by Pat Mullan
Nobody survived the explosion. Javier Uribe had completed his last 'special assignment' for General Bartley Shields.
THIRTY-FIVE
Kate didn't know how much time had passed. Strangely enough, she had been dozing. The steady rumble of the engine combined with the rolling motion of the van had made her drowsy. The silence awoke her. The van had stopped and the rear doors were open. Sal jumped in and came towards her.
"We just passed a 'hick' gas station. I'm goin' back to fill her up. You can't get outta here. Just in case you feel like yelling..."
Then he moved behind her and told her to open her mouth. He put a rolled up cloth on her tongue. It tasted foul. He then tied a gag over her mouth. Kate's heart was pounding fast and she felt like choking. Sal closed the van door and got behind the wheel again. She could feel the van sway as it turned around. Almost immediately it stopped again and soon she heard the gas pumping. Self-service. As soon as the pumping stopped she heard Sal walk away. It was at least ten minutes before he returned. Then he started the engine and drove off. She was still gagged.
Kate knew they must have entered a major roadway. The van had stopped. She could hear the noise of other traffic. Then they turned right. It felt as though they were on a two lane highway. They didn't remain on it very long. Maybe three or four miles later the van slowed again and made another right turn. She could hear the traffic receding into the distance. Now there was only the rumble of the van's engine again. They had left the highway.
The road suddenly got bumpier and bumpier and just as suddenly the van stopped. Sal turned off the engine, opened the doors and told Kate to climb out. It was dark, pitchblack, no moon, no stars. He led her to a building, opened a creaking wooden door and guided her inside. It smelled musty and damp. He handcuffed her left wrist to what felt like a perpendicular iron bar. He dragged over a hard wooden chair and told her to sit. Then he removed her gags. Kate was too frightened to speak.
"I brought you some chow. Sandwiches and coke. I'll be gone for about an hour. I won't gag you again. There's no point in yelling. Not a soul would hear you out here".
Moments later Kate heard the engine start and the van leave. Now there was total silence. A silence that was deafening.
MacDara found McGinty's with ease. It was the only bar in the neighborhood. The lights were so low that only the outline of the wood on the long bar on his left was discernible. One disinterested patron sat slumped over a beer while the seedy looking bartender wiped a glass and watched some banal TV program blaring from a small black and white set mounted high over the bar. He sat down at the bar until his eyes adjusted to the light. McGinty's was a long cavernous place with a very low ceiling. Barely lit, MacDara could only see about one-third of the way inside. But the clack of balls hitting balls told him that there was a pool table somewhere in those inner reaches. And Glen Campbell singing '...by the time I get to Phoenix...' told him that someone was playing a jukebox, somewhere.
The Learjet had brought him to Washington before noon. He had been debriefed by Shields, checked into his hotel, soaked in the bathtub for the best part of an hour, caught a badly needed two hour nap, then ordered a meal in his room while he contemplated his next move. He didn't have to wait long. When he heard the knock on his door he opened, anticipating roomservice with his meal. Instead it was the bellboy delivering a letter. Finding a couple of dollars to tip him, he closed the door and examined the ordinary brown business envelope with his name typed on the outside. He tore it open. It contained one plain white typewritten page with the words 'your instructions' typed across the top of the page. It instructed him to come here this evening. It had been brief and unambiguous: 'go to McGinty's and wait'. Well, he was here. It didn't say how long he would have to wait.
The bartender finally looked at him and nodded. MacDara ordered a Bud. He took a slug, picked up the bottle and decided to reconnoitre. As he walked deeper into the bar he saw the jukebox in a smokefilled alcove on the right. A sleazy blonde, old before her time, was sucking on a cigarette and punching the buttons for more selections. She never gave MacDara a glance.
