Speers leaned so close to the specialist that he could smell the man’s cucumber-scented shaving cream. “Is that for real?” he said. “I mean, that’s not some war game, right?”
“Oh it’s real,” the specialist confirmed a little too eagerly.
Syria didn’t even border Iran. Had Iran sent armor through Turkey or Iraq to get to Syria, it would’ve been an international incident. The fact that nobody knew about it had to mean that Iran had been airlifting its tank battalions into Syria quietly for months, and with Syria’s full cooperation.
And there was only one reason Syria would allow Iran to build up such a massive force in its territory — to eliminate a common enemy.
Then the Specialist turned and gave Speers the once-over, and seeing his civilian clothes, said, “Interrogative: should you be here, sir?”
Speers straightened up. “I sent a document to a printer called V11XT. Any ideas?”
The specialist pointed to a large multi-function machine near the Con, where General Wainewright sat on an elevated throne of steel.
Speers found his print job incomplete due to a paper jam. As he cracked open the machine, General Farrell and Dex Jackson converged on Wainewright’s perch at the same time. Speers decided to linger at the machine and see if he could pick up anything juicy.
“Get any shuteye?” he heard Wainewright ask Dex.
“Nah. I heard Fort Campbell debunked the Allied Jihad tape. That set my mind off on all sorts of tangents.”
“Nonsense!” Wainewright shouted. “Fact: Faruq Ahmed was Yemeni, for chrissake, and we have evidence that he personally carried out the suicide attempt on Speaker Bailey.”
“That’s bunk,” Dex shot back. “Our embeds within the Allied Jihad say they never heard of the guy.”
Speers loitered a little too long at the printer. Wainewright made him, shooting a glare so cold that the Chief of Staff’s chin quivered. He tapped Farrell and Dex and pulled them into an adjoining room. Wainewright frowned at Speers through the Plexiglas before frosting the glass.
He turned his attention back to Dex. “We have proof,” Wainewright said now that they were alone. “The suicide tape.”
“How’s that?” The corners of Dex’s mouth and the corners of his eyelids succumbed to gravity’s pull. He wore every bit of his trauma on his face.
“Fact: we have a tape made by the Monroe suicide bomber, Faruq Ahmed. He says he speaks for the Allied Jihad. We handed it over to CNN, and they’re running it every fifteen minutes.”
Farrell lit up another cigarette and held it between his thumb and middle finger. “And we’ve located some targets,” he said. “In Yemen. Suspected Allied Jihad cell. The public wants this.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we’re going to take out the target. The American people need this.”
Dex’s face tightened. “Since when do we kill to make the public feel good?”
Wainewright sat at the table and folded his hands before him.
“Dex, the country is in an unprecedented crisis. We need leadership, and there’s no clear line of succession. We’re prepared to make you the next President of the United States.”
Dex leaned back in his chair and took in the proposition. His heart was flapping within his chest at breakaway speed, but he managed to mask his exuberance as he spoke. “What makes you so sure I’d want the job?”
Farrell laughed with abandon. “What do you take us for? We all heard that audio file going around congress during the last election.”
Dex looked up. “What audio file?”
Farrell was enjoying this. “The recording of a certain telephone conversation…” He paused, enjoying seeing Dex squirm. “…featuring a certain Defense Secretary calling the GOP Committee Chair, probing about support for a Presidential run.”
Dex’s face turned red. “So I’m ambitious,” he admitted. “I was critical of the President’s policies. That’s no secret.”
“This would be a chance to be your own man for a change. Do things your own way.”
Dex didn’t trust Farrell, and that went double for Wainewright. But he had always wanted the Presidency, and this administration’s incompetence in foreign policy had made him want it more than ever. Dex hesitated for a moment longer, if only to think about the most graceful way to say I do. “If called,” he uttered lamely, “I will serve.”
Wainewright grinned. “Then demonstrate that you’ll take our advice seriously.”
“If you mean Yemen…” Dex said in a near whisper.
“Dex,” Wainewright said firmly, “understand that we don’t need your permission to do this. We’re calling the shots right now, and nobody on God’s green earth could stop us.”
“But we’d rather work as a team,” Farrell told Dex. “We’d be the brains, you’d be the face. Offer’s on the table.”
Dex shook Wainewright’s hand, then Farrell’s. “I’ll support the strike,” he said. “But we’d better have something credible to take to the press.”
Farrell smiled and dragged on his cigarette.
Yemen
Five men sat around a campfire, telling jokes. The camp smelled like goat dung and saffron-spiced stew. There was absolutely no wind.
At night they cordoned the camp off with temporary fencing that they transported on a sled pulled by a pair of horses. The fencing allowed the children to play at night without their mothers chasing after them. It also allowed the herders to sleep without worrying about predators getting to the flock.
Suddenly three of the horses trotted out from behind a canvas tent. They were spooked. One of the men stood up, clutching a Kalashnikov rifle and gently shooed them away with one hand. Then more horses came through camp, picking up speed as they approached the perimeter. They were out of control. The man with the Kalashnikov aimed at the first horse as it leaped over the fence. Not because he wanted to shoot it. But because he hoped to prevent the others from following it into the black yonder.
The other men shined their lights in the opposite direction, looking for the predator that had made the animals restless. There was no sign of anything.
They heard the high-pitched screech an instant before everything vanished in a flash of white light.
Fort Campbell
10:15 a.m.
The base’s Joint Ops media center was a cramped trailer with a low ceiling and the decor of a charter school library. Eva found Carver there at his laptop. He was hooked into the CIA Ethernet, which, for security reasons, still required a regular Ethernet cable. Eva glimpsed an Oklahoma State University faculty dossier on his monitor before Carver sensed her presence and clicked to a safety screen.
Eva stood behind him with her hips cocked to the side. “Anything I should know about?”
Carver tried to hide his annoyance. “No, Madam Secretary.”
“You do realize who you’re talking to.”
Carver figured that given the high level assassinations, Eva was now the second or third most powerful person in the United States, depending on whether the Vice President survived his wounds. But he had sworn his silence and loyalty not only to Speers, but to the President himself. “With all due respect,” he told her, “you’re a paper billionaire.”
“You’ll have to spell that out for me.”
“Regardless of what glorious title you might inherit, you’re not at Site R with the President right now. That really limits your influence.”
Eva pulled up a plastic chair and sat across from him. “I’m going to tell you something that I haven’t told anyone. The President’s broadcast last night was shot at least two years ago.”