Debt Bomb Page 28

  Still in shock from the accident, she opened her mouth slightly and tried to lift her arms, but she could neither speak nor move. She could only watch helplessly in terror as the large, stinking Mesorovsky leaned over her.

  She heard the snap of the seat belt unfastening. She listlessly slumped forward, her head hitting the steering wheel. She bounced off the wheel, groaned, and fell sideways out of the car’s open door.

  “Dermo!” Mesorovsky shouted. “Help me lay her down.”

  Andrea groaned again as Mesorovsky and someone else pulled her the rest of the way out of the car and laid her on the street. Mesorovsky applied bandages to her temple. The flow of blood down her face abated.

  “Please . . . please . . . help me,” Andrea whispered.

  “Don’t worry,” Mesorovsky said. “I don’t want to kill you. I need you.”

  The talk of death began to bring Andrea to her senses. She opened her mouth to speak but could only gasp sounds. It was as if the accident had severed the link between her brain and her tongue.

  “Load her into the ambulance,” Mesorovsky said in a commanding voice. “And give her the sedative.”

  They grabbed her by ankles and under her arms. Everything smelled of gasoline. She heard what sounded like counting in Russian— “raz,dvah,tree” —and then she was lifted onto a stretcher. She felt the pinch of a needle in her shoulder and something being injected into her veins. Moments later, the stretcher slid into the rear of an ambulance. Everything appeared blindingly white. White walls, white sheets, white equipment.

  The ambulance horn blasted, and she lifted her head slightly, barely able to control her body. Her brain was issuing commands, but her body independently was deciding whether to respond. To her right she saw Mesorovsky seated against the ambulance wall. Out the open rear ambulance doors she could see a man beside her wrecked car leaning over some sort of small device. After another blast of the horn, the man dashed toward the ambulance. Flames began to erupt from the device as the man leaped into the open rear doors.

  “Ekhat, ekhat, ekhat!” Mesorovsky shouted “Go!”

  The man slammed the rear doors shut. The ambulance jumped to life, zooming away from the scene, siren blaring.

  As the ambulance sped off, Andrea heard a massive explosion. The ambulance shook violently from the explosion’s compression waves.

  “Go!” Mesorovsky shouted.

  Mesorovsky leaned over Andrea menacingly as she lay on the gurney. Even in her semi-conscious state, Andrea was overcome by his pungent odor.

  “The president, the president,” Andrea slurred, barely able to form the words as the sedative took hold. “I need to get to the president.”

  “No, we have other plans for you, Miss Gartner,” Mesorovsky said. “Do not worry. Nothing will be left back there. By the time the police put the fire out and figure out what has happened, you will be long gone.”

  “Where are you taking me?” Andrea whispered.

  Mesorovsky smiled. “There is someone special who wants to meet you.”

  Mason was sitting at his office desk when he heard the echo of President Murray and his shrunken Secret Service detail coming down the Longworth Building’s hall. The sound of the static from the Secret Service walkie-talkies was unmistakable. With most of Congress’s staff laid off and congressional business at a standstill, Mason could hear almost any sound in the hall.

  He jumped from his chair and walked out to the entrance foyer. His left hand repeatedly squeezed a spongy stress ball while he bit the fingernails of his right.

  Staring at the white of the bare walls, stripped of their paintings by Chinese agents, Mason felt sweat beading up on his forehead. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face dry.

  Everything he’d done in the United States, from law school to politics, had been designed to set up the approaching moment, his chance to write his name in the history books, to go down in posterity with the heroes of the Revolution. Lenin. Stalin. Mao. Ho Chi Minh. He simultaneously felt exhilaration at the chance to fulfill his destiny and abject terror that he would make a mistake and fail.

  Mason sensed his pulse and breath rate rising. He thought back to his poverty-stricken apartment in Kansas to steady his nerves and build up his anger. It was an old trick the Ministry taught its agents. Convert the energy of fear into directed, purposeful rage.

  The president’s shadow appeared on the hallway floor outside the entrance to the office suite. Mason knew the pinnacle of his career was moments away.

  “Mr. President, thank you for coming.” Mason outstretched his hand.

  “Congressman,” the president said, accepting the handshake coldly.

  Mason turned to the Secret Service agents. “I’m sorry I don’t have any chairs for you. The Chinese took them all.”

  “They understand.” President Murray looked around the empty foyer. His face was filled with disgust. All that remained in the foyer was tattered carpet with imprints of where furniture used to sit. Holes and hooks on the wall stood as silent reminders of the pictures that used to hang there. All the stuff of a congressional office, from the plaques, to the flags, to the souvenir coins from trips to this or that agency, had been hauled away.

  “The Chinese did a number on this place too,” President Murray grumbled. “It looks like a vacant storefront.”

  When they reached the door to Mason’s personal office, the president turned to his security detail. “All right, fellas, I’ll see you when we’re done,” he said.

  Mason knew the president had a habit of leaving his security detail outside of private meetings with senior government officials. He was counting on it.

  “Have a seat.” Mason pointed him to the plush leather chair facing his desk.

