The Land of the Free

by Krakondack

  Connolly was not inclined to push further and dismissed Snyder with hardly a “thank you.” Snyder was in any case all too eager to leave Connolly’s office.

  …

  After Snyder left, Connolly lifted the phone receiver and hit a speed-dial button.

  “He found the trail to Tilbury fairly quickly.”

  “No, he knew enough to back off, just as I thought he would.”

  “Yeah I’d be worried too. Snyder could connect the dots. But I don’t think he’d say anything.”

  “No, we don’t want another body tied to the case. That could spin out of control.”

  “I agree. It’s too late to make much difference now.”

  “I’ll just saddle him with work and keep him busy.”

  “I’ll tell Torres everything, at least in summary. But he won’t hear the important details of course.”

  Connolly hung up the phone and composed a memo to Torres that he would slip into his daily briefing papers.

  Derek Ellis: Founder and CEO of Morningstar Security Services. Has a long history of political contacts that have led to favored contracts. Following severance of recent contracts has launched a subsidiary providing security at many port facilities. Cash flow from current operation appears sufficient to keep Morningstar solvent. Suggest DHS monitor for any illicit activities, but cannot presently identify any specific concerns, nor evidence of any crimes.

  Chapter 29: An Unfinished Matter

  In his haste to extricate himself from the scene of the shooting, John had forgotten Frank, only now remembering the reason he came to Chicago in the first place. Either Frank had set him up and there would be hell to pay, or he was an innocent pawn in which case he was now in grave danger. John turned on his GPS monitor and noticed that Frank had only recently left downtown, heading west on the Eisenhower expressway. John followed and thought he was perhaps 10 minutes behind Frank. Frank left the highway in Roselle and quickly parked the car in a residential neighborhood with tall, mature hardwood trees along its streets. John followed, stopping his Corolla a block short of Frank’s destination. Another Corolla of similar age and color to John’s approached from the other direction and parked in Frank’s driveway, behind Frank’s car.

  A man darted out of the Corolla and ran to the back of Frank’s house. John pulled into the nearest driveway and stepped out of his car. But an old man with a gray beard walked by with his dog and bid him a good evening, perhaps with a little bit of a suspicious look. John casually waved at the man and mumbled something resembling a “good evening” while worrying that he just showed himself to a potential witness. John started to walk the other way, waiting for the old man to pass out of sight. When he was gone, John ran to Frank’s house, hoping he wasn’t too late.

  It was getting dark as John ran to the back of the house where he had seen the man go before him. The back door of Frank’s house had been broken in so he tiptoed past it and walked through the kitchen towards the only room with a light on, which looked like a den. Thank you Mr. Goon, for making it so obvious, he thought to himself, then cringed at the stupidity of his assumption. He shrank back to the nearest wall and backtracked, looking around all corners to make sure nobody was hiding in ambush, before proceeding towards the den. He heard a thud coming from the den followed by a low pitched, aggressive voice demanding “What’s his name?”

  There was no answer, only another thud. John retreated slowly to the kitchen where he spotted a block of knives and selected one with a sharp, sturdy blade, then walked gingerly back to the den, positioning himself to see in. He saw Frank bound in a chair with duct tape, bleeding from the temple area, while the visitor stood over him with his gun and what looked like small branch clippers. “Tell me his name, asshole, or I cut off your fingers, one by one,” threatened the visitor. Frank said nothing, only looking to the ground with resignation to his fate. The goon hit him across the head again, shouting “Tell me his name, asshole!”

  John took a half step back, causing a floorboard to creak. Everything in the other room came to a stop. John had been discovered. He took several steps back towards the door and hid behind a corner in the wall, clutching his kitchen knife. Frank’s attacker followed, gun drawn. Why didn’t I keep that gun? thought John to himself.

  The attacker quickly rounded the corner, expecting to keep moving in pursuit of John. Instead, John stopped him in his tracks with a blow to the face from the large blunt handle of the knife. The attacker fell to the ground slightly dazed, but began to raise his gun in John’s direction. He never got the chance to fire it. John plunged the long blade of the knife into the attacker’s chest, knowing exactly where it would do the most damage. The attacker’s hand fell limply to his side and John took the gun away from him. “My name is John Corson, asshole,” he told the now deceased attacker.

  Chapter 30: Assessing a Response

  The shuffle at the top levels of the Chinese government and military was eventful, even radical by conservative Chinese standards. Several top Generals with a reputation for political savvy announced their retirements at once. Promoted into their places were General Officers with much more aggressive reputations, having come up through the military culture that viewed China as the world’s rightful dominant power and America as a belligerent, bankrupt nuisance. As Torres read further through the briefing notes, he realized this was exactly what they had feared. The new generals got seats at the governing councils. The military was now represented at the table with their civilian counterparts who had formerly been their superiors.

