Exiled Omnibus (14 page)

***

Gallo had almost all of his men in place. He oversaw the preparations personally. There wouldn’t be another embarrassment like the previous battle. This push would be the end of it. He would finally regain the land of his nation. Reestablish the culture that had been stolen and bastardized by the Americans in the Southwest.

Colonel Herrera knocked on the open door. Gallo looked up from his work.

“What is it, Colonel?” Gallo asked.

“General, I apologize for disturbing you, but there’s been a new development in the situation with San Diego. It seems the American ships have joined forces with the aircraft carrier that stayed behind.”

“What?”

“Our scouts have counted five warships in the area now.”

“Are they in international waters?”

“No, they’re only ten miles off the coast of California. They’re blockading the San Diego port.”

Gallo knew that if the Americans had gone back on their deal, it could only be Jones’s doing. He cursed himself for trusting him.

“What are your orders, General?” Herrera asked.

If Gallo attacked a naval ship under the command of a United States officer, it would ignite a war. Hundreds of thousands of men would die. It could break both nations to the point of no recovery.

“If the Americans engage, then we take them down,” Gallo said.

***

A map of South America lay spread out on Jones’s desk. The rivers that flowed through Brazil were spilling over with water. The past decade had seen South America grow richer with an unintended natural resource. Rio de Janeiro had become for the continent what Dubai was for the Middle East. It had hundreds of millions of gallons of water just ripe for the picking. All Jones had to do was go down and take it. There was a knock on the door, and Jones’s chief of staff entered.

“Congressman,” Ken said.

“What is it?” Jones asked.

Jones took in Ken’s frail posture. The old man looked worse than usual. His eyes looked more sullen.

“Captain Ford has commandeered the
USS Ronald Reagan
,” Ken said.

“I know. I fail to see how that’s a situation.”

“He’s refusing to move.”

“What?”

“Gallo’s men are advancing, and he’s standing between them and the San Diego port.”

Jones balled the map of South America up angrily and threw it across the room.

“Get me Gallo on the line immediately.”

***

“You told me that the military had been evacuated and that anyone remaining would be branded a traitor,” Gallo said.

“Ford isn’t deserting. He’s following inspection protocol, which is written in our laws,” Jones replied.

“Well, change the laws. That’s what you have the power to do, isn’t it?”

“I’ll need more time.”

“I’ve already given the order to my men. They’ll be arriving in San Diego shortly, along with my men penetrating Arizona and New Mexico.”

The muscles along Jones’s arm wobbled his wrinkled skin. The weakness of his grip on the phone failed to exemplify the anger coursing through him.

“The president will have no option but to retaliate against you with full force, and if that happens, we both lose our advantage into the south,” Jones said.

“You’re the one who wanted Brazil, Congressman.”

“How long do you think your army will last without water? How long do you expect the country to continue with no water? You’re drying up, General.”

“Goodbye, Congressman.”

A layer of rusty barbed wire rested above the gates of the factory on the edge of the Maryland coast. The factory’s fences were worn, with parts of them completely missing, and massive storage crates littered the property. While some crates were open, most were closed, their contents abandoned long ago.

The only light coming from the building illuminated a dirty office window. Inside, Dr. Carlson was hunched over his desk, going over the designs of his filters. He’d spent the past twenty-four hours resketching everything he’d made. The files he had stored at his home had long been destroyed, and since Jones had removed the copies at the patent office, he’d had to start from scratch.

Even though Dr. Carlson hadn’t had a drink in almost two days, the effects of his abuse over the past several years had taken their toll. He could feel the lag in his thoughts. It took him twice as long to come up with the simple formulas he’d concocted in his prime.

Dr. Carlson dropped the pencil on the desk and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. The papers scattered underneath had massive generators, pipes, and filters drawn on them. Underneath each sketch were the materials needed and the combinations of chemicals that were involved in the purification process.

He’d spent years on this work. The recreations brought back all the sleepless nights and the calculating and recalculating of every mathematical equation, along with the hours he had spent in the lab, ensuring that the water worked through his process was safe and drinkable. But most of all, he remembered those few weeks when his life’s work had been turned into a sideshow.

His face had been plastered on every major news channel, with taglines of “Eccentric” and “Dangerous Doctor” posted right next to his name. Death threats and hate mail arrived at his home daily. Every time he walked down the street, he could feel violent stares. Eventually, he couldn’t go anywhere in public without being harassed. And when the bill that would have allowed his filtration process to become legal and give the citizens of the country all the fresh water they could drink had been voted down, he shut himself off from the rest of the world.

