Rend, page 27
When he reached the podium, he turned toward the crowd. This was the moment that Alfred Holmes tried to convince him was impossible. He’d overseen the recovery of key artifacts from the city that the previous president had said was impossible. Well, here was the proof that determination and American ingenuity could see the way through most situations.
“Good evening and happy Independence Day,” President Wilson read from the teleprompter. “As I look out at this crowd tonight, I am proud. I’m proud of the resiliency of our nation and the strength of our citizens’ character. You make my job worth it. Every day, I’m reminded of how much we have survived as a nation and we’re making strides to regain the lead on the global stage.
“As you can see behind me, the first of my campaign promises has been fulfilled. We have recovered the Declaration of Independence,” the president paused as the crowd cheered. Once the applause began to taper off, he continued, “The US Constitution.” He paused again and jabbed his finger at the new encasements lined up behind him when he spoke once more. “And we have recovered the Bill of Rights and all twenty-seven amendments!”
The crowd cheered loudly and he smiled in spite of himself. “Finally, as I’m sure you can all see behind me, we’ve also recovered the original Star-Spangled Banner that inspired Francis Scott Key to write our National Anthem!”
The crowd erupted into a cacophony of cheers and genuine excitement. The president stared out across the masses and knew that the nation would survive. The years of perpetual disappointment and gradual decline of the American society since the zombie war seemed to melt away from everyone and they finally had something to be proud of once more. The shame of losing the capital city would no longer hold them back and they would move forward into the future.
The moment caught up to him and he pumped his fist in the air. Going off script, he started chanting, “USA! USA! USA!” The crowd at the New Federal Capitol caught on quickly and the mountains echoed with the voices of the people as they expressed their pride in the nation that had needed encouragement over the past several years. The president’s Independence Day message broadcast across the nation and viewers everywhere took up the chant.
*****
07 July, 1002 hrs local
Marchione Family Compound in Throggs Neck
Bronx, New York
Allyson watched the breach team edge up along the old brick wall surrounding the Marchione Family’s compound from the safety of a command vehicle. Part of her deal with Asher was that she’d stay away from door kicking and leave that to the agents who received the hazardous duty pay. She’d found a loophole in his logic about not being one of the door kickers though. She was still able to be in charge on site and still be safely out of the way in case things went bad. Asher wasn’t happy about it, but she still had a long way to go until she could retire and by wrapping this case up completely then she would be eligible for a promotion that would officially keep her out of harm’s way.
Steve Adam’s written confession about being on the take for the Spanglinis and then his subsequent kidnapping after Thomas Spanglini was sentenced to prison had helped her unravel some of the mysteries of the kidnapping cases that she was able to pass off to the lead investigator for the case. The Bureau had taken action immediately after her rescue from Baltimore. They’d found sufficient evidence and arrested enough people who didn’t want to go to jail for the rest of their lives to positively connect the Spanglinis with the majority of the kidnappings on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel and a few, like Steve, in New York.
The real break in the case came when Jake Jones finally decided to give it up and turn state’s evidence in exchange for the prosecution dropping all charges against him except for the multiple counts of rape and false imprisonment of Kate Belington. Even the sleazeball defense attorney that he’d hired knew better than to try and ask for those charges to be dropped. Unfortunately, the prosecutor said that with the Stockholm syndrome that Miss Belington still suffered from, the charges against Jones might not stick. It would depend on how her testimony went and what the jury decided.
Jones had given up four of the major mob syndicates that he dealt with and disposed of kidnapping victims for. It wasn’t until after the deal with the prosecution had already been cut that the Bureau realized the full extent of the man’s crimes. Since he only worked on the Eastern Shore, they’d initially expected him to have been responsible for thirty, maybe forty victims, but his special abilities had earned him quite a lucrative corner of the market. Families came to him from a three-state area spanning from Pennsylvania to New York and New Jersey. By his own estimates, he’d helped the mob dispose of about a thousand victims over the course of four years of work.
The Spanglinis, who’d already been rolled up at that point, were the first on Jones’ list of employers. He said that he got hundreds of packages from them, but also suspected that they had another dump site due to an over-talkative drop man, which Allyson knew because Steve said that he didn’t swim across the Bay to Baltimore. Next came the Bui, a Vietnamese crime family who’d been making a name for themselves in South Philadelphia. After that was Evsei Bodrov, the head of the Russian Mafia in New York. Finally, Jones gave up the Marchiones.
Reston coordinated with several of the police commissioners and Bureau office chiefs to conduct simultaneous raids on the other three Family locations. In each case, they’d decided to go directly for the head and then they’d work their way down through the mid-level guys to the workers on the ground. As an added bonus, the Bureau didn’t need to establish any of the normal surveillance routines that went along with a raid since all of them were already under investigation for other, unrelated crimes.
The deputy director had been against Allyson going on any of the missions at first. His position was that she’d been through enough in the last few months and her ongoing radiation exposure treatment meant that she was weaker than she needed to be, but she ultimately convinced him of her need to see this assignment through to completion. He’d finally relented and assigned her as the field lead for the Marchione raid, probably because it had the least potential to get violent and turn into a shootout between the Bureau and the white-collared Tony Marchione.
