Nation of Enemies (9 page)

 

Chapter 17

M
ID
-­
AFTERNOON
SUN
SLICES
through Sebastian's bedroom. A ray runs from the foot of the bed to the pillow, onto his face. He stirs and slowly blinks awake.

The first thing he sees is Kate's pillow. A few strands of blond hair stand out from the gray pillowcase. It's all that's left, pieces of her. Not the whole. Not Kate. He reaches for them and runs his fingers the length of the shafts, wraps them around his index finger until his fingertip turns blue.

A muffled, intermittent vibration. He sits up, forgets the hair, which falls back onto the bed. Foraging through a mound of clothes on the floor, he pulls his cell from a pants pocket. For the briefest moment he wonders if this wasn't all just a dream.

“Kate?” he says into the phone.

There's a pause. “Sorry, man. It's Renner.”

His words are blocked, a jagged rock lodged in his throat.

“You okay, Sebastian?”

“Yeah.” He sits back on the bed and strokes the prickly black scruff on his face.

“Take the week off. I've got it covered.”

“There's not a net wide enough to cover this shit.”

“Washington sent us twenty agents as backup. We'll find out who's behind this.”

“Any news from your informant?” asks Sebastian.

“We met.” An audible sigh. “But again, Mitchell is claiming to be surprised by the attack. I gotta tell you, I'm not convinced BASIA was behind this one.”

“The one thing we know is that Mitchell is highly organized and virtually untraceable.”

“He's never done a chemical attack,” says Renner.

“Not that we know of.”

“This was done with technology our lab hasn't seen before,” Renner explains. “They studied one of the wands and found a miniature heating device that vaporized the sarin. It was a near-­perfect execution. Maybe there's a rogue team of scientists out there, I don't know.”

“It was Mitchell,” Sebastian insists. “It's been a decade since the Planes. He was due to deliver a big one.”

Renner ignores him. “Hey, you need anything?”

“You gonna make me a casserole?”

“Fuck you.”

“Thanks, man.” He paces. Nothing feels right. Not the air in these rooms, not the clothes he's wearing. He needs to do something. He needs to be of use. “I'm ready to go in.”

“Go where?”

“BASIA. Mitchell's church.”

“Now?” Renner asks.

“Now is the best time. A big event is like recruitment for new terrorists.”

“Things have changed. Don't you think you're too close to this?”

“Name someone you know that hasn't lost a family member in this war.”

Silence.

“It's personal for all of us. Yeah, it happened for me this week. But this week, next week, what's the difference? I'd say we're all pretty damn passionate about the topic, wouldn't you?”

“I'll go.” Renner's voice sounds unsure.

“You heard Satterwhite. You're my handler. Plus you've got your dog and your informant depending on you.”

There's a loud exhale in Sebastian's ear. “You been studying the legend?”

“I've reviewed it. Need to go deeper. Develop more details while the techs create an online history that fits with the alias.”

“You gonna shave your head?”

“Thinking about a beard instead.”

“I hear DARPA has developed some cool new surveillance toys.”

“Let's set up a meeting. Start playing.”

“Hey, I spoke to my informant about being a witness and helping you on the inside.”

“And?”

“Just need another conversation or two. Need to make some reassurances. Supplying intel is one thing. Introducing you increases the potential to be caught.”

“Absolutely.” His mind wanders. “You wanna meet at the range later?”

“Let's do it.”

He hangs up and glances around his Seaport condo, imagining everything in boxes, walls bare. He can still smell Kate here. Her towel hangs in the bathroom, her clothes next to his in the closet. Her almond milk sits in the fridge, and the pint of chocolate fudge brownie she craved awaits her in the freezer. At the front door, her shoes are still parked neatly next to his. He'd never even told her he was going undercover, he just couldn't find the words. Now that she's gone, there's nothing left for him here. This mission is the only path that makes sense.

Hunger hits him, and he realizes he hasn't eaten since yesterday. Just one more thing. He opens the screen on his smartdesk, his fingers flying over the keys. An address autopopulates. He doesn't recognize it—­must be one of Kate's. The window opens, revealing her work email. It's automatically set with her user name and password.

The inbox is brimming. He clicks through, sees that most of the emails in the past week are about the State House event. Several are from someone named Carter Benson from the office of Richard Hensley. One is an edited version of Kate's speech, another provides the final schedule of the event. Sebastian checks the addresses in the recipient line and forwards the message to himself so he can cross-­check the individuals in the FBI database.

