Chapter 59
Tony’s head was spinning by the time they walked into the lobby of their hotel.
He’d been brought up to think the federal government was there to help its people, not harm them or keep secrets from them.
He’d said as much to Bud in the cab ride back to the hotel.
“I remember when I was young and naïve and believed in world peace and cowboys in white hats and helpful government officials.
“Unfortunately, Tony, it hasn’t been that way for a very long time. Every aspect of the United States government is corrupt. It starts with congress and the senate. There isn’t a single honest person in either house who does what they promise to do. Not a single one who works on behalf of their constituents. They do what’s best for them in every case. Not just some cases. Every single one.”
“That’s kind of overly cynical, isn’t it?”
“Nope. I’m sorry to say that’s reality. Show me one representative, one senator who will ignore a powerful lobbyist and vote against them. Just one example. You can’t, because it doesn’t exist.
“Money is power, my friend. And this town was bought and paid for a very long time ago.”
They stepped out of the cab and into the hotel. As they walked through the lobby Bud looked in all directions.
At one point he abruptly stopped and turned quickly around.
Then he quickly scampered around a corner toward a group of conference rooms.
Tony struggled to keep up as Bud stepped into the first open doorway and into a darkened room.
He once again told Tony to shush and waited silently for about ten seconds, until a man in a jogging suit hurried past.
The man had one hand pressed against his right ear and appeared to be talking to himself.
When he was out of view Bud stepped out of the darkness and whistled.
The jogger immediately stopped and turned.
Bud gave him the middle finger.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go see if they left our room in a mess.”
“And by the way, our room is almost certainly bugged. Don’t say anything about anything.”
“Nothing about nothing?”
“Precisely.”
The room was immaculate, except for the thumb drive missing from Tony’s balled-up socks. That struck Bud as odd until he remembered that the maid was working the room next door, having just finished cleaning theirs.
“Remind me to leave a nice tip for the maid when we check out,” Bud said. “I suspect she had a lot of straightening up to do today.”
“So now what?”
“Now we go get something to eat. I’m starved.”
“Sounds good to me. Where at?”
“Ever been to the old post office?”
“Not to eat.”
“It’s not a post office anymore. It’s sort of like a huge three story mall full of shops and restaurants and stuff.
“Great place to eat, and it’s not far from here.”
“Let’s go.”
On their way out of the hotel, though, Bud had a stop to make.
At the hotel desk.
“Can I help you sir?”
“Yes. Someone left an envelope for me earlier. I just need to pick it up. The name is Bud Avery.”
The clerk didn’t change his demeanor at the mention of Bud’s name.
He obviously wasn’t on duty earlier when the FBI swooped in, flashed a badge, and demanded access to the room of a guest of the same name.
“Do you have a photo ID, Mr. Avery?”
Bud showed his driver’s license.
“Thank you, sir. Here you go.”
From the back of the lobby, behind a large display rack full of brochures of attractions around the D.C. metroplex, the mysterious jogger spoke into his wrist microphone.
“They just picked up something at the front desk.”
Then, ten seconds later, “Departing hotel through west door.”
“A voice responded, “I got ‘em.”
Bud and Tony walked briskly toward the old United States Post Office a few short blocks from the White House. It was a typical early afternoon. Vehicle traffic was heavy.
Pedestrian traffic was heavier.
Tony didn’t have a clue where they were or where they were headed.
But Bud knew the answer to both questions.
And neither had anything to do with a post office. Old or otherwise.
Many streets in downtown Washington begin or end in a point.
Many retail stores which operate on the narrow end of the block have entrances and exits on both sides of the building.
It was therefore possible to enter an establishment from one street, walk completely through it, and exit on a different street.
The men walked briskly east on New York Avenue, toward the U.S. Capitol Building.
Bud periodically looked behind him. He knew damn well they were being followed, and he wanted the man following him to know he suspected it.
He figured that would keep his shadow from following too closely.
As they walked, Bud asked nonchalantly, “Did you wear your good sneakers today?”
Tony said, “Yeah. I didn’t expect to need any dress shoes. Sneakers go better with my old faded blue jeans. Why?”
“Can you move pretty fast in them?”
“Yeah. Am I gonna have to?”
“Yep. Get ready to run when I say so.”
The closer they got to the Capitol Mall, the heavier the pedestrian traffic got. The sidewalks were practically shoulder to shoulder with bodies now.
All the pieces to Bud’s plan were coming together quite nicely.
“Slow down just a bit. We need to miss this light.”
They neared 12th Street, and had a green “walk” light. But that didn’t play into Bud’s plans.
They slowed down and the light changed red just as they got to the intersection.
To anyone else in the crowd they were merely pedestrians waiting with all the other pedestrians for the light to change.
But these pedestrians were getting ready to bolt.
