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I‘ll be posting one chapter of my novel Designated Survivor every week throughout 2022. Download links below.

31.

Five minutes before finding Renicks in one of the empty offices, Frank Darmity stared at the suddenly dim Remote Launch Interface. A second before, it had been lit up green, accepting his keyed-in data. He’d been frustrated at how slow entering the codes by hand was proving to be. But at least it was progress. Then the tiny screen had flickered, gone blank for a second, and was now displaying the bright-red OFFLINE graphic, the Presidential Seal in the background.

One second after that, the lights had gone off. The emergencies had flickered on for one baleful, yellow moment, and then the regular lights had come back on again.

He sat back and let out his breath. Stared at the RLI. Then leaned forward, took it in both hands, stood up, and dashed it against the floor. It bounced. A single piece of plastic broke free and flew off into the shadows of the ruined Security Office. The box-shaped RLI bounced again and rolled a few more feet, then stopped on its side. Still lit up. Still, he thought sourly, completely functional. American-built, no doubt.

He could hear his own breath whistling in and out of his nose. He could feel his heart pounding. So close. So fucking close. And that stupid cunt and his pet agent had fucked it up.

He only indulged himself for a few seconds. A few seconds of rage. He wanted to tear all the consoles from their bolts and hurl them around the room. He wanted to set the place on fire. He wanted to break bones and inflict some goddamn suffering. Instead he took a deep breath, wincing slightly at the pinch in his side. Then he exhaled and relaxed. Worked through each muscle in his body and consciously relaxed them until he was standing at ease.

Then he picked up the automatic on the console in front of him and started walking through the debris. The overall mission had failed. But his mission had one last component.

So did everyone else’s, he reminded himself.

He stepped slowly through the wreckage and around one of the console banks. Martin Amesley sat on the floor with his back against the wall, a few feet away from the shattered front doors. He’d been shot twice in the same leg, which was stretched out in front of him like a burst sausage. Darmity could tell at a glance that the bullets had somehow missed the arteries — else Amesley would have bled out by then — but he’d lost a lot of blood in any event. The old man was surprisingly calm, though, and Darmity gave him some grudging points for that. He’d imagined Amesley as the type to cry like a baby if he got a scratch.

The old man was watching him as he turned the corner and approached. His watery eyes behind the thick lenses flicked to the gun in Darmity’s hand, and then back to his face.

“Mr. Darmity,” he said with a curt nod.

Darmity stood for a second, then knelt down on one knee right in front of the Director. Stared at him.

“You know what just happened,” he finally said.

Amesley nodded again. “We’ve failed.”

Darmity nodded, keeping his temper. “You failed, Mr. Amesley. I could have run the shit out of this operation. You tippy-toed it. You fucked it up. You should have stood aside and let a Field Man run a Field Operation.”

Amesley smiled. Darmity didn’t like it. It was a soft smile. A secret smile. A fucking Cheshire Cat. The old man thought he was smarter than everyone else.

“As you say, Mr. Darmity.”

Darmity leaned forward. “You thought you were my boss.” He tried to mimic Amesley’s subtle smile.

The older man’s face remained exactly the same: Slight smile, blank eyes. “As you say.”

Darmity felt his control slip. As you fucking say, he thought. Fucking talks like an asshole. He mastered himself. Just to show he could. There was no reason to. But he wanted Amesley to know that he was a man you had to pay attention to.

Outside, in the hall, he heard the elevator’s light ring as it arrived. Heard the doors split open. He paused, turning his head, and listened. Heard the voices of Amesley’s people. Turned back to Amesley, who was still staring back at him with that still life of an expression. Like nothing bothered him. It made Darmity want to bother him. Just to see his face change.

He stood up and pointed the gun at the old man. Amesley looked back at him. No flinch. No expression. Darmity felt anger rising in him. He wanted to think of something to say. Something devastating. Something that would make Amesley collapse.

“Well, Mr. Darmity?” Amesley said without moving. “Clean up your mess, son.”

Rage filled him. He shook with it. You pressed the button, he thought, and took one step forward. Squeezed the trigger. Again. Once more. Stood over the body. His breathing like sandpaper.

“What the fuck!”

He spun. The three of them outside the office. All of them looking haggard. Sweaty and defeated. He’d thought about them all. Nothing in-depth. He hadn’t had time to do any research, any social engineering. He’d had to observe them in tiny bursts and form assessments based on very little data — the way they took orders. The way they interacted with each other. The way they carried themselves. The way they responded to a mild insult.

That was Darmity’s favorite tactic. You learned so much from the ten seconds after you pushed someone just a little.

In any group of three or more, there was a leader. Unspoken, usually. Darmity knew without hesitation the leader was the one he thought of as the other Frat Boy. The only one left, now. Frat Boy had the easy build and good hair of the youngster who’d never been in a situation he couldn’t charm or fuck or fight his way out of. His body had never failed him, had never failed to respond to his needs.

Darmity shot him first.

Nothing fancy. He wanted to put them down; he could make sure of a kill later. So he aimed for the torso. The biggest target on the body. Frat Boy tumbled backwards, belly exploding into a geyser of blood.

The other male agent Darmity had dubbed The Monk. A ring of dark hair on his head. Should have just shaved it, accepted his fate, but was clinging to his hair like it was a life preserver. He was staring at Frat Boy. Mouth open. Frozen. A fucking moron. Darmity swung the gun in his general direction and fired. The Monk dropped.

The female agent he’d named Plumper. When he spun to put the gun on her, she shot him in the left shoulder.

He was spun around and tripped over Amesley’s outstretched legs. He hit the wall and went down onto his back. There was no pain. His left arm was numb, but there was no pain.

He propped the gun on his chest and lay still. Thinking, stupid cunt shot me, over and over. But he didn’t move. He waited. Heard the pop and scrape of glass being stepped on. Waited. When she appeared around the edge of the nearest console, gun held out in front of her in a way she probably thought was professional and badass, her free hand wrapped around her wrist, he squeezed the trigger and sent her flying backwards.

He sat up, and the pain hit all at once. He grit his teeth and examined his arm. He couldn’t see the wound through the fabric, but it was soaked through with blood. He moved the arm experimentally and found it flexible enough, checked the fabric on the back and found the exit hole. A through-and-through. The bullet had busted right through his shoulder and missed everything vital. Painful, but not immediately worrying.

He stood up. Felt dizzy for a moment, then steadied. Blood loss, he thought. He stepped over Plumper, who stared up at the ceiling with yellow, filmy eyes. He could hear someone gurgling pathetically in the near distance. Stepping back out into the hall, he found Frat Boy trying to hold his intestines in with his arms. His face was white as marble and his arms were bright red. He’d pushed himself up against the wall and kept opening his mouth and swallowing air.

Darmity felt hot and slow. Weak. He stood for a moment in the hall looking down at Frat Boy and watching him open his mouth and make this weird sucking noise, then shut it. A bloody spit balloon had formed on his lips. Darmity sympathized. Frat Boy, Amesley, all of them had been told that Cleanup meant making sure witnesses like Renicks were dead. But he had been ordered to make sure everyone was dead.

He knelt down on one knee and put the barrel of his gun against Frat Boy’s forehead and tilted his head back. The agent swiveled his eyes slowly, finally focusing on Darmity.

“Renicks,” Frat Boy managed to wheeze. “Renicks and Begley.”

Darmity nodded. “In one of the offices?”

Frat Boy nodded back. A slow, deliberate up and down.

Darmity glanced down at the floor. Blew out a little breath. Squeezed the trigger.

It was time to clean this shit up. But he wasn’t going to have to do it alone.

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I‘ll be posting one chapter of my novel Designated Survivor every week throughout 2022. Download links below.

30.

Nine minutes and fifty-two seconds before she ran out of time, Begley was on the floor next to Renicks, feigning unconsciousness. She remembered her Emergency Situations seminar: identify and protect your advantages. She had two rounds to her name and was in no shape for a physical confrontation. She judged three pursuers coming in. She’d reset the complex, she was certain of that. But she still had to bring Renicks back from the edge of death. And somehow survive herself.

So she tore off her jacket while they were forcing the last few inches from the door and the rubble of the desk. Rolled up her sleeve. Secreted the syringe Jack had given her in her pocket, needle up, and laid down next to Renicks. Pushed the gun under the exam table, just out of sight, just within reach. Just in case.

Shut her eyes. Emptied her head and steeled herself.

They came in a loud rush, smashing the desk with one last swing of the heavy door. She heard them climbing over the debris, kicking the chunks of the ruined desk out of the way. Three voices. Two men, one woman. One of them Square Jaw with the too-tight shirt and the abundance of confidence.

“Ah, look at this shit.”

“Christ.”

“Fucking hell. Check them.”

She heard shoes on the hard floor. Sensed someone coming near. Stay absolutely still, she thought. You move and you will have to go home and marry that guy Daddy set you up with and have babies. Six or seven babies. Babies until you die in childbirth.

She heard a dull metallic noise very near her ear and imagined someone putting a gun down on the floor. Felt Renicks’ body being shifted.

“He’s dead,” the woman said.

“Are you sure?” Square Jaw snapped.

“No pulse.”

“Jesus fucked. We’re into Cleanup now, you know that.”

“Shut up. Get the Old Man on the radio. What about her?”

She felt Renicks being shifted again, felt someone lean in close. Perfume. A light touch with it. Classy. Her head was shoved to one side and two fingers pushed painfully into her throat.”

“She’s alive.”

“I can’t decide,” Square Jaw said in an exasperated tone, “if that makes my job easier or harder.”

“Can’t get the old man on the radio.”

“Jesus fucked.”

She felt the woman moving away from her. She stayed perfectly still. The Old Man was Amesley; it was a common nickname for the Director. She wondered what was going to happen. The complex was offline. No missiles were going to be launched. Renicks was slipping away. She couldn’t discount the possibility of feeling the barrel of a gun against her head one second before being killed.

“This is Cleanup, Tom. We have a clear protocol.”

“It’s not Cleanup until the Old Man orders it. I’m not going to waste her and then have to explain my thought process.”

There were a few heartbeats without words. She heard people moving. Breathing.

“Grab them both. We take them back to HQ and find the Old Man. Get our orders. Easy enough to pop her up there as down here.”

“Waste of fucking time, Tom.”

“Shut the fuck up, Mel.”

She heard them moving again. Felt Renicks shift again, then be lifted up from the floor. For a moment she felt the cold empty air where he had been. Counted back in her head. Eight minutes, twenty seconds left.

Then someone grabbed her by the shoulders. Pulled her up into a sitting position. Then she was lifted, slung over someone’s shoulders. She smelled aftershave and sweat, gun powder. Let herself hang limp. Every step he took her splinted leg banged into his chest, sending a lance of pure agony through her.

She was carried quickly to the elevator. Heard the doors shut. Heard the code being entered. Felt the shift in gravity as they rose. Heard the soft ding of the alert, heard the doors open again. She was carried briskly for a few more seconds and then a door was opened. She was dropped unceremoniously on the floor, hitting her head. She managed to resist reacting in any way. She lay sprawled where she fell, a shock of pain from her leg spreading through her like poison.

She heard the door close. She checked her internal count. Seven minutes, six seconds to go.

They hadn’t searched her. She wondered if she was really alone in the room. If they weren’t testing her, waiting quietly to see if she was really unconscious. But she had no time. Either she’d fooled them or she hadn’t, and she had to revive Renicks and effect their escape before his time ran out, before they came back with a decision from Amesley. Before cleanup began in earnest.

Because suddenly, there was a chance she and Renicks might survive.

The complex was offline. Renicks had been removed as Acting President. If the plan was localized, if they hadn’t compromised the entire Continuity Plan, that might mean the emergency was over, and President Grant might no longer have the option of blowing the complex. Even if no one suspected him. The complex was no longer locked down, either. They could walk out the front door, if they could get to the front door. She thought it was suddenly reasonable that if they could get away from Amesley’s people, they might live.

