Overlord (31 page)

“What is it?” Collins ventured.

“The line of ascension for the presidency goes to the Speaker of the House.”

Collins felt his stomach roll as he angrily turned away. Henri tried to follow what was being said beneath the actual words. He stepped closer to the men.

“Besides the insanity that comes with all politicos, may I ask the significance of this action?”

“Henri, you study history, and I assume you’re well versed in the classics. What does the name Cardinal Richelieu mean to you as a Frenchman?” Carl walked past and joined Jack.

Henri looked taken back. The cardinal was a scoundrel of the first order in Dumas’s
The Three Musketeers
. “This man, this speaker of the house is a—”

“He’s no friend to the president, or to us,” Everett finished.

“What he’s saying, Colonel, is that this man Camden will most assuredly cause problems for Operation Overlord—our only chance at winning this thing,” Caulfield said.

Jack shook his head, angry that his role in Overlord was being kept from him because of the dangers he and the others faced in being captured by an enemy that, as of that moment, looked unstoppable.

Will Mendenhall ran toward them.

“Colonel—I mean, General, Doc Compton wants to see us.” He looked at Henri. “All of us.”

Collins and the four others rushed to the ambulance, where the two medics were angrily holding the rear doors open.

“Look, make it fast, this man has serious blood loss and he’s lost his right eye. His left arm is going to follow and then his life, if we don’t get him—”

The EMT was pushed aside so the four men could gather around the back of the ambulance. Jack had to push Niles back down when he tried to sit up.

“Easy there, we can hear you, Niles.”

Compton seemed to relax and then patted Jack’s restraining hand as he settled.

Will momentarily turned away when he saw the white blood-soaked gauze covering Compton’s face. The damaged arm was placed inside a clear plastic cast and the director’s white shirt had been ripped open to expose several large gashes to his chest.

“Get to … your … new stations … imperative … imperative.” He was running low on steam. “Overlord … must…” Niles coughed up blood.

“Goddamn it, we have to get this man to the front gate, we have air transport standing by there,” the medic insisted. Jack gave the man a withering look until he lowered his eyes, and then turned back to his director.

“Jack … Jack?”

“I’m here, Niles.”

“Get word … to Virginia … get out … here … and … take my … place … on the … council.”

“I will before I leave for Hawaii, I promise.” Jack watched Niles trying to find his glasses on his head. Jack knew the man’s glasses were long gone and felt so bad that he choked back his anger and sorrow.

“Jack … you … don’t understand … this isn’t right…” Niles’s voice became a whisper. “General Caulfield?”

Maxwell Caulfield stepped closer so he could hear. “I’m here, Doctor.”

“You two … tell Virginia … something is wrong.”

“What do you mean, Niles?” Collins glanced at Caulfield, who shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t understand the comment either.

“Matchstick … Matchstick … is not telling us something. It may not … matter in the end … but he knows something that … he’s kept from us.”

Jack felt the blood rush from his face. But … “I’m not following.”

“He … knows … he … knows … why. He … lied to us … The Grays aren’t here … for the planet, or resources … they…”

Niles passed out. Jack and the others were roughly pushed aside by the attendants and the doors closed.

“Sorry, he’s got to go,” the man said as he rushed to the front of the ambulance. It screamed off toward the distant front gates of Camp David.

“What in the hell did that mean?” Everett asked.

Collins waited until a Black Hawk went by overhead as he turned to Caulfield. “I have a call to make, General. Can I get to a secure phone somewhere?”

“Use my car, there’s a secure phone there with a scrambler.” Caulfield removed his coat and took another from his aide. “Someday you people have to tell me just what in the hell you do for the government. The president told me never to ask, but I would really like to know.”

Everett watched Jack run toward the parking area with the general’s aide close at his heels, then turned to Caulfield.

“No you don’t, sir, you really don’t.”

