Paige couldn’t sleep. He got up early and paced back and forth in his living room. His stomach was queasy. He didn’t know if he could do it. John had become his friend of sorts. He felt responsible, since he recruited John when he was an MBA student. Then there were Jim, Tomás and Santos. He had met their families. They had a lot in common. They all loved America and what it stood for. They were all patriots. The problem was that their patriotism was misplaced and un-American. Assassinating people who were gnawing away at the Constitution was one thing. Executing people merely because they exercised their rights of free speech and press was something else. What they were doing was destroying freedom in America. Intellectually, he knew he was doing the right thing, but emotionally it was tearing him apart.
Then there was the possibility that he would fail and that they would kill him instead, or that he wouldn’t be able to get away with it and that either the feds or the local police would come to get him at some point, at which time they’d either kill him or take him into custody with no possibility of escape. Or maybe the Boss would send someone to get him, if the Boss suspected he was the one who executed the team members.
If he survived Saturday, he could spend the rest of his life in jail, unless he could convince a jury that what he did constituted justifiable homicide and that it was necessary to save freedom in America. Then there was the possibility that he wouldn’t even get a chance to have a jury trial. Some laws passed after 9/11 allowed the government to ignore the right to a trial by jury if the person was an alleged terrorist, even if he was an American citizen, all in the name of national security. Having an open jury trial would allow classified information to escape, which would help the enemy, or at least that’s what the government could argue. Or they might argue that having a jury trial would give aid and comfort to the enemy, a phrase that had become over-used in recent years. Therefore, a jury trial might not be allowed. All that was necessary to avoid a jury trial would be for the government to argue that there were national security issues involved. It puzzled Paige that more Americans weren’t outraged by this government policy, which clearly violated the Constitution.
That was another reason why Paige thought he must succeed. Taking away the right to a jury trial pushed the country one step closer to tyranny. Or maybe the country had already arrived at that destination and the citizenry just hadn’t realized it yet.
Paige always liked the phrase, Live Free or Die, but he never thought he would actually have to make the choice. No matter what happened today he wouldn’t be totally free. Even if he succeeded in his self-imposed mission, he would only be winning a skirmish in a war that could go on for years without any clear resolution in sight. But it was his only option. He had to think globally but act locally.
At 3:15 he strapped on his Glock 17, making sure there was a round in the chamber, which would give him 18 rounds before he had to reload. If he needed more than that, he would be in trouble, but he took along two extra mags, just in case. He grabbed a pair of latex gloves and put them in his pocket. If he had to touch something, he didn’t want to leave any prints. His Boy Scout training taught him to be prepared, but his Boy Scout leaders probably had something quite different in mind when they beat that slogan into his young Catholic head.
He became increasingly nervous as he got closer to John’s house. He hoped they would all be there. When he was about 200 feet away, he noticed there were only three cars in the driveway, John’s, Jim’s and Tomás’s. Apparently, Santos hadn’t arrived yet.
Shit! He thought of his options. He could circle the block and hope that Santos would show up, except that he was out in the country and there really weren’t blocks in the city sense of the term. He could keep driving for a few miles, then turn around. Or he could abort the mission, which he knew he couldn’t do. Or he could just go in and start blasting whoever was there, then wait for Santos to show up.
He decided to go in and start blasting. His nervousness increased as he pulled into John’s driveway. His hands started to shake. He could barely take the keys out of the ignition and put them in his pocket. He took a deep breath. He said a short prayer to his guardian angel to give him the strength to do what he needed to do and to do the job right.
He still prayed to his guardian angel like the nuns taught him, even though he abandoned Catholicism years ago. Although he firmly believed that organized religion was bullshit, he still believed there were other realms of existence and that there were both good and evil spirits. He hoped it would be a good spirit guiding his hand, although he never really thought about the possibility that a guardian angel might help him execute four misguided patriots.
He got out of the car and walked toward the breezeway. The door would be unlocked, so he could just walk in without ringing the door bell or announcing his presence. From there it was a short walk to the family room, where they would be working out the final details.
He walked into the room. All four of them were there, seated at the table. Apparently, one of them had given Santos a ride. He felt relieved, although he was so weak in the knees that he had difficulty walking normally.
As he entered, John looked up and said, “Hi Bob. Come on in. Join the party.”
They all looked nervous. Paige could sense it. Something was wrong.
As Wellington looked Paige in the eyes, he started to rise slowly from his chair. He raised his pistol and aimed it at Paige as Santos, Jim and Tomás looked on. When Tomás saw what was about to happen, he jumped up, whipped out his pistol, aimed it at Wellington and squeezed the trigger four times. The first two shots hit him in the chest, causing him to fly backwards. The third shot, ripped into his left shoulder, causing him to turn slightly to the left. The fourth one grazed his chin as he dropped to the floor.
The sound of the four shots in rapid succession - BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! – were loud, made louder by the acoustics in the room, which caused the sound to bounce off the walls.
