Jim McGill 04 The Last Ballot Cast, Part 1

by Joseph Flynn

  Ellie made no effort to evade the accusation.

  “In a word, yeah. In a few more, maybe crazy as a fox.”

  The reverend leaned forward. “Meaning what?”

  “Your home movie could be your insanity defense.”

  “You don’t believe in your own words, a league of holy cities?”

  Ellie leaned in, further narrowing the distance between them.

  “You know what would happen if you actually got something like that up and running? Each of your princes would claim to hear something different from God, something that benefitted him individually and you’d be at each other’s throats in no time, begging for the heavy hand of government to save your precious backsides.”

  Godfrey sat back and smiled. “I was just about to ask if you’re a believer. Then I was going to ask if you’re a Democrat. Now, I’m wondering if you voted for that damn Patti Grant.”

  “I didn’t, but you and some other people are making me think I might next time.”

  “You’re a very independent young woman.”

  “You don’t know the half of it, Reverend. You, Sir Edbert Bickford, Hugh Collier: I don’t take crap off anyone. Now, I’d like to get some sleep. You want to unlock the door?”

  Godfrey said, “You don’t have to sleep in your car. I’ve got a bed in the next room.”

  “Okay, as long as you’re going to join your friend in the editing bay.”

  “Am I really that unattractive?” he asked with a smile.

  He really was, Ellie thought, but it was still time to play along. Stay in character.

  “At the very least, after the sweat you worked up, you need a shower,” Ellie said.

  “I also have one of those in the next room.”

  “Good. Turn it on nice and hot. Use a lot of soap.”

  Ellie almost added, See if you can wash the ugly off.

  But she knew about editing, too.

  As it was, he saw her as a challenge, and there was no end to the guys who liked that. Two minutes later he was in the shower. She had declined the inevitable invitation to join him. She did, however, step in close from behind when he got out and clocked him with the Beretta. He couldn’t have dropped faster if she’d shot him.

  She took the roll of duct tape out of her bag and secured his wrists behind his back. Taped his ankles together. Tore off one last strip to seal his mouth. Hoped, mildly, he didn’t retch and choke on his own vomit.

  Ellie went back to the reverend’s office. Did not sit in his chair. She pulled the one she’d used up to the other side of the desk. If Art Dunston was in on Godfrey’s little scheme to drag her off to bed, he wouldn’t be back until morning. If he were simply doing the editing he’d talked about, he’d still be gone for hours.

  It was Ellie’s guess the feds would make their call before then.

  She was right; it came at 11:59 p.m. She made a mental note of that and answered on the first ring. Unable to resist cracking wise, she said, “Salvation’s Path, have you been saved?”

  There was a beat of silence before a man said, “This is Acting President Mather Wyman. May I speak with Reverend Godfrey, please?”

  More good material, Ellie thought, but what the hell had happened to Patti Grant?

  “Mr. Acting President, my name is Ellie Booker. I was formerly a producer with WorldWide News. I was being held here against my will. Every word of what I’m about to tell you is true. I hope you’ll believe me. I’ve turned the tables on Reverend Godfrey. I’ve knocked him out and bound him with duct tape. He’s in a bedroom off his office in the administration building. You can find a picture of me on the Internet. I have a gun I need to protect myself against Reverend Godfrey’s men, but when the SEALs or whoever you’re sending come, tell them I’ll leave the office door unlocked. Please ask that they announce themselves. I’ll throw my gun out to them, unloaded of course.”

  Wyman told her they had a picture of her. It would be relayed to the assault team.

  They would arrive shortly.

  But first things would get quite loud.

  The Funny Farm

  Damon Todd had heard of prison shivs, had even seen examples of the improvised knives on television. Most of them had been fashioned from metal. A small number, meant strictly for stabbing, had been made from hard plastic. Anderson had two shivs carved from wood. Masterfully carved from some unfamiliar fine grained dark wood. Each had a blade no more than three inches long with a sharply V’ed point and a serrated top edge.

