The Great Crime Spike: A Dystopian Thriller Novel (Liberty Down Book 1)

by Eric M Hill

  Hal listened to Cuning’s plan. Ever the snake. “I’ll do it,” he agreed.

  “Benson’s a hero,” said Cuning.

  “Yes, he is.”

  “He’s sacrificed enough for his country. Both of them have. Wonderful young couple. There’s no need for Benson and Caroline to have to sacrifice more.”

  Hal Cook had never killed anyone. But his ex-mentee had just convinced him that he was capable of murder. “I understand, Mr. President. I’ll be there.”

  The president interrupted his mentor’s rage. “I am sorry it has come to this, Hal. I want you to know that I will always treasure your friendship and tutelage. I wouldn’t be where I am today were it not for you.”

  “How long have you been surveilling me?”

  “How long?” Cuning seemed surprised at the question. “From day one, Hal. You don’t remember? You told me that I should know more about my friends than my enemies. You said friends were more dangerous than enemies. So, day one.”

  For the first time, Hal hung up on the president of the United States. He left the hospital to obey Cuning’s final order.

  Chapter 59

  They arrived at roughly the same time.

  Hal looked at the bench and bunched up his lips at it. His gait toward it was slow. He peered at it as though it was a poisonous snake. He tentatively sat down, awaiting its bite. It was funny, though not really. When the president had told him what he wanted him to do, he wasn’t surprised. It was classic Cuning. Brash, criminal, middle finger diplomacy. Take a decisive, intimidating action against your foes that everyone will know is you, but no one can prove is you.

  “Like passing gas in a crowded elevator,” Cuning was fond of saying. “You may suspect me, but that’s not enough for a conviction.”

  Hal looked around. He wasn’t in a crowded elevator. He was seated on a bench outdoors in Georgetown, surrounded by crowds of night shoppers and people entering and exiting restaurants. They may suspect me, but…

  He was ashamed of himself. It was a bit chilly, but that’s not why his hands were shaking. Something had arisen in him when Cuning told him what he had in mind. Defiant bravado. Steely resolve. Unshakable boldness. The stuff of movies.

  He had made the drive to Georgetown thinking of nothing except his refusal to let that man make him cower in his final moments. Somewhere deep down inside of him it was as though he, one whose character totally disqualified him for the task, had been drafted by fate to heroically represent the resistance that would certainly rise against the man who was trying to become dictator of America.

  But his bravado, resolve, and boldness had behaved as an unfaithful lover. They had left him without warning. Now he sat alone on this wretched bench without even a memory of the runaway bravery that had brought him here.

  His eyes darted from person to person, wondering which one of the shoppers was his assassin. They landed on an attractive, dark-haired woman. She wore big sunglasses, even though it was evening. Both of her hands were in the deep pockets of the long, loose knit sweater she wore.

  Hal’s eyes fixed on her pockets. She had a gun. He knew it. She walked toward him. His eyes never left her pockets. Some deeds are best done in the open for all the world to see, Cuning had told him. Sitting on a bench with a bull’s eye on him while a hundred people walked by definitely qualified.

  The woman walked within ten feet of the bench and abruptly stopped. Hal’s heart nearly stopped, too. She turned in his direction and appeared to look over him across the street. But she wasn’t looking across the street. Those out of place sunglasses didn’t fool him. She was looking at him. He knew it.

  The assassin’s hand whipped out of her deep pocket and came up. Hal saw the dark object in her hand and filled the front of his pants. The only thing stopping him from filling the back of his pants was the bench pressed against his butt.

  “Over here,” she yelled, clutching a small handbag. She looked both ways and crossed the street.

  Tears rolled inconspicuously out of Hal’s eyes. Tears of relief. This was premature.

  Ashley focused on the chief of staff’s head through her rifle’s night scope from three-hundred yards away.

  Hal took a deep breath. He even managed a frightened smile. Thank God. She’s not here to kill me, he thought.

  Then his head exploded.

