Gabriel's Stand

by Jay B. Gaskill

  “The public is very frightened right now. You guys need to calm the waters somehow, and buy us those ten days,” John said. “Let the rational arguments sink in.”

  “Won’t happen,” Gabriel said, “not if they have the votes to cut off debate.”

  “What’s the count?” Smith asked Ballwell.

  “As long you have Senator McKernon’s vote, they can’t curtail debate; he carries ten to fifteen senators on all the procedural votes, no matter how they intend to vote on the Treaty.”

  Gabriel looked at his watch. “That does it. We’re out of time.”

  John stood. “I’m calling Lance’s wife again and the cops. Ken, go personally with the police to check the Senator’s office and call me. Gentlemen, we have a plane to catch.”

  ——

  Meanwhile, one member of Berker’s Operations team, a contract killer, stopped across the street, bent over and adjusted his running shoe. When he stood, he glanced up and down the nearly empty street, then produced tiny binoculars and scanned a brightly lit window—the targeted office. As car headlights approached, he deftly slipped the binoculars out of sight and touched a tiny mike attached to his baseball cap.

  “They’re still at it. Are you getting any audio?” His listened, then fiddled with the other shoe. “I will,” he said. After a moment, the man strolled casually across the street towards a small coffee shop.

  ——

  Inside, Dr. Owen looked at his watch. “Gotta check in at Sea-Tac. Time to wrap this up, gentlemen,” he said. “Gabriel, you know Lance’s wife?”

  Gabriel speed-dialed. All three men watched as the call went through.

  “Hi. This is Gabriel. We’re still waiting for Lance in Dr. Owen’s office.” Gabriel’s face changed sharply. “He went looking for Johnny? When?” Gabriel looked at John bleakly. “Ken! Have you called the police yet? Good. Call us as soon as you know anything. Mary, could you hold on for Ken Wang?”

  “Did I hear that right?” John asked.

  Gabriel nodded. “She has also called the police.”

  “You don’t suppose somebody doesn’t want him to vote?” Smith muttered. His face was a black cloud.

  ——

  Far below the conference room window, the runner spoke into his mike. “Senator Gabriel Standing Bear is there. And I spotted Senator Smith earlier.” He paused. “I will, I will. As soon as Owen comes out.”

  ——

  “Okay,” John said. “We’re out of here. Ken, I want you to stay in constant contact with the Senator’s wife and his office. Tell them I will be holding my personal plane for Lance right up until the vote. And call our pilot with that. And find me a ticket. I’ll fly to Washington, commercial, with these guys. Mr. Ballwell, you might as well stay with Ken.”

  As the door closed behind Ken and Ballwell, Gabriel stood. “I think Lance loves his son more than he loves his own life.” Gabriel felt a sharp pang. Snowfeather. Must call her again as soon as I reach DC.

  John picked up his coat. “We got miles to go and promises to keep.”

  ——

  On the sidewalk across the street from the Edge Medical building, the dark figure in nylon running clothes and a baseball cap stood, still holding the compact binoculars. The man spoke into his mike. “Light’s out. They’re leaving now. I’m relocating to Target One.”

  A few blocks away, a female taxi driver spoke into her cellphone. “I have the quarry now.”

  “Good,” he said. “Stay just ahead of them. We’re monitoring their calls and their conversations in the car.”

  Both phones disconnected as Dr. Owen got into the elevator.

  Chapter 22

  Thirty minutes passed. One third of the 3,204 Vector Pharmaceutical’s Seattle plant employees were busy getting out a rush shipment of critically needed antibiotics. VP’s manufacturing facilities occupied two blocks in a newly renovated industrial park in South Seattle.

  The G-A-N operative named Gaul was sitting a block away in an old Chrysler minivan. Earlier that evening, his team had temporarily closed the plant for a safety inspection and had exploited that visit with cool efficiency, installing explosive napalm devices at every entrance and exit in the five building complex.

  The bombing had been scheduled for 9:39 P.M.

  The inferno was on time.

  From outside the buildings came a closely spaced series of dull thumping noises, as inside, every restroom erupted in gouting, dense fumes. An aerosol of carbon particles and volatilized jet fuel spilled into hallways and stairways and open areas near the bathrooms.

