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  “Mr. Secretary…”

  “Noises off,” Chase said and squeezed the trigger. The explosion pressed against Jax’s eardrums as the slug exited the guard’s skull, painting the white wall in brain matter and bone fragments.

  “JESUS!” Jax heard someone shout before registering that it was his own voice. His hand reflexively gripped his own weapon as Chase turned the gun toward him.

  “It’s coming,” the old man said sadly, leveling the weapon at Jax’s head.

  Jax’s finger squeezed the trigger four times. Two slugs struck home in the upper lobes of Chase’s lungs, knocking him back several steps. A third tore open his throat while the final one vaporized a large portion of his jaw. His narrow frame dangled there for a moment like a marionette before finally dropping to a heap on the floor.

  Jax slowly closed the ten-yard gap between them, pistol still trained on the old man, heart still galloping in his chest. No motion from either of the downed men. They were dead as dead could be.

  It took another thirty seconds for the outer guard he’d dismissed to return with others. By the time they burst through the door, Jax had placed his weapon on the table at the front of the room and was kneeling with his hands clasped behind his head.

  “It’s not what it looks like,” he said. “I need to talk to Col. Archer.”

  As the guard yanked his hands behind his back and clicked the cuffs into place, Jax’s thoughts weren’t on explaining his story. They were on Chase’s last words: It’s coming.

  Chapter 7

  “Get those off of him!” Archer barked as he stormed into the office that was serving as Jax’s own stockade. “He’s not under arrest.”

  The guard jumped at the order and unlocked the cuffs, then hurried out after Archer told him to leave him and Jax alone in the room.

  Jax rubbed his wrists and nodded to his CO as he stood. “Thank you, sir. I’m sorry it went down the way it did.”

  “Christ, man,” said Archer. “If I’d had any idea what you were walking into—”

  He shook his head. “It was a FUBAR situation, sir. Nothing anyone could have done. I just wish I would have seen what was coming.”

  Archer shook his head. “If Chase hadn’t shot that private, I fucking would have, for gross incompetence. He should have let Chase piss himself before he let him out of his restraints.”

  “Chase was incoherent the whole time I was with him. I’m no medic, but if he wasn’t hallucinating, I’ll eat my green beret.”

  Archer looked pensive. “Drugs? It doesn’t make any sense. But then what does make any fucking sense these days?”

  “Is it possible he just snapped?”

  “Anything’s possible,” the old man sighed. “But I’d rather have a better story for the masses. Marcus Chase’s epitaph shouldn’t be ‘Went crazy, killed the POTUS’.”

  “Yessir. I’ll follow whatever the official story ends up being.”

  “I appreciate that, son. Like it or not, truth is usually the first casualty of war.”

  Jax frowned. “Are we at war, sir?”

  “I don’t know what else to call it. All I know is that you and your men will have plenty to do, and soon.”

  “Yessir.”

  “I need to keep you with me until we have the story straight. I’m sure there are already a dozen rumors going around about those five gunshots, so we have to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

  ***

  Jax’s watch told him he’d been in the breakout room off the main command center for less than two hours, but his aching muscles suggested it had been more like a year. He wished he was the type who could nap, but he wasn’t; he was either fully asleep or fully awake. Being the latter, his mind refused to stop working even as he leaned back in the deep leather of the office chair, fingers laced behind his head.

  Cheyenne was starting to feel like a prison. With no windows to the outside, and with an information blackout inside, they might as well be in some undersea cave. He remembered a poster that used to hang on the wall of the poker room that his father had fashioned out of the old tool shed beside the barn: It was a cartoon toadstool and said I must be a mushroom—everyone keeps me in the dark and feeds me bullshit.

  On that note, he hoped that Hayley’s bunk was far enough from the incident that she hadn’t heard the shots fired and was still asleep. If it wasn’t, he hoped Cruz or one of the airmen-women had enough sense to tell her it was just target practice.

