Against All Enemies

by John Gilstrap

  “Suppose I refuse?” Ian said. “What happens if I say no?”

  Little scowled with mock earnestness. “Hmm. Well, I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re worried about. But between you and me, how long do you really think you would last in the general population in Leavenworth?”

  Ian’s heart and head raced in near-panic mode. This was the nightmare, the unthinkable. Getting caught had always been a risk, but it had been such a different one, such a manageable one. And he’d been so careful. Now his world had been reduced to only two terrifying choices: he could try to run, or he could follow. But they already knew so much.

  “It’s just up here, Colonel,” Little said. “And I swear to God that no one’s going to hurt you.”

  “And that’s precisely what you would say if you were going to hurt me.”

  Little laughed. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I suppose it is. But here’s a little detail for you: My boss needs you too much to let you get hurt.”

  “Yet he’ll let me rot in prison.”

  A shrug. “In ten minutes, this will all make sense.” Little waited for Ian’s answer. He seemed to have all the patience in the world.

  “I have no choice,” Ian said aloud.

  “I don’t see much,” Little agreed. With that, he started walking up Wilson Boulevard.

  Ian followed. Just past the Hyatt, Little turned right into a towering office building that had seen better days, and led the way inside without bothering to see if Ian was following. Truly, he had no choice. The lobby security guy looked up as they approached, but after a brief dip of his head, he turned back to whatever interested him on his desk.

  “If I’m not out in a half hour, call the police, will you?” Ian said. He tried to keep his tone light enough not to be alarming, but serious enough for the guy to give some thought if he in fact did not reemerge from wherever they were going.

  The guard made no indication that he’d heard Ian, but the words caused Little to stop, turn, and smile as he waited for Ian to catch up. He said nothing as he pressed the Down button on the elevator.

  Of course it would be the basement.

  The car dinged, the doors opened, and Little motioned for Ian to enter first. The interior walls of the elevator car were draped with dark green quilted moving blankets, typical of any elevator used for freight. Ian wondered if the blankets would also muffle the sound of a gunshot. Little pressed the button for B3 and the doors closed.

  Fully aware that any escape option—as fragile and unlikely as they had ever been—had now evaporated, Ian concentrated on slowing his racing heart. He took a deep breath through his mouth, held it, then released it as a silent whistle. Whatever was coming, he needed to think clearly, and that wouldn’t be possible if he didn’t do something to contain the surging adrenaline.

  The elevator jerked to a halt and the doors opened onto a concrete tomb of rooms that clearly were never designed for paying tenants. With dingy tile floors and battleship-gray concrete block walls, the low-ceilinged corridor reminded him of a hospital morgue, or maybe a bunker.

  “Out and to the left,” Little said.

  Ian complied, and was oddly relieved when Little accompanied him.

  “Third door on the right.” Painted the same color as the walls, the doors down here were all made of smooth steel.

  Ian stopped at the appointed place. “Do I need to knock?”

  Little reached around him and rapped lightly with the knuckle of his middle finger. “No, I got that.”

  Five seconds passed, and then the knob turned. The door opened to reveal a man who could have been Little’s clone—thick neck, wide shoulders, shaved head, and very serious eyes. A black T-shirt clung to a heavily muscled torso. Unlike the man who’d escorted him to this spot, however, the greeter at the door openly carried a pistol on his hip. It looked like a government-issue Beretta M9. Ian wasn’t sure where the mounting evidence was pointing him, but he was growing more and more uncomfortable.

  “Really?” the new guy said. “This is him?”

  “Victor Carrington in the flesh,” Little said.

  Unsure whether that was his cue to introduce himself and shake hands, or merely to stand quietly, Ian chose the latter.

  The guard stepped aside and let them enter. “The old man is waiting,” he said.

  The phrase resonated with Ian. In military parlance, “old man” was synonymous with commanding officer. Everything about this so far had screamed military, and that was just one more confirming element.

