Power Play- America's Fate

by Diane Matousek Schnabel

  Peter blinked twice. Are my eyes playing tricks on me?

  Moonlight was glinting off one of the rear windows, a double-hung pane that was slowly sliding upward.

  He peeked above the pine planks for a better look.

  No one was visible.

  Peter broke into a cold sweat.

  Did they see me? Is this a diversion to distract me while they flank my position?

  A leg protruded from the window.

  Then a head and torso ducked through the opening and tumbled clumsily onto a patch of weeds. That’s when he saw it, the arc of a whirling ponytail silhouetted against the lighter backdrop of the house.

  That’s got to be Franny Andrews!

  She crawled toward a set of French doors and stole a glimpse between a gap in the vertical blinds.

  What the hell are you doing? Peter thought. Get out of there!

  The crunch of gravel drew his attention to the driveway. The camouflage truck was rolling toward the detached two-car garage with its headlights off.

  Noting the danger, Franny froze.

  Oh no! Peter thought. The driver’s gonna spot her.

  He fired at the truck, aiming low, uncertain how the angled windshield would affect the bullet. His second shot sailed through the existing hole, striking the driver in the chest.

  Undaunted by the gunfire, Franny sprung into motion and bolted toward the rolling vehicle.

  Another gunman was climbing through the open window, tracing her path.

  Peter shot him in the head, and the body melted into a shadowy heap.

  He watched Franny haul the dead man from the cab, clamber behind the steering wheel, and slam the truck into reverse, grinding the gears. Then she accelerated with the driver’s door open, flapping like a broken wing.

  A barrage of rounds thundered from the front of the house.

  Tires squealed.

  The vehicle spun, sideswiping a mailbox, then skidded beyond view.

  Muzzle flashes intensified, partially illuminating three dark figures who were giving chase on foot.

  Did the gunmen disable the truck? Did they hit Franny?

  58

  District Six, Texas

  TWO DAYS AFTER HER return to District Six, Gwen Ling was trying to settle back into a routine at the hospital; but it was evident that the doctors and nurses no longer trusted her.

  Initially, she’d assumed that her co-workers were being polite, always stepping aside, letting her walk in front of them. Then she realized the gesture was motivated by fear: they were afraid to turn their backs on her.

  Suspicious eyes tracked her movements. Conversations abruptly terminated whenever she approached, making her feel like a criminal. Rumors regarding her detainment had blossomed into outrageous tales that cast her as a modern-day Tokyo Rose.

  Lies, she thought. Are they acting out of self-preservation and fear? Or racism and hatred?

  Gwen entered the east wing, reporting for her shift; then hearing agitated voices, she paused beyond view of the nurses’ station. A man with a gravelly voice was engaged in a heated exchange with a screechy-sounding woman.

  “During the past six hours, seven Chinese patients have died,” Gravelly said. “Do you have any idea how that’s going to look?”

  “I-I’ve never seen anything like this,” Screechy stuttered, flabbergasted. “It presents like epidemic typhus fever; but patients are not responding to doxycycline or ciprofloxacin, and mortality is five times the typical rate.”

  “We’re going to be blamed,” Gravelly told her. “The media will deem it payback for the Alameda fever vaccine. If we don’t figure out what this is and how to treat it—fast—we could be facing charges from the United World Court.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Screechy asked.

  Gwen stepped forward, clearing her throat to announce her presence, and still managed to startle both doctors. “People at the central processing center were accosted by a bizarre swarm of mosquitoes on Wednesday,” she told them. “Maybe it’s malaria.”

  “We administered prophylactic antimalarial meds.” Screechy’s brown eyes narrowed into an accusing glare. “Maybe those bogus vaccinations contained more than Alameda fever and smallpox.”

  Gwen swallowed the acidic bubble of guilt rising in her throat. She had administered hundreds of inoculations, unknowingly infecting her patients.

  “That’ll be all, Ms. Ling,” Gravelly said, politely dismissing her.

