by John Bromley
The men continued down the hall toward the stairwell, all with confused looks on their faces. Captain Mike was wondering just what kind of man this Thompson was. Four dead bodies around him, and the possibility of accidentally becoming one himself, had not bothered him, yet the sight he had just seen had killed his appetite completely.
The two other men wondered what a coffin was doing in the dining room.
They wondered why the cover was open.
They wondered why it was empty.
CHAPTER 41
“I’ve finally got you, Sam,” said Edwin Billings. “It was a fun chase while it lasted, but now you and your treasonous partner are going to die.”
“How do you think that’s going to happen?” Sam asked. He did not look up, but calmly continued monitoring his computer’s progress.
“By means of this gun right here,” Billings replied, displaying what appeared to be an Uzi submachine gun by holding it in his right hand, slightly away from his body.
Instantly a bullet impacted the weapon from behind, knocking it out of his grip. Looking over his shoulder, he spotted the shooter still aiming a pistol at him. Billings had not noticed the man when he came into the room; the open door had shielded him from view.
He slowly turned back to face Sam. Quick as lightning, he bent down to retrieve the dropped Uzi. Before he made it all the way, however, a strong hand grabbed his right arm. He froze halfway down, with his arm pinned behind his back.
“Stand up straight,” ordered Buck Keller, without releasing his grip. Instead of complying, Billings attempted to twist and reach the gun with his free left hand. Buck applied a strong upward thrust and something snapped, loudly enough to be heard throughout the room. They couldn’t tell if it was a bone in Billings’ forearm breaking or the elbow itself dislocating, but whatever it was, Billings dropped to the floor on his knees, seeing stars and feeling like he was about to vomit or pass out, or both. Peter came from his position by the door and picked up the dropped Uzi. He placed it on the table next to Sam, well out of Billings’ reach.
Sam remained focused on his computer screen, and said, “No, really, Ted—how’s that gonna happen, now that you’ve dropped your big-ass gun?”
He finally looked up and faced his accuser-turned-prisoner, still kneeling on the floor and moaning in agony.
“You boys really need to learn how to take orders, that's all there is to it,” he told his injured adversary. “Now get up.”
When he didn’t move, Buck took hold of him by his shirt collar and pulled. This only caused a slight movement of his shirtsleeve, but it was enough to send pain lancing through his lower arm. Still feeling like he was about to be sick but willing to do anything to get the pain to stop, Billings rose and stood on wobbly legs. Buck released the tension on his collar but did not let go of it completely.
Peter, meanwhile, was looking from Sam to Billings and back again. Buck saw what Peter was doing, and found himself doing the same thing. Both men came to the same conclusion.
“Mr. Billings kind of looks like you, Mr. Sam,” Peter said, and Buck nodded in agreement.
“I don’t look anything like you, Swenson,” Billings spat, as if the idea disgusted him.
“Well, we don’t look exactly alike, I’ll grant you that,” Sam replied calmly, looking at the SS chief. “But I see what he means... there is some similarity around the eyes... the mouth... the general shape of our faces. One might almost call it a ‘family resemblance’... right, Ted?”
“We’re not ‘family’,” Billings hissed, trying to ignore the pain he felt.
“No, we’re not that kind of ‘family’,” Sam allowed, “not like me and my twin brother Joe were family. Until he was killed.” He advanced on Billings until they were face to face. “By you.”
Billings glared at him, saying nothing.
“Not that it matters now, but why did you have him killed, Ted? Because you thought he was me? Or was it just to get at me?” Sam was trying to control his anger, but it was becoming evident. “Maybe, just because he looked like me? That’s enough of a reason for you, isn’t it?”
“In that case, it was,” Billings replied.
“So now, I got a reason to kill you. And I got a gun to do it with, so maybe I will. But first, tell these boys why we look so much alike, Ted.”
“We don’t look at all alike,” Billings insisted through clenched teeth.
“Why don’t you tell them that we’re half brothers?” Sam pressed. “Are you... ashamed to admit that... Brother?”
“Half brothers?” Peter asked, unsure of the concept.
“It means they have one parent in common,” Buck explained. This was something he himself had only learned recently from Jim.
“You both have the same father?”
“No,” Sam answered, still staring at Billings, “Ted’s father lives in Michigan, and my daddy lives... lived... in Tennessee. He died of natural causes... I think.”
“I had nothing to do with that,” Billings said defensively.
“Odd, how you felt the need to say that. Anyway, we have different fathers, so that leaves only one possibility, doesn’t it, boys?”
“You had the same... mother,” Buck realized.
“’Had’ is the operative word here, ain’t it, Ted?” Sam said, his self-control continuing to slip. “What happened to our mother, Ted?”
When Billings did not answer, Sam grabbed the broken portion of Billings' right arm. Pain lanced through it and his vision blurred again. Sam wasn’t interested.
“Tell them!”
“She... died,” he said, trying not to show weakness.
“Bullshit, she died!” Sam spoke quietly but fiercely. “She didn’t just ‘die’, you lying sack of shit! You killed her!”
“I wasn’t there,” Billings started to say but Sam interrupted him.