  Ashley broke down her sniper’s rifle and placed each piece into a small case. She went to the restroom and looked into the mirror, examining her disguise with a confident smile. She was a ghost. Ashley calmly exited the hotel room with her case and took the stairs.

  Next stop, Dr. Anderson and that chief.

  Chapter 60

  Anderson was too numb with the loss of his daughter and too determined with the necessity of national survival to feel anything when the pervert, mass murdering child-killer T1 said in a weak, defiant, and chilling last breath, “You can’t kill us all.”

  “Perhaps, but I can kill you,” said Anderson.

  “Dr. Anderson,” said Chief King, walking into the room with an anxious expression, “that Cuning may get what he wants. They’re saying Congress may give him STOP.”

  Anderson turned from the dead predator on the table at the news of the predator in the White House. “He wants more than STOP, Chief. That’s just the setup for what he’s really after.”

  “I know. He’s got us between a rock and a hard place. We need STOP to get rid of these predators once and for all. He needs STOP to become king of the hill. Really, king of the Hill. You vote against him, you’re voting for the predators. You vote for him, you’re asking for a dictator. He’s riding a wave no one can stop.”

  “That’s not necessarily true.”

  “Oh,” said the chief. “You know something I don’t?” The chief grinned at his words. “I mean beyond the obvious smartest man to ever live stuff?”

  “I’ve got the VCE director in custody.”

  Chief King looked at Anderson without moving. It seemed that even his blood had stopped circulating. Finally, he said, “VCE as in the VCE?”

  “Yes, the director of the Department of Violent Crime Eradication, Jacob Kellerman, is in my custody.”

  “What exactly do you mean your custody?”

  “I mean I had him kidnapped. He’s being guarded now by my people.” Then Anderson hit him with the second of the one-two punches. “And by a DIGO agent. Mitch Alvarez. He’s a good man.”

  The chief went back into still mode. Anderson mirrored him.

  “An agent from the Department of Integrity,” he emphasized, “and Government Oversight has conspired with you to kidnap Jacob Kellerman?”

  “Not exactly. I kidnapped Agent Alvarez. Now he’s working with us.”

  Chief King’s hands went to his face and rubbed as he groaned. “For the moment, I am going to make myself forget what you just told me so that I can ask you this. DIGO is working with you to do what?”

  “Two things. Convincing Kellerman to talk. And keeping him alive long enough to talk.”

  “To whom, about what?”

  “Lots of things, but murder mainly. Government-sponsored murder.”

  “Cuning?”

  “Who else?” Anderson’s phone sounded. He listened. Chief King saw Anderson go rigid. “Okay,” said Anderson, “we’ll wait here.”

  “What was that all about?” asked King.

  “That was FBI. Nancy. The director. It’s Cuning. He’s put out a hit on me.”

  King was livid. “That—”

  “And on you, Chief. You and your family. We gotta get out of here now.”

  King thought about this development a few seconds. That didn’t make sense, but stray bullets killed just as dead as those aimed with purpose. “You told her we’d wait here. We’re going to need protection.”

  “I told that to whoever was listening to our conversation. And anyway, I trust Nancy, not the FBI. We need to get out of here. And we need to get Kellerman to Capitol Hill.”

  “Another thi
ng, Dr. Anderson.”

  Anderson looked, waiting.

  “It’s on the news. The president’s chief of staff was killed. Assassinated in Georgetown. There’s talk of a sniper. There’s no way Kellerman’s ever going to make it to Capitol Hill alive.”

  This was shocking news. There was no doubt in Anderson’s mind that this wasn’t Cuning. But why would one snake swallow the other? What had happened to cause such a falling out? Or was Cuning merely following the path of other power grabbers—shutting down possible rivalries by wiping out allies who had dirt on him? But Cook? The man would kill the one who had helped him the most?

  “I need to get home, Dr. Anderson.”

  “They’re expecting that.”

  “I don’t care. My wife and little girls are there. I’m going home.” He pulled out his phone.

  “They’ll be listening,” said Anderson.

  “Fine. Let ‘em listen.”

  Ana answered the phone. “Hey, hon, what’s up?”

