“But it’s the business of the American people, isn’t it? The government works for them.”
“Does it?” Baldwin said. “As far as I can tell, the past few Democratic administrations have taken the view that the people work for the government, not the other way around.”
Alexis wasn’t happy that Baldwin had gotten that shot in, Stark thought. And Travis Jessup wasn’t happy because Alexis hadn’t let him get a word in edgewise so far. He was holding a microphone and looking like an eager little boy waiting anxiously for his part in the school play. Alexis was the one acting more like a crusading journalist, though.
“All right, go ahead and lead the way,” she told Baldwin. “Just don’t think you’re going to get away with glossing over the truth.”
“That wasn’t my intention,” Baldwin said as he held out a hand to indicate that Alexis should precede him out of the office.
She did, and he went with her, followed closely by Travis Jessup. The other two members of the news crew trailed Jessup.
Stark brought up the rear.
The woman with the camera lowered it. She wasn’t shooting at the moment. She hung back a little until Stark’s long-legged strides caught up with her, and then she said, “You should be up there with the others, Mr. Stark.”
Stark shook his head and said, “I’m not the story here. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what the story is.”
“The government’s got those men locked up because they’re Muslims.”
“Nope. They’re locked up because they’re terrorists who have murdered American citizens and plotted to kill even more. They’re fanatics who want to destroy this country.”
The woman lowered her voice to a confidential tone and said, “Don’t tell anybody, but I sort of agree with you. Not everybody in the media swears blind allegiance to the left, you know.”
“Enough do that it’s hard to get the truth out there. Getting harder all the time.”
The woman shrugged and said, “We’ve got to eat. This is our job.” She put out her hand. “I’m Riley Nichols.”
“John Howard Stark,” he said as he shook with her.
“My buddy up there with the sound equipment is Joel Fanning.”
“He share your political opinions?”
Riley said, “Not hardly. Neither does Travis.”
“You’d think anybody who nearly got his career ended by a Democratic First Lady wouldn’t be as sympathetic to their cause anymore.”
“You know about that, eh?”
“I remember reading something about it,” Stark said.
“Well, even with what happened to Travis, he’s still a true believer. For a lot of people in the media, liberal politics is their religion, you know. Their faith in the government rises above everything else. Unless, of course, a Republican happens to be running things, like the governor here in Texas. Then government can’t be trusted.”
“Must be hard for you, seeing things different than the people you work with.”
“I’ve learned how to put up with it,” Riley said with a grin. “A healthy application of scotch and a little mental elbow grease wipes away most of the stains.”
The two of them had dropped back about twenty feet behind the others as Baldwin led the group along a corridor. Stark enjoyed talking to Riley Nichols and felt an instinctive liking for her. Not in any romantic way—she was half his age—but he sensed that they were kindred spirits in some respects.
But the conversation didn’t continue because Travis Jessup looked back over his shoulder with an irritated expression on his patrician face and motioned for Riley to catch up.
The group had reached a door that Stark recognized, and as Baldwin opened that door, he said, “I’ll start by showing you our library.”
“That’s not—” Alexis began impatiently.
Baldwin interrupted by saying, “You told me I could conduct the tour as I saw fit, Ms. Devereaux, as long as you get to see what you wanted to see. I want the American people to get a true picture of this facility, and that includes more than just locking up prisoners.”
“Oh, all right,” Alexis said in obvious annoyance. “Just get it over with.”
They stepped into the library, first Baldwin, then Alexis, then the news crew, and finally Stark. On the other side of the room, behind the counter, Lucas Kincaid looked up from the computer where he’d been working and stared in surprise as the visitors entered.
Stark was a little surprised, too.
Because just for a second it had looked to him like Kincaid was scared.
And he had a hunch that not many things in this world scared Lucas Kincaid.
In this day and age, the only way to escape surveillance cameras entirely was to find a piece of wilderness isolated enough that nobody ever came there, pitch a tent, build a fire, and squat for the rest of your life.
But even then, a man wouldn’t be completely safe. Kincaid had heard through some of his contacts that the intelligence agencies—which now answered only to the president, not Congress, since that august body had dissolved its oversight committees and abdicated yet another of its responsibilities to their dear Democratic leader—had such powerful satellite capabilities that they could zero in from space on an area no more than ten feet square.
They could spy on anybody on the face of the earth . . . and they did, if that somebody was deemed to be a political enemy of the man in the White House.
So Kincaid knew he was taking a chance on discovery, just by continuing to live his life.
But what was the point if you had to spend the rest of your days deep in hiding?
That wasn’t living. That was just existing.
And it wasn’t worth it.
It didn’t hurt anything, though, to try to minimize the chances of being seen by somebody who would recognize him and want to kill him.
For that reason, he didn’t want those people coming into the library with their camera. The last thing in the world he needed was to have his face plastered all over the news broadcasts.
Wasn’t much he could do about it now, though. They were in here, coming toward the counter, and if he tried to duck and refused to be on camera, that would be even more suspicious.
