Chapter Forty-Four

The White House
Saturday, August 28, 4:10 P.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 91 hours, 50 minutes

The Vice President of the United States sat behind his desk, but he felt like he was under a spotlight in the back of a police squad room. Three people stood in front of his desk. Two men and a woman. They’d declined seats or coffee. None of them were smiling. Bill Collins looked from face to face and knew that he had no friends in the room.
The Speaker of the House, Alan Henderson, ran the show. As second in the line of succession, it was his job, if it was anyone’s. He wore an expensive suit with a faint pin stripe and a bow tie that was forty years out of style. Even during the gravest of national emergencies, the Speaker usually wore a smile of mild amusement that was emblematic of his well-known “this, too, shall pass” point of view. Now his face was as lugubrious as a mortician.
“Well, Bill, I’d say you screwed the pooch on this one. Screwed the pooch and then ran the damn thing over with a steamroller. I just came from seeing the President. You gosh-darn near gave him the heart attack his doctors were trying to sidestep with the bypass.”
The Secretary of State cleared her throat. “I find it alarming that you didn’t consult with me before launching this operation.”
“Are you finished?” Collins asked coldly. “First things first, Alan, when I issued those orders I was the Acting President of the United States, so let’s be quite clear about chain of command here. Whereas I appreciate your loyalty and service to the country, I don’t appreciate your taking that tone of voice with me.”
That shut them all up.
“Second, before I acted I consulted with the Attorney General. Nathan.?”
Nathan Smitrovich, the Attorney General, nodded, though he clearly looked uncertain as to how this was going to play out. “That’s right, Alan. He called me and we talked it over. I. um, advised him to bring a few other people into the loop, but he said that there was an issue of trust.”
“Trust?” Alan Henderson suddenly looked anything but mild and homespun. “What the hell. who the hell do you think you-”
“Calm down, Alan,” said Collins. “No one is leveling any accusations. At least not at you. Or at anyone in this room. But you have to understand my position. I received confidential information from a source who is positioned well enough to have insider knowledge. The information not only outlined an ongoing campaign of blackmail against the President but included hints that many other members of Congress might be under similar control. I couldn’t risk making this an open issue. If anyone else was involved, then the blackmail material Mr. Church has might have been made public, and that could have brought down this administration. At the very least it would have crippled it.” He sat back and looked at them, his face calm and open. “You tell me how you would have acted? Tell me how you would have done things differently?”
The Secretary of State, Anne Hartcourt, folded her arms and cocked her head. She didn’t look convinced. “I could buy the confidential informant bit, Bill, and if I stretch my credulity I could accept your rationalization for not including any of us. But are you going to sit there and tell me that this entire operation was cooked up, planned, and set into motion only after the President went under sedation?”
Collins laughed. “Of course not. This information was brought to me a few days ago. After it was announced that the President was to undergo surgery. My informant said that it was the only opportunity he felt would allow for me to make a swift and decisive countermove.”
“Who is this informant?” asked Henderson.
Collins flicked a glance at the AG. “I told Nathan that I wanted to withhold the name of the informant pending the resolution of the situation. And the situation has not been resolved. Yes, the President is back in power, but this does not remove the threat.”
“If the threat is even real.”
“I believe it to be real.”
“Why?” asked Anne Hartcourt. “Why are you so convinced?”
Collins hesitated. “Because. the informant had information that could have come from only two sources: the President himself or someone who had somehow gathered very private information about the President.”
“What was that information?” asked the Attorney General. “You wouldn’t tell me earlier, but I damn well want to know now.”
“Not a chance, Nathan. I’m leaving for Walter Reed in five minutes. I’ll discuss this directly with the President. If he chooses to allow anyone else to participate in that conversation then it’ll have to be his choice. I will not break the confidence of the President. Not to you and not under any circumstances, even if you drag me before a subcomittee.”
When the others said nothing, he added, “I argued against forming the DMS from the beginning. I warned that it could become a threat, something we would never be able to control.”
Alan Henderson sighed. “I agreed with you about that, too, Bill, but we were overruled. And I do not believe that Mr. Church blackmailed everyone who voted against us. There are some who think that the DMS is doing a valuable, even crucial job. Right now the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland both want your head on a platter, and they don’t even like Church. But they understand the value of the DMS. Maybe your short-term memory is slipping, Bill, but DMS agents saved your wife’s life two months ago. They saved my life, too. And Anne here, and the First Lady. They’ve prevented terrorists from bringing nukes and weaponized pathogens into this country. They’ve stopped six separate assassination attempts on the President’s life. They prevented the kidnapping of the President’s daughters. And they closed down forty-three separate terrorist cells that were operating inside the United States.”
“I didn’t say they didn’t do some good,” Collins said. “I said that they were going beyond their orders and now pose a threat to this administration.”
“If your informant is correct,” said Hartcourt.
“Yes. And once I speak with the President I will cooperate in every way possible to verify this information.”
“Maybe it’s just me,” muttered Henderson, “but this has a bit of the stink of WMDs on it.”
Collins ignored that. “MindReader may be a useful tool in the War on Terror, but it’s also highly dangerous. That computer system can intrude anywhere, learn everything. Even Church isn’t authorized to know everything. You don’t think I looked into this? Asked around? People have been quietly complaining about Church for years, hinting that he’s used his computer to find things out about people and then used that information as a lever to always get his way. They’re blackmailing the President; they’re forcing him to give the DMS more and more power!”
Alan Henderson looked at the others for a moment. The Secretary of State folded her arms and said nothing; the Attorney General shrugged.
“Okay, Bill,” Henderson said, “but you’d better be right about this or this is going to come back and bite you on the ass.”
“If I thought I was wrong, Alan, I would never have done this.”
He looked at his watch.
“I have to get going. My car will be downstairs in two minutes.”

ONCE VICE PRESIDENT Collins was in his car and had the soundproof window between him and the driver shut, he took out his cell and called J. P. Sunderland.
“How’d it go?” asked Sunderland.
“I feel like I’ve been worked over by prizefighters.”
“Did they buy it?”
“So far, but they’re not exactly on our team. Since we didn’t actually come up with MindReader and can’t prove that Church has anything on the President, we’re going to have to switch to Plan B and do it mighty damn fast. I’m on my way to Walter Reed now to meet with the President. He’s going to want to tear me a new one, so it would be useful if his people got a call about our scapegoat. I don’t want this coming through me, you understand?”
“Sure. Don’t worry, Bill. I’ve got it all in hand.”
They disconnected and the Vice President sank back against the cushions and watched the gray buildings of Washington roll past. He looked calm and collected, but inside he was screaming.