by Dale Brown
PRESIDENT’S PRIVATE RETREAT, BOLTINO, RUSSIA
SEVERAL HOURS LATER
“Why haven’t you answered my calls, Gardner?” President Leonid Zevitin thundered. “I’ve been trying for hours.”
“I’ve got my own problems, Leonid,” President Joseph Gardner said. “As if you hadn’t noticed, I’ve got to deal with a little mutiny over here.”
“Gardner, McLanahan has bombed Mashhad, Iran!” Zevitin cried. “He’s destroyed several Russian transports and killed hundreds of men and women! You said he would be forced under control! Why haven’t you dealt with him yet?”
“I’ve been briefed about the attack,” Gardner said. “I’ve also been briefed about the target—an anti-spacecraft laser that was supposedly used to shoot down one of our spaceplanes. Wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you, Leonid? What were all those Russian personnel and transports doing in Mashhad?”
“Don’t change the subject!” Zevitin shouted. “The Duma is going to meet soon, and they’re going to recommend a permanent change in military posture, including a call-up of ready reserves, mobilization of the army and strategic air forces, and dispersal of mobile ballistic missiles and submarine forces. Was this your plan all along, Gardner—have McLanahan act crazy, attacking targets all over the planet, and forcing us to respond as if we are going to fight a world war? Because this is exactly what it looks like!”
“You think I’m conspiring with McLanahan? The guy is nuts! He’s completely out of control! He’s attacked American military forces, taken over a top secret military base, and stolen several highly classified aircraft and weapons. No one has any contact with him for almost half a day—we think he might have committed suicide on the space station.”
Well, Zevitin thought, that was the best news he’s heard in a long time. “No one will believe any of this,” he told Gardner. “You have got to give me something to tell my Cabinet and the leaders in the Duma, Joe, or this thing could spin out of control. How did he do that attack on Mashhad, Joe?”
“It’s a thing they call ‘netrusion,’ Leonid,” Gardner said. Zevitin’s eyes widened in surprise—the American President was actually going to tell him! “Some of McLanahan’s aircraft and spacecraft have a system where they can not only jam radar and communications, but actually insert bogus code and signals into an enemy system. They can reprogram, crash, or control computers, invade networks, inject viruses, all that egghead shit.”
“This is astounding!” Zevitin exclaimed. Yes—astounding that you’re telling me all this! “That’s how the bombers made it over Mashhad?”
“They made the air defenses around the city react to false targets,” Gardner said. “The air defense guys apparently shut down their missile systems so they wouldn’t shoot at stuff that wasn’t there, and that let the bombers slip in. McLanahan also hacked into their encrypted radio transmissions and gave them false orders, which allowed the bombers to locate and attack the laser site.”
“If all this is true, Joe, then we must put a deal in place to share this technology,” Zevitin said, “or at least pledge not to use it except in time of declared war. Can you imagine if this technology got into the wrong hands? It could devastate our economies! We could be thrown back into the Stone Age in a flash!”
“It’s all McLanahan’s geeks at Dreamland coming up with this stuff,” Gardner said. “I’m going to shut Dreamland down and have that bastard McLanahan shot. I think he’s left the space station and is back at Dreamland. He’s ignored my orders and done what he pleases for too long. I’ve got a friend, a powerful senator, who’s going to try to bring McLanahan out in the open, and when she does I’ll nail his ass to my wall.”
“Who is the senator, Joe?”
“I’m not ready to divulge the name.”
“It will lend credibility to my arguments before the Duma, Joe.”
There was a bit of a pause; then: “Senator Stacy Anne Barbeau, the majority leader. She went to Dreamland to try to meet with McLanahan or Luger to try to defuse this situation.”
He’s got the Senate majority leader spying for him? This couldn’t be better. Zevitin’s mind was racing ahead. Dare he suggest it…? “You don’t want to do that, Joe,” he said carefully. “You don’t want to expose yourself or Barbeau any further. McLanahan is a very popular man in your country, is he not?”
“Yes, unfortunately he is.”
