by Michael Fine
Chapter Twenty-Six
Monday, February 26 (the next day)
Doug’s Gun Range
Washington, D.C. area
17 days before vote on the Sanctity of Life bill
At his direction, Hope met Charlie at a firearms training place east of the Potomac river, four or five miles from the Capitol building. She’d never been to a gun range before, and the place made her uneasy. She’d never even held a gun, let alone fired one. As she opened the front door to the place, the likely violence of her plan suddenly hit her. It scared her, and she hated how unsure she was of everything now.
Charlie, who was already in the store, greeted her and, as always, his presence helped calm her. They walked up to the counter.
“Hi. My daughter and I would like to shoot,” Charlie said. Hope shot a look at Charlie but said nothing.
“Sure. Welcome. What’d you have in mind?”
“The Glock with a nine milimeter Luger cartridge,” Charlie said. “She’s still learning.”
The man turned and grabbed two Glock pistols and two boxes of cartridges. He set them on the counter. He reached under the counter and pulled out two forms and slid them toward Charlie.
“Pens are in the holster there.”
Charlie slipped something into Hope’s hand under the counter. She glanced down and realized it was a fake ID, complete with her picture but someone else’s name and personal details. The man never ceased to surprise her. She filled out her paperwork using her new ID. Charlie used his. Ten minutes later, they were at a shooting bay.
Charlie slowly and methodically gave Hope a lesson in how to hold, load, aim, and shoot the pistol. He was a patient teacher and she was a good student. Several hours later, they took their IDs back from the shop owner and walked out into bright sunshine.
Charlie fielded a few more detailed questions from Hope as they walked to a burger joint nearby. Over lunch, she was quiet and pensive until she finally whispered, “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Charlie said. He knew exactly what she meant.
“I don’t think I can… kill someone.” She barely spoke the final two words aloud.
“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you don’t have to. You should not have to live with that feeling, kiddo.”
Hope could tell from how Charlie said it that he lived with that feeling himself. Another onion layer about the man she’d have to peel. Assuming she lived through the next few weeks.
Charlie paid the check and said, “Come on, one more stop.”
He led her south to Cedar Hill Cemetery. As they walked, he explained the importance of being flexible and adaptive, that things rarely went as planned in a battle.
Hope didn’t hide her discomfort. “I get it, Charlie, I do. That’s what scares me the most about this whole crazy idea. I have no idea what I’m doing. That’s not me. I’m a planner. I plan, plan, plan, then I work my plan. I get it from my mother. She drilled it into me every day until she left, and even now she’s a distant reminder of what it means to make a plan and commit to that plan.”
“Well, it’s time you learn a bit about the power of being adaptive,” Charlie teased. It was a trait that had kept him alive more than once.
Charlie gave Hope a primer on relevant military strategies, including the concepts of Blitzkrieg, shock and awe, decapitation, encirclement, and flanking, and stressed the importance of distraction, feinting, and other indirect approaches. For this last lesson, he told Hope they would play an unusual variant of hide and seek: he would hide and Hope would seek, but after a short delay, he would seek her, too. To win, she had to get within five feet of him before he spotted her. Each round, he gave himself a thirty second head start and then made noises to let her know approximately where he was. Each time, she listened carefully, triangulated, and made her way in a straight path, but he circled around and surprised her from behind. Each time, he gently suggested alternatives to the path she’d taken and to her overly-linear thinking.
All her years of studying science and math and all her years of med school worked against her, but Charlie was a patient coach. Finally by sundown, Hope was able to adapt mid-search, and was actually able to spot Charlie and win a time or two. She was dead tired, too.
As they walked back to the closest Metro station, they picked a coffee shop and a time for the team to meet the next day. Hope sent a text message to everyone with the details.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tuesday, February 27 (the next day)
Perry’s Coffee
Washington, D.C. area
16 days before vote on the Sanctity of Life bill
They all—except Eddie—sat at a large wooden table in the back of the coffee shop. Each had their custom-made coffee or tea drink in their hands, and they all waited impatiently for Mr. On-Time.
Nervous about their planned attack the next day, they made idle chatter for ten minutes. After finishing his latte with one final sip, Quinn tossed his empty cup into a nearby trash bin and said what was on everyone’s mind. “Can we really trust him? I mean, Christ, this is three times already.”
Before Charlie could answer, Eddie walked into the coffee shop and sauntered over to the table. He looked like he thought he was ten minutes early. He sat down and tipped his chair back to the point that Hope thought he would fall backward at any moment. “Howdy pardners,” he said in a Southern accent by way of a greeting.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to have this conversation here, in public?” Sanam asked after Eddie sat down, ignoring the man.
“Spoken like someone who’s often confused for a Muslim terrorist,” Quinn said in a joking tone. He laughed and quickly added, “No, I think we’re fine.” To Charlie, he said, “It’s actually a smart idea, Charlie. People planning dastardly deeds don’t do it out in the light of day.”
