Medora Wars (31 page)

The men of the brotherhood sat in a circle around the hostages and began a song. Three of the men hummed low, setting a baseline as several others joined in with higher alto notes. They sang no lyrics, but mixed the various pitches of humming into a soft harmony that echoed from the walls. Elise would’ve thought the humming relaxing if she weren’t lying several feet from a nuclear warhead. The men continued their song for nearly an hour as the hostages lay quietly.

“The Sirr truly picked the finest men,” Atash whispered to Malik. “They go to die with peace in their hearts.”

“Atash, it has been an hour,” Malik said. “I don’t think he is going to come.”

“I need no reminder about the time,” Atash said as he walked toward the group who was clustered around the warhead. “My brothers, the time has come.”

The men looked up at him and smiled as the hostages yelled out. Elise remained quiet, watching Atash as he approached the warhead. Her eyes moved from one terrorist to the next, surveying how close they kept their weapons. Unable to find the right moment, she clenched the box cutter next to her body and waited.

Atash knelt in front of the wooden crate and smiled. “It’s time for us to awaken from this slumber,” he said as he typed into the keypad of the warhead.

Chapter Twenty Eight: Medora, North Dakota

“Larry… what’re you doing?” Mayberry stepped away from Rambert, who only inched forward with his gun, as Mayberry moved away.

“If you try to leave this room, I will shoot you in the face.” Rambert held the gun outstretched and steady in one hand. “I told you to sit down.” Rambert said with a beet-red face.

“Okay, okay, just don’t…” Mayberry laughed. “What the hell is this?” He kept his palms out and up as he sat down on a tall lab stool.

“Take off your clothes.”

“Yeah, I get it, just hang on.” He said meekly as he removed his coat jacket and started unbuttoning his white, collared shirt. “Just talk to me, what is this all about?”

“We’re going to have a chat,” Rambert said as he finally backed off from Mayberry and stood against a counter. “We have a few things to talk about.”

“I’m happy to talk, Larry,” Mayberry said as he took off his undershirt, revealing his bare chest.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot.” He kept the gun pointed at Mayberry as he stood ten feet away. “Take off your pants and underwear. I need to see all of your skin.”

“I know the drill, Larry. I’ve done this a thousand times to people. Just give me a second.” Mayberry stripped off his pants and boxers and stood completely nude with his hands away from his body. “No surveillance devices, see? Happy now?”

“Yes.”

“Can I at least put my underwear back on?”

“Go ahead.” Rambert motioned with his gun while Mayberry now sat back on the stool in only his underwear.

“So… you brought me all the way up to Medora, North Dakota, so you could get me naked?” He gave a sincere laugh. “Larry, I know you’re stressed and paranoid, but please, come on…” Mayberry stopped himself for a moment and looked at him with wide eyes. “Wait a minute, what is going on here exactly? Are you scared of me, or should I be scared of you?”

Rambert stared silently at him for several moments. “Who…” He stopped to clear his throat. “What are you?”

“What am I?” he laughed. “Shit, Larry, it is freezing in here, can I at least put my shirt back on?”

“Where did you come from?”

“Born and raised in D.C., you know that.” He slowly motioned to his shirt. “May I?”

“No, just stay where you are.”

“Okay, okay,” he crossed his arms over his bare chest and waited. “Talk to me, Larry.” His face had relaxed, no longer showing through with the slight reflection of rage that Rambert thought he had just earlier observed.

“You are curious, aren’t you? You want to know what I’m up to,” Rambert said.

“Yeah, I’m a little curious why the President of the United States brought me to a deserted city to put a gun in my face, and ask me where I’m from.”

“But you didn’t always live in D.C., isn’t that right?”

“Well, no, I mean yes, my permanent residence is in D.C., but I have lived abroad for a couple years here or there.”

“You lived in Turkey, Jerusalem, Brazil, Hong Kong, London, Madrid… Bangladesh, Baghdad… Kabul for a total span of over ten years.”

“Yeah, Larry, you don’t become an expert on terrorist insurgency without leaving D.C. every now and then. You actually left out about half a dozen more cities but nice work memorizing some of my personnel file.”

