by K. J. Dahlen
Scott turned to look at him. “And you are?” he asked.
“Michael Severns.”
Scott straightened at the name. Michael was known by everyone in the business. “I haven’t heard that name in a while.”
“I’ve been out of town but I’m back now.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear that.” Scott stepped aside and let them through. He peeked down the hall then pulled the door closed and locked it again. The door was a three inch steel portal. There were four locks on his side of the door and if any one of them had been tampered with, the other three wouldn’t open. Scott stepped around the group and began walking down the long hallway. They went through several special doors and when they finally came to another locked door, Scott stepped forward and unlocked it. The door led to another short hall. There, he knocked on the door and waited until someone else opened it.
When they all went through the door, they found themselves in the private apartments of the President of the United States.
Georgia Travis stood there with her husband Jack. Georgia Travis was the first woman elected to the highest office in the land. She glanced at the four of them and nodded at Scott. “Okay, gentlemen and Miss Lamb, what is so disturbing that you have to come crawling in the back door?”
“Mrs. President, we have uncovered a plot to bring down the United States,” Michael told her.
Georgia motioned for them to sit down. She glanced at her husband and sat down beside him. “And what makes this threat any more real than the last one?” she asked.
“This one has been well planned and it’s going to be put into motion very soon,” Kenn informed her. “Someone has been planning this for years and all the pieces are finally in place.”
“The first part of this plan is supposed to happen at your speech on the fourteenth,” Michael added.
“What will happen?” Georgia asked.
“That’s when they plan to assassinate you and spray the entire House of Assembly with a deadly strain of VRSA. We’ve found evidence they have enough of the virus to murder thousands of people. Everyone there will die a horrible death within days. Most of the members of our government will be there for your speech. And when they all run out of the Assembly and go home, they will spread the disease to everyone they come into contact with.”
Georgia gasped.
Scott took a step toward her and Jack jumped up to protest.
“How do you know all of this?” Georgia asked as she held up her hand to stop Scott and Jack.
“We’ve uncovered most of the plot but not all of it,” Judson replied. “We do know it starts with your assassination and moves on to bigger and deadlier things. The Bleu Vipers will take out most of the government with the VRSA spray, then ten different bombings will go off simultaneously all over the United States, murdering thousands of innocent people. In the following chaos, they will step up and form a new government, a government they will run. They will make new laws that will take away the rights we’ve enjoyed for over two hundred years. We’ll be swept back into the dark ages.”
“Do you have any proof?” Scott asked.
Michael turned to him. “Yes, we have proof. The accident in Kansas City happened seven days too early. Somebody firebombed my house. There are bombs being set in New York City as we speak. Three different blasts will devastate most of Los Angeles. NASA and NORAD will be taken out. This is going to be terrorists gone wild.”
Georgia got up from the sofa and paced the floor. “Do you know anyone in this group?” She glared at Michael.
Michael handed her a file with the pictures of the ones they knew. When she opened the file, the first face she saw was Drew Carrington. The next face was Drew’s cousin Nick. The next face she saw was another she recognized, Alex Daniels. Georgia went back over to the sofa and sat down. The file slipped to the floor and the pictures slipped out.
Jack gasped when he saw them. He turned to Kenn. “You can’t think Drake would do something like this, do you?”
“Not necessarily, but his brother Drew and their cousin Nick might be involved,” Judson said.
“What possible reason would Alex Daniels have to be included in this group?” Georgia asked.
“Alex Daniel’s real name is Ali Rudan.” Michael gave them the report. “He’s a member of the Syrian royal family. The same royal family Drake Carrington’s father was guarding when an attempt was made on the man he was guarding. Drake’s parents and he were exiled from Syria. They came here under political asylum, changed their names and became US citizens, all before Drew was born,”
Georgia was looking down at the report. “Scott, why didn’t we know this before now?”
Scott shook his head. “I’m not sure but I will find out.”
Michael interjected, “Nobody knew any of this. Ali has taken care not to draw attention to himself or his goals. There are at least two more men we do know of. Unfortunately, we don’t know where they are at the moment. One is named Jordian Yourak. He goes by an alias of Hussian Al Mira. He came after me five years ago and I think he was the one that murdered my wife and daughter.”
“What about the other man?” Georgia asked.
“We don’t know that much about him, but we think he’s the real power behind Ali. We do know he’s deaf because he uses sign language,” Michael told her.
“That doesn’t give us much to go on,” she said.
“That’s all we have at the moment,” Michael replied.
“How did they get their hands on the virus VRSA?” Jack asked.
Harper answered this question, “The CDC sent out an alert because there was an undetermined amount mailed to various private addresses. The requests slipped in under phony research requests. No one at the shipping houses noticed it until it came time to bill for the shipments. When the same address came up three times, it set off an alert. There have also been several packages detained overseas. In those packages, were the chemical ingredients for several dirty bombs.”
Georgia stared at Jack and then turned to look at Scott. “Why wasn’t I notified of this development?”
