Extinction Machine

Chapter Ten

Aboard the Secret Escape

Chesapeake Bay, off the coast of Virginia

Sunday, October 20, 3:28 a.m.

Linden Brierly was still awake. He lay in his bunk, staring up through the skylight at the infinite starfield that was spread like a jeweler’s display above the Chesapeake. His boat, a thirty-six-foot custom Beneteau, rocked gently, keeping him at the edge of sleep but not yet tumbling him over. His wife lay curled against him, soft and warm and beautiful. Her hair was still tangled from lovemaking, and the cabin smelled of her expensive perfume, superb wine, and sex.

Brierly stroked her hair, careful not to coax her to the surface of her dreams. By starlight her naked body was alabaster perfection. After nine years of marriage he still marveled at her, lost in the graceful lines and curves that only he knew with such intimate familiarity.

He glanced at the luminous face of the bedside clock and watched it turn from 3:29 to 3:30. He and Barbara were three and a half hours into the tenth year of their marriage.

Nice.

The boat rocked on a series of small, slow rollers.

And then Brierly’s cell phone rang.

His hand snaked out and snatched it off the night table, his thumb hitting the ringer mute halfway through the first jangle. He cut a look at Barbara, but she was still down deep. Then Brierly looked at the screen display and his heart lurched in his chest.

No name. Instead there was a coded symbol: ***!!!***

Jesus Christ, he thought. No, no, no …

He answered the call.

“Brierly.”

“Sir,” said Lyle Ames, “we have a Jackhammer situation. Please verify that confidential protocols are in active play.”

Brierly’s heart was thundering now.

Jackhammer.

God almighty.

He punched in the three-digit code that activated the scrambler.

“The blanket is down,” said Brierly.

“Verified.”

“What’s happening?”

“Linden,” said Ames in a voice that was strained to the breaking point, “the president is missing.”

Beside him, deep inside a dream, Barbara Brierly groaned as if in pain.