“Except for us,” Charlie said with a devious twinkle in his eye. After a chug of his coffee, he added, “Okay, we have a lot to cover. I’ll go first and talk about the entry plan and Eddie can talk about our hardware. Then Q can talk about the boom boom. After that, Hope, you can talk about the actual procedure you plan to perform. Finally, Sanam, you can update everyone on your progress with the sensor.”
The team nodded their approval and Charlie began. “First, thanks to each of you—well, except for you, Sanam—for your intel. Your observations and comments have been very helpful. Especially yours, Eddie. Care to share how you were able to get such good info?”
After his shift as the world’s worst janitor, Eddie had returned to the hedge and tossed back the man’s badge. When the man finally came to, he was so worried about being fired that he simply made his way home and had his wife tend to his wound. The janitor would never, ever tell anyone that his ID was out of his possession, even for an hour or two. Eddie figured nobody here had to know about what happened either. “Nope,” he said simply.
“Moving on,” Charlie said, not liking the implications of Eddie’s unwillingness to share the details. He pulled out a blueprint of the Capitol building and surrounding area.
“Whoa? Did you download that off the Internet?” Eddie said. “They can trace that, you know.” His paranoia ran deep.
“No,” Charlie said. “I have an old friend who works at the Capitol as a janitor. I asked him for a favor.”
Charlie didn’t see the little color there was drain from Eddie’s face as he worried whether Charlie’s friend was the man he’d attacked. Charlie continued, “Our best bet is a small entrance on the northwest corner, off Constitution, on the Third Street side of the building. That’ll keep us well clear of the visitor center. I think all of us spotted the dozens of cameras in that area, inside and out. I spotted just one camera over the door I’m recommending we use.
“We should be able to make our way along the north side of the building until we get to the cloak room. From there, we can enter the Senate chamber. But I don’t know for sure because none o
f us were able to get to that part of the building.”
“This is nuts,” Sanam said, voicing what everyone was thinking.
Quinn ignored Sanam’s quip and said, “Assuming we can somehow disable any guards inside of that door and make our way to the Senate floor, another problem I can see is that this approach puts us about as far from the entrance doors as possible. We’d have to somehow make our way all the way across the room so I can arm the doors.”
“I don’t see another way,” Charlie said.
“Then that’s our plan,” Hope said, hoping her feigned confidence would sell the plan to the others. She’d never been a “fake it till you make it” kind of person and hated that she’d become one.
Charlie provided more details about how they would approach, the tactics they would try to use to disable but not kill the guards, and how they would communicate once inside.
“For our exit, we’ll cross Emancipation Hall and make our way past the north gift shop, the Senate Appointment Desk and the north coat check, and then out the north entrance.”
When he was done, he turned to Eddie and said, “Okay, you’re up.”
Eddie looked at the eager faces of the others. This was the best part of his work. They might treat him with disdain and distrust, but they needed him and the service he provided. He was THE MAN and they needed him, just like all his other clients.
“I’ll pick up our merchandise today after lunch,” Eddie said. “We’ll have something small for each of us and something larger for me and Charlie.” Eddie didn’t like the idea of meeting in such a public place, no matter what Charlie and Quinn thought. ‘Small’ meant Glock pistols and ‘larger’ meant DPMS AP4s, a semi-automatic civilian version of the U.S. Military’s M4 Carbine, a weapon used by members of the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Quinn waited until two young K Street types walked by and were out of earshot. “I’m all set. I’ve procured what we need for the doors. Based on the plan to use it to deter entry by others, it’s a modest amount of playdough. That said, take my advice: don’t stand near the doors if you don’t have to.”
Eddie squirmed. Despite his involvement with all manner of firearms, explosives gave him the willies.
“And, Hope, I have two small devices for you. One for redundancy. You know what they say: two is one and one is none. I’ll give them to you when we leave here.” Quinn was referring to the charge that would go inside the Senator’s body. “I’ll keep the big stuff and bring it with me when the time comes.”
“Hope?” Charlie prompted.
Suddenly it was her turn. She fought down the bile that formed in her throat. “How about a quick bio break?” she asked. “Five minutes?”
Charlie sensed that Hope wanted to use the toilet for a reason unrelated to urination or defecation. He worried about her; she was, for all purposes, the daughter he never had. He told himself to be sure to check in with her after the meeting.
While the others went to the bathroom or got a second cup of coffee, Eddie stayed put at the table. He’d seen two D.C. police enter the shop and was doing his best to remain invisible until they left.
When everyone was back at the table, Hope popped a handful of breath mints, took a deep breath and began.
“As I told you back in California, my research has been about creating an artificial womb in which a fetus can develop normally until birth. We’ve had tremendous success so far, and the lambs develop—”
“Lambs?” Sanam exclaimed. “What do you mean ‘lambs’? Are you saying you’ve never used this on human fetuses?” He fiddled with his watch, this one a cheap Timex Ironman Classic he’d picked up in the airport.
Hope wanted to blame Faye, who always insisted she follow the long, tortuous research, publication, and review process, but she knew in her heart that what she wanted to do was way out of line.
