So, in other words, if I don’t resolve the issue, I will never leave, at least, not alive.
Chapter 10
Carl entered the ops center in disguise. His mercs had set up operations in a residential townhouse four blocks away from the meeting site. As soon as Merc Three closed the door behind him, Carl removed his dreadlocks wig and massaged his itching bald head. Even though he and his mercenaries had substantial financial resources as well as government tactical support from the TER, he’d decided to stay with the low-tech operations model that had been successful for almost a year. The fewer digital or electronic footprints they had, the fewer opportunities Rainman had to find or trace them.
Each operation was controlled from a low-key residential house in a nondescript neighborhood. Dozens of single-use disposable cell phones were procured for team members who needed to communicate outside the operations house and each phone was destroyed after a single use. Disposable laptops were provided for Carl’s tech wizard, an ex-CIA hacker named Henry Erickson who the mercenaries had started calling Wizard because there seemed to be no task he couldn’t complete with a computer, no computer system he couldn’t hack his way into, and no bit of information he couldn’t discover.
After Carl’s shootout with the police the previous afternoon, he’d gone back to his modest hotel room and packed his few personal items and disguises in his backpack, then took a cab to the nearest department store, went into a bathroom, and came out in his white man disguise consisting of white skin cream covering his face, neck, and hands; nerd eyeglasses; and a straight, shoulder-length brown wig. He took the bus to a nearby mall and changed into his second disguise, Rastafarian with shoulder-length dreads, dark shades, and dark skin cream, and checked into a five-star hotel paid for with a legit fake credit card and ID.
“Status,” Carl demanded as he entered the ops center in the living room of the otherwise vacant house.
Wizard replied, “Agent Palmer is on a secure video link, Boss.” The tech genius pointed to a large high-definition monitor mounted on the wall in front of the cheap foldout desk on which sat Wizard’s laptop. That desk and his chair were the only pieces of furniture in the house so moving-in activity could be a bare minimum for nosey neighbors, but the mercs slept in sleeping bags in the bedrooms, ready at all times for immediate deployment. Trent Englebaum, known as Merc Three, short for his operational designation of Mercenary Number Three, stood guard in the op center with Wizard. From the far corner of the room, he could cover all ingress and egress points. He was dressed in black fatigues and fully armed for combat.
On the monitor, Agent Palmer faced away from her own monitor and camera, discussing something with someone off-screen. From experience in the field, Carl knew Palmer to be an extremely capable field agent. The first female graduate of Navy SEAL training, she finished at the top of her class of men and was handpicked by her commander for the elite SEAL Team Six assignment. Two days before graduation, she’d had an altercation with a team member and instructor intent on teaching her that SEAL Ops was no place for a woman. The incident left one man dead, the other hospitalized, and sent Palmer AWOL—Away Without Official Leave. Then she found her way into the covert antiterrorism world recruited by Director Aaron McGrath of the above-top-secret Terror Event Response agency.
Wizard said, “Heads up, Boss. There’s been a development—”
“Carl,” Agent Palmer interrupted, facing him on the monitor. “Have you seen the morning headlines on CNN?”
He shook his head.
“Okay, we’ll get to that in a moment, but first, I took the liberty of reassigning all but three of your mercenary team, plus Three. Our CIA informant saw your encounter with the police yesterday, and he reached out to us last night.”
“I thought we might lose him.”
Palmer shook her head. “Apparently, he saw what he needed to feel secure.”
“Me in action?”
She nodded. “It pays to have an operations director with field experience. Frank Pearson wants to come in.”
“Not just provide information?” Carl said. “Now he wants to come in?”
“Apparently, he was holding back in our initial phone contact. As you know, the TER has instant access to all intelligence data of the nation’s combined military and civilian police services, but there’s still a lot of back-channel unlogged intel to which we don’t have timely access. And there’s nothing in any database regarding Atlas. Frank Pearson claims to have more information than he initially indicated about that shadow organization and its involvement in the attempt on the president. He wasn’t sure he could trust us to act on it, but your performance yesterday evening proved to him he was doing the right thing. Since you tossed your cell phone yesterday, I couldn’t reach you, so I assigned five of your people to escort Pearson to Virginia where he’ll be debriefed.”
Carl saw Merc Three watching him from out of view of the video camera. In his absence, Three had to agree to that decision, and his posture indicated he wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing. Carl knew Three didn’t trust government agents, and with good reason. The TER agents under the command of Agent Palmer’s boss had nearly screwed up the op to save the president and her daughter late last year, and Carl and his mercs almost couldn’t salvage the operation. Merc Three had lost his wife, Merc Four, in that operation.
He nodded at the monitor. “I trust your judgment, Nancy. I always have. And I implicitly trust Merc Three to make the right call here when I’m unavailable.”
