High Treason

by John Gilstrap

  As happened every winter at this time, Jonathan was more than ready for spring. He was tired of schlepping through snow. “Why are you wrapped so tight about this?” he asked. “He’s not a crop duster. He flew for the 160th, for God’s sake.”

  “A long time ago.”

  “We left the unit a long time ago,” Jonathan countered.

  “But it ain’t like we stopped practicing the craft, is it? He doesn’t even have two feet.”

  “And you don’t have two legs.”

  “Bullshit. One of ’em’s just mostly titanium.” Boxers was the only person Jonathan ever knew who’d learned to walk again after taking a hit with a fifty-cal.

  Granted, it was a glancing blow, but still. “Why are you being so . . . flexible? You’re never flexible on this stuff.”

  Jonathan didn’t want to answer, because he knew how the answer would sound, and he wasn’t in the mood to take Big Guy’s shit.

  “Okay, don’t tell me,” Boxers said. “What the hell, it’s only my friggin’ life. Not to mention the president’s wife, and her spawn. Oh, yeah, and two reporters, but I plan to push them out of the chopper, anyway, as soon as we’re airborne. I have no need to know.”

  “I think he needs it,” Jonathan blurted. There, it was out.

  Boxers pulled to a halt. “Oh, God. Tell me you didn’t just say that. He needs it? I don’t even know what that friggin’ means.”

  But the level of his agitation told Jonathan that he knew exactly what it meant.

  “He wants to feel relevant again,” Jonathan said.

  “They’re his birds, he’s a goddamned war hero, and he wants to feel relevant again. I don’t see anything wrong with giving him a shot.”

  Boxers gathered himself with a deep breath. “Good God, you’ve been sneaking off and watching PBS, haven’t you? Oprah, maybe? When did we become the friggin’ USO? I don’t give a shit what he needs to feel. Christ, I don’t give a shit what you need to feel and you’re as close to a friend as I’ve ever had. This is all about the mission, Dig.”

  Jonathan planted his fists on his hips. “No shit, really? This is about a mission? Why hadn’t I thought about that?”

  “I don’t mean to insult—”

  “Then quit insulting. Quit insulting me and quit insulting Striker. That bullet took away more than his foot, don’t you see that? Do you remember what an artist he was in the air?”

  “I remember he was a cowboy.”

  “A cowboy who saved a shitload of good guys who would have been dead otherwise.”

  “But look at him, Boss. He looks like he stepped out of Woodstock.”

  “That’s just hair and attitude,” Jonathan said. “We’re cutting him a break. If we need to punt him at the end, we’ll punt him. You can take over midflight if it comes to that.”

  “No, I can’t,” Boxers said. “That’s the thing. You haven’t looked inside the cockpit of that bird, have you?”

  “I thought I did.”

  “Well, next time, look again. There’s no second seat up front. The left seat is a passenger seat. He could have a heart attack or just go suicidal and there’d be nothing I could do about it.”

  Jonathan had in fact not seen that. And it was outside his normal operating parameters to trust any outsiders with mission-critical responsibilities. But this felt like the right thing to do. “Striker flies the aircraft,” he said. He started walking again.

  Boxers followed. Jonathan could feel his displeasure, but he also knew that Big Guy was a soldier’s soldier. Once a decision was made, he would respect it, even if he didn’t like it.

  But if things went to shit, Jonathan knew to expect an earful.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  They cruised in total blackness at 180 miles per hour, the chopper’s skids never more than ten feet above the leafless treetops. For a while, Jonathan watched through his NVGs, but ultimately switched them off and lifted them out of the way. He had no control over what kind of landing they were going to have, so what was the sense of stressing over it? Per Boxers’ insistence, Big Guy sat in the left seat, where he could keep an eye on the pilot.

  “We’re one mile from the Canadian border,” Striker announced. He flew with night vision in place, and with the aircraft completely blacked out. Before flipping off his NVGs, Jonathan did take note of how interesting the pilot’s ponytail looked falling from the bottom of his flight helmet.

