Brute Force

Chapter 16

Veronica “Ronnie” Garcia sat with six others around a long plastic table, all watching a small flat-screen monitor mounted on the wall at the far end of the bunker. She felt herself tense as the image of two state police helicopters passed across the screen, picked up by the skyward cameras over the wooded compound. The group was deep underground and the earth outside the thick concrete cooled the piped air, forcing each of those in attendance to wear a Windbreaker or light jacket. Ronnie, without thinking, had slipped into a tight, long-sleeved cardigan. It was one of Jericho’s favorites, but the reasons he liked it were the same reasons that would bring her so much grief from their host, the owner of the bunker.

“These overflights are becoming more frequent,” Winfield Palmer said to Garcia from across the table. Garcia and Jericho’s former boss, he’d served as the National Security Advisor before the President and Vice President had been assassinated. Even now, as a fugitive with a terrible head cold, he still carried himself like a man who was completely in charge of the room. It was troubling to Garcia that something like a common cold could find its way past Win Palmer’s concrete persona. He’d been the President’s confidant and advisor, the power behind the power for as long as she’d known him — ever robust and full of confidence-inspiring vigor. He was still strong, despite his illness, but the stress of this life was chipping away at his base. When the coughing subsided, he turned to the elderly man in faded Carhartts who stood slightly behind him against the back wall of the cellar. “Have you heard any chatter around town?”

“Everybody round here knows I hate the G,” the man against the wall said, abbreviating “government” as if he couldn’t bear for the word to cross his lips. His name was Sam Hawthorne and he owned nearly three square miles of the Pennsylvania woodland where Garcia and the others had holed up. At seventy-one, he still stood ramrod straight with big, farmer’s hands that matched a husky, six-foot build. “No one in their right mind would think I’d hide the likes of you. Hell, if you’d told me a year ago that Sam Hawthorne would be aiding and abetting a bunch of DC spies turned Sons of Liberty, I’d said you were full of shit.”

“Sam!” Wilma Hawthorne chided, looking up from where she sat in the corner working over a hooped cross-stitch project. “Watch your mouth. We have guests.” She was an apple-shaped woman with silver hair and a quiet smile.

“Spies from the G,” Sam said under his breath. “Guests my ass.”

A self-proclaimed doomsday prepper, Hawthorne had been suspicious of the federal government during every one of the eleven presidential administrations since he was old enough to make it to a ballot box. The current occupant of the White House validated all his years of ranting, curtailing freedom of the press and tightening the grip on personal freedoms in the name of greater security. When President Drake had issued the executive order creating the Internal Defense Task Force, even the normally pensive and peace-loving Wilma Hawthorne had seen the new secret police force for what it was — an American Gestapo. She had stood up from the television and found her way to the gun safe to strap on her favorite Makarov pistol and was rarely seen without it.

The Hawthornes had spent the last forty-six years building up the rural property Wilma had inherited from her mother. Years spent raising three sons and living a life that was what Sam called “on/off ” the grid — having just enough connectivity to keep from raising suspicion with authorities, but with plenty of safe rooms, underground bunkers, and escape tunnels to keep an intrusive G guessing if they did ever decided to raid the place and take away all his guns. Palmer’s consistent comparison of their movement to the Revolutionary War’s Sons of Liberty seemed to appeal to Hawthorne’s notion of a patriotic fight against the G.

“Likely just a routine flight,” Melissa Ryan, the former Secretary of State, said from the chair on the other side of Garcia. “But I’d suggest a couple of us stay in the rooms below at any given time so we’re all not captured should we get raided.” In her early fifties, Ryan still looked like a cover girl in her formfitting jeans and signature silk blouse under her red Mountain Hard-wear Windbreaker. It was no secret that she and Palmer had been an item for several years. It had broken the hearts of many an eligible bachelor when DC Magazine had named them one of the top most influential couples in the country. In addition to being beautiful, Melissa Ryan was also one of the brightest minds on the planet. If they were going to do anything to bring down the present administration they needed all the brainpower they could cobble together. It was Ryan’s connections that had made the introductions to the Hawthornes, and her particular diplomatic skills that made Hawthorne, if only grudgingly, agree to aid and abet former bureaucrats from the G.

