Agent of Influence: A Thriller (50 page)

“Where is the Defense S
ecretary?” Zach asked.

             
“He’s already in the Situation Room sir. He’s waiting for you,” Jamal responded.

They reverted
back to silence. Two more turns and Zach, Jamal, and the Military Officer came upon the secure stairwell that led to the Situation Room below ground.  Jamal issued more instructions to another agent to remain at the top of the stairs.

“No one is allowed down after us unless the President personally reque
sts it,” Jamal barked. As a precaution he called in a second agent to guard the stairwell. They headed down into the sub-level of the White House with no one left to stop them.

             
“Hand me a weapon.” The sinister tone of Zachariah’s voice was unmasked as soon as the door closed behind them. They stopped halfway down the stairwell. Jamal quickly, but calmly extracted a Walter PPK from the inside of his sport coat, threaded the silencer onto it, and handed it to the President.

              The Military Officer stood dumbfounded on the step above them, his eyes registering a scene that his mind told him was absolutely impossible. He tried
to comprehend what was happening, but his words stumbled out of his mouth. “Sir, what is this… I mean, what’s going on?” He watched in horror as the President swiveled the weapon until its black hole pointed at the officer’s chest.

              “You are sure you know how to operate the codes?” Zach asked Jamal one last time. He was about to reach the point of no return.

             
“Absolutely positive my Caliphate. Kill this man.” Jamal said it with disdain, as if the Military Officer’s life meant nothing to him. Zach put two shots into the man’s chest. Jamal then picked up the black suitcase that would provide them with instant immortality, and they bounded down the stairs. A few more deaths to dish out in the Situation Room, and then they could deal the U.S. a blow from which it would never recover.

“Okay, they should almost be in the Situation Room by now. Let’s go,” Malcolm said tersely.

They watched Zach’s second speech from the
Lincoln bedroom and waited patiently for a few more minutes. They needed perfect timing. He had to be caught in the act. Nothing else would suffice. It was the only way anyone would believe it. Anna stepped cautiously out the door and peered down the empty hallway. She pushed the door open and motioned for Malcolm to take the lead. They still kept their weapons holstered and hidden. It was risky, but they would have to catch any Secret Service agents off guard. They had no desire to initiate a firefight. They were severely outgunned, and it would probably get them killed. 

The first guard was
stationed at the elevator that would take them from the living quarters down to the main floor of the West Wing. Malcolm stepped around the corner and into the man’s view, Anna trailing right behind him. Malcolm saw the suspicious look on the man’s face.

             
“Call down and tell the President I’m on my way down. He just called for us,” Malcolm said with authority as they both strode right up to the guard. An agent’s first instinct was always to follow orders without question, and he hesitated for just a second. Anna’s elbow flashed forward, catching him in the jaw, followed immediately by a chop to the neck from Malcolm which rendered him unconscious.

***

              The guns fired simultaneously and the bodies of presidential advisors crashed to the floor. The advisors had been in the process of putting together briefing papers for the new President. That very man was now spraying them with bullets. The National Security Advisor screeched like a wounded animal when Zach’s shot rammed him in the chest. The searing pain in his chest quickly ended with a perfectly placed bullet from Jamal’s weapon. The man’s head exploded, sending particles of blood and brain all over the long boardroom table which sat in the middle of the small room.

             
“Have you lost your mind, sir?” The Secretary of State said in horror as he stared at the body of the Secretary of Defense that lay crumpled in the corner. The body twitched slightly as blood oozed onto the dirty carpet. He was still alive for now.

“What is this?” Tears began to stream down the Secretary of State’s face. He sat frozen in place, completely baffled by a scene that was impossible for him to accept, but was occ
urring nonetheless. His years of service to his country brought him into many stressful and dangerous situations, but the shock of the carnage that lay before him left him immobile with fear. His body’s only reaction was to cry.

