by Deforest Day
The vice president was impressed with the thoroughness of the operation, but nevertheless, pressed ahead. “Yes, but isn’t C-4 ours? Some lab wizard could trace it back to your people. Wouldn’t that Czech stuff, Seminex, have been a better choice?”
“Semtex. The terrorist's favorite. Sure, if you want ham-handed footprints all over this op. C-4 is tagged at manufacture; every lot can be traced. This particular batch went to the Afghan resistance, when they were fighting the Russians. A few tons wound up in China. Last year some of it found it’s way to Caracas, in partial payment for some oil. The boys at Langley have warehoused a couple of pallets of the same lot, for just such an occasion. In the unlikely event the FBI lab traces the residue from the truck accidents, they’ll find Communist fingerprints.”
“Christ, but I didn’t realize how devious you people are. I’m proud to have you on our team. And the passports are a nice touch. I should have Clandestine Services get one for me. The president can hold it up on camera.”
“Already thought of. She tucked one in the phone book beneath the telephone.”
“You do think of everything. Anytime you want to come in from the cold, I’ll see you have a top spot.”
“Thank you, sir, but I’m quite happy with the spot I already occupy. I can do more to advance the cause of freedom out here, than in some office. Besides, it’s not as cold as you might think.” The swarthy man swung his legs over the edge of the bed, cradled the phone between ear and shoulder, and lit a small cigar. Cuban. Picked a week earlier, when he was acquiring the Venezuelan passports.
“Good, good. Everything is in place. Let’s schedule the demise of our erstwhile terrorists for prime time tonight. After the president speaks, and before the sheeple decide which superstar gets fucked.”
“Sir, there is one small glitch. A friend of a friend tells me he has been contacted by another Snake Eater, from the old days. Some almeja chardo, inquiring about José Martí. That is a road I would prefer to have closed to traffic, before someone stumbles across the CIA's Domestic Operations Division. As soon as I hear the inquiry has been discontinued, I’ll make those six calls.”
“What? I’m not sure I understa—”
“I can’t make it any plainer, Sir. This person at HomSec has to go away. Far away. Apparently my face has become well-known there, or I would take care of it myself.”
The swarthy man wiped down the receiver, returned it to the cradle, and disconnected the ohmmeter. He went into the bathroom and dropped the cigar in the toilet. Washed his face, flushed the toilet, and returned to the bed. He removed his shoes and waited for the dark haired woman. Why waste the room?
Chapter Twenty Two
Albert Moran lifted his eyepatch and squinted at the bloodshot eyeball reflected in the bathroom mirror. The bright light was painful, but at least he could now see to drive. And to shoot.
He’d really screwed up last night when they ambushed Nico-demo at the Impoundment Yard. When he aimed at the prick in the old pickup, closed his left eye, and pulled the trigger, the bullet went awry. He'd forgotten he had a patch over his right eye.
With one-armed Ern behind the wheel, there was no way they could give chase. So they were back in Baltimore; square one, and ready to try again. He peeled the Velcro on the walking boot, and rummaged under the sink for one of the Ace bandages Ma used for her veins. Ten minutes and a tab of Perc later he was good as new. “Ern! Get your ass out of the sack. Time to go finish our assignment.”
Ern wandered out of his bedroom wearing jockey shorts and the neck brace. “I shun’ta slept in this thing. My neck feels worse than last night.” He swung his arm in a gentle arc. “At least my wing’s better. Not good enough to punch nobody, but I can work the stun gun just fine.” He jumped his equipment over the top of his briefs, and emptied his bladder. “What’s the plan?”
“We know where he works. We’ll stop by, on the way into DC. He ain’t there, we’ll check in at HomSec, find out where he lives at.”
When they arrived at HomSec they found a thirty-eight thousand pound eight-wheeled Stryker assault vehicle, painted matte black and sporting the Bearclaw logo and toll-free number on the sides, idling at the main entrance. It was the Civil Disobedience configuration, with the water cannon and tear gas riot tubes on top, and a pair of Bearclaw troopers lounging on the rear ramp.
