Spying While Black

by Oliver Willis

  Inside his car Chet hears the missiles systems come online. He taps the steering wheel, waiting for the authorization code to be entered. Why are these amateurs taking their own sweet time with this?

  He knows that if real men, real soldiers, were on the job, it would be over with.

  ***

  The security gate at the U.S. Capitol swings open without the guard pressing a single button. He stands up in surprise as Marks flies through in the Corvette. He already has his hand on his radio and is about to call in the breach when it crackles to life.

  From inside Omega Division, the coordinator relays the stand down code to the Capitol guard. He is instructed not to raise the alarm and that the intrusion is authorized at the highest possible security level.

  The guard doesn’t like what he hears but knows better than to rock the boat. He acknowledges the order and presses a button to return the gate to its default position.

  Marks leans forward as she holds the steering wheel tight. She has perfect vision but does not want to leave anything to chance.

  Expensive cars are parked here, for Senators, Representatives and their staffers. Tourists are milling about, taking pictures on the Capitol lawn overlooking the reflecting pool. Some of them stand next to the large statue of President Ulysses S. Grant that is located between the Capitol grounds and the pool itself.

  No vans. Nobody who looks like the would-be bombers.

  Marks checks her watch.

  Twenty minutes.

  The Capitol seemed like a likely target, both because tourists and staffers are around and for the symbolic value. Both houses of Congress are in session and multiple hearings are underway.

  Marks hits her brakes and opens the door as the car comes to a stop.

  There. A van.

  The car is still running as she sprints across a few feet of asphalt to get to the vehicle. She pulls out her Sig Sauer, prepared to simply shoot first.

  The man in the driver’s seat is genuinely shocked as the muzzle of the gun pokes through his window. Immediately he puts his hands up.

  “Out. Now,” Marks orders.

  He moves in exaggerated fashion, so she can see each motion and opens the door. Then he opens it and leans forward, asking permission to come out.

  “Come.”

  He steps out and immediately falls to his knees. Marks reaches to her waist and pulls out a set of plastic zip tie handcuffs. She bounds his hands behind him and pushes him down to the ground, so he is lying on her chest.

  “Where’s your partner?”

  “No partner, just me.” His voice is elevated and panicky.

  Marks heart thumps. He does not look like either of the men she is on the lookout for. She leans into the vehicle and peers over the seat into the back of the van.

  Damn it.

  Empty, save for some soda cans and a thick red blanket.

  Damn it. Damn it.

  Her headset crackles again.

  “Interface complete. Uploading to your system.” Renegade.

  “Copy.”

  She holsters her gun and turns her attention to her car. She will remove the zip ties later.

  Up ahead there are three people standing next to the Corvette. Two cops in bike shorts and a middle-aged white woman with curly red hair. She is animatedly speaking to the cops and pointing to Marks’ car.

  What?

  Chapter 6

  U.S. Capitol Grounds, Washington, D.C.

  Betty Ebersol is uncomfortable and not enjoying her day in the nation’s capital. The museums do not interest her, and she has never been remotely interested in history or art. That has always been her husband Todd’s thing. Betty glances down at her watch and winces as she realizes she is missing her judge shows. Hopefully the DVR recorded all the episodes like she planned.

  Higher up on the hill, closer to the Capitol building, she can see her husband and two kids, aged 11 and 13. Todd is animatedly gesturing and talking to the children. Probably some of his boring facts, Betty thinks to herself.

  She reaches into her backpack and pulls out a Thermos with the Orange Fanta she’s been working on for the last two hours. It’s still cold thank God, she thinks.

  Out of the corner of her eye she sees a red sports car flying through the parking lot. Weird. She follows the trajectory of the vehicle and then it stops suddenly. She can hear the brakes screech.

  The door swings open and out leaps a black woman.

  Betty’s eyes narrow and she stops drinking the Fanta.

  She sees something gleam in the black woman’s hands and Betty immediately begins to nervously shake. She drops the Thermos and it clatters as the plastic bounces on the asphalt.

  Betty whips her head to the left in the direction of a security guard who has his back turned.

  For the first time in twenty years, Betty breaks out into a full run, her mind running through all the horrific scenarios she imagines this gun-wielding black woman could be up to.

  ***

  Missile Van, Washington, D.C.

  As Dennis begins to put the code in, Bob finally joins him. He is constantly wiping his face, sheets of sweat appearing over and over again no matter how many times he gets rid of it.

  Chet is outside of his car, tired of waiting on the men inside the van to get to work. He has already decided to kill them both. He is angry that Blanc ever hired them for this or that he put him in place as their babysitters. Their ability to get into the missile storage facility is not worth all the hesitation he has seen on display this day.

  As Chet stares at the back of the van, a father and son walk past him on the sidewalk.

  “We’re missing it, dad, I can hear them” the kid whines.

  “Game time isn’t until 1:05. We’ve still got a few minutes to spare before the first pitch.”

  Chet turns his attention to Nationals Park and hears the roar of the crowd.

