He’d much rather have an omelet or French toast or two eggs over easy, with plenty of bacon and hash browns as a side, but if he wants to keep healthy for the rest of the years left to him in the White House, he needs to eat well.

  Doctor’s orders.

  Which brings a pang of memory, of how that nice Captain Spencer Webster had been shot and killed yesterday, to keep Barrett’s unfolding operations secret. Painful, but it had to be done.

  At some point Barrett will make it right to Spencer’s widow and kids, but not now.

  The sound is off on the television as he flicks through the channels. He has a high tolerance for necessary pain and suffering, but that tolerance doesn’t extend to listening to the chattering “journalists” from the various studio sets, all trying to portray themselves as expert and hard-nosed with empathy and sympathy for the masses.

  He has a dim childhood memory of watching a special about the famed CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite. Now that was a journalist who commanded respect, a guy who came up through the ranks, risked his life a couple of times—in World War II he rode along in a bombing raid when the Army Air Force was suffering horrible losses, and even flew in with troops in a glider during Operation Market Garden, when many of those gliders destructed against trees or stone walls—while these talking heads would probably collapse sobbing if they stubbed a toe.

  But Barrett keeps an eye on the graphics, on the videos, as familiar stories roll by.

  Vice President Laura Hernandez still in a coma, cause unknown.

  Speaker of the House Gwen Washington facing investigation from at least three Congressional committees.

  Barrett’s Secretary of State in Germany, laughing while posing with the German chancellor, both of them wearing lederhosen.

  His own approval ratings holding steady at 59 percent, and he nods with satisfaction at that number.

  No news of Russia.

  No news of China.

  “How’s breakfast?” Carlton Pope asks, walking into view, sitting down in a near chair.

  “Sucks, as always,” he says. “What’s going on?”

  “Bad news, good news, for the moment,” Carlton says. “We still haven’t located Liam Grey, but we’re working on it.”

  Barrett says, “It might take longer than you think. He’s experienced.”

  “Well, so are my guys,” Carlton says. “With the advantage that they don’t play by any rules, except getting the job done.”

  He looks at the remaining gray mush at the bottom of his bowl and thinks it’s a hell of a thing when the leader of the free world can’t eat what he wants, just a few days away from everything coming together. He puts the bowl down, the seal of the White House bright on the side of the porcelain.

  “Pass on the good news, then,” he says.

  “The Chinese have bit,” Carlton says, grinning. “Their rezident contacted us. He wants to come for a visit.”

  “Xi Dejiang, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When does he want to come by?”

  “He requested this afternoon.”

  The president picks up his coffee cup. “He’ll get tomorrow afternoon, and he’ll like it. He’s in my country, not his. Screw him.”

  CHAPTER 75

  CIA DIRECTOR HANNAH Abrams walks into the furnished basement and says to her two security officers, “Bruce, Ralph, let them out, will you?”

  Liam Grey and Noa Himel stay still as the two men remove the Velcro restraints. Hannah sees that Noa takes a moment to rub her wrists and stretch out her legs, while Liam defiantly sits still, like he doesn’t want to show any appreciation of being freed.

  Despite all that’s going on, Hannah likes seeing the toughness of her officer.

  She steps closer.

  Noa and Liam both look at her, no fear or favor in their faces.

  “Well?” she asks. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question, Liam. Or Noa.”

  Noa says, “You shouldn’t send us to Gitmo because we need to tell you what we’ve been doing under the president’s orders.”

  Liam says, “I’m with Noa.”

  Hannah reaches over to a sheet, tugs it off, revealing a chair.

  She drags it over, sits down.

  Bruce and Ralph stand still behind her.

  “Okay,” she says, reaching into her bag, taking out a white legal pad and pen. “Start talking.”

  About thirty-five minutes later, Noa and Liam have visited a toilet in the basement, and the three of them have coffee that Bruce brought in from Starbucks, along with some pastries to take the edge off Noa’s hunger. A larger breakfast is promised.

  Hannah looks down at her notes.

