Osborne shook his head and smiled. Flynn was in.
“How’s your Russian?”
CHAPTER 39
Bethany Briggs squeezed her husband’s hand before leaving his side for the first time to do anything other than use the restroom since her husband was shot. The past twenty-four hours tested her faith in ways she never imagined. Is this really happening?
She turned the door handle before looking back at her husband lying in a coma, fighting for his life. Tears streamed down her face, smearing her mascara. She daubed her wet checks with the back of her hand, unwilling to be seen as a weak woman. Pushing past the two Secret Service agents guarding the door, Bethany made her way down the hall and into a private unoccupied conference room.
Bethany pulled the door shut behind her, locking it. She loved her husband — and she loved her country. And right now, if she believed everything she heard, both were in danger of vanishing as she knew them. The television in the corner of the room displayed images from the chaos interspersed with talking heads opining about the future of America’s leadership or how much longer the President would live.
She pulled out her cell phone and hit redial. Even the most bull-headed of personalities struggled to say no to Diane Dixon. But Bethany didn’t foresee any problems with the request Diane was about to make.
“So what do you want me to do?” Bethany asked, foregoing any formalities as Diane answered.
“I want you to be the acting President,” Diane said.
“What? I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can. Just think of yourself as the second coming of Edith Wilson.”
“I’m not sure I’m following you.”
“When Woodrow Wilson fell ill, it was his wife Edith who kept up pretenses that her husband was still fit to run the country.”
“I know the story — but Wilson wasn’t in a coma. He was just partially paralyzed.”
“Sure, but who’s getting in to see the President these days? Anyone other than his physicians? I can be very persuasive at getting people to keep quiet.”
“Can we legally do this?”
“Can you forge your husband’s signature?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s the answer to your question. Just don’t ask me too many other questions. I need plausible deniability.”
“OK, fine. What do I need to do first?”
Diane explained all the fine details to Bethany before hanging up.
Bethany wondered what her husband — a real patriot — would think about what she was about to do. If it will stop a war, I’m sure he would understand. She was lying to herself and she knew it. Her rationale would be defeated by the President’s principled approach to following protocol and precedence. At least there was one good thing about him being in a coma.
CHAPTER 40
Ivan squatted in the dark, hoping his hunch was right. So far, things were going according to plan. The President was sidelined and his replacement was itching to fire missiles in the air and start the next world war.
Yet a fly in the ointment remained: James Flynn.
He had disposed of some of the world’s most ruthless MI-6 agents with about as much trouble as it took him to eat a piece of cake. But not Flynn. The enigmatic journalist seemed to get the jump on him at every turn. Ivan wondered how a former CIA agent with such intuition could have left the agency so easily. As much as Ivan wanted to kill Flynn, he also strangely admired him.
Only once before had an agent challenged him, pushing him to the brink of death. On a mission to secure long-range missiles in Nepal, Ivan crossed paths with a CIA operative who somehow learned about the deal he was about to make with foreign mercenaries. Having never met his contact, Ivan set everything up in a clandestine site near a frozen lake. It was how Ivan conducted business: get what he wants, then murder the seller. Nobody came looking for these lowlifes, and even if they did, they’d be hard pressed to find them at the bottom of the lake.
But on this particular day, Ivan was the one surprised. A sniper hit him with a tranquilizer. Ivan never even saw his face. Twenty minutes later, Ivan awoke naked and gasping for air beneath a partially frozen lake. He had no idea how long he’d been underwater — or how he survived for that matter. When he resurfaced, figuring out how was the furthest thing from his mind. He wanted revenge. It was all he could think about as he warmed himself by a fire, one he found blazing with all the money he’d brought to the exchange. The sniper had laid Ivan’s clothes neatly laid by the fire along with a note that read: “If I see you again, I won’t be so kind.”
Ivan lost a couple of toes due to frostbite he suffered during that mission, but he didn’t lose his resolve. He was more determined than ever to fulfill the Kuklovod’s mission, even if it meant taking out the CIA one operative at a time. Yet all his years of persistent and hard work had resulted in bringing the organization to the precipice of achieving his seemingly unattainable goal.
And everything was going to be fine once James Flynn was out of the picture.
CHAPTER 41
Flynn returned to his apartment to pack. He had an hour to gather his things and report to the airfield where he would fly halfway around the world and hope to accomplish a solo mission that would stave off a world war. He worried about Natalie and what might happen to her as a result of his reckless entrance into this investigation. But there was no time to let his emotions distract him. He nearly called Osborne a half dozen times on his way home, mulling over the impending disaster that would befall the U.S. if he did nothing. But his country needed him — even if it said it didn’t. Osborne needed him, which trumped any vindictiveness hurled at him by the agency. As long as one person believed in him, that’s all Flynn needed.
As Flynn packed, he winced. The mere thought of returning to Russia made him shudder. Bitter cold. Sketchy intel. Knives waiting to be shoved in your back. The country bred traitors like it was its top export commodity. Anything for money. Honor and valor meant nothing to anyone. It was all about getting paid. At times, such a culture played to his advantage, but a higher bidder almost always cost him. This time, he would avoid such tactics. The fewer prisoners, the better. He knew this was a mess even some members of the Russian government wouldn’t mind cleaning up.
Flynn stuffed thermal undergarments into a duffle bag and a few gadgets he hadn’t surrendered to the agency upon his dismissal. These gadgets would never make James Bond envious, but they got the job done. A remote optical camera. A shotgun mic that could pick up conversations from long distances. Even a pair of boots concealing a knife. You never know when you might need one. Flynn shook his head as he stared at the relics of past missions. What are you doing? Are you out of your mind? You’re an investigative reporter now, not some vigilante hero. As quickly as the thoughts pinged around his head, he dismissed them. Osborne needs me.
As Flynn closed one of his drawers, he froze. A creaking noise put him on alert. Breathless, Flynn waited another moment or two. Nothing. Must be the house settling.
He pulled open his top drawer to fetch his final necessary item — his lucky bullet, complete with a chain around it. Flynn wore it on all his missions after a doctor retrieved it from his stomach following an incident in the Congo. Tasked with identifying the buyer of weapons dealer Joseph Kyenge’s cache of long-range ballistic missiles, Flynn made a mistake during his surveillance. The sun glinted off his binoculars while he lay prostrate on a cliff above Kyenge’s camp. After avoiding the initial hail of bullets, Flynn suffered a near fatal shot when one of the bullets glanced off a rock and lodged in his stomach. The agony of driving while trying to escape capture was a memory he couldn’t shake. He managed to lose Kyenge’s guards and found his way back to the bush plane where his pilot flew him to a village with a visiting doctor from the U.S. Flynn learned later that there were a few tense moments, but the doctor saved his life as he put together a makeshift operating room, retrieved the bullet and sutured the wound. He never found out who purchased the weapons — and it ate at him. Those stupid binoculars.