“You didn’t have to be. All you did was make her one of your ‘special assignments’, like you do when your new goons go into the Ghetto and kill all the old ones. You had your boys go out of their way to kill her!”
Billings said nothing, either by way of admission or denial.
Sam grabbed him by his shirt. “Why? Tell me why you killed her.”
“Because she was your mother.”
“She was your mother, too, you murdering asshole!”
“So what? She was your mother first.”
Sam stepped back and looked at Billings for a second, then turned toward the computer console, where Billings’ Uzi was resting.
“You violated two Commandments, Ted,” Sam told his half-brother. “The first was the one that says to ‘Honor thy Father and thy Mother’. Can’t very well say you ‘honored’ your mother if you had her shot, now can you?”
He picked up the submachine gun.
“The other Commandment was your own, Ted,” he continued while checking the gun’s readiness to fire. “You always tell your boys ‘if you think you have your target, shoot first and ask questions later’, right? Don't even have to be sure—because, after all, what’s one innocent life in the grand scheme of things? If you had followed your own rules, you would have come in here with guns blazing, and we wouldn’t be having this delightful conversation.”
“I wish I had,” Billings responded.
“But you didn’t,” Sam mock-lamented. “You just had to come in here and crow about your ‘heroic capture’ of the country’s most dangerous fugitive and his bad-ass accomplices, even though we were the ones who told you where we were.”
He placed his finger on the Uzi’s trigger and pressed the barrel into the Secret Service chief’s stomach.
“You killed my brother. You killed our mother. That’s two good reasons why I should kill you right here and now. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.”
Billings was tempted to say “because Thompson depends on me,” but he was quite sure Sam wouldn’t consider that a “good” reason, so he said nothing.
Sam pressed harder on the barrel
.
“Then there’s your ‘Section Fifteen’—oh yeah, we know something about that, too, thanks to Thompson’s baby boy. He told us about those random, innocent people that you drag up here, force sperm samples from, and then sentence to death, just because they looked upon a woman. That gives me thousands more reasons to end your miserable life right now, as if I needed them.”
Billings actually had a counter-argument to this point, but once again he was sure that Sam would fail to see the “logic” of his position.
“C’mon, Ted—one good reason is all I asked for. Think!” Sam ordered, leaning even harder on the gun. “Or is that something you have ‘people’ to do for you?”
Sweat was forming on Billings’ brow. The pain in his arm faded to nothing as fear crowded it out of his mind.
“Wouldn’t want my finger to get tired and slip, now, would we? You’d have more than thirty bullets in your gut before I realized what had happened.”
Billings closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable. After an interminable three seconds, he heard a click, but felt no pain. Opening his eyes and looking down, he could see that the gun’s safety had been engaged.
“I just thought of a much more fitting punishment for you, Ted.”
“What is it?” Billings couldn’t help asking.
“All in good time, Teddy boy, all in good time,” Sam replied. He removed the gun from Billings’ stomach and returned to the computer console, where his laptop was signaling that it had finished its task. He unplugged the wires from the mainframe and began putting his computer away. Seeing that Billings was watching him with a concerned expression, Sam once again approached the SS chief.
“What’s the matter now, Ted? You afraid I might hurt your little Treatment system?” He backed away and opened his arms expansively. “Then get your boys in here and have them run their checks on this computer. Go ahead,” he said, sitting back down in his chair. “I’ll wait.”
Billings’ vision was still fuzzy and there was a ringing in his ears, so he didn’t respond to Sam’s suggestion.
“Peter,” Sam said to his youngest associate, “stick your head out the door and ask those guys to send their Data Security boys in, ‘cause Mr. Billings here would like to see them.”
Peter opened the door and quickly closed it again.
“There are dead bodies out there,” he told Sam with a shudder.
“Up to your old tricks again, Ted?” Sam asked, again getting no response.
Peter opened the door again and after saying “Excuse me” several times, finally managed to get someone’s attention. About a minute later, the men in the room were joined by several Department of Education computer specialists. Several of them noted with alarm the glazed expression on Billings’ face.
“Mr. Billings? Are you all right, sir?” one of the men asked.
“Stubbed his toe,” Sam replied for him. He quickly directed their attention to the computer console. “Now, Mr. Billings is satisfied with our work, but he wanted you boys to ensure that none of your data files have been accidentally stepped on.”
The men nodded, began pushing buttons and running different applications on the system. It took over ten minutes, but they were finally able to tell Mr. Billings that the system appeared completely intact.
“Check for any brand-new files,” was all Billings could say without gasping in pain.
They did, and once again the senior computer specialist reported that the computer systems had not been modified in any way, that no data appeared to be missing, and no data files had been added.
“Thanks for that confirmation, boys,” Sam said, getting up and leading them to the door. They were reluctant to leave, but Sam assured them that “we can take it from here.”
When the Education men were gone, Sam walked back to where Billings stood.
“We’ll be leaving now, Ted. I think you know where we're headed. And by the way, I hear tell that the President himself may be on his way up there too. C’mon up and join us—we’ll have us a real party.”
He picked up Billing’s Uzi.
