by Tom Abrahams
Ings was about to step into the cooler when he heard a knock on the glass door at the entrance to the shop. He was expecting help and emerged from the back room to see George Edwards standing on the sidewalk, holding a backpack by its strap.
Ings waved and walked around the counter to the front door. He turned the lock and opened the door. Once Edwards walked past him, he closed the door again and relocked it, then reached up and pulled down a cheap vinyl roller shade to cover the glass.
“Hi, Jimmy.” Edwards extended his hand. “You ready?”
Ings shook Edwards’s soft but muscular hand. “I just unlocked the cooler,” he said. “Come take a look.”
He led Edwards behind the counter and into the back of the shop, pulled the large metal latch on the cooler door and opened it. He reached in to the right and flipped on a fluorescent overhead light, which hummed and flickered to life.
“It’s impressive in there,” Ings said. “You ever seen sixty pounds of explosives?”
Edwards shook his head. He’d looked at some pictures on the Internet, but he had no concept of scale.
The two men walked into the large ten-by-ten space. Edwards noticed it was significantly cooler inside the box, but it wasn’t as cold as he thought it would be. He looked to the right and noticed a long table and a couple of plastic fold-up chairs.
He scanned left and saw a large grouping of yellow-orange bricks wrapped in a thin cellophane-like material. The individual packages were unlabeled, and they looked to him like blocks of sharp cheddar cheese. The stack rose from the floor to waist level and stretched half the length of the cooler.
“That it?” Edwards motioned toward the cheese with his head, careful not to stand too close to it.
“Yep.”
“Looks like cheese.”
“Yeah, it does.” Ings walked up to the stack. “This is the old stuff. There’s absolutely no odor. The manufacturer didn’t add little metal pieces to the mix. They did that with the newer stuff so that metal detectors and X-ray machines could pick it up more easily. You know, for tracing. This stuff also decomposes really slowly. The newer plastic supposedly goes bad after three years. Not these babies.” He gestured at the stack. “This is the nasty Semtex.”
“That’s why I suggested it,” boasted Edwards. “A little research on the matter made me think this was the most viable tool.”
“Smart boy,” Ings remarked. He wasn’t really impressed, but he didn’t want to hurt Edwards’s feelings. “You bring the phones?”
“Everything we need is in here.” He held up the backpack and then slung it over his shoulder. “Did you study the instructions on how to put all of this together?”
“Yep.”
“Let’s get to work, then.”
The two men sat down at the table, and Edwards unzipped his backpack. From it he pulled four older model flip phones, four pieces of plywood cut to measure six by six inches, a small cardboard box containing inch-long Phillips-head screws, a screwdriver, a bundle of black plastic zip ties, six packages of AA alkaline batteries, a spool of thin copper wiring, wire cutters, a hand crank drill with an eighth-inch bit, a plastic wrapper full of double-ended alligator clips, and four packages of model rocket sparkers. Edwards made sure to arrange all of the materials neatly on the table.
He read the instructions aloud while Ings took apart the cell phones. When disassembled, each of the phones contained five major parts. With Edwards’s help, Ings located the small vibrators on the lower right portion of an internal board.
“Do the vibrator motors work?” Ings asked. “These are old phones.”
“Yes, I found the parts online and I replaced both of them. They also have newly refurbished batteries that have full charges. They can last one hundred twenty hours on standby. That should be plenty of time.”
Ings used the wire cutters to notch out a small hole in the shell of the phone next to where the vibrator sat. He then reassembled the phones and inserted two small pieces of copper wire that Edwards had cut for him.
The men set the phones aside, and each pulled out the pieces of plywood. First Edwards and then Ings used the hand crank drill to bore eight holes in each of the boards.
“Can I have the zip ties?” Ings asked, holding out his hand. Edwards passed him a handful, which he used to strap his phones to the left side of the board; Edwards followed suit with his phones.
They used two additional ties to strap four batteries to the right side of each board. Between the phones and the batteries, the men affixed two screws, one atop the other.
“Clips?” Ings asked, as though he was a surgeon asking a nurse for a scalpel. Edwards obliged and handed them over.
Ings took one alligator clip and attached it to the batteries and snapped its other end onto the top screw. He then took a second clip and attached it to the bottom screw but left its opposite end unattached. A third clip was clamped to the batteries with its partner also unattached. The two open clips were then connected to the model rocket sparker.
Edwards completed the same tasks on his board but took somewhat longer. He was more meticulous than Ings. When he was done, he scrolled through the menus of each phone, setting them to vibrate. Ings took the two small copper leads that ran from the vibrator through the opening of the phone and attached one to each of the screws on the boards. The detonators were ready.
“Let’s test the numbers.” Edwards handed Ings a small card that contained the phone numbers. Ings pulled his cell from his pocket and dialed the first number.
As soon as the first phone rang, the end of the model rocket sparker popped and ignited for a brief second. They repeated the process with the three other phones and got the same results.
“Tell me about the numbers,” Ings requested.
