by Buck Sanders
“Like a Treasury agent?”
“Try Pentagon. Or Congress.” A new possibility dawned on Slayton. “Or Secret Service… someone with a good war record joins the Service, establishes a credential, gains trust, and bang.”
“That sounds quite plausible to me, Mr. Slayton.”
Karl Baal stood ahead of them on the crude path, holding an Ingram gun. He jerked his head, and Merriott emerged from the foliage behind Slayton and Wilma, calmly holding a fragmentation grenade.
“His pants are gone, Lieutenant,” Merriott said, yanking out the pin and brandishing the grenade.
“Don’t make for the bayonet, Slayton,” said Baal, anticipating his foe’s move. “Blink. Twitch. Anything,
and Merriott will blow your insides all over this charming parcel of land.” He looked down. “What did happen to your pants, Slayton? Are you playing the primitive, now? Or did this well-toned little fraulein sweet-talk them off?” His eyes glinted like steel marbles.
“Why don’t you just kill us, he-man?” said Wilma defiantly, “instead of putzing around like a wimp?”
“As Commander Bathurst would say, it’s not sporting, my dear.” His eyes never left Slayton.
Slayton jumped on the opportunity. “You and me, Baal. Alone. Hand-to-hand. Let’s see how good you really are.”
“Interesting odds to ponder, Mr. Slayton. Would I win? Perhaps even lose? But it’s academic. You have the mien of an escaped lunatic; I have Merriott and a gun. You are in no position to offer such a contest. Fuck you.” He gestured with the Ingram. “Move over there please, next to the tree.”
Merriott observed them from outside Slayton’s reach. As Slayton turned slowly, passing Wilma, he said, “Look behind Baal” in a whisper.
She glanced back. Baal smiled. Merriott was too interested in Slayton and the live grenade to notice what she saw: a man with long black hair, an Indian perhaps, tilting a loaded crossbow toward them from behind a tangle of creepers to Baal’s right.
“Merriott,” said Baal. “What would you say to just bringing back their heads?” Baal clearly enjoyed hearing his own voice.
“Anything,” Merriott said. “Let’s just cut the shit, okay Ba… ”
Slayton dived, knocking Wilma roughly to the ground. She heard the rush of air and the hollow thunk.
The thunk was Marriott’s head being nailed to the thick tree trunk by a bronze-tipped crossbow shaft. His body jerked spasmodically. The thump that followed was Merriott dropping the live grenade. Slayton used the mo
mentum of his fall to tumble Wilma behind a fallen trunk of similar girth. He saw Baal’s mouth drop open. The assassin fired a reflexive burst in their direction before leaping to cover. Bullets stitched through the tree, the grass, and Merriott.
The thunderclap of noise stung their ears and vibrated the ground. The base of the tree disintegrated along with Merriott, showering a multidirectional spray of blood and splintered wood everywhere. Slayton saw Merriott’s head twirl away and splash into the river.
Through the gray smoke and falling debris, Slayton saw Baal, standing and peppering the trees with machine-gun fire like a madman, yelling, “Habreau! Habreau! I’ll see your wretched family rots in hell for this! Hear me, Habreau, you bastard! I’ll burn you out! Show yourself, coward pig filth!”
Thunk.
Baal did not scream, but dropped the spent Ingram gun into the mud to clutch at the bolt sunk into his left thigh, protruding completely through his leg.
Slayton shook off the stunning effects of the concussion, got to his feet, and loped toward the fallen Baal. Filling his fist with Baal’s shirt front, he dragged the bloodied German mercenary up out of the mud. -
“Now it ends, Baal. For you.” He cocked back and let Baal have it right on the jaw. The German’s head snapped backward, but Slayton held him fast.
That sadist Baal raped me, Wilma’s voice echoed in his head. It was horrible!
Baal shot up an arm, and Slayton’s second blow glanced sideways. “What’s the matter, government man?” Baal choked. “Find it hard to take a wounded adversary?” He whipped up suddenly, getting both hands on Slayton’s throat and clamping tight.