“I agree,” the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency said. Virginia Ross stood against the concrete wall near the Hawthornes, hands behind her back, listening. “These people are evil, but they are not stupid.” Ross said little but when she did, it carried a lot of weight. A fugitive now, she’d been arrested on trumped-up charges by an IDTF agent named Walter, stripped of her clothing and tortured in an attempt to find Palmer and the others deemed to be a threat to the administration. Garcia and Thibodaux had masterminded her escape. She was now not only on the run, but a celebrity in the underground movement to topple President Hartman Drake and his regime. Ronnie had been part of her rescue, had seen firsthand the effects of the inhuman treatment the poor woman had received at the hands of Agent Walter. The cruelty had only managed to bolster Ross’s resolve to fight.

Garcia caught the eye of Emiko Miyagi, the strange little Japanese woman who was Jericho’s martial arts trainer and confidant. Miyagi was attractive in the way a handsome blade was attractive — dangerous, and quite useful in the right hands. Garcia had known her for over a year now, received defensive tactics instruction from her at Camp Peary during CIA basic, and worked alongside her on several bloody missions. She still couldn’t quite put her finger on this woman. If she hadn’t known better, Garcia might have been jealous of the time Miyagi spent with Jericho. She wasn’t worried that they’d ever been romantic — but, Ronnie knew, there were things far more intimate than romance. She couldn’t help but think that this Japanese warrior woman was able to see far more deeply into Jericho Quinn’s soul than she would ever find possible.

“Evil,” Miyagi said, wasting no further words since everyone was in agreement.

Palmer unwrapped a menthol cough drop and popped it in his mouth, narrowing his eyes the way he did when Garcia knew he wanted to get back to business. He was a normally vibrant man, but the illness, along with months of playing cat and mouse with the administration’s goons had caused him to lose most of what was left of his close-cropped gray hair. His once ruddy complexion bordered on ashen and his posture had stooped noticeably from the time when Garcia had first met him. Wearing a shawl collar cardigan against the chill of the underground, he looked more like an exhausted college professor than the West Point graduate and close confidant of the man who’d been the most powerful man on earth.

Since they’d come to the farm, Palmer had decided to hold all their important meetings in the bunker rather than the more comfortable farmhouse. Hawthorne had built the thing like a SCIF or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. No two-way communication took place from the facility. Cells and radios were left topside and radio frequency detectors at the door made sure everyone stayed honest. Twelve feet beneath the surface under two feet of concrete, fresh air was drawn in and stale air was piped out through a series of vents that came up through the floor of an empty barn over a hundred meters away. The bunker could be accessed through a false floor in an equally well-hidden panic room entered by sliding back a portion of the kitchen counter. Even Garcia, who’d been through training in all manner of unbelievable things at Camp Peary, had found the designs amazing. Paranoia caused people to take drastic measures — but it was hard to say Sam Hawthorne’s paranoia was unwarranted, considering their present situation.

“I got in touch with Jennifer on the Hill this morning,” Palmer said, bringing the meeting back on topic once the cough drop began to do its job. He looked at Garcia. “Senator Gorski and Congressman Dillman have agreed to meet you this evening.”

“Why don’t you just send one of these girls in to shoot the son of a bitch President in the eye?” Hawthorne groused, giving a sidelong look toward Garcia. “The busty one looks like she’s shot people before.” His wife raised a chastising eyebrow at his cursing, but adjusted the Makarov on her hip and resumed her cross-stitch without saying anything.

Garcia smiled at the old man. Miyagi had much more experience in the shooting department, and the intensity in her eyes bore it out, but Hawthorne made no secret that he had a little crush on Ronnie. At least twice a day he’d lament that none of his sons had married a healthy girl with “breeder’s hips” like hers. Ronnie just shrugged it off. Her deadbeat ex-husband had described her as having a “ghetto booty.” “Breeder’s hips” seemed more pleasant than that — and anyway, Jericho didn’t seem to mind them. In any case, Hawthorne was committing all sorts of crimes by just letting fugitives from the G stay at his place, so she put up with a little leering and a comment or two. He was harmless enough at seventy, but she was sure he’d been a handful for Miss Wilma back in his prime.

Palmer swallowed to stifle a cough. “Garcia is plenty capable of shooting a man in the eye,” he said quietly, “or killing him in a variety of ways if he were to give her any trouble. There are many who would be willing to take on that job, but it’s not that simple. Both the President and Vice President are guarded by arguably the most highly trained protective agency in the world.” Palmer paused for effect. “And I should know. They protected me for a time while I was National Security Advisor. They’re good men and women and too many would get hurt if we made an attempt now.”

“Fox News said there was a gunman in the White House today,” Hawthorne said. “They’re saying the target was the VP. Sure the shooter wasn’t yours?”

