by Jason Winn
President Gardner gave a subtle bow to the front of the mat and turned to find Cougar offering a slow clap.
“Don’t act like you’re not impressed, Cougar,” said Gardner as he presented the sword to an aide. He took a towel and wiped the sweat from his face.
“You know, Mr. President, a great warrior once said, ‘Ancient weapons and hokey religions are no match for a good blaster at your side.’” He patted Peace Breaker on his hip. A risk the secret service choked down. The president had made this clear, Cougar was allowed to carry at all times, even when in his presence. And who was going to argue with a ninja president?
“I know you’re quoting Star Wars. Go ahead and laugh, but someone seriously suggested we put cultural knowledge on the citizenship tests. Maybe we’ll use that.”
A butler walked up with a tray of drinks, glasses of whiskey and bottled water. Gardner reached for the water.
“First lady is in Portland, sir,” said the butler.
“Oh, shit, I forgot. Thanks, Eddie,” said Gardner. He took the whiskey. Cougar followed suit.
The two walked over to a bench and sat. The grounds of the Mountain White House sprawled in all directions. The two sat for a moment, watching the sun set behind the mountains and sipping their drinks.
“Did your boy make it off Pangaea?” asked Gardner.
“He did, with the assets.”
“Good. France and maybe even the EU is going to owe us big for this one. What about the intel the kids were carrying?”
“There were some issues with that. Let’s just say the French lost their chance at it.”
“What does that mean?”
“We have a copy and theirs was destroyed.”
Gardner sat back in his seat. “They’ll live.” He savored his whiskey. “I’ve been talking with that Virginia rep, Mike George is his name. Were you in that meeting with him where he slammed Bell?”
“I was.”
“I would pay a million dollars to see the look on Bell’s face when that kid tore him apart.”
Cougar wondered where this was going.
Gardner continued. “You know, I talked to George. He makes a lot of sense. I see him moving up in the new America.” Gardner gave Cougar a steady look. “How far are you willing to go with this thing?”
Cougar didn’t hesitate. “All the way.”
“Lincoln had the Maryland legislator locked up, so they couldn’t vote to secede. We’ll never know for sure, but I believe that move may have been a pivotal moment in the Civil War. I’m going to declare the Petty family enemies of the state. We’re going to seize their assets and turn their holdings into public property.” His voice lowered. “But there’s going to be resistance. I’m going to need you to break that resistance. It’s time for another pivotal moment in this country’s history.”
“You want them arrested?”
“No,” said Gardner with an icy tone. “We’ve tried negotiating with the leaders of the Values Party, trying to meet them in the middle, but they’re too far gone. They’re either religiously bent on keeping this country a fundamentalist, whites-only haven, or they’re too busy lining their pockets by selling everything we own to the Russians and the Brazilians. We’ve got too precarious of a beachhead to play nice. Going through the courts will take too much time, and it’ll give them an opportunity to regroup. I want them eliminated. I’ve got a list of people that need to go. You in?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Then get ready.” He downed the rest of his drink and stood up, stretching his wide back. “I know one of their hit teams are responsible for killing Judge Marquez. And I hear tell they’re calling up their militia supporters right now. The chiefs even told me there’s desertions in the military—only a few right now, but they expect more in the coming weeks. So Cougar, old buddy, take your best Blue Shirts and make sure you shoot first, shoot fast, shoot last.”
Two days after returning to Earth, Axel sat in the back of a government drone car, gliding through the DC suburbs. He tried to keep calm, thinking of what he would say to Cougar when he saw him. Had his old friend known the job on Pangaea was a setup? Would he be in hot water for causing the French to lose their intel? He didn’t know. Chances were that Cougar might throw him back into obscurity, to live out his life in a rathole apartment and fixing UN patrol craft until his body gave out. He didn’t want that. The mission had sparked emotions that had lain dominant for years. For the first time in ages, he felt useful, part of something bigger. At fifty-five he still had a few fights left in him.
