The Service

by Vincent King

  “Do it.”

  “Boothe, what the hell is wrong with you?” Mackey asked.

  What no one noticed was Sara laying against the wall beside her desk. She was bleeding out of her stomach but was able to move. She had pulled out a small revolver from her purse on the floor and had it aimed at the invader threatening us.

  I met her eyes and she met mine. We both knew this would be her last action but it would count. She cried a tear and pulled the hammer on her gun. I tightened the grip on the handle of my sidearm.

  “Put down your weapon now,” the invader said again as his friend slowly started to set down his ram.

  More gunshots rang out down the hallway, Sara took her chance and shot the invader in the shoulder then head. His body hit the wall and slid down it.

  “Akilm!” the ram holding invader yelled. He turned around to face his friend’s killer.

  I took my chance and shot him multiple times in the back. He fell forward onto Sara and neither of them moved again.

  “What now?” Mackey asked me.

  “Follow me,” I said as I began to crawl toward the door. “And stay low, I don’t know if that sniper is still in his position or not.”

  I heard Mackey move to a crawling position behind me. As we slowly made it through the doorway, I looked to our right where the shooting came from earlier. There were still screams, gunfire and yelling coming from that direction, but I couldn’t make out the voices.

  “Where are my other men?” I heard Mackey cuss to himself behind me.

  “Protecting the house sir.” I motioned him to move right just as we rounded the corner of the doorway.

  “Oh no, Sara!” he cried as he got a glimpse of her body.

  Sara had her head laid back against the wall with blood on her face. It wasn’t her blood though. It was the fallen invader that now had his head on her shoulder.

  Mackey made a silent prayer. Just as we were in the clear, the sniper in the front yard fired a shot that that was a few inches clear of my head.

  I quickly rolled to the wall beside the doorway and leaned against it with Mackey.

  “So the sniper is still there,” I stated as I picked myself up. “We need to move, and move opposite direction of the chaos on the side of the house sir.”

  “Why don’t we follow the procedure for this kind of thing?” he asked as he began to follow me down the hallway.

  “Well sir, those two men came in too quick for it to be just them forcing their way in. They had this planned out and probably had help I am betting. I do not want to risk following a plan that they may already know about.”

  “So we are just winging it then?”

  “Seems that way.”

  • • •

  We slowly started our approach down the hallway. I led with my gun held out in front of me. We approached each door along the hallway. I checked the corners as I was taught in training. There was no one seen, not even the White House staff.

  “This is not how I planned out spending my day today” Mackey commented as we closed in on the stairs.

  “Welcome to the club sir,” I commented back as we slowly started our approach down the stairs.

  “You got a plan yet?” he asked.

  “I think so.” I said. “But at the same time, none of this makes sense. They knew exactly where you were, at that certain time and best position to shoot from”

  “You are thinking it’s a inside job?” the president asked.

  “I think whoever is behind this, whoever gains from this and whoever was able to get through your security not only has someone on the inside but also may have someone in on the agency itself.”

  Chapter 5

  “Boothe,” Mackey said as we touched down on the first platform of stairs. “What you are saying is impossible, no one on the agency has ever betrayed the president.”

  “Yeah well times have changed,” I replied “Think about that soldier you told me about this morning, Charlie. His mission was rigged from the start.”

  “You have a point,” Mackey said

  “Shh,” I said. “Get down.”

  We crouched down in the corner of platform and watched as two of the invaders walked by the stairs. They wear dressed like their fellow friends before and just like them, they had their rifles across their back. Each one of them were holding the leg of a body and dragging it across the floor, the body belonged to James.

  Neither us said anything as they walked on by, not even noticing us.

  Once they cleared sight of us, we let out sighs of relief.

  Suddenly it hit me.

  “Who else has access to your bunker?” I asked.

  Stumbled by the question the president took a moment before answering.

  “Unless Harold is still here in the building, it should be just me. Everyone else is gone today.”

  “My exact point on earlier,” I said.

  The bunker was a few levels under us, and the stairs ended here. We would need to cross the building on this floor undetected before we reached the private elevator.

  We stepped off of the final step of the stairs and looked to our left where they were dragging James. There was no one in sight besides a blood streak going around a corner in the distance.

  “Come on,” I said. “We can at least try for the bunker.”

  Mackey followed me as we slowly made our way down the hallway.

  We had almost made it to the elevator doors when I noticed a noise coming out of the room to our left. I looked in and saw one of invaders was sitting in a chair watching the tv mounted in the corner of the room. The room he was in was actually the makeshift laundry room, not that much laundry was done here anyways.

  He sat in the chair with this robe halfway on his body, his rifle was propped against the table beside the chair and he was studying the screen.

  I slowly turned back to Mackey and held out my sidearm.

  “You know how to shoot right?” I asked as he gently reached in to take it.

  “I had another job before being president, you know that right?” he asked.

  “Being a bread baker doesn’t count,” I replied.

