Sixteen ounces. One pound. That was what John had to work with to replace the structural service of the support column, while providing room for the cylinder of VZ. He first considered actually using the cylinder as part of the new support column, but discarded that thought after being unable to convince himself that it would not damage the workings of the release and timing mechanisms. He knew all this should have been thought of before Kostin chose the cylinders and filled them, but that was the past. He now had to make the best of what he had. And he finally came up with a solution. It came to him while staring at, not out, a window.
As any carpenter worth his salt knows, when one wishes to place a window in a previously untouched wall, there is the consideration of load that must be addressed. Walls in general home construction are made of a series of studs that run vertically, parallel to each other about sixteen inches apart. These studs form part of the support system of the structure, transferring the load of the roof or stories above to the foundation below. When cutting a window into a wall, several of these studs have to be removed to make an opening of the desired size. This leaves the top portions of the studs hanging, unable to transfer their share of the load to the foundation, and the bottom portions jutting up uselessly. It is the top portions that are critical, though, and the solution to the problem is something called a header. Simply, it is a horizontal piece of lumber, running between the complete outer studs and connecting to the dangling studs, allowing the weight they carry to be transferred to the foundation through the full studs supporting the header. The header allows the load to be transferred around the empty space.
Why not in his mini-construction project? John had thought. No reason at all, was the answer.
To achieve the transfer of load from the cup to the ankle he chose to create a metallic header of titanium that would curve over the top of the cylinder, looking much like the skeletal framework of a dome. This “dome” header then would mate with a skeletal tube, also of titanium, that had a slightly larger interior dimension than the outer dimension of the cylinder. The tube’s bottom was a slightly less curved “foundation” of titanium that was mated to the ankle joint. The design simply took the load around the cylinder as a header and studs carry it around a window opening.
Building the system was the next step, and John went about it using all the skills he’d retained from his early days as a machinist. He had no CNC (computerized numerically controlled) machines to make the precision he desired very easy. And his knowledge, he learned, was not complete, requiring several visits to the library in Richmond and to a welding shop nearby for tutelage. But it did come together, though an ounce over the limit he’d decided upon, requiring that some plastic be shaved from the interior of the cosmetic cover.
And now it was assembly day.
“It fits perfect,” John said, allowing himself a bit of self-congratulation. He deserved it at this point. The work of a man can be judged only by its purpose. Trent’s words were true, but this piece of garage engineering was going to advance a purpose.
“All right, Pop,” Toby said, patting his father’s back. “You did it.”
“We did it.” John twisted the cylinder against the padding tape lining the inside of the skeleton, making certain the timing control would be accessible through the titanium “bones.” He placed the dome header, now attached to the cup, over the top of the cylinder and turned it into twist-notches he’d precut into the top edge of the titanium tube. “Look away.” He held a welder’s mask in front of his own eyes and touched the business end of the arc welder to a single spot where the dome and tube met. A blue light flashed in the confines of the garage, then subsided. John lowered the mask and checked the bond. “Perfect.”
“When do we set it?”
John did a quick calculation. “You’re handing it over next Monday, right?”
“Eight at night.”
“Set it at five forty-five that afternoon,” John instructed. One hundred hours exactly to 9:45 on the following Friday. Forty-five minutes into the speech. John smiled.
“Got it.”
“You can finish the shell after you set the timer,” John said, entrusting that last step to his eldest boy. He would check it, of course. “And don’t forget the charge on the inside of the shell.” The small blasting cap charge, of negligible weight, would be wired to the timer to blow a hole in the shell as the VZ was released.
“Okay, Pop.”
John laid the arc welder on the power unit and switched it off as he looked at the now complete innards of the device. All the rest was cosmetic. What lay before him was the power soon to be unleashed. The power to start anew.
* * *
“Would these guys try and mix with any local groups?” Special Agent David Rogers asked from his position at the head of the table. He was from the Bureau’s Washington headquarters, and was supervising the search for the NALF. His question was directed to Art Jefferson.
