The White House: A Flynn Carroll Thriller (29 page)

“We need to go, Mr. President.”

“Don't call me that!”

Diana said, “The Chrysler's at the private entrance.”

“Secret Service?”

“They've been told you're headed for a drunk farm in Virginia.”

“You have a MRI facility ready?”

Diana nodded.

Would they ever be able to accomplish this under all the watching eyes—the Secret Service; foreign powers with various agendas; Iranian intelligence, which still had murderous agents running free in Washington; and, above all, Aeon? His conflicts with the aliens had always been a chess match, but never one this difficult. Then again, in the end, it had always come down to a physical confrontation, and he had always won that part of the battle. But so far this time he had not once had the opportunity to resolve anything important with weapons. And it was too bad, because Bill was right: He was a killer. It's what he did well.

Bill was also right about another thing. When he'd said, “I don't want to hear any spy bullshit, it mixes me up,” he had been dead-on.

They headed down the Grand Staircase, toward the main entrance where the car waited.

“I still don't understand this. Why are we in motion?”

“Bill, we're going to resolve this,” Diana said.

“Is this it? Am I going to be taken to some garage and shot like a gangster?”

Cissy took his hand.

Flynn said, “I will not hurt you, and I will immediately kill anybody who tries.”

They reached the bottom of the stair. Flynn could see the car waiting outside, its black surface gleaming.

“How dare you!”

Lorna's voice echoed through the silence, stopping everybody. She stood on the staircase. Her heels clicked on the steps like gunshots as she came down. She wasn't steady, and Flynn saw that her pupils were dilated. Lorna was indeed stoned, which was a real surprise, and a mystery.

She went up to Bill. “Just where do you think you're going, out to scratch for a whore?”

“Mother!”

“And you, you whore.” She shot an ugly look at Flynn. “This dog's beneath your station, Cissy. Is that why you want him to fuck you?”

Cissy walked up to her, positioned herself carefully, and slapped her mother so hard it sounded like a firework exploding. Lorna gasped, then choked out a cry. Her hands clawed at her reddening cheek. Then her face collapsed and she went to her knees before her daughter and threw her arms around her waist.

“Ciss, baby, forgive me. Forgive your mother.” Her eyes shifted to Flynn, and he was shocked to see the sorrow in them, and the devastated emptiness of a defeated human being. “You. You're a good man,” she moaned. While Cissy held her mother's head against her waist, Lorna reached toward Diana. “You stay with this man, and you two will drink of the water and the wine.”

Flynn knew that it was time to take charge. Above all, he had to keep them on mission. He lifted Lorna to her feet. “I'll need you to come with us.”

She nodded, her head bowed, her face hidden behind her fallen hair.

Secret Service agents opened the doors of the car as they approached. Ahead and behind, there were black SUVs.

Flynn went around to the driver's side of the Chrysler and said to the agent behind the wheel, “Out.”

When the agent looked up at him, he recognized Flynn at once. “You're that weird guy, the alphabet spook.”

“Which is why you need to follow my orders. Out of the car and the escort stands down.”

“No can do.”

Flynn raised his voice. “OK, guys, go through the formalities—you can't let us just leave without an escort, that's out. You can never allow that. But now you have to. I'm ordering you to stand down. Get the lead car out of the way, and do
not
follow, not even at a distance, not if you value this president's life.”

Another agent came running around the corner of the building, an older guy. He looked like he was wearing a tractor tire under his tentlike suit jacket. Flynn recognized Simon Forde.

“Director! Good to see you again.”

“What in holy hell is going on?”

“The president's being taken to an undisclosed location in the hope of saving his life.”

“
What?
”

“Sir, I'm sorry, but you have to remain out of the loop.”

“Out of the loop? Are you nuts? The President of the United States doesn't go anywhere without us. Not anywhere, sir!”

There was only one person who could stand them down. “Bill—”

“Yeah, boys, there's big dutch. Big. You stay at home.” He nodded toward Flynn. “This guy—he's all I need, believe me. He's a real-life Superman.”

