Debt Bomb Read online

Boots stomping against the stairs echoed through the basement, followed by pounding on the door. Deep male voices shouted, “Open up!” and “Don’t shoot! No dynamite! Gartner may be in there!”

  The calm, collected Xu Li, the epitome of secret agent sangfroid, had made a grievous mistake letting her emotions overcome her. The rescuers upstairs must have heard Andrea hit the floor and scream.

  Xu Li frantically whipped her head back and forth in desperation. She appeared to have completely forgotten about Andrea. The banging at the door was pushing Xu Li over the edge.

  “There’s no way out for you,” Andrea sneered. “You’d better give up now if you want to live.”

  Xu Li reached into her jacket pocket as panic appeared to overtake her.

  Andrea’s muscles tensed.

  What is she grabbing? A gun? A knife?

  Xu Li pulled out a small cardboard paper pouch with a red stripe that looked like a single-serving portion of instant oatmeal. She tore it open with her teeth and emptied a white pill into her hand. Still strapped to the toppled chair, Andrea watched from her side as Xu Li shoved the pill into her mouth.

  “No one came for you, did they?” Andrea said.

  White foam oozed from Xu Li’s mouth.

  “You’re expendable to your totalitarian masters. Even you, the great Xu Li, the spymaster nonpareil, was just another can of beans to them. My country came to rescue me. Your country expects you to kill yourself rather than be taken alive.”

  Xu Li’s eyes widened as if she was about to speak, but before she could utter a word, she dropped to the floor unconscious. The white foam now gushed from her mouth and was coursing through the cracks of the broken concrete floor.

  Seconds later, the light of a welder’s torch appeared on the bottom left corner of the basement door and began tracing its edges. When the light had traced the entire perimeter and reached the bottom right corner of the door, boots began kicking it. With a squeak, the heavy metal door toppled inward like a domino and men in SWAT gear charged into the room. Behind them ran Rachel, also in SWAT gear.

  “Get down!” a SWAT team member shouted as red laser sights crisscrossed the basement. “Get on the ground!”

  Rachel went directly to Andrea’s chair and righted it as the agents fanned out.

  “Andrea?” she said.

  “Rachel . . .” Andrea eked out. Rachel looked so small in the bulky SWAT uniform. “Oh, mercy, am I glad to see you.”

  “Me too,” Rachel said.

  The agent who’d entered the room before Rachel still had his gun drawn as he surveyed the scene for danger.

  “Over there.” Andrea pointed to Xu Li’s collapsed body. “She’s the mastermind of it all.”

  The agent walked over to Xu Li’s body, kneeled beside it, and took her pulse. “This chick’s gone,” he said.

  “How did you find me?” Andrea asked.

  “Never mind that now,” said Rachel. “We need to get you out of here.”

  “Where are we?” asked Andrea.

  “East Baltimore,” said Rachel.

  Andrea’s emotional nervous system froze as if some internal fuse had blown. Fifteen minutes earlier she thought Xu Li was about to kill her. The events of the last week had simply overloaded her emotional circuitry. The ransacking of America. The assassination of President Murray. Her family’s breaking down. Hours in the darkness of a fetid basement tormented by Xu Li. Now, suddenly, it all seemed to be over.

  Andrea couldn’t cry, or laugh, or cheer, or scream. A torrent of emotions was pulling her in every direction, leaving her numb and emotionless.

  Two soldiers cut Andrea’s wrists and ankles free.

  “Get her out of here,” said Rachel.

  Each soldier put one of Andrea’s arms over his shoulder and carried her out of the basement and up the stairs, her legs too weak to move, her toes dragging on the floor.

  Rachel followed.

  As the agents carried her up the stairs and out of the warehouse, Andrea saw dead Chinese soldiers, the collapsed walls, and the tanks, covered in shattered brick fragments.

  “My Lord,” said Andrea. “What happened here?”

  “You rest.” Rachel gestured to the two SWAT officers to keep hustling Andrea out of the warehouse. “There’ll be plenty of time later for me to fill you in.”