So he kept his face blandly expressionless as the group came up to him. Warden Baldwin said to the blond woman with him, “This is our library supervisor, Lucas Kincaid.”
Kincaid wasn’t worried about the name being recognized.
That wasn’t the name he had used in the killing fields on the other side of the world. Over there he had still been known by the name he was born with.
“Lucas,” Baldwin went on, “this lady is Ms. Alexis Devereaux.”
The name was vaguely familiar to Kincaid, but he couldn’t place it. He nodded politely to the woman and said, “I’m pleased to meet you, Ms. Devereaux.”
“I wish I could say the same,” she responded.
Her cold, sneering tone made Kincaid realize where he had seen her before—on TV, appearing as a liberal commentator on various news and opinion shows. Although in reality the line between “news” and “opinion” had long since disappeared where liberals were concerned, Kincaid reminded himself.
She didn’t offer to shake hands, so Kincaid didn’t, either, and was glad of it.
“Tell me, Mr. Kincaid,” Alexis Devereaux went on, “are the inmates allowed to use this library?”
“Well, that’s sort of what it’s here for,” Kincaid said.
“All the inmates?”
He had a hunch he knew what she was getting at, but he said, “All the ones who have library privileges. That’s like any other privilege. It can be taken away for various reasons.”
“Behavioral reasons,” Baldwin put in. “There are other privileges that men who cause trouble lose.”
“Have the new prisoners caused any trouble so far?” Alexis asked quickly.
Kincaid saw the warden wince at the way Alexis pounced on that. Baldwin said, “As a matter of
fact, they haven’t—”
“So are they allowed to use the library?”
“Not at the moment. They’re still confined to their own wing—”
“So they’re being treated differently from other prisoners, simply because of their religion.”
Alexis sounded pleased with herself for scoring that point.
“That’s not exactly an accurate description of the situation,” Baldwin argued. “Remember, those men have been here less than a week. We’re still figuring out what our procedures will be for dealing with them. But security is our uppermost concern. Everything else has to come after that.”
“So you’re denying them access to books and the Internet and whatever other services the library offers,” Alexis said, as if she hadn’t heard anything that Baldwin had just told her.
The warden sighed in exasperation. He said, “Eventually we’ll make some provision for those things, once the situation has settled down.”
“When will that be?”
“That’s not really up to me, is it? You’re the one who brought a news crew in here to stir everything up.”
Kincaid thought the warden’s frustration must have gotten the best of him. Otherwise Baldwin wouldn’t have made a comment like that. He was just playing into Alexis Devereaux’s hands.
Once again, she pounced like a tigress.
“Stirring everything up? You think getting to the truth and telling it to the American people is stirring everything up, Warden?”
“We’re not trying to hide anything here,” Baldwin insisted stiffly. “Why don’t we move on? I think we’ve seen everything here that there is to see.”
Kincaid thought for a second that Alexis was going to argue. Maybe she thought Baldwin was trying to cover up something. Maybe she wanted to disagree just on general principles.
But she said, “All right. I’m sure there are plenty of other ways you’re discriminating against those political prisoners, and I want to see them all.”
Baldwin didn’t say anything. Kincaid was sure that was difficult for him.
As Alexis and the warden left the library, the man with the microphone stepped in front of the camera and said, “We continue now with our tour of the notorious Hell’s Gate prison. This is Travis Jessup, reporting from Texas.”
The woman with the camera lowered it and said, “Okay, Travis, we’ll pick it up at the next stop.”
“Fine. Did you get everything here?”
“I did.”
“So did I,” said the tall, bearded man with the sound equipment.
The three of them started to follow Alexis and Baldwin. On their way out, the woman paused for a second and glanced back at Kincaid.
Normally he didn’t mind if a good-looking woman glanced at him, although he wasn’t really in the market for even a fleeting relationship right now, but what he saw in this woman’s eyes bothered him.
He would have sworn that she looked at him with recognition.
But then she was gone along with the others, leaving only John Howard Stark in the library with Kincaid. He expected Stark to go with the group, but the big man ambled over to the counter instead.
“You looked like that took you by surprise,” Stark commented.
“It did,” Kincaid admitted. “I just came in to do a little extra work on a day off. I didn’t expect it to turn into anything.”
“What I’m curious about,” Stark said, “is why you didn’t like having that camera pointed at you. What did you do to make you want nobody to recognize you, Lucas?”
CHAPTER 16
Blood pounded ferociously inside Chuck Gibbs’s skull as he stumbled into the police station’s back door. He had sprinted all the way there.
“Raymond!” he yelled. “Raymond, where are you?”
The dispatcher came out of one of the other rooms and looked confused and upset.
“Chuck, I tried to call you on the radio. There was an explosion, and people are calling about gunshots, and . . . and I couldn’t find you or the chief—”
“It’s all right, Raymond,” Chuck broke in. He leaned over, rested his hands on his knees for a second, and tried to catch his breath. As he straightened, he went on, “Call everybody in. We need help. We’ve been invaded.”