If she could get to Renicks before it was too late. If she could bring him back. If he would be strong enough to climb back into the guts of the complex and climb. And climb. And climb.

She opened her eyes and sat up.

She was alone in one of the many tiny, generic offices. The room was probably eight by eight, with a small desk, a rolling chair, and a single cheap, metal filing cabinet. The door was shut and locked, but the lock was a simple deadbolt system. The complex had been designed as an emergency facility; all of the office doors locked from the outside so they could be used as temporary detention rooms if needed. The complex was also a federal facility, funded by Congress, which meant everything had been done by the lowest-bidding contractor.

Seven minutes.

She crossed to the door and checked it. No sense wasting time if the door had been left unlocked. It was bolted. She stepped back to the desk and pulled open the drawers one after another. Found a pair of scissors in the middle drawer.

Six minutes, forty seconds.

She opened the scissors up and sat by the door, broken leg stretched out straight along the wall. Jamming the blade at an angle into the latch, she closed her eyes and tried to feel it. With a jerk she snapped her arm across her body, pulling on the door handle at the same time. With a pop, the door slid open.

Six minutes, twenty-seven seconds.

Pulling herself up by the door handle, she held the door almost shut for a moment, listening. Then she eased the door open slightly and peered into the empty hallway.

Sliding the scissors into her pocket, she stepped out into the hall. Looked up one way and then the other, judging where she was. Around the corner from the Security Office, she thought, on the third level.

Six minutes, eleven seconds.

She scanned each side of the hall. They would have put Renicks in a nearby room. No reason to carry his body any further. Crossing to the one directly across from her, she tried the handle. Open. She moved to the next one, tried the handle. Found it open too. The fourth one she tried was locked. Locking the door on a dead man was exactly the sort of thing she would do herself — the crazier the situation, the more you relied on protocol, on procedure. Pulling the scissors from her pocket, she leaned down and repeated her operation and popped the lock, a few seconds faster this time. She took hold of the handle —

Gunshots froze her in place. Three. Rapid. Not far. Two almost on top of each other, then a beat, then the third.

Heart pounding, she pulled the door open and slipped into the room.

Five minutes, fifty-three seconds.

Renicks had been dumped on the floor too. He lay on his back, arms spread out from his body, legs spread. Aside from a yellow-brown bruise on his arm where he’d injected himself, he looked the same.

Two more gunshots made her jump.

“Shit,” she whispered. Cleanup, she thought. Sounds messy to me.

She yanked the syringe from her pocket. Hands trembling, heart pounding, she sat down next to him on the floor. Traced her fingers on his chest, trying to remember exactly where he’d pointed her to. She sucked in breath and raised the syringe about six inches above his chest. She knew she would need a little force to plunge the needle in deep enough.

Five and half minutes, she thought. Ready, steady —

She froze. Someone had opened one of the doors in the hall. Close by. She knew this because they had opened it via the simple expedient of kicking it in. She sat there for a second or two, listening, the syringe held just above his chest. Then another door crashed inwards. This time she heard the grunt of effort and felt the vibration. It was one of the offices right next to this one.

Five minutes, fifteen seconds.

She scrambled up, wrenching her leg painfully and biting her lip. The syringe still in her hand, she limped behind the desk and dropped down, putting her back to the door and pushing herself under it, her leg stretched out stiffly before her. She was in shadow from the knee back; the rest of her leg was in plain view to anyone who simply walked close enough to the desk.

Five minutes, five seconds. She tried to control her breathing.

Five minutes. Silence.

Her leg began to burn with a steady, throbbing pain in time with her heartbeat. She bit the inside of her cheek. Drew blood. The new pain pulled her away from her leg. She was sweating.

Four minutes, fifty seconds.

With an explosive noise like a gunshot, the door crashed inwards. She jumped a little, knocking her head on the top of the desk, then went completely still, the sudden aching in her head doing a fine job of distracting her from her leg. She hoped the noise of her impact had been swallowed up and hidden by the noise of the door.

She held her breath.

She could hear someone moving through the room. Two, three steps. Then they stopped. She heard a creaking noise — leather or straps being stretched as someone bent down.

“Check out the big brain on Mr. Renicks,” she heard Frank Darmity say in a low, relaxed voice. “Didn’t get you too far, did it?”

She held her breath and listened intently. Tried to pick out every creak of Darmity’s boots, every whistles of air going through his nostrils.

Four minutes, thirty-five seconds.

“Where’s your bitchy In-Suite, huh?” Darmity said in a low, easygoing voice. A man without problems, she thought, remembering the gunshots. A man who wasn’t worried about anything. “In one of these offices, huh.”

Four minutes, twenty-seven seconds.

Lungs aching, she let her breath out in a silent stream, slow and steady despite the burning in her chest. Forced herself to breathe in at the same slow rate. She heard Darmity moving again. Heard him cough. Lingering. She imagined him standing in the room looking around. Sniffing the air. Then the sound of the door swinging on a broken hinge, squealing.

Then nothing. Static. Dust hitting the carpet.

Four minutes, fifteen seconds.

She counted another ten seconds in her head, holding herself still. Heard nothing. Moving slowly, she pushed herself forward out from under the desk. Reached up and used it to pull herself back up onto her feet.

The door hung open, sagging inward on a slight angle. The door jamb had been bent. She could see a slice of the hallway outside.

Four minutes.

She moved to her left, staying in the blind side the door provided; anyone out in the hall would be unable to see her. She moved as quietly as she could to the door and stood behind it. She squinted through the gap between the door and the jamb. Strained her ears. She heard nothing. No sign of anyone moving around. She bit her lip and wondered if Darmity had left the area. Had no way of knowing. He would be back, though. He would ascertain that she wasn’t in any of the other rooms on the third level. He might assume she’d fled back into the guts of the complex, but she knew he was smart enough to think of double-checking this room.

Limping back to Renicks, she bent down and grabbed hold of one wrist. It was cold. She pulled it up and worked her way around to his other side, leaning down and taking hold of his other arm. She took one hobbling step back, pulling Renicks, and put some weight on her broken leg to gain enough leverage. Pain exploded, shooting up her side into her head, making her wince and almost overbalance.

She stopped. Breathed deeply once, twice, three times.

Three minutes, forty-seven seconds.

Tried again. Calibrated how much weight she could put on the leg, how much pain she could take before it overwhelmed her. She dragged him. Slowly, inches at a time. Arms shaking. A low growl of agony in her throat, swallowed. She pushed the door open with her butt and dropped him, leaning out to check the hall.

Empty. She sucked in air. Grabbed hold of him again, and dragged him out.

She chose one of the offices Darmity had kicked in, gambling on the pop psychology of it. Gambling he would think she would feel exposed in one. She pulled Renicks until he was just inside, then tried to push the door back into its exact position. The exact angle it had been hanging open.

She tried to move quickly, but she felt sweaty and shaky, unreliable. She lowered herself back onto the floor next to Renicks. Checked the syringe. Held it an inch or two above his chest again.

Three minutes, three seconds, by her count.

Taking another deep breath, she brought the needle down with a sharp jerk of her arm. Pressed the plunger all the way in one spastic motion. Yanked the syringe free. Sat there for a moment, panting. Staring at Renicks. Who looked just about as dead as he had before.

She tossed the syringe aside. Leaned over him and thought back to her CPR classes. She leaned forward again. Placed both palms of her hands flat on the center of his chest. Pushed down with most of her strength; she had no leverage and weighed half of him. Did Thirty compressions as fast as she could, trying for a steady force and speed.

Two minutes, forty-seven seconds.

Pushing one hand under his neck, she tilted his head back. Cupped open his mouth and pushed one finger inside to make sure his tongue wasn’t blocking his airway. Leaned forward and took two deep breaths to bring her own oxygen levels up. Put her mouth over his. Pinched his nose. Breathed out, pushing air into his lungs. Leaned back and took two more deep breaths. Leaned forward and repeated the process.

Tilted his head. Put her mouth on his. Breathed into him.

Two minutes, thirty.

Straightened up and positioned her aching hands on his chest again. Thirty compressions. Sweat dripped from her forehead onto his undershirt.

Two minutes, two seconds.

She straightened up again and slipped her hand under his neck … and leaped backwards with a startled grunt when he suddenly convulsed, a whole-body twitch. He raised his head and made a deep choking sound in his chest, eyes fluttering open. Then he melted back onto the floor and lay there shivering, breathing rapidly with a loud, scratchy buzzing in his chest.

Alarm swept through at all the noise he was making. She scrambled up onto her feet and stumped for the door, pushing it as far closed as it would go, then spun and sank down to the floor again, grabbing his hand. Ice cold. She leaned in close.

“Jack!” she hissed. “Jack, shut up!”

He turned his head slightly and looked at her. She was relieved to see the spark of recognition in his eyes. To see he was all there. A smile spread across her face, spontaneous and, she thought, ridiculously inappropriate. He licked his lips with a pale, yellowish tongue. Moved his lips. She leaned in close.

“Fuck,” he whispered, “me.”

She tried to stop herself, but burst into muffled, strangled laughter.

EPUB | MOBI | PDF

I‘ll be posting one chapter of my novel Designated Survivor every week throughout 2022. Download links below.

29.

Six minutes and forty-five seconds before watching him die, Begley limped after Renicks, breathing hard and trying to ignore the settled, burning ache in her leg.

“This … is … not … a … good … idea, Jack,” she said, sucking in breath between each word.

He didn’t slow his pace or turn around as he led her down the corridor of the Thirteenth Level. “We know where they are, Begs — right behind us,” he said, sounding just slightly less out of breath, which annoyed her. “They won’t be on the elevators. And we have three legs between us right now, so the less ladder climbing the better.”

She sucked in a deep, painful breath and surged herself forward to draw even with him. Was amazed he knew how to get to the elevators. Each level followed the same basic floorplan in the sense of where the access tunnels led out and where the elevator shaft was, but it was still surprising.

“I want to know how they found us,” she managed, swinging her arms to compensate for her stiff leg. “And why they’re even bothering. Darmity has the RLI. You say he has the codes. If we’re holed up in the Ex Suite, why not just leave us there?”

“As for finding us, might have been a good guess — it’s the one secure place in the whole complex, right? Perfect for a hiding place. Or maybe they can still track the Brick and we just don’t know it. As to why, the memo I just read indicates Darmity’s a last-minute drop-in. They don’t know him. He seems to have his own set of orders. And he didn’t mind killing several of Amesley’s people. I’m not sure the lines of communication are open.”

They turned the corner like birds, coordinated.

“And maybe,” Renicks added as they swerved in front of the elevator bank, “they were planning to just keep us bottled up, just in case we did realize what was happening and tried to stop it.”

Begs considered. She drew the borrowed automatic and checked it. One round left in the magazine. One in the chamber. As Renicks pressed the call button she held the gun ready, safety off, finger resting lightly on the trigger. She thought, two rounds, Jesus.

They stood for a few seconds, waiting. Silence all around them. She stood breathing hard through her nose, feeling every ache and scrape, slightly dizzy. Her stomach sour. A light film of sweat all over. It was so quiet. The lighting so flat. For a second she thought she might just be in a coma somewhere, sweating out a fever and imagining her worst possible work day.

The indicator light lit up. The electronic bell dinged. The elevator doors split open. The elevator was empty.

Relaxing, she limped into the cab. Started punching in a code. Renicks reached out and put his hand on hers.

There was a crash. Muffled by the corner and the walls, but distinctly coming from the direction they’d come.

“Ninth floor,” Renicks whispered, taking his hand back.

She frowned. Heart pounding. “Why there?”

“So we can stop this.”

She chewed on that. Voices down the hall. Whispers, careful. She punched in the code and stepped back, gun held down by her leg but ready. Stared straight ahead, heart pounding.

The doors slid shut. She thought she heard something just as they did, a rustle of fabric, shoes on the carpet. Then they were rising.

“You gonna let me in on the plan, or is this a teaching moment?”

