Hands bound behind his back, the Russian uncorked a rebel yell and lunged.
Instinctively, CJ dropped his chin to his chest, aggravating the swollen welt levied by the rubber bullet, and the gunman’s teeth punctured the tip of his ear, drawing blood.
CJ vented a pained grunt and hunched his shoulders to protect his vulnerable carotid arteries.
A burly soldier with arms thick as Hellfire missiles grabbed his unruly comrade by the scruff of his neck and flung him back onto his seat, then he unleashed an earsplitting diatribe. Judging from the gestures, Burly was pissed off over that errant shot.
The Tigr stopped in front of a nondescript, two-story building, and CJ was hauled into a tiny interrogation room that reeked of rotting cabbage. He settled onto an old wooden chair, noting an array of surveillance cameras, and began rehearsing for the inevitable onslaught of questions.
Why the incursion into Russian airspace?
Instrument failure caused me to lose my bearings.
What was your intended destination?
Hirosaki, Japan.
Why did you have a bomb aboard your aircraft?
The explosion must’ve been caused by a fuel leak. Parts made in China; nonstop problems.
Did you cause that mountain to collapse?
Is that what happened? I thought it was an earthquake.
A man wearing a dark green uniform sauntered into the room carrying a laptop, and the arrangement of stripes and stars on his shoulder boards suggested that he was a senior officer. His pale-blue eyes scanned CJ, taking his measure, then he pushed a chair toward a scarred wooden table, plopped down, and roused his laptop. “My name is Baklanovich,” he said, speaking English with a heavy Russian accent. “And you are?”
CJ volunteered his name, rank, and serial number.
His interrogator’s forehead rumpled; his eyes narrowed with displeasure. “Christian Love? You think me gameful mood after explosion?”
“That’s my real name,” CJ stated flatly.
Baklanovich ordered him to repeat the information, this time typing it into his computer; then his displeasure reconstituted into anger. “Captain Christian James Love dead plane crash, twenty-seven January.”
Shit!
CJ’s mind was red-lining in search of a credible narrative. His heart was bucking, and each throb of his pulse inflamed the bruise on his chest and made his ear feel like it was on fire.
“I know who you are,” Baklanovich grumbled. “Mission to shoot down aircraft like Ukraine; blame Russia to ferment war.”
“Foment war?” CJ repeated, subtlely correcting his English. “Hell no! I’m on leave. I was flying to Hirosaki, Japan, to visit a friend and got lost. Seriously, check my flight plan.”
Python had fudged the electronic record, but Baklanovich wasn’t biting.
“Flight plan bullshit!” he insisted. “Consortium comrades arrested. Already confession to shoot down Air India plane over Black Sea.”
“Woah, woah, woah!” CJ said, establishing eye contact. “I am NOT part of The Consortium. I’m their enemy. They have a multimillion-dollar bounty on my head. Yes, I accidentally trespassed into your airspace; no, I did not intend to harm any Russian soldiers, citizens, or aircraft.”
Baklanovich’s mouth puckered, and he growled, “Okay. We do hard way!”
27
Langden Air Force Base, Texas
ABBY’S EYELIDS FELT heavy. Voices were speaking in hushed whispers too garbled to decipher. Or was her mind just too groggy to process the meaning?
Formulating a coherent thought was like wading through quicksand; the harder she tried to string words together, the deeper she sank into a swamp of confusion.
Yawning and stretching away the stiffness, she realized that her wrists and ankles were restrained, and a jolt of intense fear burned off the mental fogginess.
Was I captured by another satanic asshole?
With a Herculean effort, Abby pried open her eyes.
Tubes, machines, an IV port in her left arm—she was in a hospital room. But why was she bound to the bed?
Just beyond the doorway, her bodyguard was huddled in conversation with a woman wearing a white lab coat. Abby tried to call out to him, emitting only a strangled murmur. Her mouth was dry; her throat, raw; and she finally managed to croak, “Wachter.”