  Jonathan pressed the transmit button in the center of his ballistic vest. “Mother Hen, Scorpion, how do you read?”

  Venice replied without pause, “Loud and clear, and your GPS signal is strong. I’m monitoring emergency frequencies, and so far, you’re not upsetting anyone.”

  “Roger,” he said. Give it a minute or two, he didn’t say.

  Across from him, Yelena, David, and Becky sat on the floor. They said nothing. Instead, they stared into the darkness of the cabin, seemingly lost in whatever place their imaginations had taken them to. If they weren’t scared, they were out of their minds. Each of them wore the requisite vest and helmet with ten spare mags of ammunition. While they had comm gear, Jonathan made sure to set theirs at a different channel than his. Too many people liked to hear themselves speak on the radio, and he didn’t want to deal with any of that once this op went hot.

  “We just crossed into hostile territory,” Striker announced. “Assuming, that is, that the Canucks are hostiles. Kind of an odd thought, actually.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Jonathan felt the aircraft slow. He rose from his spot on the deck and duckwalked forward, where he could peer between shoulders to see out the front windscreen. With his NVGs back in place, the terrain looked identical to that which he had studied so intently in the satellite images.

  “Here to check me out, too?” Striker asked.

  “Just here to look,” Jonathan said.

  Striker pointed to a spot on the ground about five hundred yards away. “Can we agree that that’s our LZ?”

  “Looks good to me. I even see a boat and a truck,” Jonathan noted.

  “I’d love to know how you got those planted here,” Striker said.

  “Company secrets,” Jonathan replied with a smile. It wasn’t all that difficult, really. Venice had searched the Internet for listings of boats for sale in Ottawa. The requirement was that the boat be inconspicuous and that it have its own trailer. A similar search through the for-sale listings found a crew cab pickup for sale. She negotiated the prices for both on the condition that they be delivered to this address, which was chosen in part because it was an abandoned property. She paid in real cash through a wire transfer from one of Jonathan’s cutout companies. There was always a risk of getting ripped off, but when you pay twice the asking price, people generally respond. That was true in North America and Europe, anyway. On other continents, it paid to have face-to-face contact in any business deal.

  Jonathan said, “Do a couple of passes before we touch down. I want to see if we have any lurkers.” The downside to doing business over the phone and through wire transfers is that they stunk of criminal activity. Jonathan wanted to make sure that no one had called in the Mounties to stake out the place.

  “Looks clean to me, Boss,” Boxers said.

  Jonathan agreed. The infrared showed only a lot of cold. “Set her down on the black side,” said. He knew that Striker would recognize the side farthest away from the road.

  A single structure resided on the property they’d chosen as their landing zone. It measured one hundred fifty feet by forty-five feet, and had most recently been used as a commercial woodworking shop. The owner had died, leaving debts that required foreclosure on the property. Now, the bank was trying desperately to unload the land and the building, but no one was interested. There was no end to the information Venice could squeeze out of a computer.

  They landed in a cloud of blowing snow. As Striker went about the business of shutting things down, Jonathan addressed the others. “Okay,” he said, “we are now officially in
violation of about a million laws. From this moment on, our planning is just advanced dreaming. I hope everything goes the way we want, but if it does, this will be the first time.

  “This is also your last chance to opt out before we break another two million laws. It’s all for a good cause, but if we get caught or arrested, the cause won’t matter to the prosecutor.”

  “Having Mrs. Darmond with us might help a little,” David said.

  “Or, it might make it worse,” Yelena said.

  “That’s not going to happen if everyone does their jobs,” Jonathan insisted. “Big Guy and I are golden. We’ll get done what needs to be done. You just hold up your end and we’ll be fine. Now let’s load this gear into the truck and get started.”

  It wasn’t until Becky stepped out of the helicopter and felt the assault of the frigid air that she realized she couldn’t go through with this. Early on, maybe it was a pride thing, or maybe it was an adventure thing, but now that she stood in the blowing snow on Canadian soil, in the company of men who made their living by killing other men, she realized that it was just wrong.