“What have you done?” He wailed again in a fit of anguish. He sat frozen while Jamal and Zachariah moved to the back of the room, and began meticulously making their preparations.

  Jamal turned to face the Secretary of State. The cold, uncaring face sneered before he leveled his weapon and fired. The shot landed right between the eyes. The limp body dropped to the floor, ending the hysterical screams in mid-sentence.

             
“What I have been training to do all my life,” Jamal replied to the dead body. “I knew I should have done all the shooting. They were making too much noise.” He stuffed the weapon down the front of his pants, and then stepped back into the corridor to retrieve the black suitcase with the nuclear codes. When he re-entered the room Zach was laughing.

“The place is soundproof
, you idiot. Besides, we didn’t want one of them having time to trigger an alarm. I’m sure there is one here,” Zach said as he suppressed a button on the weapon, dropping the empty magazine onto the floor.

He took the briefcase from Jamal, and walked to the head of the table at the far end of the room.
He stole a look at the Presidential Seal nailed to the wall directly behind him, flipped it the bird, and then sat the nuclear football on the table. He was going to enjoy this. He yanked out the codes that he had received just a few hours earlier, and began readying the launch sequence. It would take less than thirty minutes to set the destruction in motion.

A flicker of movement in the corner
of the room caught their attention. The Secretary of Defense’s meaty hand stretched upwards and reached for the red button hidden underneath the end of the table. The button would summon additional help in case of a sudden medical emergency. The room, which was used for such stressful situations, had induced a few heart attacks and fainting spells over the years, all of which had been kept out of the press. The emergency button had to be there to summon help immediately.

Jamal saw the hand reach out, and yanked his pistol out of his waistline. He had been watching
Zach intently, giving him instructions as he went through the sequence, punching in codes that would send nuclear tipped missiles into the heart of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, St. Louis, Nashville, and other major cities. It would be a nuclear umbrella of death that would blanket the entire country, killing tens of millions and destroying the United States as a world power. Jamal pulled the trigger. He ended the Secretary of Defense’s life just as the hand pressed down on the emergency button.

              There are moments in history when the balance of world power hinges on a minor change or split second decision. A slight alteration of a battle plan that may seem miniscule at first, but can allow the other side time to adjust, and what looks like a resounding defeat morphs quickly into a decisive victory, or vice versa. History is replete with such scenarios, and the truly great world leaders and military commanders recognize them and learn from them. Malcolm and Anna did not know this was happening to them. All they saw as they stepped into the corridor were five Secret Service agents approximately forty yards away with their backs towards them. Agents were racing towards the stairwell that led down to the Situation Room. This lucky turn of events gave them a free run across the hallway and over to the stairs that led to the basement.

             
“Stop! No one else is allowed down,” the lone guard left to watch the entrance yelled with authority.

“The President called for us.
” Malcolm blurted out the words as he simultaneously reached into his jacket and whipped out his pistol, crashing it into the agent’s head and shattering the earpiece he used to communicate with his fellow agents. The man grunted in anger, shocked by the violent attack. Anna followed the pistol whip with a knee to the groin, then an elbow to the head. The burly guard finally slumped to the ground unconscious.

             
“You ready?” Malcolm asked.

They stood in silence for a few brief seconds. She pulled out her pistol, leaving the silencer in the bag. Subtlety and surprise were no longer part of the plan. She made sure all her extra magazines were in her pockets before nodding affirmatively. Malcolm gave
her a quick explanation of where the stairs led and how the Situation Room was laid out. He had visited the room on several occasions during the war with the Taliban.

“You stay low. I’ll
stay high,” Malcolm said. He pushed the door open and they proceeded cautiously down the stairwell. As they neared the end of the stairwell they saw the body of the Military Officer strewn awkwardly about the staircase. They cautiously continued the remainder of their descent. The dead body was the final confirmation of their worst nightmare.

