He hurried towards his office, Tweed Courthouse, embracing the grandeur and class from two centuries earlier as he bounded up the grand staircase. Seventy-five thousand teachers, educating over one million students in the New York area, required his leadership.
“Mr. Carlyle,” greeted the security guard on the door.
“Morning, Jim, beautiful day.”
“Kathy,” he said, tipping his head to his PA as he swept into his office. His walk had invigorated him, he felt good. His cell chimed, notifying him a message had arrived. He checked the time, 7.48 a.m. His mood changed instantly, messages that early were never good.
He extracted his cell from his pocket, and read the message. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Our time is now.”
Four words. Four words that meant the world to him. Four words that his career had been founded on, the reason he was an educator. The reason he had sold his soul to ensure he became chancellor. He unlocked his bottom drawer and extracted a lockbox. He removed the key he kept around his neck and unlocked the box. He opened the lid, his hands shaking. He was sure, just like the many thousands around the country in his position. He wasn’t the only one who would have received the text. Thousands like him, senior managers within federal, state, and local government had spent years building their careers to enable them to play their part.
An army had been awoken, an army with no weapons, an army whose pen really was mightier than the sword.
America was on the brink of a new dawn.
Chapter 48
The ear-piercing scream reverberated around the walls. The hardness of the concrete encased the sound, lengthening the life of the stomach churning cry. The pliers crushed downwards, there was little more for them to do. The two pincers were almost back together. Uday strained with all his energy to bring them together. A pop sounded as the testicle finally gave way. The scream, to the surprise of everyone in the room, intensified. The man’s larynx was in danger of popping also.
Joe couldn’t stop watching. His eyes were taped open and his head restrained in place. He had no option other than to watch. The young Iraqi had done something to upset Uday Hussein. Joe had no idea what, although whatever it was the young man was clearly paying a very dear price. Uday moved to the second testicle. Joe’s empty stomach heaved, his body convulsed, muscles in his neck strained violently. Unable to flex, he winced in pain. The young Iraqi’s eyes pleaded with Uday, words failed to form in the young man’s mind, pain consumed him.
Joe wept as he watched Uday strain once again, putting every ounce of effort into destroying the young man’s manhood. It wasn’t the first time Joe had witnessed such obscene torture. It was almost common practice, leaving no doubt as to the insanity of Saddam’s eldest son. Tears fell, not for the young Iraqi’s manhood but for what Joe knew would come after the young man had been destroyed as a man, after hours of the most intense pain that a human could possibly bear: a bullet to the head as the young man lost consciousness.
Joe was forced to witness torture, rape, murder, whatever Uday decided was his choice for the day. All Joe had to do to stop him and help the young men and women was tell the truth. Joe was hoarse from telling Uday the truth, however, Uday never believed him. He’d been telling Uday and every one of the Iraqis the truth from day one, yet still they marched the young men and women in, torturing, raping and killing them, all because of Joe.
“They are all on your conscience,” explained Uday calmly. “I am only doing this because you continue to lie to us.”
Joe struggled violently against his restraints. He wanted to rip Uday’s throat out. He fought as hard as his restraints would allow, and felt them begin to give way. The chair that was screwed to the cold hard concrete slipped beneath him. Every muscle in his body wanted to get to Uday, to stop him. He fell from the chair, crashing to the concrete. He was free.
Joe jumped up, Sandy stared at him, the bedclothes she had been tugging at still in her mouth. She had been pulling at him to wake him from his nightmares. It had been a terrible night, he’d hardly slept, catching a few minutes here and there between the memories. Memories undulled and in brilliant Technicolor for the first time in years. That was the reason he drank. The memories, hideous memories that he’d promised never to forget yet never wanted to relive. The alcohol had blurred them. Sober Joe had to relive them as though the incidents had happened yesterday. Although the Librium would help with many the affects of the alcohol withdrawal, it would not help with the reason he drank it to begin with.
He patted Sandy. She kept the worst at bay. When his mind got too close to the truly horrific memories, she seemed to know and woke him. He stared at himself in the mirror, his first night in a bed in so many years, and he looked more tired than when he’d climbed in eight hours earlier. Soaked in sweat, his hair matted to his head, he wasn’t a pretty sight. He popped a Librium and a pint of water before walking out onto the deck and plunging into the pool. Whatever was wrong with the pool, he wasn’t sure, it felt amazing. He swam a few laps. It had been days since he’d had a swim, and it helped clear his mind, although it was usually an alcohol numbed mind he was clearing. He pushed on, picking up the pace, his body enjoying the punishment. His muscles began to burn. Sandy joined him for two laps before pulling herself back out. Joe was in the zone and not in the mood to play. He powered through the laps, the twenty yard pool awash with his wake. His legs kicked harder and his arms drove his body on, faster and faster, twenty laps became fifty, fifty became seventy-five. He pushed himself still more, a hundred laps. He eased off, smacking the wall in triumph, one hundred laps. He felt exhilarated, he felt good.
