“Yes, sir.” Then a sigh.
The president stood up, his anger flaring.
“Look, that bullring in Mexico City, that music festival in Toronto, that’s the spark that will set it all off. When Canada, Mexico, and Central and South America close their borders and declare martial law, they’ll agree to anything to get our Ebola cure. They’ll give us control. We save fifty percent of their populations, send in an occupying force to police them and maintain control, and within twenty years we’ll all be one big country. By that time, other nations will have the vaccine. But they won’t be able to produce it fast enough. Europe. Africa. India. China. Russia. They’ll be weakened, and we’ll have the largest army in the world. The last person to try to change the world in a dramatic way was Adolf Hitler. Say what you would about him, but that Nazi sumabitch had vision.”
“As much I enjoy hearing your rants, Mr. President, was there another reason for this call?”
“Yes. I’m making you an offer. Screw the cabinet position. You get this done, I’ll nominate you for vice president immediately. With your military record, the tenor of the country, I should be able pass it through Congress.”
“An…interesting proposal.”
“Do you accept?”
“I need to think it over.”
“Think it over while you’re getting the job done. I want Ebola outbreaks on both of our borders in the next seventy-two hours, and I want you to find your damn rogue operatives and terminate with extreme prejudice.”
“Understood, Mr. President.”
“Are the bodies in place at the borders? We don’t want an outbreak in this country.”
“Yes. Along with the autopsy reports, ready to be leaked. Once they are, you can seal the borders.”
“And in Toronto and Mexico City, the virus will show up immediately after the infection?”
“This is a special strain, remember. People will be dying within hours.”
Ratzenberger flinched a little, as any good Christian would. The whole thing was distasteful but necessary for the greater good. He had to remember that. “A virus that fast, won’t it burn out before causing an epidemic?”
“Yes. But we don’t want an epidemic. That would spiral out of control. We want the appearance of an epidemic. Let it flare up in a spot, then burn itself out. We can always make it flare up again.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” It all made sense, but he wasn’t about to leave anything up to chance. “And my dose of vaccine?”
“Coming later today.”
“Don’t fail me. I’m not as forgiving as my predecessor was.”
Ratzenberger hung up, then hit the intercom button to have his dishes removed. Making that offer to The Instructor was risky. That man was ambitious, devious, and had resources that were, quite frankly, frightening. But the rule about keeping friends close and enemies closer applied here. The carrot was a more valuable tool than the stick when it came to powerful, dangerous men. And with The Instructor as his successor, he’d help guarantee that MD2 continued after Ratzenberger left office.
Win-win.
A knock, and the Secret Service came in to do another damn bug sweep while the dishes were being cleared. The president left the Oval Office, heading for the bathroom, only to find some asshole had clogged the toilet.
Fleming
“Plans change,” The Instructor said. “Adapt.”
As soon as the Secret Service walked in, Fleming killed the power to the bug so it no longer transmitted. Then she spent a moment trying to digest what she’d just heard.
The new guy in charge was batshit, bugfuck crazy. He wasn’t trying to use Ebola to wipe out his enemies. He was using it to wipe out allies, then absorb them into the United States under the guise of protecting them.
A crazy plan. Or was it?
Occupying foreign countries hadn’t worked out well for the United States in current history. The countries resented its presence, creating a growing animosity that often ended up in them hating America, and then plotting terrorist attacks.
But if those countries invited America in, to administer a vaccine and keep martial law, that might be a different story. Fleming still predicted resentment and rebellion from the natives, but if the virus devastated enough of the population, and the occupation was seen as beneficial, then Ratzenberger might actually be able to extend the US borders to the entire Western Hemisphere, from Cape Columbia, Canada, to Cape Horn, Chile.
Fleming immediately called Chandler, who was just south of San Antonio and still driving, and filled her in. Then she called Hammett, who sounded like she’d had better mornings.
“You OK, sis?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because the fate of the free world depends on you keeping your shit together.”
“You’re getting mushy on me.”
“Seriously, Hammett. You sound like hell.”
“Had a tiny bit of trouble getting into Canada. Still, it was better than being manhandled by TSA. Hey, do you have the phone number for that vet?”
“What vet?”
“Where we took Kirk.”
Fleming gave it to her, wondering why one of the world’s premier assassins cared so much about a dog she’d just met.
That reminded Fleming of her reaction when Sasha ran out into traffic. Her thoughts again drifted to Bradley, and her eyes drifted again to Scarlett’s cell phone.
She grabbed it and rubbed her thumb over the power button.
A minute passed.
Fleming turned the phone on.
Five messages.
Don’t listen to them.
Don’t.
She pressed Play.
“Your friend Bradley ain’t looking so well,” Rhett said in a Southern drawl.
“I swear, I don’t even know her name!”
Then Bradley screamed. A heart-wrenching, ear-bleeding scream.
Fleming shut off the cell phone. She’d heard a creaking sound, and realized it was her teeth grinding together.
“I told him not to come out of the shop.”
Fleming closed her eyes. She turned the phone back on.
