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

5.

Fifteen minutes before checking the video screen installed above the keypad, Begley sat in one of the overstuffed easy chairs across from the couch, working her way through her Inbox, half-listening to the TV. The usual bloviating from commentators speculating on the State of the Union. She was not politically minded, which made her typical of the Secret Service. Disinterest made it easier to risk your life for whoever had the job that week.

She looked up at Renicks. He was sitting on the couch with his shoes off, talking on the landline phone — there was no cell signal at all once you went underground — while he watched the TV. She tuned in his conversation from time to time without really meaning to.

“I don’t know. A few hours. I brought plenty, but I’m playing hooky. Don’t tell anyone.”

It was strangely cozy. The suite had a sealed feeling, cut off from the world. It always reminded her of her parents’ basement when she’d been a kid. She would sneak down to sit on the musty old couches and watch the ancient television, separate. Sometimes she’d pretend the world had ended and she was living in the basement, and she’d catalog her survival strategy: Water in the boiler. Big bags of dog food piled up. She’d even kept a cache of dolls and books hidden in the basement, in case she ever had to shelter there.

“She is, actually. It’s stressful, being on good behavior. There probably is, but that’s not a good idea.”

She glanced at Renicks again as the fanfare began on the TV. Mister Speaker, The President of the United States! She was surprised by how relaxed he was, compared to some of the previous Designated Survivors she’d had. He wasn’t barking into the landline, going through cell phone withdrawal. He hadn’t yet treated her like a flight attendant or waitress. He didn’t seem filled with self-importance, and not only hadn’t he tried to impress her with all the people he knew on a first-name basis, including, of course, President Grant himself, he had not actually spoken much to her at all.

Turning back to her tablet, she surreptitiously brought up Renicks’ background file. She was already pretty familiar with it. She just hit the highlights. Mother killed in botched robbery at a supermarket when he was eight. Father had been a small town doctor, dead of a heart attack when Renicks was nineteen. Some indication of a small-town scandal indicated by a flurry of footnotes attached to the main report, but she didn’t drill down into them. If she’d been doing the profile she would have flagged him as a possible risk for foreign recruitment: Bright, no close family ties, no clear political beliefs.

Tunneling down some links, she found that an on-the-ball agent had in fact flagged this, but further reports had minimized that concern.

Father’s brother Richard Albert Renicks, a.k.a Richie The Rail, was the only dark spot in the family tree: Ties to organized crime, sixteen arrests, a total of fifteen years served in various state and federal prisons. Thief, mainly, although a person of interest in two homicides. Black Sheep of the family, certainly, but there were clear indications the Secretary had maintained a friendly relationship with his uncle up until the latter’s death in East Jersey State Prison.

Madam Speaker, Vice President Mallory, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans.

She glanced up at the screen in time to see a brief flash of the Vice President. Elizabeth Mallory was a regally tall black woman. She looked fantastic in a sober dark blue dress, her hair up in a businesslike bun. Begley always had the impression that Vice President Mallory would be a terrifying boss.

“Hey sugarbooger! How was school today?”

Begley glanced at The Secretary. Sugarbooger, she thought, smiling slightly. Renicks had the dopey smile of the doting father. She glanced at the door, at the small video screen next to it. The door was locked but not sealed, and could be opened by any authorized key card. That was protocol; you only sealed the suite in the event of imminent threat inside the facility. She couldn’t make out the video screen from where she was. She considered getting up to visually check the hall outside — four agents were on duty at all times by the doors — but decided it could wait a few minutes. She looked back down at her tablet.

Education started getting impressive after his father’s death. Degree in English from Rutgers College. Masters from Johns Hopkins, Cognitive Science with a side program in Education Administration. Doctorate shortly after, his dissertation on the subject of language techniques to aid in absorption and comprehension in children from low-income backgrounds and challenged school systems. The dissertation had been widely published and made a stir in the sorts of circles a 300-page document with that sort of subject matter might actually be read. He’d also published an article about Esperanto’s potential as a universal documentation markup language that had gotten a bit of attention in academic circles. Begley spent a few seconds trying to think of something more boring than Esperanto, and failed.

She glanced at the TV. President Grant, white hair, tan skin, white teeth. She’d forgotten just how unnaturally tan the man was.

Renicks stood up and placed the receiver back in its cradle, pushing his hands into his pockets and standing near the television. She looked at him for a moment, then closed her open apps and put the tablet aside.

“Disappointed you’re not there?”

He smiled a little without looking at her. “Absolutely not in the least.” He turned to look at her. “What about you? Disappointed that you’re here?”

“Disappointed is the wrong word.”

I do not stand before you tonight unaffected by these past few months. I do not deny the challenges this administration, this country has faced. But I do tell you that a change is at hand.

He nodded. “You want to be kicking in doors and hauling in counterfeiters. Babysitting politicians is not what you want to be doing.”

She cocked her head and kept her face blank. No sense in doubling down on being an open book. “No?”

He hesitated a moment, and then ducked his head, pursing his lips. “You’re efficient and very good at your job. You stick to protocol like its a flotation device after you’ve gone overboard. And every time any little detail goes wrong, your first reaction is superficially identical to excitement. I think you wish something would go wrong, so you could have some fun.” He shrugged. “Besides, you use weak modifiers when you describe anything having to do with this bunker or your duties. You use strong modifiers when you talk about anything else.”

She made her smile very bland as she tried to recall the words she’d used when going over everything earlier. He was right, and she didn’t like it, being read so easily. “You’re kind of smug, aren’t you?”

“Smug — or right?”

It should have been irritating, but he said it with such obvious cheer she smiled. “All right,” she said. “I’m bored to death in this tomb. What’s your excuse?”

“Fifty-three words.”

I stand here tonight and tell you, we as a country remain —

They both paused. There was a second of perfect silence from the television, and then shouts of confusion. She turned towards the TV in time to see a glimpse of people moving around the president, and then the TV went to snow with a pop.

For another second, they both stood there.

“Did you see that?” Renicks asked.

She spun away, heart pounding, and crossed to the door. She ran her protocol in her head. Check your perimeter. Contact your upteam. Be sure of your weapon.

She reached across herself and patted the holster snapped to her belt. Didn’t draw the weapon. You only drew a gun when you expected to fire it.

At the front door she pulled her transceiver from her pocket and toggled it as she leaned in to the video screen.

The hallway outside was empty.

There were supposed to be four agents outside at all times. The gray, empty hallway on the screen was all wrong.

“Station One status.”

There was a moment’s white noise, then an unfamiliar voice. “This is Station One. All green, Station Gold.”

She froze for a second. Weighed the possibilities. She had not seen anything explicit on the TV, but there had been a disruption. The TV had lost signal. Something was wrong. And there were no agents outside the suite.

Her transceiver crackled into life again. “Agent Begley, this is Director Amesley. On my way to you. Stand by.”

“Director, what’s going on? Why is the Hallway Detail gone from their posts?”

There was no response. Just the white noise of an open receiver.

She stared down at the tiny walkie-talkie, so small it fit in the palm of her hand. This was a complete deviation from protocol. It was also a direct instruction from her superior. For a second she stood chewing her lip, unsure. Heart pounding. She could not reconcile all green with Director Amesley making a personal visit to the suite.

