Triggers

Chapter 7

The secretary of defense continued to study the wall-mounted deployment map; it had flickered off for a few seconds but now was back on. The aircraft carriers were mostly on station, and, as he watched, the Reagan moved a little closer to its goal.

“Mr. Secretary,” said an analyst seated near him, looking up from her workstation, “we’ve lost the White House.”

Peter Muilenburg frowned. “If primary comm is down, switch to aux four.”

The analyst’s voice was anguished. “No, sir, you don’t understand. We’ve lost the White House. It’s—it’s gone. The bomb they found there just went off.”

Muilenburg staggered backward, stumbling into a table. As he flailed to steady himself, he knocked a large binder onto the floor. His eyes stung, and he tasted vomit.

An aide burst into the room. “Mr. Secretary, they’re asking if we should evacuate the Pentagon as a precaution.”

Muilenburg attempted to speak but found he couldn’t. He gripped the edge of the table, trying to keep on his feet. The Oval Office, the Roosevelt Room, the Press Room, the Cabinet Room, the State Dining Room, the Lincoln Bedroom, and so much more…could they really be gone? God…

“Mr. Secretary?” the aide said. “Should we evacuate?”

A deep, shuddering breath; an attempt to regain his equilibrium. “Not yet,” Muilenburg replied, but it was doubtless too soft for the aide to hear. He tried again. “Not yet.” He forced himself to stand up straight. “Have them continue to sweep for bombs here, but we’ve got a job to do.” He looked again at the deployment map and found himself quaking with fury. “And no one can say they don’t have it coming.”

Bessie Stilwell looked down at her wrinkled hand; the skin was white, loose, and translucent. She was gently holding the hand of her adult son, which was smoother and not quite as pale.

Bessie had often imagined a scene like this: the two of them in a hospital room, one lying in bed and the other providing comfort. But she’d always expected it to be her in the bed, waiting to die, and Mike sitting next to her, doing his duty. After all, she was eighty-seven and he was fifty-two; that was the way the scene was supposed to be cast, their parts ordained by their ages.

But she was well, more or less. Oh, there was a constant background of aches and pains, her hearing was poor, and she used a cane to walk. But Mike should have been vigorous. Instead, he lay there, on his back, tubes in his arms, a respirator covering his nose and mouth.

His father had made it to sixty before having the heart attack that took his life. At least the coronary Mike had suffered hadn’t killed him—although it had come close. The stress of a Washington job had doubtless been a contributing factor; he should have stayed in Mississippi.

Mike had no family of his own—at least, not anymore; his marriage had ended over a decade ago. He was a workaholic, Jane had said when she left him—or, at least, that was the story Mike had conveyed to Bessie.

“Thanks for coming, Mom,” Mike said, each word an effort for him.

She nodded. “Of course, baby.”

Baby. She had always called him that. It had been five decades since he’d been as helpless as one, and yet he was again.

She moved over to his bed and leaned in—painfully, her back and knees hurting as she did so—and kissed him on the top of his bald head.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” she added.

“Thanks,” he said again, and closed his eyes.

Bessie regarded him for another half minute; he looked like his father had at the same age. Then she started the slow walk out of the hospital room and down the long corridor, heading toward the elevator.

Her eyesight wasn’t as good as it used to be, but she read the signs on the doors, noting landmarks so that she could easily find Mike’s room again tomorrow; she’d gone down the wrong corridor earlier and, when every step hurt, that was the sort of thing she didn’t want to have happen again. There were a lot of people further down the corridor, but the stretch she was in now was empty. As she passed a door labeled “Observation Gallery,” the lights in the corridor suddenly went off, startling her. Emergency lighting soon came on, but she was terrified that the elevators would be off; she was on the third floor, and doubted she could manage that many stairs.

She continued to shuffle along, and after a short time the overhead lights spluttered back to life. Up ahead, she saw the elevator door open, several people get off, and several more get on; everything seemed to be back to normal.

She finally made it to the elevator and rode down to the lobby. To her surprise, there were uniformed hospital security guards and several men in dark blue suits there, but they seemed more interested in who was trying to come into the hospital than who was leaving. She headed out into the cool air, and—

—and the world had changed since she’d entered earlier today. Thousands of car horns were honking, the sidewalk outside the hospital was packed with people, there was the smell of smoke in the air. A fire, perhaps? A plane crash? Reagan was only a short distance away…

Numerous TV crews crowded the sidewalk. Near her, a reporter—a colored man wearing a tan trench coat—was holding a microphone, waiting for a signal, it seemed, from another man who was balancing a camera on his shoulder.

It came to her that the reporter’s name was Lonny Hendricks—although why she knew that, she didn’t know. But, well, this was Washington, and stories from here often got national exposure; she supposed she must have seen him on the news back in Mississippi at some point.

