“I’m damn glad she’s back.” O’Keefe admitted, shaking his head. “It’s a madhouse here and I still don’t have a clear idea of what’s going on. Get my security detail… I’m heading there now.”
He took a moment to check in with the military officers and make sure they kept him informed of any new developments, then he followed his security team through the secure exit to his flyer. As a Senator, he’d often used a groundcar to get around Capital City, an old-fashioned affectation he’d clung to from his boyhood in rural Alberta, but a President couldn’t get away with such eccentricities. He was conveyed in a special, armored flyer, always accompanied by another flyer full of Security and usually a combat lander of Marines.
O’Keefe settled into his seat in the flyer as a Security agent took the seat next to him and Zakharova fell into the one across from him, eyes glued to her tablet.
“Public confidence has gone down 43 percent since the announcement and the attack, sir,” she told him. “The people are close to panicking, sir… there are reports that thousands of people are still in the shelters in a half dozen different cities. You need to address the public very soon.”
“And I will, Svetlana,” he assured her drily, “once I actually know what to tell them.”
Zakharova paused with a retort on her lips, raising a hand to her ear bud reflexively. “Yes, transfer it to my ‘link,” she spoke quietly to the caller, then she looked back to O’Keefe. “Sir,” she announced, “you have an urgent call coming in from General Kage. He says he needs to talk to you immediately.”
“Put it over the cabin speakers,” he told her.
“Sir,” she said hesitantly a scowl passing over her face, “he says this is very confidential, for your ears only.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” O’Keefe hissed in frustration. He pulled the ear bud from his ‘link and put it in place. “Put him through,” he told her, nodding. “Let’s see if he has a good excuse for missing my speech…”
Shannon Stark strode through the halls of the Republic Presidential Office Building with the casual familiarity of a regular visitor, even her sweat-soaked utility fatigues and holstered sidearm hardly drawing a second glance on a day when a Protectorate attack had narrowly been averted. The offices were a mass of confused activity as personnel trickled in from the shelters and others audited newscasts or tried to press their contacts in the Fleet to find out just what the hell had happened.
Shannon moved through the chaos purposefully, eyes fixed straight ahead as she approached the President’s private offices. There were the normal pair of Security agents stationed in the outer office, arrayed on either side of the entrance, but none of the President’s aides or secretaries were at the pair of workstations in the outer office.
“Colonel Stark,” the senior of the Security agents nodded respectfully. “The President is expecting you.”
She nodded and stepped towards the door, but the guard held up a hand, an almost-embarrassed look on his face. “Sorry, ma’am, but regulations… you need to check your sidearm before entering the President’s office.”
Shannon hesitated a moment, coolly assessing the beefy, professional-looking man, his right hand resting casually on the stock of a submachine gun strapped around his chest, then she smiled thinly and pulled the 10mm from the holster high on her right hip and handed it butt-first to the agent. He grinned sheepishly as he accepted it, pulling open a drawer at one of the work stations and locking it inside.
“I’ll have it for you when you come out, ma’am,” he assured her.
The door slid aside and Shannon stepped into the President’s private office. It was a well-appointed room with tasteful art on the walls and a collection of antique hardbound books on mahogany shelves, with a polished oak desk as its centerpiece. It was as nostalgic and old-fashioned as the man behind the desk… though at the moment, he looked less old-fashioned than simply old.
He looked up and smiled wanly as Shannon entered, but he didn’t rise, seemingly too exhausted to get up. “It’s good to see you, Shannon,” he said, sounding utterly drained. “I was beginning to worry.”
Shannon stepped over to the desk, absently running a finger over the antique fountain pen in a sterling silver holder displayed there. “Well, Mr. President,” she allowed with a shrug, “there were reasons for worry. Things didn’t go well.” She took the pen from the holder, turning it back and forth in her fingers, examining the classic lines of the obsolete device.
O’Keefe’s eyes flickered to the pen, then back to her. “So, Antonov wasn’t there?” he guessed.
“Oh, no, sir,” she shook her head, “he was there all right. Along with about a hundred biomech troopers, armed and armored. They
“Tom Crossman is not dead, Colonel Stark,” a voice said from behind her. Shannon spun around, her face screwing up in shock that bordered on rage, raising the fountain pen instinctively, like a weapon.
Shannon knew there were at least two concealed entrances to the President’s office. She had to guess that General Kage had been concealed behind one of them when she entered, because now he was standing directly in front of her, his eyes dark pools of impassive calm in the harsh and craggy terrain of his weathered features. His right hand rose to meet her left wrist, holding it and the fountain pen immobile in a grip of iron, while his other hand pointed a stunner at her at hip level.
“Please drop the pen and relax before I am forced to incapacitate you,” he said in a cool, level voice. “Your friend Sergeant Crossman is alive, and being taken to a hospital by Ari Shamir and my agent Roza Kovach. They also picked up your two other men, Reynolds and Von Paleske… and one other, a woman, was still alive from the raiding force, she is receiving treatment.”
“Crossman told us how Antonov forced you to submit to the hypnoprobe, Shannon,” O’Keefe said. He was standing now, having taken a few steps back from the desk, and had his hands up in an almost pleading gesture, a helpless, plaintive tone to his voice. “We can help you through this.”
Shannon hesitated for a moment, then with a dismissive flick of her fingers tossed the fountain pen towards Kage’s chest. His attention faltered for just a moment, but it was enough: with speed born from years of constant practice, she snatched the stunner from his hand and put the barrel against his nose.
The General’s eyes widened slightly and the only sound in the room was President O’Keefe’s sharp intake of breath. Shannon pulled her wrist free of Kage’s grip and stepped back from him, then sniffed and tossed the stunner on the floor.
“Get real, General,” she told him, shaking her head, her fists on her hips. “If I were brainwashed, you’d be dead and so would the President.”
“But…” O’Keefe stuttered, his back against the wall of the office. “But Captain Shamir said…”
“Mr. President, you’ve known me for six years now,” she said, her glare boring into him. “Have you
“Yes I did,” General Kage admitted, nonplused. “But if you were not hypnoprobed then why did you allow Antonov to…” Realization dawned in his dark eyes and he smiled, an unusual expression for him. “Ah, I understand… you are tracking him.”
“But why didn’t you tell us?” O’Keefe stepped away from the wall, approaching the two of them tentatively. “Why didn’t you tell Captain Shamir?”
Shannon fell tiredly into a chair beside the desk, closing her eyes and taking a breath. “Because frankly, Mr. President, Antonov has been two steps ahead of us this whole time and I don’t trust our lines of communications. I had to make sure he believed I was doing exactly what he told me to do so he wouldn’t deviate from his plans.” Her mouth twitched and her tone grew hard and bitter. “So I didn’t get all those men and women killed for nothing.”
O’Keefe was about to offer her some condolence, when Kage interrupted. “Where is Antonov going?”
“He left nearly a hundred biomechs behind at the bunker,” Shannon told him. “He abandoned them as if they were superfluous. I’m guessing he’s going somewhere he can get a lot more…”
General Sergei Pavlovitch Antonov, former leader of the Russian Protectorate, former ruler of Eastern Europe and part of Asia, former ruler of the