  Gwen bowed her head and hurried through the corridor, facts clashing in her mind. The bug swarm, the welts, the symptoms: headaches, high fevers, chills, rashes, mental haziness—how did it all fit together?

  “H-ell-p me.”

  She spun toward the weak voice. A gasping, middle-aged Asian female was clutching her chest—the same woman she’d spoken to at the processing center. Her clothes were soaked in sweat and her complexion appeared whiter than the bedsheet.

  Cardiac arrest?

  Gwen called out a code blue and began CPR as the woman lost consciousness.

  She knew that flu-like symptoms often occurred prior to a heart attack. The lack of blood flow to the digestive system, the fluid buildup in the lungs, the stress of living under constant suspicion—it all fit.

  Gravelly and Screechy arrived with a defibrillator. They worked furiously to save the woman’s life, and minutes ticked by with no pulse, no respiration.

  “Time of death ... 0413 hours.”

  Gwen stood frozen, watching them drape a sheet over the patient’s body. Did the other seven deceased patients suffer heart attacks too? Did the mysterious ailment have an extremely short, three-day incubation period? Or did the victims contract it weeks earlier with the Alameda fever vaccination?

  59

  District Six, Texas

  SOREL SEVERIN’S CALM demeanor masked the anxiety beneath the surface. As team leader, he would be held accountable for this failure.

  He had entrusted his men to guard the hostage while he procured some much needed sleep. Three highly trained operators versus one sedated civilian woman—how could things have gone so wrong?

  I overestimated Cuvier, Guignard, and Raison; and they underestimated Andrews’ wife, allowing her to slip through their grasp.

  Severin stared at the ragged opening in the closet wall. The bitch had dumped the sedative-laden stew into a boot and feigned unconsciousness, conferring a false sense of security onto his men. Then she’d sprayed the wallboard with bottled water to soften it; and slowly, silently, carved her way to freedom using the sharp tip of a broken metal clothes hanger.

  A well-concealed gunman on an adjacent property had aided her escape and killed two of his men before slipping off into the night.

  Was it a TEradS Sniper? he wondered. If so, why haven’t they raided the house?

  Severin returned to the large open room, gaze tilting from the foyer to the back door. He was betting that Andrews would not be able to muster approval for a drone strike. Given all the negative publicity, the U.S. President was risk-averse, especially when the collateral damage could involve American civilians.

  Severin had studied the enemy’s tactics, observing surveillance footage of previous operations in “sanctuary zones.” He knew every move in their playbook and was poised to counter any attack involving boots on the ground. No TEradS would survive a breach.

  His growing angst stemmed from the missing pickup truck. “The vehicle is equipped with a GPS beacon,” he grumbled, slipping into his native French. “I don’t understand the difficulty in locating it.”

  Cuvier’s head shook slightly, admonishing him for the breach in operational security, then his attention returned to the red-filter glow of his laptop. “GPS signals are weak, but we’ve got a stealth drone monitoring the westbound route into Langden, just beyond the base’s air-exclusion zone. As soon as the woman drives into the kill box, a missile will terminate the problem.”

  Not the entire problem, Severin thought.

  A somber silence
befell the room, each man contemplating the consequences of Hellhound’s wrath. Not only had their hostage gotten away, sacrificing their leverage over Andrews, she had absconded with a highly classified asset, capable of reversing the fortunes of war and exposing the true agenda.

  I can omit the escape from my report and claim to have dispatched Andrews’ wife after sunrise, as per orders, Severin thought. And I can destroy the truck with a drone-launched missile; but how can I explain the asset loss?

  60

  District Four, Florida

  THOMAS CALHOUN HAD been tending to this citrus grove since the day he could walk. The small, organic orchard had been in his family for three generations, and when neighbors implored him to join their pilgrimage to a government FEMA camp, he had stubbornly declined. His wife and twin daughters were buried in this land, and he wasn’t going to leave them.

