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DELANCEY GLANCED AT his watch. “I suppose we’ve waited long enough.” He began to push himself out of the comforting sofa cushions.
“Aaaaa . . .” Jackson’s eyes pleaded with Delancey.
“I’m sorry. If I believed in an afterlife, I would wish you well, Mr. President. As I do not, I will simply say, ‘Goodbye.’”
Jackson felt something rising from his stomach. The sensation was strange and foreign—as though it did not belong to him—but within seconds, he knew he was going to be sick.
The expulsion was so violent that, although he was unable to move his body himself, the impetus pitched him forward, and he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the coffee table. He continued to retch and purge, each ejection beyond his control.
Delancey sneered with disgust. “Must I dose you again?”
He removed the inhaler from his pocket. “I was unable to shake it earlier, in the heat of the moment. Perhaps the compound was not properly mixed.”
He shook the inhaler with vigor. “It will be this time.”
***
ACROSS THE COMPOUND in the camp office, Axel Kennedy jumped straight out of his chair.
“Sir?” The Navy master chief who was briefing him stepped back and, out of inbred caution, slid a hand to his holstered sidearm and checked around them for a threat.
“Shh!” Kennedy frowned and cupped his hand over his ear to listen . . . to the unfamiliar and tinny voice speaking through his earwig.
Axel Kennedy, the Vice President has poisoned President Jackson. He requires immediate antitoxin for a weaponized botulinum substance. We have induced vomiting to purge the President’s stomach and throat, but most of the toxin was inhaled rather than ingested.
“What the—”
The message repeated as if it were a recording on a loop.
Kennedy shouted into his comm link, “Medical! Send medical to Aspen Lodge—and fire up Marine One for Stonewall emergency evac!” He jerked his finger at the master chief. “You. Get the camp commander and prepare your Navy squids to take the Vice President into custody for attempted assassination. Go! Now!”
The master chief grabbed his radio. Kennedy ran from the camp office, picking up agents from the President and Vice President’s detail as he sprinted up the hill to Aspen Lodge. Two of the agents who joined the rush toward Aspen Lodge were Callister and Mitchell.
Kennedy put his hand on his sidearm and vowed, I will shoot you both without hesitation if you even zig the wrong way.
He was first through the door of Aspen Lodge. President Jackson was sprawled facedown across the coffee table. Delancey held something near Jackson’s face.
“Stop!” Kennedy roared.
Delancey jerked upright when the doors flew open. His hearing may not have been as sharp as it once had been, but his wits were.
“I . . . The President! He vomited and collapsed—he needs help!” Keeping his left side toward the door, he slid something into his right pocket.
Kennedy pointed his gun at Delancey. “Move away from him, Delancey.”
Delancey’s face was a perfect mask of shock and worry. “What? Please. Help the President.”
“Secure the Vice President,” Kennedy ordered two of his own agents.
Callister and Mitchell moved forward.
“Not you two—stand down.”
“He’s our protectee,” Callister objected.
“Not anymore.” He shifted his aim to cover Callister and Mitchell. “Over there. Now.”
The master chief and a squad of ten sailors charged into the lodge, followed by the onsite medical team and the camp commander. The emergency technicians laid the President on his back on the floor and went to work on him.
“I have it on good authority that the President inhaled a botulinum toxin,” Kennedy told the techs.
He then motioned toward Callister and Mitchell. “Master Chief, disarm those two agents and take them into custody. I want cuffs on them—” He turned to the VP. “—and I want two sailors on this traitor. Hold his arms securely; do not allow him to move his hands. However, do not search him yet.”
Callister and Mitchell’s mouths turned down in anger, but they did not resist. Three sailors relieved the agents of their service weapons and put them in handcuffs. The Vice President, on the other hand, launched a perfect fit of indignation and tried to shake off the sailors who took hold of his arms, forcing his hands behind him.
“Release me! I am the Vice President of the United States!”
“Careful,” Kennedy ordered. “I believe he put the toxin in the right pocket of his trousers—you don’t want to come into contact with it.”
The sailors hardened their jaws and tightened their grip on Delancey’s arms. The old man panted in red-faced fury.
“The rest of you—” Kennedy indicated those present. “No one leaves this room until the President does.” Then he called out, “I need an evidence bag!”
