End Times

by P A Duncan

  Alexei stepped up beside her. “Agent Fitzgerald, we can do this for you, and you’ll get the credit, or the blame if you dismiss us. I swear to you, if you go through with the plan that involves tanks and CS gas, you and Isaac Caleb will end up killing every man, woman, and child inside that church.”

  “If that happens,” Mai said, “I’ll personally see your next job with the FBI will be as the janitor—the basement janitor.”

  “I’m pushing this with Director Steedley. You’re both done here. Your bleeding-heart plan is shit, and, as SAC, I reject it.”

  “Agent Fitzgerald,” Alexei said, emphasizing the man’s title, “let’s put emotion and egos aside for the moment and give us the opportunity to flesh out this plan. Before we returned here this afternoon, we took the liberty of providing a report to Attorney General Vejar and Director Steedley. We also gave them our preliminary impressions of what we’d observed thus far.”

  “Did you tell them you tried to throttle me?”

  “I didn’t try. I did. In this instance, I considered that need-to-know, between you and me.”

  “That’s an excuse you two use a lot. I’m done with it.”

  “Up to you, of course, but now the attorney general has two options to provide the president. In the meantime, there should be no reason why we can’t simultaneously proceed with preparing both plans, ours as well as yours. When the president decides, we’ll both be ready. Be reasonable about this.”

  Fitzgerald’s eyes moved to Mai, to Alexei, and to Mai’s surprise, he conceded.

  “All right, we’ll prep both options and wait for the president’s decision. You have my permission to solicit volunteers for your teams, and I’ll put the word out for women tactical agents tomorrow. One condition.”

  Ah, Mai thought, now we find out the price.

  “The team of female agents…” He leaned down to Mai. “You don’t lead it. You can be on it, but I chose the team lead. Take it or leave it.”

  “No is one better equipped to lead that team than Ms. Fisher,” Alexei said.

  “Alexei, it’s fine. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.”

  Fitzgerald blinked, as if in disbelief. “All right,” he said, not hiding a triumphant smile, “that’s settled.”

  “Oh, far from settled, but that’s for another time,” Mai replied.

  “What the fuck do you mean?”

  “I let you win that one. Next time I won’t.”

  “Get the fuck out of my office and get to work.”

  Alexei took a step toward Fitzgerald, but Mai said, “Let it go, Alexei. He’s not worth a bullet.”

  “Is that a threat, Fisher?” Fitzgerald asked, smiling. “Go for it.”

  “You’re tempting me to do something rude.”

  The smile broadened into a grin. “You don’t have the balls, in more ways than one.”

  “As if I’d shoot you with a few hundred federal agents outside the door.”

  “Who’s talking guns? Use some non-lethals. Or hand-to-hand. Oh, man, I’d love to put you on your ass. Come on. What are you waiting for? Here I am. Take me down.”

  “I’m not wasting my energy on a crazy man. Good day, Hollis.”

  “I knew you didn’t have the guts,” Fitzgerald said.

  Oh, bad move, Alexei thought.

  Mai kneed Fitzgerald in the nuts and brought him to his knees, where she loomed over him, fist closed in the front of his sweater, the muzzle of the Beretta pressed against the side of his nose.

  “I could put a bullet in a place where you’d live, but you’d drool on yourself for the rest of your life. Or I could end you like this.” She shifted the Beretta until it was between Fitzgerald’s eyes.

  Alexei had seen it before, the fear in the bully’s eyes when he got a taste of his own medicine. “Mai,” Alexei said. “Enough.”

  She released Fitzgerald, stepped away, and holstered the gun. “By the way, Hollis, I hate the word nigger.”

  Alexei caught her eye and nodded to the door. Without questioning him, she left.

  Fitzgerald remained on his knees hands pressed against his groin.

  “In case you’re thinking about doing something idiotic, like pressing charges,” Alexei said, “I’ll support my partner. I didn’t see a thing.”

  “Both of you are fucking nuts,” Fitzgerald said, teeth clenched in pain.

  “Perhaps, but I’m the saner man in this room.”

  Alexei left Fitzgerald nursing his balls.

  Fitzgerald stayed on his knees until the pain eased. The bitch had kneed him in the balls. She was going to fucking pay for that.

  He got to his feet and walked a bit splay-legged to the trailer’s door. He opened it and saw his agents outside.

  “Get back in here,” he ordered.

  The agents filed back inside and took up their duty stations. Fitzgerald grabbed the communications tech by the arm and said, “Get me Director Steedley on the secure line. Fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Yes, sir. Right away.”

  Fitzgerald stalked back into his office, every step pulling pain from his testicles.

  19

  Outlaw

  For the hundredth time that morning, Michelle Leary looked at her brand-new, laminated press pass. Not bad for a student reporter on a university paper—an official press pass from the FBI Public Affairs Office. She now had access to the whole site, though not the compound, and she got to sit in on the press briefings. Pretty cool.

  Of course, her lack of a major media employer meant she got stuck at the back of the room near the row of camera operators, and no one saw her raised hand.

  And she so looked the part. When she’d gotten word the press pass had been approved, she’d watched the earlier briefings, taking note of the women reporters’ outfits. Leaning toward casual but good enough to stand out on TV, if the cameras ever turned her way.

  Too soon, though, she’d discovered studying journalism in the classroom and practicing it in the field were two different things. The stories she’d done at Baylor had involved a venue she was comfortable with and people she knew. This place was almost overwhelming, swarming with people who weren’t simply strangers but strange. Including some of the FBI agents. They kept calling to her, telling her to come behind a trailer and interview them one-on-one. She had expected grown men, not to mention federal agents, to act less like frat boys.

  She ended up following around some print reporters she recognized from the Dallas papers and hovered on the edges of their interviews with agents and civilians. She took lots of notes, and her reporter’s notebook was full of quotes and notes about what she’d seen and heard. Her editor—only because he was a senior, after all—would want something more than quotes cribbed from others’ interviews. It wouldn’t look good for her portfolio if her articles about the biggest story to hit Texas since the Siege of the Alamo were recycled from other reports. That, and it maybe bordered on plagiarism.

  She wandered about the area cordoned off for the demonstrators, looking for an interview prospect. Everyone here was so intense, so emotional they were often incoherent. She knew the reason the media were here. They were here for The Story, as her journalism teachers had emphasized. Why anyone else was here was beyond her. Well, she supposed she should go find out.

  After looking over the crowd again, she spied a possibility. He looked a few years older than she, and she’d noticed him before because he stayed off to himself. He gave off a real severe vibe, though, with his military haircut and the camo ball cap. But his clothes were clean and neat, and he didn’t look like he’d spent the night here, though she knew he had. When she’d arrived from Austin this morning, she’d seen him crawl from his sleeping bag next to his car.

  She smoothed her blouse, patted her hair, and put on her best reporter’s face before she made her way over to the guy. He sat on the hood of his car with his face turned toward Calvary Locus, his gaze intent. He had bumper stickers stacked on the hood and a hand-lettered sign on the windshield w
ith the prices. She watched an older man and woman approach him, look over the stickers, and pay him for a few. He was polite with them, his smile affable.

  He was average-looking, not bad, but not enough to turn her head. Somehow, he’d managed to shave. Either that or he was one of those guys who only needed to shave every few days.

  When he was alone again, she brought out her perkiest smile and headed for the car. “Hi, there,” she said.

  He turned to look at her, his expression dark and still intense. His eyes roamed, like, everywhere, and he smiled. “Hi, yourself,” he said.

  “Hey, I’m Michelle, and I’m a university student in Journalism. I work on my college newspaper and wondered if I could interview you.”

  He frowned and looked away. “Nah, I don’t think so.”

  She gave him a flirty smile. “Aw, come on. What would it hurt?”

  “Reporters twist people’s words. I’ve seen it happen here.”

  “Oh, those are the TV reporters. You know how they are. I’m a print reporter. I’ll quote you exactly.” She batted her eyes. “I promise.”

  He looked her over again, in a way that now made her a little uncomfortable, but he smiled again. “What the heck,” he said. “Go ahead.”

  “Okay! Great! So, what’s your name?”

  “Jay Jenkins.”

  She had him spell it for her. “Where are you from, Jay?”

  “New York.”

  “Wow! That’s a long way to come.”

  “Maybe, but the people inside Calvary Locus need to know folks out here support them.”

  “I see. What do you think the stand-off is all about?”

  “Guns. The government doesn’t want private citizens to own guns, even though our Constitution allows it.”

  “There are plenty of guns here in Texas.”

  “I’m not talking about the state. I’m talking about the federal government, who wants to keep the population from rising. People who have guns will fight for their freedom, but take their guns away, and the government can do what it wants. Calvary Locus is a test case, see. First here, then some other place in another state and on and on until the whole country is disarmed.”

  Much the same drivel as what others here had said, but his demeanor was calm and calculated. If you weren’t paying attention, you’d think he wasn’t a nut case.

  She scribbled his words down. “I see. You said the people inside Calvary Locus need to know they have support. Explain to me why you and the other folks’ being here helps.”

  “Two ways. First, like I said, so the folks being held hostage by the government can see we support them, that they’re not alone, that we’re watching what the government does to them. Second, and maybe more importantly, to let the government know we’re watching them. Thomas Jefferson once said it was a citizen’s duty to keep an eye on government, to remind it every now and then where it gets its power from.”

  Jeez, her dad said much the same thing, and he wasn’t a nut job.

  “Do you have any way of knowing if the people in Calvary Locus know you’re here?”

  “The FBI turned off their electricity and their phones, but I think they can see us from there.” Again, he looked toward the compound. “I hope we give them hope and courage.”

  “How long do you plan to stay?”

  “I wish I could stay indefinitely, but I’ve got a job coming up in Michigan. I have to leave tomorrow.”

  “Why is this important to you, personally?”

  “Because it could be any one of us the government comes after.”

  “I see you’re selling bumper stickers.”

  “Yeah.” He gave her a big smile, one that made his austere face appealing. “You want some? For you, they’re free.”

  He was flirting now, and that was as bad as the FBI guys. “Oh, no thanks. You keep them to sell.”

  “Go ahead. Somebody gave them to me. Take some. Use them as illustrations for your article.”

  He took one sticker from each of the stacks and straightened each stack afterward. He handed them to her.

  “The top one is my favorite,” he said.

  Michelle took the stickers and read the top one: “When Only Outlaws Have Guns, I’ll Become an Outlaw.”

  “Why is this one your favorite?” she asked.

  “It reflects exactly the way I feel about losing the means to protect myself and my family. You should be concerned, too.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You’re young, and, pardon me if I get personal, you’re really pretty. There are people you might need to protect yourself from. Not me, of course,” he said, smiling, but became deadly serious again. “What if it gets to the point where you can’t carry a Taser or Mace?”

  “I don’t carry either of those anyway,” she said.

  Daddy had given her a thirty-two she kept in her car, though.

  “You should.” He smiled again, definitely more flirting. “Like I said, you’re pretty. Guys think pretty girls are vulnerable.”

  God, how creepy was that?

  “Well, thanks for being concerned,” she said, “but I’ll be fine.”

  “Think about it, okay?”

  “Sure. Some people might say by selling stuff here you’re exploiting the people at Calvary Locus,” she said.

  “Oh, I won’t keep the money. I’ll find a charity that will help those folks once this is all over.”

  Again, not sounding like a nut job, but not terribly exciting either.

  “Okay, well, I’d better be going. Thanks for your time.”

  “Why don’t you stay and chat a bit?”

  Yeah, right, dude. She held up the notebook. “Sorry. Gotta go be a reporter.”

  “Sure. Nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah. See you around.”

  She turned and walked away, not liking the fact he could watch her ass. She flipped her notebook to a clean page and looked around for her next prospect. More than creepy, talking to that guy had been totally useless.

  To expend the useless adrenaline from her bloodstream, Mai stalked away from the command center. The agents who’d become fascinated with her must have interpreted her expression correctly: Leave me the fuck alone. The anger had built in her since last year’s mission in the Balkans. The Directorate’s shrink had abated most of it, but Mai realized she’d only buried it in a shallow grave in her psyche.

  No. Fitzgerald had deserved a knee to the nuts, and, overall, she felt better for it. Alexei might have a different view, but he still defined their partnership as his being the senior status.

  Her steady progress away from Fitzgerald had brought her close to the photography trailer. Perhaps there was a purpose to blinding anger after all: getting photos of the odd chap she’d seen earlier. A glance around showed no one paying any particular attention to her. She knocked on the door of the trailer and went inside.

  After introductions, Mai outlined her wishes to the FBI camera technician, and he had her find her subject with his spotter scope. She scanned the group of demonstration until she found him, sitting on the bonnet of his car and talking to a dark-haired woman. A reporter perhaps, since she took notes as he spoke.

  “Him,” Mai said, and stepped aside for the photographer to view.

  “Oh, yeah. He’s new. I know almost all those faces by heart, and he’s a recent addition.”

  “You’re taking pictures of people at the roadblock?”

  “Yeah. Standard procedure. I send the videotapes back to Quantico every evening, and someone up there looks them over for any felons or subjects of interest. So, what is it you want?”

  “Stills, mostly, but any video you may have of him and anyone he’s talking with. Shots of his car, preferably with a readable license plate. Oh, and if you can keep him out of any tapes you send to Quantico, that would be helpful.”

  “Uh…”

  “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Mai smiled, an
d that seemed to relax him. “I’m not trying to bribe you or anything. One public servant thanking another,” she said. “What’s your sport?”

  He grinned and mimed a shot at an invisible net. “B-ball.”

  “Playoffs or finals?”

  “You mean, like, tickets?”

  “Yes.”

  “But that’s not a bribe?”

  “Of course not,” she replied, managing to sound indignant. “As I said, in appreciation of your assistance.”

  He stared at her, and she could read the war going on behind his eyes. “You’re sure?” he asked.

  “Absolutely. When I mentioned to Agent Fitzgerald I’d be needing some photos, he indicated you’d be of tremendous assistance.”

  “Wow, I didn’t even think he knew I existed. Dude’s not too chummy with the agents who are brothers, if you get my drift.”

  I’m beginning to, Mai thought. She’d figured the photographer too low in the pecking order to raise the issue of photos with Fitzgerald. If Fitzgerald avoided the black agents, so much the better.

  “Okay, then,” the photographer said. “Finals.”

  “You’ll have them, but you’ll have to figure out on your own how to get there.”

  “I’ll find a way.”

  “Don’t go out of your way or otherwise get yourself in trouble. Whenever you get the chance to bootleg copies will be fine.”

  “How will I get them to you?”

  She handed him a business card with a P. O. Box address. “Send everything here, and include your contact information.”

  “Sure, and thanks.”

  “Actually, thank you.”

  They shook hands, and Mai left the photography trailer, not surprised to see Alexei waiting for her nearby. Twilight put his face in shadow, but she could read his expression as she walked up to him.

  “Do not ask me to apologize to that asshole,” she said.

  “You know I’d never do that, but putting a gun to his head probably blew any chance for our plan.”

  “Our plan has no chance with him anyway.”

  “Mai, listen to me. Bringing out the gun was out of line.”