Bud stared straight ahead, using his peripheral vision to watch the approaching traffic.
“Get ready. On my go, run like hell.”
As a long line of cars came rushing down 12th toward them, Bud turned his head to the left, then said, “run!”
Both men took off like a flash, barely making it to the other curb without getting mowed down, the subject of several honks and a couple of shouts and very unfriendly hand gestures.
The man following them, who’d held back farther than he should have to keep Bud from spotting him, was a full thirty yards from the intersection. He bolted himself, but on crowded sidewalks was unable to move quickly.
By the time he got to 12th Street himself traffic was brisk and constant in all three lanes. He had no choice but to wait for the traffic to clear.
By the time he was on the other side Bud and Tony were hopelessly lost in a sea of humanity.
Chapter 60
Once they’d made their break, Bud and Tony bulldozed their way through the crowd until they came to a Subway sandwich shop right next door to the Washington Women’s Museum.
Bud grabbed Tony by the sleeve and quite literally dragged him into the sandwich shop.
“Go in the restroom. Stay there fifteen minutes. Then come out and order us some lunch. Meatball sandwich for me, loaded with everything they’ve got. Except onions. I despise onions.”
He never stopped moving, through the restaurant and toward the other door, which exited onto H Street.
As an afterthought, he called back over his shoulder without turning around.
“Oh… and a diet Coke.”
Tony wasn’t sure what had just happened. But if he was good at nothing else, he knew how to follow instructions.
He fairly dove into the men’s restroom, found an empty stall, and sat down to catch his breath.
As he got mo
re or less comfortable, a panicked operative rushed past the restaurant on New York Avenue, fighting his way east and mumbling under his breath, “Oh crap. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.”
He’d search New York Avenue and the surrounding streets for another half hour before he’d radio in to admit he lost his targets.
Tony had no idea where Bud went or how long he’d be gone.
All he had was his friend’s word he’d be back at some point.
As instructed, he found a darkened booth at the back of the restaurant.
He suddenly felt a wave of paranoia come over him. It occurred to him that he knew absolutely nothing about the seemingly-eccentric old man dragging him through the streets of Washington.
He’d liked Bud from the beginning, but that was based almost purely on Bud resembling his grandfather.
And while Tony was usually very good at sizing people up and forming accurate first impressions, what if he was wrong this time?
What if Bud was just a crackpot?
Or worse yet, what if Bud was working for the very government agency which had taken Hannah?
Tony suddenly felt sick in the pit of his stomach.
Should he have been more skeptical? Asked the old man more questions? Sought a second opinion from a trusted friend before just following this strange dude halfway across the country?
He shook his head and chased the doubts from his mind.
He couldn’t do this alone. He hadn’t a clue how to go about it.
He had to trust somebody.
It might as well be Bud.
While in the restroom he’d taken off the light jacket he’d worn that day, and sat atop it with his back to the door.
To disguise himself even further, he’d openly admired a New York Yankees ball cap worn by another patron and offered to purchase it.
The teenager thought he was kidding until Tony produced two crisp twenty dollar bills.
He worried that Bud, upon his return, might find it a little more difficult to find him in his new disguise.
But he deserved it, after abandoning him there and disappearing to who-knew-where.
Tony ate slowly, not knowing how long Bud would be gone.
He ate his own cold cut sandwich, then a bag of chips.
Finally he ate Bud’s sandwich too. When it was gone he went up to order a replacement.
After another half hour he considered eating it as well, although he was no longer hungry.
Just to spite Bud.
But he didn’t have a chance.
“Hey, nice disguise,” Bud said while walking up behind him. “I almost didn’t see you myself.”
He placed a manila envelope on the table in front of Tony.
Tony opened it and found half a dozen pages of the data he and Hannah had been collecting.
“To a layman it’s just a bunch of nonsensical numbers,” Bud explained. “But our friend Mr. Townsend will recognize it for what it is immediately. And he’ll realize we’re not the fools he thought we were.”
“But where did you get this stuff?”
“I went to one of those places where you can mail packages or rent a mailbox. They also have office equipment to rent by the hour. I printed a complete copy of your files, plus a few extra pages I stuffed into the envelope.
“Then I rented a post office box with a combination lock. I memorized the combination and threw away the paper it was written on. Then I placed the full set of data and the thumb drive into the mailbox.”
He took a big bite of his meatball sub and said with his mouth full, “Ummm. Dash a gut shammish.”
Tony waited patiently for Bud to finish eating before asking, “But why did we have to split up? Why couldn’t we stay together?”
“Because we’re still vulnerable. If they wanted to take us, they could take you and I’d still be out there causing them problems. Or they could take me and you’d still be out there causing them problems. If they took both of us we’d be screwed.
“Now that this is done,” he said while nodding toward the envelope, “we’re in a much better position.”
