(2012) Political Suicide

by Michael Palmer

  “Fire!” Brody cried. “Take them out! These men are a threat to our national security.”

  Papa Steve stepped in front of Lou. “Don’t do it! Stand down, guys. Don’t shoot!”

  Brody pulled a pistol from a holster hidden underneath his parka. He aimed the weapon at Papa Steve. “I will shoot them myself if you men don’t follow this order. Now, fire your weapons, dammit.”

  With feline grace and speed, Cap rushed Brody and, in virtually the same motion, landed a vicious right hook to the side of his nose, dropping the Mantis commander onto his butt.

  Cap’n Crunch.

  Brody’s pistol skidded away. Blood spurted from both his nostrils. His eyes glazed. Lou tensed himself for the hail of bullets that would end his best friend’s life. Instead, at that moment, there was only a loud pop. Cap went down like a flour sack, facedown on the cold asphalt, twitching and bucking.

  “Coon, you stupid bastard!” Papa Steve shouted.

  Lou kicked away the two filament wires attached to the Taser gun in Coon’s outstretched hand and knelt beside Cap. The powerful darts had paralyzed him through his parka. Lou had treated enough Taser wounds to know quickly that Cap’s situation was horribly unpleasant, but also temporary.

  A click.

  Lou heard a gun chamber loading and closed his eyes, bracing for the sting of steel and wondering how long he would feel the pain. A momentary flash, or would it be a lingering agony? His mind’s eye saw blood, gallons of it, spewing out from holes in his chest. He pined for Emily in those final seconds, anticipating a sensation that never materialized. When he opened his eyes, one of the Mantis soldiers had stepped forward with his weapon pointed not at the three intruders, but at Brody, who was shakily on his feet, teeth bared, eyes still watering, clamping his bleeding nostrils shut with the fabric of his cap.

  “We’re not afraid to die, sir,” the soldier said. “None of us. But that doesn’t mean we murder innocent Americans. Don’t touch your pistol, Major Coon.”

  Lou tried to rouse Cap, who was coming around but was still too dazed to stand.

  “Staff Sergeant Morales, you’d best point that weapon where it’s supposed to be pointed,” Brody rasped.

  “Morales is right,” another man said, stepping out of line to aim his weapon at Coon. “We’re not stupid. We know what you felt the ruby drink was doing to us, but not many of us believed it, or cared. We’ve always been ready to die for our country and our commanders.”

  Papa Steve stepped forward and faced them. “Your commander,” he said, “this man who is ordering you to kill my friends and me, is a murderer himself. He shot Elias Colston, Mark’s father, in cold blood, because Colston knew the truth about Mantis. He didn’t believe his son would have ever had the courage to act in battle the way he did unless he was acting under the influence of chemicals that altered his ability to experience fear.”

  “That’s not so,” Morales said.

  “Ask Brody,” Lou said. “I read his Ph.D. thesis cover to cover. Ask him if he thinks you men would undertake this mission if not for the drug combination he developed and fed you every day. Fear is a part of war, but Brody wanted to eliminate that factor, to bring you equal with the terrorists we are fighting. You men are true soldiers. Maybe you’ll be killed in the line of duty. That’s a risk every solider takes. But let it be a risk and not the goal. Let it be something that happens to you and not something that you seek out.”

  Staff Sergeant Morales turned to Lou. “Doc, we appreciate what you’re saying. But like it or not, we are going on our mission. Like you said, we’re soldiers, Mantis marines, and we’re trained to follow orders. No questions asked. No options accepted.”

  “You just chose not to commit the cold-blooded murder of innocent American civilians,” Papa Steve said. “That’s not following orders.”

  “Well, I guess you found the one line we’re not willing to cross.”

  Brody had staunched the bleeding from his nose, and lowered his cap. Lou caught the sliver of a smile as it creased the corners of the commander’s mouth. Fenton Morales lowered his gun, and the others did the same.

  “Colonel Brody, sir, Major Coon,” Morales said, “I believe I am speaking for the group of us. Once these men have been taken into military custody, we are prepared to board the transport and complete our mission as ordered.”