Exercise was going to be his thing. If he was going to have an addiction, he may as well have one that made him feel better for a change. He pulled himself out and slapped his stomach.
Won’t be there much longer, he promised himself.
He walked back into the apartment. It was minimalist, and the designer obviously had a thing for wood and brushed steel. As a work of art, he couldn’t fault it, as a home it was beyond clinical. The workmanship and quality of every single detail was exquisite to the point he was scared to touch or do anything. Not that he had much to do. So far, pretty much everything was done for him. When he walked into a room, the lights went on, and the music playing in the previous room or the TV station he had been watching would project onto the wall of the next room, even the restroom. The apartment sensed his every movement, his every motion. He walked towards the shower cabinet, the shower started, he hadn’t touched anything; it sensed his presence and assumed he might want a shower. He stepped back, the shower cut off. The apartment was state of the art, sensor and voice controlled, or, if he preferred, a keypad. It was quite literally blowing his mind. He walked into the shower cabinet.
“Ah, too hot!” he said. It cooled automatically. He wasn’t impressed. He looked for a knob or switch, there was nothing. He had no control over his own shower. The fact he had complete control was lost on him.
He showered quickly, didn’t even attempt the kitchen, frightened it would start making him breakfast and truly freak him out.
He dressed in his Marine outfit and with Sandy dressed in her service vest, closed the apartment door behind him. Amy opened the door to the main house, almost as though she had been waiting for him.
“Morning!” she called. “I was waiting for you.”
Sherlock didn’t have a look in, thought Joe, throwing a wink to Sandy. She looked back at him blankly. You’re no Watson, he concluded, shaking his head in disappointment.
“Good morning,” he replied to Amy.
“Sleep well?”
“Never better,” Joe lied.
“I’ve got an Uber coming,” said Amy, locking her door.
“We’re going to walk to work, if that’s okay,” Joe said awkwardly, not wanting to appear ungrateful for Amy welcoming them both into her home. “I should probably get some new clothes as well.”
Amy clap
ped her hands excitedly. “Shopping trip, yippee!”
Joe looked at Sandy. She was looking at him and he would swear she was thinking exactly the same as him. Yes, Amy had said “yippee.”
“After work?” asked Joe, hiding the dread he was already feeling at the thought.
“It’s a date!”
Chapter 49
Clay woke with the greatest sense of unease he had experienced in a very long time. He hadn’t felt that way since… he shuddered, it was the day he didn’t talk about. The day he had sold his best friend in the world down the river for his own gain. If he wanted to be fair to himself, he had thought his best friend had died and he was merely rescuing himself from what would have been an embarrassing situation. He had never intended for things to transpire as they had, it had all gotten out of control. One lie had led to another and before he knew it, he was on a path where going anywhere other than forward was impossible. No matter how he sugar-coated it, he had destroyed his friend’s life.
The memories were ones he had spent many years suppressing, a time of his life he never wanted to revisit. He climbed quietly out of bed, careful not to wake Val, dressed, and made his way to the office. He needed to keep his mind busy and away from the past. Not that the present was any better, with his daughter kidnapped and another being threatened in his own house. How had they managed that? How could they have entered the private residence without alerting the Secret Service? Even if there were Secret Service members he couldn’t trust, there were security cameras. The system had been upgraded after the assassinations; it was, he was assured, never going to go down again.
He changed direction and walked towards the security offices, his security detail falling in behind dutifully.
“Good morning, Mr. President, where are you going?” asked Mike, his lead agent, appearing at his side as he entered an area of the White House he had never before ventured into.
“I want to check how the new video system’s working.”
Mike dismissed the rest of the detail and escorted the president himself.
“I’ll show you around,” said Mike eagerly.
Clay’s cell buzzed, he tried not to look. It buzzed again as he neared the doorway to the security center. Two buzzes in quick succession.
Clay took out his cell, stepping back from the doorway that Mike was about to open. He opened the messages, three in total, all photos. All looked like they were mistakes, three dark photos with little to see. It took Clay a few seconds to realize what they were. They would have meant nothing to anyone else in the world yet to Clay they meant the world to him. His family asleep in their beds. He recognized through the darkness the shapes and sleeping positions that he’d spent their lives looking in on.
Six feet in front of him stood a doorway that led into a room where somebody had just issued a threat to his entire family.
“Everything okay, Mr. President?” Mike’s concern at Clay’s reaction to the messages was clear.
Clay wanted to ask for Mike’s service weapon, storm into the room, and shoot whoever was in there. His reaction was somewhat more measured.
“Fine, everything’s fine. We need to get back to the Oval Office,” said Clay, using every ounce of acting ability he had to cover his fury. He turned as Mike’s facial reaction suggested that he didn’t believe for a second Clay was fine.
Two hours later and with his fury unspent, Clay paced his office. He wanted to wring their necks, snap their scrawny, treasonous spines. Ramona had taken one look at Clay’s face on arrival into Oval Office and cancelled a number of his engagements. A group of visiting Boy Scouts of America would be greeted by the first lady instead. Ramona knew they would be disappointed, though nowhere near as disappointed as they would be if they met Clay in the mood he was in.