Smoke billowed from several mansions on either side of the street. Blue Shirts, kitted out in full combat gear, gathered at intersections brandishing assault rifles. They eyed Axel’s car as he passed by. High above, floating billboards advertised income assistance, housing for the homeless, and wanted images for Values Party fugitives.
An armored police van, not unlike the one that had hunted him in the city weeks before, lay on its side as firefighters sprayed it with white foam. A woman on her front porch gesticulated as she argued with a detachment of Blue Shirts on her lawn. Her husband rested on his knees, hands bound behind his back.
A few minutes later the car stopped at an immense brick house. Axel recognized it from a recent documentary. Prosperity of Values was a sickening rundown of how blessed people could become in the eyes of the Petty family if they donated large amounts of money to the party. It seemed this house’s blessings were about to run dry.
Patrol cars ringed the block as officers leaned against them, aiming their weapons toward the three-story mega-mansion. Axel got out and found Cougar giving orders to a young lieutenant. Axel waited for him to send the man away so they could talk.
“Cougar,” said Axel.
His old friend and benefactor turned to look at him with a blank expression. The president’s bag man was still wearing his high roller hat with a three-quarter-length coat and a gun belt hanging from his waist. He gave a jerk of the head and the two men walked away from the phalanx of patrol cars.
“Lionel Bates has a panic room, apparently,” said Cougar.
“Who’s that?” asked Axel.
“He’s was running private reeducation camps for political dissidents out in the Nebraska wastelands.”
“And he was dumb enough to come back to Washington?” Axel wasn’t really that shocked. Most of the Petty sycophants were pretty stupid. Their wealth shielded them from public scrutiny.
“There’s a Mach 12 shuttle buried in a launch bay in the backyard. He was trying to make a run for orbit.”
“No shit. Those things are as big as a city bus. Sure he doesn’t have a tunnel from the panic room?”
“Doesn’t matter. We sent a micro-EMP tunnel drone down a vent shaft. The thing’s systems are fried.”
Once they were a few yards away, Axel lowered his voice. “I’m just going to come out and ask. Did you know that was an ex-filtration on Pangaea?”
Cougar seemed to consider his response. “No.”
There was no hint of surprise, no dismissive laugh, just a word that fell between them like a hunk of granite. “Bullshit,” said Axel. He watched a tiny smile creep across Cougar’s lips. “You do that to me again and we’re though. You understand? Done.” He wanted to grab Cougar by the leather collar and slam him into a patrol car. The rage of being lied to, of being considered expendable, was almost enough to break him. How could his old friend do that to him?
“That’s the way it has to be in the beginning, old buddy,” said Cougar. “We’re hanging on by a thread. If I sent you up there with full knowledge of the situation, and you’d been captured, then what?”
Axel stood there, muscles tense, ready to clock the lying bastard in his jaw. But a little voice of reason told him to hesitate for one moment.
Cougar continued. “We’ve got knives around every corner, even in our own government and beyond. Fucking Herbert Tennent is gunning for us. He’s in with international crime syndicates, here in the
States. Some of them are as large as the megacorps. He’s threatened to go to the UN if he finds evidence that we’re running intel operations off-world. Let that sink in.”
There was a silence as the two men stared at each other.
“Yeah,” said Cougar. “If they were to find that out, we’re done. We go back to peacekeepers here indefinitely.”
Cougar was now almost nose to nose with Axel. “How the fuck do you think we would have the leeway to root these traitors out with those people around? Huh? And remember, they don’t send the courteous, helpful kind for America. They send the dregs, the sadists, the criminally insane—they give them rifles and tanks and say, ‘Keep the troublemaking Yankees in line. Don’t kill too many of them while you’re pillaging what they have left.’ Catch my drift, Nash? You go up to bring back some idiot kids, no one cares. You get caught, by the wrong people, with intel, we’re all fucked. So yeah, I couldn’t risk telling you what you were really doing, because I couldn’t risk you failing and getting interrogated.”
