No Corner to Hide (The Max Masterson Series Book 2) (26 page)

CHAPTER 66

M

ax watched on the monitor as the Helos flew low over the treetops of Eastern New Jersey, and as they approached their destination the growth of green gave way to the densely populated areas near New York. The pilot explained that they

would first enter the hotel from the roof, where a helicopter pad was available, but that they didn’t expect that anyone remained in the building. With no power to heat and light, it would be uninhabitable once the temperature inside the building dropped below freezing.

The pilot and rescue team were going to rely upon the survival training of Scarlett’s Secret Service agents, and they would be leaving signals wherever they traveled. The remote camera revealed a darkened city in the distance, still disabled and silent. The Statue of Liberty could be seen as they approached from the New Jersey side of the Hudson, and as they flew closer, the details of the magnificent statue became more visible. Then, there was a brilliant flash, and the cameras went blank.

“They blew it up, those rat bastards!” Max turned to see his trusted security advisor, Roger Sinclair, standing behind him, watching the monitor with an intense gaze. “They took out our eyes, and destroyed Lady Liberty. Evil.” Sinclair shook his head.

“If anyone could find these cowards, it’s you.” Max stood and faced his security advisor, his eyes drilling into his mind, seeking meaning. Sinclair was un-nerved by the sudden intrusion, but recovered quickly.

“I know who did it, and I know why. I just don’t know where.” His words resonated with every person in the room. They no longer stared at a blank screen. The focus shifted to him alone. He explained quickly and concisely. “The people who did this are Americans.” He paused, took a deep breath, and continued. “When they detonated the first EMP device at your inauguration, it was a warning. They wanted to embarrass you, to cut off your strongest ally, your ability to communicate. They had no interest in destruction. They only sought to control you and the threat that you pose to them. If they can’t control you, they will lose the dynasty that they have created.”

Max stood and stretched. He was weary from the long hours of monitoring the events in New York. They had been down in the Situation Room for most of the night, and they wouldn’t rest until there was a plan and a solution, he realized that. They were problem solvers, and there was no political solution that could resolve this situation. They had to determine the reality, seek out the source of the problem, eliminate it, and deal with the damage. There was an awkward , silence, but none of the room’s occupants dared to speak. Suddenly, Max spun and faced Sinclair.

“You told us that they are Americans. I want to know who.” He walked across the room and gave Sinclair a piercing glare.

“Pryor. He stole these devices and deployed them. I’m still trying to determine how many and where they have been deployed, but my source has disappeared on me and I haven’t been able to determine where Pryor may be at the moment. In fact, we have been looking for him since the day before the election.”

CHAPTER 67

M

ax retreated to the Oval Office for a reprieve from the tension. He needed the time alone to sit for ideas and to plan. The revelation that his father’s nemesis was the common thread of evil in the recent incidents was mind chilling,

and the overwhelming wave of revenge had begun to wash into his thoughts along with the weariness.
This is not going to be easy. He has had years to consider his plan. If he can create despair, if he creates fear, and then uncontrolled terror . . . after that, the desperate will do anything to make it end.
He settled into the plush leather executive chair and cherished the brief opportunity for solitude. Without conscious effort, he reached into the concealed drawer and withdrew the presidential diary and placed it onto the expansive walnut desk. He paused to collect his thoughts, and for the first time in his short time in office, he worried.

Running his hands along the ornate book cover, he pondered the challenge before him and the country. His consternation was compounded by the very personal vendetta that was unfolding. Pryor had years to plan, and Max had days to react, or appear impotent as a leader . . .
I need to react, and to win this battle, or he will eventually own the minds of America. If they lose faith in my ability to lead, to protect, then I will be reviled for the rest of history
. Gradually, the book glowed, and he opened it at the halfway point, where the pages glowed brightest.

“I was governor of the Empire State before I sat in this esteemed place, born and raised in the city which your enemies have plunged into darkness,”
said Teddy Roosevelt, sitting in the chair in front of him. He was dressed in his famous Rough Rider uniform, his sabre at his side, hanging from a wide belt. As Max watched in amazement, the uniform morphed into khaki hiking clothes, and the sabre shortened into a cell phone that hung from a much thinner belt. The hat remained, but the knee-high riding boots had become hiking boots.

Max chose not to respond, knowing that his time with the departed president was short and it was time to listen. He was getting used to this welcome intrusion, and he needed wisdom and guidance.