  “Just to recap, Liam and Noa, operating without the proper authority from the Agency and—”

  Liam interrupts her. “The president told us that he had buy-in from Acting Director Fenway. What, we should have gone to him up on the seventh floor and double-checked?”

  Hannah stares at him. “That would have been fine, out-of-the-box thinking, wouldn’t it? But as the good former Army officer you once were, you thought you had the proper orders. You didn’t.”

  Noa says, “But what about Fenway? Won’t he confirm what the president ordered?”

  Hannah says, “Mr. Fenway has gone to ground at a point between the Florida Keys and the Aleutian Islands. He wasn’t around for a debriefing after I was sworn in, and his secretaries told me the day before I came on board, most of his paperwork and files were dumped into burn bags. If you’re hoping for him to bail you out, forget it.”

  She lets that bit of news sink in and she tells the two officers more. “When the congressional investigations start up, you two will quickly find out that there was no Agency paperwork, no official presidential finding, and to put a cherry on top of this bloody mess that’s going to make Iran–Contra look like an overdue library book scandal, there was no notification to Congress.”

  Liam still looks defiant, but it looks like Noa has aged about ten years since Hannah started speaking.

  Hannah says, “In a normal world, and if I was in a good mood, I’d advise the two of you to lawyer up, and then I’d contact the attorney general and confess all, and then I’d next arrange an urgent meeting of the Gang of Eight in Congress to give them a full debriefing, and wait for the flamethrowers to kick in, and the leaks to the news media to start a few hours later.”

  She pauses. “Even though I haven’t been on the job three days, you two and your rogue teams are still my responsibility.”

  Hannah quiets for a moment, gauging what might happen next with Noa and Liam after this bracing blow of reality.

  Liam looks to Noa, she looks right back at him, and Liam says, “I guess what you’re saying, ma’am, is that we’re not in a normal world.”

  Hannah is pleased the two of them have caught on to what she’s just said.

  “Correct, Liam. We are not in a normal world. We’re in a world where you and others have unwittingly helped a very sick man attack our adversaries in secret, to take this nation to the brink of a world war, a war that will eventually turn off our lights, kill our farms, and destroy our cities. That takes precedent over your respective violations of the law and the Constitution.”

  Hannah glances down at her notes on her legal pad, looks up, and says, “The question now, of course, is what are we going to do about it?”

  CHAPTER 76

  FOR A PLEASANT few seconds, Liam Grey thinks he and Noa are going to slide unscathed through this thundering avalanche coming down on them both, but that feeling quickly disappears when the CIA director says “we” when mentioning stopping the president.

  “Ma’am,” he says. “What do you mean, ‘we’? We don’t have the authority or power to do anything to President Barrett.”

  “True,” she says. “Do you think that’s just a coincidence? Of course not. The president has used his CIA and military background, connections, and experiences to put himself where he is—untouchable.”

  Liam says, “Impeachment, then. Failing that, the Twenty-fifth Amendment. If the three of us testify on Capitol Hill as to what happened, what illegal orders he’s issued, then Congress will have to act.”

  Noa speaks up. “Do they? Liam, the usual system is broken, don’t you see that? The vice president is in a coma. The speaker of the House is fighting for her political life. Do you think she’s going to do anything to upset those representatives who are Barrett true believers, who think he can do no wrong? Like it or not, Barrett has positioned himself to where he has absolute and unchecked power. The secretary of state and the secretary of defense belong to him. His chief of staff can’t even order pizza without POTUS agreeing. There’s no national security director in office.”

  Liam sees what Noa is saying, but doesn’t want to acknowledge it. This was the United States, damn it, not some South American republic that could change its president or constitution at the drop of a hat.

  He takes a breath, trying to calm himself. “This…it can’t be done. You’re talking treason. We have to let the system work, no matter how clumsy and slow it’ll be.”

  Noa says, “Liam, you mentioned the Twenty-fifth Amendment. Congress has no power to bring that into effect. It’s up to the vice president. Who’s in a coma.”

  The room falls quiet for a moment.

