Land of the Gods

CHAPTER THIRTY

Kim Taylor and Jack Camacho passed security at the main Entrance Hall and soon found themselves walking through the busy corridors of the world’s most famous residence. As her old friend had said on the way over, now she was here and saw that everything seemed to be normal, Kim started to relax.

“I’m not going to say I told you so,” Camacho said, turning to her with a wide grin on his face. “But I told you so.”

“I think I’ll just wait until I speak with Alex. Then you can tell me so.”

He laughed. “Have it your way. You going to see her now?”

“Sure — you?”

He nodded his head. “W was planning on going to see if Frank but I’ll go later. Apparently, he’s still working on the President’s security detail after all these years. He’s an old friend from the CIA.”

“Frank Trentino?”

“Uh-huh. You know Frank?”

“Not personally, but I’ve heard of him.”

Another laugh. “Hasn’t everyone?”

They continued to walk through the main building on their way to Alex, passing the portraits of a number of former presidents — Lincoln, Roosevelt and Kennedy whose official portrait was unique because he was looking down at the ground and not at the viewer. Kim found it strange to imagine that one day Alex’s father’s portrait would be hanging in this place. Faulkner’s was even harder to imagine.

They skipped up the steps to the second floor of the Residence. She’d been here a few times before and knew her way to Alex’s suite. When she reached the top she saw a familiar face standing outside Alex’s door.

“Kamala?”

The woman standing guard outside the door turned and looked at her with pleasant surprise on her face. “Kimmy, is that you?”

“In the flesh! I had no idea you were working here.” Kim hadn’t seen her old friend for at least two years. She and Kamala Banks had trained at the Secret Service Academy together and had become good friends before Kim’s adventures with ECHO had taken her away from her life in Washington.

“Six months now.”

“That’s great.”

“What are you doing here?”

Kim introduced Jack Camacho and they shook hands. “We know Alex. She’s expecting us.”

Kamala frowned. “No one said anything to me about it.”

Before things got too awkward, the door swung open. “Kim! Jack! Thank God you’re both here.”

Kamala stepped away to let Alex push her chair out into the hallway. “What the hell’s going on, Alex?”

“I asked Kim to come see me, Kami.”

Kamala watched as the three old friends hugged. “Please — come in.”

Kim felt awkward leaving her old friend standing outside on security detail while they went into the room to talk with Alex, but that was her job. She said goodbye and closed the door as Alex wheeled herself back across the room and parked up beside her desk. “Thanks for coming, guys. I think shit’s about to get real around here.”

Kim looked at her and almost felt sorry for her. For the first time ever, she realized she was starting to doubt her friend’s mind. Everyone knew Alex was a genius. Her mind was capable of thinking at speeds and across a breadth of subjects that would make most people’s heads spin, but maybe she had finally reached her limit.

“Listen, Alex.” Kim lowered her voice. “Things seem okay around here. No problems at security and Kamala was pretty chilled out too.”

“You know her?”

“We go way back.”

“She’s nice.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Scary, but nice.”

Kim laughed. “No one ever messed with her, that’s for damned sure. You’re safe with her outside your door.”

Alex sighed. “I’m not so sure.”

Camacho said, “Where’s this coming from?”

“Wait a second.” Alex picked up her cell phone and made a quick call. “They’re here. We’ll wait for you.”

Kim furrowed her brow. “Who was that?”

“An old friend.”

“You’re starting to scare me, Alex.”

Kamala opened the door and Brandon McGee walked into the room. He thanked Kamala as she closed the door behind him.

“Hey Alex,” Brandon said.

“Hey Brandon, This is Kim and Jack.”

They made their introductions, and then Brandon said, “You’re sure we can trust them?”

“I’ve trusted them a lot longer than I’ve trusted you.”

Brandon weighed the no-nonsense response. “Fine. In that case, let’s get down to business. I have it from an old friend of mine who works on the VP’s security detail that he’s planning some sort of attack on the President.”

“Alex already told me that,” Kim said. “That’s why me and Jack Camacho flew straight back to the States, but from what I can see nothing’s going down around here at all.”

Brandon gave a heavy, weary sigh. “Suzie isn’t sure when it’s going down, Kim. All she knows is that its happening and we have no way of knowing who’s on whose side. Things could get very ugly very fast. That’s why we needed you to be here. We need people we know we can trust. People who are above the VP’s reach.”

Kim’s mind flooded with questions. “What sort of attack are you talking about?”

“Not military,” Alex said.

“No, no military,” Brandon repeated. “Suzie said it’s a political attack.”

“You mean a coup?”

“Not exactly,” Alex said. “We think maybe they’re trying to get the cabinet to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.”

Kim was shocked. “You can’t be serious?”

Brandon fixed eyes on her. “Look at our faces, Kim.”

Kim almost felt giddy. “Holy crap, this is big.”

“You can say that again,” Camacho said.

“And we have no idea how things are going to go down,” Brandon added. “If the VP goes ahead with this and strikes against the President, it could spin out of control in about a million different ways. There’s a real chance people could get killed if this gets out of hand.”

“So what do we do now?” Kim asked.

“For now we wait,” McGee said. “We can’t risk letting anyone figure out that we know what’s going on. For one thing it would put Suzie in danger, and for another it could make them panic and do something even crazier. The second we know it’s going down, we get out of here as fast as we can.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of a plan,” Kim said.

“It’s the best we got,” McGee. “Unless you have a better one?”

Kim and Camacho exchanged a glance. “Fine, we’ll do it your way.”