The ceiling in the poolroom seemed to be even lower and the ventilation poorer. Stale smoke clung to his nostrils and fresh smoke shrouded the interior in a haze alleviated only by two low hanging lamps in chipped green shades centered over the pool tables. The nearest table was idle. Two males were playing eight-ball at the other one. A young man hovered nearby, lighting a cigarette from the butt of the one he had just smoked. A fourth male, wiry, dark, with a thin, ferret-like face sat on a barstool in the corner sipping a can of beer. Nobody spoke or even acknowledged his presence. The only sound came from the clacking of the balls and the muffled refrain of Glen Campbell. MacDara walked deeper into the room until he reached the table with the action. The two players couldn't have been more different in appearance. One was wearing a dark business suit. The jacket hung over a nearby chair. The sleeves on his white shirt were rolled halfway up his forearm and his designer tie was loosened just a fraction at the neck. MacDara estimated his age between twenty-five and thirty. The other player wore jeans with the knees ripped out, a loose teeshirt, dirty sneakers worn down at the heels and long, straggly hair tied in a pony tail with a rubber band. He was unshaven and unkempt. The young man who had been hovering closeby had moved back into the smokefilled shadows. MacDara felt uneasy. Nothing he could put his finger on; the kind of feeling that makes you look over your shoulder on a lonely street or turn all the lights on in an empty house.
He turned to leave. Just in time. The heavy end of the cue stick missed his skull and landed with a painful crack on his left shoulder. He fell to his knees, twisting around as he did so. The designer tie was standing there, feet wide apart, wielding that cue stick in an arc as he moved in for the kill. MacDara rolled sideways, hit the ground and came up under designer tie kicking both heels into the man's testicles. He was back on his feet when the pony tail rushed him with a blade. MacDara circled the table, keeping him at a distance and noticing, out of the corner of his eye, that ferret-face was still sitting, unmoved, sipping his beer. The fourth guy was no longer in sight. Pony tail made his move. The blade came slicing through the air, missing MacDara as he ducked but catching the sleazy blonde in the throat as she wandered in to see what all the commotion was about. She staggered a couple of paces, a look of astonishment on her face, while her jugular began to spurt her life away. MacDara had now pulled the forty-five Shields had given him from his shoulder holster. Taking dead aim, he put a bullet into pony tail's midriff, doubling him over. Flashes of gunfire erupted in front of him and splinters flew from the corner of the table. The fourth player had joined the action. MacDara hit the floor and started crawling. He'd heard the shots, seen the flashes, but couldn't get a fix on a target. Reaching the end of the table, he decided to make a run for it. He got to his knees and, still holding the forty-five in his right hand, used the fingertips of his left to spring him into a dash. A dash right into a bullet. It grazed his upper arm, slicing through the skin and drawing blood. He rolled again and came up firing in the direction of the gunfire. Accurate or lucky. It didn't matter to MacDara. Either way, the fourth man had just staggered out of the shadows, crumbling to his knees, with his weapon clattering to the floor. Crouching there, holding his bleeding right arm, MacDara noticed that ferret-face was no longer sitting on the bar stool sipping his beer. But he hadn't left. He was lying on the ground moaning and holding his left leg. MacDara knelt down beside him and put the forty-five to his head:
"OK, fuckface! Where is she? Where's the girl? What have you done with her? I'll give you twenty seconds. Then I'm going to blow your brains out!"
"No, man, no! She's OK! I promise, man! I'll take you to her!," beseeched Sal as he writhed in pain.
MacDara put the forty-five back in his shoulder holster, bandaged his upper arm with a strip from his own shirt, fixed a makeshift tourniquet on Sal's leg, then supporting him on his good leg, stepped over the carnage, not
ing that the bartender was nowhere in sight as they left.
Moonlight shone a beam through a broken pane of glass in the small dirty window midway up the wall, illuminating the ground in front of Kate and reaching into the darkest corners. She could see that she was being held in some disused commercial building. The walls were cinderblock and the floor looked like it was composed of hard packed dirt. Cobwebs and dust clung everywhere. Old wooden crates were stacked in a corner and bits of cardboard and other packing debris littered the floor. Apart from the chair she was sitting on, there wasn't another stick of furniture in the place. She was hoping there were no rats and had reconciled herself to a night of lonely waiting when she heard the sound of a vehicle grow louder as it approached and the screech of brakes as it pulled up outside. She'd recognize that screech anywhere. Sal was back and she steeled herself for what was to come. The rusted hinges on the door sent a tingle down her spine as it was wrenched open. Someone approached from the dark reaches of the building and she knew it wasn't Sal. Sal dragged his feet as he walked.