*   *   *

Will Mendenhall sat on a small outcropping of stone and watched as the FBI and Marines rounded up three of the Gray aliens and bound them hand and foot to each other. The beasts hissed and spat until several of the soldiers placed black hoods over their heads. Even then the Grays fought to free themselves by kicking out with their nylon-bound legs. Will wondered just what was behind this attack, as it hadn’t matched up with anything the Event Group had come to expect from the briefings that Matchstick had given over the past eight years. He shook his head and thought about not only the president but about his boss, Niles Compton. He never knew how close he had become with the surly little man who protected his secret department like a mother bear defending her cubs. He was distant at times and hard to like, but the one thing you could never take away from the director of Department 5656 was the fact that he was serious about the charter of the Group—he knew the answers to everything lay in the shared past.

Carl Everett sat next to Will and saw what he was looking at. Carl picked up a small stone and lightly tossed it over toward the three Grays. The rock struck the middle one and again it began to hiss and spit under the black hood. The three Marines guarding them turned and looked at Everett. Carl just held up his hands in a
What?
kind of gesture. The Marines turned back to their charges.

“The closest I can come to figuring this out is I believe this was a suicide attack. Over a hundred sacrificed themselves to get at our chain of command.”

Both Carl and Will looked up and saw Henri Farbeaux standing over them. The Frenchman had managed to find water and a rag and cleaned himself up. Everett and Mendenhall looked as if they had come out of a cave-in in some distant coal mine.

“I have to agree with you, Colonel,” Carl said, standing and keeping his eyes on the three prisoners for a moment. He turned to the Frenchman. “This doesn’t make one hell of a lot of sense. If they just want the planet, why attack the chain of command of any country? Just come down and start cleansing the world would be the order of the day. It makes no difference who goes first.”

“Confusion, I guess,” Will said as he stood, his eyes still planted on the three prisoners. He finally looked away. “The old take-the-head-of-the-snake-and-the-body-will-die thing.”

Everett smiled for the first time that day. “Is that the way they put it at Officers Candidate School, Captain?”

“Yeah—I mean, yes sir, something like that.”

“Well, maybe he has some answers for us, or at least new orders that make sense.”

Everett and Mendenhall looked in the direction that Henri had come and saw Jack returning from his call. He was joined by General Caulfield, who gestured that his staff and aides should stay back from the small group of men. The general had just been updated by the Pentagon on what was happening elsewhere in the world. They all noticed that Jack and Caulfield had the same look on their faces—they weren’t happy.

“Well?” Everett was anxious to hear what both men had to say.

Collins looked at Caulfield. “General, you may not know what we really do in that desert facility you know about, so I’ll just say this: we are run specifically by the president of the United States, as I know you’re aware. You and just a very few others suspect we are even there, and that’s the way it’s been since President Woodrow Wilson. Only the director of the National Archives and the head of the General Accounting Office know we’re officially there.”

“Okay, do you have to shoot me or something for knowing?” the general joked.

Jack finally smiled. “No, but whatever happens, Virginia Pollock, our assistant director, has a special file just in case this exact scenario ever happened.” He looked at Will and Carl. “It seems our esteemed director was smart enough to cover all his bases, and he covered this one particularly well. Under no circumstances is the new president to know about the Group. By law he is to be informed of our existence no later than ten days after taking office and is to be briefed by the director of the National Archives and the General Accounting Office. Now, no sitting president can ever dissolve our department; we are law. We are there to stay. But the president can also hamstring us. I and Ms. Pollock believe, and Niles concurred, that Camden would indeed hamstring us, thus damaging the Overlord plan. This cannot happen. You will be the only one in his cabinet that knows anything about us and it must stay that way until…” He swallowed. “Until we know the fate of the president and Dr. Compton.”

“Well, I don’t understand, but if that is what the president wants, who the hell am I to disagree?”

“Wait, what are you saying, Jack?” Carl asked.

Collins looked from face to face, then closed his eyes for the briefest of moments. He opened them and then kicked at a small piece of rubble that used to be a part of the family residence at Camp David.

“Giles Camden was just sworn into office five minutes ago at Fort Meyer.”

“Wait a minute, the goddamn president isn’t even dead yet!” Everett protested.

General Caulfield turned away, then looked up at the dazzling night sky full of stars.