The sense of bizarre calm had returned. There were armed people chasing them. The whole complex would be destroyed within the hour. A man was trying to launch a nuclear assault on his own country not too far away. But she was standing in an elevator, waiting calmly for it to arrive at their destination. The only thing, missing, she thought, was Muzak playing softly.

“No,” Renicks said as the doors split open. “Just play along. Pay attention.”

She limped after him, fuming. “We should be going after Darmity. We can’t know that they’ll trip the charges before he manages a launch — in fact, we know the President is probably stalling, giving Darmity as much time as he can. Jack — Jack!” She stopped and caught him by the shoulder. “We should be looking for Darmity. We should be trying to stop him. Millions of lives are — ”

He nodded. “I know. Trust me. This is better. He might not be where we think he is. He might have found a way to displace. He might be barricaded better than we expect. We might not be able to get to him. Even if we can get in, he’s armed.” He shook his head. “There’s a lot of leeway in that plan. But there’s one thing I can do that ensures we stop him.”

She swallowed frustration and nodded. “Okay. And that would be?”

“Take this complex offline. Come on. They’re gonna catch up to us soon.”

He turned and walked off down the hall. She started to limp after him, frowning. Take this complex offline.

Her heart thudded in her chest. She threw herself after him in a sudden anesthetic of alarm.

He was heading for the hospital.

“Jack! Jesus Christ, Jack!”

She stopped again. He was going to kill himself. Take the complex offline — by taking the Acting President off the grid. If his vitals flatlined, the system would transfer authority to the next Secure Facility in the system. Colorado, if she remembered correctly. Which had not been hacked and seized by conspirator — as far as she knew. Where no one was waiting to launch missiles. The threat would be removed immediately.

But the only way to do that would be for Renicks to die.

She limped half a step after him again, taking a deep breath. Stopped again.

They were dead anyway.

At some point, either before Darmity launched or after, the complex would be destroyed. They would be blown up with it, a sudden, searing death.

She stood for a moment, engulfed in sudden emotion. She didn’t know what to do. Everything felt backwards. She’d only known Jack Renicks for a few hours. Didn’t know him, really. But he was her asset and letting him die — kill himself — felt so completely, totally wrong.

But it would save so many lives. Slowly, she struggled after him. Jesus, she thought, I hope he doesn’t ask me to shoot him.

She watched him step into the tiny medical center. She pushed herself to rush after him, swinging her leg awkwardly. When she stepped inside after him, he was standing with his hands on the counter by the small sink, staring down at the floor.

“We should barricade the door, just in case,” he said softly. “They’ve shown a knack for finding us.”

She stared at him for a second. Felt she should say something. Couldn’t think of anything to say.

She turned and shut the door behind her. Turned the bolt. Turned around again. “Help me with the desk.”

They both hobbled over to the small, efficient desk at the far end of the room. Taking one end each they pushed and pulled it over to the door and upended it so it fell across the doorway. Begley, catching her breath for what felt like the millionth time, examined it; if they busted the deadbolt the desk wouldn’t hold the door. But there was a drywalled bump-out just past the door, and the desk would catch it and wedge against it as the door was opened. They wouldn’t get the door more than five or six inches open. It wouldn’t stop them forever, but it would slow them down.

“Come on,” Renicks said, picking up his bag and stepping into the exam room.

She followed him slowly. Her instinct told her to talk him out of this — this was insanity. Except it wasn’t crazy. She felt strangely numb and inert. The pain in her leg had become a dull, permanent part of her. It felt natural. Watched him pull open all the cabinets, rifling through their contents. Plucking ampoules off the shelves as he went.

When he was done, he dumped seven small bottles filled with liquid and two plastic-wrapped syringe kits onto the metal table. Just as he did so, something crashed against the door in the next room, making them both jump. Then they looked at each other.

Renicks stepped around the table, unbuttoning his cuff. “Come here. Listen closely.”

She felt the curious inertia pulling at her, holding her back. She felt like she could just stand there for years, unmoving. Like it was her natural state.

Then she shook herself free and pushed herself over to stand next to him as he rolled up the sleeve of his bloody, ruin shirt. His arm was covered in dozens of angry-looking cuts and scrapes, a skein of red lines.

He took up one of the syringe kits and tore it open with his teeth. Extracted the syringe, Took the rubber tip off and tossed it aside.

In the next room, they began banging against the door repeatedly, a fast rhythm.

Renicks began filling the syringe with small amounts from several of the ampoules, holding the needle up to the light each time and flicking it with his finger.

“What is that?”

He didn’t pause. “Something I learned from my father.”

“You learned … this from your Dad?”

He continued to work. “I used to come into the office with him on weekends. He let me have a stethoscope and I helped him, getting things for him. When I was a kid there was an investigation; the family of this old man my Dad treated for decades accused my father of — ” He paused for a second, glancing at her, then set the syringe down on the metal table and picking up the second kit. “Of assisting his suicide.”

She blinked. “A mercy killing.”

“Yes. Nothing came of it. He was an old man, filled with cancer. The family wanted an autopsy. They said it wasn’t the first time. I don’t know exactly what happened, but it went away. There were rumors for years afterwards.”

He tore the second bag open and pulled out the second syringe. Tossed the rubber tip away. Began filling it the same way, from different ampoules.

“When I was eighteen, Dad took me to the office one day and told me it was true. He helped four people die. Suicide. They were all dying anyway, in a lot of pain, with nothing to look forward to except a few more months of more pain and less mobility, more pain and more humiliation. He wasn’t proud of it. He wasn’t ashamed. He considered it part of his job. To ease suffering.”

The door in the next room took a sudden heavier blow from outside, as if they’d found some sort of battering ram. Begley felt it in her feet.

“I didn’t know what to think. I was shocked. But I knew my father always did what he thought was right, no matter what. So I asked him to show me how he did it. I wanted to know that it was painless as he said it was. So he showed me. He made a cocktail of drugs, explained each one to me. Explained how it worked. Explained what would happen to the patient.”

She studied his face. It was impassive. “And you remembered that? Every detail?”

He nodded. “Every detail. I remember things. Always have.”

He set the second syringe down. Pushed the ampoules off the table into his hands and threw them onto the counter. Picked up the syringes and held them out to her, with his right hand forward.

“Take this one.”

The door boomed again, with a distinct cracking noise at the end. She reached out and took the syringe from him. It was filled with a small amount of clear liquid. Her hand, she noted with annoyance, was shaking.

“Adrenaline,” he said.

She looked into his eyes. “You’re fucking kidding.”

“Nope. We’re going with a bit of a brute force approach. But forgive me if I’m going to try and stack the odds a bit. The idea is, I die. I’ll have to actually die in the sense of my vital signs stopping. This place goes offline. Then you bring me back to life.” He tilted his head and smiled what she thought was the most charming smile she’d ever seen, under the circumstances. “If we’re not going to blow up, and we’re not going to wake up to a nuclear nightmare, well, hell, I want to be there.”

The door boomed again. The cracking noise again, louder.

“Do you know CPR?”

She nodded. She was re-certified every six months. She was watching the syringe shake in her hand. That couldn’t be right. Her hands did not shake.

“Good. I’ll self-administer the cocktail. It’s effect will be almost immediate. I assume there will be an obvious sign that the complex is offline?”

“It’ll be obvious, yes.”

“All right. As soon as you’re sure we’re in the clear, you take that syringe, you push it into my chest, here,” he pointed at a spot off to his left of his chest and above the rib cage. “You push the plunger all the way. All the way, Begs. Then you pull it out and you do chest compressions. CPR.”

She nodded, staring at his chest. Then she looked up as the door banged in five inches and smacked into the desk. She could hear voices. Three or four, men and women. “That’s it? CPR? That’s your plan to get back?”

He nodded. “You got about ten minutes, give or take. Ten minutes from when I go flatline. After that it’ll be much harder to bring me back, okay? Ten minutes.”

She smiled thinly at him, listening to the shouts and banging just a few feet away. “But no pressure, right?”

He stood up. Pushed past her and sat down on the floor. “What pressure? I’m the one saving the world here. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

The attempts on the door had become rhythmic and steady. They were ramming the door inward into the desk, pulling the door closed, then ramming it again. Trying to break the desk into pieces. It wouldn’t take long, she thought, judging by the weight of it: Particle board and wood screws, maybe a steel brace somewhere if they were lucky. The last time she’d felt lucky had been yesterday.

She set the syringe on the table as he used a piece of rubber tubing from one of the kits to tie off his arm. When he had his vein plump and firm he held the syringe in his hand. Paused. Looked up at her. Their eyes met.

She nodded. Moved awkwardly behind him and slid to the floor behind him, her splinted leg sticking out along his side. Leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his middle, pushing her cheek against his back. Closed her eyes. He was trembling, slightly. Tiny little tremors deep under the skin.

“Begs,” he suddenly said, his voice hoarse. “Marianne … I have … my daughters …”

She closed her eyes. “I’ll …” She stopped. She didn’t know what to say. What promises she could make that she had any hope of carrying out. She swallowed. “I’m here, Jack.”

He took a deep breath. She felt him moving. Imagined him pushing the needle in. Imagined him pressing the plunger. Imagined something hot and terrible leaking into him, racing around his circulatory system, heading for —

He jerked. Her eyes popped open. She felt his body tense up for a second. A tightening of every muscle. And then he relaxed. Slumped. Raising her face from his back, she hesitated, sitting there. Tears in her eyes suddenly.

The door banged inwards. There was a sharp cracking noise.

He sagged sideways. She tried to catch him, to brace him. He’d gone utterly limp. The lights flicked off. An alarm began blaring out in the hall, distant. The yellow emergency lights came on for a moment. There was a chorus of shouts from the next room. For a moment she was in the near-dark, listening to the rise and fall of the alarm.

Then the lights came back on.

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28.

Four minutes and ten seconds before toppling over a refrigerator, Jack Renicks was replaying the ELIRO memo in his head.

Dear Gerry — forgive this

The first line in English.

For a very long time now I have been plagued — blessed — with visions. They interrupt my sleep and dominate my thoughts.

He helped Begley limp to the front door again. A sense of sudden panic enveloping him. His bag was once again slung over his shoulder, the Brick shoved carelessly into it.

“How are we going to find him?”

At first I discarded the images I was being shown. Then, when I began to suspect they were not merely dreams, but rather glimpses of a future, I withheld them for some time. I feared they would not be taken seriously.

“The RLI is meant to be activated and used — if it’s closed up and moved, it will deactivate until you show up again,” Begley said breathlessly. She hopped to the keypad just inside the door and began punching keys. “He can’t risk moving it. He’ll barricade himself into the Security Office. That’s why he didn’t pursue us. He wanted us to leave the Security Office, get out of his hair.”

“How long until he can issue the launch instructions?”

The images I am shown are not happy ones, Gerry. You and I have had many talks. We both agree what needs to be done. I know you are with me on this difficult journey to rebuild our nation and cleanse our people.

The magnetic locks snapped free again, and Renicks surged forward and pulled the doors inward.

“Depends. The RLI is preprogrammed with what are considered likely targets based on the most recent red band classified alerts. If he were using a pre-loaded target, five minutes. If he was going to change out the preloads and he had a secure dongle with the data, ten minutes. If he’s got to key everything in from memory or paper, thirty minutes. Maybe more.” She limped out of the suite, gun in hand, and surveyed the hall. Then turned to wave Renicks out. “Mr. Darmity looked like he had some pretty fat fingers on him, and the keyboard on the RLI is tiny.”

You are one of my most trusted friends and colleagues in this great mission. But all men are subject to weakness. We conduct simulated launches regularly, Gerry. We have a three percent failure rate due to human refusal to launch. High-ranking people who simply refuse to launch when they are ordered to. They do not know it’s a drill, Gerry. They think they are about to kill millions of people and they cannot do it.

There is no shame in this.

