[Luke Stone 02.0] Oath of Office

by Jack Mars

  Perhaps the attack hadn’t gone as well as his employers wanted, but it was still quite an effective operation. Many had died. The city had plunged into chaos, and there was an icy sense of fear throughout the entire nation. And if it wasn’t as dramatic or as devastating as some had hoped, was that Adam’s fault? Hardly. He had done everything they asked of him, and had done it well.

  He was doing it again today. He wore the same protective gear as the workers below him, though he had no intention of going down there. The volunteers were jihadis, and the IV drips attached to their arms were infecting them with the Ebola virus. Soon, they would leave here in groups of twelve, and fan out all across this great city in large passenger vans.

  They would be dropped off on street corners much like religious proselytizers, who would then go out and convert the masses. Only in this case, they would convert the masses from healthy to very sick, and contagious.

  These volunteers were human bombs.

  Many were excited to do the work. Some were frightened and crying. A few needed to be browbeaten into it by the others. There had been a moment of pushing and shoving earlier, which briefly made Adam concerned that he hadn’t brought in any armed guards. In any case, the violence had quickly abated.

  Adam didn’t know what could bring a person to want this task, but he felt it best to stay up here and well away from them. Soon the volunteers would leave, and he could turn his attention to acquiring his final payment, and getting out of this accursed country before the plague spread to every corner of it.

  Soon they would be gone. He breathed a deep sigh of relief at the thought. Indeed, the first batch of a dozen had left the building’s parking lot in a van perhaps twenty minutes ago.

  God speed and good riddance…

  BANG!

  Without warning, the corrugated metal garage bay door in the far corner of the warehouse blew inward. It fell in on itself, writhing like a snake. The sound was loud. The door made a noise just like a thunderstorm.

  Helmeted men in dark blue uniforms flooded in behind thick plastic riot shields. They moved fast, shotguns held ready in front of them. White lettering on the dark helmets said FBI.

  “Down!” someone shouted. “Down! On the floor! Hands above your heads!”

  The volunteers were slow to move. Maybe they were already feeling sick.

  The FBI men seemed to hesitate for a moment. Adam watched them. He could see their hesitation for what it was: confusion. They had come in expecting a battleground, and instead they had found a sick ward.

  They kept coming, more of them flowing in all the time. Soon, there would be as many FBI agents present as there were volunteers.

  Already, five men were running up the stairs to Adam’s catwalk.

  Adam raised his hands and slowly eased himself to the floor.

  He was a very confident man. In any contested situation, things almost always went his way. At times, he felt as if he could bend reality to his will. But even he could see that his plans for a trip abroad were going to be on hold for a while.

  It was over. All his precious specimens would be for naught.

  Except, of course, for the dozen who had already escaped. Perhaps, he thought with a smile, they would be enough to spread the death.

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  12:17 p.m.

  United States Naval Observatory – Washington, DC

  “The target is Los Angeles,” Kurt Kimball said.

  They were upstairs in Susan’s study. Stone had just sent word that Michaela was alive and well. Susan had sunk into a leather high-backed chair. She took a deep breath. The sensation of relief was overwhelming, even more so than the sensation of giving birth to Michaela in the first place. It was if Michaela had died, then by some miracle had returned from the grave.

  Susan enjoyed that feeling. It was one of almost limitless possibility. She rested in that feeling, but only for a moment. There was more to do.

  There was always more to do.

  “We raided all sixty-three venues,” Kurt said. “Most hadn’t seen any activity in a long time. In south Los Angeles, the FBI hit an old warehouse. The terrorists stocked more Ebola virus there. Eighty-four people were in the facility, receiving injections of Ebola when our people came in. They were like suicide bombers.”

  “They were going to walk around, infecting people?” Susan said.

  Kimball nodded. “Walk around, yes. Share dirty needles, perform sex acts for money, contaminate things. Some had jobs as food workers in cafeterias and restaurants.”

  “Would it work?” Susan said.

  She felt blank and hard, like a cinderblock wall. She had given the order to kill five thousand men today. Death from the skies. If another attack had taken place on American soil, she would have ordered the attack on Riyadh. It was an eye for an eye. If the Arabs lived by that rule, she would do the same.

  “Yes. It would work very easily.”

  “Are we done? Is it over now?”

  Kimball shook his head. “No. Apparently a van with a dozen volunteers had already left by the time the FBI arrived. They’re infected, and they’re going to be dropped off somewhere in the city.”

  “Find them,” Susan said.

  “We’re looking,” he said. “We know the van says 8th Street Baptist Church on the side. The LAPD has an all-points bulletin on it. The NSA is feeding them real-time satellite data on large, fifteen-passenger vans driving on city streets.”

  Susan stared at Kimball. All she wanted was to get on a plane, fly to California, and see her family. She gave a brief thought to the infected volunteers. They were like suicide bombers, but the bomb was a disease.

  “God will have mercy on them,” she said. “But we won’t. Understood?”

  Kimball nodded. “Understood.”

  “Do we need to close that city down?” she said.

