The President Is Missing: A Novel Page 27

  “Wednesday—this past Wednesday? Three days ago?”

  “Yes. Wednesday, at noon, by the statue of Edgar Allan Poe at the University of Baltimore. Close enough to Washington but not too close, a logical place for people of our age to fit in and a fixed point we both could find.”

  “And that’s when Nina told you the plan.”

  “Yes. By then she was certain she had a plan in place. She would visit the White House on Friday night, alone, to test your reaction. Then you would meet me at the baseball stadium—another test, to see if you would even appear. And if you did, I would make my own judgment as to whether we could trust you. When you appeared at the stadium, I knew you had passed Nina’s test.”

  “And then I passed yours.”

  “Yes,” he says. “If nothing else, the fact that I pulled a gun on the president of the United States and nobody immediately shot me or arrested me—I knew you believed us and would work with us.”

  I shake my head. “And then you contacted Nina?”

  “I texted her. She was waiting for my signal to pull up to the stadium in her van.”

  How close we came, right there.

  Augie lets out a noise that sounds like laughter. “That was supposed to be the moment,” he says, looking ruefully off in the distance. “We would have all been together. I would have located the virus, you would have contacted the Georgian government, and she would have stopped the virus.”

  Instead someone stopped Nina.

  “I will get back to work, Mr. President.” He pushes himself off the couch. “I am sorry for my momentary—”

  I push him back down. “We’re not done, Augie,” I say. “I want to know about Nina’s source. I want to know about the traitor in the White House.”

  Chapter

  76

  I remain hovering over Augie, all but shining a bright light in his face. “You said by the time you met Nina in Baltimore three days ago, she was committed to a plan.”

  He nods.

  “Why? What happened between the time you split up in Algeria and the time you met in Baltimore? What did she do? Where did she go?”

  “This I do not know.”

  “That doesn’t wash, Augie.”

  “I’m sorry? Wash?”

  I lean in farther still, nearly nose to nose with him. “That doesn’t ring true to me. You two loved each other. You trusted each other. You needed each other.”

  “What we needed was to keep our information separate,” he insists. “For our own protection. She could not know how to locate the virus, and I could not know how to disarm it. This way we both remained of value to you.”

  “What did she tell you about her source?”

  “I have answered this question more than once—”

  “Answer it again.” I grab his shoulder. “And remember that the lives of hundreds of millions of people—”

  “She did not tell me!” he spits, full of emotion, a high pitch to his voice. “She told me I would need to know the code word ‘Dark Ages,’ and I asked her how she could possibly know this, and she said it did not matter how, that it was better I did not know, that we were both safer that way.”

  I stare at him, saying nothing, searching his face.

  “Did I suspect she was in communication with someone of importance in Washington? Of course I did. I am not an imbecile. But that gave me comfort, not discomfort. It meant we had a credible chance of success. I trusted her. She was the smartest person I’d ever—”

  He chokes up, unable to finish the sentence.

  My phone buzzes. FBI Liz again. I can’t keep ignoring it.

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “You want to honor her memory, Augie? Then do everything you can to stop that virus. Go. Now.”

  He takes a deep breath and pushes himself off the couch. “I will,” he says.

  Once Augie is out of earshot, I bring the phone to my ear. “Yes, Liz.”

  “Mr. President,” she says. “The cell phones in Nina’s van.”

  “Yes. Two of them, you said?”

  “Yes, sir, one on her person, one found under the floorboard in the rear compartment.”

  “Okay…”

  “Sir, the one we found hidden in the rear of the van—we haven’t cracked it yet. But the phone that was in her pocket—we finally broke the code. There is an overseas text message that is particularly interesting. It took us a long time to track it, because it was scrambled over three continents—”

  “Liz, Liz,” I say. “Cut to the chase.”

  “We think we’ve found him, sir,” she says. “We think we’ve located Suliman Cindoruk.”

  I suck in my breath.