“Then let me propose this idea, Joe: as over the Black Sea and over Iran, let us do the deed for you.”
“What?”
“You told us where those bombers would be and when, and we took care of them for you; you told us about the spaceplane and put them in a position where we could strike—”
“What? You did what with the spaceplane…?”
“Bring McLanahan out into the open,” Zevitin went on, almost breathlessly. “Have Senator Barbeau tell us where he is. I’ll send a team in to sanction him.”
“You mean, a Russian hit team?”
“You don’t want McLanahan’s blood on your hands, Joe,” Zevitin said. “You want him out of the way because he’s much more than an embarrassment to you—he’s a danger to the entire world. He’s got to be stopped. If you have a person on the inside, have him or her contact us. Tell us where he is. We’ll do the rest, and you don’t have to know anything about it.”
“I don’t know if I can do that…”
“If you were seriously considering dispatching him yourself, then you are serious about the danger he poses not just to world peace, but to the safety and very existence of the United States of America. The man is a menace, pure and simple. He is a wild dog that needs to be put down.”
“That’s exactly what I said, Leonid!” Gardner said. “McLanahan has not just crossed the line, but I think he’s become completely unhinged! He’s brainwashed his men to attack American troops…or maybe he’s used that ‘netrusion’ shit to brainwash them. He’s got to be stopped before he takes down the entire country!”
“Then we are of one mind, Joe,” Zevitin said. “I’ll give you a number to call, a safe and secure blind drop, or you can code a message through the ‘hot line.’ You need not do anything except tell us where he is. You need not know a thing. This will be completely deniable.”
There was a long pause on the line; then: “All right, Leonid. Convince your people that America doesn’t want war and has no designs on Russia, and we’ll work together to stop McLanahan.” And he hung up.
This was too good to be true! Zevitin exclaimed to himself. Two of the top politicians in the United States were going to help him assassinate Patrick McLanahan! But who to trust with this project? Not his own intelligence bureau—there were too many shaky alliances, too many unknowns for this type of job. The only person he could trust was Alexandra Hedrov. Her ministry certainly had agents who could do this job.
He went into his bedroom adjacent to his executive office. Alexandra was sitting alone in bed in the darkness. The speakerphone was on; he had hoped she would listen in and be ready to give him advice. She was a valuable adviser and the person he trusted more than anyone in the entire Kremlin. “So, my love,” Zevitin said, “what do you think? Gardner and Barbeau are going to tell us where McLanahan is! I need you to assemble a team, get them into Nevada, and be ready to strike.” She was silent. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, her head down, touching her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs. “I know, love, this is ugly business. But this is an opportunity we can’t miss! Don’t you agree?” She remained still. “Darling…?” Zevitin flipped on the light switch…and saw that she was unconscious! “Alexandra! What’s happened? Are you all right?”
“I can help you there, Mr. President.” Zevitin turned…and standing in his closet, concealed by the darkness, was a figure in a dark gray uniform, a combination of a flight suit and body armor…a Tin Man battle armor system, he realized. He carried a large weapon, a combination sniper rifle and cannon, in his arms. “Raise your hands.”
/> He did as he was told. “Who are you?” Zevitin asked. He took a step backward…toward the light switch, which if he could flip it off and back on quickly would send an emergency signal to his security team. “You’re one of McLanahan’s Tin Men, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” the man said in an electronically synthesized voice.
“McLanahan sent you to kill me?”
“No,” Zevitin heard a voice say. He turned…and there, wearing another Tin Man battle armor suit but with the helmet removed, was Patrick McLanahan himself. “I thought I’d do that myself, Mr. President.”
Zevitin whirled, pushed McLanahan, lunged for the light switch, and managed to flip it off, then on again. McLanahan impassively watched as Zevitin furiously moved the switch up and down. “Very impressive feat, sneaking past my guards, into my private residence, and into my bedroom,” Zevitin said. “But now you’ll have to fight your way past a hundred trained commandos. You’ll never make it.”
