Two Minutes to Midnight

by R. J. Patterson

  Alex glared at him. Any warm feelings she’d had toward him vanished the instant he stopped talking. He was creepy and sneaky, which was a repulsive combination to her. His act had fooled Alex and embarrassed her.

  The guard placed Blunt back in his chains before collecting the tray and the empty dishes. He whistled as he moved everything outside and locked the door.

  “Sweet dreams,” he said before walking down the hall.

  After the door shut behind the guard at the end of the hallway, Blunt spoke.

  “If it makes you feel any better, Alex, I didn’t see that coming either. We both got duped, I’m afraid.”

  “At least we didn’t directly reference the thing.”

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t do that, and I hope you wouldn’t either. For all we know, they’re watching and listening to us right now.”

  “He made a specific point to say they would be watching us,” Alex said. “He was very particular about all his word choices, so it makes me think that they can only see us.”

  “If that’s the case, you’ll have to be discreet,” Blunt said. “But I’m still wondering how you’re going to execute everything.”

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  Alex spent the next half hour studying the room and thinking up a way to get her shoe off her foot, inch it up to her hands, and remove the device and activate it—all without drawing the attention of any guard who was watching her on the security feed. After much thought, Alex developed a plan.

  Without saying a word to Blunt, she removed both her shoes, clawing at her heels with her toes to free her shoes up. She let them lie haphazardly in front of her and moved her feet around, flexing her toes and doing a little half-hearted dance. After that she waited and waited. Another half hour passed before she made another move.

  This time, Alex used her toes to snatch the heel of the right shoe and pulled it back against the wall. She pinned the shoe against the wall with her butt and slowly worked the shoe upward, all while maintaining a motion that would appear to anyone watching that she was itching her back. After fifteen painful minutes, she maneuvered the shoe up near her head. This enabled her to grab the shoe. She worked to dig out the cushion but with little luck. The cushion remained stuck inside the shoe.

  As she worked on this, the main door to the prison opened, echoing down the hallway.

  She cursed under her breath and mulled over her decision: continue to dig out the device and hope a guard doesn’t enter the prison or drop the shoe immediately and hope it doesn’t fall too far away. Alex opted for the former.

  Come on. Get outta there.

  She scraped at the edges frantically while the footfalls grew closer and closer.

  Just a little more.

  As the cushion broke free, the sound of a key being inserted into her cell’s lock sent her into a panic. Her hands started to sweat and the shoe slipped free, the device still inside.

  A guard strode into the room and glared at Alex.

  “Do you need to go to the restroom?” he asked in perfect English. “You looked like you might be in pain.”

  Alex grimaced and played along. “Oh, yes, thank you. I’ve had to go for quite a while now.”

  He unlocked her chains and remained in the cell.

  “Do you mind?” she said.

  He turned around to give her privacy and noticed one of her shoes lying in the middle of the room. Grunting as he stooped down to pick it up, he studied the inside.

  “I think you dropped something,” he said.

  He stopped and inspected the shoe, digging at the misplaced sole.

  “What’s this?” he asked with a furrowed brow.

  Alex shimmied her pants up and buttoned them quickly. She reached for the shoe.

  “It’s just a shoe. An uncomfortable one, but nothing more.”

  The guard pulled it back from her. “I don’t think so. This looks like some sort of electronic device.”

  “It’s just a battery-powered air freshener to keep my feet from grossing everyone out.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m on to you. Up against the wall.”

  Alex sighed and complied, knowing she had no chance in a fight against the bulky guard.

  “They’re going to make fun of you,” she said as she slid her hands into the bindings. “Bringing a woman’s shoe back because you think there’s some dangerous electronic device in it.”

  The guard chuckled. “Nobody makes fun of me. I can assure you of that.”

  Alex watched as he reattached her chains to the wall and exited the room, the door clanging shut behind him. She looked over at Blunt, who was shaking his head.

  “Alex, Alex, Alex,” he said with a groan.

  “I know,” she said. “It’s all my fault. I thought I had it, but I was wrong.”

  “That’s going to be a costly mistake, maybe even a deadly one.”

  She sighed. “You don’t need to tell me that.”

  Her head dropped as she looked down at the floor, her other shoe still neatly in its place just below her. The water from the pipe splashed down into the small puddle as the full weight of her situation hit home.

  We’re both going to die.

  CHAPTER 16

  Washington, D.C.

  HAWK TUCKED A COPY of The Washington Post under his arm and sauntered along one of the National Mall walkways. He scuffed at some of the pebbles marking the footpath as he moved toward his eventual location, a bench with its back to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and its front facing the Smithsonian Castle. Without any leaves on the trees, Hawk couldn’t help but notice how bare the area was in December. Outside of the winter months, the trees were bursting with color and provided plenty of shade on those scorching afternoons for tourists visiting the nation’s capital. But both the shade and tourists were in short supply as Hawk meandered along.