She’d had trouble finding her way inside the hospital—the corridors took odd bends. But now that she was outside, she found herself feeling confident. Her hotel was that way, down New Hampshire Avenue, and—well, if she continued up there, she’d run into Dupont Circle, although…

Although she didn’t know why she knew that, either; she hadn’t had cause to go that way yet. She supposed she must have seen it while flipping through a tourist guidebook.

She slowly made her way over to the taxi stand, wondering what all the panic, all the commotion, all the noise, was about.

Seth Jerrison opened his eyes. He was lying on his back, looking up at a ceiling with fluorescent tubes behind frosted panels; one of the tubes was strobing in an irritating fashion. He attempted to speak, but his throat was bone-dry.

A face loomed in: black, perhaps fifty, gray hair, kind eyes. “Mr. President? Mr. President? Can you tell me what day it is?”

Part of Seth recognized that this was a test of competency—but another part wanted his own questions answered. “Where am I?” he croaked out.

“Luther Terry Memorial Hospital,” said the man.

His throat was still parched. “Water.”

The man looked at someone else, and a few seconds later, he had a cup of ice chips in his hand. He moved it over and tipped it so that a few went into Seth’s mouth. After they’d melted, Seth asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m Dr. Mark Griffin. I’m the CEO here.”

Seth nodded slightly. “What happened?”

The man lifted his eyebrows, wrinkling his forehead in the process. “You were shot, Mr. President. The bullet ruptured the pericardium—the sac that contains the heart—bruised the right atrium, and clipped the superior vena cava. A centimeter to the left and, well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Seth wanted to speak again, but it took him several seconds to find the strength. “Anyone else hurt?”

“Not by gunfire. Some members of the crowd were injured in the panic that ensued—broken bones, bloody noses—but nothing life-threatening.” Griffin paused for a moment, then: “Sir, forgive us for waking you up. Normally, we’d keep you under as long as possible while you heal, but, well, you are the president, and you need to know. First let me assure you that no one was hurt—the First Lady, as you know, is in Oregon. She’s fine, and so is everyone else. But there’s been an explosion at the White House. The bomb was spotted before it went off, and they got everyone out.”

Seth’s head swam. He’d long lived in northern California; he’d felt the ground literally shift beneath his feet before—but this was more disorienting, more terrifying: the whole world shifting, changing, crumbling. His heart pounded, every beat a knife thrust.

“They’re relocating most of the White House staff to a facility in Virginia, I’m told,” said Griffin. Mount Weather was an underground city there, built during the Cold War; there were contingency plans for running most of the executive branch from it.

“Take me…there,” said Seth.

“Not yet, sir. It’s not safe to move you. But your chief of staff will be at the Virginia facility soon. He can be your eyes and ears there; we’ll get you a secure line to him.” A pause. “Mr. President, how do you feel?”

Seth closed his eyes; everything went pink as the overhead light filtered through his eyelids. He tried to breathe, tried to hold on to his sanity, tried not to let go—not to let go again. At last, he managed to speak. “Were…were my…injuries…life-threatening?”

“Yes, sir, to be honest. We almost lost you on the operating table.”

Seth forced his eyes open. To one side, he saw Susan Dawson and another Secret Service agent whose name he didn’t know. He felt weak, still parched, emotional agony layered atop all the physical pain. “Did you…open my chest?”

“Yes, sir, we did.”

“Did my heart stop?”

“Sir, yes. For a time.”

“They say…if you’re about to die…your life…flashes in front of your eyes.”

Griffin, still looming over him, nodded. “I’ve heard that, sir, yes.”

Seth was silent for a few moments, trying to sort it all out, trying to decide if he wanted to confide in this man—but it had been the damnedest thing. “And, well,” he said at last, “something like that happened to me.”

Griffin’s tone was neutral. “Oh?”

“Yes. Except…” He looked at the doctor for a moment, then turned his head toward the windows. “Except it wasn’t my life that I saw.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Someone else’s memories,” said the president. “Not mine.”

Griffin said nothing.

“You don’t believe me,” Seth said, with effort.

“All sorts of weird things can happen when the brain is starved for oxygen, Mr. President,” Griffin said.

Seth briefly closed his eyes—but the images were still there. “That’s…not it. I…have someone else’s…memories.”

Griffin was quiet for a moment, then said, “Well, you’re in luck, sir. As it happens, we’ve got one of the world’s top memory experts here—a fellow from Canada. I can ask him—”

Griffin’s BlackBerry must have vibrated because he fished it out and looked at the caller ID. “Speak of the devil,” he said to Jerrison, then into the phone: “Yes, Professor Singh? Um, yes, yes. Wait.” He lowered the handset and turned to Susan Dawson. “Is your middle name Marie?”

Susan’s eyebrows went up. “Yes.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Griffin said into the phone. “What? Um, okay. Sure, I guess. I’ll tell her. Bye.”

Griffin put the BlackBerry away and turned to face Susan. “Our resident memory expert would like to speak to you up in his office.”