Josh Muston watched in a state of serene disbelief as General Vance and his men gathered in the Vice President’s official residency at Observatory Circle. The disbelief was induced by the sight of the general ordering his men to arm themselves and prepare to board the SUVs waiting to take them across the city to the White House.

Faulkner himself seemed calm. From Muston’s point of view he was just a silhouette now, standing in the wide bay window with a smoking cigar in his right hand. What drove men like him to do the things they did, he had no idea. Muston was a backroom man, an advisor, nothing more than a state assistant behind the curtain and that was enough for him.

The idea of standing in the Rose Garden later today and explaining to a gaggle of dumbstruck TV crews why he had persuaded the Cabinet to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and arrest President Brooke didn’t appeal to him one bit, but it seemed to excite Davis Faulkner beyond words. Not Muston, no sir. He would be the man inside the Oval Office, safely tucked away behind the drapes monitoring the polls and watching his boss’s back.

“So, gentlemen…” Faulkner turned to face the room and twirled the cigar in his tanned fingers. “This is it. Today, with the approval of the Cabinet and the assistance of loyal patriots like General Vance and his men we will remove a corrupt, traitor from our greatest office and restore the greatness of the United States of America.”

Vance gave a solemn nod, but said nothing. His men followed his lead and maintained their composure.

“We might not be successful,” Faulkner continued. “There’s a good chance we may fail today. We may be arrested or even killed in our attempt to save our country on this day, but I know all of you men will not shy away from your duty. If we fail, we will answer to a higher power than the President of the United States.”

“Amen to that,” Vance said.

Muston wasn’t entirely convinced his boss was referring to God. Faulkner’s idea of a higher power wasn’t exactly what most people had in mind, and visions of the mystical Oracle rose in his mind like Rougarou, the legendary monster lurking in the swamps of his childhood Bayou.

What exactly was the deal with that? Who was the Oracle, really? He had no idea. Faulkner talked about him from time to time, his words usually hushed and respectful — fearful, even. He talked about him as if he truly were a god, but one that could reach out and touch him and destroy his life.

But things were changing. Lately the boss had started talking about the Oracle with a hint of resentment in his voice. He’d slipped up a few times, saying how the Oracle wouldn’t be around forever and that when he was gone, things would be very different. He’d even overheard him calling the Oracle a freak after one particularly agitated phone call. What did the boss have in mind for this Oracle? Only time would tell.

“Well, Josh?”

He looked up and saw Faulkner and General Vance glaring down at him.

“Sir?”

“I said, is your staff team in place to run the White House after we take over today?”

Vance sighed. “We can’t have any lapses in concentration today, Mr Muston. If we do, then we screw up, and if we screw up we’re going to the chair for treason.”

“No, we’re not,” Muston said, standing to meet the general eye to eye and reassert his authority. Vance would be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a few hours, and it was essential that the general knew he would be no push-over in his role as the President’s Chief of Staff. “We have the legal authority to do what we are doing, as given to us by the Cabinet’s official and unanimous invocation of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.”

“You don’t know what the hell’s going to happen when we try and pull this off.”

“Yes, I do, General Vance. The Vice President is right when we say there is a chance of death. It may be the case that things go wrong and a fire fight breaks out. A young marine overreacts or a gun goes off accidentally. Unlikely, but possible in an atmosphere as supercharged as the one we’re about to create, but no one’s going to the chair for treason. This is legal and it’s going to happen. Legally. So just unbunch your panties and dial it down.”

Vance narrowed his eyes and turned to Faulkner, but the Vice President was already chuckling. “Sir?”

“Josh is right, Richard. What we’re doing to day is a legal, political exercise. You and your men are essential backup, but also a touch of window dressing. When we get to the White House we do this my way and Brooke will be done and dusted before sunset.”

Vance stepped down, glaring at Muston. “As you say, sir.”

“All right then,” Faulkner said, stubbing his cigar out in an ashtray on his desk. “Then we’re almost ready to go. Tell the men to make their final preparations and ensure everyone who is in on this knows it’s on. Gentlemen, today we make history.”

Jessica Clarke liked her coffee strong. She’d noticed that the older she got, the stronger the coffee got, and that was okay with her. She liked the deep, dark roast taste of the black gold as it rolled over her tongue and then the caffeine kick. It helped her think, and now she needed some serious thinking time.

With her son playing in the other room, she set the cup down on her kitchen table, closed her eyes and went through the mission one more time. The next target had been selected and ECHO would be another member down in just a matter of hours. Devlin and Lund were already out of her mind, and she was totally focused on the next mark. Disciplined, vigilant. She was a trained killer whether she liked it or not, and now she used her skills to intricately plot the next assassination. Not one error could be permitted.

Another sip of coffee and a tense exhalation. On the table was the bullet. She had taken it from the box and was now reading the name engraved on its smooth metal jacket.

Another funeral.

Another wake.

More grieving friends and family.

She had no problems with her conscience. Her son’s suffering grew worse with every sunrise, after all, and there was no other way to help him.

She thought of Justin down in Mexico. He’d gone on ahead and was working hard to find them someplace nice to live in. The pictures he emailed to her looked great. Modest but like palaces compared to her apartment in LA. Villas with white stucco plaster walls and terracotta tiled rooves. Just like how the other half lived. Fan palms around the pool and a west-facing deck to watch the sun set over the Pacific with a beer in her hand and her son laughing and playing.

She had to have that. It wasn’t something she was going to negotiate with the universe over, it was something that must happen if she and her son were going to survive.

More coffee, and she slipped the bullet back in the box.

Time to pack.