Wilma saw the Indian approach, cocking another shaft into’ his antique crossbow, ready to puncture Baal’s skull.
She shook her head no when he saw her. He stood near the two struggling men, impassively looking on. Slayton groped for the scabbard strapped to his leg and discovered it was empty. Baal hung on.
Hovering over them, the Indian said, “This man is stronger than you, Baal. Your power has been removed. Give it up.”
“Fuck yourself, you swamp-sucking animal!” Baal snarled. He shoved the weakening Slayton backward and gained the leverage of his good leg.
The Indian only shook his head, mournfully.
The sadistic gleam returned to Baal’s eyes as he strangled Slayton. “See how it feels!” he shouted. “Feel your life leaving you, and know that you have been bested by Karl Baal!” Slayton’s face went alarmingly purple.
Baal continued to taunt as Slayton groped feebly at his viselike grip. “Quite a pair, your whore and you, Slayton! I had her on her knees as well!” He lunged forward, trying to knock Slayton completely down onto his back. The thick, black mud shifted beneath them like lava as they grappled.
Slayton had been waiting for the move, the only time when Baal would be off-balance. He pivoted a kick into Baal’s groin, and as Baal’s body went rigid, Slayton rolled out and reversed, shoving Baal’s face into the mud.
Sweat was rolling off Slayton’s face. Baal’s hands had left white impressions on his throat. Baal thrashed and flailed like a shark out of water, but Slayton bore down on the man’s neck and kept his face sunk into the black slime. The tip of the bolt in Baal’s leg was near Slayton’s calf, coated with gore. Slayton shifted and put his knee into the small of Baal’s back. The mercenary was almost out of air.
As Baal began to go limp, Slayton hauled his face out of the suffocating muck by the hair. He face was caked with mud, his blue eyes glazed over.
Slayton was panting like an animal. “See how it feels,” he rasped. He jacked his arm around Baal’s chin and bore down on his knee, yanking upward. Baal’s back splintered apart like a piece of dry cordwood. The body stiffened for a second, then went as loose and lifeless as a puppet with cut strings. Slayton released, and the corpse plunged back into the sucking, dark ooze.
“You messed him up good,” said the Indian, helping Slayton to his feet. He nudged Baal’s carcass with his toe. “I am Habreau.”
“So I gathered,” Slayton said, standing and brushing himself off. “You saved our lives just now, you know.”
“I had to help you. You and the young woman would have died.”
“You live in these parts?”
“Yonder,” Habreau said, pointing west. “These outlaws stole my farmland to use as a practice range. I once had a fine sugar crop.” Habreau’s eyes grew sad, then regained some of their fire. “Now I have a cause. I have been ambushing these Brigade assholes for weeks, but never have I caught a fish like Baal.”
“How long have you been at this?”
“For weeks I have hunted them. I thought it was useless to wait for them to do me further wrong, to wait for them to kill my family, before I might act. But yesterday I discovered the body of my friend Jacques Telemacques, who never harmed anyone, who had a lovely young daughter, who is probably now dead.”
“Orial is dead,” said Wilma. “But Ben killed the man who did it.”
“It was Baal,” Slayton confirmed.
Habreau spit on Baal’s motionless corpse. “Then to you, sir, I am doubly obliged. Orial has at least been avenged, and so has Jacques. Glad to be of service to you both. Now, I think, I must continue the hunt. You?”
Gunfire rang in the distance. Wilma stole a glance at Slayton, her eyes wide. “We should go, try to find the airfield.”
Habreau laughed, “You are there, miss. It is right beyond th
is grove of trees.” Slayton looked through the brush, noticing the clearing up ahead.
“Are you in danger now?” asked Wilma as Habreau started to leave.
“No,” the Indian said, “they are not looking for me. I will hide where they can’t find me. It is you who must go —now. I can hide so they can’t find me.”
Slayton called after him, “Is there an airplane at the field?”
Habreau didn’t look back. “The hangar on the north side. In the forest.” He rounded the corner of the stream and disappeared from sight.
Slayton surveyed the airfield. A lone Brigade guard, not one of the soldiers on the hunt, waited silently at one end of the dirt access road leading from the runway. Slayton estimated the hunters would catch up to them in five minutes.
