“Excuse me?” Rykman asks.
“You’ve racked up quite the body count. And that’s just the people I know of, so I’m guessing tip of the iceberg is something of a massive understatement.” Alex meets Rykman’s gaze. “What, you assume some secret executive order gives you the authority, the right, to murder people indiscriminately?”
“It gives me the authority to act in the interests of the United States. When a state kills, it’s not murder. It’s policy.”
“Sounds like a good argument for agency oversight to me.”
“I’m not here to debate policy with you, Alex.” Rykman’s voice is dispassionate and level.
“Then why are we here? Because I’ve gotta tell you, if you’re gonna kill me and Gerald, I’d just as soon you got on with it. I’ve got zero desire to be around while my country gets dragged into a war a handful of guys, or maybe just one guy, come to think of it”—he points to Rykman—“thinks is a good idea.”
Then a new epiphany hits Alex. A new piece of the puzzle slides into place: “The president doesn’t know about the Overwatch. Does he?”
“No oversight means no oversight. Truman never went to college. He had no command experience in the military. He knew, better than anyone, the folly of someone like him having oversight”—the word is slathered with contempt—“over the decisions made, deemed viable and prudent and in this country’s best interests, by someone like me.”
Alex has represented enough genuinely bad people in his day to know better than most the validity of the truism “Every villain is the hero of his own story.” He’s witnessed villains’ genuine remorse too, but such regret, by its nature, always comes after the fact. In the moment, all tyrants believe themselves to be on the side of the angels. But Alex’s experience is limited to criminals, street thugs, white-collar hustlers, and abusive husbands. He’s never come eye to eye with a zealot, with a man who believes in the righteousness of his actions with religious fervor.
Until now.
“Like I said,” Rykman remarks, “I’m not here to debate policy with you.”
“Well, if you’re not going to debate me and you’re not gonna kill me, then what are we doing here?”
“When you found your way to the Op Center, I thought it was rather impressive. An unexpected annoyance, to be sure, but you’ve managed to piece together something that no one else in nearly seventy years has been able to.” Rykman glances at Alex, studying his reaction. “I typically draw my personnel from the military, usually straight out of West Point or JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command, men who know how to keep secrets.”
And who follow orders without question, Alex thinks.
“It’s a small pool of qualified personnel, you can imagine,” Rykman continues.
Alex can’t stop himself from asking, “What happens to the guys you tell about the Overwatch who turn you down?” He has a feeling he already knows the answer.
Rykman says nothing. He just offers a slight shake of the head, confirming Alex’s suspicion. These failed applicants meet with accidents of the variety that befell Jim Harling. “My point being, Alex, I can’t exactly put an ad in the newspaper. When I see talent—and I see talent in you—it’s in my best interests, and those of the Overwatch, to act on this opportunity.”
“You’re offering me a job.” Alex’s incredulity is obvious. Rykman nods, as if he thinks giving Alex the chance to join the very organization he’s trying to bring down is an excellent idea. Rykman’s bearing suggests that attempting to employ a man one just tried to kill is the most sensible thing in the world. “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” Alex comments.
“Wake up to current events, Alex. You are beaten. As you pointed out, my only other move here is to have you eliminated.”
“What about Gerald?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. But let’s focus on you for the moment.” Rykman leans forward, serious as a heart attack. “Do you know what it is I’m offering you here?”
A variety of potential answers come to Alex’s mind: Damnation. Guilt. The opportunity to be a part of something that I know in my soul is wrong. “Let’s go out on a limb and assume that I don’t,” Alex ultimately selects.
“I’m offering you the chance at something your father never had. Access to power, the levers of power that he couldn’t fathom because he didn’t even know they existed. That’s true power, Alex. Power that doesn’t require legal authority or public awareness. Power on its own terms, derived from its own manifest destiny.”
