The next blow wasn’t with an open fist. Something hard connected with the back of Diane’s skull and for a moment she saw stars. She struggled to catch her breath. Her arms wrenched at a painful angle behind her back.
Within minutes she was led into a small warehouse off the main strip and shoved into a wooden chair. Her hands were freed of the zip ties and lashed to the back of the seat. After that, her ankles were bound to the legs of the chair. Opposite her was another seat, presumably for her interrogator.
Diane wasn’t entirely surprised to see the Chairman enter wearing a new blazer.
“Frankly, I expected more from you, Diane,” he said, examining the cuticles of his right hand.
“Yeah, well, I’m happy to disappoint you.”
The Chairman grinned and there wasn’t an ounce of humor in it. “I could have made you and your family comfortable, do you know that? I didn’t ask for much. Just a little company. Some nice conversation.”
“When the president finds out what you’ve been up to here…”
The Chairman laughed. “When he finds out? Whose orders do you think I’m following? When the threat against democracy is this high then extreme measures must sometimes be used. The freedoms you enjoy are guarded by men who break the Constitution every single day. You don’t see it because it’s hidden from you. That’s the reality that none of you are willing to accept. Sometimes the rules must be bent in order to preserve the things we love. You had a chance to bend your own rules with me and you chose not to.”
“Because I’m married.”
“See what I mean? Your loyalty to that vow was stronger than your need to protect your family. If you’d only played along, Diane, then none of this would be happening.”
“You said ‘freedoms you enjoy,’” she said. “Why not ‘freedoms we enjoy?’”
The Chairman looked confused. “What are you on about?”
“When you were talking before, you spoke as though you weren’t one of us, as though the freedoms promised by the Constitution didn’t apply to you.”
“A slip of the tongue. Are you a linguist, dissecting every word I say?”
“No,” Diane replied. “It just struck me as odd.”
The Chairman leaned in closer. “Well, let me tell you what’s odd. For a woman whose life is hanging in the balance, you don’t seem very worried.”
She stared back at him. Of course she was afraid. But not so much about what might happen to her. It was the fate of Gregory and Emma that worried her most. By going on that mission, she’d risked losing everything, but the Chairman had said it best himself. Sometimes to protect the things we love, we must bend the very rules we seek to preserve.
“Who ordered you to slip that powder into my drink?” he asked. His hands were gripping the chair back.
“No one,” she replied.
A loud clap filled the room as he slapped her face. A deep red mark bloomed on her cheek.
“I’m going to ask you again,” the Chairman said as his hand rose above his head. “Who ordered you to steal the presidential papers?”
“I don’t—”
Whack!
Blood dribbled down her chin. Diane felt her lower lip start to swell.
She held out for a few more minutes before the Chairman swore in frustration.
“Get Chiang!” he called out to someone Diane couldn’t see.
A large sliding door opened and one of the Secret Service men slipped out. A moment later he returned with a short, frail-looking man holding a briefcase. Another man entered with them, carrying a small table. He arrived first and set it down. Chiang then laid his metal briefcase on top, undid the combo and opened the lid. Inside was a row of stainless-steel instruments.
Chiang was old and slightly hunched, the flesh around his eyes puffy with age. His mouth curled into a permanent grin.
“Hello, young lady,” he said, addressing her, his breath reeking of fish sauce. “I have a certain level of experience encouraging people to tell me things they’d like to keep secret.”
To his left, the Chairman looked on with glee.
Diane’s heart began to hammer in her chest. This was like some horrible nightmare you couldn’t wake up from.
“Yes, Chiang. She’s a stubborn one, no doubt about it. Perhaps you could encourage her.”
Diane’s eyes darted between Chiang and his briefcase packed with torture devices. The old man seemed to be surveying his options, trying to decide which one to use.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Diane clenched her teeth, almost able to feel the excruciating pain that would soon rack her body.
Chiang pulled out a scalpel, that sick, widening grin plastered on his weathered face. “We start small.”
He began to approach her and then stopped, shaking his head.
“What is it, Mr. Chiang?” the Chairman asked.
“No, too easy. This is too easy.” He turned to the Secret Service agent who’d disappeared back into the shadows. “Bring the little girl.”
“Which one?” the Chairman asked. “There are two.”
“Emma,” Chiang said. “We start with Emma.”
•••
The agent brought Emma in and sat her roughly in the chair opposite Diane. Her daughter was crying from the moment she entered the warehouse and grew louder when she spotted the blood on her mother’s face.
“Don’t do this,” Diane howled. “I’ll tell you everything you wanna know, just don’t hurt her.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” the Chairman said flatly.
Chiang looked Emma up and down then turned back to his briefcase. He was whistling a happy tune that Diane had never heard before. After a moment, his fingers settled on a head clamp with a row of inward-pointing screws. Emma’s eyes grew wide when she saw it, her chest heaving with fear.
Chiang swung around, holding it out as though he were about to crown a princess.
“His name’s Edward,” Diane said, a mist of blood spraying out as she spoke. “He came to my cell and gave me the knife, said he wanted me to stick you with it the next time you asked to see me.”
