Hope Of The World Read online

  “I’m sick of all this right-wing suspicion that’s going around,” he muttered when he was alone, before holding both hands over his eyes and resting his elbows on the desk. “I’m tired of all these clingers…” he said, and then in a deeper, mocking tone, “My God, my guns, my glory—”

  A door opened, and the Secret Service rushed in shouting. He had been about to stand up to pace, a habit he’d done often lately, especially now that he’d been out of the bunker.

  “Sir, we need to move you now,” one black suited, sunglass wearing, earwigged agent yelled, rushing toward him.

  “What’s going on?”

  Another agent reached the president half a step ahead of the first. He tried to loop an arm under the president to pull him, and that was when the explosion rocked the office. It vaporized everyone within a thirty-foot radius, and the debris from the blast would go on to kill another seven and wounding dozens. The second explosion was triggered half a heartbeat later, closer to the president’s secret elevator for times of attack and crisis. Nobody was close enough to be killed by the blast, but that was only because they were already dead.

  “Do you got him?” one agent screamed.

  “Got him, found the detonator in his hand,” another screamed back.

  “Patrick, why? You were the president's closest friend!” a secret service agent asked.

  “"Sic semper evello mortem tyrannis," Patrick panted, as he was roughly cuffed by a man he’d known for half his professional life.

  “What?” the agent said, the heat from the spreading fire making him sweat.

  “Sic semper tyrannis, thus I always bring death to tyrants,” Patrick replied as he was hauled to his feet.

  The agent was beyond his breaking point, and the Latin he should have known from his Catholic upbringing and service record had fled him. He’d witnessed a man whom he’d invited to his daughter's baptism party, pull out a chromed detonator and assassinate the President of the United States. He drew his service weapon and pressed the barrel into Patrick’s now closed right eye.

  “Why?” the agent all but sobbed.

  “To prevent a nuclear holocaust,” Patrick said.

  “Somebody… Who…”

  “There’s no one left for the order of succession,” the agent said, a thought that had been haunting him for a long time, “they were all killed in the nuke.”

  “And I just stopped China from doing the same to us, so I made a deal,” Patrick explained. “Take the cuffs off and make it look like I was trying to get away. I don’t want any of my family to suffer through a trial.”

  The agent didn’t hesitate, but nor did he remove the cuffs.

  4

  “…say again. Over?” Grady said into the microphone of an old radio set that looked like it had been last used during WWI.

  “The President has been assassinated, and his assistant, Patrick, was found with the detonator. He was killed trying to escape. The Air Force is already on high alert because of the New Caliphate’s efforts to breach various nuclear facilities, but now we’ve got reports of Chinese bombers inbound with heavy escort. Over.”

  “I was afraid that’s what you were going to say. Over,” the retired Col. told the radioman.

  “Sir, the order of succession has been… over.”

  “I know, son. I’m still in an undisclosed location with men who our former president would consider traitors due to their leaving his administration the way they did. What would you have me do? Over.”

  “Sir, we formerly request you to make yourself available during this crisis.”

  “I upheld my oath, to the very letter. I made that rabble-rousing, community organizer fire me by telling him the truth. I am not turning myself in to be convicted by a kangaroo court—”

  “Sir,” the young airman said, talking over his signal, “you are not being asked to turn yourself in to be tried.”

  “Excuse me? Over?”

  “Sir, we need you.”

  Grady was silent a moment, still trying to digest what they were asking of him. “I was removed from my position. Over.”

  “Martial Law is still in effect, the constitution has been suspended. We need somebody to finish carrying us through this crisis until new elections can be held. Over.”

  “Give me an hour, and I’ll be back on the radio. Over.”

  “Yes, sir. Over and out.”

  Grady handed the handset back to the man who’d defected with him to run the dials and switches that were augmented with newer coms gear, capable of allowing them to speak on secured channels.

  “Do you think this is legit?” his radio operator asked, a hopeful note in his voice.

  “The guy on the other end of that conversation is one of two people still over on the other side who I’d trust with my life. Both of his sons served with me over the course of their careers. He would have given a signal if he was compromised and giving bad information. So yeah, it looks like we may not have to stay in hiding any more.”

  “What do we do now?” the radio operator asked him.

  “We wait. I need to walk a bit and think. This is a lot to take in all at once.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Col. Grady left the coms shack, which was really just a concrete room that had been poured in place. The entire complex they were in was an old abandoned copper mine from the early 1900’s. The old mining techniques had left the land a blighted area, and the government had taken control and had been making token efforts to clean up the biological disaster before more regulations had been put in place because of bad past practices.

  Using the guise in WWII and during the cold war of the Reagan years, the entire complex had been built and fortified. Modern engineering had constructed it the first time, and it had been updated in the eighties. It had been mothballed at the turn of the millennia. And in the last few months, Col. Grady had started the process of bringing the old base back online. It wasn't hard to funnel supplies and work through continuity of operations’ executive order that had already been written.