Renicks stopped. “Say forty minutes. Begs, it’s been at least fifteen minutes since we hopped the elevator. Maybe more like twenty. I wasn’t paying attention. Do we have time to get down there?”

Begley spun awkwardly. “What other choice do we have, Jack?”

You may note there is a face on the team you do not recognize. Do not be alarmed. He is there as my personal agent. Martin did not know of his inclusion until this morning.

Renicks nodded. “You’re right, okay.”

They headed off down the hall, leaving the Executive Suite doors open.

The new man is there as insurance, Gerry. For both the mission and for your place in history. I do not doubt you, my friend. But I have been disappointed by others I did not doubt. So many others who seemed to be friends, who seemed to understand, but in the end did not.

They turned the corner and approached the elevator bank. Renicks felt his pulse pounding, his head throbbing with each beat. He regretted the wine. He regretted almost everything about the last twenty minutes.

I do not doubt you, but the new man is there to be certain that when the moment comes, we will fulfill our mission.

Begley stumped forward again and started keying in the code to summon the elevators.

The new man has all the information he needs to complete what I’d call a ‘rump’ of our mission. Your direct involvement is far preferable. Your glory is ensured; the new man only has the very basic data to ensure success. If you proceed as we have planned, we will accomplish far more. But if you choose not to proceed, for any reason, he will be able to at least achieve more modest goals.

She was still punching buttons when the indicator light came on, the soft ding! lilting through the air.

She straightened up, frowning. “I didn’t — ”

My man has been ordered to do nothing as long as our plans proceed. He will defer to you as long as you wish him to. He is reliable. He is a Fellow Traveler. He has been instructed, I must warn you, to use whatever tactics are necessary to ensure success.

Begley suddenly shoved Renicks to the side and hobbled backwards, bringing the gun up directly in front of the elevator doors.

They slid open.

Begley fired four times.

He will treat you with respect, Gerry. But he will need your physical presence to accomplish his mission, if you choose not to accomplish yours. And he will not be gentle. He is, in fact, incapable of gentleness. As he was trained to be.

She spun and slammed herself against the wall. Amidst shouts and cries from within, the elevator doors shut again.

“Amesley’s people,” she said, pushing off and limping back the way they came. “Come on!”

“Jesus,” Renicks hissed. “Stop a second!”

She didn’t. He moved up quickly behind her, hearing the elevator doors open behind them again. Scooped her up. Carried her around the corner and moved as quickly as he could, a lurching, gasping sort of run.

You, of all people, understand the necessity of our timeline. There can be no records. No evidence. No witnesses to crack under questioning. No impurity can ever attach itself to the events of today. Martin has accepted his role. If necessary he will wear the mask and play the part. But when I am pressured to act, as I will be, I cannot hesitate or the image we are painting will be tainted.

Renicks heard voices. Tried to picture them stepping out of the elevator. Careful. Slow. They’d just been ambushed. Begs had reminded them that she was armed too. They would creep for a few steps, afraid she was waiting right around the corner. His lungs burned. His ankle felt like it had been replaced by broken glass and small bits of stone. Sweat had instantly appeared all over his body, soaking him. The double doors of the Executive Suite seemed to remain at a fixed distance.

Move quickly. Move with certainty. Do not hesitate.

When he was still three or four steps from the doors, a gunshot. A section of wall over his shoulder exploded into dust. Begley wriggled in his arms. Put her arm up and over his shoulder as if to hug him.

“Watch your — ”

She fired twice, the first shot incredibly, painfully loud in his right ear. The second shot sounded distant, muffled. She jerked in his arms from the recoil. They crashed through the double doors.

Good luck to you, my friend. Tomorrow will be the greatest day in our nation’s history. No matter how it unfolds, your name will be on the statue. Your name will be considered one of the Second Founders. You will be remembered as a true patriot, and that is reward enough for all of us.

There was another gunshot as Renicks dropped to the floor and set Begley down roughly — not quite dropping her, but not exactly easing her down. He spun around without getting off his knees and slammed the doors shut, hearing them latch.

“How do I seal it!?”

I promise that to you, Gerry. Even if you fail. Even if you hesitate and my agent must step in to do your duty for you, your memory will never be tarnished.

Begley didn’t respond. She lurched up and hopped deliriously towards the keypad, wincing. The doors leaped behind him. He pushed back, his feet slipping out from under him. He fell to the floor with a grunt and immediately pushed himself back up. Strained back against the door as it jumped again.

“Uh, Begs?”

She pounded the wall with on hand. “They keep bumping the fucking sensors. The seal won’t engage unless the door’s flat in the frame!”

Good luck.

He let his eyes scan the room. “The lamp! Begs, get the lamp base!”

She turned and followed his pointing finger. Looked back at him. Up over his shoulder. Nodded.

“Won’t take them more than a minute!” she shouted as she limped over to the lamp. Tore off the shade. Ripped the power cord from the wall.

He nodded as the door jumped again. “We won’t need more. Out through the kitchen.

She carried the metal rod over. Slid it through the door handles. Staggered backwards, unsteady. Renicks looked at her.

“Go! I’ll be on your heels.”

She nodded. Turned and stumped off. Faster than he thought she could. He waited. Strained back against the doors. Waited.

The doors jumped again. He pushed back against them, legs and back burning. When they sagged back again, he pushed himself up in a pathetic imitation of a jump and ran after Begley. Passed her just before the kitchen and ricocheted around her. Gathered some speed and slammed himself into the refrigerator, which he’d pushed and pulled into position over the tunnel entrance. It tipped over and slammed into the countertop with a crash he barely heard, his ear ringing. He knelt and got his hands under it. Rolled it over just enough to open a wedge of darkness they could both fit through.

He turned as Begley dropped to the floor, sliding a foot or so to the entrance. Dangling her legs over the edge, she handed him the gun. He leaned back against the fridge and held it in front of him. He wasn’t familiar with it, but he assumed all guns worked basically the same.

Begley dropped into the hole and disappeared. Renicks could hear them slamming into the door again. The lamp base was made of heavy metal, but it wouldn’t last long. He gave Begley a count of ten, then pushed the gun into his waistband and dropped his legs over the edge.

Heard the door crash in as he began lowering himself down, hand over hand.

God bless.

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27.

Seventeen minutes before almost dozing off, Begley opened her eyes and said, “I feel like I’m in the hospital.”

“You should be in the hospital,” Renicks said as he pushed her in the chair. “We should both be in the hospital.”

The corridors of the twelfth floor were immaculate at first glance. The carpets, however, had been tracked with dirt from several waves of people marching through. Other than that it would be easy to imagine nothing at all happening in the complex. A normal day. Boredom and inactivity.

She’d spent the elevator ride pondering options. Concluded there weren’t any. With the Security Office destroyed and a number of rogue agents still roaming the complex, the chances of making significant contact with the outside world were slim. With the implications of the conspiracy so huge, chances of accidentally contacting an enemy were high. They were both injured and her estimates on time until detonation of emergency charges were pessimistic.

Her conclusion was that their only sensible course of action would be to find someplace comfortable and wait out the last half hour or hour of their lives.

John Renicks, Ph.D., she reflected, wasn’t the person she would have chosen to spend the last hour of her life with. But she also figured she could have done worse, and decided to be content.

They turned the corner and the scorched and torn-up double doors leading into the Executive Suite came into view. Equipment, including the hulking laser cutter they’d been using on the mag locks, had been dropped on the floor and left behind. Big portable lights with chrome stands and yellow metal reflectors still cast the door in a blinding white light. The walls around the door had been torn up, exposing the thick steel rods held in place by the magnetic system; only six of the twelve had been cut through. Renicks pushed her to within a few feet and she struggled up out of the chair. Approached the door. Punched in the override code she’d created just a few hours before. The magnetic locks released immediately and the steel rods snapped back into their holsters in the walls.

The suite was exactly as they’d left it. Painfully normal-looking. She pulled the door shut behind them and sealed the room again. Then dropped into the couch with a sigh and sat there for a moment, feeling more tired than she’d ever been before in her life.

Renicks dropped his bag and The Brick. Stepped out of the main room. Returned a moment later with two bottles of cold water and a small white box.

“First aid kit only had acetaminophen,” he said, tearing the box open and pouring small white pills into his hand. “Here’s four thousand milligrams. Your liver won’t forgive me, but it’ll help a little with the pain.”

She accepted the pills and a bottle of water. Swallowing the pills, she drank the entire bottle. Sat gasping on the couch. Felt instantly like going to sleep.

After a moment, Renicks said “Jesus.”

She nodded. “I’m not even a Christian,” she said, “and that about covers it.”

“You think we’re okay here?”

She shrugged. “He doesn’t have the launch codes or coordinates.” She pointed at the Brick. “Those are in there. Before they had the codes and the RLI, but not you, so they couldn’t activate the launcher. Now they have an activated launcher but no codes. So they can’t do anything. We’ll shut up and barricade the tunnel. They don’t know where it leads to, I don’t think, but we’ll barricade it.” She looked at him steadily. “We only have to hold out for a little while longer.”

He frowned at her, then nodded. “The charges.”

“The charges.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“I wish I could call my kids,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“How about you. Family?”

She smiled. “More than I can handle. I’ve been avoiding them as much as possible for years.” She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s not talk about that, okay?”

She watched him pick up The Brick. As he touched it, it sprang back to life, the screen lighting up instantly. Then he dropped it and stood up. “I’m going to shut up the tunnel. It would be funny if they just snuck in here and grabbed me, after all this.”

“Jack,” she called out after him as he walked back towards the kitchen, “I do not think that would be funny at all!”

She sat in a daze. Felt curiously calm and contented. Her leg hurt like hell. She had a few other minor aches and sprains. She was exhausted. But she felt like laughing. On one level she knew it was just an adrenaline crash. Her brain had been soaked in all sorts of chemicals, some of which it hadn’t produced in decades, and now she was enjoying their effects without the associated trauma or terror to offset them. On the other hand, it felt unreal: She was still beaten-up, still being hunted. Still charged with keeping a man she’d only met a few hours earlier alive. Until he could be killed by remote detonation of buried charges.

The absurdity of it finally made her burst out laughing. She grabbed and hugged a pillow to herself. Peals of it escaped her, uncontrolled. When Renicks walked back into the room he stood for a moment, studying her. She pointed at him.

“Is that a bottle of wine?”

He nodded, holding it up. “It is. It is not a bottle of good wine, but I have decided to be good and drunk when … when this ends.”

She nodded. “Saddle up.”

He sat down and twisted off the cap. Held it up. “Twist off caps used to be a sure sign of your federal government saving money by purchasing its wine by the ton, but no more. Twist-offs are becoming common.” He held the bottle out towards her. “Under other circumstances drinking with the amount of acetaminophen in your system would be a bad idea, but I’d say we have little to lose.”

She accepted the bottle and took a swig. It wasn’t bad. She had an idea that she would love anything right then. “You learn all this from your Dad?”

She remembered his file. Small town doctor, used to take young Jack to the office on weekends, let him help out a little. Had hopes his son would follow in his footsteps.

Renicks nodded, taking back the bottle. He looked right at her. She found that invigorating. So many men didn’t look at you. They either looked at your chest and took mental snapshots or they looked at their shoes, all aw shucks and yes ma’am. She liked how Renicks just looked at her.

“I learned a lot from Dad,” he said, taking a swig. “More or less by accident. I remember things easily. I’m not really so smart. I just remember things.” He picked up the Brick and it lit up again.

“I have a good memory,” she said. “But not for information. Numbers. Directions. If I read a book, I can’t tell you anything about it a week later. But give me a keycode to remember, and I have it for life. I still know my high school locker combination.”

They fell silent. They passed the bottle back and forth a few times. Renicks appeared absorbed in something he’d found on the Brick. Feeling much more drunk than she should have after approximately one glass of stale white wine, Begley studied him dully and wondered if he’d happened across a secret document entitled WHAT TO DO IF SECRET NATIONWIDE CONSPIRACY TRIES TO HIJACK THE NATIONAL SECURITY AND HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE. Fought back another attack of what she suspected was inappropriate laughter.

