by William Oday
But this was wrong.
One man couldn’t decide the fate of two people on a whim. No trial. No due process. Tried, convicted, and sentenced in one day by one man. It was wrong and Mason wasn’t going to let it happen.
Before he could begin, the President jumped in. “Mason, we both know what’s on your mind.” He shook his head. “And I have to tell you. My hands are tied.”
Mason gripped the arms of the chair to keep his hands occupied. “Sir, there has been some kind of mistake. I know my daughter and this boy. They are not murderers.”
“Do you mean the same boy that delivered a bomb that killed the Vice-President? The same boy that somehow escaped a monastery in the north and returned to the city only to kill again?”
Mason bit his tongue.
“Here are the facts. Your daughter and Elio broke the law by going out after curfew and also by illegally assembling in the middle of the night. The meeting was attended by subversive individuals known to be seeking the destruction of our country. Tell me, what were they doing at that meeting?”
Mason didn’t have a good answer.
“We have sworn testimony that Elio and Theresa attacked a police officer as he was trying to apprehend them. In the subsequent struggle, they shoved him off the roof of a building. He fell four stories to his death. That man had a wife and two kids. She no longer has a husband and the children no longer have a father. What do I tell them if Elio and Theresa go free?”
The evidence didn’t look good.
But there had to be a mistake.
He knew the truth, even if he didn’t know the details.
“Please give me some time to figure it out. The sentence doesn’t need to happen tomorrow.”
It was weak. It didn’t get them off the hook. But if he could get some time to investigate, maybe he could discover new angles that might save their lives.
The President took his glasses off and placed them on the desk. He pinched the bridge of his thin nose. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”
He was the President! If anyone could do it, he could!
“Why?”
Why was a better response.
“Justice must be served. The people demand justice, and I must give it to them. You saw them the other day. They were close to invading this building to get what they wanted.”
“Sir, I don’t mean to be disrespectful. But it’s not justice without being convicted by a jury of their peers.”
The President’s face grew red. His fist pounded on the desk. “Have you forgotten the current state of emergency? There are no juries! There are no trials! Not until we can guarantee the future of this country!”
The joints in Mason’s fingers creaked as he dug the tips into the chair’s padded armrests. He yelled a response before he could stop himself.
“I know how things stand! And I also know that being sentenced to death without a trial goes against everything we are fighting so hard to preserve! You’re the President, Sir, not a king!”
The President’s eyes narrowed into slits. His lips pursed together. He leaned forward over the desk. “Don’t presume to tell me what I am!”
Something in Mason’s mind shattered. The restraint. The obligation to anything beyond his family.
“I won’t let you murder these kids!”
He jumped up. Strong hands clamped down onto his shoulders and shoved him back down into the chair.
The two largest officers held him in place with crushing strength.
The President put his glasses on and stared at Mason. “I will do what I need to do to ensure the future of this country. And executing two murderers will send a powerful message to those who oppose me.”
“That’s it, then, isn’t it? It’s about you. It’s about you keeping control of everything. It’s about you claiming to safeguard our Constitution while burning it to cinders! I should’ve let you die!”
The President vaulted out of his chair and slammed both fists onto the desk. “Chief Fowler, place Mr. West under arrest! I will consider whether to levy charges of treason against him!”
Mason torqued around and whipped his elbows through the hands holding him down. He twisted free and charged for the door.
Escape.
That was all that mattered.
The other officers recovered in an instant. One hit Mason in the temple as the others grabbed him.
He lunged forward. The hands restraining him ripped his jacket apart as he wriggled free.
Mason reached for the door as a body hit him from behind. They both crashed into the door.
He spun around with an elbow in a tight arc that caught the officer on the chin. The guy was out before he hit the ground.
Another officer caught Mason’s arm and twisted it hard to the side.
Mason grunted in pain as the larger man tried to rip his arm off.
Yet another officer cranked back his other arm and drove him to the floor like his head was a shovel. A knee dug in between his shoulder blades. Handcuffs clicked around his wrists.
They yanked him to his feet and slammed him against the wall.
President Cruz glared at him with dark malice. “Tomorrow at eight AM, you’re going to watch your daughter and Elio hang by the neck until they are dead.”
Mason struggled to break free, which earned him a hard shot to the solar plexus.
The President pointed at the door. “Take this traitor away!”
46
The holding cell had nothing he could use that might help him escape. A concrete bench seat surrounded by featureless concrete walls facing a door made out of bars as thick as his wrist.
Mason looked around again, hoping he’d missed something but knowing he hadn’t. Hours of surveying the surroundings hadn’t revealed more than the first minute did.
A clock on the wall outside the cell had a second hand that silently swept around and around. Precious seconds that counted down the hours left in his daughter’s life.
No.
It couldn’t happen.
It didn’t make sense. Then again, not much in the world made sense anymore.
