Lethal Politics

by Bob Blink

  "Do you think the four of us are enough?" Tom asked. This kind of manhunt was something different than going after a killer in the city. The idea someone would be hidden out there with a large bore rifle pointed their way didn't sit well with him.

  Kevin choked back a laugh.

  "Four of against that pampered old rich man," he said. "If we asked for more help we'd never be able to show our faces back at the office."

  "Not so pampered," Karl warned. "That old man rides professionally in various rodeos and horse shows. He also has been off killing folks of late, four people if we are correct in our reading of all this. He runs a big ranch, and that's no small thing, even if you have a younger crew doing most of the hard work. I'm betting he can run circles around us city folks once he gets us out where he wants us."

  Kevin looked a bit uncomfortable with Karl's assessment, but the look was lost when the pilot shouted for them to climb aboard.

  They set off, heading first toward the ranch, and then choosing the direction that the foreman had pointed his boss had taken. They wanted to follow the same route as best they could guess in the hopes that would maximize their chances of finding him. An hour and a half later, having seen no sign of the fugitive they approached the first campsite that Gus had marked on the map.

  "Heads up," Jack, who was holding the map, announced. "This might be where we find him."

  Four pairs of eyes with binoculars scanned the area, easily spotting the campsites with their premade rock fireplaces scattered through the widely spaced trees. Nothing suggested anyone had been there since the previous summer, and after three circular passes around the grounds by the helicopter they all agreed Earl wasn't there. The horses couldn't have been hidden, even if the man himself was snuggled down into some of the large scattered rock falls.

  They set off for the second campground, scanning the ground for any sign of the lone rider below. The land was becoming more hilly, and the trees thicker as they advanced toward the National Forest in the distance. None of them missed the fact there was so much land out here that it would be very easy to hide if one really wanted, especially if the mounts were abandoned.

  "Horses," Jack shouted, and they all turned and looked where he was pointing.

  There they were. Two animals, just as Gus had described. They were tethered in place, and a short distance off to the right a small campground was clearly visible.

  "I'm surprised he hasn't moved on," Tom said. "It's pretty late to haven't broken camp."

  "This is where he wants to make his stand," Karl said ominously. "He plans to die here if it comes to that."

  Kevin looked at his former partner, a bit chilled by the matter-of-fact words he'd just heard. "We want him alive," he said.

  "He has something to say about that," Karl reminded him.

  "How do we do this?" Tom asked as they flew over the horses without any sign of their owner. Jack almost expected a shot or two towards the chopper as low as they were flying, but they passed over the crest without incident.

  After surveying the area they all agreed that Earl had two directions he could go if pressed. He could climb up over the crest and attempt to disappear into the thick stand of trees, or try and run back down the hill and across the flat meadow below. A rudimentary plan was quickly developed which called for two teams, one dropped into the trees as the backstop, in place and ready to bring the fleeing man down, and the primary assault team landing in the meadow, and coming at him up the hill. Kevin was matched with Karl, and as the agent in charge, insisted that they would make the assault on the camp. The other two would be dropped off first, forced to rappel down ropes as the chopper hovered just above the treetops.

  The chopper had barely settled into the tall grass when Karl and Kevin jumped out and scurried to the large rock buried in the ground at the base of the hill.

  "See anything?" Kevin asked.

  Karl scanned the campsite halfway up the hill after checking his MP5 to make sure the damn thing was on safe. A fast-firing weapon, it shot the small 9mm round which he was less than enthusiastic about. Perhaps the theory was if you fired enough of anything it would eventually work. He much preferred something with authority and given his druthers he'd be packing an H&K 91, a rifle with range because it fired the solid .308 round.

  "Nothing," Karl replied, but he kept scanning. The guy was around here somewhere, and could very well peek around a tree and take a shot at them anytime he wished.

  Carefully, moving around the rock on opposite sides so as not to present an easy target for both of them, they started up the hill, dodging in sequence between large rocks and the thicker tree trunks.

  Part way up the hill, Karl spotted movement.

  "I see him." he whispered just loud enough for Kevin to hear and hopefully not loud enough their adversary was alerted to the fact he'd been spotted. They'd need to get closer to be effective at taking him alive.

  "Where?" Kevin whispered back.

  "To the left of the sleeping area. Behind that large pine."

  "See him," Kevin replied after checking.

  Before Karl could stop him, Kevin raised his MP5 and shouted out, "FBI. Drop your weapon and show yourself."

  Karl cursed. Despite being all too common in the Bureau, that wasn't the smart way to approach someone like Campbell. A moment later Kevin's challenge was answered by a thunderous boom, followed by a large section of the tree next to him stripping off, and spitting pieces of bark in all directions.

  "Damn it, Kevin," Karl shouted. There was nothing to be gained now that Campbell knew exactly where they were. "Mr. Campbell," he shouted. "You may as well surrender. "You are outnumbered and surrounded, and it's only a matter of time before you are cornered and apprehended. Why not make this easier on everyone."

  "Sorry guys," Earl shouted back. "You are going to have to earn your pay today. I have no intention of spending time in a cell. I'll see how many of you I can take down before you get me."

