Splinter Self

by S L Shelton

  In the distance, the sound of helicopters could be heard thwacking the air, nearing the hangars. In a matter of moments, the sound passed directly overhead then settled into a stationary location near the building.

  Dokken checked his watch. The President wasn’t scheduled to arrive for another hour and a half. But with an inflated sense of worth, he stood to walk outside and find out the source of the commotion. When he reached the door, he pulled but it didn’t budge. He pressed on the latch and pulled again, yanking it several times before stepping back.

  As he inspected the door, he first noticed the reinforced frame and hinges, then the air seal along the seams.

  A cold feeling gripped his guts as he reached into his pocket for his phone. He pressed the contact for DHS central switchboard, but the screen flashed; No Signal.

  He turned to the men around the table. “Does anyone have signal?”

  They all pulled out their phones and looked, shaking their heads upon discovering the same lack of signal.

  “Shit,” he muttered as he felt the blood rush from his face and fall like a stone to his guts. “What’s behind those curtains?”

  One by one, the members of his team yanked the blue tarps from their zip tie fasteners to reveal they were in fact, in a detention pen.

  “Sonofabitch!” Dokken snapped. “Get us out of here, now!”

  As Dokken proceeded to kick at the heavily reinforced door of their prison, a few of the men attempted shooting at various locations along the doubled steel mesh containment room.

  He looked up at the ceiling, then back to the door as the sound of helicopters pounded the air outside so loudly that he could scarcely hear himself think. As he dropped to the floor, leaning against the door, he put his hands to his head, shaking it. “We’re blown,” he muttered to himself. “The sonofabitch knew.”

  As images of prison filled his mind, he watched his men continue to hopelessly look for a way out. Certain that military police and US Marshals would soon burst in, he calmly drew his service weapon, placed it in his mouth, and just as one of his men turned to him, a dispirited look on his face, he pulled the trigger.

  **

  MICHAEL CASEY walked to the Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King, designated Marine One, and met the President coming down the stairs.

  “Good morning, Mr. President,” he said with a smile.

  The President displayed a broad, surprised grin. “Mike! I thought you were handing over the reins today.”

  “Slight mix up, sir. Part of the reason we had to move up your departure,” Casey replied as three black-suited men took up position around the pair. “We’ll have to get it sorted out in flight. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? I was disappointed you were going. I’m glad to have you around a while longer.”

  “Thank you, sir. The Chief of Staff is already on board. We’re ready to go wheels up as soon as you’re on.” In fact, Casey made sure the Chief of Staff was on board and settled in his office before he neared the plane.

  The President nodded and looked around at the larger than usual protective detail. “Expecting trouble?”

  “Always, sir. It’s my job.”

  The President smiled as they walked up the staircase onto Air Force One. Once the President was seated and secure, the pilots throttled up and turned to taxi to the end of the runway.

  At the turn, they paused for a minute, then accelerated forward, pushing Casey deep into his seat for the hyper-steep climb. The maneuver, used to prevent as little target time as possible for shoulder-fired missiles, was more aggressive than your standard airline takeoff. But everyone, including the President, had become used to it.

  Casey looked out of his window at the three Marine helicopters still spinning on the tarmac. He’d left three of his men behind to run a routine snap armor stability test on the helos, checking each latch and rivet on the heavily armored helicopters to determine the integrity of the plating. The vibration of the aircraft required these periodic checks and wouldn’t raise any suspicions—hopefully. The tests should take no more than an hour. Casey had told them to stretch it to two. The noise from the over-engined helicopters would cover any sound coming from inside the detention hangar—again, hopefully.

  Casey sat, nervously counting the minutes. He had to get the President alone before the Chief of Staff discovered the new team had been detained against orders.

  As Air Force One reached its cruising altitude, Casey unbuckled and knocked on the President’s office door.

  “Come,” came the reply.

  Casey walked in and found Benjamin Clarke, the President’s Chief of Staff, hovering over his shoulder, tension on his face.

  The President looked up. “Mike, Ben says you should have handed over the team this morning. Is something going on I should know about?”

  “Yes, sir,” Casey said, suppressing a wave of tension as he walked to the President’s desk and placed a thick folder in front of him. “There is a lot you should know about.”

  The President opened the folder and began looking through the file. On top, the list of his “new” protection detail and the signed order from the Chief of Staff. The President looked up at Clarke. “Ben. I thought this was a retraining shuffle. Why did you sign—”

  The Chief of Staff closed the folder and pulled the file toward him. “Sir. This is housekeeping stuff. It doesn’t rise to the level of needing your attention.”

  Casey stepped over to Clarke and grasped the folder. Clarke gripped it tighter. When Casey put his other hand on the butt of his weapon, both the Chief of Staff and the President recoiled.

  “Mr. President. This folder…” he yanked it free from Clarke’s grasp. “…contains the names, faces, and backgrounds of all the men who Mr. Clark placed on your protection detail. More than half of them were present at Langley the night it was destroyed, and all of them have wet work histories with Baynebridge Security.”

  The President’s eyes flashed to his Chief of Staff. “Is that true, Ben?”

