Knave's Gambit

by Deforest Day

  —o—

  The whine of the turbine spinning up turned into the staccato wop wop wop of the rotor as Sky Six lifted off with a lurch, and conversation ceased. Except between Kat and Poppy. She touched the Press to Talk switch at her throat. “I’m worried that Nick will get one look at Liz and freak out, start shooting.”

  “Don’t fret on it, Kiddo. I’m a step ahead of you, and from the short time we’ve been acquainted, that’s rare.”

  —o—

  The swarthy man watched Kat’s dot. “Heading west-northwest. Fast. How the fuck did she access a news helicopter?”

  “More to the point, where the fuck is she going?”

  “That machine only has a range of a couple hundred miles. We need the Cessna.”

  The dark haired woman clapped a yellow flasher on the roof, and they fought Suitland Parkway traffic for twenty minutes, then screeched to a stop in front of an unmarked hanger at the far end of Andrews Air Force base.

  He did a quick preflight while she dragged the aluminum case out of the trunk. She needed two hands to lug it to the aircraft. It contained an M-14 7.62 sniper rifle, fitted with a Gemtech suppressor and Leupold scope, and a Ruger .22 pistol, also suppressed, and loaded with Hydroshock ammunition. Plus a couple of Israeli TAR-21 bullpups, and an assortment of edged weapons, explosives, timers, and miscellaneous devices employed by the nonexistent Domestic Operations Division. The one created in 1964 by Director John McCone, with the tacit approval of Lyndon Johnson.

  Ten years later, when the Agency ran afoul of both the Church and the Rockefeller committees, the DOD faded back into the woodwork. As the cliché goes, once bitten, twice shy.

  He took the aircraft to ten thousand feet, and she hooked the laptop to one of several Agency-specific antennas, then turned to him. “Can I ask you a question? The other day I overheard one of the CIA analysts refer to us as Boris and Natasha. What does this mean? I am not familiar with American literature.”

  Boris and Natasha. Some heads needed to roll, and would, if DEERSLAYER made good on his promise. “I have no idea. Perhaps it was a reference to your Russian literature.” He reached across and patted her thigh. “Now I will ask you a question. “Have you ever shot down a helicopter?”

  The dark haired woman reached behind the seats, and flipped the latches on the hard case. “No, but I am willing to learn.”

  Chapter Thirty One

  The women were the biggest pain in the ass. Because Woodrow King had neglected to consider there were twenty-one female senators, and quadruple that number in the House. All to be guarded by a bunch of boys more at home dealing with strippers, whores, and terrified peasants, than ball-busting grandmothers.

  During the bus and plane rides to the camp the Coast Guard Search and Rescue teams discovered that congressmen and senators were more accustomed to giving than following orders. And, no touching. But the sailors kept it to themselves, after learning the Bearclaw dudes made five times the money they did. With no saluting.

  As Congress began arriving at Camp Catoctin those Bearclaw dudes separated the women and then left the women to sort out themselves. Big mistake. Because the female members of the senate—after the last election they’d taken to calling themselves Club 21—organized themselves not around Right or Left, Dems or Reps, but formed an entirely new ad hoc caucus, much like the Blacks and Hispanics had done decades earlier.

  They commingled with the Ladies of the House, and decided to call themselves The Ladies Terrorist and Sewing Circle, after a T shirt several of them confessed to owning in college. Their slogan was adopted by unanimous voice vote after a Bearclaw trooper told them they couldn’t gather around the flagpole after dinner, and a five foot grandmother told him to, “Go piss up a rope.”

  He went, not in search of a rope, but Gunny, or the funny little dude with the handlebar mustache.

  That’s when a shiny green Sea King helicopter kicked up a dust devil as it landed on the parade ground. Lawrence Edgerton, Secretary of Homeland Security, hurried down the folding staircase, and nodded to the Marine already standing at parade rest. In spite of the cool Catoctin air his brow was damp with nervous sweat. He huddled with Woody and Gunny, and after a brief consultation, a Joint Session of Congress was convened in the DFAC.

