America's Trust (20 page)

“As the president is the only person that can make that call, that would be pretty fucking impossible, wouldn’t it, Frank?!” Kenneth hollered, having completely lost his cool.

Frank shrugged, his orders stood.

“We need to see the president immediately,” came a commanding voice from the end of the corridor. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Rick Holland were striding towards Frank with purpose.

“I’m sorry, sir, but the president instructed me that he wasn’t to be disturbed unless we were at war,” insisted Frank, his resolve wavering slightly.

“We may well be if we don’t get in to see him,’ said the chairman drily, without a hint of irony.

Frank could see from their expressions that it was serious. As far as he was concerned, the chairman’s words were enough to override the president’s order.

“If you’ll just let me get him for you,” he said forcefully. He had heard stories of presidents being interrupted in embarrassing situations. President King had never once before issued a do-not-disturb order. If anyone was going to catch him unawares, it was going to be Frank.

Frank knocked loudly on the bedroom door three times. With no response, he paused slightly before opening the door just enough to let himself in and stop the other three seeing into the room. A quick scan confirmed the bedroom was empty. Frank walked across the bedroom and knocked loudly on the study door before turning the handle.

As he moved the lever, the column began to turn. Three loud knocks had Jack looking wildly around the capsule. Was it about to break apart? It was a good 60 to 100 feet down to the tunnel below, a very long drop.

The column turned slowly, he still had a chance to step out. The knocking stopped.

“Mr. President!”

Jack recognized Frank’s voice from the next door bedroom.

Shit.
The column continued to turn. He tried to move the lever back but it wouldn’t budge. He tried to turn the wheel but it was slowly turning on its own. It seemed the capsule was of one mind - it went down before it came back up. Changing your mind didn’t seem to be an option.

The study door handle began to turn.

President Jack King pulled his stomach in as tightly as he could and launched himself at the gap that wasn’t really there. The column had already turned almost halfway around.

His nose bore the brunt of the tight squeeze and wasn’t going to be an easy injury to explain away. Jack grabbed the handle as he watched the column complete its turn and return to its purely decorative state. The thought of the capsule disappearing down its shaft to the tunnel below suddenly struck Jack. He had lost his escape route. There was no way for him to get it back. The key to the apartment was in the tunnel below hanging on a hook next to the capsule. His trips to the Raven were over.
Shit
, he thought,
this had better be fucking good.

He ripped the door open to greet Frank.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you, but…” began Frank, before noticing Jack’s condition. “Your nose, sir, it’s bleeding!”

Jack barged past Frank and grabbed a tissue from his bedside, placing it painfully against his throbbing nose.

“Well?” he asked, waiting for Frank to explain why he had disturbed him.

“Mr. Lee and--”

“Jesus, can I not get one minute’s peace from that man?!” Jack interrupted and charged towards the corridor. “What
now
, Kenneth?!” he exploded, yanking open the bedroom door.

Three faces stared back at him, a look of sheer horror on each of them.

Jack instantly calmed down. “Shit, what’s happened now?”

“The Russian president has been assassinated by a massive explosion at the Kremlin!” replied Rick.

Jack grabbed the doorframe to steady himself. The likelihood of war had just increased significantly.

“It gets worse. It looks like we may have done it!” added the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, nervously.

He opened his eyes to darkness. The relief of still being able to open them was lessened somewhat by the pounding in his head. What the hell had happened?

“Butler?”

He turned to the voice he recognized as Swanson’s and could just make out her outline in a bed four feet away.

“I think so,” he replied groggily.

“Thank God, I thought he had killed you with that shit!”

“Almost, at least according to my head. Where are we?” He was beginning to come round. Swanson’s outline became more defined, as did the room when his eyes adjusted to the gloominess. A 10 by 12 cell, two single beds, toilet bowl and washbasin. Depending on how long they planned to keep them, it looked like he was about to get a lot more intimate with Swanson, whether he wanted to or not. By the feeling in his bladder, that was going to have to be very soon.

“Not sure, about an hour from D.C., I think. I was blindfolded until they put us in here.”

Butler tried to take his mind off of his more basic need and focus on the situation at hand. It wasn’t going to happen, he needed to pee.

“I’m not sure how to say this but would you mind looking away and covering your ears?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” replied Swanson before a nod from Butler towards the toilet bowl made her understand.

“Ahh, just pee already! For God’s sake!” scoffed Swanson uninterested.

Relieved and slightly embarrassed, Butler returned to the previous events of the day, “So what happened?”

“You mean after you left me for dead in the woods?”

Butler didn’t see any point in antagonizing the situation or starting an argument, so went with the far more simple, “Yes.”

Swanson was, for once, lost for words. What did she expect? It wasn’t like they were partners. Butler’s honesty was somehow refreshing. However, one fact remained: he
had
come back and the look of relief when he had seen her said more than words ever would. He had regretted leaving her behind. She shrugged and carried on.

“
About ten minutes after you left, I heard some footsteps approaching and by that point had managed to get some air into my lungs. I hid and this guy appeared, stalking through the undergrowth. He was obviously one of them, a machete in one hand and pistol in the other. He passed the tree I was hiding behind, and I pounced. He dropped the pistol and we fought over the machete. I managed to knee him as hard as I could in the groin, the machete dropped, I got it and--”

“I saw the blood, I think I have a fair idea,” said Butler.

