by Tom Abrahams
The van was smoldering when Salas unlocked the center passenger-side door and slid it open. Inside was the target, prisoner 02681-044, somewhat stunned but apparently unhurt.
The prisoner was quiet as Salas worked on unlocking the chains around his wrists and ankles. He stood, wobbling before catching himself on the bar in front of him, and Salas unlatched the waist restraint.
The two climbed out of the van and back to the street where five other team members were standing. Salas could see their eyes passing judgment on their target; a fat, old man with more girth than worth. He also figured they knew who he was. He was too recognizable not to identify immediately.
“You’re that dude who blew up the Capitol,” said Fisher, turning his glare to Salas. “Why are we acquiring this piece of—”
“Enough!” Salas raised his hand. “We do what we do. Period. We don’t ask questions about why. You know that. We need to go.” Salas grabbed the prisoner by the arm and led him to the SUV pulling up beside them.
“Thank you,” said Sir Spencer Thomas. “Your timing was impeccable.”
CHAPTER 3
THE NATIONAL MALL
WASHINGTON, DC
Matti Harrold stood on the National Mall, her back to the White House. Though she was winded after a long run, she felt good. The endorphins were coursing through her body, and the cool fall air made sweating all the more an accomplishment.
She looked to her left and started walking in the direction of the Capitol building. Checking her watch, she knew she had a good fifteen minutes before she needed to be back at the White House. That would give her thirty minutes to shower and change before her appointment with the president in the chief of staff’s office.
She forced herself to look at Capitol Hill, or what was left of it. Nine months removed from the terrorist attack that leveled the symbol of her nation’s power, the dome was as yet unconstructed. There was a shell there. Metal latticework surrounded what would be a renewed Capitol building.
Matti shuddered, remembering the day.
“I failed,” she told herself every time she glanced at the reconstruction. “I didn’t stop it.”
She didn’t allow herself the satisfaction of knowing she’d saved lives, including that of the current president, Felicia Jackson.
Instead, she focused on what she hadn’t done. She hadn’t stopped the attack despite knowing who the conspirators were. They’d succeeded in replanting the seed of insecurity so prevalent in those days after 9/11.
There were conspiracy theorists who believed she’d failed on purpose, that she was part of some grand government takeover. “It was an inside job,” they’d said. “The NSA and FBI could have worked together. They knew who these people were. They could have stopped it if they’d wanted to.”
Matti testified to her part in the debacle. Some members of congress dubbed her a hero while others castigated her for her inability to prevent the bombing.
There were six conspirators. Five of them were in prison awaiting trial. One was dead, killed by his compatriots for his misgivings about their plot.
Along with a struggling economy discussed in every morning White House staff meeting, the incomplete Capitol was a daily reminder of it all—for Matti, for the NSA, the White House, and virtually every American. Her current boss, President Jackson, was working hard to move the country past the pain and into emotional and economic recovery.
Matti smiled at the man jogging past her toward the Washington Monument. He was a regular, like her, using lunchtime to burn off steam. He nodded at her and strode past her at a quick clip, and there was a buzz against Matti’s hip.
She pulled her phone from a clip on her waistband and checked the screen.
CALL ASAP. BL
“All caps,” Matti mumbled and dialed the number to the White House chief of staff, Brandon Goodman, “it must be important.”
It rang once before he answered, “Goodman.”
“Hello, sir,” Matti said. “It’s Matti Harrold returning your text.”
“Hi, Matti,” he said, his cadence faster than usual. That was saying something too. Goodman was known for the speed with which he could deliver vast amounts of information. “I need you back here now.”
“Yes, sir.” Matti started walking toward the White House, foregoing the rest of her cooldown. “Is everything okay, sir?”
“No. We have a security situation, and the president wants your input immediately.”
Security situation? Matti unconsciously picked up her pace. “On my way now, sir.”
“You jogging?” he asked, aware of her daily routine.
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t bother changing,” he instructed. “Forego the protocol. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Matti knew the conversation was over, but waited to end the call on her end until she heard Goodman hang up.
This must be serious.
President Jackson was adamant about her dress code. She wanted her staff to respect the office, the positions they held. Nobody was allowed in the West Wing, outside of the residence, without a jacket unless in uniform. The media protested. Jackson didn’t care.
Unlike President Obama, who relaxed the code, or President Carter, who allowed cardigan sweaters, Jackson wanted to follow the footsteps of Presidents Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.
“It speaks to who we are,” Jackson told her staff on her first day in office. “We are both the head of government and the head of state. That’s a unique responsibility.”
Much of her staff, in the first few weeks, was a holdover from her predecessor Dexter Foreman, who’d died in office. They were still in mourning from his death and the subsequent terrorist bombing. They didn’t argue.
But Jackson later fired two well-liked staffers for their passive-aggressive refusal to adhere to the dress code. The president was that serious about it.
To forego that requirement, Matti knew something urgent was afoot. Had the fragile economy collapsed further? Was North Korea attacking sensitive computer systems again? Were the Barcelona meetings in peril?