Inside the building the retired DC cops running the ID checks and scanners had been replaced by Bearclaw troopers. Like the two outside, they were clad in black from top to bottom, and armed with MP-5 submachine guns. They all wore extra-dark sunglasses for the additional intimidation factor.
Fourth floor was busy assembling lists of PDE’s, Possible Disruptive Elements, and their current locations. On Five, more Bearclaw troopers patrolled the hallways, getting in the way of people trying to make some sense out of the latest White House directives. Word was a major Oval Office announcement would be made during drive time.
Ern was writing 1236 Cushing Street on a pink While You Were Out slip when Al’s smartphone told him they had another assignment. One much closer by. He showed the small screen to Ern. “Well, fuck me, bro. All this time I been calling that licorice whip ‘Jemima’. And it ain’t her name at all.”
—o—
Nick told Kat Max’s Best, on Wisconsin Avenue, is the place for ice cream in DC, but with gas at nine dollars a gallon it's a long haul from the Impoundment Yard, even when MetroDC is filling the tank. Besides, some pretty fine frozen yogurt can be had at the Anacostia Naval Station, across the river from Washington National.
They could sit on a bench beside the Potomac, and watch the boats go by. Unlike the Cannon Works roof, there were enough other people doing the same thing that fighting was not an option.
Nick decided to break the ice. “I think you said you’re from up north?”
“New England. Vermont. Northern Vermont. When the wind is right you can hear the neighbors speaking French.”
“I’ve been as far as Boston. On my honeymoon, if you can believe it.”
“That’s where I went to grad school. Boston is to learning what this place is to gummint. Every third building is a school.” She licked a drip. “I can’t really picture it as a prime honeymoon spot.”
“I wouldn’t know. My father-in-law has an army buddy who owns a bed and breakfast on Cape Cod. We flew to Logan, and he picked us up in his puddle jumper, flew us to P’town. Talk about strange honeymoon spots. For a guy and a gal, anyway.” He was working on a small vanilla. Mary had tried to teach him the benefits, but Nick wasn’t much of a yogurt fan.
“Must be a pretty good friend.”
“And a better father-in-Law. Of course it was all about Mary; I just happened to be the man she married.” He stood, walked to the water’s edge.
She gave him a moment, then joined him. Leaned forward, looked at his face. His eyes were in shadow, but she saw a glint of sunlight reflected from the river. Getting misty, eh? Maybe he was human, after all.
She took a chance. “You really miss her, don’t you?”
“Every minute of every day.” He tossed his cone toward a swirl of gulls, used the paper napkin to wipe his fingers. “I guess you think my little shrine at home is weird. Her sister sure does. And Liz is starting to make sounds about taking it down. I think she’s embarrassed by it, when her friends come by.”
I think it’s sweet, she thought. But she said, “I got the impression you two met in the Army.”
“Germany. It was hate at first sight. She was an MP in the National Guard, and I was a drunk. Mary was doing her two weeks summer tour, and I was up from Bosnia, to pick up a truckload of 105mm howitzer ammo. You can’t go to Heidelberg and not see the sights.”
“Major Machler told me they make great beer.”
“By sights I meant rathskellers. That was before my accident, war injury, whatever you want to call the kickoff to my crazy years.” One of the tourist boats motored by, close enough that they could hear the canned patter of a tou
r guide “In Paris they call those bateau mouche.”
“Stop showing off.” She followed his lead and fed the remains of her mango yogurt to the birds. Dad called them flying rats. Crazy years. She’d read Nick's file. She’d also dated a guy in Boston who had busted his gourd when he wrecked his rice burner. He too had a TBI, and she’d cared enough at the time to do some research. Unlike PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury was purely physical in its cause. Just because you acted crazy didn’t mean you were nuts.
