The Game Master by William Bernhardt

Author:William Bernhardt [Bernhardt, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller
Goodreads: 25009659
Publisher: Kindle Press
Published: 2015-03-03T07:00:00+00:00

61

The White House, Situation Room

Present Day

President Fernandez threw the written report down on the conference table. The cable news pundits liked to say he was a man of infinite patience. They were wrong.

He’d had all the mealy-mouthed BS he could take.

“Just give it to me straight, Blake. Who’s running North Korea? And how long before they attack?”

Chief of Staff Blake glanced at Carmine Cartwright, head of the National Security Agency, who sat beside Gordon Decker, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Blake ran his hand across his smooth bald head. “Chun’s in control of the army and the nuclear stockpile. As for the latter . . . we don’t know.”

“What does the coup mean?”

Blake exchanged a glance with the Amanda Knox, secretary of state, just returned from Lebanon. This fell within her province. “It means the most dangerously unstable government on the face of the earth just became significantly more unstable.”

“From bad to worse?”

“More like, from worse to apocalyptic.”

Fernandez fell back in his chair. “Great. Walk me through what happened.”

Blake flipped through his briefing papers. “Details are still sketchy. Chun always appeared to be the loyal servant of his superior officer, Supreme General Yoon.”

“What about Kim? Isn’t he the president?”

Blake tilted his head to one side. “Technically, his title is supreme leader.”

“Supreme leader.” He paused. “I like the sound of that. You think I could get Congress to change my title to supreme leader?”

“No sir. Technically, by Constitutional amendment, the former President Il-sung, the current ruler’s granddaddy, was named “Eternal President” by Constitutional amendment after he died.”

“They made a dead man the president?”

“That is correct.”

“A zombie president.”

“Well, he hasn’t risen from the grave. But these titles don’t matter. The man who controls the army is the man in charge.”

“And that’s Chun?”

“Apparently so. He used some kind of unconventional weapon to take out Yoon’s private guard. Something we don’t have. We can’t even figure out how it was deployed.”

“What else do we know about Chun?”

“He’s been involved in an ongoing altercation with Emerson Ogilve for many years.”

“The computer geek? The one you’re using to create military simulation programs?”

“Yes.”

“Bring Ogilve in. Let’s talk to him.”

“Haven’t been able to track him down. We’re not the only ones looking, either.”

“He’s the head of Gen32. In Vegas. Right?”

“Exactly.”

“The project that suffered the disappearances.”

“And the murder.”

“Do we have someone looking into that?”

“In a way. We have an agent in Paris trailing another man who is somehow involved in the crimes. Steven Thomas.”

“The Game Master.”

“Yes.”

“Watched him win the North American chess tournament. Quite the flamboyant player. But why are we following him? Do we think he might lead us to Ogilve?”

“We hope so. They worked together, so years ago. Our agent has spotted other potentially dangerous foreign operatives in the area. Everyone seems to be converging in Egypt. Like every dangerous power in the world got invitations to a big nasty party.”

“Everyone but us.”

No response was necessary.

Fernandez turned to Cartwright. “So Chun is running North Korea. What are the ramifications to our national security?”

“North Korea has the bomb, sir.

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