(2012) Political Suicide

by Michael Palmer

  Oh shit! he thought.

  Was the dog’s arrival on the scene coincidence, or did they suspect something?

  Manolo rattled off some Spanish. Then he started to walk down the road toward Lou—a leisurely stroll, just exercising his dog, or so it seemed. But the shepherd resisted. Manolo took four steps, and the dog dug in its heels. Its lips peeled back in an angry snarl. A growl, low and threatening as thunder, echoed off the trees. Then its eyes locked on a target and the growl turned into angry barking. Its jaws began snapping in a way that begged for flesh to tear. Its open mouth, dripping with saliva, showcased a finely sharpened set of white daggers. Lou traced the dog’s line of sight and felt a wave of heat roll up his back.

  The animal was looking right at the tree where he was hiding.

  CHAPTER 34

  The huge German shepherd continued snarling and straining at his leash.

  “What’s happening?” one of the gang asked.

  “I don’t know. He’s in a very bad mood.”

  “Matador’s always in a bad mood. Maybe he smells something—a rabbit or a rat. Pedro probably left the lid off the trash again.”

  Matador. The name meant “bullfighter,” but it also meant “killer.”

  Lou’s mouth went dry.

  Thirty yards away, he flattened himself against the pine. He was never much more than a B student in Spanish, and he was doing about C-plus work translating now. But for whatever reason, he knew Matador.

  Manolo battled to keep the shepherd in line, and began scanning the woods for the source of the animal’s angst.

  It would not be long before he discovered the answer.

  Despite the chill surrounding him, Lou was sweating. Matador had downshifted to a low, rumbling growl, as if he had decided to conserve energy for what lay ahead. Lou remained concealed, desperately playing through scenarios of escape, and finding none that had any promise. He thought he heard Manolo say the word ardilla, and hoped he remembered it as “squirrel” or “chipmunk,” and not “dinner.” The dog’s constant growling sparked in Lou a deep-seated fear, possibly from a scare in his childhood.

  Lou silently added “mauled by an animal” to his list of horrible ways to die. The shepherd’s teeth were designed to latch on to flesh and tear it away one agonizing bite at a time. Lou imagined the terror of pushing haplessly against the powerful animal’s salivating snout, while its jaws bore into his gut, drilling him hollow. The image came to him so visceral, so real, that he swallowed at an imaginary copper taste of blood percolating in the back of his throat.

  Matador.

  Lou kept his body rigid, trying to will some control over his ragged breaths and scattered thoughts. Breathe in through the nose … out through the mouth, just like I’m in the ring, just like sparring … in through the nose, out through the mouth. The gospel according to Cap Duncan.

  Lou thought about Emily. All his focus should have been on escaping, but that was the thing about having a kid. He thought about how his death would impact her. Would anybody even find his body? Probably not. Manolo and the crew would bury him in pieces somewhere in the woods, torch his car, and then voilà, gone. Missing person, whereabouts unknown. Posters would be circulated. Search teams would be organized, maybe even a modest reward offered. Officer Judy Lemon would tell the Staties all that she remembered of the man who, just yesterday, it seemed, changed lanes improperly. Manolo and the Juárez cartel would dismantle the lab and rebuild it many miles away. The end.

  The growling intensified again.

  You cannot die up here in the woods. You cannot let it happen.

  Lou’s controlled breathing began having a positive effect. His thoughts became more logical and focused, although none of them carried hope. He could try to crawl backwards and take a new position farther down the road, but he’d be exposed between trees. He had no idea how sharp Matador was—how little movement and shift of smell it would take for him to go into attack mode. At the moment, he was a decent distance away, but if Lou simply bolted, the dog would close the gap in seconds. Game over.

  Then, as if reacting to Lou’s unspoken prayer, Manolo tied the snarling animal to a post and went around to the back of the still, possibly to check on the guns. Lou backed up carefully and, amidst a renewed crescendo of barking, added ten more yards to the distance between him and death. A couple of more moves like that, and he would make a break for the Camry.

