Chapter 1
Somewhere in Virginia, USA
Present day
“Mr. President.”
“Please, sit down, Miss Corvasce.”
The president waved his hand, and only when she was seated on the rich blue and gold divan did he sit in the leather chair across from her. The royal blue curtains were closed, and the room was lit by only one Aladdin Vertique lamp with a base formed of rich yellow glass shaped like a goblet. She kept her eyes on the man across from her, but it vividly impressed every element of the room into her consciousness. Marla’s back was sore from being locked into place and forced to sit on a metal bench for hours and hours while the blacked-out van drove her to this meeting. They stared at each other, each of them taking the other’s measure. He seemed at ease, but she knew it was an act.
“May I call you Marla?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. I will only speak with you for a short while, Marla. Please don’t interrupt me with questions. I am not being autocratic, it is only the way it must be because of the situation. So, please listen to what I have to say. More than you know depends on it. Then go with the men who will escort you to your mission location. Everything will become clear when you meet the man to whom you will be reporting. His name is Traverse Nations. He has mission authority, unless you find he has become unstable or determine that he is under the influence of our enemy.”
Marla said nothing, but a warning bell went off inside her mind. For the president even to imply such things was a message of import.
“Do not ask me today about the situation or its ramifications. Do not inquire as to your resources or limitations. You will learn all of that from Mr. Nations or on your own as you are able.
“Now I will speak to you as your President, then I will speak to you as a fellow citizen and as a human being. When I am through, I will allow you one question before you leave and one question only. I wish it were not so, but it is. If I can answer your question, I will. If I cannot, so be it.”
Filament cameras would be invisible to the eye. The invasive technology had to be accepted. There was little to be done about it. The whereabouts of the security personnel was likewise a mystery to her. They were the ultimate professionals with the most advanced weaponry and tactics in the world, so she did not bother to attempt to locate either them or the monitoring equipment. It would be seen as a micro-aggression, and such behavior would have consequences. They were protecting the leader of the free world, which was difficult enough, but President Mahomed Usman was also the first Muslim president of the United States and the number of men and women his election had enraged caused a staggering increase in their already heightened awareness.
For the president himself to ask for a private meeting with her was something she could never have imagined. It was unthinkable, unless something of great consequence was at stake. The President did not meet with field operatives. She realized she was being sent to the Middle East, and that whatever was involved was so incredibly delicate and dangerous that he and his advisers thought this meeting was called for. That thought both thrilled and excited her.
“As I said, I have but little time to spend with you, Marla. In fact, I have,” he smiled, “no time at all to spend with you, but here I am. I can tell you with complete surety that only a few people on this earth know where I am at this moment. Our secrecy must be absolute. The brevity of this meeting helps ensure that. After tonight, I will never see you again. You will accomplish your mission and then disappear.”
Marla inclined her head to acknowledge the serious nature of the situation, whatever it was. Do the job. Get gone.
“Good,” he said, steepling his hands before his chest as though praying. “I imagine you have an idea that I am about to send you to the Middle East.”
Again, she nodded.
“That would be wrong. That would be much too easy. Where I am sending you is right here, inside our own country. Its location is kept secret, so you will once again be traveling in the blacked-out van. You have, I am assured, the stamina to do this.”
This time, Marla did not move at all. She’d made the mistake of signaling her thoughts once. There was no way she would make that mistake again. It was difficult to repress the question of where and why, but she kept her mouth shut. He would tell her in his own time.
“Do you know, Marla, that when I became President, a part of me thought my most challenging task would be to stay alive long enough to make a difference? Before that, at every campaign stop we made, I and my security detail, the press and multitudes of others feared suicide bombers and assassins would plague us. The thought of innocents dying simply because I stopped in their towns to campaign kept me awake at night. My campaign handlers would have had a nervous breakdown if it ever leaked that I took sleeping pills to sleep at night and daily doses of Xanax to keep my anxieties under control in those days.
“The reason I am telling you this is because shortly after assuming office, I learned for the first time in my life the meaning of real fear, and it had nothing to do with suicide bombers.”
