The Land of the Free (10 page)

In his haste to extricate himself
from the scene of the shooting, John had forgotten Frank, only now remembering
the reason he came to Chicago in the first place.  Either Frank had set him up
and there would be hell to pay, or he was an innocent pawn in which case he was
now in grave danger.  John turned on his GPS monitor and noticed that Frank had
only recently left downtown, heading west on the Eisenhower expressway.  John
followed and thought he was perhaps 10 minutes behind Frank.  Frank left the
highway in Roselle and quickly parked the car in a residential neighborhood with
tall, mature hardwood trees along its streets.  John followed, stopping his
Corolla a block short of Frank’s destination.  Another Corolla of similar age
and color to John’s approached from the other direction and parked in Frank’s
driveway, behind Frank’s car.

A man darted out of the Corolla and
ran to the back of Frank’s house.  John pulled into the nearest driveway and
stepped out of his car.  But an old man with a gray beard walked by with his
dog and bid him a good evening, perhaps with a little bit of a suspicious
look.  John casually waved at the man and mumbled something resembling a “good
evening” while worrying that he just showed himself to a potential witness. 
John started to walk the other way, waiting for the old man to pass out of
sight.  When he was gone, John ran to Frank’s house, hoping he wasn’t too late.

It was getting dark as John ran to
the back of the house where he had seen the man go before him.  The back door
of Frank’s house had been broken in so he tiptoed past it and walked through
the kitchen towards the only room with a light on, which looked like a den. 
Thank
you Mr. Goon, for making it so obvious
he thought to himself, then cringed
at the stupidity of his assumption.  He shrank back to the nearest wall and
backtracked, looking around all corners to make sure nobody was hiding in
ambush, before proceeding towards the den.  He heard a thud coming from the den
followed by a low pitched, aggressive voice demanding “What’s his name?”

There was no answer, only another
thud.  John retreated slowly to the kitchen where he spotted a block of knives
and selected one with a sharp, sturdy blade, then walked gingerly back to the
den, positioning himself to see in.  He saw Frank bound in a chair with duct
tape, bleeding from the temple area, while the visitor stood over him with his
gun and what looked like small branch clippers.  “Tell me his name, asshole, or
I cut off your fingers, one by one,” threatened the visitor.  Frank said
nothing, only looking to the ground with resignation to his fate.  The goon hit
him across the head again, shouting “Tell me his name, asshole!”

John took a half step back, causing
a floorboard to creak.  Everything in the other room came to a stop.  John had
been discovered.  He took several steps back towards the door and hid behind a
corner in the wall, clutching his kitchen knife.  Frank’s attacker followed,
gun drawn. 
Why didn’t I keep that gun?
thought John to himself.

The attacker quickly rounded the
corner, expecting to keep moving in pursuit of John.  Instead, John stopped him
in his tracks with a blow to the face from the large blunt handle of the
knife.  The attacker fell to the ground slightly dazed, but began to raise his
gun in John’s direction.  He never got the chance to fire it.  John plunged the
long blade of the knife into the attacker’s chest, knowing exactly where it
would do the most damage.  The attacker’s hand fell limply to his side and John
took the gun away from him.  “My name is John Corson, asshole,” he told the now
deceased attacker.

The shuffle at the top levels of
the Chinese government and military was eventful, even radical by conservative
Chinese standards.  Several top Generals with a reputation for political savvy
announced their retirements at once.  Promoted into their places were General
Officers with much more aggressive reputations, having come up through the
military culture that viewed China as the world’s rightful dominant power and
America as a belligerent, bankrupt nuisance.  As Torres read further through
the briefing notes, he realized this was exactly what they had feared.  The new
generals got seats at the governing councils.  The military was now represented
at the table with their civilian counterparts who had formerly been their superiors.

Torres knew what this meant, and he
believed that saying the military was “represented” misread the reality.  Just
as the Cobra came to give him his instructions, he inferred that the Chinese
government was now subservient to the military.  It actually seemed like a
smart arrangement, because it gave the military control over the governing
agenda, but without the mundane responsibilities of power which would still
fall to the governing councils.  He would now deal with Beijing on equal terms,
he thought with a trace of
schadenfreude
.  Neither of them was truly in
charge.  It was in this mood of fear combined with amusement that Torres downed
his cup of coffee and took the Derek Ellis memo from Connolly, read it quickly
and wrote, “Keep me informed of any new developments,” at the bottom of the
page.  He thought for a moment then wrote a second note.  “Get a dossier on the
counterparty in the port contract.”