Chiang moved toward Emma as she struggled in her seat.
“Mom, please make him stop.”
“He was the one who got us transferred to the apartment,” Diane said, firing the words out as quickly as she could. “Then he told me there’d been a change of plan. They didn’t want you dead anymore. They wanted the presidential commission you kept in your breast pocket.”
The Chairman held up a hand and Chiang paused, the crown of screws still outstretched in his hands. A growing look of disappointment was on the Asian man’s face, as though he hadn’t wanted Diane to talk before he had a chance to play with his toys.
“How’d they know where the document was?” the Chairman asked.
Tears were streaming down Diane’s face. “I have no idea. All he told me was to drug you and check your inside pocket for the papers.”
“What about the knife?” the Chairman asked.
Chiang’s arms were starting to shake.
“That was in case I failed.”
“And fail you did, although not entirely. Where did you hide the document? Did you give it to this Edward?”
Diane shook her head. “I stuffed it into a mailbox.”
“The one on Main?”
She nodded. “That’s all I know, I swear. Just please let Emma go.”
The door behind them opened and the agent slipped out.
“I hope for your sake it’s still there.” The Chairman turned to Chiang. “Put that thing down before your arms fall off.”
Less than five minutes later, the agent was back. He approached, stepping into the single shaft of light. He had a wide face with small eyes and fleshy lips.
“And?”
He shook his head.
The Chairman turned to Diane, who looked just as shocked.
“It must still be there,” she cried. “Look again.”
“I
believe you,” the Chairman said. “Which is why I’m going to let your daughter go.”
The agent untied Emma and held her back when she tried to lunge forward to hug her mother.
“But treason is something I will not tolerate,” the Chairman told her. “That’s why tomorrow you’ll be taken out and hanged in front of the entire town. I want them to see what happens when people break the peace in Oneida.”
Chapter 36
The radio crackled to life as Rodriguez waved Marshall, John and the others inside the command tent.
“John Hancock, this is Patriot One, your signal strength is ten over nine, go ahead.”
‘Patriot One’ was Rodriguez’s call sign, which meant that ‘John Hancock’ must be Edward, their contact in Oneida.
“Patriot One, I have the Chairman’s presidential commission in my possession. I’ve spent the last thirty minutes going over it in detail and I’m about as certain as I can be that it’s fake.”
John’s breath hitched in his throat. The revelation wasn’t completely shocking, but the words sent chills up his spine. The implications were staggering.
“Ask him how he can be so sure,” John said. This wasn’t something they wanted to leave to chance. Taking out an imposter was one thing, but murdering a presidential envoy, no matter how corrupt, could bring the might of the US military down on them.
Rodriguez asked the question.
“Patriot One, gosh, where do I start? First off, the document is laced with grammatical errors. Mostly missing conjunctions. ‘And,’ ‘or,’ ‘so,’ ‘but.’ Parts of it are readable, but others seem like they were written by a foreigner. Most of the problems I’ve found, however, show up in the presidential seal. As you may know, the number thirteen plays a big part in the seal. There are supposed to be thirteen stars in the crest, thirteen stripes in the shield, thirteen arrows in the eagle’s talon, as well as thirteen olive leaves and thirteen olives. In the Chairman’s seal, those numbers are all over the place. For example, the eagle’s only carrying a single arrow.”
Those gathered in the command tent looked from one to another. The white-hot anger over what the Chairman had done to their loved ones was now so much stronger than before. They and the people of Oneida had been conned by a shyster.
“If that weren’t enough,” the contact continued, “there are only forty-seven stars representing the states instead of fifty and E Pluribus Unum is spelled wrong. Looks to me like whoever made this either did it in one hell of a hurry or thought we’d be too stupid to know the difference.”
For some reason that last part stung the most. As though they were being mocked and insulted all over again.
“Thank you, John Hancock. Good job.”
“Patriot One, just doing my duty. I do have some bad news however. The agent who retrieved the papers was captured during the mission. From what I’ve been able to discern, it looks like they’ve been scheduled for public execution sometime tomorrow.”
John caught a strange shift in Rodriguez’s expression, one that almost looked like guilt. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Rodriguez said. “Is there anything you can do to help?”
“Negative, Patriot One. As it stands I’m preparing to vacate my post as soon as we’re done here.”
“Have you been compromised?”
“That’s still uncertain, but I think the wisest course of action would be to destroy my equipment and rendezvous with you at—”
A pause and then a sudden burst of static.
“Please say again, John Hancock, you’re breaking up.”
Another rush of static mixed with angry voices. It sounded like Edward was holding down the mic during a struggle. A deafening boom sounded before the signal went dead.
All assembled looked at one another. They knew now without a doubt that the Chairman and the cronies he’d brought into Oneida were con artists or maybe worse, but gaining that knowledge had cost them their only window into the town.
Chapter 37
“We gotta get in there and help him,” Moss shouted.
“Rushing in hastily isn’t going to help Edward,” Marshall scolded his lieutenant. “He knew the risks. So too did the agent he enlisted.”