  A second chance, after Algeria.

  “Mr. President?”

  “I want him alive,” I say.

  Chapter

  77

  Vice President Katherine Brandt sits quietly, her eyes downcast, taking it all in. Even over the computer screen, with its occasional fuzz, its sporadic image-jumping, she looks TV-ready, heavily made up from her appearance on Meet the Press, dressed in a smart red suit and a white blouse.

  “That’s almost…” She looks up at me.

  “Incomprehensible,” I say. “Yes. It’s far worse than we imagined. We have been able to secure our military, but other areas of federal government, and the private sector—the damage is going to be incalculable.”

  “And Los Angeles…is a decoy.”

  I shake my head. “That’s my best guess. It’s a smart plan. They want our tech superstars on the other side of the country, trying to solve the problem at the water-filtration plant. Then, when the virus detonates, we are cut off from them in every way—no Internet connectivity, no phones, no airplanes or trains. Our best people, stranded on the West Coast, thousands of miles away from us.”

  “And I’m just learning all this that’s happening to our country, and everything you’re doing, even though I’m vice president of the United States. Because you don’t trust me. I’m one of the six you don’t trust.”

  Her image is not sufficiently clear to gauge her reaction to all this. It wouldn’t be a good thing to learn that your boss, the commander in chief, thinks you might be a traitor.

  “Mr. President, do you really think I would do such a thing?”

  “Kathy, I wouldn’t have imagined, in a million years, that any of you would. Not you, not Sam, not Brendan, not Rod, not Dominick, not Erica. But one of you did.”

  That’s it. Sam Haber of DHS. Brendan Mohan, national security adviser. Rodrigo Sanchez, chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Defense secretary Dominick Dayton. And CIA director Erica Beatty. Plus the vice president. My circle of six, all under suspicion.

  Katherine Brandt remains silent, still at attention but lost in concentration.

  Alex walks in and slips me a note from Devin. It’s not a good note.

  When I turn back to Kathy, she looks ready to tell me something. I have a good idea what it will be.

  “Mr. President,” she says, “if I don’t have your trust, the only thing I can do is offer you my resignation.”

  Chapter

  78

  In the tech war room, Devin looks up when he sees me. He taps Casey on the shoulder, and they leave the others—all wearing headsets or banging on computers—to speak with me. Dead laptop computers are piled up against the wall. On the whiteboard, various words and names and codes are scribbled: PETYA and NYETNA, SHAMOON and SCHNEIER ALG., DOD.

  The room itself smells like coffee and tobacco and body odor. I’d offer to open a window if I were in a joking mood.

  Casey gestures to a corner where a stack of laptop computers lines the wall, the boxes stacked so high that they almost reach the security camera peering down at us from the ceiling.

  “All dead,” she says. “We’re trying everything. Nothing can kill this virus.”

  “Seventy computers so far?”

  “More or less,” she says. “And for every one we’re using here, the rest of our team at the
Pentagon is using three or four. We’ve racked up close to three hundred computers.”

  “The computers are…wiped clean?”

  “Everything wiped,” says Devin. “As soon as we try to disarm it, the wiper virus goes off. Those laptops are no better than a pile of bricks now.” He sighs. “Can you get the other five hundred laptops?”

  I turn to Alex and make the request. The Marines will get them over to us in no time. “Is five hundred enough?” I ask.

  Casey smirks. “We don’t have five hundred ways to stop this thing. We’ve thought of just about everything we know already.”

  “Augie’s not a help?”

  “Oh, he’s brilliant,” says Devin. “The way he buried this thing inside the computer? I’ve never seen anything like it. But when it comes to actually disabling it? It’s not his specialty.”

  I look at my watch. “It’s four o’clock, people. Start getting creative.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anything else you need from me?”

  Casey says, “Any chance you can capture Suliman and bring him here?”

  I pat her on the arm but don’t answer.

  We’re working on it, I do not say.

