Experience
CapWar EXPERIENCE
Brandt Legg
Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
A Note From the Author
About the Author
Books by Brandt Legg
Dedication
Acknowledgments
CapWar EXPERIENCE (CapStone Conspiracy Book Two)
Published in the United States of America by Laughing Rain
Copyright © 2018 by Brandt Legg
All rights reserved.
Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN-13: 978-1-935070-31-3
ISBN-10: 1-935070-31-2
Cover designed by: Doan Trang
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. Published in the United States of America.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
BrandtLegg.com
Chapter One
January 20th. The West Front of the US Capitol building was draped in American flags and packed with well-dressed dignitaries, including past presidents, members of Congress, governors, and wealthy business leaders—anybody with enough clout to get there was there. The typically rigid security for an inauguration had been ratcheted up to address the NorthBridge threat. NorthBridge, the domestic terror group which had promised a second American revolution, had already attacked establishment institutions and assassinated a number of political leaders.
The entire nation was on edge.
The country’s law enforcement apparatus had saturated nearly a three-square-mile grid around the event with more than 30,000 personnel, including Secret Service, FBI, Capitol Police, and a dozen other federal, state, and local agencies. The US Military, expecting commando-like raids from the terror group, had added another 15,000 National Guard. The US Army was utilizing all protocols and alert levels for combat defense of the National Capital Region.
Arlin Vonner, the billionaire responsible for Hudson Pound’s election to the highest office in the land, did not attend the inauguration. However, he was well represented by hundreds of his own Vonner Security agents aggressively scouring the town for NorthBridge assassins. Vonner had learned long ago that the bureaucrats were generally good at only two things—wasting time and money—and were certainly not good at preventing disasters. And that’s exactly what it would be if Hudson Pound died before taking office.
Tarka Seebantz, one of Vonner’s VS agents, led a team of four, but she’d rather work alone. The six-foot tall former CIA operative had been handling Vonner’s problems for six years, but had only recently risen to the rank of team leader at the insistence of Vonner’s chief lieutenant, Rex Lestat. He’d been impressed by her file and her skill sets; martial arts, weapons mastery, explosives, and, most important to Rex, computer tech and foreign languages. Rex, who normally didn’t directly involve himself with operations such as these, had spent weeks tracking a specific and credible threat to the president-elect. As he continued to fight against the minutes that remained before the plot to kill Hudson was carried out, he fed real time data to Tarka.
The area was closed to vehicles, and Washington’s normally rigid air traffic restrictions had been tightened to a military-enforced no-fly zone. More than one million attendees had entered through six public security checkpoints around the National Mall and Reflecting Pool. The weather had cooperated with a crisp, sunny day of fifty-two degrees—rare for Washington, DC, in January. Everything seemed perfect and perfectly safe. It was hard to imagine anyone getting near enough to harm the future president.
Hudson stood behind the bulletproof glass panels and smiled at his wife, Melissa. She had on a deep blue dress that matched his tie, and he wondered if that had been on purpose. He wondered a lot of things. First among those rapid thoughts was when would any of this actually start to feel real? That only led to a more frightening question—was any of it real?
The answer would have to wait, as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court now stood in front of him, ready to administer the oath of office. Hudson took a deep breath and placed his left hand on the Bible held by Melissa. She smiled and met his gaze. They’d made it.
Nearly two miles away, well concealed in a rooftop ventilation system, a man known only as Kniike, also took a deep breath. He had been there for days—living, eating, sleeping; two containers in the corner held his waste. He couldn’t wait to get back out into the fresh air, the light of day, the payday, once he killed Hudson Pound.
“Please raise your right hand and repeat after me,” the Chief Justice said.
Kniike wrapped his right hand around his MacMillan TAC-50 long-range rifle.
Hudson didn’t need the Chief Justice to utter the words. The oath was something Hudson had long ago memorized. It meant a great deal to him, but tradition dictated the order of things. Every moment of the day had been choreographed according to those long-ago established customs. Perhaps he could make some changes for his next swearing-in ceremony.
