“What?”
“You told us where those bombers would be and when, and we took care of them for you; you told us about the spaceplane and put them in a position where we could strike—”
“What? You did what with the spaceplane…?”
“Bring McLanahan out into the open,” Zevitin went on, almost breathlessly. “Have Senator Barbeau tell us where he is. I’ll send a team in to sanction him.”
“You mean, a Russian hit team?”
“You don’t want McLanahan’s blood on your hands, Joe,” Zevitin said. “You want him out of the way because he’s much more than an embarrassment to you — he’s a danger to the entire world. He’s got to be stopped. If you have a person on the inside, have him or her contact us. Tell us where he is. We’ll do the rest, and you don’t have to know anything about it.”
“I don’t know if I can do that…”
“If you were seriously considering dispatching him yourself, then you are serious about the danger he poses not just to world peace, but to the safety and very existence of the United States of America. The man is a menace, pure and simple. He is a wild dog that needs to be put down.”
“That’s exactly what I said, Leonid!” Gardner said. “McLanahan has not just crossed the line, but I think he’s become completely unhinged! He’s brainwashed his men to attack American troops…or maybe he’s used that ‘netrusion’ shit to brainwash them. He’s got to be stopped before he takes down the entire country!”
“Then we are of one mind, Joe,” Zevitin said. “I’ll give you a number to call, a safe and secure blind drop, or you can code a message through the ‘hot line.’ You need not do anything except tell us where he is. You need not know a thing. This will be completely deniable.”
There was a long pause on the line; then: “All right, Leonid. Convince your people that America doesn’t want war and has no designs on Russia, and we’ll work together to stop McLanahan.” And he hung up.
This was too good to be true! Zevitin exclaimed to himself. Two of the top politicians in the United States were going to help him assassinate Patrick McLanahan! But who to trust with this project? Not his own intelligence bureau — there were too many shaky alliances, too many unknowns for this type of job. The only person he could trust was Alexandra Hedrov. Her ministry certainly had agents who could do this job.
He went into his bedroom adjacent to his executive office. Alexandra was sitting alone in bed in the darkness. The speakerphone was on; he had hoped she would listen in and be ready to give him advice. She was a valuable adviser and the person he trusted more than anyone in the entire Kremlin. “So, my love,” Zevitin said, “what do you think? Gardner and Barbeau are going to tell us where McLanahan is! I need you to assemble a team, get them into Nevada, and be ready to strike.” She was silent. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, her head down, touching her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs. “I know, love, this is ugly business. But this is an opportunity we can’t miss! Don’t you agree?” She remained still. “Darling…?” Zevitin flipped on the light switch…and saw that she was unconscious! “Alexandra! What’s happened? Are you all right?”
“I can help you there, Mr. President.” Zevitin turned…and standing in his closet, concealed by the darkness, was a figure in a dark gray uniform, a combination of a flight suit and body armor…a Tin Man battle armor system, he realized. He carried a large weapon, a combination sniper rifle and cannon, in his arms. “Raise your hands.”
He did as he was told. “Who are you?” Zevitin asked. He took a step backward…toward the light switch, which if he could flip it off and back on quickly would send an emergency signal to his security team. “You’re one of McLanahan’s Tin Men, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” the man said in an electronically synthesized voice.
“McLanahan sent you to kill me?”
“No,” Zevitin heard a voice say. He turned…and there, wearing another Tin Man battle armor suit but with the helmet removed, was Patrick McLanahan himself. “I thought I’d do that myself, Mr. President.”
Zevitin whirled, pushed McLanahan, lunged for the light switch, and managed to flip it off, then on again. McLanahan impassively watched as Zevitin furiously moved the switch up and down. “Very impressive feat, sneaking past my guards, into my private residence, and into my bedroom,” Zevitin said. “But now you’ll have to fight your way past a hundred trained commandos. You’ll never make it.”
McLanahan’s armored left hand snapped out, closed around Zevitin’s wrist, and squeezed. Zevitin thought his hand had popped completely off his arm, and he sunk to his knees in pain, screaming in agony. “It was about sixty-two guards, and we took care of them all on the way in,” McLanahan said. “We also bypassed your security system’s link to the army base at Zagorsk — they’ll think everything is normal.”
“‘Netrusion,’ I believe you call it?”
“Yes.”
“Ingenious. The whole world will know about it by tomorrow, and soon we’ll unleash it on the rest of the world when we reverse-engineer the technology.”
McLanahan’s right hand whipped out and closed around Zevitin’s neck. His face was purely impassive, emotionless. “I don’t think so, Mr. President,” he said.
“So. You’ve become an assassin now? The great air general Patrick Shane McLanahan has become a common killer. Betraying your oath and disobeying your commander-in-chief weren’t enough for you, eh? Now you’re going to commit the ultimate mortal sin and destroy a life for no other reason than a personal vendetta?”
McLanahan just stood there, no expression on his face, looking directly into Zevitin’s sneering face; then he nodded and replied simply: “Yes, Mr. President,” and he effortlessly squeezed his fingers together and clenched them until the body in his grasp went completely limp and lifeless. The two Americans stood there for a minute, watching the blood pour onto the polished wood floor and the body make a few twitches, until finally McLanahan let the body fall from his grasp.
“Didn’t think you’d do it for a second there, boss,” Major Wayne Macomber said in his electronic voice.
Patrick went into the closet and retrieved his helmet and electromagnetic rail gun. “I’ve been thinking about nothing else for a long time, Whack,” he said. He put on his helmet and hefted his rail gun. “Let’s go home.”
This is all going to shit, President Joseph Gardner said to himself. But it’s not my damned fault. McLanahan needs to be gone, soonest. If he had to make a deal with the devil to do it, so be it.
He went from his private office back into the bedroom suite of the Camp David presidential retreat, where he found his houseguest — the staff sergeant he’d had aboard Air Force One — standing at the wet bar on the far side of the room, wearing nothing but an almost transparent negligee, open all the way down, her hands enticingly behind her. Damn, he thought, that was one hot future Air Force officer! “Hey, honey, sorry to take so long, but it couldn’t wait. Fix us a drink, will you?”
“Fix it yourself, you fucking sleazeball,” he heard, “then go shove it up your ass.” Gardner whirled around…
…and found none other than Senator Stacy Anne Barbeau standing before him! “Stacy!” he blurted. “How in hell did you get in here?”
“Compliments of General McLanahan,” he heard. He turned the other way and saw a figure in some sort of futuristic body armor and helmet standing by the wall. He heard a sound behind him and saw yet another figure in head-to-toe body armor and helmet, carrying a huge rifle, step into the suite.