The Book of Truths

Chapter 12

The Secret Service that had been on duty was holding a perimeter, keeping the main building secure. Inside of them, a cordon of security in hazmat suits was at every possible exit: doors, windows, underground tunnels. As Cherry Tree blossomed inside, the uniformed senior officer outside, confused but resolute, kept the line. He’d called in everyone on the roster and also had the members of the Tactical Response Team doing an exercise around the House for the sake of the media that had gathered outside.

It was a ruse that would only last so long, but now that information was starting to clarify on Cherry Tree, it was a ruse that only needed to last so long.

Then, as always, things got worse.

General Riggs’s convoy pulled up to the rear of the White House. His armored limo rode heavy, followed by five black Chevy SUVs with tinted windows. Riggs’s staff piled out and the general bulled his way forward, halting just short of the senior Secret Service agent.

“Sir, we’re conducting a security training exercise and—”

“Bullshit,” Riggs said. “What’s really going on?”

“Sir, we’re conducting a security training exercise—”

“I’m the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Riggs said. “The chairman is in Scotland. That makes me the ranking military officer in the country. I have the highest security clearance in the country. What is going on?”

The senior agent did his best. “Sir, it’s a confusing situation, but the White House is in lockdown because some sort of pathogen is loose. We don’t believe it’s fatal or even physically harmful, but information is still coming in on it.”

“We’ve been attacked.” Riggs said it with absolute certainty. “The White House has been attacked and we’ve been decapitated by a biological attack.”

The Secret Service agent shook his head. “No, sir. I don’t think so, sir.”

“You’re not paid to think,” Riggs said. “You’re not paid to command. I am.”

A reporter who had been lurking outside the barriers shoved against a couple of agents and shouted, “General! What’s going on? Who’s running the government? If this is an exercise, where is the president?”

Riggs paused dramatically, feeling his destiny welling up in his chest, and turned to face the reporter. “There’s no need for alarm. As for now, I’m in control now and will be until we can”—he held up a meaty fist with the rolled-up copy of the Constitution in it—“make sure things are running smoothly again. That is”—he said—“pending the return of the White House…” But fuck that, it wasn’t true. “Gentlemen,” he said to no one in particular, but everyone within earshot, “I am in charge.”

He turned and strode toward the East Wing, his staff crowded around him. The head of the Secret Service watched them walk away, then turned to the reporter.

“It’s all part of the exercise,” he assured the confused man. Then he returned his attention to his priority: the building containing the president.

Riggs burst into the Visitors Foyer, noted the blocked doors to his right and the Secret Service guards, and turned left, down the East Colonnade. He went past the Family Theater (and they gave the military shit about waste?) toward the East Wing of the White House, the lesser known of the two flanks. It contained the First Lady’s offices, like anyone gives a rat’s ass about that bitch, Riggs thought as he waddled into the main corridor. It also had the calligraphy office, because that was the way they ran shit over here with their sense of priorities.

A military guard stood at the entrance to the elevator that led to the PEOC: the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. Most people knew about the Situation Room under the West Wing where the Oval Office was, but the PEOC was the real deal. Where the commander in chief would go when the shit hit the fan. Where the armed forces of the United States could be commanded and controlled.

Except the shit had hit the fan and as far as Riggs could tell, the president was cowering over in the Residence.

The marine on duty at the elevator popped to attention and snapped a salute. Riggs acknowledged him by tipping the Constitution to the brim of his cap. As many of his staff as possible (not many, given his girth) crowded in with him; the rest would have to wait for the next ride.

The PEOC had been built during World War II for President Roosevelt. During the Cold War it had been boasted that the center could survive a direct ICBM hit. As Riggs descended in the elevator through earth and the steel-reinforced concrete that covered the bunker, he knew technology had outstripped the outmoded facility. A modern targeted nuke would bust this bunker wide open.

He didn’t plan to allow the Russkies and the Chinese the opportunity to do that.

Riggs giggled at the thought. Those pinched in around him tried not to eye him, staring up at the ceiling or at the walls. The elevator rumbled to a halt and the doors slid open. The duty staff, a half dozen officers, and NCOs who manned the PEOC hopped to attention as Riggs entered.

