Designated Survivor (7 page)

“That doesn’t make you a military expert, Mr. Grace,” Graham said.

“For the last time, its just Grace,” he said.

Derek Arrington put his hand on Grace’s shoulder and pulled him back.

“It so happens that Grace has not only completed every course at the Army War College and the Navy War College, Mr. Secretary, he has aided in rewriting curriculum for both in this new age of military reconnaissance and combat, albeit under a pseudonym since his existence in our agency is classified. Reports on his missions are used as training materials for new operators at the NSA and the CIA,” Arrington said. “He’s been the NSA’s top operator for more than ten years and has carried out more successful missions than any other man. That again includes the NSA and CIA.”

Richard Graham held his glare with Arrington then turned to the conference table.

“Am I or am I not the acting president?” he said. “Director Leighton?”

“Yes, Richard, you are,” Leighton said.

“General Darby?”

“Of course you are, but . . . ,” Darby said.

“Director Arrington?”

“You can stop the roll call. We all know. That’s why we brought you in,” Arrington said.

“So if I make an order, it is your jobs to make them happen, correct?” Graham said.

“When did he grow a pair of balls?” Avery said.

“Shut it, Avery,” Grace said.

“It’s up to us to take your orders and determine the best manner in which to carry them out, Richard,” Darby said. “It’s also our responsibility to give our opinions as to whether we feel the orders are sound.”

“And it’s my responsibility to ensure the safety of our people and our government,” Graham said. “I want a working plan to retake the Capitol and free the hostages in front of me within an hour.”

Graham turned and walked out of the room with William following close behind.

“What crawled up his ass and died?” Grace said.

“We kept ignoring him,” Arrington said. “He finally snapped.”

“I’ll go talk to him, try to get him to calm down,” Amanda stood and left out the door Graham had gone through.

“What recourse do we have to not take his orders?” Grace said.

They turned to Admiral Darby.

“None,” Darby said. “He’s the acting Commander in Chief. If he orders a strike, even against my advice, we have to find the best way to carry it out.”

“Well shit,” Grace said. “We can’t just lock him in a room?”

“Even just saying that out loud can be considered treason,” Arrington said.

“You think he wants us to fail, so he can become president?” Grace said.

“Graham?” Leighton said. “Are you joking? He’s a weasel, but he’s not a psychopath.”

Grace shrugged. “I talked to the Marine pilot. He said he’d received a phone call minutes before they left Quantico threatening his wife’s life if he didn’t do what he could to stop the mission. What if that’s what happened to Jared Long?”

“What, social engineering?” Arrington said.

“Exactly,” Grace said. “There’s no terrorist organization in the world large enough to pull off this kind of attack, especially one with enough members that can pass as Secret Service and Capitol Police. They’d had to have been in place for years to get enough people active for this event.”

“You get this from the pilot getting a prank phone call?” Arrington said.

“It was a big enough prank that the man pulled a gun on me,” Grace said. “And he isn’t the only one. The SEAL who turned on us, Hendricks, when he was about to shoot me he said he was ‘just protecting my own,’ and that it wasn’t personal. That sounds to me like he’d been told to kill us, or else someone else might be hurt or killed.”

Grace paced back and forth as he spoke.

“You spend three years getting your select few people recruited to your cause, then get them into law enforcement if they weren’t already there. These are your base, your inside men. They’re bought and paid for and will do what you hired them to do.” Grace looked up at the screen showing Jared Long. “Then you use threats against many more to get them to act for you, if only for a minute.”

“How do you mean?” Paulson said.

“Look at Jared Long,” Grace said. “Father, husband, owns a house in Wheaton, Maryland. Doesn’t look or sound like a terrorist. I don’t think there’s any chance he was. What he was, though, was a decorated officer and a devoted family man. But what if shortly before he’s on assignment for the State of the Union he gets contacted and his family is threatened. He’s told to start shooting or his wife and daughter die. What would you do?”

“Report it immediately to my commanding officer,” Director Leighton said.