  "Shit!" Karl cursed. That's what he had suspected. Earl was planning on death by cop.

  Kevin had taken the exchange as an opportunity to scramble a little further up the hill. He was now fifteen yards or so ahead of Karl, and preparing to make another run to an appealing looking rock another twenty feet closer to their adversary. Before Karl could warn him, Kevin fired a burst of 9mm rounds and charged out from behind the tree that shielded him, and started up the hill.

  Earl had anticipated the move that Kevin was planning, and had the heavy 1886 Winchester sighted just where he was likely to appear from behind cover. Seeing movement, he started applying light pressure to the trigger, when a bust of automatic weapons fire erupted from behind the tree, splattering the rock that hid him with hot bits of lead from the fragmenting slugs. He felt and heard two solid thumps along with a sharp blast of pain in his leg.

  "Damn it!" he cursed. It wasn't possible that SOB had gotten lucky this soon with that squirt gun of his.

  Earl leaned back and checked for wounds. Sure enough he was bleeding from a glancing wound off his thigh. Wondering where the other bullet he'd sensed had struck, he examined himself, then stopped when he spotted the long splintered gash in the butt stock of his rifle. Now that really pissed him off. The wood in this rifle was a rare premium walnut and had cost over a thousand dollars alone when he'd had the rifle reworked.

  "You bastard!" he cursed, and checking the agent still hiding at the bottom of the hill, who was watching but didn't have a shot. Earl quickly adjusted his focus when the closer one burst out from behind cover and headed up the hill.

  His rifle boomed again, and the cop faltered. Quickly he levered in another round, surprised the guy wasn't dead. He could tell it had been a solid hit, and one round from the cannon was usually enough to bring down anything the size of a man. He stood up to get a better shot at the downed man, glancing uphill where he knew other armed men the chopper had dropped over the hill would be coming from. That was when the guy down below opened up in full auto mode, bullet
s splattering off the tree and ground all around him. As tough as Earl was, he'd never been in a real gunfight and some of the desirable instincts had never had a chance to mature.

  Unfortunately, that wasn't the only place the bullets were striking, and two found solid chunks of his flesh to lodge in. One struck him in the temple, passing through the soft bone that was supposed to protect his brain, and another hit him under the armpit, passing into his chest cavity. It wasn't certain what the chest shot would have done, but the bullet to the head was fatal, and Earl tumbled to the ground, dropping the fancy rifle, and rolled half a dozen feet before coming to a stop.

  Karl waited to see if there would be any movement. Kevin was down and not moving, as was Earl Campbell. Keeping his eyes on the two forms he changed magazines, dropped the depleted one onto the ground and slipped a fresh fully loaded one into the submachine gun. Then he pulled his radio from his belt and alerted the other two agents as to the status. They would have heard the shots, but wouldn't know the outcome.

  "Suspect down," he said into the radio. "Agent Martini down as well. I'm going to check. Advance toward the campsite with caution," he advised.

  With the MP5 pointing in the direction of Campbell, he climbed the hill as fast as his ancient limbs would allow. It took only a moment to verify that Campbell was dead and no longer a threat, and a few minutes later he'd verified the same was true of his former partner. He was sitting next to Kevin's body when the other two agents made their way down the hill. One came over and checked Kevin and the other moved over to Campbell.

  "The Director said to take this one alive," Jack said.

  "I guess I forgot that part," Karl replied softly. He looked at Kevin. He had never found out what had changed his former partner and made him do so many rookie things. He could probably figure it out if he took the time to investigate, but he knew he wouldn't. It didn't matter any more. It was too late to try and help set whatever it was straight again.

  It took almost an hour to get the bodies down the hill and into the chopper, and to check the camp for anything that would be germane to the case.

  "What about the horses?" Jack asked.

  "We'll stop at the ranch. They can send someone for them, They'll want to know about Mr. Campbell also."

  Chapter 37

  Washington, DC

  CC turned and lay on his back, his eyes focused on the dim shape of the fan above the bed. Once again sleep was elusive. They were watching him, he knew it. Someone was being foolish believing you could place a Secret Service agent under watch and not expect him to notice. He'd been especially watchful for some kind of activity in this regard since the day he'd been pulled in for questioning. Inside the White House proper he'd broken their system. In addition to the normal second agent assigned to watch the President with him during his duty shift, another agent was usually lurking somewhere nearby, allegedly focusing on unrelated tasks. It might have gone unnoticed had CC not been hypertensive to the possibility of being watched.

  Normally during White House duty the agents used a specific channel on the communications units they carried to coordinate activities. The other channels were switched off, usually not in use at all, but in case they were, the extra chatter would be muted and prevented from being distracting. It hadn't taken too much checking to sort out that another of the channels was infrequently in use when the agent working with him would coordinate with the shadowy one watching. Now CC kept both channels active to see how much he could learn about their ultimate intentions.

  "What's wrong?' Beverly asked, rolling over to cuddle him, her warmth uncharacteristically failing to arouse him. "Can't sleep again?"