  Kimball looked at her. “Los Angeles?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you close down the city of Los Angeles? Millions of people. A gigantic international airport. The two largest commercial shipping ports in the United States. Heck, the sixth game of the NBA Finals is tonight. Los Angeles versus Cleveland. The Lakers are up three games to two.”

  For an instant, Susan was alarmed by that thought.

  “Shouldn’t we tell them to cancel it?”

  Kimball shook his head. “How can we? The NBA Commissioner was on all the news stations this morning. He said that security at the game would be the tightest in history, but the National Basketball Association would not bend to terrorism. He’s been trending on social media ever since. He’s the most popular man in America right now.”

  “Is this junior high school?” Susan said. “Does being popular trump keeping people safe?”

  Now Kurt smiled. “Susan, when I was at Rand, I followed your career for years. Senator, Vice President, you were one of the few who always kept what you were doing front and center. And what were you doing all that time? You were winning popularity contests. In fact, you were the most popular person in America on more than a few occasions. It won’t hurt you to remember that.”

  “Thanks, Kurt. One more thing to worry about.”

  “Well,” he said. “Strike the basketball game off your list. They’ll be doing searches, including strip-searches of selected attendees. If they don’t like it, they don’t have to come in. Metal detectors. X-rays. No bags or containers of any kind. Infrared thermometers at all entrances. I doubt anybody’s going to get in there infected by Ebola. If I thought there was a chance of it, I’d be on the phone to the commissioner right now.”

  “Are you going to watch it?” she said.

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Kurt said. “I love basketball.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  9:41 a.m. (12:41 p.m. Eastern Time)

  Skid Row, Los Angeles, California

  The dark fifteen-passenger van pulled to the curb near the corner of San Julian Street and East 6th Street. As church vans went, it was different
from most. The windows were blackened, making it impossible to see inside.

  8th Street Baptist Church said the white stenciled lettering along the side panels.

  Another church group, come to save the lost souls.

  All along the street, homeless people lounged on discarded furniture, or on the sidewalk, or on bundles of blankets, clothes and rags. Some stood around. A few were already drinking from bottles in brown paper bags. A line of encampments hugged the fencing that ran the length of the sidewalk. Blue and green tents, bright yellow and red tarps, shopping carts piled high with belongings, makeshift clotheslines hanging here and there, a wide backseat cannibalized from an old car.

  On this street and the surrounding streets, thousands of homeless people lived—the largest concentrated population of unsheltered homeless people in the country. Skid Row was teeming with them, a mass of throw-away people, many of them engaged in work at the bottom of the economy—prostitution, drug dealing, selling blood plasma, petty violence for hire.

  As the denizens of the neighborhood watched, the back door of the van burst open. A man climbed out and down. Then another. Then a woman. Then another man. They didn’t look like church people. They looked like homeless people themselves. For a moment, they seemed confused, or perhaps dazzled by the bright sunlight.

  A person who looked closely might notice they looked unwell. Eyes rimmed with red on one man. A hacking cough on two others. Pale skin. A woman with a nose bleed. These people were sick.

  “Down!” someone screamed. “Down! Get down!”

  The roar of high-powered engines filled the street. The homeless people knew what that sound meant.

  Police.

  Everywhere, people hit the deck. Women dove on top of their young children. People crawled into tents, or ducked behind ancient home furnishings.

  The people from the van began to scatter and run.

  From nowhere, police dressed in full riot gear appeared. They came running up San Julian. They came running around the corner from East 6th. Police cars and vans blocked the street.

  “Down! On the ground!”

  Then the shooting started.

  The church people outside the van did a funny death dance, before falling to the street. The ones who tried to scatter were gunned down as they ran. The van itself rocked with the force of hundreds of rounds. The windows shattered. The tires popped, and the van sank to its knees.

  A man named Kendrick stood with a forty-ounce bottle of malt liquor twenty yards away from the slaughter. He was a long-term resident of Skid Row, and he hadn’t even attempted to get down. Not a single bullet hit him. That result was consistent with a long-held theory of his. He had an invisible shield around him. He was protected from harm by God.

  A cop in full riot gear moved passed, gun trained on the writhing bodies sprawled on the ground.

  “Don’t go near them,” the cop said. “They’re infected.”

  “Damn,” Kendrick said. “You people have no mercy. No mercy at all.”

  *

  “What do you think?” Ed said.

  Luke shook his head. “I don’t believe it. It’s too easy.”

  The Little Bird banked over the Skid Row carnage. Ed still manned his machine gun. Luke stood next to him at the open cargo door.

  They had dropped Michaela back at the office with Trudy and Swann, then quickly jumped back into the air. Rachel and Jacob followed police radio calls as the cops closed in on the van. Then they swooped in with the chopper to watch the show.

  For Luke, it was important on a few fronts. He had been fighting this battle since the beginning, and he wanted to see it end. He wanted that closure. Also, if any of the terrorists got away, the Little Bird could help find them, or maybe even gun them down.

  Of course, the air above the scene was lousy with LAPD choppers, so the Little Bird wasn’t really needed for that. It was more like a traffic jam up here than the wild blue yonder.

