Maxie felt utterly charmed inside. “Why yes, Major, I believe I know where some is. Why don’t you go back up front and I’ll find it and bring it to you?”
“Thank you.” He sort of made a little bow and went back to the cockpit. Irma Dagdagan winked at Maxie and tossed a couple of sugar packets through the air. “Go get ‘im, Maxie!”
“What ever do you mean?” Maxie said. She went forward and handed Tom Dash his sugar. “There you are,” she said.
He seemed tongue tied. “Thank you very much.”
The pilot, if he cared, did not pay any attention. Goggled and helmeted, he drove the craft on at a steady clip under mixed clouds toward the blinking red eye of Washington’s Monument. Maxie took a deep breath and blurted: “It’s so neat up here! Sometimes I think I might just go to flight school. What’s this button? And that light?” Tom Dash lit up, overcoming his abashedness, and launched into a delighted lecture about the control panels. Maxie watched him as he spoke. He seemed so different from Paul. More like David. Maybe even a little shyer. Rock solid under the surface, handsome, and tending to blush when spoken to. By the time they landed on Building 4, he asked to take her for pizza and cokes. “--When this is all over,” he added.
“I think that sounds like a fun idea,” she said. The pilot turned on the P.A. “Got bad news for you, gang. We’re back on Alert status. We’re gonna be on standby all night.” A chorus of groans arose. “Sorry about that,” the pilot said in a black humor, turning off the P.A. with a flick of a gloved thumb. Tom whispered to Maxie: “Looks like that pizza will have to hold a while.” She squeezed his hand and beamed. “I can wait.” The look in his eyes said that he had noticed her blunder--that she’d referred to herself rather than the pizza. He leaned close and whispered. “It’s a date then.” He wasn’t asking. He was telling her, and she liked that. She nodded enthusiastically, grinning, and blew at the strands of hair that seemed to always work their way own over her nose when something important came up.
ALLISON: And now this development in our breaking story at the Second Constitutional Convention. Peggy DeMetrio is at the Atlantic Hotel & Convention Center.
PEGGY: Allison, night has fallen. I’m on the corner of Connecticut and Wyoming Avenues, about a block from the Hotel Atlantic, and as you can see and hear, I am watching an endless line of military vehicles stream past.
ALLISON: What are they? Ambulances? Humvees?
PEGGY: Not ambulances, nothing with flashing lights and sirens. Just an endless stream of olive-drab trucks with dark bluish camouflage splotches, an occasional humvee, and more trucks.
ALLISON: Does it appear they are bringing in supplies or troops?
PEGGY: Allison, a moment ago, three Army medevac choppers with big red crosses on white backgrounds pounded by overhead. They had red crosses on their bottoms and sides, and I can see from here that they are landing on the roof of Tower 3.
ALLISON: Excuse me, Peggy. We have a bulletin from WCCR’s John Bell inside the Atlantic Hotel and Convention Center. Let’s switch to John.
JOHN: I’m in the Press Room on the third floor of Tower Two, and we’re detained here, so it seems, or maybe a better word is contained, we are contained here. There’s plenty of coffee, they brought in donuts, we can go to the bathroom, and they’ve told us if we want to we can leave the building under escort but we cannot, I repeat, cannot, get back in. Most of us have elected to stay in here, hoping for a briefing from General Montclair.
ALLISON: John, any word from General Montclair what’s going on?
JOHN: Not a clue. I’ll sit tight and give you a heads up when and if something more happens.
ALLISON: Thanks, John. Good luck. Peggy has just signaled from the street near CON2. Peggy?
PEGGY: One of the Army Air Evac helicopters now takes off from the roof of Tower Three and appears to head toward Bethesda. I’m told it’s eerily calm along streets outside government office buildings, most of which have lots of lights lit. The Capitol, where both houses of Congress meet every day when they are in session, is quiet. I’m told there are lights on in the Dirksen and Rayburn office buildings which house, respectively, the Senators and the Representatives. Neither building is more than two minutes away from the Capitol by underground railway. Wait a minute. Oh my God. Oh. Oh.