“Wilma,” he said, “stay here with the gun. After you count to fifty, listen for the airplane’s engine and haul ass over to where the guard is now. Try to keep him alive, but kill him if necessary.”
“I don’t know how to use this thing, really,” she con- fessed, staring at the machine gun in her hands.
“Don’t worry. Just make certain you have a good grip on it, and don’t fall over if you have to start shooting.”
He left her, running the length of the clearing while the guard focused his attention on something moving toward the runway. It was a Big Mac semi truck, loaded to the gills with large black crates.
Wilma figured this was an arms shipment coming in from the New Orleans port. She crept stealthily to the edge of the runway, hidden by a line of tall shrubs, about twenty yards from the guard.
Slayton had discovered the hangar and its contents, a gassed-up Cessna four-seater. He “hot-wired” the engine, a laborious process that filled out the better part of two minutes. It was two minutes they desperately needed.
The truck driver showed the guard a shipping order. “Twelve cases. Do you have some way of unloading my rig?”
The guard shook his head. “We’ll hafta move them by hand.”
Wilma couldn’t make out their conversation, instead concentrating on the weapons crates. She noticed three large boxes marked “grenades.”
The sound of the airplane revving distracted the guard and truck driver. Wilma stood up from behind the bushes and opened fire, sending a volley at the area in front of the Mac truck, hitting the guard twice in the back and catching the driver in a leg.
“Don’t kill me,” said,the trucker as Wilma approached. She was slyly apologetic, “The gun went out of control. I just meant to scare you.”
She helped the man back into his truck, telling him not to move, that assistance would arrive. She had no idea what to say as the Brigaders swept through the outer periphery of the clearing, and she had to make a dash toward the plane.
Slayton was hauling ass over the runway by now; the plane was warmed up and ready to go. Wilma met him as the plane taxied into position. It stopped, and she boarded.
“Why did you mow them down like that?” Slayton asked.
“I’m sorry, I told you I can’t work one of these god- amn machine guns!“ t Although the Brigaders spit ammo at the plane as it lifted from the runway, they were too far away to do any real damage by the attack… A few stray bullets ripped through the rear fuselage.
They had been up for a couple of minutes when Slayton spoke.
“I think we should divert away from New Orleans,” he said. “There will probably be a welcoming committee of assassins ready to jump us after we land.”
“Where can we go? How much time do we have?” Wilma spoke anxiously.
“Calm down. I’ll head toward Baton Rouge. We’ll make it; we have a full tank.”
The Brigade helicopter careened into view. Slayton went into a harrowing altitude plunge, avoiding a collision with the whirly-bird.
“Where was it? I didn’t see it coming at us!” Wilma clung to the cabin seat.
“They were following below us,” Slayton said. “Can you see them?”
Wilma nodded. “Yeah, and they’re opening the sliding door. It’s a huge gun, a rocket launcher or something.”
Ben increased the speed, pulling far ahead of the deadly helicopter, giving them plenty of time to breathe again. The Brigaders moved out of range, turning back to camp, unable to pursue the Cessna.
Wilma cheered at the sight. “Bathurst, eat your mother-fucking heart out!”
An orange glow of sunlight followed the plane over the bayou. Wilma dressed the bullet wound on Slayton’s arm, using a first aid kit in the storage compartment under her seat. Washington was six hours away.
The President’s address was tomorrow.
13
April 14. Twenty-four hours till National Tax Day.
There was no time to clean up before their flight to the Capitol. Wilma and Ben were ragged and tired, clothed in khaki duds supplied by the Air Force escort which had brought them cross-country. Winship was certain The Brigade would attempt the assassination, based on what Slayton had told him on the phone the previous evening. Security was beefed up considerably, even at the secret location where the President would deliver his address.
Up until ten minutes before the President went on the air live, Slayton and Winship were sweating it out in the Treasury Department’s basement computer facility. Sorting out leads, info obtained from The Brigade and personal hunches, Slayton was narrowing down a list of possible suspects, trying to determine who at the Capitol would be most likely to have access to the chief executive, to get close enough during the speech to kill him.