Malcolm led the way with Anna following closely behind him.  Their weapons sca
nned the empty space for targets, but found nothing at which to shoot.  They reached the bottom without incident and stopped. Both of their backs pushed firmly against the wall. Malcolm poked his head cautiously around the corner. The six agents who preceded them down the steps were bunched up around the door that led into the Situation Room.

Malcolm had assumed they would hold
their meeting in the video teleconferencing room directly behind the main meeting area, but he appeared to be wrong. He could see the door propped slightly open. Jamal appeared to be having a serious discussion with the agents in the doorway. The group looked unorganized and confused. They were huddled together and all facing Jamal. They were easy targets.

             
Malcolm turned back and gave a hand signal to Anna indicating the number of agents in the hallway. They were a blessing and a curse. They provided the duo with cover for their final approach, but he knew they would have to kill many of them in the fog of war they were about to enter. Anna indicated her readiness, and they threw themselves into the open corridor with their weapons raised.

              It was the flash of the guns reflecting off the cheap ceiling lights that first caught Jamal’s attention. His eyes bulged when he saw the two people appear at the opposite end of the hallway. Malcolm and Anna fired simultaneously. The noise reverberated throughout the hallway, amplified by the metal walls. One of the agents yelped in pain as a bullet tore into his shoulder.

              “Intruders! Kill them now!” Jamal screamed.

One of the agents pushed the door open in a
n attempt to get into the Situation Room and hide from the fusillade of bullets that were exploding everywhere. Jamal threw his shoulder into the other side of the bulletproof door, resisting it.

A second agent now applied pressure to the door
, as well, and it finally flew open. Jamal jumped back out of the way. His only duty was to protect Zach long enough to complete the firing sequence. The two agents looked at the bloodied bodies in the room in stunned surprise. Jamal repeatedly squeezed his trigger, pumping one of the agents with four shots. The lifeless body thudded to the floor.

             
The second agent looked at Jamal, and then turned towards the hallway. Two of his four friends lay motionless on the floor behind him, and the other two were bringing their weapons around to fire amidst a pool of their own blood. Their hands held loose grips on their pistols. They were wounded and fading fast. As the agent turned around to assist his colleagues Jamal fired into his back, and then retreated to the other side of the room to watch over Zachariah.

              Anna and Malcolm approached the open doorway. Malcolm had worked in some of the dirtiest and dangerous countries in the world doing things he would never tell a soul, but none of them even remotely compared to this. He was slaughtering Secret Service agents.

The man in the doorway still did not drop his weapon despite Anna’s screams to throw it to the floor. Malcolm slammed
a new magazine into his weapon and regretfully blasted away, striking the agent from the front as Jamal’s shot simultaneously hit him from behind. They both got low to the ground and jumped through the open door, using the massive table in the middle of the room to shield as much of their bodies as possible. Both of them were on one knee, their clothes soaked from the blood of the Secret Service agents.

             
“Drop the weapon, Jamal. It’s over!” Malcolm’s voice boomed. Jamal replied with several wild gunshots that blasted into the table, sending chipped fragments flying.  Anna winced as one of the bullets grazed her arm. Jamal now positioned his body directly in front of Zach, who was still furiously working the nuclear football. It was taking longer than anticipated. The color-coded bar turned from red to green.

“Almost there!”  Zach said fiercely to Jamal.

Jamal grabbed Zach’s gun off the table just as his own ran dry, and pumped several more wild shots towards the two figures now hunched behind the other end of the long conference table.

             
“Anna, unload your clip and keep him occupied for a second!”

Anna immediately lifted herself back onto one knee, exposing her upper torso, and began firing off several errant shots. Jamal steadied his weapon and fired, catching her in the right shoulder. The showdown gave Malcolm just enough time. He swung his left leg u
nderneath the table as if he were a soccer player looking to make a particularly dirty sweep of an opposing player. He caught several of the chairs with his leg and pushed them out of the way. The underside was now much less cluttered and provided him a better opening. At the same time his leg swept the chairs, he unloaded the empty magazine and rammed another one into place just as the view under the table opened.