  Lou read Wyatt Brody’s eyes: You’re dead, Welcome.

  “I’ll radio for the MPs,” Brody said earnestly. “You men can watch from the transport as these three are escorted away. I’ll even make certain this coward who sucker-punched me receives medical attention. Major Coon, supervise the securing of these men.”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” Coon said, saluting.

  “Now, men, on that plane. You’ll be airborne in fifteen minutes. First, though, let’s take a minute together.”

  “Crimson is the color of courage, the color of blood spilled in battle, the color of valor. To justice. To country. To God. To Mantis.”

  “Whatever it takes!”

  CHAPTER 48

  The lights of an approaching sedan flashed several times. Sarah was driving at walking speed along an empty road inside the Dover air base. Two armed guards dressed for the cold flanked her car. The defogger was blasting on high, but the windshield kept misting up, giving her just a small porthole into the world outside.

  The headlights flashed again and Sarah stopped. Twenty yards apart, the cars faced each other like a pair of jousters readying for a charge. Then the sedan’s driver’s-side door opened and Spencer Hogarth stepped out. He wore a long trench coat with the belt undone and dangling. The silver of his hair shone like snow under the glow of an isolated streetlight. He spoke to the guards, who checked his ID before heading back toward the gate. Then he rapped twice on Sarah’s roof.

  She lowered her window and studied the secretary of defense’s hard-bitten face. In just over a day, his worry lines seemed to have deepened, the bags under his eyes become fuller.

  Has the stress of ordering our murders taken such a big toll? she wanted to ask.

  She imagined what Hogarth was thinking, How are you alive? What in the hell happened to Bryzinski?

  “Follow me,” he said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace I know where it’s safe to talk.”

  Or someplace where it’s easy to have us killed, Sarah thought.

  Again, fear gripped her. She had her cards ready to play, and Edith’s derringer loaded in her pocket for contingency, but this was a remorseless, power-hungry megalomaniac they were dealing with. There were probably countless ways for a man of his power and connections to get their bodies out of Dover undetected. The guards were out of sight now, leaving her and Edith alone. Timing was going to be everything. Her heart pounding, Sarah nodded that she would follow the man who was prepared to murder them both. The target for success was Hogarth’s massive ego and belief that he could survive any situation.

  As Hogarth headed back to his Cadillac, Sarah heard a loud thump from behind her.

  Bryzinski!

  Had his weight shifted? Were his hands now free? Could he hear what was going on outside the car?

  Sarah’s throat tightened as Hogarth stopped and turned slowly in the direction of the noise. He was focused on the trunk of the Mercedes, or so Sarah believed. She wrapped her hand around the derringer and waited for another rap. Maybe he was having a seizure of some sort?

  “We don’t have much time,” Edith said to Hogarth, her voice brimming with anger and, Sarah felt, with confidence.

  The outburst was enough to refocus Hogarth’s attention. Smart, smart girl, Sarah was thinking.

  “We get this over now, or we drive away,” Edith added.

  “Follow me,” Hogarth said, turning back to his car.

  When they were back in the Mercedes, Sarah put her hand on Edith’s. “Nicely done.”

  “I hate that man so much. I’ll do anything to make this work.”

  They follow
ed Hogarth along a warren of empty streets that took them some distance from the gate. The Cadillac stopped in front of a closed hangar. Sarah parked as far away as she dared, and the two women quickly got out and moved toward where Hogarth was standing. There was no sound from the trunk. Sarah and Edith exhaled in unison.

  One ominous sign: Hogarth hadn’t checked either of them for a wire. He would do that after they were dead.

  The trio stood six feet apart, tucked away in a quiet and seemingly abandoned section of the air base. Hogarth said nothing for a few tense seconds, then reached into his coat pocket. Instinctively, Sarah grasped the derringer but made no move to extract it.

  “Okay, it’s safe to talk here,” Hogarth said. “What do you want from me?”

  “Nothing has changed from the restaurant,” Sarah said, her grip still on the gun. “We have enough information to bury your career if it becomes public.”

  Hogarth eyed her coldly. She was certain he had tried to reach Bryzinski, but he wasn’t giving anything away.