A single blast of an alarm, a deep angry buzzing, made her jump. Flashing emergency lights came on immediately after, silent and yellow. On the plush chair where she’d left it, her tablet beeped insistently.

“Holy shit,” Renicks whispered.

She turned and looked at Renicks. He was standing right where she’d left him, alert and attentive. Watching her. The Designated Survivor. In her charge. They stared at each other for one, two, three seconds, the only sound the sterile clicking of the emergency lights.

She nodded to herself. Protocol. “Stay back.” Turning back to the door, she reached up and tapped seventeen buttons on the keypad, rapidly. The magnetic locks on the suite’s only entrance slammed into place. She felt their impact through the floor, through her shoes. She took half a step back before catching herself.

Calm down, she thought, furious. You’ve been trained for this.

Except it had never been live. And in her mind, it had never been like this. Protocol broken, nothing proceeding according to the clear path outlined by the Continuity Plan. Which she had memorized. In her mind, in all the exercises, if nothing else the first step of the protocol — making contact with the Hall Detail and securing the Portable Nuclear Arsenal — had always been executed.

Instead, she had seen — what exactly had she seen on the television? A second’s confusion, nothing more. A second’s confusion, then a loss of signal. And then the Executive Suite had come online. Which only happened if the Continuity of Government program had been activated.

Which only happened if every single person in the line of succession above the Designated Survivor was believed to be dead. Which made Secretary Jack Renicks the Acting President of the United States.

Turning around, she tried to look confident and calm. Behind her, Director Amesley toggled the intercom again. Renicks raised an eyebrow.

“Are we okay, Agent Begley?”

She took a breath. Boil it down to basics, she thought. What’s your core mission? To keep him safe. “Until we know what’s going on, Secretary Renicks,” she said slowly, “we have to keep you in this bunker.”

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

4.

Thirty seconds before he got off the elevator, Renicks was trying to do three things at once.

One, he was purposefully avoiding looking at Agent Begley, who was so attractive in her perfectly-tailored, sober, gray suit the idea of spending several hours locked in a room with her was terrifying. Two, he was picturing the teams of workers outside the building and trying to pin down what bothered him about them. Three, he was formulating his approach to speaking with Director Amesley about Agent Darmity, which, based on his impressions of Director Amesley, was probably a bad idea.

Despite his efforts, Begley floated in front of his thoughts. Well-off, he thought. Way above her pay grade, at least; her suit was Chanel and had been tailored to fit her perfectly. Her watch was modest and not decorative at all — a serious field watch, nothing fancy. But her shoes flashed bright red soles when she walked, and the slender gold bracelet around her other wrist was expensive stuff. She was either from a rich family or she had thirteen credit cards in a block of ice in her freezer. She had the impassive expression of someone very used to keeping their thoughts to themselves, and had not looked at Director Amesley once since he’d walked into the lobby. This is someone who doesn’t want to be here, he thought, and blames her boss for it.

He knew perfectly well that he had to be validated; it was clearly stated in his orientation docs that he was required to submit to DNA and voice print analysis (and any other validation process offered by duly appointed representatives of the Secret Service, The Central Intelligence Agency, the White House Staff, the United States Congress, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or their duly assigned proxies — and, he assumed, just about anyone else who happened to have a fingerprint scanner and a copy of his voice print file).

He found himself thinking of Agent Begley’s neck as it emerged from the fabric of her flattering white blouse, and forced himself to study Director Amesley intently while the elevator sank.

Amesley was older, past the mandatory retirement age, but he carried it well. He was short and slender, his thin white hair cut almost to a crew-cut, his scalp pink beneath it. He wore huge plastic glasses with thick lenses, a man who did not have vanity but wanted you to know he had no vanity so he underscored the ugly, perfunctory fashion decisions he made. Behind the lenses his eyes were brown and flat, without warmth or humor. He spoke in the declarative, short bursts of a man used to being obeyed — a type Renicks thought he might as well resign himself to meeting over and over again that night. Amesley’s suit was sober blue and invisibly normal, modest without being cheap, new in the sense of not having been worn much. He did not wear a watch, which Renicks found strange, but held his cell phone in his hand in a casual way that hinted he always carried his cell phone in his hand, because he was that busy. His shoes were old-fashioned wingtips, in good shape but also not new.

Based on the fact that his suit was at least four or five years old but still fit perfectly, Renicks assumed the Director was one of those small, wiry men who had not changed much physically since their school days. He would probably still fit in the various uniforms of the private schools he’d attended as a boy.

There was a tiny American Flag pin on Amesley’s lapel, and Renicks studied it. He wasn’t sure what conclusions to draw from an American flag pin, aside from the fact that Director Amesley considered himself a patriot, and wanted everyone to know this as well. He looked at Amesley’s tie – phenomenally ugly – for a moment before turning to Agent Begley and smiling.

Begley ignored him, but glanced at Amesley. A glance which should have frozen the Director into an ice sculpture. Renicks found himself wishing the Director would be staying with them in the suite, simply for the entertainment value. He wondered if the time had come to date again. The divorce was five years old, the girls were in junior high. Maybe too soon to have a live-in, sure, but a few dates? He watched Agent Begley for a few seconds, pondering the possibilities. He liked the way she smelled. He didn’t know the perfume, but he knew it was expensive.

Based on her carriage — shoulders back, ramrod straight, balanced and easy — he figured she was the sort of girl who walked around abandoned parking lots without a moment of fear.

He was impressed at how well the entrance to the elevators was hidden, but he didn’t give the building a very high score for secrecy. It was too small. You walked in, the lobby was eighty percent of the place. You had this nifty reception desk, but there was no room for offices or anything. If you thought about it for ten seconds you realized everything that made this building necessary was underground, and if you thought about that for ten seconds you realized the entrance to the Secure Facility, as the agents were fond of calling it, had to be inside.

He’d made sure he was behind everyone in the elevator, and studied them. Darmity stole a glance back at him and then snapped forward, red in the face again. Renicks had decided to hold off trying to complain about Agent Darmity; he looked like he was having a terrible day and Renicks had sloughed off the earlier tension and was willing to let bygones be bygones, for the moment. Maybe Agent Darmity had woken up to a personal hell and was barely holding it together. He’d had bad days himself, as an ex-wife would gladly attest.

The elevator ride took no time at all. His stomach pressed up against his diaphragm for a few seconds, his ears popped, and then the doors snapped open and he was following Agent Begley down what looked like a hallway in a nice hotel: Thick carpet, red and blue striped wallpaper on the walls, brass sconces every few feet. They walked in a muffled silence, the carpet absorbing every noise. He noticed the little black bubbles every few feet on the ceiling; cameras, probably aimed in order to eliminate any possible blind spots. At the end of the hall was an impressive set of double doors. They were plain white metal doors with big polished nickel handles like huge staples inserted into them; a larger black bubble was mounted at the center of the lintel, a keypad with an astounding number of unmarked buttons was mounted in the wall to the left — not simply a plate screwed into the studs, either, but actually part of the wall as if it had been manufactured as one sheet and installed. Renicks guessed it would be very difficult to cut into the wall to get at the wiring of the keypad. Above it was a small video screen which was displaying the Great Seal of the United States in flickering faded colors.