McLanahan’s armored left hand snapped out, closed around Zevitin’s wrist, and squeezed. Zevitin thought his hand had popped completely off his arm, and he sunk to his knees in pain, screaming in agony. “It was about sixty-two guards, and we took care of them all on the way in,” McLanahan said. “We also bypassed your security system’s link to the army base at Zagorsk—they’ll think everything is normal.”
“‘Netrusion,’ I believe you call it?”
“Yes.”
“Ingenious. The whole world will know about it by tomorrow, and soon we’ll unleash it on the rest of the world when we reverse-engineer the technology.”
McLanahan’s right hand whipped out and closed around Zevitin’s neck. His face was purely impassive, emotionless. “I don’t think so, Mr. President,” he said.
“So. You’ve become an assassin now? The great air general Patrick Shane McLanahan has become a common killer. Betraying your oath and disobeying your commander-in-chief weren’t enough for you, eh? Now you’re going to commit the ultimate mortal sin and destroy a life for no other reason than a personal vendetta?”
McLanahan just stood there, no expression on his face, looking directly into Zevitin’s sneering face; then he nodded and replied simply: “Yes, Mr. President,” and he effortlessly squeezed his fingers together and clenched them until the body in his grasp went completely limp and lifeless. The two Americans stood there for a minute, watching the blood pour onto the polished wood floor and the body make a few twitches, until finally McLanahan let the body fall from his grasp.
“Didn’t think you’d do it for a second there, boss,” Major Wayne Macomber said in his electronic voice.
Patrick went into the closet and retrieved his helmet and electromagnetic rail gun. “I’ve been thinking about nothing else for a long time, Whack,” he said. He put on his helmet and hefted his rail gun. “Let’s go home.”
MAIN LODGE, NAVAL SUPPORT FACILITY THURMONT (CAMP DAVID), MARYLAND
THAT SAME TIME
This is all going to shit, President Joseph Gardner said to himself. But it’s not my damned fault. McLanahan needs to be gone, soonest. If he had to make a deal with the devil to do it, so be it.
He went from his private office back into the bedroom suite of the Camp David presidential retreat, where he found his houseguest—the staff sergeant he’d had aboard Air Force One—standing at the wet bar on the far side of the room, wearing nothing but an almost transparent negligee, open all the way down, her hands enticingly behind her. Damn, he thought, that was one hot future Air Force officer! “Hey, honey, sorry to take so long, but it couldn’t wait. Fix us a drink, will you?”
“Fix it yourself, you fucking sleazeball,” he heard, “then go shove it up your ass.” Gardner whirled around…
…and found none other than Senator Stacy Anne Barbeau standing before him! “Stacy!” he blurted. “How in hell did you get in here?”
“Compliments of General McLanahan,” he heard. He turned the other way and saw a figure in some sort of futuristic body armor and helmet standing by the wall. He heard a sound behind him and saw yet another figure in head-to-toe body armor and helmet, carrying a huge rifle, step into the suite.
“Who are you?” the President exclaimed. “How did you get in here?” He finally recognized who they were. “You’re McLanahan’s Tin Men! He sent you to kill me?”
“Never mind them, Joe!” Barbeau cried. “What was all that about? You made a deal with Zevitin to have McLanahan assassinated by Russian agents?”
“It’s starting to look like a damn good idea, Stacy, don’t you think?” Gardner asked. “This is exactly what I was afraid of—McLanahan is going to assassinate all his enemies and take over the government!”
“So to plan a strategy to deal with the crisis you bring a bimbo to Camp David, screw around with her awhile, then make a deal with the president of Russia to have an American general assassinated?”
Gardner whirled around. “Help! Help me!” he screamed. “I’m in the suite and there are armed men in here! Get in here! Help!”
One of the armored figures strode over to Gardner, put a hand behind his neck, and squeezed. Gardner’s vision exploded into a cloud of stars from the sudden intense pain. All of his strength immediately left his body, and he collapsed to his knees. “They’re all out for now, Mr. President,” the armored figure said. “No one can hear you.”
“Get away from me!” Gardner sobbed. “Don’t kill me!”