“We’re covered,” Edwards replied. He started picking up the wrappers and excess wires from the table and put them in his backpack. “First off, I was able to purchase a month’s worth of coverage with a prepaid credit card. Then I went to another service provider and paid cash for four prepaid phones. Those are the numbers you dialed. I set those numbers to automatically forward to the detonator phones. The accounts are temporary and have no names attached.”
Ings stood from his seat and placed his hands on his hips. He took a deep breath and thought about the complexity of their assignments. It all seemed so simple on the surface: make a phone call, change a democracy. But he knew it was more than that.
“How do we know when to trigger the bombs?” he asked.
“I think that’s the information Bill is providing. He’s supposed to get the inside scoop of the exact timing of the day’s events. He knows somebody who knows somebody.” Edwards stood and stretched. “That’s why we’re using remote detonation instead of the phones’ internal alarm clocks. We need to make sure they go off at the right time. If something gets delayed, we can adjust.”
“How do we know where to put the two extra bombs?” Ings felt like he was out of the loop. There were questions to which he thought he should already know the answer, and it bothered him a bit that Edwards seemed to have all of the information. Why was Sir Spencer so much more open with the artist? After all, Ings was the one who’d cleaned all of the money and stored the explosives. He was the loyalist beyond reproach. What had Edwards done?
“Sir Spencer will figure that out. Again, maybe Bill has the answer to that.”
Edwards was too focused on packaging the detonators so they could be transported to sense the rising resentment in Ings’s posture or tone. He did find himself surprised that Ings hadn’t asked why they needed two additional bombs or for whom they were intended. Unless Ings asked, Edwards wasn’t going to tell him.
*
Standing just above the south bank of the Tidal Basin, the asset knew that the NSA was keeping tabs. Two blocks away there was an agent drinking coffee, reading a paper, and pretending not to be who he was.
Ever since the NSA first made contact, the agency was like a sexually tra
nsmitted disease. It might hide for a week or two, but then it was back and irritating.
If given a choice, remaining a blind Daturan sympathizer would have been the most appealing. But given the temerity of the feds to essentially blackmail cooperation, the asset knew there was no choice. The NSA and the FBI made that abundantly clear. They knew the asset’s activities, associates, financial situation, and emotional baggage. They would use it if they didn’t get the help they needed. It was a dangerous game, in which there were likely no winners. Either people would die or people would go to prison. Maybe both. There were no other options.
After spending part of the morning with a paranoid conspirator, the asset needed to engage in some stress relief. A trip to the Jefferson Memorial was always calming. Even if there was a spook keeping watch.
Regardless of one’s upbringing or profession, it was hard living in DC without knowing a little bit of American history. Maybe it was because the asset visited the Memorial as a child that it held a special meditative quality. Perhaps it was because the architect, John Russell Pope, had modeled the structure after the Pantheon in Rome that it seemed so grand yet so intimate. Regardless, it was the perfect place to go when the weight of democracy fell heavy upon the shoulders. Only a memorial to Atlas might have seemed more soothing.
Once inside the building, the asset looked up at the five-ton bronze statue of the third president. It was nineteen feet tall and gazed out from the interior of the Memorial to the White House. The intention of the sculptor, Rudolph Evans, was to represent the Age of Enlightenment and Jefferson as both a philosopher and statesman. Along the walls of the Memorial surrounding the president were noted quotations that best symbolized the principles to which historians believe he dedicated his life.
The asset stared at what was called Panel Four, reading the ninety-four words excerpted from an 1810 letter that Jefferson wrote to historian Samuel Kercheval. Part of the passage seemed particularly prescient for the present times: “We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”
Did it mean that democracy was a living, breathing animal not confined to the laws of the past? Did it mean that the Constitution should be considered a reference point rather than the law upon which all others were based?
Whatever Jefferson’s intended meaning, the asset took it to convey a sense of governmental evolution. He was a man who believed the people should rule above all else. Wasn’t that exactly what the Daturans were doing? Weren’t they seizing control from a misguided government? The asset became agitated, standing there in what was normally a place of solace.
It was time to leave. There was no respite. There was no break from it. The NSA made sure of that. They knew it was only a matter of time before the Daturans grew bold enough to act. They’d latched their hooks at just the right time.
Walking from the inside of the Monument toward Ohio Drive, the asset noticed the spook was gone. Maybe they’d gotten what they needed. Maybe they were somewhere hidden. It didn’t matter. This would be over soon enough, one way or another.
*
“The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case,” the sixth Daturan said, wondering what effect, if any, it might have on Sir Spencer’s plans.
“I know.” Sir Spencer was in his suite at the Hay-Adams. He was on his encrypted Sigillu cell phone, a modified consumer-grade Nokia that Sir Spencer purchased directly from the encryption company.
Sir Spencer knew that the data from wireless communications could reveal the date, time, and duration of any given call. Any eavesdropper could also determine the geographical location from where the call was placed, not to mention the identity and location of the person receiving the call. The company assured him that decryption of his calls was impossible. Even the mathematicians who created the encryption technology were incapable of decrypting a call.