  “Does owning a pawn store count?”

  “Sure.”

  I pulled a knife from inside my boot leg and held it up.

  “Wait here, I’m going to ask some questions.”

  “You’re going to leave the President of the United States alone, right here in this hallway?” he asked.

  “You’re a big boy,” I replied and made my way into the laundry room.

  Once in I laid eyes on the body in the corner. It was a maid, shot in the chest before laid there to look at the doorway.

  I only ever talked to her once or twice since I have been working here. She didn’t deserve that, no one here did.

  I crept up to the lazy guard and placed my hand around his mouth. Then I proceeded to stab him in the chest with the knife several times. While he was struggling to die, I looked at the TV. He was watching the news. It was an anchor I have seen on TV before a couple times, Bob Crusake was his name. He was standing just outside the gates of the White House and talking to the camera about the hostage situation we were currently in. There was no sound from the tv but I could make out the words enough.

  “The president is unaccounted for, no word from the terrorists or how they got in,” he was saying.

  The police were close enough to the gate but not close enough to the enter. Besides the sniper that was still aiming the front of the White House, there were more of the terrorists in the lawn with their guns in the air and bombs strapped to their chest.

  Just as I was getting comfortable and so was my dead guard in my arms, the TV blacked out and a bomb exploded outside in the distance.

  “Boothe,” I heard a voice behind me. “They’re coming.”

  I turned to see the president had made his way in and was peeking around the corner to his right.

  The two terrorists from earlier who had James’s body mus
t be returning, and they wouldn’t be happy.

  Chapter 6

  After putting my knife back in it’s holster, I picked up the rifle leaned against the table and checked the clip. Luckily it was a full clip, so I engaged the slide and shouldered the weapon.

  “You know how to use one of those?” Mackey asked me.

  “I think so,” I joked back and moved in front of him to the corner he was peeking around.

  I slowly looked around the doorway and saw the two men from earlier walking toward us, they looked to be in deep conversation.

  “How fast can you enter to the code to the elevator?” I asked.

  “It’s four digits and retinal scanner so it shouldn’t take that long”

  “I will buy you time but you will need to make it quick.”

  “You just worry about keeping your president alive son, I will get us in safe”

  “Prick,” I said.

  “That’s a free one,” he said. “Next one will cost you.”

  “Counting on it,” I said and turned the corner to face the approaching terrorists.

  Right as I turned the corner, they spotted me and began yelling in their foreign language while quickly throwing up their rifles.

  “I don’t speak your stupid language,” I yelled at them and opened fire. I managed to hit one in the leg and the shoulder.

  Mackey took his chance and bolted for the elevator door to open it from the panel.

  After hitting one the terrorists, the other one had decided to charge me with his bayonetta.

  I waited for him to get close enough then shot his leg and hit him the face with the stock of my rifle.

  Just as I thought I had won, two more terrorists came down the same stairs we did with two more coming down the hallway from where they took James.

  “Mackey hurry up!” I yelled as I backed to him and kept swapping my sights from either terrorists.

  “I got it,“ Mackey yelled form behind me.

  The doors opened up.

  “Oh god, Boothe! There is blood in here.”

  I didn’t give either of us time to process what the sight of blood in the elevator and neither did the terrorists. When they got close enough, they held up their rifles to fire.

  I felt Mackey grip my shoulders.

  “Get in here son,” he said.

  Just as I was over the threshold, Mackey hit the button on the elevator but the doors wouldn’t close right away and before the terrorists could pull the trigger there was movement in the stairs.

  It was Landstar, he tumbled down the stairs with a bullet wound in his chest. He looked like he went through hell.

  “Go” he coughed out as he held himself on the stair handles and aimed his sidearm the best he could before firing at the back of the terrorists.

  He killed two just as our doors began to close but the other two turned their backs to us and fire on him.

  The last thing was saw was Landstar being peppered with bullets.

  I fell to my knees in the elevator as it began to descend.

  Chapter 7

  “Landstar was a good man,” I heard Mackey say as I just sat there staring the doors, listening to the elevator descend.

  I released my grip on the rifle and let it fall to the floor.

  “So we James and so was Rico,” I replied softly.

  “Sara too.” he added in as he put his hand on my shoulder.

  I finally began to stand up and turn to face him.

  “It was you,” I said “You made that call, that’s why the sniper didn’t shoot you.”

  “Excuse me son?”

  I punched him in the face, I punched the President of United States of America.

  He stood up and faced me, “Now hold on just a damn minute.”

  Mackey swung to punch me but I blocked it punched him back. He fell against the back of the elevator and held his nose for a minute.

  “I am the President of the United goddamn States”

  “And I am Ethan Boothe, telling you right now to come clean. What the hell is going on here?”

  “You got it all wrong son,” he said. “I’m trying to protect my country”

  “By letting in terrorists? By getting good people killed?” I yelled at him.

  Just as the conversation was going somewhere, the elevator stopped and the doors opened up.

