Eddy's Current (51 page)

Briggs was agitated, but he suppressed his agitation. He didn’t want to show any disrespect to those in his “Trusted” category. He would have preferred to blast Hall’s back full of holes, but it was not to be, even though he felt that was all that Hall deserved. Eddy, Daniella and all other citizens of the category disagreed with Briggs. He would yield to their consensus. Besides, Eddy and Daniella were watching his every move now. He couldn’t bare the thought of them seeing him shoot a man in the back. His eyes welled with tears as he thought of them watching him, waiting patiently to see if he would do what was right.

Briggs returned his Smith & Wesson to its holster, ran full speed, lunged at the man with all his force, slammed him into the wall, wrestled him to the ground, face down, turned him over, and saw blood gushing from the stomach of a man who was not Dante Hall. It was Frederic Hernandez. Hernandez held a loaded gun in his hand that he had not even pointed at Briggs during the chase. He sheepishly handed it over to Briggs. Hall had shot him, he said. He was going into shock; he was losing consciousness.

Briggs’ body suddenly lurched back violently, then thrust forward as he felt a bullet rip through him from behind. He turned in agony, and saw Hall, out of the corner of his eye, flee down the corridor. Hall then darted into a side door of a small office building, made his way through a maze of offices and walked out of the opposite side of the building and onto the streets of Houston.

Hernandez was dying fast. Briggs’ back was bleeding where Hall’s bullet entered his body, his chest was bleeding where it exited, and he was hemorrhaging in between. Hernandez reached down into his pants, while still struggling with Briggs, and awkwardly pulled out his other handgun. He fumbled with it momentarily, causing Briggs to panic. Hernandez reached out his hand, clutching the gun at first, then opening his hand, offering the gun to Briggs. “Please get me into the presence of more witnesses,” Hernandez begged, inexplicably, “as many USFIA agents as possible. Please hurry. I have something I need to say.”

Briggs picked up Hernandez, lumbered out from behind the building, onto the street, and collapsed into the backseat of the waiting car. The car sped away and headed directly back to the remote office of the USFIA. The passenger in the front seat turned to face Briggs. It was River. Briggs pulled out his pocket digital recorder, turned it on to record, and he and River listened carefully as Hernandez spoke.

“I wanted redemption,” Hernandez whispered between gasps of air. “I was in on Eddy’s fate and the kidnaping of the twins. I was the one who set the bomb in Crimpton. I fabricated the Pakistani Resistance Force story, and I gave the second missing suitcase bomb to the terrorists in Medina. I wanted to be forgiven, though. I wanted to help. I helped, Briggs. I helped. In the end I did. I did. I’m the one who sent the recording of Peterson’s September 10 meeting to Warwick so you all would know. Please tell everyone that I did what I could to make things right. Please tell God for me. I don’t want others to hate me, and I don’t want God to be mad at me. Do you think He’ll forgive me, Briggs? Please tell Him. Please tell Him.”

Hernandez reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny audio recording storage device. “Here’s a complete recording of all of your plans for today’s mission. I recorded each of your planning meetings. I could have stopped you at any time by giving my recordings to Peterson, but I wanted to help. I wanted to be redeemed. I wanted to make it all right. All that I did. All that I did. I wanted to make it right. Please tell me I did enough. Please,” Hernandez pleaded.

“Who was involved? Who were you working for? Who planned everything?” Briggs asked, “Quickly. Tell me quickly. We’re both running out of time. We both could die any second now.”

“Peterson and Hall planned everything directly. They planned it all from the beginning. Hall must have sensed that I wanted to try to make some of it right. That’s why he came after me,” a dying Hernandez said in response.

“What about the guys in Medina? You supplied the bomb, but were they your boys entirely? Or were they an unrelated group of terrorists?” Briggs asked on a hunch.

“It was a setup. Yes, they were terrorists, but they were setup and fully funded by Peterson. We wanted them to be blamed for everything so Peterson could then step in and take over—you know, be the hero. He wanted to create carnage, total anarchy. He planned to then save the whole world. It would appear that he had to step in and make everything right. That’s why he got revenge against River. River and al Qatari caused the entire thing to go wrong. The bomb was supposed to go off in Pakistan, just as planned. It would have worked. It would have worked.”

