Beth was already waiting for him when the officer dragged him into the tiny conference room reserved for inmates and their legal advisors. Smith landed in his chair with a forceful thud from the officer escorting him.
“That’ll be all, officer,” Beth said.
While the correctional officer’s grimace was different than those of his orange-jumpsuited peers, that was where the differences ended. Both inmates and guards offered their own unique form of cruelty. The door clicked shut as the officer left. Beth grabbed Smith’s hand.
“Treason doesn’t make you a lot of friends on either side of the aisle here,” Smith said.
“How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine. Where do we stand?”
“I found out today that the attorney general will be handling the prosecution himself.”
“Jones’s doing, no doubt.”
“It’s a long shot for the charges to stick. I think Jones is just trying to focus attention elsewhere to distract people from the war and exile, and you happen to be a big news story right now.”
Beth opened one of the manila folders containing the map she had used earlier. Smith flipped the paper over and took in each red X. The map looked like it was bleeding.
“No luck with finding a suitable location?” Smith asked.
“No. Any property that would work has already been seized by local authorities. Jones knows we’ll be looking for another spot. He’s giving us the full-court press.”
Smith slammed his fists against the table. Beth jumped. “Then we press back!” Smith felt like he could pull the chains around his wrists apart. Smokescreens, misdirection, and lies had tangled him in a web, thwarting any action he could take.
“David, there is another option,” Beth said. “Dr. Carlson mentioned to me that he has colleagues in Canada who would be willing to help.”
“You want us to take him across the border?”
“I know it’s a long shot, but I have tried searching for anything that would work, and there is nothing here. We don’t have a lot of other options.”
Smith closed his eyes. He searched for that light he had found earlier in the day, but his mind was so fogged and cluttered that he didn’t think it was there anymore. He could feel the icy grip of panic. He kept thinking, trying to push forward. What could he do?
“Where do we stand with Mexico?” Smith asked.
“The president will be asking for a declaration of war in a few hours.”
“And it’s a sure bet that Congress will give him what he wants. My trial starts in two days. If we can get Dr. Carlson out by then and into Canada for a head start, we might be able to pull it off. Jones won’t be able to touch the doctor if he’s out of the country. It could work.”
“You want me to proceed?”
“Yes. Grant the doctor’s request. And set up a meeting with the Canadian ambassador for the day after my trial.”
“That’s cutting it close. They could extend the hearings.”
“You said it yourself: the charges are thin. This is a smear campaign, and when it’s over, we need to be ready to smear back.”
Beth jotted her notes onto her legal pad then dropped the pen. She kept her head down, rubbing her hands together. “David, there’s something else we need to discuss. Worst-case scenario.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I was speaking with Edwards’s advisor and he has a plan to get him and his family out of the country. It’s going to be expensive, but I can start setting up the accounts and passports for the trip.”
“Do it. And make sure we have something in place for Daniel.”
“What? David, Daniel is a part of the reason why you’re here.”
“It’s not for him. It’s for his family. They didn’t ask for all of this, and I won’t have their innocent blood spilled for my mistakes!”
Beth exhaled. “Okay. I’ll set it up.”
Two different correctional officers entered the room. They were larger than Smith’s previous escort. They crossed their arms, muscles rippling from the movement. “Time’s up,” one of them said.
“I’ll contact you as soon as I know more,” Beth said.
Beth gathered up her papers and briefcase and walked out the door. Once she was gone, the officer that had spoken unchained Smith’s shackles from the floor. Before Smith could stand, the officer kicked the legs of the chair, causing it to slide from underneath Smith. Unable to brace himself against the fall, he smacked his shoulder on the concrete.
“Easy, Congressman,” the chair-kicking officer said. “You don’t want to hurt yourself walking around in those chains.”
“Remember what the warden said. Don’t hit him the face.”
“Right.”