“We’ve exhausted every potential file here, Slayton,” Winship moaned. “Let’s get over to the Supreme Court Building.”
“How much time is there?” Slayton was hunched over the terminal, flipping through data, tying it all together.
“About nine minutes. It’ll take us a few minutes just to run over there in time.”
“You go ahead of me, Ham.”
“Look, Ben, we have run all the Pentagon files on war deserters, all the obituaries we could find, secret dossiers on Vietnam intelligence reports, etcetera. What else is there?”
“You want to go down in history as the fellow who let a terrorist in the front door to kill the President?”
“There are twenty, I repeat, twenty extra Secret Service men on guard in the building, armed Army personnel blocking off the entire building, military police watching over the streets. How much security do you want?”
“No one should be with the President.”
“Oh, that’s right. You thought the killer would be one of our Secret Service boys.”
“It’s more than a possibility. It’s the only terminal cross-checking I have left to do. Then I run out of time.”
“I’ll go on, but remember, you have six minutes.” Winship left the room at- -a fast clip. There would be hell to pay if he didn’t inform the Secretary of State that Slayton was unable to identify the killer. The address still had to go on as scheduled—the President was adamant on that point.
Army jeeps parked in front of the Supreme Court Building formed a barricade, with reporters filing in behind it as MP’s directed traffic.
Winship conferred with General Scott, who was in charge of the military security precautions, near the television cameras in Room C. The press-conference room had been abandoned as a site for the broadcast—too many ways a man could attack the President and exit in a hurry. Room C was enclosed except for one door, and could only hold fifty or sixty people, as opposed to the press room’s hundred and fifty.
“We’re going,” said Scott, lifting his thumb at Winship. “Slayton hasn’t left the computer room yet,” said Winship. “He’s certain the assassination is still on.”
“I think he’s full of shit. There’s no way an unauthorized person could get in here to shoot the President.”
The President spoke on a variety of topics, ranging from international terrorism to the economy to crime and violence in America. He was not overly nervous, although he ran through hi
s glass of water in about two minutes, and kept getting refills. Nothing unusual occurred; all stations were secure.
A phone call for Winship.
“There’s a Mr. Slayton out here, sir.” It was the guard at the Room C door. “Says he’s found his man.”
“Send him in, by all means.”
The guard walked over to Slayton and nodded yes. Ben had sprinted full-speed from the computer facility, racing up the sidewalk, praying out loud, “Let me get there in time.” This armed moron was doggedly getting permission, wasting time. With the affirmative reply, Slayton jogged to the door, telling the guard, “Leave this door open; don’t close it.”
The MP didn’t get a chance to answer back; Slayton vanished into the room.
The President was concluding a line “…and we shall never give in to the demands of arrogant, radical terrorists if…” He was stifled by the commotion as Ben Slayton walked quickly in front of the cameras, lining himself up with the chief exec and facing the cadre of Secret Service men to the left of the podium.
Slayton’s coat opened; the Smith & Wesson came out. From where Winship and Scott stood, it looked as though his gun was pointed directly at the President. Scott was about to sound the alarm when Slayton stamped one foot on the floor.
“Duca! Steven Thomas Duca!” he yelled.
The gun swung over three feet to a secret Service guard stationed very close to the President. The man was taking a step forward when Slayton’s command made him freeze.
“On the floor, Duca!” Slayton said, as the room buzzed with reaction.
Duca, a tall genial-looking man with dark hair and bushy sideburns, made a rush for the President. His arms were outstretched, as if about to give him a huge hug.
Slayton fired into Duca’s chest, knocking the man to the floor, with blood squeezing out of a gaping bullet hole. He attempted to stand, again moving toward the President.
Winship called to three guards on their way to subdue Slayton, “Don’t touch that man.”
Slayton pumped shot after shot into the incredibly strong Secret Service man. Duca staggered to the left, falling over with four chest and stomach wounds, yet still trying to lunge forward. The President was retrieved by guards and protected, then moved slowly to the opposite end of the room.