Authors: Arthur Bradley
Without even thinking about it, he walked over to the altar and toppled the candelabra. Flames licked the wooden crucifix, and within seconds, it was ablaze. When he turned back around, a man with a scruffy beard and a woman wearing a Hokies sweatshirt were standing in the doorway. They hurried into the church, screaming for him to stop.
Holding the shotgun at waist level, Tanner shot them both. Blood sprayed onto the walls as buckshot ripped into them. All of it combined—the blood, the huge pentagram, and the heat of the burning inverted crucifix—made him feel like he was standing at the gates of Hell, striking down demons as they tried to cross over.
He pulled three rounds from the bandolier and shoved them into the weapon. Stepping over the bodies, he moved out into the street. He was in a killing mood, and God help anyone who got in his way.
From the edge of the trees, Samantha saw the burned-out school up ahead. Whether the fire had been intentional or accidental, she couldn’t tell. However it had happened, it had done a number on the building. The roof was almost completely missing, only the scorched rafters remaining.
She ducked down and rushed across the open grassy field. She had to cross in front of two small brick houses, but fortunately, neither appeared to be occupied. She continued on past the long gymnasium. The building was made of sheet metal, and the paint had blistered from the heat of the fire. One of the basketball goals still hung from the ceiling, its rim charred and black.
She made her way around to the back of the school and entered through a burned-out doorway. The inside of the building had been gutted by the fire, and the burnt smell was nearly overpowering. What remained of the walls was covered with thick black soot. The ceiling was completely missing in most places, and every window had burst from the intense heat. Fortunately, the floor was set on concrete and seemed safe enough to walk across.
She stepped carefully around nails, broken desks, and parts of the collapsing structure. A badly burned body lay in one corner, curled up, like the person was trying to hide from the fire. Samantha bent down and picked up the partially burned cover of a book.
Charlotte’s Web
. She smiled, remembering the story of a pig and a spider that became the best of friends.
Her mind turned to Tanner. She grinned. Surely he was the pig.
She gently put the cover back down and continued picking her way through the school. She came to a classroom that hadn’t been as badly burned as the rest of the building. Small desks were still arranged in neat rows, facing a melted pull-down projector screen. She moved to one of the chairs and sat, expecting it to comfort her. Strangely, it felt only small and confining.
Samantha ran her hands along the top of the desk, wondering if she’d ever go to school again. She liked school. Liked learning. It was something she was good at. But like Tanner had said, studying pilgrims, long division, and igneous rocks didn’t seem so important anymore.
Things were different now. She and Tanner were living in a different world, at least until she got back to her mother. She closed her eyes and imagined her mom’s face. It was still clear in her mind. She missed her mom’s smile, her soft kiss at night. Tanner would never do that. Well, probably not.
What would her mom think of him? She covered a smile and started to giggle. The giggle turned into a warm laugh, which was cut short by the sound of gunshots in the distance.
Tanner walked west on Fairground Street, heading toward the house behind which Samantha had disappeared. Fifty or sixty yards ahead, three men emerged from the tree line. One carried a rifle, and the other two had handguns. Samantha was not with them.
Tanner stopped, brought the shotgun to his shoulder and fired. The nine double-aught pellets spread about four feet apart, peppering the man holding the rifle and winging the man to his right. Both men fell to the ground. The third man brought up a small semi-automatic handgun and began to fire wildly in Tanner’s direction. Nothing even came close to hitting him.
Tanner fired again, knocking the man off his feet. He continued toward them, feeding fresh rounds into the belly of the shotgun. The man who had been winged was still alive and fumbling with bloody fingers to get a revolver out of its holster.
“Hands!” yelled Tanner, pointing the massive shotgun barrel at him.
The man raised his bloody hands into the air.
“Don’t shoot me,” he begged, blood seeping out from his neck and shoulder.
“Where’s the girl?”
“She got away.” He motioned with his head toward the trees. “In there.” The man caught sight of a plume of gray smoke rising up from behind the courthouse. “You’re burning our church!”
“I may burn the whole goddamn town.”
