Nicholson was shouting: “Morally obliged! Ethically obligated! You’ve got the power to help us break free of this system, and if you can’t recognize that, we’ll make you!”
“Obliged and obligated?” asked Memory-Josh in his too-loud voice. “Those who can do, must do, for the overall good of society? Sounds like communism to me.”
The members of the militia shot weighty glances at each other at the mention of communism, but Nicholson wasn’t about to back down. “Not communism,” he said. “Far from it. I’d call OACET the perfect weapon for true democracy. You have the ability to make sure that government plays by the same rules for all people. Not just the rich and powerful.”
“That’s wishful thinking,” Memory-Josh said. “If—if!—we could equalize the playing field, there’s no guarantee it’d stay that way. And once we took steps against the government, we’d be removed from office so damned fast—”
“It’s a—” Nicholson tried to move around Mulcahy, but the head of OACET pushed him back down in the chair again. “Could you back off? You’re not in this alone!” Nicholson snapped at him.
For the first time since he had hurled the coffee table, Mulcahy took a step away from Nicholson. The militia’s leader took this as a triumph. “You wouldn’t be removed,” Nicholson said, a smile beginning to turn his mouth. “Everyone would be too focused on me and my men. The obvious threat. You work behind the scenes, and we do the hard work on the battlefield. By the time they figured out what was really happening, there’d be so little left of the establishment that there’d be no choice but to start anew. With both of our groups in positions of influence.”
The memory of the same cold sweat that had broken over Josh prickled over Rachel’s skin, and blended with her own. “Holy shit,” she whispered across their link, as if Nicholson might be able to hear her. “Is he saying what I think he’s saying?”
“Watch,” Josh told her.
“Battlefield?” Mulcahy asked, as calmly as if he were inquiring as to whether Nicholson wanted sugar in his coffee. “That implies you have an army.”
“There are thousands of us!” Nicholson said proudly. “Tens of thousands! And more will join once the fighting starts. They’ve—we’ve—been waiting, Mulcahy. All of us waiting for a leader to step up and do what needs to be done.”
“And you’d lead this fighting force?” Memory-Josh asked.
Another involuntary glance at the corner where Ethan Fischer had stood, but Nicholson nodded.
“What you’re suggesting is treason,” Mulcahy said.
“I’m sure you’re familiar with the Founding Fathers,” Nicholson said.
Mulcahy closed his eyes and exhaled, ever so slowly, and Rachel wondered if he had finally reached the limits of his seemingly infinite self-control. A moment later, he opened them to stare down at the militia leader. “I’m a Constitutional scholar,” he said. “And I very much doubt the Founding Fathers would perceive the current government as a worthy target of open revolt.”
“Only because the current system would benefit them,” Nicholson said. “If they were down here in the trenches with the rest of us, they’d want another revolution. No, they’d demand it! The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants!”
“Don’t quote Jefferson out of context,” Memory-Josh said. “Just...don’t.”
“I’m not,” Nicholson said. “He addressed the necessity of rebellion to preserve an informed society.”
“And claims that lives lost in the process are nothing in the grand scheme of time, a point with which I personally disagree.”
“What do you propose?” Mulcahy asked Nicholson.
Nicholson brightened, as an almost palpable sense of eagerness moved among his followers. “The sovereign citizen movement isn’t perfect,” he said. “But it’s founded on a core of truth. I need you to help us get to that truth, where the rules for the powerful are also those that apply to the general population. All we want is to bring the government that exists in line with the version that’s been promised to the people.”
Mulcahy closed his eyes again, as if considering. “It’s difficult to hear you talk about moral and ethical obligations when you’ve abducted the same people you claim you want to protect,” he said. “Including a very young child.”
“They haven’t been harmed,” Nicholson said. His smirk had returned. “I’ve made sure of that.”
“Have you seen my wife’s face today? How many of your men have taken turns beating her?”