  Chapter

  79

  I return to my communications room, where I find Vice President Katherine Brandt, her eyes cast down, her posture slumped. Before I interrupted our talk, she had said something meaningful to me.

  She perks up when she sees me enter the room, her posture stiffening.

  “No luck on the virus yet,” I say, sitting down. “Whoever created that thing is playing chess, and we’re playing checkers.”

  “Mr. President,” says Kathy, “I just offered you my resignation.”

  “Yes, I remember,” I say. “This is not the time for that, Kathy. They’ve tried to kill Augie and me twice. And I’m not well, as I just explained to you.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I hadn’t realized your condition was acting up again.”

  “I didn’t tell anybody. This isn’t a good time for our friends or our enemies to think the president is in poor health.”

  She nods her head.

  “Listen, Carolyn has been a few floors above you in the White House the whole time. She knows everything. We have it all written up in a document, too. If something had happened to me, Carolyn would have told you everything within minutes. Including my various plans for what to do, depending on how bad this virus is. Including military strikes on Russia, China, North Korea—whoever is behind this virus. Contingency plans for martial law, the suspension of habeas corpus, price controls, rationing of critical goods—the works.”

  “But if I am the traitor, Mr. President,” she says, barely able to spit out that word, “why would you trust me to stop these people? If I’m in cahoots with them.”

  “Kathy, what choice did I have? I can’t just switch you out with somebody new. What was I supposed to do four days ago when I learned about the leak from Nina through my daughter? Demand your resignation? And then what? Think about how long it would take to replace you. A vetting process, the nomination process, approval by both houses. I didn’t have that kind of time. And if you left and there was a vacancy, think who is next in line of succession.”

  She doesn’t respond, breaking eye contact. The reference to Speaker Lester Rhodes does not seem to sit well with her.

  “More important than that, Kathy—I couldn’t be sure it was you. I couldn’t be sure it was any of you. Sure, I could have fired all six of you, just to make sure I got rid of the leaker. Just to be safe. But then I’m losing essentially my entire national security team when I need them most.”

  “You could have polygraphed us,” she says.

  “I could have. That’s what Carolyn wanted. Give all of you lie-detector tests.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why not, sir?”

  “The element of surprise,” I say. “The only thing I had going for me was that I knew there was a leaker, but the leaker didn’t know I knew. If I put all of you on a box and asked you whether you leaked information about Dark Ages, I’d show my hand. Whoever was behind this would know that I knew. It was better to play dumb, so to speak.

  “So I got to work fixing the problem,” I continue. “I called in the under secretary of defense and had her check, independently, that the revamping of our military systems was being done properly. Just in case Secretary Dayton was the Benedict Arnold. I had General Burke at Central Command verify the same thing overseas, just in case Admiral Sanchez was the traitor.”

  “And you were assured things were done properly.”

  “Properly enough. We couldn’t completely re-create everything in two weeks by any means, but we’re up and running enough to launch missiles, to deploy air and ground forces. Our training exercises were successful.”

  “Does that mean Dayton and Sanchez are crossed off your list? The list is down to four now?”

  “What do you think, Kathy? Should they be crossed off?”

  She thinks about that a minute. “If one of them is the traitor, they wouldn’t be so obvious as to sabotage something that was their direct responsibility. They might anonymously leak the code word. They might provide some information to the enemy. But these specific tasks you’ve assigned them—there’s a spotlight directly on them. They can’t screw it up. They’d be exposed. Whoever did this gave it a lot of thought.”

  “My thinking exactly,” I say. “So no, they aren’t crossed off the list.”

  This is a lot for Kathy to take in, and she understands that as I talk about the traitor, in my mind I could be talking about her. It wouldn’t be easy for anyone to accept. Then again, she isn’t exactly wearing a white hat in all this.

  Finally, she says, “Mr. President, if we get through this—”

  “When,” I say. “When we get through this. There’s no ‘if.’ ‘If’ is not an option.”