“I don’t think so. Our office pieced together a picture of a bunch of bitter loners.” Art considered the question on a deeper level briefly. “I think they’d only hook up with someone if it was necessary to complete whatever they’re up to.”
“Well, we know what assumption we’re working on,” Rogers said.
“David, I’d suggest not going too narrow on their target,” Art said. To his right Frankie nodded. “Not that it’s probably not correct, but these guys have hit like a scattergun. L.A. Utah. Lord knows what they’ve done here.”
“If anything,” another agent suggested. “They could just be laying low.”
“All right, if—”
A knock preceded an agent popping into the conference room. “Agent Jefferson, A-SAC in Los Angeles is on the phone for you.”
Art looked to Rogers.
“Take it in my office,” the lead agent said. “Mike, show him where.”
Art left his partner in the conference and followed his escort to the office one floor down. He closed the door and picked up the indicated line. “Jefferson.”
“Art, Lou. Chester Hart’s AB friends tried to shut him up. And in a nasty way.”
Art knew he had no reason to feel pity for the man. He’d made his own bed, and he’d given them questionable information concerning Freddy Allen in the past in the hope of trading it for whatever he fancied at the moment. But being marked for elimination by the Brotherhood was not a pleasant course for one’s life to take. They were capable of some very heinous acts.
“How bad is he?” Art asked.
“They torched him in the prison yard. Quite a message. He’s in the jail ward at Sacramento General now. Just came out of a coma. Art, he wants to talk.”
Art’s eyes rolled. “He’s talked a lot before, Lou. That’s his game. Talk just enough to curry some favors from us, then apologize when the stuff turns out to be less than stellar information.”
“He says he’s willing to spill everything he knows in trade for movement to PC at a federal prison.”
Protective custody. Hart was not the one to waste a PC cell on. “Lou, he’s blowing smoke.”
“Art, he says it’s about John Barrish.”
Art hadn’t expected that. “Hart said Barrish?”
“I thought you’d be interested in that,” Hidalgo said.
“Lou, I’ve gotta tell you: you’re on the unpopular side of a theory here. D.C. is not inclined to believe that Barrish would link up with the NALF, or vice versa. They were the ones with the VZ, remember?”
“That still wouldn’t mean that Barrish doesn’t have any.”
“But the NALF are the ones who’ve used it,” Art said.
“Giving in, Art?”
“Like hell.”
“Good. Check out Hart. He may actually have something of substance for us this time. Hightail it back to D.C. when you’re done. But keep me informed.”
“Will do.”
TWENTY FIVE
The Gleiwitz Echo
The jail ward at Sacramento Gene
ral Hospital is on the ninth floor and consists of fifty beds in three separate sections. Two thirds of the beds are usually filled, mostly with arrestees or convicts recovering from wounds suffered in the jailhouse. These injuries are treated in the general nursing section. More serious injuries are treated in the surgical recovery section. The most serious casualties are housed in the ICU, or intensive care unit, where medical staff and deputies of the Sacramento County Sheriffs Department tend to their well-being and security.
Chester Hart lay in bed number four, the only resident of the ICU at the moment. His hands and arms were swathed in antibiotic-impregnated gauze, as were his abdomen, chest, and portions of his face. An IV line in his upper leg fed fluids and medicine into his system to prevent dehydration and fight off infection. A sturdy steel shackle connected him to the ICU bed by his ankle.
Art Jefferson entered the jail ward after checking his weapon at the guard station, and the ICU after donning a surgical gown, mask, and gloves. He found his would-be informant awake and staring at the ceiling.
“Chester.”
Hart moved his head as far as it would go to the right, which wasn’t much. His eyes traveled the remainder of the distance until he could see his visitor. He smiled at the black face behind the blue mask. “Black like you, Agent Jefferson.”