An agent offered him one. Kennedy made no move to take it.
“Those of you who can spare me your attention? Eyes on me. And sir?” He motioned for the camp commander to join him.
When he had the notice of everyone other than the medical team, Kennedy said, “All of you are witnesses. Please note that we have taken the Vice President into custody, but we have not searched him.
“You, Agent Randolph.” Kennedy gestured to the agent with the evidence bag. “Search the Vice President. Make sure you wear gloves. Master Chief? I would like you to observe the process.”
Kennedy then deferred to the O-5 in command of the camp. “Commander?”
“Master Chief!”
“Aye, sir?”
“Eyes on.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Kennedy motioned to another agent. “I want video evidence of the process. When you are finished, give your phone to the Commander. Chain of custody.”
Randolph, the Secret Service agent with the evidence bag, grabbed a pair of latex gloves from the medical team. With the master chief watching closely and an agent shooting video, Randolph patted down the VP. He stopped when he reached the right pocket of the man’s slacks.
“Here, sir.” His splayed fingers outlined the bulge in Delancey’s pocket. The other agent photographed the find.
Kennedy gave the agent a nod. “Bring it out. Show it, photograph it, then double bag it. It is evidence of treason. Commander? Will you take charge of the prisoners and the crime scene?”
“Consider it done, Agent Kennedy.”
“Make a hole!” an emergency responder shouted. The EMTs had the President on a gurney and were anxious to wheel him out.
Kennedy had one more thing to say. “This is now an ongoing investigation of the gravest order. I need a complete communications blackout so as not to alert other possible participants in the plot. Commander, can you accommodate that?”
“I can.” He commanded the room. “Lips tight, people. If you speak, text, email, or so much as wink at anyone outside this room? You will face court martial. If you look cross-eyed at any member of the press corps? You will face court martial. Have I made myself clear?”
“Aye-aye, sir!”
Kennedy raced after the gurney. The whine of Marine One’s engines, some four hundred feet away, rumbled in the mountain air. The unscheduled departure of the President alone would alert the press corps to an emergency of some kind.
Initially, Delancey’s accomplices would believe the Vice President had succeeded. Kennedy figured they had a few hours tops before Delancey’s cronies figured out that the assassination had failed—if. If the President survived.
When the President had been loaded onto the helicopter, Kennedy squeezed aboard.
“Go, go, go!”
They were in the air when his earwig again emitted that tinny, eerie voice.
Agent Kennedy, pick up the call.
Kennedy glanced at his phone’s black screen—just before it lit up with an incoming call from a number he did not recognize. He lifted the phone to his ear.
“Agent Kennedy?”
He knew the voice, but he didn’t say her name aloud. “Yes.”
“The nanomites tell us that the President will not survive without their help. Our ride is here, and we’ll be in the air shortly. Where can we meet you?”
Kennedy grimaced. “Are you sure the nanomites can help him?”
“They are the best shot we have at saving him.”
“I need your tail number.”
She repeated it to him, and he committed it to memory.
“Walter Reed,” he murmured. “I’ll have agents on the helipad to wave you in but . . . I will be with the President, and I don’t know how I can get you to him.”
“Leave that to us.”
***
MALWARE’S CHOPPER SET down in front of the farmhouse, and Mal, Gamble, McFly, and Logan jumped out. McFly and Logan were to help Gamble deliver the four unconscious guards into FBI custody.
Mal, Zander, and I were in the air minutes later, speeding toward Walter Reed.
Twenty minutes had elapsed between our call to Mal and when he and the helo arrived. During that time, the nanomites had downloaded the entirety of the President’s array for us to review. Most revealing was the Vice President’s lengthy monologue as the President, unable to move and slowly dying, was forced to listen.
We now had the identity of our cold-blooded mystery woman—Winnie Delancey. I was furious that she’d been right there, in front of our eyes the entire time, and we hadn’t seen her. We certainly hadn’t suspected venerable, old Senator Delancey. Even as gun shy as President Jackson had been after being betrayed by Vice President Harmon, Simon Delancey, with his kind manners and sage advice, had managed to worm his way into Jackson’s trust and confidence—guided by his wife’s whispers in the background.
