Page 4 of Chaos

Russia.

I sat on a committee that reviewed war crimes in the after.

I leave off the schmoozing and stomp through the White House to Ottilie’s bedroom on the third floor. She’s always there this time of night, reviewing her tasks and sipping her tea.

He was on the Sochi mission.

I shove open her door. “Have Knox get the car. I need a file from my old office.”

She doesn’t ask questions, just pulls a sweater and a pair of boots over her silk pajama set, and leaves the room.

Knox pulls the car up to the front, and we cross town, our headlights cutting through the grim dark, as we head up Constitution Avenue to the Russell Building. We’ve deviated power to strategic locations, and this isn’t one of them, so we use flashlights to get to my office and into my filing cabinet. I have to dig. That hearing was years ago.

But I find it.

The brown envelope splays open across my old desk, stuffed with printed-out court proceedings and photographs.

Yorke Hardt Garrett.

I stare down at a glossy photograph of him in uniform. The square jaw, the deep-set eyes that look haunted, nearly feral. I remember that about him most. He sat on the stand, his voice dead, his eyes vacant, empty, as he recounted the atrocities inside that bunker.

I hand it to Ottilie. “Enter his service number into the database. And get our communications team to work asking for information on anyone going by the names Yorke or Garrett. Include a personal description. I want him found.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ottilie says.

We head back through the dark halls, our footsteps echoing, into the central rotunda with its famous arched hallways, and outside, down the steps, to the waiting car.

Knox closes the door, another tiny, almost invisible look traded between the two of them. They think I don’t know they’re fucking, which is adorable.

As soon as we’re underway, I add, “Offer a reward. And the whole army needs to be outfitted. We can’t put that off any longer. They need to feel like a real army. And I want that list of overpasses and bridges. It’s time we minimize access and exit routes to ones we can actually control.”

Ottilie’s brows lift. “You’re ready to go there?”

Go there. A polite term for exploding major engineering feats of infrastructure.

“Take out the bridges.”

“Yes, Madam President.” Ottilie makes a note on her tablet with a soft smile. “Can we discuss the children again? Since we have the time …”

She enjoys the more mundane aspects of leadership, and she has a true talent for it, so I give her free rein.

As she waxes on, I’m remembering what I know of Major Yorke Hardt Garrett and considering how best to put him to use.

My army is weak.

I can’t have them living in fear.

They need to believe we are strong.

So if a boogeyman must exist, he will be our boogeyman.

1|I’m already lost

YORKE

“IHEARD A GUY TALK ABOUT A FOREST,”the man says from his chair in a basement interrogation room, breathing hard, voice choked with what sounds like grief.

We intercepted him and another guy yesterday as they fled the charred remains of Sulfur Springs Town, and have been leaning into them since.

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