6:00 A.M., Eastern Standard Time
Sunday, February 19th, 2012
CIA Headquarters, Langley, VA
Chuck awoke to the clock radio playing a familiar, almost military drumbeat. The nearly thirty year old U2 song quickly roused him from his slumber.
It was, as Devin Woodcomb would have undoubtedly termed it, “Go time.”
The car bearing Carina Hansen, Mitch Tucker, and Art Graham had arrived at Langley shortly after the B-1 carrying the globetrotting agents had arrived. When Carina had seen Chuck, she had given him a very coquettish look and blown a kiss in his direction, something that had prompted a very exhausted and very cranky Sarah Walker Bartowski to actually put her right hand on the butt of her gun, before Chuck gently pulled her arm back and slipped his hand into hers.
That night, the training barracks at Langley had housed four intelligence agents, three US military officers, two civilians, “and an NCO in a pear tree,” Sam Tyler had grumbled. They were all under heavy guard, with a group of very carefully vetted military policeman from Langley Air Force Base having been pressed into service.
DCI Sam Tyler was up most of the night making phone calls. Through contacts in the US Army, the US Secret Service and the Virginia State Police, he set up one hell of a motorcade from Langley to the White House.
The next morning, the small “band of freedom fighters,” as John Casey had jokingly dubbed them, awoke early, before the sun rose, to see Sam Tyler’s motorcade sitting outside. Three jet black original recipe Hummer H1 wagons sat in the center, flanked by four Chevrolet Suburbans, half a dozen unmarked Ford Crown Victorias, a dozen Dodge Chargers in the livery of the Virginia State Police, and two Saleen Mustang interceptors from the Maryland Highway Patrol. Six BMW R1200 motorcycles with MHP markings were also parked around the motorcade.
“Jesus God in heaven,” John Casey uttered upon seeing the motorcade. “This is more protection than the President gets.”
“I guess Sam Tyler REALLY wants us to get there alive,” Chuck replied.
Can’t believe the news today… I can’t close my eyes and make it go away… how long, how long must we sing this song? How long, how long?
The motorcade departed Langley at 6:30 A.M., bound for the White House. It was about a three hour drive, and Senator Graham and Director Tyler had arranged a meeting with the President at 10:00 A.M. that Sunday.
Chuck, Sarah, and Casey found themselves in the lead Hummer. Bryce, Commander Harrison, Captain Williamson, and Carina rode in the one behind them, and Director Tyler, Senator Graham, Gunny Tucker, and Commodore Saxon rode in the tail Hummer.
As the motorcade rolled eastbound on I-64 toward Richmond, Chuck noted with no small amusement that it took up the entire freeway. “Nobody would be able to approach us or pass us,” he remarked. “It’s a good thing we’re going ninety.”
“We’re still vulnerable,” Casey groused. “Fighters, helicopters – I don’t think there’s a single pie in this country that Fulcrum doesn’t have at least one finger in.”
“So, if this all works out,” Chuck said, “about poker night tomorrow… we really can’t have it at our house. There’s a great gaping hole in the front.”
“No excuse, Bartowski,” Casey shot back. “You’re a miserable host. You’re gonna pawn this off on me, aren’t you?”
“Of course!” Chuck replied with a grin. “Well, depending on how things go. You know, this time tomorrow we could be in jail, on the run, dead… we better hope that we can stop this thing in its tracks.”
“Shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” Sarah interjected, speaking for the first time. She showed them the front page of the Washington Post. Da Silva, Paisley, Tadić, Yuschenko arrive in Washington, the headline said. Below that, the subheadline read, Chiefs of state to hold press conference with President on nuclear disarmament.
Chuck and Casey both stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment. “Were you… was this YOU?” Chuck asked.
Sarah smiled. “Why do you think I had to fly across the globe? Three of those men owed me favors, and the fourth is just generally a good person. I figured that if we secured international support, it would be very difficult for Fulcrum to move ahead with their plan.”