The chains scraped across the concrete floor as Smith crawled on his belly to the other end of the room. Each move forward sent a sharp stab into his shoulder. He could hear the officers laughing at his attempts to escape.
“Where are you going? There aren’t any loopholes to pull you out of this one.”
The CO drove his heel into Smith’s left hamstring. Smith gritted his teeth, moaning at the impact and strain on his muscles. The CO twisted and dug his heel deeper until Smith could no longer move. Finally he removed it, offering a brief moment of reprieve before the other officer sent the toe of his boot into Smith’s side. Smith curled into himself, his brain diverting signals from his hamstring to his rib cage. Smith placed both palms flat on the floor. His face grew purple from the strain of trying to push himself up, the restraints around his wrists not allowing him to get very far.
Both COs pulled out their batons. They brought successive blows down on Smith’s back, each thud followed by a cry or scream. The bulky shoulders of each officer rotated to bring more force with each hit. The officers’ exertion caused drops of sweat to join in the barrage against Smith’s back.
After a few minutes, the noises coming from Smith’s body ceased. Each strike into his bones and flesh was answered with unconscious spasms of pain, Smith’s last piece of evidence signaling that while he might be blacked out, his brain was still alive. At last, one of the officers placed his baton back in his belt.
“All right. That’s enough,” he said.
But the other man didn’t stop. He brought the baton down harder, each clout fueled by a grunt of force.
“Frank, stop,” his partner said, grabbing Frank’s wrist before he could land another hit.
Frank yanked his wrist out of his partner’s grip and gave one last defiant whack.
“Jesus, man. We were hired to hurt him, not kill him. Take it easy.”
Frank hawked some phlegm, and the spit stained the orange spot on Smith’s back with a greenish blob. He put his baton back in his belt, breathing heavily after the assault. The medical ward was called, and Smith was picked up by a few nurses and put on a stretcher.
Daniel’s office felt quiet. His suit jacket hung on the back of the chair he was slumped in. He fiddled with the end of his tie, an act that had taken up most of his morning. There were piles of papers on his desk, beckoning to be read, but the half-empty bottle of whiskey hiding in his desk drawer drained any ambition to accomplish it. The familiar knock of his assistant hit the door, and Meghan poked her head inside, as she had done all morning, to check on him.
“Congressman, I’m heading to lunch. Can I get you anything?” Meghan asked.
Daniel gently shook his head and waved her off. She smiled politely, the hint of concern still etched on her face. The click of the door’s handle was the only thing Smith seemed to hear. Every once in a while, his eyes would find the windows. It was sunny outside, and despite him keeping the lights off, the office was still warmly illuminated. He could have risen to shut the curtains, but even that seemed like too much of a task.
The news of Smith’s arrest still lingered in the back of his mind. And no matter how much liquor he drank to try and drown it out, there it remained. It was Smith’s own fault. That�
�s what he kept telling himself. Both of them had danced with the devil. Daniel just so happened to have found the beat a little quicker.
I did it for my family. That was the other voice echoing in his head. That’s what he focused on to help rid himself of Smith’s voice. All he needed to do was make the list of justifications longer than his list of sins.
There was another knock on his door. Daniel didn’t respond. Another knock.
“Meghan, I told you I didn’t want anything,” Daniel said.
The door cracked open, and Daniel straightened himself in the chair when his wife stepped inside. She wore a light sundress with heels. Her cheeks were reddened from the sun outside.
“Amy, what are you doing here?”
Daniel had only seen his wife in his office a handful of times, most of which had been during his first term. Amy fiddled with her fingers, the tips of her manicured nails scraping against one another. She gave him a half smile.
“You didn’t return any of my calls,” she said.
Daniel squinted, trying to remember what he had done with his phone. He patted his shirt and pants pockets. He pulled open the top drawer of his desk and found the cell. It was still turned off.
“I’m sorry. I turned it off to save the battery. Is everything all right?”
“I heard from Brooke.”