“What about James Winston?” Briggs asked. “On top of all this other crap I’ve had to put up with from you guys, I’ve still got an SUV crash investigation to close out. What happened to James? Why him?”

“Antonio Bronson ordered the hit. He’s a close personal friend of Peterson. He sensed early that Peterson would take over, so he joined in early on. Bronson stood to lose nine hundred twenty million dollars he had invested in Style & Shores stock. With Style & Shores the way it was, that stock was worth twelve billion dollars. If Winston had sung, Bronson wouldn’t have even gotten his original nine hundred twenty million investment, much less the twelve billion. He would have ended up with nothing. Peterson approved the hit on James. He and Bronson are tight. Bronson gave Peterson millions throughout the years to finance his rise to power.”

Hernandez was in his last few seconds of life.

“Eddy and the twins?” Briggs asked. “Who planned the details?”

“I did that. Beginning to end. I did that, Briggs. What a horror for my soul!”

Upon hearing that, River lunged at Hernandez, grabbed him around the neck, fully intending to take even his last few seconds of life from him. Briggs pulled his Smith & Wesson, stuck it in River’s belly and said, “I can’t let you do it. He’s dying. He has a right to die in peace. You’re above that. He’s trying to make amends. We have to respect that.” River backed off. Briggs returned his gun to its holster as River curled up in the corner and buried his head in his knees.

“Here’s the lock code and alarm code needed to access the area, rooms and jail cell where the president and vice president are being held. You guys have got to get them out now. You’re out of time.”

River had one question for Hernandez that had been gnawing away at him for over five years: “Who killed Bob Mitchell?”

“I set it up. I had him killed in Peterson’s office.”

“Bob Mitchell was killed in Italy,” River insisted.

“No he was not killed in Italy; he died while investigating Peterson. I know for sure. I had him killed.”

“Ordered by?” River asked.

“Direct orders from the Governing Council. I took those orders directly from them. I was a good soldier, Warwick. He died in Peterson’s office, not in Italy.”

“Who actually took him out?”

“A hit man by the name of Ronald Tate. Doesn’t matter anyway. Tate’s dead. He died mysteriously a few days after Mitchell, an apparent suicide. I’m warning both of you that you’re next. They’ll get you both. Please be very careful.”

Hernandez suddenly stopped whispering, stopped moving, stopped breathing, slumped off to the side, and was gone.

River grabbed Hernandez by his shirt and began to shake him as he yelled, “You didn’t tell us where they are! Where are they in the building? Where are they in the building? Where’s the president?”

Briggs answered, “They’re on the sixteenth floor,” as he calmly pulled River off to the side to comfort him. “Relax, River; I know where the president and vice president are. They’re locked inside a vault on the sixteenth floor. Right now you’ve got to get me to the hospital. I’m dying. I can feel myself fading. I’m out of time. I have to see a doctor. You and al Qatari can take it from here.”

River dropped Briggs off at the hospital a few blocks from the Peterson Building. He planned to return to the Peterson Building to see if he could help the remaining USFIA agents. Briggs checked his Smith & Wesson on the way to the hospital. All seven rounds were still in the chamber. Eddy and Daniella smiled.

River called al Qatari on his cell phone and told him where Barnes and Carr were. “Can you come help me?” al Qatari asked.

“Not likely. You heard Albert’s clear instructions to me. I can’t get involved at your location.”

“I’m ordering you to get down here now. I’ll answer to Albert. Get down here and help me. I need you here. I am your superior, and I’m ordering you to get here as fast as you can.”

“I thought you might order me there. Remember, you have to answer to Albert. He won’t be happy. You have to have me there anyway. I have the keys and security code to get you into the room where Barnes and Carr are located. They’re in a vault on the sixteenth floor. Let’s just hope that Albert is in a good mood today. I’ll see you in about two minutes. Meet me on the sixteenth floor.”

Briggs survived a lengthy operation for Hall’s gunshot wound to his back, though he would endure many months of slow and painful rehabilitation.

Dante Hall escaped, his whereabouts unknown.

