Knave's Gambit

by Deforest Day

  “O.K. Call me confused.”

  “That stretch of 295 is fifty feet above everything else. There just isn’t any other sniper site.”

  Kat stood, picked up her carryall. “Well, better minds than mine will have to solve this mystery. I have to get back to my real job. Snooping into the personal lives of congressional candidates.”

  “That doesn’t sound like securing the homeland.”

  “That’s the same thing I said. And they told me it was because I couldn’t see the big picture.”

  “Gee, a mere mortal. You can’t go back to work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Check the door. No handle. We’re locked in.”

  —o—

  Down the hall, in another interview room, one with a door handle, Silas Wei, Assistant U.S. Attorney for Counter Terrorism, jabbed a finger into FPS Agent Albert Moran’s chest. “You fouled up. Both of you, big time. That man may look like street scum, but I read him as a sly dissembler. And way too conversant with sniper technology. It was evident, during the brief time I was with him, his military background gives him an insight into this situation that is unacceptable.

  “What if he goes to a lawyer, seeking redress for your ham-handed behavior? Or worse, the press, looking for his fifteen minutes of fame? I don’t want that to happen. You don’t want that to happen.” He used two fingers to lift the evidence bag from his pocket, and dangled it in front of the brothers. “You need to deal with this tow truck creature. Do I make myself clear?”

  Clear as mud. They nodded in unison. When in doubt, shut up and apply overwhelming force.

  Kat rushed to the door, banged on it. “HEY!” Nothing happened. She rummaged in her carryall, found her cell. “No bars. Probably some kind of electronic shielding in the walls of this looney bin.” She removed the Glock box from her bag. “We could shoot out the lock.” She opened the lid, looked at the pistol and the magazine cradled in gray foam. “Except I don’t see any whatchamacallits. Bullets.”

  Nick wasn't surprised to see this kid, just a couple of days on the job, was carrying around a brand new pistol she obviously knew nothing about. The government had lots of money, and the Second Amendment crowd had lots of clout. He stood, retrieved the Kel-Tec. “I have bullets.” He laid the little automatic on the table. Showing off a bit, to see where this went. More rope. She picked it up. “It’s warm.”

  “Ninety-eight point six.”

  “It’s not very big.”

  “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight—”

  “—Its the size of the fight in the dog. My dad says that. But then he’s a pint-sized Yankee.”

  “The president is only five-six, and he at least starts a lot of fights.”

  “Major Machler said you were in the army. In Bosnia?” She aimed at the wall, closed an eye, the way they did in the movies. “How many people have you killed?”

  “Until today, none. Please be careful where you point that.”

  “What happened today?”

  “Nothing. But today’s not over.”

  The door opened, and the Morans waltzed in. Al saw Kat, the pistol in her hand. He raised his arms. “Whoa. I give up, Annie Oakley.” He turned to Nick. “We’re supposed to take you back, Nico-demo. Door-to-door service.”

  Nick wanted nothing to do with these two. “I can find my own way home.”

  “Who said anything about going home?” Ern took Nick by the arm. “Hey. Where the fuck are my cuffs?”

  They were in Nick’s hip pocket, but he just said, “Cooler heads prevailed.” They each took an arm, led him out of the interview room. He turned his head, looked at the kid standing there, his pistol in her hand. So much for showing off. “Don’t let the door close.”

  They squeezed into the elevator. The FPS agents stood on either side of Nick; two hundred pounds of meat between five hundred pounds of bread. The cramped car filled with the sour smell of aged sweat. Ern said, “He don’t show much remorse. For a serial assassinator.”

  “That was cleared up, fellas. How about I just go on my way? No hard feelings.”

  Ern said, “Nobody told you to talk, asswipe,” and gave him a shove against the elevator door, then raised his hand toward the corner of the elevator, blocking the camera.

  Nick turned. He’d had enough of these two, and was about to use the pair of them as speed bags, here in the world’s smallest gym, when Al jammed what looked like a garage door opener against his neck. Three million volts surged through his body, disrupting his central nervous system. He lost muscle control, lost his balance, lost his will to resist.