The man reached for his pistol, surely knowing that he would never get to it in time.
Tanner shot him in the chest, and he bounced nearly a foot off the ground.
When he was satisfied that all three men were dead, Tanner bent over and searched their bodies. The first man had a bolt-action deer rifle. Unfortunately, the stock had been split in two by a couple of double-aught pellets. The second man carried a Kahr PM9, a quality pistol that was two sizes too small for Tanner’s hands. He took it anyway, shoving it into his back pocket. He could find no spare magazines or ammunition for the weapon. The final man had a Ruger Bearcat .22 single-action revolver. Another small gun, this one built for younger shooters. He took it too with the notion of passing it on to Samantha. A quick search of the man’s pockets revealed an unopened box of fifty .22LR rounds. They would come in handy.
He did a quick count of those either dead or out of the fight. Six in the courthouse, if he counted Moe, who was presumably still sitting tight, one outside the church, two inside, and now, three more at the tree line. That made twelve. Lands had said the entire town was down to thirty-seven people.
He nodded, pressing his lips together. Twenty-five more to go.
Samantha stood next to the burned-out window sill, watching as a faded red Chevrolet pickup pulled up in front of the school. Tanner was sitting in the driver’s seat. She wheeled around and raced out of the building, rushing toward him. He stepped from the truck, leaving the engine running and the door open. She jumped up and hugged him, and he held her in the air for a moment before lowering her to the ground.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked.
“No. But they wanted to.”
“What went wrong with our plan?”
“A woman saw me almost as soon as I left the courthouse.”
“So much for your ninja training.”
She grinned. “At least they didn’t catch me. I ran so fast. You should’ve seen me.” She raised her arms up like she was sprinting.
“You did good, Sam,” he said with a broad, warm smile.
She looked up into his eyes.
“Did you kill them all?”
“No.”
“Good,” she said softly.
“Why good? They’re the vilest people to ever walk the Earth.”
“Maybe so, but my mom always said I should walk away from a fight whenever possible.”
He nodded again. “She’s right. We should both walk away anytime we can.”
“And when we can’t?”
“When we can’t, we’ll make damn sure they don’t walk away.”
CHAPTER
13
President Glass stared at the paper, still uncertain why General Carr had felt it important enough to request a private meeting in the dilapidated conference room. It was a simple bill of lading, showing a shipment originating from the naval station in Everett, Washington, and delivered to the one in Norfolk, Virginia. The bill of lading was dated October 24, 1969, and the payload was described as a shipping container with contents weighing 6,431 pounds.
“I don’t get it,” she said, flipping the paper over to see if anything was written on the back. “What am I looking at?”
General Carr’s voice was even and firm.
“It’s a clue, Madam President.”
“All right, but a clue to what?”
“If I’m right, that bill shows someone taking possession of the bombs, before they were even declared missing.”
“In 1969?”
He nodded.
“What makes you so sure it’s the bombs?” she asked.
“Look at the note the receiving officer made when it was inspected.”
She studied the page. In the corner was a small indiscriminate note. Only four words were scribbled.
Twelve crates marked Weteye.
“What in the world is a Weteye?”
“Weteye was the military’s nickname for the Mk-116 bomb.”
She rubbed her fingers across the aged ink as if trying to divine what the receiving officer had seen that day so many years ago.
“This is really it? You’ve found them?”
“I found how and where they first arrived. That’s all.”
She looked at the signature at the bottom of the page. Delivery was accepted by a Lieutenant Pete Vickers.
“Do you think Lieutenant Vickers is the one who bombed the law enforcement center?”
“No.”
“Why not? He apparently took possession of the bombs. He could have—”
“The lieutenant died four days after signing that paper.”
“Four days? How?”
“Apparently, he jumped to his death from his high-rise apartment.”
She looked at him with doubt in her eyes.
“That sounds more like someone tying up a loose end.”
“I agree.”
She slid her fingers down to touch the page where Vickers’ signature had been penned.
“Who was he, this Vickers fellow?”
“A career sailor. Solid by all accounts.” Carr brought out a large folder and put it on the table. A color photo of a man with short red hair was clipped to the front.