  Grady had been very careful, though, he only had his own people; people who were known, worked with, served with, who he’d entrusted with his life in on the project. There'd been warnings that North Korea, operating in accordance with the Jihadi group now known as the New Caliphate, had been planning something major. The president of the United States had been briefed about all of it, but he’d refused to look at the problems from radical Islamic terrorism that faced him. His failure, more than anything else, had led to the destruction and death of millions of American people. That was what Col. Grady had been fearing, and hearing that the president had been assassinated came as a shock… But only shock that it had taken so long to happen.

  Suspicions regarding his Department of Homeland Security chief had been circulating for a while, but the president would hear nothing of it. His crony capitalism and political appointments made him a laughing stock of the area. Davis, otherwise known as Boss Hog, had been one such appointment. The president had been gunning for a while for Malik Jefferson, another Harvard law friend, to a post high in his administration. The latest CIA dossier on Malik Jefferson showed someone with a far left progressive liberal ideology that bordered on flat out socialism or even communism.

  Now, everything was gone. It was all undone. High-ranking military commanders were left holding the strings, and Grady thought about how he could've been one of them. Hell, he was one of them, according to them; they wanted him to come back in. Grady swiped a key card access as he was walking toward the back of the base, and the door slid open. Grady stepped through and waited for the door to close behind him. The rock wall led deeper into the copper mine, and work lights were strung along the ceiling, here and there. It was access to the deeper portion of this mind, and there was, at one point, an estimated 450 miles’ worth of tunnel dug in just this area alone, not necessarily just this one mine.

  Grady had often come down here to walk and think, and that's what he needed to
do right now. The man who'd called him had been someone that he trusted implicitly. If the president was really dead, and there was no order of succession to follow at this point, then they really were looking for a leader to step up and do things. Grady knew that, because of the loyalty of his men and the respect from his fellow generals and colonels in the Armed Forces, he might be the natural choice. It seemed that was what the case was here, but he wasn't sure he wanted the job.

  He thought about how the political structure of the United States had changed over the years. Serving one's country, it used to be about doing something for other people. Now acting in the capacity of the leader of the free world cost money to get in, and there was even more of a monetary reward when you left. Speeches could be had for half a million dollars a shot, criminal indiscretions were swept under the rug, and lawsuits were quietly settled by super PACs. It used to be the House and Senate, and presidents were men of means who could afford to take some time off to come and serve, but Grady scratched his head trying to remember when career politicians became the norm.

  If this was the actual case, then if he served… he mused… he would only do so until legal elections could be held. He paced the tunnels, the floors well-worn from the passage of hundreds of thousands of footsteps over the years. By the time he made it back to the blast door leading to the back of the bunker, he had made up his mind. He would do it, but he'd set a timeframe on it: just time enough to make sure the country didn't fall apart with every governor trying to seize control of power for themselves in every state. Grady swiped his pass card and entered the bunker, and headed immediately to the radio communication shack.

  "Felix, I want you to open a channel to Sandra Jackson."

  "Yes, sir!" Lieut. Felix said, as he put his headphones on squarely and twisted the dials and pushed buttons.

  5

  The man formerly known as Dick Pershing, but who now went by his real name, Mike, and his best friend and companion, Courtney, were making a wide loop into the extreme eastern side of Texas in their looted Hummer. Their plan was to travel down toward Houston, where some of the cartels had been trying to ferry the Jihadis. Courtney was monitoring the radio transmissions when the news broke that much of their Navy and transport ships had been bombed by the US Air Force.

  It wasn’t long before they decided that it was time to start heading west, where the main thrust of the cartels had been trying to keep the supply lines open between the Jihadis and the bulk of the troops. Mike laughed at himself; he hadn’t realized that, while he was being interrogated by Skinner, so much had been going on. It was one thing to hear about it on the radio, but he had no idea they were so close. The day they headed west, they heard about the U.S. Navy torpedoing ships on the West Coast that were working with the cartels. Rumors also claimed that some of the ships and submarines that were engaging the US military were of Korean nature.

  One wild theory, started by someone who claimed to have worked for the President’s secretary, said that the United States had nuked North Korea out of existence and that the Chinese were coming to attack. Mike needed a fight, and Courtney was itching to get into the action again herself. It was almost strange; as Mike left the shell of Dick Pershing behind, Courtney’s dreams and nightmares started manifesting and affecting her. For so long she’d stayed strong to keep Dick together to get home to see Mary and Maggie, and now her subconscious needed time to rest and heal as well.

  Still reeling from the loss of her soon-to-be husband, and her own symptoms of PTSD from all the rape and torture, she was fine when she was awake. She told Mike on more than one occasion that for every invader she killed, she felt a small measure of relief. It was one less person to kill one of the United States citizens - fathers, mothers, daughters, teachers, cousins, and friends. They weren’t a couple, but they were the closest thing to platonic friends that a man and a woman could be. There had been one time when Mike thought he was Dick and he mistook Courtney for who he thought his wife was, Mary; it had been a confusing situation for everyone all around.

  “Dick… I’m sorry I mean Mike, we’ve got some guy named King on the radio, and it keeps fading in and out. Is that the same guy you asked me to listen for?” Courtney asked.