  “Remind me,” Al said to Ern, “To recharge my stun gun.” He laughed, pocketed the device, and pressed the button for Basement.

  When they reached the garage level they scooped him off the floor, walked their sandwich toward their Impala. Nick blinked, shook his head to clear the fog. The stun gun jolt was worse than a knockout punch from a heavyweight. He stumbled to his knees as they opened the rear door, and thumbed the child security button off as he climbed into the back seat.

  During his adventure at the Department of Homeland Security the afternoon had become evening. The pickers at the recycling facility had boarded the A4/DC bus, and the homeless had traded their cans for cash.

  It was full dark when they reached the end of Shepherd Parkway. Their headlights scoured the vacant sidewalks. Nick leaned against the door, listening to the Morans in the front seat, loud enough to make sure he heard their banter.

  “He look despondent to you?”

  “Certainly does. I think he’s suffering from remorse. For the tragedy he created, on 295.”

  “Probably his despondency is going to carry him back to the scene of the crime. The roof.”

  The muscle spasms were gone. Nick could feel his body and his brain getting reacquainted.

  “He seems so remorseful, he probably can’t stand to go on living. Up on that roof, there. Where the tragedy unfolded.”

  “There would be a definite likelihood of him doing himself some bodily harm.”

  “You think?”

  “I know.”

  They slowed at the entrance to the Impoundment Yard. Nick yanked the door handle, and rolled onto the roadway.

  “What the fuck?” They turned in the front seat, stared at the open door, at Nick running across the street, into the scrap yard.

  —o—

  It was dim, somber, and tense in the Oval Office.

  SHORTSTOP, DEERSLAYER, and the Attorney General listened as SAP Drubb read the latest distillation of field reports, spiced with fresh data gleaned from CNN, FOX, and MSNBC.

  “A Shell tanker in Boston, then an independent hauler on I-93 South, in Quincy. Two hours later a similar event took place on Houston’s I-10, followed by a repeat in Sugar Land.” He glanced at the second page. “Three separate accidents in the Los Angeles area. Also involving gasoline tankers on the Interstate system, and all with massive loss of life. Given the time differentials, everything happened during the morning rush hour.”

  The president turned from the windows, shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, struck a thoughtful pose. The official White House photographer was unobtrusively working the edges of the assemblage. Maybe lean over the desk, like the famous shot of JFK during the Day of the Pigs thing. The lighting was right. “You figure these accidents might be connected?”

  Mason played the sacrificial lamb. “Yes sir, Mr. President. If we examine the details of the I-295 tragedy-”

  “I’m funnin’ ya, sport. Course they’re connected. Probably something wrong with the brakes, like those Pinto gas tanks. All these accidents took place on the Interstates, so we need to get the Interstate Commerce Commission after it. Or would it be the FCC?” He turned to AG Oxenhammer. “Help me out here, Mr. Legal Eagle.”

  “Well, Sir, if they were accidents, I think the NTSB should be the lead investigators on this.” The Attorney General moved ahead with his part in the charade. “But we have
to look at the possibility they were not equipment malfunctions. Examine the possibility of a terrorist attack. Because of the simultaneity, and diverse localities.”

  The vice president said, “We recovered a bullet from the second incident, right here in DC. Snipers, Mr. President. A concerted effort, if you will, to disrupt our economic lifeblood. By targeting gasoline trucks they achieve a multipurpose objective. The accidents themselves, of course, with the tragic loss of innocent life, can be construed as the opening thrust. And then, the aftermath of the events. I’m led to believe both the 495 and 295 bridges will be closed for months. One must assume the same situation exists in Texas and California.”

  He moved closer to SHORTSTOP, and lowered his voice. “And, finally, there is the scarcity of gasoline that is sure to come. Raising prices higher than they already are. And you know who gets the blame for that. Not good, with an election looming.” He turned to the president's special assistant. “Do we have a handle on the companies involved?”

  Drubb flipped through the pages, looking for data that was already on his tongue. “Shell, BP, Chevron. A couple of independent haulers. So far.”