  The cool night air slapped Andrea in the face. It was a welcome relief from the stultifying, unventilated basement. She took a deep breath. The SWAT agents took her to a waiting ambulance and paramedics helped seat her in the back. Rachel jumped in for the ride to the hospital.

  “Just tell me, Rachel,” said Andrea. “Is it over?”

  “It’s over,” Rachel said. “It’s over.”

  “And my family?” asked Andrea. “Are they all right?”

  “They’re fine. I got them hidden in a secure location right after our call. I had a hunch something was going down.”

  “Boy do I love you.” Andrea’s eyes filled with tears.

  “They’re safe and sound,” Rachel said, smiling with relief. “And very, very proud of you.”

  Andrea hated hospitals. The sterile fluorescent white lights. The antiseptic yet mildly nauseating smell. The barely edible food on plastic trays, plastic plates, plastic everything. The insistence on serving Jell-O at every meal. Even the food seemed to be made of plastic.

  Andrea was just about to tuck into a breakfast of powdered eggs and a muffin when the door of her hospital room opened.

  “Mind if I come in?” Rachel asked.

  Andrea barely had energy after two days in the hospital, but she offered a weak yet warm smile. “Rachel,” she said wearily. “It’s so good to see you. I’m about to go stir crazy in this place.”

  “You were lucky,” said Rachel. “The doctors found swelling in your brain when you got here.”

  Andrea slowly lifted her arm and gently touched her left temple. She felt the bandages covering the wound and the surgical opening. “Feels like they did some work up here,” she joked.

  “It was probably from the car accident, though they don’t know for sure. The doctors said another two days in that basement and you probably would have had a fatal stroke.”

  Andrea widened her eyes a bit.

  “You’re lucky your Chinese kidnappers took you to Baltimore,” Rachel continued. “We took you to Hopkins. There’s nothing left of the government medical facilities in DC. The Chinese ransacked Bethesda Naval Hospital. They took everything except the walls and doors.”

  Just then, a commotion stirred outside. A small Secret Service detail took up positions at the door. President Campbell and Brooks Powell followed them into the room and went to Andrea’s bedside.

  “Andrea Gartner,” President Campbell said, smiling and putting his hand on Andrea’s. “What a relief it is to see you.”

  “Mr. Vice President,” Andrea said wearily. Rachel and Brooks exchanged a look. Andrea realized her mistake. “I mean, Mr. President, sir.”

  “You know about President Murray?” Campbell asked.

  “I think so,” Andrea said. “Xu Li said he was dead.”

  “It’s true,” Rachel said. “Congressman Mason murdered him.”

  “We’re quite sure from the forensics that Mason killed him,” said Brooks.

  Andrea shook her head in disbelief.

  “How on earth does the FBI and the CIA miss that the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee is a Chinese spy?” Andrea was baffled.

  Campbell smiled wryly. “The Debt Rebel Gang is now trying to explain how one of their leading lights turned out to be a Chinese mole. They’re finding it’s not a lot of fun to be on defense. A Debt Rebel Gang tied up explaining how a Chinese spy infiltrated its ranks won’t have time to excommunicate heretics from the Republican Party.”

  “Where are the Chinese now?” Andrea asked. “Did you kick them out of the country?”

  “Gone,” Campbell said. “They were already nearly gone when you had your accident. They took their
property and skedaddled. No more Chinese soldiers on American soil.”

  “And President Murray?” asked Andrea. “Aren’t they going to pay a price for that?”

  “We don’t have anything to fight the Chinese with,” Campbell said. “The Chinese took too much government property and we have no money. We couldn’t fight a war if we wanted to.”

  “What happened to me?” Andrea asked.

  “You were kidnapped by Chinese agents,” said Rachel.

  “The guy in that SUV who was following me?” Andrea asked.