On the ride over, she had tried desperately to work out where she was being taken to, but had finally given up. She could feel the road’s twists and turns, and make guesses about the terrain, but with a black bag over her head, cotton stuffed in her ears and her wrists and ankles chained to a solidly mounted steel pillar bolted to the van’s floor and ceiling, there was no way to make a good guess.
“I am a Muslim American, Marla. I love this country with a passion that sometimes eludes my fellow citizens and my brethren around the world. It is hard for them to believe that I am both a faithful Muslim and a loyal, patriotic American. If I use the name Allah to refer to our divine creator, many of my fellow Americans are certain I wish to enforce Sharia law across our country. If I use the name God to refer to our divine creator, many of my brethren around the world believe that I am a traitor to Allah. It is an impossible line to walk at worst, and nearly impossible at best.
“I came to this office with a campaign promise to restore true openness to our political process and to unite citizens of all faiths and in that, I include those with no faith. This last offends the religious. The religious offend the atheists. Ah, well, there you have it.”
President Usman sat comfortably reclined in the wing backed leather chair. He seemed completely at ease, but Marla had too much time in the field not to notice the haunted look in his eyes. They were restless, flitting about the room as though looking for hidden attackers. That, of course, was impossible. With the level of security at his command she doubted if even a determined ant could have invaded the room. But besides his nervous eyes, his fingers also tapped on his legs. She doubted he realized it. For a man as skilled in statesmanship as President Usman, it would take a lot of pressure to crack his composure.
“Only when I came to office was I informed of something so monstrous there was no responsible way to pull it into the sunlight to be examined and dealt with, if that could ever be accomplished at all. It is a secret our government has kept for just under a century. No one truly knows of his origin. But I can tell you, both as your President and as a citizen, that it is a danger to every man, woman and child in this country and even, I fear, to the entire world. I am at great pains to impart to you that this is not in the slightest an exaggeration. There is a great evil in our country, Marla, and I do not mean terrorists or criminal gangs or foreign agents of espionage. I do not mean an impending natural disaster or a plague or even a nuclear attack. It is something much, much worse. You must stop it. We are all in great peril. Your mission, your only goal is to completely destroy it.”
She did not understand what he was talking about or where he was going with this, but that did not worry her so much as the fact that he’d slipped once and referred to the evil as he instead of it.
“I speak to you now as a husband and father. I love my family. I have two sons and a daughter. They and my wife are everything in this life I value. As a family man, I love this country and the best of what it stands for. As a citizen of the human family, too, I am concerned. You may think I’m making a speech. And I am. I feel compelled to. I am making a speech to you that, I hope, will be impassioned enough to give you strength when you will most need it. As a prudent man, I have many fears about the future of the human race. As a family man, I labor hard to contribute to the peace, the security and the equality of all people. As a man devoted to God, I pray every day that we all turn our hearts to heaven for love and mercy. These are not words from a campaign speech, Marla. They are words from my heart. But from this day forward I will pray for your victory and your safe return, especially, for your safe return. Remember what I say, and it may give you strength in the days ahead.
“Now you may ask me your one question. I remind you, do not ask what I cannot answer.”
For the first time, she noticed what he was wearing. The navy blue sweater with a crew neck. The white broadcloth of his shirt collar stuck up above it. The French vanilla khaki pants, with the crisp pressed line running down the front of each leg. The casual shoes. His thin beard and mustache, his strong chin and unlined face. Even at the age of fifty-eight, he looked able-bodied and fit, thoughtful and intelligent, and, most important, the compassion on his face appeared to be real. Too good to be true, but he was, after all, the President of the United States. Marla knew about politicians, but some were better than others.
“Why me?”
He looked away from her as he answered.
“Because it asked for you,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. “Your grandfather stole something that it wants returned.”
When he turned back he added, “Your files say that you an expert at what you do, Marla, and that your performance in the field is exemplary. You are completely mission focused. I pray that you are much, much better than that, because I do not wish to live to see the total enslavement of humanity.”
With that, he left her alone in the room.
Seven seconds later they came to take her away.
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