“You picked a hard way to change colors,” Art commented, stepping closer so the man did not have to strain.
“Chosen for me,” Hart said. A wet, gurgling laugh followed.
“You got mixed up with some bad boys, Chester.”
“Ah, they’re just protecting their interests,” Hart said. He truly believed that. He understood it perfectly, in fact. It was a credo he now had to live by.
“I hear you want to talk about something,” Art said.
“In trade, Agent Jefferson.” His voice was raspy. From the fire, the doctor had said. It had been sucked in when Hart breathed in its midst. The real concern was to the lung tissue, though. If that was burned in excess the long-term prognosis would not be promising. “More hospitable surroundings.”
“What do you have, Chester?”
“Is it a deal?”
“Tell me what you have and we’ll consider it. I have to hear it first.”
Hart knew he was in no position to bargain. This pig was his lifeline. His only hope to live a long, horribly disfigured life was in barter, and it was apparent he would have to show his goods first.
“Saint Anthony’s,” Hart said, licking his blistered lips. “Freddy was in on it.”
“We figured that.”
Hart looked genuinely surprised. “How...”
“You’ve got to do better than that, Chester,” Art said with raised eyebrows. Pity or not, he wasn’t going to play games with this snitch for very long.
“He did it for Barrish,” Hart said.
Art stopped breathing for a moment. For Barrish? “How so?”
“He was trying to prove a point, man, you know,” Hart explained.
“Barrish? What point?”
“No, man, Freddy. Some big theory he had.”
“Killing four little black girls was a theory?” Art asked doubtfully.
Hart hesitated, then chuckled. “Man, making it look like the monkeys did it. To lay the blame on them.”
Art’s eyes narrowed as he tried to find some reason in the statement. He recalled that the initial reports from the scene of the murder had said that two black men in masks, wearing all black except for colored rags in their back pockets, had run out of the church and disappeared over a back wall. That description lasted only until two of the guns used, Uzis, were found ditched at a construction site nearby. Those were soon linked to John Barrish, blowing away any thought of black men doing the...
Black men, black people, doing things for Barrish. Interesting. Art saw a potential symmetry. But was it really there?
“Are you saying Freddy dressed up to look black?”
Hart coughed and laughed together. “Yeah, that was his idea. Darkened his skin and everything, he said. Kind of a test, you know. He thought... that you could do a really violent hit on someone and blame it on the monkeys. I don’t know who the other guy was.”
“Wait. Blame the murder of blacks on other blacks?” What good would that do?
“Man, think, Agent Jefferson. I said it was a test. That one was against the monkeys. The ones after that would be against white folks and be blamed on the monkeys.”
Art took the revelation in, pieces beginning to come together. A bigger picture was forming. “Barrish wanted to attack white people and make it look like the blacks did it?”
“It was Freddy’s idea first, but John...liked it. He always thought about things in a historical way, you know, and he said Hitler did something like it to start the war against Poland. Something like he faked an attack by the Poles to kinda make the invasion okay.” Hart paused, his chest rising greatly, then went on. “But after the Saint Anthony’s thing went sour he got cool on the idea. He said pretending wasn’t good enough; you’d have to get the monkeys—he calls them...uh, you...Africans—to do it. Trick them or something.” Another weak laugh. “Yeah. Good luck.”
Get the Africans to do it... Trick them...
“He said it would set the Aryans off if you could do it,” Hart added.
“Barrish wanted to do big things against white people by using blacks?”
“Against whites or the government,” Hart expanded. “He didn’t really talk about it anymore. He just kind of dropped it.”
Maybe because he thought you had a big mouth. Art’s head was almost spinning. Was this the explanation that would bring Barrish into the World Center attack? Barrish had thought of big attacks, and of using the monkeys. Of tricking them. Was this the link? It had to be, Art believed. What had seemed ludicrous to suggest now seemed within the realm of the possible.
“So? Does this get me a transfer?”