  At 9:40, searing white, incandescent flashes lit all twenty-five doorways to the complex, followed a half second later by brilliant, billowing orange flames. The explosions were like a fire-fight on a battlefield. When the aerosol of carbon and hydrocarbon fumes from the bathrooms contacted the flames at the doorways, a smear of almost simultaneous explosions rocked the buildings from end to end in a continuous roar, blowing every window in a coruscating shower of glass and fire. The resulting firestorm created an updraft that generated temperatures well in excess of two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. A Porsche, parked at the main entrance, was reduced to glowing steel, its aluminum engine block a bubbling puddle in the gutter.

  At the first explosions, Gaul threw the minivan in reverse, the tires shrieking as he sought to distance himself from the inferno. “Gaia’s Kiss,” Gaul said into his radio; then he cut his wheel sharply to the left and spun the van around, facing the lane of oncoming traffic. Gaul shifted and gunned the engine, intending to slip into the opposite lane. But a garbage truck swerved into his path, its driver disoriented by the explosion. The truck plowed into the front of the van, crumpling the driver’s side.

  When the paramedics arrived, the truck’s horn was still howling. The van’s dashboard, steering column, wheel, ruptured airbag, collapsed, engulfing Gaul. His crushed body was trapped between the seat and the crumpled door-frame. Sirens and the hissing of two radiators competed with the sound of the firestorm.

  ——

  Freelance reporter Max Cahoon was in Seattle for another story. He got to the scene in the first fifteen minutes with his photographer. He watched the police officials from a vantage point in the crowd held back by tape across the street while the news helicopters circled overhead like carrion-seeking birds. Within minutes, the media would be pouring in by bus, cab and plane by the hundreds. This was the single biggest industrial disaster in a decade. Federal authorities were rushing to close down access even as a few began to hear the dreaded assessment from the scene: It was a terrorist bombing.

  Finally, one of the firemen who knew Cahoon from an earlier encounter checked his press credentials and waved him through. Two men in blue nylon jackets were so absorbed in conversation near a police van they didn’t notice his approach.

  “Not a single survivor?” The detective with SPD was a brooding gray presence. He stood at the edge of the smoking ruin chatting calmly with the fire department arson inspector, a hard-faced man in his thirties. The building that had housed the largest manufacturer of cutting edge antibiotics on the American continent was glowing rubble. From their conversational tone, the two men could have been talking baseball scores. Then Cahoon noticed their haunted eyes.

  Vector Pharmaceutical was gone along with over a thousand people, burned alive and these men would have nightmares for weeks.

  So will I, Cahoon thought.

  “Nobody made it out,” the detective said.

  “The coroner’s people will be very busy. We have temperatures exceeding two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Even dental records might not be enough.”

  “Who would do this?” It was Max Cahoon’s question, asked as though he’d been there all along. The arson inspector glanced at Cahoon. Max could see the “Who the hell are you?” look on his face, but the man was more interested in the question. “What would anyone have against an antibiotic manufacturer?”

  “We have a clue,” the detective said cryptical
ly.

  “What about the suspect in the van?” the inspector asked.

  “Didn’t make it,” the detective said. His tone was matter of fact.

  “Did he leave anything?” the Max asked.

  “You’re Max Cahoon, right?” He nodded. “Thought I recognized you. Now don’t quote me by name.” Max nodded. “We caught a break. Apparently the van was outfitted with a radio using a routinely monitored frequency. Homeland Security intercepted a send by one of the terrorists before the crash, a male voice, presumably the driver. He radioed something about ‘Gaia’s kiss.’ He was carrying a passport, probably fake, and some papers.”

  “What were the papers?” Max asked.

  “Quotes from the Manifesto of Ted Kaczynski.”

  “Who is Kaczynski?” the arson inspector asked.

  “The Unabomber,” Cahoon offered. “The guy who mailed bombs around the country to various scientists in the 1990’s. He blackmailed the media into publishing his ‘Manifesto’.”

  “Okay, okay,” the inspector said.