She listened to the other four messages.
They didn’t get any better. And Bradley—poor, stupid, brave Bradley—kept quiet even as he screamed in pain.
He didn’t know anything, and he was still trying to protect her.
Sasha sniffed the phone, perhaps recognizing her master’s voice.
“The Instructor taught me that the mission always comes first,” she told the fox. “To never jeopardize it for personal reasons. To never have close relationships with people, because they always ended badly. But you know what? I’m sick of following that asshole’s orders.”
Fleming accessed Hydra, tracking Rhett’s and Scarlett’s chips.
She’d find them. And kill them. And save Bradley.
Because when it came down to it, she wasn’t just a tool, a weapon that the government could order around.
She was one of the good guys.
And dying doing the right thing sure beat living doing the wrong thing.
Chandler
“Every mission is risky,” The Instructor said. “There are some risks you can see coming. Those you can prepare for, plan your way around. Those are easy. The real danger lies in the risks you never foresee. The ones that hit you like a bullet from the dark. If you want to go on living, prepare for the unexpected.”
It took a while to absorb everything Fleming had told me. Manifest Destiny Two?
In a warped way, it made sense. What was a little genocide if it made the nation stronger? The United States was expert at wiping out indigenous populations. Doing the same thing to the north and the south was par for the course.
But this upped the ante. Obviously, the pressure to stop this from happening had increased exponentially. This was no longer about clearing our names and killing The Instructor, or preventing a few Ebola outbreaks. This was real hero stuff. Not just saving L
ondon, but saving the whole world.
Thankfully, in light of my buzzing mind, the drive to Laredo, Texas, was blissfully boring, and keeping my speed at five miles an hour over the limit, I avoided police attention and made good time. I’d stopped once on the way, grabbing a few hours of sleep in a rest area outside Dallas, and I reached the town on the banks of the Rio Grande in twenty-four hours, and with enough sleep to keep me sharp.
Normally crossing the border from the United States into Mexico was easy. Long lines of cars dammed up at the checkpoint going north, but the fewer lanes leading south had just a trickle of traffic. A short drive down a frontage road near the crossing, however, told me things were different.
Lines a dozen deep snaked from the southbound checkpoint. Armed personnel checked interiors, undercarriages, and the cargo holds of trucks before allowing them to cross the Rio Grande, their uniforms both border patrol and Texas National Guard.
I continued driving, looping through narrow streets and back to the highway. As soon as The Instructor had released his evidence, I’d expected beefed-up security at the border. The development wasn’t surprising. I just had to tweak my plan.
As I drove down the streets of Laredo, I found myself humming the song I’d learned to play on the guitar when I was eight, before my parents died, before I’d knocked around in foster care, before I’d been adopted by the man I still thought of as my evil stepfather. Strangely, I finally felt a touch of normal.
I didn’t know if it was Hammett’s beating and advice, Fleming’s encouragement or the details she’d provided, or just the long drive and hot sun, but something had helped. This mission was easily both more important and more difficult than anything I’d done in the past, but it was a mission, and I was on my own. I knew what that was supposed to feel like, and as I exited the highway onto a palm-lined street in front of the Mall del Norte, the familiar icy resolve settled over me.
Emotionless.
Efficient.
Unstoppable.
I could do this. I had to.
I turned into the mall and parked, then loaded my shotgun and stuffed it into my bulging backpack with the rest of my gear, shoving my Jericho into my waistband.
As much as I wanted to trade my jeans and sweater for some new, climate-friendly duds, a trip to Macy’s was too big a risk. Instead of entering the mall, I shouldered my backpack and skirted the building’s perimeter until I came to a large alley-like opening reserved for delivery trucks and garbage removal. Each store in this section of the mall had a door that either opened to the area or joined with a long hall leading here. That resulted in trucks flowing in and out and a collection of Dumpsters lining the utilitarian courtyard.
Unfortunately, finding what I was looking for wasn’t so easy.
Or rather, whom.
I slid into the shadow of one of the largest Dumpsters, slung my backpack off my shoulder, and waited. Evening fell into night, and although the early autumn heat mercifully faded with the sun, I started to feel the hours that had passed since I’d last eaten, and the scents drifting from the food court made my stomach rumble.
As the retail day came to a close, employees from the mall’s shops dumped the last of the day’s garbage. The section of the mall I’d chosen was filled with stores selling clothing and accessories, electronics, and various personal items, and most of the garbage was cardboard packaging from their wares. The recycling Dumpsters were soon overflowing with cardboard boxes, broken down for disposal.
An hour after closing time, a vehicle finally entered the area.
The shabby blue pickup truck parked at one of the recycling Dumpsters out of my line of vision. I waited for the driver’s door to slam before I slipped from my hiding spot.
By the time I walked up, the driver was nowhere to be seen, but box after box flew over the edge of the green receptacle and landed in the truck bed.
“Excuse me,” I called.
No answer.
I tried again. “Disculpe.”
I spoke Spanish fluently, among a few other languages, but this time, I let my accent ring pure Texas.
