Firepower, John Cutter [best summer reads .txt] 📗

The guy’s been slandering me, calling me a paranoid drug addict!”

“What!”

“Yeah and I don’t even smoke pot. And he’s never met me! The guy has to be with the Brethren. So between him and Dawson I don’t know who I can trust at the Bureau right now. I could call the D.C. police…”

“Got to,” Vince said, nodding. “There’s risks in doing that, but it’s got to be done. Call the D.C. cops and tell them what’s going to happen at the Lincoln Memorial tomorrow.”

“Suppose you’ve discouraged Gustafson to the point where he’s called the attack off?”

“Let’s hope so. But I doubt it.”

“Yeah, Gustafson made a point of being able to make it happen no matter what. And he’s organized it in a way that he can seem to be detached from the whole thing. They can commit mass murder — and it can seem like he had nothing to do with it…”

*

Shaun Adler sat nervously in the chair in Mr. Ostrovsky’s house in the mountains of West Virginia, waiting for them to bring him the suicide vest. It was well after midnight, and the wind was rattling the wooden shutters over the windows.

He looked at the window, wondering if he could escape that way. It looked like it was painted shut. Could he smash the glass and escape? But there were sentries around the house.

He had watched the route nervously as they drove up into the mountains of West Virginia. He wanted to know where he was so he could find his way to help — if he could slip away from the house.

They’d caught him walking up the road, away from Wolf Base. He’d been heading for the highway, the night before, planning to duck into the bushes, and then the Humvee rolled up, and he heard the General’s voice. “Mac, get that deserter in this vehicle. See that he’s disarmed.”

Colls had directed him at gunpoint to get in the back of the Humvee between him and Buster Sedge. Buster, a heavy-set man with a thick, curly black beard, had been one of Gustafson’s students before the General had been kicked out of the university. Buster was the one to say it first, as they drove toward the highway. “Maybe he can be the one to wear the vest since we’ve lost the other guy…”

Now he sat waiting in a chilly little bedroom in the back of the enormous gray-stone house. It smelled of mildew; there was a painting on the wall so faded he couldn’t make out what the image was. Gustafson referred to the big country house as his “Black Forest retreat”.

Gustafson was here somewhere, upstairs, monitoring the set-up for Operation Firepower. Shaun had heard enough discussion in the Humvee to guess that Firepower would be happening in D.C. And he was to be a decoy for it.

Greeting them at the door, Pieter Ostrovsky, a cadaverous old Russian in a fine Italian suit, had said, “Gentlemen, welcome to the most comfortable safe-house in North America…” Along with Colls and Buster, there were six Brethren from the West Virginia chapter here, too, as protection for Gustafson.

Now Shaun heard footsteps creaking in the hall, and the door opened. Mac Colls came in with Polly Sulevich. She was a Shield Maiden, about forty years old, for a West Virginia chapter of the Brethren.

Polly had some straight pins pinched in her lips, and the vest, without the explosives in it, draped over a forearm. In her other hand was a little sewing bag. She was a chipmunk-cheeked little woman with bright red lipstick and flaxen hair up in a bun on her head. The suicide vest was khaki colored, had started life as an ammunition vest for hunters.

They’d assured Shaun that it wouldn’t have real explosives in it when the time came. But he knew they were lying. Because they’d reassured him too many times. And because he’d stopped trusting them anyway. He had seen Gustafson’s willingness to throw away the lives of his men.

“Stand up and put your arms up for the measurement,” Colls said gruffly.

Shaun did as he was told. “I wasn’t deserting, Sarge,” Shaun said, hoping he was lying convincingly. “I was just taking a breather… saw a couple of friends of mine blown up by that RPG round and I just…”

“You sure as fuck were deserting,” Colls said. “Now shut up and cooperate so you can make up for it.”

He stood up, and Colls went to sit on the bed and opened a cell phone.

God if I could get hold of a cell phone, Shaun thought, as he went to Polly down by the dresser. He knew Vince’s phone number…

“Canville? Colls,” Mac said, talking on the phone. “Is everyone in place in Alexandria? Yeah? And so what?”

Polly spoke to Shaun chirpily as she fitted him for the suicide vest. “You are such a brave young man,” she said in her thick Ukrainian accent. “To go to pull the wool over the police, yes? I admire you so much! Stand still please… we must make this tight to you, so it does not stand out so much under your jacket... Now — turn around…

Shaun turned around and just stood there, arms up, as she tugged the vest closer around him, and he wondered if Vince Bellator was still alive. It didn’t seem likely.

There was a small dresser in front of him, and on it was the little sewing bag. And in the sewing were little spindles and needles and a pack of cigarettes with a lighter stuck in its cellophane and… a cell phone. He stared at the phone. Then looked quickly away.

He could hear Mac talking on the other phone. “Yes… well, you’ll get your briefing. You know the drill: stand down but stand by…”

Mac was sitting on the bed, talking — didn’t sound like he was looking