The 13: Fall (4 page)

“Yet fourteen days, and the United States shall be overthrown!”

   CHAPTER 3   

J
on Keene started every day the same. Up at five fifteen, dressed by five twenty-five, and out the door by five thirty. He usually tried to keep at least a seven-minute mile pace, but lately he was beginning to feel the effects of his thirty-seven-year-old body. A couple minor football injuries in his teens, several combat tours in his midtwenties, and a sore back from a recent golf outing were all barking at him right now as he pushed himself through the last quarter mile of his daily run.

He saw the black SUV parked in his driveway from two hundred yards out. Not a big deal. He was used to it. Jennings sent people to fetch him all the time. But not this early. No matter, he wasn’t going anywhere without a shower and a quick bite to eat. Whoever it was, probably some errand runner, would just have to wait.

The back window of the Tahoe slid down as he slowed his pace to a walk and made his way alongside the drive.

“Good morning, Jon,” the man said.

“Yeah … it was.” Keene folded his arms and stood stiff.

The door opened and Kevin Jennings, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, stepped out.

“We need to go. I’ll give you ten minutes to shower and change.”

Keene feigned a smile at his boss. “I’m touched that you came yourself. What? Couldn’t find a staffer to come pick me up?”

Jennings dismissed Keene’s mock humor. “Ten minutes. And make them good. We’re going to see the Man.”

Keene noted Jennings’s seriousness and turned toward the house without another word. He unlocked the door and went inside.

He took the stairs two at a time, shedding clothes along the way. He had been to the White House a couple times. But never at six o’clock in the morning. Never to meet the president—usually just to pick up a dignitary of some sort. And never escorted personally by the director of the CIA.
Surely this couldn’t have anything to do with that quack who hacked the Black-Ops list last week from the CIA
, he thought. “Nah,” he said aloud to no one, “probably sending me to bring in some high-level asset from Iran or something.”

He turned the lever on the shower and didn’t even wait for the water to warm before jumping in. This, too, was part of his ritual. The initial shock to the body of the cold water got his blood pumping and woke him up mentally.

Nine minutes later, Jon Keene stepped out of his house, shirt untucked, tie draped over his shoulder, and a blueberry muffin dangling from his mouth, as he held his coffee in one hand and his keys in the other.

“You could’ve finished getting dressed,” Jennings said.

“You said ten minutes,” Keene answered opening the door on the other side.

   CHAPTER 4   

P
resident Grant checked himself in the mirror and straightened his tie. He had already been up for an hour and a half, not that he’d slept any last night. The video from the man calling himself the Prophet had left a foul taste in his mouth. And not because this Prophet was giving him orders, or trying to. Calvin Grant was not a man given to ego. Yes, he took himself seriously, but only in the sense that he was charged with the most powerful office in the world. In actuality, the office served to humble him.

Calvin Grant, born Calvin Lincoln Grant, was the cliché American dream. He’d spent his youth living in the projects of Nashville, Tennessee, fighting just to stay out of trouble long enough to get the education his mother had begged him to understand was vital to change his life and his economic situation. He had listened to her. And along the way, he quickly learned two important lessons: Those who sought to achieve great things, more often than not achieved great things. But those who sought to serve their fellow man achieved something that no title or amount of money could buy.

He had been in his third year at Middle Tennessee State University when he met his wife. Tess, short for Tessania, had wrecked his world from the moment he laid eyes on her. He had been walking across campus with his head down when he ran into her. Literally. After he knocked her and her books to the ground, he bent down to help her pick up the mess, stringing together a line of apologies. That is, until he looked up and saw her for the first time. Her smile, her eyes, her hair, all captivated him and held his tongue ransom for words.

She had finally broken the silence by introducing herself. He took her hand to shake it and noticed the book she had been holding. A Bible. Before he could turn and leave, she took the initiative and asked if he went to church. He told her that he had, sometimes. On Christmas and Easter, for sure. The look she had given him was one of pity. Then she invited him to a Bible study at a friend’s house that night. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Twenty-eight years of marriage, a masters in public policy from Georgetown University and then a law degree from Pepperdine, three kids and a grandchild on the way, and two terms as governor of the great state of Tennessee later, Calvin Grant occupied the highest office of the land. And having just finished his morning quiet time in the scriptures, he was about to walk into a meeting that scared him for sure. One that he had asked for, but nevertheless the subject of this meeting shook him to his core. It would not be fun. For anyone present. For what he was about to suggest would immediately call into question his sanity, and quite possibly his ability to run the country.

President Grant stepped out of the bathroom, bumping into the door frame, and back into the bedroom, where Tess was stirring.

“You look beautiful this morning, darling.”

“And you are still a handsome old klutz,” she said as she sat up smiling. “Come here and let me fix that tie. You can’t go anywhere looking like that.”

President Grant shuffled over to the bed and sat down. He let Tess straighten the Windsor before he reached for her hands.

“Pray with me, Tess. This meeting is going to get heated. Fast.”

The seriousness was not lost on his wife. She held his face in her hands and said, “Calvin, you are the most God-honoring man I’ve ever met. You have been blessed by the Lord with this position. You and I both know that He has ordained this. Whether this guy from last night is a crazy person or for real, you are the right man to be in this office right now.

You just go in that room and lead those men. Trust that God will give you wisdom. And at the end of the day, God’s will most definitely will prevail. Now, let’s pray.”

Holding his wife’s hands in his, he bowed his head.

   CHAPTER 5   

M
egan Taylor sat in her green Volkswagen Bug on the DC beltway in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Not even seven a.m. and already traffic was backed up as far as the eye could see. Oh well, that’s what she got for living outside the city. Sure, rent was a lot cheaper, but some days she wondered if it was worth sitting for over an hour each way in this mess.

It wasn’t like it truly mattered, though. She had no personal life. What life she did have, she spent losing countless hours of sleep, poring over data that was supposed to keep things like what happened last week with the CIA Black-Ops list from happening.

Megan had known from the age of thirteen she wanted to be an FBI agent. She had read several novels depicting a heroine FBI agent who somehow always seemed to save the world right at the last minute. She was hooked after the first novel. She spent her teenage years learning everything she could about the Bureau. She became heavily entrenched in team sports. Lacrosse, swim team, and Softball were all favorites. But it was soccer that won her the most attention. And it was soccer that landed her a full ride to Harvard, where she took advantage of the free education. Somewhere along the line, Megan realized she had a knack, a gift actually, for computers. And it was this gift that got her noticed by the same agency she had set out to conquer in the first place. They took notice, all right. Just not the way she had intended.

Megan had opened her door one night to a sorority sister who looked like she’d been up all night crying. It seemed that the friend’s ex-boyfriend, a computer savant himself, had taken it upon himself to share with the entire Harvard faculty a few photos her friend had never posed for. The pictures had been doctored to look like she was stealing and then copying student records from the records office. Once Megan had identified the program the hacker had used, she turned it around on him. But in her version, not only was he the one who now seemed to be the thief, but some of the people he seemed to be selling to were known drug dealers and criminals in the area.