Dr. Carlson looked around his “office.” The paint was peeling off the walls. No A/C blew through the vents. The air was dry and stale. He rubbed his foot along the floor, where it scraped against the dirt and debris that had made its way in from the broken windows.

“Almost like home,” he said to himself.

He pulled out the cell phone that Smith had given him and dialed his number.

“Hello?” Smith asked.

“I’m finished.”

“You’re sure everything’s correct? We’re not going to get a second chance with this.”

“It took me a little longer than usual, but it’ll work.”

Dr. Carlson hung up the phone and looked down at his sketches. He tossed the phone on top and leaned back.

“I’m pretty sure it’s right,” he said to himself.

***

Beth kept her eyes on Smith the entire time he was on the phone. Her body was rigid. She became aware that she wasn’t breathing. When Smith smiled, she exhaled.

“We’re ready,” Smith said.

“I’ll tell Jake to start gathering the materials,” Beth said.

“You didn’t think he could do it, did you?”

“Well, technically he still hasn’t, but with everything that’s riding on this, I’m willing to look at this with a glass-half-full perspective.”

“You’re not going soft on me, are you?”

“Don’t think you’re getting that lucky.”

Beth jolted as Daniel burst into Smith’s office. His tie was undone. His dress shirt was untucked. He wore his jacket awkwardly with half of the collar flipped up. Pieces of hair randomly jutted out from the rest of his carefully styled head.

“You told him?” Daniel asked, his voice cracking and his words breathless and raspy. He limped forward a few steps. He looked as if he had run to Smith’s office all the way from North Carolina.

“Beth, will you excuse us for a moment?” Smith asked.

Beth backed out of the room. The moment she closed the door behind her, she called security.

“Daniel, what happened? Are you all right?” Smith asked.

“You told Jones about what happened in Colombia when you were on the military appropriations committee with me. Why?”

“Daniel, please, sit down.”

“Are you working with him now like you did then? Are you hanging me out to dry? Is this some type of fucking joke?” Daniel yelled, spit flying from his mouth. His face reddened, and random angry spasms caused his arms and legs to jerk.

Smith held out his hands, trying to calm Daniel. “You need to let me explain,” Smith said.

“You know what will happen if Jones lets that information get out? It will ruin me. It will ruin my family.”

“He has no proof. I made sure of that. Everything I told him was purely word of mouth.”

Daniel took a step back. His right hand reached up to his chest. A searing, stabbing pain ripped through him. His body stiffened.

“So it’s true,” Daniel said.

“Yes, but Daniel, you have to let me explain.”

Smith didn’t get the chance. Daniel lunged after Smith, pinning him down against the desk. The monitor, phone, pens, and papers crashed to the floor. Daniel wrapped his hands around Smith’s throat. He squeezed tight.

“I trusted you!” Daniel yelled.

Beth rushed back into Smith’s office at the sound of the commotion. She ran over and tried to peel Daniel off Smith, but he was too strong. Finally, two security officers rushed inside and apprehended Daniel. It took both of them to break Daniel’s grip on Smith’s neck.

Daniel strained against the two guards, resisting as they pulled him away. Smith still lay over the top of the desk, gasping for breath.

“I trusted you! I trusted you!” Daniel’s screams could be heard all the way down the hallway. Even after he was out of the building, Smith could still hear Daniel’s words echoing in the back of his mind.

***

The six-by-eight-foot cell didn’t allow Daniel much space to walk. He could feel the walls closing in on him. He had taken off his tie, jacket, and dress shirt. Sweat drenched his undershirt. He walked around barefoot, trying to let the concrete cool his bare feet. Apparently inmates weren’t treated to the same air-conditioning standards as his peers on Capitol Hill.

Daniel sat down on the lumpy mattress. The springs squeaked from the surprise of his weight, and he leaned back till his head bumped into the wall behind him. Regardless of what happened with Jones, he knew how this would look. He could read the headlines now: “Congressman snaps under pressure from peers and public opinion. Is he fit for office?”

Am I fit for office?
That was something he’d pondered for the two hours he’d been locked in that cell. In his mind he went through all the speeches, votes, and secret meetings. He justified everything he did as trying to help, but for what? Only so he could stay in office? He wasn’t sure if that was a question he wanted answered.

Daniel had joined the political scene roughly ten years ago. He had been working as a defense lawyer when he took on a client charged with kidnapping. The client was a father who had taken his daughter from the mother, who had sole custody, so that the daughter could live with him.

The mother had a lot of money, an inheritance from a grandfather. It was old money. Powerful money. The father, on the other hand, worked as a mechanic making thirty thousand dollars a year. He’d had a history of alcohol abuse way before his daughter was born, but he’d been sober for more than a decade.

