Minus America

by E. E. Isherwood

  One of them went right in Kyla’s face.

  Air Force Two

  Ted’s mind detached from his body and he was back in basic training. The place where his reactions were trained for months to respond to threats like this. Sure, he’d spent the first four years of his service life playing foosball in Tallahassee, but he’d picked up more training in the years since.

  He didn’t have time to get all the way to John’s arm, but he got close.

  “Duck!” Ted shouted.

  The Secret Service agent fired the pistol, despite Ted’s shove.

  Emily fell sideways into one of the other computer operators. The Army officer hopped into the space vacated by the vice president, as if trying to absorb the next blast.

  “Fucking gun!” Ted yelled, though no one could mistake what it was.

  Ted had the Secret Service man off balance, but far from down. He intended to knee the guy in the small of his back while he was vulnerable, but John flung himself sideways, so Ted bounced off the curved wall.

  And he still had the gun.

  His whole world became a pair of tunnel-vision goggles where he saw nothing but John and his large, black pistol.

  Ted flung himself at the man’s shooting hand, intending to force him to drop the weapon.

  John expected as much and tried to use his elbow to pile-drive a blow into Ted’s ribs. However, they were in such tight quarters, neither of them could get much momentum going against the other.

  He shifted enough so the elbow crunched into his shoulder.

  Ted’s heart could have been heard over a full drum line as the two of them wrestled behind the desk and around the chair.

  “Get the fuck out of my way, Ted. This isn’t about you.” The Secret Service agent snared him in a bear hug even as he got a grip on the pistol. Since he was at a disadvantage, Ted tried to shove the arm down onto the edge of the desk, hoping to break it.

  However, that didn’t go as planned, either. The barrel of the semi-automatic pistol hit the metal table. The second it happened; the weapon discharged.

  That shot went into the floor.

  Ted used the momentary distraction to pull back and try to punch John’s gut. He intended to follow it up with a knee to the nuts…

  John fired the gun again. This time, it was a lot closer to Ted’s body. John released the bear hug grip and tried to shove him out into the aisle, though now Ted wouldn’t let go.

  Several people scrambled nearby. He hoped they were getting clear of the flying lead. Worst case, he reasoned, he could make John fire all his rounds, so he had none left for the VP.

  How many rounds were in a Sig Sauer P229? He thought the answer was fifteen, but it was a wild guess. If he was right, he had twelve left to endure.

  He fought to hold the gun away from himself, but John used his leverage wisely.

  John huffed as they struggled. “Just get out of my way, big guy. Let me do my damned job.”

  “Since when is it your job to kill the person you are supposed to protect?” he wheezed.

  “I’ll tell—”

  Another gunshot resonated in the confined quarters.

  A chunk of John’s brain popped out the side of his head and decorated the white plastic coating on the outer wall of the plane.

  It hadn’t come from the pistol dangling dangerously close to his hip. It came from the next computer station.

  The struggling agent slumped to the floor.

  A small revolver appeared at the edge of his focus. It was in the hands of the VP.

  “What the fuck?” Ted said with shock.

  Emily Williams smiled. “What the flock, indeed. Why was my own man trying to kill me?”

  Amarillo, TX

  Brent Whitman was ready to call it a day. He’d finished his overnight shift at the prison, and he was ready to sleep it off.

  Every third week, he had to take a weekend shift in the hole, which was the lower level of the medium security prison where he and three hundred other misguided souls temporarily called home. It sucked because there were no windows whatsoever. It felt like working in a casino, with similarly shady characters behind the bars.

  “I’m done. Let me out!” He loved joking with Trish, the young and very womanly corrections supervisor in the security cage most days.

  And he believed she enjoyed joking with him. “How did you get released so soon?”

  “I want to go upstairs and get some sunlight. I feel like a vampire living down here with the other blood suckers.” The prison was home to some rough characters, including a few prone to bloody up other people. However, he was happy to know none of them were killers, at least not on record. Violent offenders went downstate, to one of the maximum intensity vacation hotspots in the corrections system.

  “You’ve earned it, Brent. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Trish’s shift only overlapped in the mornings. She was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise thankless job, and if she wasn’t thirty years his junior, she would have been his type.

  “Yep, c’ya,” he said pleasantly.

  When he reached the elevator, he decided to bypass it and take the stairs.

  “I’ll find my own Trish, someday. Just not around here.” He lived several miles outside of Dalhart, which itself was fifty miles outside of Amarillo. The chance of meeting a woman his age in the grassland prairies was remote.

  He went up at a good clip and pushed through the door with youthful excitement.

  “Still got it,” he reasoned.

  The very next step got out from under him, like he’d stepped on something that didn’t belong on the floor. He wheeled backward and fell on his side and shoulder with a heavy thud.

  “Holy shit!” he cried out.

  The camera guys on this level were undoubtedly laughing at him, so he tried to play it off as a prank.

  “Ha-ha!” he said aloud.

  When he rolled over, his hand slid on a pair of pants someone had tossed on the floor. His first instinct was that a riot was in progress, because all sorts of things got thrown during those incidents, but this pair had a long blue strip down the gray leg. It belonged to a guard.

  “What the heavenly hell is this?” It wasn’t only the pants. A man’s shirt and shoes were there, too. It was as if someone had excitedly undressed to go skinny dipping. Something that never happened willingly in prison.

  The guard’s security belt was also on the ground, and that signaled a real problem. It contained two cans of bear spray, and, for when things really got bad, a Taser. No guard worth his salt would ever ditch those items.

  Brent glanced down the main hallway and saw a couple other sets of clothing. Both of them also had their thick belts on the floor.

  He pressed his radio call button with breathless urgency. “Hello? Operations? We’ve got some missing guards on the five-hundred block.”

  No one replied for half a minute, until Trish’s voice came out. “This is Floor Zero. Are you trying to call Ops, Brent?”

  He heard her reply and was thankful for it, but he’d gotten to his feet and had taken a few steps down the hallway. The first cell belonged to a guy named Edward. He was a relatively happy fellow who spent his time reading political magazines. Said he was going into politics when he got out. It was a long-running joke that got everyone laughing.

  Edward’s clothes flowed lengthwise on his bed, along with one of those magazines. It was as if he’d taken off his orange jumpsuit while he was reading this morning.

  Donald’s internal alarms began to clang. The guards might be pulling a fast one on him, but there was no way on God’s grass-fed earth the lockups would also participate in a prank.

  “Um, we have something going on up here. Prisoners are gone.”

  Trish gasped. “Are you sure?”

  He didn’t hold the stupid question against her. He wouldn’t have believed it, either.

  Brent walked to the next cell, then five more. By the time he reached the guard shack at the end of the block, he w
as sure this wasn’t a prank. It was more like the end of the world.

  “Yeah, I’m real sure.”

  “Was it an escape? How did we miss it?” Trish seemed flustered. An escape alarm droned to life; she followed protocols to the letter.

  “The guards are gone, too,” he said warily. “Every living person up here is now a pile of clothes. All gone.”

  He looked back down the cell block.

  Alarms would do no good.

  CHAPTER 5

  Air Force Two

  After the attack on her life, the vice president was whisked away by the other members of her security detail. It happened so fast, Ted had no time to think about the connection between the dead man lying next to his seat, and the men and women of the Secret Service.

  Without making a big deal out of it, he shoved the Sig Sauer pistol into his waistband at the small of his back. He was flushed from the ordeal and breathing like mad, so it wasn’t hard to pretend like he was checking his uniform for puncture holes.

  “You all right?” a female Air Force lieutenant asked him.

  He straightened his navy-blue tie. “Fine. He surprised me is all.” Ted got out of his chair, not wanting to spend time near a dead man with half his brains missing.

  The officer spoke at barely a whisper. “You’ll probably get a medal, or an award. You saved her life, sir.”

  Ted always had his eye on advancement, but he never thought about adding to his collection of useless awards. The only thing that mattered was protecting the citizens and assets of his countrymen. He was beginning to see the vice president as an asset.

  “Where do you think they took her?” he asked no one in particular as he picked up his phone, then looked toward the back. The intel deck was behind the flight deck, but above the seating and living areas of the main fuselage. Since she wasn’t visible at the back of the room, she had to on one of the other two levels.

  “Probably have her holed up in a bathroom with guns pointed outward,” the airman replied.

  Ted shook his head as he clicked his tongue. It was something he did when in deep thought. The plane had to have an Alamo-type of refuge, but he wasn’t sure that was where she’d go. Not unless forced.

  “Did you see her fire her weapon?” he continued. “I always thought she was a mild-mannered nobody.”

  “That’s what you’re supposed to think. Politicians are never what you imagine.” The female officer paused for a few seconds. “Well, some of them are big assholes on TV and in real life. I guess my rule doesn’t apply to all of them, sir.” She laughed a bit as she checked her screen.

  “You must get around,” Ted said to keep the small talk going.

  He’d only been with Air Force Two for six months. It was a capstone assignment for many officers onboard. Ted still wasn’t sure if it would be that way for him. Robertson, the hero pilot currently at the stick, didn’t look like he was in danger of falling dead from old age any time soon.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, realizing she was answering his question by naming off her past duty stations. “I need to walk off this nervous energy. Will you excuse me?”

  He hurriedly shuffled down the aisle toward the back.

  To a person, the men and women at the computer terminals gave him a pat on the shoulder or a “good job” for what he’d done to protect the vice president. He took it in stride but continued out the back and down the winding flight of steps.

  “You!” a Secret Service woman called out.

  Ted flashed his badge when she came over to him. She’d taken off her jacket, revealing a sleek, black sub-machine gun. The Heckler & Koch MP5 would have made a sieve out of Vice President Williams if John Jeffries had used one.

  Ted sucked in a deep breath, not sure what the woman was going to say. He also realized his heart continued to gallop along like he was still wrestling that gun away. His body wasn’t ready to let its guard down.

  “Okay,” she said, “you’re clear.” She stepped back and took a relaxed stance. “Thank you for covering our asses. They’d probably dump all of us service folks out the back door if we’d let Ms. Williams get shot by our own man.”