Nicholson seemed dumbstruck. “The cameras,” he said softly. “That’s right. You can look through the cameras.”
“With that in mind, you must appreciate that I’m having a hard time trusting your word,” Mulcahy said, his eyes still closed.
“Your wife is…difficult,” Nicholson said. “She’s resisted. When she attacks my men, they hit back.”
“You kidnapped a world-class martial artist who’s renowned for her short temper, and you expected her to play along,” Memory-Josh said. “I see a few flaws in this plan right out of the gate.”
Mulcahy opened his eyes. “I’ve heard you out,” he said. “Now, let the hostages go.”
“It’s not that easy,” Nicholson said. “We need assurances that you’ll help us before you get them back. And you have to make sure that nobody takes this as an opportunity to come after us before the uprising.”
Rachel felt the press of smooth top-grain leather on both sides of a hand that wasn’t hers, as Memory-Josh snuck his hand between the couch cushions.
“I apologize for the misunderstanding.” The head of OACET opened his eyes and stared down at Nicholson. “We won’t be helping you. Not now. Not ever.”
“What?!” Nicholson tried to rise to his feet again, and this time Mulcahy let him. He stood, furious. “You have to help. And it has to be soon—this is an opportunity that won’t come again! Congress will force you to join up with Homeland Security or the CIA soon, and then you’ll be watched too closely to act!”
“Work behind the scenes to pull down the government while you set yourself up as the new General Washington?” Memory-Josh said. “Don’t think so.”
There was a scuffle around the room as the militia men protested. They began to move, closing in on Mulcahy from all sides—
A small pfft! sound, about as loud as a glass bottle breaking. Nothing loud. Nothing remotely like a gunshot. The men still froze where they stood—they knew a silencer when they heard one.
“Easy,” Memory-Josh said in his too-loud voice. A semi-automatic pistol hung in his hand, the silencer on its muzzle pointing at nowhere in particular. There was a new hole in the thick wood of the monstrous mahogany desk.
“This meeting is over,” Mulcahy announced. “Go back to your factory. Get your affairs in order, release the hostages, and give yourselves up.”
Nicholson was turning red, the tips of his ears burning in anger. “Who do you think you are?!” he shouted. “I’ve got your wi—”
Mulcahy reached out one giant hand and, as gently as if he were plucking a peach from a tree, wrapped that hand around Nicholson’s throat.
“Gurk?” said Nicholson, eyes wide.
“Indeed,” Mulcahy said.
There was a rush of movement as Mulcahy picked Nicholson up by the neck. Nicholson clawed at Mulcahy’s hand with both of his own, strangled gurks! slipping through his lips as he tried to breathe.
Mulcahy bent his arm and brought Nicholson in close, so close that Memory-Josh with his poor sense of hearing couldn’t make out what he whispered in Nicholson’s ear…
“He asked Nicholson if he wanted a demonstration of true abuse of power,” Josh said, as the memory hung within the moment.
Mulcahy lowered Nicholson to the floor and released him.
“There will be no negotiation,” Mulcahy said. “Here are our terms: abide by them, or we will come into your house and tear it down around you. Release the hostages. Give yo
urselves up.”
“We’ll say you’ve cooperated,” Memory-Josh said. “We’ll spin this so you guys will play like princes! Freedom fighters so committed to the idea of fixing this country that you were willing to do anything to call attention to its problems.
“Hell,” Memory-Josh said, “Why don’t we make it a party? We’ll call a huge press conference, give you guys all the media time you want. You can turn yourselves into heroes after this, you know. You’ll be booked on all of the talk shows. I bet some of you can get movie deals.”
The militia men shuffled in place. Heroism and royalty payments seemed to have some universal appeal.
“Thirty-seven hours,” Mulcahy said to Nicholson. He took a cell phone from his pocket and pushed it into Nicholson’s trembling hands. “Talk it over with your men. Reach a deal. There are more effective ways to make your case than open revolt.”
“Trust us on this,” Memory-Josh said. “We’ve gotten really good at working the media angle.”
