CHAPTER
23
Although many Blue Creek residents felt like their vote was stolen with the death of Mike Wilson, they had no choice but to move on with their lives. David Asher’s pain-inducing economic policies would continue despite the ferocious opposition. Although the governor remained very unpopular, most people were burnt out by politics and didn’t want to be involved anymore. This was exactly what Charlie Henry had counted on—people get angry at first, but after a while, they accept the new normal. If things happened to get better, it would be a bonus. If they get worse, the leaders would get out and find a boogeyman to blame, distract with a disaster or a scandal, or make new promises.
As planned, Asher proposed to lighten some of the city’s regulations on outside parties. While the marginal lessening of these laws didn’t have a huge impact on the economy, the fact that citizens felt like things were opening up made them feel better. Consumer spending increased slightly and other surface economic indicators looked better. Lying just under the calm surface, however, was a return of higher unemployment, higher government spending, a larger debt, and higher taxes.
As fall turned to winter, and winter gave way to spring, the feeling that things were improving emerged. While the long-term economic outlook was bad, things in the short-term were improving. With this, Governor Asher regained some of his popularity, and with popularity came more trust. If Governor Asher came on TV and said things were looking up, well, things were damn well looking up.
This new positivity continued on through April, and this was only intensified by the warming weather. The triumvirate of Charlie Henry, David Asher, and Anna Radinski seemed to have weathered the storm, at least for now. Anna felt that this calm in the storm was their opportunity to repair their broken relationships and begin to move forward.
Their ploy had worked. David Asher would continue to serve as Blue Creek governor for the remainder of this original three-year term. Despite this, the room did not have a celebratory feeling. The five people in the room – David Asher, Charlie Henry, Anna Radinski, Tyler Redding, Brian White – were united in purpose, but were in disagreement on how to get there.
It was particularly sinister for Brian White, who’d had individual conversations with all of the conspirators besides Redding. They all expressed their desire to split the trio and go forward, either alone, or with one other. Both Charlie and Asher implied they wanted each other eliminated. Anna wanted to be rid of Charlie and Asher by exposing their connection by leaking it to the media. She would then use Tyler Redding as the new face of the movement. As she had with Asher, she would use to her wiles to keep him under her control.
Essentially, the three of them had made him the de facto kingmaker. They could either continue to trudge along together, or they could cede some power to White to gain his loyalty. With Travis Snedley gone, Brian White was the only person that could break their triumvirate and set only one of them up in power. Charlie, Asher, and Anna discussed their future plans, but it was all playacting. White knew that all of them were ready to dissolve their union.
Essentially, they decided they would stay the course through the summer. Once autumn arrived, they would implement new policies. The elephant in the room – one that was not discussed – was whether David Asher would run for another term. Unbeknownst to Asher, he was the only one who thought this was a good idea. Everyone else in the room knew that he would be gone after three years, if not sooner.
White watched the continuing conversation with rapt attention—not to hear what was being planned, but to determine which person would be his best bet going forward. By the time the meeting concluded, Brian White still hadn’t decided who would become the future power in Blue Creek. He would give them a chance to make their case to him, knowing they would all approach him again before long.
It was an unseasonably warm day in May. Anna had to turn on the air conditioning in her car to fight the heat. She was stopped at a red light, mindlessly tapping her fingers on her steering wheel to a song she’d never heard. She hated traffic lights and thought that maybe she should talk Asher into taking all of them out of Blue Creek. She chuckled to herself at this thought. Her mind turned to the meeting that she and Asher and Charlie had held a few days before, and the good humor left her. Against her better judgment she’d invited Tyler Redding. Asher had gotten very upset about that, to the point that the governor and his former opponent almost came to blows.
She shook her head, still tapping her fingers along to the music. The light finally turned green. Without looking, she hit the gas and drove into the intersection. She sensed motion in her peripheral vision, but didn’t even have time to react. The dump truck struck with astonishing force, nearly splitting Anna’s car in two. Her seat was pushed up and over the console, on top of the passenger seat and almost through the passenger door. The truck’s front bumper broke through the driver’s window and struck her head directly.
The truck was much larger than Anna’s Toyota, but the force of the collision damaged the front axle enough that the truck would no longer steer. The driver, a pimply kid in a beanie cap and red windbreaker, bolted from the truck and tried to get away. An onlooker, initially shocked by the collision, gathered his wits in time to run the offender down and tackle him. He and another bystander restrained the assailant until authorities could arrive.
Another passerby who had witnessed the collision – who, coincidentally, worked as a nurse at the local health clinic – ran to the car to see if she could render assistance. She reached the car, but there was nothing she could do. The driver, barely recognizable as human, was clearly dead. His or her dark hair was matted with blood and brain tissue. The woman’s training gave way to the shock and she began screaming for someone to call for an ambulance. No ambulance would be needed, however. The morgue’s van was more suitable in this particular situation.