  The inside of the room looked like the office of a busy blue-collar worker. Work orders dangled from pins on a full bulletin board, and where the floor was not taken up by mismatched gray and beige file cabinets, they were cluttered with cleaning supplies, air filters, fluorescent light tubes, and various other items critical to the maintenance of an office building. Ian’s escorts (captors?) indicated an inner door.

  “In there,” Little said.

  Ian hesitated. “Who is it?”

  “Open the door and you’ll know.”

  Steeling himself with another deep breath, Ian squared his shoulders and pulled the door open to reveal another office, this one only slightly nicer and neater than the anteroom. The man who’d summoned Ian stood from a wooden chair in front of the cluttered desk that dominated the room. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “I apologize for the theater, but surely you understand.”

  Ian thought he recognized the face, but when he heard the voice, he knew for sure. His heart rate doubled. Again. “Holy shit,” he said. Then, very quickly, he added, “Sir.”

  General Manfred Brock, United States Army chief of staff, seemed amused by Ian’s rush of recognition. “You look frightened,” he said. “There’s no need. We are all here to commit the same crime.”

  Ian feigned ignorance. “Excuse me?”

  General Brock bore none of the physical stature of his lofty rank. At five-six and maybe one hundred thirty-five pounds, he’d famously commissioned customized stars for the epaulettes of his uniforms because there simply was not enough room from his shoulder to his neck to accommodate the standard four-star array. There was nothing youthful about the man, from his sun-leathered flesh to his close-cropped white hair, but nor was there anything elderly about him. This afternoon, he wore civvies, blue jeans with a denim shirt, both components sharply pressed.

  “You know the old expression,” Brock said. “Never bullshit a bullshitter. We can dance all day around the fact that you are the father of the Uprising, but you need to know that I know the truth. In fact, I believe that that is the true source of your unease right now. Are you going to tell me I’m incorrect?”

  Ian didn’t bother to try. “How did you find out?”

  Brock sat back in his seat, gesturing for Ian to do the same in the adjacent chair. “I presume you’re aware that I have a lot of very smart people working for me,” he said. “At last count, about three hundred fifty thousand of them. Though if Tony Darmond and his puppets have their way, it will be a lot closer to two hundred twenty thousand. Among those smart people are folks who are quite adept at computer wizardry. You in fact are one of them, are you not?”

  Ian settled into his seat and crossed his legs, trying his best to appear casual and calm. “I believe you know exactly what I’ll do for you, General.”

  Brock waved at the air. “No general in this room,” he said. “In fact, no rank at all. If this goes bad, we’ll all hang from the same size rope.”

  Ian felt his cheeks flush. He looked to Little and his clone, but got only stone faces in return. “What exactly are we talking about, Gen . . . Sir?” There were limits to the suspension of honorifics.

  “Treason, of course,” Brock said. The words spilled from him lightly, as if he’d just named his favorite color. “Isn’t that what the Uprising is all about?”

  Ian hesitated before answering. Truthfully, he’d never allowed himself to think in such blunt terms. “I suppose it could be considered that,”
he said.

  “Do you prefer terrorist activity?” Brock asked with a broader smile. “That is, after all what the Brits would have called the Minutemen had the term existed in the eighteenth century. We get to call them patriots because our side won. It’s all semantics. It’s all just words. They don’t matter.”

  But they do matter, Ian thought. He understood the general’s point, but why did he find it so offensive? “I’m not a terrorist,” he said.

  “Murderer, then. And conspirator. Once you start down the road of capital offenses, the titles get progressively more offensive.”

  Ian gaped. He found himself breathing through his mouth.

  “You are responsible for the murder of Congressman Blaine, are you not?”

  Jesus Christ, how can he know?

  Brock crossed his legs as well, and laced his fingers across his lap. “I sense that I’m making you more nervous. That’s not my intent. In fact, my intent is quite the opposite. I want you to know that I am impressed with your activities so far.”

  Ian’s head swam in confusion. “Impressed? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s not a ten-dollar word, Ian. Excuse me, in this context I suppose you prefer Victor. Impressed. I am impressed.”

