Susan and her team were the law. Federal law. Any criminals who stood in the way would be eliminated. She wouldn’t hesitate again.
Round Two in Georgia would be won by Team Fed.
And there won’t be a Round Three.
LINDA WALKED into the diner where Joey was already sitting at a booth. “Merry Santa Day,” she said.
“Don’t give me that crap,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”
“You’re gonna love this.”
“What’che got?” he asked.
“I have a great Christmas present for you.”
She handed him the papers from her briefcase.
“I printed them out. It’s better to see big news in print, I think,” Linda said excitedly.
“What is it?” he asked, scanning the pages.
“The bill.”
“The bill? THE bill?” he asked.
“The Speaker of the House gave it to me and said she has the votes. It should pass once Congress is back in session in January.”
Joey smiled. “You for real here?”
“It’s real, Joey,” Linda smiled back. She stood up and kissed him on the cheek. “We did it.”
“Have you read this? I’ll be a citizen again? What do I have to do?”
“I read it. You need a sponsor who puts up a million dollars for your paperwork. Then you need to own land worth at least a million dollars. Then you’ll become a citizen. I’ve already got everything taken care of. I’ll transfer the deed for the diner and the buildings over to you.”
“This is really happening?” he asked.
“It’s real, Joey,” she said and started laughing. “We did it.”
“Can we trust this Speaker of the House? Does she really have the votes?”
“We can trust her, you know that. For God’s sake, she’s here every few weeks sleeping with Petey. We got too much on her. She’s not gonna blow smoke up my ass.”
“But can we really get the votes? Jesus, I don’t wanna get all worked up here and have it blow up in my face?”
“I don’t know how every Congresswoman will vote, but I believe the Speaker. It may take a few months, but I think we’ve got this one in the bag,” Linda said.
“We’re back,” Joey said, smiling. “Can you fuckin’ believe it? Merry fuckin’ Christmas!”
SUSAN WAS DRIVING home from the office when Margaret called her.
“Hello Madame Secretary,” she answered the phone.
“Hello yourself,” Margaret said. “I come bearing gifts.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Wouldn’t be a good Santa Day without gifts. Is your daughter excited?”
“Sofia loves Santa Day.”
“Does she still do the whole visit-with-Santa thing?”
“No ma’am. She’s too old to sit on a white-haired lady’s lap and ask for presents.”
“I thought so. What did you get for her?” Margaret asked.
“She’s been really into building worlds lately. Says she wants to do her internship as a designer. So I got her some software and a bunch of classes related to that. Try to get her skills up, you know.”
“I figured she would follow you as an agent.”
“I thought she might, but she really loves designing her own worlds. She did one for her history class, and it has been her favorite thing at school this year.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Hopefully you’ll be glad too when you hear my news.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Well, let’s keep this quiet until January, but I wanted you to have a Santa Day bonus. Meredith is stepping down at the end of the year. You’ll be the new Under Secretary.”
Susan was speechless. She would be the Under Secretary of Defense for the US. It was a grooming position for much bigger things.
Margaret interrupted the silence, “That is, if you want it.”
“Of course I want it,” Susan said. “Sorry, I’m just speechless.”
“You’ll need to move to DC. Is that a problem?”
“Not at all. Thank you so much, Madame Secretary.”
“You’ve earned it. Merry Santa Day, Susan.”
85
THOMAS STOOD in the living room in the Key West house. He supervised the 3D printer as it machined spare parts for the trip.
The plan was to leave for the fishing boat in a few hours. Julia walked into the room, carrying a drink.
“I thought we had printed everything already,” she said.
“I just wanted to be sure. There are no 3D printers in the tunnel.”
“So what are you making?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you,” he joked.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“Well, the little vehicles they have for us are electric powered. A basic motor turns the wheels.”
“Yeah.”
“And the wheels run through the tunnel.”
“So?”
“But what if the tunnel breaks?”
“You mean, like, breaks in half?”
“Right.”
“And we’re floating in the ocean?”
“Correct.”
“We probably would die,” she said curtly. “But it’s not gonna break. Tito has tested it thoroughly.”
“It’s over fifty miles long. What if something goes wrong? This whole trip from Nashville to Cuba has been one surprise after another.”
“OK. So, what are you printing?”
“I researched the design for the electric motor on this vehicle. I found a design online for a propeller that can attach to the same motor.”
“You’re printing a propeller?”
“I’m printing it in parts and I’ll assemble it tonight. I can carry it in my bag. If something goes wrong with the tunnel and we get in the ocean, I can pull off the wheels and plug in the propeller.”
“I think you are over-thinking this. If something goes that horribly wrong, we’re in a lot of trouble.”
“Better safe than sorry,” he said.
“What about the pressure?” she asked. “All the lessons we got, they said that the pressure was the big risk. We’ll have on those suits to keep us from dying. All of the equipment is rated for the pressure. Those propeller blades you’re printing out, are they rated for the pressure?”
“Uhh, that’s a good point actually.”