The meeting with the others had been extremely stressful. Tyler Redding retired to his favorite fishing spot. He came here when things got hard, or he felt lonely. Fishing was his favorite outdoor activity—nothing relaxed him more. Now, seemingly everything in his world was chaotic. At one time he was the heir apparent. Now he wasn’t sure where he stood in the pecking order. Anna wanted him to take over, unbeknownst to David Asher. Charlie also wanted Asher gone, but Tyler wasn’t sure who Charlie wanted to replace the governor. The plan had always been for Tyler to step in, but he got the impression that Charlie preferred Anna.
Anna was the driving force behind getting David Asher elected and keeping him in office. Tyler knew, however, that if and when Anna wanted a change, she would make it happen. She knew how to use her mind and her body to get what she wanted. She’d promised him the keys to the kingdom. Little did he know that his avenue to power had just been crushed by a dump truck. More unfortunate for him was the fact that his own death was seconds away.
As a young boy, Tyler loved watching nature shows, especially the ones about lions. Those enormous, yet sleek and powerful beasts, would lie hidden, nearly invisible in the tall yellow grass. Then suddenly, they would spring forward and run down a zebra or a wildebeest or some other unfortunate creature. Eventually the lion would tire them out and take them down.
And this scenario was similar. The hunter lay hidden in the grass, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce on the unsuspecting prey. When Tyler exited the water and bent over to remove his waders, the man with the 9mm pistol stood out of his crouch and approached silently from behind. Without a word, the assassin got to within three paces and pulled the trigger, sending a hollow-pointed lead slug into the back of Tyler Redding’s head.
Two down, one to go.
The team tasked to follow Charlie Henry knew that he was a home body who rarely left his house. This created some advantages and disadvantages. Advantageous to them was the fact that they wouldn’t have to track him down or wait for the exact right place at the exact right time—they could just
break in and get it down quickly and brutally. Or, they could wait until the lonely old bastard was asleep and go in and do the deed quietly. The bad part was that it would be much more difficult to make his death look accidental. Furthermore, it would be nearly impossible for them to dispose of his body. An “accidental death” wasn’t a necessity in this case.
When the killers entered Charlie’s house, they caught him lying in bed, watching the nightly news report. His former mistress had perished in an accident earlier that day. Luckily for them, he seemed to be very relaxed and docile, perhaps drunk or high. They entered his bedroom and stood quietly until he noticed them. When he saw the intruder who was standing closer to the bed, he was shocked at first, but then seemed to realize what was happening. It was almost as if he’d been expecting it.
“We’re going to give you a choice, Charlie,” the intruder closer to the bed said. He pulled a plastic bag out of his pants pocket and unrolled it. It contained a particularly high-grade, very pure heroin. “You can either shoot this up yourself, or we’ll go to work on you.”
Charlie sat up in bed, gasping for words that didn’t come.
“Trust me, old man, we’re good at keeping you alive while putting you through hell. We can make it last for hours. Like I say, it’s your choice.”
Charlie tried to swallow but couldn’t summon up enough saliva. He coughed, covering his mouth as his mother had taught him so long ago. It was true, he thought. Your life did kind of flash before your eyes when you knew you were going to die. But the reverie didn’t last long—he was snapped back into reality when one of the intruders placed his hand on Charlie’s shoulder.
“Charlie?” he said, shaking him, making sure that he was still with them.
The old man stammered, looking for the perfect words to say to them to get him out of one more jam. Just one more. He wanted to cry, to beg for mercy. ‘Pathetic,’ he thought. He’d lived his life like a warrior, or so he’d thought. But what could he do? There were two of them. Much younger and stronger than he was. They most assuredly had knives, probably guns.
No. He was checkmated. The king must accept defeat and lie down.
“Okay okay,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. Tears began to roll down his face. He didn’t even attempt to wipe at them. What would be the point of that? “I … I can’t mix it myself,” he stammered. “I’m shaking too damn much. You’re going to have to do that.”
The man standing closest to the door nodded and exited the room. A few moments later he returned with a spoon, one big enough to take Charlie on his biggest … and last … ride on the Devil’s Highway.
Charlie watched the intruder who was standing at the foot of his bed. His accomplice was rolling up the right sleeve of Charlie’s pajama top. He wrapped surgical tubing around the skinny but flabby arm and started looking for a vein.
“Damn Charlie,” he said, almost laughing, “you’ve used these veins up haven’t you!”
Charlie had accepted his fate and he was no longer nervous. He would go out like a warrior. He was a Weatherman, after all. While he did not fight them, he raised his chin in defiance as they filled the syringe and stuck it in his arm. He looked down as the leader depressed the plunger, sending enough of the drug to kill three people into his bloodstream.
The deaths of Anna Radinski and Charlie Henry hit Blue Creek like a hurricane, but the media did their best to downplay the mess. Despite their best efforts, the result was inevitable—Patton Larsen’s screwy conspiracy theories crept back into the public consciousness. More importantly, it made its way back into the public square. One of the news channels hunted him down for an interview and Patton basically gave them one big “I told you so.” Tyler Redding was also sought out for a response, but he could not be found.