She’d hit a full sprint by the time she reached the security entrance.
*
“Houston?” Dillinger Holt said through a clenched jaw. “Are you kidding me?”
“No,” said his online content editor at PlausibleDeniability.info, a Washington, DC-based website. It was a politically-themed news site with TMZ sensibilities. “I need you there tonight.”
“I cover politics,” Holt argued, leaning against the glass doorway to his editor’s corner office. “I don’t do entertainment. You’ve got people for that. Besides, I’m still prepping for the trip to Barcelona and the G12 meetings. This SECURITY Act thing is huge.”
The editor scratched her head, her face glued to her desktop monitor even while she spoke with Holt. “I know, but I’ve got one reporter on maternity leave, another out sick, and a third in rehab.”
“That’s my problem because…?”
“Plus, I may have to send someone to a developing story in Virginia. Some ambush on a highway. Not sure yet. What I do know is that I trust you. I value you,” She looked up from the screen and clasped her hands in prayer. “I’m asking you to do this as a favor.”
“It’s a drug overdose,” Holt countered, not wanting to budge.
“He was the biggest thing in music,” she answered. “Go down there, dig a little, eat some barbecue, file a couple of stories, and fly back.”
“You’re not really asking, are you?”
“Not really.” The editor winked at him. “Thank you, Dillinger. You’re the best.”
“Fine.” Holt spun on his boot heel and left the editor to her computer. He wove his way through the maze of cubicles to the opposite end of the expansive newsroom and his small, windowless office.
He plopped himself down at his desk, the door still open, and picked up his desk phone.
“Travel,” he said, “this is Dillinger Holt. I need an open-end
ed ticket to Houston, Texas, a hotel room, and a rental car.” He cradled the phone in his neck and opened his laptop. “Downtown, please. A midsize car is fine.”
He opened his browser to a search engine and typed “Horus music death drugs Houston.” He knew that keyword search would populate the most recent news about the singer. He’d start with that and work backwards.
“Four o’clock?” he asked, checking his watch. “From Reagan? I can make it. Thanks.” He hung up the phone and looked at the search results on his screen.
There were offers for concert tickets, a Wikipedia article already updated with the performer’s death date, and Horus’s official website.
Holt scrolled past all of that to the most recent news accounts of his death. He found one that piqued his interest and clicked on it: “Dead Singer Foretold of Death, Warned He Was Target”
Houston—Popular hip-hop artist Horus may have known his days were numbered. The twenty-three-year-old superstar, who skyrocketed up the charts with hits such as “Cleopatra” and “1776”, told friends he feared for his life.
“He was, like, always looking over his shoulder,” said a close associate who agreed to speak with us on the condition we do not reveal his/her identity. “He was talking about buying a piece, for protection, you know. And he was always recording conversations with people. He called it ‘insurance’.”
Houston Police, who call Billboard’s Artist of The Year the victim of a possible overdose, say they have no reason to suspect foul play. The toxicology results are not expected for weeks, but investigators say they did find drug paraphernalia in the singer’s backstage dressing room. They also found what they believe are packages that contain what they believe is heroin residue.
His body was discovered by a security guard after a sold-out concert in Houston, Texas. That guard says Horus was in the room with a female companion. She left after a half hour, and when the singer didn’t respond to a knock on the door, the guard entered the room. He found the singer unresponsive and called 9-1-1.
Police say they have not been able to identify the woman seen leaving the room, but they are convinced the death was accidental. Horus’s friends knew him to have an addiction problem.
“He was hooked on smack,” said one acquaintance. “He was always high. This isn’t a surprise.”
“He was so talented,” said another. “But he was haunted by demons.”
Was it the “demons” that had Horus afraid for his life?
“Maybe there is more to this,” Holt considered, mumbling to himself. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts to see who he knew in Houston. Finding nothing, he thumbed to the search bar and typed in “Houston.” Two names popped up. One was a political science researcher for the Baker Institute at Rice University. The other…
“Bingo!”
Holt slapped shut the laptop, slipped it into a messenger bag next to his desk, and slung it across his shoulder. He’d make his flight, but he’d have to hustle.
*
Ronald Reagan walked into James Baker’s office in the early days of his first term as president and said to his chief of staff, “James, this is a mighty big office.”
“Yes, it is,” replied the lawyer from Houston, smiling back at the affable commander-in-chief.
“It’s not oval,” Reagan said, chuckling.
Matti thought about the retelling of that story as she sat in Chief of Staff Goodman’s corner office. She’d heard Baker himself relay the exchange to a gathering of politicos six months earlier while they worked to stabilize the reeling nation.
President Jackson worked hard to mine the experience of diplomats on both sides of the aisle. She publicly proclaimed a true post-partisan Washington, not the false compromise so many before her promised but failed to deliver. Baker had become a close ally, along with Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, and former presidents Clinton, Bush, and Carter.
“Matti,” Goodman prompted, “are you with us?”
