Inside Threat

DedicationFor Emily Contents CoverTitle PageDedicationAuthor’s NoteCharactersRaven Rock MapMain and Rear Tunnels123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110AcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorAlso by Matthew QuirkCopyrightAbout the Publisher Author’s NoteThe Raven Rock Mountain Complex and the secret emergency presidential powers described in this book are real, though certain details have been changed or omitted. CharactersWhite House James Kline: President of the United StatesDr. Sarah Kline: First Lady of the United StatesClaire Givens: White House Chief of StaffBenjamin Chilton: Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Secret Service Presidential Protective DivisionEric Hill: Secret Service AgentMichael Hardwick: Secret Service AgentLaura Leigh: Secret Service AgentLiam Walsh: Secret Service AgentSamuel Brimley: Secret Service AgentAmber Cody: Secret Service AgentTim Navarro: Secret Service AgentMatt Byrne: Secret Service AgentJoe Cody: Secret Service Agent (deceased), Amber Cody’s fatherMajor Paul Eubanks: Military Aide to the PresidentWill Maddox: President Kline’s Personal Aide/Body ManCaptain Nathan Chen: White House DoctorAlexander Braun: Secretary of the Treasury, major fundraiserStephen Reinhart: Former President (fifteen years ago)Ellen O’Hara: Communications SecretaryThomas Searle: Congressional AideRaven Rock Mountain Complex Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Drumm: Deputy/Acting Commander of Raven RockMajor Ashley Moro: Executive OfficerMajor Rebecca Vaughn: Communications OfficerCaptain Kevin Foster: Security Officer Raven Rock Map Main and Rear TunnelsThe view inside the main tunnel looking at the front of Building B in its cavern. The main tunnel ceiling liners and framing are omitted for clarity. The view looking north up the rear tunnel from behind Building B. The ceiling liners and framing are shown in cutaway. 1Friday. 7:14 p.m.Killer. Traitor. Hero. The man strolling toward the White House would be called many names by the time this operation was over, but among his accomplices he went by the alias Marcus. It was a nod to Marcus Brutus, the Roman assassin. With his navy suit and crew cut, he looked like any other Washington bureaucrat, one of dozens on their rounds near Pennsylvania Avenue this evening, though his expression was a little brighter than most. He strode through Lafayette Park, eyes on the portico of the White House residence with its great black hanging lantern. A group of protesters shook signs—“Tyrant” and “Killer-in-Chief”—and shouted slogans on the brick sidewalk, facing off with a row of Secret Service agents behind a steel barricade. One demonstrator stepped onto the barrier, and the agent shoved him back. The country was a tinderbox. All it needed was a spark. Marcus surveyed the new thirteen-foot-tall black perimeter fence and the grounds just beyond it, noting the subtle variations in the grass—signs of pressure sensors beneath—and the well-hidden laser, microwave, and infrared motion detectors. Triggering any of them would bring out the black-clad emergency response teams and Belgian Malinois attack dogs. He slipped across Pennsylvania Avenue, turning slightly to stay just out of frame of a school group’s selfie, his eyes tracing the rooftops of the buildings surrounding the White House. He picked out the sniper team on the eastern edge of the residence roof, a spotter and a shooter with a silenced custom Remington 700. Glancing back to the office buildings towering to the northwest, he checked the parapet that concealed the Avenger system—a battery of eight Stinger missiles along with a computer-aimed machine gun firing six-inch-long bullets that could blow a plane out of the sky from a mile away. As he neared the main guardhouse to the north of the West Wing, his heart drummed harder. His skin was warm despite the autumn breeze. Marcus carried a SIG Sauer P229, two extra magazines, a SureFire flashlight, and a Benchmade folding knife. It was all he needed to bring this place down, to start a war. He waited for a staffer to clear security and stepped up to the guardhouse window. The sentry inside, uniformed Secret Service, stared at Marcus as he pressed a blue badge to a scanner near the gate. The guard’s eyes went down. Marcus shifted his weight onto his right foot, his hand drawing closer to the SIG on his waist.He knew what was on that guard’s screen. Two words: Yankee White. It went beyond the normal security clearances. It was the highest access you could receive in the American government. A green light flashed. The gate unlocked and Marcus pushed through with a smile and a nod to the officer.He walked down Executive Avenue and passed the Marine guard standing at attention outside the West Wing’s covered entrance.The president was in the Oval Office, working late. Marcus moved on without slowing, turning past a copse of elms, the rolling grass of the South Lawn to his side. The clouds stacked in the sky, bruised blue and purple with sunset. He walked slowly, his eyes on the windows of the Oval, six-inch-thick bulletproof glass. Behind them, the air in the room was kept at a slightly higher pressure than the outside to prevent biological and chemical attacks. A small wooden block marked with the presidential seal sat on the Resolute Desk, one of a half-dozen innocent-looking items—called knockdowns—that, when tipped over, would summon the counterassault boys with their heavy artillery. President James Harrington Kline strode past the window, then stopped and looked out. He had dark brown hair, gray near the temples, and straight-line posture—he always held himself like he was having his portrait taken. Marcus clocked his target and kept moving, wary of the three roving patrols. He knew their patterns down to the minute.The government had invested hundreds of millions of dollars to protect that one man. The inner sanctums of the White House were unbreachable unless you knew their secrets. Marcus did. He was an insider. His orders came from the highest levels. Operation V was about to start. The White House was just the beginning. Marcus knew where it would all end—fifty miles from here in a facility whose existence was one of the most well-guarded secrets in government. His eyes went to the flag, twisting slowly in the night above the residence. To rebuild a nation, you must first destroy it.Hero. Traitor. If he survived the next twenty-four hours, the world would understand which side he was on.He pressed