“Right, but what if you don’t know if you can trust your CO?” Grace said. “What if you’re told you’re being watched, and if you don’t shoot, you’ll be shot then your family will still die?”

Arrington nodded and spoke. “All it would take is a small percentage of them to start shooting, even just one in the right scenario, then the others fire back to protect themselves and the president. With highly trained officers, all experts with their weapons, you have a bloodbath on your hands in seconds and you never had to train one person.”

“Insta-terrorist,” Grace said. “Lethal. Disposable.”

“Brilliant,” Arrington said. “But we can’t be sure.”

“That’s why I have Ben and his team going through phone records for all of the officers and agents in the Capitol,” Grace said “We need something linking them.”

CHAPTER 11

The screens around the room displayed the live satellite imagery over the United States Capitol. The sun was still down and the video was grainy. Flashing lights surround the building where police and military vehicles were stationed.

“We don’t have SEAL Team Four anymore,” Grace said.

“What about Special Forces?” Arrington said.

“The 1
^st
battalion out of Fort Bragg landed over an hour ago,” Darby said. “And the 3
^rd
out of Birmingham should be on the ground anytime. We can get troops from Kentucky activated and in the air.”

“That gives us roughly a thousand troops,” Grace said. “We’re going to need every last one of them for the recovery effort, but that’s way too many for first strike.”

Grace drew on a wireless tablet that sent his drawing to the screens above. He began making marks around the Capitol.

“I think we put as many men as we have ready on the ground, but the primary contact will be made by six-man teams of Special Forces,” Grace said. “One team at each of the four main entry points.”

“What if we come from below?” Leighton said.

“The tunnels?” Arrington said.

“Exactly,” Leighton said. “They connect the Capitol to all of the congressional office buildings, the Supreme Court and even the Library of Congress.”

“But that’s putting all of our men in an enclosed space,” Darby said. “If they’ve thought about that it could already be wired with explosives or have armed guards down there.”

Grace continued drawing as he thought about the layout of Capitol Hill. “It’s not one or the other, it’s both,” Grace said. “But one is only a diversion.”

He turned to see if he had their attention then pointed up to his scribbles.

“We send in Special Forces on the ground, in a full circle around the building and the breach teams at the doors,” Grace said. “This should draw out most of the enemy gunmen to prepare for battle. We put helicopters in the air. Anything we can do for a distraction. Then we have small groups come in through the tunnels from each direction. Fewer troops will be able to better watch for booby traps and explosives than sending hundreds of men through there.”

“Draw them to the doors then attack from below,” Arrington said. “It could work.”

“It could also get every last one of them killed, including the president,” Grace said. “We don’t even know who we’re dealing with here yet. If we knew it was Al Qaeda, we know how they work, how they plan. If it’s the Russians, we know how they think. But we don’t. Going in against an unknown enemy is dangerous.”

“How do we find out? There’s still no chatter, no one’s taking credit yet,” Leighton said.

“Before any full assault you need a recon team,” Grace said. “We need to get an idea of some faces, manpower counts, weapons being used. From that we can better determine who we’re up against and how to neutralize them.”

“Let me guess,” Arrington said.

“We’ll do it,” Grace said.

“Graham won’t like it,” Arrington said. “He wants something big.”

“Then we don’t tell him,” Grace said. “Work up a full on assault plan and tell him that’s what we’re doing, it’s just going to take time to get all the moving parts in position. Meanwhile, my team will already be underway.”

“How do you think you can get in?” Arrington said.

The map above them all moved and a circle Grace had drawn centered on the screen.

“Anyone know what this is?” Grace said.

“Dupont Circle,” Paulson said.

“Right. But do you know what’s under Dupont Circle?” Grace said.

“The abandoned underground,” Leighton said. “For an electric streetcar or something, right?”

“Give that man a banana,” Grace said. “Around 1950 they used them to try to alleviate the already shitty traffic in D.C., but it failed. The ventilation couldn’t move the air fast enough and it stank so bad down there nobody would take the underground train.”