“Yes, sir.” Matti blinked back to attention. She flexed her hand to control an imperceptible tremor. “I’m sorry. I was thinking.”
Goodman leaned against his desk, loosened his tie, and turned his attention back to the president. She was seated between her chief National Security Advisor and the Homeland Security secretary. “As I was saying, Sir Spencer Thomas is no longer in custody. We have no idea where he might be or who is responsible for the attack that freed him.”
“No idea?” President Jackson turned her head to look across the room to CIA director, Will Dixon. “Is it Tea Party folks, Will? Is it ISIS? The Russians?”
Her national security team suggested a meeting in the situation room, a fifty-five-hundred-foot complex in the West Wing’s basement. The president insisted on a group of advisors in the less formal setting of the COS office.
“The Tea Party has never shown a propensity for violence,” answered Director Dixon. “Thomas’s group was radicalized. They weren’t really part of the Tea Party.”
“And the others?”
“ISIS would have claimed responsibility.” Dixon shook his head. “There would already be a viral video on YouTube from some cleric damning us to Hell. The Russians? Maybe. We have analysts listening to the communications and trying to isolate any satellite transmissions.”
“Did we have any eyes flying over the area at the time?” Goodman asked.
“We’re checking that right now,” answered the National Security Advisor. “Given its proximity to Washington, there’s a really good possibility we’ll be able to isolate something.”
“How quickly?” The president stood from her seat and walked to Goodman’s desk.
“A few hours at most.”
Goodman was thumbing his Blackberry, talking as he read updates. “The media is on it. It’s on Twitter, and the Post is reporting a major incident involving a prison transport. They don’t have much information, but it’s only a matter of time.”
“Any video or photographs from the scene?” asked President Jackson.
“No,” Goodman replied, “not yet. And there shouldn’t be. There’s a wide perimeter around the scene and the airspace is capped.”
“Then the bigger question here,” President Jackson said, leaning against Goodman’s desk, her hip bumping his, “is how we handle this publicly.”
“Agreed,” said Goodman.
“It’s a matter of minutes before the media goes with this ad nauseam,” said Dixon. “Damn vultures.”
“Do we hold a briefing and get ahead of it?” Goodman half-asked, half-suggested.
“I don’t know that we should—” the National Security Advisor said before the president held up her finger.
“We should get ahead of this.” She nodded. “I like Brandon’s thought. Though I think we stay away from some of the particulars.”
“What particulars?” asked Matti. Everyone in the room spun to look at her. It was the first thing she’d uttered since arriving sweaty and out of breath.
“I want the director of the Marshal’s Service standing next to me,” the president said. “Get her butt to cross the Potomac ASAP. She’ll handle most of the questions.”
“Who briefs her?” asked the National Security Advisor. “Since she was not included in this meeting?”
“Do I detect sarcasm?” President Jackson.
“No, Madam President.”
“Then you can brief her.”
“Yes, Madam President.”
“I’ll handle the overview,” said the president, her eyes moving from person to person. “I’ll talk about the incident, thank our brave men and women in uniform, blah, blah, blah.”
“What about the threat?” asked Goodman. He’d grabbed a pad from his desk and was jotting down the president’s instructions.
“I want Homeland Security to talk about our efforts to determine the perpetrators,” she answered. “Everyone good?”
When everyone nodded, President Jackson ushered her guests to the door.
“What particulars will you avoid?” Matti repeated her unanswered question, resuming the meeting before everyone could adjourn.
President Jackson looked at Matti and licked her lips, then conceded her intentions. “We’re telling everyone Spencer Thomas is dead.”
“Why?” Matti questioned.
“Because we are.”
“Madam President, I—”
“Matti,” the president said, invoking a motherly tone as best she could, not ever having been a mother, “we’ll talk about this in the Oval in a minute. Go wait for me. I’ve got some calls to make first. I need to talk with some folks about the SECURITY Act. Everyone else is excused. We’ll have the briefing in an hour. Brandon, tell the press office.”
The chief of staff rounded his desk to get on the phone. The president strode from the office and down the hall, through her private dining room, and into her private study adjacent to the Oval Office.
The rest of the staff filed out of the room, leaving Matti alone with Goodman. He was holding the phone in the crook of his neck, his fingers poised above the number pad.
“I don’t get it,” Matti said to Goodman.
“What’s that?” he asked, waiting to dial.
“Lying to the American people about this,” she said. “I don’t get it.”
“It would be stranger if we told the whole truth, Matti. You should know that by now.”
Matti nodded and flexed her hand. The tremor was getting worse.
CHAPTER 4
NORTHERN VIRGINIA
Sir Spencer Thomas was the man everyone needed but nobody wanted. He’d always been the man in the background, the out-of-focus character at the edge of a scene. However, he had more power by proximity than almost anyone in the Western world.
He’d counseled Secretary of State John Kerry during the Iranian nuclear arms talks in early 2015 while at the same time he was on the phone with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, suggesting the appropriate level of public outrage.