  “Sir. I think what we’re looking at here is an unstable individual suffering from paranoid delusions. We should turn the plane around right now and call someone in from the detail to relieve Agent Casey of his weapon.”

  “I’m more than happy to let that happen, after you see the evidence, Mr. President. If you still feel the same way after—”

  “This is outrageous! I’m your Chief of Staff. Who are you going to believe?”

  The President took the folder and opened it again, spreading the papers across his desk and pulling them to him one at a time to read.

  Clarke took his phone from his pocket. “I’m calling the—”

  Casey reached out and snatched the phone from Clarke’s hand. “Not until the President has seen the evidence.”

  The President looked up at Casey, his hand still resting on his weapon, then back to the pages contained in the folder. “I see paper here. No investigation. Mike…do you have some proof?”

  Casey brought his sleeve up to his mouth. “Spartan. Can you come in here with your video?”

  In a moment, Nick Horiatis entered with an iPad, set it on the President’s desk, and pressed a button.

  “The corridor you’re looking at is the NCS situation room at Langley,” Nick said. “Or at least what it used to be.”

  “That’s Matthew Burgess,” the President said, surprise in his tone. “Why haven’t I seen this before?”

  “Sir, the Justice Department informed Congress that all video storage of the night of the explosion were still on-site, spooled for backup,” Casey said. “That the explosion destroyed everything when—”

  In the video, a man struck Burgess, then began stacking boxes on top of him. “That’s my Director of NCS! Mugged inside of CIA headquarters!”

  Nick nodded. “Yes, sir.” He reached over and paused the feed, then forwarded it a frame at a time until the man’s face came into view. “And this is Rourk Dokken, the new agent in charge of your protection detail…as ordered
by your Chief of Staff.”

  Clarke’s face turned white. “There’s got to be some explanation. There’s no way the Department of Homeland Security would—”

  “I’d advise you not to talk until you can speak with a lawyer,” Casey said as he pulled one of the sheets of paper from the pile and pushed it toward the President. “One that has some experience in representing traitors probably.”

  The sheet was a copy of an email sent by Clarke to a deputy director of Department of Homeland Security. Part of the email had been lined over with yellow highlighter: “…we have to get the new team in place soon or it will appear suspicious when we hand the protection detail over to them.”

  “How did you get that?!” Clarke snapped. “That was an official message, encrypted, and sent over a secure network.”

  “Yeah. Funny how encrypted, backed up, highly sensitive materials are ending up in the wrong hands these days,” Nick said. “Or more importantly, how they disappear when they show treason.”

  “I’d like to place Mr. Clarke under arrest now, if that’s alright, sir,” Casey said.

  The President nodded, shock still shaping his face as he shuffled through the papers on his desk. “I can’t believe it, Ben. I’ve known you for twenty years. How could you betray me…betray the country like this?”

  As Casey handcuffed Clarke, Nick stepped up to the edge of the desk. “I don’t mean to make a tough situation harder, but it’s not just your Chief of Staff and Homeland Security that are infected with this.”

  The President looked up. “Where do I know you from?” he asked.

  “I’m Nick Horiatis. I worked for Director Burgess.”

  The President’s eyes flashed recognition. “You were there the night Matt brought Scott Wolfe to the White House.”

  “Yes, sir. And I was at Langley the night it exploded.”

  Casey stepped over next to Nick. “Nick was one of those presumed dead. He and a few intelligence assets have been continuing the investigation that resulted in the attack on Langley, the Farm, TravTech in Reston, and apparently, some of the recent congressional deaths.”

  “You make it sound like someone’s planning a coup d’état.”

  “Sir, we’ve been in the middle of a quiet coup d’état for the past year or so,” Nick said. “Maybe more.”

  The President picked up his phone. “I have to get the AG in on this conversation.”

  Nick held out his hand, pleading. “I’d recommend against that, sir.”

  The President looked at Nick then back to Casey.

  Casey nodded. “You should listen to him, sir. His evidence is…disturbingly enlightening.”

  “Wait a minute,” the President said. “Are you telling me my AG is complicit in this?”

  Nick nodded with an apologetic softening of his expression. “And more than that, sir. Communications are compromised at every level. Even if you could trust someone, the conversation would still be used against you…us.”

  The President sat back, dropping his long arms over the edges of his chair as if he’d just collapsed. He stared out the window for a moment then turned back to Nick. “Who can we trust?”

  Nick looked at Casey and nodded.

  Casey pulled a phone from his pocket and placed it in front of the president. “With your permission, we’ll continue to California. There, the Central District US attorney has made tentative plans for California State Troopers to provide security until we can sort out the level of insurgent penetration.”

  “I don’t like it. This isn’t some tin-pot dictatorship that changes hands every time a new load of ammo shows up on the dock,” he said, an angry crease pressing at his brow. “This is the United States of America. This should be our wheelhouse!”

  “I agree, sir. But it seems we’ve fallen asleep at the wheel. If we try to take it back without finesse, all we’re going to do is run ourselves into a ditch.”

  “Finesse…” he replied turning and looking out the window again. After a moment, he looked around over his shoulder at Nick. “Tell me someone is on top of this.”