ALLISON: Peggy, you’re breaking up. Peggy? Can you hear me? Do we have--? Yes, we have--
PEGGY: Allison, I see an unbelievable scene out here. While the two other Army choppers took off, I just witnessed an apparently unrelated event. A carload of black motorists passing through a checkpoint have been hauled from their car by men in blue-and-yellow camouflage fatigues. The commandos wrestle with these four or five big men, who may have been drinking. Now there is a fight and clubs swing and, oh my God, several shots. Several shots!
ALLISON: We hear popping noises. What’s that? What is it?
PEGGY: Shooting! There is shooting over there. We are flat on the ground now, to avoid getting hit. The camera woman and I are okay so far. The motorists aren’t resisting, they are down on the ground. The shooting has stopped. Someone, an officer, is running. There are people running. I have to question how disciplined some of these shock troops really are! Now a second one of the Army choppers makes a wide circle and appears headed in this direction. Maybe to pick up wounded. I hope nobody just got killed over there. Yes, one chopper is landing in the middle of the intersection and the noise is so loud. Can you still hear me?
ALLISON: We’ve lost contact with our Peggy DeMetrio. Please stand by... Stand by... Stand by. I think we’re getting something. Peggy? Ah--Peggy, you’re coming in choppy. Are you still outside the Atlantic?
PEGGY: Allison, we were cut off for a few minutes because of the most incredible thing. Commandos in blue and yellow fatigue uniforms tried to stop these Army medics from treating the motorists who’d been shot. They also started to arrest me. Finally, a doctor, a colonel, ordered the commandos back. The other chopper has taken off and the commandos have returned inside the hotel. The flight doctors and nurses are from Walter Reed Army Hospital. I spoke with Captain Maxine Bodley, 55th Aviation Battalion.
ALLISON: We’ll roll that footage now, Peggy.
PEGGY: Captain Bodley, what is the status of these casualties? Can you tell us?
BODLEY: Two of the men that we flew out have major trauma. We stopped the bleeding, treated for shock, and put them on life support when we loaded them up. These other two we’ll patch up and turn over to the National Guard MPs shortly. You’ll have to call Walter Reed for further info.
PEGGY: Captain, can you tell us about--?
BODLEY: (half in the chopper, one boot dangling) We’re taking off now. You’d better get back. This prop wash will mess up your hair.
Chapter 31
Maxie pulled her dangling foot into the chopper as the flight chief closed the door. On the floor strapped into a gurney was a motorist who had been shot. The flight surgeon and several nurses worked on him. As the chopper climbed, Maxie held on and strapped herself in. Flight 3 was right behind them, and Flight 2 was a knot of flashing aviation lights far ahead. There was a bucking sensation--air pocket, she thought--and the technician holding an IV slipped. Maxie intercepted the falling bag of glucose with its piggy back drip, and raised her hand to put the bags on the pole. At the same time, she heard screaming and realized it was the people around her. A bright light surrounded them. Maxie felt cold air blowing around her, up into her helmet, making her jacket rattle. The chopper yawed, making her feel seasick. No time to feel seasick. As the chopper pitched forward, she cast a terrified glance toward the cockpit. The plexi panel on the left was gone. The pilot sagged in his seat, head hanging over the edge at an unnatural angle. Maxie hung on to a brace as the chopper bucked and kicked violently. She started forward to help. The pilot was dead. Tom Dash took over and desperately struggled with the controls. He kept losing. There was a crash; something hit the chopper; her last view was of city lights far below coming up fast. She
began to blank out, hearing distant explosions. The last thing she heard was a chopper hitting pavement very fast. Too fast.
ALLISON MIRANDA: The Pentagon will neither confirm nor deny that at least one tank battalion from Virginia is being moved closer to Washington. Earlier in the day, stations in Maryland and Virginia had picked up local stories of tanks on flatbed trucks passing on the highways headed toward the nation’s capital. Those stories are now being picked up by news services. We hope to bring you more information as it becomes available.
And now this breaking story: Metro police report that two U.S. Army air evac helicopters from the 55th Aviation Battalion with doctors and nurses on board were hit by ground fire, possibly one rocket, maybe two. Police say both choppers plunged from a one mile altitude, killing everyone on impact. Emergency crews on the ground are sorting through the wreckage, while police are searching for those responsible. Pentagon sources are withholding identification pending notification of next of kin.