Without informing anyone of his plans, al Qatari reentered the building and went to the otherwise nondescript office on the sixteenth floor. There he encountered four agents who were guarding the vault door behind which Barnes and Carr were being held. All four agents were American, but at first al Qatari didn’t know that. All four had sold their souls to Peterson when they came to the point of understanding that he was likely to take over.

A full fourteen minutes had elapsed since the operation began. The group was running out of time. Al Qatari had only seconds to get Barnes and Carr. The remaining members of the group were gone. The U.S. Army was scheduled to take over the entire building, using whatever force was necessary to do so. The Army had no idea that Barnes and Carr were in the building. Al Qatari feared that they would accidently kill or injure Barnes and Carr while taking over the building. He had decided that he would stay behind to capture Barnes and Carr himself, but he needed help. River had decided not to show? Maybe. Al Qatari was alone.

Or so he thought.

Al Qatari looked up and saw an old friend standing in front of him, a friend who was plenty capable of helping him, a friend he had first met in, of all places, Medina, Saudi Arabia.

River had decided that he would, indeed, be involved in today’s operation after all. He had followed his friend into the building. Just like the old days in Medina, the two of them had only each other. And, just like in Medina, they had only precious few moments to accomplish an impossible task.

The four agents drew their guns and pointed them at al Qatari and River. Drawing on his training at The Sentinel, River began a conversation with them.

“What do you have to gain by doing this? Peterson is gone. He’s on his way to a secret location and is soon to be a footnote. You guys don’t really want to be known as the four who caused the deaths of Barnes and Carr, do you?” River asked.

The six of them could see on the security monitors that the Army was encountering heavy resistance from the U.N. Leader Protection Agency. The top fifteen stories of the building were completely engulfed in flames from the fire caused by the helicopter. The Army commanders decided to start another fire on the lower floors to drive out all remaining agents in the building. River noticed that one of the agents guarding Barnes and Carr was a former FBI agent from Virginia. The others spoke English in such a way that River could reasonably presume that they, too, were American.

“Listen to me. Look at me. We can help you. You’re good people, right? You served previously in the FBI or CIA or in some other security agency, right? Help us, and we’ll help you. Do you have families? Help us, and you’ll get to tell your kids that you saved the president and vice president. You’ll also get to tell prosecutors the same thing. We’ll testify on your behalf. Please listen to me. I’m trying to reason with you.”

Al Qatari spoke up, “Here are the only two choices you have. 1. Stay here and die in this inferno; 2. Release Barnes and Carr, and help us get them down to the street and safely back to the USFIA. It’s just not any more complicated than that. Listen to me, friends; please, please. You’ve got to do the right thing for yourselves. There is no reason to try to keep up this delusion any longer. It’s over. Peterson no longer matters.”

One of the agents raised his gun so that the end of the barrel was pointed directly at River’s head. He began to squeeze the trigger. Two of the other agents lowered their guns, dropped them on the floor, walked over to the desk and sat down. The agent released the pressure from his gun’s trigger, lowered the gun, and motioned to River to go to the door. River opened the vault door, then proceeded inside and unlocked the jail cell door. Out walked President Barnes and Vice President Carr.

River reached down, picked up the guns, and returned them to the agents who had dropped them. Al Qatari instructed River and the four agents to surround Barnes and Carr, and keep them surrounded, no matter what. They entered the stairwell as a group, and proceeded down the stairs. The Army had ignited the fire on the lowest floors. Time was running out fast. The stairwells were filling with smoke. The group was hustling down flight after flight, when, suddenly an exit door flew open and a group of Army soldiers stormed toward them. Al Qatari ordered them to stop. They refused. He raised his hands into the air. They took aim at him. One of the young soldiers recognized Barnes, and screamed out, “It’s Barnes. It’s Barnes! The president is with them!”

Other soldiers also recognized Barnes and Carr. Al Qatari instructed the entire group to surround Barnes and Carr, and then proceed down the stairs. When the group got to the stairwell on the fourth floor, the exit door to the stairwell swung open and several U.N. Leader Protection Agency agents rushed in and fired repeatedly at the group. Several soldiers were hit. One of the four agents who had been guarding Barnes and Carr was killed. The soldiers returned fire and killed the U.N. Leader Protection agents.