Axel stood stunned. Cougar was right. It was a miracle he’d even made it back. If he or the kids had fallen into the wrong hands, the fragile new government would’ve been crushed.
Cougar smiled and slapped Axel on the shoulder. “But that didn’t happen. I was pretty sure you were going to make it back.”
“But we didn’t bring the intel back. The Chinese held onto it. The French must have been pissed.”
“A bit, but they saw the operation as high risk, so they are only mildly upset.”
Axel furrowed his brow. “Hold on, you were pretty sure I was coming back. How sure?”
“Fifty-one percent sure. Now come on, let’s watch them dig this tick out.”
He led Axel back to the house as concussion grenades rumbled deep within the brick mansion.
Lionel Bates sobbed as the Blue Shirts dragged him through the front door. A media crew appeared from nowhere to document the arrest. The short, flabby man was covered in artificial bronze skin and his long black hair hung in frazzled strands. Purple bruises covered his wrists and neck. He wore a Brazilian marine tactical vest. Axel glanced up to see the image live on the billboards floating above DC.
The young lieutenant Cougar spoke with earlier jogged over to them. “Sir,” he said. “He’s the only one in the house.”
“Why’s he wearing a tactical vest?” Cougar asked, confused.
“He wanted to play soldier with us, sir. We showed him the proper way.”
Cougar laughed at the idea of a fat sixty-year-old trying to shoot it out with the Blue Shirts. “Full flag effort, Lieutenant.”
“Every day, sir.”
The two saluted one another and the young lieutenant jogged back to his men.
“Thank Uncle Sam, that’s the last one for today,” said Cougar. “Most of these houses were Values Party supporters. We’ll be hitting more tomorrow. Oh, and I almost forgot.”
“What?” asked Axel.
“Don’t get too comfortable. You’re being sent to Quantico in the morning.”
“Wait. What? I’ve got to go…” Axel trailed off. He was about to say he had a job down at the marina. But he hadn’t been there in weeks. He didn’t have that job anymore. He didn’t want that job anymore. Pangaea was where he wanted to be, out roaming the planets, getting it done.
“To your job?” asked Cougar. “Yeah, that’s…no. You’re not going back there. You’re what we call key personnel now.”
“I thought Pangaea was a one-time thing.”
“Yeah. No. President has authorized what he calls an extra-planetary paramilitary force. And he needs someone sharp to show them how America conducts special ops off-world. That’d be you.”
Axel couldn’t hide his smile. “Well, all right.”
“Good. A car will pick you up in the morning.”
The last of the Blue Shirts jumped into their cars and started pulling away. Within a few seconds, Axel and Cougar were standing by themselves on the street.
“This new unit got a name?” asked Axel.
“We’re calling them Salvo Company.”
“You part of this?”
“In a way. Gardner wants me to head up the joint forces intel commission, effective as soon as I sort one more thing out.”
Axel wanted to ask, but he knew that Cougar would tell him if he needed to know.
“Wow. So, you’re going to be the new spy chief for a country that can’t have spies.”
“Technically we’re allowed to have them in-country. Off-world…well, that’s where you’re going to come in.”
“I get it. You need an old man who’s expendable.”
Cougar quirked a smile. “I got to run.”
“Hey, hold up there. What happened to Devon?”
“You miss her?” asked Cougar with a devious smile.
“No. Well, yes, kind of. She was nice, for a squib. So, where is she? After we got back to the States, one of your boys picked her up and whisked her off. I figure that was for a debrief. No one debriefed me.”
Cougar smirked. “Still haven’t figured it out yet, have you?”
“What?” Axel asked, flatly.
“She copied the intel and carried it back on her internal systems.”
“Were you able to get into it? The Chinese said it was encrypted.”
“She did. Jean-Baptiste used his gamer tag and his birth year as the password. Not the best password, in my opinion. She figured it out on the way home. Told us she cracked it in about two hours.”