  Crosby’s weapons were made from metal. They didn’t have the same degree of finish as Anderson’s knives, but they looked fearsome nonetheless. To Damon’s untutored eye, they seemed to be some sort of hybrid hatchet with a broad sharp head on one side of a wooden handle and a triangular spike on the other side.

  Todd’s curiosity about the weapons was obvious.

  Crosby told him, “These are called Vietnam tomahawks. Wicked for both slashing and stabbing.”

  Todd recalled a memory from childhood TV. “Can’t you throw a tomahawk, too?”

  The two men who had done terrible things for their country smiled at Todd.

  Crosby said, “Man has a mind for detail.”

  Todd looked at the self-described traitor, Stanwick, who knew just what he was thinking.

  “I don’t have a weapon,” Stanwick said, “and neither will you.”

  Todd understood the situation intuitively. “We’re the bait.”

  “That we are.”

  Anderson liked that, Todd’s awareness of his role and likely his fate.

  “You said you’d die trying,” Anderson reminded his new roomie.

  “I will, if necessary. I suppose that’s going to depend on how good you are.”

  Anderson’s right hand was a blur, describing an arc in front of Todd’s face. He didn’t feel the knife make contact, but he was immediately aware of a drop of blood on the tip of his nose. His eyes crossed as he tried to confirm visually what he already knew; the bastard could as easily have slit his throat.

  Crosby, as if he’d been prepared for such a moment, handed Todd a piece of toilet tissue.

  “No worse’n a shaving nick. Olin likes to show off when people doubt him.”

  So did Todd, but he saw no opportunity to demonstrate that now, and he noted out of the corner of an eye that Stanwick had a fine scar just above and parallel to his right eyebrow. Explanation enough why Stanwick was willing to act as bait.

  Obtaining raw material and crafting the weapons had to be why the escape attempt had been so long in coming because its choreography was a model of simplicity. Out the room door, down the stairs, out the back door, through the woods and cut the fence.

  Anderson was first out the door and slit the throat of the floor guard. Crosby took the lead down the stairs. He drove a spike through the ground-floor guard’s temple. Neither victim had the chance to make a sound. Their bodies were caught and lowered silently. Rushing out the back door, Crosby and Anderson collaborated on another silent kill.

  At that point, the four men ran into the nearby woods. Once they were among the trees, Stanwick was told to take the lead. Todd was instructed to follow him. Anderson and Crosby brought up the rear. Anderson asked Todd, “You remember what we told you, smartass?”

  Todd nodded. It was so simple he figured out what they weren’t telling him.

  Stanwick, looking nervous, picked his way through the forest.

  U.S. Naval Air Station, Norfolk, Virginia

  In theory, Admiral David Dexter’s plan to comply with Acting President Mather Wyman’s wish for the assault on the Salvation’s Path compound to produce shock and awe without resulting in blood and body parts was simple. In execution, it required many highly skilled people doing difficult jobs precisely and with great speed.

  State authorities in Virginia, much to the chagrin of the state’s governor, were brought in to evacuate the church’s neighbors for a radius of ten miles. Uprooting people from their homes and businesses on v
irtually no notice without causing either heart attacks or gun battles was no mean feat. Many people in the area had been preconditioned to think that their government might someday “come for them.” Now, here it was happening.

  If the effort had been made by anyone who didn’t look and sound like the people being moved out of harm’s way, there undoubtedly would have been casualties and lawsuits that would have lasted for years. On the advice of CIA psychologists, the state cops were advised to be unfailingly polite, tell everyone they’d be allowed to return in a matter of a few hours, promise them they’d be reimbursed for any inconvenience they suffered, and would have stories to tell family and friends for the rest of their lives.

  The cherry on top was the assurance that their cooperation would be considered heroic by their fellow Americans.

  Having been briefed on what was going to happen at Salvation’s Path, the state cops were able to deliver their sales pitch with complete sincerity, making it compelling. Other than a few bruised feelings and one man who had to be Tasered, compliance was both unanimous and surprisingly gracious.