“What are you reading?”

He looked up. Leaned forward and relieved her of the bottle. Swirled the contents around a bit and offered her a raised-eyebrow, then took a long pull. His clothes were torn up and he was filthy. His hair stood up in odd directions, stiff and sticky. But he still looked put-together, somehow. It was the confidence, she thought. He was a man who always seemed to know exactly who he was.

“I’m translating a file President Grant placed here personally. A private memo to AG Flanagan. Written in … not code, but something meant as a code. An artificial language.” He grinned. “I’m a bit rusty.”

She raised her own eyebrow. “That is how you’re spending your — ” She hesitated over last hour alive and substituted “ — time here? That sounds like the most boring shit imaginable.”

He nodded. “Most of my career is the most boring shit imaginable. If I was going to start a rock band, our name would be Most Boring Shit Imaginable.”

She laughed. Thought this was not a terrible way to spend your last moments. Her leg was throbbing and her head was pounding. But it was peaceful. Quiet. And, she decided, she liked Jack Renicks.

Silence again. She lay back and tried to think of everything she loved. People, things. Trips. Feelings. Every memory she savored. She told herself she’d done her job. She’d protected the asset and served the interests of her country. She closed her eyes and felt sleepy, enjoying the sensation of being still and calm. She hoped —

Renicks suddenly sat forward. Hissed a curse. Knocked the bottle to the floor, where lukewarm wine chugged out onto the carpet.

“What?”

He looked back at her. “We’ve got a problem.”

She sat up, wincing as her head gave her an extra-deep throb, like she was having an aneurysm. “With what?”

Renicks stood up. “Darmity. He doesn’t need this for the codes,” he said, gesturing at her with the Brick. “He already has them.”

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26.

Ten seconds before crashing through the glass doors of the Security Office, Begley stared at Frank Darmity and thought, he looks crazy.

He was a little roughed-up, as if his fellow conspirators hadn’t been too gentle when locking him up somewhere. He had a crooked smile on his face that looked like he’d forgotten it was there. His eyes were bright and glassy. Blood had stained his shirt and soaked into the waistband of his pants. She remembered shooting him in the corridor; he must have been bleeding since, a slow bleed.

In his hands was a light machine gun.

It was the expression on his face more than the weapon. It was simultaneously vacant and leering. As if he’d been waiting for this moment. Had imagined it in detail. And was pausing to savor it.

The threat had shifted from behind her to directly in front. She was still chained to a heavy rolling chair. But she was armed. And Darmity was standing so close to the doors his breath was steaming the glass. Her mind did instant calculations. No numbers involved. She knew the weight of the chair she was cuffed to. She knew how weak her splinted leg was. The agents behind her might have hidden weapons, but that threat had just dropped down to second or even third on her list of priorities.

All this in a second. Then she twisted and took hold of the arms of the chair. Lifting it up in front of her, she launched herself forward, letting gravity and momentum make up for her bum leg. Crashed into the glass door. It swung out and smacked into Darmity with her weight behind it, shattering into hundreds of large jagged pieces that rained down onto the floor as Darmity staggered backwards and slammed into the wall behind him.

The chair rocketed out of her grasp and yanked her off balance. She fell to the floor. Glass sliced into the knee of her uninjured leg as she slid. Pain exploded in her splinted leg as it twisted stiffly under her. She grayed out for a second, two.

Vision fuzzing back, she looked up at Darmity. Saw the butt of the gun coming it her. Flinched a moment too late

It connected with her temple and she lost another five, six seconds.

When she came to, she was sprawled on the floor. The rolling chair was sitting on its wheels next to her. It had been chewed up, the upholstery torn and ripped. The armrest where she’d been handcuffed had snapped at a welded joint. Her arm hung by the wrist from the cuffs still, raised up in the air over her, but she could free herself easily.

Her hands were cut up and bleeding.

There was gunfire in the air.

She turned her head. Slowly, it seemed. Frank Darmity towered over her. His legs spread. The machine gun in his hands. He was spraying quick bursts of bullets into the Security Room. His eyes were just as wide. Just as glassy. His face had the same expression on it as earlier, blank and joyous.

She turned her head and looked through the jagged, broken doors into the Security Office. The walls and consoles had been shot up. One hanging fluorescent light fixture dangled from the ceiling by a wire, swinging and flickering. She couldn’t see any of Amesley’s people, or the Director, or Renicks.

Darmity stopped firing and leaned forward along the rifle, squinting through the smoke and gloom.

She felt heavy. Her head buzzed. Her whole body seemed to vibrate, but her leg wasn’t hurting her.

“Oh, fuck no,” Darmity suddenly said. Pointing the rifle up into the air, he strode purposefully into the Security Office, glass crunching under his heavy boots.

Using her elbows, she pushed herself up to a sitting position. Coughing, she pushed the handcuff off the chair’s armrest and staggered to her feet. Wincing with the pain, she pulled the gun from her waistband, checked the safety, and stepped over to the wall. Carefully, she leaned over to look into the office. Leaned against the wall to avoid falling over.

Renicks had gone for The Brick. He had it in one hand. His gun in the other. She could see this because he had both hands in the air. Darmity stood a few feet away from him, his back to her, the gun trained on Renicks’ chest.

She raised the gun. Blood was dripping down the grip. She took a deep breath and sighted directly at Darmity’s head.

Then sucked in another breath and lowered the gun slightly.

The Remote Launch Interface. The Nuclear Football. It was green across the board.

Her eyes flicked to Renicks. Two feet away from it. He’d activated it. All that remained was to key in the codes and coordinates, which were on The Brick. Which was in Renicks’ hand.

She put her eyes back on Darmity’s head. “Don’t move.”

She wished she’d had time to make sure of the location of the other agents. She knew Amesley was injured. The other three were unaccounted for.

“The bitch is back,” Darmity said without turning. “You gonna shoot me again, Agent Begley?”

Shoot him in the head, she thought. Remove him from the equation. Killing Darmity might not enable them to stop the complex from being destroyed, but it might; free to move about the complex and use its facilities they would be able to contact anyone on the outside and possibly avert disaster.

She hesitated. How far did this conspiracy go? The Director of the Secret Service, agents within the service, the President of The United States himself — who would they call? Who could be trusted? It was overwhelming. And Darmity must have some of the answers. Amesley might know more — if he was still alive somewhere in the darkened room, under hunks of plastic and debris — but Darmity was a sure thing, in her sights. To shoot a potential witness to the greatest conspiracy the country had ever seen was impossible.

“Drop the weapon,” she said, straining through pain and sweat to make her voice steady and implacable. “Step back towards me. Hands on your head. Don’t turn around.”

“How ‘bout I just shoot Professor Fancy here?”

“You can’t do that. Drop the weapon. Hands on head. Step back towards me.”

Darmity nodded. “We had this conversation before, Honey,” he said. “I can’t kill Professor Fancy. But I can hurt him.”

In a blink, he surged forward. Jammed the gun into Renicks’ belly. Renicks doubled over and Darmity clamped one huge hand around his neck, jerking him up and around. Held him in front of him, now facing Begley. It had taken just a few seconds. She felt fuzzy and slow.

“Better ‘n body armor,” Darmity said with a grin. “Now, we gonna continue our negotiations, or — ”

He paused, eyes shifting suddenly. Alarm surged within her. She knew what he was looking at. The Remote Launch Interface. Lit up green like a Christmas tree. She saw it all going straight to hell in ten seconds. Darmity with all the pieces: The launcher, the codes, the physical presence of the Designated Survivor.

She was moving before he took his eyes from the RLI.

She saw the opening: Get in behind Renicks. Jam the gun into Darmity’s ear, his neck. Push Renicks up against him to trap his arms. Just like that, the situation had changed. Keep going, she told herself. Kill him. Don’t stop.

She slammed into them and pushed the gun up into the space between Renicks’ head and shoulder, but Darmity flinched away and spun out from behind Renicks. She pulled the trigger a second too late and fired into the drywall.

She clawed her other hand into Renicks’ shirt and dropped to the floor, pulling him on top of her.

“Down!” she hissed. “Stay — ”

A burst of automatic fire split the air for a second, scattering into the wall. She heard Renicks curse and rolled him to the side, crawling awkwardly forward.

Quiet, then. Their harsh breathing. The sound of Darmity’s boot on some broken plastic.

She grabbed Renicks’ shoulder. He looked at her. He had The Brick clutched in one hand, his bag in the other.

“Make for the door! Run! I’ll cover you!”

He nodded back. She didn’t wait. There was no time for a deep breath or a momentary reflection. She got herself into a painful crouch, her splinted leg extended in front of her, and leaped up awkwardly.

“Go!”

She swung the borrowed gun out and fired three times. Across the room, Darmity ducked down behind the bank of consoles.

She stayed up. Began limping towards the exit. Gun up. Eyes scanning the opposite wall. Took a step, sweeping her leg along with a rolling gait. Moved faster.

Darmity’s head appeared across the room again, trailing a few feet behind her pace. She squeezed off one careful shot and he dropped down again.

She turned and limped for the ruined doors. Renicks crashed through and made the turn to the right. Thick shafts of intense pain exploded in her leg each time she slammed it down on the floor. But she kept going. Felt the glass crunch under her shoes. Two steps from the door she heard something behind her and she leaped, knocking some slabs of glass to the floor as she scraped through the empty door frames.

She tottered, off-balance. Renicks flashed out a hand and pulled, yanking her out of sight and pushing her roughly down into the rolling chair she’d been cuffed to.

“Sit and use that gun,” he said. A second later she started rolling backwards, dragged behind him.

She steadied herself as best she could. Brought the automatic up. Watched the hallway behind them. It scrolled away as Renicks pulled her in the chair behind him. Heart pounding, she watched for Darmity to emerge.

“Where am I going?”

“Elevators! Take your first right. The bank is just a few feet after that.”

The hallway swung to the right, and then she was looking at an empty corridor. Pristine. Untouched. She rolled to a stop and the world spun again as Renicks oriented her so the elevator’s keypad was directly in front of her. She reached up. Noticed her hand shaking violently. Hesitated a second, then keyed in the next day’s code. Immediately there was a soft ding! and the doors split open. Relief swept her — they’d just rotated the codes forward a day, as she’d suspected.

Renicks spun her again and she sailed backwards into the elevator. Sat for a few second feeling her pulse, holding the gun ready, waiting for Darmity to leap into view.

The doors rolled shut. She blinked. Leaned forward and keyed in another complex sequence.

“Where are we going?”

She licked her dry lips. Forced herself to drop the gun in her lap. “Down. Twelfth Level. I have an idea.” The Security Office had been shot to hell; she didn’t think anyone would be able to track them effectively any longer. They had The Brick and the launch codes and coordinates it contained. Renicks was with her. Darmity couldn’t launch without The Brick. All they needed to do was stay away from him for perhaps an hour. A half hour, even. It wouldn’t be long before the complex was destroyed.

She turned and looked at Renicks. He nodded and reached down, taking her hand. Smiled what she thought might be the least believable smile she’d ever seen. “Thank you,” he said.

She squeezed his hand and looked at the elevator doors.

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25.

Forty-five seconds before Renicks walked into the room, Begley saw one of the warning lights on the main security console light up bright red. A second later the buzzing noise of an alarm filled the room.

Amesley glanced down at the console. “There is a fire alarm on — ” he paused to examine the screen embedded in the console, “ — Level Four.”

“Renicks?” Square Jaw said, stepping over to stand next to Amesley.

She watched them while she worked on the bolts of her chair. The handcuff had been simply but effectively looped around the support of the armrest. There was a simple bolt holding the arm onto the chair, and she’d been working it with her fingers every moment that Amesley and the others were distracted. Which was most of the time. She wasn’t making fast progress. The bolt was tight and she had only her fingers to work with. She also had to keep her movements concealed, which limited her leverage.