The memory faded. Mulcahy’s office was darker, now—the sun had finally gone down, and the streetlights outside weren’t able to pick up the slack.
“After that, it was just logistics,” Josh said. The bottle of brandy was more than half gone. “We gave them thirty-seven hours to surrender. Deadline is nine in the morning, day after tomorrow. In the meantime, we offered to provide meals and entertainment. If we’re lucky, they won’t recognize this as prep work for a raid.”
“Are we that lucky?”
“Yeah,” Josh sighed, as the weight of the world moved between them. “Sure we are.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Rachel asked aloud.
Her friend severed their link as his thoughts spun away from the image of Mulcahy, standing with one hand around—
“Nothing,” he said, as he went to return the bottle to its hiding place. “He’s fine.”
“Josh!” Rachel stood and began to move around the room, feeling like Hope Blackwell trying to burn off her captivity. “We’ve already had this discussion. He’s not fine. You’ve admitted it, and Hope told me to ask you about it, so hi, Josh, I’m asking you again—What’s wrong with him? He’s not…” She groped for the right words. “He’s not acting human!”
“He’s not human,” Josh said, as gray stress and the pitted textures of depression swirled around him like a cloak. “Not right now.”
It was true, or at least truth as best as Josh knew how to put it. She tried to reopen their link, but he waved her off, orange frustration rising.
“Okay,” she said. “What do you mean?”
He turned into the weaving and weighing of colors, a balance of OACET green against Mulcahy’s cerulean blue. “You remember what it was like?” he finally asked. “Back before activation?”
“The brainwashing?” she snapped, only hearing that much-hated word after it sprang loose. “Yeah. Yeah, I remember. Thanks.”
“He can tap into that,” Josh said. “That…the conditioning. He can put himself back in that empty place. It helps him get through events like this.”
She was sitting on the couch again with no memory of how she got there, and wasn’t sure whether to thank her feet or curse their timing. “No,” she whispered. “He can’t do that.”
“Yeah, he can. We all can, probably—Pat’s just the only one of us who finds it useful. Or the only one who isn’t terrified to use it.” Sorrowful, stressful yellows and oranges and even the green of guilt as he tried to shoulder some of the burden.
“He can’t do that!” she gasped.
“Obviously he can—”
“No, Josh, there’s no way he’d do that to himself—not willingly! Put himself back in that living hell?”
“Do you really want him angry?” Josh asked. “You know what he did before he got tapped for OACET. If he loses control, there’d be a body count.”
“I think…” she began, before she decided she didn’t know what she thought, that maybe Josh was right and it was better that Mulcahy stayed in control.
Patrick Mulcahy hadn’t started out as a bureaucrat. The U.S. government had its own internal messaging service, couriers they used to move special packages from Point A to Point B. He had been one of these, instead. When most people learned that he had been a delivery boy prior to joining OACET, they usually laughed and congratulated him on his promotion. When those who had the proper security clearance learned what he had done, they usually needed to sit down and put their heads between their knees for a few minutes. They knew that, if mishandled, some packages tended to die, or explode, or spread little tiny viral pathogens all over the place, and that sometimes these packages needed to be moved behind international lines or through active warzones. The U.S. government’s specialized couriers received training equivalent to SEALs and the Green Berets combined, and nobody made too much fuss about their methods as long as the job got done.
Mulcahy had been very good at his job.
“Body count, my ass. If he gets pushed over the edge,” she murmured, “it’d be a bloodbath.”
“And if Mulcahy falls, we all fall with him,” he reminded her. “He’s made sure OACET stands for honor and integrity. He could get his wife back any time he wants, but there’d be a cost we’d all pay. He’s choosing to let diplomacy win out, for us. He’s shut himself down, for us.”
“Jesus.” She flipped off her implant and buried her head in her hands.
“This is what he’s got to do,” Josh said. “And we all do what we’ve got to do.”
