by Mackey, Jay
The car comes to a stop. Rachel says, “Wait. Where are we? I thought we’d be going down to the stadium.”
Again, a cough. “No way we’re going someplace where a sniper can shoot our boy here. We’re going to do this indoors, where we can control who gets in. This is the back way to Music Hall.”
“Do they have lights inside? Or are we going to do this in the dark?” asks Rachel.
“Not my department. I’m just delivering you three. After that, it’s out of my hands.”
I’m still hooded and cuffed, so I’m pushed and pulled from the car, up stairs, through doors, and finally to what I assume is the backstage area of Music Hall. I’ve heard of it; it’s a big theater where the Cincinnati Symphony performs. It’s huge, old, and ornate.
My hood is finally taken off, and I can see a few people standing off a way, but it’s pretty dark so I have no idea who they are. Rachel and Rob are with me. Colonel Williams tells us to sit in some folding chairs that have been set up along the back wall. He goes over and starts talking to the knot of people.
I say to Rachel, quietly, “He’s leaving us alone. Maybe we could make a break for it.” I’m kidding, but the look on Rachel’s face tells me she doesn’t get it. I look back toward the door where we came in, and I see a guard standing there with a rifle. “Oh, never mind,” I say. Rachel still looks appalled.
Williams comes back in a few minutes with another man, short and round, with dark hair slicked back and wearing a dark suit and tie. He’s probably around forty or so. He pulls up another chair and places it in front of us, then sits on it and leans close.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, guys,” he says. He then runs through what’s planned for this press conference. I’m getting more and more nervous as he speaks, because I’m going to have to stand up, tell an abbreviated version of my story, and then take questions.
I ask him what he means by abbreviated.
He says, “Just leave out some of the details. We just need to know that you were told to do this, you had the rifle, but you didn’t shoot President Bowers. It’s my understanding that you missed, is that right?”
“I didn’t miss,” I say. “I decided that something wasn’t right, and I intentionally shot into the seats. But I wasn’t ever supposed to shoot President Pounds, because someone switched rifles so the one I fired had its sights intentionally off. And that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? That Pounds wasn’t supposed to get shot.”
He looks at me with big creases in his forehead, then at Williams, then back at me. “That’s way more than we need. Just say you fired into the air, and someone else shot Bowers. But make sure you emphasize that the shooter was Russian, and the people who tricked you into this were Russians, too.”
“Yeah, well, we think they’re Russians.”
“It’s very important that you confirm that these were Russians.” He’s looking really serious.
“Okay. Russians.”
“Good. Good.” He looks at Rachel and then at Rob. “We won’t have you two tell your stories, but we’ll be talking about what you said. Colonel Williams will be taking care of that, right Colonel?”
Colonel Williams kind of rolls his eyes, but he says, “Sure.”
“Okay,” the round guy says. “We’re just waiting for President Pounds, and for a few more reporters to get set up, and we’ll get going.”
He walks back to the group at the other end of the room, and I ask Williams who he is.
“One of Pounds people. Not sure of his name. Seems like he’s a hotshot.”
“If by hotshot you mean asshole, I agree,” says Rachel.
More people come in, but I don’t see Pounds. Governor General Wayne arrives, nods to us as he goes over to the other group, and waves Williams over after talking with the round guy for a few minutes. As they talk, Wayne points over to us, and there are several looks our way, but nobody says anything to us, not until Wayne and Williams walk over.
Williams says, “Change of plans.”
“I’ll be telling the story, which I think I have straight,” says Wayne. “You three will be on stage, and you should be ready to take questions. Brady, you’ll be hooded when we go out, and I’ll take the hood off at the appropriate time. President Pounds will speak after I’m done, and then we’ll do the question and answer part. If someone asks you a question, I’ll tell you if you should answer it or not. Got it?”
We all nod. I’m relieved that I’m not going to have to speak, at least not until someone asks me something. I’m not too hot on wearing the hood, but clearly Wayne is going to try to create some drama. So, okay.
Eventually President Pounds comes in with a large posse of people around him. He and Wayne and the others gather to talk, presumably about the plan for the speeches. They come to get us. Williams puts my hood on, Rachel and Rob take my arms, and they lead me through the big curtain to the stage. It sounds like there’s a big crowd, as there’s a murmur as we come out. We shuffle about before we are apparently standing where we’re supposed to be.
A man’s voice starts things out. He says he’s the mayor of Cincinnati, and says some nice things about the city. I don’t know him, and don’t know which of the people standing in the knot he was. He yaks for too long, telling everyone things they already know—President Bowers has been shot, we’ve been told the shooter has been killed, and so on. He eventually finishes by saying, “And now, to set the record straight, let me introduce Governor General Wayne.”
I’m starting to hyperventilate in my hood. It’s not the easiest thing to breathe in, and I’m getting nervous again.