She thought she must be dreaming as he walked into the moonlight. But he kept coming, knelt down beside her without saying a word and hugged her. "Oh, Owen," she sobbed. All her stoicism vanished into tears of joy and tears of fear. Joy at being in Owen's arms. Fear as a delayed reaction to the terrible trauma she'd suffered. Owen had the key to the handcuffs and he released her, took her in his arms and just held her, it seemed for ever.
It didn't take much to make Sal talk. MacDara didn't even have to threaten him. Sal was supposed to have contacted his boss as soon as MacDara had been disposed of. He would then have been told what to do with the girl. Sal gave him the phone number. It was a number that he easily recognized: Senator Sumner Hardy's home in Blacksburg. He assumed that Thackeray planned to be there tonight. Sal never mentioned Thackeray by name but then he wouldn't have known his boss's real name anyway. Owen decided to surprise them with an unannounced visit.
General Zachary Walker seethed with anger. He had been there when Bart Shields had called Owen MacDara. Their euphoria at the success of the mission against McNab and his Covenanters was short-lived when they learned of the killing of their agents in the Hamptons and the kidnapping of Kate Whiteside.
It was a private agony, a private hell. He hadn't seen his daughter since she was a little girl. And even that had been pure chance. He had bumped into Harry, Ruth and Kate at Dulles International Airport. Ruth had said 'Zachary, this is our daughter, Kate' and he had smiled and said how pretty she was. He had not seen her since. He hadn't wanted to. It would have been too painful. She looked so much like Joy-San.
He had to try and find her. He didn't know this man Thackeray and he didn't know where to find him. But Senator Sam would know. He and Thackeray were partners in this madness. He only knew of one place to begin. The Hardy Mansion.
It was two in the morning. Senator Sam Hardy and Tony Thackeray were alone in the Hardy Mansion. The Senator had alternated between here and his Washington townhouse as the 'war' had progressed. Finally he had moved here two days ago, dismissed the servants, and had spent the time trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. He was losing the Infowar and with it the leverage he needed to topple the President. A bloody coup was never an option. His compatriots would never have countenanced that. Neither would the American people. So he had spent his last days trying to convince the others that they could still remove the President from the White House and get away with it. He tried to prove that the country did not have to be on the verge of chaos to give them the imperative to act. But they had all gotten cold feet. In these waning hours the Senator realized that they had lost. The death of George McNab and the destruction of his computer facility had effectively ended their capability to wage the Infowar. Sure, there were still some viruses and 'time-bombs' lying dormant in military and civilian systems. But they were just like land mines at the end of a war. They'd be sought out and destroyed and, if one did go off, the damage would always be limited.
"What will you do now, Sam?" asked Tony Thackeray.
"Nothing! There will be no inquisition. It would backfire on the President. If he ever permitted the events of these last weeks to be exposed to the intense scrutiny of a national investigation, he would lose more than we would. Remember this: I still have the allegiance of the American people. And I'll prove that at the next election. No, the President will tell the American people that these acts have been the insane work of right wing extremist militias. The same extremists that bombed Oklahoma. He'll take the glory for the destruction of McNab and his Millennium Covenant. And we'll stand back and let McNab take the blame for everything," said the Senator.
"But the President knows the real story," said Thackeray.
"Yes. But he can't do a damn thing about it! I'll remind him of that." The Senator was talking as though nothing had happened, as though the power he held before he launched the Infowar was undiminished. Looking at Tony Thackeray, he said:
"And he can't do a damn thing about you either. There's no proof that you were involved in any of this. Unless you take the word of that fellow, MacDara. By the way, what the hell happened to him?"
