America's Trust (31 page)

“Have we confirmed they are not in the wreckage? Perhaps they were the targets?” asked Jack. None of it made any sense.

“The debris is too unstable. We’ve not been able to gain access as yet.”

“So when?”

“A specialist crew is en-route but it may be tomorrow before they are able to stabilize the building and days for us to sift through the debris and piece together what happened.

“So Butler could be dead or in fact could be continuing his dastardly evil plot to kill me from Baltimore?” asked Jack. He was angry at how incompetent his law enforcement agencies seemed to be.

The FBI director smartly remained quiet and simply nodded.

Jack turned to Kenneth, who had sat quietly throughout the debacle of an update. Kenneth had been relieved that the work done by the Trust to cover their tracks had been successful. A highly skilled computer technician in the Secret Service would be receiving a significant bonus for his work on retro-creating the Tom Butler case into the system, thereby protecting the Trust’s agent who had updated the president the previous day.

“I want Tom Butler’s CIA file on my desk within the hour,” barked Jack to Kenneth. “And when the FBI director here gets his thumb out of his ass and starts finding out what’s really going on, I want two-hourly updates on the situation.”

The FBI director took his leave. The president’s comments to Kenneth left him in no doubt about how the president felt about his handling, or lack thereof, of the Butler situation.

“I’m taking personal charge of this case from now on,” were the director’s parting words.

When the Oval Office door closed behind him, Jack hit his call button and instructed Joan to join them. He dictated a letter to be sent to each and every family of the agents of the Baltimore tragedy.

As she was leaving to type up the letters, Jack’s cell rang.
Unknown number.

“Kenneth, would you mind?” asked Jack, beckoning to the door.

Kenneth did mind, but left as requested.

When the door closed, Jack answered.

“Ilya?”

“Jack, how are you?”

“Tense.”

“Hmm, yes. It is very tense around here too. You’ve certainly not held back on your forces.”

“I never do. Hard and fast,” he replied.

“My generals are worried, Jack,” he countered.

“If everyone can just settle down, there’s nothing to worry about,” Jack said calmly.

“That’s the problem, Jack, you’re unsettling them. They’re beginning to wonder if you guys have planned this all along.”

“What?”
Jack’s temper was flaring at the mere suggestion that he wanted this.

“You know we’re in no position to challenge you. The suggestion we would start a war at this time is ludicrous! You’re stronger than you’ve ever been while we’re weaker than we’ve ever been. They’ve put two and two together and hit five. Nothing else makes sense to them.”

Jack considered the argument. As ridiculous as it sounded, it could make sense if you were struggling to find any alternatives.

“So you’ve not found any internal factions or old guard looking to overthrow you? What about the B2 pilot, surely he’s talked?”

“No and other than his name, rank and serial number nothing.”

“He’s Vietnamese by birth, we thought he may have ties to the KGB through his parents,” said Jack, going out on a limb.

“I’ve been there. His parents were known as CIA collaborators. The KGB had a bounty on their heads.”

Jack began to consider whether his hard and fast approach was about to backfire for the first time ever. If the Russians really were not to blame for the previous incidents and the pilot’s parents were CIA after all, he was beginning to consider a truly scary scenario. It was a faction within the US that was trying to start the war. Jack was an open book. Everyone knew he took no risks and his reaction to the given scenarios would be a massive and overwhelming deployment of forces. He had to stop looking externally and start looking internally.

Beware the Trust
.

Surely not? Even they didn’t have that amount of power and influence. Who was he kidding? They had
exactly
that amount of power and influence.

“Ilya, what can I do to ease things at your end?”

“I don’t think you can. The generals are about to issue a call-up for all reservists to report for duty. We are facing massive forces from the West and the East with the Chinese.”

“Can’t you stop them?”

“Yes, but given their argument, I’d have had to risk exposing the country to being overrun without a fight. I’m afraid a no confidence motion would have had me out of office quicker than you could deploy the other half of your army.”

“How many men are we talking?”

“Approximately three million, all told, between ourselves and our allies,” replied Ilya.

“You know we never asked the Chinese to respond.”

“Jack, we have massive forces mounting on our borders and we have no evidence to suggest it has been as a result of actions from ourselves. We cannot sit back and do nothing.”

“Ilya, I promise you this is not our doing,” said Jack, amazed himself at how quickly the tables had turned. “Please keep this line open, we need to keep talking to save ourselves from whoever is trying to start a war.”

“I believe you, but there’s only so much I can do. We need to keep talking, though. At least nothing more has happened today.”

“Thank God. Talk soon my friend.”

He hit the intercom. “Joan? Get me the head of every intelligence agency we have in the Situation Room, either personally or on video, within the next ten minutes.”

He grabbed Kenneth on the way down to the Situation Room to clear it of whoever was there.

Kenneth listened as Jack updated him. For Kenneth, the news couldn’t be better, but outwardly he shared Jack’s concern. A quick SMS updated Roger that the plan was progressing as scheduled.