  “At what?”

  “Your ability to pull off what so many of us have been considering, but have not had the guts to try.”

  Ian continued to stare. This was the kind of topic where an incorrect guess could have devastating consequences.

  Brock sighed. He seemed genuinely frustrated that the conversation was not going the way he had planned. “Let’s take a step back,” he said. “We can agree that the Darmond administration is the worst in history, can we not?”

  Ian considered that. He felt comfortable saying, “Certainly since the Second World War.”

  “Okay, fine. I’d actually go back to the beginning, but we can start with World War Two if that makes you more comfortable. Can we also agree that if he is not stopped—if he is allowed to continue down the current road for another three and a half years—the damage to the republic will likely become permanent?”

  These were exactly the points he’d made through the postings of the Uprising. “I can agree with all of that,” Ian said.

  Brock clapped his hands lightly. “Very good, then. If we project the logic out to the end of its tether, it becomes clear that as patriots—not as the terrorists that the media will portray us to be—our duty is to ensure that Darmond and his agenda are stopped.”

  Ian cut his eyes to Little and Clone.

  “They’re both on our side,” Brock assured. “It’s safe to speak plainly.”

  It was insane to speak openly of such things. And to hear the words coming from the senior-most flag officer in the United States Army made Ian wonder what kind of trap this was. “Sir, I am really not comfortable answering these questions.”

  Brock sighed noisily. Famously impatient, he seemed ready to blow. “Fear of being charged with mutiny, no doubt,” he said.

  “Fear of being charged with treason, sir.”

  “For Christ’s sake do you believe what you publish or do you not?” As soon as the question was in the air, he held up a hand to cut off any response. “Of course you do. You’ve already admitted to being the leader of the Uprising, and that alone is enough to get you court-martialed and locked away for the rest of your life. Do you believe for a second that I would be here, this exposed, having this conversation if I did not have the appropriate leverage over you? I was hoping for a cooperative spirit, but if it needs to be strong-arm tactics, I can do that, too. As you might guess, I am a busy man, and this kind of bullshit not only wastes my time, it frankly pisses me off. Are we clear so far?”

  The change in demeanor and approach startled Ian. His silence now was less recalcitrance than vocal paralysis. This man was chief of staff for the entire friggin’ United States Army. Holy shit.

  “I’ll take your silence as agreement,” Brock said. He’d settled back into Nice Guy mode with an ease and speed that was every bit as startling as the previous transition. “I apologize for being so blunt, but as you can imagine, these are anxious times, and the clock is ticking. In fact, it’s ticking faster than I had intended, thanks to your efforts.”

  “I-I’m sorry?” Ian stammered. The quick transitions were making him dizzy.

  “Apology accepted, but I stipulate that you had no way of knowing what you were doing. The good news is that there’s still time to fix it.” He stood from his chair and Ian followed to his feet reflexively. “Spend some time with Little and Biggs here. They’ll spell out what we need from you.” He extended his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Mister Carrington.”

  Ian accepted the hand, even though he was certain that his own was cold and wet.

  As Brock headed for the door, he said, “As Benjamin Franklin once said, we must all hang together or most assuredly, we will all hang separately.” Everyone in the room but Ian found that funny.

  When the door closed behind the general, and it was just him and the thick-necks, Ian realized that it was time for him to piss on a fire hydrant to establish some measure of control over his future. Figuring both of his new companions to be noncoms, he played their deferential instinct to his own benefit. “Have a seat, both of you,” he said, gesturing to the two chairs while he helped himself to the leading edge of the metal desk. If nothing else, his perch gave him the benefit of height when the two men finally settled themselves into place.

  “First things, first,” Ian said, following whatever random thought his brain injected into his consciousness. “Before we get into whatever the plan is, you really couldn’t do better than Little and Biggs for avatars? You should be ashamed.”