  Torres knew what this meant, and he believed that saying the military was “represented” misread the reality. Just as the Cobra came to give him his instructions, he inferred that the Chinese government was now subservient to the military. It actually seemed like a smart arrangement, because it gave the military control over the governing agenda, but without the mundane responsibilities of power which would still fall to the governing councils. He would now deal with Beijing on equal terms, he thought with a trace of schadenfreude (8). Neither of them was truly in charge. It was in this mood of fear combined with amusement that Torres downed his cup of coffee and took the Derek Ellis memo from Connolly, read it quickly and wrote, “Keep me informed of any new developments,” at the bottom of the page. He thought for a moment then wrote a second note. “Get a dossier on the counterparty in the port contract.”

  The wheels were now in motion for Connolly and the CIA. Connolly would have no choice but to pursue an investigation of Helsing-Tilbury and eventually hand over the dossier, but how quickly he did so was a factor of government efficiency. He would ensure it was delayed long enough to be irrelevant. And that would not be too much longer.

  …

  Torres convened his Cabinet meeting and started by asking everyone if they had a chance to read the memo on recent changes in the Chinese power structure, with the military gaining a measure of control over the governing process. Everyone nodded their heads, so he turned to Morgensen. “What does State make of the power shift?”

  “You pushed back hard on their demands and the civilian government came up empty. They lost face, if you will. The military stepped in and now they’re the power brokers. It’s about what I would have expected, and it looks like the pressure on their regime has been ratcheted up. It should start showing cracks soon.”

  Torres was livid at the insinuation that it was him who was responsible by pushing back on their demands. It was you who made me do it he thought to himself. A world of possible comments ran through his head, but he could not afford to utter any of them.

  “If it doesn’t show cracks really soon, we’re going to have to adjust to the new reality that we now have a radical element running the Chinese government, and managing the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal,” Torres finally said. “These are no longer risk-averse diplomats. The danger of them lashing out at us has gone way up.”

  “Then we have to hem them in,” said Morgensen. “They need to see that
any strike they can dream up will not only be hopeless, but it will be such an embarrassing failure that it would lead directly to their downfall. It’s time to deploy literally every spare asset in the region.”

  “Thanks to the earlier deployments, we don’t have any spare assets,” said Defense Secretary Tyler Matheson, half cowering in his seat as he said it.

  “Then send over scrap metal!” demanded Morgensen, in no mood to hear objections. “We need to show a presence on the ground. Send as many troops as we have and equip them with whatever firearms we have. I don’t care what it is, so long as they see some functional hardware in the mix.”

  “Mr. President, I cannot support any further deployments,” objected Matheson, appealing to Torres against Morgensen’s demand. “Our reserves are depleted. Even our National Guard troops are overseas. Any disaster here at home and we won’t be able to mount any kind of response.”

  “We have police with SWAT teams. That should be enough for anything that comes up,” said Morgensen, while Torres fidgeted nervously.

  Torres weighed the situation and realized that he had to be seen as taking charge. Since the Cobra’s stance would prevail anyway, siding with her would be the easiest way for him to keep up the appearance of control. He pulled back his shoulders, raised his chin and said “Tyler, we’re going to do this. Make the arrangements and deploy all our assets in the arena. Make sure it’s done with only minimal cover so the Chinese can see what we’re doing. I want a Maginot Line (9) in the Orient. Any place the Chinese may want to apply pressure has to have an overabundance of our forces. Don’t leave any gaps for them to walk through.”

  Turning to Connolly, Torres said, “Do you have anything on unusual troop movements or the like?”

  “The Chinese have picked up the frequency and scope of their training exercises. Their forces were already biased towards the South China Sea, so I don’t want to read too much into their sending more troops and other assets down there.”

  “What sorts of assets?” asked Torres.

  “Aircraft and missiles, mostly,” said Connolly. “Anti-ship, anti-aircraft and strategic missiles.”

  “Strategic meaning nuclear?” asked Torres.

  “Possibly nuclear,” replied Connolly. “They don’t announce which ones are and which ones are not. But this has been on our list of assumptions all along, so it doesn’t really constitute a shift in their tactics.”

  “They’re making symbolic gestures to let us know they don’t agree with our moves,” said Morgensen. “That’s why it’s so important to call their bluff and raise the stakes. Leave no doubt about who is the stronger party.”

  Torres resigned himself to the reality that the Cobra would get her way once again.

  Chapter 31: Clearing a Scene

  John Corson stood briefly over the dead attacker, looking down at the man he had just brutally killed. He quickly freed Frank, who rubbed his painful head, before saying, “You came back for me. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Corson didn’t seem to acknowledge Frank. He returned to look at the body once again then started to shake before breaking down into a hacking, weeping, involuntary set of lung contractions. It seemed to take a minute or so until he could pull himself together. Frank handed him a towel which he used to wipe his face. “I’ve killed two people today, Frank. None of this should have happened. Robbie should still be alive, as should these guys.”

  “I wish that were possible, John,” said Frank. “Why did you come back for me?”

  “Your other friend tried to kill me, so I decided that you were either next to be killed or you were in on it too, in which case I’d have some business to settle. I’m glad it was the former, and I’m glad you’re alive,” replied John, regaining his composure.

  “I’ll call the cops,” said Frank.