“At ease, gentlemen, at ease.”

Riggs went to the head of the conference table, which took up most of the room. It was where Bush had eventually arrived on 9/11. Of course, Riggs knew the real deal, because he’d met the officer who’d had the duty that day, when America was attacked. Bush had been reading aloud to a group of second graders, continuing even after being told one, then two planes had hit the World Trade Center.

Then they’d finally managed to get to Air Force One, took off, and had no clue where to go since there was concern Washington, DC, was under attack. They eventually landed at Barksdale Air Force Base and then flew on to Offutt where the president was secreted in the Strategic Command Underground Command Center. There he communicated back to the VP in this very room until it was deemed safe for the president to return to Washington.

In essence, Riggs’s destiny was to make sure scared-shitless politicians didn’t screw things up again. Once more the White House was in chaos, but this time Riggs was going to pick up the slack.

He placed the items he’d brought with him on the table. First the copy of the Constitution, which he rolled out flat. Then he weighed the top end down with the Bible. When he drew his pistol and placed it on the closest end, silence descended in the room.

The elevator opened and the rest of his staff entered.

Riggs looked at the twenty-some-odd military men gathered around the conference table in the PEOC. He raised his hands. “Gentlemen. The country is being attacked. We, in this room, are the last line of defense. The president and the White House are under attack by biological agents. The vice president and the chairman are out of the country and we must assume, compromised. I am in charge.”

“Technically, sir,” one of the officers who’d been on duty and was not part of his staff protested, “the line of succession is—” He paused as Riggs lifted the gun off the bottom of the Constitution and pulled the slide back, chambering a round.

“Sergeant Major,” Riggs said, indicating his senior enlisted man who had followed him through all those assignments over the years and owed his career to him. “The next man who speaks out against me is speaking out against the country and committing treason. Feel free to shoot him.”

The Sergeant Major drew his own sidearm, locked and loaded.

General Riggs lowered his arms, put the gun back down on the Constitution, and stretched a hand out to the officer on either side of him. “Let us pray, gentlemen, and then let us take action.”

Everyone in the PEOC linked hands and Riggs led them in a heartfelt prayer.

And spread Cherry Tree throughout the room.

Inside Deep Six, Brennan cowered in the corner of his cell. In the adjacent cell, Wahid was staring at him, arms folded, waiting.

“I’m sorry,” Brennan said. “I didn’t invent the stuff. Really.”

Wahid said nothing, Cherry Tree having finally worn off, while Brennan was still in the throes of it.

“I know it’s wrong,” Brennan said. “But—” He was cut off as another burst of automatic fire echoed through the cavern. The muzzle flashes were like a strobe light in the dim lighting. They came from the far end of the cavern where the guards were quartered.

Deep Six consisted of the empty, original reservoir for Raven Rock, over three hundred feet long by eighty wide. Cages for prisoners were set in clusters along the floor. The walls and tops of the cages were built from industrial fencing, laid over steel pipes. The floor was the original rock of the reservoir. The only item in each cage, beside the prisoner, was a bucket for sanitation purposes.

The mercenaries who ran the place were quartered in several wooden huts. Lighting came from bulbs spaced far apart on electrical cords stretched along the ceiling. The entire atmosphere was one of gloom, darkness, and the end of life as those here had known it.

The guards were a mixture of former thugs from various security agencies in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Most were wanted men in their home countries. They were here for the pay and the promise of moving on to a nonextraditable country with enough in a Swiss account so they could live out the rest of their days.

Most of them, anyway.

But a good percentage were here because they liked what they did. Sadists.

A metal chain had been looped around Brennan’s neck by the two guards who’d brought him in. Attached to it was a yellow card with nothing on it. He noted that Wahid had a red card.

Seeing the glance, Wahid smiled and finally spoke in surprisingly good English. “Yellow means you are not to be tortured. Not yet. Red means they can do what they want. Torture. Rape. Kill me if they please, now, because I told all I knew during your experiment. Before that, my card was black. Do anything they want, but don’t kill. I do not expect to last another day here. I have heard there is a card colored green which means one is to be out-processed and released. I am told no one in here has ever been given this green card.”