They had spent the last hour just driving. Every time Swanson had suggested they stop, Butler had disagreed. They needed distance between themselves and whatever the hell had just happened. The second explosion had rocked the car even more than the first, despite them having been further away. Taking down an FBI building was not the act of people who wanted to stay under the radar. It was the sign of people who felt the radar was no longer an issue. Eventually, they hit the US 40 and headed North, away from Baltimore and Washington.

Butler began to look through the sorely inadequate map left in the car by the rental company. Only the major roads were displayed, along with businesses who deemed it profitable to advertise their location on a map for a rental car that did not require a credit card. There were not many, and certainly not many locations that interested them. One item did stand out, however, and they were approaching the exit for it.

“Take this exit,” he commanded.

“Why, what’s there?” asked Swanson.

“An airport, according to the map.” Butler directed her to the next exit and the road to the airport.

“We’ve got no papers and very little money,” she said as the airport came into view.

“I’m thinking,” he said. “Just drive around the perimeter.”

Another news bulletin was announced on the radio. The destruction of the FBI building had already been announced.
What now
, thought Butler, turning up the volume.

He wished he hadn’t. The news that he and Swanson were wanted in connection with the bombing and the murder of numerous FBI agents was not helpful to their plight.

The airport was useless in any event; it was a joint private military airfield. Small corporate jets shared the facility with Hercules transport planes and AC-10 tank busters. What he wouldn’t have given for one of those. Effectively built around a massive rotary cannon, it was a devastating weapon with two wings. He could fly it up to the Trust and blast the shit out of them. However, he had one slight problem. He couldn’t fly.

“So what now, genius?”

Butler’s mind raced. Their images would be broadcast on every type of media known to man. Police and FBI would have a shoot first, ask questions later attitude. They were, as Swanson so succinctly would put it, fucked.

A sign caught his attention. “Well I can’t drive any of those,” he pointed to the airport. “But I can certainly drive one of those.” He pointed to the marina to their right.

“How the hell are we going to get a boat with a few hundred bucks?” she asked, never mind what they’d do with it anyway.

“Steal it,” replied Butler, analyzing the map on his lap.

“And do what?”

“I’m thinking Cuba,” he replied. “So one of the bigger ones with a cabin.”

“How the fuck is Cuba going to help the situation?”

“The situation is royally fucked. We’re done, we tried. Now turn over there, we’re going to have to lie low until dark.”

Swanson was speechless. She hadn’t gone through everything she had gone through to quit now.

“Those fuckers,” she pointed West towards Camp Trust, “have killed a lot of agents and friends of mine. We ain’t bailing out now!”

“Wake up, Jane,” replied Butler, uncharacteristically using her first name. “It’s over. Every trigger-happy cop and law enforcement officer in this country will shoot us on sight. That’s not even taking into account the forces the Trust have looking for us. We tried our best. I even took the risk of meeting your FBI friend. Look how that went down. There is not a soul on this planet left that we can trust, other than ourselves.”

“But we…” she began but stopped herself. He was right. She turned onto the dirt track as instructed and drove a few hundred yards down the track. The wooded area would give them perfect cover until nightfall.

She stopped the car while Butler tried to work out the distances on the rental map from there to Cuba. The small map of America was only meant as a reference to show where Baltimore was in relation to the Continental United States, not as a navigation chart.

“How far?” she smirked.

“Twelve hundred and fifty, give or take twenty five miles.”

Swanson looked to see if he was bullshitting with such a precise range, but apparently not. She grabbed the map and noted no scale.

“How the hell did you get it to that?” she asked, looking at the map again for a clue.

“Easy. I know Florida is about 400 miles top to toe and that’s my scale. Using that, I reckon on around twelve hundred and fifty miles,” he concluded before winding his seat back and closing his eyes.

“What you doing?”

“We’re not going to sleep tonight, so we may as well do it now.”

“After what happened today, there’s no chance I’ll sleep,” replied Swanson. She didn’t get a response. Butler’s breathing rhythm already told her she was wasting her breath. He was sound asleep.

The silence gave her some time to think, something she hadn’t had much chance to do since arresting Butler. So much had happened since their paths had crossed. So much of what she thought to be true was a lie. The Trust, could it really be what he said it was? Although, given the camp and the FBI Baltimore office, she had little to doubt. Their intentions were a danger to the United States of America. He was right, their lives were in danger. Doing something now would more likely than not get them killed. It was a suicide mission. But she had taken an oath, an oath of office that she would die to uphold.

I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

It just left her with one small problem. How to get Butler on board with her and if not, how she was going to do it alone? First things first, he was right, they needed some sleep. With a resolution to do whatever it took to help her country, her conscience was clear and sleep came easy.

Butler shook her awake. It was dark and the console clock showed 11:30 p.m. She couldn’t believe she had slept so well, for so long, in such a hideous position. Every muscle in her body ached.

They drove the car alongside the fencing that secured the boatyard. Butler went first, jumping onto the hood and then climbing onto the roof of the car. Swanson handed him the two rifles still wrapped in their protective jacket. Butler unwrapped them and used the jacket to create a cover for the barbed wire that topped the fencing. With a rifle over each shoulder he hoisted himself up and over the fence, dropping soundlessly to the other side.