The Aztec Prophecy

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jack Brooke watched the Californian sun sparkling on the water as his government jet made the final approach into San Francisco International. Somewhere down there in the center of the city his staff were preparing for him to make his speech the following day. Was it a crazy idea? Maybe, and the weight of the covert Mexico mission just increased the pressure. Even now as the plane touched down on the hot tarmac he still wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing.

His ex-wife wanted him to do it, but his daughter Alex was against the idea. He understood why — his political career had eclipsed his job as a father and taken him away from her during her childhood. Now they were finally getting close again and he was running for President of the United States — what other reaction could he expect?

Charles Grant was a good man and a great president, and his kidnapping at the hands of Klaus Kiefel had only increased his massive popularity with the American people — but thanks to the Twenty-Second Amendment to the US Constitution no one was allowed more than two terms in the Oval Office and Grant’s eight years were up.

Brooke hadn’t made the decision to run lightly. His family was a major consideration — as was his ranch in Idaho. Sitting on the Hill listening to committees and steering groups his mind had wandered more than once to his sprawling property in the mountains. He was an outdoors kind of guy who liked nothing better than fishing out in the rivers or riding his Appaloosa into the hills. Bred by the Nez Perce Indians of western Idaho, the Appaloosa was the perfect horse for trail riding and even some mountain hunting and that ticked all of his boxes. But what kept his heart in the mountains was the same thing that boosted his popularity with the electorate, and it was clear that he was the party’s best chance at securing the Oval Office.

Now the plane was trundling off to a gate on the south side of the airport. Soon they would whisk him away in a line of state government Escalades all the way to the hotel at the Embarcadero Center for the speech of his career. Scott West was a dangerous opponent in the primaries and it was neck and neck in California. But everything rested on the Golden State now — whoever won here would secure the party’s official nomination and go on to fight Bill Peterson for the White House. Brooke thought Peterson was weak on defense at a dangerous time for America, and it was that belief that had finally driven him to run. It was a tense time.

Worse still was the Mexican business. Deploying Kim, Doyle and Jack Camacho down there was risky but unavoidable. The intel was minimal but clear — Morton Wade had paid tens of millions of dollars to an unidentified arms broker in Astana but what he had bought and where it was currently located were still two massive and lethal ‘known-unknowns’. Someone had to get to the bottom of it, and working with Eden’s ECHO outfit seemed a great way to keep things well under the radar.

He glanced at his watch and frowned. He hadn’t heard from Kim Taylor yet, and hoped all was okay. Running a semi-covert mission in Mexico could ruin his chances if there was any blowback, plus his daughter Alex was in the region, on the Eden Consortium’s private island in the Caribbean. He knew what she was doing down there, even though she had never spoken to him about it, but he had no power to tell her what to do. Even if he got into the Oval Office he knew she still wouldn’t listen to a damned word he said.

He cracked a brief smile at the thought. That’s Alex…

When the crew opened the airplane door the hot air flooded in and washed over him. Outside on the tarmac was a gathering of journalists. Jack Brooke gave his famous crooked smile, slipped on his sunglasses and made his way down the steps. A long day of small-talking, glad-handing and grip-n-grins was ahead of him.