“I’m POed,” she said finally. “How should I be?”
Gladstone patted his jacket pocket.
“Well, I assumed you would want the location of the explosions. So far I’ve pinpointed seven of what looks like a total of fifteen or sixteen broken glass containers. I should have the rest of them in a little while. Then, assuming you want me to, I’ll start filling in the seats around them.”
“Absolutely. As usual, you are well ahead of the game.”
“From what I can tell so far, there’s no pattern.”
“There’s always a pattern, dear Leland. Sometimes not so obvious, but there’s always a pattern to everything. Finish filling in that seating chart, but keep your two-way radio handy. Until this situation is resolved and we are all outside waltzing down Pennsylvania Avenue, we’re going to be mighty busy.”
The speaker’s aide headed toward the gallery while Ellis maintained her position not far from where Jim Allaire was about to retreat for the meeting with his group of sycophants. The discomfort on the man’s face was a tonic. She started imagining herself sparring with him, boxing gloves on, bobbing and weaving, searching for an opening. What she needed most now, to inflict some real damage, was information. And as the president turned to go, she realized where she could find it.
Quickly moving to the right side of the group, she slid her hand around Sean O’Neil’s arm and pulled him back toward her.
“I don’t have time to talk, Madam Speaker,” he said. “The president needs me.”
“If I need you, Sean, and I do, you will make time for me.”
O’Neil hesitated, and then allowed himself to be led to a spot where they would not be overheard.
“What do you want?” he asked in a pressured whisper.
“Simple. I want to know what the president says in that briefing you’re going to.”
“It’s classified. If you’re not there, you can’t know.”
Ellis smiled again and her thin lips disappeared inside her mouth.
“We both know that’s a bad strategy, Sean. I am the speaker of the house. The American people will expect me to know what’s going on. Allaire is playing politics at a time of national crisis.”
“You should take that up with the president, then.”
Sean turned to leave, but Ellis caught him by the arm.
“Suppose I also take up what you and that darling young White House intern were doing in the Lincoln Bedroom while the first couple was away on vacation. I’m sure the Allaires would love to see the security videos— especially the part where you so skillfully and lovingly snorted some sort of white power from between the sweet thing’s breasts.”
O’Neil went pale.
“How…? How did you…?”
“Eyes and ears, my love. I use my eyes and ears—and some well-placed friends. In fact, over the years we’ve been working for the American people, I’ve collected other useful tidbits about you, as well. The nasty custody battle with your ex over baby Duncan, for instance. How do you think this sort of revelation will help your chances, dear Sean, let alone your career?”
O’Neil looked away.
“I’ll get you what I can,” he muttered.
“You’ll get me what I
O’Neil turned without a reply and rushed ahead to catch up with the president. Ellis watched until the group had disappeared through a guarded exit.
The word echoed in her mind. She was third in line to govern the most powerful nation on earth. And all of a sudden, the two above her seemed to be on very shaky ground.
CHAPTER 5
Allaire led his team past the Secret Service agents guarding the mahogany double doors located directly to the right of the rostrum. The corridor, accessible only to members of Congress and their staff, had reinforced walls that dampened the din from within the House Chamber.
Near the end of the passageway, the president used a keycard to unlock another wooden door. Sensors detected movement inside the pitch-black room, and turned on several banks of overhead fluorescent lights.
Allaire proceeded to a keypad on the right-hand wall. Punching in his code, he waited for the hydraulics to engage. In seconds, the wall opposite him slid noiselessly downward and disappeared, revealing the Hard Room. The array of communication equipment—satellite phones, wall-mounted monitors, radios, printers, radar imaging systems, and laptop computers—gave him a brief flare of confidence that his government possessed the power to prevail against any adversary. Then he reminded himself that this was no ordinary adversary—this was WRX3883 in the hands of depraved killers, and at this moment, nothing existed inside this room, or any other, that could defeat that combination.
The large conference table in the center of the room would serve as their briefing area. Two Cabinet secretaries—Salitas and Broussard—took their seats, along with Allaire’s physician Bethany Townsend, the vice president; uniformed Admiral Archie Jakes (the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff); the head of the Capitol Police force, Hank Tomlinson; Architect of the Capitol Jordan Lamar and White House Chief of Staff Megan McAndrews. O’Neil, square-jawed and swarthy, remained standing against the back wall.
“Where is Paul Rappaport?” Allaire asked.
“Paul is at home in Minnesota, Mr. President,” McAndrews said, “tending to his daughter.”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “Sorry.”
For this year’s State of the Union Address, Paul Rappaport was the so-called designated survivor.
No State of the Union Address, inauguration, or other momentous occasion occurred without there being a DS—referred to by some as the Doomsday Successor. The DS was the only one of the fifteen Cabinet members officially in line to succeed the president who was deliberately not in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. He or she was chosen for the job by the military through the President Emergency Operations Center, or PEOC—the same unit with operational control of the Hard Room.
Given that every member of the Cabinet wanted to be near the POTUS during major events, the chosen DS, usually at or near the bottom of the chain, had no desire to be the one selected. Paul Rappaport’s appointment, however, was a logical one—one that the former governor had actually requested.
Not only was the Homeland Security secretary a logical choice, being the most recently established Cabinet position, but just a week earlier, Rappaport’s daughter’s condo had been broken into and ransacked while she was in the shower. Stolen were her purse, wallet, laptop computer, iPad, cell phone, silverware, and jewelry. Even worse, the president had been informed, her underwear had been removed from her bureau drawer, cut up, and spread out on her bed. The daughter, Renee, had a history of profound anxiety and depression, and suffered a breakdown as a result of the invasion. She had just been discharged after several days in a psychiatric hospital, and was at her parents’ place.
Allaire imagined that the flamboyant, furiously patriotic Rappaport, protected by a small detachment of Secret Service agents, was with his wife and only child at the moment, watching what had been the president’s address, and still unaware of how close he suddenly was to history.
“Sir, I respectfully suggest we get on with this briefing,” said Gary Salitas, Allaire’s closest friend in Washington.
Allaire perked up. He had been quiet too long, lost in thought as the weight of evolving events descended upon him.
“Yes, of course, Gary. Thank you. Sean, can you give me an update on the mobile device roundup?”