She’d worked it out with the New York City Police Department’s SWAT team that they’d act as the breaching element and would make up the initial entry team. Her agents would enter the main house immediately behind SWAT and they’d assist in any arrests that the team made. The two entities worked together often enough that there hadn’t been enough of a need to train specifically for this mission. Plus, given the extent of corruption that Steve Adams laid out, she wasn’t entirely sure if she could trust everyone to keep their mouths shut.
The breach team circled behind the security cameras and fanned out along either side of the compound’s expansive gate. One of the men attached a few wires to the underside of the camera and then stared intently at a handheld monitor for a moment. He was simply looping a ten-second video and feeding it into the system so if someone was watching inside, they would see the empty front gate area. He gave a thumbs up and the remaining team members stacked up on the gate to perform a manual breach with C-4 if the computer override didn’t work.
The technician clamped a few more wires to the gate control box and within seconds the gate swung silently inwards. The breach team faded back into the bushes as the large black and white SWAT van roared through the gates toward the house. Thankfully, they didn’t need to use the explosives in the middle of an upscale neighborhood to make it through the gates.
The SWAT team members piled out of the van and ran toward hide sites in what seemed like random chaos, but Allyson knew better. According to the SWAT commander’s plan, they sent four men around the back of the main house, two men to the pool house, another two to the large maintenance shed and four to the front door of the main house while another eight SWAT guys hid behind structures alongside the driveway for cover and concealment from the house.
So far, the operation was going smoothly on the ground, but the mobile command center’s cameras were having a hard time differentiating between near and far objects. Things kept moving in and out of focus and it was extremely hard to focus on what she needed to see so Allyson exited the vehicle to move up closer to the action where she could oversee the operation.
God, I’d kill for some of that high-tech DoD equipment right now, she mused as she jogged along the driveway toward the SWAT van where the team’s medical crew stood leaning against the van’s side for protection in case there was gunfire. “Hey guys,” Allyson said casually as she took cover with the medics.
“Agent Harper,” the lead doc replied as he inclined his head.
Allyson grabbed the handle near her head and pulled herself up onto the van’s running board so she could peer through the windows toward the main house. Everything was quiet so far and she started to second-guess the surveillance crew who said that Tony Marchione and his bodyguard Marc Nunziata were home.
The last man in the stack on the front door unfolded the judge’s warrant and creased it backward so when the team entered he could present the document face up to the first person he encountered. They seemed to pause in place and time appeared to stand still as the professionals prepared to enter the mob boss’ home. Allyson watched in amazement as the men held their positions for what seemed like an eternity and then she remembered that she was the Go Authority. The entire operation and possibly the lives of the SWAT team members hinged on the words that she would utter into the radio.
She gulped back the little spit she could find in her mouth to counter the dry, cottony feeling that took over, making it difficult for her to swallow. “Go,” she croaked into the radio.
The SWAT team sprang into action, obliterating the front door in seconds. They piled through the doorway and she could hear the calls of “Clear!” and “Moving!” coming from inside the home. Her breaths came in ragged gasps as she imagined the men moving forward and facing death. In her excitement, the window of the van fogged up and she couldn’t see the target house, so she hopped down off the running board and peeked around the front corner toward the house.
Movement on the second floor balcony caught her eye and she looked up in time to see a fat dark-haired Caucasian male leveling what looked like a weapon in her direction. Allyson’s world exploded in an ear-shattering screech of metal on metal as the rounds from an automatic rifle dug into the SWAT van’s engine compartment.
She immediately threw herself to the ground as she’d been taught to do but something wasn’t right. Instead of curling into a ball near the tire of the van, she stared up toward the sky. She had a fleeting thought about how beautiful the cloudless blue morning seemed, it had been ages since she’d just taken the time to appreciate nature for all of its beauty.
What the hell is wrong with me? she chastised herself and tried to roll over. She continued to stare at the sky and sensation that something wasn’t right invaded her thoughts once again. Her back suddenly flared into a pain that disappeared just as mysteriously as it had appeared. From the corner of her eye, she saw the front bumper of the van slide past her and that seemed strange.
Sonsabitches must be moving the SWAT truck, she thought. Don’t they know that I’m lying right here beside it? The lead medic’s face blocked her view of the peaceful azure of the New York morning sky. His mouth moved and he even had spittle flying from his mouth. It made Allyson think that he was yelling. That can’t be right; I can’t hear him. She tried to raise her arm to calm the man down, but it refused to obey her. Then she began to panic.
The medic ripped open the Kerlix gauze and wrapped it as gently as he could while trying to keep the brain matter that was slowly seeping out of the FBI agent’s head from being torn. He wasn’t sure, but it appeared that the bullets had hit her in the left side of her skull and passed through, emerging on the right side. She was awake, but unresponsive and he knew that she was beyond his skill to save.