  The older detective looked amused at the inspector’s embarrassment. “He had the Manifesto in his pocket. Certain passages were underlined.” The detective paused. “I remember the phrase: ‘The factories should be destroyed.’”

  ——

  At the time the police and fire personnel first arrived at the site of the VP explosion, John was sitting next to Gabriel and Thurston in the limousine that was taking them to Sea-Tac, his own cellphone on, with the ringer set to maximum.

  Six minutes later, Dr. Owen’s cellphone clanged.

  “This better be Lance,” Dr. Owen muttered. He fished the tiny phone out of his jacket pocket, listening for a few moments; then his face froze. “Oh. My. God.” He put the phone against his chest, biting his lip.

  “Is it Lance?” Gabriel asked. “What’s wrong?”

  There was a long silence. Dr. Owen whispered. “No. It was our Vector plant. They firebombed the whole building. Killed…the entire night shift. No one…”

  “No,” Gabriel said. “No.”

  John paused, choking on his own words. “No one got out. My very best. One thousand people working overtime to make medicine. My friends died. It was murder. God…Damn…Them.”

  “Turn this car around,” Gabriel ordered. “We’ve got to get John to—”

  “No!” John barked. “No. I can’t allow this to get in the way of the vote. You guys get on that plane. I’ll get a ride back from—”

  “I’ll call,” Ken said from the front seat.

  “No. Wait!” John said. “Look. There is an empty cab right ahead of us. Get his attention. HONK! Get him to pull off at the next exit. I’ll get out there.”

  “Are you sure?” Ken asked.

  “Yes. Honk at him. NOW.”

  Ken leaned next to the limousine driver. The limousine began honking and the driver of the taxi pulled back into the right lane. Ken lowered the passenger window, waving wildly at the exit, holding a hundred-dollar bill. “She’s signaling,” Ken said.

  “Good move,” Gabriel said.

  John speed-dialed his daughter. “Hi,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you, hon. We have a crisis here. I need to talk to Josh.” He paused, looking sick. “He wasn’t going by the plant, was he? Damn…” A beat later, Dr. Owen added, “Well, call when he gets in. He’s still driving that Porsche, isn’t he?” Another pause. “Big trouble at the plant, but I can’t talk now. I need to go there and see for myself. I’ll call as soon as I know something…”

  “Everything okay with your family?” Gabriel asked.

  Owen was pale and sweaty. I think I’ve just lost my son-in-law. “I hope to God Josh didn’t go by the plant tonight…” But it’s just what he’d do.

  Gabriel reached over and patted John on the shoulder. “Call me as soon as you hear.”

  ——

  Three minutes later, John Owen was in the taxi headed back into Seattle. “There’s a fire at Vector Pharmaceutical,” he said. “I must get there.”

  “I heard on the radio,” the driver said. “I know where it is.” She was an attractive woman with short, blond hair. “But I’ll have to detour, okay?”

  “Do whatever you need to do.”

  “Yes, Dr. Owen.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I follow the news.”

  Damn! Elisabeth will hear about this before I can tell her.

  The detour exit was near the Waterfront Hotel. John didn’t notice anything unusual, until the cabbie drove into an unlit area next to a warehouse. “This is as far as I go,” she said. The cab stopped.

  “The hell you say.” Fuming, Dr. Owen pounded on the Plexiglas barrier. “Hey!” he shouted. “Talk to me!”

  Suddenly, the right passenger door jerked open. Another woman, stouter and older than the driver, was holding a semiautomatic weapon. It was trained at his chest.

  “Your room is ready, Dr. Owen. Will you come quietly or should we just leave your body here in the lot?”

  John was still furious. “If you really intend to kill me, what difference does it make?”

  “Oh, we didn’t plan to kill you. We have a business proposition in mind. Now get out of the car. K, give me a hand here!”

  The cabbie turned to face John, pointing another handgun through the slot in the Lexan barrier. “She sometimes kills when she gets impatient, Dr. Owen.”

  John slid across the seat. Just as his feet touched the pavement, he felt a sting in his arm. A heartbeat later, his entire world warped, and his vision swiftly narrowed to a tiny spot. Then, somehow, his knees were on the pavement.

