.”

  “Madam President, we have an update on the pilots being held by the Chechen rebels. The situation is evolving at the moment. Our satellite surveillance picked up unusual movement at one of the possible holding locations we are monitoring. We need you in the Situation Room.”

  Susan nodded her head slowly. “Thank you. I’ll be there.” Susan ended the call and handed the phone back to the agent. She walked back toward Earl and Rose. Greg and Tommy emerged from the crowd in the lobby escorted by Secret Service Agent Young.

  “Mom, did you see that pass I made to Scott for the last goal?” asked Greg.

  “I sure did! Good job, honey.” She grabbed Greg by the shoulder and gave him a quick hug.

  “Agent Young showed me how to make a no-look pass. It was awesome, I totally fooled the defender.”

  Agent Young blushed and remained silent.

  “Greg, Tommy. I have to head back to work. When you get back home, you can have a snack, then straight upstairs to do your homework. Got it?”

  “But Mom… can we at least ride with you back home?”

  Susan frowned. Agent Young spoke up before Susan delivered disappointing news to the boys. “You two can ride with me. I’ll show you how the radios work.”

  “Cool, can I have my own call sign?” asked Tommy.

  “Absolutely. We’ll think of one on the ride back,” replied Agent Young. He turned toward Susan. “Madam President, is it all right with you?”

  “Yes, thank you, Agent Young.”

  Susan hugged each of the boys. As they walked away wi
th Agent Young she reminded them, “Don’t forget your homework.”

  In the Situation Room at the White House, the Joint Chiefs of Staff scrambled to get their intelligence images and analysis on the monitors. Susan walked into the room amid the chaos and got sucked into the tension of the scrambling staff. She interrupted the action by announcing above the noise, “What information do we know?”

  The conversations among the staff died down and General Gillingham took charge. “Madam President, the situation is—”

  “I don’t care! Get me access to every cell tower within twenty miles.” The entire room focused on an NSA analyst shouting into a cell phone. She felt the room’s attention on her and looked up from her computer. “Sorry, Madam President.”

  General Gillingham resumed his update. “As I was saying, the situation is fluid. About an hour and a half ago we picked up five vehicles staging near one of the locations we have under satellite surveillance. The location is a warehouse near the town of Bryansk in the Soviet Union. The vehicles are unmarked Toyota Camrys, no military affiliation. Our NSA analyst kept an eye on the situation but didn’t initially raise any alarms to his supervisor.” General Gillingham looked at the clock. “At 6:45 p.m. Eastern time, the five vehicles drove together toward the warehouse. A total of ten men exited the vehicles and entered the warehouse. At that point, our NSA analyst raised a warning.” General Gillingham paused again to read his notes.

  Susan’s excitement overwhelmed her and she interrupted. “What else do we know? Did the ten men leave? Did anyone else leave?”

  General Gillingham looked up from his handwritten notes and continued. “Ten men from the vehicles entered the building. Eight of those ten men left the building fifteen minutes later and drove away heading eastbound. After the five vehicles left, another white Mercedes SUV left the warehouse, headed westbound.”

  Susan replied, “Ten men entered the building, eight left the building, so there are two men left in the building?”

  “Possibly. We don’t know who or how many men were in the Mercedes SUV headed westbound.”

  “How confident are we that this location is where the pilots are being held?” asked Susan.

  “Given the information we have right now, I’m eighty percent confident our pilots are either in that warehouse right now, or were in the warehouse at some point in the last twenty-four hours.”

  Susan pointed toward the monitors on the wall. “Can we get a recap of the satellite images on the monitors? I want to see it with my own eyes.”

  The technicians scrambled to put together a time lapse of the satellite images. The NSA analyst working on the cell tower wiretap yelled, “Got it.” All eyes went to her as she quickly typed on her keyboard.

  “Go ahead, what do you have?” asked General Gillingham.

  “We tapped into the cell towers near the warehouse. I was able to filter out all the residential chatter and I found two encrypted text messages. We broke the encryption. The first message is a single word: ‘done.’ The second message, sent twenty seconds later, is ‘cleanup crew needed asap.’ Both messages were sent after the eight men left the warehouse.”

  Lt. Colonel Rodriguez stomped on the gas pedal of the Mercedes SUV and looked in the rearview mirror for signs of a vehicle following them.

  29

  Lt. Colonel Rodriguez drove the Mercedes SUV with Lt. Colonel Harris in the passenger seat. The Soviet street signs made no sense to him. “See anything?” asked Lt. Colonel Rodriguez.

  Lt. Colonel Harris spun around in his seat. “Nothing… no headlights.”

  The men sat in silence for a few minutes as they drove southwest according to the compass in the dashboard of the Mercedes. They drove down a two-lane blacktop road. Occasionally another vehicle would pass them in the opposite direction. Their anxiety grew with every mile. They had no plan.

  “What do you think, Harris?”

  Harris replied, “I think we need to head straight for the Ukrainian border. If we keep heading southwest, we have to hit it at some point.”

  Rodriguez replied, “Agreed. Heading for the border is our best chance.” He paused before asking, “What do you think happened back there?”

  “Which part?” asked Harris.

  “All of it. Whatever happened, it didn’t go according to plan. Either someone was trying to rescue us and it went bad or someone was trying to kill us and it went bad. All I know is we got lucky.”