“How is the retrofit going?” he asked in a tone of idle conversation as they approached the doors, thinking about the teams of workers up above when he’d arrived with Agent Darmity, men and women wearing blue overalls.

Director Amesley turned slightly as he walked, so that Renicks had his profile. “This facility is undergoing renovation and retrofit. Nothing to be alarmed about! The facility is fully operational and security systems are all green and online. The workers are actually leaving the premises right now, as per protocol.”

The cheer in the Director’s voice felt forced to Renicks, but he couldn’t be sure if this was because the Director was lying when he said nothing to be alarmed about, or because cheer was an expression that did not come naturally to him.

Begley turned slightly to smile back at him. “It’s been more than a decade since the last upgrade of systems here. That’s pretty much forever in terms of computer systems and security measures.”

Renicks nodded, picturing the workers he’d seen, chewing over the memory. Nine men, three women. Too clean, though maybe they hadn’t started working yet. Every single one of them carrying what looked like identical tool bags, brown canvas, but not a tool to be seen, everything tucked neatly away — no hammers in loops, no screwdrivers in back pockets.

He was being paranoid. CIA everywhere, because he was, for one night only, next in line to become President of the United States. Emily, had called it his “always on” mode; he got distracted — obsessed — by little details and kept circling them. Emily had always told him this made her want to slap him in the face, and that had been when she’d still told him I love you on a regular basis.

At the double doors Begley stepped forward and punched a complex series of the unmarked buttons. A pattern, Renicks figured. No numbers or letters to remember and divulge. More like a combination to a safe. It had to be changed on a regular basis, so he was impressed with the easy, automatic way she entered it. There was soft click, and she immediately pushed one of the doors inward and stepped in, blocking the entrance for a moment as she scanned the interior. Making sure nothing had changed, that there was no sign of trouble. After a moment she stepped back out, pushed the other door inward, and gestured them in.

“The Executive Suite,” she said as he stepped past her. “Basically a panic room. All communications and control can be routed here in the event of an outer breach of the facility. Eleven hundred square feet, designed to house eight people comfortably and twelve uncomfortably.”

He looked around. It was like a pricey hotel room. There was a small foyer marked off by white tile on the floor and tiny table pushed up against one wall, a set of the saddest fake flowers he’d ever seen in an unremarkable blue vase. The tile ended three feet in and became more of the deep, industrial carpet: A living room. Two couches, a deep, plush-looking easy chair, a coffee table facing a wall of bookshelves with a mid-sized flat screen television hanging between. The wall opposite the TV, behind the couches, sported a glittering bar, piled with bottles and glassware. Renicks considered it the suite’s most attractive feature so far. A set of curtains covered the far wall. Renicks was certain he would find cinder blocks and mortar if he pulled them aside, but they supported the illusion he was in a Holiday Inn somewhere for a convention. He was certain he would discover a mini bar in the main bedroom.

He glanced at the doors again. The handles were the same as those on the outside. If Uncle Richie had been with him, he would have said they were perfect for slipping a broomstick or metal rod through if you wanted to keep people outside. Renicks thought there was plenty of technology doing that job, but wondered for a second if those kind of emergency considerations had been part of the design. Security of the Last Resort, Richie would have called it.

Begley walked in like a Realtor. “Full kitchen through there. Two full bathrooms, though I have to warn you the fixtures are old and the showers both flood. Ten years is a long time between refits. Two other small bedrooms, and the office.”

Renicks nodded, dropping his bag on one couch. “Twelve people?” he asked, turning to look at her.

She smiled. The first genuine smile he’d gotten from her, he thought. “I said uncomfortably,” she reminded him.

He winked. “You sure did.”

Amesley cleared his throat. The space felt dry and tight, sealed off.

“If we can, Mr. Secretary, we need to have you validated in the Continuity system prior to the speech.”

Renicks nodded. He felt cheerful. He’d been dreading the speech: Standing and sitting, applauding constantly, keeping his face blank when Grant got to the education paragraph, probably whittled down to forty-three words by now. Given enough time he assumed The President would get that down to simply pointing at him and giving him a thumb’s up, no words needed. The thought of being able to sit in this gloomy bunker with a cocktail, trying to impress the pretty Agent Begley with his witty remarks was undeniably more attractive.

Amesley smiled a twitchy smile and gestured at Begley, who stepped forward, tapping her tablet.

“Mr. Secretary — ”

“Call me Jack.”

“ — we will perform the voice print analysis first,” she said without breaking stride or looking up from the screen. She was good at ignoring men, he thought. “During your orientation you supplied a pass phrase which was digitized and kept on file. If you cannot remember — ”

Renicks recited, “John Renicks. Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have.” He shrugged, looking around the room again. “Ronald Reagan.”

There was a soft happy ding from her tablet, and Begley glanced up at him with a raised eyebrow. “You have a good memory, Mr. Secretary.”

He nodded. “It’s easy. There’s only six individual concepts in the phrase. The rest is unnecessary modifiers and grammatical artifacts.”

Her eyes shifted to the side as she considered that. Then she offered him a bland smile. “I’m afraid we’ll need to validate your DNA as well. A blood sample and simultaneous injection of a temporary transmitter into your bloodstream. The complex employs a simple biorhythmic algorithm to establish your presence or absence from the site.”

He remembered this from the orientation, but hesitated anyway. “My bloodstream?”

She nodded. “Don’t worry. It will be flushed out of your system in a few days. It doesn’t closely track your movements.” There was a beat. “That’s my job.”

He eyed her tablet for a moment. “So you won’t be able to see if I try to slip out the back, huh?”

She smiled again. “It’s not that precise. The biorhythmic tracking is mainly used to determine that you are inside the complex. If you become Acting President and this complex goes online, it will check for your presence on a constant basis. If it fails to detect your vital signs, it will assume you have died and go offline, transferring authority to another complex, or back to the White House, as appropriate.”

“Agent Begley,” Amesley complained. “Can you please continue Dr. Renicks’ education later?”

She looked at the Director for a second, then back at Renicks, still smiling. “That clear?”

He nodded. He thought, she’s pissed.

She held the tablet towards him, and he saw a slight indentation in the top of it, the perfect shape to slide his thumb into. Without any further prompting he did so. After a second there was a click, a sharp pain, and then another happy ding.

Begley took the tablet back and glanced down at the screen, nodding as he pushed his thumb into his mouth and sucked. “Very good, Mr. Secretary. Congratulations,” she added, looking back at him with a smile he decided was friendly. “You are now officially the Designated Survivor for the next seven hours.”

He winked again. “Call me Jack,” he said around his thumb.

EPUB | MOBI | PDF

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

3.

Ten minutes before the Detail arrived at the Secure Facility, Special Agent Marianne Begley was riding the elevator up to the surface. The ride up took twenty-seven seconds. Twenty-three seconds going down. There were fifteen buttons on the panel, but only two worked under normal conditions; the others could be used to enter codes to modify the behavior of the elevator. There were escape panels in the ceiling and floor of the cab that could be released manually; the outer doors of each floor were wired into a numerical keypad on the inside of the elevator shaft and would open in response to the correct code.

Agent Begley knew this because she had ridden the elevator, based on her own bitter calculations, over one-thousand times.