“So you didn’t think about that, huh? I’m guessing whatever material you have in the 3D printer isn’t gonna do very well two hundred meters under water.”
“You may be right.”
“So the tunnel breaks, and Thomas is gonna save us with his propellers, but they’ve been crushed,” she teased. “What then?”
“I guess I didn’t think it through,” he said dejected.
“I’m just joking with you, silly. Don’t look like that.”
“Yeah.”
“Listen, you don’t need to work on this. We have a team of engineers handling it.”
“Right.”
“I love you, you silly goose,” she said and tousled his hair.
“Love you too,” he replied, not exactly convincing.
Thomas was re-learning how to live with a real woman in a real-life relationship. An avatar would never talk to him the way Julia did.
“Come back into the living room,” she pleaded. “Watch some TV with me before we leave. Please. Pretty please with sugar on top.”
“I don’t wanna see any more news about the hunt for us,” he said.
“I agree,” she smiled. “I found a Christmas movie for us to watch. You’ll like it.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a Wonderful Life,” she said. “Over 150 years old, but I still love it.”
He smiled. “I remember watching that as a kid. Didn’t they ban it?”
“Are you are rule-follower now?”
“Not likely,” he replied.
“So come and watch it with me. Then we’ll go to the fishing boat.”
“OK,”
he smiled.
They walked into the living room where Leslie and Sam were standing by the bar.
“Thomas, you want an Egg Nog? Excellent rum here and fresh cinnamon,” Leslie asked.
“Sure, I’ll take some,” Thomas replied.
Sam walked a drink over to him. “These wet suits they got for y’all. They’re amazin’.”
Thomas grabbed the Egg Nog and took a sip. “Yeah, the pressure suits are something. They tested them really deep, down to 300 meters.”
“I cain’t believe they so thin,” Sam said.
“I know. Some kind of new material. A suit like that used to be really puffed out. Like those old astronaut suits. But these are more like a VR body suit. Remarkable engineering.”
The whole group sat down and watched George Bailey sing “Buffalo Gals, won’t you come out tonight.” It was a light moment before a dangerous mission. A calm before the storm.
THE GROUP LEFT shortly after finishing the movie. There wasn’t much to pack, since Leslie had put everything in the van the night before.
After the tunnel construction was delayed, Leslie had returned to Georgia. She and Sam drove back just a few days ago, to assist the team in the maiden voyage. They also wanted first-hand experience with the escape process. Tito had agreed to let Leslie send six of her people through the tunnel the following week.
Talia, their Key West contact, met them at the port as planned, standing next to her car. She was a tall, thin woman in her fifties who owned a fleet of fishing boats. Tito had known her for years and had used her to set up the safe house in Key West. She was of Ukranian descent, which made her an unlikely ally. If the NSA suspected something from the Cubans, they would look first at Cuban Americans or Dominicans living in Florida.
“You ready, Freddy?” Talia asked with a thick Eastern European accent when Sam and Leslie got out of the van.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Sam replied.
“Let us light this candle,” Talia said, smiling.
On cue, she put an e-cigarette to her lips and inhaled deeply. Breathing out the vapor, she looked at Sam.
Talia pointed to a covered wagon behind her, “I brought a fish container we can put them in. Just in case. Doesn’t smell so good.”
Sam walked to the wagon and grabbed the handle.
“This smells somethin’ awful,” she said as she wheeled it to the rear of the van.
“Fish don’t smell so good,” Talia replied.
Leslie opened the back of the van while Sam opened the top of the wagon.
“Maybe you shoulda brought a mint leaf or somethin’ to put over your noses,” Leslie told Julia and Thomas.
“That would have been a good thing to print, instead of the propeller,” Julia joked.
“Ha ha,” Thomas replied, stepping into the wagon. “Oh, man. It smells wretched.”
Sam laughed. “I’m kinda gettin’ used to it.”
Julia got in and ducked down. Sam closed the top of the wagon.
“Where to now?” Leslie asked Talia.
“Follow,” she replied, walking down the peer.
Leslie closed the door to the van, and Sam pulled the wagon. As bad as it smelled, it at least had technology to lighten the load so that one person could move a significant amount of fish, or people, as the case may be. They got to a medium-sized boat at the end of the peer and Talia looked at them.
“One second,” she said and stepped onto the boat.
A few minutes later, a small crane was moving to hook around the wagon and pull it onboard. Sam and Leslie boarded just after.
“This the fishing boat?” Sam asked.
“No,” Talia said.
She began hitting buttons on the captain’s dashboard and the motor turned on. Another button, and the boat detached from the port. It then began puttering toward the ocean.
“This boat take us to the fish boat.”
Leslie looked at Sam. “The fishing boat is huge,” she said.
“Must be huge or tunnel rip it open,” Talia replied.
Sam thought about her words. “That tunnel must be pretty interestin’. Where’s it attached?”
“Bottom. It come out diagonal.”
“Did they weld it on or somethin’?” Sam asked.
“Yes, they weld,” Talia replied, making hand gestures of a woman welding.