The wheels were now in motion for
Connolly and the CIA.  Connolly would have no choice but to pursue an
investigation of Helsing-Tilbury and eventually hand over the dossier, but how
quickly he did so was a factor of government efficiency.  He would ensure it
was delayed long enough to be irrelevant.  And that would not be too much
longer.

…

Torres convened his Cabinet meeting
and started by asking everyone if they had a chance to read the memo on recent
changes in the Chinese power structure, with the military gaining a measure of
control over the governing process.  Everyone nodded their heads, so he turned
to Morgensen.  “What does State make of the power shift?”

“You pushed back hard on their
demands and the civilian government came up empty.  They lost face, if you
will.  The military stepped in and now they’re the power brokers.  It’s about what
I would have expected, and it looks like the pressure on their regime has been
ratcheted up.  It should start showing cracks soon.”

Torres was livid at the insinuation
that it was
him
who was responsible by pushing back on their demands. 
It
was you who made me do it
he thought to himself.  A world of possible
comments ran through his head, but he could not afford to utter any of them.

“If it doesn’t show cracks really
soon, we’re going to have to adjust to the new reality that we now have a
radical element running the Chinese government, and managing the world’s third
largest nuclear arsenal,” Torres finally said.  “These are no longer
risk-averse diplomats.  The danger of them lashing out at us has gone way up.”

“Then we have to hem them in,” said
Morgensen.  “They need to see that any strike they can dream up will not only
be hopeless, but it will be such an embarrassing failure that it would lead
directly to their downfall.  It’s time to deploy literally every spare asset in
the region.”

“Thanks to the earlier deployments,
we don’t have any spare assets,” said Defense Secretary Tyler Matheson, half
cowering in his seat as he said it.

“Then send over scrap metal!”
demanded Morgensen, in no mood to hear objections.  “We need to show a presence
on the ground.  Send as many troops as we have and equip them with whatever
firearms we have.  I don’t care what it is, so long as they see some functional
hardware in the mix.”

“Mr. President, I cannot support
any further deployments,” objected Matheson, appealing to Torres against
Morgensen’s demand.  “Our reserves are depleted.  Even our National Guard
troops are overseas.  Any disaster here at home and we won’t be able to mount
any kind of response.”

“We have police with SWAT teams. 
That should be enough for anything that comes up,” said Morgensen, while Torres
fidgeted nervously.

Torres weighed the situation and
realized that he had to be seen as taking charge.  Since the Cobra’s stance
would prevail anyway, siding with her would be the easiest way for him to keep
up the appearance of control.  He pulled back his shoulders, raised his chin
and said “Tyler, we’re going to do this.  Make the arrangements and deploy all
our assets in the arena.  Make sure it’s done with only minimal cover so the
Chinese can see what we’re doing.  I want a
Maginot Line
in the Orient. 
Any place the Chinese may want to apply pressure has to have an overabundance
of our forces.  Don’t leave any gaps for them to walk through.”

Turning to Connolly, Torres said,
“Do you have anything on unusual troop movements or the like?”

“The Chinese have picked up the
frequency and scope of their training exercises.  Their forces were already
biased towards the South China Sea, so I don’t want to read too much into their
sending more troops and other assets down there.”

“What sorts of assets?” asked
Torres.

“Aircraft and missiles, mostly,”
said Connolly.  “Anti-ship, anti-aircraft and strategic missiles.”

“Strategic meaning nuclear?” asked
Torres.

“Possibly nuclear,” replied
Connolly.  “They don’t announce which ones are and which ones are not.  But
this has been on our list of assumptions all along, so it doesn’t really
constitute a shift in their tactics.”

“They’re making symbolic gestures
to let us know they don’t agree with our moves” said Morgensen. “That’s why
it’s so important to call their bluff and raise the stakes.  Leave no doubt
about who is the stronger party.”

Torres resigned himself to the
reality that the Cobra would get her way once again.

John Corson stood briefly over the
dead attacker, looking down at the man he had just brutally killed.  He quickly
freed Frank, who rubbed his painful head, before saying, “You came back for
me.  I don’t know how to thank you.”