  Each day, he walked the acreage, inspecting for pests and signs of citrus greening. The bacteria spread from tree to tree via a tiny insect called the Asian citrus psyllid, and the incurable blight was so devastating to crops that the U.S. government had declared it a bioterror weapon.

  Thus far, his trees showed no signs of the yellowing and falling leaves that would prevent the fruit from maturing, no signs that his grove had entered an inescapable death spiral. Healthy green nubs had replaced the orange blossoms, but faint traces of the beautiful scent lingered.

  Is that just my imagination? Or am I losing my mind?

  Sometimes, Thomas swore he could hear his daughters’ giggling voices. They used to play hide-and-seek amongst the trees, unaware that their brightly colored sundresses made it easy for him to spot them. A mournful smile tweaked the corners of his mouth, and the breeze picked up, carrying with it a rumble of thunder.

  A shower is exactly what the grove needs, he thought.

  Turning back toward the old farmhouse, he noted the sky to the west was churning with black clouds. Thick bands of precipitation swayed with the gusting winds, connecting sky and earth, and the smell of rain hung heavy. By the time Thomas reached the house, the temperature had dropped ten degrees, and he could hear the dull slaps of water droplets striking the parched ground. He settled onto the porch swing, missing his wife of nine years. They had spent many evenings there, marveling at flashes of heat lightning that imparted a magical quality onto the landscape.

  Rocking slowly, he closed his eyes and tried to imagine the love of his life curled up beside him.

  Unwelcome memories seeped into his mind. Six days after the pulse, he’d ventured out to fetch water from a lake less than a mile from the house; close enough to hear the gunshots and shrieks; too far away to stop them. The image of his slain family on the front lawn brought tears to his eyes.

  Initially, he had blamed himself; if only he had stayed with them; if only he had been more worried about them than the damn orange trees. But over the past year, Thomas had faced a brutal truth: he never could have stopped two dozen men with assault rifles.

  Stricter gun safety legislation would have kept those weapons out of the hands of that vicious gang. Confiscation would have saved my girls, he thought. The government couldn’t protect us because we refused to give them enough power.

  A sequence of harsh thuds jarred him from his torment, the sound of hail drubbing against the roof of the porch. It looked as if a truckload of pebbles was being dumped onto his property. Clumps of ice were battering his grove, tearing leaves and ripping fragile green globes from branches.

  Within minutes, a white coating blanketed the land, and the destructive chunks were fusing together, bounding against the ground like golf balls. They accumulated inches thick, then baseball-sized nuggets began raining down. Crackling snaps pierced the bombardment, the sound of tree branches breaking under the onslaught.

  Mother earth has finally unleashed her wrath, Thomas thought. The dire consequences of climate change that he had been preaching about for years had finally come to pass. Yet another failure of government. Congress should have ratified the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol.

  We should have passed tougher laws and regulations. A $100,000 fee for the privilege of a driving permit and a minimum $100,000 price for an entry-level car would’ve saved the planet. A 200-grand price tag would’ve compelled Americans to use public transportation; or better yet, pedal bicycles, alleviating the epidemic of obesity.

  The right-wing wackos are to blame for all of it, Thomas decided. Decades of warmongering and unfair sanctions had forced a beleaguered nation to lash out in self-defense with the electromagnetic pulse. Lack of gun safety legislation gave rise to gangs of murderers; and a selfish, consumer-driven, unsustainable lifestyle had destroyed the planet.

  A grin of superiority warped Thomas’ face, knowing that Americans were starving and murdering one another.

  At long last, we are getting what we deserve.

  61

  Langden Air Force Base, Texas

  MAJOR RYAN ANDREWS paced alongside his desk, tethered by the curly cord of the landline phone. “What do you mean … you don’t know what happened to her?”

  “My deputies have scoured the entire district,” Kyle Murphy said, his words distorted by a yawn. “No sign of her or the camouflage truck with the cap.”

