The President is Missing: A Matt Blake Novel (Matt Blake Series Book 3)

by Russell Moran

  After I got off the phone with Sarah Watson, I looked at Captain Keaton, the ONI honcho, who appeared chastened. Is this asshole in charge of Naval Intelligence or Naval Stupidity? I wondered.

  “Captain, please coordinate your efforts with the FBI,” I said. “They’re on top of this case.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Keaton said. “ONI sometimes doesn’t move as fast as it should.”

  I just stared at him.

  I met with President Benson for our regularly scheduled morning briefing.

  “We’re seeing the early indications of a high level mutiny, Mr. President” I said. “The sub captain’s assets swelled by 10 million last month. The money was deposited in an American bank account if you can believe that. The FBI is doing similar checks on every crew member.”

  “We’ve been assuming it was the Russians,” President Benton said. “Do you think this could be a simple mutiny? If so, what do they expect to get from it? So somebody put the 10 million into the captain’s account. It looks like this may be a combination of a mutiny and a foreign hijacking. But the question still remains—why? I think it’s time for me to call Boris Chernekov, the new Russian President. He called me the day of the Louisiana event to give me condolences and bullshit offers of assistance. Everything in my gut tells me the Russians are involved. If it was a mutiny, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t outside help.”

  Chapter 13

  “Tony, have you noticed the accents on the sailors in the hallways?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. Mainly American accents and only occasional Russian. I think this was a Russian hijacking combined with an American mutiny. Every intelligence agency is on top of this, I’m sure. Let’s face it; we’re in the dark. And even if we knew the answers, we don’t know the answer to the big question—what the hell are they up to?”

  General Zhukov, our new host, walked into the room. He didn’t knock, didn’t clear his throat, he just walked in, the medals on his chest jingling. It probably wouldn’t help the situation if I punched this guy’s lights out, but that’s exactly what I felt like doing.

  “Mr. President,” he said. “Your living arrangements will be going through a few changes. You and Mr. Riordan will no longer be in adjacent rooms but will occupy separate quarters.”

  “But what could the problem be with Mr. Riordon and me in the same suite? We’re cut off from the world, obviously. Why can’t we be together?”

  “My orders are not to answer questions. My orders are to give orders. You will now come with me and my comrades.”

  We were placed in blindfolds—fucking blindfolds. My handler escorted me down a long corridor where I was shoved, not too gently, into a room. It wasn’t the pleasant quarters we had gotten used to; it was more like a prison cell. There was a short cot, barely able to contain my 6’3” body. The room was 10 by 9 feet. A toilet adorned the corner of the room, along with a sink. There was a small shower stall that gushed water with the enthusiasm of a leaky pipe. The water was cold. Just as well—there was no soap. No windows, no mirrors, just a blank cell, with an ashtray full of stubbed-out cigar butts. I asked if I could have some reading material, but my handler simply slammed the door shut. Time to think. I had nothing else to do, so I figured I may as well. In the Marines, I’d been involved in enough interrogations to recognize that they were playing with our heads. Solitary confinement is a powerful psychological weapon. With nobody to talk to, your mind wanders from one thought to the next. But why the hell are they doing this? As President of the United States, I’m privy to a lot of top secret information. Maybe that’s what they’re after. I had no idea. Maybe they’re just trying to grind me down mentally so I can’t give a clear explanation of this crap if we ever get out of here.

  They also took my watch, so I had no way to tell time. My prison cell was located on an interior corridor, so I couldn’t even count the days by sunrise and sunset. I was in total sensory deprivation.

  It doesn’t matter what kind of training you’ve had, and I had the best with the Marines. Yes, we did go through solitary confinement scenarios, but they didn’t last long, and they were tempered by the knowledge that it was just a training exercise. I realized that it doesn’t matter what position you hold. Forget that I’m the President of the United States. The simple fact is that I’m a prisoner in solitary confinement.

  I asked for writing materials so I could jot notes for myself. Don’t know why I bothered. Nothing happened. Solitary, according to these guys, is solitary, and that means no reading, no writing. Just be there. I’ve studied the effects of solitary confinement on prisoners, and it’s definitely an extreme type of detention, bordering on torture. A lack of human interaction becomes painful after a while. Your mind feeds on memories, both good and bad.

  I tried to organize my time, whatever the hell time it was, by exercising, something I love to do. 20 pushups, followed by 20 sit ups, followed by a bunch of different leg and arm stretching exercises. That took up 30 minutes, which left me with 23 hours and 30 minutes to account for.