 

Chapter 18

J
ON
ATHAN
H
UDSON
'
S
LAST
class ends and he closes the school application on his desktop. The room is dark, except for the glow of sun that outlines the drawn blinds. He rubs his stinging eyes. Though he'd logged into school, he spent most of his time in a separate window, exploring the Department of Defense intranet. It took him a few days, but he was able to crack it, create a back door and input a Trojan. Pretty goddamned cool. There are plenty of ­people in the world willing to pay for that kind of access.

His talent is his shield. With it, he's invincible. It's better than any high. Time to celebrate and bust out to the abandoned estate down the street—­the empty pool is prime to catch some air with his new board.

He slips on his sneakers, grabs a pockmarked helmet from under a mound of clothes, and opens the bedroom door. Standing there with a hand poised to knock is his stepfather.

“Hey,” Steven says.

“Hey.” Jonathan takes a step back.
The fuck does he want?

Steven peers into the room. “Smells a little ripe in there. You ever open a window?”

Jonathan stares at him.

“Looks like you're heading out.” Steven nods to the helmet.

“Thinking about it.”

“I'll make you a deal.”

The last deal involved enough cash to buy crimeware for a year. And though he and his stepdad spend most of their time avoiding each other, Jonathan listens.

“With all the State House victims we're getting, I'm short-­handed in the morgue and the viewing rooms. Help me out and I'll tell your teacher you're out the rest of the week. And I'll throw in a new gadget of your choice.”

“Why?”

“Like it or not, Jonathan, one day you'll inherit Hudson's. Or at least your mother will. You think she'll be able to manage it? She can barely manage to get out of bed.”

He wants to punch Steven's smug face. He knows his mom is using again, he's seen the signs. “Shut up about her.”

“Well, you're more vocal than usual.” Steven sighs. “Regardless, this is a multi-­million-­dollar business. You don't need to go to college. You just need the university of Hudson's.”

The strap of the helmet in Jonathan's hand feels like a lifeline. His grip tightens.

“Let's not bullshit anymore.” Steven's tone is serious. “I love your mother, despite the fact she insists on wearing that robe twenty-­four/seven and sleeps for hours on end. Let's try to be civil. For business' sake. For your mother's sake.”

Jonathan nods his head to the side, swinging the bangs out of his eyes. “Okay. Fine.”

“Good.” Steven rubs his hands together. “You won't be needing that helmet. Unless you're worried about slipping on body fluid and cracking your skull. Could happen, I suppose.”

Tossing the helmet onto the bed, he follows Steven downstairs to the morgue. A few more inches and he'll be able to look his stepfather in the eye. Funeral homes creep him out, and here he is, living in one. Inheriting death. The darkness of this place is sucking the life out of his mother. She's an artist, a painter. It's her sanity, and it's obvious when she's not doing it. So while she is off tripping, Steven's dealing with the business and no one is paying attention to him. They'd be pretty shocked to know how he spends his time.

“After the CDC had their way with them, we received sixteen deceased from the State House.” Steven opens the door to the basement and they descend the stairs. “Most from sarin. A few are victims of the stampede. We'll handle six of them here and I sent the others to our Brookline and Cambridge branches.”

“Are they contagious?”

“Not anymore. They're well past the eighteen hour exposure mark.”

The smell makes Jonathan's stomach wrench. He covers his mouth and nose with his hand. It's like a rotten soup of shit and mold mixed with antiseptic and formaldehyde. He breathes through his mouth. This is only the third time he's been down here. He's seen wakes, looked at the dead posed on those pillows, like they're having the best sleep of their lives. He used to hide on the stairs outside the viewing rooms and watch ­people. Some walked in crying and left with dry eyes. Some the opposite. Some never cried at all. When he was a kid, he had nightmares about zombies attacking him in his room. He made his mother put a lock on his door.

Steven flips on the overhead light, illuminating the large basement-­turned-­state-­of-­the-­ art-­morgue. He strides along a wall with several refrigerated compartments, yanking on handles as he passes. Naked bodies roll out one by one.

“Et, voilà.” Steven does a flourish with his hand. “They'll all be cremated but the families chose to have wakes. They're almost ready. All but one have been cleaned and embalmed. A little makeup, some clay, their best clothes, and they'll be ready for their bon voyage.”

“It's not a fucking party.”

“Oh! I like this side of you, Jonathan. You need an edge in this business.”

He can't take his eyes off the body nearest to him, a guy who looks only a few years older than he is. He does look asleep, kind of. The corpse is a bluish-­white. And the fingertips aren't right. They're slightly deflated. Flat.

“You're like the Grim Reaper,” he says.

“I didn't kill them.” His stepfather opens a closet and pulls out a pair of blue scrubs. “I'm the middleman. I give dignity back to these ­people. We're all identified by our looks. Our style. Our hair. It helps families to see their loved ones as they remembered them.”