  Far more so than the reaction to the grounding and diversion of civil aviation that went into effect for the entire Eastern Seaboard until further notice. Airlines moaned, private aviation bitched and some of the more impetuous media outlets threatened to send up their newscopters to see what the hell was going on.

  What was about to go on would have knocked helicopters out of the air if their pilots had been so foolish as to venture too close. A flight of six F/A-18D Super Hornets took off from Norfolk, formed up over the Atlantic and headed for the enclosed grounds of Salvation’s Path.

  The fighter/attack jets, capable of reaching a speed of thirteen hundred and sixty miles per hour, were going to come in very fast, one after another.

  The speed of sound in dry air at eighty-eight degrees Fahrenheit was seven hundred and eighty-eight miles per hour. The sky was clear and bright that night and the temperature was eighty-five: close enough for government work.

  Each military jet would break the sound barrier and lay down a sonic boom carpet. That carpet would extend over the entire flight path of the plane until it dropped to a subsonic speed. The boom intensity was greatest directly below the plane’s flight path. Sonic booms were known to shatter glass and dislodge roofing tiles.

  That was what could happen from a routine boom caused by an aircraft simply exceeding the sound barrier and continuing along its flight plan. If a military jet were to dive, accelerate and turn, it could focus the sonic boom it produced. That was the mission of the six Super Hornets.

  The physical consequences of exposure to loud noises included: fear, anxiety, distraction, headache, hearing loss, fatigue, muscle tension and other impairments. Prolonged or repeated exposure only made matters worse. Hard surfaces such as roads, sidewalks and buildings reflected the noise causing still further aggravation.

  Reverend Burke Godfrey’s militia, untrained and unsuspecting, would likely suffer no fatalities from the aerial assault but it would be left staggering, far from fighting trim.

  The flight leader radioed to the ground forces that he and his pilots were going in.

  Salvation’s Path Administration Building

  Ellie Booker had taken Mather Wyman at his word. Things were going to get loud. She sat in a corner of Reverend Godfrey’s lair, opposite his unconscious form, with her index fingers lightly placed in her ears. The first thing she heard was a rattling from the room’s windows. She had the feeling, though, that things were going to get a lot worse than that.

  She took her fingers out of her ears and clamped her palms over them just as the roar of the first sonic boom hit. She drew her legs up and compressed herself into a ball. The windows shattered and blew into the room. The floor shook.

  Waves rippled through the fat on Godfrey’s torso.

  Though still unconscious, he grimaced and moaned in pain.

  Jesus Christ, Ellie thought, the government was bombing the place.

  They were going to kill everyone. Ellie started to cry. Then the second boom hit and the whole building vibrated, a modern six-story structure. She looked at Godfrey. His eyes were open now, but it was clear he had no idea what was happening to him.

  The guy had thought he was going to suds up, sluice off and get laid.

  Instead he woke up in hell.

  Maybe you didn’t even have to go that far to find damnation.

  Another boom hit. Ellie slumped onto her right side, hands still over her ears.

  She never heard the guys in combat fatigues charge into the room.

  The Funny Farm

  Stanwick stopped and oriented himself. Todd saw he was looking for something. A point of reference? Stanwick bobbed his head, no doubt confirming something to himself, but answering Todd’s question, too. He continued to pick his way through the trees, setting a deliberate pace, choosing each step carefully.

  Anderson came up silently behind Todd and gave him a nudge.

  “Get going, but watch your step.”

  That was all Todd needed to hear. The troll had told him not only what to do, but the value Stanwick had for the escape attempt. The traitor had learned the way through, what? A minefield? If not the explosive type of mine, then the sort that would set the hounds and their handlers loose upon them.

  Todd moved as fast as he dared to catch up with Stanwick. If he tarried too long the man would be out of sight. Then he, Anderson and Crosby would be stuck. Getting stabbed in the back with one of Anderson’s knives would undoubtedly follow.