“You are faced with a challenge that requires decisive action. Your own countrymen have attacked your family, and have harmed our fair nation in nefarious ways, all to get to you.”
Roosevelt shook his head in disgust.
“Much has changed since my day, my boy. In my time, we knew what it meant to be American. We knew the privilege and honor that attached to our birthright and it was us against them. We would no sooner harm our countrymen than harm ourselves, and traitors were dealt with harshly.”

Max spoke with his mind, and his voice broke with the tension.
“Mr. Roosevelt,”
he began.
“Call me Theodore, Son. They all called me Teddy, but I dislike that reference intensely. Theodore will do.”
“Theodore, I am torn between thoughts. Personally, I want to find this cowardly bastard and snuff the life out of him with my bare hands, and then there’s the part that wants to rid the world of the evil that he represents. He, or they, killed my mother, attacked my father, and made me an orphan for the second time in my life. I’m seething.”
“My boy, when confronted with a dilemma, you must always take the high road first. Do what is best for the nation. The personal aspect you must leave in the hands of your maker. Take care that you do not appear weak to the people, or they will turn on you . . .”
He paused for effect.
“
. . .
And never seek shelter when you should lead the charge
.”
There was a knock at the door, and the image disappeared. Andrew Fox popped his head into the room and gazed at Max with a concerned look. “Are you OK?” he inquired.
“Oh yeah. Just sitting for ideas. We need to move quickly in a very visual way,” replied Max. Andrew looked puzzled, but dismissed it.
“I just wanted you to know that we got some of the satellites at the periphery of the blast zone back online, and they can’t give us much detail from that distance, but I thought you would like to see this.” He shoved a night photo of the eastern seaboard across the desk with a flourish. It clearly showed the hole of darkness that extended up and down the Atlantic coast for hundreds of miles, but there was one exception: A bright pinprick of light shone brightly on the edge of the darkness. “What’s this, how can someone in a massive blackout have electrical service?” Max inquired.
“We don’t know for sure, but that dude has power when his neighbors don’t, and from the looks of it, he has a lot of it,” Andrew replied.

u

CHAPTER 68

M

ax returned to the situation room from the Oval Office with handwritten notes and a determined look. His inner circle of trusted advisors included Roger Sinclair and Andrew Fox. They waited for direction. Sinclair spoke first. “Max,

we have created a no-fly zone around the city. There is nothing moving right now, anyway. The communication satellites have been dead since the blast, so nothing has been coming in or out of the area for the past few days; but they are leaving on foot, bicycle, or anything that can move. Some people commandeered a sailboat and sailed until they could see lights on in homes on the coast, and then they docked. There are reportsof widespread lootings and killings, mainly for food, and when they heard that plague was spreading, they got out of there.”

This was news that they hadn’t considered. Plague, the scourge of Europe in the Middle Ages, was a disease that spread from victim to victim like wildfire. Fleas carried the disease, and the rats carried the fleas. It was capable of killing millions in a short time, in a pandemic that could be easily be prevented by maintaining hygiene and staying out of contact with the carriers of the disease.

Max stood and crossed his arms in a defensive stance. He stared at the blank screen in silence, deep in thought. “How do we know that the rumor is true?” He knew the answer to his question before he spoke. It was the most basic of Maxims.

It’s not reality. It’s the appearance of reality. If people believe that plague is spreading throughout Manhattan, they will do anything to get away.

“One woman said that as soon as she saw a big rat attack the family dog, she and her husband packed up the kids and what canned goods they could find, and headed for the docks. She said that there was a line of people streaming out of the city by foot, and the bridges were packed. The Lincoln and Holland tunnels are flooded, and mass transit is disabled, so it looks like their options are limited. Fires are spreading with no way of putting them out, and soon we will have a ghost town bigger than your imagination can conceive. They did a lot of damage with two EMPs, and we have no way of knowing if there are more.”

“There are more,” said General Robert Bradbury, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. He had entered the situation room quietly, and stood listening to Sinclair’s report. “I have ordered our National Guard to begin searching every tall building in major cities, focusing on private residential high-rises in strategic locations that can do the most damage. We found one in Copley Place in Boston, and another in Chicago at the Trump Tower. Minutes ago, they found one in Seattle at the Columbia Center. Funny thing, though. The devices in Seattle and Boston were found in plain sight, and both were dummies. From the outside, they looked like they were rigged to explode, but when we finally got them out in the open and got inside the guts of these things, they were hollow. No tritium, no trigger, just enough uranium to set off our detectors.”