His head swiveled toward her, then recognizing Lieutenant Malvado, Abby frowned.
The thirtysomething shrink surveyed her with those freakish, bulging brown eyes and crooned, “Aaah-bby, you’re at Langden’s inpatient psychiatric wing following your su-u-uicide attempt.”
Shock and indignation detonated like a firecracker inside her skull. “What? I’m not suicidal! There was a drone strike. The pressure wave must’ve knocked me out.” She looked to Wachter, soliciting support that was not forthcoming.
“An enemy drone was shot down by a laser,” he said somberly, his head bowing under the weight of guilt. “There was no explosion. No blast wave. You lost consciousness and slipped off the roof of the truck.”
“Aaah-bby,” Malvado continued, patting her forearm, “you nearly o-o-overdosed on antidepressants.”
Each sing-song syllable barreled through Abby’s ear canal and riled every nerve ending in her body. “No, I didn’t! I never took any of that garbage.”
“There’s na-a-ah-thing to be ashamed of. The levels of Seroquel and Abilify in your system were practically le-e-ethal.”
“My water bottle!” Abby blurted, establishing eye contact with Wachter. “Somebody tried to kill me!”
The Secret Service agent cocked his head, and his brows knitted. “If you were poisoned, there’ll be traces of the toxin in the water bottle.”
“She wasn’t poisoned,” Malvado insisted, glowering at Wachter. “She’s suffering from delusional paranoia.”
“I am not! And the bottle will prove it!” Abby shouted, locking eyes with her bodyguard. “Please tell me you have—”
“Excuse me.”
The voice belonged to a middle-aged man in a dark suit, who was waggling a badge and staring daggers at Malvado. “Randall McCann, acting director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And from our regional field office, Agent Stropky.”
On cue, the junior agent latched on to Wachter’s elbow, forcibly removing him from the hospital room, and a petrifying dose of reality rolled along Abby’s spine. McCann wasn’t here to investigate a potential suicide or an attempted murder. He was a Carter Sidney acolyte who served on the board of Gorka Schwartz’s One Society Foundation and was notorious for constructing perjury traps to silence witnesses.
Abby wrestled against the restraints, feeling trapped and helpless. Would the rogue FBI agent smother her with a pillow? Would a Consortium-connected coroner rule her death a suicide?
Heart pounding in her throat, Abby yelled, “I know your cronies tried to kill me!”
“Sergeant,” McCann said, his intimidating, ruthless blue eyes boring into her, “I suggest you consider your words carefully. Irrational and paranoid statements could necessitate intervention on the part of your psychiatrist.”
Malvado retrieved a syringe from the pocket of her lab coat, underscoring the pharmacological threat.
McCann’s thin lips relaxed into a devious smirk. “Which brings me to the point of my visit: a deposition regarding Ryan Andrews’ connection to Vladislav Volkov.”
They’re trying to drive him from office, Abby thought. Just like my dad.
“President Andrews did NOT collude with Volkov or any other Russian,” she stated unequivocally.
“Sergeant, I’m the only thing standing between you and that syringe.” McCann leaned over the bed, violating her personal space. He reeked of burnt citrus and cigarettes; and his voice dropped to an ominous whisper. “I suggest you tell me what I want to hear.”
Abby squinted, nose crinkling, and faked a sneeze, ejecting a mist of saliva onto his bellicose face.
Mouth contorted with disgust, McCann backpedaled
, plucked a handkerchief from his pocket, and scoured his face.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I must be allergic to your cologne.”
“Don’t play games, Sergeant. You ... are going to testify against Ryan Andrews and, in exchange, you will be granted immunity.”
Abby knew he was baiting her with an empty promise. As soon as Johanna Krupp assumed the presidency, it would be open season on all members of the TEradS. “I’m not going to lie to aid and abet your vendetta against Ryan Andrews.”