“I’m guessing you’re not going to tell me what it was, are you?”
Cougar’s eyes twinkled. “I was going to make you wait.” He scanned the street to see if anyone was within earshot. They weren’t. “You’re going to be using it, as soon as you get down to Quantico.”
“Okay, what the hell is it?”
“It’s an energy weapon. First of its kind. No more bullets. Works on a new kind of battery and fires supercharged bolts of plasma. Basically a ray gun from old science fiction movies. Rushmore Armory is finalizing a prototype right now. Now go get some rest. I’ve got to get going. Don’t want to be late for my big date.”
Cougar and his team closed in on the spiraling headquarters for the Nashville Crusaders, once known as the Tennessee Titans. An elite group of Blue Shirts was packed alongside him in the cargo hold of old Amazon freight drones, each kitted out in full tactical gear. True military aircraft were still being inventoried and refitted with modern equipment. It would be another few months before the US armed forces could be counted on for anything other than rounding up political dissidents and carting them off to reeducation camps in the Midwest dead zones or prison platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Below, cargo haulers bulging with relief supplies streamed into the city center. The Values Party loyalists had fled, abandoning the civil aid stations that were supposed to provide food and basic needs supplies to all Tennessee residents, not just the “pure” ones.
A voice spoke into Cougar’s earpiece. “Ground team is in position now, sir. We’re thirty seconds out from the rooftop landing site.”
“Good, send the go code for the ground team.”
With the order to move out, fifty Blue Shirts would disembark from cargo haulers just outside the headquarters tower and storm the building, making their way up to the top floor apartments. Anyone brandishing weapons was to be eliminated with extreme prejudice.
A few seconds later, the drones landed on the tower’s south landing pad. The doors flew open and the men flooded out. Wind ripped at Cougar’s long coat, but his hat stayed snug on his head. A shape charge was planted on the door leading down to the building.
Someone shouted, “Fire in the hole!” This was followed by a quick flash and a plume of smoke. The men stormed through the entrance, weapons out. Cougar followed, drawing Peace Breaker from its holster.
Sporadic gunfire echoed through the building. Men shouted. Concussion grenades rumbled, followed by the shattering of g
lass and marble. For the first time, Cougar felt the tide turning for the Gardner administration. Today, a tumor would be removed from the country. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was how the World War II GIs felt when they caught Nazi party members and carted them off to Nuremberg, two hundred and sixty years before. But a different fate awaited the men two floors down.
Gunfire continued for another few moments, before quieting and shouts of “Clear!” echoed throughout the luxurious apartments.
Cougar walked through opulent living spaces, adorned with art that once hung in the National Art Museum in DC and the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York. Works by Degas, Renoir, and Picasso lined the walls. Photos of Herbert Tennent posing with the Petty family sat in silver frames on side tables and above fireplaces. It was all a garish show of culture for a man who presented himself as a spiritual guide to the elites.
Cougar rounded a corner to find Herbert Tennent and Reverend Senator Damon Lawson in the center of a ballroom. Behind them, a sweeping view of Cumberland River Valley. At their feet lay dying Russian bodyguards, the same ones who approached Cougar several weeks ago, aiming guns at him. Blood splatters covered the intricate wood floor and white walls. Blue Shirts stood in a semicircle around Tennent and Lawson, gun smoke still rising from their weapons.
“Everyone all right?” Cougar asked the squad leader.
“Yes, sir,” replied the stern-faced captain. He hadn’t even broken a sweat in the raid.
Cougar made a show of looking around the huge room. “Not one cross or picture of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus.” He shook his head in mock disgust. “After all the sermons and all the show trials on decency, all the purges of the sinners, you don’t even have so much as a worn Bible in this entire place.”
The two men stood silent, their eyes burning with rage.
Cougar continued. “I mean, the name of the team whose headquarters we’re standing in is the Crusaders. Their logo is a fucking cross and you don’t even have a team-signed helmet or anything? I have to say, Herbert, I am disappointed.”