“The president is now unable to fulfill his duties as commander-in-chief. Until such a time as he is mentally and physically able to perform his duties, it falls to the vice president.”

“Who’s dead,” Will Mendenhall said with a sigh.

“In that case it falls directly to the Speaker of the House.”

“Senator Giles Camden.” Caulfield turned again to face Jack and the others. “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to protect you or your group, General Collins, but one thing I do know for sure is the fact that this Camden will fire me the first chance he gets. Had too many run-ins with the bastard, and he is no friend of the president’s.”

Jack placed a hand on Caulfield’s shoulder. “Do what you can, while you can. The biggest priority according to Virginia is to keep Operation Overlord alive. They all say without it we cannot win this war.”

“I’ll do what I can.” Caulfield held out his hand. They shook and the general nodded at the others. He took a particularly longer look at the man he had seen in handcuffs not five hours earlier, Henri Farbeaux. “Damn strange outfit,” he said as the strange group of men watched him leave. The general was quickly joined by his aides and they walked out of Camp David.

“What’s up, Jack?” Everett asked as the four men gathered around.

“Virginia is using a Nellis fighter to fly to Washington; she is officially taking over Group. She’ll fight for the plan as it stands, but she can only do so much. Matchstick has requested a prisoner be taken back to the facility. I arranged that already with the FBI through General Caulfield’s people. He goes back with Will, Henri, and me. Carl, you’re to get to Houston on the first military flight you can get. Arrangements have been made at Andrews Air Force Base. As for us, we have a few pointed questions for Matchstick that he has to answer before we head to Hawaii.”

The four men stood facing each other with the whine of helicopter turbines ripping the air around them. Carl Everett looked his companions. He turned to Will Mendenhall and held out his hand.

“You take care of this guy, Captain.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Will said tightly. He always hated good-byes. “And if you run into that navy flier anywhere, tell him I said he better get his ass home safe,” Will shouted over the mounting noise of the Black Hawk.

“I think you may see Ryan before I do, but if I do, I surely will pass it on.”

The two men shook hands and Everett turned away from Mendenhall quickly and faced his friend.

“Jack,” Carl said, not knowing just how to say good-bye.

Collins looked at the watch on Carl’s wrist and then nodded his head.

“Swabby, I don’t know just what Niles, Director Lee, and Matchstick had up their sleeves, but I swear to God, it better be worth it. You are the best man I have ever known.”

The two men shook hands. Then to the astonishment of all Jack bear-hugged his friend. They stayed that way for a moment.

“You better knock it off. I mean, we’re a long way from don’t ask, don’t tell,” Carl said as they parted.

“Kiss my ass, Navy,” Jack said as he backed away.

“Ditto, you Army puke,” Everett said with a smile. “We’ll meet again, Jack, you better believe it. Maybe not here, but some place where we can raise hell.”

Collins nodded and then started walking toward the waiting Humvee. Carl turned to Henri.

“I don’t like you, Froggy, I think you know that.”

“I do indeed, Admiral.”

“But that man sees something in you the rest of us don’t. Don’t let him down.” Carl, against his better judgment, held out his right hand. “Get everyone you can home safe. I don’t think I’ll be there to see it.”

“Understood.”

The two antagonists shook hands and then Henri Farbeaux left Everett with a small salute to the man who had been chasing him since 2001.

Carl watched the Humvee leave with a last wave of Jack’s hand. He smiled as he knew he would more than likely never again see the two men he admired. With a thought toward Sarah McIntire, Jason Ryan, Niles Compton, Alice Hamilton, and the rest, Admiral Carl Everett turned and made his way toward the waiting Black Hawk and his ride to Houston.

*   *   *

Collins smiled, as did Will. They both realized they might never see the man they had come to admire more than most. It was Henri Farbeaux who put the whole scene into context.

“Gentlemen, I doubt that is the last good-bye we’ll be making. I suspect that we will have many more.” He smiled sadly. “And very possibly not many hellos and welcome homes afterwards.”

The three soldiers turned and looked at the three hissing prisoners bundled in the back of the Humvee.