Madness (2 page)

Chapter 2

Peacock stood statuesque, her back pressed against the right side of the doorframe
in the Cabinet Room of Number 10, Downing. Loomis, more stone-like, mimicked her pose at the left side of the door. British security stood guard mid-wall and far side of the room by the windows. Tough, her assessment of them said. The British bred their agents to be gruff and obstinate.

The room smelled damp. She supposed those who lived and worked here didn’t notice, but breathing the air irritated her throat and lungs. The yellow-gold walls and beautiful art gave the room a sparkling look, which seemed a contradiction to
the odor. She reminded herself the implant enhanced sights, sounds, and smells. She enjoyed nature far more now that she could clearly use her senses in hyper-mode.

Peacock absorbed and recorded every movement and
voice in the room. The task was to protect while being invisible—dull at best. Compared with her last assignment in Room 1515, this seemed like a vacation.

Boredom led to searching the files in her mind in these idle moments. Plainly,
Hercules’ control room signals had shut several major thought-pathways. However, if her entire capability to make independent choices were shutdown, she would be a vegetable. And she certainly wasn’t. Maybe she could build alternate routes and worm her mind around the blockades.

A polite knock on the door grabbed her attention, and Agent Loomis opened it.

“Sir, I bring an urgent message for Prime Minister Lodge.”

There stood a wiry
, thin man with a neatly trimmed and curled Imperial mustache.

“And you are?”

“Sir Jarvis Franks, MI6.”

British security escorted Franks directly to Lodge’s side. Peacock watched as Franks whispered something to Lodge.

“Are you sure?” Lodge answered as Monroe’s Chief of Staff grabbed his cellphone and turned to the president. Both men chimed the same words. “Iran has fired upon Russian troops gathering in Turkmenistan.”

Somewhere in Peacock’s mind
, she recalled a discussion between her husband and his staff about a Russian threat toward Iran. She couldn’t visualize the situation or the surroundings clearly.

Peacock noted
President Monroe’s face showed his surprise. While Lodge seemed engaged with the situation, his reaction revealed concern, but not surprise. Significant? She’d store this away for future recall.

Loomis shrugged, “Looks like a war has started. I thought the Iranians and the Russians were buddies.”

“Not since the radical Muslim groups in Chechnya and the southeastern republics took over.” Her academic studies and her training in Hercules covered this subject. “The Turkmen feel closer to Iran than to Russia in ideology.”

John Sherman spoke into Peacock’s headset. “Monroe’s cutting short this meeting. We’re heading home.”

#

As the president’s motorcade headed for Heathrow, Peacock and Loomis rode behind Monroe’s limousine. John Sherman
occupied the president’s limousine with Mrs. Monroe and Chief of Staff. A flight back to Washington wasn’t in the plans for two more days. Sherman had to patch security together.

Peacock gazed out her window with increased curiosity. She’d traveled in London with her husband. The
area they were heading into wasn’t the safest, a site of riots only months earlier much like the Americans were experiencing in Chicago and Los Angeles. Advanced security hadn’t scoured these buildings.

“We normally stay on M4 toward Heathrow,” Peacock whispered to Sherman through her headset. “That way takes less time. Why have we taken A4?”

“I’ll check.”

She heard Sherman talking to British security. Then the lead limousine veered right. The president’s limousine spun sideways, and the driver of Peacock’s limousine pulled a revolver out from under his seat. He never had a chance to use it as Peacock shot him through the back of his
neck. Their limousine smashed head-on into the back, right side of the president’s vehicle.

Peacock and Loomis rolled out of opposite
doors as machine gun fire strafed their limo. She observed Sherman and two others running with the president. She fired in the direction of the machine gun sound and rolled behind a clump of barberries. Wild gunfire bursts strafed the ground, shredding apart the bushes.

B
y then, Peacock succeeded in hunching down next to a nearby building. She spotted the window the shots were coming from and entered that building on the ground floor.

“I’m after the gunman,” she whispered. “Is the president all right?”

“Shaken,” Sherman, said. “We’ve been transferred to an alternate vehicle. The driver of the first limousine is still out there. British security is escorting us on. Bring one back alive if you can.”

“Understood.”

Peacock wasn’t used to bringing people back alive. She reached the top floor and stopped to listen. She could see the door behind which she suspected the shooters were located. She heard no sound. No one had left the building. They would have had to go past her. There didn’t appear to be a way up to the roof.

E
ither, they were inside that room or had escaped out the window. She doubted the latter. A click snapped her into high alert. She stepped back, crouched, and aimed at the door. Then she realized the click came from the entry door—a nice touch from her implant. Every one of her enhanced senses leaped into action when her adrenalin soared.

