Homefront: The Voice of Freedom (5 page)

Rudy Gomez was a man in his forties. His wife Luisa was probably Walker’s age. They had two children—a boy in high school and a girl a bit younger. Gomez had been out of work for over a year. Walker didn’t know how they got by, but they did. Walker and the family often shared food and supplies. Once he even gave Gomez a five-gallon can of gas to help him out.

Apparently the Gomezes had taken a trip to the supermarket, for Rudy carried a single bag of groceries. The two kids and the wife appeared very downtrodden. Gomez was always glum. Walker
couldn’t blame him. The man lost a lucrative burger joint franchise when the economy went belly up. Just thinking about it made Walker’s mouth water—he had loved those burgers. Hell, he would’ve settled for a Big Mac. Ironically, McDonald’s was one corporation that barely hung in there. They had closed probably 85 percent of their stores worldwide; the few franchises left open were only in big cities and charged a small fortune for a Happy Meal. There was a handful in Los Angeles.

“Hey, Rudy!” Walker called. He waved. “Luisa. How’s it going?”

Gomez just nodded in Walker’s direction. Luisa answered for him. “We’re fine, Ben. We bought some hot dogs—we’ll have you over for a cookout this weekend!”

“That’ll be nice. Let me know what I can bring.”

The kids looked at him as if he was crazy. What could Ben Walker afford to bring? A bottle of mustard?

Walker considered asking Gomez if he wanted to share a drink with him, but then he decided the man looked too forlorn. It would be a downer. The guy had enough problems without Walker plying him with alcohol.

The Gomezes went in their house and Walker rolled his motorcycle in his garage. One thing he’d inherited from his late father was the pleasure of being an amateur mechanic. About the only possessions Walker was proud of were the many tools he owned. He had rebuilt the Spitfire when he was twenty-four and it still worked like a charm. It was fortunate he had stocked up on spare parts years ago, for today he wouldn’t have been able to buy them. Walker was also good friends with Buddy Jenkins, a guy who ran one of the few open service stations
north of Hollywood Boulevard. They had a deal—Jenkins saved a couple of five-gallon cans of gas for Walker with each delivery, and Walker paid him regularly in cash. Hardly anyone used credit cards anymore. The banks simply couldn’t support them.

Could he keep up the gas payments now that he didn’t have a job?

Inside the house, he turned on his computer to check e-mail and switched on the television for background noise. Walker then went to the kitchen, removed the last bottle of Jack Daniels, and poured a glass.

He wondered if it would
really
be the last bottle.

On the way to the living room, he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror that hung on the wall. Walker stopped and stared at the unemployed joker looking back at him. His wavy brown hair always seemed to be too long. Those green eyes the chicks used to love when he was in college betrayed a frustrated, bitter melancholy. At least he had his killer smile.

Right.

   11:00
A.M.
, PST.

Salmusa sat in front of the computer in his house in Van Nuys. Despite the anticipation of the day’s events, he had slept soundly. His wife, Kianna, had not disturbed him when she’d left to go to work that morning. She had a job at a donut shop within walking distance of the house. Koreans ran the bakery and they did a modest business in the weak economy. Everyone still ate donuts, and they were inexpensive.

Salmusa pursed his lips. Kianna wouldn’t have to work much longer.

He looked at his watch and brought up the web browser. Logging in to the encrypted URL with his password, he found his operatives already waiting
for him in the chat room. They were physically stationed all over the United States, one each in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Phoenix, Seattle, and San Francisco. The men were under Salmusa’s direct control. Other sleeper cell agents of the GKR scattered across the nation followed the instructions of different handlers who held the same status as Salmusa.

Well, not quite.

Salmusa was privileged with a special rank in the echelon of Korean spies in America. He was the only one who had direct access to the Brilliant Comrade. In fact, he was the only one of the agents who reported to Kim Jong-un personally. Salmusa looked forward to their communication later that day. He missed his childhood friend. It had been too many years since Salmusa had seen him.