Winnie Delancey: aka Pham Quang Bi`nh, according to her husband’s revelations. A Viet Cong interrogator and spy, a treasonous double agent—the brains behind General Cushing, Vice President Harmon, the moles in the Secret Service, NSA Deputy Director Danforth, and the death of the President’s friend, Wayne Overman.
“A monster,” I breathed. “A monster who must face justice.”
We couldn’t do anything ourselves about Winnie Delancey, not with the President’s life in jeopardy. We had to get the nanomites to him.
“Send the array’s audio to Agent Kennedy’s phone, Nano. Tell him it is evidence of Simon and Winnie Delancey’s treason. Make sure he understands that Winnie Delancey is the architect of the collusion. Someone needs to go after her before she books it.”
Mal looked us over. “Gotta say, John-Boy, you two look like poop.”
“Yeah. In the last eighteen hours we got Darius and Macy’s babies back, beat off four armed guards, alerted the Secret Service to an assassination attempt on the President, and—oh, yeah—almost died in the process. In the totality of things, looking like poop isn’t too bad—but thanks for cleaning up your language for us,” Zander snarked.
“Good work, both of you,” Mal admitted. “And the President’s condition?”
“Don’t know yet,” I whispered.
O God, please help our President. If the nanomites can do it, please get us to him in time. And Lord? Please be with Maddie Jackson right now.
While we flew, Zander, Mal, and I talked strategy—not that much was needed.
“It’s simple, really. One of us, either Zander or I, must make it to the President’s side.” I thought for a moment. “Hey, Mal? On another note, we kind of need a favor.”
He snorted “Another one?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of important. You know that farmhouse where you picked us up?”
“Uh-huh. Why do I think I’m not going to like this?”
Zander chimed in, “Probably ’cause you won’t.”
“At least you two are never boring. What do you need, Ripley?”
“Uh, we need that place, in particular the basement, to go ‘boom.’”
“You want me to demo the place.”
“Itty bitty pieces, please.”
Mal shook his head, but he pulled his phone and dialed.
Jayda Cruz?
“Yes, Nano?”
We have a question.
“Okay.”
We had many discussions concerning the nanobug arrays prior to assigning them to their surveillance targets. You were insistent that, when we uncovered the conspiracy against the President, we were to destroy the nanobug arrays.
“Uh-huh.”
Do you require continued surveillance on the two Secret Service agents now in custody? We have downloaded the entirety of their take.
“Um, which two agents are in custody?”
Axel Kennedy had Agents Callister and Mitchell arrested at Camp David.
“Did he? Cool! That’s great news. But why were you asking about the arrays?”
If the arrays are no longer needed, we wish to abort them, Jayda Cruz.
I glanced at Zander, who was listening in. He shrugged. I shrugged.
“I suppose it’s all right.”
Very good, Jayda Cruz.
Mal’s pilot was in radio contact with the hospital; Kennedy had cleared us to land—but not necessarily to a warm welcome. As we came in, we saw Marine One on the ground on Walter Reed’s helo pad, waiting for a President who might never ride in it again.
We were told to put down on the grass, away from Marine One. When our chopper flared to touch down, the commotion on the ground picked up and, as the pilot switched off our engines, armed Secret Service surrounded the chopper.
Mal, Zander, and I had our simple strategy ready. Mal threw open the helo door and, lifting his hands over his head per the Secret Service’s command, climbed out first. Next came Zander and the pilot, who did the same. The pilot looked around, confused that I wasn’t lined up on the grass with the others.
That’s because no one on the ground saw me jump out last.
The nanocloud was not fully charged, and I didn’t know how long they could sustain my invisibility . . . but, somehow, I needed to get to the President before the “juice” the nanomites needed to keep me hidden ran out.
***
THE CAMP COMMANDER of Naval Support Facility Thurmont studied the Vice President as he glowered and complained of his treatment.
“You have no right to hold me here! No right at all. In fact, with the President ill, I should be at the hospital with him, ready to assume the duties of the presidency if he is unable to perform them.”
“I’m not a constitutional scholar,” the commander drawled, his hands on his hips, “but I’m fairly certain that attempted assassination of the sitting president puts you right out of the line of succession.”
“Attempted assassination? Preposterous! Says who?”