“It’s aliens, isn’t it? I knew it was aliens!”
“Listen to me.” Chuck gripped Raymond’s shoulders. “It’s not aliens. It’s worse. It’s a bunch of crazy Arabs with guns. Not just guns. Grenade launchers. Who knows what the hell else they’ve got. But we have to stop them.”
Chuck heard gunfire coming from down the street. Lots of gunfire. The sound sickened him, because he knew there was a good chance it meant some of Fuego’s citizens were dying.
“Call for help, Raymond,” he went on. “Call anybody and everybody you can think of.”
“O-okay.” Raymond swallowed and nodded. “I can do my job, Chuck.”
Chuck slapped the dispatcher on the shoulder and said, “I know you can, buddy.”
He turned and ran to the big, locked cabinet that served as the station’s armory. The key was on his belt. He unlocked it and swung the door open.
Racked inside were several pump shotguns and a couple of AR-15s. Chuck knew he needed firepower, so he took one of the rifles and grabbed a couple of extended magazines for it as well. Then he took one of the shotguns and placed it on the counter.
Raymond had sat down behind the console and was on the radio, talking as quickly as he could as he told somebody that there was bad trouble in Fuego and they needed help. In his excitement and fear, he stumbled over some of the words, but he kept going, determinedly.
When Raymond paused, Chuck laid a hand on the shotgun and said, “This is for you.”
“But I’m not supposed to handle guns. The chief said so.”
“The chief ’s not here, and I’m making an exception to that rule. Listen to me, Raymond. If men try to come in here and you don’t know them . . . if they have guns and they look like they’re gonna hurt you . . . it’s okay for you to shoot at them.”
Raymond shook his head and said, “I don’t know if I can do that. I might hurt them, and I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Neither do I, but if somebody’s trying to hurt you, it’s okay to stop them, even if it means hurting them. That’s just the way it is. Understand?”
Raymond still looked doubtful, but Chuck didn’t have time to stand around trying to convince him.
He needed to be back out there on the street, doing something. Anything to stop this madness.
But he had a sinking feeling that it was too big and had gone too far to be stopped now.
The scene of wanton slaughter that had taken place in the First Baptist Church had been duplicated in Fuego’s other churches. At each house of worship, a truckload of the Prophet’s followers had pulled up outside, and the heavily armed men had swarmed in to carry out their holy mission of death.
Phillip Hamil’s forces had lost a handful of men. Some of the Americans had been armed. In this damned Texas with its concealed carry laws, some people even took their guns to church, Hamil thought as he listened to the reports from his lieutenants in the command post he had established at the motel. Those pitiful few defenders had put up a fight, but they were no match for Hamil’s men.
Things were going well so far. The only real setback had been the destruction of the police car. One of his men had overreacted to the threat posed by a lone policeman and had blown up the officer’s cruiser.
Hamil had had a use in mind for that car.
But there were other police cars in town, he was sure, and as long as none of them got blown up, his plan could proceed.
Hamil had picked a man named Raffir to take Fareed’s place as his second-in-command. He told Raffir now, “Take men and capture the police station. We want to control any communications from there. Also, you’re to seize any police vehicles and weapons you find.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Raffir said. “And the off
icers?”
“Kill them, of course,” Hamil said offhandedly.
His mind was already moving on to something else.
One tiny, niggling detail annoyed him.
The police officer whose car was blown up had gotten away.
It seemed like wherever Chuck went in Fuego, he heard two things—gunfire and screaming.
He was sick with grief and fear. He wanted to throw up and then crawl in a hole somewhere and pull it in after him.
But he had his duty to perform. He had sworn to uphold the law and protect the citizens, and he was going to do his best to carry out those solemn tasks.
He had another worry gnawing at his guts as he trotted along an alley with the AR-15 held at a slant across his chest.
Three worries, actually.
His parents—and his little brother Ernie.
Chuck hadn’t lived at home for several years. He had an apartment in Fuego’s lone apartment complex. But Ernie did, since he was still in high school. He had talked for a long time about how he was going to move in with Chuck when he graduated. Chuck had tolerated the talk, but he didn’t think it was ever going to happen.
He was still close to his family. He knew that on Sunday morning, his mom and dad would be at the Methodist church. Ernie, more than likely, was at home asleep.
Chuck had decided to head for the church first. He wanted to be sure his folks were all right. If he could find them, then they could try to reach the house and get his little brother.
He stuck to alleys and backyards as he made his way across town toward the church. He didn’t want to get caught in a firefight with the invaders, not because he was afraid—although he was scared shitless, what person in his right mind wouldn’t be?—but because he couldn’t afford to let anything happen to him before he was sure that his family was safe.
He was about a block away from the church when he realized that the shooting had tapered off. That was a bad sign, Chuck thought as he heard pistol shots in the distance, usually one report followed quickly by another.
Stand Your Ground Page 11