  “The Pripyat spokesman,” Rachel said. “Zegna Suit. He really was Mason’s brother. The FBI confirmed it. He took you from the accident scene to the warehouse in Baltimore.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “The Chinese murdered Congressman Mason after he assassinated President Murray,” Rachel said. “When Zegna Suit found out Xu Li had killed his brother, he turned himself in to the FBI. He said he wasn’t going to let Xu Li discard him like she discarded his brother. He told us everything. Operation Pripyat. Xu Li. And the location of the warehouse where they were holding you.”

  “We sent in a SWAT team, two FBI counterterrorism units, and half of what was left of the Maryland National Guard,” Campbell said.

  “But why did the Chinese murder Mason?” asked Andrea.

  “Mason thought he was going to be president, or chief commissar, or whatever the Chinese planned to install after they toppled the American government,” said Rachel. “But they washed their hands of him after he assassinated the president. Shot him dead in his office.”

  “Did the Chinese really find four trillion dollars’ worth of stuff?” Andrea asked.

  “I think so.” Campbell sighed. “Those oil and gas leases on federal lands are going to put them over the top, probably. Thirty years of oil and gas profits? That’s a tidy sum.”

  “Don’t forget the ritual humiliation,” interjected Brooks. “The pictures of them hauling the Resolute desk out of the Oval Office and the Apollo 11 capsule out of the Air & Space Museum are in the papers all over the world. Everyone thinks the United States is done. They think China is the superpower now.”

  “Did they leave anything behind?” Andrea asked.

  “Yeah,” said Brooks. “They left your desk. They didn’t like the big dent in it.”

  Andrea smiled sheepishly. “Maybe I should have gone nuts on some more stuff in the White House,” she joked. Finally, a valuable use for her temper. Imagine all future government property being issued with the “Andrea Gartner dent” to prevent creditors from seizing it to pay government debts.

  “How about the country?” asked Andrea.

  “Well, my polls suck.” Campbell shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

  “You know what I mean,” Andrea said.

  Campbell and Brooks exchanged glances. “Andrea, things are grim and okay all at once.”

  “How’s that?” she asked.

  “People are still dying from the emergency budget,” said Brooks. “Still no Medicare or Social Security for most people. Can’t afford it. Lots of kids not eating enough without complete school lunches.”

  “What’s okay about any of that?” She tried to sit up but felt a little dizzy.

  “What’s okay, shocking really, is somehow the country is holding together,” President Campbell said. “Surviving. A lot of corporations and wealthy philanthropists are trying to pick up the slack to provide medicines and food to people who need it. It’s not perfect. But there’s no rioting or shooting in the streets.”

  Brooks agreed. “People are angry, but there’s no revolution. Unless you consider their demands that Congress pass balanced budgets a revolution. Even your old friends in the Debt Rebel Gang are now saying they supported balanced budgets all along.”

  “Brings to mind the old quote from that French revolutionary Ledru-Rollin: ‘There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader,’ or something like that,” President Campbell said. “You could put that quote on the Debt Rebel Gang’s tombstone and make it the TrueCon Network’s slogan.”

  “They all thought they were driving the anti-Establishment bus,” said Andrea. “They were really only riding the tide.”

  “Don’t get too worked up,” Brooks said. “Docs say we need to control your blood pressure.”

  “We can’t have you dying on us,” Campbell said. “We need you back at OMB. You’ve been on the debt issue from day one. Besides, everyone hates you already. Who’s going to come in and take this job knowing we have years of emergency budgets ahead of us?”

  “You make it sound so appealing,” Andrea replied sarcastically.

  “So you’ll come back?” Campbell asked.

  Andrea hesitated. She thought of her kids. She’d taken the OMB job for them. But she nearly had gotten killed doing it. She wanted to be home more than anything in the world. Her husband, her kids, her mother, all of them needed her. Her work was done; the emergency budget was on autopilot now. As long as it remained in place, the debt would slowly be paid off. The country was on a glide path back to normal. It would take a decade, at least, but it would get there.

  “Mr. President, I greatly appreciate your confidence,” Andrea said, “but it’s time for me to go home.”

  Campbell nodded, disappointed but understanding. “You did it, you know.”

  “Did what?” Andrea perked up.