  Again, the barking dipped to a simmer. The dog’s back stayed arched, its keen eyes constantly probing, like a marine on patrol. Lou hunched over and took another precious ten yards. Then another. Manolo had returned and again took Matador’s leash. He tugged hard, but the mammoth dog strained in the opposite direction. Lou seized the distraction and raced to another tree. Killer, possibly hearing the rustling of fallen leaves or smelling the fear thickening the air, snapped his head around. Manolo, consumed by winning his power struggle with the beast, yanked on Matador’s leash, trying to force the dog to heel.

  Lou could see the smoke but not the lab. He dropped to his butt and eased down the mountain. In retrospect, it had been stupid to try to check out the still, but he had done stupid before, though perhaps not with these consequences. The rocks tore through his jeans and left painful scrapes on his legs. He could still hear excited barking, but could not tell if the sounds were getting any closer. Finally, he risked pulling himself to his feet.

  Almost there.

  He made it another fifteen minutes and thought by now he’d gone far enough so the dog would be out of earshot. A volley of barking said he wasn’t. The slope had steepened, and the temperature was dropping. Ice was now a problem. An all-out sprint to the car might work, but it also might well result in a sprained ankle or, worse, a broken one.

  Lou eased around the clearing where the guns-for-drugs exchange had taken place. Maybe seventy-five yards to go. The time for caution was over. He began to trot down the steep embankment toward the boulder where he had concealed the Toyota. Then, from up the hill, he heard the sound of crunching ice and leaves, followed by an intense growl. Spinning around, Lou saw Matador streaking across the ridge above him, dragging his leash.

  His heart threatening to explode, Lou broke into a chaotic sprint. His feet skidded on the ice-slickened slope, slowing his steps.

  Careful … careful.

  Ahead he saw a glimmer of red—the front of his car—poking out from behind the boulder. Behind him, no more than fifty feet away, the streaking brown missile intent on tearing him to pieces was locked in and headed down the embankment. His teeth were bared. Saliva hung down from his snout like streamers.

  Lou glanced ahead at his car and did some quick math. Twenty or thirty feet to the driver’s-side door, plus two seconds to get inside, equaled dead. No question about it. He imagined the beast launching itself at him from behind, knocking him face-first to the ground, then going at his neck.

  It wasn’t going to happen—not without some sort of response. Could he make it onto the roof of the car? What would happen then? How about over the roof and in the passenger-side door? The images flashed through his mind like a passing bullet train.

  From behind, the snarling grew louder—closer.

  Then Lou tripped.

  The villain was a partially buried root, thick as a fist. Lou fell heavily, air exploding from his lungs. His face slammed against the frozen ground, dazing him. Still, he managed to roll to his back. It was a complete surprise at that moment to realize his hand was wrapped around a dead branch—four feet long, heavy, leafless, and gnarled as an arthritic limb.

  He was scrambling to his feet when the blurred outline of Matador came into sharp focus—ten feet away and about to go airborne. Instinctively, operating on rubbery knees, Lou turned sideways and gripped the end of the branch with both hands. Between blinks, he flashed on a memory, processing it as fast any computer.

  He was twelve years old, playing Little League baseball. Always a decent fielder, he was doomed in the sport by his inabilit
y to hit. The bases were loaded with two outs in a tie game. His team, the Dodgers, needed just one run to win the league championship. The resulting scene would stay with him forever—teammates charging the mound, all laughing, high-fiving, piling on one another. Just one hit. God, but he wanted it so badly. Three pitches, three swings, three strikes. Nobody from the Dodgers did any celebrating that day.

  The shepherd was crazed. Its jaws were wide open; its fangs, dripping with saliva. In moments, its mouth would be red with blood, his blood. Lou tightened his grip on the branch and forced himself to focus on the animal’s maw. Then, with a step forward, he swung from his heels. One hit … just one. The impact was ferocious. The dog’s momentum knocked Lou backwards onto the ground. But Matador was stunned as well, and went down heavily at Lou’s feet, yelping plaintively while trying to right himself.

