The President Is Missing(39)

“Nobody wants to hurt you, Augie,” I say. “But if you pull that trigger, you’ll be dead in two seconds.”

“No,” he says. “You came…” His voice fades out.

“What, I came alone? You don’t really believe that. You’re too smart to believe that. So put the gun away and tell me why I’m here. Otherwise I walk.”

The gun moves in his lap. His eyes narrow again. “If you walk away,” he says, “you will not be able to stop what is going to happen.”

“And you’ll never get what you want from me, whatever that is.”

He thinks about that. It’s the smart thing for him to do, all things considered, but he wants it to be his idea, not mine. Finally he nods and hikes up his pants leg, holstering the gun.

I release the breath I’ve been holding.

“How the hell did you get that gun past the metal detectors?”

He slides down his pants leg. He looks as relieved as I am.

“A rudimentary machine,” he says, “knows only what it is told to know. It has no independent thought. If it is told it sees nothing, then it sees nothing. If it is told to close its eyes, it closes its eyes. Machines do not ask why.”

I think back to the metal detector as I went through it. There was no X-ray, as there is at an airport. It was just a doorway, and it either beeped or didn’t beep as you passed through it, as the security guard stood by, waiting for an audible signal.

He jammed it somehow. He disabled it while he passed through.

He hacked into the electrical system at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

He downed a helicopter in Dubai.

And he knew “Dark Ages.”

“Here I am, Augie,” I say. “You got your meeting. Tell me how you know ‘Dark Ages.’”

His eyebrows rise. He almost smiles. Obtaining that code word is quite an achievement, and he knows it.

“Did you hack in somehow?” I ask. “Or…”

Now he does smile. “It is the ‘or’ that concerns you. It concerns you so much that you cannot bring yourself to say the words.”

I don’t argue the point. He’s right.

“Because if I was not able to obtain this remotely,” he says, “there is only one other way I could have obtained it. And you know what this means.”

If Augie didn’t learn “Dark Ages” through a hack—and it’s hard to see how he could have—then he got it from a human being, and the list of human beings with access to “Dark Ages” is very, very small.

“It is the reason you agreed to meet me,” he says. “You clearly understand the…significance.”

I nod. “It means there’s a traitor in the White House,” I say.





Chapter

25



The crowd around us breaks into a cheer. An organ plays. The Nationals are running off the field. Someone inches down the row past us toward the aisle. I envy that person, whose greatest concern at this moment is taking a leak or heading to the concession stand to grab some nachos.

My phone buzzes. I reach for it in my pocket, then realize a sudden movement could cause alarm. “My phone,” I explain. “It’s just my phone. A well-being check.”

Augie’s brow furrows. “What is this?”

“My chief of staff. She’s checking that I’m okay. Nothing more.”

Augie draws back, suspicious. But I don’t wait for his approval. If I don’t respond to Carolyn, she will assume the worst. And there will be consequences. She will open that letter I gave her.

The text message, again, is from C Brock. Again, just one number, this time, 4.

I type back Stewart and send it.

I put my phone away and say, “So tell me. How do you know ‘Dark Ages’?”

He shakes his head. It won’t be that easy. His partner wouldn’t hand over that information, and neither will he. Not yet. It’s part of his leverage. It might be his only leverage.

“I need to know,” I say.

“No, you do not. You want to know. What you need to know is more important.”

It’s hard to imagine anything more important than whether someone in my inner circle has betrayed our country.

“Then tell me what I need to know.”

He says, “Your country will not survive.”

“What does that mean?” I ask. “How?”

He shrugs. “Truly, when one considers it, it is a simple inevitability. Do you think you can prevent forever a nuclear detonation in the United States? Have you read A Canticle for Leibowitz?”

I shake my head, searching my memory bank. Sounds familiar, high school English.

“Or The Fourth Turning?” he says. “A fascinating discussion of the…cyclical nature of history. Mankind is predictable. Governments mistreat people—their own people and others. They always have, and they always will. So the people react. There is action and reaction. This is how history has progressed and how it always will.”

He wags his finger. “Ah, but now—now technology allows even one man to inflict utter destruction. It alters the construct, does it not? Mutually assured destruction is no longer a deterrent. Recruiting thousands or millions to your cause is no longer necessary. No need for an army, for a movement. It takes only one man, willing to destroy it all, willing to die if necessary, who is not susceptible to coercion or negotiation.”