Free The Beginning of the End (Book 2): Toward the Brink II by Craig A. McDonough Page A

or …?”
    “Don’t know, Elliot, but if it gets a foothold into these woods …”
    “I’ll get everybody up.” Elliot didn’t need to have it spelled out.

Twenty-One
    The president stepped out through the east doors of the Oval Office and into the Rose Garden. He turned to the lone Secret Service agent, and after a moment, told him to proceed. The agent stepped back a few feet and nodded toward the corner of the building. Richard Holmes then appeared, escorted by another agent. When Holmes reached the president, the agents were dismissed.
    “Mr. Holmes.” The president acknowledged him coldly.
    “Come now, Mr. President, after all we’ve been through? Call me Richard.”
    The president stared at the hand offered by Holmes for a few seconds before he accepted it.
    “The deed is done, sir, you won’t hear of …”
    The president held his palm out and shook his head. “No. I don’t want to know any of it.”
    “As you wish, Mr. President.”
    The thought of what he’d sanctioned disgusted him, but there was little choice. Hadlee’s plans had been scuttled and he’d been removed from his office, but as long as he remained alive, he was a danger.
    “I know you have much work to do, Mr. President, and it’s way past my bedtime, so I’ll bid you goodnight.”
    “Yes, goodnight, Mr. Holmes,” the president responded.
    It had been a good night, Holmes thought, a very good night.
    * * *
    In Moscow, the Russian president was alarmed by the reports he’d received on the Idaho crisis. Russia didn’t have to rely on reports from the Internet for its information. The countries own satellites—all of them operational—had picked up high-resolution pictures of the pandemonium occurring in the northwestern United States. Russia was better informed than the United States on the matter.
    Friend and confidant Yuri Anteleski had advised the Russian president to remain calm and not to consider any drastic action. It was a hard position to take for Yuri, as an insider. He not only knew the level of the man-made atrocity in Idaho, he was a party to it. He believed the blood of the suffering in Idaho was on his hands. He was right.
    “It could be just part of one of their movie celebrations, Mr. President, you know how Americans are.”
    Anteleski’s secure phone rang before the president answered.
    “Excuse me, Mr. President, we may have the information we are seeking right here.”
    “You cannot answer it in front of you own president, Yuri?”
    “It is best I find out what it is before I tell you, is it not, comrade?”
    The president agreed. Yuri knew the ways of the West better than he—their mannerisms, phrases, when they joked, and when they did not.
    * * *
    “Sorry for the delay, my dear Mr. Etheridge, but I was with the president,” Yuri said into the phone after he had stepped into the hallway.
    “That’s fine, my dear Yuri. How is the old boy anyway?”
    “He is a worried man. He has seen satellite pictures of Idaho. I must also add that I am not all that comfortable either, tovarish.”
    An uneasy pause followed. Etheridge gave the appearance of a man always prepared, but sometimes even he had to take a few seconds.
    “You knew of the risks then, and you know of the consequences now. It’s too late for remorse, my dear man.”
    When Milton Etheridge uttered words to that effect, you knew a black mark would go against your name. Too many black marks in the Chamber, and…
    “Ah, tovarish … I’m just talking of my position here,” Anteleski joked.
    “But of course, Yuri.” Of course you are. “Allow me to bring you some good news. The president’s executive powers have been restored, and I had nothing to do with it. The good old American legal system came to the rescue once again,” Etheridge informed him with no hint of anger. “And the potential problem has also been eliminated … permanently. And—you’ll love this—it seems we may have a new colleague in the president himself.