Whoever entered had stealth feet, but his shadow on the stairway gave him away. Still in his chauffeurs’ outfit by the image of a hat on the wall, his gun was drawn, and he moved blithely.

Why hasn’t anyone in the other apartments come out to see what’s going on?

The floor she was on had four rooms and one hallway. The light switches didn’t work. There was a service elevator.
When she pressed the button, nothing happened. In fact, other than the emergency lights and light from the windows, no electricity was on—an abandoned apartment complex?

She turned with her back to the wall next to the stairwell, listening to her target breathing. He had to be no more than a few feet from the top of the stairs.
The words Magnus, her trainer, used rang in her head. “Target identified. Attack and destroy.”

Peacock swung into the stairwell, grabbed the handrail
, and launched her feet against her enemy. He fell backward down onto the second floor landing, firing into the ceiling as he fell.

She heard the crack as he hit and
his yowl of pain. His gun bounced down the steps toward the entry. Agent Loomis banged through the ground floor door and headed up the stairs. Peacock ran back up to the third floor.

“Keep him alive,” she
called back.

The silence bothered her.
Surely, if anyone were still in there, he’d have taken the opportunity to attack while she was busying herself with the chauffeur. Then her eyes spotted a tripwire at the base of a door. She smelled C4. Her training said
run
. If the booby-trap didn’t work, that device could be set-off with a cellphone.

“There’s a bomb.
Leave.”

Loomis lifted the chauffeur up
. Peacock followed him down the stairs and out the front door. British MI6 personnel approached the building.

Peacock shouted. “There’s a bomb.”

Within seconds, the building’s upper floor blew off and the percussion deafened Peacock. An MI6 task force leader stopped them. “Come with us. We’ve cleared this with Sherman. We’ll include you in the debriefing. Then you’ll be flown back to the States.”

“And the president?”

“Fine. He bruised himself getting out of the limo. Your people did a right good job.”

And you
r people didn’t.

“They’re keeping us here for the debriefing
?” she asked Sherman through her headset.

“Roger that. I’m staying as well,” he responded. “They won’t be sending our would-be assassin State-side, so we’ll have to make the best of our time here.”

“I never thought of the Brits as our enemy,” Loomis mumbled after handing the chauffeur over to British security.

Peacock wasn’t surprised. She was married to a Brit, probably the most dangerous enemy America had ever faced.
Thankfully, she’d be in London on Wednesday to rendezvous with him.

Arthur Pendleton practiced deep breathing exercises as his limousine headed for the Widder Hotel. Another career altering motivational speech to deliver, he went through his prep to create the confident look and tonal quality his followers expected. His cell rang and he glanced at the number. “Reed,” he muttered. “His timing is always imperfect.”

Pendleton popped his
cellphone open. “And what could have gone wrong this time?”

“Sir, I made an attempt on Monroe’s life. It failed. I wanted you to hear it from me.”

“I didn’t order an attempt be made.”

“I have my own resources, and I don’t like unfinished business.”

“I don’t have time for this. We’ll discuss it later.”

Pendleton closed his
cellphone, as his driver signaled the approach to the hotel. However, before the cellphone reached his pocket, it rang again. Caller identification said, Russian President Serge Latovsky.

“I asked you to wait,” Pendleton answered, holding back the anger he felt
about Latovsky’s blunder.

“One of my generals misread a memo,” Latovsky
chuckled. “Not seeing the date, he moved on
Dashoguz
too early. Once across the border, I had no choice.”

I don’t believe you my greedy friend.

“What did the Iranians throw at you?”

“Iranian forces crossed into Turkmen territory at
Ashgabat
and their combined armies are moving north. We’re coming under heavy missile and artillery fire, but they have no idea what firepower I’m bringing to bear. I’ll chop the head off the beast here and now. I’ll ride into Tehran victorious.”

“I’ll drink to your success,” Pendleton said, “But I’m delivering a speech now. I’ll call you back.”

He hung up and his limousine pulled up to the Widder Hotel. As he rushed up to the Penthouse Suite, his mind sorted out his weak and disloyal followers from the strong and loyal ones. Neither Reed nor Latovsky fit the latter. He’d join his fifty or so project leaders for a final run-through of his plans. The world would be his if everything fell neatly into place. If not, pollution and war would seal the doom of the planet, and life as humankind knew it would cease.

The crowd in the Penthouse
Suite stood and applauded as Pendleton entered. He waved at those in the audience and shook hands with the discussion leaders seated in the front row. Then he hopped up onto the platform.