“When we were fighting, Chan sneaked up and as I was slitting his driver’s throat, he put the gun to my head. We dragged the body back to the car and placed it in the trunk with the other fake FBI dude and then drove to the diner. We cleaned up and he insisted on grabbing a bite to eat. He had gone to the restroom when you drove by.”

“So it wasn’t a set up?” asked a surprised Butler.

“You had gone and there was no reason to think you were coming back. He handcuffed me to the table and took the waitress at gunpoint to the restroom with him. If I’d tried anything he was going to shoot her first and then me.”

“Nasty little bastard,” Butler muttered under his breath.

“He shot her anyway and the cook too, before we left.” Her voice had dropped to a wistful tone. “She told us she had a four-year-old and a two-year-old at home. He just put the gun to her head and killed their mom like she was nothing.”

Butler couldn’t see but knew she was crying. It was one thing seeing a dead criminal or killing someone who would have killed you, and quite another seeing a total innocent being senselessly murdered. He had witnessed it many times in conflict zones where he had been posted. He had taken revenge for many of the innocents and vowed there and then to avenge the young mother who had died at Chan’s hand.

However, the more worrying point, from an operational point of view, was the increase in violence and desperation to deal with anything that may impact their plans. Up until recently, the Trust’s men had remained very firmly under the radar. It once again highlighted that whatever they were planning was going to happen soon, or perhaps, already had.

A loud sniff from Swanson brought Butler back to the moment and Swanson out of her sorrow.

“Anyway, when you came into the diner he put the pistol to your head and injected you with something. Whatever it was, you went down like a sack of potatoes. I honestly thought he had killed you.”

“Probably etorphine. So how long have I been out?”

“It’s just got dark, so it must be about nine-ish now. Etorphine?”

“They use it to knock out large animals. As you witnessed, it works very quickly.” Butler, having regained most of his senses, began to look around the tiny cell. There was a small window eight feet from the floor. Even if he could reach it, it was in no way large enough to squeeze through and had bars in front of it anyway. The door was solid, metal with a small hatch that would allow their captors to look in and pass things to them. Other than that, it was solid brick walls.

“We need to get out of here,” he surmised succinctly.

“No shit, Sherlock,” replied Swanson, her full vigor having returned.

“Shhh!” commanded Butler listening intently.

“Don’t fucking shush me!” replied Swanson indignantly.

Butler shook his head. She was one hotheaded woman. “Listen, please!” he asked politely, desperately trying to hear what was happening outside.

After a few minutes of silence, Swanson became restless, finally her curiosity peaked. “What the fuck are we listening to?”

“Do you not hear that?”

“Helicopters?”

“Yes, but listen more closely and think where you’ve heard it before.”

“Anytime I see a helicopter?”

“No! That exact sound,” he insisted pointing outside. “It’s a bit more muffled because we’re inside.”

“This morning in the park?”

“Exactly.”

Swanson looked at him for more, but it wasn’t forthcoming. “And?”

“The evacuation, if it’s the same as this morning. The government is in the process of moving to secure locations, which means something major is underway.”

“There was some news in the diner about two F-16s being shot down by the Russians in Poland,” said Swanson meekly. She hadn’t brought him fully up to speed with what had been happening during his forced sleep.

Butler digested this new information. “Another Russian angle, but none of that links to anything in my research,” he mused aloud. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Whatever’s happening, we need to get out of here. Tell me exactly what you sensed, heard or felt on the way here.”

Swanson closed her eyes and ran through the events as well as she could remember. Being a senior and very successful investigator with the FBI, that was a significant amount. She would have seen and heard things that others wouldn’t have and that’s how the FBI solved cases.

“That’s impressive,” said Butler, as Swanson finished her commentary. “I’d guess we’re about two miles outside Emmetsburg on the Maryland-Pennsylvania state lines.”

“Holy shit, how the hell--”

“It’s easy, we can still hear the helicopters and I’d say they’re just to the South of us. They’ll be heading to Raven Rock which is North of D.C. The Trust has a massive training facility two miles west of Emmetsburg, which is just Northwest of Raven Rock.”

Swanson thought for a moment or two. “Wait a minute, not one piece of information I gave you was relevant to what you just said.”

“Nope,” he smiled. “But it did tell me one thing.”

“What?” She couldn’t help herself; as much as she didn’t want to ask, she had to know.

“You’re very observant.” He laughed.

“Asshole!”

“I wonder what they did that meant they didn’t need to kill me anymore?” pondered Butler nonchalantly.

“You sound like you’re disappointed,” replied Swanson.

“Just surprised. They couldn’t wait to kill me this morning and now this?” he waved his hands around the cell.

“They still want you dead, they just wanted to check who you’ve spoken to. Difficult to do when you’re out cold.”

Butler sat bolt upright. “Which means they’re still worried about what I know. Which means they can still be stopped. We need to get out of here now!” The urgency had returned to his voice.

“And how exactly are we going to do that?”

“Not by lying on our beds, that’s for sure,” barked Butler, standing on his bed and pulling on the window bars for any sign of movement.

Butler quickly realized the futility of pulling on the bars and climbed off the bed. His eyes scanned the small cell in desperation for inspiration. Swanson watched helplessly. They were in a cell. They were stuck.