Tarka listened to Rex, Vonner’s top lieutenant and “fixer,” in her earpiece as she raced up the stairs. If his information was right, it might already be too late. If it was wrong, it was definitely too late.
“I do solemnly swear,” Hudson repeated.
Kniike said a silent prayer as he sighted the president-elect in his crosshairs.
Tarka took the last twelve steps three at a time.
“That I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States . . .”
The sn
iper had taken everything into consideration—wind speed, air temperature, humidity, even the rotation of the earth.
Tarka hit the door to the roof. Locked. Chained. Alarmed. Damn!
There would only be one chance at the shot. If Kniike missed, Hudson Pound would be inaugurated as president of the United States. Of course, that did not mean he’d live long enough to serve. There were contingency plans, but Kniike wouldn’t get the big payment. He’d have to make do with the two-hundred and fifty thousand he’d already received. That wouldn’t last as long as he needed, not long enough to disappear. But he’d make the shot, and collect the final million. Kniike had never missed a hit.
“And will to the best of my ability,” Hudson repeated.
The key was the timing of the shot. They wanted Hudson dead before the oath was complete. The .50 caliber rifle cartridge would travel at approximately three thousand feet per second, meaning it would take almost three seconds to reach his target. At that distance, the level eight glass–clad polycarbonate panel could not be penetrated. Kniike knew this, but he also knew that the panel was supposed to have been replaced with an ordinary two-point-five-inch sheet of glass, which would shatter like cascading diamonds—a shower of glitter as the body fell. It had been arranged.
Tarka, out of time and options, fired three shots, blasting the chain, the lock, and the automatic alarm, then kicked the door open and darted onto the roof.
Kniike, finger on the trigger, heard the shots and blinked. Whoever it was, he would kill them in a few seconds, but first the president.
Kniike pulled the trigger.
“Preserve, protect, and defend . . . ”
Chapter Two
The explosion, visible from the Capitol, muffled by distance, came at the same moment that Hudson uttered the words, “ . . . the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.”
“Congratulations, Mr. President,” the Chief Justice said, shaking Hudson’s hand as both men looked to the distant rooftop, where flames and smoke smoldered in what might have been a small building fire. Yet, in the age of NorthBridge, and on Inauguration Day, they knew more nefarious elements were at work. Neither noticed the sniper’s bullet that had sailed forty feet above them and lodged into one of the massive columns which supported the capitol’s dome.
Cheers and roaring applause had drowned out any sound the bullet’s impact had made. The United States Marine Band, located on the tier below the president, played “Hail to the Chief.” Hudson turned and kissed Melissa, then hugged his beaming daughter, Florence, and slightly dazed-looking son, Schueller. He knew his childhood friends, the Wizard and Gouge, were out there in the sea of onlookers celebrating, but he didn’t know where.
A loud report of gunshots startled him, and everyone else—several people actually ducked for cover—but it was just the first round of the twenty-one-gun salute. Still, it reminded him that the tension and stress of the campaign had been magnified a thousand times by the oath he’d just taken. After several more minutes of excited good wishes from those gathered, Hudson stepped up to the podium.
“My fellow Americans, I stand before you today a humble, common man, one of you . . . and I came here to serve you. Our country is as divided as any time since the Civil War. More than one hundred fifty years ago, Abraham Lincoln stood here, having ascended to power on the eve of that bloody conflict, and implored, ‘We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it, it must not break our bonds of affection.’ Today, thankfully, we no longer argue over the cruelty of slavery, and yet we find ourselves nearly as intolerant of our neighbors’ ideas and beliefs. Even before the scourge of terrorism burried its brutal fists into our daily peace, we were at each other’s throats—right versus left, conservative versus liberals. We seem to have lost our way.” He paused and made eye contact with some of the everyday-Americans watching. They were his people, he came from them.