  The vice president leaned closer, and loomed over SHORTSTOP. “Curious that CITGO hasn’t been targeted. Hmmm?”

  The president stepped back from the discourteous height comparison. “Snipers. Like, with guns, huh? Well, shit. We have to do something about it. Are we doing something about it?”

  Gabe Oxenhammer jumped in. “Yes sir, Mr. President. I have FBI incident teams in transit to each scene. They will be tasked with identifying possible shooting locations. Scouring the scene for shell casings, other trace evidence. FEMA has mobile forensic labs pre-positioned, and they will be activated as soon as qualified personnel can be transited.

  “I gave Larry Edgerton a heads up moments ago. He’s deploying multidisciplinary teams of intelligence and operational professionals to all thirty-eight Fusion Centers, to begin coordinating analysis from local, state, and federal entities.”

  The president clapped his hands once; his signal to conclude the meeting. Even before the Cipro his attention span was a short as his stature. “Sounds like you’re on top of this. I’ve always made it one of my strong points to hire good people, then get out of their way. It was my scriptwriters that earned me all those Emmys. So I’ll leave the nitty gritty of this situation to you folks. I got to go get ready for some kind of Rose Garden thing. You need me, I’ll be in the Residence.”

  —o—

  As the evening progressed another incident took place on I-95, between Washington and Richmond. This one involved another gasoline tanker, a tractor trailer load of live chickens, and a school bus carrying Special Needs students.

  Two more tankers were targeted on the same Interstate 95, between Boston and Providence. In Texas the trail of destruction headed for San Antonio. Across the nation cell systems were overloaded, and commuter delays were monumental. For the lucky ones.

  —o—

  Paperhangers from the General Services Administration were called in to paste a billboard-sized map of the Interstate Highway System on a hastily cleared wall at headquarters. A rolling ladder requisitioned from the local Home Depot was used to mark the growing number of crash sites with pushpins the size of golf balls. The Communications Director felt it was faster than continually updating Power Points.

  “Looking for a thread,” the Director of the FBI said to the Attorney General, as they studied the wall. “Some kind of continuity. Give us a handle on this thing.” He pointed at the map. “The key is to connect the dots, figure where they are going to strike next.” The Director smashed his right fist into his left palm. “And then get there, before they do.” He thought for a moment, searching for a word that would connect with this fuckin’ lawyer. “It’s what they call being proactive.”

  AG Oxenhammer said, “I just informed the president you had people looking for the shooter’s locations.”

  “Well, yes. that’s true. But with new incidents coming in, we’re stretched pretty thin, Mr. Attorney General. I only have thirty thousand people in the Bureau, and half of them are support personnel. Paper pushers. If you remember, I requested more Special Agents in my budget. Just for contingencies like this.”

  The AG turned away from the map. “Maybe HomSec should put some of their people on it,” he mused.

  “No.” The Director grabbed Oxenhammer's arm. “We’re on top of this, sir. Just takes time. You know what they say; the FBI always gets their man.”

  “I thought that was the Mounties.”

  “Well, maybe; but I think Mr. Hoover said it first.”

  Several shirtsleeved Special Agents ran to the wall, and added markers to I-65, between Chicago and Indianapolis. Then they rolled their ladder across the Great Plains, across the vast emptiness of the Rocky Mountains, and began marking I-5, between Seattle and Portland.

  Another Special Agent, armed with a cordless Makita, a box of ten penny nails, and a tube of Gorilla Glue, drilled holes in another dozen bright-yellow golf balls.

  The Director said, “Aw, shit. Maybe you’d better talk to Secretary Edgerton, after all.”

  “Well ahead of you,” the Attorney General muttered as he headed for the door.

  —o—

  A switch engine humped scrap-filled gondolas, making up a train to Baltimore. Elmo dropped a final five tons of shredded steel into the last railcar, then leaned out of the cab, stuck a thumb in the air. The yard locomotive gave a shrill toot in response, and the cars jerked forward as the slack in the couplings was taken up. Elmo swung the boom away from the tracks, preparing to shut down for the night.