“Usually, Homeland Security or FBI handles this sort of thing,” Scott told her.
Georgia scowled. “That’s no excuse.”
Michael shook his head. “Ma’am, don’t be upset with Secret Service. It isn’t their job to inform you of this sort of thing. It would be Homeland Security’s job to investigate stuff like this. We get tips like this every day and every day, we run down leads that usually don’t go anywhere.”
“You said this group murdered your wife and daughter five years ago,” Georgia reminded him. “What have they been up to since then?”
“We haven’t uncovered that information yet,” Michael explained.
“Then how do you know this is the same group?”
Michael leaned forward and picked up the scattered photos. He picked up the photo of Hussian Al Mira. He handed it to her. “Five years ago, I was one of several agents that hit a house on Riggs Street. We were working on a tip that some bad men were planning something there. When we got there, we found four men engaged in what we would consider terrorist acts. Two of the men were arrested and one was killed outright. The man in the photograph charged me and I wounded him by slashing his face. I gave him the scar you see. He got away from us that night and he went after my family after that. I found my wife and daughter lying in my bed with their throats slashed.”
“How did you know it was that man?” Georgia asked.
Michael gazed at the floor then looked back up at her. “Above the bed was a symbol drawn in blood. It was a triangle with a reaper inside. Below was warning written in Arabic. It said, ‘Fear the white dog.’ I didn’t understand what that meant for the longest time.”
“What does it mean?” Georgia asked.
“I misinterpreted the saying before. It should have read ‘Death to the White Dog.’ I was the white dog and the deaths of my wife and child were his way of letting me know he knew who I wa
s and how to hurt me the most.”
“But you have no idea what they’ve been doing the last five years, do you?”
Michael shook his head. “I think we were getting very close to uncovering this plot five years ago. I think they pulled back and gave it some time. They didn’t want to draw attention to their cause. What we didn’t know back then was that this group has been here for longer than we realized. We have discovered they have here for almost twenty years.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“We’re going to catch the bastards, before any more people lose their lives.” Michael gazed right into her eyes as he spoke, “It’s already too late for the people down in Kansas City and a couple of people here, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose any more.”
Kenn spoke up now, “We lost a very good officer tonight, we won’t lose anyone else.”
“What do you want me to do?” Georgia asked as she glanced at her husband.
“I want you to let us do our jobs,” Michael replied. “You have to act like you don’t know anything. We don’t want the Vipers to move their timetable up. We need the rest of the time to find the bastards before they can do what they set out to do. We have some of the places they plan to bomb but not all of them.”
“Can you stop them?” Jack asked.
“I hope so, but we still have a lot of work to do,” Michael said. “And you can’t tell anyone what you just found out. It would only take one slip to the wrong person.”
Georgia turned her concerned gaze to her husband and nodded. “We understand.” She sighed and glanced at Michael. “How do I keep this secret though? Right now, I want to cancel the speech and break down every door in the city looking for these terrorists. Then I want to drag them through the streets and hang them on the south lawn.”
Harper chuckled at the picture the President’s words brought to mind. Kenn kicked her softly and she sobered. She looked at the President and apologized, “I’m sorry, ma’am. A picture of you leading the charge just flashed in my head.”
Georgia grinned. “That’s okay, the same picture just popped into my head.” She turned to Michael. “You have to keep me informed on a daily basis.”
Michael shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. There can be no further contact between us. We can’t be seen together. There is someone out there looking for me. He’s tried twice to kill us and missed both times, although he didn’t miss us by much. I can’t guarantee he won’t try again and I don’t want to lead him right to you.”
Georgia got up and walked over to her desk. She got a pen and a piece of paper and wrote something down. She walked over to Michael and handed him the paper.
Michael looked at what she wrote.
“That’s my private phone number. Very few people know that number. It’s a secure line. If you have to, buy a throw away phone but I expect a phone call tomorrow evening.”
Michael nodded. “Very well. I don’t really think it’s necessary but I’ll do it.”
Kenn stood and announced, “Maybe we should go. We do have two of the players back at the office and we have to interrogate them.”
“Who are they?” Jack asked.
“They are Americans, at least one of them is. His name is Glen Portman.”
“We aren’t sure about the other one yet,” Michael added. “So far, no one is who they appear to be.”
Georgia sat down again and raised her hand to her forehead. She began massaging her temple and said, “How did they dream this up? I mean, don’t they realize what they are planning will kill thousands of people?”
“They are fanatics, they don’t view people with the same ideals as the rest of us,” Michael explained. “They thrive on panic and chaos and the scent of blood. For them, the more people hurt, maimed or even dead, the more thrilling it is for them. They have the mindset of a suicide bomber without actually having to put on the bomb.”
“I don’t understand that kind of mindset,” Georgia said.
“Most people don’t. That’s why we’ll never win a war in the Arab lands. We don’t understand their mindsets. We hate the idea of killing and they don’t seem to value human life. They believe that those who die from their ranks will be honored in the hereafter. This is the way they’ve lived for thousands of years.”