She racked her brain for things she knew made him feel better. Ultimately, with everything going on in the world it was hardly surprising he wasn’t in the greatest of moods, but she had never seen him like that previously. His voice boomed from behind the closed door.
The latest victim exited the Oval Office, the uppity bitch from the FBI, the head of the National Security Branch, the one who had upset Ramona a few days earlier. She was hard-nosed and full of herself. She had swept in with a patronizing smile, supposedly genuine, though Ramona knew better, and the refreshment ban remained in place. However, even Ramona felt sorry for her on her exit, wiping a tear from her eye and shuffling past Ramona, a shadow of the confident woman that had entered. Ramona was surprised at herself, she thought she would have reveled in the bitch’s fall from her overinflated pedestal. Instead, she got up; it was time for a Ramona intervention. If he could do that to the hard-nosed bitch from the FBI, God knows what he’d do to anyone else.
Ramona knocked and walked into the Oval Office.
“You’ve got an hour until your next meeting. I suggest you get your shit together, Mr. President.” She wasn’t wagging her finger or swaying while she talked, yet the dressing down was as good as any grandmother had ever delivered. “Go for a walk, a run, or there’s a new pool man, take a swim even.” His mood changed in an instant.
Chapter 50
The small business jet drew to a stop next to a fleet of vehicles consisting of four Suburbans and a stretch limo. Every one of the Suburban passenger doors was open. Twelve men stood on guard, their eyes scanning every potential threat, their hands at the ready to draw their weapons. The limo sat motionless, its doors firmly closed, its occupant safe behind the bullet proof glass, and his close protection detail.
Elsa stepped off the plane tentatively. She hadn’t expected a welcome and there was little chance that any welcome would be a warm one. The security detail followed her every move. Two stepped forward as she neared the limo. One held out his hand while the other placed his hand on the grip of his pistol. Both men towered over Elsa, tall imposing figures, groomed to perfection in bespoke suits. It was an impressive and imposing show.
“Ma’am, your weapons please?” asked the guard with his hand outstretched, his manners impeccable.
“Really?” asked Elsa, looking around behind the guard to the limo. It remained cut off from the outside world, the darkened windows and reinforced doors closed.
Elsa handed over her pistol. The guard’s hand remained in place awaiting more. She pulled her back-up pistol from the inside of her ankle. His hand remained. Elsa pulled out a switchblade and added it to the pile in the guard’s oversized hand. It remained unmoving, clearly wanting more.
“What? I’ve got nothing…” Elsa said, her hands outstretched, palms facing upwards.
The guard’s gaze fell to her waistline.
Elsa followed his gaze. “Like what you see?”
The guard failed to respond with anything other than a calculating stare that had already deprived her of her small arsenal of weaponry.
“The throwing knives,” he said after an uncomfortable and awkward silence had fallen between them. She wasn’t, as he had hoped, going to give them up voluntarily.
With a huff she dug into her beltline and withdrew the four throwing knives, her favored weapons. With the four blades deposited on his hand, he stepped back out of the way. Elsa walked forward and with an all clear from every one of the twelve guards surrounding the area, the limo door swung open, an electric motor doing the work for the passenger sitting comfortably in the back. He was an older man in his eighties, dressed impeccably in one of the most perfectly tailored suits she had ever seen, emanating power and presence that beckoned Elsa forward.
“Elsa, my darling, come in,” greeted the man with a welcoming smile.
Elsa was not fooled by the warmth of the reception; it was the only look the man ever had. She had watched that same welcoming smile pull the trigger and kill three people.
“Daddy, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
Elsa was the daughter her father had never wanted. A cold and calculating man, it was little surprise Elsa had turned out as she had. Her father
had showed her little love or kindness throughout her life. She reminded him of her mother, a woman whom he had loathed to the extent that his role in her death, although ruled accidental, remained questionable. Their relationship was one of blood only. Neither enjoyed nor sought out the other’s company unless absolutely necessary.
Raised by staff, tolerated by her father, Elsa had led a lonely existence as a child in a household where there was little to do except learn to shoot and hunt. Her father’s guards had taken her under their wings and trained the young and eager to learn Elsa in everything they knew, which, given the requirements to obtain a job in her father’s entourage, were extensive. They were all ex-Special Forces from the world’s best units, and her training encompassed the very best the units had to offer. Her father reveled in her abilities and was the only time the young Elsa ever received anything other than a passing acknowledgement from her father. The recognition from her father had driven her on to be better and better, until she finally realized that whatever she did, she would only ever be the daughter he had never wanted.
The relief she felt that day had been like no other, when she finally realized she didn’t need him, just as he didn’t need her. They were too alike, kindred spirits. She was her father’s daughter. Cold, heartless, and utterly ruthless. It was the day she had joined the cause and taken her first life. The day she had found her true self and she had her father to thank for it.
“Where are we going?” she asked as the limo and its convoy began to move.
“I thought we’d have lunch at the Club. You and I. Father and daughter.”
Captive-in-Chief Page 19