“How’s this help? Dupont Circle is almost three miles from the Capitol,” Arrington said.

“A lesser known fact,” Grace said. “One line was built from Dupont to the Capitol building to allow congress to easily come and go, many residing in Dupont due to the abundance of housing and restaurants. The tunnel was sealed up for security in the 1970’s.”

“How do you know about it?” Paulson said.

“Because it also had an exit here,” Grace drew another circle on the map.

“The Mayflower Hotel?” Paulson said.

“Exactly. The preferred host of congressional extramarital affairs,” Grace said. “When congress approved the secret train line, they figured they might as well make it easier to sneak around on their wives.”

“Have you been down there?” Arrington said.

“Once about five years ago,” Grace said. “I used it on a covert mission. We can gain access below the hotel. It’s easier than from Dupont Circle since there are a couple more walls between the two now. It’s similar to the Capitol subway between the main building and the Congressional office buildings, just a lot longer.”

“You’ll have a two mile walk in the dark between the Mayflower and the Capitol,” Paulson said. “That’ll take a lot of time.”

“I have an idea about that,” Grace said.

CHAPTER 12

It was one o’clock in the morning as Grace left the building in Herndon in an unmarked white Homeland Security car with Corbin in the passenger seat and headed towards D.C. He had sent the rest of the team with Netty in the van to their building to get the gear they would need. He had Highway 66 to himself and cruised the left lane at eighty-five miles per hour while Corbin stared out the side window.

He exited left from 66 onto E Street then swerved right towards the White House and used the lights in the grill of the car and his DHS credentials to get through two roadblocks. A few minutes later he pulled up on Desales Street beside the Mayflower Hotel and parked behind the black Mercedes van. The side door of the van slid open as he and Corbin approached and the team began spilling out onto the sidewalk.

“Get everything?” Grace said and heard only grunts and swear words back at him. He knew they were always prepared and expected the response. “Avery, get what we talked about?”

“Yup,” Avery pulled the large canvas duffel out of the van and put it on like a backpack.

“Great. Access is from below the boiler room, a couple stories down from street level,” Grace said. “The lobby should be empty at this hour, so we just have to get through to the service area then no one will care we’re there. Let’s do this.”

They were all dressed in grey coveralls with a logo for Bugged Out, a fake pest control company, on the backs. Each grabbed a pair of large bags. They came around the front of the building, the side doors of the hotel being locked after hours. Two men in ornate uniforms opened the double gold doors and let them in.

As they stepped through they stopped and looked at each other then at Grace.

“Thought you said it would be empty,” Holden said.

The lobby was packed with people from one side to the other. News crews had cameras set up in several places conducting interviews with people in suits and police uniforms and anyone else they could stop.

“This is a shit storm,” Grace said. “We just have to get through to the back. Keep away from any cameras. Hats down.”

The team headed out in a single line through the crowd, Holden leading the way to clear a path for the rest of them. Nobody who turned to look at him hesitated before they stepped out of the way.

They reached the back of the lobby and went through the door to the employees only service area. After a long hall with white floors and walls they came to a locked door that Levi had open easily and they passed through. Grace went last, checking both ways down the hall before closing the door behind them. They moved through the darker area and down a flight of metal suspended stairs into the boiler room that provided all of the heat and hot water for the hotel.

“Where to, boss?” Avery said.

“All the way to the end then take a left,” Grace said. “There should be an old door that leads to the sublevel.”

After moving through the hot room they turned and stopped at a cement block wall.

“Well, this doesn’t look good,” Corbin said.

“Shit, they bricked over it,” Grace said. “It was here five years ago.”

They all stared at the wall. Holden stepped up to it and looked closer then reached into the bag he was carrying and pulled out a drill.

Avery looked down at the power tool and raised his eyebrows. “Why the hell are you carrying that around?” Avery said.

“Maybe in case there’s a huge ass cement block wall in our way,” Holden said.