  But there was something else, a nagging feeling…

  “Even when something looks like it’s over, it isn’t,” Luke said. “It’s never over.”

  Ed stared at him.

  “A very smart man told me that once.”

  “Yeah?” Ed said. “When was that?”

  “Early this morning.”

  Luke stared down at the vast grid of city streets. Police cars, ambulances, first responders of all kinds were converging on the spot where the cops had just massacred the human Ebola bombs. The wail of sirens cut through the air, and flashing lights were everywhere.

  “Rachel,” Luke said. “We need to get Trudy and Swann on the horn.”

  “We’re patched straight through to them now.”

  “Trudy?” Luke said.

  “Hi, Luke.”

  For an instant, Trudy’s deep feminine voice gave him a start. Things had been so rushed today, he nearly forgot… they’d had a night last night. They had worked together for years, and a lot had built up between them. Trudy had given him a welcome he wouldn’t soon forget. And Becca? It was too much to think about right now. He needed some time off to sort out his personal life. Two days ago he was telling everyone he planned to retire.

  “How’s the kid?” he said. “Michaela.”

  “Good. She’s having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich from the restaurant on the ground floor. There’s a chopper coming to bring her out to her dad’s place in Malibu.”

  Luke nodded. “Okay, that’s great. But our work isn’t done.”

  “Is it ever?” she said.

  “We’re flying over Skid Row right now. It’s a mess down there. Bodies everywhere. Cops everywhere. Looks like they got the suicide team, but there’s people running through alleys, probably just people with warrants, but we don’t know if anyone’s infected. It’s been handled pretty badly. From here, I can see cops running around down there in street clothes. This whole area below us has to be locked down and quarantined. Just like yesterday. Let’s say forty blocks by forty blocks. No one gets out, controlled entry only. Personal protection for all medical personnel. First responders sit in a containment zone for six hours before they go home. Starting now. Okay? Let’s get it set up.”

  “Okay, Luke.”

  “Anybody gives you trouble, we call the President. She owes us a big one. Need to move anything large and the locals can’t do it, call that admiral in Key West… Van Horn. He likes us and he seemed like he was on the ball.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  Luke looked at Ed again.

  He mouthed the words without making a sound.

  She loves you.

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  11:45 a.m. – Mountain Time

  Aspen, Colorado

  “Omar, the plane is ready. We are leaving here soon.”

  Omar sat on the back deck of his house, trying to enjoy the view of the surrounding mountains. Today it was difficult. Despite the opiate the Mexican doctor had given him, his hand ached and throbbed. Every beat of his heart seemed to send an exaggerated pulse through the middle of his wounded palm.

  He had pulled his bandage away last night, only for a moment. The wound was red and raw and very swollen. The simple act of pulling the bandage away had made his palm bleed.

  Omar was no stranger to the study of religion. It was a painful irony that a soldier of Muhammad would be afflicted with the stigmata of Christ. He tried to make sense of it, he tried to decipher its hidden meaning, but he couldn’t do it.

  “Is it possible this is all a mistake?” he said.

  Ismail stared down at him. “In what way?”

  Omar shook his head. “I don’t know. That this is not reality. That we’re merely dreaming, and when we awake, there will be a different outcome.” He shrugged. “Maybe we’ve slipped into a parallel universe where the outcomes are all wrong. Anything is possible.”

  Ismail sighed. “Omar, please don’t let people hear you say these things. It’s apostasy. Some might consider your ideas punishable by death. In any case,
no. What appears to have happened is what has actually happened. The attack was a failure. The abduction of the President’s child was also a failure. Now the Americans are looking for you again. If we stay here, they will find you. If not today, then tomorrow, or the next day. But soon.”

  “Shall we go home?” Omar said. Under the influence of the painkiller drug, he felt like a child. He needed someone to guide him. His assistant could be that guide.

  “No,” Ismail said. “They’re also looking for you there. The Americans are putting pressure on your cousin the King to surrender you. He’s weak. If he finds you, he’s likely to hand you over. As a matter of fact, I spoke with your beloved cousin early this morning. He asked me where you are.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “I told him,” Ismail said, “that he will never find you. Indeed, I told him that no one will ever find you.”

  Omar took a deep breath. “Are we complete failures?”

  Ismail smiled. “Not complete, no. We have one more trick up our sleeve. We may yet succeed in the attack. Call it a parting gift to our enemies.”

  Omar smiled in turn. “You’re a genius of an assistant.”

  Ismail nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Shall we go to South America, then?” Omar said. “I like South America. I especially like Brazil. The women are incredible.”

  Ismail frowned now. He shook his head, but only a little. “Omar, besides my work as your assistant, do you understand who else I work for?”

  Omar was puzzled by this question. He tried to think through the fog of the opiate. As far as he knew, Ismail was only his assistant. Everyone who worked for Omar, worked only for Omar. It was not a rule, per se. Call it an assumption.

  “Who?” Omar said.

  “Your cousin,” Ismail said. “And our country’s intelligence apparatus. I was sure you must have known this.”