Land of the Gods

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

As soon as Brandon McGee regained consciousness, he knew one of his ribs was broken. His years as a wingback back in college football meant he was no stranger to the pain now radiating through his abdomen, only this time there would be no coach rushing to his aid with a stretcher to fix his broken bones. Instead, he received another hefty kick in his stomach, delivered by a steel toecap boot on the end of an unknown thug’s leg.

He held the grunt in as much as possible. No sense letting these bastards know they could hurt you. Somewhere to his right he heard Alex gasp in pain and scream let go of me! He heard the sound of struggling and kicking, and then another scream. Alex’s voice again. Then the sound of an engine starting up. Sounded like they were in the back of some kind of SUV. Probably a Cadillac Escalade, he thought. They had knocked him out back at the White House so he had no idea of his exact location.

He called out in the darkness. “Are you okay, Alex?”

“Where are you taking me?” She sounded frightened, and who could blame her?

“Shut your mouths!”

Chaos reigned inside the back of the SUV. Like he guessed everyone else was experiencing, the nylon sack over McGee’s head was blinding him to movements of the enemy. Now, heard a muffled punch and then Alex’s voice a third time as she cried out in pain.

“You sick son of a bitch!” he called out. “You hit a woman with a bag over her head?”

“Not just women,” the low voice grizzled. McGee felt a solid punch pile drive into his stomach and he grunted in pain as he slumped to the floor.

“Jesus, we’re in trouble…” he mumbled.

“Where’s my father?!” Alex said.

“I told you to keep it down!” a voice said.

“This is treason!” McGee called out.

“No, President Brooke is the traitor.”

McGee kept his mouth shut. No point giving men like this an excuse to beat you, because they would beat you hard and have no problem sleeping at night. He didn’t recognize any of the voices now, so they weren’t Secret Service personnel. He guessed soldiers from the rougher neck of the woods, maybe some sort of Special Ops guys Muston had dug up from a black project somewhere.

Either way, his job was still clear: protect the First Daughter at all costs, and if he got shot and killed there was no way he could do that. Keep it zipped, stay calm, remember your training and wait for the right moment, because sooner or later these guys would slip up and give him a chance.

Bide your time, Brandon.

Bide your time.

Alex heard the men piling into Brandon McGee and screamed for them to stop. They did, but so did her friend. He’d been silent for a long time and she was worried they’d knocked him out or even killed him. No way to tell under the nylon hood, she gently called out to him but there was no response.

The SUV turned corners, accelerated and slowed. She was on the floor of the vehicle, and no sign of her chair anywhere. She felt vulnerable and cared. No way to know where they were going either, and no way to know if her father was still alive. Surely they wouldn’t murder the President? Her mind pulsed with fear as she struggled to cope with the events of the day. -How had any of this happened?

A few meters ahead of Alex and McGee, Jack Brooke was also in the back of an Escalade with a bag over his head and his hands cuffed behind his back. His mind raced. What had happened today was almost impossible to believe. Davis Faulkner, the man he had chosen to run as his Vice President and the man he had trusted as a safe pair of hands in the White House if something had ever happened to him had betrayed him in the worst possible way. He had effected a coup d’état against his administration and seized power. He had stormed into the Oval Office with a dozen heavily armed goons at his back and arrested him on trumped up charges of treason.

It was ridiculous, but worse than any of that was Alex.

That son of a bitch Faulkner had threatened the life of his daughter and scared the hell out of her as he hunted her around the Residence. For the coup, he would pay with his freedom, but for what he did to his daughter he would pay with his life.