  The stadium for the Washington, D.C. baseball franchise holds over 41,000 people. On a day like this, with good weather and the home town team on a serious winning streak, the location is at nearly full capacity.

  Worth the sacrifice, Chet thinks.

  ***

  U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.

  Both cops have their Glock handguns drawn and pointed at Marks. Betty stands between them, sweat still dripping down her face. She feels a sense of superiority. She has done her duty. She saw this woman, this black woman, looking so suspicious and she did something about it.

  She continually tells herself she did the right thing. It isn’t a race thing, not really. You see a black woman acting suspicious, though, and… well, she has a gun and the police are on alert, right?

  Marks holds her gun to the side. She is thinking about the precious seconds ticking away. Her car is the key to stopping this thing.

  “I’m on the job,” she yells.

  The cops don’t move an inch.

  “Drop the weapon,” the cop on the right commands.

  “I don’t have time for this.”

  “Drop the weapon,” the second cop repeats, his voice slightly more insistent.

  Marks is in shock. She is trying to protect everyone in the city. The clock is ticking.

  She stretches out her arms, so they can see her clearly. The cop on the left twitches, ever so slightly. Marks is a sitting duck. She prays that he can hold it together for just a few more seconds. She hopes that this can be quickly resolved. Lives are on the line.

  She slowly bends over and puts the gun down on the ground.

  “Get her,” Betty snarls.

  “Please step back ma’am,” the cop on the right orders.

  He motions behind his back with one hand, ushering Betty out of the action. She does not comply. She feels almost like this was her collar. She did this. She doesn’t even think for a second about her family further up on the hill. She did her part.

  The cops step toward Marks tentatively.

  When they are close enough, one grabs her arm and throws her to the
ground.

  As her face hits the pavement, out of the corner of her eye Marks can see the Capitol Dome. The Statue of Freedom.

  I don’t feel very free right now, she thinks.

  The cop buries his knee in the small of her back. He fumbles for his handcuffs, then reaches for her arm. He pulls on it hard and Marks can feel the strain at her elbow.

  “Ouch. Damn it, I’m on the job. I’m a federal agent. There’s a bomb and I need to –”

  “Stop resisting. Stop resisting.”

  The cop continues to pull her arm, moving her wrist to below waist.

  The other cop stands over them, his gun still aimed at Marks’ head.

  “Gotcha now, bitch,” Betty taunts from just outside of the action.

  The remark is the last straw. Marks has had enough. This is taking too long. People will get hurt.

  She suddenly stretches her arm out, breaking the cop’s grip on her.

  He cries out in shock.

  The other cop who is standing up begins to press his trigger.

  ***

  Outside Washington Nationals Park

  The console turns green as Dennis puts the final digit in.

  “System Armed. Ready to fire,” the display reads.

  Dennis and Bob turn to each other. They look out the window set in the rear door of the van. They can see the stadium clearly from their vantage point. Every few seconds a loud, simultaneous roar can be heard as patrons laugh and joke along with the pre-game entertainment.

  A voice amplified by the stadium’s loudspeaker echoes through the mostly empty roads surrounding the venue.

  “We welcome over 41,000 in attendance to watch your home town Washington Nationals.”

  An intense, loud raucous cheer rises up from the building, overflowing past the walls and into the streets below.

  On the screen of the missile control panel, two buttons flash: “Launch” and “Abort.”

  “I can hear kids,” Bob whispers.

  Dennis nods to acknowledge him. He feels a knot in his stomach. He tries to remember everything he read online about the missile, what it could do, how strong the explosion would be.

  He thinks about the number of those in attendance. In his mind’s eye he visualizes those people being blown away. He tries to un-see the images his vivid imagination has cooked up.

  He sees Nationals park in ruins. He sees people covered in hazardous dust. He can imagine cops crying their eyes out as they sift through the remains of the building, hoping to find fragments of human bone.

  “I can’t,” he says to Dennis.

  Before Bob can respond, Dennis sticks his hand out and presses the “abort” button.

  Bob turns to him. Dennis has his eyes cast down.

  “Me either,” Bob responds.

  The twin doors of the van swing open. For a split second, neither Bob or Dennis can see a thing. The light from outside is blinding.

  Their eyes adjust, and they can make out Chet standing there.

  Two loud bangs echo through the empty alleyway.

  Bob and Dennis fall together in a bloody heap, matching each other with identical bullet wounds to the temple.

  Chet pulls himself up onto the cargo area of the van.

  This is what happens when you send a mongrel to do a man’s job, he thinks.

  He leans down and pulls a piece of paper from Dennis’ back pocket.

  “Play ball,” the announcer says outside.

  Chet begins to type in the codes.

  I’ll show them, he thinks.

  ***

  Omega Division Headquarters

  Renegade stands still, his arms folded across his chest. He is disturbed and on the edge of panic. It is not a mindset he is used to. Renegade lives his life through control, precision, planning. Chaos is always his enemy and he uses every resource at his disposal at Omega Division to annihilate his foe.