  Before he sat down, Hawk attached an envelope beneath the bench next to his. He had stuffed the envelope in the newspaper, which he dropped to make his attempt at a quasi-dead drop seem more natural. Finished with his task, Hawk eased onto the bench and leaned back. He opened his paper and started to read about the latest on the election and the polls attempting to predict the outcome. Two minutes into an editorial opining about the potential makeup of Noah Young’s cabinet, Hawk’s appointment guest arrived.

  Hawk peered over the top of his paper at the man and asked him a question to verify his identity.

  “I don’t know what’s colder—this weather or the future?”

  “Everything feels colder when you live under a repressive regime,” the man answered.

  Hawk sighed. He didn’t make up the phrasing of the questions or the answers. They were the instructions Fazil had passed along. Hawk was sure the response was given just to irk him. Hawk tried to ignore it, but the phony exchange underscored why he wanted so badly to eliminate Al Hasib.

  “Nice day for a walk,” the man said.

  “I’m not here for small talk, just business. You can practice your conversational English with someone else who gives a damn. I’m only here because I have to be.”

  “Very well then. Did you get the proper credentials?”

  “They’re located underneath your bench along with a map of Andrews Air Force Base. What’s your weapon?”

  “I was instructed not to speak with you about such things.”

  Hawk huffed. “If you want to actually have a realistic shot at knocking Air Force One out of the sky, I need to know what weapon you have. Otherwise, I’m just throwing darts blindfolded.”

  “Fine,” the man said after mulling the question over for a few seconds. “I plan on using an RPG-18e.”

  “Oh, state of the art,” Hawk said. “You Al Hasib boys don’t skimp on anything, do you?”

  “Are you familiar with the weapon and its range?”

  “I’m more than familiar with anything manufactured by Colton Industries. But that particular missile launcher is one I’m very acquainted with
. I think I used it once to take out several Al Hasib strongholds on one mission I was on.”

  Hawk cut a sideways glance at the man to see if he would be distracted by the not-so-subtle jab. He wasn’t.

  “The guided missile system gives me an accuracy range of up to 2,000 meters, maybe even more.”

  “I figured you would be using a weapon with a distance somewhere in that vicinity. So, I took the liberty of marking a spot for you on the map for where you’ll want to be in order to get the best unobstructed shot.”

  “And where is that?”

  “There are several hangars near the end of the runway where Air Force One would lurch skyward. The target would be in plain view.”

  “What if I wanted to shoot him while the president was still on the ground?”

  “You could probably do that, too, if you so desired. But I wouldn’t recommend it. No guarantee of death. You miss by just a little bit, you’ll never get another shot. With the plane, on the other hand, you only have to hit any part of that giant bird and you are going to get what you came for. There’s no way anyone could survive a fall from that height.”

  “Thank you for your advice, but I like to keep my options open. You never know when things might change and you will need to come up with a different plan.”

  “From the sound of things, I think you’ve done this before.”

  The man didn’t stop to bask in Hawk’s faint praise. “I know I’ll only get one shot. If I succeed, I will die. If I fail, I will die. I would prefer to be remembered as a success.”

  “In that case, you’ll need to listen to my advice. Your credentials are inside the envelope, and you won’t get near the base without them. In fact, you will look very suspicious trying to get on base without them. And if they sense something is off with you, they’ll pull you out of your car and interrogate you. You’ll be powerless to stop it. So keep your head up and act like you belong.”

  “Is that all I need to know?”

  “I would recommend going to the base tomorrow and planting your weapon in one of the hangars. Carrying a weapon onto the base the day the president is flying out on Air Force One will also draw unwarranted attention.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” the man said.

  “Believe me when I say this, but it will be anything but simple. The kind of good fortune you’re going to need just to get off a shot is rare, though possible. And then to actually hit the plane when the pressure is on—that will be up to you.”

  “I trust my weapon, especially the missile guided system that enables me to make such long shots from great distances. I once hit a squirrel’s nest from fifteen hundred meters. I’m confident hitting Air Force One will not be a problem. I will get revenge, that I am sure of.”

  Hawk shook his head and sighed. “I would say good luck, but we both know I wouldn’t mean it.”

  With his final salvo, Hawk stood and walked away, refusing to look back at the man. His image was burned into Hawk’s memory. And Hawk wasn’t about to forget his face—until the Al Hasib assassin was dead.

  CHAPTER 17

  Washington, D.C.

  NOAH YOUNG HAD A CHARMED political existence, which explained why he struggled with how to handle the blackmailer. When Young first decided to enter politics, he ran unopposed for the Texas state representative position for Oldham County, a rural county in the northwest part of the state. During his second term, he struck up a friendship with George Miller, who was a rising star in state politics. When Miller became governor two years later, the two worked closely together on various legislation initiatives. However, Young’s big break didn’t come until Pip Haskins, the eighty-two-year-old U.S. senator from Dallas, dropped dead of a heart attack near the end of his sixth term.