Which meant it could happen.
So how could he get out to stop it?
He scanned around the room for the millionth time and nothing jumped out, just like all the other times.
The officers had taken his pistols, holsters, zip tie cuffs, mic and radio, baton, extra ammo, suit coat, belt, and more.
Everything but his undershirt, pants, and socks.
Maybe he could try peeing on his pants, then wrapping them around two bars and twisting until the bars bent inward.
Nah, that was Hollywood nonsense.
He’d end up in skivvies with hands that smelled like piss.
What else then?
He walked over to the bench and slumped down with his head in his hands.
Should he have seen this coming?
Elio dragging his daughter into trouble.
The President denying them due process.
There had been a few hints along the way, in both cases. But nothing to suggest his daughter and Elio would be facing execution in less than twelve hours.
He screamed a curse that echoed and faded away.
It didn’t matter what he should’ve done. He was here now, where he couldn’t do a thing.
His jaws clenched tight making his teeth squeak against each other. His knee bobbed like a jackhammer as his heel tapped the floor.
“Sarge, you gotta pee?”
Mason almost thought the voice was in his head as no one had returned for hours. He looked up to see Miro standing outside the cell with a big grin on his face. The reason for the grin was the key dangling from his fingers.
“What say we blow this taco stand?”
He clicked it into the lock and pulled the door open as Mason hurried over.
Mason grabbed his shoulder. “You don’t want to get mixed up in this. These people are playing for keeps.”
Miro shrugged. �
�I’m already mixed up in it. You should see the watch officer back in the hallway. I seriously doubt he and I are ever going to be friends again.”
“I’m not kidding, bro. We’re talking about life and death here. No going back.”
“Yup. Feels familiar, huh?”
Mason smiled and shook his head. “Corporal Pike, you’ve got Texas-size balls.”
Miro grinned. “You have no idea.”
Mason slapped his shoulder. “Unfortunately, I do. Let’s get out of here.”
“Hold up a second. I’ve got to show you something. It’ll probably be a big factor in what happens next.”
Mason had no idea what that cryptic response meant. Not hanging around a recently escaped jail cell seemed like the best idea.
Miro pulled a phone out of his suit coat pocket and tapped the screen. “This is your wife’s phone. You must’ve dropped yours during the scuffle in the Oval Office.”
Mason thought about all the possessions taken from him. He scrubbed through the memory and realized his phone wasn’t amongst them.
“It was in my coat. It must’ve fallen out when they were trying to restrain me.”
“Well, good thing it did because Beth recorded the conversation that happened after you were taken away.”
Their escape could wait for a minute.
Mason took the offered phone and tapped the button to play the audio file.
…want it handled tonight.
Sir, we can absolutely do that. But, it might be better to hold off until we can manufacture a more convincing scenario. We don’t want anyone asking questions.
Are you kidding me? You blew up the Vice-President. You hit that reporter with an RPG. You rigged the toilet bomb as a decoy. It’s a shame that didn’t work on him.
Sir, I would highly recommend not speaking about past operations.
You don’t recommend anything to me! I am the President of the United States. You work for me! Without me, this whole thing falls apart. Is that what you want?
No, Sir.
Then do as I tell you! I want Mason dead! Hang him by his pants and we’ll call it a suicide! I don’t care how it happens! Just do it!
Yes, Sir.
The audio playback ended.
Mason stared at the screen in shock.
In the old world, every scandal was called a something-gate because the burglaries at the Watergate Hotel later led to the resignation of President Nixon.
Well, what they found on those tapes was nothing compared to the bombshell in Mason’s hand.
This was a President admitting to involvement in the murder of the Vice-President and also a private citizen. Both of whom were known to be critical of him. Add to that instructions for yet another murder.
This was insane.
And it was also leverage.
If Mason could survive long enough to use it.
He slipped the phone into his pants pocket. “We should get going. Sounds like I was supposed to have an unwelcome visit this evening.”
“Let’s make a quick pit stop back at the watch officer,” Miro glanced at Mason’s feet. “He looked like a size ten.”
After indefinitely borrowing the uniform and pistol of the still unconscious officer, Mason led them toward the exit. He kept his head down as they hurried past the few rooms that still had officers on duty at that hour.
They made it to the exit and threw the doors open. The dark sky above swallowed what little light the city emitted at night. The old days of concern for light pollution were long gone.
People longed for a little light pollution now.
Mason looked around. They were home free.
“Stop!”
Mason turned to see Fowler and half a dozen officers wearing black tactical gear carrying M4 rifles. They were fifty yards away and heading in their direction.
Mason and Miro took off at a dead sprint in the opposite direction.
47
Bullets snapped by their heads. There was no thought of standing their ground. They ran for it. The men pursuing them had more and bigger guns. Mason aimed blindly behind and squeezed off a few rounds without slowing down. Miro did the same next to him.