  Without a glance at matador, Lou sprinted the remaining five yards to the car, climbed into the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and fumbled his key into the ignition. At that instant he felt the weight of the car shift forward. Through the front windshield, Matador stood on the hood, snarling. The corners of his mouth were torn and bleeding, but his teeth were still bared. He forced his muzzle against the windshield, leaving bubbly trails of saliva and blood. Lou turned the key and slammed the gearshift into Reverse.

  The shepherd stayed on the hood for as long as he could—a surfer determined to ride his wave all the way to shore. Finally, he jumped off, landing on his feet. Lou backed down the road. Manolo and his mammoth six-shooter had to be close by.

  As he backed onto the highway, his thoughts were consumed by Wyatt Brody’s doctoral thesis, and the odd lack of a strong discussion and conclusion. The exchange Lou had just witnessed was proof that his research had not only succeeded, but was also being used on Mantis servicemen. But to what end? Lou wondered as he accelerated north. To what end?

  CHAPTER 35

  Wyatt Brody strode into the packed dining hall. Seven hundred marines—many of them decorated for valor, some of them more than once—remained seated along Spartan wooden benches. Set out on the long folding table in front of each of them was a seven-ounce plastic tumbler filled halfway with a clear, crimson liquid. Next to each tumbler was a capsule, also crimson. Pale light from the early dawn filtered into the dining hall. The daily ritual had begun.

  Major Charles Coon followed close behind Brody. “Attention!” he called out as soon as they reached the center of their table.

  The sound of benches scraping back echoed through the hall as the soldiers of Mantis rose to their feet, a forest of the bravest, most skillful fighters the military had to offer. Brody scanned the room, taking in the scene as though he were appreciating fine art.

  The men, most of them preparing in small groups for clandestine missions around the globe, were waiting for Brody’s selection for the morning presentation. The honor was not doled out lightly. Typically, Brody or Coon or one of the other officers led the men, but at times an enlisted man who strongly embodied the principles of Mantis would be selected for the privilege. In truth, almost all of them were eligible. The seven hundred remained at attention and waited.

  “Staff Sergeant Bucky Townsend!” Brody called out.

  Townsend, already stiff as a corpse, forced himself to stand even straighter. “Sir! Staff Sergeant Bucky Townsend, present and at attention, sir!” he shouted.

  Nobody looked at Bucky. All eyes stayed forward, locked on Brody as though he were the only living presence among them.

  “Staff Sergeant Townsend.”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” Townsend remained outwardly emotionless and still as stone, even though it was the first time he had been chosen.

  “Come forward to present.”

  Townsend stood beside Brody and saluted, his arm at perfect angles. I am Mantis.

  “My brothers,” Townsend said, “glasses up.”

  Moving as a single entity, each man held a capsule in one hand and his drink in the other.

  “Crimson is the color of courage,” they said in perfect unison, “the color of blood spilled in battle, the color of valor. To justice. To country. To God. To Mantis. Whatever it takes!”

  Then, as one with their commanding officers, each set the capsule on his tongue and drained the symbol of their collective strength and bravery. They were Mantis, a brotherhood bound by the power of the crimson liquid.

  When breakfast ended, Brody once again stood at his place to address the men. Glancing down at a clipboard, he read a list of twenty names—the tactical team of Operation Talon.

  “If your name was read, we will convene in the briefing room immediately,” Coon said.

  “Sir, yes, sir,” the twenty responded.

  The briefing room was situated inside a crude wooden building about the size of a one-room schoolhouse, only a short walk from the dining hall. There were maps, projection machines, and several computers. The room was kept warm by portable heaters. Coon stood at the front, with Brody seated at a desk to his right.

  “Gentlemen,” Coon began, “you have each had a preliminary briefing on Operation Talon. You are the tactical team, the men who will be feet on the ground. Behind you in support will be dozens of your Mantis brothers. The success of this ambitious mission rests in your hands. From now on, this building and the equipment within it will continue to be at your disposal, but the door will be locked to all except you. The keys are in the envelopes at your desks. I would suggest you spend all your waking hours studying. The time for fun and games is over.”

