Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist (41 page)

The big Sikorsky was fast, especially because it was very light with no passengers and only 1000 lbs. of fuel. The Turbomecca engines were smooth as silk and at 80% torque he was cruising at 160 knots. He followed interstate 64E south toward Richmond and then 95 South to Charleston flying about 50 feet above the highway, following the GPS coordinates which were moving at about 80 mph.

Just south of Fayetteville he spotted a Black Suburban in pursuit of a Burgundy Taurus! The Suburban with its supercharged large block engine was more than a match for the Taurus and smashed it from the rear trying to push the Taurus into a spin. Mary was very adept at keeping control of the vehicle and once frustrated with that technique, Davidson pulled alongside and pushed her towards the guard rails. Jonathan lowered the landing gear on the big chopper and came down with a loud thud on top of the Davidson’s SUV, collapsing the roof on top of him. He thumped it again and again until Davidson lost control and flew off the highway. The SUV rolled several times before it came to a stop. There was no movement inside. Mary slammed on her brakes, screeched to a stop, and pulled to the edge of the road. She was quickly out of the car and scampered down the embankment where the Suburban lay smoldering. She pulled out the Glock and emptied it through the driver’s window and then popped the magazine and adeptly inserted a fresh one.

Jonathan landed the helicopter in the middle of the highway, blocking all lanes and stopping all traffic. He drew his gun, ran to the Mary’s car and saw Carly curled up in the back seat sucking her thumb. He screamed at Mary, motioning her to the helicopter; “Mary drop the gun and come with me. You don’t want it to end like this.”

Mary leaned against the Suburban crying. “I am so sorry, I am so sorry.”

“Mary, please, you need to drop the gun!” “I really didn’t mean for it to happen like this,” she moaned. “He wasn’t supposed to die you know?”

Jonathan didn’t answer.

“Bob was the contingency, if anything went wrong he was to make sure that you were all out of the building. I wish I could go back, my life is all back there. Can you help me go back, Jonathan?”

“All you can do now, Mary, is what is right and the right thing to do is to drop the gun before anyone else gets hurt. It won’t bring Matthew back, but it’s your only chance.”

“But now I’m a murderer. I’ve turned into everything that I hate.”

Jonathan walked toward her.

“Can you forgive me Jonathan? Will you ever love me again?”

Jonathan squeezed his eyes closed, knowing the answer, but unable to say it.

“What about Carly? She knew, she knew all along. She’s smarter than the whole fucking world.”

Carly came running from the car. “Daddy!”

“No Carly, go back…..Carly go back!”

“What are you thinking; do you think that I would kill my other baby, too? I’m not going to kill her, I’m not going to kill you.”

Jonathan charged and grabbed her. The gun fell to the ground. “Are you going to come with me without a fight?” he asked.

Mary nodded.

Jonathan picked up Carly and she nestled into his chest and cooed almost like a chick that had just been returned to the nest.

“You came for me,” Carly said giving him a hug that nearly took away his breath.

“I ran as fast as I could.”

“I squeezed the button and you came.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I was very worried that I would never see you again and that’s why I sent Bruiser with you to bring you back home safe to me.”

“Well he did just that! I think he’s real now….what do you think?”

She nodded and squeezed him again with all her might.

“Do you want to see him?”

Her eyes opened wide as he pulled Bruiser from his pack and handed him to her.

Jonathan buckled Mary into the back seat.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

“We’ll talk later.”

She hung her head, “Kill me, please kill me.”

“We’ll decide on that later.”

I don’t know how I could have been so stupid! I had been duped not once but twice, into sponsoring something that I ultimately hated. Thank God that Carly had enough sense to see through it all. She proved smarter than all the intelligence in this world.

I sat in the back of that helicopter, completely empty, with nothing to say. I no longer felt like a human being. Jonathan landed the S-76 back at Andrews and led me and Carly back to his car. As we drove I explained the entire plan, my involvement, my life at NSA, Islee and how it had gone wrong.

“So the President was never involved?” he asked.

“I don’t know Jonathan. They never told us everything. Honestly, I thought he was but now I’m very confused.”

“I’m guessing that it was all Reed,” answered Jonathan. “He wanted to be king and used all the CIA’s resources to make it happen.”

“Will we ever know for sure?”

“Probably not. And it was you who sent me the computer and programs?”

“I did. After Matthew died, I needed to give you the tools to fight back.”

“And killing Burton and Bob, was that also part of the plan?”