Taking in Rykman in this moment, feeling the man’s fervor, Alex realizes that he’s witnessing something few people get the chance to see: the true William Rykman—the king who sits atop a throne no one knows about, drunk with his own power. Yet although Rykman stands before him, stripped naked, his most private truths revealed, the observational door swings both ways. Rykman has read the CIA’s psychological workup that was done when Alex joined the Agency. He knows exactly the right buttons to push. “Your entire life, you’ve been an ant, scurrying to find a little patch of sunlight outside your father’s looming shadow.” Perhaps realizing he’s coming on too strong, Rykman quiets, adopting a more Zen-like tone. “This, Alex, is your chance. To be your own man with your own achievements.” Then the Zen devolves into something that sounds almost like apathy. “I’ll be very interested to see whether you take it.”
Alex nods. He looks to Gerald, who’s still standing outside the glass enclosure of the conference room, still looking terrified. Then he looks past Gerald, to the facility surrounding them. The entire area hums with more than electrical power. Alex thinks he can almost feel the global power Rykman’s describing and offering. The power to literally make history. All the more tempting is the fact that it’s legal.
“It’s funny you should mention my father,” Alex says, speaking slowly. “We get our values from our parents, don’t we? It probably shouldn’t be surprising that the law is the way I determine the difference between right and wrong. I learned that from my dad.” He pauses. “You’re right. My whole life’s been about trying to get out of my father’s shadow, be my own man. Well, how about this?” He looks at Rykman, eyes blazing with a passion he’s never felt before. “My father was wrong. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it moral. Just because you have the authority doesn’t mean you have the right.” Rykman stares back in disbelief. Alex imagines he himself must have had a similar look on his face when Rykman was taking him through the Overwatch’s history, and he finds a sliver of the moment to enjoy the irony. Alex stands from the table, rising to meet Rykman face to face. “You’re committing murder and treason, and a thousand secret executive orders wouldn’t make it otherwise.”
Rykman considers Alex for a long moment. “All right,” he says. His voice is raised barely above a whisper. “I respect that. Even though it means I can’t let you leave this building alive.”
* * *
Alex leans forward and meets Rykman’s ferocious stare with a fury of his own. “If you’ve got so much fucking legal authority,” he spits, “why do you need to kill me to shut me up?”
“OpSec” is Rykman’s cold reply. Operational security.
“Bullshit.”
“The Overwatch is a black agency. Our power would be diminished if we had to operate in the light.”
“Well, I certainly fucking hope so.”
Rykman shakes his head, confused. What the hell is that supposed to mean? But Alex offers no explanation, at least not with words. Instead, he leaps across the table and tackles Rykman. On some level, he knows this is suicide. Even if Rykman is unarmed, Alex is certain the same can’t be said for the Overwatch personnel outside, including the one guarding Gerald. But surprise is his only advantage. Acting unexpectedly is his only weapon.
Rykman roars with indignation as Alex feels himself collide with the older, bigger man. The momentum of the tackle sends them both tumbling backward, crashing through the glass wall of the conf
erence room. They fall at Gerald’s feet as glass rains to the floor all around them. The man guarding Gerald reaches for his weapon.
Alex acts on instinct. He’s eye level with the guard’s ankle and his first impulse is to yank it toward him, so that’s what he does. The man topples like a redwood. Gerald, sensing this is his window, elbows the man, driving his arm straight into the asshole’s jaw. By this point, his Glock 23 has been liberated from its holster, but the tumult frustrates the guard’s grip, and as he falls back, the gun leaps out of his hand and clatters to the floor.
Rykman works to scramble to his feet, but Alex surprises him with a kick to his gut that buys him a few more precious seconds. He feels something whiz past his ear. Only then does he realize that the other Overwatch personnel are shooting at him. He remains focused on the wayward Glock, resting motionless on the floor like a promise.
Gerald, also acting on instinct, kicks the Glock in Alex’s direction. The firearm skitters across the facility’s concrete floor. There’s a millisecond where Rykman catches a glimpse of the gun and reaches for it just as Alex does. Alex’s head collides with Rykman’s shoulder on their mutual descent, but Alex has a fraction of a second’s head start. His fingers find purchase on the weapon and manage to curl around it as he brings it up in the direction of Rykman’s head.