They served to calm Paige down. His knees were no longer wobbly. He became totally focused and in control of his body. He could hear his own breathing as he inhaled deeply.
As he grabbed for his Glock, Santos rushed him, knocking him to the ground and causing him to drop his gun. Tomás turned toward Jim and shot him twice in the head as he was drawing his gun.
Paige managed to get up and break away from Santos’s strong grip. He rushed Paige again, throwing a punch with his right, which Paige managed to partially deflect by stepping to the right and blocking with his left arm.
It was an automatic response, gained from all those years of sparring in Kimura’s dojo and Brown’s dojahng. He felt Santos’s fist glance off his mouth but it didn’t hurt. His adrenalin was pumping too fast to feel any pain.
Santos’s forward rush with that muscular body caused Paige to partially lose his balance. Tomás tried to draw a bead on Santos but couldn’t get a clear shot. They were both moving too fast.
As Santos rushed at him a third time, Paige was able to recover sufficiently to throw a jumping side kick into Santos’s solar plexus, causing Santos to fly backwards against the wall.
As he bounced off the wall, he charged Paige a fourth time, but he was off balance. His head was projecting forward, almost parallel with the floor, his feet barely touching the ground. It looked like he was going to tackle Paige rather than punch him.
Paige let loose with a karate punch to his nose, causing the cartilage to snap like a twig and rattling his brain enough to throw off his equilibrium. Santos dropped to the floor, face down.
He was temporarily out of commission, unable to get up, but he was still a threat. If it were an alley fight with a street punk, Paige would have the option of running away, but he didn’t have that option now. He knew he had to finish him off. If he let Santos get up, he would be in trouble.
He leapt off the floor and came down on Santos, the heel of his left foot slamming into Santos’ third cervical vertebra. He could feel Santos’ neck snap. It was over.
> Paige let out a sigh of relief. He could taste blood in his mouth. Apparently, the one punch that Santos was able to land had cut his lip.
He was breathing heavily from all the physical activity. As he gulped air, he turned toward Tomás, who was standing about ten feet away, the gun still in his hand, pointed toward the floor.
“I suppose I should thank you for saving my life. What happened just now?”
“Wellington was going to snuff you. He got the order from the Boss. Santos and Jim wanted to whack you, too.”
“So why didn’t you let them? You’re one of them, too, aren’t you?”
“I used to be, but I drew the line when they started assassinating journalists and professors. I had to stop them before Tuesday. Exterminating termites like Debbie Waterstein, Senator Tom Garrett and Daniel Frumpton is one thing. Executing people just for criticizing the government is something else. I decided I wasn’t going to let that continue to happen.”
“Well, I’m glad you decided not to kill professors.” Paige smiled as he said it. Tomás reciprocated.
“Where do we go from here? Is the Boss supposed to be at this meeting?”
“I don’t know. John said he might be able to stop by for a few minutes, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
Paige touched his lip, which was starting to swell. “We have to get him, you know. This thing won’t be over until he’s out of the picture.”
“Yeah I know. I think we need to get him today. If we wait, he’ll find out about what just happened, and he’ll come after us.”
“I agree. We’ll have to get him in the next few hours.” Paige bent over to pick up his Glock.
Tomás thought for a few seconds. “I know where he lives and where he works. He probably won’t be in the office today, so we can start with his home.”
“Who is the Boss, anyway? I’ve been trying to pry the information out of John for years, but he always evades my questions.”
“His name is Hank Thorndike. He’s the southeast regional head of the FBI, but he also has CIA connections. I don’t know the specifics. John kept us pretty much in the dark, too, although we have met him a few times. One time I copied down his license plate number and did a little searching on the internet. He lives in Coconut Grove.”
“Let’s start there, and hope he’s home. If he isn’t, I guess we’ll have to wait for him.”
“Not necessarily. He has a boat at the marina on South Beach. He might be there. It’s Saturday.”
Paige smiled and looked him directly in the eyes. “I see you’ve done your homework.”
“Sometimes I get curious.” He bent over and started picking up his shell casings.
Paige looked around the room, and at the dead bodies on the floor. “We’ll have to leave this mess. We don’t have time to clean it up.”
“Yeah. We need to get out of here.”
Paige turned toward the door. “OK. Let’s go. You go first. I’ll follow you in my car.”
“We should probably go in one car. It would make things easier. Let’s drop your car off at your place and take mine. I know where the Boss lives.”
“OK. Do you know where I live, too?”
“Of course.” They both smiled.
As they started to leave, Paige turned around, walked back into the room and put one of the latex gloves on his right hand. He walked up to Wellington’s corpse, which was lying face down, grabbed John’s right hand, dipped Wellington’s index finger in his blood, and scrawled MOSSAD on the floor.
Tomás saw what Paige had done. “Why did you do that?”
“Just think of it as a love letter to Rachel Karshenboym.”
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Thomas Jefferson
119
After dropping off Paige’s car at his condo, they engaged in conversation as Tomás drove them to Coconut Grove.