“Hate to admit it, but I like the way you think, Walker,” Casey said.
“So do I,” Chuck added. “Might have a little bit to do with why I married you.”
“Speaking of which, what are we doing for our anniversary?”
Tonight… we can be as one, tonight… broken bottles under children’s feet, bodies strewn across the dead end street...
7:41 A.M., EST
Fort Meade, Maryland
General Louisa Beckman had fallen asleep at her desk the night before. About half an hour before she fell asleep, technicians had come to replace her secure telephone and her office window, her previous phone having been thrown through the window.
She woke up when the new phone trilled. She groaned and stared at it, not wanting to pick it up. It could only bring more bad news. Bad news, such as it had brought her repeatedly over the last forty eight hours.
General Beckman was watching everything she had worked toward so carefully the last fifteen years go directly down the drain. The ECOMCON plan, Fulcrum – it was all crumbling to pieces, thanks to Chuck Bartowski and damnable Bryce Larkin – the man who had set the whole Human Intersect in motion.
She picked up the phone, looking at it as if it were a live grenade, ready to go off in her face. “Beckman, secure.”
“General Beckman,” came the excited voice of one of her agents, “that entire group is in a motorcade headed for Washington, DC!”
Beckman sat up straight in her chair, and her eyes took on a new gleam. “Really.”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s a very large motorcade, too – thirty-three vehicles, headed northbound on I-95.”
She smiled for the first time in hours. “Do we still have any Fulcrum pilots who haven’t gone underground?”
“Yes, ma’am. There’s one at NAS Patuxent River. He’s an F/A-18 pilot, Lieutenant Roger Mantle.”
Beckman smiled again and hung up the phone. Looking up Lieutenant Mantle’s phone number, she dialed.
“Good morning, Lieutenant Mantle,” she said when he answered. “I need you to listen to me very carefully…”
I won’t heed the battle call, it puts my back up, puts my back up against the wall… Sunday, bloody Sunday… Sunday, bloody Sunday…
9:30 A.M. EST
F/A-18 Hornet “Scorpion-One”
Washington, DC
Lieutenant Roger Mantle was slightly confused about what he was supposed to be doing. Yes, he was loyal to Fulcrum, through and through. Yes, he was willing to die for the organization to keep America great.
But this order? This didn’t quite calculate.
In his conversation with General Beckman, she had given him a set of orders, and then told him that if wanted confirmation, he could speak with Rear Admiral Richard Larsen, the commander of NAS Pax River. And Mantle had done just that. He had called Admiral Larsen, and asked him what the hell was going on.
Larsen told him in no uncertain terms that he was to do exactly what Beckman had said. His Hornet would be ready in twenty minutes.
And so Mantle had gone airborne thirty minutes after receiving the call from Beckman. He was told to take up orbit around Washington – certainly nothing abnormal about that, F/A-18s from Pax River and F-16s from Langley were seen orbiting DC all the time, just as they had for the past ten and a half years.
At just after 9:15 AM, he was given the go order. His target was a motorcade, that would be entering Washington, DC, at any time. He was to wait until they were on the bridge, and then attack.
Mantle reduced his orbit to a small area over the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery, watching the bridges into the city. And then, there it was, on the US Highway 1 Arland D. Williams Memorial Bridge. Traffic was moving slowly, and so the motorcade crept forward onto the bridge at no more than fifteen miles an hour.
Lieutenant Mantle turned his Hornet toward Virginia and blasted out about twenty miles, turning back to follow the Potomac River. He chopped his altitude down to about two hundred feet, high enough to avoid any obstacles, but low enough that his Mach 0.95 speed created quite the wake on the surface of the river.
At ten miles out, his computer locked onto the Williams Memorial Bridge, and at five miles out, he hit the “launch commit” button. When he did so, an AGM-84E SLAM missile ejected itself from his left wing, and its motor fired. He watched as the SLAM covered the five miles in under two minutes, crashing into the bridge with a fiery explosion. Two entire spans dropped into the river, taking most of the motorcade with it.
