The footsteps grew louder. She ran across the cabin and pulled open the bottom curtain.
Her hand involuntarily covered her mouth, and she gasped. Her stomach constricted as she fought back nausea.
She could not take her eyes off the body in the bunk. The dead man’s eyes stared up at her. Beneath the chalky face, the man’s throat had been cut. She looked at the machine-embroidered name on his one piece coveralls. Gibbs.
She had no time to be sick. There were men nearing the doorway. She pushed herself up against the wall beside a small built-in desk.
“They don’t come up those stairs alive. You hear me?” The commands were sharp.
“Aye, sir.”
“I have to clean up,” the same man ordered. “We engage at fourteen hundred.”
Amy pressed her body closer to the wall, hoping to go unseen. The men paused right outside.
“What’s going on, Kilo?” a new voice asked.
Amy jumped when two consecutive shots were fired. She tried to crawl on top of the desk as she heard the sound of bodies hitting the deck. A forearm of one of the victims flopped across the threshold.
She looked in horror at the door, waiting for whoever killed the two to step in and finish her, too.
Chapter 34
John Penn had to cut short his plan to visit two New Bedford and Fall River shelters and take a helicopter back to Newport. It was absolutely critical, he was told, that he sit in on the teleconference that his campaign manager, Anthony McCarthy, had set up with Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and President Hawkins’s National Security Advisor.
On the approach to landing at his mansion in Newport, he could see the number of reporters behind the high gates had multiplied exponentially. McCarthy had done his best to get some of these people to chase Penn to the two neighboring cities in Massachusetts. But the reporters had set up camp here, and they weren’t going anywhere. There were different crews waiting for him in Fall River and New Bedford. Penn had a feeling that was McCarthy’s doing.
Although he’d tried to put them off, the reporters had been persistent. They wanted him to talk war. They wanted him to take back everything he’d said during his months of the campaign.
He wasn’t talking. That was the President’s job, and he wasn’t going to undermine any ongoing efforts. Period.
As the chopper touched down on the lawn, Greg Moore and two additional Secret Service agents met Senator Penn.
“McCarthy had to pull out all the stops to set up this call,” Greg told him as they moved toward the house. “They’re just getting started.”
Penn knew what his campaign manager was trying to do. It was risky, but McCarthy wanted to delay the election.
Yesterday, Penn was being told with confidence that he was going to win by a landslide. Now, less than twenty-four hours later, the outcome of the election was anyone’s guess. He figured that this suggestion would make Hawkins’ campaign people happy, too. They had to agree. With the eastern half of the country trying to evacuate to safer areas, an election would be pointless.
He was greeted at the door by his wife, Anna, who kissed him and took his arm. “How is everything out there?” she asked. “As bad as it looks on TV?”
This was one of the million reasons he was still so crazy about his wife after all these years of marriage. She couldn’t care less about the election tomorrow. Her only concern was people. Despite Greg’s prodding, John took two minutes and told Anna about where he’d been and about the spirit of the people he’d seen at each shelter.
She gave him an affectionate hug before he had to go and whispered in his ear. “Don’t forget. It doesn’t matter. If they don’t elect you, it’s their fucking loss.”
Penn was still chuckling when he entered the dining room, which was now set up for the teleconference. Two of his aides were sitting at the table, and McCarthy was already lecturing into the conference phone. He stopped mid-sentence to inform those on the other end that the Senator had joined them.
John Penn exchanged pleasantries with the people on the phone before motioning to his campaign manager to continue what he was saying. He knew Jane Atwood, the National Security Advisor, very well, and Ned Harris from the Department of Justice even better. He’d gone to law school with Harris, and he’d been a pompous jerk back then. These two were nothing, if not devoted watchdogs for President Hawkins.
“What I was saying, Ned,” McCarthy started again, “is that there was a possible precedent set for this during the 2004 elections. After September 11th, Homeland Security recommended that the country be prepared to postpone the election in the event of a terrorist attack on or about the actual day.”
“I remember,” Ned Harris said. “And have you contacted Homeland Security?”
From the bastard’s arrogant tone, Penn figured the paper pusher already had his answer.
“Yes, we have contacted them,” McCarthy said, rolling his eyes at Penn.
“And what did they say?”
“They pushed off all questions regarding the matter to your office. And that’s why we’re on the phone right now,” McCarthy’s tone took on a cutting edge. “We’re not asking you to do us a favor, Ned. There are logistical issues about tomorrow that make voting impossible. Perhaps you’ve heard that the country is facing the possibility of a nuclear holocaust.”
“I believe I heard the President say this morning that the U.S. Government is open for business.”
“I think the shops in Hiroshima were open for business when—”
“Gentlemen,” Jane Atwood interrupted, “if we could just cut to the chase. I’m rather busy this morning.”
“Sorry, Jane,” McCarthy replied. “Go ahead.”
“There is not enough time to get Congress involved in putting off the election.”
“We don’t need legislation,” the campaign manager argued. “We feel that a legal memo from the Justice Department is all we need. Consider the circumstances. We’re faced with a possible doomsday scenario. Who would even think to challenge it? It’s the only reasonable course of action.”
John Penn watched Greg Moore scribble a note and slide it to McCarthy. McCarthy looked down at it. “If you need some kind of actual precedent, New York officials postponed their September 11, 2001, primary elections after those planes flew into the World Trade Center. It has been done before,” McCarthy said.
“We’re discussing federal elections here,” Ned Harris interrupted. “Not some local primary.”
All of them knew this. But that wasn’t the point.
John sat forward in his chair. “Jane?”
“Yes, Senator?”
“I also want to cut to the chase.” He waved off his campaign manager. “Has this issue come up with the President?”
There was a long pause before she replied.
“Yes, Senator,” she said in an emotionless voice. “President Hawkins has discussed this matter with members of the Intelligence Committee, Homeland Security, and select members of his Cabinet. The election stands as scheduled for tomorrow.”
McCarthy started to argue, but the National Security Advisor stopped him.
“The Administration has taken the position that, in spite of being far behind in many of the polls, the correct course of action is to hold the elections as scheduled.”
“Dr. Atwood—”
“Let me finish, Mr. McCarthy. We’ve held elections in this country during natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes. We’ve held elections while we were at war, and even during the Civil War. We will hold to that precedent, gentlemen. Tomorrow is a statutory election. It will go ahead, on schedule, and no one will change it.”