“I addressed most
of you eleven years ago,” he said, as he moved behind the podium and adjusted the microphone on his collar. “Our world situation hasn’t changed. We are the only lifeline to the planet’s salvation. God willing we will prevail.”

He motioned for them to sit down
and waited until the commotion ceased. “The coming war will be short but bloody. Assume mass casualties from the Mediterranean to the Pacific Ocean, plus those humans starving from the wars ongoing in Africa.” He looked at his expert on curbing hunger and asked, “Linda, how is the nutrition distribution logistics coming along?”

“
Each of our seven regions is ahead of schedule.” Linda Farnham, the former Chairwoman of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Birmingham in England, proclaimed confidently. “We’ve been loading nutrient packs containing high protein-high vitamin content onto vessels to distribute as each nation joins the Global Realm. As of today, we have seventy-three fully loaded ships, each carrying four-hundred million 12-ounce nutrient drinks. Each drink is capable of sustaining a mature adult male for a day.”

“Impossible,” someone
called out. “You’re talking over thirty billion cans of nutrient.”

“Not impossible
?” Farnham's voice rang out with a lilt. “Over 1.2 billion cans of soda are consumed worldwide every day. We’ve stockpiled healthy drinks.”

“Good God, people drink that much
soda!”

“The point is we are prepared to feed the world.”

Farnham sat as Pendleton continued. “Our friends will be met with grace. We’ll cut off our enemies from our society. If they threaten us, we’ll kill them. Any individual joining us freely will receive citizenship.”

Milton Rogers, Chancellor of the
British Exchequer, and Pendleton’s closest confidant, interjected. “The military might of Western Europe, Australia, and the Eastern European block, headed by Russia, is fully behind us.”

“They’re not as capable as the Americans,”
a project leader called out.

Rogers grimaced. “The American economy is in free fall. The American president is ineffective. I won’t steal Arthur’s thunder, but we have the capabilities to bring eighty-five percent of the world under our control right now.”

“By population, only seventy-percent.”

Pendleton laughed outright. “But the bigger picture gives us leverage to persuade the rest in a few months, instead of decades.” He placed both hands on the podium—legs planted firmly, eyes focused on the center of the room. “Within a week to ten days, American military firepower will aid us in putting an end to religious strife between the Muslim and Israeli worlds.”

Utter silence filled the room. Not a foot scuffed the floor. Not a paper crinkled in a hand.

“We will announce to the world our plan for a one-world government and abolish the monetary system
. We will replace that system with equal distribution for all and our new allocation plan.”

Now applause erupted, but Pendleton shut the celebration down. “Don’t rejoice for five years. That’s how long it will take to subdue the rebellious,
weed out traitors within the Asian block, and begin to turn world’s pollution problems around and back onto the right path. Some will call this war
madness.
Not I”

Those present quieted.

“You must work harder than you ever have in your lives to save the future of humanity.”

The door in the back flew open. Pendleton ducked, and three of his bodyguards jumped the man entering and threw him to the floor.

“He’s my aide,” Rogers intervened.

“President Monroe was attacked,” the aide managed as the bodyguards helped him back to his feet. “En route to Heathrow, two Secret Service agents were killed and three of the assassins.
The BBC is covering the situation live.”

“
What about Monroe?” Pendleton asked.

“Knocked himself silly attempting to flee the scene, but he’s otherwise fine.”

A groan went up.

“United States agents captured one of the attackers. Oddest thing, the agent who disabled him was a woman.”

Pendleton’s chest quivered. Lovey! He’d seen her in action. Hercules lied to him again. Damn them! She
was
on Monroe’s security team. No wonder he would be able to meet her in London.

He had a more serious problem.
Thomas Reed had done only one thing right. He’d called Pendleton to admit his failure. Pendleton had not approved the team Reed sent to kill Monroe. Thomas Reed failed again. Either Monroe possessed nine lives, or Reed was an imbecile.

He
grabbed his cell and turned away from his audience.

“Reed
here,” the deemed imbecile answered.

“Have our inside man move within the week.”

“Roger that.”

“And Thomas . . .”

“Yes?”

“Th
is fiasco was your last chance. You’re no longer in my service.”

#

With the room emptied and the delegates gone, Pendleton relaxed with Milton Rogers to clear his mind. “The American people will thank me when I take control. They’ll never have to listen to a political or product advertisement again.”

“Think again,” Rogers lamented. “You’re going to force them into the real world. They won’t be able to live by texting, television, or computer surfing, except
while working in our service or during their classroom studies.”