She estimated it would take her nine hours to loosen the bolt enough to slip off the arm and free herself.

She kept working at it anyway. Waited for a better idea to occur to her.

“Killiam, check out Level Four,” Amesley said. “He’ll have displaced when the alarm went off, but see if there’s a trail.”

Killiam was chubby, and his wrinkled shirt looked like he’d stolen it from a laundromat that morning, but he nodded sharply enough and headed off, checking his weapon. Moving with purpose. Jesus, Jack, what are you doing down there? she wondered, picturing all sorts of scenarios that could result in a fire alarm, few of them good. The longer she’d been separated from him, the less confident she was that Renicks would be all right on his own. Notwithstanding that neither of them would be all right in the strictest sense, since the scenario now pretty much ended with the complex destroyed and them dead.

She looked the room over as she worked her sore, stiff fingers on the bolt. Amesley and the three remaining agents — Square Jaw, another man with a circle of curly brown hair around the edges of his head, and a plain woman with the worst haircut Begley had ever seen in real life — were poring over the systems, seeking signs of Renicks in the complex’s alerts and systems. A few feet away was the Football, left unattended.

Stay alert, pay attention, she told herself. She was trained for this. No matter how limited your options were, they could alter at any moment. Being ready was the most important thing.

She moved her eyes around the room. Most of it was still dormant and swathed in plastic. They’d dusted off only the parts of the Security Office they needed to use. The Brick caught her eye. It was forgotten, sitting on top of an unused console just a few feet from her. She kept moving her fingers over the bolt as she looked around. When she saw Renicks standing outside the glass doors, she froze. Blinked. Smiled half a smile before alarm shot through her.

Renicks pushed his way into the room, leading with his chrome-plated gun.

She surged to her feet and almost overbalanced, catching herself on the nearest bank of screens and keyboards.

“Don’t move!” Renicks shouted. He looked faintly embarrassed.

“Stop!” Begley shouted. Pushed out her free hand towards him, palms up. “Don’t come any closer!”

For a moment, there was no movement in the room.

Renicks flexed his hand, changing his grip on the gun. Licked his lips. “What?”

For a second Begley stared at him. He looked terrible. Covered in blood. His arms a maze of tiny scars. His clothes dirty and wrinkled. This was not the calm, slightly sarcastic man she’d met a few hours ago. The goddamn Secretary of Education.

Amesley turned towards Renicks with his hands up by his shoulders. Begley scanned the room, making sure none of Amesley’s people were moving.

“All right, Mr. Renicks,” Amesley said in his flat, pinched voice. “Do I believe you will shoot people? I do not.”

Renicks met Begley’s eyes and held her gaze as he spoke to the Director. “You’ve got your hands up.”

Amesley shrugged. “Plenty of people have been shot by accident, Mr. Renicks. Let’s talk like reasonable men, before you get yourself hurt.”

To Begley’s horror, Renicks smiled. “You can’t kill me, Mr. Amesley. If my vital signs flatline this complex will assume the Designated Survivor, the Acting President, is dead and will go offline, transferring executive power to another facility.”

He sounded calm and confident, but Begley could see his hand was trembling, the barrel of the gun moving in a tiny arc. He took a step forward. Begley stiffened again.

“Jack! Don’t get any closer to the RLI! It’ll activate if it senses your physical presence!”

To her relief, he stopped immediately.

“Impasse,” Amesley said, spreading his hands. Begley imagined his face: Blank and inscrutable as always. “Let’s see; I will assume that you have enough ammunition in the magazine to kill each of us, shall I? And I will assume you have an exfiltration plan, because you are a smart man, Dr. Renicks. I will also assume that it will be at least another minute or perhaps two before Agent Killiam reports in via radio and will expect a response. Very well. For the next two minutes, perhaps, you have the advantage of us. What is it you plan to do?”

“Jack — get out of here!” she shouted. Emergency vibrated throughout her body. The Designated Survivor was the key to the whole plan, and here he was, within inches of unlocking the nuclear football. “Just go!”

Renicks stood there for what seemed an eternity, eyes moving over the room. He saw The Brick and his eyes lingered on it for a moment. Then he looked at her and held her eyes again. She pantomimed, throwing her arm at him and mouthing Go! He smiled and looked back at Amesley. She did not like the smile, and the sense of emergency soured into panic.

“She’s coming with me,” Renicks said. “No one else move.”

Begley hesitated. She was handcuffed to a chair. Her leg was splinted. She would have to stand up and limp, dragging the chair behind her, passing within inches of Amesley’s people. She looked back at Renicks. She felt time slipping past them, imagined the fat agent, Killiam, hurrying back. Renicks could order Amesley and the agents to move to the side, but that would make it difficult to watch them. But she knew they had to get out of the room immediately. Every second they remained narrowed their chances of escape.

She considered telling Renicks to leave her. He was the important thing. He was the asset. She found herself reluctant to leave him on his own. He was her asset. She was pledged to protect him, and without her he would be at a disadvantage in the complex. He had to stay free until … until it ended. Until the order was given and the evacuation was complete and the complex was blown to hell. That’s what it had become: They couldn’t stop that, they couldn’t save their own lives. But they could keep him out of Amesley’s hands until the facility was neutralized.

She considered trying to immobilize Amesley and his people and rejected it. There was no time. They needed to get away before the other agents returned. If they were trapped in the Security Office it would be an untenable situation.

She stood up and cleared her throat. “Guns. Radios. Slide them here.”

Amesley turned his head slightly, but didn’t turn to face her. No one else moved. She felt the tension in the room. Time was slipping through their fingers. And she didn’t know what Renicks —

Renicks straightened up, moved his ridiculous, huge gun down slightly, and shot Amesley in the foot.

The Director screamed and dropped to the floor. Begley froze in place and stared as Renicks moved the gun again so it pointed in the general direction of the three agents.

“You heard the lady,” he said. His voice shook, but she noticed his hand was now perfectly still. “Guns and radios on the floor. Slide them to her. And keys to the handcuffs.”

There was another second of stillness. Amesley gasped and rolled on the floor, clutching his bloodied ankle. Begley was momentarily fascinated by the sight of Amesley expressing something other than mild disdain or courteous blankness.

“Do it,” Amesley hissed. “We can’t risk a firefight. We need him — ” he gasped in sudden agony “ — alive.”

The woman nodded and slowly pulled her gun and radio from her belt. Holding them up, she soft-tossed them towards Begley. The other two did likewise. She knelt awkwardly and gathered the weapons and radios, checking over one gun and pushing it into her pocket, dropping the rest into the chair.

“Come on, Agent Begley,” he ordered. His voice was still shaking. She didn’t know how long he was going to hold it together. Rushing wouldn’t do them any good. She stepped behind the chair and started pushing it ahead of her with one hand, pulling the appropriated gun from her waistband with the other. In the silence she could hear the cooling fans of the consoles.

If she’d been ordered to surrender her weapon and radio, she thought, she would have a backup.

When she reached Renicks, she leaned in close. “You know what you’re doing, Jack?”

He didn’t take his eyes from the agents. “Nope.”

“You should have stayed hidden.”

He nodded. “With you screaming on the fucking PA system? I’m not that smart, Agent Begley.”

She sighed. “If we were going to survive this, Jack, I’d be planning how to pin this disaster on you when we get out of here. All right. We back out. I — ”

She looked over his shoulder at the corridor. Stared in shock.

Frank Darmity was standing there.

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24.

Five minutes before setting a fire, Renicks was on the fourth floor, moving fast. He knew the main Security Office was on the third floor. He knew Begley was being held there because he’d heard it on the radio, which burst into life every few minutes. They’d discovered the bodies in the TV Studio. They’d blamed Darmity for them, which had surprised him. But he was happy to let that be.

He walked as quickly as his ankle would let him, eyes jumping from door to door, looking for clues. Most were unmarked. He’d noticed on his forced tour with Agent Begley that offices and other utilitarian rooms were unmarked, but storage units and custodial spaces usually had name plates on them using a simple code involving the level they were on and their function. Every time he saw one of those plates, he opened the door and inspected the space. His heart was pounding. He was acutely aware that there were other people crawling through the complex, looking for him. That they might appear at any time. He kept fighting the urge to spin around as he walked, trying to keep every angle in sight.

The first few doors he opened turned out to be, in order, a lavatory complete with shower, an office supply storage closet filled with toner cartridges and copy paper, an inexplicably empty room, and, finally, a long, narrow room filled with cheap folding cots that had metal rings popping from the concrete. A jail of some sort, he decided. The rings could have handcuffs or chains looped through them.

The Federal Government, he thought, had thought of everything. Except its own Chief Executive going nuts.

The fourth door he tried turned out to be a janitor’s supply closet. He stepped in quickly, turned on the light, and shut the door behind him. Set his bag down on the floor and paused, listening. He’d set the walkie-talkie’s volume as low as he could, afraid of having it burst into static at just the wrong time. When he was certain he wasn’t missing anything, he began searching the room.

There were bare metal shelving units on either side, leaving a narrow corridor between. They stretched up to the ceiling. In the rear, lodged in the chasm between shelves, was a standard custodial mop and bucket with a spring-loaded ringer. The whole room smelled sweet. Renicks walked up and down the shelves until he located a cardboard pallet of toilet paper. Twenty-four rolls. He slid it onto the floor and kicked it up towards the door. Squinted up at the ceiling. Spotted the sprinkler bud and smoke detector combo unit bolted into place and nodded to himself.

He positioned the pallet directly under the smoke detector. Tore the plastic wrap off but left the rolls of paper nestled in the shallow cardboard box. Stepped back to his bag. Extracted a plastic tube about the size of a small flashlight. Unscrewed the top. Poured a heap of strike-anywhere matches into his hand. Took a moment to marvel that he was actually about to use the contents of his End of the World Bag in its expected way.

He pushed ten of the matches under the cardboard pallet so that just their red and white tips emerged from underneath. Then he set two matches, very close together, on the floor right in front of them, so that the wooden end of the pair touched the tips of the ten. Working towards the door, he created a trail of matches, two at a time, back to front. A fuse. At the door he crouched down and counted: twenty-two matches long. With each match taking about forty seconds to burn from tip to end, he had almost fifteen minutes.

Keeping one match in his hand, he twisted the plastic tube closed and picked up his bag. Opened the door and held it open with his body, taking a moment to re-inspect his fuse. Slung the bag over his shoulder again, knelt down, and struck the match in his hand. Watched it flare up perfectly into a dancing orange flame. He knew the matches were good ones, designed to burn steadily and completely. There was no guarantee he didn’t have a bad one that would snuff out before burning down to the next match in line. No guarantee this would work at all. No guarantee of what the reaction to a fire alarm would be.

He touched the flame to the nearest pair of matches. The second they lit, he dropped the match in his hand and stepped out of the closet, slowly closing the door until it latched.

Then he ran.

Counting the seconds in his head, he speed-limped his way back along the corridor to the fire door that led to the service tunnels and ladders. He’d marked the innocuous gray door with some of his own blood as he’d emerged, enabling him to find it again. He let the door click shut behind him and leaped up onto the service ladder. Pulled himself up, hand over hand. Dragged himself onto the rough concrete landing on the third floor and pushed himself to his feet and into motion.

Four minutes done, eleven to go. If he was lucky. The matches would burn at different rates. He might have nine minutes, or twenty. Two matches might burn out too soon, in which case he would be waiting for an alarm to sound in the Security Office forever.

He opened the access door slowly. Carefully. The third floor was populated, and he had to be cautious. He slipped out of the access tunnel onto the carpet and stopped. He had no idea where the Security Office was. Or where the unknown number of Amesley’s agents would be.

He pulled out his stolen walkie-talkie and made sure the volume was set as low as possible but still audible. He’d noticed that whenever someone clicked the red TALK button on their radio, there was a loud burst of static before their voice came through. It was the main reason he’d turned the volume down, because he’d been afraid of having his position or hiding place betrayed by the noise.