Virginia Ross shook her head, her chin quivered like she might break into tears. “No,” she said, “that was a good friend of mine acting on his own volition. His loss is a blow to the country. I can tell you that much.”

“At any rate,” Palmer said, “the G, as you call it, has enough checks and balances that even moles like Drake and McKeon can’t bring it down easily. They have to chip away, nudging us toward a war that will inflate the economy, devalue the dollar, and ultimately cost millions of American lives. Slowly and methodically, they have raised the stakes on the evil of the masked terrorist who shoots dozens or bombs hundreds. It takes both houses of Congress to bring up impeachment charges. I think the senator and congressman can swing enough of their people our way — as long as we give them something they can sink their teeth into — something more than the mere suggestion the POTUS and VPOTUS are warmongering moles. Miss Garcia can lay out the evidence we have, including Drake’s connection to a Pakistani terrorist.” Palmer shrugged and crunched through the last of his cough drop. “It’s thin, but I’m hopeful that impeachment will send a signal to China that the entire country isn’t in lockstep.”

“You think the meeting could be a trap?” Garcia asked, focusing on her immediate mission. She wasn’t afraid, but alliances in Washington were historically fluid. Lately, they blew like dandelion fuzz in an ever-changing political wind.

“These two were handpicked to keep that from happening.” Palmer shook his head. “Deborah Gorski went to college in Fairbanks with Quinn’s mother. Her father was a senator before her and gave Quinn his nomination to the Air Force Academy. Personal ties beat credentials at this point. Mike Dillman was a plebe my senior year at West Point. We worked on a number of missions well before the good citizens of Indiana decided to elect him to Congress. I trust him the way Quinn trusts Jacques.”

“Roger that,” Garcia said, knowing no better analogy for trust. She glanced at the Tag Heuer Aquaracer Quinn had given her for her last birthday. “What time are they meeting me?”

“They know to walk down York Street in Gettysburg at six. They’ll look for your mark, and then wait at the area you designate. You contact them after you’re sure they don’t have a tail. Miyagi will pull countersurveillance.” Palmer stood, ready for everyone to get to work. “To tell you the truth, I’m surprised this administration hasn’t imploded already. The problem with conspiracies is that they rot from within.”

“I don’t know.” Sam Hawthorne shrugged. “This Sons of Liberty shit you’re doing ain’t nothing if it’s not a conspiracy — and, apart from your croup, it looks pretty damn healthy to me.”

Ronnie reached back out of habit, touching the small 9mm Kahr pistol tucked over her right kidney, inside the waistband of her jeans. Even under the thin cashmere sweater, it was all but invisible. Breeder’s hips or ghetto booty, being built on the athletic side of zaftig made it easier to hide a pistol — or at the very least more unlikely that anyone would notice that particular little bulge when there were so many other bulges to ogle.

Melissa Ryan must have seen her index the pistol and came up to put a hand on her shoulder. Garcia had liked her from the moment they’d met — nearly everyone did. She had a tantalizing smile that drew people to her and seemed to say to men and women alike, “Oh, my darling, if only I was yours and you were mine…”

“Not to worry, dear,” Ryan said, flashing the smile. Garcia caught the jasmine hint of Chanel as she drew alongside. Ryan exuded elegance even in a bunker. “Gettysburg streets are crowded with tourists from all over the world this time of year,” she said. “You should be fine. Just try not to draw any attention to yourself.”

“You women talk like such a thing is even possible,” Hawthorne scoffed, taking advantage of the setup from Ryan. “This sweet little Lipstick and Lead gonna draw attention like a—”

“That is enough, Sam!” Wilma stomped her little foot without looking up from her cross-stitch. “Leave the poor girl alone or you won’t be seeing much of anything, let alone a female hip.”

Hawthorne hung his head. “I’m just saying, let me come with if you want so I can look out for them. Folks are gonna look at her. It’s the damn truth and she knows it.”

“I’ll be fine, Sam,” Ronnie said, driving him to his wife with a lingering kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for your concern.”

Garcia waited for the others to leave the bunker so she could talk to Palmer alone for a second. “Heard anything from Jericho?” she asked.

Palmer popped another cough drop, which he immediately chewed to pieces. “Not since yesterday.” He didn’t go so far as to tell her not to worry. That would have been pointless. He did give her an uncharacteristic smile. “This will all be over soon, Veronica. You’re doing great. I always knew you would.”

“Cut the sentiment, boss.” She grinned. “It scares the shit out of me.”

“Yeah.” Palmer stifled a cough. “You’re right. Get to work.”