  "Too much going on," he told her truthfully. His girlfriend of almost a year wouldn't understand fully, but she knew he was bound to keep issues from his job secret, and wouldn't pursue the matter. In some cases, like this one, it saved him from what otherwise could have become an uncomfortable interrogation. Instead she proceeded to rub his back until she fell back to sleep herself.

  CC didn't know everything that was going on, but he had enough information that with his inside knowledge of his Dad's activities, he knew what this was about. It was the phones that revealed it all to him. He was reasonably certain his father and the President were responsible for what the shocking deaths that had occurred of late. He couldn't believe it, and then again he wasn't really surprised. When he thought back carefully to things that had happened in the past, the two men were clearly the type to bend the rules to obtain their goals.

  He was also certain that the FBI believed he was a part of the conspiracy, and not the President. He and his Dad, because if they had suspected the President, there would be a major disruption actively in progress. No, he was the inside man they were seeking as they tried to pin down the location of the user of the DC phone. And he didn't know what to do. His career was probably over because of the ill-advised action of the two old fools

  Today he'd have to come to some kind of decision. He was changing shifts. The past two weeks he'd been on days, and now he would spend two weeks on nights. Nights and graveyard were relatively quiet and boring, which would give him time to think. Hopefully he'd come to some kind of decision.

  While his shift officially started at four, like most of the agents on shift change he'd be going in a few hours early the first day to settle into the transition. He planned to check into the agent's office right after lunch, review the President's schedule for the rest of the day, and re-familiarize himself with the special protocols for the evening shift.

  CC had stepped out and was walking around the grounds. He was numb. His Dad was dead. Ginny, barely discernable through her crying, had just called and told him that the FBI had gone after him in the mountains, and come back to inform Gus where Dad's horses could be found. Dad and one of the agents were dead. They would be taking the bodies into the morgue, and Dad would be released to the family in a couple of days. She suggested he consider coming home for the funeral.

  Dead! Somehow he hadn't considered the possibility that such a thing could happen. He'd known what they were doing was criminal, but at worst he'd envisioned them being incarcerated. And no one had contacted him and informed him. They'd had time, yet the official missive was being held back. He guessed why. They wanted to see how soon he would learn, and what actions he would take. Clearly they believed he might be able to lead them to the others, but he had no idea who they were, but could guess that the face he'd spotted that day was one of them, and he might be able to pick him out if they went through pictures of Dad's former employees.

  He forced himself to hold it together. He didn't know what he was going to do. His options were something to think about during the slow hours of his shift along with everything else. He didn't want to confront his superiors, but wanted to see how long they would take to inform him. That meant going on shift as if he knew nothing, as difficult as that was going to be.

  The day was actually quiet for the agents, the President holed up in the Oval Office with Joe Taylor, his Chief of Staff, until dinnertime when they escorted the man to his personal quarters and then waited outside the door to be on-hand for anything that might develop. Partway through the meal, Joe requested to speak with the President and was admitted, spending almost three-quarters of an hour before leaving.

  Roughly thirty minutes after the Chief of Staff had departed, the President opened the door, a black pistol case in his hand.

  "We're going to the shooting range," the President said. "I need some time to think."

  "Yes sir," Fred, CC's partner agent said, and the three of them headed down the hall toward the elevator that would take them to the lower level. The brief glance the President threw his way revealed to CC that his father's death had been conveyed to him, yet Mark was saying nothing. CC could think of reasons why, but it still rankled.

  CC found it strange. He could spend much of his day within three feet of the President, and yet hardly a word would pass between them. It wasn't just
him, but all of the agents responsible for guarding the Head of State. It wasn't that the President was aloof, or felt the agents were beneath him. It was the Secret Service protocol not to intrude on the President by becoming overly chummy. It was felt that an exchange between the President and an agent shouldn't last no more than a minute or two. Only if the President pursued a conversation should that time limit be violated.

  After they reached the still new shooting facility, the President nodded grimly and passed through the heavy door at one end and stepped up to the middle slot where he preferred to shoot. CC and his partner agent remained outside, watching their charge through the thick, transparent, sound insulating barrier as the President took out his pistol, retrieved a couple of boxes of ammunition and spare magazines from the drawer off to one side, and then proceeded to load the magazines.

  The thoughts CC had pushed aside most of the afternoon refused to remain at bay. CC knew his time in the secret service was over. Ever since the day they had brought him in he'd been wondering when his last day would happen. He'd been pondering what he should or could do that might change that, but any action that might help him would have dire consequences for his father, and the President. And, given he'd concealed the information for so long, he might still find his career terminated.

  His thoughts were interrupted momentarily as the shadow agent, someone named Don that CC hadn't ever worked alongside, informed Fred that he was going to make a pit stop and would be gone for about ten minutes. Apparently he felt things were under control enough for Fred to go it alone for the brief interval.

  Why not, CC thought. They'd been pointlessly watching him for days now. He glanced through the thick Plexiglas walls at the President. Look at him, his mind screamed. Casually shooting away while Dad is dead. How could he? Then suddenly everything clicked and he knew what he wanted to do. There would be consequences, but he no longer cared. He owed it to his parent.