Holding his breath, he clicked the TALK button.

Dimly, he heard a burst of static somewhere. Far off, muted by distance and walls.

He checked his count. If he was lucky, ten minutes left.

It was difficult to tell which direction the static burst had come from. He turned right; his best guess. The sense of being watched settled on him and pushed. He knew there were people on this floor. They could be around any corner, behind any door. Every step forward was an effort. When he found the first junction of corridors, he hit the TALK button again.

To his left, muffled but distinct, came a squawk of static.

Slowly, he stepped towards the noise. He reached into his bag and pulled out the Kimber; it felt warm and heavy in his hand. He pictured the dead agent lying somewhere below and left the safety on.

When he reached another junction, he toggled the button again. The burst of static was closer, to his right again. He slowly edged around the corner. The hall was empty. Instead of the usual blank-faced fire doors, however, there was a bank of windows with two glass swinging doors set in the center. He retreated and put his back against the wall. Eight minutes.

He closed his eyes and imagined the security camera screen he’d seen with Begley in the smaller office below. He counted the people he’d seen. Amesley and Darmity, and six or seven others. He knew from the radio chatter that Darmity was imprisoned somewhere. Amesley might have sent some of his people out to search for him. Unless some number of other others he didn’t even know about had returned to their headquarters; just because he’d so far only seen six or seven people didn’t mean that was all there was.

He hit the TALK button. Heard the squawk of the radio. Definitely inside the Security Office. No one in the hall nearby.

He waited. Seven minutes to go.

He heard the squeak of the glass door’s hinge. He froze. Heard the squeak again as the door swung shut. Waited, holding his breath. Five minutes and counting.

No one stepped around the corner to surprise him. He let his breath out slowly. Waited.

He thought about ELIRO. Felt again that he knew the word, had seen it before. It would be something personal to Grant, he thought, if the President was using it as a personal code term. He thought of the coded message the file contained: Dum tre longa tempo nun. His sense of familiarity increased. He fell back on a technique he’d used in his linguistics work, letting his mind jump from connection to connection, running through different languages he’d worked with, studied. Throwing the unknown word into sentences, see if it fit, or maybe just made him think of something.

C’était le meilleur des périodes, il était le plus mauvais des eliro.

Era un día frío brillante en abril, y los eliro pegaban trece.

He froze. Four minutes left. He knew exactly what ELIRO was. It was Esperanto. An invented language, spoken by a handful of linguists and hobbyists around the world. It was originally developed as a simple universal language, a language everyone could learn easily, to bridge borders and cultures. It had never taken off, and for century had been a curiosity. Researched by people like him, sometimes played with by intellectuals and people like President Grant. It wasn’t much of a code, but it served well enough to stop casual spying. He concentrated, trying to pull together his rough memory of the language.

He thought back to a project he’d worked on in school, translating the Bible into different languages and then having the translations themselves translated back into English, to study how nuances changed, meanings shifted. The idea being to quantify how ideas got altered throughout history as old texts were translated and re-translated. One of the test languages had been Esperanto. Eliro meant Exodus.

He paused for a second, looking around and listening. Then opened his bag and pulled out the e-reader. Tapping it into life, he scrolled through the thousands of books stored on it and pulled up an Esperanto primer, a text he hadn’t accessed in twenty years. Emily had always made fun of his insistence on keeping every book he’d ever read. he made a mental note to tell her about this when he saw her again.

If he saw her again.

After a few seconds of tapping, he knew that dum tre longa tempo nun meant, roughly, for a very long time now.

He couldn’t remember the rest. It hadn’t been very long. A last minute instruction to a fellow conspirator? Or maybe something important, something that would help derail the plot. Maybe something, he thought hopefully, that would help get him out of this alive. Or maybe it was coincidence. But that first line: History will forgive me. It had to mean something.

He needed The Brick back. He needed to see the file again.

Flushed with a momentary success, panic swept back through him as he realized he’d lost count of the time. Two minutes? One? He glanced down at the gun in his hand, suddenly remembered. Told himself that if he had it out, he had to be prepared to fire it. To possibly kill someone. Otherwise there was no point in having it in his hand.

He tightened his grip on it. Moved his thumb. Flicked off the safety.

There was a dim alarm from within the Security Office. Pushing through the layers of drywall and insulation, it was just a dull buzzing noise.

He heard the glass doors squeal open. Squeal shut. He heard a voice, moving away from him, towards the elevators. One man. He took a deep breath, checked the Kimber one last time, and turned the corner.

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I‘ll be posting one chapter of my novel Designated Survivor every week throughout 2022. Download links below.

23.

Ten minutes before reflecting that they didn’t make Secret Service agents the way they used to, Frank Darmity lay on the carpeted floor with his eyes closed.

It was a generic office. Just a desk, a filing cabinet, a phone. Two comfortable chairs in front, one leather chair behind. Nothing else. Small enough for a tall man to reach both walls with outstretched arms. The sort of room set aside for when a visiting dignitary brought a dozen secretaries and each one needed a desk. The sort of space that became essential if you ever did have to move the entire Federal Government into the facility, finding space for every assistant to the assistant vice everything.

The door had a simple lock. He’d given it a good look when they’d brought him in. Being gentler with him than they should have because he was one of them. Didn’t stop them from handcuffing him, but when he’d hesitated at the doorway, pretended to be bothered about being locked away, they’d given him some latitude and he’d gotten a good look at the lock.

He could kick the door open with one shot, he was pretty sure. If he didn’t mind the noise. If he was going to do some sneaking, it would take him a few minutes to pick it. He didn’t know if they’d posted a guard. First things first: He had to get the handcuffs off.

He lay with his eyes closed and relaxed. Did an inventory of every muscle and made sure each was as relaxed as possible. People didn’t realize how tense they were even when they were relaxing. You had to consciously think of each muscle group and force it to go slack. You had to be truly aware of your body. He took several deep breaths. Then slowly raised his legs, bending at the knees. Lifted himself up slightly and rolled his shoulders, slowly sliding his wrists down over his hips. It took two minutes of slow contraction. The wound in his belly burned and sizzled. He forced himself to breathe deeply and steadily, straining for every centimeter until his hands slid free behind his knees. A moment later he slipped both feet over the handcuffs and sat up.

He made a quick survey of the office. Didn’t expect to find anything in the drawers and wasn’t surprised. He had nothing handy to pick locks with.

He stepped up to the door and pushed his ear against it. Held his breath. Heard nothing.

He seethed. Amesley. He knew the Director was a soft man. An Office Man. A fucking Paper Pusher. He’d known that going in. President Grant had known that going in. That was why Grant had given Darmity his private orders, which were to keep everything on track. He hadn’t actually said that. But Darmity knew Grant was a subtle man. A man he could never hope to fully comprehend. A man beyond him. And that was okay. He was okay being Grant’s inferior. Grant was the only man whose superiority he acknowledged. The President hadn’t had to issue direct orders. Darmity understood anyway. Anticipated. And he knew that an Office Man like Amesley would go Weak Sister in tight places.

His hands curled into fists. Sneaking up behind him. When he was getting somewhere. Making the bitch squeal, drawing Renicks out of hiding. Fucking paper pushers. He’d pressed the button, and when the Button Man had shown up he’d cowered back in terror.

Softies had to learn: If you press the Button, you’re not in charge anymore.

He turned and walked back to the desk. Picked up the phone and dashed it to the floor. The sound of cracking plastic seemed loud and startling in the quiet, muffled atmosphere of the room. He waited, listening. There was nothing. Taking three steps back, he stared at a spot just below the handle of the door, right where the latch slid into the jamb. Closed his eyes. Reared back and kicked it. His foot connected solidly and the door jumped, the latch bent but holding. He settled himself, took another deep breath, and kicked again. With a vibrating pop the door snapped open and crashed against the wall outside. The offices had never been intended as holding cells. He nodded to himself. He was the only person on the whole operation who knew what he was doing.

Darmity waited, crouched, cuffed hands held in front of him. He listened for a moment. There was nothing. He approached the door slowly, listening. Stepped out into the hall and looked around. It was completely silent. He was just a few dozen feet from the Security Office. He might as well be in another state for all he could hear. He turned left, heading away from the office and started walking, scanning each door. The elevators were out, though he doubted Amesley would bother to change the access codes; he didn’t want to call attention to himself. He needed a weapon. He needed something to get the cuffs off. He needed a radio, so he could listen to the reports coming in.

He needed to find Renicks before the Softies did. He needed to be in charge of getting the Secretary’s cooperation.

Son, I’m giving you the most difficult mission of all. I know you’ve had the hardest road. I know you’ve been unappreciated — except by me. Except by me, son. I haven’t been able to give you the praise you deserve — yet. But I will. When the time comes.

He made a loop around the level, heading away from the Security Office through the empty corridors, then circling back towards it from the other direction. Everything was still and muffled by the soft carpet. The white light was harsh. The hallways seemed to get narrower as he walked. He paused at the final turn and peered around. The hallway outside the Security Office was empty. He waited. Went over the encounter with Renicks on the highway again. Had been going over it all day. Replaying it. Reliving the frustration, because if Renicks had made that call, made a formal complaint during a Continuity Event, Amesley would have been forced to pull him from the detail. Ruined everything by pushing a button.

Fucking Jumbo Softy.

Darmity watched the hall. Waited. He knew how to wait.

Our time will come, son. Your time will come.

It was amazing, still, he thought. Grant should have been a Softy too. A paper-pusher. He’d served in the army, sure, but he’d never seen action. And he was a fucking politician. Darmity had expected bullshit when he’d been invited to meet the President-elect. Flew all the way from the fucking Middle East just so some rich Senator who’d won an election could shake his hand, tell him he’s doing a hell of a job. But Grant was on a mission. He wasn’t a Softy. He was pretending. To get in. To get power. And then achieve his operational objectives.

Darmity remembered that thrilling moment when reality had seemed to shift, and what Grant was saying clicked into the deep groove in his head and made sense. For the first time in his life, a superior officer had made sense. He felt the thrill all over again. An end to bureaucracy. And end to the paper-pushing. One final button to push, and in flames and blood Grant would seize the power to remake the country as it should be. And in that instant, Darmity had been convinced he knew exactly how Grant would remake things. Exactly the decisions he would make. And he approved.

The door to the security office opened and one of the Frat Boys stepped out. Darmity had purposefully forgotten all their names. This one was young and built — there were two of them, almost twins. A fucking queer for his own body, always showing off his arms and taking off his shirt, talking about his workouts, his women. Thought having a ripped stomach and being able to bench press three hundred pounds meant he was a bad ass.

These guys, Amesley’s people, should have been doers. Instead, they were Softies, just like their boss.

Darmity watched him walk away down the corridor. The elevators, he thought, and turned to loop around towards them from the other direction. He would show him how fucking wrong he was.

Hurrying along, the wound in his belly sizzling and burning, damp with leaking blood, he paused again around the corner from the elevator bank, peering around. Seconds later, the Frat Boy emerged from the parallel corridor and pressed the call button on the elevator.

Darmity studied him. Didn’t move. Waited for the indicator light to glow, for the soft sound of the elevator doors opening. As the Frat Boy moved to step into the cab, Darmity swung around the corner and jogged lightly, angling towards the wall. He arrived at the elevators just as the door began to slide shut, ducked around and through, launching himself into the cab and crashing into the Frat Boy. They fell to the floor of the cab. Darmity had complete surprise. He took hold of the Frat Boy’s ears with his hands, jerked his head up from the floor, and smashed it down again. As hard as he could. Did it again. Heard a cracking sound. The Frat Boy’s body spasmed and then he lay still.

The elevator doors closed behind them.

Breathing hard, Darmity climbed off the agent. He got to his knees and shuffled over to the buttons, punched five buttons in sequence. The elevator started to rise. If they saw it in the Security Office, though, they’d assume it was their boy, off on an errand.

He shuffled back to the agent and went through his pockets. Relieved him of his gun, a penknife, a set of keys, and his radio.