  Harris shook his head. “Now we’re screwed. No doubt they put the word out and are looking for us. You saw those guys who have been hanging around, right? They weren’t part of the group holding us. They had to be some kind of Soviet Special Forces. If they find us, they’re definitely killing us, no questions asked.”

  Rodriguez took his eyes off the road and looked at Harris. “Hey. Cut the shit and snap out of it. This has to work. It’s not an option. We’re getting out of this alive.”

  Harris paused to catch his breath. “You’re right, man, sorry. We’re going to get out of this.”

  Rodriguez replied, “Let’s just keep going southwest toward the border. Either way we’re getting the hell out of the Soviet Union. We made it this far. It’ll work out.”

  Harris saw red and blue lights in the mirror. He turned to get a better look. “Goddamn it, the Soviet police are behind us.”

  Back in Washington DC, the Situation Room buzzed with activity.

  “Get it on the monitor,” shouted an analyst. The screen flickered black and then showed video from a surveillance drone focused on a vehicle driving on a two-lane blacktop road. The analyst spoke up. “We found the white Mercedes SUV—it’s traveling southwest toward the Ukrainian border. We have a drone with weapons onboard twenty minutes from the target. The satellite on the monitors is a five-minute delay.”

  Susan yelled over the chatter, “Stop.” Her voice shocked the analyst, and everyone else in the room. “Everyone take a breath. We’re all excited and working as fast as we can. But are not going to let that excitement dictate our decision making.” Susan paused. “Everyone sit back down and let’s talk through the new information.” Susan gestured toward the analyst who put the satellite video on the monitor. “Tell us how you found the vehicle.”

  “I pieced together several different satellite feeds at the time the vehicle left the warehouse. Then I started looking for cars driving the same direction. There weren’t many at this time of night. I got lucky.”

  “How certain are you that this is the same vehicle from the warehouse?” asked Susan.

  “I’m 99.9 percent sure, Madam President.”

  Susan continued with more questions. “Okay. Do we know who is in the vehicle?” Susan looked around the room; no one spoke up. “Okay… so we don’t know who’s in the vehicle… any ideas?”

  Another analyst spoke up. “It could be the two remaining men from the sedans that raided the building.”

  Another voice chimed in, “Or someone who was already in the building.”

  Susan jumped in, “Or Lt. Colonel Rodriguez and Lt. Colonel Harris.” The room nodded their heads at the possibility. “General Gillingham, how long before the Special Forces team in the area can be on target?”

  “Ten minutes. They have two Black Hawks with rotors spinning on the airstrip right now.”

  Susan stood up from her chair and put her hands on the table. “No matter who is in that vehicle, we want to talk to them. General Gillingham, get the Special Forces team on target. Have them stop the vehicle. Tell them to assume Lt. Colonel Harris and Lt. Colonel Rodriguez are in the vehicle.”

  In the white Mercedes SUV, Rodriguez and Harris argued over what to do about the police.

  “We have to stop,” said Rodriguez.

  Harris shook his head. “No way.”

  “What are we going to do? Outrun him?”

  Harris shot back, “We can’t just let him arrest us.”

  Rodriguez slowed down the car. “Okay, so what’s your plan?”

  Harris froze.
He didn’t have a plan.

  Rodriguez answered the question. “If you don’t have a plan, we’re stopping. If we have to… we’ll jump him. It’s two on one, he can’t take us both.”

  Harris nodded his head, unbuckled his seat belt, and looked for something in the car he could use as a weapon.

  While Harris and Rodriguez plotted their attack plan, the Soviet police officer ran the license plate on the white Mercedes SUV. A tap on the window startled the Soviet police officer. He looked up to see a man standing outside his vehicle holding a KGB badge.

  The police officer rolled down the window.

  “Officer Kaminski, my name is Agent Larov, I work for the KGB counterterrorism unit. The men in that vehicle are under my protection. You will not get out of your vehicle. You will turn on the loudspeaker and calmly tell them they are free to leave. Do you understand my instructions?”

  Officer Kaminski nodded his head. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” Agent Larov walked back to his vehicle and waited.

  Rogriguez and Harris heard through the police loudspeaker, “You are free to go” in broken English.

  They exchanged glances. “Is he serious?”

  The police vehicle turned off its lights and drove off in the opposite direction.

  Rodriguez put the white Mercedes SUV into drive. “I guess he was serious. Maybe we stole a diplomat’s car?”

  Harris put his seat belt back on and put the tire iron back under the seat. “I don’t know and I don’t care. Let’s get out of here.”

  Rodriguez pulled back onto the two-lane highway. Five minutes later, Harris rolled down the window and stuck his head outside. “You hear that? Slow down.” Rodriguez slowed down and then stopped the vehicle in the middle of the road. He heard the noise as well. “That’s a Black Hawk. And it’s getting closer.”

  “Yup. Do they know where we are? Or that we’re in here?”

  The pilots froze in a moment of indecision. Harris broke the silence. “Get out now.” Rodriguez gave him a confused look. “Get out of the car. Now. Put it in park and get out. They need to positively ID us.”

  The concept registered with Rodriguez: if there was a Black Hawk helicopter coming in to rescue them, the rescue team would need to positively identify everyone in the vehicle. Standing in front of the headlights in plain sight was the safest place to be when the rescue team landed. Rodriguez and Harris jumped out of the car and stood in front of the headlights with their hands in the air. A Black Hawk landed in middle of the highway thirty yards in front of them.