“There was a place, throughout our history, where we always met, and got things done. That elusive common ground is still there, and we must return to it. Two hundred some years ago, Thomas Jefferson, at his first inauguration reminded us, and I paraphrase, ‘Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Democrats.’”
The applause gave him a moment to reflect. There were four things he promised himself he would do as president: Free Rochelle; expose and stop the wealthy elites known as REMies who controlled world events; defeat NorthBridge; and restore the federal government to what the Founders had envisioned. Only the latter two could he cite here, but between the lines, he silently pledged to do the others.
“We must change . . . “ Hudson began, and then spent several minutes explaining how he believed that could be done before turning to the topic of NorthBridge. “This group of terrorists, who have been so destructive with their illegal and hideous tactics, enjoys far too much support from many of you out there. This speaks more to the failing of our system than the rightness of their so-called cause. Yet we cannot give in to the anger and frustration which overwhelm us. Instead, we must overcome it, and overcome it we shall.
“Franklin Roosevelt, taking this office in the midst of one of the darkest times in our history, said, ‘This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.’ FDR showed us what could be done as we rose up from the depths of poverty to defeat the most evil regime the world has ever known: Nazi Germany, a country ruthlessly commanded by terrorists.”
The president looked out over the sea of faces looking up at him and suddenly shivered, worried about a NorthBridge attack. He pushed his fear aside, paused only a second, and continued in a determined tone.
“The terrorists who infect our communities now have done more to defy our way of life, more to threaten our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, than all the challenges we have faced since the signing of the Declaration. And it cannot continue. It will not continue. We are better than this. We deserve more.”
Applause.
“I pledge to you today that we will fix these things,” the president continued. “We will find and defeat NorthBridge, and any others like them. We will do this together, standing on that common ground, basking in sunlight, working under the starlight, until it is right again. Because alone we might be lost, but together . . . we are the change.”
Several blocks away, Vonner’s fixer, Rex, watched the ceremony on television. Quite surprised that Hudson had lived through the event, he pushed the button on his communicator and waited for his boss to pick up.
“We got ourselves a president,” Vonner said.
“Just barely,” Rex responded, staring at an array of twenty-six dice in various colors arranged on the table in front of him. “Tarka made it there with less than a second to spare.”
“Close call.”
“No, I mean literally two tenths of a second later, and Hudson would have been history.”
“She’ll have a full-time job, shaving those fractions of seconds for the next few years,” Vonner said, panting slightly on a stair climber. He was in Washington, but had chosen not to attend the inauguration. Although everyone knew he’d backed the rookie candidate, Vonner was sensitive to the appearance that Hudson would be a puppet. After all, the people had “elected” a man with no political baggage, beholden to no special interests, to change things.
President Pound was still reveling in the pomp and circumstance of the inaugural and readying himself for the parade in a popemobile-like car fitted with bulletproof glass, blast resistant armor plating, and sixty-six more of the latest security measures. He shook hands, waved, smiled, and acted as if everything was wonderful, but his mind was elsewhere. Hudson already felt like a zoo animal, tr
apped and on display. There was much to do, and he only had the vague outline of a plan.
DC was a pressure cooker capable of swallowing the biggest and most powerful. Many had come before him planning to make major change. He recalled Trump’s call to “drain the swamp,” but in the end, the brash billionaire found himself fighting through the muck and mire which had, in different ways, ensnared all who had come before.
President Pound’s mission was different. The left and right were at war with each other, and the extremists on both sides had run out of patience, wanting nothing less than revolution. That climate had given rise to NorthBridge. Like Lincoln, Hudson faced the real prospect of a divided nation going to war with itself.
While trying to stop that from happening, Hudson’s primary objective was to pry control away from the REMies. He believed that if he could do that, the reasons for NorthBridge would go away, and with it, the group’s support. Without the REMies manipulating everything to their own selfish, greedy ends, the American people could win the final CapWar.