“You got his personnel file?”
He nodded. “Thumb through it. See if anything stands out.”
She opened it up. Inside were the usual military papers: enlistment information, duty stations, assignments, training, qualifications, insurance policies, promotions, and awards. A few pages had black marks on them where a permanent marker had been used to blot out information.
“Part of his file is redacted?”
“Yes, but why? Look at what’s missing.”
She read a page of orders that contained several of the black marks. Vickers assignment and a description of his duties were both redacted. The duty station and dates of service, however, were not.
USS John F. Kennedy
,
7 September 1968 – 28 October 1969.
“He was aboard Big John when it was first commissioned?”
The general smiled. “You know your ships.”
“You forget my father was a commander. He talked about the
John F. Kennedy
with great admiration.”
“Did he also mention that the ship briefly carried more than one hundred chemical weapons?”
She looked up at him, startled.
“It did?”
“When the vessel was first commissioned, a special holding area was set up to house chemical and biological weapons. Their existence was highly classified, and even the sailors onboard had no idea what they were carrying.”
“The captain would have known. A captain is required to know every square inch of his vessel. My father did teach me that.”
“I agree.”
“So, he knew?”
“He did.”
“And who commanded the aircraft carrier in ’69?”
“Captain Frank Monroe. Classified documents show that he was the one who first reported the twelve bombs missing. But that didn’t occur until 1970, when the remaining payload was being transferred to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado. In his report, he mentions a young lieutenant assigned to safeguard and monitor the weapons while they were onboard the vessel, young man who fell to his death while away on leave.”
“Vickers?”
The general nodded.
President Glass set the personnel file on the desk.
“That means Lieutenant Vickers stole the bombs.”
“It would seem so.”
“But why?”
“I think the better question is for whom,” he said.
“You think he was acting as a middleman.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. I think someone got to him.”
“Got to him? As in bribed?”
“Not exactly. Two weeks before Vickers signed that paper, his four-year-old daughter was taken from a playground a block from his home.”
“My God,” President Glass said, covering her mouth.
“Her older sister saw the whole thing happen. She told police that two well-dressed men with short haircuts took the little girl.”
“And was she ever found?”
“The day after Vickers took the swan dive, his daughter was discovered playing unattended in a McDonald’s jungle gym, nearly fifty miles away.”
“They let her go?”
“Thankfully, yes.”
The president picked up the folder and stared at the man’s face.
“They forced Vickers to steal the weapons, and then they murdered him for his troubles.”
“That, or maybe they had him kill himself to save his daughter.”
“And could the little girl tell the authorities anything?”
He shrugged. “I can’t say for sure. I wasn’t able to get the files detailing the investigation. But I do know that no arrests were ever made.”
“In other words, they got away with it.”
“It would seem so.”
She set the file back down.
“While this is all fascinating, it doesn’t get us any closer to the people who killed the marshals at Glynco.”
General Carr looked over his shoulder to make sure that the conference room door was securely closed.
“What?” she asked. “What do you know?”
He slid his chair around to the side of the table and leaned in. Since her husband’s passing, President Glass was unaccustomed to having someone so close to her. It felt private. Intimate even. And it was not entirely unwelcome. She had always drawn strength from Carr’s presence.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
“Lieutenant Vickers had unique access to the bombs. Probably less than a handful of people in the country could have done what he did.”
“And?”
“And very few people knew what his mission really was. Officially, no one on the
USS John F. Kennedy
, other than Captain Monroe, knew about it.”
“Unless the captain was in on it, someone else had to know.”
“Exactly. Not only know, but they had to have a way to get to him.”
“And to watch him to make sure he did as instructed,” she added.
“That’s right.”
“Okay, so Vickers or Monroe must have told the wrong person.”
General Carr smiled and held up a finger.
“Now, we’re getting to the interesting part. According to Captain Monroe, the entire time Vickers was onboard the carrier, he had only one close friend.”
“Who?”
“Another young lieutenant, a man who Monroe described as a charismatic officer destined to lead men.”
She tilted her head.
“Who?”