“This is a nice spot, by the river. That’s another thing Boston has in common with Washington.” She turned and faced him, close enough that she had to look up into his eyes. “Look, I’m going to risk ruining the second half of lunch. I’d like to talk to Poppy. About his work.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“It sure seemed to be, up on your roof.” She paused, trying to get the words right. “We matched images of a guy buying an airline ticket at Dulles, and the whole damn government is looking for him. But I had a thought, how he might be local? And Poppy said something last night, about his traffic camera, so I wondered if his station has archived images, ones that never went out over the air.” No need to tell him about Utah. “So I thought if I could run them through my software, maybe see him walking into an apartment, or some office, right here in town. Anyway, that’s why I came to see you. Maybe it’s a bad idea, a dumb idea. You want to cancel, I can grab a cab, get out of your hair.”
“You can't afford a cab. No paycheck, remember? Let's go see my father-in-law.”
They found Poppy doing preflight on the Jet Ranger, and a camera technician lying under the Gyro Stabilization Unit mounted on the nose of the helicopter. Nick went to prep his father-in-law for Kat's questions, and she crouched beside the technician, a freckled redhead with a nose stud, and the NBC peacock on his forearm. “You figure the tat gives you job security?”
He checked her out. From his position he had an unusual point of view. “Has so far. ‘course if I lose this gig, I can always get a job at a paint store. Haven’t seen you around here.” Her skirt was short enough and tight enough that he wanted to keep the conversation alive. “You a reporter?”
“Friend of Poppy’s.” She pointed at Nick. “More a friend of a friend.”
“The tow truck guy. Now there’s some ink.”
“That’s some camera.”
“Cineflex V14-MS Magnum HD system. Dual 32 Bit DSP technology. 756mm zoom lens with motorized 2X extenders. Switchable aspect ratio of 16:9 and 4:3. SDI and composite video output with full camera and lens remote control.”
“Show off.”
“Gotta compensate for just the one tat. You going up?”
“No. I wanted to ask Poppy about what happened to the images he shoots. But you’re obviously the expert. Is everything downloaded?”
“Yeah, sure.” He pointed to something mounted under the belly of the helicopter. “That’s the NSI microwave transmitter pod. Same system we have on top of the live trucks. Also works as a receiver, for doing bounce shots. But, yeah; the raw feed goes to the studio. Editors loop immediates for live feed, slug any possibles, for 10 o’clock. But it all winds up at 30 Rock. They probably archive it somewhere.”
“How about the spooks? NSA, DoD, CIA?”
“Hey, beats me. I guess the NSA sweeps up everything, from their Fort Meade antenna array. But it would make more sense for them to just go ask corporate HQ.” He paused to caress the bubble mount. “Because the signal is purest from right here, down to the studio.”
“And you figure NBC would hand over the data?”
“Is the Pope Catholic?”
Nick joined them. “Poppy says we can go inside, someone will show us a week’s worth of images. After that—”
“It goes to 30 Rock.” And Utah. Her idea was too good to be true. She stood, smoothed her skirt, and walked over to Poppy. “That’s some helicopter.”
Poppy grinned. “Bell 206. Most successful commercial helicopter ever built. “She’s an oldy but goodie. Basically the same airframe we flew in ‘Nam, as the Kiowa. Except this one has a camera instead of Hellfire missiles.”
“Dance with the one that brung ya. Thanks for last night. I haven’t had so much fun since my dad and his pals taught me to play seven card stud.”
“You’re a player? Hey, should have said something, could have sat in.”
“No, I could see it was a closed game. You guys have a really strong bond, don’t you?”
“Getting shot at tends to bring people together.”
“Yes; I was talking to an Army major, just this morning. She said the same thing.” Kat looked around the inside of the helicopter, wondering if the bullet hole in Nick's windshield counted.
She tried to picture Howie as a door gunner, with Tran back here, interrogating some Pajama Charlie. There was room for six, if you didn't mind sitting on the video electronics. “Peeping Tom over there says after a week all the stuff you shoot goes off to New York. And that’s what I’m looking for. Old stuff. See if this guy we’re looking for is a DC regular.”
“Nick says you two are stopping by the house, help my granddaughter with some computer stuff?”
“Uh huh.” She looked at her watch. “When does she get home?”
Nick said, “Soon enough that we ought to get going. See you later, Pops.”