  “Don’t worry about getting my name messed up, I still do it all the time too. When you live as another man for so long, it changes you. You start fitting into their personality, but I think right now part of me needs to be both Mike and Dick. And yes, King, I do need to get in touch with him. I was given some real basic frequencies to monitor for him, but when he goes to the ultra-secret scramble stuff, we don’t have a prayer of communicating with them.”

  “I know, the weather must be just right, because it sounds like they are raising hell in Nebraska of all places.” Courtney almost had to shout over the noise of the wind.

  It was turning late fall, and it was still hot in Texas. What some Texans would call the weather turning cool was still a good 75 to 80F during the daytime. They had been siphoning fuel, but they had also brought along a small generator that Mary’s father had given them. Before leaving the family compound in Arkansas where Mary and Maggie were, Mike had helped the old man and Mary fortify their homestead a little bit more. He didn’t worry too much because the old man might’ve been mean and angry, but it was Maggie’s grandma, Mary’s mother, who was the real hell on wheels. Dick wanted to make sure that he left the homestead well protected because part of him knew that, in order to heal, he needed to get out of there now that it was safe for him to travel again.

  He’d come apart at the seams and completely lost out on who he was. PTSD sucked, but that wasn’t the only thing Mike had been dealing with, and so many memories had been repressed. Clean, sober, and back in his element, Mike, the Devil Dog, was ready to go to war. He listened as Courtney tried transmitting.

  “Dick, I’ve got a response here, but it’s not King. It’s someone who is with King, a guy named Michael, and also John, Tex, and Caitlin. Do any of those names mean anything to you?” Courtney asked.

  “You know, you just said the name John. Ask him if it’s John Norton.”

  Courtney did, and she held the headphones even closer, pressing them tight against her ears.

  “Yes, we have John Norton on the radio here, he’s asking us to verify who we are.”

  Mike looked at the road around them and saw the other the stalled vehicles were empty. It appeared to be clear. He pulled right into the center of the median that was slightly elevated and rolled to a stop before putting the Hummer in neutral and turning it off.

  “Let me talk,” Mike said, making a gimme motion for the headset.

  “John Norton, my name’s Mike. I served with you on two missions in Afghanistan, and it was your team that rescued me from the bank in Fallujah when my friend Dick Pershing was killed in an ambush. Over.”

  “If you’re the Mike I remember, who’s my favorite author? Over.”

  “My brain's a little fried, but it’s not that fried. Robert Frost, good friends make good neighbors, over,” Mike said, without missing a beat.

  “How is it that you’re on a semi-secure radio right now, Mike? Over.”

  “I sorta liberated some gear, right after someone mistook me for you and decided to play pincushion with me. Over.”

  “Well Mike, I’m short on time here, and I’ve got about 300 prisoners to deal with and sort through. Are you joining in the fight? Or are you just reconnecting with old friends to get a knitting circle going? Over.”

  Courtney snorted, and Mike grinned. With the Hummer stopped, there was no wind noise, no rumbling of the engine… And everything that John Norton had been saying over the radio was easily heard by the woman sitting right next to him.

  “I’ve been told I make some really killer socks, over.”

  “I’m sorry you got caught up in this mess, Mike. I heard a rumor that the DHS thought they’d captured me, guessing that was you? Over,” John asked.

  “Yeah, they got me and shot m
e up full of stuff and played a little slap game with me. Nothing too horrible, not like the mess I got myself into a time or two. Listen, I’m on the horn here with you because we were headed toward Houston, but we got word that everything the cartels were doing there has been blown to hell and back. My next goal is to head toward El Paso. I don’t have up-to-date intelligence, but I’ve heard the cartels are trying to get the supply chain going again. Over.”

  “Mike, I’ve got some coordinates I’m going to read off to you. You have a way of following GPS coordinates right now? Over,” John asked.

  “Yes, I do. The old-fashioned way with the map and a ruler. Over.”

  “Oh, well yeah, I guess it works. I can have a team down there meet up with you, and they’re gonna get you outfitted with proper gear. I can’t discuss anything sensitive over an open line. If you’re down there about to do what I think you’re about to do, then you’re going to need all the info and support you can get. Over.”

  Mike was about to answer when another voice broke in on the transmission. “Mike, that you?”

  Mike knew that voice; it was the voice of the enormous black man who had trained him on explosives and unconventional warfare. Dick had already been a lethal soldier and special forces operator, and King had been a force multiplier to everyone who graduated from his personal one-on-one school. Mike had known about Sandra, his protégé, but she had already been in the field when Mike had gone to King for training. King had a voice like two boulders rubbing together, a deep rumbling sound. The man knew that just his size alone intimidated people, and he used as few words as possible.

  “You got it, war daddy,” Mike said with a grin.

  “You watch your mouth, boy, or I’ll assign you more PT, over,” King said with a hint of anger.

  “You still in shape, old man? Over,” Mike said with a sardonic grin that wasn’t being returned by Courtney.

  She was actually looking a little green around the gills over Mike’s teasing the big man.