“Thank God for that.”

“How do you intend to keep control, once you have it?”

“We
’ll put down all resistance with horrific force. The Americans are debase, morally corrupt, and greedy, as are our Western block of nations. The Eastern bloc are religious fanatics or morally bankrupt as well.”

“Which will be the harder to control?”

“Not a question to worry over. Every individual has a choice. If they accept us, they will have citizenship and prosper. If they fight us, we will kill them. If they ignore us, so be it. The Global Realm will not help them. Those outside our protection will be thrown into another Dark Age.”

“To change the subject,”
Rogers said, and sipped some coffee. “The highest level of service should be awarded in the environmental clean-up efforts—an incentive to perform.”

“Ah, but no,” Pendleton said,
and bit into a delicious piece of mincemeat pie. “Every job has purpose. Rewards come through being the best at your job whatever it may be. Yes, the highest priority on our agenda after the war will be environmental clean-up, starting with the confiscation of all weaponry outside of Global Realm Security.”

The look on Roger’s face told Pendleton his friend understood the error of his words. Eliminating
individual class and competition was a key to the new world order. People shouldn’t think one contribution as more important than another contribution.

As they talked, his mind drifted to his concern for Lovey. Tonight he’d drop down on his knees and pray for God to protect her.
Soon they would be together for the first time in five months, but who would be behind her eyes?

#

“Hold your son.” Pendleton’s mother, Anne, placed George into Arthur Pendleton’s arms. “My hip hurts when I stand with him too long. Chunky little bugger, he is.”

His father’s blue eyes smiled up at
him. So much of his heritage came from his father, a curly-haired laborer with a temper, yet a gentle hand. His mother was a dark-eyed, trim Welsh woman, no taller than her mop. She was spirited. However, Pendleton looked like his father reincarnate, sandy hair, blue eyes, and a tall, slender stature.

Arthur Pendleton and his brother, Ian,
grew up southeast of Trowbridge in Wiltshire County. They lived in a small house in wool country famous for Stonehenge and the Avon Vale, the land where Arthur Pendragon, King Arthur of Camelot fame, allegedly died in the Battle of
Mons Badonicus
. They say allegedly. No one really knows if there ever was a battle there, or a King Arthur.

“Why can’t you take George with you when you see Lovey? I’m sure she misses him.”

The answer was too complicated. He shrugged.

“Th
ose Americans who took her from George are behind this. Aren’t they?”

“The whole bloody U.S. government appears to be, Mum. I’ll ring you up after I’ve seen her.”

“She’s a smart girl. And she cares for you.”

He didn’t know what she cared for now, or what those fiends might have done to her.
Her handlers broke their promise to her by never allowing her to hold George in her arms. He would never forget or forgive the bastards.

“I love her more than life.” He bent and kissed his mother on the forehead, took his son from her arms, and sang, “A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go.”

The little treasure in his arms was Laverna’s gift to him, a son to carry on his legacy.

Laverna Smythe Pendleton, aka Peacock, aka Donna O’Conner, consumed his every moment whether planning the bankruptcy of the United States or the assassination of its president. He’d gladly give his life for his wife. Fate tricked them both, but so long as he had breath, he’d find a way to remove that infernal device from her brain.

#

Pendleton kissed his mother, Anne, goodbye Monday afternoon, leaving two of his best security people with her. Once in his office in London, he called Ursa
Minor, Lovey’s boss and second in command at Hercules.

“Define the parameters for my day with Lovey.”

“You’ll meet in the Hilton Park Lane Hotel by Hyde Park,” Ursa said. “She’ll be in the Clarence Suite by six in the morning. We’ll be escorting her out at midnight. Peacock is under instructions not to reveal what assignment she’s working on.”

Before Pendleton could speak, Ursa hung up. Pendleton propped his feet up on his desk and threw a wadded up piece of paper in his wastebasket.
“I bloody despise that man,” Pendleton said. However, before he could work up a steam, his Red Phone rang. “Pendleton.”

“
Before you yell at me, believe me. Starting this war now is good thing. Yes?”

“Serge, I urge
d you to wait one more month.”

“All right
. I’m, how you English say, pressed for cash. Plus, Russia’s running out of oil. I needed to act.”

Pendleton
had held the Russian President at bay for two years. He must support him now. The missile bank technology worked. The missile code program performed flawlessly. As soon as he disposed of Monroe, he would unleash the missiles. “War must be fought to win, totally, and without a conscience. I’ll give you the support you need. I won’t lose this war.”