The man once known as Yi Dae-Hyun shook his head in amazement when he considered how ignorant and unsuspecting the Americans were. The sleeper agents lived in the U.S. for years under the government’s very nose, and no one thought anything of it. Ever since America washed her hands of the problems in the Middle East, Islamic terrorists left her alone. After time passed there was no need for the government to pour money into the anti-terrorist groups as they had in the past. The NSA downsized considerably. The CIA was in tatters. The FBI was a joke. By retreating into a state of isolationism, America left herself vulnerable. With the military reduced to a bare minimum, the power grid weakening, the social structure frayed, and the population hurting—it was the perfect time to strike.

Typing in Korean, Salmusa issued last-minute instructions to his operatives. At this point, it really didn’t matter if they were caught performing their
final task. They all knew going into it that arrest or death were possibilities. But if all went well, he and his comrades would soon be rejoined with their people.

On American turf.

“Dae-Hyun? What are you doing?”

Salmusa stiffened. Kianna had returned from her job early!

She stood behind him. “I thought you had to go to work today.”

Kianna had insisted that they always speak English. After all, they were Americans. Well,
she
was.

Salmusa felt only the slightest touch of remorse as he spoke in Korean, “I
am
working, Kianna. Today is the most important day of my job.”

She was confused by his switch in language.

“Darling? Is something wrong? What’s that on your computer? Who are you talking to?”

Salmusa quietly opened the desk drawer in front of him and removed the Daewoo 9mm K5 semi-automatic. It was already equipped with a suppressor. He held the pistol close to his chest out of her view.

“Dae-Hyun? I asked a question. What are you doing?”

Salmusa took a breath and answered, “Preparing for the new dawn.”

He then turned and calmly shot his wife in the chest.

The suppressor silenced the gunshot well enough. Surely no one outside the house heard it.

Salmusa stood and stepped over to his wife’s body. Although blood spread across her blouse, she was still alive. Kianna looked up at him in surprise and shock.

He pointed the gun at her forehead and said, in Korean, “I never loved you.”

The Greater Korean Republic’s most senior sleeper cell agent in America squeezed the trigger again, pleased that he didn’t have to use the M9 knife he kept strapped to his calf.

It was time to commence Execution Phase One.

JANUARY 15, 2025

I did it, just like I said I would. I quit my fucking job. Now I can sit down with my bottle of Jack and get drunk with no remorse
.

Actually I feel pretty weird about it. Was I crazy? I don’t know
.

Hey, the old Ben Walker gut told me to do it, so I did. Sometimes the gut is right, and sometimes it isn’t, but it’s
my
gut and I usually listen to it
.

Saw the Gomezes outside just a while ago. Ouch. Rudy didn’t look too good. He’s had a lot of shit happen to him, so I guess I can’t blame him acting like Death. The only things missing were a black cloak and a scythe. Luisa and the kids seemed okay, though. Or else they’re just good actors
.

Hell, in the words of everyone else in the country … “Who gives a shit?
”

Let’s see, as I look at my digital clock in the kitchen, I see it’s early afternoon. What else could possibly go wrong today?

Time for a drink. Or two
.

JANUARY 15, 2025

3:45
P.M.
, PST.

Salmusa parked his Hyundai near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. Making sure the car was properly locked, he swiped the Meter-Card in the appropriate box. Even though in a few hours it wouldn’t matter, Salmusa always made it a point to obey the city’s traffic and parking laws. It had become a habit, simply because he never wanted to call attention to himself throughout his years of residency.

Walking to the boulevard, Salmusa carried a silver metal briefcase containing a package that had been delivered to him from Pyongyang. It had come through Ready-Electrics, the Korean electronics firm for which he worked when he was undercover. Similar briefcases were distributed to his operatives around the country. Salmusa felt confident his men were, at that moment, also carrying the cases to their targets.