More firing from the vicinity of the barracks.

“Then again,” Wahid said, “I think the guards are more interested in killing each other right now than prisoners. There are ancient ethnic and religious differences among them. Christian. Muslims of various sects. Men from tribes that hate each other. Whoever survives will eventually get to us, I’m sure.” Wahid cocked his head, considering the cowering Brennan as he might an object of interest and slight disgust.

“Tell me, since you must tell the truth. Do you really believe what your country is doing here is right?” He waved a hand, taking in the cavern.

“No.” Brennan couldn’t stop from giving the answer, even though he’d always agreed with Riggs that America’s enemies had to be dealt with harshly.

Brennan was on the rock floor, knees drawn up to his chest, as far away from Wahid as he could get. In the cage on the other side, a naked man was strung up from a metal bar holding the mesh that was the roof of their cages. He wasn’t moving, his feet dangling limply. Brennan feared the man was dead.

“These monsters here tortured me and tortured me and I never talked,” Wahid said. “Until your science. So are you going to use this Cherry Tree for interrogation, as you use drones to attack from above? So clean, so sterile, for those who implement it. Not so much for those on the receiving end. You have this Cherry Tree in you and you ended up here. How does that feel?”

“Terrible,” Brennan said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I think you’ve done many things wrong,” Wahid said. “Haven’t you?”

Brennan sobbed. “Yes. Yes, I have.”

“I think this weapon, this Cherry Tree, is much more dangerous than your scientists who invented it realize.”

“It is!” Brennan cried out. A single pistol shot echoed and someone screamed in a cluster of cages about thirty feet away. Brennan could see a guard walking along the cages, peering in. The guard stopped, pointed his gun and fired. A scream from inside the cage.

“He is not shooting to kill,” Wahid said. “He is taking pleasure in wounding. I have seen such men. It does not matter what side one is on or what the cause is, such men exist everywhere.”

“It’s out,” Brennan couldn’t stop himself. “Cherry Tree. I infected the president’s daughter, I think. I don’t know who else is infected.”

Wahid sneered. “Blowback. Your great country is excellent at that. You send death and destruction out into the world and then are amazed when it comes back on you. Now it seems you are sending truth out into the world. It will be most interesting to see what comes back.”

“They can’t shoot me,” Brennan said. “I work for the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. My father commanded NATO!”

“I think the rules,” Wahid said, “your status, who your father was, the colors on the cards, aren’t going to matter soon. If the truth becomes the rule in here, those who enjoy the kill, the pain, they will take over. Because in crisis, the ruthless almost always prevail over the good.” Wahid took a step closer to the grating that separated Brennan from him. “But if I get the chance, I will kill you with my bare hands and my teeth. I will rip your throat out.”

Wahid spit through the grating.

Roland fired a long, sustained burst from the M249, chewing up the target silhouette until he separated the top from the bottom. He sighed contentedly as he lowered the smoking barrel. It wasn’t the same as his old companion, not having tasted combat yet, but it was an all right first date.

The target had been set up along the edge of Groom Mountain, so the rounds went through and into the side of the rock. Everyone had checked and rechecked their weapons, gear, and ammunition. Eagle had walked around the Snake a half-dozen times. Mac had ordered extra demolitions, assuming that wherever they were going, the nukes were going to be well secured. He wasn’t going to be caught in a tunnel waiting on Roland’s muscle to open a door this time. He was checking an array of shaped charges, arranging them in order of strength and yield.

And Nada and Kirk were seated in the cargo bay. Kirk was maintaining the secure satcom link to Milstar and had a printout of frequencies, call signs, and code words on his lap, ready to supply as needed to Nada.

Ms. Jones had told them the White House was locked down with Moms inside. And that General Riggs had secured himself in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center.

“Seven Days in May,” Eagle said, stopping his pacing about for the moment as he heard the last part.

Nada looked up from the radio. “What?”

“A classic,” Eagle said. “Published in 1962. About a military coup being planned because the president was signing an arms reduction treaty with the Russians. The author wrote it after meeting General LeMay, who scared the shit out of him.”