Hopefully something would get close enough to slow them down.
They didn’t look back to check.
They hooked left on Tenth heading south. Not from any sense of an organized plan. More because that was the closest corner that put a building between them and incoming fire.
The street ahead fell away on a steep decline. If only they had skateboards and the experience to ride them. They dodged through parked cars doing their best to use whatever cover presented itself.
Rounds thunked off the car trunk to their right and then shattered the rear glass. They darted left and kept running.
Mason thought wistfully of the men in his squad back in the day. What he wouldn’t give to have Lopes on the SAW banging eight hundred rounds per minute downrange.
But the men of third squad were long gone. David Lopez with them. They were likely all dead except for the man running alongside him.
Miro let off a burst of fire to the rear and nearly wiped out as his shoe slipped on the steep street.
It was two Glocks against seven M4’s.
It was not a fight they were going to win.
In the dim glow of a street light far ahead, Mason saw the perimeter fence a couple of blocks away. That was the end of the line. They could follow it in either direction but that did nothing to better their odds of evasion.
Eventually, Fowler and his men would pin them down and then it would only be a matter of time.
And probably not a long time either.
They had to get beyond their pursuers’ area of operations.
The solution hit him.
They had to get out of the Green Zone.
They had to get into the Red Zone.
There was only one problem, aside from it being insane.
A burst of gunfire chewed up the brick wall to their left blasting bits of masonry into their backs.
Make that one more problem.
As soon as they got to the fence to climb it, they’d get picked off like paper targets at a gun range.
They had to get over the fence fast.
Or they had to get through it.
Mason’s chest burned. He fired a couple of rounds and heard the satisfying scramble of someone diving for cover.
How to get through the fence?
He scanned the route ahead and found what had to be the answer. It had to be because it was either that or they were SOL.
An old school bus that had been converted by hippies because the usual yellow paint was replaced with a kaleidoscope of faded flowers, rainbows, pot leaves, and peace signs. Up until this moment, it was the last place he was ever likely to be found.
He just hoped that tonight it wasn’t the last place he would ever be found.
“To the bus!” he yelled.
They cut across the street. A rain of gunfire fell around them. Any second now, a round would take one of them down.
Miro got to the bus door first and slammed his shoulder through it and tumbled inside.
Mason jumped over him and into the driver’s seat.
Glass shattered at the back of the bus.
He flung down the visor and a pair of keys fell into his lap. Thank God hippies were so trusting.
Miro crawled to an open side window and emptied his magazine to the rear. “Get this heap rolling!”
Mason cranked the ignition. Purple rope lights lining the roof blinked on. Speakers belted out a vaguely familiar tune loud enough to rattle the windows…
Casey Jones you better watch your speed,
trouble ahead, trouble behind…
The engine coughed a couple of times and then rumbled to life.
Internal combustion engines.
Amazing examples of past engineering. The kind of engineering that was unlikely to happen again any time soon.
It wa
s all the new world could do to keep the relics of the old world running. Improving upon those relics wasn’t remotely on the radar.
Mason released the emergency brake and stomped on the accelerator. The steep decline helped to get the lumbering beast moving.
Bullets thudded into the sheet metal sides. Some chewed through while others glanced off and ricocheted elsewhere.
Miro had another magazine in and was doing his best to provide suppressing fire.
The bus hurtled down the slope at the fence now less than a block away.
“Get down!” Mason shouted as the fence rushed toward them. He jumped out of the driver’s seat and dove toward the back.
Miro looked out the front window. He ducked between two seats as the bus slammed into the fence.
The concrete barrier and chainlink fence didn’t stand a chance. Not many things did against a ten ton tank traveling at forty miles per hour.
The front wheels popped up as the bus rolled the barrier over. A hideous screech rent the air as the nose tore through the fence. The front slammed down bouncing Mason into the roof like a ping pong ball.
He hit the floor and grabbed a seat post waiting for the ride to end one way or the other.
Instead of slowing down, the bus picked up speed on the downhill slope, somehow heading down the middle of the road.
The ping of bullets fell away.
In a trance, Mason looked up at the tie-dyed fabrics draped across the roof. The bright, multi-colored patterns glowed in the soft purple light.
He stared at the bleeding colors on the billowing fabric. Maybe it was the prospect of imminent death talking, but they seemed to mean something. Exactly what, he wasn’t sure.
The meditation was cut short by an excruciating rending accompanied by his body getting thrown to the side. The bus scraped by something and then spun away.
The tires screeched and it rolled over sliding along on its side.
Mason fell into the row of windows that was now the floor. Glass shattered and sparks burst up in fountains from metal scraping across pavement.
The bus slid along and then ground to a sudden stop.
Miro groaned from somewhere nearby.
Mason blinked a few times. His cheek lay on pavement and stung from numerous cuts. He rolled onto his back and looked up at the long bench above.