  Nick nodded. “Yes, sir, there is. Unfortunately, they are all operating outside of the law, designated criminals, and working with few resources.”

  “Scott Wolfe and the rogue SEALs,” the President said.

  “They aren’t rogue. The mission they were on was Burgess and Temple sanctioned. It was running in conjunction with a Justice Department investigation into foreign-funded bribery and insurgent activities, including the missile attack on the Secretary of State and Director Burgess in Switzerland.”

  “So, let me get this straight. Members of my own administration are active in a coup attempt that includes actual militarized attacks against the government?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He slammed his hand on the desk and shook his head. Casey had never seen the man red-faced angry before. Gone were his cool tones and calm head—the man wanted blood. It was obvious on his face.

  The President nodded. “Get me to California.”

  Cammy’s voice popped through Casey’s earpiece. “Boss, we just had a broken communication from the ground…the Vice President’s motorcade was attacked.”

  “I’ll be right there,” he said into his sleeve then looked at the President. “I’ll be right back, sir.”

  He left the President’s office and rounded the corner, coming face-to-face with Cammy. “We can’t reestablish contact. I can’t even get through to the command center.”

  Casey leaned over the communications officer’s shoulder and whispered. “Who do we have contact with?”

  “NORAD, JSOC, FEMA…in the last ten minutes. But only using non-encrypted relayed radio channels. It seems like all our COMSEC is down. Like the codes have all been changed without notifying us.”

  “Locally? Just here on Air Force One?” Casey asked.

  The man shook his head. “No, sir. Everywhere.”

  Casey returned to the President’s office. “We have to divert. Something’s going on.”

  “What?”

  Casey stood rigid in front of the president. “The Vice president’s motorcade was attacked. We don’t know anything more than that. But worse for us, is that our encrypted communications are out, and it doesn’t seem to be just here on the plane.”

  On the President’s desk, the Chief of Staff’s phone rang. Casey and Nick looked at it, then to the Chief of Staff. Nick snatched it from the desk and looked at the screen—private number.

  “Answer it,” he snapped.

  Clarke’s face turned up in a sneer. “Not likely.”

  Nick grabbed him by the collar and yanked him from the sofa. Casey stepped over and grabbed Nick’s arm, shaking his head. “That’s not happening,” he said. “We work with what we have.”

  Nick dropped Clarke to the floor. “Then leave the room and let me work.”

  “This isn’t how we do business,” the President said. “As bad as this might be, we have to obey the law.”

  Nick nodded and turned to the President. “Sir, we were following the law when Homeland Security and the DOJ blew up Langley and hid the evidence. And following those rules got dedicated officers killed and labeled traitors.”

  The President nodded. “Wrongs can be righted. But only if we trust the process that got us here. Otherwise, it might as well just be about whoever has the most guns wins.”

  Casey saw Nick’s face turning red. For a tense moment, he worried there would be an argument between a technically dead CIA operative and the President of the United States. Nick proved to be smarter than that when he nodded and stepped back to the door. “Yes, sir.”

  “We should divert, now,” Casey said, diffusing the tension further. “Too many people know where we’re headed.”

  The President nodded. “What’s the closest air base?”

  Nick looked at the screen on the wall behind the President’s desk that showed their location over an outline of the US. “Without going back, Wright-Patterson is
closest, but I’d recommend going the extra distance to Scott Air Force Base,” he said in a calm, detached tone, offsetting his previous outburst. “Illinois would be more likely to let State Troopers be deputized as a protection detail.”

  The President shook his head. “I can’t believe we’ve fallen so far that we are actually placing emphasis on political strongholds for the safety of this office.”

  “Until a few minutes ago, you didn’t think your Chief of Staff capable of betraying you and the country,” Nick said cautiously, though with an ironic bite.

  The President’s face hardened, but he breathed past his agitation and nodded. “As much as I hate to admit it, you’re right.”

  If Nick felt any vindication from that presidential concession, he didn’t show it outwardly.

  Casey interceded again. “I agree with Nick’s analysis… Scott Air Force Base is our best option. If we have to, we can hole up on base until we’ve parsed some of these charges and have a little better idea of who we can trust.”

  The President nodded with a sad expression making him look suddenly tired and defeated.

  “We should take you to the tail section, sir…as a precaution.”

  The President stood. “We have staff and press on this plane. We can’t just pretend everything is fine and let—”

  The floor shifted beneath their feet, tossing the President to the bulkhead, Casey landing on top of him.

  In Casey’s earpiece, the first officer spoke. “That was an automated evasion. One of our escorts moved out of formation.”

  Nick shot Casey a tense glare, having heard the same message. “If they’ve been compromised, we just got a whole new level of trouble.”

  “Fighter escorts are picked in a random lottery. There’s no way to know who…” Casey stopped cold and looked at Clarke. “But the identity of the lottery master is easy enough to uncover.”

  Clarke’s face displayed genuine confusion. Perhaps he wasn’t aware that Combine doesn’t leave things to chance.

  “The fighters,” Casey hissed as he lifted the President. “Sir, we have to get you to the tail section.”

  “We have civilians on this plane that we—”