  He caught up, maintaining a prudent gap in case there was something in the ground that Stanwick might detonate. Todd’s mind, though, raced ahead. What had he been told was at the end of this jaunt through the woods? A fence. The sort of structure that might enclose a suburban yard? No, the fence would be the final obstacle between the four of them and freedom.

  It would be a smart fence. Electrified no doubt. Able to pinpoint any breach.

  How could the fence be beaten? The inevitable first step had to be to take its reporting ability down or at least render it incapable of, what, frying anyone who tried to scale it? Linear logic yielded to an intuitive leap. The fence, like some bloodthirsty deity of old, would require a human sacrifice to win its favor.

  Had Stanwick really been ready to sacrifice himself for Anderson and Crosby?

  Maybe, being a traitor, he felt guilt, was ready to atone.

  Maybe Stanwick’s feelings were a mix of guilt and vengeance.

  He could free the other two men and once again fuck over the CIA.

  Or had he simply preferred electrocution as a means to end his life rather than be dismembered by his companions?

  In any event, now that he, Todd, had stumbled into the escape, Stanwick had new hope to live and be free. The others could fling the newcomer on the fence as their payment for escape. Todd started to narrow the gap with Stanwick.

  He couldn’t close in on him immediately, not before Stanwick safely got them out of the woods. But he couldn’t wait too long or Anderson might grab him from behind and fling him onto the fence. Todd’s heart was in his throat as he continued to creep up on Stanwick foot by foot. He only wished the traitor had been given some weapon of his own.

  He’d have loved nothing better than disposing of Stanwick and turning to disembowel Anderson. He turned his mind from thoughts of vengeance when he saw a barrier ahead. It wasn’t the chain-link, barb-wire topped obstacle he’d expected. It looked like a camouflaged sheet of some sort. It would have been invisible in the night if it didn’t possess a glow of its own.

  Stanwick must have seen it, too, and he made a mistake.

  He stopped and looked over his shoulder. Smiled. He’d done his part.

  Now, he and the others would betray Todd.

  Except Todd had broken into a run. He was no longer the extremely strong specimen he’d once been, but he still had that mindset. Stanwick had never been more than a data shuffler. He saw Todd c
harging him and horror filled his face.

  He shrieked. “No, no. Not now. It’s supposed to be you, not me!”

  Todd hit Stanwick a double stiff arm blow to his left shoulder, spun him around and shoved him headlong into the barrier. The collision caused a flare of light like a firebomb exploding. The stench of scorched hair hit Todd. But both Anderson and Crosby shoved past him.

  Stanwick had taken the charge out of the fence. Climbing the sheet would have been impossible, but Crosby’s tomahawks made a great gash in the fabric, and he and Anderson slipped through it in a heartbeat.

  Todd ran through the opening, too. He didn’t know if —

  Anderson and Crosby were going to let him live.

  They had all four of their weapons pointing his way.

  More woods, presumably free of mines, lay behind them.

  “You’re scary smart, pal,” Crosby said, “figuring things out as fast as you do.”

  Anderson told him, “We have to wonder if you’ll try to do a Stanwick on us soon.”

  Todd said, “You go your way, I’ll go mine. I’ve got a safe house nearby.”

  That was a bold claim for somebody who had been brought in to be a sacrificial lamb.

  But Todd had already demonstrated he was more than he might seem at first glance.

  “It’d be only right if you returned our hospitality,” Crosby told him.

  Anderson nodded. They started off through the woods. Hadn’t gone ten feet when a crushing wave of sound stopped Todd dead in his tracks. He clapped his hands over his ears. Crosby and Anderson grabbed his arms, pulled his hands down.

  Crosby spoke directly into one ear. “It’s just a fast-mover going over.”

  Anderson told him, “Best fucking cover we could ask for.”

  The three of them hurried off into the night.

  GWU Hospital

  McGill told Patti, “I catch the screws looking the wrong way, we make a break for it.”

  “Screws?” Patti asked.

  “The guards. Aren’t you up on your prison lingo?”

  “I try to learn a new word every day but, no, I wasn’t familiar with that usage.”