“What about Drake Carrington?” Georgia asked. “How does he fit into this mess?”
Michael shrugged. “Like I said before, we don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet. If he’s left in charge, he won’t be the one calling the shots. Ali and the deaf man will be the real power behind whatever government is left.”
“What does that mean?” Georgia asked.
“He’ll be the figurehead but not the one really in charge. They will tell him what to do until they no longer need him. Then when they no longer need to hide behind him, his death will be very public and they will emerge as the new government,” Michael said.
“You paint such a dismal portrait of our future,” Jack commented.
“Believe me,” Michael countered. “My portrait is probably very calm and kind as compared to what they have in mind. This is just the first step. They won’t be happy until everything we hold dear is nothing more than ashes.”
“You’re not very optimistic,” Jack pointed out.
Michael turned to glare at him. “No, I’m not. I’m telling you in plain English what’s about to happen. It’s not going to be another attempt to disrupt our lives, this is going to be so much worse than 9/11. What happened in New York that day will be nothing compared to what’s coming now. We were stunned by the fall of the Towers, but this is going to be much more horrible. They want to show us real terror. They want to show us they are in charge now and they don’t care how many people they have to kill to do it.”
“How do you know this is what they have in mind?” Georgia asked.
Michael walked over to the window and looked out over the city. “I was a black ops soldier in Desert Storm. Afghanistan was at war with its neighbors and there was fighting in the streets. I saw the horrors up close and personal. Then I began talking to the city elders. There was something in their eyes that told me this kind of fighting and terror was nothing new to them, and it wasn’t. They’d lived this way for generations. Most of them didn’t remember what they were fighting for anymore. They were scratching out a living the best they could. They had nothing left but they survived. They were merely fighting for the right to live.” He turned to look at the group. “The people in the Vipers Crew want to break us. As soon as they get the power, more will come here. They want to break our spirit and they will do what they must to do it.”
“We have to stop that from happening,” Jack stated.
“We’re working on it,” Judson replied.
“Let’s hope you succeed. The alternate sounds like something from a horror movie.” Georgia visibly shuddered.
Chapter Eleven
When Gage opened the door, he saw Stone, Sam and Shay, standing there. Stone had a tray of coffee in his hands and he handed it to Gage as they all walked into the room.
Willow was sitting on the sofa and took a cup as Gage joined her. “What more can I tell you gentlemen?”
“What happened that day your grandfather picked you up at school?” Stone asked. “What did he tell you about the first shooting at Lowell?”
Willow shrugged. “I was only six at the time. When he got there, he looked shook up. His clothes were torn up and he looked a wreck. The school didn’t want him to take me but he did anyway. He put me on the back of his bike and took off. We rode a long way that day.” She turned to Gage. “The reason I was in the back of Michael’s truck was I was checking out your bike. It looked just like grandpa’s and I had to know if was his or not.”
Gage frowned. “My bike looks like your grandpa’s?”
Willow shook her head. “No, your bike is his bike. Somehow, you ended up with his bike. I couldn’t believe it at first but it’s true. Unde
r the seat, it has some words written there. I put them there to remember my parents and my family. I couldn’t believe it was the same bike after all these years.”
Stone looked over at Gage and saw the stunned look on his face. “What happened next?”
“We went to Marlborough and met my uncles and what was left of my grandpa’s MC. Grandpa moved us out to the cabin then and the next little while, they began rebuilding the place. They replaced the cabin with a bigger place and got the hiding places set up. They had to move everything over from the place in Lowell and get back into business. They also had to watch for the Vipers. Grandpa was going to hunt them down and take them out and over time, he got a few of them but then they found out where we were staying. It took them two years to find us again.” She paused to sip her coffee. “The day the shooting happened, it was almost eerie around the compound that morning. Grandpa had a notion there was trouble coming, so he stayed in the cabin with me. Then that morning, Uncle Pony came running up to the front door and yelled at grandpa to take cover. Grandpa pushed me into the hidey hole he built into the wall and told me I had to keep quiet. He told me not to say a word or they would kill me. He told me I had to survive to tell the world what happened and to warn everyone that something bad was coming.”
The men all sat and quietly listened.
Tears rolled down her face as she gripped the cup in her hand almost crushing it. “I was just a kid.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “I remember the noise and being terrified. I could hear the shooting and people screaming all around me. I peeked out at one point and I could see several of the men covered in blood all over the room. Grandpa saw me and screamed at me to get back in the hole. Pony and Declan were laying on the floor covered in blood. Grandpa was bleeding from his shoulder. I heard another shot and saw his head explode. I crawled back into the hole and waited for someone to pull me out of there and shoot me. Then it grew quiet. The shooting was over and I was there all alone. I don’t think I moved at all for a long time. I peeked out into the room and saw several men dragging the bodies out of the cabin. They didn’t notice me, not then. It got dark outside and I didn’t come out. I don’t think I moved all night but when the sun came out the next day, I snuck out of the hole and looked around. There was no one left alive.”