  “So, what are we doing here?” he asked. “I thought you had a new deal to offer.”

  “I do,” Sarah said. “We bury Reddy Creek, for good and forever, we’ll sign papers, whatever you need to feel confident that Reddy Creek and the other armory robberies never come to the surface.”

  “In exchange for Brody’s confession to murder? I thought you said we had a new deal. That’s the old one.”

  “No, we got Brody dead to rights on murder one,” Sarah said. “We’ve got an alibi with Swiss cheese–sized holes in it, a compelling motive, and the weapon used to kill Elias Colston—a weapon that just happens to have come from Brody’s gun collection.”

  For the first time, Hogarth’s expression revealed his surprise. “How did that come to be?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Sarah said. “What matters is we’ve got the weapon.”

  “So what do you want from me? A confession for this woman’s tragedy? That isn’t going to happen, because I had nothing to do with it.”

  Hogarth withdrew his hand from his coat pocket. Sarah was about to pull out the derringer, or even shoot through her coat pocket, but something made her stop. The secretary’s gloved hand came out empty.

  “Nothing you can do will ever compensate me for my loss,” Edith said.

  “Then make your offer or I walk away.”

  “Okay. You need to put a stop to Operation Talon.”

  Hogarth’s jaw came unhinged. “What?”

  “We know,” Sarah said. “We know all about Talon and your use of a psychotropic drug mixture to block out your soldiers’ fear of death. We know these men are on nothing more than a massive suicide mission. Our terrorists versus their terrorists.”

  “Nothing doing. Even if unsubstantiated word got out, the American people will stand behind our troops.”

  That was it. Hogarth was almost certainly right, and he knew it.

  It was time for the final card.

  “We have Bryzinski,” Sarah said simply.

  “What?”

  “The killer you hired made it as far as my condo, and we shot him.”

  Sarah passed over a plastic Baggie with the cop’s silencer in it. If Hogarth put together this revelation and the noise that had come from the trunk, they were finished.

  “That’s bullshit!”

  “Suit yourself. We have a recorded confession, including who paid him. I’ve left separate instructions with two of my partners as to how they can find both him and the recording.”

  Hogarth digested the revelation. At that instant, Sarah felt certain she heard more pounding from the trunk. It was all she could do to keep from looking back in that direction, or at Edith.

  “I want proof he’s alive,” Hogarth said finally.

  The bluff was running out of time.

  “The proof is we’re going to count to five,” Sarah said with renewed force. “You agree to call Talon off and we’ll tell you where your pudgy buddy can be found. If I get to zero, we leave. Killing us won’t do you any good now. By morning, the police and the media will have all they need to put you out of business and in prison.”

  “Wait a min—”

  “Five,” Edith said.

  “This is … bigger than you realize,” Hogarth stammered. “There are reasons for what we’re doing.”

  “Four.”

  “I can’t just stop it. Do you understand what you’re doing? How much planning and preparation has gone into this? You’re putting American lives at risk.”

  “Three.”

  “Jesus! Give me a second!”

  “Two.”

  Edith took Sarah by the arm and turned her toward where the Mercedes waited.

  “Okay! Okay! I’ll do it! I’ll stop it. Jesus, I’ll stop it. You two get back in your car and follow me.”

  CHAPTER 49

  Lou watched the somber processional of Mantis marines ascend the portable staircase into the transport. He was desperate to try to stop them but, in his current situation, incapable of doing so. Along with Cap and Papa Steve, he’d had his hands secured behind his back with plastic cuffs by two marines he assumed were Palace Guards, and he was forced to a kneeling position on the cold tarmac. The men of Operation Talon had then waited until a call was placed to the air force base MPs before turning their backs and boarding the plane.

  Floodlights gave Lou a view of the orderly departure. Weapons and other provisions were efficiently being loaded into the cargo hold of the massive twin-engine jet. Members of Operation Talon, dressed in military fatigues and dark combat boots, vanished one by one through the plane’s open cabin door. As the last of them disappeared into the cabin, kneeling there in the darkness and the cold, Lou quietly wept.