  Hannah says, “Noa, you told me that Barrett nearly threatened to rape you in the White House, or even kill you. Liam, you told me that you think the president had something to do with Captain Webster’s murder.”

  Liam just sits still, not wanting to hear what comes next.

  “Ever since this Republic came to life, nearly every president has been accused of being a mentally ill madman, and always by their partisan opponents,” Abrams says, voice suddenly weary. “But now it’s happened, for real. And I’m afraid we’re running out of time.”

  CHAPTER 77

  Joint Intelligence Center Pacific

  Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

  LIEUTENANT COMMANDER CORNELIUS Johnson is the night duty officer at the facility supplying intelligence to the Indo-Pacific Command of the US Navy. One of his deepest secrets is that he loves every minute of being here. During meal and coffee breaks he’ll join in with the general bitching and moaning of working for the Navy, resisting the urge to tell his fellow sailors and officers just how damn lucky they are.

  Cornelius grew up poor in a housing project in the Cherry Hill part of Baltimore, where the sounds of gunshots and sirens kept you awake at night, where too many of your neighbors were on street corners, hustling or nodding off in abandoned doorways. But he found his escape via a Navy recruiting station in a broken-down strip mall. The Navy fed him, clothed him, paid him well, and, considering he was a child of Cherry Hill, also gave him one hell of a responsibility.

  In this large, darkened room with workstations with large computer screens and enormous illuminated wall displays, he and a dozen other Marine and Navy personnel kept watch on almost everything on the move in the Pacific and associated waters. Civilian airliners, commercial freighters, factory fishing craft, and, of course, every military aircraft and ship and submarine from every navy operating in the Pacific.

  When he first arrived here, he had been overwhelmed by the complexity of the screens, the symbols and numbers marking targets of interest, but now, a quick glance tells him all he needs to know.

  Right now, things are relatively calm.

  His station is a cluttered desk that overlooks the rest of the room—called the Pit—and his evening is suddenly interrupted by one of his secure phones ringing. Since 9/11, when one glaring error was revealed on how each intelligence agency and law enforcement organization jealously kept their work to themselves—called siloing—a move went afoot to break down the barriers and allow cross-communications and intelligence sharing.

  He has six secure phones on his desk: one each connecting him to the Indo-Pacific Command duty office, the Pentagon, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI, the CIA, and the National Security Agency. In his nine months here as duty officer, the phones from the FBI and CIA have never rung once.

  But the teal one from the NSA is ringing. He smiles, hoping Tina—his night duty counterpart—is on the line.

  She is.

  “Hey, Corny,” she says, “how goes it tonight?”

  “Looking forward to my hula lessons in the morning, how about you?”

  Soft and pleasing laughter from this intelligence analyst at Fort Meade. He doesn’t know her real name or what she looks like, but she’s smart and he loves talking to her.

  He says, “Always a delight to hear from you, Tina.”

  Her voice suddenly gets serious. “You might not keep thinking that when I sign off.”

  “Oh?” he asks, grabbing a pen and pad of paper. “What’s the situation?”

  Tina says, “We’re seeing increased communications and orders being issued for the PLA Navy bases in Haikou, Guangzhou, Shantou, and the Yulin Naval Base in Hainan. It looks like they’re prepping for something. I’d advise you to immediately start focusing your assets on those locations.”

  Cornelius says, “Are they prepping for a training exercise?”

  “Doubtful,” Tina says. “It takes months to prepare for a naval exercise. This seems much more serious. And to make things even more interesting, we’re getting a similar chatter increase from their cyber-warfare facilities. There’s a bunch of lights burning late tonight here and at the Pentagon, and I wanted you in on the fun.”

  Cornelius says, “Thanks for the heads-up, Tina.”

  Her laughter returns. “That’s what I get paid for.”

  “Tell me,” he says, “what does your gut tell you?”

  “Not my job.”

  “I know that, but between you and me, what’s going on?”

  She laughs. “Some between you and me, considering these calls are recorded.”

  “Humor me,” Cornelius says, feeling out of sorts.

