“Okay, sport, we don’t have much time. You’re going to turn around and look me in the eye. If you fuck with me in any way, any way at all, I’m going to slit your throat. Is that clear? Okay, now swing around.”
Eddie did as he was ordered. Towering above him was a man—six foot three, maybe more, with shoulders that seemed to block out the room. He was dressed in black—watch cap, jeans, and a turtleneck—with black greasepaint covering his face. His eyes were dark and cold. In his hand was a bowie knife—broad and curved at the tip—ten inches long at least.
Behind the man and to his right, arms crossed, feet apart, stood a second man in identical dress and greasepaint.
As frightened as he was, Eddie couldn’t get the notion out of his head of the disaster that would ensue should the brownout that was already in effect be allowed to progress. As if responding to his thoughts, the big man placed the tip of the bowie knife beneath Eddie’s chin and lifted his face up.
“No arguing with me now,” he said. “I want you to use whatever you have here to trip this unit off-line.”
“But—”
The huge man drew the razor-sharp blade across Eddie’s gullet like a violin bow, slicing open a shallow gash from one side of his jawbone to the other.
“I said don’t argue with me, sport! Now, do as I tell you and you won’t be hurt any more. Mess with me and you’ll die in pieces, and we’ll still find the trip switch to take this place off-line.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and passed it to Eddie to stanch the flow of blood.
Shakily, Eddie crossed to the adjacent room, hesitated, and then threw the trip. Instantly, the substation went black. Moments later, a generator kicked on and the lights returned.
“Anything else we need to do?” the big man asked the other.
“All four teams have reported in. No problems at all.”
They motioned Eddie back into the control room and down onto his chair.
“That your emergency line, sport?” the man asked, gesturing to a red wall phone.
“Yes,” Eddie managed, continuing to put pressure on the gash. The handkerchief was sodden with blood.
“Is it monitored?”
“Yes, but with the blackout I’m not sure anyone is there.”
“I’m sure this call will be recorded, though, right? I said, ‘RIGHT?’ ”
“R-right.”
“Okay, then. This the number?”
“Yes.… Yes, sir.”
Only then did Eddie realize the man was wearing latex gloves.
The intruder fished out a sheet of paper from his back pocket and unfolded it. Then he dialed. Eddie could hear the taped message go on. At the beep, the man held up the paper and read, with some unevenness, what was typed on it.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then God said, ‘Let there be light.’ Now, Genesis has taken that light away. This is the beginning.”
“Okay, sport, you’ve been a big help—a real big help.”
“Thanks,” Eddie said meekly.
The man turned to go. Then, with a sudden, vicious backhand swipe, he slashed the huge bowie knife through Eddie Gostowski’s throat.
“Maybe I should have told him that sometimes I can’t be trusted,” he said.
CHAPTER 1
“Madam Speaker, the President of the United States.”
At the words from the sergeant at arms of the House of Representatives, the audience rose to its feet as President James Allaire entered the House Chambers to thunderous applause, mixed with cheers. Allaire glanced at the two Secret Service agents stationed opposite each other just inside the entryway, standing as straight and still as the black and gold Ionic columns dividing the wall behind the tribune. Sean O’Neil, head of the presidential Secret Service unit, shadowed Allaire as he glad-handed his way down the long, royal-blue-carpeted corridor.
The president’s heart responded to a rush of adrenaline as the clapping neared the decibel level of a jet engine on takeoff. He stopped every few steps to shake hands or exchange modest embraces with men in dark suits wearing carefully chosen ties, and with impeccably dressed women who smelled of exotic perfume. Ahead of him, he could just see the nine justices of the Supreme Court, and the five members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Allaire sensed O’Neil move a step closer behind him as a congressman from Missouri exuberantly pumped his hand and then shouted, “Go get ’em, Mr. President! You’re going to wow ’em tonight!”
There had been many occasions during the beginning of the first term of his presidency when Dr. Jim Allaire privately wondered about a decision he was forced to make. The weight of a single act, benign as it might at first seem, often carried with it surprising ripples and unintended consequences that added to his graying hair and the crow’s-feet at the corners of his gray-blue eyes.
However, delivering the first State of the Union Address of his second term was not one of those moments of self-doubt. He had won reelection by a fairly wide margin over Speaker of the House Ursula Ellis, and now, despite lingering sub rosa enmity between the two of them, it was time to cast aside politics and get some business done.
For the past hour, Allaire had paced inside the office of the minority leader of the House, sipping Diet Pepsi and having makeup reapplied for the cameras, all while trying to contain his nervous energy. The feeling he got before a speech of this magnitude reminded him of his days playing quarterback for the Spartans of Case Western Reserve, where he also earned his M.D. degree.
Between his college football career and years spent working as an internist at the Cleveland Clinic, Allaire had learned the importance of balancing confidence with a respectful fear of failure. Viewed as a man of the people, the genuine caring that had made him a respected physician contributed to his consistently elevated job approval rating as president. With the world’s problems getting progressively more complex and domestic terrorism on the mind of every American, the people needed a leader they could believe in—a man of poise and dignity in whom to invest their trust. Tonight, Allaire vowed to reaffirm that he was that man, and to give them a speech they would all remember.
The president reached the podium, where his head speechwriter, visibly more nervous than he was, had placed two leather-bound copies of tonight’s carefully guarded address. He turned and presented the first copy to Vice President Henry Tilden in his capacity as president of the Senate, and then the other to Ursula Ellis, who strained to maintain eye contact, and whose handshake held all the energy of a mackerel on ice. The president stifled a grin, although he suspected Ellis knew what he was thinking—fifty-three to forty-four—the margin by which he had beaten her in the election.
Allaire had practiced the speech dozens of times and could probably have delivered it flawlessly without the aid of the transparent teleprompters set on either side of his lectern. The crowd kept up its applause. With the American flag serving as his backdrop, he faced the people and waved his appreciation. Then he set his hands on the sides of the podium as a signal he was ready to begin. His eyes met briefly with those of his wife of twenty- seven years, the much-loved first lady, Rebecca Allaire, and next to her, their only child, Samantha, whom he still could not believe was a senior at Georgetown, already set for Harvard Law.
The clapping continued. Speaker Ellis rose from her chair and banged her gavel several times. At last, a profound hush fell over the seven hundred in attendance.
On the cornice overhead, the clock read exactly 8:00 P.M. Allaire’s thoughts flashed on the motto inscribed in