  I snatched my pistol from Mackey and stood him up.

  “You got it all wrong Boothe,” he said. He folded his hands behind his head while I forced him to walk ahead.

  “I don’t know what I got right now Samuel,” I said. “Other than the idea something bigger is going on here.”

  “Something bigger is going on,” a voice said within in the bunker.

  I looked over the rails of the small stairs as we began to descend them. Around the corner of the bunker was the meeting room for the president and anyone else he brought down in the bunker with him. The room had three tv monitors on the wall across from the entrance, glass panels around the front and right side entrance. The rest was the concrete wall. Inside this room was a table with various chairs around it. And in one of those chairs was a woman in a desert camo pants, a dress shirt and her hair in a bun. On either side of her was a soldier with masks on that I didn’t recognize. They held rifles in each hand.

  “And who are you?” I asked as I pushed the President one more time right in front of the door to the meeting room.

  “I could ask the same of you,” she said.

  Besides the clothes she was wearing, I noticed the woman had a middle eastern accent like her colleges dead upstairs, though she for sure had more intelligence than them.

  “You must be Queen B,” I said.

  “Come again?” she said as she leaned over to put a briefcase on the table.

  “Bitch,” I said. “You’re queen bitch.”

  The mysterious lady being to laugh the replied, “I like this one Samuel.”

  “Samuel huh?” I asked Mackey as I put the barrel close to his head.

  “I told you son, you have this all wrong.”

  “So Miss Queen,” I said “Who are you?”

  “My name is barely important but it’s Anthea,” she replied as she began to unlock the case and smile back at me.

  “And you must be Boothe, Ethan Boothe” she replied.

  “And you must be the mole or rather know the mole,” I said.

  I looked back at the room behind us, it’s where the president would sleep if he had to be down here longer than a normal period of time.

  “Ethan, do not worry. We are alone, there is no on else in here,” Anthea said.

  I returned my view to her.

  “Move forward,” I told Mackey. “Slowly.”

  Mackey opened the door and I followed him in. We both stood in the front of table, opposite sides of Anthea and her guards. She had the case open in front of her and was studying us.

  “You look nervous Ethan” she said.

  “Not nervous,” I replied. “Just confused.”

  “There is nothing to be confused about, we won is all.”

  She snapped her fingers on the right and her guard standing in that position grabbed the case and slid it toward us. The case had stopped right the end of the table and inside was the killswitch itself, the Nuke Motherboard.

  Chapter 8

  “So this is your endgame?” I asked.

  “Not mine,” Anthea said. “Yours.”

  Anthea had propped her chin on her hands with bent elbows.

  Her guards aimed their rifle at me.

  “Mister President,” Anthea said. “It’s time to hold your end of the deal.”

  “What deal?” I asked.

  Anthea threw her hands down as if he had just been insulted.

  “You didn’t’ tell him Samuel?”

  There was silence among everyone in the room before he finally spoke.

  “The story behind the Packe tragedy is that the mission was a cover up, a false reasoning,” he began to s
ay. “A reason of being there.”

  “What?” I asked, getting louder “For oil?”

  Before he could answer, Anthea stood up and began walking toward us.

  “For power,” Anthea replied to me. “Your government, your military, and hell even your own people. Everyone wants power, so you think you can stick your nose in every situation you see spark up across the world. As if you are the ultimate power and everyone is beneath you.”

  “That’s bullshit,” I replied. “What about 9/11?”

  “Who started the war though Ethan?”

  I didn’t have a response.

  Anthea was finally close enough to Mackey, she pulled out a small gun and put it to his stomach.

  “You will activate the nukes Mister President,” she said as she pulled him close to it.

  “On who?” he asked in a worried tone.

  “Everyone,” replied in his ear she looked up to me.

  “Fuck this,” I said and aimed my sidearm at her, pulling the hammer back.

  Her guards aimed at me and she didn’t move a muscle.

  “Ethan, this isn’t a winnable situation. No matter what you think,” she said.

  “Mackey,” I said. “Are you the reason Rico is dead? Sara? The whole fucking country at this point?”

  Mackey jerked away from Anthea to face me.

  “I am the reason they haven’t killed us yet Ethan,” he replied as he moved a little closer to me. “They want to cause chaos,”

  “Who does sir?” I asked. “And why?”

  “You will see,” Anthea said as she moved in toward Mackey.

  “Fuck this,” I said as I shot Mackey in the chest. His body fell onto me and I quickly adjusted my handgun under his right armpit while gripping him toward me.

  Anthea looked surprised then angry.

  She turned to run toward her guards but I shot her in her pelvis.

  Her guard on the left moved to crawl over the table but I shot him in his left shoulder then in his chest.

  The guard directly in front of us had began to open fire but Mackey soaked up most of the bullets and I finished my clip into the guards chest and fell face first into the floor.

  I released Mackey and let him ragdoll to the floor.