  Miller ignored his party’s recommendations on replacing Haskins with a retread politician with a strong name brand among the base supporters. Instead, Miller said he wanted to shake things up and send some fresh ideas to Washington in the form of Noah Young. Young had a little less than a year before a special election was scheduled to determine if Miller’s appointment would be more permanent or outright rejected by the people.

  Young viewed his appointment to the U.S. Senate as the opportunity of a lifetime. In true Texas fashion, he seized the bull by the horns, making the most of his time in Washington. His charismatic oratory skills earned him a reputation as one of the most inspiring speakers among either party and often earned invitations to address various groups in non-partisan settings. In three months’ time, Young’s star was not just shooting but skyrocketing. And when Conrad Daniels sought out a running mate, Young’s name landed at the top of the list.

  If young were forced to admit it, the fact that he’d landed in Washington at all was a stroke of good fortune that he couldn’t cajole into happening ever again, even if he wanted to.

  Right place, right time.

  Young marveled at the fact that he was on the precipice of winning a presidential election, the first one he would’ve won against someone from an opposing party for the first time in his career. He could almost taste it, though the blackmailer’s demands made sure everything was bitter.

  A knock at his basement office door jolted Young out of his trance.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Brady Hawk strode into the room, shut the door, and took a seat across the desk from Young.

  “I appreciate you helping me with this issue,” Young began. “I’m not used to handling scrutiny like this.”

  “With all due respect, sir, this isn’t exactly scrutiny,” Hawk said. “You initiated a cover up and for good reason. I wholeheartedly supported the idea of fibbing to the American people on this one. We both know that the truth about Daniels’s death really doesn’t matter. He killed himself, plain and simple. That much is even evident on the footage. But somehow the cat has gotten out of the bag, and you cannot play around with this any more. Don’t forget with Nixon that the cover up was greater than the actual crime.”

  “I appreciate your frankness, Hawk, but I still think the story we’ve foisted onto the American people is worth fighting for. Do we really want history to remember someone who once held the office of president as a weak-minded man who took the easy way out when confronted with his failings?”

  Hawk shrugged. “What I find curious is your newly discovered affection for Daniels. You couldn’t wait to push him out the door, also another decision I agreed with. He was harming our country with his reckless policies on how to combat extremists in the Middle East. Another four years of Daniels and this nation might have been on the brink of another world war. Given your change of heart, I can’t help but wonder if you’re afraid of how you’ll be viewed since you’re inextricably tied to him in the annals of history or if you’re fearful that it might cost you the election. Care to shed some light on this change of heart you’ve had?”

  Young clasped his hands and rested them on his desk. He paused pensively before responding. “Since you put it that way, my perception has changed on both accounts that you mentioned. If I admit that we covered up Daniels’s death, people might start digging into the reality about what was going on with this administration’s policies. And I know history wouldn’t look favorably upon either of us if Daniels’s true intentions were exposed. Then there’s the matter of the election coming up in a few days. This would be a bombshell unlike any other we’ve ever seen in a presidential election in this country.”

  “You believe it would supplant the bombshell that your opponent’s son helped a known terrorist into the country so he could detonate a nuclear weapon in the middle of New York?”

  “Yes, I believe it would.”

  “At this point, what difference does it make? Peterson won’t be able to score any political points on the issue of homeland security. So no matter what any journalist uncovered, it wouldn’t hold the weight necessary to derail potential voters, much less penetrate the collective voters’ consciousness to the point that people will flip to th
e other candidate. This election is a freight train and is chugging full speed down the tracks.”

  “If this guy is getting information on me like this, he must be well connected. And that frightens me more than anything. Who is really behind all this? It can’t just be some random guy who’s concerned about helping the truth get out there. No, I think it’s something more.”

  Hawk suppressed a chuckle. “Don’t let the conspiracy theorist in you run rampant around in your mind. And as far as we know, it’s just a guy who managed to get your attention and wants the American people to know the truth. One good thing is that he’s not a journalist or else this would be splashed over every news site from here to Seattle by now.”

  “I just want him taken care of, okay? Deal with it like you normally deal with problems.”

  “I hope you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”

  Young templed his fingers, resting them against his lips. “Your methods are of no concern to me. I just want results, that’s all. I want this man to go away.” Young handed Hawk a folder. “We dug up a few more things on this guy, but I’m not sure how much it will help. We still don’t know where he lives. He did a great job at evading the Secret Service tail I put on him.”

  Hawk opened up the folder and started reading. Nothing stood out to him as he glanced at the information, so he shut it abruptly.

  “I’ll handle this for you,” Hawk said, “but we have more pressing issues to discuss.”

  “More pressing than this?” Young said, gesturing toward the folder. “This is my political future. Hell, the future of the nation hangs in the balance of this election. I can’t imagine anything being more important than this.”

  “You’re gonna need a bigger imagination then.”

  Young’s eyes widened. “What’s going on, Hawk?”

  “I didn’t want to mention this because I thought I could figure a way out of this, but it’s apparent that I can’t—at least, not without your help.”