Chapter 31
Tory started toward the stairwell to escape from Tower Three. With Bellamy captured, and David who-knew-where, she had only one recourse left now. She must make her way to someone higher up--General Devereaux! She had part of the list. Jet could show that the confession dated from just before Vice President Cardoza’s murder. She only hoped that when Jet found the full copy directory, the confession and the full list would both be in there under the same creation date.
The open elevator still rang and she knew if she got into it, she’d be on her way to Top Five. As she approached the stairwell door, she heard the thud of heavy feet as the 3045th’s goons crashed down the stairs to get her.
She ran toward the stairwell on the other side of the tower. At that moment, another elevator door rumbled open. A buzz cut commando in blue-and-yellow fatigues stepped out. Tory whacked him on the forehead with her baton. He staggered back into the elevator. The stairwell doors burst open and a half dozen football player sized bodies exploded into the lobby. Fluorescent light glittered on blue-black gunmetal. “Don’t shoot,” someone shouted, “we want her alive!” Tory jumped into the elevator and mashed the button for the garage below. A man large as a refrigerator stuck his shoulder in and pushed against the door to keep it open. His head looked like a fuzzy blond boulder. His muscular arms were bigger than Tory’s legs. “Lady, please,” he said in the sweetest voice. “Be reasonable.”
“I’m real sorry,” Tory said. She whacked him on the skull with the baton, making a ringing sound. He sank down as his eyelids fluttered, and lay prone on the elevator floor.
Another bison tried to climb over his semi-conscious compatriot. Tory hit him also, then shoved out with her booted foot. As the door closed, a hand managed to insert itself. She whacked it, and the hand was withdrawn with a bellow.
Then the elevator quietly chugged downward. If they could control it like the other one, Tory thought, her goose was cooked, her turkey was plucked, her chicken was airborne, whatever the expression was. She bit her lip with cold hysterical humor and laughed at the passing number-lights: 13, 12, 11...
Luckily, it seemed they couldn’t control the elevator completely, because it hurtled downward with a mind of its own. Realizing that she might have a chance, she relaxed a bit and shifted from panicked paralysis back to a kind of adrenalin overdrive.
“Lieutenant Breen,” Colonel Bentyne said, “stop. We must talk. We have a misunderstanding.” Tory fought the ingrained discipline in every cell of her body not to obey her superior officer. She disconnected the com button, dropped it on the floor, and ground it with her heel. At that moment, the man on the elevator floor groaned and started to sit up. Tory tucked the baton under one arm and drew her gun. “Down you go,” she said. Her boot nudged the back of his head. “On your stomach, hands behind.” He joined his hands on the small of his back. She put a boot on the back of his neck, the gun in back of his head. “Don’t breathe.”
“They’ll hang you!” he raged, but made no move to resist.
The elevator door opened. She said “Sorry,” and whacked him on the head again, just to stun him. She pulled him out enough so his legs would keep the door open, and Top Five guessing.
Tory threw the baton aside and ran.
She heard barking. Oh God, she thought, they are bringing dogs in. Huge Belgian police dogs barked and bellowed madly in the stairwell. The very sound of their barking was wolfish, amost bearish, and hurt the ears--to say nothing of inspiring terror. Instead of running up the ramp that would bring her outside Tower Three, and surely into the arms of the 3045th, she ran along the twilit utility road in the underground garage, toward Towers Two and One. She had been a first string runner in Army Olympics at Ft. Jackson, Mississippi a year earlier. Her jump boots were well broken in, and she picked a durable, near-sprinting stride. She stopped to take off her fatigue shirt and cap, and threw them over a wire fence among dumpsters, leaving her upper body comfortably clad in sports bra and olive-drab T-shirt. The castoffs might draw the attention of her pursuers and their dogs for a few minutes. They would think she’d climbed over the fence and into the storage areas that loomed shadowy beyond. The dogs would bark and sniff a minute or two after her scent. Upon reflection, she tossed her gun and gun belt over the top too. By now the gun was a liability. Better not give someone an excuse to shoot her. She pulled the blousing off her trouser bottoms and let the trousers hang over her boots. As she ran, she shook her hair loose. She figured she could pass for a civilian technician of some sort. A moment later, she passed a power company utility truck parked in a circle of orange cones. The driver must be upstairs. Over the tailgate hung a man’s light blue short-sleeved shirt. She snagged it as she ran past, and put it on. Far behind, she heard shouts and barks. A laboring humvee bristling with shotgun barrels roared distantly as troops pressed the search for her.