She was a slender twenty-eight year-old woman with clear skin the color of light coffee, her dark hair in a neat bun carefully pinned to stay up under even the most physically stressful conditions. She held a tall cup of coffee brewed in the huge, industrial kitchen on the ninth level, light and sweet enough to make most people gag, and a thin tablet computer containing all the files she would need for the day’s work. Most of it had to do with the Secure Facility itself, and she didn’t need any of those files, really, because in the thirteen months since she’d been assigned to Continuity she’d spent most of her time getting to know the old bunker complex better than she’d ever wanted to. It was huge, it was empty, it was a place designed for a series of events every sane person in the world fervently hoped would never come to pass.

It was like working in a sewer: No one ever wanted to think about how it worked or who was down there, making the magic happen.

Thirteen months. She’d spent fifteen months working vice, out of the academy. It had occurred to her how unfair it was that any female cop with a BMI under 25 almost automatically been assigned to vice in the mid- to large-sized cities, condemned to walk around in hot pants enticing middle-aged men to proposition them, or go into clubs wearing something short and skimpy, trying to make drug deals. But at least there had been a clear timeline: Vice was unpopular, and thus everyone got a tour through it for a time, usually one year. Then she’d spent three years working Major Crimes in Baltimore, which was like seven years working Major Crimes in any other city. Then she’d been recruited into the Secret Service and she’d seen herself running alongside Presidential limousines, smashing counterfeit rings, a good mix between easy posts and real action.

Instead, she’d gotten Continuity, and she’d been underground ever since. She’d had three live Survivors stay a total of sixteen hours in the facility, stuck with them down in the suite. All the other thousands of hours had been spent studying the place inch by inch. Ostensibly so she would know the place better than anyone, so she could do her job better. In reality it had been a desperate attempt to stay sane.

The elevator doors snapped open and she stepped into the bland, short corridor leading from the elevator bank to the entrance of the above-ground complex. She glanced down at her tablet to check the time and started walking briskly. Too soon, but people were, shockingly, sometimes a little early.

Today was number four: The Secretary of Education, a man she’d never thought about much until she’d gotten her Alert Bulletin four hours ago. John Renicks, Ph.D., who had gotten about as much attention as any previous Secretary of Education, which was to say none at all. She liked his photo, was impressed by his C.V., and sincerely hoped he was not a chatty person. Bunker duty with the Designated Survivor was bad enough without hours and hours of small talk.

She also hoped he was not the type to make passes at women required by their jobs to be in an enclosed space with them. She would hate to be reprimanded again because it was apparently not acceptable to put cabinet members into submission holds until they apologized for things. That had probably bought her a whole second year of Continuity. She didn’t want to buy a third.

Her shoes, comfortable flats that, she hoped, straddled some indefinite line between style and utility, made no noise on the cold cement floor as she walked, thumbing through screens and noting last-minute details. There were already five more emails since she’d last checked before stepping onto the elevator half a minute before; the Service did not like it when things changed at the last minute, even if the change was due to an Act of God like a heart attack.

At the end of the corridor was a steel maglock door with a keypad mounted on the wall next to it. A blast door. Thick steel. Lock bolts embedded deep in the concrete and extending into the door itself. Impossible to open once engaged. She absent-mindedly entered seventeen digits into the keypad and the door unlocked with a deep thunk she could feel through the soles of her shoes. Passing through the doorway, the air temperature dropped a good five or six degrees as the sense of constricting space fell away. Behind her, the door swung shut on spring-loaded hinges and melted back into the wall, invisible to a casual glance and difficult to detect even under intense examination. The building that housed the only entrance to the lower levels was small, covering just about a thousand square feet. It had a few offices, a lavatory, and a storage closet, and a large lobby area with a front desk. Anyone who did find their way into the building, which had no sign on the outside, would be politely directed wherever they were actually going by the smiling person behind the desk.

Or, if the small unassuming building turned out to be their intended destination, arrested.

The lobby was nothing special. It had high ceilings and a large piece of modern art hanging against the back wall, but otherwise was just an oversized room with a reception desk. Standing in front of the desk, apparently staring out into space, was Director of the Secret Service Martin Amesley.

“You’re early, Agent Begley,” he said without turning to look at her. “I like that.”

She nodded and said nothing. His presence at Continuity Events was not common. He might like promptness, but he did not like her, she knew. Evidence being her continued purgatory in the bowels of the bunker, cataloging air ducts, shortcuts, corridor lengths, and the long list of empty, unfurnished rooms. She’d even taken a few trips to the old mine shafts the complex had grown out of, a century old and smelling like rotting garbage. Amesley was taciturn and gruff and was well known to be of the opinion that the world in general, the United States of America in particular, and the younger agents of the Secret Service in specific had long been in a lamentable decline. She had the impression that no success on her part would convince him that she was not irreparably a member of an inferior generation. Inferior to his own, of course.

They stood in awkward silence.

The Secretary of Education was not considered a volatile asset by the Service; Begley wasn’t sure why Amesley was there, and it made her nervous. Normally the Director of the Secret Service would be with the President at the State of the Union, overseeing the security detail. Amesley had a reputation of trying to be unpredictable to keep his people on their toes, though. Whatever the reason, his presence made her anxious.

There was a flash on her tablet, and she glanced down at her alerts. “Seven minutes, give or take.”

Amesley grunted.

The front doors opened, and three maintenance workers started to enter. There were dozens of them crawling around the complex, engaged in what seemed like an endless retrofit. Trying to bring the systems into the current century. The workers noticed the two of them standing there, paused in surprise for a moment, and then backed out apologetically. She watched them go, keeping her face impassive. She felt uncomfortable with all the workers, for reasons she found difficult to articulate. They had all been cleared by the Service, so perhaps it was the invasion; as much as she disliked admitting it, she owned this complex. It was hers. She knew everything about it, and she ran the show when a Designated Survivor was assigned. The workers were contractors, not under her authority, and were delving into her secrets. Her property.

They settled back into a stiff silence. Director Amesley checked his watch, crisply.

She went through a mental checklist. The Executive Suite on the Twelfth level had been prepared. The one-way lock on the door was operational and she had the current code, generated on her own tablet and input by her own hand. She’d cleaned and rebuilt her weapon the night before, it was loaded with a full magazine and she had a second mag in her pocket. She had her ID and access card.

Outside, police cars and a black sedan pulled into the circular driveway.

Begley watched the scene unfold. The cop cars idled, lights still flashing. The driver’s side door opened and an agent climbed out. She didn’t recognize him; he was short and burly and kind of unkempt, like he’d been sweating for a while. She thought it likely that Director Amesley would have something to say to him about the grooming and appearance guidelines issued by the Service.

Before the agent could open the passenger door, it opened on its own, and the Secretary of Education stepped out. She recognized him immediately from his photo, and while there would be several identity checks while working through the protocol, she reminded herself that the initial visual confirmation should never be discounted. It was easy to over-rely on technological checks when your gut was usually right.

She watched Renicks through the glass. He and the agent spoke a few words to each other and it looked a little heated based on the body language: Renicks stiff and unbending, the agent with his shoulders ducked like he wanted to tackle him. Then the cop cars were pulling away and Renicks was walking towards them. She approved of his packing: He was wearing a dress shirt, a pair of tan pants, sturdy-looking shoes, and a sports jacket, and carried a single manageable bag, deep and square. They sometimes arrived packed for a six-month trip to a deserted island, and she certainly hadn’t signed up for the Service in order to be a bellhop.

