orchestrated the assassination of all the people above him in the succession chain so he could take over the country?”
“I think we have a duty to investigate that possibility, don’t you?”
CHAPTER
71
PRESIDENT LARKIN SPOKE to the nation from Air Force One at nine p.m. eastern time.
Mahoney and I watched it on the big screens in the hangar. In the immediate run-up to the speech, the media noted that in city after city across America and despite the imposition of martial law, tens of thousands of young people had shown up in public places carrying flags and waiting to watch Larkin on their mobile devices.
When Larkin came on, he was grave, not at all the crusader he’d once been.
“My fellow Americans,” he began. “I come to you in a time of peril. We have been attacked in an effort to destabilize our great nation. The assassinations of our president, Speaker of the House, the secretaries of state and the treasury, and the assassination attempt on the secretary of defense are acts of war on America and its people, and those acts will not go unanswered.”
Larkin said this last with such deep intensity and resolve that I was having trouble seeing him as part of a great plot to take power. But he’d been such a brash and ambitious man when he was younger. Could leopards change their spots?
The acting president went on, outlining the steps being taken to identify the assassins and the people behind them. He asked for calm while the investigative team did its business.
“I know the idea of martial law in the United States is a frightening one,” Larkin said. “But I believe it is necessary if we are to get to the heart of the matter fast and understand the identity of our common enemy. Until then, we cannot respond. Until then, we are in pure defensive and investigative modes.
“I never sought this office. I believed I had reached the pinnacle of my career as your attorney general, and I was proud of my performance there. But now this responsibility has come to me, and I promise each and every one of you that I will try to make the best decisions for the survival of our great nation and our way of life.”
He paused to smile a bit and nod his head. “Now, I’m not saying I won’t make mistakes or act in ways that you disagree with. But if I make a mistake, I’ll take responsibility, and if I act in ways that you don’t agree with, I’d ask you to give me a little time. There’s a method to my madness.
“Good night, and God bless the United States of America.”
The screens went dark and then jumped to various anchors and commentators, who were quick to describe the nation as being “under siege” and “ramping up for combat.”
“What’d you think?” Mahoney asked.
“I thought it was a little odd that he said there was a method to his madness, but otherwise, it was calming. I felt like the guy was trying to do what he said he would.”
Ned glanced up at the screens, where pieces of Larkin’s short speech were being replayed. “I hope you’re right, Alex,” he said. “Because if you’re wrong, whatever trust people have left in Washington will evaporate, and God only knows what could happen after that. Riots. Chaos. Lawlessness.”
“Not if we catch who’s behind it all,” I said.
CHAPTER
72
PAST MIDNIGHT AND beneath a chill, driving rain, a pile of leaves stirred in a gully in Rock Creek Park, below Twenty-Sixth Street. A hand emerged slowly and pushed the sopping dead leaves off the cowl of dead skin Pablo Cruz still wore.
The skin and the jacket had kept his upper body mostly dry, but when Cruz sat up, he was drenched from the waist down and using every breathing skill he knew to keep his core warm.
His feet were numb, and when he stood, his knees were stiff. The narcotics the doctors had given him were wearing off. His face ached. His broken teeth screamed.
An ordinary man might have succumbed to hypothermia by now. A weaker man might be focused on finding drugs to kill the pain.
But Cruz was neither ordinary nor weak. He’d long ago trained himself to be a superior man, one who could control his emotions, mind, and pain. Whatever it took to survive, he would do, and he would deal with the physical damage later.
The assassin peeled off the cowl of skin and buried it before he crawled out of