Art knew there would be at least local interest in this. The linking of Barrish to Saint Anthony’s would be of interest to the LAPD, and to the DA. The state had never brought charges against Barrish because of a lack of evidence. With Hart’s cooperation they would now have the evidence. Beyond that, it was still just a theory...not the proof Art Jefferson needed to tie Barrish to what was going on back east. But, for him, it was explanation enough.
“Well, Agent Jefferson? How about it?”
“You’ll cooperate and testify?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll need a stenographer to take an affidavit from you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Hart said. His mouth formed into something close to a smile. “Protection?”
“If you’re not lying,” Art warned.
“I’m not.”
Art looked down upon the blackened form of Chester Hart, the man who’d just given him more than one piece of the puzzle. Freddy had dreamed it up. Monte supplied the nightmare. And John Barrish would make it all come true. That was only his take on it but he felt he had a good grasp on the why now. Only the when, where, and what remained.
TWENTY SIX
Indications
Darian and Moises returned to their apartment from meeting the head white boy. Mustafa and Roger were waiting for them as planned.
“Is that it?” Roger asked, eyeing the long, towel-wrapped object under Moises’ arm.
“Yep.” Moises went to the bed, laid the package down, and unwrapped it.
“It don’t look real,” Roger commented.
“It’s not supposed to,” Darian said. He went to the small refrigerator and took a Pepsi.
Roger picked the leg up, testing its weight. “Not too heavy.” He held it out to Mustafa, who shook his head at the offer.
“Leave it on the bed,” Darian instructed. “The timer’s already going.”
“Shiiiit,” Roger swore softly, laying the limb back on the bed.
Darian pulled one of the cheap kitchen chairs into the living room/bedroom and sat. “Forget
that for a minute and listen up. We’ve gotta talk about the schedule.” He looked to Mustafa. “Did you get a new place for Wednesday?”
“We can move in that morning,” Mustafa answered.
“Where?”
“Arlington. Just a few miles from Vorhees’s house. You checked it out?”
Darian nodded. “You’ll have no trouble.”
“We’re gonna do it tomorrow, right?” Mustafa asked.
“Right,” Darian confirmed. “He’ll be at a state dinner until at least midnight.”
“Is that from the cracker?” Mustafa inquired.
“Cracker ain’t been wrong so far,” Darian reminded his comrade. It prevented any further question as to the information’s validity. “You’ll be in the clear. Cheap alarm, no dog. In, out, no fuss, no muss. Brother Moises and I will do the rest Thursday.”
“What about Friday?” Roger asked.
“Friday is the big night,” Darian said, showing teeth without truly smiling. “We do it together that night.”
“Where?” Mustafa inquired.
“Get this—about a half-mile from Vorhees’s place,” Darian answered. It could have been in Tucson, for all he cared. Location was not his concern. But the lay of the land was. “We’re going to need maps to figure the approach.”
“There’s gonna be feds there,” Roger said with wide eyes.
Darian stared down at his comrade, who sat cross-legged on the floor. “Brother Mustafa has something to deal with them.” The NALF leader saw his number two give a slight nod. “And if there’s a fight, we fight. But we will take out the target.”
The target was the secretary of state. The man who would take the reins of power when everyone in the House chamber bit the dust. After that...pure anarchy. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to imagine what would happen next, Darian knew. Just like in the tribal conflicts that plagued African and certain European nations, factions would develop. With no legally recognized head of state, and with the black man taking the opportunity to rise up, there’d be governors, and mayors, and all kinds of folks trying to seize power. Lines would be drawn. Us against them, them against us. Him against her. State against state. City against city. The military would have no commander in chief. What would they do? Try and seize power, too? It didn’t matter. Darian had to give credit to the white boys who had put this scheme into play. It was near perfect. Take away the people who wielded the power, and the people would grab what of it they could. Beautiful. It was absolutely beautiful.
Capitol Punishment (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 3) Page 27