He wanted to sneer at how easy it was to smuggle the C-4 explosives into the country. Salmusa had spent several months researching the efficiency of America’s security operations and had determined that they were at an all-time low. After the RDX—cyclotrimethylene trintramine, the explosive ingredient
in C-4—was combined with the binder and plasticizer, his company made several trial runs by transporting harmless electronic components in ordinary shipping containers across the Pacific. C-4 could be molded and shaped into any crevice or hole, so hiding the stuff inside electronic consoles was perfect. When the C-4 finally arrived, no one at the Port of Los Angeles examined the cargo. The manifests indicated there was nothing inside but parts, cellphones, the new holographic television sets (intended for those wealthy enough to afford them), video game machines, and other home entertainment odds and ends. The bombs inside the briefcases were assembled at Ready-Electrics and one was tested in the Mojave Desert just a month earlier. Salmusa was there to witness it.

It blew a hole in the ground the size of a strip mall parking lot.

In Salmusa’s jacket pocket was a cellphone that acted as a remote control transmitter. An old-fashioned method, to be sure, but effective. All he had to do was punch the correct numbers and the timer inside the case would start.

He walked west on Hollywood Boulevard, wincing at the grime and filth that surrounded him. The city’s smell had certainly grown worse since the cuts in utility services. Salmusa didn’t doubt the reports that Hollywood had become rat-infested. There was enough garbage on the streets to feed all the rodents in China.

He smiled at the thought—
pretty soon rats would be the dominant species in America
.

The Los Angeles Metro Rail services had deteriorated exponentially with the failing economy. Nevertheless, thousands of citizens still rode the trains daily. The Red Line, the oldest subway in LA,
was a decrepit, often dangerous piece of junk, and Salmusa almost had to force himself to go down the steps at Hollywood and Highland to board. He grimaced as he observed how rundown and puny it was, especially compared to the clean and modern rail lines that now existed in Korea. Every surface was covered with graffiti. Bills that called for a revolution against the government, generated by radical groups, were glued on the walls. Product advertisements were obscenely vandalized. More homeless people camped on the platforms, begging more affluent waiting passengers for money or food. One hapless musician who played a violin surprisingly well was ignored, his tip cup empty.

A person took his life into his own hands riding the LA subway, and that was during daylight. Salmusa could only imagine what horrors lurked down there at night.

After dutifully paying the fare—an outrageous $9.50 for a single ride—Salmusa stood on the platform for the train heading back in the direction from which he’d walked. He waited only a few minutes before it screeched into the station. It was packed full of passengers, all looking harried, uncomfortable, and miserable.

Good.

He glanced at his watch. It was four o’clock on the dot.

Everything was going according to plan.

Salmusa stood at the open doors as a few people shoved their way off the train, and then he calmly boarded.

The car smelled of body odor, urine, and cheap perfume. Disgusting.

As the train pulled away from the station, Salmusa
set the briefcase on the floor and leaned it against the side of the car. He pushed it back with his foot, out of the way. There were so many people in the train that no one noticed.

He purposely avoided looking any passengers in the eye, but he could see who they were. Men and women, commuting to or from work. Some mothers with children. Teenagers—probably gang members—trying to look tough. And the usual allotment of homeless souls who had nothing better to do than ride the trains back and forth between stations.

Salmusa thought—
soon they’ll be free of their agony
.

It didn’t take long for the train to reach the Hollywood and Vine station. Salmusa allowed himself to be pushed out of the car with the exiting throng. Once on the platform, he made his way to the staircase and ascended to the street. As soon as he was outside, he removed the cellphone from his pocket and dialed the number he had memorized. Salmusa then held the phone to his ear, pretended to talk, and walked toward his car. Just another ordinary citizen.

Before the Red Line train reached the next station at Hollywood and Western, Salmusa heard the muffled, but distinctly devastating boom underground. The sidewalk shook as if another minor earthquake had hit Southern California. Pedestrians reacted to the noise, but they were clueless as to its origin. Salmusa stood by his car and waited to see what kind of pandemonium would erupt as soon as the news of what happened reached the street. For fun, he watched the seconds tick by on his watch. It took exactly twenty-five of them before black, billowy smoke gushed from the Hollywood and Vine subway entrance. This was quickly followed by people running and screaming from the station.