Alex hears a loud gunshot. But it’s not from the Glock, it’s just the latest in a fusillade of weapon fire. Somehow still alive, Alex shoves the business end of the gun against Rykman’s temple and yells as loud as he’s capable, “Weapons down!” This stops the shooting, but Alex’s whipping glance around the space reveals a room still full of armed men. “Put your guns on the fucking floor!” he screams. Without waiting to see if they’ll comply, he points the Glock downward. He’s never held a Glock before, much less fired one, and he silently prays its previous owner disengaged the safety when he unholstered the weapon. Apparently he did, because the .40-caliber gun belches forth a bullet. The Glock 23 has a short-recoil design that keeps it from flying out of Alex’s inexperienced fist. The report resounds loudly in the tense chamber, and the noise is followed quickly by Rykman’s voice. Even a military man of Rykman’s training and fortitude isn’t immune from yelling in agony as a bullet rips through his thigh.
Just as quickly, Alex brings the Glock back up so that it’s level with the phalanx of men he’s trying to keep at bay. “Next one goes in this motherfucker’s head!” he yells. Although Alex has no experience with armed standoffs and hostage crises, the situation is merely a negotiation in its purest form, and negotiating is something that’s virtually second nature to him. It doesn’t hurt that he was a participant in a not dissimilar standoff fairly recently.
Alex looks around the room, at the men and all the guns they still have trained on him. They haven’t shot him dead yet, however.
Next to him, Rykman writhes in the grip of Alex’s free hand and winces in a special kind of pain. His blood leaks profusely into his pant leg and onto the concrete beneath his feet. Alex is concerned Rykman will bark the order to end him and is surprised when the command doesn’t come. Maybe William Rykman isn’t quite as ready to die for his cause as he appears.
“Clear the room,” Alex says. His voice is quieter now but his tone is no less commanding. “Clear the room and lock the door.” He’s assuming there’s only one point of ingress and egress to the facility. “Do it now.”
Alex sees some of the men look for an answer in Rykman’s eyes. “Go ahead, Donovan,” Rykman says. “There’s nothing these pricks can do to stop what’s going to happen.” As Donovan reluctantly leads the Overwatch personnel out of the Operations Center, Alex prays this is not the case. Otherwise, thousands of people—potentially hundreds of thousands, possibly millions—will die. And the body count will start with him and Gerald.
TWENTY-NINE
ALEX HEARS the heavy metal door to the Op Center slam shut with pneumatic precision. He estimates that he and Gerald have about five minutes to do whatever it is they’re going to do. After that, he fully expects to die badly. He releases Rykman to one of the nearby chairs, the man gripping his wounded leg. “Give me that,” Rykman growls, pointing to an extension cord on one of the workstations. Alex hesitates, and Rykman adds, “For a tourniquet, you little shit. Or you might as well just shoot me in the head.”
Alex just nods and tosses the cord over. Rykman catches it and starts tying it around his thigh, above the bullet wound, to stanch the prodigious bleeding. As Rykman does his work, Alex whips back around toward Gerald, who’s staring at him in wide-eyed amazement.
“Holy fuck, dude. You’re like a fucking badass.”
“Gerald, you’ve got to find a way to contact the White House.”
“What?” Gerald is paralyzed.
“Focus,” Alex snaps. “These guys have Tap-Dance encryption capabilities.” At least, that’s what Katherine McCallum claimed, and he hopes she’s right. “They mimic the White House’s systems. It’s one of the tools these assholes have to manipulate the military into doing their bidding.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rykman grunts. Rage fills every pore on his face. But instead of dissuading Alex, this tell convinces him he’s on the right track.
“Do it, Gerald,” Alex orders. “Get on their system.”
“And do what?”
“I want to talk to the White House.”
Gerald’s eyes shoot even wider and Alex is relieved to see ambition replace shock on Gerald’s face. This would be the mother of all computer hacks. The kid actually breaks into a grin. The hunter has the scent. He moves with purpose to the closest workstation. “I’m going to tear your skin off in strips,” Rykman hisses. Gerald freezes.