“Save it for the judge, Mr. Delancey. The FBI will arrive soon to take the three of you into their custody.”
The commander considered the two Secret Service agents sitting a couple of seats from the Vice President in the camp office foyer, cuffed to their chairs. In contrast to Delancey’s voluble objections, they had gone silent at the get-go.
Nothing like stone-cold reserve to confirm guilt, the commander thought. Still, not for me to decide.
He addressed the two Marines guarding the prisoners. “Are we good here?”
“Yes, sir,” they answered.
“I’ll be in my office.”
He didn’t see (indeed, no one saw) Callister and Mitchell’s nanobug arrays leave the agents’ bodies and creep across the back of three adjoining chairs and crawl into the Vice President.
The two million “dumb” nanobugs followed the simple instructions they had received. They relocated themselves to their new host and traveled to where the spinal cord enters the skull and becomes the brain stem. The nanobugs took up residence within the medulla oblongata, that little portion of the brain that controls vital involuntary (or automatic) functions such as breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure. They spread themselves across the medulla, in as much as two million nanometer-sized electromechanical devices can “spread” themselves over an area about three centimeters in size.
They had not been in position long when they received a follow-on command: Self-destruct.
The nanobugs vanished in a spontaneous burst of energy. So did a good portion of Vice President Delancey’s medulla.
“Hey, I think something’s wrong with him!” Callister pointed at Delancey.
“Sir? Sir!”
The Marines rushed to the Vice President’s side. His eyes protruded. His limbs spasmed and twitched. He struggled to breathe.
“Commander!” one guard bellowed.
The other reached for a phone and rang the infirmary. “VIP Medical emergency, Camp Office!”
The commander, who had left the foyer thirty minutes prior, strode back. “What the—”
One glance was all he needed to tell him the Vice President was experiencing—had experienced—a medical crisis.
With a last, shuddering exhale, the VP’s watery blue eyes stared out into eternity.
“We’ve called the paramedics, sir.”
“I doubt they will be of any help.” The commander placed his hands on his hips and swore under his breath.
Could this day get any worse?
***
THE NANOMITES HAD MINED Walter Reed’s website while we were in the air. Although we couldn’t know for certain where the hospital staff had taken the President for treatment, our best bet was to start with Emergency Services. I sprinted along South Wood Road, adjacent to the helipad and leading to the nearest hospital entrance—the ER.
I knew it was the right place before I got there. Two staggered lines of armed and ferocious military and Secret Service personnel guarded the front of the building. No unauthorized person would get past these fierce men and women. I could only imagine the chaos within the ER. You know, inside, where I needed to go?
I slipped unseen between the harsh, hatchet-faced men and women protecting their Commander-in-Chief. Instead of going for the main entrance, I detoured toward a “Hospital Personnel Only” doorway farther down the building. The nanomites unlocked it for me, and I ducked inside with little fanfare. The mites guided me to the ER—and I hadn’t been wrong about the chaos in that place.
The hospital had emptied out the ER except for the President and a glut of busy medical personnel. Patients who’d been waiting to be seen or who were in treatment when the President arrived were herded off to another department, creating a stir of confusion and consternation for patients and staff alike. ER staff had taken Jackson into the largest treatment room available. His bed was surrounded by doctors and nurses. And to get to the treatment room, I first had wade through yet another half-dozen antsy agents.
Before I could begin to infiltrate the President’s room, the ER doors slammed open. An entourage of VIPs trouped inside, their aides and two Secret Service agents clearing a path for the “important” people. A few of them looked familiar.
“Nano? Who are these people?”
White House Chief of Staff Marcus Park, Speaker of the House Frank Friese, Senate Majority Leader Regina Palau, Majority Party Chairman Donahue, Energy Secretary Nora Mellyn, Secretary of State Tom Banyon, and Supreme Court Justice Wendell.
I thought I understood: With Vice President Delancey accused of attempted murder, the House Speaker was next in the presidential line of succession—and if the doctors declared that the President was incapacitated, Friese would be sworn in as Acting President.
The hospital’s chief of staff and a hospital spokesperson met them, and it was obvious who, among the VIPs, had appointed himself leader: Majority Party Chairman Donahue.
As Friese opened his mouth to say something, Donahue jumped ahead. “What is the President’s condition?”