“That’s great. Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. She made it to Dallas. She’s going to call me again tomorrow.”
“That’s great news.”
“Daniel, we have to help her. She’s a fugitive. There has to be something you can do.”
When Daniel stood up, he felt the room spin. He clutched the edge of the desk to steady himself. He focused on the pen on top of a stack of papers. He clung to it for dear life.
“Daniel?” Amy asked.
He waved it off. “I’m fine.” He let go of the desk, wobbled a bit more, but remained upright. He smiled, accentuating the dark circles under his eyes. “Just been sitting down all morning.” He walked over to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Amy sniffed the air around him.
“Daniel, are you dru—”
The slam of the office doors finished the sentence for her. Jones stood at the office entrance. Distracted by the noise, Amy couldn’t see the twisted glare tearing across Daniel’s face.
“Mrs. Hunter, it’s wonderful to see you again,” Jones said, walking over and giving Amy a light kiss on the cheek. “Come to congratulate your husband?”
“Congratulate?”
“Daniel. You haven’t told her? So modest. Daniel has just received an appointment on the resource committee.”
Amy’s jaw dropped. She turned around, and Daniel forced a smile. “That’s great!” Amy threw her arms around Daniel’s neck, and Jones mouthed, “Get her out.”
“Thanks, honey. Look, why don’t we grab dinner tonight. I’m still swamped with work, but we can go over everything then,” Daniel said.
“Maybe Congressman Jones can help?” Amy asked.
Jones peaked his left eyebrow. “With what?”
“Nothing. I’ll handle it. Amy, we’ll talk about it later.”
“Oh. Well, all right then.”
Daniel gave her another kiss, and Amy closed the door behind her. The moment it clicked shut, Daniel grabbed Jones by the collar. “What the hell do you want?”
Jones pushed Daniel off him, and he stumbled backward. “Been having a drink, Daniel?”
Daniel staggered to his desk and loosened his tie. He reached for the bottle of whiskey and unscrewed the cap. “I’m celebrating. Remember?” He didn’t bother reaching for the glass, he just tipped the bottle back and took a few chugs.
Jones stomped over and ripped the bottle from Daniel’s lips. A stream of brown liquid splashed to the carpet. Daniel reached for the bottle again, but Jones kept it out of reach. “Pull yourself together.” Jones dumped the rest of the liquor into the trash and took a seat in one of Daniel’s chairs.
“Make yourself at home,” Daniel said.
“We still have work to do.”
“No. I’m done. You got what you wanted from me. Smith is in jail. The bill failed. I’m done.”
“You’re done when I say you are. The charges against Smith will be hard to stick, even for the attorney general. The damage to his credibility will be extensive, but we have other things to worry about. We have to repair the U.S. relations with Mexico.”
“And I thought I was the drunk one.”
“If that doesn’t happen, we are dead. And not just us but the country. We can’t afford the war with the Mexicans, and we need their help to obtain the rivers in South America.”
Water. Wars. Death. The words floated through Daniel’s mind like fiction. Imaginary concepts that weren’t supposed to be used together in this world. But they were. It was real.
“What do you expect me to do about it? The president will be making his address within the hour,” Daniel said, rubbing his face. The effects of the whiskey were beginning to take their toll.
“I’m thinking,” Jones said.
4
It was the third fuel station Terry had checked. He stepped out of the building and into Dallas’s downtown. He could feel the city’s smog soaking through his pores. He hated the city. He popped a cigarette between his lips and torched the tip with his lighter then exhaled his own smog that circled his head.
The pictures of Brooke and Eric were still in his hand. Terry knew they had to be running low on fuel, and Dallas was the easiest place to find it without people asking a lot of questions. The traffic was busy, and he dashed across the road to his van parked on the other side of the street.