And the battle’s just begun, there’s many lost, but tell me, who has won? The trench is dug within our hearts, mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart!
9:41 A.M., EST
Washington, D.C.
What Lieutenant Roger Mantle didn’t know, what he couldn’t have known, was that the CIA motorcade had exited I-395 at Jefferson Davis Highway, and driven north past Arlington National Cemetery, crossing the Potomac on the Arlington Memorial Bridge. The lead driver’s justification for that had been to avoid traffic.
The motorcade on the Arland D. Williams Memorial Bridge had been a funeral procession.
Sarah, Chuck, and Casey had all watched in horror, after hearing the AGM-84E blow past, as the missile had slammed into the US-1 bridge and dropped it, burning, into the Potomac River. That was followed by the shock wave from Mantle’s F/A-18 Hornet as it blasted overhead.
The lead driver didn’t hesitate one instant. “GO GO GO!” he shouted into his radio, pushing the accelerator in his Saleen Mustang down. The rest of the motorcade had rapidly accelerated with him, pushing its speed from forty to eighty inside of a minute.
The entire motorcade took the curving ramp from the bridge onto Ohio Drive at far too fast a speed for comfort. Drivers scrambled to get out of the way as they heard the sirens and saw the large collection of vehicles bearing down on them.
As the cars turned off of Ohio Drive onto E Street, they took up the entire right hand side of the road. Curious drivers and pedestrians snapped pictures of the motorcade as it went by, wondering who could possibly be that important.
A moment later, the motorcade whipped off of E Street onto 17th Street, and then just as quickly turned right onto State Place, taking them onto the White House grounds. The guards at the shack couldn’t remember ever having seen vehicles go past them at forty miles per hour before, but they had been alerted that it would be happening.
The police vehicles peeled off to go to the south of the White House, but the three Hummers and the four Suburbans turned north onto Executive Drive, taking them around to the front entrance into the West Wing. The vehicles squealed to a stop in the driveway. Secret Service agents yanked the doors of the Hummers open. “MOVE!” an agent blared at Chuck, Sarah, and Casey.
They didn’t argue – they got out of the Hummer quickly. They were hustled inside by Secret Service agents, and as soon as they were inside the Executive Mansion, the vehicles took off again.
Sunday, bloody Sunday… Sunday, bloody Sunday… how long, how long must we sing this song? How long, how long?
Once they were inside the White House and the doors were shut, things calmed a bit. Director Tyler and Senator Graham both showed their passes; the other eight were all issued visitor’s passes. Sarah, Casey, Bryce, Carina, and Commodore Saxon had all been to the White House before, but Chuck, Will Williamson, Rachel Harrison, and Gunny Tucker all looked around like kids at Disneyland as they were led through the West Wing toward the Oval Office.
When they reached the receptionist’s office outside the Oval, they were shown into the Oval Office by the President’s administrative assistant. “The President is on his way back from church,” she told them. “He should be here within ten minutes.”
She invited them all to take a seat on the couches in the office. The eleven men and women sat, looking nervously at each other as the sound of distant sirens penetrated into the office.
A few minutes later, a Marine jerked the front door of the Oval Office open, and the President stormed in, surrounded by Secret Service agents. Everybody leapt to their feet. The President may have looked old – and at 75, he WAS old – but his eyes were ablaze, his mouth set in a hard, firm line, and he was CLEARLY in charge.
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT THERE, PEOPLE?!” he demanded as he burst in. “Why is there a collapsed bridge burning on the Potomac, and why the HELL are the DC Metro Police telling me that there could be as many as 150 people DEAD out there?!”
“Uh, that’s actually what we’re here to talk to you about, Mr. President,” Sam Tyler began, but the President cut him off.
“Shut up, Tyler,” he snapped. “You!”
Chuck’s eyes widened as he realized the President was pointing at him. “Me?”
“Yes, you, you’re the Human Intersect, right?”
“Uh, yes, Mr. President, yes, that’s correct.”
