“Yes, but not just when I am maneuvering for position. Once I have it, I will need to reform this dysfunctional abortion we call the People’s Republic. And when I say ‘reforms,’ as every former communist country whose standard of living has outstripped ours, from Albania to Vietnam knows, I mean market reforms.”
“They’ll resist.”
“They don’t have any guns. You have them all.”
Rios-Parkinson took a sip on his fizzy water, then put the glass back down.
“There might be loyalty problems within my organization. We have our own internal politics.”
“And you have a golden opportunity to deal with that, Director. Don’t tell me you have not thought through the upside of riots and spies – more authority for you to address those problems. More autonomy in selecting your subordinates. I am well aware that you and the PBI are as hobbled and handicapped by quotas and regulations governing who can be appointed to what job as everyone else. If you perform, you may earn the leeway to put competent and, most importantly, loyal people in positions of responsibility. No more having to promote someone into a position you need to be able to count on just because he chose to snip his prick off and sand down his Adam’s apple. And that way, when the time comes, you will lead and you can be confident that they will follow.”
“So, you are proposing a long term alliance?”
“I am. Because of all the people jockeying for position in this great game of ours, you seem to be the most ideologically flexible. I don’t think you believe this bullshit. Nor do I think you disbelieve it. I think you don’t care about it, not even a little. I think all you care about is yourself, and that is the kind of man I can find useful.”
Rios-Parkinson took another drink of his water, not looking away. He returned it to its coaster.
“And my role?”
“My second. I need what they used to call an executive officer, someone to do the things I can’t. When I leave – I have 20 years or so on you – then it’s all yours. Hopefully functioning so that we aren’t always on edge waiting for starving people to start rioting.”
“That is the long term. Short term, what do you want?”
“I want you to get your shit together. I want you to crush the riots. I want you to get your list back. And I want you to get those spies.”
“I intend to. And I intend to do it soon.”
“Good,” said Harrington. “Oh, and there is another thing. There is a lot of talk about that red state whore you are shacked up with. It makes you look weak, and far too cis besides. You need to get rid of her.”
Rios-Harrington smiled. He was well aware that what had been a status symbol was becoming a liability in his circles.
“Oh yes,” he replied, “I intend to do that too.”
It was near 9:30 p.m. when they left the downtown complex. Before the Split, the roads in West LA would have still been clogged even at that hour, but with Arthur driving and Sam in the front seat, the black SUV made excellent time. They ignored even the working traffic signals, and the PSF cruisers ignored them. You never interfered with a black SUV.
They headed across the city into the Western Sector through the same gate Turnbull and Junior had used that morning. A long line of blue shirts, still in street clothes, waited patiently at the employee entrance for admittance for the night shift. It was taking longer than usual because the guards were wanding each of them for weapons. The guards waved the SUV right through; Rios-Parkinson noted that there were clearly extra guards scrutinizing both those coming in and going out.
The traffic was much heavier inside; Beverly Hills and its environs were brightly lit and festive. People walked along the sidewalks and dined in sidewalk cafes. Musicians set up at intervals to serenade those out and about. Amanda was constantly pestering him to take her out on a Friday night; he had no interest in that. Her constant assertion of her needs and wants was something he would not miss in the slightest after he had Arthur and Sam take her away and shoot her.
She was replaceable, a fungible commodity. The man who had been ignored before all this now understood that there were plenty of women to choose from if you had the power of life and death.
They continued north on the residential streets twisting and climbing up the hills to the north. Unlike out there, beyond the sector’s walls, these houses were mostly occupied. Many of these people had a reason to leave; most of those who did were quickly replaced by bureaucrats who managed to obtain residence by default in the homes seized either from the worms who left for the red or from those who failed to make their reparations payments.
They turned onto his street, just below the crest of the hill, Arthur radioed ahead that they were coming and received a confirmation from the house. They drove along the winding, narrow street until they approached his gate. It opened before them and they drove in and parked. Amanda’s red Nissan was in its place. The city spread out before him, the Western Sector bright, the rest of the city – other than downtown to the east and the Airport and the South Bay Sector to the southwest – were generally dark, with only a few intermittent flickers of light piercing the black.
The house itself was spectacular, a gift from one of the worms who fled after the Split. The backyard extended down the hill to a flat plateau the size of a basketball court where the pool and gardens were.
Followed by Arthur and Sam, he came up the walkway to the front door and found it ajar – typical. Amanda had likely gotten drunk and forgotten to close it again. He truly would not miss her.
Pushing the heavy door open and stepping inside, he turned his head to tell Arthur to retrieve his computer from the SUV and heard one thwoot, then another. He saw Arthur slump against a red-splattered wall and Sam staggering.
It made no sense, but then it all became very clear as a powerful hand locked onto his shoulder, pulled him around, and forced him back against the doorjamb.
A large black handgun pressed painfully hard into the depression at the top of his nose, squarely between his eyes. Behind the gun was an unsmiling face.
“Welcome home, asshole,” said Kelly Turnbull.
15.
They were stuck in the parking structure for several hours thanks to the security operation outside, which was fine with them. No one would be looking for them, if they were in fact being looked for, inside of a riot perimeter. Junior took the first watch and Turnbull slept in the back seat for a couple hours. He dozed right through the occasional bursts of gunfire.
It was pretty clear that the PRNA was not going to tolerate this kind of thing, not inside a security sector.
Eventually, the blues left the streets and it started slowly getting back to normal. They waited until the people and the drivers were venturing out en masse again before they pulled out of the space and drove down the ramp to the street. No one ever came for the Tesla with the broken out rear window. Junior wondered if the owner wasn’t lying on a slab somewhere with a carving fork through his sternum.
“We need food,” Junior said from the passenger’s seat as they pulled out into the late Friday afternoon traffic. Up and down the street, things were normalizing again. You would never have known that this had been the scene of a bloodbath over lunch time.
“Maybe we might do better at a drive-thru,” Turnbull said. “Do they even have drive-thrus here anymore? They used to. This place has devolved. They have managed to take the long arc of human progress and bend it to run right down the shitter.”
“I wish they had Whataburger,” Junior said. “I need a burger.”
“The name ‘Whataburger’ is probably offensive to someone. Maybe it’s racist or some shit. Remember In-N-Out Burgers? They were amazing.”
“I don’t know what that is. In-N-Out Burgers?”
“It was a California burger chain. Unbelievable burgers. The blues seized them along with everything else that hadn’t left for the red and that wasn’t shitty. This was perhaps the blues’ greatest crime. Of all the crimes, of all the shit they’v
e pulled, I think I’m most pissed off that they destroyed In-N-Out Burger.”
“You seem pretty upset about it.”
“Well, if you had ever had a Double Double animal style then you might understand,” Turnbull said. “You know, I lived here as a kid. I grew up here. I remember it. I mean, it was not like when my dad was a kid here in the 1960s and ‘70s. California was really the Promised Land back then. Plenty of jobs, roads, and dams. People were flocking here because of the opportunities. Reagan was the governor. Reagan, if you can believe it. My dad told me about it. Dad was pissed off too, because by the time I came along that was all over and California was headed downhill. The Democrats took over and the state went hard blue. All the regular people like my family were getting squeezed. The middle class, the normal people who made it a great place, they started leaving before the Split was even an idea in anyone’s head. What was left were rich liberals in San Francisco and the Westside of LA, and then the poor people who either got welfare or cleaned their mansions everywhere else.”
“So, pretty much like today,” Junior said.
“Yeah, this didn’t just happen. This has been happening. They just built walls around the rich people to make it official.”
“So what are we going to do about food since In-N-Out is not an option? Because I need some food.”
“Yeah, I’m not entirely sure when we will get another chance to eat if this all works out right. This time tomorrow, by sunset, we ought to be making the crossing into Arizona.”
“With Amanda.”
“Like I said, ought to. Plans just don’t survive contact with the enemy. So let’s do our best not to contact the enemy. We get her, we get the hard drive, we get the hell out of town and go back over.”
“And maybe we won’t even have to kill anyone else.”
“Nah, trust me. In this business you always end up killing someone.”
They stopped at a busy diner down Wilshire near Beverly Hills, something called “Hep Katz.” Inside there were lots of young adults enjoying the blue take on Fifties cuisine, but there were no nostalgic photos of kids bopping in poodle skirts and pompadours. Instead, the menu, in a box right above the listing of different cheeseburgers, explained that, “The 1950s were a time of incredible racism, sexism, and homophobia that Hep Katz in no way condones. Instead, Hep Katz dedicates this climate-sensitive fare as a tribute to the men, women, non-binary, and gender unspecified individuals who struggled to escape the pitiless oppression inflicted upon them by the United States of America.”
“I think I lost my appetite,” Turnbull muttered. “No, wait, I’m having a vanilla shake.”
“Is that racist?” asked Junior after checking to ensure their blue shirted dining facilitator was not nearby.
“Everything’s racist. You should know that by now. And cisnormative too. Maybe you should order a corn dog. You know, expand your horizons.”
“We can’t be out of here soon enough.”
Turnbull was still scanning the menu. “Hey, real coffee. Things are looking up.”
They dug into their food, eating it all – burgers, plates of fries, shakes, and coffee too. Both ex-soldiers understood instinctively the old truism that when you could eat, you ate. You never knew when you would get another opportunity to do so. The dining facilitator barely said a word to them and did not even ask for ration coupons. Apparently, the shared sacrifice of the masses was not shared by their masters.
It was dark when they emerged. People were coming out and there were cars on the roads – not in the numbers of the past, but certainly orders of magnitude more than outside the Sector’s walls. It was Friday night, and while out there the PRNA burned, the residents of the Westside Sector were preparing to fiddle.
“Any check points getting up there?” Junior asked.
“I don’t know,” Turnbull answered. “I would have liked to have scouted the route and the target first. The Thomas Guide tells us where the street is, but doesn’t show us the layout like a satellite map off the web would.”
“We could risk going online and getting one.”
“That’s just asking for their cyber spooks to catch us. Then they’ll know where we’re going.”
“They might anyway.”
“Yeah, that’s why we’ll recon it first. But they’ve gotta have some security there anyway. Your sister’s boyfriend is the PBI director.”
“He’s not her boyfriend.”
“Whatever he is, she hasn’t made this easy for us.”
There was a checkpoint inside Beverly Hills manned by a pair of bored uniformed PBI officers, one of whom held up his palm.
“I’ll kill mine, you kill yours,” Turnbull said casually as he eased to a stop.
“If we have to,” Junior said.
“Yeah, just don’t hesitate. If we have to.”
But the PBI officer was satisfied with only a glance at their IDs and their privilege levels, and he waved them past.
“See,” said Junior. “You didn’t have to hurt anyone.”
“Betcha we have to take them out on the way down.”
“You know, Turnbull, I think you go looking for trouble.”
“Trust me, I don’t have to look for it. Remember how you came to me?”
They stopped on a quiet residential street at the base of the hills and did a final map recon, poring over the key page of the Thomas Guide. It looked like they could park one street over and approach from the rear. What it would look like in real life could well be something entirely different, but for now it seemed like a solid 70% solution.
The Lexus took on the hill with ease, but it was a bit outclassed by the newer Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs that abounded there. Below them, Los Angeles reached out to the horizon, with blocks of bright lights illuminating the various security sectors. Otherwise, the rest of Los Angeles was in the midst of the evening brownout. Except for a few flickering lights here and there, the majority of the city was dark and inscrutable.
They parked on the side of the narrow road next to a whitewashed wall surrounding a lot that backed up against the hillside. It was in a blind spot where none of the other residences along the street had a direct view of it. Junior got out and tried to pull himself up for a look over. He could not get a solid grip on the top and ended up standing on the trunk, peering over as Turnbull provided security.
“What do you see?”
“The house is empty, I’m pretty sure. No one’s taking care of it. The lawn is dead. We should check it out.”
Turnbull nodded and Junior jumped down.
“Change,” Turnbull said. He started to take off his suit. Junior did so as well, but Turnbull told him to wait. One guy changes, the other guy pulls security. He’d learned that lesson the hard way a decade ago in Indian Country.
“Do we want the M4s?” Junior asked, pulling on his final boot.
“If we need the M4s then we’re not going in. I’m taking the Ruger, though.” Turnbull already had the silenced pistol in his pocket. He came around the Lexus and cupped his hands for Junior. This time Junior got a grip on the edge and pulled himself up, then he reached back and pulled Turnbull over.
They jumped down onto a patch of dirt where the grass had been back when someone was there to water it. Brown shrubs lined the side of the dark house, a rambling ranch style that probably went for several million dollars back when individuals could still freely buy and sell real estate.
“The windows aren’t broken,” Junior observed.
“Either they have a lot of security or they don’t need security,” Turnbull said. “Let’s go, around back.”
They moved quickly but quietly, now communicating by hand gestures and nods. At the rear of the property bordering the target lot there was another wall, only this one was about three feet high. They could see only the roof of the house further up the hill. They would need to scramble up an embankment to get there.
But first they listened. Crickets. A car backfiring. Someone down the hill mu
st have had a window open because they could hear a TV announcer reading the UN’s latest resolution decrying “the genocidal fracking atrocities of the racist criminals of the so-called United States.”
Nothing from up above.
Turnbull knelt and swept up a handful of fine dust off the ground. Then he reached over the fence and gently sprinkled it over the property line.
“What are you doing?” asked Junior.
“Looking for lasers,” replied Turnbull. There was nothing. He spent several minutes just looking, satisfying himself that there were probably no cameras or motion detectors or sensors waiting to alert security that they had a guest.
Probably.
“Ok, you’re in my house now. Guerilla stuff. None of that infantry hooah charge shit you learned at Fort Benning. Subtle.”
“Yeah, subtlety is your middle name. Kelly Subtle Turnbull.” Turnbull ignored him.
“We move quiet, slow, and deliberate,” Turnbull said. “If it looks like they’ve spotted us, we haul ass back here. The car is the rally point. Whoever gets there first gives the other guy 30 seconds and then hauls ass, with or without him. Got it?”
“Yeah, but how do I do that if you have the keys?”
“The key’s on top of the rear passenger tire. Okay, I’m going over and halfway up the embankment and then we’re going to wait for five minutes. If nothing happens, I’ll wave you forward and then we’ll wait again at the top before we go on. Got it?”
Junior nodded, and Turnbull went over the wall. He slowly worked his way half-way up the embankment and waited. More crickets. More television announcers blaming the people on the other side of the Rocky Mountains for the People’s Republic’s misfortunes.
But no alarms.
Junior joined them and they carefully moved up the embankment to the ridge, then waited again, listening. From down below them somewhere, the voice of the television announcer warned that the climate change crisis was once again just a year away from reaching the point of no return, and urged the largely pedestrian citizenry to continue to reduce their collective carbon footprint.
People's Republic Page 17