“One more thing,” he said, before rearing back and smashing his half-brother’s chin with the gun stock. When Billings fell, he landed on his broken arm, causing yet more agony. Just before he passed out from the pain, he heard Sam say, “That wasn’t for Joe, or our mother. That was for Jim Parker.”
CHAPTER 42
The subway train bearing the two Mike Wilkinses and the President arrived at the entrance to the female Ghetto. If there were any Secret Service agents in the tunnel, which was by no means certain any longer, they must have somehow gotten word that the President was on board the train, and the trip was made without incident. This was a relief to Mike and the rest of the Army personnel, who remembered vividly the last trip through the Stork tunnel, which resulted in the death of Staff Sgt. Roy Donovan.
Mike led the guests up the staircase and out into the Ghetto itself. After being driven through the wilderness surrounding the Stork building, Mike’s father found the suburban nature of the female enclosure an unexpectedly pleasant surprise. Thompson expressed no such emotion, since he had been here before and knew what to expect. He did, however, take several deep breaths of the fresh air and sigh contentedly, a natural reaction after spending an extended period in the stale air of the underground tunnel.
For his part, Mike was pleasantly surprised to see Cynthia standing among the women near the tunnel exit. She had been watching the soldiers coming out of the tunnel, obviously looking for someone in particular. Finally looking past the other men, she spotted and locked eyes with Mike, and a smile lit up her face. Mike felt that when she smiled like that, she was even more beautiful than he remembered.
She ran to him and embraced him warmly, pressing her cheek against his. As she backed off slightly, she planted little kisses on his neck and ear. A little further, and her lips brushed his. She broke the kiss and saw a questioning look in his eyes. She said nothing by way of explanation, but pressed her lips against his again for another, longer kiss. When they separated this time, his eyes expressed nothing but happiness. He pulled her into a tighter embrace, which she did not resist. Now, he kissed her, and she kissed him back, happily, hungrily. Neither of them seemed willing to be the first one to end the kiss.
Even while doing something as enjoyable as kissing Cynthia, Mike’s Army training would not allow him to go for too many seconds without at least briefly reconnoitering the area. He had noticed Angela standing near Cynthia when he first came out of the tunnel, but a quick visual pass told him that Angela was now out of sight. Satisfied that he knew where she had gone, he returned his full attention to the extremely pleasant task at hand.
Angela had waited anxiously while the other men had come through the tunnel exit. She also wondered about the noises she was hearing, which sounded like faraway explosions. Finally she spotted the last member of the group, a man somewhat dirtier than the rest, for his face was smeared with soot, and he was accompanied out of the tunnel by a sizeable puff of smoke. She was not interested in any of that—she ran to him and they embraced tightly.
“I knew you would come back to me, Jim,” she whispered in his ear.
Parker pulled back so that he could look into her beautiful blue eyes.
“I promised you that I would.”
He stepped back slightly. “Sorry about the mess,” he said, indicating the stain on his shirt, which had spread to hers when she pressed her breasts against his chest.
“Ask me if I care,” she replied with a smile. It was infectious and he returned it.
He nodded to his right, and she looked to see Mike and Cynthia still connected at the lips. They looked back and resumed smiling at each other.
“That looks like fun,” Jim commented. “Could... we... try that?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she replied as their lips met and they began their own extended, passionate kiss.
Up the pathway, one of the soldiers nudged h
is friend and nodded toward Jim and Angela.
“I bet we could drop a couple thousand gallons of water on the two of them right now and they’d never notice,” he said sardonically.
“I bet... you’re right,” his friend agreed.
Jim was in the master bath of the so-called “Second White House.” Angela was in the next room to allow him some privacy as he undressed and prepared for a nice relaxing bath. The door between the rooms was open so they could talk to one another.
“What did you call that red stuff you had all over your face and shirt?” she wanted to know.
“Fake blood,” Jim answered. “Some people call it ‘Hollywood-style’ blood.”
“‘Hollywood’ – that’s the word I couldn’t think of,” Angela replied. “What is ‘Hollywood’ anyway?”
“It’s the city in California where most movies are made,” Jim told her. “They’re experts at making things look real when they aren’t.”
“It certainly looked real enough to me, when you came out of the tunnel. You probably fooled quite a few people into thinking you had really been shot.”
“Let’s hope so,” Jim said as he stepped into the bathtub. The water was soft and very warm, and when he sat back, little air jets provided a soothing massage for the tired muscles in his back and legs. He realized that being “shot” and “playing dead” in a coffin caused more muscle cramping than he had expected.
He became aware of something else as he relaxed.
This tub is enormous, he thought. There’s almost…
“Enough room in there for anyone else?” As if on cue, Angela entered the master bathroom. She also was naked.
Jim couldn’t take his eyes off her as she approached the tub. She looked very much like him in many respects—two arms, two legs, ten toes—but significantly different in other parts of her anatomy. The “rounder, softer” shape of her body, which he had noticed when he first saw her on video, was even more evident without clothes hiding it. He found the two large, nearly round mounds of flesh holding her nipples about six or seven inches away from her chest especially intriguing.