That funny look flashed across Rodriguez’s features again and this time John didn’t think it was just empathy. The radio operator was hiding something.
“We still have our mountaintop observation post,” John told them. “At least we can use that to see if reinforcements show up. The major problem we have is, even with the new AKs, we still don’t have enough men.” He couldn’t help thinking of Willow Creek and the friends he’d lost there. “I’ve seen what happens when two evenly matched forces do battle and more often than not both of them get decimated.”
The radio came to life again and this time everyone hushed. The signal was garbled and hard to make out.
“John Hancock, is that you, over?” Rodriguez said, clutching the mic in a desperate grip. “You’re coming in very faint. Check your signal strength.”
After a tense moment. “Is that better, over?”
“Reading you loud and clear.”
The voice on the other end was different. Clearly this wasn’t their contact in Oneida and the mood in the command tent began to flounder.
“What’s your call sign?”
“This is Captain Brian Mitchell, 278th Armored Cav Regiment. There aren’t many Americans broadcasting these days. Good to hear your voice.”
Moss looked skeptical at the mention of armored vehicles. “Didn’t the EMP destroy just about everything the army had?”
“Tanks, Bradleys and Humvees, among others,” John told him, “were hardened against the effects of an EMP blast. But the real challenge is delivering the fuel and parts to keep them running.”
Rodriguez got back on the radio and explained to Captain Mitchell who they were.
“Keep your strength up, boys,” came the Captain’s enigmatic reply. “We may need you up at the front soon.”
Rodriguez shook his head. “Say again. Which front are you referring to?”
“Well, I guess you haven’t heard. We’re at war. A combined force of Chinese, North Korean and Russian troops landed on the West Coast about two months ago and we’ve been sending everything we have to slow down their advance.”
John and the others were positively stunned. Foreign troops on US soil. Nothing like it had happened since the war of 1812.
But there was more shocking news.
“What about aid from the European Union?” Rodriguez asked.
Mitchell laughed. “They were hit just as hard as we were. Seems like this new Axis of Evil took aim to conquer the continental US while leaving Europe to thin itself out through anarchy and social chaos.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Rodriguez told him. “We’re all sitting here with our jaws on the floor.”
“I can’t blame you,” Captain Mitchell said. “But there’s more bad news if you’re ready for it. Since that EMP hit, Russian agents have been taking over towns and cities all over the country, claiming to be presidential appointees. Those tricky Slavs are now playing havoc with our logistics, lemme tell you.”
“What is your current position?” Rodriguez asked.
“That’s classified. All I can say is we’re moving west through Tennessee. A last defensive line is being drawn up along the Mississippi river. If we lose that then we lose this war.”
For a moment John was utterly speechless. He remembered hearing about troops moving west, but he’d assumed they were heading to restore law and order to some of the big cities.
Marshall was pacing back and forth in the hot confines of the command tent. “There must be some strategic importance to Oneida, or else the Russians wouldn’t have bothered with it.”
The answer formed in John’s head as clear as a summer’s day. “They need the rail yard,” he said and the words fired out all on their own. “With the roads piled with cars, what better way to control the movement o
f large numbers of troops and materiel than with the rails?”
“You might be right,” Marshall said, running a hand through his beard.
John’s spirits rose. “A single Bradley fighting vehicle is all we would need to swing the odds in our favor and take back the town,” John told them. “Rodriguez, explain the situation to him, that we have a fifth columnist in control of a major rail hub and that we need support to recapture the city.”
Rodriguez looked to Marshall who nodded. “Do it.”
“Captain Mitchell, this is Patriot One. Are you there, over?” A moment of silence followed. “Captain Mitchell, are you there, over?”
When there was still no response, Rodriguez glanced down at his equipment. “I think our signal’s being jammed,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Marshall spat.
Rodriguez switched the receiver on, producing a loud pulsating signal.
“They must have done it after they saw Edward’s radio,” John said. “The Chairman wants to keep us isolated. It’s the main reason our forces have been pushed back to the Mississippi. They can’t effectively communicate with one another.”
“Oh, God, this is a nightmare,” Moss said, dropping his head into his hands. “Didn’t we beat these guys during the Cold War?”
John shook his head. “We did, but that was before Putin’s ambitions to reinstate the former Soviet empire became apparent and before he, China and North Korea apparently found common cause.”
“So what now?” Moss asked no one in particular.
“We need to get someone into Oneida and destroy that jamming equipment as soon as possible,” Marshall told them. “If the army shows up, the town is sure to surrender without a fight.”
“I’ll go,” John offered.
Moss didn’t look at all convinced. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. We know what happened the first time John went in on his own.”
John clenched his fist. Moss seemed to forget how John had saved him and Sullivan from a summary execution on a lonely stretch of road. But long ago he’d learned not to stoop to another man’s level.
“The three of you will go,” Marshall said, motioning to John, Moss and Rodriguez. “Get your gear, we leave in ten minutes.”
Last Stand: Patriots (Book 2) Page 13