“You look like you couldn’t bullshit me if your life depended on it, so I want to hear the whole story from you. Start talking!”
Tonight, we can be as one, tonight… tonight… Sunday, bloody Sunday… Sunday, bloody Sunday…
“Well, sir,” Chuck began, “this all started a week ago. As I’m sure you’re aware, the Intersect database in my brain gives me the ability to flash on certain pieces of intelligence based on visual and aural stimuli.”
“Yes,” the President confirmed. “Continue.”
“Last Monday, Lieutenant Colonel John Casey, of the United States Air Force Reserve and the National Security Agency –“
“That’s you, right?” the President interrupted, pointing at Casey.
“Yes, sir.”
“He received a letter from March Air Reserve Base, ordering him to report tomorrow for the ECOMCON exercise.”
“That’s the exercise I’m supposed to go to Mount Weather for tomorrow, correct?” the President asked, turning to his chief of staff.
“Yes, sir, that’s correct,” she confirmed.
“Continue, Mr. Bartowski.”
“So, I was at Colonel Casey’s apartment last Monday, February 13th, and I saw the call up letter,” Chuck continued. “I flashed on the word ECOMCON, and the intelligence I saw indicated that it’s actually a cover for a plan, drafted by a covert organization known as Fulcrum, to remove you from office – a maskirovka, if you will.”
The President’s eyes widened. “WHAT?!”
“Yes, sir,” Chuck replied. “Over the course of six hours, I intentionally forced myself to flash on the plan repeatedly, and transcribed it all – I have it here,” he said, digging a flash drive out of his pocket. “The document title is, uh, ‘ohshit.docx’.”
The President smiled at that as he took the flash drive. “Sense of humor under pressure, not bad.”
“Yes, sir,” Chuck replied. “I then saw a report on CNN showing Commodore Saxon reporting to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower as commander of CTF-77. He was the author of the plan.”
The President turned his gaze on Saxon. “You have some explaining to do, bub.”
“Yes, sir,” Saxon replied, his face downcast.
“We reported all this to Director Tyler and General Beckman of the NSA. In turn, they dispatched Agent Bryce Larkin of the CIA to the Eisenhower to confront, and if necessary, eliminate Commodore Saxon,” Chuck said. “My personal theory was that Commodore Saxon had left Fulcrum, and as a result, had been posted as far away from Washington as Fulcrum could place him.
“Upon arriving on the Eisenhower, Agent Larkin spoke with Commodore Saxon, who confirmed my theory that he had left Fulcrum. He provided Agent Larkin with a list of the high-powered members of Fulcrum, which included General Melvin Powers, General Robert Kellerman, Admiral Frederick McConnell, Homeland Security Director Linda Foster, Defense Secretary Marianne O’Hare, Supreme Court Justice Ian Noble, Senator Lou DeBlasio, and General Louisa Beckman herself.”
Wipe the tears from your eyes, wipe your tears away… wipe your tears away… wipe your tears away… wipe your bloodshot eyes… Sunday, bloody Sunday… Sunday, bloody Sunday!
The President’s eyes had gone wide. “You’re shitting me, right, Bartowski?”
“I wish I was, Mr. President,” Chuck replied. “But it gets worse. Commodore Saxon warned Agent Larkin that he would likely be in danger if he returned to the United States the way he had come, and so he detached Lieutenant Commander Rachel Harrison and a C-2A Greyhound for Agent Larkin to escape in the other direction. They took a series of short flights to Belgrade, Serbia, where they landed their plane and hid due to engine problems.
“Meanwhile, General Beckman ordered Captain Jack Drexler, former commander of Air Wing 7, to place Commodore Saxon under arrest and hold him in the brig. She also ordered Colonel Casey to eliminate both myself and my wife, Agent Sarah Walker. Colonel Casey refused to obey orders. General Beckman apparently suspected that he would, and ordered an NSA strike team to carry out the operation. Fortunately, Director Tyler had just the night before ordered armor and bulletproof glass installed in our house, and so the NSA strike team was unable to breach the house before Colonel Casey arrived and eliminated them.
