CHAPTER 6
The hand shook him again. “Mr. President, I need you awake. I need you awake now!”
Chaz Bradley opened his eyes and blinked two or three times. Three Secret Service agents stood over his bed.
The nearest agent spoke. “Mr. President, we have a confirmed Wildfire Event. We have orders to escort you down to the bunker.”
In the bed next to Chaz, Paige turned over and lifted her head. “What’s going on?”
“You too, ma’am,” the agent said. “We need to get you both down to the bunker immediately.”
Chaz searched his memory for the code word Wildfire. He’d heard it before. Seen it in briefings, probably. But it was one of the obscure terms that he hadn’t bothered to memorize. Something esoteric that he was never going to need.
He glanced up in time to see a look pass between the Secret Service agents. Chaz might not remember the significance of code word, but he knew what that look meant. If he and the first lady didn’t get moving pretty quickly, the agents would sacrifice decorum for expedience and physically bundle them both off to the bunker, willing or not.
Out of respect for his office, the agents would avoid using force if they could possibly avoid it. But their priorities were set by law, and reinforced by rigorous indoctrination and training. The president’s personal safety was a matter of national security. His personal dignity was not.
Chaz sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Refresh my memory,” he said. “What’s a Wildfire Event?”
“Nuclear detonation,” the nearest agent said. “On or in close proximity to U.S. soil.”
Paige and Chaz were both out of bed and reaching for robes before the man finished his sentence.
“Is this a drill?” Chaz asked. “Tell me this is a drill.”
The agent gave one shake of his head. “I’m afraid not, sir. National Command Authority is reporting a confirmed Wildfire Event.”
Chaz wanted to grab the man and shake him. “Where? Are we under attack? How many detonations?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President,” the agent said. “CP didn’t brief us on specifics. I don’t have any answers for you, sir. And we really do have to get moving.”
He and Paige started toward the door, belting their robes as they went. The three agents took up a triangular formation around them.
What followed was somewhere between a rapid shuffle and a SWAT maneuver, the agents maintaining a three-sided human barrier around their protectees, taking the fasted route to the emergency elevator.
The bulletproof steel doors opened on-cue, no doubt triggered by some watchful Secret Service agent in the Command Post.
The protection detail hustled Chaz and Paige inside, not relaxing formation when the doors closed and the car began to descend.
Chaz stifled the impulse to fire off a dozen more questions. It wouldn’t do any good. The agents had been told only enough to communicate the urgency of the situation.
So the brief elevator trip was made in silence.
The PEOC (short for Presidential Emergency Operations Center) was a hardened citadel three levels below the East Wing. Nicknamed the bunker during the Reagan administration, the cylindrical shelter was protected by a layered forty-foot blast shield of steel plating, Kevlar, and high-tensile ferroconcrete. The facility housed self-contained life support modules, office spaces, living quarters, computer networks, a communications complex, and an operations room that mirrored the capabilities of the West Wing Situation Room.
When they were through the armored blast doors, Chaz turned and gave his wife a quick hug. “You gonna be okay?”
Paige nodded. From the look in her eye, she was every bit as curious and worried as Chaz was, but she understood the rules of the game. She was an active first lady, deeply engaged in a wide range of high-profile social issues, from health care, to education reform, to immigration, to women’s rights. But her sphere of access and influence did not include national security.
As a human being and marriage partner, she was the equal of her husband. But only one of them had been elected to the highest office in the land.
They couldn’t stay together for this next part. She would be politely escorted to the living quarters, and he would move on to the operations room.
She gave him a wistful smile and returned his hug. “I’m alright. You go ride the pony, Cowboy.”
And she let the Secret Service agents lead her away.
CHAPTER 7
General Rafael Garriga turned up the volume of the phonograph and lowered the needle onto the spinning record. When the hissing crackle of the old shellac disc was joined by a swell of fifties-era bolero music, he walked quietly across his office and locked the door.
The precautions were not strictly necessary. Between the heavily paneled walls, the plush carpeting, and the tight-fitting oak door, his office was effectively soundproofed. Besides which, no one who valued his life or freedom would dare to open the general’s door without knocking. To get even that close, any potential visitor would first have to make it past Garriga’s secretary, Allita, stationed at the end of the hall.
Together, the music, the soundproofing, the locked door, and the secretarial barrier provided as close to a guarantee of privacy as any man could expect in Cuba. And Garriga would not have risen to General of the Army without taking every protective measure available to him.
He settled into his leather chair and unlocked the lower left drawer of his desk. Inside was a mahogany humidor bearing the engraved emblem of Hoyo de Monterrey, along with a bottle of Havana Club Seleccion de Maestros. The cigars and the rum were for important visitors. Garriga never touched either one, except when social circumstances demanded.
In truth, he rarely sampled any of the pleasures that were supposed to be coveted by powerful men in his country. He kept a beautiful young secretary, because such things were expected. On two or three occasions, he had allowed subordinate officers to catch sight of him groping Allita’s backside or breasts in passing. These displays — infrequent as they were — had the intended effect: spreading the idea that the general’s secretary was also his mistress.
Garriga sometimes considered taking the woman to bed, to lend substance to the rumors, if for no other reason. Allita would almost certainly not refuse, given his influence over her career and even her life. But such thoughts were no more than idle notions. He felt no desire for her.
Allita might be a virgin for all he knew, although that seemed rather unlikely. Her presence, accompanied by a perfunctory sexual gesture now and again, was enough to convey the intended impression. Outside of her competence as a secretary, that was all he needed her for.
Garriga didn’t lust after any of the usual trappings of success. Sex; money; fine clothes; alcohol; elegant houses; automobiles; gourmet food; he acquired all of these things because they were necessary symbols of power. He didn’t care about any of them.
The list of things he did care about was short. Very short. Most of the items on that list would have frightened the living Jesus out of anyone who ever discovered the truth.