Head popping up, he peered over the bin through narrowed eyes.
“Por favor?” I said.
His skin looked hard as leather. If he was an American, I’d peg him to be in his sixties. I suspected, however, that he was from the other side of the border, a cartonero from Nuevo Laredo, and as such he was likely to be fifteen or twenty years younger.
Shopping complexes like Mall del Norte were treasure troves of clean cardboard for anyone who could travel through the border checkpoint to claim it.
This guy had to be pretty successful to afford a truck, even though his left a lot to be desired, per US standards. But even a successful businessman might be interested in making a little extra money.
“Do you speak English?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Oh, thank the Lord. I need your help, sir.” I put a little tremble into my voice.
He watched me for a few more seconds, then grunted and ducked back to work in the Dumpster.
“I can pay. Mucho dinero.”
“For what?” He didn’t even pause, just kept harvesting cardboard.
“I need a lift across the border.”
This got his attention, and he returned to staring. “Into Mexico?”
“Yes. Please, I’m desperate. I’ll give you a hundred dollars.”
I could see his mind working. “Five.”
Most cartoneros were working men scrambling to feed their families. But as much as I’d like to help him out, I didn’t have five hundred dollars.
“I have a watch.”
“Five.”
I unzipped my backpack, looking for something I could spare to lose that might interest him. I pulled out the radar detector I’d used to prevent getting a ticket on the way down. It would be nice to have in Mexico, too, but I couldn’t figure out what other item I might be willing to part with. “How about this? It’s an Escort Passport 9500ix Radar Detector. Retails for around five hundred dollars.”
“Five.”
I was beginning to think five was the only word this guy knew in English. “The radar detector and my last hundred dollars?”
He climbed from the Dumpster, then pointed at my backpack. “How about that shotgun?”
Now that was an idea I was far less than crazy about. “Sorry.”
“Then find another ride.”
“I have other things. Night-vision monocular, binoculars…”
“The shotgun.”
Time was ticking by, and I still had to procure a car on the Mexican side of the border and had hours of driving ahead of me. I couldn’t afford to wander the mall looking for another lift. I could just pull the shotgun on him, but in order to get across the border, I needed the guy to be on my side, not fearing for his life and looking to tip off the border patrol.
I unwedged the shotgun from the pack. I was about to take out the shells I’d loaded when he snatched the weapon from my hands.
“OK,” he said. “Sold.”
Borrowed, I thought, growing less and less happy with my ride.
He stashed the shotgun in the truck’s cab, then circled to the back and started shoving cardboard aside. He cleared the bottom of the truck bed, lifted out a panel to reveal a shallow box underneath, a space he likely used to smuggle drugs or people into the United States. Or maybe guns and cash back to Mexico.
I had to wonder if the beat-up nature of the pickup was just a cover. This guy seemed to be quite enterprising. All in all, that was a good sign, at least. He seemed to be as comfortable with smuggling as he was with driving a hard bargain, not the type who would show stress under the border patrol’s suspicious gaze.
“You fit in there, I take you across.”
I climbed into the truck bed and scrunched myself into the tiny space on my side, my knees pressed to my chest, my backpack with my remaining treasures wedged in beside me.
“Now I cl
ose and cover with cardboard, si?”
I took a deep breath of fresh air. “Si.”
He fitted the panel over me, and I was plunged into darkness.
I had a fear of drowning, and I wasn’t fond of heights, but as luck would have it, claustrophobia had never been a particular weakness. I only hoped I could still say that by the time I climbed out.
It seemed to take forever for him to gather the rest of his cardboard haul, but finally the clanging and rustling over me stopped, and the truck started moving.
The border crossing wasn’t far from the mall, and the truck wasn’t moving long. As the hum of tires on concrete slowed, I could feel a surge of adrenaline. My focus became sharper, my senses honed. The vehicle moved, then stopped, inching closer as each car passed through. The line wouldn’t be long. Even with the extra security looking for me, it would be our turn soon.
My pulse thumped in my ears, my breathing so loud in the tight space, it seemed the border guards must hear. Voices reached me, low and authoritative, but catching the words was impossible. Cardboard shifted and scraped above, moving around the truck bed.
I reached for the Jericho, finding just enough room to slip it from my waistband. If they found the panel in the truck’s bed, things would get messy. And while I hated the idea of shooting border agents, letting them take me was not only bad for me, it meant thousands of people in Mexico would die.
Maybe more.
Not much of a choice.
A round already in the chamber, I slid my finger along the outside of the trigger guard and waited. I smelled exhaust from the idling truck mixed with the scent of my sweat, listened to the shifting and voices from above, and there was something else.
A jingle.
The sound was distant, but still distinct. It would probably make Hammett shiver with glee. Me, not so much.
There were a lot of uses for dogs at border crossings, and at this checkpoint, canines were more likely to patrol the northbound lanes, checking for drugs and undocumented workers, than the southbound. Still, with the entire country looking for the woman who assassinated the president, it was possible I was exactly why that dog was here.
Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 86