Bud finished his sandwich, stretched, and stood up.
“Now where are we going?” Tony asked.
“It’s barely three o’clock. The day’s still young. Let’s go back and see our friend Mr. Townsend.”
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Thank you for reading
THE YELLOWSTONE EVENT
Book 1: Fire in the Sky
Please enjoy this preview of
THE YELLOWSTONE EVENT
Book 2: A National Disgrace
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“Did you really expect to just come in here a second time and make demands upon us?”
Townsend was dumbfounded.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Bud replied rather nonchalantly.
“Apparently we’ve got a bit of a communications problem here.
“We are indeed making demands, because we’ve got something you want very badly. We’ve brought you proof that we’ve still got the Yellowstone Calderon data. Both on paper and on a flash drive. You want both, and we’re willing to give you both.
“After you release Hannah Carson and her friend Gwendoline. Once they’re returned safely, you’ll get your damn data. And you know where you can put it too.”
Townsend wasn’t moved. In fact, he appeared rather amused by Bud’s words.
That worried Bud just a bit.
It unnerved Tony greatly.
“You’re not listening to me, you fool. If the data is out there floating around, so what? If someone finds it, who cares? Unless it’s in the proper context, analyzed by someone who knows what they’re looking at, you have nothing but sheet after sheet of numbers.
“More people will think it’s a racing form or computer code before they link it to a hidden super volcano. You seem to have forgotten one minor flaw in your plan, Mr. Avery.”
“Oh, yeah? And just what is that, Dr. Townsend?”
Before he answered he called his secretary and instructed her, “Go ahead and send them in.”
As before, the door opened and security men rushed in.
This time there were four of them. Apparently they’d climbed a bit higher in the nuisance food chain since their first visit.
“What you overlooked, Mr. Avery, is that it doesn’t matter if your papers and your flash drive are out there floating around somewhere. If someone finds them they won’t know what they’re looking at, consider it worthless, and throw it away.
“In other words, without you two clowns out there telling them what it is, they’ll never know.
“And you two clowns aren’t going anywhere.”
For the first time, the security detail drew their guns.
Two of them.
One pointed at Tony’s chest, the other at Bud’s.
“Uh oh,” Bud uttered.
“Uh oh?” Tony countered. “What the hell do you mean, ‘uh oh?’”
The two men with free hands stood Tony and Bud up and placed them in handcuffs.
Townsend smiled broadly and said, “You two have been deemed threats to the national security of the United States under the Patriots Act. I hope you’ve said all your final goodbyes.”
The Yellowstone Event Book 2: A National Disgrace will be available worldwide in November 2017.
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If you enjoyed
THE YELLOWSTONE EVENT
Book 1: Fire in the Sky
You might also enjoy
COUNTDOWN TO ARMAGEDDON
Available now at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
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Scott Harter wasn’t special by anybody’s standards. He wasn’t a handsome guy at all. He wasn’t dumb, but he’d never win a Nobel Prize either. He had no hidden talents, although he fancied himself a fairly good karaoke singer.
His friends didn’t necessarily share that opinion, but what did they know?
>
No, if those friends were tasked to choose one word to describe Scott Harter that word might well be “average.”
If Scott excelled at one thing, it was that he was a very good businessman. And he was also a lot luckier than most.
And it was that combination – his penchant for making a buck and being lucky, that led him here on this day to the Guerra Public Library on the west side of San Antonio.
To research what he believed was the pending collapse of mankind.
Twenty three years earlier, Scott had done two things that would change his life forever. Even back then, he was just an average Joe. He’d had plans to become a doctor, but his average grades weren’t cutting it. So he dropped out of college halfway through his junior year.
He’d have loved to have married a beauty queen, but his average looks certainly did nothing to attract any. Neither did his average amount of charm. So instead he started dating Linda Amparano, who was a sweet girl but somewhat average herself. They seemed to make a perfect, if slightly vanilla, couple.
The second thing Scott did that year was buy a dilapidated self-storage unit on the north side of San Antonio. It was one of those places where people rent lockers to store their things when their garages have run out of space. Or their kids go off to college. Or when they just accumulate so many things that they’ve run out of room to put them all.
Pat, the guy who sold the property to Scott, was a friendly enough sort, but not a businessman at all. He didn’t understand some of the basic principles of running such an operation.
Not that Scott was an expert. At least back then he wasn’t.
But even back then, Scott knew the value of curb appeal, and that a fresh paint job and a few repairs could attract a few more customers. And a few more customers would help supply money for advertising, and special offers, and long-term lease discounts. No brainers, actually.
So by the end of that year, two things happened. Scott had turned around the business and turned it into a money-making operation. And he married Linda.
The Yellowstone Event: Book 1: Fire in the Sky Page 18