Tony Thackeray smiled for the first time that evening:
"Owen MacDara won't be giving us any more trouble after tonight. I can assure you of that, Senator."
Thackeray's sense of smugness was shaken at that moment by the ringing of the front door bell. After four or five rings it stopped and they both waited in suspense. No one was expected, the servants were gone and it was well after two a.m. Maybe if they waited whoever it was would go away. But the ringing started again, relentlessly this time. Whoever was out there was insistent. The Senator decided he'd better see who it was. Both he and Tony Thackeray were armed so they didn't feel defenseless. Still, the Senator was relieved when he discovered General Zachary Walker standing, impatiently, at the front door.
"Zachary, my God! What brings you here at this time of night?" greeted the Senator.
Zachary Walker didn't respond. Unsmiling and grim, he brushed past the Senator into the entrance hall where Tony Thackeray stood, expectantly, at the open door to the drawing room. Still silent, the General marched across the hall and into the drawing room without even a nod to Thackeray. The Senator followed, exchanging Thackeray's quizzical stare. All three of them were now standing there, face to face. The General looked terrifying. His usual solemn countenance was transformed into fierceness by whatever demon had him in its grasp.
"Sam, I want you to tell me where she is!" ordered the General.
"Zach, what the hell are you talking about? Are you alright?" asked the Senator, completely baffled.
"Who are you?" the General barked at Tony Thackeray.
"Tony Thackeray. I'm a guest of the Senator's," responded Thackeray, in a conciliatory tone.
"So I finally get to meet you. I have only one question for you and I want an answer. What have you done with Kate Whiteside? Where is she?"
Senator Sam Hardy now knew what Thackeray had meant when he said that MacDara wouldn't be giving them any more trouble. He knew that Owen MacDara and Kate Whiteside had become lovers. They were together in Palm Springs the last time that Thackeray had blown it. So he's taken the girl to get MacDara. So what! Why has that gotten Zach so riled up? There's something here I don't understand, thought the Senator.
At that very moment, Owen MacDara swung the van carrying himself, Kate and a badly wounded Sal onto the avenue of the Hardy Mansion. MacDara reckoned that, if the Senator and Thackeray were here, they were not expecting guests. Otherwise, they'd have posted guards at the gate. He parked the van near the front door, gave the forty-five to Kate and asked her to keep it on Sal. Sal might be in poor shape but he still didn't trust him. He took Sal's Uzi and headed for the house. He'd never been here before and he certainly didn't intend announcing his presence by ringing the front door bell. He could see one lighted window, at ground floor level, midway along the side of the house. He sk
irted the front and took the concrete pathway around the side. As he got closer he could see that the light was coming from french windows that led onto a small patio looking over the mansion's extensive gardens. Heavy drapes prevented him from seeing into the room. MacDara could hear voices, raised in anger it seemed. But he couldn't understand what was being said. To hell with it, he thought. If possession is nine-tenths of the law, then surprise has to be good for nine-tenths of the action.
Events had gone from bad to worse in the Hardy drawing room. General Zachary Walker was a man possessed. He had pulled a gun from his overcoat and, clasped in both hands, was now pointing it at Tony Thackeray:
"I can blow you away right here, Your Lordship," he mocked, "but you're not worth the cost of the ammunition. So I'll give you one last choice to save your ass. Take me to Kate. Now!"
The Senator's hand held firmly to the gun in his pocket. For the last couple of minutes General Walker had devoted his attention to Tony Thackeray. But Senator Hardy knew that, if he had to make a choice, he'd shoot Zach Walker. In a way, he had no choice. But the Senator never got to play his hand.
The breaking of the glass in the french windows startled them. Senator Hardy pulled the gun from his pocket and backed towards the hall door. General Walker froze in place with his head twisted towards the french windows and his weapon still levelled at Tony Thackeray. The drapes surrounding the window billowed out, as if pregnant, and just as quickly delivered their surprise. Owen MacDara stood there, holding the Uzi, equally surprised to see General Walker. He moved forward into the room, covering everyone with the Uzi:
