Someone laughing!
“This is really too easy. You’re not using your head, mister.”
Jake ran up the ramp. As hard and fast as he could go. He came out on the top level and trotted along the concourse. After about a minute had passed he found a real dark spot and came to a halt. He stood there gripping the rifle tightly with both hands and listening.
Ambush. He needed to find a spot. Needed to sit and let this psycho come to him. Needed to wait if it took all night. But where?
He kept going. Fifty yards further along he came to another place where two ramps came up from below. There seemed to be more light than usual. Aha, the armory was down there and the emergency lights in the parking area were reflecting up here. Jake looked around. If he went along this corridor to the north, he could look back this way. If and when, bang.
His mind made up, he went down the corridor seventy-five feet or so and lay down against the exterior concourse wall, facing back toward the ramp area.
Of course his back was vulnerable, but if the sniper came that way, he would hear him coming. Maybe. The main thing was to stay put and stay quiet.
Who was this sniper, anyway? Could he be Charon? Naw, Charon was an assassin, out to shoot the big trophy cats. He wouldn’t waste a bullet on a mouse.
Toad Tarkington was spinning. He was sitting in a cockpit of a violently spinning aiplane and the Gs were pushing him forward out of the seat. The altimeter was unwinding at a sickening rate. He couldn’t raise his arms or move. His eyes were redding out and he could feel the pain of the blood pooling in his head. Spinning viciously, violently, dying …
He opened his eyes. He was looking into the face of Jack Yocke.
Yocke pried open an eyelid and looked with interest. “You’re going to be okay, I think. Your head’s as hard as a brick. If I were you I wouldn’t try to sit up yet though.”
“What happened?”
“Well, a man hit you on the head with an ax handle. And you shot a man, fellow named Tom Shannon.”
“He dead?”
“No. You got him in the shoulder. He’s sitting right here beside you. If you turn your head you can visit with him.”
Toad tried. The pain shot through his head so badly he felt himself going out again. He lay absolutely still and the feeling passed.
After a moment he opened his eyes and swiveled his head a millimeter, then another. Yocke was applying a bandage to a man who was naked from the waist up. They were on the floor of the armory bay.
Toad held his head and turned it. All the prisoners were gone! The three of them were the only ones in the whole room.
“How long I been out?”
“Fifteen, twenty minutes. Something like that.”
“Damn you, Yocke.”
“Hey, Toad.” The reporter came over and stared down at him. “You could have killed Shannon.”
“If he was the asshole in front, I was trying to. I’m damn sorry I didn’t.”
Yocke looked tired. “I didn’t know you were carrying a pistol under that coat.”
“I told you, being around Grafton, you gotta …”
“Lie still. You probably have a concussion.”
“Jerk. Reporter jerk. Spectator.” Toad tried to sit. The effort nauseated him and made him so dizzy he had to steady himself with his hands on the floor.
When he opened his eyes he was looking straight at Shannon. “So you took ’em, huh? We’ll get ’em back. Those fucking dirtballs won’t get away with killing soldiers and all that shit just because a damn mob turns ’em loose.”
Shannon just stared at him.
Yocke came over and used his fingers to part the hair on the back of Toad’s head. He looked carefully. “You got a real bad goose egg, Toad.”
“We’ll find those assholes, Shannon, even if we have to flood this damn town and comb all the rats with a wire brush.”
“Toad,” Yocke said gently. “They didn’t let those people go.”
Toad Tarkington gaped. It didn’t compute. He looked again at the maintenance bays where the prisoners had been held. It was empty. “What d’ya mean?”
“They didn’t turn them loose, Toad. They’re hanging them. All of them.”
By some ironic quirk of fate, they brought Sweet Cherry Lane to the same light pole where they were hanging T. Jefferson Brody.
“Bitch, cunt, nigger slut! I hope we end up in the same furnace in hell so I can kick the shit out of you for a million years!”
The man in front of him put the noose around his neck while two women and two men held his arms. He struggled. They couldn’t do this to him! He was a member of the bar!
“I got money. I’ll pay you to let me go. Please! For God’s sake.”
He could feel the noose tightening as eight people in front of him pulled the rope. Holy shit! It was going to happen! They were really going to do it.
T. Jefferson Brody peed his pants.
Sweet Cherry Lane was standing there silently, watching him, as two men held her arms immobile and a third draped a noose around her neck.
“Why?” he croaked at her. “Why did Freeman McNally protect you?”
“I’m his half-sister,” she said.
Before he could reply the people holding his arms let go and the rope around his neck lifted him clear of the ground. He grabbed the rope and held on with both hands as it elevated him higher and higher and the merciless pressure on his neck began to strangle him. He was kicking wildly, which caused him to spin slowly, first one way, then the other. His vision faded. Can’t breathe, can’t see, can’t …
He heard a step. Lying there against the curved wall, he could hear a soft sound, followed by another. The sounds weren’t like leather heels clicking on a wooden floor, but like something soft brushing against something that … The sound carried well against the wall. They were footsteps. That was all they could be.
Jake Grafton tightened his grip on the rifle and thumbed the safety off. He had it pointed at the ramp opening. As soon as this dude stepped into that square of faint light…
Another step. He was coming slowly, methodically, step by step. But how far away was he? How far would sounds carry around this curved concrete wall? Maybe a hundred yards, he speculated. Maybe twice that. Naw. Fifty was more like it.
The steps paused, then resumed.
He’s coming.
Sweat dripped into Jake’s eyes but he didn’t move. He merely blinked and tried to ignore the stinging.
Suddenly he realized what a damn poor position he had chosen. He should have picked the doorway to a rest room to lie in, something that would have allowed him to look both ways. For the thought came in all its horror that the man he sought was probably behind him in the darkness.
Jake started to turn around.
“No, friend,” the voice said softly. “Just hold it right there.”
Jake froze.
“Well, we had ourselves a nice little hunt, didn’t we? We stalked and stalked and now we are at the end.”
“You’ll never get away, Charon.”
The man laughed. “I’ll outlive you by quite a while.”
He was behind Jake. But which side of the concourse? Probably near the exterior wall or his footsteps wouldn’t have carried so well.
Jake tried to decide what to do. He knew to the depths of his soul that anything he tried would be futile. But he couldn’t let this guy just shoot him like a dog! If he spun, he would have to rise to his knees and swing the rifle.
Jake thumbed the selector to full automatic fire. He turned his head, looking.
“You’re thinking about turning and trying a shot, aren’t you? Go ahead. I’ll put the first one up your ass.”
“Who hired you?”
Another soft laugh. “Would you believe I never asked? I don’t know.”
“How much did they pay you?”
“A lot of money. And you know something funny? I do believe I would have done it for nothing.” Another chuckle.
&n
bsp; The next time the guy spoke. While he was speaking Jake would spin and let this guy have a magazine-full of hot lead. “You really don’t have to kill me, do you? You’ve had your fun.”
“That’s an interesting—”
A burst of gunfire strobed the corridor. Jake had just started to spin. He completed the maneuver and flopped down with the rifle aimed into the darkness in front of him.
In the silence that followed he heard something soft and heavy fall to the concrete. And he heard a sigh.
“Captain, don’t shoot! It’s me.”
Rita!
He got up slowly, almost falling. Then a light came on. She had a small flashlight and she was shining it down on Henry Charon. He lay on his back, the rifle just out of reach of his right hand.
Jake walked up and stood looking down. He kept his rifle pointed at Charon and his finger on the trigger.
“How … ?” Charon said. He had been hit in the chest by at least three bullets. The red stain was spreading rapidly.
Rita seemed to understand. She flashed the light on her feet. They were bare. “I took my shoes off.”
When she put the light back on Charon’s face he was grinning. Then he died. The smile faded as the muscles went slack.
Jake bent down and felt for Charon’s pulse. He straightened slowly.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Rita extinguished the penlight. Together they walked along the concourse toward the light.
The bodies hung from every pole. Jake Grafton stared, trying to comprehend. Some poles had one, some had two. But they all hung lifelessly, stirring only as the cold night breeze moved them.
Inside the armory he found the soldiers gathered around Toad Tarkington, who was sitting on the concrete floor nursing his head. Jack Yocke was beside him talking to a civilian.
“You want anything in the paper about why you did it, Tom? You know they’ll try you for a dozen felonies, perhaps even a dozen murders?”
The middle-aged, balding black man sitting on the floor was being worked on by a medic, who was strapping tape around a bandage arranged on his chest. Blood was smeared on his chest and trousers.
The man on the floor ignored the audience. He stared at Yocke. “Will you write it true? Write it the way I say it?”
“You know I will. You’ve read my stuff.”
“The Jefferson projects. You remember?”
Yocke nodded. Oh yes, he remembered. The murder of Jane Wilkens by a crack dealer running from the cops. Another life lost to the crack business. “Jane,” he said.
“Yeah. Jane.” Shannon took a deep breath and grimaced at the pain. “It was my idea. We’re all victims. We all lost somebody—a son, daughter, wife, maybe even our own souls. We lost because we expected someone to fight the evil for us and we waited and waited and they never did. Oh, they talked, but …”
He lifted his good hand and pleaded, “Don’t you see, if we don’t fight evil, we become evil. If you ain’t part of the solution you’re part of the problem—it’s that simple. So we decided to take a stand, all of us victims.
“Then this terrorist stuff started. And the dopers started looting and shooting and trying to wipe out their competition so they could have a competitive advantage when it was all over.
“Now I tell you this, Jack Yocke, and you gotta write it just like this: I hope the talkers try me. I hope I get prosecuted. The people who don’t want to be victims anymore will see how it has to be. We can’t wait for George Bush or Dan Quayle or the hot-air artists. We can’t wait for the police. We have to take our stand.
“I’ve taken mine. You kill my woman, you kill my kids, don’t hide behind the law ’cause it ain’t big enough. Justice will be done! Right will be done. There are just enough people like me. Just enough. You’ll see.”
The medic finished and spread a blanket on a stretcher. Four men lifted the wounded man onto it.
“I’m not good with words,” the man told Yocke. “I never had much education. But I know right from wrong and I know which side I’m on. I’ve planted my feet. Here I am.”