He fired off most of the chamber. A few of the bullets splintered the wood of the two remaining chairs, but the last several bullets found their mark.
They slammed into Jamal’s legs and he buckled, dropping to the floor and exposing Zachariah. 

Malcolm emptied the last of
the magazine into Zachariah. The President collapsed to the floor, dragging the nuclear football with him. Malcolm quickly installed a fresh magazine, raised himself up off the floor, and fired two shots into Jamal’s chest. He then began making his way towards the two traitors.

“Stay put
, Anna,” he commanded to his wounded partner.

Malcolm turned his attention to Zachariah Hardin. The Pres
ident was breathing erratically. His hand reached out in a vain attempt to push the final button that would bring him to glory and martyrdom. Malcolm scooped up the briefcase and sat it on the table. He needed to get someone down here who knew how to properly handle it.  He stepped on Zach’s shoulder, pinning him to the ground.

“Find out what they did
with Alex.” Anna’s raspy and weakened voice floated across the room to him. She was slumped on the floor and about to pass out.

“Where is Alex Bryce? He vanished yesterday,” Malcolm demanded as he stood over the dying President.

“You are just like all the other Americans. Too weak to do what is necessary,” Zachariah said as he foamed at the mouth like a rabid dog.

“Where is he?” Malcolm
stepped down on Zach’s shoulder with more force.

“He is at Jamal’s house. He should
still be alive. Unlike you,” Zachariah said with a venomous tone.

Malcolm shot him in the head execution style. As far as he was concerned, it was the least vile th
ing he had done that day. He picked up the phone on the table and rang the Vice-President. Or President rather, Malcolm mentally corrected himself. The man had been waiting patiently upstairs for his instructions from Zach. After several minutes Malcolm finally reached him, and ordered him down to the Situation Room. He told him to bring in the medical team that was always on call at the White House.

                                               ***

             
                “Oh, my God.”

Malcolm turned around when he heard the
New York accent of Zach’s running mate. The new President was standing in the doorway, unable to mutter anything else. The air seemed to be sucked out of his lungs. He dashed for the corner and threw up in the garbage can, his whole body heaving in convulsions. His Secret Service agent stepped through the doorway right behind him with a look of shock that was becoming commonplace to Malcolm.

             
“Make sure the President is okay.” He emphasized the word President to the agent who nodded his understanding. “After he reinstates me as CIA Director we have a story to concoct,” Malcolm said with authority. He walked over to Anna and knelt down beside her. She opened her eyes. They sat in silence as a group of doctors swarmed into the basement to administer help to the wounded. Anna and Malcolm exchanged smiles of congratulations tempered with the knowledge that this was only a battle in a long and deadly war. 

EPILOGUE

             
The successive explosions echoed throughout the underground firing range. After a final thirty seconds of continually squeezing the trigger Alex Bryce stopped and put the pistol on the wooden table in front of him. The ejected shell casings tinkled quietly on the concrete floor before coming to a rest. The basement was now eerily silent after thirty minutes of shooting practice. Alex used his right foot to sweep away the empty shell casings on the ground before taking off his ear protectors and setting them beside the pistol. He flipped a switch, and a hydraulic pole in the ceiling hissed softly as it brought the silhouetted target of a human up to his face. Alex took the target off the pole, limped over to his chair, and began studying his handiwork.

             
“Not bad. You’re getting better.” The familiar voice of Anna Starks spoke authoritatively from the stairwell behind him.

             
Alex swiveled around to look at his superior. He stood back up and smiled. He had not seen her since she appeared at Jamal’s house to cut him free of his bindings, and he had not been in a proper state of mind to discuss anything then. Alex had to undergo minor surgery on his legs, and had spent the last few weeks under the care of an Agency doctor. Malcolm had decided to ship him back to the cabin to recuperate.

             
“Don’t move. I’ll come to you,” Anna said as she hurriedly covered the distance between them. They had a long embrace before separating. “How are the legs?” Anna asked.