  TEradS Teams 6A and 6B had the pink house surrounded, and a Predator drone was circling overhead. The problem was a lack of credible intel. Infrared imaging had located two dead bodies near the driveway, supporting Peter Francisco’s account. But the scans of the dwelling’s interior were contradictory, indicating anywhere from zero to a dozen heat signatures. Had Franny been recaptured? Were other hostages present? Was this another setup like the grenade incident and the firebombing?

  “Ryan ...? You still there?”

  “Yeah. Have any civilians been kidnapped? Anyone missing?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Thanks, Kyle. Keep me posted.” Ryan replaced the handset and glanced at the window. The sky was transforming from black to indigo, a vast hourglass reminding him that he had to make a decision. Soon.

  He had four options: a raid, a drone strike, no attack, or capitulation; and each was fraught with undesirable repercussions.

  Should I order my teams into a potential ambush, endangering my guys?

  Level the house with a Hellfire missile, endangering civilian hostages and Franny?

  Wait until I have better intel, endangering my wife?

  Relinquish the hard drive, endangering my nation?

  Volkov’s threat was like a tourniquet, contracting around Ryan’s mind, staunching the flow of reason and paralyzing his objectivity.

  My men will use your beloved for their sexual gratification then dispatch her in the most inhumane manner possible.

  His right hand balled into a fist and punched through the drywall adjacent to his defiled wall of heroes. Then his bloodshot brown eyes dropped to the cold-air return.

  If I surrender the hard drive, will Volkov release Franny? Or kill her anyway? What if she’s already dead?

  Hearing a knock at his door, Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose to hold back tears. “Not here. Not now,” he muttered, drawing several deep breaths to calm himself.

  The persistent knock escalated into a frantic pounding, and Ryan’s emotions bucked from anguish to rage. “Who’s the fucking asshole beating on my door?” He yanked it open and stood, tongue-tied, staring at her as if she was a ghost.

  “Franny ...?”

  “I know I wasn’t supposed to come home yet, but you don’t have to be that cranky about it.”

  Ryan grasped her shoulders and pulled her roughly to him to be sure she wasn’t just a wishful hallucination. He kissed the top of her head, repeatedly, mumbling “Thank God.”

  They clung to each other for several minutes, then Ryan stepped back from the embrace. Franny’s cheek was bruised; her nose, bloodied. “Are you hurt? Do you need the Med Center?”

  “No, I’m fine. It was just a backhand slap,” she said.<
br />
  “I’m so sorry, Franny. If I thought for one second that ...” His voice broke.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said, her thumb stroking his stubble-coated chin. “I’m the dumb ass who spouted off, telling the protestors that my husband was commander of the TEradS. These guys aren’t Chinese, Ryan. What the hell’s going on?”

  “I promise I’ll brief you later,” he said, entwining his fingers with hers. “Right now, I need to know if there were any other hostages.”

  “No ... But they had sandbagged machine-gun nests trained on the front and back doors. So don’t send the guys in. Those sneaky bastards blindfolded me, shoved me into a vehicle, and drove all over, so I wouldn’t know where I was. I had no idea that I was being held inside that same pink house.”

  Ryan guided her toward the ops center, opened the door, and ushered her inside. “Captain Fitzgerald, give the drone Pilot a green light to take out that target.”

  62

  District Five, Illinois

  BRADLEY WEBBER SURVEYED the POW camp, seventy feet below his perch. He and Gutierrez were holed up inside a high-rise dormitory that was creaking and groaning like a living entity complaining over aches and pains. Nearly every window had crumbled during the New Madrid earthquake. Its walls were buckled, its ceiling cracked, and the floor was layered with broken furniture, but the Army Corps of Engineers had declared the building structurally sound.

  The POW camp was still buzzing with nervous energy following yesterday’s narrowly averted jailbreak. Sniper fire had killed nine and incited a riot that injured sixteen; and Bradley was annoyed at being tasked with protecting PLA soldiers—the guys who had rigged the AIEDs that killed two of his friends and put two more out of commission.

  “Yo, earth to Webber!” Gutierrez barked, his tone impatient and jarring.