“Can they come out?” Leslie asked, signaling toward Julia and Thomas.
“No. Stay in wagon,” Talia replied. She pointed in the air. “Cameras.”
“I guess it’s better to be careful,” Leslie said.
“On fish boat, we take wagon downstairs. No cameras.”
FORTY-FIVE minutes later, Julia and Thomas got out of the wagon.
“One piece of advice for the next people doing this,” Thomas said to Leslie. “Clean that wagon out. Use a lotta bleach.”
“Dese are the scuba men,” Talia said, pointing to a group of men in the corner of the chamber.
One of the four men walked forward. He looked at Julia.
“Eres Julia, no?” [”You are Julia, right?”]
“Si,” she replied.
He continued in Spanish. She looked at Thomas and the others.
“He said that he is the crew chief and will get us back safely to Havana,” Julia reported. “He asked if we’ve been briefed on the equipment.”
Thomas looked at her. “I understood him.”
She shrugged, “I know. It was for the others.”
Thomas looked at the crew chief and asked him in Spanish about the pressure suits. He nodded and brought them out, handing one to Thomas and the other to Julia.
Talia said to them, “You can change in that room there.”
“Thanks,” Julia replied.
Sam began inspecting the hole in the floor. “This is it, huh? You put it right in the hull?”
“Yes,” Talia replied. “They weld to the hull.”
“No leaks?” Sam asked the crew chief. “No water? No agua?” She pointed down the hole.
“No water,” the crew chief replied in a thick Cuban accent. “We had a little water but we pump it out.”
“Where are the cars?” Leslie asked.
“Behind,” the crew chief said, pointing to a side of the room.
“Diego, vete por los vehiculos,” the chief said to another crewman. Two of the men nodded and walked into the other room, coming out with two electric-powered carts.
“How big is this hole?” Leslie asked.
“Looks about three feet,” Sam said.
“One meter diameter,” the crew chief answered.
“Those carts will fit?” Sam asked.
“Yes. They fit. They strong for pressure,” the crew chief said.
Thomas walked in and saw the team looking at the hole in the bottom of the boat. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared,” he said.
“How long you gonna be down there?” Sam asked.
Thomas looked at the crew chief. “Cuanto tiempo?” he asked.
“Maybe three hours,” came the reply.
Julia walked out with her pressure suit on. Like Thomas’, it was a navy blue color and looked almost like chain mail from the middle ages. She had a pressurized nano-glass helmet that she hadn’t yet put over her face.
“The carts can go up to thirty miles per hour,” she said. “But they are set to average less than twenty. All we have to do is lay down and hold on. The software will drive.”
“Doesn’t sound very fun,” Sam said.
“We lay face down, right?” Thomas asked.
The crew chief moved one of the carts in front of the hole. He patted the long seat, signaling Thomas to come over.
“Come,” he said.
Thomas walked over and the chief positioned him on the cart. The motor was in front with a steering wheel, which could override the autopilot. Thomas’ body lay face down on the seat with the bottom of his legs and feet hanging off the back of the vehicle. There was a cord from the steering wheel wh
ich wrapped around his wrist in a band. If either Julia or Thomas fell off the vehicle, the cord would pull a kill switch for the vehicle, which would immediately signal the other vehicle to shut off. The crew chief showed Thomas how to plug and unplug the cord into the kill switch, which used a simple magnet.
“Looks easy enough,” Thomas said.
He and Julia had been trained on every aspect of the vehicle and tunnel for the last two weeks, but this was the first time that they were able to touch a real one.
“Easy,” the crew chief said.
Julia smiled and touched Thomas’ shoulder. “Muy facil,” she said. “Nothing to worry about. Almost home.”
“Ready?” the crew chief asked.
“That’s it, huh?” Thomas said. “Simple as that?”
“Easy,” the crew chief repeated.
Julia walked over to Leslie. “How can I ever thank you enough? You have done so much.”
They embraced. Thomas took the cue and went to Sam and hugged her.
“I owe you for saving my life. Look me up in Cuba. Not sure if I can ever repay the debt, though.”
Sam returned the embrace, “We’re finding a lot of useful doohickies in that briefcase. I think we’re square.”
Julia hugged Talia awkwardly. “Our whole team thanks you,” Julia said.
“Yes, yes. Welcome,” Talia replied.
More farewells were given with Julia even hugging the scuba team.
Finally, she said, “My stomach is a bunch of butterflies right now, but I guess it’s time.”
“Ready?” the crew chief asked. “Listos?”
“Lista,” Julia responded and mounted the cart.
The chief plugged her in, turned on her cart and double-checked the wrist cord.
“Vaya con Dios,” he said and pushed her into the darkness of the hole.
Thomas watched with increasing anxiety. He was fighting claustrophobia, and the fear of a fifty-mile under-ocean trek was just starting to hit him.
“Ready?” the crew chief asked.
“Just a second,” Thomas said, walking around the area, breathing slowly.
Escape The Grid: Volume 1 Page 37
