The Eye of Moloch

Chapter 58

After hours of waiting to receive any encouraging news from the field, Warren Landers had finally begun to pace the floor.

He was learning that the position of leadership he’d so long coveted came with its own set of challenges, some of which he’d been unprepared to meet on such short notice.

At the moment his chief concern was this: while it’s easy enough to push a band of idealists toward an act of desperation, it’s much harder to predict precisely when and how they’ll make their move. He’d called in many valuable favors to prompt the current nationwide terror alert and was now feeling the significant personal and professional exposure of what he’d done. Having essentially promised an imminent attack, he so far had no such thing to deliver.

Earlier in the day his chosen patsies had been found through technological means and were quickly cornered at an airport in Colorado. So far, so good; to have killed them there would have been an outstanding win. Any number of frightening stories of their thwarted plans could have been constructed and fed to the waiting press, thereby stoking the climate of fear and putting everything right back on track for the desired declaration of a national emergency.

But no, they’d somehow escaped and the circumstances now demanded a media blackout until more was known. By the apparent condition of the old puddle-jumper they’d left in, they would be lucky to have limped fifty miles. Judging by the weather they’d flown into, that estimate might be high by half. The last reliable radar returns showed the fugitives falling from the sky like a stone but no crash site had yet been found.

If this all ended in a whimper, with the dangerous domestic terrorists Landers had himself reported being found tomorrow, stranded harmless and unarmed in a muddy cow pasture, the consequences would be dire. He’d promised a clear and present danger and now it must be found, or at least faked from some credible evidence. For his business partners, for his own standing and career, for the backroom political machines that were already poised to trumpet the long-awaited appearance of the mythical violent libertarian revolutionary—for many reasons he now needed a headline-worthy event.

A young man appeared at his door.

“Yes, what is it?” Landers asked.

“I think I know where these people are headed.”

“Show me.”

He’d brought a folding map with him and he spread it across the desk. It had a number of locations circled in black in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic and only one in red, farther west. “This hardware chain, you’d told us to send a team to all the stores and they didn’t find anything—”

“I know that.”

“Okay. But we missed something. They’ve shuttered a bunch of stores in the past ten years and we didn’t look at those, of course, but they’d taken one of them and turned it into a sort of clearinghouse for old inventory. They give all the merchandise there to the needy, disaster relief, and such.” He pointed to the red circle. “And that place is right here.”

Landers put on his reading glasses and bent close to the map.

Butler, Pennsylvania.

Of course.

“Do we have anyone in this area?”

“Only a few assets and they’re not that close. We moved almost everyone farther east. Should I reroute the units we’ve got nearby to this place?”

“No,” Landers said. “Now listen to me. Send whoever’s available to the front gate of location number seven of Garrison Archives. It’s outside of Butler. They can’t miss it: it looks like the entrance to Fort Knox built into the mouth of an old limestone mine. Tell them they’re to immediately lock that gate down tight.”

The young man was writing down these orders in detail. “We could get some help from local law enforcement and the DHS—”

“Absolutely not. This is all ours. It’s going to be a feather in Talion’s cap and we don’t need to muddy the waters with eyewitnesses. We’ll announce what’s happened when it’s over.”

“And what about that warehouse?”

“I’ll handle that myself.”

“It’s a six-hour trip from here by car, maybe more with the terror alert—”

“We’re not going to drive,” Landers said, “we’re going to fly. I want you to go and see that a helicopter gets prepped for combat if there’s not one ready in the arsenal now, and tap four good men to come with me. How long will that take?”

“I don’t know, maybe an hour.”

“You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Landers enjoyed a cup of coffee while he waited, made a few necessary calls, wrote a note to update Aaron Doyle, and then brought up a recent satellite image of his objective. It was a big, open building, relatively isolated from any commercial or residential development, and it looked like there was only one road in or out.

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

“You’re ready to go, Mr. Landers.”

The young man who’d proven so valuable had returned to the doorway, far ahead of schedule and having done exactly as he was told. As Landers stood and put on his coat he looked the fellow over. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Rutherford, sir.”

“See me when I get back, Mr. Rutherford. This is good work you did, and I’m going to have a lot more for you in the future.”

“Thank you, sir.”

As he strapped himself in and went about starting the engines, Landers rechecked the route and thought it all through. There was bad weather coming in but with any luck they’d beat it, get the job done, and be home in time for a late dinner and a modest celebration.

He would have been more comfortable going in with greater force, but Talion was spread quite thin across the country. Most of the men and resources had been deployed to make a public show of strength for the company, making appearances at the many smaller incidents he’d spawned with the help of George Pierce. After today’s heroic crescendo there would be more to work with, and great new opportunities on the horizon.

And George Pierce was another matter. He’d been useful enough but he would no doubt be cooking up a mutiny before very long, and that would have to be dealt with swiftly. Putting him down would be a great pleasure, though this and many other rewarding deeds would have to wait for a less eventful afternoon.

That old saw was true: there really is no rest for the wicked.

Warren Landers confirmed his final clearance with the tower. Shortly thereafter the last of the men boarded and stowed another long case of ammo for the M134 minigun mounted behind him. An assortment of gas canisters and satchel charges were already loaded.

Without further ado he lifted off into a high, rock-steady hover, and then he pitched the craft sharply forward and set them off with all available speed on his course toward western Pennsylvania.