Flynn could have cursed him to hear that. He was just as vulnerable and scared as anybody, and he had to live on the front line. But at least one thing was going in his favor right now. As long as he had the president, the president couldn't activate the football.

Aeon would know this. How long would they wait?

Forde looked into Flynn's face. It seemed a long way up. “If you get him hurt—so much as a hair on his head—or her, or that beautiful young daughter of theirs, I swear to you that I will personally see to it that you get the needle. Do you understand me?”

Flynn stared back into the desperately frightened eyes. “He's safer with me than anywhere else on the planet.” And he thought, “Oh God, if only that were true.”

They got in the car, Flynn driving, Bill beside him. Diana and Cissy kept Lorna, who was crying unashamedly, between them in the backseat.

As they set off, Flynn thought that this was one vehicle Aeon would not disturb, not with Bill Greene in it. But what if the implant was found and removed, and Bill came to his senses? What then?

“Where's the football?” Bill asked.

Flynn had not wanted it anywhere near them. “You can bet that the Secret Service will be following at a distance. They'll get it and bring it.”

“They'd better.”

The bitter finality of the president's tone worried Flynn. He had plans for the thing, that seemed obvious.

He drove on, glancing behind him from time to time, looking for tails. Soon enough, the Secret Service was there. They have two responsibilities. The first is to protect the president. The second is to obey his orders. If one contradicts the other, protection always wins.

Flynn wished that the nuclear triggering system was buried somewhere, locked away, destroyed. Anything to keep it far away from Bill Greene, and from Aeon.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE UNITED
States is a secret society with an open society floating on its surface like uneasy sea foam on a mysterious deep. The surface country, with its noisy press, its raging Internet, and its fickle, confused population, is controlled by the deep, hidden currents that are the actual power of the state.

Maybe Flynn Carroll could not have put this into so many words, but he understood it in his blood and bone, so when they arrived at the “hospital” that Diana had chosen for the MRI scans, he was not too surprised to find a dark, nondescript storefront in a Bethesda strip mall on the outside, and a glittering, multimillion-dollar diagnostic center behind the worn old doors.

It was to places like this that the very wealthy and the very powerful came for treatment, and why a rich person in America who is part of the inner circle has a life expectancy far longer than average.

As they pulled into a parking spot in front of the karate studio next door, the First Family was unsurprised. Officially, the president is treated at Walter Reed, but if he needs a tumor neutralized or his heart rebuilt, it is to a nameless, superexclusive place like this that he will come.

To all appearances, an ordinary Chrysler 300 pulled up and took a parking space. Some kids came out of karate with their parents and went off down the sidewalk toward a yogurt store. It had rained earlier, and the sidewalk gleamed. The air was touched by the sweetness and fires of autumn. Off in the dark there were storms, and leaves were racing. Flynn caught himself wondering if other beings might soon enter this place and marvel at the wealth of diagnostics here, and ask themselves if they would ever figure out all human secrets, or comprehend the meaning of mankind.

Inside, they were met by a doctor, late middle age, in a Savile Row suit. That and the watch told Flynn he was wearing an easy twenty-five thousand dollars. Money didn't mean a thing to Flynn. He had more of it than Bill Greene or the doctor or anybody he might meet. He didn't know how much, but probably well into the nine figures, maybe dancing around ten. In an expensive month, he spent ten grand. Mostly, it was a lot less. He kept his extensive charities to himself.

“We're ready,” the doctor said.

They proceeded down a short hallway to a radiology unit. Inside the expansive space, Flynn could see three different MRI scanners, a PET scanner, a CT scanner, and other diagnostic equipment, all of it the newest and the best.

“Let's get you going, Bill,” Flynn said.

“First, you tell me what happens if they find something.”

“If it's possible to remove it safely, we do that.”

“And if not?”

“We've never had any trouble. I've had two pulled. Di's had one.”