McCann’s complexion turned a sickly shade of grayish green, and a wormlike vein in his forehead began to pulse. “You will remain in this psych ward, strapped to this bed, until you cooperate.”
“That’s false imprisonment,” Abby argued. “And my father will never stand for it! He researched the drugs Malvado prescribed. He knows that I didn’t take any of that crap! He will NEVER believe that I overdosed!”
McCann looked askance at Crazy Bug Eyes and snapped his fingers as if unleashing an attack dog.
“This syringe contains a cla-a-ah-ssified, psychoactive compound, a hundred times more powerful than flakka,” Lieutenant Malvado said. “Once daddy witnesses your biz-z-zarre behavior—agitation, paranoia, delusions, and hallucinations—he’ll agree that you pose a da-a-ay-nger to yourself and others ...”
28
Ministry of State Security
Sonbong, North Korea
A PAIR OF FANGS pierced Bradley’s backside. A buzzing, crackling hum besieged his eardrums, and fifty thousand volts of electricity shot through his body. The Taser’s current replicated the signal frequency used by neurons that relayed instructions between brain and muscle, thereby overriding his neuromuscular control.
Bradley’s legs folded beneath him and he melted into a fetal position, groaning and swearing. Every muscle was contracting uncontrollably; every pain receptor was being set aflame. He felt dazed, unable to focus on anything besides the pain.
“Foolish decision,” the squad leader muttered in Korean.
The head-butt victim grabbed Bradley’s right foot; the recipient of the elbow, his left; and they dragged him through the hallway. The soldier he’d nailed in the groin was still writhing on the floor.
Why aren’t they beating the hell out of me? Bradley wondered.
The North Korean secret police were not known for restraint. They were the cornerstone of the Dear Leader’s power, tasked with penalizing political crime, enforcing censorship, protecting the border, issuing exit visas, and managing labor camps.
Bradley’s mind reverted to the brazen bull, and he cursed Rone for refusing to provide an L-pill. The Admiral had contended that lethal pills were incongruent with military values and that, in an emergency, Bradley’s handgun could serve as a “last resort” to avoid torture.
The soldiers towed him into a drab concrete room that looked like a warden’s office. A trio of paintings loomed above a gray, metal 1960s-era desk—the current Dear Leader flanked by his deceased father and grandfather.
The Koreans maneuvered him into a kneeling position; and, expecting that he was about to be executed, Bradley raised his chin and squared his shoulders.
The squad leader dropped Bradley’s backpack onto the desk beside a crystal ashtray and waggled the Taser in an unspoken threat.
Why isn’t he threatening me with his firearm?
The U.S.S. Pueblo came to mind. In 1968, North Koreans had captured the spy ship, imprisoned its eighty-two crew members for eleven months, and reaped a propaganda bonanza that included staged press conferences and ludicrous confessions.
He inhaled a slow, deep breath, certain that an insincere apology from the U.S. government wouldn’t suffice this time.
Bradley’s bloodshot eyes slanted toward a hidden wall panel that was swinging outward.
Is that a torture chamber?
The thought elevated his pulse, exacerbating his throbbing wrists and aggravating his fledgling headache, making it difficult to focus—and the interrogation hadn’t even begun.
Two Korean men in dark, Western-style suits shooed the soldiers from the room and locked the metal door, which was rippled with layers of paint and dimpled with pockmarks.
Then Bradley’s jaw dropped.
A short pudgy man strutted into the office. Dressed in a Mao suit—an outdated, black pinstriped jacket with a stiff collar and clunky buttons—and trailing a wispy ribbon of cigarette smoke, the Dear Leader eased his obese little frame onto the desk chair.
That’s gotta be a body double, Bradley thought. That can’t really be Gim Chong Lee.
Two additional men in suits entered the room. The hidden panel slowly retracted, and, speaking in his native tongue, the dictator said, “You may express your gratitude.”
Bradley pretended not to understand, and his gaze leapfrogged amongst the bodyguards, seeking a translation.
“I know you are fluent in Korean and many other languages.”