“We can’t let him do this,” she said, her mind trying to bundle ‘all that we’ve got to do’ into a single idea. It wasn’t working—there was too much that needed to fit inside of it, and the details were spilling out from the cracks.
“No, we can’t,” he agreed. “And we shouldn’t stop him.”
“This isn’t right!” Rachel said, loud enough to start her headache up again.
“If you can think of any way to end this, please do,” he said.
Rachel tapped her fingertips on her temples. The blood in her hair had gone hard and crunchy, and it shed tiny shards of dried biocontamination when she moved it. “I need to go see that militia,” she said. “The one up in Pennsylvania. That’s the only trail I haven’t chased yet.”
“Right now?”
“Can’t. I’ve got a golf game in the morning” she said.
She felt him nod. Josh was a golfer, too, because help came from the unlikeliest places and there was no better way to forge a lasting relationship than to demonstrate how skilled you were with a bludgeoning weapon while standing in the middle of nowhere. Or something.
She sprawled out across the couch, and most of Josh. He nudged her foot until the toe of her boot stopped poking him in the ribs.
“Going to be tight,” he said. “Golf early, Pennsylvania later… We need you back here and rested for the raid. Phil’s scans are good, but yours can’t be beat.”
“I’ve got that figured out, but I need your help,” she said. She told him what she was thinking, and he laughed.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll put it together.”
“You using your office bed tonight?” she asked.
“Nah, got to go back to my place and feed the cat,” he said. “All yours.”
“Thanks,” she said, and reactivated her implant. She sent a text to Becca that said she was working late and would see her soon, maybe not tomorrow, but definitely after that and they’d have a nice date night. And then she sent a follow-up text to let her know the psychopath was still being watched by the Hippos and she shouldn’t worry. And then a second follow-up text that was three red hearts and an emoji of shrimp tempura.
She waited. Three hearts came back across her mind. A moment later, the shrimp emoji followed.
“Becca?” Josh asked, as she smiled.
“Mmm-hmm.”
Sleep. The idea was almost intoxicating. If she went to bed right now, she could put on that autoscript that boosted her healing and sl
eep for thirteen hours. Thirteen full hours of blissful, uninterrupted—
And, just as she began to acquaint herself to the idea that she could look forward to a day in which she was fully rested and ready to take on the world, the sweet electronic voice of a mostly-dead computer swept through her mind.
“Look at me still talking when there’s science to do…”
“Aw hell,” Rachel muttered. Santino’s ringtone, and something was wrong: he had been so distant lately that he only called when it was important. She opened the line and her partner began shouting.
Josh drove her to the hospital. He didn’t stick around. Rachel didn’t blame him for leaving. There was…quite a lot of blood.
It might not have looked like a murder. Not if the victim hadn’t been tougher than hammered nails and unwilling to go down without a fight. The officers had put Fischer in restraints, and had moved him to a bed designed for that purpose, with metal railings bolted to a weighted platform. No chance of flipping this one, or of breaking the leather straps belted around his body and fastened to the railings. But he had fought back so hard that the bed had wiggled nearly a foot away from the wall.
The medical examiner thought the needle from the syringe that had been used to inject him had broken off in his neck. The needle was gone, but whoever had removed it had needed to dig it out with a scalpel.
…quite a lot of blood. Yes. Quite a lot…
“He couldn’t call for help,” Santino said. “Not with those bandages around his jaw.”
“Yeah,” she replied. Her voice sounded distant. “Any leads?”
“Jason’s going through the security footage now. There’s a woman in a nurse’s uniform who nobody recognizes, and the officer at the door went on a five-minute break after she said she’d watch him while changing his bandages.”
Santino was quiet for a moment, staring at the body of the man they had, however indirectly, helped put on the path to his own death. “Why’d they kill him?”
“Did Hill get a chance to go at him yet?”
“No.”
“That’s why,” she sighed. “Time to find out who this guy is, and where he came from.”
Brute Force Page 24