Nada had radio calls to make, but he respected Eagle’s knowledge.

“It was made into a film that premiered in ’64. Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. The Pentagon opposed making it. Kennedy gave his approval.”

“Kennedy got killed in ’63,” Kirk said.

“No shit,” Eagle said, the profanity unusual for him. “If these Pinnacle people have been stockpiling nukes, what do you think their endgame is?”

“Their endgame comes tonight,” Nada said.

Neeley got into Raven Rock via the front door as she had told the Asset. She didn’t have to use the clearance she’d displayed at the Pentagon to see Mrs. Sanchez, but one that was a level below that. Even though she was rigged for combat, with body armor, MOLLE vest festooned with the weapons of death, an HK416 in her hands and a new thumper on a lanyard along her side, the guards let her in. After all, she had placed her eye on the retina scanner and the light came back green.

That’s the way the government worked. She figured an orangutan in a clown suit would be allowed in if it passed the retina scan.

She had multiple magazines of 5.56mm ammo for the HK in the first row of pockets on the front of her MOLLE and a dozen 40mm grenades, special rounds she’d handmade, looped along the side of the vest.

“Deep Six?” she asked the two military police armed with just pistols. If the Asset thought this was tight security, he had never experienced tight security.

Before they could answer, an officer wearing silver oak leaves came striding up the tunnel leading into the mountain, a pained look on his face. “Are you here to deal with the incident?”

“What incident?” Neeley asked.

The officer was looking her over, not in a sexual way, but searching for rank, unit identifier, anything he could latch his military mindset on to.

There was none. Except for the weapons and the security clearance she obviously had.

“There’s been firing going on in Deep Six. The door is sealed.”

“Let’s walk and talk,” Neeley said, nudging him into the tunnel. One of the MPs followed, hand wavering uncertainly over his holster.

The lieutenant colonel filled her in on what little he knew. “They brought in someone not long ago, shut the door, and since then, we’ve heard firing echoing out.”

They turned a corner and the main cavern that made up the core of Raven Rock came into view. Several three-story office buildings were packed into it. All the windows seemed to be blacked out.

“Anyone get an office with a view?” Neeley asked as they moved along the edge of the cavern.

“The interior of the windows are painted over with landscapes,” the officer said. “The shrinks say it helps.”

“Does it?”

“No.”

At the far end of the cavern another tunnel beckoned. They headed down the path and Neeley heard a distant shot.

“See?” the officer said, as if she had doubted his ability to hear shots. “It’s quieted down, but it sounded like a hell of a firefight for a bit.”

“Let’s hope it was,” Neeley said.

They came up to a steel door. A keypad was to the right.

“No one knows the code?” Neeley had to ask, because there were no stupid questions in covert ops. For all she knew the nighttime cleaning crew knew the code.

“Negative.” The officer shook his head. “They’re not even American in there — the guards. And we hear screams all the time. It’s muffled but…” He shook his head. “I sent a memo up the chain of command and got a phone call from a general in the Pentagon who reamed my ass and told me to mind my damn business. And—” He paused as something occurred to him. “You’re not from that general, are you?”

“No.” Neeley was looking at the keypad. One thing Gant had emphasized was that high tech often hid low tech. She slid her knife out of the sheath and jammed it between the back of the keypad and the door frame. She applied leverage and the pad popped off.

“Blue wire, green wire, or red wire?” she said to herself.

Another shot echoed through the door and the lieutenant colonel started nervously. “You don’t know?”

“Joking,” Neeley said. She slashed through all three wires with her knife, then stripped the ends off the green and red. She sparked them together and there was an audible click as the lock disengaged.

Neeley edged it slightly open, before turning back to the officer. “I assume they rely on Raven Rock for power?”

“Yes.”

“Cut it.”

The lieutenant colonel pulled out his radio and gave the order.

A drunken guard came staggering down between two clusters of cages, bottle in one hand, pistol in the other. He paused outside Wahid’s cage.

“No more black card,” he slurred. “Too bad for you.” He lifted the pistol.