Renicks and the agent entered the lobby simultaneously. The agent let Renicks move ahead of him, glowering behind as they advanced. The Secretary stopped a few steps away from her and dropped his bag, extending his hand to Amesley. She ignored the fact that he automatically introduced himself to the man first. She was used to ignoring such things.

“Jack Renicks,” he said. Begley realized he was chewing gum, and allowed herself a slight smile.

Amesley looked down at the hand for a moment just shy of rude, and then took it in his own and shook. “Secretary Renicks,” he said, his voice deep and authoritative, gruff from the thousands of packs of cigarettes even ten years of not smoking couldn’t erase. “This is Special Agent Marianne Begley. She will be your In-Suite Agent during your time here.”

Renicks shook her hand with a smile. “I’ll try not to be any trouble,” he said, sounding friendly.

She nodded. “You won’t be.”

He tilted his head a little, still smiling, and then nodded, turning back to Amesley. “Director, do you have a moment?”

Behind him, Begley noticed the agent redden, his hands twitching at his sides. Something had happened on the drive over. She let her eyes linger on the driver for a few seconds. She didn’t like the look of him, and wondered how he’d gotten this detail. Amesley personally approved all assignments for Continuity, and he didn’t look like the sort of man Amesley would put his trust in.

Amesley looked at his watch. “Actually, things are running behind, Mr. Secretary. The refit of this complex — that is why there are so many workers running about — I am sure you understand. I will stop by the suite later, however.” He gestured at Begley. “Right now, if you don’t mind, I would like to validate you as John Renicks, Secretary of Education, Designated Survivor.”

Begley jumped, but before she could speak, Renicks was talking.

“Validate?”

He was smiling a little. Begley liked his smile. It was kind of crooked. His teeth were good, but not perfect; he had a chip in one of his front incisors he hadn’t bothered getting filled. For some reason she decided not to explore, she found this charming.

Amesley smiled back, disconcerting Begley. He was a man who’d been born already fifty years old, scowling owlishly around the Delivery Room, and never meant to smile.

“Mr. Secretary, we employ a dual validation process to ensure that you are, in fact, Secretary John Renicks, and thus the duly appointed Designated Survivor today. A matter of DNA — a pinprick on your thumb — and a voice print analysis. Agent Begley can — ”

Begley cleared her throat loudly. Amesley was her boss’s boss’s boss, but the Secure Facility was her pond, and she was not going to let him piss in it.

“Director, I must insist protocol be followed. The DS is not supposed to be validated until installed in the Executive Suite and confirmed safe. The reasons for this precaution are — ”

Director Amesley turned his smile on her. It was a terrifying husk of a smile, something that hadn’t been too healthy to begin with and should have been carried away and buried. He was a short man, wiry, his head too large for his body. His hair was a brilliant white, cut short against his scalp. He wore large, thick glasses that sat on his small, slender nose like he’d accidentally taken the wrong pair at the gym or something. The glasses seemed to be part of him, as if his eyes had grown out of his face, forming a bony framework that looked like glasses.

“Agent Begley is, of course, correct,” he said. The icy tone of his voice made his lingering smile even more horrifying. “I should know, I helped write the protocol. You’ll find her to be very dedicated to the letter of the protocol, Secretary Renicks.”

Renicks grinned at her. “I wouldn’t want my Doppelganger running amok in here either.”

Begley nodded, glanced at the glowering Amesley, and thought, well, that probably bought me another three months down here.

Renicks suddenly gestured at Director Amesley. “I love your tie, Director,” he said.

Begley kept a frown from her face by force of will. In her limited experience with Martin Amesley, she predicted this conversation was not going to go well. Amesley had old-fashioned ideas about — about just about everything, she thought. Men’s suits, the quality of younger generations, women working field details, and certainly, she thought, about the proper look and behavior of a member of President Grant’s cabinet. Begley was certain of two things: One, Renicks did not fit Amesley’s requirements for the position, at least not visually, and two, in Amesley’s opinion that was not President Grant’s fault. Director Amesley thought Grant’s election was the sole beam of light during the country’s otherwise disturbing decline.

Thinking it was too bad for the old man that the rest of the country increasingly disagreed with him, she smiled noncommittally at Renicks.

“What?” Amesley appeared to ponder the situation for a few seconds, frowning, and then fingered his tie. It was dark blue and had red lines criss-crossing it. “Ah, yes. Ah, thank you.”

Begley glanced at Renicks and he winked at her. She blinked, startled, and then settled herself. A joker, she thought; just what she needed. She downgraded him from charming with a little regret. It was going to be a long night.

“If you’ll follow me, Secretary Renicks, I’ll get you situated.”

Amesley and the other agent followed them, which Begley didn’t like. She could think of no legitimate reason to exclude them from the elevator ride down, however, and so silently waved her magnetic ID card at the hidden door in the rear of the lobby, enjoyed the slight gasp of surprise it elicited from Renicks, and stood aside as the three men entered the small elevator cab. She checked the hall behind her before entering the elevator, and let her eyes stick on the floor and ceiling of the cab for a moment, looking for anything unusual.

She didn’t find anything, and let the doors slide shut. She pressed the lowest button on the panel, an unmarked white piece of plastic, and the elevator began moving.

“By the way,” Director Amesley said in a quiet, almost gentle voice. “I understand this was supposed to be a vacation day for you, Agent Begley. I’m sorry you had to come in to work this detail.”

She blinked at her blurry reflection in the stainless steel elevator doors. Unsure how to respond, because she was unsure of her own motivations. Her first vacation in years scheduled, booked, double-checked, paid for. Her, delighted to be free of the mountain for a few weeks, to actually miss a State of the Union Continuity Event! Delighted.

Then Murray landed in the hospital. Car accident, intensive care, random flex of the universe, and the scheduled In-Suite Agent was off the roster. When she’d seen the alert, she’d volunteered to cancel everything and go back to the mountain. Volunteered. Scrambling to cancel two flights, two hotel rooms, a rental car, a bikini wax, a half-marathon she’d already paid for, and six separate lunch and dinner dates with parents, stepparents, siblings, stepsiblings, and two college roommates.

Volunteered. She didn’t want to think too hard about her motivations. Didn’t want to imagine that the Secure Facility had become her home, that it had gotten a hand on her.

She looked at Amesley without moving her head. Murray had been one of the Director’s Favorite Sons, one of a group of agents the Director tended to assign to his own details over and over again. She imagined Amesley hadn’t been pleased to see her name slotted in for the evening instead, too late for him to make any other arrangement without jeopardizing preparations. Maybe made the Director angry enough to use harsh language. The idea of Amesley cursing amused her, and she struggled to contain a smile. Amesley had seemed irritated at her presence all day. No sense in making things worse.

“That’s all right, sir,” she replied with careful politeness. “That’s the job.”

“Well,” Renicks said cheerfully as the elevator began dropping into the earth, “that makes two of us: I’m not supposed to be here, either.”

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

2.