She passed the elevators of Tower Two, and could see the end of the road a thousand feet ahead. As she neared the elevators of Tower One, she heard voices and ducked behind a car. Three men and a woman, middle-aged overweight delegates, hurried out of the elevator discussing how best to escape the hotel compound on foot. When they were past, she ran to the elevator door. Just as she touched the button, she heard the ear-ripping bellows of a huge dog in the elevator--must be one of the M.P.s’ German shepherds! The animal kept barking--no, roaring--savagely.
She sprinted around the corner and up the stairs toward street level. She heard vicious barking, a scream, some yelling, then more barking. Through a narrow aperture between stairwell and elevator shaft wall, she saw that two commandos and their dog had cornered the four delegates and interrogated them while they stood with raised hands.
She emerged at street level in the circular concourse before Tower One. From the curved sidewalk, with its waiting area and taxi stand, broad stairs led up to the sheltered entrance and inside to the concierge desk of Tower One. She walked slowly, feigning casualness, to blend into the crowd. She saw delegates in suits and military people in uniform, but also men and women in work clothes, so she wasn’t noticed for the moment.
Civilian trucks, buses, and cars were being routed out of the area. She saw shaven-heads everywhere, heavily armed, in their blue-and-yellow fatigue uniforms. Reservists were being funneled out through several small gates ringed with barbed wire. Oh God! Officers walked around, circulating photos of Lt. Victoria Breen, a traitor and wanted terrorist. She hunched her shoulders and stayed in the shadows of the great building. How to escape while danger grew with every lost minute?
Chapter 32
Rims and Mud-Eyes took David’s gun. Rims stomped his com button to pieces on the sidewalk. While Rims covered with a gun, Mud-Eyes cuffed David’s hands behind him. David closed his eyes in pain, as the cold steel closed on his wrists, and at t2he violation of his dignity. The two pushed David into the back of an MP car and jumped in on either side of him. A shaven-head driver sped them with lights and sirens along the highway toward the Atlantic Hotel. City lights glowe
red in the fog along the Potomac.
The car roared on squealing tires into the bowels of the parking garage. They shoved him into a service elevator car that smelled of army blankets and machine grease, then rode to the 35th floor of Tower 3.
Colonel Bronf was a cold, ruthless inquisitor. “Captain, let me make something clear to you. There are two reasons why I don’t totally step on you right now for refusing to talk. One, we lose whatever information you have about the conspiracy against us.”
David laughed. “You see the legitimate United States government as a conspiracy against you?”
“Spare me your senseless humor. Two, because we are collecting bargaining chips here. Delegates are primo, of course. Bunch of little shits like you might serve as pawns if we need to do a prisoner exchange.”
“Unbelievable,” David said. “Listen, you guys can still quit this before it--” A huge hand slapped him across the temple from behind, and he blanked out. He was dimly conscious of being led and manhandled down a series of corridors, into a big room with a wooden floor, smelling of old socks.
Rims and Mud-Eyes were gone. A pair of young fanatics handcuffed him to a steel railing that ran the length of the wall under a row of windows overlooking Washington. A plastic bottle of water and a box filled with cheez-drip cracker snacks sat nearby. They seemed to want to be kind. A young man asked earnestly, abrim with what had been drilled into him: “Are you liberals ready to repent and change your ways?”
Liberals? David felt puzzled. What?
“Any time you want to repent and join us, you can do that,” another said. “They might even let you be an officer with us.”
After the two boys left, David turned to the other man chained about twenty feet away. “Colonel Bellamy!”
“Oh, Gordon! They got you too, after all. But you’re alive.”
The Generals of October Page 20