  There had to be another way. There always was a nonviolent solution to every problem.

  But that horse had fled the barn a long time ago. They were on a terminal course toward committing capital murder. This was just wrong, and she found herself frozen in place, unable to move or to speak. She wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t allow it. She was afraid that the tears would freeze to her face. That her eyes would freeze shut.

  David had already carried two duffel bags over to the truck, and as he returned, he said, “No, that’s okay, Becky. We don’t need any help.”

  She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the open door of the chopper, into the darkness where they could speak in a place where the wind wouldn’t carry her words to the others.

  “What are you doing?” David protested. He yanked his arm away.

  “We can’t do this,” she said.

  His eyes flashed in the darkness. “What?”

  “I said we can’t do this. It’s wrong. It’s against the law. People are going to get killed.”

  David threw a look over at the others, and grabbed her shoulders in both his hands. His voice was barely a whisper when he said, “Becky, you can’t back out now. People are counting on you.”

  “No, they’re not. Scorpion doesn’t even want me here. He made that very clear.”

  “So, what, this is like hurt feelings or something?” He looked back at the others and modulated his voice again. “People are counting on you. I’m counting on you.”

  “I can’t start something when I know people will die because of what I’m doing. I don’t believe that you can just rationalize this away.”

  “Where the hell was this discussion when we were still in Virginia? You didn’t have to come.”

  “Neither did you.”

  “Yes, I did. These assholes tried to kill me. If we can put a stop to all of this shit, they won’t want to do that anymore.”

  “Yo!” Scorpion called. “Is there a problem over there?”

  “No,” David said quickly.

  “Yes,” Becky said. “I’m not going. I can’t. These things you’re planning to do are—”

  “Fine,” Scorpion said. “Stay with Striker. Everybody else load up. We’ve got work to do.”

  Inexplicably—maybe even unreasonably—Scorpion’s words stung her. She looked to David, but he’d already broken eye contact and was on his way back to the others.

  She’d never felt more alone.

  Boxers looked happy as hell to be back in the driver’s seat. He drove the eight-year-old nondescript Chevy crew cab at posted speeds and obeyed every traffic sign. The nightmare scenarios lay in unanticipated turns of fate. In this case, the worst of the worst would be some kind of routine traffic stop where they were found to be carrying an arsenal of weapons and explosives.

  The mood inside the vehicle was dark with anticipation, but Jonathan sensed something more.

  “Don’t think badly about her, David,” he said. “She got spooked. No shame in that. Better to find out now than when we’re in the thick of things.” He turned in his shotgun seat to address David and the First Lady face-to-face in the back. “But she’s the one, understand? We had one extra set of hands, which means that only one person had the luxury of backing out. She took that off the table for both of you.”

  “You give a lot of lectures to people,” Yelena said. “Did you know that?”

  Jonathan smiled. “Ma’am, I’ve seen shit go wrong in a thousand different ways, and I’ve never seen them go wrong the same way twice. When that happens, there’s only two ways to go. You can panic and die, or you can improvise intelligently. The lectures are meant to scare you into being decisive if the time comes.”

  “Decisive about what?” David asked.

  “About taking action. About trusting your gut and never acting out of fear. If you have to run away, run away, but don’t turn your back on the guy who wants to shoot you. And for God’s sake, if it comes to that, be the one who pulls the trigger first.”

  Jonathan thought it notable that Yelena’s eyes showed no emotion. They were the eyes of a hardened warrior, so focused on the mission that risks didn’t matter. David, on the other hand, looked like a kid in a classroom trying to memorize every word for an upcoming exam.

  “Remember,” Jonathan said, “Nine times out often, if you need to shoot, all you need to do is throw a lot of lead downrange. If our really spotty intel is correct, there will be exactly four good guys on the island, and that’ll be the PCs, Big Guy, and me. Try really hard not to shoot us.”

  “I’m going to try really hard not to shoot anybody,” David said. He cringed after he said it, probably because of the way the words echoed those of his girlfriend. Or whatever the hell she was to him.