It was a rust bucket on the outside. It had no hubcaps, the covers on both side mirrors had fallen off, and there was no telling what the original paint job had looked like. But it was like his Sunday school teacher had always told him when he was a boy: it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
Terry pulled the handle, and the sliding door clanged open. He closed it just as quickly after stepping in and flicked on the overhead light. The only seat in the van was behind the driver’s-side wheel. The passenger seat had been ripped out to make room for storage bins that were anchored with an intricate crisscross of bungee cords. The driver’s side of the van had a small shelf that ran along the middle of the wall. On it rested maps, a laptop, a ham radio, a police scanner, a lamp, a filled ashtray, a hook to hang his hat, a whetstone, and a carton of cigarettes. In front of the makeshift shelf was a chair bolted to the metal floor. He sat down and added his nub of a cigarette to the overflowing ashtray.
The passenger side of the back of the van was lined with weapons. AR-15s, 12-guage shotguns, a 9mm Glock, .45 Colt, and a briefcase that held his DRD Tactical Paratus .308 rifle; perfect for any jobs where he needed to maneuver a rifle in a crowded area. An array of knives clung to a magnetic strip. Boxes of ammo for each weapon rested next to an assortment of fragmentation, chemical, offensive, and illuminating grenades.
Terry snatched a six-inch hunting knife off the strip and grabbed the whetstone. He tilted the blade at a twenty-degree angle and ran the edge along the stone. The metal scraped against the synthetic rock, each motion of the knife down the stone methodical. Terry counted twenty strokes on one side of the blade then flipped the knife for twenty strokes on the other side. He enjoyed the manual process of sharpening his knives. It took skill and precision to maintain the proper angle and force with the whetstone. Whenever he had to sink the blade into another man’s flesh, he wanted the knowledge that he created the razor edge that made it possible.
Once the knife’s edge was satisfactory, he placed the blade back on the strip and turned on his laptop. Using decoding software he had purchased, he hacked into the police database to pull up any other information he could on Brooke Fontanne. Her address in San Diego, along with her Social Security number and driving record, popped up. He wrote down the license plate number in case she had been dumb enough to keep i
t. He examined the specifications of the Toyota cruiser that was registered in her name and the modifications she had made to it. The tires, suspension, and engine type all suggested it was an off-road vehicle, which would allow her to take alternative routes most police vehicles would avoid.
Terry reached for the carton of cigarettes and pulled one from the package with his teeth. He flicked the lighter open again, and the rush of nicotine coursed through his veins. He took another look at Brooke’s picture and checked the database one more time. He pulled up a file on her late husband Jason. Military. Marines. KIA. He smothered the smoldering tip of his cigarette in Brooke’s forehead.
His stomach rumbled. A diner’s neon sign glowed through the front windshield. Terry shoved Brooke’s picture into his pocket and made his way back across the street, where the door chimed as he walked inside. The vacant booths and stools were dusted with the grime of black soot that a pregnant waitress tried halfheartedly to wipe down. Two men in trucker hats sat at the end of the diner’s bar. Terry took a seat on the opposite end. The waitress waddled over to Terry and handed him a menu.
“Anything to drink, darlin’?” she asked.
“Sweet tea.”
The waitress nodded and walked back around the other side of the counter. Terry looked over the menu. He gazed over the fifty-dollar burger and down to the chicken. The conversation of the two truckers broke his concentration.
“I swear to god,” the skinny trucker said.
“They really shot at you?” the fat trucker asked.
“Yeah. If that lady wasn’t with me, I might have died.”
Terry set the menu down as the waitress brought him his tea. He took a sip and focused on the two men at the end of the bar.
“I’ve got to get another job,” the fat trucker said.
Terry’s boots clicked against the worn floor tiles. His figure blocked the light coming from the door, and his shadow slowly grew over the two truckers sitting next to each other. He came up behind the two men and dropped Brooke’s picture in between them.
“This the woman you were with?” Terry asked.
Surviving The Collapse Super Boxset: EMP Post Apocalyptic Fiction Page 185