Seven minutes before threatening the driver, Renicks glanced up from The Brick and studied the back of his head. The car felt substantial and safe. It glided along the highway like it was on a pocket of air, almost perfectly silent. They were doing eighty-five, weaving through traffic with police cars around them, red and blue lights swirling. The agent behind the wheel knew how to drive. More importantly, he knew how to drive in formation, keeping an impressively steady distance between his own vehicle and the police escort. Renicks thought the man had experience driving under pressure situations, but wasn’t comfortable in the driver’s seat. He looked hunched and tight, and kept turning on the windshield wipers by accident. Renicks thought he was used to driving bigger things. Hummers, trucks. Ex-military, maybe, or ex-contractor in a hot zone.

Renicks smiled at his own vanity. Or maybe he’d been a garbage collector, he told himself. Like Emily said, you don’t know everything.

He turned and stared out the window. Emily and the kids were just a few minutes away. Watching the other cars flash by, he was pierced by a sudden yearning to see them all. Even Emily, who would be unsmiling and unamused at an unannounced visit. When gripped by the darkest frustrations earlier in the day he’d fantasized a form of pleasant professional suicide wherein he skipped the State of the Union and spent the evening with Emma and Jen, watching bad television and eating cereal.

The last time he’d had the girls he’d listened to their chatter about friends at school and the swim team and shows on television, and realized he didn’t know most of the names they tossed back and forth, didn’t know most of the activities they discussed. He was losing his girls. he’d been too busy, too preoccupied, too divorced to stay on top of things.

He suddenly felt like he was being driven away from them, not just to an unpleasant professional task.

Gorshin and the other SUV had peeled off the moment the cops had taken them on for escort, and they were heading off the big main highways onto the smaller rural routes, heading towards County Road 601. Renicks thought they were going too fast; the police cars were struggling to keep up. He didn’t think it was necessary, but it was another thirty minutes to their destination, and he didn’t want to spend it having a pissing match with his driver.

He looked back down at The Brick. It looked like a smartphone: A small screen, a stylus, a power button. It was lifeless and hadn’t responded to anything he’d done. Gorshin had called it The Brick like that was supposed to mean something. Told him it would remain inactive until the emergency succession of the Designated Survivor inside one of the fifteen Secure Facilities that formed the United States’ Continuity of Government system. The Brick. Renicks figured it was some sort of Secret Service jargon.

“It only accepts a signal on a specific channel, and only a single instruction is accepted: Activate,” Gorshin had said as they’d walked towards the car. “If the worst-case scenario happens, Mr. Secretary, you’ll find everything you need here. Eyes-only, the President of the United States — which will be you, sir, if this thing turns on.”

He turned The Brick over; the back was embossed with the Great Seal of the United States, in fine detail, every feather of the eagle clearly etched. Renicks was amused. He was wearing khakis, a wrinkled old white Oxford, and running shoes; he was showered but not shaved, and as he worked his way through coffee cup number six he became increasingly aware that he should have insisted on a bathroom break while he’d been executing his smug little End of the World plan. He did not feel like Acting Presidential material.

At the moment, The Brick was basically a paperweight. He slipped it into his bag and returned his attention to the driver. Renicks sat there staring at the back of his head, his shoulders, his hands on the wheel.

The back of the driver’s neck was red, the square back of his haircut sharp and immediate — a recent cut. His suit was old, the collar showing some signs of fraying, the shoulders shiny. One of the mock buttons on the right sleeve was a mis-match, a slightly different shade of gray from the others. When he’d climbed into the driver’s seat, he’d spent thirty seconds struggling with the steering wheel, adjusting the angle, grunting in frustration as he worked at it. Renicks recalled the lingering look Gorshin had given the driver back at the house, and concluded he was a recent addition to the detail — perhaps just that morning, after Flanagan had passed away.

Christ, Renicks thought. There would be a funeral. He remembered Gorshin saying a widower, with no children. He pictured Gerry again and felt a surprising pang of grief. They hadn’t been close, hadn’t known each other long or well. But Gerry had been funny, and for all his one-note dedication to Grant’s policies he’d had his own mind and had a tired, sloppy series of facial expressions that made him seem like an exhausted grandpa more than a powerful man whose political beliefs differed sharply from his own.

He looked at the driver’s wrist. His watch was more subtle then Gorshin’s; instead of a macho monster, it was a simple old face, silver, analog, a wind-up model. Heirloom, probably inscribed on the back. A graduation gift or something. Not an anniversary as there was no ring, although Renicks had to admit that wasn’t reliable. He glanced down at his own wedding ring, still there after five years, and smirked at himself.

His eyes shifted a little. The driver’s knuckles were scabbed, as if he’d been in a fight recently.

As he considered this, his cell phone rang. Fishing it from his pocket, he glanced down at the screen. Stan Waters. He was thinking that it was probably best to let it go to voicemail. The driver looked up at the rear-view mirror.

“You shouldn’t answer it.”

Renicks looked up, noted with surprised irritation that the mirror had been angled so that it showed him, not the road behind them, and felt a stab of the old familiar defiance. This is what got you into fights in high school, he thought as he tapped the screen and held the phone to his ear.

“Stan.”

“How does it feel to be sixteenth in line for the presidency, mi amigo?”

“I think I just got a taste for how little respect the position gets me. What’s up?”

“I’m calling to put in an early bid on being named ambassador to someplace cool when you come into power. How about Fiji?”

Renicks laughed. “Considering the only way I’m coming into power is if the world goes boom tonight, Mr. Waters, you might want to reconsider your definition of someplace cool.”

“Oh, I know it. We’re Bunker Buddies tonight, buddy. I’m in the goddamn Situation Room under the Capitol, all set up just in case only half the world goes boom and POTUS has to hide down in the basement for a while. Sometimes I think the CIA can kiss my ass. When they recruited me in college they never said anything about sitting in a damn basement all night, playing solitaire.”

“They probably did. Based on the stories I heard — from you — about being found in the bathroom with your head lodged in the toilet, I’m not surprised you don’t remember everything.”

“Ha! Every time my roommates came in to try and get me to go to bed, I said no, I don’t want to drink any more!”

Renicks laughed. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and there’ll be a disaster just big enough to entertain, but not big enough to keep you down there for years, eating army rations.”

“Holy Christ, RTEs! That’s a nightmare. You’ve given me nightmares tonight. Congrats, Jack.”

“Consider it payback for all the times you’ve used me as an unofficial, unpaid linguistics expert in your Field Reports.”

“Your code name is Bastardo Gordo.”

Renicks laughed. This, he thought, was the price you paid for making friends with a guy from the CIA who specialized in languages. He’d met Stan at a convention, spent it drinking in the hotel bar with him having conversations in several languages at once until they could no longer speak. He pictured him: Shaved head, ears sticking out like wings, sarcastic smirk. Laughed again.

“I should go. Listen, you do what the CIA does best, champ: Absolutely fucking nothing.”

“Remember: Ambassador Waters, okay?”

The phone went dead. Renicks reflected that Stan Waters was the only person he knew who ended phone conversations like they did in the movies: He just hung up.

The driver was still studying him in the mirror. Renicks set his phone to silent with a few practiced moves of his thumb.

“You want to watch the road?”

The driver’s eyes remained on him for a long moment. Renicks stared back, feeling an unwarranted flush of temper, until the driver looked away. Renicks kept his eyes on the mirror for a moment more, then returned his attention to his phone. He should call Emily, he thought. The divorce had receded enough that courtesy had become important, and he didn’t know if he’d be able to make calls once he was installed underground. He might be out of contact for several hours at minimum on a night she expected him to turn up on television in his best suit. He hit her autodial and put the phone to his ear, his eyes jumping back to the driver.

