The President Is Missing(93)

The utter destruction of a nation of three hundred million people. Three hundred million people, ruined and desperate and terrified, everything stolen from them—their safety, their security, their savings, their dreams—everything shattered by a few geniuses with a computer.

“…my country expects me to move further, faster and fight harder than any other soldier…

“…I will shoulder more than my share of the task, whatever it may be, 100 percent and then some…”

Hundreds of test computers, used and useless. Our best experts utterly clueless about how to stop the virus. A virus that could hit at any minute, the one man capable of stopping the virus toying with us, watching from a remote location as German special forces invaded his penthouse.

“…I shall defeat them on the field of battle…

“Surrender is not a Ranger word.”

Maybe not, but if the virus takes hold, I will have no choice but to impose the most authoritarian of measures just to keep people from killing one another for food, clean water, and shelter.

If that happens, we will be unrecognizable. We will no longer be the United States of America as anyone has ever known it or conceived of it. To say nothing of the fact that with all the troubles on the streets of America, there’s a real chance we’ll find ourselves in a war with the likelihood of nuclear exchanges greater than at any time since Kennedy and Khrushchev.

I need to talk to somebody besides myself. I grab my phone and dial my go-to guy. After three rings, Danny Akers picks up.

“Mr. President,” he says.

Just hearing his voice lifts my spirits.

“I don’t know what to do, Danny. I feel like I’ve walked right into an ambush. I’m out of rabbits and hats to pull them out of. They might beat us this time. I don’t have the answer.”

“You will, though. You always do, always have.”

“But this is different.”

“Remember when you deployed with Bravo Company to Desert Storm? What happened? Even though you hadn’t even been to Ranger School yet, they made you a corporal so you could be team leader after Donlin got wounded in Basra. Probably the fastest rise to team leader in Bravo Company history.”

“That was different, too.”

“You didn’t get promoted for no reason, Jon. Especially over all the other people who’d been to the academy. Why?”

“I don’t know. But that was—”

“Shit, I even heard about it stateside. It got around. The lieutenant said that when Donlin went down and you were under enemy fire, you stepped up. He called you ‘a born leader who kept his head and found a way.’ He was right. Jonathan Lincoln Duncan—and I’m not saying this because I love you—there is no one I’d rather have in charge right now.”

Whether he’s right or not, and whether I believe it or not, I am in charge. Time to quit whining and suck it up.

“Thanks, Danny.” I push myself to my feet. “You’re full of shit, but thanks.”

“Keep your head and find a way, Mr. President,” he says.





Chapter

86



I punch out the phone call and flip on the overhead light. Before I can open the door, I get another call. It’s Carolyn.

“Mr. President, I have Liz on the line.”

“Mr. President, we conducted the polygraph on the vice president,” says Liz. “The results were inconclusive.”

“Meaning what?” I ask.

“Meaning ‘no opinion on deception,’ sir.”

“So what do we make of that?”

“Well, sir, candidly, it was the most likely outcome. We threw together questions quickly when we would normally draft them with great care. And the stress level she’s under, whether innocent or guilty, is tremendous.”

I passed a lie-detector test once. The Iraqis gave me one. They asked me all kinds of questions about troop movements and locations of assets. I lied to them six ways to Sunday, but I passed. Because I was taught countermeasures. It was part of my training. There are ways to beat the box.

“Do we give her points for volunteering for a polygraph?” I ask.

“No, we don’t,” says Carolyn. “If she fails the test, she blames it on stress and she asks that very question—why would I volunteer for a polygraph if I knew I’d fail it?”

“And besides,” Liz Greenfield adds, “she had to know that sooner or later we’d come around to polygraphing her and everyone else. So she was volunteering for something she knew she’d have to do eventually anyway.”

They’re right. Kathy would be tactical enough to have thought this through.

Jesus, we can’t catch a break.

“Carolyn,” I say, “it’s time to make the phone calls.”





Chapter

87



Mr. Chief Justice, I wish I could tell you more,” I say into the phone. “All I can say right now is that it’s important that the members of the Court are secure, and it’s critical that I keep an open communications channel with you.”

“I understand, Mr. President,” says the chief justice of the United States. “We are all secure. And we are all praying for you and our country.”