“What can one man do?” Jack Yocke asked.
“Lead an army, part the Red Sea, convert the world. Maybe not me. But here I stand until the world takes its place beside me.”
The medics carried him away.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs arrived by helicopter fifteen minutes later. Ten minutes after that the Vice-President arrived. Together they walked through the parking lot looking at the dangling corpses.
Jake Grafton went over to where Toad and Rita were sitting in chairs. “Come on. Let’s go home. You got the car keys, Toad?”
“In my pocket.”
“Rita, take the keys and bring the car up to the door.”
“What about Yocke?” Toad asked as Jake helped him into the front seat.
“He’s over with the heavies getting a story. Let’s go home.”
As the car exited the armory parking lot, Toad pointed toward the official party in the parking lot across the street. “Wonder what they’re thinking?” “They’re politicians. Tom Shannon and the other citizens here tonight just delivered a message. They’re reading it now.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
PEOPLE heard the news of the hanging on portable, battery-operated radios, then ran next door to tell their neighbors. The news seemed to drain whatever energy remained from the wounded city. The next morning it lay stunned, exhausted, its citizens cold and without power.
There was no rioting, no looting, no fires. The soldiers walked the streets without incident as crews worked feverishly to restore power to the residential neighborhoods. The bombed substations would require weeks to repair or rebuild, but emergency repairs began to restore power to a few areas by nightfall. In the areas without power, people were evacuated to schools and auditoriums where the Army installed portable generators. The people of Washington began to reach out to help each other.
Jake Grafton spent the day in a round of meetings as the federal authorities devised ways to thwart the terrorist threat from the Extraditables in the short term. Over the long term, the problem was the cocaine industry in South America.
The next day the ban against motor vehicles was lifted and people swarmed the city in a monumental traffic jam. That evening, after conferring with the directors of the FBI, DEA, and CIA and being advised that those organizations knew of no additional terrorists in the country, General Land started pulling out the troops.
He had Jake Grafton, Toad, and Rita come to his office and make a complete report. An hour later when the chairman signaled the interview was over, Jake asked for leave for himself and Toad. Rita was already on leave. The request was granted.
Out in front of the Pentagon Jake asked the two lieutenants, “You want to come over to the beach house and spend Christmas with Callie and Amy and me?”
They glanced at each other, then accepted.
All the troops were out of the city on the twenty-ninth of December. The following day George Bush was discharged from Bethesda Naval Hospital and returned to the White House.
He held a news conference that afternoon that was carried live nationwide. Attorney General Gideon Cohen sat beside him.
Bush said he felt good and was getting better every day. He wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank Vice-President Quayle for his excellent stewardship during his incapacity, and he did so with the leaders of the House and Senate and all of the surviving Supreme Court justices in attendance. And he announced the formation of a presidential commission to study the nation’s illegal drug problem and make recommendations on what needed to be done to solve it. Gideon Cohen was appointed chairman.
“I have asked the attorney general to chair this commission because he has been one of the harshest critics of our efforts to date. I know we can rely on him to give us a thorough, honest evaluation of our shortcomings. I promise you, we will ask the Congress to turn the commission’s recommendations into legislation.”<
br />
Then the President got down to brass tacks. “The drug problem is a complex social issue that is not going to go away by itself. Its causes include everything from poverty in Colombia and Peru to poverty and rotten schools in this country. The crux of the problem is that so many people have been left out of the world’s evolving economy, people in the Third World, people right here in America. I don’t know that there are solutions—certainly no easy ones—but I promise you this: we are going to face the problem.”
Intended by the President to help calm the political atmosphere, which was rife with accusations and recriminations, the news conference had no such effect. It was too little too late.
Critics like Congresswoman Samantha Strader attacked the Army’s handling of the crisis and damned Tom Shannon as a psychotic vigilante. He would have been stuffed into the same crack that held Bernard Goetz had he not been black. Unable to hurl the racist stink bomb, those who opposed tougher drug laws and tougher law enforcement and those with their own political agendas and ambitions united to demand that Shannon be tried, convicted, and hurried on his way to perdition.
Those who believed that the government hadn’t done enough to combat illegal drugs rushed to Shannon’s defense. It was wrong, they claimed, to martyr Shannon on the altar of the white man’s guilt.
Jack Yocke’s articles in the Post merely drew the lines for the combatants. Saint or sinner, Tom Shannon stood at the vortex of the developing firestorm. Curiously, he stood alone. After a quiet conference with his chief adviser, Will Dorfman, George Bush decided not to have the FBI or police attempt to discover the identities of the people who had accompanied Shannon to the armory. Those seeking to destroy Shannon were likewise not interested in having the stories of a thousand victims of the drug trade paraded before the public one at a time, night after night, ad infinitum. So Tom Shannon was the only man charged, for conspiracy with a person or persons unknown to lynch 382 people.
When Jack Yocke went to see him in the hospital, Shannon grinned. “Nobody wants to try us all, but they think if they try just me all the other victims will go away. Won’t happen. Those people buried too many kids, buried too many husbands.”
05.Under Siege v5 Page 54