“Huh.” With his mouth closed, Jonathan plays with his tongue piercing.

“Most ­people don't want to work with the dead.” Steven strips off his pants and pulls the scrubs over his boxers and T-­shirt. “But I grew up with this. I don't have to get my hands dirty anymore. There's enough money to keep me in embalming fluid for a century. But preparing a body reminds me what Hudson's is about.” He walks to the other side of the room and turns on a computer. “Beyond that, it's a business. And lucky for us, death is a sure thing.”

“So what am I doing here?”

“Yes. Let's start small.” He motions to a counter along the far wall. There are neat stacks of clothing and shoes, among other items. “The admin side. We itemize all personal belongings and bag it for the family. As you do each one, you'll use the MRS—­the Medical Record Scanner—­to scan in the MedID and start the Death Certificate process.”

“Fascinating.”

“Respect the process.” Steven stands at the first body, a woman who looks to be in her mid-­thirties. “First, we scan in the MedIDs and the government deactivates the record. Just press that button there as you wave the scanner over the MedID. You'll hear a beep.”

Jonathan takes the MRS and does as he's told. It works.

“Once that's in the database, you're prompted to answer some questions. Cause of death, time, etcetera. I'll help you with that. That's all there is to it. Then match up the deceased with the personal items. It's alphabetical by last name.”

The next ­couple hours pass quickly. Steven's technical assistant helps to prepare the bodies: dressing them, applying makeup, and fixing imperfections with clay.

Scanning and matching items is easy. Jonathan recognizes one of the faces from the news. It's Kate Manning, the person who organized that political rally, tourism thing at the State House. Fucking Richard Hensley was there. Prick. Whoever did this, good for them. Jonathan scans in the next guy's MedID. He's young, twenty-­four. Jonathan glances back at his stepfather and the assistant, who are engrossed in their work. He reaches over and swipes open the guy's phone, checks out his pictures. Preppy kid. Wears ties. He scrolls through the images and pauses. There are mad photos of this kid freestyling on a board. Huh. Maybe there was hope for this one.

 

Chapter 19

O
N
THE
DAY
of Richard's hospital release, Carter coordinates with Secret Ser­vice to ensure there are no details left to chance. Despite Richard's protests, he is zipped into a body bag with hidden breathing holes and placed on a gurney, which is ushered through the Mass General corridors and into an elevator. It's as though he's on some bizarre amusement ride. In the darkness, he strains to recognize anything through the pin-­sized holes. Jostling, sounds of men grunting, and finally the gurney settles and locks into place. Doors slam shut and the ambulance siren wails.

“We're twelve minutes out, sir,” Carter says as he unzips the body bag. Flanking him on either side are his Secret Ser­vice agents, dressed in EMT uniforms.

Richard blinks against the bright light. “This is all a bit dramatic.”

“Not compared to what happened at the State House,” Carter says.

“Can I sit up?”

“Afraid not, sir.”

Being forced to lie in this submissive position, under the noses of men who work for him, is unacceptable. He'll have a word with Carter later. He's been meaning to talk to him about the State House attack. The event was loud and there was a lot going on, but he could have sworn he heard something in his earpiece just before the terrorists started spraying.

With few cars on the road—­and the assistance of the siren—­the ambulance flies through the city. In no time they pull into the driveway of his Chestnut Hill estate. The wrought-­iron gates close behind them as they round a curved driveway and park at the entrance. Finally, he's allowed to shed the body bag and exit the ambulance. Ah, his magnificent stone-­and-­shingle Victorian, circa 1900. Home at last. If only Norah were here to greet him. As he stretches his stiff legs, he fills his lungs. The fresh air tinged with the scents of pine and roses is better than any drug the hospital could offer.

The moment passes and it's as though he goes from crawling to sprinting. Carter shuttles him into his office for a call from President Clark, as the agents wait outside, guarding the room. Richard twists open a bottle of water and lowers himself into the soft leather chair behind his desk. A thin panel of glass slides up out of his desk. The presidential seal appears on the monitor as the White House operator connects the call.

President Clark's face appears. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, Mr. President. To what do I owe the honor?”

“Don't be humble, Richard. You're a hero. A survivor. You can relate to the citizens of this country on their level now. You've been witness to the war, as they have.”

“I might have survived, but I'm no hero.”

“Let's not mince words.”

In the hospital, Richard read a steady stream of articles and blogs written by ­people eager to label him: hero, survivor, coward, pawn. No need to bring up the latter two.

“Our country needs a hero right now,” President Clark says. “And I'll level with you. Our party has both suffered and received a great amount of attention in the days since the attack. ­People are asking how we could let the attack happen. How a chemical attack on that scale could take place after we've spent years and millions combing the country for stockpiles of them. Well, to ease their hearts and minds, we'll give them a hero. You're the uncontested presidential candidate for the Liberty Party. Are you ready?”