  A Bearclaw trooper lowered the lights and turned on the microphone at the podium. Edge stepped forward, cleared his throat, and said nothing.

  Instead of settling down and giving him their undivided attention, the din of conversation continued. Evidently Congress was far different from a lecture hall full of undergraduates.

  Edge launched into his hastily-written speech. “Good evening. Since cell coverage is somewhat tenuous here, I have come directly from the White House, to brief Congress on the latest developments in the terrorist attacks on our nation.” That got their attention.

  He opened his laptop and began the Powerpoint presentation with a terrorist attack of his own; a two minute compilation of videos from the three networks covering the ‘Massacre on the Mall.’ Including some footage deemed too gruesome to air.

  “I know many of you have spent pleasant moments at Lafayette Square, using the White House as backdrop for selfies with constituents. So I don’t have to tell you how dangerous the Nation’s Capitol is at this point in time. Not to mention, that point in space.” He glanced at his computer, touched a key, and the screen was filled with a bullet point list.

  Top Three Internet Rumors

  * Suicide of the President of the United States.

  * Venezuela's Biological Attack

  * Hollywood Homosexuals & Situation Room video

  Edge had been five minutes away from touchdown at Catoctin, and enjoying the opulence of Presidential travel, when Gabe reached him by scrambled sat phone. HomSec detected obvious glee in the AG’s voice as he recounted DEERSLAYER'S reaction to the Situation Room video dominating the internet. “He said, and I quote, ‘tell him he’d better come up with an explanation for the video. Or else’.”

  Damn. Edge cradled the sat phone and gazed out the window as the Maryland countryside whipping past at a hundred and fifty knots. Marine One is equipped with a panoply of communications gear, and it was mere moments later when a crewman displayed the offending video on a large plasma screen fastened to the bulkhead.

  Edge sipped a cup of the routinely excellent coffee available aboard both Air Force One and Marine One. Son of a bitch. Somehow that clever Army woman had made a copy of his little video. But why would she put it on the web? Was there no loyalty left? He opened his laptop and made an addendum to his PowerPoint, then fabricated an explanation during the brief walk from the helicopter to the dining hall.

  “There is an unsubstantiated rumor the president, wracked by remorse over the tragic loss of innocent life, has taken his own. We do know there was an accidental discharge of an antique firearm at Camp David, where he is in seclusion, with his personal physician and the Secretary of State. Further details are not available.

  “Now, as to the rumor the psychotic Marxist ruler of our South American neighbor released a petroleum-eating bacteria called Pseudomonas, into our strategic oil reserves. While it is a distinct possibility, at this time no hard evidence has been found. But we have the finest experts working on it, and retaliatory actions are being prepared. It goes without saying all options are on the table.

  “Lastly, we have learned a few Hollywood homosexuals are responsible for the brief fiction running on the internet. Using sets from the old TV series The Left Wing, and actors made up to resemble the vice president and others, they would have us believe the preposterous fabrication this administration would engineer a coup d'état not even believable by banana republic standards.”

  That Congress had been taken into protective custody before any of the rumors appeared on the internet was beside the point. Edge knew seeing is believing, hence the concoction projected on the wall. Who you gonna believe; me, or your lying eyes?

  —o—

  Poppy
took the helicopter to three thousand feet and schooled Kat on the Cineflex system. The controller had a bank of LCD screens showing the main camera image, the one on the rear fin capturing Sky Six in action, and a wide angle on the ceiling to catch human interest shots of the reporter. A separate screen received the station’s broadcast signal. The bouncing beauties of Baywatch had been replaced by Three’s Company.

  “If you ever played a game with a joystick, then you’re pretty much up to speed on this gizmo. I’m going to execute a flyover at speed, and you’ll do a wide angle capture of the site. If something catches your eye, use that switch; it activates the doubler. We’ll be able to read their wristwatches.”

  They didn’t see any wristwatches, because, save a few Bearclaw mercenaries patrolling the perimeter fence, they didn’t see anyone at all. Kat captured enough images of the camp that Poppy decided to set down on a farm field for a more measured look at what they had.