She nodded in return. “They are en route now, so we can consider your operation in Chicago a success. However, we have this…” The view on the monitor split into halves with Agent Palmer on the left and a live report on the right, depicting a ten-second sound bite video of the coffee shop massacre. Palmer softened her voice, imparting a level of private concern Carl had come to know and appreciate over the months. “The president called this morning. She’s…concerned.”
The video only showed the part with Carl shooting the cops. The news ticker at the bottom of the monitor stated the American Terrorist had struck “fear and terror in the hearts of all Chicago residents.” The newswoman reported a telephone conversation in which the chief of police related that the American Terrorist assassinated four police officers in cold blood, along with a young male employee of the coffee shop, then left suddenly and savagely beat the pedestrian, Malik Tavares, before more police could respond to the scene. According to the police chief, Johnson had then tracked down the redhead woman who took Tavares to the hospital and killed them both. Then the chief swore that every police resource available would be employed to bring the terrorist to justice.
Carl shook his head and said, “How could anyone believe that stupidity? It makes no sense at all. Why would I let those two live, only to track them down later and kill them? No one is asking that question.”
Palmer said, “I explained that to President Mallory, and she agrees this looks like a setup. She knows you wouldn’t do anything like this, but she’s concerned this event might alert the people we’re searching for and create a connection with our new informant.”
Carl shrugged. “Well, we can’t influence Rainman’s thinking now, and I’m assuming he’s connected with Atlas, so we have to accept that the media has already covered the story. If there’s an informant connection, we’ll have to adapt or find a way to exploit that knowledge. Meanwhile”—Carl looked down and nudged Wizard on the shoulder—“can you hack into the computer controlling that broadcast feed?”
“Well, it’s a national media outlet, but, um, sure. It’ll take a minute.”
Palmer said, “What’s your plan, Carl?”
Carl returned his attention to the monitor and folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t mind being blamed for an atrocity because that only strengthens my reputation among the terror community I’m supposed to be a member of. But those cops ambushed that man, and now the police chief has manufactured this cover story. I don’t like
being used in this way, as a scapegoat in someone else’s crime.”
“Agreed.” Palmer nodded. “It takes a decision-maker high in the law enforcement hierarchy to fabricate a cover story like this and make it stick.”
“Yes, so either the police chief is in on this or someone close to or above him is.”
“Carl,” Palmer looked down for a second, then back up at the camera. “Our mission here is complete.”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
“What are you going to do when you discover the identity of this person?”
“Nancy, you’ve known me long enough to know the answer to that question. These dipshits killed innocent people, and now they’ve involved me in their nonsense. They’ll have to answer for those deaths.”
All he knew for sure was that someone related to the chief of police ordered the deaths of three people Carl assumed were innocent civilians. Maybe Carl’s coincidental involvement simply gave the commander a convenient fall guy for an illegal police operation. Or maybe the victims weren’t innocent at all. Maybe the operation was necessary for public safety.
But wait…the news report made no mention of the second barista in the coffee shop?
That person, if alive, was a witness to the true incident, and still in danger.
Wizard said, “Ready, Boss.”
“Do it.”
Immediately, Carl’s face appeared on the right half of the wall monitor, replacing Agent Palmer’s image. The news ticker still scrolled at the bottom of the screen, but the newswoman in the small popup window froze in mid-sentence when the American Terrorist appeared on the monitor she was reading script from.
“Um, stand by please,” she said. She glanced off-camera and gave a little shrug. What is this?
The ticker on the screen said her name was Rebecca Logan. She was a slender woman with short, professional-looking blonde-streaked hair and her posture gave Carl the impression that she was tall.
A voice off-screen whispered, “You’re still on!”
The reporter recovered quickly. “Folks, we seem to be having some technical difficulty with—”
Carl said, “You’re not having technical difficulty, Miss Logan. I’ve hacked your video stream, and I’d like to know why you didn’t show the entire video of the shooting.”
The young woman glanced off camera again, and Carl imagined her getting a head-nod as permission to continue the impromptu interview.
“The video was provided by the police. Would you like to give your side of this…event?”
Carl dipped his head toward the camera mounted on a tripod in front of the wall monitor because he knew that posture imparted a sinister look, and he definitely wanted to appear threatening.
“I know where you got the video. I asked why didn’t you play the entire video?”
She glanced off camera again, then said, “That’s all they gave us. Are you saying it isn’t real? That it was somehow altered?”
Carl said, “You’re not asking the right questions. You should be asking why I would kill four police officers, then spare the life of a witness who just filmed the event and not take her cell phone, then waste time outside beating the crap out of Mr. Tavares, then track him down and kill him and the witness at the hospital later. That holds no tactical logic, and I think I’ve proven over the months that I don’t make tactical mistakes. And why would I only kill one of the coffee servers and let the other live?”
“There was more than one?”
“You better find her before she ends up dead too.” Now that the true story was about to be released, he knew the female barista was in no danger beyond intimidation and threats. Having seen the entire ordeal, she no doubt got the hell out before more police showed up, and now her death would just prove Carl’s point.