  “Saved the country,” Campbell said.

  Andrea scoffed. “Hardly. We’re not a superpower anymore. Lost Taiwan, lost the South China Sea, probably lost the respect of the rest of the world. And the Chinese stripped the country clean.”

  Campbell looked down at her, gently patting her hand. “Yeah, but we’re still here.”

  Tears welled her eyes. “Barely,” she whispered.

  “Barely still counts, doesn’t it?” Campbell smiled. “We can replace property. It’s just stuff. We’re still here. The sun will rise, the sun will set, and the United States of America will go on. And it’s because of you. Don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re just an accountant. You’re the accountant who saved the country.”

  EPILOGUE

  On the fifth anniversary of President Murray’s election, Andrea Gartner stood on the lawn of her South Carolina home, watching Aaron playing catch with Ryan while Michelle rode a bike with her friends around the cul-de-sac. Her mother sat on a rocking chair on the front porch reading a book.

  Andrea rarely thought about Washington anymore.

  After leaving OMB, she’d returned to South Carolina and her CPA practice. Leaving Washington had been easy; fortunately, the Gartners had only rented their DC home. The Washington real estate market had collapsed in the wake of the emergency budget and homes sold for pennies on the dollar. The Gartners had just terminated their lease and headed home to Columbia.

  Andrea’s old landlord had given her back her old office space. The faded “Jake’s Doggy Day Care” in the background of the “Andrea Gartner, CPA” sign on the front door of the office was still there. She’d never been so happy to see it. And the hot buffet on the first floor never tasted so good.

  Business was good; she was famous now. People thought with her Washington experience she had a special connection with what was left of the IRS. She didn’t, but if people wanted to think that, who was she to stop them? But that fame was a double-edged sword. Plenty of people still hated her. Wally Flynn never talked to her again after President Campbell replaced him with one of his longtime staffers.

  Everyone wanted to see the letter from President Campbell awarding Andrea the Presidential Medal of Freedom she displayed in her waiting room. He had awarded it to her just before she left Washington. There was no medal; the emergency budget had cut purchases of medals and other such swag. All President Campbell could give her was a handwritten letter on plain white printer paper. But she’d framed it with the Office Depot ballpoint pen the president had used to sign it.

  “Mom, I’m hungry!” Aaron shoute
d. He sounded like a boy, though he was now about to graduate high school and planning to study engineering in college. Even though NASA had been forced to close up shop, private space companies were sprouting up, hoping to pick up the slack.

  Andrea smiled. “I got some stuff to make a lasagna tonight.”

  “Dad and I can make it,” Aaron said excitedly.

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  Andrea gazed at the neighborhood. “Michelle, come in, it’s getting dark and you need to do your homework!” Andrea shouted across the cul-de-sac.

  “All right, Mom,” Michelle said, and she pulled up on her bike.

  Andrea turned to her mother. She was in her best health in years, pain-free and able to walk and move about the house. “How about we go inside now?” she said. She lifted her mother up, took her by the arm, and walked her across the porch and into the house.

  Andrea was about to close the door when she noticed the flag on her porch. It was the flag from her old EEOB office. President Campbell had given her the flag as a keepsake.

  The orange glow of the South Carolina sunset brightened the flag. Every day for the five years since she had left DC the sun had risen and set over that flag. The colors hadn’t faded a bit. It was the same red, white, and blue as it was the day she walked into the White House for the first time. Nothing had destroyed that flag. Not the emergency budget, not the war, not the Chinese repossession.

  Andrea smiled as she stepped into the house and closed the door.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Michael E. Ginsberg is an attorney in Washington, DC, practicing in the field of national security law. He spent a decade in private practice at Arnold & Porter LLP in Washington, DC, and then worked several years in the US government as a Senior Associate General Counsel in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), where he served as legal counsel for the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). He serves as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at a Virginia-based defense contractor.

  Ginsberg has also served in senior leadership positions in the Republican Party of Virginia and is the cofounder of the Suburban Virginia Republican Coalition.