He leaned in so close that she could feel his breath on her ear.
“Lieutenant Lincoln Pike.”
President Glass went deathly still. They sat motionless for several seconds, neither of them saying anything. Finally, she turned and looked in his eyes.
“What are you saying?” she whispered.
“Madam President, you know what I know,” he said, dodging the question.
“General, what are you saying?” she repeated.
He leaned back and stared at the folder, his confidence shaken by the directness of her question.
“I... I don’t know anything for sure.”
This time she leaned toward him, and he could smell the perfume that she dabbed on her neck every morning.
“Please, Kent,” she whispered, realizing that it was the first time she had ever called him by his first name, “I don’t care what you know. Tell me what you think.”
He looked at her, their faces only a few inches apart.
“I think he’s involved.”
“But why would he do something like that? Steal the bombs all those years ago—use them now to kill hundreds of law enforcement officers. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Don’t you see? He wants to undermine you, your presidency.”
“No,” she said. “Lincoln can be a pain in the ass, but surely he’s not capable of this.”
“What about your daughter?”
President Glass felt her throat seize up at the mere mention of her missing child.
“What about her?”
General Carr reached out and took her hands in his own. It was a breach of personal space that could not be justified or later explained away. A line had been crossed.
“Samantha was going to be taken just like Lieutenant Vickers’ daughter.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “What happened to Samantha was an accident.”
“Was it? Are you sure?”
She stared at him, waiting for him to say more.
“Madam President, things just don’t add up.”
“What kind of things?” She felt her heart pounding. Could Lincoln really be behind her daughter’s disappearance? Was it even possible?
“Think about it,” he said. “What are the odds that a UH-60, checked just prior to takeoff, would abruptly crash while flying less than four hundred miles over friendly airspace? And if it was a malfunction, why didn’t the operator put out a distress call? Furthermore, why was Samantha reported dead by site inspectors?”
“The wreckage was burned. It could have been a mistake.”
General Carr shook his head.
“I don’t buy it. Remember, General Hood was running the recovery operation, and he’s one of Pike’s men. You know that. They wanted you to think she was dead. Hell, they might have been trying to kill her from the very beginning.”
Tears started to well at the corners of her eyes.
“Why would they do something like that?”
“Leverage, Madam President.”
She wiped a tear from her cheek but immediately returned her hand to his.
“Do you think General Hood or some of his people have her?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I think things went wrong. Somehow, she got away. And now she’s in the wind, causing them all kinds of grief.”
She tightened her grip on General Carr’s hands.
“That’s my Samantha,” she choked, swallowing hard. “But if you’re right about this—”
“If I’m right, you’re in danger. You can’t afford to trust anyone. Not anyone.”
She reached up and touched the side of his face.
“I trust you.”
He smiled. “Thank you, Madam President. I would do anything for you. I hope you know that.”
She nodded. “What are we going to do now?”
“You’re going to lie low. Keep your head down, and don’t let anyone know that you suspect something.”
“And what will you do?”
His jaw tensed, and his eyes hardened.
“I’m going to see how deep this thing goes.”
CHAPTER
14
“This isn’t over yet,” Mason said, thinking out loud as he poured water into one hand and used it to wash the fur around Bowie’s mouth.
The dog looked up at him and blinked, obviously enjoying the attention.
Mason poured some of the water into a bowl and set it down beside him. Bowie immediately began slurping it up, drinking for nearly a full minute without stopping. With Bowie taken care of, Mason soaked a couple of rags and used them to clean himself up. When he finished, he felt a couple of years younger, not to mention a whole lot cleaner.
He opened a package of beef jerky and tossed a piece to Bowie. He pulled out another for himself and chewed on it, considering his next move. If Nakai was to be believed, and Mason had no reason to think otherwise, General Hood was the one who had orchestrated the attack on Glynco. For that, he would have to be held accountable.
Mason’s first step would be to do some digging. He needed to find out as much as possible about the man. Who was General Hood? Why would he have ordered the murder of hundreds of lawmen? And why was he working to undermine the country’s recovery by arming a violent militia in Lexington?