They moved deeper into the facility. Unlike a hospital, it was entirely staffed with specialists. When there's unlimited money, there are also unlimited resources.

Bill was scared. Flynn could see that by his stiff, almost marching walk. Lorna, full of pills, seemed mostly interested in her distorted reflections on the looming machines all around them. Cissy's shoulders were hunched. She was deep inside herself, and Flynn knew why. If her dad was implanted, there would be an extraction, even if it was in a dangerous region of the brain. They would cure the patient, even if the patient died.

“You know,” Bill said, “you put a beer in my hand and you give me a good joke to tell, and I'm doing what I was born to do. You give me these history books to read, and I get all those facts in my head but they don't stick. Close the book, and I can't tell Julius Caesar from Big Julie.” He shook his head. “If this thing is in me and you can't get it out, you're gonna kill my ass, aren't you, Flynn?”

“Sir, we're ready.”

“You are, damn you. I remember you back at UT. You know what people called you? The Shadow. Remember the Shadow?”

“I do not.”

“‘Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!'” That's you, Flynn—you're the Shadow, and you will kill me as easily as you'd step on a cockroach.”

“I wouldn't step on a cockroach. He's no threat to me.”

“We're ready.”

“Daddy, get it over with!”

“OK! Jesus!”

When Bill was lying on the narrow pallet and was about to be rolled into the scanner, Flynn noticed that he had closed his eyes, and that there were gleams at their edges. This greedy, wrongheaded, and ill-informed man was face-to-face with the devastating power of the presidency. The lives and safety of a whole world lay in his hands, and he was nothing more than a good man with a beer and a joke. At least he knew it.

So if his life had to be taken here, maybe his last thought would be “I understand.”

He was deep in the scanner now, and Flynn went into the control room to watch. Lorna and Cissy sat in the back, both of them now hunched into themselves, silenced by the terror of the situation.

The scanner began recording slices of the president's brain. Flynn watched as, pass by pass, the images went deeper and deeper. He had studied brain anatomy obsessively, seeking to understand how the subtle, almost nonexistent electrical currents emitted by the implants could change thought. Through all of this there had emerged an understanding that the claustrum was the key. If a host could be physically approached, the implant would be guided into the white matter next to it. Aeon could do this without opening the skin, but the ones we implanted were inserted surgically. Implants in this position could not be removed, and it was in order to get at one of them that the Iranians had killed Albert Doxy.

Flynn was so concentrated on the imaging process that he did not instantly realize that the room was filling with people. A split second later, though, he did notice. He whirled in his chair and leaped to his feet, gun braced for action.

He found himself confronting ribbon-heavy generals, Roland Boxleitner, Director Forde, and the senator. With them were four Secret Service agents.

Forde said, “Put the gun down, Flynn.”

Flynn did not move. He knew that he could probably take all four agents before they'd gotten off a shot, but the consequences would be too unpredictable.

“Mr. Carroll,” Boxleitner said, “you're way off the reservation. We need you to put the gun down. You are no longer in charge here.”

Flynn noticed that there was another agent lingering in the hallway. He had the football.

The gun didn't move.

One of the generals spoke. “Iran fired a Sajjil-2 missile at Israel ten minutes ago. You have to table whatever this is. The president is urgently needed.”

Once again, Flynn's world lurched. What had been hours, even days, might now be only minutes. He stowed the weapon.

Aeon had outsmarted him. The football didn't matter at all. Greene wasn't the target. They had tricked the ayatollahs into triggering the war.

“Nobody's faulting you, Flynn,” Forde said. “We know you're doing your duty as you see it.”

“Did it reach its target?”

“It was destroyed. The Israelis have a system called Speed Wind that can intercept missiles while they're still ascending. It worked. But now they're preparing a launch, and the Iranians have no such system.”

With a series of thuds, the scanner powered down. Flynn backed up, but did not take his eyes off the group. He said to the tech, “What's the story?”