  The tape showed a collection of wooden buildings, large and small, scattered around a big dirt parade ground the size of a football field. With a flag pole in the middle, surrounded by a ring of rocks painted white. A Gulfstream sat on a macadam landing strip outside the perimeter wire. A green Sea King helicopter sat on the parade ground.

  Poppy shook his head. “Looks like every two bit Army post I ever saw, here and abroad.” He turned to Fred in the backseat. “Hard to believe your Congress is down there. You got anything to add?”

  “I noticed during the fly-by there are no power lines coming into the place.” Fred reached inside his suit coat, found his reading glasses. “Kiddo,” he said, “Let me have your seat for a bit.”

  Kat hit her harness release, swung her legs down to terra firma. “Be my guest.” She walked off a few feet, stretched, rolled her head, worked out some kinks as she replayed the last few hours. Finding Aunt Patty dead, and Liz missing. Finding Geneva and Levon. Also dead; murdered. Then a gunfight, for chrissake, and maybe her name on some Most Wanted list for killing a federal agent. And all a subtext to the president declaring martial law; brought on by, if Geneva’s files were to be believed, a decades-old plot called REX 84.

  A red tail hawk rode the thermals in the cloudless sky. It was hard to believe this bucolic landscape—grazing cattle in the distance, the tree line painted with the colors of autumn—was on the same planet.

  The helicopter smelled of hot metal and hydraulic fluid, and the ticking of the cooling turbine brought her back to the here and now. Nick joined her. She turned, gave him a tight smile. “I didn’t realize how tense I was.”

  He turned her around, laid his fingers on her collarbones, dug his thumbs into the muscles on her back, her neck. She felt her flesh melt, and reclined against him, said, “Mmmmm.”

  After a moment she reached up, pulled his hands forward, trapped them against the slope of her breasts. She snuggled her butt against his groin, and there was a flicker of deja vu, when they’d shot the Glock in the Cannon Works. When he’d asked are you going to shoot, or are you going to fool around. And she’d said something about getting to know you better.

  She drew a deep breath, as though coming to a decision, and turned in the intimate space. Now her breasts were against his chest and his hands were on her back. She reached up, put her own hands on his face, tenderly, saw him wince at her touch against his raw cheek. Kat rose on her toes, closed her eyes, kissed him for the second time in as many hours. “If we survive this afternoon, I think I’m ready to fool around.”

  He leaned forward, whispered, “Maybe when I get to know you better.”

  She stepped back, grinned. “Once again, touché.” She searched for a retort. “You tattooed prick.”

  Fred slid open the rear door, and climbed out. He took Kat’s seat, and studied the images as Poppy scrolled through them. “There.” He touched the screen. “Next to the yellow school bus. A diesel generator on a flatbed; refrigeration units. That would be the mess hall. The one next to it has satellite dishes on the roof, so it must be HQ. Except for the chapel, the rest are barracks. Bunk houses is probably a better term. Pretty spartan.” He slipped his glasses back in his pocket. “If Congress and your granddaughter are here, they're in one of those big buildings.”

  Howie and Tran climbed out, moved away from Sky Six, and lit up. Poppy had landed in a hay field below the tree line, and the sere stubble crunched under foot. There was a big blue silo and a cluster of farm buildings in the distance.

  “I hope to God this girl can talk Miss Lizzie out of there.” Howie turned and studied the girl and Poppy’s son-in-law. “Because I sure as hell don’t want to be shootin’ our way out.”

  Tran said, “You the combat expert. You, and Poppy. I rode along enough times, way back when, to see on-the-job training bad idea. So I give you some advice. Don’t listen to advice of others.” He dropped his cigarette on the ground, stepped on it. “Because we don’t know shit.”

  Poppy shed his harness, walked over to Kat and Nick. The other three joined him. “Okay. Here’s the plan, basic bones. I’ll fly a loop at five hundred feet. Kiddo will use the long lens to look for Liz, and anything else of interest on the screen. The sound of a chopper always draws eyeballs, and I don’t see any reason to think it will be different here.