He’d trained extensively for bullet wounds to the torso and extremities, but no one had ever really trained on massive head injuries. It was a miracle that she didn’t die instantly, but it was only a matter of time. Her goddamned brain was falling out of the side of her head.
Allyson screamed but no one heard. She pleaded for help, but the medic continued to wrap her head with bandages. No! Please don’t block my view of the sky, she pleaded to the unresponsive man as the gauze slowly covered her view of the morning sky. She couldn’t feel anything, but the sensation of floating pervaded her thoughts. The earth seemed to drop away below her and what was left of her mind finally stopped functioning completely.
*****
07 July, 1041 hrs local
Asher Hawke’s Home
Rocky Mount, North Carolina
“God, this place smells awful,” Asher moaned aloud to himself as he entered the garage. A five-gallon stainless steel pot boiling on one of his camp stoves was the source of the offensive odor that seemed to permeate the entire space. Allyson had given him a home brew kit for his birthday and he was finally getting around to making it. She’d told him now that he was fully retired and school wasn’t in session during the summer that he needed a hobby to help take up his time. But geez, this stuff smelled awful and seemed like a lot of work for something that he could go to any store and pick up a six pack.
Asher checked his watch and then reconfirmed with the instruction sheet that the grains had boiled long enough. He peeked into the pan at the soupy-looking wort and crinkled his nose in distaste. The next thing he had to do was rapidly cool the mixture in a tub of ice to between sixty and seventy degrees and then transfer the wort to the fermenting jug and add the yeast. The instructions stated that this was the critical time for the wort. If it was too hot, the yeast would die and there wouldn’t be any fermentation, which meant he’d be stuck with a smelly mess of flavored water and not beer.
He’d just picked up the boiling pot when his phone began to ring. It sat on the coffee table where he’d left it while idly watching the news and thumbing through a hunting magazine while the wort boiled. He thought about putting the pot down, but decided against it. He wasn’t expecting any calls and Allyson’s operation was only supposed to have started about ten or fifteen minutes ago, so she wouldn’t be calling him yet. In all likelihood it was a telemarketer or a political pollster asking for his opinion. If it was important, whoever it was would leave a message.
He set the pot down on the ice and started to release the handle when some of the ice shifted underneath the pot as it melted. He quickly grasped the handles again and held onto them while more ice melted. The phone began to ring again and he thought, Persistent fuckers, aren’t they? He carefully piled ice up high against the sides of the pot and once he was satisfied that it wouldn’t tip over, he walked over and tapped the button to open the garage door. The place needed to air out; it smelled disgusting.
A car horn beeped three times as Rachel, the blonde from next door, drove by his house toward her own driveway. He waved slightly and ducked back inside the garage to look busy and avoid the awkward sexual innuendo that seemed to come with their conversations. Within a few minutes the wort had cooled enough that he could move on to the next step and transfer it to the fermenting jar and then add the yeast. As instructed, he pumped the auto-siphon to begin the transfer between the pot and the heavy glass fermenting jar.
Once everything was out of the pot, he measured out the yeast carefully and poured it in before inserting the rubber stopper into the neck of the jar. This kept it sealed from outside contamination but also allowed excess air to escape and not build up in the jar.
He glanced outside and saw Rachel struggling to unload a bag of mulch from the back of her SUV. Upon further examination, he saw at least twenty more bags stacked up in the cargo area. “Shit,” he muttered to himself. He already knew that he would go over there and help the poor woman unload her car. Her husband was probably going to be at work for several more hours, so she was going to have to do it all on her own if he didn’t help her out. He checked to make sure that the fermenting jar was ready to go once more and then jogged out of his garage.
“Hey, Rachel!” he shouted. “Hold on, I’ll help you out.” He didn’t hear his cell phone start ringing once more and never noticed the blinking new message indicator light illuminating the display screen on his phone.
*****
07 July, 1159 hrs local
Asher Hawke’s Home
Rocky Mount, North Carolina
“Thank you, Asher,” Rachel said as she placed a dirty, mulch-stained hand across his forearm in a friendly gesture. “It would have taken me all weekend to do all of this work if it wasn’t for your strong back.”
“It’s no problem. I needed something to help take my mind off of things,” he replied as he surveyed the last two hours of work. After he’d helped her unload the twenty-five bags of cedar mulch, they’d spread it out over the different areas of landscaping in her yard. With the addition of the mulch, his neighbor’s yard looked stunning, especially in comparison to his yard. Just watering the damn thing and keeping it moderately green seemed like an accomplishment to him.
Rachel’s hand still rested heavily across his arm and she pursed her lips in thought. “I really owe you for this. Big-time. How can I repay you?”
“I’m alright, Rachel. Really. It’s the neighborly thing to do and I’m gonna be living here for a long time, so I want to stay in your good graces—as well as Jim’s.”
Rachel turned toward him to present a full view of her sweaty chest and the cleavage between the hiked-up mounds of her breasts. “I’m really thankful for your help. Are you sure that I can’t do anything to you—I mean, for you?” she corrected hastily.
