Capitol Punishment

TWENTY EIGHT The Switch

It wasn’t a bad little place, Darian thought, but then they’d only be there a short time. Still, it did feel good to have everyone together. And the extra room this larger apartment in Arlington provided made it all the more comfortable.

But comfort was only incidental. They were there for a reason. There to prepare for the big night. There to take the last steps that would set things in motion.

“Whiteboy ain’t got his head screwed on straight if he thinks there won’t be cops there,” Mustafa said, his powerful fingers pressing the .45-caliber shells into the stack of magazines they’d acquired for the Ingrams. He wore no gloves this time. It didn’t matter if there were prints on the casings. Who would know, who would care? But if there was going to be a fight, they were going to breathe plenty of fire. No ammo worries on Friday.

“It’s supposed to be low-key,” Darian said. He was busying his hands with cleaning the Ingrams, as well as the half-dozen pistols and revolvers that lay on the bed between him and Moises. On the floor the “toy” Mustafa had brought with them from L.A., something he’d “acquired” from an associate in the Army some years before, lay on an open towel. It looked like a break-open shotgun on steroids. “And we’ll be shooting first.”

Mustafa stopped what he was doing and looked up. “There’s gonna be a fight.”

“Then a fight there’ll be,” Moises interjected confidently.

“Yeah,” Mustafa said with little faith. “Virgin boy here who ain’t done hardly more than pop some unarmed ratbeard is gonna take out Secret Service pigs.”

“Brother Moises will do fine,” Darian said with confidence.

Mustafa eyed their youngest comrade, then looked back to his leader. “Right.”

“Trust me, Brothers. We’re gonna do this.” He laid the Ingram he’d been cleaning on the bed and took the two .357 revolvers in hand. “Brother Moises, load these. We’ve got work to do tonight.”

The door from the living room opened. Roger took half a step into the room, his eyes on his leader. “Brother Darian.”

“What?” The NALF leader didn’t bother looking up.

“I need to talk to you.”

Now his eyes came up. “Talk.”

“In here.”

Both Moises and Mustafa sensed the strangeness in that request as they looked to their comrade.

“It’s important,” Roger said. He backstepped into the living room, beckoning his leader.

Darian stood and went to Roger, the door closing behind. “What is it? This isn’t good, talking like this. What’s with you? What are they supposed to think, Brother Roger? Huh?”

Roger backed farther away from the door to the couch. “I saw something.”

“Saw? Saw what?” Darian demanded impatiently. An Ingram, its suppressor affixed, lay on a piece of furniture. “You are supposed to have that weapon in your hands, watching that door, making sure that no one gets the drop on us. Is that what you were doing coming in there and saying you had something important to say?”

Roger bent down and reached between the cushions near the Ingram. A folded newspaper came out in his hand.

“What is that?”

Roger held it out to Darian. “The paper. The one you got the classifieds from. Remember?”

An old paper? What… “What are you doing with it?”

“I looked at the front page that day,” Roger admitted. “There was a story about what we did in L.A. I just wanted to take a look at it, to see what—”

“Propaganda,” Darian said. “You know better than to read that shit.”

“Not this, Brother Darian,” Roger countered. “This was talking about something different. Look at it.”

Darian unfolded the paper and immediately saw the small headline that had to have captured his comrade’s attention: WHITE SUPREMACIST WAS SUSPECT IN WORLD CENTER ATTACK. Below that was a picture of John Barrish…and of his wife and two sons. One of those looked amazingly like the white boy with the funky eye that they’d been meeting with.

“That’s him,” Roger said.

Darian looked up from the story.

“That Barrish guy is the one who got off for killing those girls at the church on Crenshaw!” Roger said in a suppressed shout. “Brother Moises’ little sister was one of them!”

“You had this all the time?”

Roger nodded. “I didn’t want to, you know… That thing sounds like we were working for him.”

Darian read some more, then crumpled the paper into a ball. “It says he wasn’t a suspect anymore.”

“Brother, his kid was the cracker we were meeting with!”

Roger always had been the most timid of the NALF’s small number. Now he was more than that. “Have you shown this to the others?”

“No. I didn’t want to believe it myself. But…” Roger looked to the carpet, then to his leader again. “I can’t do this no more. It’s been eating at me. These guys aren’t no tax protesters. They’re killers, man, and they’ve killed our people. Do you think Brother Moises would be doing this if he knew who the crackers we’ve been dealing with are?”