  “Catch his head,” someone ordered. Then Dr. John Owen was beyond hearing.

  Chapter 23

  John Owen’s first sensation was damp concrete against his face, then a sharp pain in his right wrist which was suspended over his body. He opened his eyes. He was lying prone on the floor of a warehouse. His right hand was purple and swollen. His wrist was tightly wrapped with steel cable, bracketed to the wall above him with a set of bolts. A lamp glowed on a card table a few feet away. Someone—perhaps that same damned woman—was sitting at a chair facing him.

  “Good,” the voice said. “Sit up if you can.”

  When John moved, lancing pain ran from his wrist to shoulder. More disturbing, his right hand was beginning to feel numb. “I can’t,” he gasped. “What do you want?”

  “You will be able to walk out of here immediately, Dr. Owen. My principals need just three small things from you: One. You call your Senator friends and urge them privately and publicly to vote yes when the Earth Restoration Treaty comes to a vote. Two. You provide 100 million dollars to our movement. Three. You close Edge Medical and its subsidiaries.”

  “You are out of you mind.”

  “And you are out of your element. Think it over for an hour. You might even make up your mind in time to save your hand.”

  “I can’t move that much money.”

  The light went out.

  “We have all the necessary financial papers prepared, Dr. Owen. Someone will be back in an hour for your decision.” Footsteps retreated. A door opened and closed. More time passed. The sound of his breathing mingled with distant traffic sounds.

  No one will hear me if I cry out.

  He thought about the antibiotic run that was destroyed. These people won’t stop with me—they are monsters. But that is not a surprise, is it? I know their real agenda. A thousand people burned alive. Dr. Owen thought about his daughter, his son in law, the baby to be born any time now.

  I have to make a stand here, now.

  John twisted, trying to sit up. They will never let me live. Sometime, somehow, they will kill me. Any bargain with them would be an illusion. They must know that. Why not kill me, then? They actually think I’ll break. Rage filled him like a drug. He fed on it, summoning his courage.

  With his left hand, he felt in his pants pocket. Idiots. My credit card knife. How big is that b
lade? An inch and a half, maximum.

  So how big was my first scalpel?

  His wallet was in his left pocket and but it took several minutes to fish out the card, and to open the small blade. Dr. Owen decided to cut just above the cable, using it as a cutting guide. The nerves in that area should already be deadened. He pulled himself next to the wall and, slipping the blade into his shirt pocket, he felt his right hand with his left. The swollen hand felt strange, almost like an alien hand, or inanimate object. Good. He thought that after the first cut, it would be easier.

  He was wrong.

  After five minutes of slashing, he was close to fainting. His face was drenched in sweat, and he could feel the blood pooling where he sat. The bones! The damn bones!

  I can’t do this! He let his good arm fall to his side.

  Were those footsteps?

  With a surge of adrenaline, John pulled savagely against the cable, hacking feebly at tendons and slippery bones. Then he fell exhausted, again, shaking from shock. He began to cry. Then he prayed. It was a silent, incoherent prayer.

  What was that?

  John noticed that his wrist had slipped. The cables had moved at least a full inch along the ruin that was his hand.

  Go! Go! Go!

  Dr. Owen braced his legs against the wall and, gave it a final, fierce push. There was an agonizing moment of doubt as his strength ebbed, then something gave way and he fell back sobbing. John lay on his back, breathing raggedly. Free!

  I’ve got to risk the light. No. They might see it from outside. God I’m losing so much blood! He crawled to his feet in total darkness, using his good hand to brace himself.

  His left hand was shaking violently. Clumsily, he pulled his shirt off everything except his right arm, and twisted it into a compress tourniquet for the stump of his right wrist. Stepping cautiously, he reached the edge of the desk, and felt for the lamp, careful to hold the compress in place. There. He could block the old fashioned incandescent bulb with part of his shirt. He found the switch. Don’t hesitate!

  He turned it on, quickly pulling the lamp toward his body, and the bloody shirt. The heat of the bare bulb felt good against his arm. In the dimmed light, he could see that the wall behind the desk led to a door about fifty feet away.