  “I’m trusting the peacock and SKY SIX will keep them from shooting at us.” He drew a deep breath, let it out, and studied his son-in-law. Nick seemed anxious for action. Yeah, well; too bad, Son.

  “We’ll land smack in the middle of the parade ground. I’ll power down just enough to hear ourselves think, but maintain get out of Dodge status, if things get hinky.” He glanced at Fred. “Like you said, Liz is in the mess hall, or the big building next door. Now. I’m open to suggestions, as to how to get Liz from. . . wherever, to Sky Six. Quick and quiet.”

  There was a brief pause as everyone waited for everyone else. Since Poppy, Howie, and Nick were the full frontal assault experts, and that option had been voted down back in DC, Kat spoke up. “I gave this a bit of thought, on our way here. Remember, the guy at the studio said to send him a live signal? How ‘bout we grab the first soldier we see, tell him Liz Paloma, the famous pop star, is there to entertain the troops, and we want to do a live interview? Oh, and by the way, handsome, would you like to be on TV with her?”

  There was a period of silence. Fred swore. “Jesus. It could work.”

  Kat said, “The audio guy said something about cleavage.” She toyed with the neckline of Stormy Skyz’s dress. “Poppy, you’re the closest thing to a media consultant we have. “How ‘bout it?”

  Poppy checked her display. “I think we have a plan.”

  Then Nick asked, “What’s my role?”

  Poppy took a step closer to his son-in-law, put a hand on his shoulder. “None. You’re not coming along.”

  “Bullshit! My daughter’s in there.”

  “Yes. And it’s her granddaddy on the stick.” He swept his hand at his friends. “No offense, guys, but us old farts are expendable.” He turned back to Nick. “You’re not. Liz comes out of this alive, she’s going to need a parent. Besides, six people is too many for a news crew, and we need the extra seat for Liz. I’m the pilot, Howie’s Camera, and Kiddo is the Talent. Fred can play the Producer, as long as he keeps his mouth shut and looks stupid.”

  He winked at Fred, slapped Tran on the arm. “You and Nick stay here, work your way up to that ridge, with Goldilocks. If the bullets start to fly, you can be a bigger help out here than in there.”

  Nick tried to think of an argument, and couldn’t. A shooter on the high ground was worth ten inside the perimeter. He hurried to the helicopter and grabbed his gear. He scanned the ridge, turned to Tran, raised his eyebrows. Tran turned to Poppy. “Give us twenty minute.”

  The News Crew watched the two men move from the field into the woods. Howie followed them with the Panasonic, played with the zoom, the white balance.

  Poppy said, “Kiddo, I hear you’re a regular Dirty Harry with a handgun. Have you ev
er fired a rifle?”

  She thought about her expedition with Dad, assassinating rabbits. “Not really.”

  “Then you probably have as much experience as Fred. Howie, quit fooling with the camera, and put two of the M-16’s, cocked and locked, under the second seat, where you and I can lay hands on them, if we need them in a hurry.” He checked his watch, climbed in Sky Six. “Time to saddle up.”

  —o—

  The red dot of Kat’s cell phone was still strong even as the image beneath it began to dissolve into gray squares laced with white noise. “Damn,” the dark haired woman muttered, typing, trying to bring the satellite image back. “Lost our link. And the bird won’t be back for twelve hours. Now what?”

  “We still have her GPS. What is it, compared to ours?”

  She closed the satellite window, locked on Kat’s coordinates, then read their own Lat/Lon from the Cessna’s instrument panel. She peered out the window. “Something must be wrong. According to this, she’s within a hundred feet of us.”

  The swarthy man tilted the high wing aircraft ten degrees. “Get out the binocs. There’s nothing wrong with the GPS. She’s right below us. Two miles down.”

  —o—

  “Sure could use some more of the beer we brang on the bus. Why he stow it in his kitchen, then put us in this dumb-ass place?” LaDonna circled the pool table, rolled a ball into a pocket. “Soda machine don’t work, lights don’t work, the TV don’t work.” She tried the door for the fifth time. “Only thing that works is the muthafuckin’ lock on this muthafuckin’ do’.”