Under his desk, he twists the platinum band around his ring finger. “I've been ready, sir.”

“Very good. I'll make the necessary calls. Plan to address the party and the nation to accept the candidacy in two days.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You should know that we've pulled the State House footage from every video outlet. It's too damaging to the American psyche. And no one needs to see you take a nosedive again and again.”

“Sir, I—­”

“One final note. Of course your campaign team will be your own, appointed by you. I know Kendra is the obvious choice for campaign manager. But I want to put in a good word for Carter. That talented, dedicated man has spent twelve years entrenched in our world and he's the future of the Liberty Party. We know him. We trust him.”

“I couldn't agree more, Mr. President. I think he'll make a fine deputy campaign manager.”

“Excellent. Build up your strength, Richard. This is ours to win.”

The screen goes black.

“Congratulations, sir,” Carter says.

Richard had forgotten he was standing there. Heat rises from his chest to his neck, his face and ears. He reaches for the closest thing—­a glass paperweight—­and pitches it through a window. Glass splinters fly in every direction.

“Sir!” Carter steps back, his arms shielding his face.

The Secret Ser­vice agents charge through the door with guns aimed. Richard waves them off and after a brief hesitation they leave. He stands behind his desk, grips the edge. “Time for a little come to Jesus.”

“I don't know that saying, sir.”

“At the State House, you said something in my earpiece. It was just before those assholes sprayed at us.”

Carter holds up his hands. “I said a lot of things. There was a lot going on.”

“I remember, Carter.”

“I'm sorry but I have no idea what you're getting at.”

“ ‘Duck.' ”

“Excuse me?”

“Duck. You said, very clearly, ‘Duck, Senator.' ”

Recognition comes over Carter's face. “Of course I said ‘duck.' I heard the shots fired down on the Common. And the performers were spraying something into the crowd.”

“But you said it
before
they sprayed.” He steps around his desk and slowly approaches his aide. “How did you know?”

“You hit your head, sir.” Carter backs up, nearly against the wall. “And you did have some effects from the sarin. You're remembering wrong. If you think for one instant that I knew anything about this . . .”

Richard takes his time. He returns to the front of his desk and leans against it. The rush of adrenaline has left him a little weak, but Carter doesn't need to know that. He studies this man who rarely leaves his side. Dark eyebrows overhang light eyes, and his hair has thinned in the past year, though it's subtle since he keeps it closely cropped. Richard wonders at his ethnic background, has never thought to ask.

“Maybe you should lie down.” Carter dares a step closer. “Concussions can cause confusion. They say it happens all the time after these events. If you need someone to talk to, I can find you someone who specializes—­”

“I need to know what's going on. I need honesty from my staff.”

“Sir, you're going to be the next President of the United States. You have a loyal staff and a loyal base. What happened to James Gardiner was horrific. But we all know the agenda of those terrorists. They want to keep the U.S. shackled by fear. And they want this government scrambling. You can disarm them, sir. You're the only one who can.”

Carter is making perfect sense. Richard feels foolish for even thinking he somehow had insight into the attack. He must be misremembering. Gesturing with his hand, he beckons Carter closer, within arm's reach. Richard rests a hand on his shoulder and says, “Guess that knock on the head got me a little harder than I'd thought.”

A lopsided grin skews Carter's features. “We have a lot of work to do.”

“We do indeed. Call the team. Tell them it'll be a working dinner.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Carter?”

Carter pauses mid-­step. “Yes?”

“It appears we're all in agreement that you should fill the role of deputy campaign manager.”

“It would be an honor.”

“Congratulations.”

Carter closes the door behind him. Richard's head is pounding as he sits in a stiff armchair. That day on the State House steps is a blur, the aftermath of which he's blacked out entirely. It's absolutely possible Carter said to duck as the wands were being pointed.
That
does
make the most sense.
He closes his eyes, summons the memory.

Gardiner was speaking, but Richard wasn't listening to the speech. All bullshit, predictable rhetoric. He'd looked past his running mate to admire Kate Manning, noticed her look of concern, her furious texting. Out in the audience he saw ­people wearing masks, jumping and singing. More entertaining than Gardiner, he remembers thinking. But then shots were fired. Suddenly several masked ­people rushed the stairs, as his agents dragged him in the other direction. The terrorists were pumping aerosol out of those asinine magic wands.
Duck, Senator.

Yes. Of course, that's what happened. He's been sounding like one of those paranoid conspiracy theorists. Best to concentrate on the future. He's got a campaign to win.