  “When we get through this,” she says, “at the appropriate time, I will tender you my resignation to do with what you will. If you can’t trust me, sir, I’m not sure how I can serve you.”

  “And then who’s next in line?” I say, returning to that theme.

  She blinks a few times, but the answer isn’t exactly a hard one. “Well, obviously I wouldn’t step down until you secured a replacement—”

  “You don’t even want to say his name, do you, Kathy? Your friend Lester Rhodes.”

  “I…I don’t think I’d call him my friend, sir.”

  “No?”

  “I certainly wouldn’t. I—I did happen to run into him this morn—”

  “Stop right there,” I say. “You can lie to yourself all you want, Kathy. But do not lie to me.”

  Her mouth still works for a moment, searching for something, before she closes it and remains still.

  “The first thing I did four days ago, when I learned of the leak,” I say. “The first thing I did. You know what it was?”

  She shakes her head but can’t bring herself to speak.

  “I had each of you surveilled,” I say.

  She brings a hand to her chest. “You had…me…”

  “All six of you,” I say. “FISA warrants. I signed the affidavits myself. Those judges had never seen that before. Liz Greenfield at the FBI executed them. Intercepts, eavesdropping, the works.”

  “You’ve been…”

  “Spare me the indignation. You would have done the same thing. And do not sit there and act like you just happened to ‘run into’ Lester Rhodes this morning on your way to breakfast.”

  There’s not a lot she can say. She doesn’t have a leg to stand on, given what she did. She looks as if she wants to crawl under a rock and hide right now.

  “Focus on the problem,” I say. “Forget politics. Forget the hearing next week. Forget about who might be president a month from now. Our country has a very big problem, and all that matters is solving it.”

  She nods, unable to s
peak.

  “If something happens to me, you’re up to bat,” I say. “So get your head out of your ass and be ready.”

  She nods again, first slowly, then more adamantly. Her posture straightens, as if she is setting everything else aside, focusing on a new course of action.

  “Carolyn’s going to show you the contingency plans. They’re for your eyes only. You’ll stay in the operations center. You won’t be able to communicate with anyone but Carolyn or me. Understood?”

  “Yes,” she says. “May I say something, sir?”

  I sigh. “Yes.”

  “Give me a polygraph,” she says.

  I draw back.

  “The element of surprise is lost now,” she says. “You’ve told me everything. Give me a lie detector and ask me if I leaked ‘Dark Ages.’ Ask me about Lester Rhodes if you want. Ask me anything. But make damn sure to ask me if I have ever, in any way, betrayed our country.”

  That one, I must admit, I didn’t see coming.

  “Ask me,” she says, “and I’ll tell the truth.”

  Chapter

  80

  It is 11:03 p.m. in Berlin, Germany.

  Four things happen at the same time.

  One: a woman in a long white coat enters the front door of the high-rise condominium building, multiple shopping bags, like bulky appendages, in hand. She walks straight to the clerk at the front desk. She looks around and spots the camera in the corner of the ornate, spacious lobby. She sets down the bags and smiles at the clerk. He asks for her identification, and she opens her flip wallet, revealing a badge.

  “Ich’m ein Polizeioffizier,” she says, losing her smile. “Ich brauche Ihre Hilfe jetzt.”

  Identifying herself as a cop. Telling him she needs his help right away.

  Two: a large orange waste-disposal truck bearing the company name Berliner Stadtreinigungsbetriebe pulls alongside the same building to the east, as the wind off the river Spree swirls around it. When the vehicle comes to a stop, the back door lifts open. Twelve men, members of the KSK, the Kommando Spezialkräfte, Germany’s elite rapid-response special-forces unit, emerge from the truck dressed in tactical gear—vests, helmets, heavy boots—and armed with HK MP5 submachine guns, or riot-control rifles. The nearby door to the condo building pops open automatically, courtesy of the front desk, and they enter the building.