  Little gave a smile that was ten degrees more menace than mirth. “Tell you what, Victor,” he said. “We can talk all about that as we take our little drive out into the country.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Haynes Moncrief wants me to do what?” Jonathan asked. He’d returned from Fayetteville to Fisherman’s Cove to prepare for the trip to Panama. The seven-hour drive had left him a bit brain-numbed.

  “You heard correctly,” Venice said. They spoke in the armory-slash-vault that resided under the parking lot that separated Jonathan’s home and office from the property belonging to Saint Katherine’s Catholic Church. “He wants you to intercede on his behalf with Wolverine.” Venice had never liked it down here. The fact of her presence told Jonathan that this was important.

  “He’s the Senate minority leader, for crying out loud,” Boxers said, never looking up from his task of selecting weapons from his locker and arranging them in their appropriate duffle bags. “I give good odds that she’d take his call.” Wolverine was Jonathan’s code name for Irene Rivers, the director of the FBI, for whom he’d done quite a lot of off-the-record work over the years.

  “I dunno,” Jonathan said. “He’s something of a political turd ball now that he shot the guy in the park. Nobody wants him to rub off on them.” He pulled a Heckler & Koch M27 from the rack, cycled the bolt a couple of times and dry fired it. “In fact, I’m kind of in the same boat. Why did he call us?”

  “Apparently because he knew you and the director were friends,” Venice said. She spoke from the doorway, half in and half out of the vault.

  “You know we’ve got seats, right?” Jonathan said. He indicated the stools that lined the Velostat-covered aluminum workbench.

  She crinkled her nose. “I don’t like the smell,” she said.

  “Blasphemy,” Boxers said.

  “The senator is in a difficult place,” Venice said. “Apparently the guy he shot does not officially exist. Completely off the grid. He wants to know why.”

  “Why does he think?”

  “He says he doesn’t know,” Venice said. “And on the heels of Congressman Blaine’s assassination a few weeks ago, the lack of a known identity is particularly troubling.”

  “The Fibbies aren’t idiots,” Boxers
said. He cycled an HK417, and apparently liked what he saw and felt. “I’m sure they’re troubled by that, too.”

  “He thinks that the administration will either drag their feet or withhold information that would exonerate him,” Jonathan guessed.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time,” Boxers said.

  “You make Darmond sound like the most corrupt president ever,” Venice said. She’d campaigned hard for him in his first term, and twisted herself six ways from Sunday to ignore the obvious during Darmond’s campaign for a second term. She needed evidence north of fingerprints and photographs to believe the man could do any wrong. Venice held steadfast to her belief that the president was an innocent victim of the bad people around him.

  Jonathan let it go.

  “But you’re right,” Venice confirmed. “That is what he thinks.”

  “If he doesn’t trust the FBI, what does he want Wolfie to do?” Jonathan asked.

  “I think he figures that she can counter any neglect he might suffer at the hands of the attorney general.”

  At face value, Jonathan thought Moncrief had a point. They had served together a thousand years ago, back when the now-senator had been a then-Ranger, and they’d kept in touch. Haynes was a hothead and he loved to hear himself talk, but he was a good man at his center, and Jonathan thought he had every reason to dread some form of lynching from the Darmond regime.

  “Tell you what,” Jonathan said. “I’ll see if Father Dom can set up a meeting before it’s time for us to take off for Panama. If we can, we’ll meet, if we can’t, then Haynes Moncrief will have to fend for himself for a while.”

  “How, exactly, did you land on Panama as a meeting place?” Venice asked.

  “I’ve been a little curious about that myself,” Boxers said.

  Jonathan reached into the locker for his MP7, the wicked little machine pistol from Heckler & Koch that had become his favorite left-thigh sidearm for hot operations. “I was shooting from the hip, pardon the pun.” He worked the action to verify that it was unloaded, and then he laid it into the duffle next to the M27. “Operation Acid Gambit is the stuff of history in the Unit. It was one of our first and most successful ops—one that people who’d never participated would know the details of. I figured the meet needed to be in neutral territory—I sure as hell have no desire to go to Venezuela—and Panama is more or less in Boomer’s backyard.”