  “We will be studying, sir,” Townsend said, “but as this is the first time we’re all together, could you review the overall strategy of the mission?”

  “Of course, Sergeant. Operation Talon is a ‘shock and awe’ style attack whereby we will take out ten high-value terrorist targets in a simultaneous, synchronized strike.”

  “Sir, are these targets centrally located?” Fenton Morales asked.

  “Negative,” Coon said. “These targets are in ten different geographic locations, five different countries.”

  “Will we be using drones in the attack?”

  “Negative as well,” Coon said. “We cannot one hundred percent confirm the validity of the location intelligence we have received. Therefore, we cannot confidently strike using our drones without risking high civilian causalities and significant global blowback. We need visual confirmation of our targets before making any kill. We don’t want a mess of dead women and children to give a bunch of jihadist wannabes a reason to join the cause. We ran an operation back in ’03 in Khewa that resulted in a successful target kill, but with lots of local dead. We don’t need a repeat of that.”

  “Are we still going to be deployed in ten teams of two?”

  “Ten teams of two is correct,” Coon said.

  “What’s the timing of this?”

  “Deployment in five days or less. What else?”

  “And after we locate our target?”

  “Each team will infiltrate a suspect location, verify the validity of the target, and in a synchronized manner use a bomb to kill that target. Any team who does not make precise visual confirmation will have to wait for their target to show before detonation. We want ten dead in a twenty-four-hour period. ‘Ten in Twenty’ will be your war cry. This is going to cut the head off of the hydra.”

  “Where will we procure the explosives?” Morales asked.

  Coon turned to Brody, who stood and faced the men.

  “You will be wearing them,” he said.

  CHAPTER 36

  Lou drove some distance before he found a stretch of highway that offered reliable cell phone reception. He was three hours from D.C. provided the Camry kept chugging, maybe more because it was already getting dark. His hands were still trembling from lingering adrenaline as he keyed in Sarah’s number. It was hard to wrap his head around the ways he could have died in just the past few hours. Mexican drug cartel. Palace Guards. Wyatt Brody. Angry dog. And that did not count Officer Judy
Lemon of the West Virginia State Police.

  With each piece of the Brody puzzle that fell into place, other gaps seem to have appeared. The power of the man and the pervasiveness of his program left Lou feeling bewildered and frightened for Gary. If Lou’s suspicions were correct, then the murder of Elias Colston was part of a major conspiracy involving supremely powerful players who would stop at nothing to protect their secrets.

  Sarah answered on the third ring, and Lou felt his beleaguered spirits lift at sound of her voice. They were a team—maybe not a well-oiled machine yet, but a bond between them had formed—a deepening friendship accelerated by extraordinary circumstances.

  “Hey, I’ve been worried sick about you,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “Well, considering I almost became a can of Alpo, I’m doing just fine.”

  “Explain,” Sarah said.

  Lou recounted for her Wyatt Brody’s guns-for-drugs exchange and his own close encounter with Matador.

  “Why do you think Brody is involved with a Mexican drug cartel?” Sarah asked when Lou had finished.

  “The cartel’s chemist is concocting large quantities of the drug Brody created for his thesis—a drug that eliminates fear. Sarah, you should have seen how calmly this guy Pedro stuck a revolver in his mouth and played Russian roulette. He was absolute ice.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “I came really close to screaming at him to stop before he pulled the trigger, but I don’t think that would have been such a great idea. One of the ingredients of Brody’s juice is methamphetamine, which isn’t something easily obtained via a military purchase order. I’m fairly certain he’s using this concoction on Mantis soldiers.”

  “For what reason?”

  “That I don’t know,” Lou said. “Wish I did. I could come up with some theories, but they would be speculation. The cartel is cooking up the meth, but they’re not involved in the entire production of the Mantis cocktail.”