  The digital clock on the wall read 0211 when the door finally opened. Jax expected to see Archer, but he didn’t expect the tall drink of water who walked in beside him: Colton Raines, former Army Ranger and fellow Texan, and one of Jax’s personal heroes.

  And, as of a few hours ago, the newly minted President of the United States.

  Jax lurched awkwardly to his feet and threw up a salute that bounced painfully off his forehead.

  “At ease, Captain,” Raines chuckled, returning the salute.

  “Capt. Jackson Booth,” Archer said by way of introduction as he closed the door behind him. “I think you know who this is.”

  “It’s an honor, sir.”

  Raines looked like he’d been dragged through a knothole backward, as Jax’s grandmother had been fond of saying. His shirt was rumpled and the tie was long gone; the sleeves had been rolled up high and showed off his ropy forearms. At sixty, he was a decade older than the man he’d replaced, and probably more respected by people on both sides of the political fence—assuming politics even existed anymore. But there was no mistaking the toll the past 48 hours had taken on the man.

  “The honor’s mine,” Raines said, motioning his companions to sit. A lone man in a black suit stood next to the door with his hands clasped in front of him, staring blankly ahead. Jax wondered absently if the corded earpiece hanging from the man’s ear even worked anymore.

  “The president wanted to debrief you as soon as he heard what went down,” said Archer.

  “Let’s get one thing clear right from the get-go,” said the president. “You did what you had to do, Captain.”

  “Sir.” Jax nodded.

  “Col. Archer told me that the secretary was talking crazy at the end. Rest assured, he wasn’t on drugs. At least, not that I know of.” He sighed heavily. “Marcus had brain cancer.”

  Jax let that sink in. He wasn’t sure if knowing that made him feel better or worse about what he’d been forced to do.

  “President Fletcher was aware of it, and allowed him to continue with his duties,” Raines continued. “I guess hindsight is 20/20. It’s a safe bet that the stress of our…current situation was a contributing factor to his behavior. Did he show any signs of recognition when you were facing him?”

  “No, sir,” Jax said. “He was highly agitated. When he pulled the trigger on Peterson, I don’t think he even realized what he’d done.”

  It’s coming.

  Raines sighed. “All right, I think we’re all on the same page. We tell the American public that a great man was laid low by an illness through no fault of his own. Marcus Chase was a tragic figure, not a monster.”

  “Sir, if I may,” said Archer. “We do have another possible narrative.”

  Raines raised his palms for him to continue. Archer glanced at the Secret Service agent, then back at Raines, who nodded.

  “It was an enemy attack,” said Archer. “The Chinese sent those drones. Their agent, Private Peterson, then shot the secretary, and Booth here killed Peterson before he could finish his murder spree.” He motioned to the door. “Chase never came into the command center and surrendered. He remains a hero, and we have a visible enemy.”

  Raines leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers under his chin, but said nothing. Jax watched it unfold with rapt attention. He was used to battlefield chaos, not political maneuvering.

  Archer continued, “We go public with our intel that Eko is a weaponized virus. We know it’s a coordinated attack by North Korea, and for all we know, China was
behind it. In fact, more and more evidence is tracing whatever the hell is fucking with our computers back to them as well.”

  The colonel glanced at Jax, then back to the president.

  “Permission to declassify?”

  Raines nodded. “After everything he’s been through, I’d say it’s the least we can do.”

  Jax perked up. Finally, some questions answered.

  Archer looked him in the eye. “Things are bad, son. I’m sure you’ve already started to suspect.”

  “That incident in Atlanta was a hint,” he said, hoping it didn’t come across as sarcasm.

  “It was.” Archer nodded. “We don’t have the luxury of fucking around anymore. Eko’s death rate here in the continental U.S. is around 98 percent, with a rate of infection around the same. Less than four percent were vaccinated before the X-57 ran out, and the majority of those were military personnel.”