Friese shot Donahue an irritated glance.
The hospital spokesperson, who seemed to know “who’s who” in the knot of VIPs, turned her nervous attention from Donahue to Friese. “Mr. Speaker, the President is unconscious and on a ventilator.”
Donahue again interjected, “Is it true that the President was poisoned?”
“We believe he has ingested a bio-chemical substance.”
Friese—ignoring Donahue—asked, “What kind of bio-chemical substance?”
“We are uncertain; however, we received word that a component of the substance was botulinum toxin. We have administered an antitoxin to combat it.”
Donahue again. “Is the President incapacitated? Is he unable to carry out his duties?”
Her eyes jinking between Donahue and Friese, the spokesperson said, “I will let Walter Reed’s Chief of Staff answer.”
“Thank you. Yes, the President is incapacitated at present, his condition grave. We do not know when he will regain consciousness . . . or if he will.”
Donahue gestured to the Chief Justice. “Swear in the Speaker, please.”
“Wait one blasted second, Donahue.” It was Nora Mellyn, the Secretary of Energy. “You are getting ahead of the constitutional process. The cabinet officers make that determination.”
She turned to the Secretary of State, next in the line of presidential succession after the Speaker of the House. “Secretary Banyon?”
“We have received verbal approval from the other cabinet heads to make a determination as to the President’s fitness and act upon it. Mr. Chief Justice? Based upon the President’s medical condition as described by the hospital’s Chief of Staff, we affirm that he is unable to carry out his duties at present. Please administer the oath of office to . . . Speaker Friese.”
I think the words stuck in Banyon’s throat, but there was nothing else he could say or do. I watched the swearing in (which took less than a minute). I confess, I was angry and concerned for the nation’s sake. What happened next was telling.
Donahue shouldered the Chief Justice aside and took the Acting President by his arm. “All right Friese. Your next step is to address the nation. I have your speech right here.”
Friese frowned and blinked. “Address the nation?”
“We’ll do it from the Oval Office.” He turned to Marcus Park. “Set it up.”
Park, barely containing his indignation at being ordered around by anyone other than the President, removed his phone and walked outside on stiff legs.
Donahue still had Friese by the arm and led him away. “We’ll use Marine One to return to the White House.” He jerked his chin at the two Secret Service agents who had arrived with them. “You’re the Acting President’s personal detail until your Director says otherwise.”
Friese’s face fell in on itself, as though the sudden weight of the presidency had crushed it. Friese might be the Acting President, but Donahue was clearly in charge.
The Peter Principle in action, I thought. Promoted to the level of your incompetence.
Had we averted a coup that would have lost the Executive Branch to those who hated America only for the presidency to be taken over by partisan political hacks?
I shuddered. One more reason to save Robert Jackson.
I tiptoed by the Secret Service agents guarding the treatment room. A head or two swiveled my way as I passed, but nothing more.
The treatment room was crowded, the President’s bed surrounded. Getting close enough to the man himself would be truly tricky.
Jayda Cruz, Agent Kennedy is against the far wall near the head of the President’s bed.
“Thanks, Nano. Please hack his earwig and tell him I’m here. Tell him that I need to get near enough to the President for you to help him.”
Under the bed seems the logical location, Jayda Cruz.
Oh, yeah. I’d found myself under John Galvez’ bed while the nanomites worked on his inoperable brain tumor.
“Nano, ask Kennedy to make a hole for me to crawl under the bed.”
Keeping my eyes on Kennedy, I skirted the crowd and got as close to him as I could without bumping or shoving a nurse or a doctor. I saw the moment he heard the nanomites. His eyes flicked around the room. Then he cleared his throat and started edging more to the side of the President’s bed.
I moved toward him. He looked oddly off balance for some reason and pretty uncomfortable into the bargain—and then I saw why. He’d lifted one leg and was balancing on the other to make a hole for me to crawl through!
“Nano, ask him how long he can hold that pose.”
Kennedy’s taciturn countenance returned with a vengeance—and I almost snickered aloud. Then I got down on the floor and crawled under his lifted foot. When I had wiggled my way beneath the bed, I found an outlet on the wall behind the bed’s head and slapped my hand on it.
The rest was up to the nanomites.
~~**~~