  “Ohh, just about everything. Reminds me of that crazy walk in the woods we took in Oregon. You need Superman to deal with some of this crap. Gotta have eyes in the back of your head.”

  “Oh, sounds like just another day at the office,” Ana said, playfully. “Why Superman and not Batman?”

  “Can’t trust him. He wears a mask,” he joked.

  “You got a point,” Ana said. “So I take it you’re working late tonight.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “When can we expect you?”

  “Depends on who I run into first, Superman or Batman.”

  “I’ll let the girls know. Love you.”

  “Tuck them in with a good Marines strike story for me. Tell Tracy to listen to her sister. Love you, too, Ana.”

  Dr. Anderson looked befuddled at Chief King. He took his phone from his inside coat pocket and put it in his pant pocket and pressed his hand against his thigh. He motioned for the chief to do the same. He did. “What was that?” he whispered.

  “I told Ana that we were in grave danger, and that the government was out to get us. I told her that I’d get there as soon as possible, but that I may run into trouble on the way. That she can’t trust anyone, not even the good guys. Told her to get the girls ready for engagement and to tell the little one to get over not getting a clean shot at the predator she popped. You know she’s only six. She’s really sensitive about not being as good a shot as her sisters. She’s had a hard time getting over aiming at that predator’s back and shooting him in the butt. Things go down, she needs to follow Lauren’s lead. She needs to be a Marine.”

  “All of that from Superman and Batman,” said Anderson.

  “We’re a family of Marines. You can’t wait for the crisis to make your plan. We gotta stop talking and get out of here,” said King. “I don’t want a firefight going down at my house without being there.”

  “All we’ve got to do is make it there,” said Dr. Anderson.

  Chief King thought of his family. His expression turned hard. “Oh, we’re gonna make it.”

  Chapter 61

  The last thing Anderson wanted was FBI protection. For no matter how careful Nancy was in coordinating their pickup and transportation, the news would inevitably make it to the president. With Cuning’s background, it was not farfetched to assume that he would then orchestrate a coincidental “terrorist” attack on them and the FBI agents transporting them as they were in route. It wouldn’t be the first time he sacrificed his own team.

  “Chief,” said Anderson, as they walked, “when you were talking to Ana…Batman was the bad guy.”

  “Yep.” The chief’s eyes went left and right, up and down inside the huge jail, scanning, assessing, planning.

  “We’re definitely going to meet up with Batman on the road,” said Anderson.

  “Dr. Anderson, we’re going to have to go through Batman to get on the road.”

  Anderson’s gait quickened to match the chief’s. He looked around, not as inconspicuously as the chief had done. He looked at the cameras. That snake is probably squeezing himself as he watches, he thought. Anderson flipped the camera his middle finger for several strides and mouthed the words to America’s most powerful and dangerous predator. “You’ve got a plan to get us out of here, Chief? I mean, alive?”

  “Yep. Shoot to hell anybody who tries to stop us.”

  “Hmp, that’s…efficient. I was hoping for something a bit more elaborate,” he quipped.

  They turned a corner and briskly walked past several large portraits in the Hall of Fallen Heroes.

  “That’s going to be difficult to do with no guns,” said Anderson.

  “That’s where the elaborate part comes in,” said the chief. “Still in shape? You still run?”

  “Not competitively, but yeah. I still manage to get in a run when I’m not saving the world…and do some strength training.”

  “Good. For now, though, we’re going to keep walking. We’re going to go through the checkpoints and head toward the gun lockers.”

  Anderson cut his eyes up to a surveillance camera. “They’ll be waiting on us.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  Chapter 62

  They made it past two checkpoints without incident. One more to go before the chief’s exit plan was in full throttle. Funny, it had seemed foolish a year ago when he was devising an exit plan. An exit plan that on the surface seemed more paranoia than Marine. But wasn’t it the paranoid Marines who lived to prove their sanity? Nonetheless, his plan had been devised to get away from Feds on the outside, not from his own people on the inside.