Darian squeezed the ball of newsprint smaller, and pressed it into his pocket. You shouldn’t have read that, Brother Roger. It’s too late to stop now. We’ve come too far. And now you can’t come any farther. He stepped closer to his comrade. “Go get the others.”

Darian stepped aside, toward the couch, to let Roger pass. When he did, Darian reached quickly to the couch and took the Ingram in hand. He spun and raised the weapon in one smooth motion, taking the selector switch from safe to single shot with his thumb. As Roger’s hand was reaching for the bedroom door, the NALF leader shot him once in the back of his head.

A second later the door to the bedroom opened inward, Roger’s limp body collapsing completely to the floor at Mustafa’s feet. “What…”

Darian lowered the Ingram. The sound of the shot had hardly been louder than a phone book dropping to a solid floor, but that report, and the thud of Roger’s body tumbling against the bedroom door, had been enough to alert the other NALF members.

Moises pushed past Mustafa, his eyes flaring at the bloody sight. “What happened?”

“He wanted out,” Darian said matter-of-factly. “He got it.”

“Out?” Mustafa asked. “What do you mean?”

Darian tossed the Ingram across his front to the couch. “Out, Brother. Out. He was going soft on us.”

Mustafa looked to Roger’s still body. “Brother Roger?”

“Why do you think he wanted to talk to me away from you all? He didn’t have the stomach to say it in front of you.” Darian kicked the body’s feet. “Candy ass. He could have blown it all if I’d let him back away from this. He would’ve started shooting his mouth off. We could have all been burned by him.”

“Damn.” Mustafa stepped over the body.

“But how are we going to do it without him?” Moises asked.

“We’re just going to do it. Period. Now get those guns ready, Brother. We’ve got a job to do.” Darian looked to Mustafa. “So do you. Get this pile of shit out of here.”

“Bud, how’s your day?” Secretary of State James Coventry asked over the phone.

“Half up, half down,” the NSA answered blandly.

“An even split? Lucky you. Listen, Gordy’s going to be over at my place to watch the address tomorrow.”

“Oh?”

“He’s not exactly the Hill’s favorite person right now,” Coventry explained. “Anyway, I thought you might like to join us.”

Bud smiled to himself. “Heard about the compromise, did you? I keep my mug away from the cameras and Earl won’t throw a fit if the president talks about Iran.” There was a bit of sarcasm in the NSA’s relation of the political reality he’d been cast into.

“Just the smiling faces of HUD and Interior for the networks to see, I gather.”

“You gather correctly,” Bud confirmed. Earl Casey was pushing hard to craft this as a domestically centered campaign, leaving the NSA’s domain somewhat in the shadows. But a campaign was just that. Reality dictated the true importance of Bud DiContino’s expertise.

“Sure. Sounds like a plan. Who’s bringing the beer?”

“I’ll provide refreshments,” Coventry answered with a chuckle. “Oh, and Gordy’s inviting one of his agents who’s in town. You’ll remember him: Jefferson.”

“Art Jefferson? Yeah. A good man. He filled in a lot of the pieces after the assassination. I met him once. What’s he doing here?”

“Working with the D.C. Bureau people tracking down those militants.”

“What time?” Bud asked.

“Anytime before nine.”

“Sounds like a good time,” Bud observed.

“We can make it so.”

Congressman Richard Vorhees rounded the corner at a fast clip, splitting a pair of walkers coming at him on the sidewalk. “Evening.”

“Evening.”

Vorhees looked briefly over his shoulder as he moved away, his eyes admiring the women’s backsides. Both were easily over forty, but it had never been proven that a woman lost her can at that age. At least not to him it hadn’t. He looked forward again with an added bounce in his step and pushed himself along the final mile of his walk, realizing this was the only exercise he’d have for two days. His card was full for the following evening, as it was for anybody who was any—

“Freeze, fucker!”

Vorhees stutter-stopped, the rubber soles of his shoes actually skidding as the dark figure jumped from the shrubs on the right and blocked his path.

“Get ‘em up, dickweed!”

“Easy, easy,” Vorhees said, his eyes fixed on the kid’s hands. Those were the most dangerous parts of a man. These held a revolver that was pointed at his crotch.