Paige was curious to learn more about his new best buddy. “How did you get involved in this business?”
“John recruited me. He heard about my computer skills and the work I did in Iraq and Afghanistan and he contacted me. He didn’t tell me where he got the information, but he knew a lot about me, so it must have been someone I worked with, probably in Afghanistan, because that was my last mission before getting out of the army.”
Paige got a smile on his face. “Do you know that I’m the one who recruited John?”
“No, I didn’t know that. John was very closed mouthed about that kind of thing.”
“As he should be. It’s not a good idea to go blabbing about who recruited you or how they did it. The funny thing is that, since John recruited you and I recruited John, I’m sort of responsible for recruiting you, since there’s a direct link in the chain between you and me.”
“I don’t know whether I should thank you or kick you in the balls. If you hadn’t recruited John, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. Or at least I wouldn’t be.”
They both laughed. Tomás continued. “How did they recruit you?”
“I can’t talk about that, although I can tell you they did it when I was working with the Finance Ministry in Armenia.”
“That sounds interesting. You really can’t tell me more?”
“I suppose I could. I’m not feeling very loyal to the Company at the moment.”
Tomás turned his head to the right to look at Paige. “Well, technically this isn’t a Company assignment. It’s more of a freelance thing. Some American patriots saw something wrong and decided to do what they could to fix it.”
“I hear you. When you can’t get rid of the political trash by the electoral process, the people have to do it on an ad hoc basis.”
Tomás smiled, exposing his teeth, which looked even whiter because of his brown skin, black hair and black eyes. “Yeah. That’s what the Second Amendment’s all about. It’s not about protecting the rights of hunters. It’s about protecting the people from their government. The problem is, where do you draw the line?” Tomás had taken two political science classes in college, which was just enough to pique his interest in the relationship between the people and the government.
Paige had thought about this relationship, too, especially in recent months. “I think it’s impossible to draw a bright line to determine who should be killed and who shouldn’t, but I think it is possible to establish some general guidelines.”
He continued. “I think the people who have earned the honor of being put on the hit list are the ones who have done the most damage to the country, the ones who have engaged in overt acts that result in violations of property rights or Constitutional rights.”
Tomás chimed in. “Most members of Congress would fall into that category. They sponsor legislation that violates the Constitution and property rights. They pass laws that take the property from those who’ve earned it and give it to those who haven’t. They pass laws that violate our right to privacy. The Boss refers to them as termites. They gradually gnaw away at the Constitutional and property rights structure, chipping away at our rights gradually. Nobody seems to notice until the structure starts collapsing. By then it’s too late to do much about it.”
Paige thought about what Tomás had just said. “That’s a good analogy. I think I’m starting to like good old Hank. It’s too bad we have to kill him. What about the Frumpton hit? Who thought of that one?”
“Hank did. He thought of most of them. I feel funny calling him Hank. He always wanted us to refer to him as the Boss, or Sir. He didn’t want us to get informal with him.”
“I can understand that. It’s part of the discipline and chain of command thing. I perceive he’s a bit of a tight ass, huh?”
“You could say that. I never felt comfortable when he was in the room. But he’s not all bad. He understands what has to be done and how to get America back on track. The problem is that he’s gone over the edge. He’s starting to put people on the hit list who don’t be
long there.”
“Like journalists and professors?”
“Yeah. Some of them are damaging America by spouting collectivist crap, but I don’t think that’s justification for killing them. Executing people for their views stifles free speech and press, and that’s bad for America. Snuffing them would destroy freedom in America faster than letting them continue to spout their gibberish.”
“Tell me about his reasoning for the Frumpton hit. I read the press reports, but you know how the press is. They slant things and often leave out the best parts.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean, but the press did a pretty good job of reporting on our hits. I think it’s because they published the blurbs John sent them after each hit.”
Tomás looked at his watch. Six o’clock. They still had a few hours of daylight, which could help or hinder them, depending on how they planned their hit.
He continued. “But getting back to this Frumpton thing, Hank wanted to expand the list to include people who abused the Constitution even if they weren’t politicians. Abusers of the eminent domain laws were at the top of his list. Hank had read about some families who had their homes confiscated by the government so that private developers could build on their property. I remember the first time he talked about it at one of our meetings. He got enraged whenever he spoke about it. He wanted Congress and the various state legislatures to repeal the eminent domain laws, since they gave the government the authority to confiscate private property, but he didn’t see that as a realistic possibility, so he decided to do the next best thing – execute anyone who used the eminent domain laws to confiscate private property.
“He didn’t limit it to just the developers. He thought we should include anyone involved in the chain of confiscation because they were part of the problem. The attorneys for the developers, the judges and local politicians who approved the confiscations were all part of the problem. He figured if he could exterminate enough of them, it would send a message that engaging in eminent domain actions could be harmful to your health. He wanted to create a chilling effect that would alter behavior.”
Justifiable Homicide: A Political Thriller (Robert Paige Thrillers Book 1) Page 38