  But right now, he is a sitting duck. There is radio silence from Marks.

  “Marks, respond. Marks. Marks? Deena.”

  Nothing but silence.

  He balls his hands into fists. He clenches them so tight his fingernails leave deep indentations against his palm.

  For a fleeting second, he is back at the Pentagon. He can smell the jet engine fuel and it burns his nostrils. He can see the wall torn to shreds. He can see the sick mix of soot and human blood smeared against the ground.

  This can’t happen again. Not on his watch.

  “Marks?”

  ***

  U.S. Capitol Grounds

  The cop, pulled off balance by Marks’ sudden move, falls down to the ground next to her.

  The second cop fires his weapon, narrowly missing Marks’ head as she rolls to the side. She can feel little pieces of concrete spray up against her cheek.

  He is a split second away from firing his next shot, which he does not intend to miss. He has been trained to protect some of the most important soil in the world and graduated near the top of his class at the academy.

  A shot fires.

  The cop feels a searing hot pain slice against his knuckles. Involuntarily he stretches out his finger, releasing the gun. It drops against the ground and the metal makes a sick clattering sound as it falls on the asphalt.

  He looks down and Marks is still lying down, but her outstretched hand holds her just-fired Sig Sauer.

  “I’m trying to help you,” she angrily growls.

  Betty screams.

  Marks pulls herself up and kicks the first cop to keep him down. She pulls back and punches the second cop in the jaw. He spins to the right from the force of the blow. Combined with the throbbing pain in his hand he falls to his knees.

  Looking Betty up and down, Marks rolls her eyes. She knows the type. Smug. Superior. A busybody. At another time her ignorance would be an annoyance. But now it is a national security risk.

  “Get a life,” Marks says and runs to her car.

  ***

  Nationals Stadium

  Chet presses “enter” on the touchscreen after inputting the last number from the loose piece of paper. “Armed,” reads the screen.

  He finally smiles. He is a soldier on a mission, replacing the weaklings who faltered at the last minute. He has felt empty his entire life, searching for a seminal moment to prove he was bred from his genetic stock for a reason. This is it.

  Launching this weapon into the stadium will begin the cataclysm the world needs to make the final push for purity. The men who placed him here, despite their poor personnel choices along the way, picked the right man for the job.

  He will deliver the hurt and the ball park will bleed. He walks to the front of the vehicle and sits in the driver’s seat. He turns on the engine and shifts the van into “drive.”

  Now, he will position the vehicle along the road and may God have no mercy on their souls.

  Chapter 7

  Washington, D.C.

  Deena Marks has the Corvette flying through the streets of Washington. It is approaching 200 miles per hour, its top speed. On her dashboard, a three-dimensional map of the city is continually updated with her position in real time as it reads the GPS signal from the car. Also on the screen is a flashing green symbol.

  That is the location of the missile.

  Marks is closing in as she expertly twists the wheel left and right, avoiding cars now at a standstill after the Omega Division system tweaked every traffic light to show red within a two-mile radius.

  “I’m almost there,” she tells Renegade through her headset.

  “Acknowledged. We lost you there for a while.”

  “Long story. Spying while black, you know how it is.”

  Renegade furrows his brow. No time to ask her what she means, but he expects a full rundown in the post-mission debrief. If she survives that long.

  Marks glances at her screen as she makes a sharp right turn on I Street. The wheels make a sick sound as she quickly turns left onto First Street. The top of the stadium is now visible, just
a few blocks away.

  The urgency hits her, and she floors it. It is nearly a straight shot down the road.

  A car honks at her and she ignores it.

  A blue Camry crosses M Street. The driver is apparently tired of waiting at the red light where he has been sitting for the last few minutes and has decided to make his own way.

  Marks waves at him to move out of the way but despite her speed and the bright red car she is driving, he is oblivious.

  “Shit.”

  Marks pulls the wheel to the left and the rear end of the car drifts to the right. It skids across the surface of the street and the Corvette is now nearly parallel with the Camry. The steering wheel vibrates in her hands as she tries to hold it steady. She applies the brakes while trying to correct her trajectory.

  The Camry driver finally notices her and slams on his brakes in the middle of the road.

  Marks stares at him, incensed at his stupidity.

  The Corvette slides and slides. It is inches away from slamming into the Camry.

  The cars make a “thud” as the Corvette bounces against the stopped car. Without hesitation, Marks hits the gas again and quickly the engine picks up. Another quick shift to the right and she is past the car.

  The Corvette will need body work. Luckily the agency has the money to spare.

  On the dashboard the green symbol has begun to move.

  “Target on the move.”

  “Damn it,” Renegade answers.

  Now at the intersection right in front of the stadium, Marks looks from the dashboard and out onto the road repeatedly, trying to match the movements to the location data she is receiving.

  There.

  She sees the van moving down N Street. He is positioning the vehicle directly at the main entrance to the park. From his vantage point the structure of the stadium has a wide break in it and the stands and field are visible even from the street.