Wayne says a lot of the same things as the mayor. I’m zoning out, trying not to suffocate, when I hear him say, “The three kids up here.” He says something about “Wily veteran foreign agents” who were sent by Russia to “sow unrest” in the Republic of North America. “It wasn’t enough that he had his hooks sunk deep into the Great States of America, but Putin wanted to control, or at least weaken, the RNA.”
According to Wayne, these agents created an elaborate lie to trick “these innocent, well-intentioned young people into participating in a heinous plot to start a war.” And this all came at a time when the two countries had reached agreement to cooperate on rebuilding efforts, leading to “a brighter future for both.”
“But Putin doesn’t want strong, growing nations in North America, nations that could derail his plans for rolling over the rest of Eastern Europe, indeed, all of Europe,” he says, really rolling now. “He wants weak puppet states in North America, and even better, weak, warring states that are no threat to him.”
He talks about us, how we were used to carry out an assassination plot because we thought we were stopping a war instead of starting one. That much is true. He says we were used because we were well-known patriots of the RNA. That’s stretching it. He tells the reporters that the actual assassination was carried out by the very same Russian agents who had drawn us into the plot in the first place. That’s true.
The plot was foiled, he says, when, “a patriot, not just of the GSA, but of America, recognized that things were not right, and rescued the man the Russians had identified as the shooter, the man that they said they’d killed as he attempted to escape.” He pauses and I hear his steps and he comes closer to me.
“How do we know all this? How did we catch their deceit, their lies? This is how.” He pulls off my hood. As I stand there on stage, blinking because there’s a big spotlight shining right in my face, he says, “Let me introduce you to Brady Gruen, who the Russians identified as the man who assassinated President Bowers, and the man they said they’d killed.”
There must be several hundred people here. I don’t know if they’re all reporters, but they seem surprised at the big reveal. Several of them are standing and waving their hands. Some are yelling, “Governor General,” or “Brady.” Wayne shakes his head at me and says, “Don’t say anything now, Brady.”
While there’s still pandemonium going o
n, President Pounds walks out onto the stage. He waves at the reporters and then comes over and shakes my hand. Wow! Just over a day ago I was planning to shoot this asshole, and now I’m shaking his hand.
Pounds goes up to center stage and waves again. He says he wants to offer his condolences to Katarina, Bowers’ oldest daughter, and to Joel, her husband. And also to the rest of the Bowers family, and to “the great people of the Great States of America,” and says he’ll “mourn with them over the loss” of his “great and good friend, Daniel Bowers.”
I know that is all bullshit. He may have been Bowers’ friend once upon a time, but after the pulse they’d split and become mortal enemies.
“Just as we were on the verge of announcing a partnership to make all of America great again, he was ruthlessly assassinated by the very people that he thought he could trust. I’d tried to warn him, but, well, now I call on Katarina and all the leaders of the Great States of America, and especially the military leadership, to throw off the yoke of the foreign oppressors, of fake friendship, and join us in our quest to become not just strong and healthy once again, but to be truly great, the greatest nation this world has ever seen.”
He keeps talking, mostly a bunch of bull about how great he is and his country will be. He occasionally looks around at us, and I can see that he’s wearing that expression that caused me to dislike him the first time I saw him, that smug smirk that makes you think he’s trying to hide something.
There must be some fans or supporters out in the audience, because people are clapping and cheering every once in a while, and I’m pretty sure reporters wouldn’t be doing that. He finally finishes his speech to a chorus of cheers. He waves again, and steps back. Governor General Wayne steps up and asks if there are any questions.
It looks like everybody in the audience is waving their hands and yelling. Wayne points to someone, who asks something. The first few questions are for Pounds, about things he talked about. Then we get one, “The officials across the river claim to have the rifle used in the assassination, and it has Brady’s fingerprints on it. Yet you say that the assassination was carried out by Russians. How do you explain that?”‘
Wayne looks a little confused. He looks back at me, and I nod. I got this. He nods back.
“That rifle, the one used by a man I knew by the name of Len, was one that Len had me use to practice my marksmanship in the days prior to the assassination. So naturally, that’s how my fingerprints got on that rifle. And Len is the man who we believe shot President Bowers.”
Wayne smiles at me. I guess that was okay.
There’s a follow-up. “How do you know that this Len was Russian, and that he was the actual assassin?”
Before I can say anything, Williams speaks up in his deep voice and tells about how Rachel had spotted him coming out of the hotel.
We get more questions, and we collectively tell our story. Mostly, the answers are given by Williams or Wayne, and occasionally I say something or fill in a detail that they don’t know. There are a few questions that Wayne or Williams say they won’t answer, like when they ask who rescued me.
Wayne calls a halt to the questioning after a while, and we all go back behind the curtain again. Williams comes over and uncuffs me, finally. I’d done the whole press conference thing with the cuffs on. I even got one question about that, and Williams said I was still in custody for participating in the assassination plot, and the investigation was ongoing “on both sides of the river.”
I don’t know if that’s true, but if feels good to get the cuffs off. Then Williams says, “I left these on for the optics.”
“Optics?”
“There will be lots of photos appearing in news all over the world in the next few days, and I didn’t want it to look like you were a buddy of Pounds, or working for our side, like the Russians said.”
“So, am I going back to jail?”
He walks away without answering.
I say to Rob and Rachel, who are standing with me, “Maybe this is a good time to make a break for it.”
I’m smiling to let them know I’m kidding, only I’m not, really. Rachel points behind me, and I turn to see President Pounds coming my way. Wayne and Williams are following.
Pounds sticks out his hand and says, “Thank you, son. Maybe we’ll avoid a terrible war after all.” I shake his hand again, and he moves on to thank Rachel and Rob and shake their hands too. I seriously doubt that he has any idea that I’d planned to shoot him yesterday, but hey, I’m not going to tell.
After he leaves to thank others, Wayne thanks us. “The press conference went well, and you all were the stars.” He shakes our hands too.
Then Williams says to him, “How about the other thing?”
Wayne smiles and reaches into his inner suit jacket pocket and pulls out a sheaf of folded papers. “Signed and sealed, Colonel,” he says, and hands the papers to Williams, who looks them over before smiling.
Colonel Williams separates the papers, handing one to Rob, one to Rachel, and one to me. “These are your letters of immunity. So you can’t be prosecuted for any of the things that you did that might be related to this assassination plot.”
Rob looks stunned. “Anything?” he asks.
“Yes, anything. You’ve got a clean sheet, son, and I expect you back in uniform on Monday.”
Rob’s eyes get big.
“Oh, I know you think I didn’t even know who you were, but I know more than most people give me credit for, believe me.” Williams might be smiling, but not broadly.
I’m more stunned than Rob looks. “But why?” I ask.
Now Williams does have a big smile. He reaches over and puts a big paw on my shoulder and squeezes. “I told you, Brady. You’re one of my guys. I take care of my guys.”
He gives me another squeeze and then walks off, which I appreciate because I’m standing there with tears in my eyes and my mouth feeling like it may never work again.
And then I’m wrapped up in Rachel’s arms. She kisses me so hard that our teeth clank.
Oh, man. I think we may be getting back together.
We take the old Probe back to Lafayette that night.
At first we’re still excited, on an adrenaline high from the press conference and our new immunity. We remark on the freedom we feel.
But as the drive drags on and we find ourselves weaving around the heaps of rusting vehicles left from the pulse, our adrenaline wears off or something. We start to talk about where we go from here. We don’t know for sure that the war won’t happen; maybe whoever’s running the GSA now will attack even after we showed them that the reason people are giving for going to war is no longer valid.
We also realize that we’re still living in a country with Pounds as president, with restrictive laws on abortion, no gay rights, and women’s equality a thing of the past. What felt like a victory a few hours ago now feels like a profound defeat.
It’s going to be hard going forward. We know now that we’ve got a lot more to face than just getting the electricity back.
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Rider Kid. I hope you are enjoying the Runner Boy series. I’m working on the next book in the series now, and I hope you’ll enjoy it too, as soon as I get it done.
Please consider leaving a review on Amazon. The review doesn’t need to be long or complicated; just a sentence or two is fine. Reader recommendations are critical for an independent author like me; they help us reach more readers and enable us to keep writing more stories.
Acknowledgments
I usually make up names for my characters as I write, but Rider Kid has one exception. I used the name of one of my childhood friends, Jerry Pospisil, who died this past year. I hadn’t planned on doing anything like this, but somehow it just struck me that this is a way to remember him. His namesake character in the book isn’t anything like Jerry, with these exceptions: his physical description is how I remember him; his beautiful wife is named Linda; and he’s the one
who gave everyone their nicknames. In the book, he’s the one who calls Brady Rider Kid.
I’d like to thank, as always, my wife for supporting me. She’s always the first to read my completed manuscripts, and she never criticizes them.
My editor, Lynda Dietz, again cleaned up the manuscript and made the book better than it was. She’s also great at boosting my morale.
My cover designer, Elizabeth Turner Stokes, made the book look great, as she’s done with all my books.
I want to thank friends and family members for reading and commenting on various manuscripts over the years. Some of those early drafts were very rough. I always appreciate the support.
And finally, I’d like to thank readers, who I hope enjoy what I write, and especially those who take the time to post a review so that others might take a chance on reading what I write.
About the Author
Jay Mackey tries to write the kind of books he enjoys reading: books that move fast, that keep you turning pages, and that are hard to put down. Some of these books have an element of science fiction in them, and others don’t.
He’s currently working on his next thriller.
Jay’s career before writing was mostly in advertising. Currently, he lives in Cincinnati with his wife, where they enjoy a stunning view of the Ohio River and spending time with their family.
For the latest on Jay’s writing, and to connect with Jay, go to his author page at Amazon.com, or to his website at jaymackey.com
Email him at:
[email protected]
Or follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