“I’m emailing you the full two-minute video, which I require you to play right now in its entirety. If you do not do this, we’re going to have this conversation again face to face, you and I, except there won’t be any words to that conversation.”
She gasped and looked off camera, and a voice said, “Nothing.”
Carl said, “I didn’t say I was sending it to your office. I sent it to you, Miss Logan, to your cell phone.”
She stared at the camera, and Carl got the feeling she wanted to ask him how he got her private number. She said nothing, though, and he gave her bonus points for maintaining her professional composure and not giving up her power by asking the question. Instead, she gestured to her right. A young man ran to her with her purse, then darted back out of view. She pulled a smartphone out and fiddled with the device. A few seconds later, the video replaced the newswoman.
The world watched as the four police officers beat and kicked the man on the ground outside the coffee shop. There was blood smeared on the window, and the cell phone’s owner said, “Oh my God, they’re going to kill him.” Then one of the officers pointed at the camera and yelled, three raced into the shop while the fourth briefly searched Tavares’s broken and bloody body. The police officer closest to the camera pulled his telescoping baton from his utility belt and flipped his wrist to extend the assault tool. He and the other two yelled at the camera, then he swung his baton seemingly at the camera. The video scene fluttered around as the woman raised the cell phone in self-defense. At the same instant, a man’s voice hollered “Gun!” and the two lead officers spun around. Carl Johnson could be seen lunging into the midst of the officers and shooting them methodically even as they tried to pull their own guns.
The shaky camera view centered on Carl as he said, “You okay?”
“OhmyGod!” she whispered. “Please don’t shoot me.”
“Sista, if I wanted you dead, I could have just let that cop cave your face in with his stick. Now turn off that video, get your ass up out of that chair, and get that man to the hospital.” He pointed at the black man writhing and bleeding on the sidewalk. He hollered at the young baristas off-camera. “You too! Both of you, get over here and help!”
When Rebecca Logan’s and Carl’s faces replaced the video, there was a moment of silence as an obviously stunned news crew struggled to cope with what they’d seen. Carl imagined people watching the breaking news story all over the country were equally stunned.
Finally, the reporter reengaged. “So…um, why were you there? In the coffee shop.”
Carl notched an eyebrow at the irrelevant question. “Well, I was having coffee, of course.”
She hesitated, then said, “Why do you think the police lied to us?”
“Sista, I can think of a dozen more relevant questions. For example, since I killed the cops who tried to kill those two, you should be asking who actually did kill those people. Was it more cops, or was it a hired killer? As to your question about why the police lied, there are two answers. Answer number one is the police lied to cover up the murder of three people. And they conveniently blamed it on me because they didn’t think I would care or do anything about it.”
Carl took a breath and lowered his voice a bit. “Answer number two should be more disturbing. The police lied to you because they can; because they control you, the news media, and the information you report; because they know you will report whatever they tell you and you won’t do any investigation. They clearly have someone at a very high level of authority backing them up. They did this, Miss Logan, because they didn’t think anyone would or could stop them. They did it simply because they thought they could get away with it since they don’t answer to anyone.”
“But that makes no sense, Mr. Johnson. The police wouldn’t—”
“It makes no sense only because you don’t know their motivations, but I agree with you. Police have been beating the crap out of black men, even shooting and killing them on video, without penalty for years. Why did these particular cops object to their escapade being filmed? What you did not see on the video, what I saw, was that those cops were waiting for that fellow. They ambushed him. Why? You saw that fourth officer search that man—so what secret di
d Mr. Tavares hold that was important enough for the police to murder three people?”
Some of what Carl said was melodramatic, he knew, but he wanted to influence the coming media battle. The opening media salvo had been victorious for the police, and his media response would be equally successful in swaying public opinion. Still, the police would attempt to discredit the video and him simply because of his history of violence against the government. They’d use disinformation tactics well known to many levels of the government. They’d spin the events and try to make the story about the American Terrorist, not about the police department and most certainly not about the victims.
Either way, the four cops in the video had been destined to die. Of that, Carl had no doubt. Even if the woman had not filmed the event, the police officers probably still would have entered the coffee shop to threaten the customers and barristers to keep them quiet. At that point, they would have realized Carl was armed, and he would have had to kill them.
The reporter said, “Why does a terrorist care about these people?”
“I don’t care about those people, but I do care about media reporting a story about me without fact-checking. And I care about the abuse of government power. That’s what got my son killed.” That much was true, but he only added it to give the media some fodder to debate over the next couple days. “I killed those cops because they most certainly were going to do the same to that woman—you saw that on the video. The simple fact is, bad cops murdered some people and blamed it on me. I don’t like that.”
She started to speak again, but Carl interrupted her. “Your file says you’re an investigative reporter, so do some investigating.” He made a hand signal to Wizard that was not visible on camera, and his face disappeared from the television monitor.
To no one in particular, he said, “Now we wait to see how the powers behind the police respond.”
American Terrorist Trilogy Page 73
