Shattered Lives: (A Kyle Shatter Thriller Book 2) by Julia Payne

Author:Julia Payne [Payne, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9 Bunker

The Secret Service stormed the Oval Office as President Hardwood was barely beginning to comprehend what the faint scream he had heard meant. Without wasting time with explanations, they manhandled the leader of the free world and pushed him to the obscured door in the south wall to access the staircase to the lobby below the complex. All the while, twelve agents shielded him with their bodies in case there was a shooter on the premises.

Within twelve seconds, the president found himself in the elevator headed down to the basement bunker. It was an impenetrable fortress that was able to survive a nuclear detonation in the vicinity of the White House complex.

“What’s going on?” President Hardwood demanded, looking directly at one of his bodyguards.

“Mr. Pinecroft was shot in his office. No one heard the shot, but it was from a high caliber round that entered from the northeast window and entered the rear of his head.”

“My Lord,” Hardwood stuttered. “Where is my family?”

“They are on their way down to the bunker. The White House has been locked down and gunships have begun hovering above the complex while UAVs circle a ten-mile radius.”

“Have they found the shooter?”

“No.”

Whatever initial destabilization Hardwood had experienced evaporated once they reached the bunker. An inaudible hum permeated the facility. With nowhere to go, the slightest sound bounced off the three-foot thick concrete walls, creating a perpetual hum within. He needed to be left alone to collect his thoughts.

Hardwood was a Vietnam War veteran, flying F4 Phantoms, dropping napalm deep within enemy territory. He had been shot down once over Ta Chan, and captured, then spent six months at the Hanoi Hilton. Hardwood was by no means a pushover politician doing what was convenient or taking the easy road.

“Let me know as soon as my family arrives,” he commanded, as he walked into his private office two thousand feet below Lafayette Park. The elevator they had descended did so diagonally, coming away from the main structure of the White House complex and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Common knowledge that the bunker was directly below the White House complex was erroneous. For security reasons, the bunker was built at an offset. Anyone targeting the president may hit the building and only damage structures vertically below the complex. The offset provided an added dimension of safety.

For that purpose, the underground bunker, filled with sophisticated communication equipment, allows the president to conduct a war on a global scale and manage the country from there, if necessary.

It didn’t take long before the door to the president’s private office opened, and the lead agent informed President Hardwood that his family was secure and in the bunker. It was time to leave.

“Alright, let’s go,” a renewed President Hardwood commanded. He had already figured what was at stake and why Pinecroft was shot. It was not information he could share with anyone just yet. The message, even by an anonymous hand, was loud and clear. Perpetrator and intent were as clear as a summer’s day in Hardwood’s mind.

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