  I thought about Dee. She’s not just my wife, but the love of my life, my best friend. She’s sure that I’m dead, I thought. Everybody thinks I’m dead. Not being able to reach out to her to say I’m okay was the worst part of my confinement. Dee is 39 years old and beautiful. If there is such a thing as objective beauty, Dee’s it. Her hair, her eyes, her gorgeous body—hey stop. What the hell am I doing, I thought, besides torturing myself? I should be able to come up with a match for her. Maybe Rolly Benton. He’s a good-looking guy, a solid citizen, and he comes from an excellent background. He’s President of the United States, no less. Problem is, Rolly is almost 20 years older than Dee. When she’s 65 he’ll be 85. No, gotta be somebody younger.

  Now what the fuck am I doing? I’m flagellating myself with thoughts about finding a suitable mate for my mate. I’m not used to being dead, not in the eyes of other people. But dead I am, and so is Tony. We disappeared in a submarine followed by an explosion. I don’t know all the evidence, but I’m sure these bastards made it look convincing.

  Evidence? If there’s one thing I’ve convinced Dee about, it’s to distrust evidence. When she helped me prepare for trial, I could see that she internalized my warning—don’t trust the evidence. Finally, I came up with a positive thought. Our government may have information that I don’t know about. When the incident occurred, all I felt was the sudden gyration of the sub, followed by the explosion. Admiral Yuschenko seemed to think it was a flawless operation, but what would you expect the guy in charge to say? There may be evidence that I don’t know about, evidence that may convince Dee that I’m alive.

  I need a way to tell time, if only to keep my head from exploding.

  As a kid I once memorized the Gettysburg Address for a school assembly. The speech was 272 words and took three minutes to recite. If I recited it five times in a row it would take 15 minutes. After that I would meditate for 20 minutes. I have long practiced meditation, so I knew internally when 20 minutes went by. After meditation, I would recite the Gettysburg Address another five times. Next came my exercise routine, which I knew was exactly 30 minutes. Then I factored in 20 minutes of free-form thinking. This process—the recitation, the meditation, exercise, and free-form thinking—all took up an hour and a quarter. I found a can opener lying in a corner of my room. I used it to cut notches into the floor, each notch representing an hour. The last time I looked at my watch was before I was transferred to my new quarters. I thought it was 0900—three hours ago, by my estimate. So that’s my starting point – 12:00, Thursday, October 1. At least I had a method of measuring time. Not precise, but close enough for prisoner work.

  Okay, time to get to work:

  “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

  Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicate
d, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

  But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

  During the free-thinking part of my time-keeping routine, I wondered how long it would take to carve those words into General Zhukov’s skull with my can opener. Solitary confinement can make for nasty thoughts.

  Chapter 14

  Matt thinks that we believe he’s dead. I can’t get that thought out of my mind. Our theory, and I think it’s solid, is that the loss of the Louisiana was faked, along with the debris-laden explosion. Does Matt know that? I doubt it. All he probably knows was that the Louisiana was hijacked and an explosion was set off to cover it. He’s a prisoner, God knows where, and he thinks that the world has bought the story, which means that he thinks that I think he’s dead. This is the creepiest thought I can imagine. I love Matt as much as my own life, and there’s nothing I can do to reach out to let him know we’re on top of the situation, that I’m waiting for him. But I’m a widow as far as he knows.

  Matt had a good working relationship with now President Rolly Benton. They were also good friends. Matt’s probably thinking that Rolly has politely cut me off from the White House, and that I’m starting a new life as the former First lady, a new life as a widow. I think he’d be shocked to know that President Rolly has made me his Chief of Staff. That’s because Matt doesn’t know what we know.

  It isn’t easy being a widow to a man you deeply love. It’s even worse being a widow when you’re not.

  I looked at my watch. It was 7:15 a.m., well into the daily schedule of the workaholic Rolly Benton.

  “Mr. President,” I said, “the Prime Minister of India is due in a half-hour. We should go over your briefing papers.”

  India was a good ally of the United States, but, like most allies, not one without difficulties. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a good man, but a well-known ball buster on matters of trade. Especially since the disappearance of the Louisiana, President Benton knew it was time to shore up any cracks in relations with the country’s allies. He shocked Prime Minister Modi with his offer of most favored nation (MFN) status as a trading partner. Of course he didn’t bring this up early in the conversation, but saved it for the end, a good way to send the man away happy.

  After the Prime Minister left, Rolly asked me to stay for a brief meeting.

  “Dee, Admiral Spratt, the submarine boss, apparently has some new information for us. I just got a call from CNO Ashley Patterson. See him as soon as you can, and let me know the outcome.”

  New information? I thought. If it’s new, why the hell didn’t they bring it to my attention before?

  Chapter 15

  “Admiral Spratt is here to see you, Mrs. Blake,” the receptionist said. “Admiral Patterson is with him.”

  Ashley Patterson—Chief of Naval Operations. Spratt’s bringing the boss. They must have something important to talk about.

  “Good morning, Admiral Spratt,” I said. “Hi, Ashley. So you folks have something new about the Louisiana?”