  Nick ran around the side of the Wendt shredder, glanced over his shoulder, and jumped onto the crawler. The halogen lamp on the sixty-foot boom threw a narrow cone of light onto an automobile creeping into the yard.

  “Mo! Help me out here. Bastards were planning to throw me off the roof.” Nick was out of breath as he clung to the side of the crane’s cab.

  “Who, what, why, where?”

  “There. Couple of cops, got a bug up their butt. They picked me up earlier today, about the 295 accident. And now they want to kill me.”

  “Well, well,” Elmo chuckled. “Can’t let that happen. Who’ll bring me VIN tags?” He swung the boom across the roadway, and into the path of the black Impala.

  “Where the fuck did the fucker go?” Al leaned against the steering wheel, peered through the windshield. Ern drew his pistol, lowered his window. “Jesus, he could be anyplace in here. I think we need to go after him on foot. We got a flashlight in the trunk?”

  Elmo dropped his six-foot wide Scrapmaster electromagnet on their roof, crushing it to the level of the hood and trunk. All ten air bags exploded.

  He energized the magnet, lifted the FPS vehicle eight feet in the air, and swung it over the departing train. It landed in the last gondola, back end down, headlights raking the sky.

  “Thanks for the help. I owe you a big one, Mo.”

  Elmo took a fresh cigar from his shirt pocket, licked it like a popsicle, and tucked it in the corner of his mouth. “You don’t owe me nothin’.” He killed the spotlight on the boom, and the yard went dark. He shut down the big Cummins diesel, and the loudest sound was steel wheels squealing against the tracks leading to Baltimore. He heaved his bulk out of the cab, and climbed off the machine. “Because I was never here.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Midnight brought yet another batch of golf balls dotting the map in the building. Red ones, marking the start of a new day.

  The Director rolled up his cuffs and pulled down his necktie. “Thirty seven goddamn incidents. How the hell are they doing this in the dark?”

  His Deputy Assistant Director for Counter Terrorism shook his head as he peeled the lid off a large coffee. “I don’t know, sir. Night vision scopes?”

  “Not possible. The Photo Analysis geeks brought some of our Hostage Rescue guys in to take a look at the overheads. They said the
closest place a sniper could set up for some of these shots was half a mile away. Said it would take a fifty cal for a shot like that.” He grabbed his assistant's coffee, took a quick sip. “And all we’ve recovered are a few seven millimeter bullets. A single thirty ought-six from the Pacific Northwest shooter.”

  He shoved the styrofoam cup in the SOB's chest, splashing him with weak coffee. “You better come up with some answers, PDQ, or you can start packing gear for the Arctic Circle. And find someone who knows how to make coffee.”

  —o—

  Kat stayed on Five, working with Levon and Major Machler, who quickly saw why her young boss had brought the girl on board. At midnight they heard the distinctive thwop thwop of a helicopter overhead. A few minutes later Secretary Edgerton appeared in the doorway of the place Kat still thought of as the ‘Houston we have a problem’ room. Most of the bleary-eyed day shift had straggled off for a few hours of sleep. The few who remained stared at screens, talking softly on headsets.

  Levon gave the Secretary a brief rundown of what he had, which wasn’t much, given that twenty-three people had devoted the past nine hours to the situation.

  Edgerton said, “I had FEMA spool up their Fusion Centers. But don’t expect anything earth shattering from them. Weather-related disasters are about the limit of their abilities. From what the AG tells me, the FBI isn’t doing any better. Nobody seems to be able to think on their feet anymore.” He dropped his chin on his chest and his voice to baritone, then did a credible FBI Director. “First thing we do is establish a task force to initiate a study group.” He checked his audience, seeking plaudits. Levon and Geneva knew the drill, and gave him an appreciative chuckle.

  He turned to Kat, asked if she could rustle up a pot of fresh coffee. He tossed Geneva a grin. “I’d ask Major Machler, but she frightens me.” The major made a low jungle noise in her throat which could indeed be construed as scary. “Bring it to my office, Miss, ah, ah-” He snapped his fingers. “Sinclair; Kat, not Kathy,” he said, and headed to Six with Levon.