“No, Jonathan you have to believe me, after Matthew died, I didn’t talk to them. At that point I was trying to help you.”

“You could have helped me the most by telling me the truth!”

“I couldn’t, I didn’t know what you’d do. And the words….I was too ashamed to say them.”

“So Burton and Davidson weren’t in your group?”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. Burton was going to hurt you. And whether you believe it or not, I love you. It was getting out of hand. I just knew that they would kill you….and I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you!”

“And Bob?”

“Bob had always been in. He sold his soul to us for gambling debts and women. He was a pathetic son of a bitch. Jonathan, he was the one responsible for making sure that my family was out of that building. And where was he? Knowing Bob he was out screwing his whore. The thought of that fucking son of a bitch makes me sick! He deserved to die. He had one simple job. I couldn’t stand to look at him.”

“And the man in the street was killed just to have a body?”

“Man in the street?”

“Yeah, there was a guy in the street who got killed just before the explosion. It looked so much like Bob that I called him, just to make sure he was okay.”

“I’m sure it was Bob in the coffin,” said Mary.

“Mary, they can make anyone look like anyone! All they need is the same size body. You saw what I did with the street person.”

Mary nodded.

Jonathan sat mesmerized. “So the whole plan was to make me angry enough to turn against my country. Reed wanted the power: to set me up, make me a traitor and then have me take revenge by killing the President and then my certain death. He’d have everything: evidence, motive and no trial. The other pilots would shoot me down, so there would never be any questions. It was a perfect plan and it almost happened. Mary, I squeezed the trigger! Do you know I squeezed the trigger? Thank God I was out of range of the laser finder. You have no idea how close this came to actually happening! What did you think would be the result Mary? What were you hoping to gain?”

“I didn’t know the whole plan.”

“But if you had, would you have gone along with it?”

“After Matthew died, everything changed.”

“But what if he hadn’t died, would you have sacrificed me?”

Mary sat silent.

“For what? You’d have destroyed this great nation, for what?”

“For a chance at starting over.”

“And you just follow them blindly? Reed is nothing but a self serving, egotistical tyrant who would set himself up as king. And that’s what you killed our son and would have killed me for?”

“I see that now, but we never saw him. All we knew was that someone was presenting the means for us to accomplish the plan. We couldn’t have done it without them. Jonathan, you have to believe me, if I could see that bastard now, I’d kill him.”

“There’ll be no more killing. But, you can do better than that. You can testify against him.”

“No one will believe me or you. Remember, right now we’re still wanted fugitives. And God knows that Reed has covered his ass and we’ll never make it to the courtroom. He’ll use every available resource to hunt us down and kill us.”

“You’re forgetting something. Something that Reed didn’t plan. I’m a national hero. I shot down a helicopter over Lexington, Kentucky. There’s film of me on national television, there’s a cockpit voice recording and there’s forensics. I believe the
Washington Post
would love an exclusive story with Tony Dimarco aka Jonathan Anderson the man who prevented a terrorist attack and saved thousands of lives. I also have a recording from Reed’s office, in which he confirms that he sanctioned a helicopter to blow up the gas tanks in Lexington.”

“When did you get that?”

“I visited him just before the flight. That will go perfectly with the exclusive you and Islee are going to give the Post on the largest failed coup in the history of the United States.”

“Jonathan, they’ll arrest us.”

“And you’ll confess and they’ll let me go.”

“They’ll kill me.”

“Mary, you’re already dead.”

Jonathan was right. All that was left for me was to do something to expose the truth, at least as much as I knew. We had all the information from the CIA’s database, my testimony and Jonathan’s recording. It turned out to be enough.

In hindsight, I don’t know why I was so stupid, and so gullible. I now know what the Tao masters meant when they said that every act of violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon itself.

It has taken this horrible experience to realize that answers never come through anger and violence. I nearly ruined a perfect man to bring about an imperfect end, one that would have resulted in a worse rather than a better situation.

My plea bargain and testimony against the others gained life sentences without parole for Islee and me, at the same minimum security prison in North Carolina. They were much more interested in the big fish in the operation than Islee and me. The trial lasted nearly 15 months and William Reed and PD McVay were convicted of treason in a military courtroom and executed 7 months later. The leaders were arrested and have disappeared, certainly executed. I don’t know what happened to the others. My beloved Jonathan and Carly are gone forever from my life. He was reinstated in the CIA and is recognized as the man that saved this country. Except for Islee, the only one who talks to me is Matthew. He reaches his little burnt fingers out to me every day and asks, “Why?”