In the wrecker, heading north on South Capitol, he said, “Looks like you got everything that guy had to offer.”
“Yeah, I got an earful.”
“And he got an eyeful. That’s a pretty smooth interrogation technique.”
She punched his arm. “Works better than water boarding.”
—o—
Patty had Democracy Now on the television and a steam iron on her niece's school blouses. The first raised her already high blood pressure to dangerous levels, and the second had a soothing effect. Between the two, coupled with her daily 20mg of Benicar and a little herb, she was feeling good.
On the screen Amy said, “We’re joined by Thomas Paine, visiting professor of Comparative Studies at NYU. Earlier this week you were denied a boarding pass at Newark. Did they offer you a reason?”
The professor banged a fist on the table. “They said it was because I was on the Terrorist Watch List. When I asked why, the airline employee asked, ‘Have you been on any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that.’ And I told him no, but I said I recently gave a televised lecture at Columbia, critical of the President and his violations of the Constitution. And he said, ‘That why. Means you’re a potential terrorist’.”
The host turned to the camera. “And there you have it. Dissent equals treason. Another innocent citizen, brutalized by a government that increasingly ignores our constitutional checks and balances. Your comments, Juan?”
The doorbell rang. Patty looked at the clock. It was probably Princess Elizabeth, forgot her key again. She unlocked the door; it was time Liz started ironing her own damn blouses.
It wasn’t her niece. It was two men, two really big men, six-something, two-something, with leather ID folders. Oh, shit. The FBI was after her. For belonging to MoveOn, or Emily’s List, or the Red Army. Nick’s friend was right, they had everybody’s name in some file for something.
Last night the girl from HomSec had pulled her aside, said, “I hope you’re not pissed. About the photos.”
“No, I’m cool with that. It’s what else you people can do that has me worried. I mean, I go to demonstrations, get the usual emails from Common Dreams, BuzzFlash. Why do they care about someone like me?”
“You don’t understand. They don’t care about you, about Patricia Martin, as an individual. They just want to be able to find you, identify you as a member of some group they haven’t even put a name to, when they do decide to care.
“The direct mail people have been compiling and selling data bases like that, for years. ‘Single women earning more than forty K, who purchased cosmetics on-line in the last sixty days’. Cha
nge that to ‘government employees who donated more than XX dollars to YY candidate in the last election cycle’, and you have, as you said a while ago, ‘some scary shit’.”
“Nico-demo home?”
“You must have the wrong address. This is the Martin residence.”
They pushed the door wide, pushed her aside, gave the living room a quick visual. The one with the neck brace strolled over to Nick’s shrine, picked up Mary’s unit photo. The one with the bloodshot eye said, “I’ll check upstairs.”
Patty said, “You’ll shit!” and pressed the steam iron against his arm.
“OWWW. Mother fuck,” Al yelled, and his brother gave the fat cunt three million volts. She went down like a stunned ox. Didn’t do the usual flip and flop, fish out of water display that could bring a chuckle. She just lay there, tits up. “Shit, bro. I think I killed her.”
Bro was slapping his sleeve. “Good. Bitch ruined my suit.”
“Musta had a bad heart, or something. What do we do now?”
“We effectuate a strategic withdrawal, and cogitate.”
Then a teenager in a school uniform came through the front door, and they had to adjust their plans. Ern gave the kid a jolt, Al saw the name on the book bag was Elizabeth Paloma, so he yanked an afghan off the recliner, wrapped her, put the package in the back seat of Ma’s car.
“Ride with her, Ern. In case she gets her wheels back. The Skylark don’t have the kiddy door locks.” He looked in the mirror. “Hey! Don’t be foolin’ with her, you sicko. We need to keep her sweet, as insurance. Stick a Perc down her gullet. Hillbilly Heroin. One of those 80 mg. caps is enough to keep her stoned for a week.”
“Yeah, but what do we do with her?”
“Take her to the local slam, put her on ice. As a material witness. So if we need her to smoke out her daddy, we can lay hands on her.”
“Won’t the cops want papers?”
“Hey. We’re the FPS. We don’t need no stinkin’ papers.”