“Don’t listen to him, Gerald,” Alex advises, walking over to Rykman. “Get to work. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Damn right, you don’t,” Rykman spits. “My men are armoring up right now. Kevlar. High-powered rifles. You fucks won’t last the next ten minutes.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Alex sees Gerald hesitate, struck motionless by Rykman’s threat. “Shut up,” he orders Rykman, and backhands his face with the Glock, hoping to knock the bastard unconscious. But all it does is make Rykman grunt in pain and bleed from his mouth. The man’s about to bark some epithet, but Alex adjusts his grip on the Glock—holding it by the barrel—and swings the butt of the synthetic polymer-coated gun into the back of Rykman’s head. Alex has seen this done in the movies and been told that it works because the back of the skull is where the brainstem is.
This time the blow does its job and Rykman slumps out of the chair, unconscious.
“Seriously, dude, badass,” Gerald repeats.
“Just really pissed off. Where are we?”
Gerald is in his element, working tech magic on the keyboard. He’s thrown his work up onto the room’s big screen, and the massive plasma updates with new overlapping windows and cascading lines of impenetrable computer code. “There isn’t any outflow from this facility to the White House’s Situation Room,” he says as he types. “Basically, these guys can see the White House, but the White House can’t see them.”
This much is consistent with what Alex witnessed earlier. “Gerald, you’ve got to—”
“I’ve got a work-around,” Gerald interrupts. His fingers don’t leave the keyboard as he types furiously. “Their Tap-Dance connection goes to the Pentagon, however, like you said. And the Pentagon can talk to the White House. They’ve been talking to them all night, in fact. So basically, what I’m trying to do is jump on to the DOD’s connection through what they’re using here.” Gerald looks like a kid in a candy store on Christmas morning. “I’m hacking the fucking Pentagon, dude. I’m ascending Mount Everest.”
Alex breathes a sigh of relief and shoots another look toward Rykman. The asshole stirs but remains unconscious for now. “Ascend faster.”
“Alex,” Gerald says, “I think I’ve got it. Get ready to talk to the president.
”
* * *
The president is in the eighteenth month of his administration, and the tension in the White House Situation Room has never been higher. It feels like he’s spent a lifetime in the room, but it’s been only a few hours. When he walked in, he was greeted by a handful of people. Now, the three-hundred-square-foot space is standing room only, packed with military, diplomatic, and political personnel of every stripe. Every man and woman is a trained professional. They all go about their business with stoic efficiency, but the tempo of their work and the urgency on their faces speaks to how tense they feel, a testament to how close the United States is to the brink of war.
In the past three hours, two of Israel’s F-14D Baz fighter jets—American-made Boeing F-15 Strike Eagles—have been shot down by Iran’s newly completed Bavar-373 long-range air defense system. In retaliation, the Kheil HaAvir—the Israeli air corps—launched bombing raids on a heavy-water plant in Khondab and a missile research and development facility in Khuzistan. These air strikes involved flying sorties through the airspace of Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia—none of which are known for their warm feelings toward the State of Israel. In the White House Situation Room, the director of national intelligence briefs the president on the gearing up of the militaries of all four countries. It’s long been an axiom of American foreign policy that were Israel to make a move on any of its neighbors, reflexively or preemptively, it would be the tipping domino that would lead to the collapse of the entire fragile region.
The president came into office hell-bent on avoiding the third rail of diplomacy that was the Middle East. He’d watched his predecessor get mired in two separate wars there—conflicts that did nothing other than cost American lives and create fresh breeding grounds for new terrorists who would cost even more American lives. No, he vowed, he wouldn’t get sucked into a war that would make the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like petty dustups. But now, as dawn breaks over Washington, DC, he finds himself on the cusp of a moment that threatens to define his presidency. The momentum that Rykman set in motion—indeed, has been counting on—is gathering speed. With casualties on both sides, it will become exponentially harder to get control of this situation.
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