“No!” Brennan cried out. “I am the assistant to the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I order you not to execute the prisoner. He has valuable information that is needed.”

The guard laughed. “You are in cage. You give no orders. I think I just shoot you first, then him.”

The muzzle of the gun turned toward Brennan and he’d never seen anything as large and threatening as the gaping hole at the end of the barrel.

What amazed him, and gave him the smallest moment of pride, was that when faced with death, infected with Cherry Tree, the honest core of himself was able to face it with open eyes. He slowly got to his feet, the gun tracking him. He even took a step toward the guard.

“This place,” Brennan began, “is a disgrace to the United States. You, sir, are a disgrace to humanity.”

The guard blinked, surprised at the outburst from a prisoner. In the next cell, Wahid was also amazed.

The surprise didn’t last long. The guard’s finger curled around the trigger. “Fuck you.”

And then everything went dark.

“Stay back,” Neeley said. “Open it in five minutes with armed guards backing you up. If I’m not standing there, kill them all.”

“What—” The colonel didn’t get a chance to say anything else as Neeley flipped down her night-vision goggles and slid into Deep Six, the door shutting behind her.

The odor was the first thing she noticed. Dank, dirty air. Unwashed bodies. Through the night-vision goggles, she could see everything in a greenish tint: clusters of cages, shabby barracks at the far end, rock walls curving to a rock ceiling.

Move fast and hit hard. Gant’s voice echoed in her brain and she did just that.

A pistol fired to the right, the muzzle flash like a flare in the goggles. Neeley swung the muzzle of the HK416 in that direction and fired twice and the figure crumpled. Voices cried out from the cages as she rushed forward, but she didn’t think prisoners were a threat.

She passed two bodies, automatic weapons in hand.

She was reminded of the battle of Cirith Ungol in The Lord of the Rings, how Gant had laughed when she read that part to him, the two types of orcs fighting each other and pretty much wiping out the place’s defenses.

When one employed scum, one got the results.

Neeley fired at a man running to her right, M4 in his hands. He crumpled to the ground.

The sharp crack of a pair of bullets passing close by caught her attention. She zigged to the right, putting some cages between her and the muzzle flashes. Sorry about that, prisoners, but whoever had fired had been moving also based on the spacing.

She sensed for a split second someone dropping from above — and then impact.

No one ever looks up, she heard Gant’s voice in her memory as she was slammed down to the rock floor, dropping her rifle. She rolled with the impact, pulling her knife and slamming it home in the man’s chest. He grunted from the force of the blade, foul breath washing over her. She stabbed him again. She grabbed his balaclava-covered chin and sliced the knife deep across his throat, severing both carotid arteries. The last beats of the mercenary’s heart sprayed her with blood, but she was off him, searching for her HK.

She abandoned the search as two men came charging forward, shouting something.

Still kneeling, Neeley pulled up the thumper and fired.

The round was one she’d labored over: a mixture of small fléchettes and buckshot, in effect making the result a very large and lethal shotgun shell once fired.

Both men went down.

Neeley slowly got to her feet. She heard panicked voices calling out in a mixture of languages: Arabic, Pashto, and a range of others.

“Brennan!” she called out.

Someone fired from a window in the nearest barracks, the round wild and ricocheting off rocks. Neeley broke open the thumper and loaded a different shell, high explosive. She fired, the round going through the window, and the shooter wasn’t a problem anymore.

The resulting explosion blinded out the goggles for a moment.

“Brennan!”

“Here.”

Neeley followed the voice.

“Who are you?” Brennan asked. He was standing by the gate for his cage. “Let me out. Please.”

“Where is Pinnacle?”

“Oh,” Brennan wailed. He beat his fists against the side of his head as if he could smash the truth that was being forced out. “The Dark Side. It’s the Dark Side.”

“Dark Side of what?”

“Yucca Flats, Nevada. East of it. In the Nevada Test Site. No one can go there.” He giggled. “Actually, no one thinks they can go there, but you can.”

“What exactly is Pinnacle?”

And when she heard the answer, Neeley knew this was a much bigger problem than they’d thought.