The King's Tomb

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Davis Faulkner was in the back of Air Force Two when the call came. They were flying thirty-seven thousand feet over the Midwest on the way back from a Vice Presidential trip to Seattle. Below, storm clouds were forming above the cornfields of Minnesota, but it was the storm on the end of this phone call that unnerved him.

“Sir.”

“Mr Vice President, how good of you to take my call.”

Faulkner leaned forward in his seat and fiddled with the end of his tie. “That’s no problem at all, sir.”

“Let’s get straight to business, Davis.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We both want you in the Oval Office, am I right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, good.”

Faulkner heard the creature wheezing. He sounded like he was getting weaker.

“The problem I have, Davis, is that our attempt to blow your President out of the sky in England failed and so as you know, I have been working on something much more certain to do the job.”

“Sounds promising, Oracle.”

“I will of course need the assistance you can provide in your capacity as Vice President of the United States.”

“What do you need, sir?”

“My people will need unfettered access to a certain American coastal city, land sea and air.”

“I probably can swing that, sir.” A smile spread on his lips. This really was going to happen. He really was going to become President.

“Probably?”

Faulkner’s smile dropped. “It’ll be done, sir. Whatever you want.”

“Better.”

“What’s the plan, sir?”

The Vice President listened carefully as the Oracle briefed him on the plan to kill the President. It was brutal. It was treason. It was going to put him in the Oval Office in less than two days.

When the Oracle hung up, Faulkner realized his hands were shaking. His Chief of Staff, Joshua Muston stepped over to him with two coffees in his hands. “Captain says more turbulence is on the way, sir.”

Faulkner accepted the coffee. “There certainly is, Josh. There certainly is.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That was Wolff.”

Muston paled and took a seat opposite his boss. “Oh, God.”

Faulkner’s eyebrows lifted half an inch. “Pretty much, yes.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted to tell me I’m going to be President in a few hours’ time.”

Muston seemed to have forgotten about his coffee. “What’s going to happen?”

For a long while Faulkner was silent as he took in the storm clouds so far below, swirling, bubbling. “Let’s just say this country’s going to have a very bad day tomorrow.”