Corson didn’t seem to acknowledge
Frank.  He returned to look at the body once again then started to shake before
breaking down into a hacking, weeping, involuntary set of lung contractions. 
It seemed to take a minute or so until he could pull himself together.  Frank
handed him a towel which he used to wipe his face.  “I’ve killed two people
today, Frank.  None of this should have happened.  Robbie should still be
alive, as should these guys.”

“I wish that were possible, John,”
said Frank.  “Why did you come back for me?”

“Your other friend tried to kill
me, so I decided that you were either next to be killed or you were in on it
too, in which case I’d have some business to settle.  I’m glad it was the
former, and I’m glad you’re alive,” replied John, regaining his composure.

“I’ll call the cops,” said Frank.

“Hell, no,” snapped John.  “There
are two dead bodies to account for.  We’d be in custody for weeks before things
were straightened out, and whoever was behind this would know everything they
need to about us.”

Frank removed the wallet from the
dead man and with it a printed itinerary for a morning flight to Albany.

“That will be a fake ID,” said
John. “But it might be useful to us yet.”

John removed the fake driver’s
license and credit cards.  He then rolled up the right sleeve of the dead man
and made a contemptuous
pfft
when he saw the now familiar double dagger
tattoo.

“Frank, we don’t have much time,
and you can’t stay here.  Somebody might be waiting to hear from him, and when
the second killer fails to show up, well, you can follow that train of thought
yourself.  Do you know an old man with a gray beard that would be out walking
his dog?”

“That would be Mr. Zelinski.  You
can be sure he’ll tell the cops anything he saw.”

“He saw me, but not too closely. 
And I didn’t say much of anything identifiable.  This guy is younger than me,
but being dead tends you age you, so it’ll be a wash.  We’ll put the body into
his own rental car, which looks a lot like mine, and park it where your Mr.
Zelinski saw me and my car.  He’ll have no problem mixing us up and will decide
this is the man he saw tonight.”

They cleaned the prints off the
knife, put it in the dead attacker’s car, and threw his body in the back seat. 
They cleaned any surface they touched and then John showered, throwing his
blood stained clothes in a garbage bag along with the rest of Frank’s matching
kitchen knife set and the dead man’s wallet.  Frank cleaned the kitchen floor
so it wouldn’t be obvious that blood had been spilled there, should anybody
come looking.

When they finished, they took all
the blood stained rags, the mop head and towels, and threw them in the garbage
bag as well.  They double bagged the garbage, took it outside and put it in the
trunk of John’s rental Corolla.  They parked the dead assailant’s Corolla where
John’s Corolla had been parked when seen by Mr. Zelinsky.  John removed the GPS
tracking device that he had placed on Frank’s car and in little time found a
second device, no doubt placed there by the attacker.

John and Frank drove through
several neighborhoods until they came to one where the garbage cans were out at
the side of the street and found one that was not quite full.  They added their
garbage bag of potential evidence to the household trash of the unsuspecting
family, and made for the motel that John had booked for that night.

They checked in and settled into a
double room.  “Frank, go to the lobby and use the computer there to check in
for the assailant’s flight using his fake ID and confirmation number.”

“But I’m not him.  How will I be
able to get on the plane?” asked Frank.

“Don’t worry about that,” said
John.  “You’re a middle-aged white guy and you’ll be clearing security during
the busiest time of day.  The TSA drone who needs two more cups of coffee won’t
give you a second look, so long as you have some ID to show him and act
grumpy.  They know everyone hates them, so don’t pretend to hide it and you
won’t be suspicious.  I’m guessing Albany is the next stop because it’s an easy
drive to Kingston, which makes me suspect he’s after Robbie’s papers and aims
to look everywhere relevant in his home town.”

John had one more thing to do
before they could call it a night.  He found an idling taxi cab whose driver
had stepped out briefly, and attached the attacker’s GPS transmitter to it.  It
would give any pursuers some fun trying to make sense of Frank’s movements.

“What are you going to do?” asked
Frank.

“I’m flying back to Philly.  I’ll
drive up to Albany and meet you straight away.  I should be there in time to
meet you for dinner, and then we’ll see if we can’t find those papers before
the killers do.”

In the morning, John dropped Frank
at the airport and returned the rental car before catching his own flight.

John was still weary of his
involvement in this whole affair, but it was now tempered by the awareness that
he was no longer safe no matter what he did or didn’t do.