  For a full five seconds, Jax forgot to breathe. Ninety-eight percent? He couldn’t wrap his head around the figure. There were 340 million people in the U.S. That meant that almost 333 million people would contract Eko, and of those, some 326 million would die. Or already had died.

  Archer scowled. “I did the math in my head when I got the figures, too,” he said. “It’s hard to comprehend. We’re looking at a post-Eko population of under 15 million in the entire United States. For comparison, that’s about what it was in the 1830s.”

  Raines ran a big hand through his silver hair. His face looked heavy in the odd light of the breakout room, like a statue’s.

  “It’s enough to make you want to just run off into the night and not look back,” he said quietly. “But there’s nowhere to run to. All of our intel—hell, common sense alone—tells us the rest of the world isn’t faring any better.”

  Jax let out a shaky breath. “And this was all a weapon?”

  Archer nodded. “All this time we were worried about those crazy bastards developing ICBMs. Turns out we should have been more concerned about them fucking sneezing on us.”

  “They couldn’t have thought they could contain something like that…”

  “This is Kim Jong Un we’re talking about,” said Raines. “The one relationship even Terry Fletcher couldn’t repair. Once China cut all ties with North Korea, things went even further off the rails than they had been. Intel reports say there was a massive famine that made the 1990s look tame by comparison. We were too busy with insurgencies and terrorism in the Middle East to pay much attention to the peninsula.” He gave Jax a wan smile. “Look who I’m talking to about the Middle East. You’ve been in the heart of it.”

  “Yessir. No disrespect, but I wish I was back there right now. I’d take insurgents over this any day.”

  Raines snorted a rueful laugh. “I’d be right beside you, soldier.”

  “You can see where this is headed,” said Archer. “For better or worse, Cheyenne Mountain is the most secure place we have to ride out the crisis. That’s why President Fletcher was on his way here, and it’s why President Raines is here now. And it’s why Gen. Benton ordered Echo Company here.”

  Jax nodded. “You need soldiers who are ready for anything.”

  “And who are ready to do anything,” said Archer. “You remember our talk in Stuttgart?”

  Jax got his meaning and it turned his stomach. He nodded, picking up the hint that Archer didn’t want to talk about it in front of the president. Not that it would have come as a shock to the man. He doubted anything would shock anyone in the room at this point.

  “First things first,” said Raines. “We have to decide on the narrative for Chase. I’m going to leave it up to you, Captain. I agree that there are distinct advantages to the colonel’s suggestion, but I’m not going to order you to lie. I refuse to make that my first act as commander-in-chief.”

  Raines had a reputation as a straight shooter, and for the moment Jax allowed himself to be glad his fellow Texan would be at the helm during this crisis. He would never have wished ill on Terrence Fletcher, but he wasn’t going to lie to himself, either: Raines was the right man for the job. If there had been any doubt before, it was gone now.

  “Peterson shot Chase, I shot Peterson,” Jax said evenly. “And though I didn’t witness it personally, Peterson told me he’d also piloted the drones that shot down Air Force One.”

  The look on the president’s face was stony. “You’re sure about this, son?”

  “Yessir.”

  “All right, then, I think we’re ready to move on. Colonel, could I have a minute with Capt. Booth?”

  Archer nodded and made for the door. Raines turned to his Secret Service man and motioned toward the exit. The man raised an eyebrow, but followed suit. Jax was suddenly alone in a room with the President of the United States. Under any other circumstances, it would have been the most memorable moment of his military career.

  “Sir,” he said.

  “What part of the Lone Star State do you hail from, Jax?” Raines asked.

  “Northeast, sir. Near Jacksonville. Hence my name.”

  Raines grinned. “I thought I caught the east in that drawl. Cattle country. I’m from Houston myself.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Goes without saying your father was a fan of John Wayne.”

  Now it was Jax’s turn to grin. “The Duke was right below Jesus on the totem pole, sir.”