  Cap, who had fully recovered from the Taser shock, knelt between Papa Steve and Lou. “They could be boarding a flight to Disney or something,” he said. “Just a regular ol’ plane ride. What is that, anyway?”

  “It’s a Boeing C-40 Clipper, the military version of a 737,” Papa Steve explained. “The navy uses them for logistic support.”

  “Logistic support, my ass,” Cap said. “Do you think the pilots know that every one of their passengers is going to die before this mission is done?”

  “It’s not like that, my friend,” Papa Steve said. “Soldiers are trained to follow orders. These men are doing their jobs—what they believe is right.”

  Lou’s thoughts were focused elsewhere. “I didn’t give Sarah enough time to deal with Hogarth,” he said. “This screwup is my fault.”

  Papa Steve turned and made eye contact. “Doc, we’ve got Brody nailed for murder. I wouldn’t exactly call that a screwup. I thought you AA people believe that you can only do what you can do.”

  “It’s pretty sad, Welcome, when you have to be reminded about this stuff by an earth person,” Cap said, using the AA phrase for a nonalcoholic. “As your sponsor, I hereby prescribe more meetings for you, and less time on the pity pot.”

  “There’s still time,” Papa Steve said. “Take it from an old experienced geezer,” Papa Steve said, “so long as Brody doesn’t just blow us away, anything can happen.”

  Lights from a pair of approaching vehicles appeared in the distance. The MPs, Lou thought. It appeared that, thanks to the men of Operation Talon, there was no longer a chance for Brody to do anything devious … at least for the moment. Just as the sound of the cars became audible over the rumble of the jet, the lead one began blaring its horn and flashing its lights. Sanctuary. The military police vehicles were their escort to a detention center somewhere on the air base—somewhere away from Wyatt Brody.

  It was then Lou realized the vehicles were civilian, not military, the lead one a Mercedes. Sarah!

  “Hey, if you’re gonna be carted off to jail, might as well go in style,” Cap said.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not the MPs,” Lou said.

  Anything can happen, Papa Steve had said.

  With a burst of acceleration, the second car,
a black Escalante, zoomed ahead of the Mercedes and skidded to a stop several feet in front of the transport’s staircase. The driver’s-side door flew open, and Secretary Spencer Hogarth stumbled out, shouting. “Brody! Where’s Brody, dammit! Somebody find me Brody!”

  The Mercedes came to a hard stop thirty feet or so behind the Cadillac. A second later, Sarah jumped out, followed by a woman wearing dark sunglasses and a fur-lined jacket, brandishing a folding cane. Edith! Sarah’s eyes met Lou’s immediately. He could see triumph in them.

  “Unlock these men right now!” Sarah shouted to the Mantis marines standing guard.

  “Sorry, ma’am, these men are to be detained by the MPs. Colonel Brody’s orders.”

  “We’ll see about that. Are you guys all right?”

  Ignoring the guards, she helped the three prisoners to their feet. Above them, the men of Operation Talon’s faces were pressed to the portholes.

  “Where is Brody, Lou? Hogarth is going ballistic. I told him that we had absolute proof Brody killed Elias Colston, and I thought his heart was going to stop. We made a deal I’ll tell you about regarding Operation Talon, and then he went off the wall.”

  “I saw Brody board the plane a while ago,” Cap said. “Maybe he decided to go on the mission after all, or maybe he was trying to do a repair job on the nose I busted.”

  “This mission isn’t going on the mission,” Sarah said. “Secretary Hogarth is about to see to that. Hang tight, guys. We’ll get you out of those handcuffs. But we’ve got to find Brody first.”

  Several Talon marines had retraced their steps down the stairs to see what the commotion was about. Hogarth, meanwhile, continued to shout out Brody’s name. Lou had seen explosive rage before, but mostly in the blackout drunks he and the orderlies and security staff at Eisenhower Memorial were too often forced to subdue. The anger Spencer Hogarth was exhibiting went beyond nearly anything Lou had experienced. It was as though the man who sat near the president’s right hand had become detached from reason. He spun around in a series of frenetic circles, his overcoat flapping like a cape. Spittle shot from the snarling rictus of his mouth. His eyes were wild, his cheeks crimson.