  Chief King looked at the guard at the end of the hall before them. James. A good guy—but how good? Even from a distance of thirty feet, there was something about him that wasn’t right. Like the calm before an ambush.

  The chief knew the guard didn’t have a gun. Or more accurately, he knew the gun on the officer’s side was a smart gun that couldn’t fire unless the person looking through the camera had activated it. All standard operating procedure to keep guns out of the hands of predators, or anyone so inclined to help a predator.

  He could only do something with help from Control, thought King, as they neared.

  Officer James Charles looked at the chief and nodded to him. Then he did something the chief thought peculiar. He turned his back to them for a few moments and lowered his head before turning back around and giving the chief a brief wave as he and Anderson approached the fiberglass turnstile.

  The turnstile.

  Chief King’s belly went sick. It could all end right here. That was the thing about plans. They so often told you to kiss their butts. Officer Charles could simply not punch the code. They’d be stuck. Or if the president hadn’t gotten to him and had gotten to whomever was watching them from Control, the turnstile still wouldn’t turn.

  The turnstile had the same effect on Anderson. “You thinking Batman?”

  “Yep,” the chief said, as he and Officer Charles looked into one another’s eyes. The officer dropped his.

  “Dr. Anderson,” the chief motioned him forward, as he continued to gaze at the guard.

  Anderson pulled his phone out and stepped into the turnstile. He pressed a button as the officer looked down at his control pad with a puzzled expression.

  “What’s wrong Officer Charles?” asked Chief King.

  “I don’t know. I’m punching in the code. Nothing’s happening.”

  “I thought that might happen,” Anderson said calmly, with a smile. “I love technology, but it’s not foolproof.” He spoke into the phone as he looked at the image on its screen. “Director Fulcrum—”

  “Are you okay?” the director asked anxiously. “My agents’ ETA is 22 minutes.”

  “Yes, Chief King and I are okay. We’re still here at the jail. Presently, I’m stuck in a turnstile at a checkpoint on the second floor. An Officer…” Anderson looked at Officer James.

  The officer’s face showed his bewilderment. He didn�
��t answer.

  “Officer James Charles,” said Chief King, his eyes now blazing into the man who was keeping him from his family. The guard wouldn’t look at him.

  “Officer James Charles has run into some difficulty getting me out of the turnstile. Ironically, it worked just fine a minute ago for the guy in front of us.” Anderson looked at Officer Charles as he spoke. “FBI Director Fulcrum, would you like to speak to him about this turnstile?” Anderson’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “Really? I don’t see what federal prison has to do with a stuck turnstile, but okay.”

  The officer’s eyes widened.

  Anderson held out the phone through one of the openings in the turnstile. “It’s for you. The FBI director seems to think that she can help you fix this thing.”

  Officer Charles took the phone and looked at the face on the screen. He listened to every word she fumed at him. Four words she said made him feel nauseous. Conspiracy to commit murder.

  “Do we understand one another?” she demanded, not asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the big man answered shakily.

  “Now give the phone back to Dr. Anderson.”

  He did.

  The shaken guard touched a pad on his chest and spoke into its microphone. His face itched terribly with nervous tension as he spoke to his accomplice in Control. He spoke low, but his voice sounded to him like he was on a bullhorn. He knew the chief wouldn’t let this go unanswered. “Uum, I just—I just spoke to the director of the FBI.” His throat was dirt dry. “She uum, we need to…”

  The turnstile turned.

  Anderson walked through. “So there is a connection between stuck turnstiles and federal prison. Who would’ve thought?” he said.

  Chief King wasn’t thinking sarcasm when he walked through the gate. He was thinking three little girls and a wife at home without him when the president of the United States wanted them all dead.

  The guard tried to explain. “Chief, I don’t know what—”

  Officer Charles was thick with muscle like the chief. But he was taller and at least two decades younger. But when the chief’s fist slammed into the taller man’s jaw, gravity made his superior height irrelevant. He hit the floor. Not out, but totally unaware of what planet he was on and of the words that Chief King was yelling at him as his think fingers squeezed his neck and cut the flow of air to his lungs.