  A bit of silence, then Tina says, “Hold on tight. The Chinese are pissed at us for something, they’re preparing a strike, and they’re coming at us heavy.”

  CHAPTER 78

  CIA DIRECTOR HANNAH Abrams has brought her two operators upstairs and after a number of minutes, they are dining on eggs Benedict, hash browns, toast, and more coffee and juice, prepared by one of her security officers, Bruce, who is a graduate of the other CIA—the Culinary Institute of America—before joining the Agency.

  The dining room is well furnished, with a smooth polished table, wooden chairs, and bookshelves and cabinets holding antique plates and bowls.

  Liam looks around and says, “This is one hell of a safe house we’ve got here, Director Abrams.”

  She smiles. “It’s not a safe house.”

  Noa asks, “Then where are we?”

  Hannah says, “It’s my house. I wasn’t too sure how many of Barrett’s allies are still in the Agency and reporting to him, so I did the safe thing and brought you here, after the snatch team picked you up at the Walmart parking lot. Sorry about your Jeep, Liam.”

  He says, “Not a problem, Director. But you’ve got an…interesting setup in your basement.”

  “Just temporary, that’s all,” she says. “Amazing what you can get done quickly if you ask the right people.”

  Hannah forces herself to eat. She’s not hungry but she knows the hours and days ahead are going to be brutal, requiring her to be sharp and have energy. She thinks of what she just told these two, that Barrett still has allies in the Agency—which they already had figured out—and wonders just how deep the rot goes.

  “Liam, your targets have been a Russian bot farm, a Hezbollah outpost in Venezuela, and three ISIS fighters in Paris. But nothing involving the Chinese.”

  “No, ma’am,” he says.

  “Noa, your targets have been a mix, but you have rolled up Chinese assets operating here.”

  “Correct, ma’am.”

  She says, “For the past two months, you and your teams have been going after a number of targets, and so far, so good. The Russians have stayed quiet. The Iranians and Hezbollah are secretly wondering why it took us so long. But the Chinese…This is the first time that we’ve gone after their people without offering a trade or any other accommodation. The Chinese won’t like that. And it seems like Barrett has upped the stakes.”

  Noa asks, “In what way?”

  Hannah says, “Two days ago, a city of nearly a million people in China lost power, and in that city was a cyberattack facility operated by China’s Ministry of State Security. A cruise missile did the job, dropping graphite fibers over parts of the electrical grid, shorting it out.”

  Liam says, “Director, it couldn’t be one of ours.”

  “Why not?” she says, now having entirely lost her appetite. “Hours before, an American destroyer in the East China Sea was conducting a test of a new generation of cruise missiles. One flew straight to the target coordinates. The other supposedly disappeared after launch. I think the second flew according to plan, right to China.”

  Aghast, Liam says, “That’s an act of war.”

  “Surely is,” Hannah says. “The president used you and your teams to muddy up the waters while he goes after his real target. China.”

  “Why not go see the president, Director?” Noa asks. “Tell him you know of his illegal actions involving the Agency and military and tell him it has to stop.”

  Hannah says, “You left out the ‘or else,’ Noa. Or else what? Go to the press? Go to Congress? We’ve already discussed how that won’t work. I serve at President Barrett’s pleasure. If I do meet him, he’ll just pull out a blank piece of White House stationery and demand my resignation, then and there. I’ll be gone and he’ll still be there, unaccountable, stirring up trouble.”

  Noa and Liam look on. She feels like the schoolteacher whose students can’t solve a complex math problem, and they’re looking for her to come up with something, anything.

  Hannah says, “Richard Helms was director during the latter part of President Johnson’s term. Each time Helms briefed LBJ, he told him the same news. That CIA analysts and operatives on the ground in South Vietnam were unanimous that our intervention there was a losing cause. LBJ would just nod, say thanks, send him away, and not change a damn thing. Here, though, I’d be going to President Barrett and saying his personal actions and orders are illegal. He won’t stand for that. I’ll be forced to resign, and that’s all she wrote. Folks, we need more if we’re going to stop the president.”