He paused to allow time for them to absorb the newly discovered situation and went on. “The one in Chicago, though, was a live one. It could have shut down the city. We traced its place of origin to the Ukraine, and my people are looking into how they got into the country. It looks like Homeland Security intercepted about a dozen of these babies a few years back, and then they disappeared.”

“So we had them in our custody and now we don’t. Splendid,” said Max with a sarcastic tone.
Bradbury went on. “This could become a national disaster if we don’t do something soon. I feel helpless. We are good at blowing up our enemies, but terrible at eliminating a threat that lives inside our borders. The combined might of our armed forces can’t rid the country of this cancer, Mr. President.”
“Not for long. Send in the drones and find out what’s happening in there, and get my vice president off that island . . . now,” Max said matter-of-factly. “Do you have any way of rigging a drone with AV equipment, so I can talk to people from here? Right now, they are totally cut off from the rest of the world. We need to get mass transit moving soon, or a lot of people are going to start killing each other for food.” Max paced in silence, deep in thought, his hands clasped tightly behind his back.
“Sir, how do we get those people off Manhattan? I’m not concerned about Long Island, they can handle it, at least for a while. But the city? There are millions of people who can’t get through the day without their coffee and a prune Danish, and they’re stranded, sir . . .”
Andrew Fox had come from the Midwest, and had learned how to live off the land. His only trip to New York City was his high school graduation trip at the end of his senior year. He was intimidated by the speed at which the people moved in herds, intent on their individual purpose. He had remembered wondering what they all did for a living, until the enormity of the question overwhelmed his mind. It was too big to think about, and his limited experience shut it out of his brain. He had gone back to gazing up at the size of the buildings until his neck hurt, and then it was time to go home.
“How many people are we talking about? I know that there are a lot of commuters, but the detonation was at 7 p.m. . . . Didn’t a lot of the commuters already leave for home?” Andrew was quickly becoming overwhelmed by the logistics.
To think I only had to look out for myself a few months ago, and now I have to figure out a way to transport millions of people.
“I already checked on that. There are about two million permanent residents who were probably on Manhattan Island at the time, and who rely almost totally on the subways and buses and taxis to get around. I’m guessing that there are close to eight million commuters each day, and that most of them had already left the city for home, but you can bet that some of them were just wrapping up happy hour when that thing went off. Let’s assume there are about three million people who need to evacuate,” explained Roger Sinclair.
“How about trains? Doesn’t Grand Central Station have some old locomotives they can hook up to a bunch of passenger cars? Every old movie I ever saw has some guy kissing a girl at the train station before he goes off in one of those passenger cars . . .” Andrew was feeling the enormity of the task.
“I want Andrew to look into running passenger trains in there to get them out of the city, and we need to set up a supply line for food and water. Better yet, don’t feed them until we get them out of there, or they might hunker down and refuse to leave.” Max paced, his lips pursed in deep concentration.
“ Don’t we have any old locomotives mothballed in a warehouse somewhere? We’ll need to run trains from . . . where, Grand Central? Union Station? Someone check into that. Let’s move on this. The longer we wait, the worse it will get. People who don’t have anywhere to go can be kept in temporary housing, and I want the National Guard to set that up walking distance from the most accessible rail line outside of the dark zone. Let’s do it.” Max slipped seamlessly into the role of Commander in Chief. He had been trained since childhood to be president, and it felt natural.
“Sir, don’t you want our military to move supplies into the city?” responded Vincent Bowles. The undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security was a holdover from the previous administration under then-president Warren Blythe. In the scramble to fill high government positions in the Masterson administration, Bowles had filled the gap left by the previous director, Adam Pryor, as efficiently as plugging a dike.
“Mr. Bowles, I don’t know what planet you’re from, but I want you to consider this: We have a dead city that is cold, and people are going to be lighting fires to keep warm. When people play with fire, they tend to burn things, like buildings. When one goes up in flames, they call the fire department. Only now, the phones don’t work, and even if they did, the fire trucks can’t get there to put out the fire. Even if they could, if the high-rises start to burn, there isn’t an extension ladder long enough to get to the top floors. I expect that it’s only a matter of time before we have the biggest conflagration in history since Hiroshima, and I’m determined to save as many people as possible. We have to get them out of the city.”