“We escaped from Los Angeles to San Diego. Upon reaching San Diego, we formulated a plan. Colonel Casey and I would fly to Virginia and lie low in the countryside for a few days, while Agent Walker embarked on a global mission with Captain Will Williamson of the Marine Corps to curry international support.”
The President narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute,” he said, “is that why Da Silva, Paisley, Tadić, and Yuschenko are here?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Sarah interjected. “I personally visited each one of them and asked them to come to Washington.
“While I was in Belgrade, the NSA managed to find my plane and impound it. I unexpectedly encountered Agent Larkin, and we were able to escape to NAS Sigonella, using the C-2 that he had. Its engines cut out as we were landing; however, we were able to convince the watch commander to detach an ES-3 Shadow to us, which we decided to fly to the Eisenhower and spring Commodore Saxon from custody.”
“Meanwhile,” Chuck continued, “Colonel Casey and I were discovered in Virginia by the NSA. They attempted to eliminate us again, but Director Tyler had caught wind of the plan, and led in a rescue team to extract us. We were removed to CIA headquarters at Langley, which is where we’ve been for the last two days.
“While all this was going on, Senator Art Graham went to Fort Bliss to ‘inspect’ the ECOMCON command facility. He was detained by Fulcrum forces at Fort Bliss; however, we were able to arrange for DEA Agent Carina Hansen and Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Mitchell Tucker to infiltrate the base and extract Senator Graham.
“As that was happening, Agent Walker, Agent Larkin, Commander Harrison, and Captain Williamson landed on the Eisenhower and extracted Commodore Saxon. Due to the number of seats in the ES-3 Shadow, they had to leave Captain Williamson onboard the Eisenhower. This, however, proved to be fortuitous, because Captain Drexler pursued the Shadow in an F-14 Tomcat. Captain Williamson, um, appropriated an F/A-18 Hornet – his primary aircraft type – pursued Captain Drexler, and shot his aircraft down just as he was about to initiate an attack on the ES-3.”
And it’s true we are immune, when fact is fiction and TV reality. And today the millions cry, we eat and drink, while tomorrow they die!
“This is unbelievable,” the President uttered.
“There’s a little more left,” Chuck replied. “The ES-3 and Captain Williamson’s F/A-18 landed on Guam, where they were given transport on a B-1B Lancer back to Washington. Meanwhile, Senator Graham, Gunnery Sergeant Tucker, and Agent Hansen had departed Fort Bliss, but aircraft problems had forced them to land in Knoxville, where they rented a car to drive to Washington.
“Both groups were attacked en route – Agent Hansen’s car was ambushed in Richmond by an NSA strike team; however, Gunny Tucker was able to fight them off. In addition, two F-16s from Langley Air Force Base were dispatched to shoot down the B-1 which the other group was on; however, Agent Walker convinced them to disregard their orders and return to base.
“Both groups eventually arrived at Langley safely. Director Tyler organized a massive motorcade to bring us all to the White House. Somehow, information about the motorcade must have leaked to Fulcrum, and as we were on our way here, a single F/A-18 Hornet – where from, we don’t yet know – attempted to attack us, but attacked the wrong bridge. After a few harrowing moments on the streets, we arrived safely here – and that brings us to just before you arrived.”
The President stared at Chuck in disbelief. Crossing behind the old desk made from timbers from the old HMS Resolute, he sat down heavily in his chair, suddenly looking his age.
After a moment of silence, he picked up his phone. “Carla,” he said, sounding weary and hurt, “I need Mel Powers, Bob Kellerman, Fred McConnell, Linda Foster, Marianne O’Hare, Ian Noble, Lou DeBlasio, and Louisa Beckman in here. I need to see them RIGHT NOW.”
And the battle’s just begun, to claim the victory that Jesus won, on a Sunday, bloody Sunday… Sunday, bloody Sunday.