“That’s correct. But lambs and humans develop similarly,” she said as earnestly as she could. “It will work.” It has to.
“Well,” Quinn said, “let’s assume for our discussion that your device works. What’s the plan?”
Hope wanted to kiss Quinn, this time in gratitude, not due to hormones.
“Once we have the room secured, I’ll bring the donor and the Senator to the lower tier of the dais, so I can use the desk there. Where the Sergeant at Arms and the others sit.”
It took Charlie a moment to process what Hope had said. “Wait a second? Donor? You mean a pregnant woman?”
Hope summarized her successful efforts to recruit the young woman from whom she would transfer an embryo into the Senator.
“You didn’t say anything about an innocent girl being part of this,” Sanam said. “We’re talking about a possible combat zone. Likely, in fact.”
“I have to agree with Sanam,” Charlie said. “Hope, I love you, but I won’t do this. Isn’t there some way you can extract the fetus ahead of time?”
Hope was hurt by Charlie’s comments. It was the first time she could remember that he did not support her unconditionally. Yet she had to admit he was right. Once again, she hadn’t carefully thought things through. She hated how sloppy and reckless her thinking had been since she started down her new path.
After a long pause, she said, “Okay. Okay. I can perform the extraction surgery tonight. I told the girl to be ready at any moment. I can keep the womb viable overnight, but we should go first thing tomorrow morning.”
A full minute went by as tempers cooled. Charlie stepped in and said, “Sanam, why don’t you give us an update on the sensor?”
Sanam looked down, revealing his sense of shame. “I’m sorry. I still don’t really know what will work. I have a few prototypes of various approaches, but I just don’t know.”
“Why can’t you just wire them up to go off by cell phone,” Eddie asked. “Like in the movies.” He pointed at Sanam and added, “Like your fellow terrorists do all the time.”
Sanam, normally mild-mannered, snapped. “I’m Indian, you idiot! And I’m Hindu, not Muslim!”
Charlie reached his hand out and rested it on Sanam’s arm in an attempt to calm him.
Hope tried to smooth over Eddie’s baiting. She looked directly at Sanam and said, “Just bring what you have tonight, all right?”
Charlie, sensing the wheels were coming off the meeting, asked the group, “Anyone have anything the want to tell the group, or ask?”
When nobody had anything else to say, Hope said to the table, “Okay. We’ll meet one last time tonight at five at the western fountain in the park so we can walk through the routes Charlie described. Same place we first met here in town.” To Eddie she added, “And, Eddie, don’t be late.” He sneered at her in response.
As everyone rose to leave, Quinn quietly handed a small grocery bag to Hope. It contained the two small explosive devices. “If you want, you can use one for practice,” he said before breaking out into his deep, resonant laugh.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tuesday, February 27 (later the same day)
Pelican Bay State Prison
Del Norte County, California
Early in his career, Senator Carrington realized that being successful as a United States Senator involved more than “thinking big thoughts” and crafting effective public policy; he needed to be plugged into the zeitgeist and daily happenings around the country so that he could pepper his legal arguments and public speeches with the kind of color commentary that won over hearts and minds far better than raw data ever could. Decades earlier, as a first-term Senator, he committed to nurturing a network of friendly scouts around the country who brought him newsworthy tidbits and local stories of interest.
He’d flown on a pre-dawn flight from New York to Seattle and then down to the Del Norte County Regional Airport. After a fifteen-minute drive past Lake Earl, Carrington arrived at his destination: Pelican Bay State Prison. Situated at the far northwest corner of California, along the Pacific Ocean and adjacent to the Oregon border, Pelican State is one o
f the supermax prisons in the country, home to over three thousand of the most violent male criminals known to mankind.
Carrington sat in his rental car in the prison’s parking lot with one of his scouts, a young man named Charlie Wilson, who he’d met at a law enforcement conference two years earlier.
“I only have a few minutes,” Wilson said, nervously looking at the prison entrance. He didn’t like meeting here, but Carrington’s travel logistics—the Senator was returning to the airport immediately after their conversation—made it necessary. He hoped he could grab lunch before he went back on duty.
“Thanks for taking the time to meet,” Carrington said. Tell me what’s going on.”
Charlie Wilson, a twenty-eight-year-old former wide receiver at Florida State, hit the gym daily to keep his body fit and trim. He’d also finished in the top five percent in his class at the police academy. Yet the man somehow looked frail and scared to Carrington.
Wilson hesitated, unsure how to begin. Finally, he said, “There’s been a lot of weird shit goin’ down here the past few months.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we get our fair share of depression and anxiety, uncontrollable anger, that kind of thing. The occasional suicide, too. Hell, most of the inmates claim to have hallucinations half the time.” Carrington knew that inmates in cell blocks C and D at the prison were kept in solitary confinement over twenty-two hours a day, seven days a week, and that inmates, their lawyers, and prisoner advocacy groups had argued over the years that this treatment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. “But we’re talking all kinds of crazy shit. Next level crazy shit.”