             
“Better. The doctor said it will take a month or so for the muscles to heal, but I should be a hundred percent after that,” Alex replied. The reminder of his ordeal caused him to feel woozy so he sat back down. “Enough about me. What happened at the White House?” Alex asked. “I’ve been following the news from here, but I’m assuming everything in those stories was planted by Malcolm.”

             
Anna picked up the empty pistol and squinted down the target sights before putting it back on the table. “We were right, Alex. We caught Zach as he was trying to launch nuclear missiles on U.S. cities. Malcolm shot them both dead. I wasn’t much help,” she said as she motioned to her bandaged shoulder. “We’ll fill you in on the details later.”

             
Alex nodded solemnly. He assumed there must have been a nasty shootout in the White House. The press reports announced that a gas leak in the Situation Room killed the President, some Secret Service agents, and several members of the president’s Cabinet. “How long do you think you can keep that story going?” Alex asked.

             
“I’m not sure. We will just have to wait and see. My guess is not very long. There are too many people who witnessed the carnage. Some of the families of the agents are skeptical, as well. They d’dn't like having to wait to see the bodies of their loved ones. Eventually we will probably have to tell at least some version of the truth of what happened. For now, though, all the witnesses, including the President, are in agreement to keep it quiet.”

             
“What about me?” Alex asked with some trepidation.

             
“As far as the rest of the world is concerned you are dead. It was the only way to clean up the mess in Las Vegas. Your ex-wife was informed.”

             
Alex looked vacantly through the holes in the silhouetted target before dropping it to the floor. “I guess that makes sense. I don’t have any siblings and my parents died a few years ago. Still seems a little harsh though. What about my job?”

             
“You’re going to work with me. Our job is not finished yet. I haven’t told you the full story.”

             
“Okay. What now?” Alex said nervously. He was no longer surprised by anything.

             
“Jamal escaped. After Malcolm shot him we didn’t check him closely because we assumed he was dead. The doctors swarmed the room, and Jamal’s body was immediately taken away to a secret morgue with some of the other agents who were killed. The ambulance never made it to the morgue. It was found abandoned a few hours later. The driver was dead. We found a discarded bulletproof vest and a thin plastic covering that contained packets of animal blood. Apparently the blood that Malcolm saw oozing from Jamal’s chest actually came from this plastic covering that he wore over the vest. In our hurry to scrub the room clean we royally screwed up.”

             
“Where is Jamal now?” Alex asked with a slightly menacing tone. Now that he knew his torturer was alive his blood pressure began to rise. Alex knew it was foolish, but he hoped they would be going after the crazed lunatic.

             
“Somewhere in the Caribbean, I think. I’ve spent the last week looking into Aman’s operations. He owned a boat that he kept off the coast of Miami. The boat disappeared from its mooring a few days ago. We tracked down several people who gave descriptions of someone who sounds very similar to Jamal,” Anna replied.

             
“Why is he going to the Caribbean?”

“We think he’s going after Solomon.”

              “Solomon? Aman’s head of security?” Alex asked with surprise.

             
“Yeah. We found a stolen rental car in an airport garage a few weeks back. It was the same car used in the assassination of Sean and Colin. We went through airport surveillance at Dulles and found images of Solomon catching a plane to Belize. We think Solomon has money stashed somewhere in the Caribbean.”

             
“Is Jamal after his money, or wanting to kill him to keep him quiet?” Alex asked.

             
Anna smiled knowingly. Alex was proving to be a quick learner. She was beginning to think he would make an excellent partner. “We’re not sure. Maybe both. Solomon certainly has secrets in his head, and he has money hidden away. Jamal is going to need money to escape.”

             
“When do we start?” Alex asked with a hint of impatience.

             
“I’m leaving for Belize tomorrow to try to pick up the trail. You are going to have a month of intensive training by a top operations man, and then you will be meeting up with me.”