“Special Ops,” Madsen iterated. “I said those units you authorized are with Carver and O’Keefe now. In Baltimore.”
Eva realized she was living on a couple of power naps and a dozen energy drinks, but she was quite sure she hadn’t ordered any supporting units to Baltimore.
“Something wrong?” Madsen said. He handed her a printout of the email from EHudson@fortcampbell.mil ordering two units of Green Berets to Baltimore. “You wrote this, right?”
But of course she had not. Still, she considered her options. Admitting that Agent Carver had pulled an end run would undermine the Colonel’s confidence in her authority. She decided to avoid the question and take the matter up with Carver upon his return. “Is there anything else, Colonel?”
“Uh, yeah. Are you ready for this one? Intel ID’d the guys that went after you up in Martha’s Vineyard. Their names showed up in the database.”
“Which database?”
“DOD’s. Both were retired Marines.”
She remembered seeing the men’s bodies on the Edgartown Street moments after Agent Rios had gunned them down. She envisioned the tide of fluids running down the sidewalk and the thickets of brown hair atop their heads. But she had not looked at their faces. Despite Carver’s assertions that this was not the work of Allied Jihad, she had subconsciously assumed the assassins were foreign. Russians, maybe, or North Africans or extremist Saudis. Those nationalities fit the stereotypes. Those ideas were somehow palatable. Now she was faced with the possibility that her own countrymen — soldiers, no less — wanted her dead.
“Not active duty?” Eva said.
“No.”
“I need to see their files for myself.”
“For some reason, the files are sealed. The Joint Chiefs could authorize a look. Barring that, you’d have to call the President and get an executive order.”
An executive order. That would be nice. That would be everything.
Eva thanked the Colonel, walked back to her office and dialed Agent Carver. As the phone rang, she opened the drawer and took out the bottle of Ativan. She removed one pill and broke it in half. Just to take the edge off.
Baltimore
5:15 a.m.
Carver, O’Keefe and the twelve Special Ops soldiers of Viper Squad gathered next to a pair of grey Humvees on the city’s western edge. In what was easily the most dilapidated slum Carver had ever seen, it was still dark enough that the strike force blended into the shadows. Except for a few lunatics jawing on the other side of the street, the streets had been emptied by Ulysses patrols sent in to enforce martial law.
Master Sergeant Hundley, a square-jawed soldier who resembled a walking side of beef, handed out battle gear. Green Berets had the best of the best — state-of-the-art body armor, night-vision goggles, hands-free radios and a new prototype assault rifle that carried forty-round clips and weighed less than five pounds.
This wasn’t Carver’s first mission with Hundley. While in CIA counter-terrorism, Carver had led a joint op with Hundley’s recon unit in the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hundley had seemed far too fearless for his own good, and Carver was somewhat surprised to find that the Sergeant was not only still alive, but also that he still had the arms and legs he had been born with. All but one of the Green Berets in Hundley’s unit were combat veterans; three had prosthetics, including a Staff Sergeant with artificial legs that were every bit as nimble as the real thing.
“Saddle up,” Carver called out. The men and women of Viper Squad slid into either side of the unit’s Humvees. Nico was cuffed into the second vehicle — not because they needed him for this leg of the operation, but because there was nobody else to babysit him.
Carver’s phone buzzed. He answered without thinking and found himself on the line with Eva Hudson. She sounded pissed.
“I give you credit for ingenuity,” Eva started, “but unless you clue me into what’s going on right now, I’ll have Colonel Madsen order the Green Berets to take you and O’Keefe into custody.”
He considered faking a bad connection. He couldn’t risk having her stop the operation now. They were too close.
“If you hang up, the next person I dial is Sergeant Hundley.”
Carver was cornered. He checked his watch. It had now been nearly forty-four hours since he’d heard from Speers. That was far too long. He was likely dead. It was either clue Eva in and accept her authority, or risk the operation.
Carver spotted a pay telephone across the street. “I’m calling you on a land line,” he announced. The public phone wasn’t exactly secure, but it was probably safer than his lightly encrypted cell phone. He went to it and called Eva. He gave her the sixty-second version of how the President himself — through Speers — had ordered him to investigate Ulysses.
“And there’s something else,” Carver added. “Someone from the Bureau called O’Keefe and asked us to back off of the investigation of the Monroe bomber, Faruq Ahmed.”
“That shouldn’t surprise you. Typical FBI territorialism.”
“But it wasn’t. I made a few calls. Right after the attacks, Ulysses evacuated the West Virginia field office. The person who supposedly called me hasn’t had basic phone service since the attacks. He hasn’t even been able to log into the network since yesterday morning.”
“You’re swimming in deep waters,” Eva said.
“All I know is that I need to get to Elvir Divac before they do.”
“I’ll give your operation my blessing, but I’ve got a mission of my own. I’m prepared to offer Nico Gold a pardon when this is all over if he solves one riddle.”
“But we’re about to mobilize,” Carver protested.
“Then mobilize. Have someone get him in front of a computer. Then have him call me. The future depends on it.”
Carver hung up, checked his watch, and turned to O’Keefe. “Eva wants to use boy wonder to check something out. It can’t wait.”
“Guess I’m with baby,” O’Keefe said cheerfully.
“Don’t sound so disappointed.”
“I’m a thinker,” O’Keefe said, “Not a fighter.”
Rapture Run
The enlisted barracks was a cool, wet limestone cavern some 200 feet below ground and 50 yards southwest of the bunker’s subterranean command center. It was linked to the main complex by a stone floor hallway with real stalactites hanging from the ceiling. The Army Corp of Engineers had not yet wired the barracks for electricity, so battery-operated LED lanterns were spaced every twenty yards along the treacherous walkway. In the barracks themselves, two hundred bunk beds were arranged in clusters of eight. Buckets collecting dripping groundwater sat everywhere.
Julian Speers slept on a bottom bunk in the middle of the cavern. Something woke him and he shot up, smashing his head against the metal bed frame. A large hand covered his mouth as he cried out. “Shhh,” a Ulysses soldier whispered. “My turn to sleep.” Speers focused, recognizing the soldier as his designated bunk buddy. Rapture Run was overcapacity, and the White House Chief of Staff had been asked to share a bunk with the rank and file.
Speers slowly pulled himself upright. The exhausted soldier wasted no time in sliding under the still-warm wool blankets. Speers rubbed the growing knot on his head and stood in the middle of the barracks, getting his bearings.
He had been dreaming about Eva Hudson. She was the rightful next in line, and the way the Joint Chiefs were operating, she’d never find out. He had to contact her. How he would do this was another matter. Not only had Corporal Hammond confiscated his work phone, but he had also been denied use of the facility phones.
After a few minutes of searching, he eventually found Hammond’s empty bunk. With bed space at such a premium, Speers found it odd that Hammond wouldn’t have given someone else a chance at his shift. Speers ambled down the slippery lamp-lit limestone corridor until he came to the Command Room. It was still fully-staffed, even at this early hour. The officer on watch was the junior officer, a Second Lieutenant, in Major Dobb’s CENTAF unit. He busied himself by reviewing a list of DEFCON 2 communication protocols.