How the hell does he know about my linguistic upgrade?
The Dear Leader’s mouth, strikingly tiny in relation to his chubby cheeks, softened into an amiable smirk. “My elite guard rescued you from Night Sector. For this you should be grateful.”
Overwhelmed by curiosity, Bradley responded in Korean, “Why do you allow Night Sector to operate within your country?”
Gim’s jolly round face grew melancholy. “My family dynasty has been puppetized, coerced into hosting weapons laboratories and supplying human guinea pigs; forced to behold the enslavement and starvation of our people.”
The statement was an intellectual sucker punch. “The famine of the 1990s?” Bradley asked. “Are you suggesting that was The Consortium’s handiwork?”
The dictator took a long, contemplative drag on his cigarette and exhaled a bluish cloud. “You have been led to believe that the Arduous March was a convergence of natural disaster, economic mismanagement, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Your media and history books deliberately omit the nameless, faceless globalists who engineered those events, which led to the death of more than 500,000 Koreans.”
Bradley was floundering in the grips of a nasty case of déjà vu. He’d had a similar conversation with Volkov, and the old man’s words haunted him.
Everything you believe to be true is false. Right is wrong. And good is evil ... You consider me an enemy when, in reality, I am your friend.
“What about all those nuclear tests?” Bradley asked. “All those missiles cruising over Japan? And the endless threats to relegate the United States to ashes and darkness?”
“Your tax dollars at work,” Gim said, pointing his cigarette at Bradley. “Your CIA issued those threats on behalf of The Consortium. You see, war is more profitable than peace, and the military industrial complex requires a steady stream of enemies to justify ever-increasing budgets. Which, in turn, fuels ever-increasing deficits and enriches the central bankers.”
It all fit together into an outlandishly deranged puzzle, and the Dear Leader seemed sincere, rational, and even likeable—disconcertingly so.
Gim snuffed out his cigarette in the crystal ashtray and began rooting through the backpack.
“Why am I here?” Bradley demanded, challenging the rotund dictator.
“I ordered this impromptu meeting to achieve three objectives. First, to thank you for neutralizing the weapons lab ...”
Bradley gawked at him, dumbfounded, and insane ideas began to percolate. Maybe the North Koreans weren’t going to torture him. Maybe he would get to go home; to see Abby again; to be a father ... Or maybe he was being played.
“... Second,” Gim continued, “to protect you from Night Sector and smuggle you out of the country.” He made a scissoring hand gesture, and one of his bodyguards severed the paracord, unshackling Bradley’s bruised wrists.
Can it be true? he asked himself. That North Korea really isn’t an enemy of the United States?
Night Sector’s presence, his unlikely rescue, the barbed probes of the Taser in
lieu of a bullet—it all supported the dictator’s assertions.
Could it be that I’ve been fighting on the wrong side?
Unknowingly following the orders of The Consortium all along?
As a patriotic man who’d enlisted to protect the Constitution and his countrymen, he was sickened by the possibility.
Gim shifted forward in his chair and tossed something at him.
It didn’t register at first; not until the blonde braid ricocheted off his chest and landed on the cement floor. Bradley’s lips curled into an involuntary smile, and he bent over, willing his reddish-blue fingers to grasp the lock of Abby’s hair.
“And lastly,” the Dear Leader said, “to request a favor ...”
29
Langden Air Force Base, Texas
LIEUTENANT MALVADO injected the psychoactive compound into the IV port, disposed of the syringe, and followed McCann into the hallway.
“Why are you wasting time with Russia collusion?” she griped. “We’ve got bigger problems.”
The acting director of the FBI erupted in anger. “I’ve been tasked with hunting an apex predator; you were asked to flush a guppy down the toilet and you fucked it up! She needs to believe this is about testimony—not the big event, Dumb Ass.”
Put off by his attitude, Malvado said, “What’re you going to do about her bodyguard and the water bottle?”
The Power of We the People Page 11