Chain of Command Read Online Free

Mary. He’d taken the semester off to intern on Capitol Hill. Like most of his peers, he shared a tiny apartment with five other guys. Not only was it impossible to bring a female friend home, it was also impossible to get the rank smell of that many male bodies out of the stuffy air.
    He was the only one at home, a rarity. Usually he’d be at work or in a cafe networking with potential employers, but he’d answered an ad the day before on Craigslist. It was a simple job and paid well. $100 for sitting around wasn’t bad. He didn’t even make $100 for a whole day of running around kissing an old politician’s ass.
    The cell phone that had arrived on his doorstep an hour earlier pinged. He looked at the screen and saw the Twitter status update. Boring , he thought.
    As he picked up the phone that had only one number programmed in its favorites, Gregory wondered if he could get in any trouble for what he was doing. He didn’t know who he was doing this for, and what it was he was passing on. They’d promised to send the payment to his PayPal account.
    In the end, he shrugged off his unease and dialed the number.
    “Hello?” someone answered on the other end.
    Gregory looked down at the printout in his hand and read the line that corresponded with the correct Twitter update.
    “Yes, I was wondering if you had any jars of pickled eggs.”
    It sounded ridiculous to Gregory. If this was some spy shit, they needed to get their stuff together. Nobody ever said something that lame in the movies.
    The response came a moment later. “I’m sorry. We just sold our last case.”
    The line went dead, and a second later, so did the phone.
    He’d been instructed to throw the phone in a public waste can. Gregory put on his coat and headed for the door. He already knew the bar where he was going to spend his money.
     
    +++
     
    Ten similar interactions were made over the next thirty minutes. All innocent. All simple. Should the NSA, CIA or any other agency intercept one of the messages, analysts would surely skip over the innocuous conversations, a handful in a haystack of millions they churned through every day.
    The final resting places of the messages took the news stoically. They knew their roles. For the rest of the day, final preparations would be made. Boots tied. Systems re-checked. Weapons cleaned.
     
    +++
     
    The White House
    1:33pm
     
    “Mr. President, you have Congressman Matisse on line one,” announced the president’s secretary over the intercom.
    President Brandon Zimmer looked up from his work.
    “Thank you,” he said, picking up the handset and pressing the blinking button. “Good afternoon, Ezra.” Zimmer liked the bookish New Jersey congressman. A lot of the younger generation didn’t. They thought the Jewish politician was too much of a throwback, stoic and diligent, when he should’ve been fiery in his rhetoric.
    During his brief stint in the House, President Zimmer had come to not only respect Matisse, but truly admire the man’s legacy. He’d been a member of the House since the early ‘80s. Even the president’s father, the late Senator Richard Zimmer (D-Massachusetts), who leaned conservative more often than not, had said, “If you want to learn how to have a long career in Washington, watch and listen to Ezra Matisse. He’ll still be here long after we’re dead.”
    Zimmer had listened to his father, studying the New Jersey Democrat’s legislation from over the years. Despite Matisse’s natural political leanings, Zimmer found that the Jersey son of a rabbi was pragmatic in his approach, and realistic while others merely sought the praise of their constituency or the glow of the media spotlight. Simply put, President Zimmer held Congressman Matisse in high esteem.
    “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. President. I…well, I thought I should bring something to your attention.”
    Zimmer couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard Matisse so flustered. He waited for his former