It was a half-hearted effort by the media to find the truth. They shepherded Governor David Asher through the recall debacle, the delaying of the elections, and his slim victory over Patton Larsen. It seemed unlikely that they would do anything to damage the governor at that point. Despite the media’s best efforts, though, the controversy lingered in the public’s mind for another month. Asher’s popularity inevitably suffered. Things were so bad, in fact, that Asher and his security agency drew up plans in case Blue Creek citizens rose up against the government. It all became moot, however. Nothing of consequence happened. After a few weeks, people went back to their lives.
The public didn’t know that the other shoe was about to drop. The final set of policy proposals, which Anna and Charlie developed before their deaths, was about to hit the City Council for a vote. Charlie and Anna had planned on gradually putting these policies in place, with Tyler Redding as governor of Blue Creek. However, with his fellow conspirators out of the picture, Asher thought that it was the right time to submit the policies to the Council.
Instead of reducing taxes and regulations, Asher doubled down and increased both, all in the name of helping those who couldn’t help themselves. He increased his security and police force even more and started construction on a huge prison complex on the eastern hills overlooking the city. It didn’t end there. During the campaign against Patton Larsen, Anna learned that the organizers of the experiment had inserted spies into the community. Luckily for Asher, she’d notified Brian White of this fact. Anna had all of suspected spies followed. She had notebooks full of names, addresses, and other identifiers. Now that Anna was gone, Asher was going to take things a step further.
For Bao, the killings marked the moment when everything changed in Blue Creek. Things had been on a downward tilt ever since David Asher had become governor, but after the deaths of Charlie Henry and Anna Radinski, events in the city began to feel like a runaway train. Perhaps Patton hadn’t been so crazy and paranoid after all.
In early July, the unthinkable happened. In the cumulative report to the executives of Insight, the line that usually read “all agents in place and reporting” had changed. Instead, it read, “2 agents unaccounted for.” This change sent a shockwave through Bao’s community. His suspicions that he had been followed were confirmed. Someone was onto their network and now two people were missing.
A week later the report was amended to show that the agents were again in place, but something didn’t feel right to Bao. He knew one of the two who had disappeared. Although direct contact between agents was forbidden, Bao decided to contact her to see what had happened. When she him on her doorstep, she tried to close the door in his face. Bao blocked the door with his foot.
“Hey,” he whispered, “let me in.”
When she relented and opened the door to let him in, he looked both ways down the street to make sure no one was watching them. Satisfied that no one was there, Bao stepped into the woman’s house.
Lindsay Andres was a young and pretty African American woman, two years older than Bao. She’d applied for the experiment, but with her experience with computers, Insight asked her if she wanted a job instead. She accepted and now here she was. Bao watched her walk into her living room. She was noticeably limping.
“Lindz?” he said, concerned.
She turned and smiled weakly at him, then turned and sat on her large leather couch. She was obviously in pain. Bao sat next to her and an awkward silence passed between them. When he asked her what happened to her, tears sprung to her eyes and she looked away from him.
“Have you been followed too?” he asked her, his hand placed affectionately on her knee.
She winced at his touch, but instead of being apologetic he became angry with her.
“Dammit Lindsay! This affects me too! I’ve been followed by someone. Did someone follow you?”
Lindsay was taken aback by his reaction. She nodded vigorously, tears now streaming down her face.
“Who?” he asked.
Lindsay shook her head, refusing to answer.
“Who?” he asked, angrier than before.
“Bao …” she whimpered. “They told me they would kill me if I told anyone anything,” she said, her whole body shaking now.
Bao’s eyes went wide and he pulled away from her.
“Bao …” she said, looking around the room conspiratorially. “You need to leave. And you need to watch your back.”
Bao stood and staggered away from the couch. He opened the door slowly, just a crack, and looked across the street to see if anyone was there. He didn’t see the car that had followed him before. He pulled the door open wider and stepped out into the warm, dry air. Not knowing what else to do, he decided to leave his car, which he’d parked around the corner. He walked home. As Bao crossed the first street, a dark car pulled away from the curb behind him and slowly followed him as he made his way down the sidewalk.
CHAPTER
24
Now that Frank and Patton were both in semi-retirement, they vowed they would get out on the lake to fish at least twice a week. This was going to be their first outing since Mike was killed. Instead of using Patton’s boat, they decided to go out with their old friend, Tom Perry. When Tom was out fishing with them, at least one of them would have a great day. Their excitement turned to disappointment, though, when they got to the door of the shop and found a “Closed” sign on the window. Patton looked at his watch and then looked at the hours of operation sign on the window.
“What the hell? He should be open,” he said to Frank, who was checking his own watch.
They set their gear down and took turns looking inside the shop. There was no one inside. No lights. No movement.
“You got his cell number in your phone?” Patton asked Frank, searching his own phone for the number.
“Let me check,” Frank said, pulling out his phone.
Neither of them had the number, but before they could return their fishing gear to Patton’s truck, they saw a big red Ford pickup coming towards them, trailing dust from the gravel road. It was Tom. They left their gear and approached their friend.
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