  Her blue eyes seemingly penetrated his soul. Almost as if she interrogated him without saying a word. Was she waiting for him to admit he was part of the conspiracy?

  Ted held her gaze but smiled with his best attempt at being friendly and non-threatening. When the woman appeared satisfied, she nodded to the plush seating area behind her.

  “We’re not letting anyone see her right now, because we don’t know who’s a threat. However, you’ve earned a pass by saving her life.”

  “Oh, that’s all,” he said as a joke.

  The woman’s stare was ice. “Go inside, funny guy.”

  Ted wondered why he was even thinking funny thoughts at all. He’d almost been shot, and a high-level figure in the government was almost assassinated. The nation was already at DEFCON 2, so the threat level couldn’t go much higher. All that was compounded by the communications issues for the mainland United States.

  He figured the humor was a defense mechanism. He’d go a little crazy if he thought about things too seriously.

  “There he is!” the VP said with excitement. “Come over here, please.”

  He strolled over to the seating area, but before he got there, she stood up and extended her hand. “I’m Vice President Emily Williams. I see you all the time up on that deck, but I’m afraid I don’t know your name, pilot.”

  “I’m Major Ted MacInnis, United States Air Force, ma’am.”

  She shook his hand with both of hers. “Thank you, truly, for saving my life.”

  He chuckled. “I’d say you can take care of yourself just fine. You probably saved my life, too.”

  “Oh, no, don’t pull that manly hero shit on me. You are going to take my gratitude and I am positively going to owe you one, all right?”

  He shrugged as she let go of his hand. “I reacted by instinct. I’ve known John Jeffries since I started flying with you. I’ve never seen him express the smallest clue he didn’t like you. If anyone was going to be the shooter, it should have been me, because I don’t like your party.”

  She laughed for a moment, but immediately turned serious. “This isn’t about parties, Ted. This is an attack on our country.” She glanced around her. “I’m not only talking about this assault on me. It’s potentially world war big.”

  “I understand, ma’am. I talked to my sister while it happened. She was in New York. Said the news showed the attack came from the West Coast. What can I do to help?”

  She leaned back as if digesting what he’d told her. Then, she flashed her perfect white teeth. “What more can you do? I thought you’d never ask. Come with me.”

  The vice president motioned him toward the back of the plane. He happened to notice her hand shook as she moved away. Beneath that ‘mild-manner nobody’ persona crafted over multiple campaigns of political nonsense, she was a real person who was scared.

  It made him appreciate her situation, and his own.

  He always balled his fists after combat.

  Bonne Terre, MO

  Tabby guided the three students further into the mine using a small penlight she always carried. There was a survival box stationed on every floor, stocked with gear such as chem lights, head lamps, and first aid materials. Her dad liked to be prepared for anything, he often said, and keeping guests alive was always job number one.

  She arrived at the first box like it was an important stop on the tour.

  “I’d like to direct your attention to this safety box. I’m sure you three will remember me mentioning this exact box when we started our walking tour this morning?” She’d asked the question knowing the answer.

  The kids grumbled.

  “I see. Well, let me tell you about it again.” On the regular tour, she’d only point at the box. Now, she opened it. “It has everything we need to survive down here until the rescue team comes and gets us out.” />
  She pulled an armful of gear out while she held the penlight with her teeth.

  “Here’s a flashlight for you.” She held it back, not caring who took it.

  “And all of us are going to take these green chem lights and tie them onto your clothes. This way we can’t possibly lose each other in the dark. Make sense?”

  More grumbles. Audrey might have been crying. Or maybe it was Donovan.

  She shifted what was left in the box but didn’t pull the rest out. “There’s food in here, and bottled water. I don’t think we’ll be here long enough to need them, but they are here, right? My dad took care of us.”

  Peter spoke up. “Your dad works here? Doesn’t that bum you out?”

  This was the family business, and she couldn’t imagine life without it. Sure, it was dank, dark, and mysterious, but the lower levels were filled with crystal clear water. A billion gallons of the stuff. It was as beautiful as it was creepy. Her parents brought her inside when she was a baby. They taught her to swim there. They trained her in SCUBA and let her explore the underground chambers.

  “No, I love working with my mom and dad.” She forced a laugh. “What? Don’t tell me you wouldn’t work with your parents if you got the chance?”

  Peter’s head blurred he shook it so fast. “No f— Uh, no freaking way, dude. My parents are suck.”

  Audrey stepped closer, flashlight in hand. “My parents wouldn’t be caught dead down here. They work up in St. Louis at some fancy law offices. I hate going there.”

  Tabby started walking again. “What about you, Donny? Would you want to work with your parents?”

  He sobbed for a second. “Are we ever going to see them again? My parents, I mean?”

  Tabby cursed herself for failing so bad on the morale-building part of her tour. Fear was contagious, and Donovan’s fear was going to infect the other two if she didn’t do something about it.

  A deep rumble shook the floor.

  “What was that?” Donovan exclaimed.

  It felt like an explosion in an underground chamber. She’d once taken a tour of a working limestone mine and was there when they blew the caution sirens and detonated explosives to peel material off a rock face. The grumble was similar.