“You never had a family?”

“No kids, but I was happily divorced once in nineteen seventy-nine.”

“How long have you worked in the government?”

“Don’t you know all of this?”

“I want to hear it from you. How long have you worked in the government?”

“Oh,” he exhaled through puffed cheeks, “since I was like fifteen, when I ran for class president.”

“How long?”

“Upper government? Thirty years, I’ve been with the CIA for eighteen of those years and was made director eight years ago. You know all of this.”

“You ran for Governor of Maryland once.”

“Twice, actually. Lost both times.” He rubbed his bare arms. “Looks like you didn’t do enough homework.”

“Where were your parents born?”

“Dad from Sherman Oaks, California, and my mom was from Salt Lake City, Utah.”

“What did they do for a living?”

“My dad was a philosophy professor at George Washington, my mom was a homemaker. I was an only child.” Mayberry paused for a minute.“I know what you’re doing,” he said while rhythmically patting his hand on the counter. “And you’re really bad at it.”

“What am I doing?”

“You think I’m in the brotherhood of the Sirr.”

“Yes, I do.”

“If I were actually in the brotherhood, do you think that I would suddenly reveal it while you’re asking me what my parents did for a living? Come on, Larry. I’ve been in the CIA a long time. You’d have to do much better than this to get one of these nut-jobs to crack.” He reached over and grabbed his shirt from the counter. “Let’s get out of here and go take care of the more pertinent situation of actual members of the brotherhood seizing our warheads.”

“Put your shirt down. I’m not done.” Rambert motioned with his gun that he kept pointed at Mayberry.

“I’m telling you, you’re really bad at this. For one thing, don’t start off putting a gun in my face, and asking me about where I grew up. You’ve got to be relaxed, like you don’t care one way or another what I’m going to say. You should also know that some of the biggest psychos out there have absolutely no past history that would portend their terroristic behavior. They just fall out of the sky… like a beautiful snowflake.” He wiggled his fingers in the air. “Where did the idea come to you that I could be involved with the Sirr anyway?”

“Give me your phone.”

Mayberry took his cell phone from his pants pocket, placed it on the ground, and kicked it over to him. “Here you go.”

“What’s the passcode?” Rambert asked, picking it off the dusty tile.

“Five-nine-three-one.”

Rambert punched in the code and opened the screen looking for texts and emails, but discovered that besides telling time, the phone was completely blank. “Why don’t you have any text messages or emails on your phone?”

“My phone automatically wipes itself every time I turn it off. You do recall that I’m the director of the CIA, right? I wouldn’t possibly keep any data whatsoever on my person at any time.”

“How do you keep track of all the contact information for your field agents?”

Mayberry taped on his forehead. “It’s all up here. Every name, every address, every number. They can steal it off my computer or phone, but no one can hack my brain.”

Rambert sighed and put the phone down.

“Look, if it makes you feel any better, I constantly rule out every person I know in the government from being in the Sirr. I ask myself everyday if you’re involved.” Mayberry said.

“Me?” Rambert asked.

“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t make sure the President wasn’t part of the most destructive, ubiquitous terrorist organization that has ever existed. You’re actually one of the first people I thought of since the Sirr seems to have every blueprint to every plan we’ve ever come up with. But don’t worry. I know you’re not involved if it makes you feel any better, although you’re kind of having me doubt that with a gun in my face.”

“How can you be so sure of me?”

“Well…” He let out a sigh.

“What?”

“I watch and monitor pretty much everything you do. Even more so than we normally do.”

“Apparently, not close enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because you don’t know the specific reason why I’ve been suspicious of you.” Rambert said, lowering his gun toward the floor.

“You mean, besides general paranoia?”

“I got a call a few weeks ago.”

“I was wondering why you asked me all those questions about someone being able to contact the President directly. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it was about you. It was the same day that almost our entire Navy was ambushed in Venezuela.”

“Yeah, I remember the incident,” he said with bitterness.

“It was an unknown caller from an unknown place.”

“And what did this person say?”

