Chapter Sixteen

Baltimore, Maryland

Saturday, August 28, 10:15 A.M.

Time Remaining on Extinction Clock: 97 hours, 45 minutes

Mr. Church closed his phone and laid it on the desk in front of him. He was a big man, broad shouldered, blocky, strong. There were gray streaks in his dark hair and old scars on his face, but rather than serving to reveal his age they stood as marks of use; their presence toughened him in ways the people who knew him could recognize but not define.

For over a minute he sat with his big hands resting on either side of the phone, which sat just off-center of the green desk blotter. He might have been a statue for all the animation he betrayed. His eyes were only shadows behind the lenses of his tinted glasses.

To his left was a glass of water, no ice. Beside it was a plate of vanilla wafers. After he’d sat for two full minutes, Mr. Church selected a cookie and bit off a piece, munching it thoughtfully. He brushed a crumb from his red tie.

Then he swiveled in his chair and reached for his office phone. He punched a code to engage the scrambler and then entered a special number. It was answered on the fourth ring.

“Brierly,” said a crisp male voice.

“Linden,” said Church, “I know you’re busy, but I want you to listen very closely. This is a Brushfire Command Protocol.”

“Ah,” said Brierly, “it’s you. I was hoping you lost my number.”

“Sorry to disappoint. Please verify that you’re on active scramble so we may proceed.”

Brierly made a sound that might have been a curse, but he verified the scramble. Linden was the Regional Director of the Secret Service and was directly responsible for overseeing the safety of the President while the Commander in Chief was in Walter Reed for his heart surgery. One slip and Brierly would be working out of a field office in the Dakotas. A successful job, on the other hand, could be the last résumé item needed for the step up as overall Director of the Secret Service, which would make Brierly the youngest man to hold that office. The hot money-and the heavy pressure-was on him during the current crisis.

“Here is the Brushfire code,” said Church, and recited a number-letter string that identified him and his authority to make this call.

Brierly read back the code, moving one digit and adding another.

Church repeated the code and made his own two-point change.

“Verified,” said Brierly. “Brushfire Protocol is active.”

“I agree,” said Church.

“You just activated a Presidential Alert, my friend. We’d better have missiles inbound or Martians on the White House lawn. You do know what’s happening today?” Even with the mild audio distortion of the scrambler, Brierly’s sarcasm was clear as a bell.

Church said ten words: “The Vice President is trying to take down the DMS.”

“What?”

Church explained.

“Jesus H. Christ, Esquire,” Brierly growled, “the President will fry him for this. I mean fry him. Even if he has the Attorney General in his corner, Collins can’t possibly believe that he’s going to make a case against you.”

“He seems to think so.”

“This is weird. I know him pretty well, and this is not like him. For one thing, he doesn’t have the balls for this.”

“Then he grew a set this morning. For now let’s assume he wouldn’t attempt this kind of play if he didn’t have some interesting cards in his hand. What they are and how he’ll ultimately play them is still to be seen.”

“I’m starting to get a bad feeling about why you called me.”

“Listen to me, Linden. If the VP gets MindReader he also gets everything stored in MindReader. Take a moment and think that through.”

Brierly didn’t need a moment. “Christ!”

“Yes.”

“Can’t you take it offline? Dump the hard drive and wipe it with an EMP?”

“Sure, and we’d lose active tactical analysis on forty-six terrorist-related database searches, including the two assassination plots your office sent to us. If MindReader goes blind, then so does the Secret Service, a good chunk of the DEA, CIA, FBI, and ATF, and Homeland will essentially have its head in a bag. We lose our data sharing with MI6 and Barrier, not to mention certain agencies in Germany, Italy, and France. We’d be playing Texas hold ’em with blank cards.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Church… you should have shared this system with everyone from the start.”

“Really? You’d personally like to see everyone from the VP on down have total access to your records? You’d want to grant everyone in every agency the ability to read all secrets and access all files without leaving a footprint? You’d want all of the President’s personal business made public?”

“I-”

“Two words, Linden: ‘Houston Marriott.’ ”

Brierly hissed, “Don’t even joke.”

“I’m not joking, and I’m not threatening. With the President out of power, MindReader and the DMS are vulnerable. I’ll hold the line, but I don’t think either of us want to see what happens if this turns into a shoving match between the NSA and my boys.”

“They have you outnumbered and outgunned, Church.”

“You’ve met Major Courtland and Captain Ledger, I believe. You’ve seen them in action. Where would you place your heavy bets?”

“This isn’t the O.K. Corral.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Church agreed, “but the VP is making a hard play. He’s well organized, too, and using a lot of field resources. None of this went through e-mails or active command software packages, so he must have set it all up via cell phone or word of mouth. He knows enough about MindReader to do an end run around it for this operation.”

“You sound calm about it,” Brierly said.

Church bit a cookie, said nothing.

“You’re describing a coup.”

“No, this isn’t directed against the President, and the VP will probably yield power in the proper way and at the proper time. But ultimately this could bring down the presidency. Maybe the VP knows that, maybe he doesn’t… but the effect will be the same. So, indirectly this is an attack against the President.”

“No kidding.”

“This is time critical for another reason,” Church said. “We’ve just started picking up the threads of something that could be a significant threat. That’s Threat with a capital T. We’re probably already coming into this late-that’s the nature of these things-but with all of my people dodging the NSA or gone to ground we could fall completely behind the curve. I need the Vice President to call off the dogs so we can get back to work.”

Brierly sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

“What do your loyalties suggest you do?”

“Switching jobs sounds good right now. I hear they’re hiring at Best Buy.”

Church crunched his cookie, drank some water, waited.

“It’s not like I can strong-arm a doctor and force him to revive the President. He’s in recovery now, but there are protocols.”

“Yes, and Brushfire is one of them.”

“I’m going to lose my job over this.”

“Not if the President takes control before we lose MindReader.”

Brierly was a long time thinking it through. Church had time for a second cookie.

“Okay,” Brierly said, “but when the Commander in Chief is back on the checkerboard I’m going to dump all the blame on you.”

“Not a problem.”

“And what if we fail? What if the Veep gets control of your records?”

“That might require alternatives you cannot hear from me. Not even unofficially.”

Brierly cursed.

“Linden,” said Church quietly, “this is not a fight of my choosing, and I don’t know why the VP is risking so much here, but we cannot let MindReader be taken. It’s your job to make sure I don’t need to get creative while trying to keep it.”

“ ‘Creative’ doesn’t sound like a very nice option.”

“It isn’t,” said Church. “So let’s both do what we need to do to keep that option off the table. I’ll do what I can for as long as I can, but I’d like to hear a clear weather report from you soon.”