  “A few things, Mrs. Blake,” Admiral Spratt said. “The first concerns personnel and the follow-up to the ONI and FBI investigations. Of the 15 officers and 140 enlisted personnel, we have found financial irregularities in the records of fully half of them. That’s seven officers and 70 sailors. Nothing as dramatic as the $10 million that showed up in Captain Campbell’s account, but enough to make us want to continue investigating.”

  “Also, we’ve tested each piece of debris found in the ocean near the site in question,” Spratt said. “Apparently somebody didn’t get the memo. New naval procurement standards require that a bar code be inscribed on each piece of equipment designated for every ship, sub, plane, or vehicle in the Navy. Not one piece of debris from the Louisiana incident had any bar code—not one. Simply stated, to emphasize what you noticed immediately, the debris did not come from the Louisiana. As you put it, Mrs. Blake, the debris field was a bullshit yard sale.”

  I let that news wash over me like a warm bath. Further evidence that Matt’s alive.

  “But the big thing we want to talk to you about are the nuclear missiles on the Louisiana,” Ashley Patterson said. “We’re concerned—I’m concerned—that they can be retargeted.”

  “But doesn’t the procedure call for a launch code from the President himself?” I asked. “The codes are updated daily, and I personally supervise that operation as I did this morning. How can the missiles possibly be activated?”

  “The current launch code procedure is one that we’ve designed for our own purposes and security,” Ashley said. “Nothing technical requires the launch code procedure, especially with the boat in enemy hands. It would take some serious engineering knowledge, but the missile battery can be reconfigured to a launch-on-command method. What I’m saying, Dee, is that the Louisiana can be turned into a lone wolf stalking the oceans.”

  “All of which brings us back to the central question,” I said. “Why? The Russians have enough of their own nukes to destroy us and we have enough to destroy them. Why the hell would they go through an elaborate deception to steal one of our subs? Of course they’ll get useful intelligence as they pick the bones of our submarine technology. But why? Can anybody give me an answer to that?”

  “You’re talking about strategic matters that are over my pay-grade, Dee,” Admiral Patterson said, “but the simple answer to your question is that I don’t know. If it is the Russians, it doesn’t seem to make any sense. Do you really think that Boris Chernekov is willing to make a horse’s ass out of himself by trying to trade our president and a nuclear submarine for a deal of some sort? Russia would be made to stand in a corner wearing a dunce cap at the UN General Assembly. The facts—as we think we know them—simply don’t add up.”

  “Maybe it isn’t the Russians,” Admiral Spratt said.

  Ashley and I looked at him.

  “What’s your thinking, Pete?” Ashley asked.

  “We think it was the Russians, because they’re the only ones sophisticated enough to pull something like this off. If it was them, can we be sure the Russians will control matters going forward? In other words, is it the Russians who hope to benefit from this plot, or is some other player involved?”

  “When President Benton spoke to Chernekov the other day, he was positive that the Russians had pulled it off,” I said. “But if I understand you, the Russians may have done the deed and will now pass it off to another country?”

  “Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Admiral Spratt said.

  “But what country?” I said. “China? They’re in the same position as the Russians. They have their own arsenal. If they wanted to make war, all they need to do is decide. The Islamic State? A ridiculous idea. They know how to make IEDs and suicide bomb vests. Handling a nuclear submarine is a couple of hundred years beyond them.”

  “What about Iran?” Ashley said. “Remember, they have a new regime, a radical new regime. The current ayatollah makes the rantings of Ahmadinejad sound like Sunday school lectures. Abad Tavana, the
new ayatollah, is, for lack of a better description, a messianic nut case. I could easily picture him as a pal of Chernekov. More than any other mullah we’ve dealt with, that man is committed to the idea that the Twelfth Imam will appear and the infidels will die in a conflagration.”

  “I have a lot to brief the president on,” I said. “Anything else you can think of?”

  “Just one thing,” said Spratt. “Our deep-dive subs and sonar arrays haven’t picked up anything that could be the wreckage of a submarine. Further evidence for your theory.”

  “And further evidence that Matt’s alive,” I said.

  I met with the president and briefed him on my latest meeting with Naval Operations. Every time I enter the Oval Office, which is quite often, I’m hit in the face by a stark reality. Just a few days ago, this was my husband’s office. I can see Matt sitting behind the desk. I can hear his voice, smell his cologne. I think Rolly is aware if that, which is why we often meet in another room.

  “Mr. President, according to the head of NavOps our problem could be getting worse,” I said. “Admiral Patterson explained to me in detail how the sub’s missile firing capabilities can be changed. After a few modifications, a presidential authentication won’t be necessary for a launch. She also described how the targets for the missiles can be reconfigured. Bottom line, sir, the Louisiana can be used against us. We can only speculate on what their plans are for my husband.”

  “And we’re still left to ponder the biggest question of all—why?” the President said.