  “Not shooting at anybody is even better,” Jonathan said. “After we launch the boat, your job is to get the hell out of Ottawa and into Quebec. Do not speed, do not allow your firearms to show, and in general try to be invisible.”

  “How long do we wait?” Yelena asked.

  Jonathan didn’t understand the question.

  “On the other side,” she expanded. “How will we know if we’ve waited too long?”

  “Jesus, lady,” Boxers said. “They’re your blood. You tell me.”

  “I don’t think she’s talking about running away,” Jonathan said. “I think she’s wondering how long to wait before she takes the fight directly to the bad guys.”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t have an answer for you,” Jonathan said.

  “If it comes to that, we’re going to be very far out of position,” Yelena said. “We couldn’t possibly help you from the other side of the river.”

  Jonathan’s gut flipped. He didn’t like people messing with his plans. “Mrs. Darmond, with all respect, if Big Guy and I can’t handle this rescue, there’s not much that you’ll be able to add.”

  “I can add firepower.”

  “You can stick to the damn plan,” Jonathan said. He felt anger rising. “When we come out of there, and the world is on fire, we’re going to be outnumbered by a lot to one. Our only advantage is confusion and speed. We’re going to get in that boat, and we’re going to scream across six hundred yards of open water. That shouldn’t take more than a minute or two, once we’re in the boat. Your grandson is going to be cold and he may be wet, and he’s definitely going to be traumatized. Do not leave us waiting.”

  Yelena’s eyes never changed. “I hear you,” she said.

  “And you’ll do it.”

  “I’ll make sure she does,” David said.

  Somehow, that didn’t make Jonathan feel any better.

  Len Shaw checked his watch for the thousandth time. The transfer trucks were due anytime now. Against his wishes, Dmitri had dictated that the shipments be made all at once, rather than piecemeal, which would have been Len’s preference. Dmitri’s feeling was
that it was better to open the doors one time and monitor the exchange of materials in one continuous flow.

  Len understood the logic of that—in fact he had difficulty articulating an argument against it—but he was concerned about the appearances of it all.

  Saint Stephen’s Island lived largely unmolested, as its own entity in the middle of the Canadian capital. Police rarely ventured out here, and when they did, it was always during the day, and it was more out of curiosity than any professional concern.

  Now, Dmitri was committing them to long motorcades of traffic with dozens of voices all rising past the limits of the walls to bounce across the water to raise people’s curiosity. Len worried that curiosity would lead to concern, which would lead to a telephone call to the police, which would in turn vastly complicate everything. Dmitri wouldn’t hesitate an instant to engage the police in a gun battle. In Dmitri’s mind—the mind that was so poisoned by Soviet indoctrination and so encouraged by the new power grabs by the Russian leadership—hurting Canada was the same as hurting the United States.

  Dmitri had reached that point in his life when he just wanted to hurt people. It was unfortunate that at that precise moment, Len had reached the point in his own life when he treasured peace over war.

  And now, on top of all the weapons, he had to deal with celebrity prisoners. That was sheer madness. The stepson of the president of the United States. Rationalize as you wish that the Americans were powerless to react to this affront, but the reality was that Dmitri had poked a stick directly into the most secure hornet’s nest on the planet, and it was unreasonable not to expect consequences.

  Soon, though, it would end. In less than an hour, the trucks would arrive. Among the trucks would be a van that would spirit the Mishins on to their next station, wherever that was, and come dawn, Len’s life would settle back to something that resembled normalcy.

  Then, two days later, America would be under attack.

  Mother Russia would once again be feared, and her allies—Iran, Syria, Lebanon, China (an ally not yet to be trusted)—would make the moves they’d been waiting for a generation to make, without fear of retribution. NATO and Israel growled like fearless dogs when their American handlers were firmly in their corner, but would they be so bold if the Americans slid into isolationism? Or, as one of Len’s favorite Western expressions went, would their asses be able to cash the checks their mouths had written?