Voicemail. Emily’s familiar twang. Her outgoing message far too long, as always, rambling on and on.

His eyes flicked from the driver’s collar to his hands on the wheel. White knuckled. He glanced past them at the speedometer. They’d hit ninety-five.

He rattled off a quick, no-nonsense message and ended the call.

“Slow down, please,” he said.

The driver’s eyes in the rear-view again. He didn’t say anything. Looked away. The car didn’t slow down.

Anger surged. Renicks controlled himself and fished in his memory for the man’s name. Found it and fell back on the old psychological trick of using it. Letting him know he knew it.

“Agent Darmity,” he said evenly, “slow down.”

The eyes in the mirror again. The car didn’t slow down. “We’re on a schedule,” the driver said.

Renicks stared back in irritation. Reminded himself that he only had to deal with this man for a short while; then he’d be ensconced in a bunker, probably with a whole other bunch of irritating Secret Service Agents. He dropped his eyes back to the phone. Pretended to work it.

“You know I fill out QA forms every time I have a Secret Service assignation, right?” he said flatly.

The driver said nothing. After a moment, Renicks glanced up. No eyes in the mirror. The car hadn’t slowed at all. He swayed this way and that as they dodged through traffic. He looked at the steering wheel again. The man was gripping it like it was the only thing keeping him from crashing through the windshield, sailing off into space.

Renicks hesitated another moment. He heard Emily’s voice, telling him to leave it alone, telling him that his insistence on being minded always got him into trouble. Then he reflected that Emily had divorced him, and put him on a schedule to see his own daughters, and that meant he was done worrying about what she thought of his behavior. He nodded and held up his phone. “Agent Darmity, during my orientation after confirmation, I was given several 24-hour emergency phone numbers. One of them will connect me to the local field office of the Secret Service wherever I am. Via GPS. Ease your foot off the goddamn gas in the next five seconds or I’ll be on the phone with your Field Supervisor in another five discussing your career. You understand?”

The eyes returned to the mirror, and Renicks held them. His heart was pounding, making his head ache. He didn’t enjoy being a hard ass. He’d found you had to be, sometimes, and he’d gotten good at it ever since rising to the President’s Cabinet: Washington was like High School, sometimes, with people almost eager to snub you if you let them, eager to demonstrate their power over you. He didn’t know if the driver was having a bad day or what, but he knew he didn’t want to be the first person in the line of succession to die on the way to the bunker.

Two seconds clicked by. The eyes flicked away. The car slowed down.

“I apologize,” the driver said. There was a beat of silence. Two. Then: “Sir.”

Renicks sighed, slipping the phone into his pocket. He hoped the rest of the day got easier.

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

1.

Thirty seconds before they came for him, John Renicks, Ph.D. was sitting on his front porch wondering if it was too early to start drinking. As he watched the trio of black cars barreling down the road towards him, he decided it probably was. But only just.

The cars were equipped with built-in flashers and cherry lights; all of them firing. He thought of his phones, all three of which had been ringing every few minutes for the last hour. He’d decided to let them ring, because he wanted some peace and quiet before The Speech. Watching the cars, he thought perhaps that had been a poor decision.

He’d assumed it was his staff calling with some crisis. Or perhaps the White House, with a minor edit to the fifty-three words — a better term, or some statistic that needed confirmation. In an hour, he knew, he would be back on his best behavior. In an hour he would be alert and well-groomed and responsive, tapping away at his phone and putting out all the little fires. In a little more than an hour he would be pinned into his most sober-looking suit, the one reserved for funerals and press conferences, and applauding on cue like a good cabinet member. In an hour. For the moment, for the next few moments, he was engaging in a small protest at the yawning chasm of futility he felt his job was becoming.

His eyes went to the trio of cars. He thought of Uncle Richie. Richie stubbing out an unfiltered cigarette, immediately lighting a new one. He’d said, never worry about cops out front of your house with their lights on, shotguns in their hands. If cop cars are swarming up to your house, relax, they’re serving a warrant. If they’re coming to arrest you, they don’t bulldog in with a lot of noise, they sneak in the back with Kevlar and hand signals.

The lead SUV turned smoothly and jerked to a stop in his driveway. The second SUV stopped in the street. The sedan was coming too fast behind it and turned suddenly, bumping up onto his lawn. All three vehicles idled. No one killed the engines.

These weren’t cops. The cars were brand new domestic models with Federal plates. Three doors opened simultaneously; the passenger-side doors on the SUVs, the driver’s door on the sedan. Three men in dark suits climbed out. The one in the driveway was a thin man. Younger than him. Renicks thought his suit was decent but not showy, and while it fit well it had not been tailored; it was off the rack. His haircut was the buzz favored by ex-military, and his sunglasses were the mirrored aviator style apparently handed out at police academy graduations around the world. A tiny, flesh-colored earbud in one ear. His shoes were modest square-toed dress shoes, not new, that had been recently shined to an unnatural sheen.

The thin, younger man stood for a moment scanning his surroundings in silence. Renicks looked at the other two.

The one by the other SUV was a little older and had a belly that was ruining the line of his jacket. He was the funhouse mirror image of the first guy. He spun slowly, scanning the neighborhood. It was easier to tell that he had a gun holster jammed under his shoulder, because the jacket bunched up a little.

The one by the sedan was a little different: Longer hair, a more relaxed, casual posture. He wasn’t scanning the neighborhood. He was scanning Renicks; eyes locked on him. He didn’t look away when Renicks noticed him, either. Just stood there by the car, studying him. His thin black tie was slightly askew, the knot hastily done and off-kilter.

“Secretary Renicks?” the man in the driveway shouted, walking around the front of the SUV and approaching the porch.

Renicks nodded. “I pay a kid named Jimmy fifteen dollars a week to keep my lawn the award-winning shape it’s in,” he said. “Your driver there owes me fifteen bucks.”

The younger man glanced at the sedan for a moment just slightly longer than casual or polite interest would allow. Like he was staring the driver down. For his part the sedan’s driver shifted his weight and frowned.

Then the first man turned back to Renicks and started up the stairs. “You will have to file a claim with our office. The paperwork is kind of extensive. You are John No Middle Name Renicks, Secretary of Education?” he said, extracting a device with a screen on it and holding it up between them. Comparing him to a photo, Renicks thought.

He nodded, picking up his coffee again. “Call me Jack.”

“Secretary Renicks, I am Special Agent Gorshin of the United States Secret Service.” He pushed the device back into his pocket as he gained the main level of the porch. “Under the specifications of the revised National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, you have been selected as the Designated Survivor for a period lasting the next eight hours.” He nodded. “Please take five minutes to pack essentials and report to Agent Darmity for transport to the Secure Facility.”

Renicks blinked. The kid was used to being obeyed, he thought; he’d already moved on to the next thing on his to-do list, and he’d issued his orders in the maddeningly polite manner of someone secure in his own authority.