  “Hell no,” snapped John. “There are two dead bodies to account for. We’d be in custody for weeks before things were straightened out, and whoever was behind this would know everything they need to about us.”

  Frank removed the wallet from the dead man and with it a printed itinerary for a morning flight to Albany.

  “That will be a fake ID,” said John. “But it might be useful to us yet.”

  John removed the fake driver’s license and credit cards. He then rolled up the right sleeve of the dead man and made a contemptuous pfft when he saw the now familiar double dagger tattoo.

  “Frank, we don’t have much time, and you can’t stay here. Somebody might be waiting to hear from him, and when the second killer fails to show up, well, you can follow that train of thought yourself. Do you know an old man with a gray beard that would be out walking his dog?”

  “That would be Mr. Zelinski. You can be sure he’ll tell the cops anything he saw.”

  “He saw me, but not too closely. And I didn’t say much of anything identifiable. This guy is younger than me, but being dead tends you age you, so it’ll be a wash. We’ll put the body into his own rental car, which looks a lot like mine, and park it where your Mr. Zelinski saw me and my car. He’ll have no problem mixing us up and will decide this is the man he saw tonight.”

  They cleaned the prints off the knife, put it in the dead attacker’s car, and threw his body in the back seat. They cleaned any surface they touched and then John showered, throwing his blood stained clothes in a garbage bag along with the rest of Frank’s matching kitchen knife set and the dead man’s wallet. Frank cleaned the kitchen floor so it wouldn’t be obvious that blood had been spilled there, should anybody come looking.

  When they finished, they took all the blood stained rags, the mop head and towels, and threw them in the garbage bag as well. They double bagged the garbage, took it outside and put it in the trunk of John’s rental Corolla. They parked the dead assailant’s Corolla where John’s Corolla had been parked when seen by Mr. Zelinsky. John removed the GPS tracking device that he had placed on Frank’s car and in little time found a second device, no doubt placed there by the attacker.

  John and Frank drove through several neighborhoods until they came to one where the garbage cans were out at the side of the street and found one that was not quite full. They added their garbage bag of potential evidence to the household trash of the unsuspecting family, and made for the motel that John had booked for that night.

  They checked in and settled into a double room. “Frank, go to the lobby and use the computer there to check in for the assailant’s flight using his fake ID and confirmation number.”

  “But I’m not him. How will I be able to get on the plane?” asked Frank.

  “Don’t worry about that,” said John. “You’re a middle-aged white guy and you’ll be clearing security during the busiest time of day. The TSA drone who needs two more cups of coffee won’t give you a second look, so long as you have some ID to show him and act grumpy. They know everyone hates them, so don’t pretend to hide it and you won’t be suspicious. I’m guessing Albany is the next stop because it’s an easy drive to Kingston, which makes me suspect he’s after Robbie’s papers and aims to look everywhere relevant in his home town.”

  John had one more thing to do before they could call it a night. He found an idling taxi cab whose driver had stepped out briefly, and attached the attacker’s GPS transmitter to it. It would give any pursuers some fun trying to make sense of Frank’s movements.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Frank.

  “I’m flying back to Philly. I’ll drive up to Albany and meet you straight away. I should be there in time to meet you for dinner, and then we’ll see if we can’t find those papers before the killers do.”

  In the morning, John dropped Frank at the airport and returned the rental car before catching his own flight.

  John was still weary of his involvement in this whole affair, but it was now tempered by the awareness that he was no longer safe no matter what he did or didn’t do.

  Chapter 32: To Albany

  Frank landed in Albany and took a shuttle to a h
otel on Wolf Road, across the highway from the airport. He tried to be on guard for anybody watching him, but he didn’t notice the middle-aged woman in the airport lounge photographing all deplaning passengers. He was gone by the time she emailed the pictures, so he didn’t see her agitation when the phone rang and the party at the other end reacted to the pictures she had sent. And he could have no idea that later that day, after the plane had returned to Chicago, two men dressed as TSA Agents spoke with the flight attendant, showing her photographs of passengers and asking which one might have been sitting in seat 15-B.

  John landed back in Philadelphia on a warm and sunny early autumn afternoon, planning to go home to change his clothes and pack a few items to take with him to Albany. But as he approached his house, he saw two cars in his driveway, so he stopped short of his house. A man wearing a black windbreaker came out and walked to one of the cars. As the man turned to get in, John noticed the big yellow letters on the back. He then realized the depth of the situation he was in.

  Instead of stopping at his home, he drove to his bank and withdrew two thousand dollars in cash. He then drove straight to Albany and made it by 5:00, in time to meet Frank for dinner. They chose a familiar chain restaurant where John filled Frank in on his house being invaded and that he did not think he was followed from Philadelphia.

  “Frank, my house has been targeted. There were guys wearing FBI jackets digging around in the house. If they’ve managed to involve the FBI, then they’ll be after us for the deaths of those two goons. It could just be Morningstar pretending to be FBI, but at this point we can’t be too careful. No credit card use, no cell phone use, got it?”