Despite the father’s plea to have partial custody, the mother denied him. She didn’t want him to have anything to do with their daughter. The man was heartbroken, bleeding to death. When Daniel met with the father for the initial consultation, the father wept like Daniel had never seen a grown man cry. His eyes were desperate, pleading. Daniel took the case and asked for no compensation.

After three months at trial, Daniel lost the case. He couldn’t compete with the mother’s resources or influence. The father was sentenced to twenty years in prison. He would never forget the rap of the gavel or the wails of the father as the bailiff carried him away.

Daniel appealed the case but was denied. His firm told him that they weren’t going to sink any more of the company’s money into a lost cause. The only reason they’d agreed for him to take the case was because of the publicity, and now that they had lost the case, the only press they received was negative. Daniel quit the firm the following week.

He stayed in touch with the father for a while after the sentencing. He managed to arrange the delivery of letters to his daughter through her school. Daniel had gone to college with one of the teachers, and the teacher agreed to help out once Daniel told him what had happened.

The next couple of months after the trial were a turning point for him. He had gone to law school to make a difference, but the laws that were in place were so constricting, so binding, that he couldn’t do anything. So three months after he quit the law firm, he decided that if he couldn’t make a difference in the courtroom, he’d make it easier for justice to be served through legislation.

Eight months after that, he became the youngest congressman to ever be elected to the twelfth district of North Carolina. He built his platform on telling everyone that he could make a difference. And for the past two tortuous hours, he had been trying to figure out if he had made a difference or if he was now like that father he had tried to help so long ago.

Daniel heard the jingle of keys as the sergeant who had locked him in the cell made his way down the hall, the rhythmic click of his boots becoming louder. Daniel watched as the chubby-faced officer stepped in front of the door.

“Here he is, Congressman,” the sergeant said.

Then the long, slender hand of Jones wrapped around the iron rods of the cell door.

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Jones said.

Jones’s pearly-white smile stretched across the gaps in the coal-black gate that separated Daniel from freedom. Daniel could feel the swirl of emotions storming up inside of him. He had never wanted to hurt someone so badly yet beg for their mercy.

“You made quite a scene today, Daniel,” Jones said.

Daniel didn’t get up from the cot, but he leaned forward to rest his face in his hands. If Jones knew about it, then it wouldn’t be long before the news outlets caught wind of it as well. His career was over. His life was over, and all of it was made worse by the fact that his family would be caught in the crossfire.

“You still have time, Daniel,” Jones said.

“Time for what?”

“To save your career. To save your life.”

Daniel looked up from his hands. Jones’s smile had disappeared, but his grip on the bars remained.

“Smith betrayed you. He gave you up to save his own skin,” Jones said.

Daniel shut his eyes. He shook his head. He knew Jones was playing games with him. This was a power struggle, and right now the scales were tipped generously in his favor. The bed springs squeaked again as Daniel rose from the cot and walked to the back of the cell. He pressed his hands up against the wall, keeping his back to Jones.

“Think of your family, Daniel.”

Daniel’s hands slid down the rough concrete. Of all the cards to play, Daniel had known Jones would pull that one. He walked to the front of the cell to face Jones. When Daniel made it to the cell bars, Jones removed his hands.

“What do you want? You want to know what Smith is doing? You want to know what I’ve been doing?” Daniel asked.

“I already know about Dr. Carlson. I already know about your meetings. All I need is a location where Carlson is working. You give me that, and I can make everything disappear. I can ensure you’re reelected for the next fifteen terms. I can make sure you and your family never want for anything. I can be a powerful friend, Daniel. You know what I can do. Stop fighting me and work with me.”

“Work with you? Work with you to destroy what this country was founded on?”

Jones lunged at the bars. The forceful thud of Jones’s hands hitting the iron gate surprised Daniel. He hadn’t thought Jones’s frail body could produce that much force.

“What this country was founded on was the belief in survival. That’s what I’m doing, Daniel. Ensuring that we survive. Now, I’m sorry that my methods don’t represent the same Boy Scout code that you and Smith carry around, but I can tell you that everything I have ever done has been for this nation. Because, despite you detesting me, I live in this country as well, and my fate is attached to its outcome just as much as yours!” Jones said.

A dribble of spit flew from Jones’s mouth and landed on his chin. He wiped it away hastily with the back of his liver-spotted hands.

“You really believe that everything you’ve done has been for the good of the country?” Daniel asked. “You’re delusional.”

“Don’t go down this road, Daniel. It’s not a journey you’ll survive. You have until tomorrow to give me your answer.”

A few moments after Jones left, the sergeant came back and opened Daniel’s cell.

“You made bail,” the sergeant said.

“Posted by whom?”

“Congressman Jones.”