“He just told me that you could be involved. He said there was no way the Sirr could direct the brotherhood without knowing exactly what the CIA director knows. The man knew you.”

“Yeah, well, I got the same exact call about you.”

“From who?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“You have the world’s most sophisticated surveillance at your fingertips and you don’t know who called you?” Rambert scoffed.

“Yeah, that’s right, because I didn’t really give a shit. We get calls like that all the time about everyone. I am impressed, however, that he was able to reach just the President, undetected inside our base at Eau Claire. Did he give any identifying information at all?”

“Yes, that he was in the brotherhood of the Sirr.”

Mayberry sighed with frustration. “Oh… and did you think for a moment that this was just another attempt by the Sirr to manipulate us? You trusted this individual’s information so much to the point that you didn’t tell me about it? You thought it was such a slam dunk that you stole me away to fucking Medora to put a gun in my face and just ignore all the terrorists that are storming our nuclear arms cache at this very moment?” Mayberry stood up and started yelling. “Did you consider that you are just a tiny little pawn to them, and you’re doing exactly what they wanted you to do by creating dissent between us!”

Rambert paused and sighed. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Son of a bitch, Larry, let’s get out of here.” Mayberry went to grab his shirt but Rambert stopped him.

“Hang on, I didn’t tell you to get dressed yet.” He maintained the gun on him.

“And why the hell not?”

“Convince me you’re not involved.”

Mayberry squinted his eyes at him. “What are you not telling me?”

“Nothing.”

“No, there is definitely something else you’re not telling me. You’re a pretty shrewd guy, and you wouldn’t be up here playing these games with me and wasting all this time if you didn’t have something else up your sleeve.”

“Convince me you’re not involved and we can go.”

“Larry, I’m not the Sirr.”

“I never said you were the Sirr. I only said you were involved with the brotherhood.”

“Oh fuck off, you know what I mean, don’t play some stupid mind game with me. You’re not going to trap me in my words, because I have nothing to hide.”

Rambert waited.

“I agree that there is someone very close among us that is feeding information to the brotherhood. I still suspect Dr. Stark. It has to be someone very close to us given how much he or she knows about everything that we do, before we even do it. They’re down in Nebraska right now, killing our soldiers at a classified base. They didn’t just stumble on it. Someone obviously told them where it is.”

“Dr. Stark has no idea where we put all the warheads. He doesn’t even know we moved them.”

“That still doesn’t rule him out. They are going to get their hands on one of those bombs soon, and I am… baffled that you are still here pointing that gun at me.”

“You said it yourself, they can’t detonate the bombs without the codes.”

“Well, that’s true. However, some of our warheads can possibly detonate by impact.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“In our arsenal, we still have older warheads that can reach critical mass from a chain reaction caused by sheer impact alone. The newer bombs have an extremely intricate pattern of detonation that requires an exact triggering mechanism. But if they get their hands on an older generation bomb, it theoretically could go off just from being dropped from the sky.”

“Do you think the brotherhood knows that?”

“They seem to know everything else. We’ve got to stop them. We’ve got to move right now.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

Mayberry sighed and looked at Rambert patiently. “There is nothing I can do to prove to you that I’m not the Sirr. You simply have to trust me. I’ve never done anything that would make you think that I wasn’t completely honest with you at all times. I love this country, and I want to preserve what we are. We need to finally make a stand against this… evil that is swallowing us up.”

Rambert finally let out a long breath. “Okay, you’re right.” He dropped the gun. “Put on your clothes, I’m sorry we’ve wasted so much time.” Rambert set the gun on the table. “I just had to bring you all the way up here to make sure it wasn’t you. I feel like I can’t trust anyone at Eau Claire anymore.”

“Thank you, Larry.” He got off the stool and finally picked up his shirt. “All right, I think we need to do two things right now. Send every available military unit we have—Air Force, Navy, National Guard… whatever to our Albion base. We can talk to Novak, but I’m thinking we need to retreat out of El Paso and send them all to Nebraska immediately—” He stopped when he heard his own phone ring from Rambert’s hand and watched as Rambert turned it to read a text message.