The software, which converted voice information into encrypted data using a constantly changing mathematical equation, was developed by an Israeli security company. Sir Spencer believed that if it was good enough for Israeli needs, it would serve his purposes.
Because the technology required that both phones involved in a call must be Sigillu equipped, Sir Spencer had provided each of the Daturans with an encrypted phone. But he often needed to remind the others that when answering a call from him, they needed to hit the C button before answering. If not, they needed to inform him that they were not secure. In this case, the call was secure.
“Does that change anything? I am in a very vulnerable position here.”
The sixth Daturan could not afford for anyone to learn his identity.
“Why would it affect anything?” Sir Spencer said condescendingly. “What the Supreme Court chooses to do or to not do does not change our mission. It does not change our plans. If anything, it’s a distraction and affords us time. Everybody is so bloody focused on this court nonsense that they can’t see the forest for the trees.”
“I assume that’s supposed to make me feel better.”
“I don’t care how it makes you feel,” the knight retorted. “What I care about is you maintaining your focus here. The others all have jobs to do before the transition. Yours will begin immediately afterward. That’s when the heavy lifting starts on your account.”
“So the others—they’re all on target, then?”
“Yes,” Sir Spencer hedged. “Well, I should say yes, but one of them is a bugger.”
“Bill Davidson?”
“Yes. I paid him a visit this morning, I think he’ll come around. You know I can be quite persuasive.”
“Quite.”
“So we’re quite good, then.”
“Do they know who I am?”
“No.” The knight was sure they didn’t know. He’d not even told George Edwards, who’d become his confidant of late, or even Jimmy Ings, the most trustworthy of the bunch. “They can assume you are a cabinet member and the Secretary of Something. They know you are in the line of succession. But other than the knowledge that you are not the beautiful and talented Felicia Jackson, they have no clue.”
“How do they know I’m not the Speaker?”
“I referred to you as a man. And there are…what…just three women to consider, regardless?”
The sixth Daturan was irritated. “So they know I’m not Jackson and that I’m not the Secretary of Education or HUD.”
“They also know you’re not any of the three hundred million Americans living outside the greater Metro area. What’s your point? In two days everyone in the world will know who you are when you’re sworn into office.”
“True.” There was less irritation. “I’m a little sensitive about this. I have the highest profile in this, the most to lose.”
Sir Spencer appreciated the secretary’s egocentrism, but he didn’t like it. The secretary may be the eventual face of the invisible revolution, true, but he didn’t have any more to lose than the rest of the conspirators.
The knight had handpicked the sixth Daturan. At that moment he was wondering if he’d made the right choice. There were others who’d have joined the movement. The cabinet was full of ambitious men. It was always those closest to the seat of power who coveted it most.
He’d settled on his choice because of the man’s desire for change. He was often a contrarian in cabinet meetings. President Foreman regularly told him to bite his tongue. It was thought, for a period of time during the first term, that Foreman would replace him after forcing a resignation. However, other matters were more pressing, and given the burden of a bitter campaign for reelection, Foreman chose to keep as many of his original cabinet members as possible. His loyalty to dissenters and his affinity for making appointments from both major political parties won him a lot of favors. Only the resignation of the Secretary of the Interior and the death of his vice president forced Foreman to make second-term nominations for his inner circle.
H
e stuck with the loudmouth. By the time he dropped dead in the Oval Office, President Foreman had grown quite fond of him.
Sir Spencer was fond of him too, which was why he befriended the secretary and appealed to his vanity. He pulled the strings perfectly. The knight whispered the things that made the secretary puff his chest. He told him of how things could be, given the right chain of events. Within months, he had the secretary on his team as the final cog in the wheel.
He couldn’t necessarily blame the secretary for his ego, but he certainly could try to keep it in check. He could remind him who really was in charge of the operation. He could suggest that everything was subject to change if need be.
“You know, Mr. Secretary…” the knight began and then paused.
“What?”
“Have you ever heard of Narcissus?”
“Yes.”
“What do you know about him?”
“He was a handsome man unable to love anyone but himself,” the secretary responded, confused by the digression.
“Yes. Did you know that he died because he was unable to pull away from his own reflection?”
“What’s your point?” The secretary was in the back of a Lincoln Town Car. He was alone, though he could see the driver outside of the car, leaning against the driver’s side door.
“Country first. Look up from your own reflection.”
Chapter 25
Felicia Jackson’s nubuck-covered heels clicked on the English Minton tile flooring. Her steps echoed as she crossed the room to a large round table. She looked up as she walked, admiring the cast-iron railing that ran the length of the second-floor balcony.
She’d never been in the Indian Treaty Room before, and it was as exquisite as she’d imagined. The detail was astounding. She loved it.
The room was on the top floor of the seven-story Eisenhower Executive Office Building across from the West Wing of the White House. The treaty room was the most expensive to construct of the building’s five hundred fifty-three original rooms.