“Get ‘em UP!”

Vorhees showed the kid his hands. Male black, five-four, maybe five-five. Dark clothing.

“Give me your money!” One hand came free of the gun and reached out. “Now!”

“I don’t have any,” Vorhees said, trying to commit more details about his assailant to memory before a fear-induced adrenaline rush made such an effort fruitless. Dark bandanna drawn across his face, maybe dark blue, and —

“Your watch! Now!”

The gun waved as Vorhees pulled his watch off. He saw that the hammer was cocked, and the punk had his finger on the trigger. It would only take a twitch. “Here.”

The thief shoved the watch in a pocket and took a half-step back, slowly, without any haste at all. That seemed strange to Vorhees, but more so were the eyes. They glowed in the harsh reflection of approaching headlights, and he could see them travel down his body, past the obvious aim point of the gun, and to his leg. The gun followed the eyes the final distance.

“You ain’t chasin’ me, fuckhead,” the thief said.

I’m going to be shot. The realization hit Vorhees before the punk even spoke. The eyes, the gun, the movement. A switch was reflexively thrown. Combat. Unarmed versus Armed. Move quick. Disarm. Eliminate. He was an 82nd Airborne trooper again, moving toward the enemy, hands in motion, one going for the gun, the other for the upper body for a control hold. There was an abundance of clothing to grab. Moving. Reaching. Almost…

BANG.

Vorhees saw the flash, sensed it even on the skin of his left hand, and felt his weight shift awkwardly. It threw the aim of his right hand off, and by now that claw of fingers set to grab had become a fist prepared to strike. It made contact with something hard, with a soft top layer, but he did not see what. He was falling left and back, one arm reaching now to break his fall. His mind searched for pain. Where was he hit? Where was…

There? He realized where just as his butt hit the sidewalk. My God, how lucky could I be?

Moises Griggs was through the shrubs and across the field of short, brown grass beyond less than thirty seconds after the shot was fired. He jumped through the open door of the waiting Volvo. The door closed on its own as Darian sped away, heading quickly for the Leesburg Pike.

“Did you get him?”

“Yeah,” Moises said. He pulled the black knit cap off and wrapped it around the .357, tossing both into the backseat.

“In the leg?” Darian pressed, his eyes darting to the rearview. No flashing lights. Whew!

“Yeah. Yeah.” Moises pulled the bandanna down to hang around his neck, then put a hand to his forehead. “Man, the motherfucker hit me.”

Darian looked right. “Shit, you’re bleeding.”

Moises rubbed above his left eye and felt the wetness. It stung at the touch. “Shit”

Darian drove with one hand and pulled his young comrade’s head over for a closer look with the other. “He gouged you.”

“Huh?”

“A big ol’ hunk of skin is gone, Brother Moises.” Darian let his head go. “It’s gonna be a scar. A good one.”

Moises took the bandanna from around his neck and pressed it to the wound. It stung, but it didn’t hurt. It did not hurt. “Fuck it.”

That’s the attitude, Darian thought. As he did the first police cars, light bars flashing, passed left to right behind them.

“Where are you hit?” the police officer asked as he knelt down. Two civilians had already come to the victim’s aid.

“The leg,” Vorhees answered, laughing nervously. He saw the cop looking at him and thinking “shock.” “It’s a prosthesis.”

The police officer watched as the victim pulled the left leg of his sweatpants up. He held the beam of his flashlight on the sight. “Unbelievable.”

Vorhees heard more sirens approaching as he stuck three fingers into the gaping hole halfway between his knee and the artificial ankle. He moved them around, making a clinking metal sound. “Blew the hell out of it.”

“Better it than you,” the police officer said. He ran his light over the rest of the victim. “What’s that?”

Vorhees noticed the blood on his hand for the first time. “It’s the punk’s. I laid one on him.”

The police officer examined the bloodied hand. There was a large class-type ring on the third finger, some pieces of torn skin jammed between it and the finger, and — he looked closer — yes, even some short hairs still embedded in the skin. “Don’t touch anything with this. I want to get this in an evidence bag. The leg, too, I’m afraid.”

“It’s no good to me anymore,” Vorhees said.

“But how…”

“Don’t worry.” Vorhees laughed a bit, silently likening himself to a car. “I have a spare. An old one, but it’s got a few miles left in it.”