“I should kill you myself, you piece of shit!” Barbeau shouted. “I wanted McLanahan out of the way, maybe embarrass or disgrace him if he didn’t cooperate, but I wasn’t going to kill him, you stupid idiot! And I certainly wasn’t going to make a deal with the Russians to do it!”
“It’s McLanahan’s fault,” Gardner said. “He’s crazy. I had to do it.”
The figure grasping Gardner’s neck released him. Gardner collapsed to the floor, and the armored figure stood over him. “Listen to me carefully, Mr. President,” the figure said in a weird computerized voice. “We’ve got you on tape admitting to conspiring with the Russians to shoot down American bombers and the Black Stallion spaceplane, and conspiring with the president of Russia to have Russian agents enter the country to assassinate an American general.”
“You can’t kill me!” Gardner cried. “I am the President of the United States!”
The figure slammed an armored fist right beside the President’s head, then two inches down through the resawn maple floor and concrete foundation in the bedroom suite. Gardner screamed again and tried to scurry away, but the figure grasped him by the throat, putting his helmeted face right up to the President’s. “I can kill you easily, Mr. President,” the figure said. “We stopped the Navy SEALs, we stopped the Secret Service, and we stopped the Russian air force—we can certainly stop you. But we’re not going to kill you.”
“What do you want then?”
“Amnesty,” the figure said. “Full and complete freedom from prosecution or investigation for everyone involved in actions against the United States or its allies from Dreamland, Battle Mountain, Batman, Tehran, and Constanţa. Full retirements and honorable discharges for everyone who doesn’t want to serve under you as their commander-in-chief.”
“What else?”
“That’s all,” the other figure said. “But to ensure that you’ll do as we say, the Tin Men and CID units will disappear. If you cross us, or if anything happens to any of us, we’ll come back and finish the job.”
“You can’t stop us,” the first Tin Man said. “We’ll find you no matter where you try to hide. You won’t be able to track or detect us, because we can manipulate your sensors, computer networks, and communications any way we choose. We’ll monitor all your conversations, your e-mails, your movements. If you betray us, we’ll find you, and you’ll simply disappear. Do you understand, Mr. President?” He looked at the two women in the room. “That goes for you two as well. We don’t exist—but we’ll be watching you. All of you.”
EPILOGUE
>
He that falls by himself never cries.
—TURKISH PROVERB
LAKE MOJAVE, NEVADA
SEVERAL WEEKS LATER
The young boy cast a fishing line into Lake Mojave from his spot at the tip of a rocky point beside the long, wide boat-launching ramp. Lake Mojave was not really a lake, just a wide spot of the Colorado River south of Las Vegas. It was a popular winter venue for seasonal residents, but they could begin to feel the onset of summer heat even now in early spring, and you could sense the stirring in the place that people were itching to leave. Not far behind the boy was his father, in shorts, sunglasses, nylon running sandals, and Tommy Bahama embroidered shirt, typing on a laptop computer in the shade of a covered picnic area. Behind him in the RV park, the “snowbirds” were packing up their campground and preparing to take their trailers, campers, and RVs to gentler climes. Soon only the most die-hard desert-lovers would stay to brave southern Nevada’s brutally hot summer.
Amidst the bustle of the campground the man heard the sound of a heavier-than-normal car. Without turning or appearing to notice, he escaped out of his current program and called up another. With a push of a key, a remote wireless network camera on a telephone pole activated and began automatically tracking the newcomer. The camera zeroed in on the vehicle’s license plate, and in a few seconds it had captured the letters and numbers and identified the vehicle’s owner. At the same instant, a wireless RFID sensor co-located with the camera read a coded identification beacon broadcast from the vehicle, confirming its identity.
The vehicle, a dark H3 Hummer with tinted windows all the way around except for the windshield, parked in the white gravel parking lot between the marina restaurant and the launching ramp, and three men alighted. All wore jeans, sunglasses, and boots. One man in a safari-style tan vest stayed by the vehicle and started scanning the area. The second man wore an untucked white business shirt with the collar open and the sleeves rolled up, while the third also wore an open safari-style tan vest.