  “Good, good. I think Texans understand the value of a hero more than most of the country. Like Davy Crockett. Someone larger than life, you know? A guy who can rally folks around a flag.”

  Jax nodded.

  “Take the Alamo,” Raines said, turning serious again. “Did you know that there’s evidence Crockett didn’t die in battle? That he actually was one of the people who surrendered and was executed by Santa Anna’s men? They usually leave that part out of the history books, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t. There’s no way to prove it, one way or the other.”

  Jax stood in silence. He wasn’t sure if the president expected him to speak. After a few moments, Raines continued.

  “I guess what I’m saying is it doesn’t really matter what happened,” he said. “Davy Crockett is still a hero, and ‘Remember the Alamo!’ was a rallying cry for a lot of people. To those people, the legend of Davy Crockett was more important than the man.”

  “Sir?”

  “What Col. Archer said is true: Eko was a North Korean weapon against America that took the rest of the world with it. And I can confirm that we’ve traced whatever the hell that cyber weapon was back to China. Just like Eko, it got out of control and spread. In the past few weeks, Earth has been hit with a perfect storm that’s going to wipe out most of the population of the planet and may well set mankind’s clock back to the Industrial Age; maybe even further. Our experts estimate it will take at least a century of struggle to recover from this, if we even can.”

  Jax took a deep, shaky breath. He would have thought it impossible to still feel horror after everything he’d learned in the last half hour, but he was wrong.

  Raines dropped a hand on Jax’s shoulder. “Archer is right: America needs an enemy. But I think she also needs a hero. And who better for the job than the brave soldier who killed the enemy saboteur and tried in vain to save one of the greatest Americans who ever lived?”

  “Sir.”

  “One thing is certain, son: Whatever happens next, the fate of the republic rests on our shoulders. America must endure, because if America is over, then the world is over. And the world cannot be over.”

  Chapter 8

  “Everybody’s saluting you,” Hayley said as they navigated through the corridors of Cheyenne Mountain on their way to Cpl. Brown and the comms room.

  Jax had hoped she wouldn’t press the issue of finding her grandparents for a while, until he could figure out a way to tell her the truth: that America was halfway down the highway to hell, and it was headed for a steep downward grade any minute now. But here they were, on their way. The best he could h
ope for was to see her disappointed yet again.

  “It’s just a way of showing respect,” he said. “We don’t always do it.”

  “They didn’t do it before. Is it because you shot that bad guy?”

  He sighed. Raines had broken the news about Fletcher and Chase via closed circuit broadcast throughout Cheyenne at 0800. The shock soon gave way to almost fawning admiration for Jax. The members of Echo Company had practically mobbed him when he arrived for breakfast after the broadcast; Ruben had managed to restrain himself from busting Jax’s balls over the whole thing, and even saluted him.

  Maybe Raines was right—maybe people did need a hero in times when everything looked like it was falling apart. That didn’t mean Jax was comfortable with it, though.

  Thank God he had told Hayley himself in the women’s barracks before the breakfast free-for-all. She took it well, seeming to understand that things weren’t the way they had been anymore. He was learning that she was remarkably mature for someone who still had a stuffed panda; he’d noticed with some satisfaction that it was now relegated to a spot under her pillow during the day.

  “Yup,” he said, returning the salutes of a pair of airmen—male, this time—as he and Hayley turned down the anthill tunnel that led to the comms room. “It’ll stop soon.”

  “How come?”

  “Because there are too many other things to think about right now.”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense.”

  They approached the open door to the comms room and saw Cpl. Brown’s orange bun behind a bank of screens.

  “Corporal,” Jax said by way of greeting. “It’s us again.”

  She seemed startled and stood awkwardly, throwing a hand up to her brow in a salute.

  “Sir. Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

  “At ease. How are things going?”

  “Uh,” she said. “Good. Fine. Everything’s fine. Sir.”

  Her tone told Jax that everything was most definitely not fine, which he already knew.