He shook his head and sipped some coffee. “You’re mistaken, son,” he said, liking the way the word son got a twitch of the shoulder from Gorshin. The dim side of being a hotshot was being treated like an asshole by everyone who had a decade on you. Renicks looked past him at Darmity, still glowering by the car. Like him, he decided, pissed off to have someone five years younger bossing him around. He looked back at Gorshin. “I’m not holding the bag on this. It’s Flanagan. The Attorney General’s spending the night in the mountain.”

Gorshin made a show of checking his watch, an immense stainless steel thing strapped to his wrist. He had the physicality of someone in excellent shape; efficient movements that bunched his suit in a burly way. Renicks decided he wouldn’t be challenging Special Agent Gorshin to any wrestling matches. “Negative, Mr. Secretary. Attorney General Flanagan suffered a heart attack this afternoon.” He paused for a moment, and when he continued his voice had softened slightly. “I am very sorry to report he’s passed away. Per circulating memorandum, you are next on the list. Please pack your essentials, sir. We must be on the road in four minutes to rendezvous with local PD for highway escort.”

Renicks looked down at his coffee, picturing Gerry. Fat old Gerry with the jowls that seemed to jiggle every time he moved and the sharp legal mind that snagged on every jagged point in an argument. Gerry, who was exhausting to debate, untiring in his ability to find new tactics when trying to win a point. He’d had plenty of debates with Gerry, who thought his politics naïve and soft. Dangerous, even. Renicks had liked Gerry without having any affection for the man. And Gerry had been Grant’s attack dog these past two years, carrying the President’s water without complaint — with, Renicks thought, an enthusiasm that had been remarkable. But then all the men and women closest to Grant, his inner circle, were like that. To them, Grant was never wrong, and whatever directive he issued they pursued doggedly, without question. Renicks reflected that he’d never felt that kind of bond with Grant. Had always felt a disconnect with the man.

“Jesus,” he said. “Gerry Flanagan.”

“Yes, sir,” Gorshin said crisply.

“Did he have any family?”

Gorshin appeared to be maintaining his composure with some effort. Renicks thought it was almost comical, if the man wasn’t someone he suspected to be a trained killer formerly of some elite military unit. “No, sir, we haven’t been able to locate next of kin. Mr. Flanagan was a widower, with no children.” He waited the barest of beats. “I am sorry, sir, but we have to move in — ” he glanced at his big watch “ — two minutes forty five.” He paused, and then offered Renicks a little shrug. “We have been trying to contact you for the past forty-five minutes, Mr. Secretary.”

Renicks didn’t move. He’d known since accepting the post of Secretary of Education eight months before that this might happen. After sitting through a hurried confirmation hearing in front of the HELP committee there had been an orientation, just as perfunctory, and this had been part of it. At the time he’d thought the orientation all wrong; instead of impressing on him his essential role in the Continuity of Government program, they should have advised him of the frustration level of being in the cabinet of a President enjoying an approval rating of thirty-seven and dropping. The orientation should have prepared him for the fact that after working for months on proposals and recommendations for the President’s final year in office, turning in a book-length report complete with interactive Power Point presentations, videos, and endless documentations, he would see all that work boiled down to fifty-three words in the State of the Union Address.

Fifty-three words. President Grant hadn’t even told him personally.

Renicks sipped his coffee and remembered the President — whom he sometimes, when the moment was right, called “Chuck” — telling him not to worry about being divorced. Because no one knew who the Secretary of Education was anyway. At the time that had sounded friendly and charmingly blunt. For a moment he’d felt like he and President Grant might be friends. Then he’d wondered if that wasn’t just Grant’s crazy charm, which felt like a physical thing when you he spoke to you. Compelling you to like him, to trust him.

President Grant’s assessment now comforted him. Anonymity would be to his benefit when Grant lost his bid for re-election later in the year. His traditional resignation would be accepted by an incoming administration, and no one would ever remember he’d been Secretary of Education.

Agent Gorshin was still absorbed, tapping out a message on his phone, his face a ruddy mask of concentration. Renicks did not like being rushed, under any circumstances, and purposefully glanced at Gorshin’s wrist without making any effort to stand. Gorshin’s watch was huge, shiny, and looked like it had a million little features. Endorsed, he guessed, by Navy Seals and Special Ops types. Renicks decided Gorshin wanted people to know he was ex-military.

He finally stood up, but couldn’t resist tweaking Gorshin one last time with what he assumed was unaccustomed insubordination from a civilian. “Do you or your team want some coffee?”

Gorshin blinked. Renicks categorized his expression as amazed and enjoyed it immensely. Then Gorshin shook his head, all business. “No, sir. Do you need assistance packing?”

Renicks shook his head. “I’ve got a bag.” In his orientation he’d been handed a thick manual of emergency procedures and other Federal arcana, and he’d read it in one evening with a bottle of Glenmorangie 10-year for company.

The manual stipulated everyone in the Presidential Line of Succession were required to have a travel bag ready at all times; in the event of dire emergency the entire government might be evacuated to a secure facility — there were several around the country. So, he’d packed one. He called it his End of the World Bag. A backup laptop, a change of clothes, a pocket bottle of Scotch, his eBook reader stocked with every book he’d ever read, a shaving and toiletry kit, the old chrome Zippo his Uncle Richie had given him when he’d graduated college, a minimal survival kit including matches, fishing line, a small-game snare, water purification tabs, a few other things he wasn’t certain of, and a Kimber stainless 1911 pistol with spare magazine. He felt a little silly about the Boy Scout Survival Kit, as he thought of it.

He felt sillier about the Kimber, sometimes.

He would rendezvous with his office desk and take a USB drive that contained backups of his office and home computer hard drives that were only a few hours out of date.

As he walked into the house he wondered if the Secret Service agents would search his bag for any reason. If the gun would be an issue. He had a permit for it in New Jersey, but he’d never thought to update anything about it when he’d moved to Virginia, and he knew Jersey and Virginia were not reciprocal on concealed weapons permits.

He decided to take the chance. It was an End of the World Bag, after all. If he had to use it, the world had ended, and if the world had ended, he suspected he might need a gun.

Three minutes later, he stepped back on the porch with his bag slung over his shoulder, his business cell phone in one hand and a large travel cup of coffee in the other. He nodded at Gorshin, suddenly eager to get away.

“Let’s go.”

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Happy New Year! Last year I took an old unpublished novel I had unwarranted affection for, dusted it off, slapped together a cover, and published here one chapter every week. It was actually a lot of fun and folks seemed to enjoy it, so I’ve decided to repeat the experiment. After all, I have a lot of unpublished novels.

My choice is “Designated Survivor.” Here’s the logline:

On the day of the State of the Union Address, Secretary of Education John Renicks, Ph.D. is informed that he will be the Designated Survivor in case the entire government is wiped out in a disaster or terrorist attack. While watching the State of the Union on a closed-circuit TV, the screen goes blank — and he soon finds himself fighting for not just his life, but the survival of the nation itself.

Okay, not the newest idea in the world. This novel stems from a meeting I took many years ago where the fundamental concept was pitched to me, and it was suggested that I take it and make it my own. I was excited about the challenge of taking what is a pretty hoary old premise and doing something unexpected with it. I think I succeeded, although the folks who pitched it to me didn’t care for where I took it, and so nothing much came of it. In the end, I really like the story I told here, and I hope you do too!

Starting Monday, January 3rd, the novel will pop up here chapter by chapter. See y’all then!