Two floors and ten seconds later, the doors slid open again. He stepped out and looked around. Stood and listened for a moment. Then he walked to the nearest door, opened it carefully, and stepped into another abandoned office. Turned on the lights. Started going through the keys, searching for one that might fit his handcuffs.

He knew where Begley was, he thought. That was half the battle. Now he just had to find Renicks and get him to cooperate. Amesley’s plans hadn’t worked out, Grab Teams out there with nothing to grab because the old man had fucked up somewhere, gotten his research wrong. Which meant the old man, the Softy, didn’t know what to do now, wouldn’t let him go after Begley. because she was one of his. So it was up to him, as usual. To do the hard jobs. Which, he thought, was going to be fun. He smiled a little, thinking about it.

Here comes the Button Man, he thought.

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22.

Four minutes before getting really scared, Marianne Begley was trying to notice everything she could.

She had no idea if she could escape, but if an opportunity arose she had already plotted out a route in her head. Out of the Security office, left. Pass the first two junctions, then right. Eight steps or so to a supply closet filled with janitorial supplies. If she felt she had the time, there would be a short ladder she could wedge under the door handle. That would give her some minutes to work with. An air duct in the closet was reachable by climbing the metal shelves. There would be something in there to pry the grate off with. She was pretty sure there was a straight shot of twenty feet of duct that would bring her to a service corridor, and from there she would be lost in the maze again.

All of this would have to be done with a broken leg that throbbed and lanced her with agonizing pain every time she shifted her weight. The light insulating buzz from the pills had worn thin. She thought if she could somehow get to the closet before being apprehended, she would have enough time to get herself into the ducts. But that was a big if. And she was handcuffed to a heavy rolling chair for the time being anyway. She could move, pulling or pushing the chair along with her, but it weighed her down. Made everything awkward. She pictured herself limping through the corridors, being pursued, dragging the chair behind her.

Grit her teeth in frustration.

Still, if the opportunity came, she wanted to bring as many details of Amesley and his operation as possible. In case anything was useful.

There was also the elevators. She couldn’t be sure they hadn’t changed the operating codes to something she didn’t know, but she had come to suspect that Amesley had just shifted the codes forward a day. Easier. Simpler. The elevators were closer, thirty or forty feet away. If she had enough of a lead, she could make it. If she guessed the codes correctly. And even then, they would know exactly where she went, and she would be trapped in an enclosed space for the duration of the ride.

Amesley was talking with two of his agents, young men with athletic builds, serious and humorless. They were very deferential to Amesley. Any doubts Begley had about their dedication to the odd older man evaporated: These people were true believers. Whether it was in Amesley personally or whatever he was working for, they were convinced. As she watched, one of the two nodded crisply and exited the office, moving with athletic ease.

She knew Renicks was still at large. If he’d been found there would have been more excitement, more activity. He would be brought to the Security Office immediately, as he had to be in physical contact with the football to order a launch. They had retrieved The Brick; she saw it sitting out on the console Amesley was using as a desk. So they had the tactical calculators and coordinate sheets the President would use to select targets.

There was a team of agents still working on the football itself, obviously trying to undermine the biorhythmic security or crack the encryption. A hopeless task. But she understood why Amesley would order it pursued; it kept people busy, and you never knew when pure dumb luck would insert itself into an operation. While Renicks was loose, there was no reason not to try patently impossible things.

There were no other people in the office: Just three agents, herself, and Director Amesley. The rest, she assumed were out scouring the complex for Renicks. Not a hopeless mission, just a difficult one. Even without knowing the layout of the facility the way she did, it would be easy for Renicks to stay lost. A wandering child could evade pursuit for hours by sheer luck.

She thought of Renicks. Jack. A stab of worry pierced the artificial calm she’d managed to hold together. She liked the Secretary of Education, and she’d admired how well he’d held up. Stayed calm, Took orders, but offered suggestions. The sort of person, she thought, who was generally useful in any circumstance. But now he was alone, being pursued by … she stumbled over the word terrorists even in her own thoughts. These were Secret Service. This was Martin Amesley. President Grant had trusted this man with his own safety — with his family’s safety. The idea that these people were not only working to undermine the United States but were willing to murder thousands of innocent people in order to accomplish it was impossible.

She hoped Renicks was smart enough to just find a hiding place and stay put. There was no way out. Their only play was to wait either for the army to bust in and take the complex — which her professional pride insisted was impossible — or for the local evacuation to complete and be vaporized along with the entire complex.

Begley considered her own death. A lump of fear tightened in her chest, but she was surprised to find it manageable. She would die. It would be instant. She probably wouldn’t even know it had happened — whatever amount of time it took for sensory information to travel from her nerves to her brain, the invasion of fire and superheated air would be faster. One microsecond she would be here, tied to a chair in the Security Office, the next she would be … dead. And so would Jack, and all these people. But hundreds of thousands of others would be alive, and the country preserved.

Worth it, she thought. This was what she had signed up for: Protect her country with her life. That was what she was doing.

Dad, you’d be proud, she thought. And you’d finally shut the hell up about grandchildren, I bet.

Somehow, a smile appeared on her face as Amesley turned away from his agents. He stopped, staring at her in surprise, and then walked over to her. She watched him as he approached. Amazed at how normal he appeared. She’d been in countless meetings with Amesley. Countless more times in the same room while he treated her like a stick of furniture. There was absolutely nothing unusual about Amesley’s manner or gait. The man might have been chairing a weekly status update meeting.

“Agent Begley,” he said quietly as he approached, pulling another chair over and seating himself close to her. Folded his hands in his lap and slumped forward, his glasses sliding down to the end of his nose. “I apologize for the handcuffs.”

“That’s what you’re apologizing for?”

He smiled slightly. A secret, muted smile aimed at the floor. “Agent Begley, I will not insult your intelligence. I will not torture you. Mr. Darmity has been … placed under arrest for his actions. You are, in my estimation, a good agent. Patriotic, in your way. You deserve our respect even if you cannot bring yourself to understand and cooperate.” He looked up at her from under his eyebrows. Even though he was the most unassuming man she’d ever met, even though he was sitting calmly, she felt alarmed at his closeness. “I will ask you, once, if you cannot be convinced to listen to my argument, and perhaps be persuaded to help us locate Secretary Renicks?”

She stared at him. Studied his face. The mild expression and folded hands made her angry.

“How can you do this, Martin?” she exploded, once again omitting director,purposefully demoting him. “You’re going to kill, at minimum, thousands of people. Possibly hundreds of thousands. How can you betray your country like this? How can you betray President Grant?”

She expected a reaction to that. Amesley worshiped Grant, and even the hint of his disapproval would be intolerable. She waited. Watched his face.

He shrugged.

“The President would not approve of this approach, no,” he said mildly. “His standing order is that no single person is more important than our mission. He would no doubt prefer Mr. Darmity’s approach in all things.” He shrugged. “You sometimes have disagreements with your superiors. I must run my command as I see fit.”

She stared at him. It seemed to her that everything had gotten very quiet, as if the office had been suddenly wrapped in a thick blanket. There was not enough air. It was too hot. Everything muffled and far away.

his standing order

disagreements with your superiors

your superiors

He nodded at her. “President Grant is a great man, Agent Begley. You have not spent time with him. Had an opportunity to study his philosophy, his plan for America. A great man, held back by the accumulated minutiae of rules and procedures and tricks. A great man bound into ineffectiveness because he must endlessly dicker and deal to implement his plans. If you had ever been able to listen to him, I am sure you would be with us right now.”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

“You see, Agent Begley, it is not just a few random traitors. We are, in fact, not traitors at all. We are under orders from the Commander in Chief. Doing his work. Pulling this country, kicking and screaming like an infant, out of the morass of indecision and divisive politics. Setting its trembling feet back on the path towards prosperity and its destiny.” He spread his hands. She noted that they trembled slightly. “So, you see.”

Fear, real fear, seeped into her joints and muscles. Soured her stomach. She realized this was more than a small number of conspirators. She realized that she had no idea, really, how big this was. A film of sweat appeared all over her skin. The President. The President had ordered this. And these people had obeyed that order.

Forcing herself to focus on Amesley again, she shook her head. “Martin, this is insanity.”

He nodded. Didn’t seem upset in any way. “The country — the world — has been insane for some time. Perspective has been skewed. I don’t think you would know a sane course of action if it was presented to you, Agent Begley.” He leaned in towards her slightly. “This is not random, Agent Begley. We are orchestrating an emergency. It is precisely calibrated. The loss of life, the destruction of property is necessary. Regrettable, but necessary. We must have an emergency of sufficient scale to reduce opposition. We have the legislation written and ready. We have the Executive orders written and ready. As soon as we gain access to the launch system, as soon as we effect the collateral damage needed, the President will declare an emergency and request broad powers, suspension of Constitutional restraints, and can begin the hard work of making this country what it was always meant to be.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, we have seen our elected officials ignore arguments, ignore pressure. We are out of arguments, we have no time for pressure. All they will listen to is damage. And fear. For their own lives. Their families.”

He stared at her over the rims of his glasses for an uncomfortable few seconds. As if expecting a response from her. She had none. Legislation, she thought. Did that mean congressmen were involved? Jesus, she thought, how many people were involved in this? It was like a cult, with Grant at the head of it, handing out Kool Aid.

“All these people who will die,” she said slowly, “are innocent.”

“Yes.” Amesley shrugged. “I agree. Though that is the minority view, you should know, as many believe no one who sits idly by can be regarded as innocent. But you see, the damage is necessary. The deaths are necessary. A threat, no matter how real, that is averted may inspire some cooperation, some progress. But it will fade. When the World Trade Center was taken, there was a period of a few months when some of us had hope. Now, we thought, now the country will come together. Now we will change our disastrous course, because we have been shown the evidence of our own decline.” he shook his head. “Despite the thousands dead, the billions in damages, we forgot. We relaxed again. We lost sight of it.” He nodded. “So this must be calibrated to ensure it will not be forgotten.”

He’s insane, she thought with a shudder. She shifted in the seat. Straightened up. Tilted her head back. “They’ll blow the charges under the complex,” she said defiantly. “The President won’t be able to stop that. Even if he issues an executive order, they’ll do it. All he can do is delay things, but he won’t be able to stop it.”

Amesley nodded. “Yes. But he will delay it as long as he can. We’re prepared to accept death as the price of success or the cost of failure.” He hesitated, glancing down at his hands. “I am sorry you and Dr. Renicks will have to make the same sacrifice. I know that you have made no such pledge.”

Amesley suddenly nodded and stood up just as one of the agents Amesley had been talking to dropped his walkie-talkie from his ear, spinning to face the Director.

“Sir! We have a situation.”

Begley strained forward slightly, studying him, trying to catch every word. We have a situation. A phrase she’d heard a thousand times. The standard opening to any informal field report. He was a young man, perhaps her age. His shirt appeared to be slightly too tight. A man proud of his physique. Vain. He was vacation-tanned and his hair looked like he’d had it cut that morning, which might have been true. He was vaguely good-looking in a generic kind of way — square jaw, good nose. She thought she’d dated about six of him in college and immediately after. The sort of men who were charming as hell on a first date and exponentially less interesting on each subsequent date, until you realized you were sleeping with a man who was doing crunches in his head whenever you were talking.

“Agent Harris is dead,” Square Jaw said. “Shot in the chest. Killiam found her and Simmons. Simmons is unconscious. The TV studio’s a mess.” He grimaced. “And Kennings is unaccounted for.”

A thrill went through Begley, a combination of dread and triumph. Renicks was not hiding in some ventilation duct — he was on the move. The knowledge made her inexplicably happy.

“Renicks?” Amesley asked. His voice sounded as calm and flat as always.

The reporting agent shook his head. A single, crisp jerk of his neck. “I doubt it, sir. I had Craddock check on Darmity. That goddamn animal’s escaped.” The agent tilted his head. “I think we have a serious problem on our hands.”

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