  Murray grimaced again. “How come the rest of your office is stripped clean but you still have your stuff?”

  “I dead-bolted the door,” Mason replied. “I heard the Chinese come by and try to get in. They must have decided not to bother breaking down the door and moved on.”

  As President Murray walked toward the chair, Mason closed his office door and quietly turned the deadbolt.

  “I hope you and Andrea realize I want to solve the debt crisis.” Mason calmly took a seat behind his desk.

  “Lew, I’ll be blunt, you fucked me hard, and I’m of a mind to jump across this desk and kick your ass,” President Murray said. “But Andrea convinced me to work with you on a long-term plan to solve our debt crisis and salvage what’s left of the country. You’re lucky you didn’t succeed in exiling her from politics.”

  “Huh?” Mason mumbled, distracted.

  He’d been so overtaken by anticipation of this moment that he’d forgotten to put the magazine into the dull black handgun in his desk. His hands fumbled in the drawer as he tried to slide the magazine into the gun without President Murray noticing.

  “When we make more Social Security and Medicare cuts, you might tell the country that the Debt Rebel Gang supports it and take some of the heat off me and Andrea.”

  “What?” Mason was still fumbling.

  “Lew, what’s going on? Are you listening?”

  “Uh . . . yes, yes I am. You were saying something about Andrea Gartner.”

  Got it!

  Mason gently opened the gun’s magazine chamber and silently slid the magazine into the chamber. The sweat dripping down his back tingled his skin. His pulse was rising.

  “Mr. President, do you know why I called you here?”

  President Murray furrowed his brow. “What kind of question is that? We’re in the middle of a budget crisis, and you are the House Appropriations chairman.”

  “Mr. President, I need to tell you something.” Mason felt a rush of adrenaline. The moment was upon him.

  “What’s that?”

  “Mr. President, isn’t it clear by now that Chinese economics are superior to ours?”

  “Come again?” President Murray squinted and shook his head in confusion.

  “The C
hinese economy and government. They are superior to ours.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Mr. President, I hope you don’t mind my saying this, but our government is decadent and corrupt, spending billions of borrowed dollars on wealthy and middle-class retirees while the poor get nothing.”

  “Lew, are you okay? What the hell has gotten into you?”

  “Mr. President, I think the time has come to acknowledge Chinese supremacy in the world. Their economics are superior. Their military is superior. And their special operations are superior.”

  “Wha—”

  Mason whipped the gun out of the drawer, took aim at the president of the United States, and fired four times.

  Blood exploded from President Murray’s chest and head, spurting onto the desk, and spraying Mason’s shirt and glasses. Murray sagged backward and then dropped off the chair to his left, two bullet wounds in his head and two more in his chest.

  Commotion exploded in the waiting area outside Mason’s office. The office door shook against the deadbolt as the Secret Service agents struggled to get in.

  Mason calmly stood up from his desk, confident in the deadbolt. There, on the floor in front of him, was the president, lying face-up in a pool of blood. He watched the blood flow down the president’s tie, crawling up its white stripes and staining them red. A pool of blood bloomed in the carpet beneath his body. Blood dripped down the wood back of the chair President Murray had been seated in seconds ago, staining the seat cushion.

  Mason dropped his gun at the sight, the smoke still emanating from the gun barrel. His palm tingled from the heat of the freshly fired weapon.

  He knelt beside the body and checked for a pulse. There was none. He dipped his right index finger in the blood on the president’s chest and smeared it on the president’s white shirt. The bright red of Murray’s blood clashed with Mason’s pale white skin.

  Lavrenti Mesorovsky, alias Lewis Mason, code name Crimson, had decapitated Denali.

  History would now know the name Lewis Mason. And the Ministry would forevermore know the name Crimson.

  He turned away from the murdered president, certain the deadbolt would keep the Secret Service out long enough for the Chinese agents hiding down the hall to come to his aid. In this single moment, he was surrounded by everything he’d worked for his entire career. He looked out his window at the Capitol dome, shorn of its statue of Freedom. On the street below, Chinese soldiers were still loading the contents of the Longworth building into trucks. Behind him lay the dead American president. Seeing the symbols of his triumph calmed his nerves.

  His office door continued to vibrate from the pounding of the Secret Service, and with each kick the wood around the deadbolt and hinges splintered a bit more. The door was only a few more kicks away from falling.

  Where are they?

  Unnerved, he thought about what he would do if his Chinese protectors arrived too late. He only had one bullet left for the two agents about to blast into his office. If it came to a shootout, he was a dead man.

  With one final kick, splinters exploded from the wall as the deadbolt separated from it and the door fell inward. The president’s security detail charged into the room with guns drawn.

  “Secret Service!” they screamed. “Hands in the air!”

  Mason complied.

  This was not supposed to happen. I did my job. Where are they?

  The agents seemed utterly confused, unable to wrap their heads around what they were seeing.

  “Stand right there and don’t—”

  Gunshots rang out from outside Mason’s office, spraying the office with a hail of bullets. Mason shrieked as he watched the Secret Service agents fly sideways, blood spraying in all directions. His white office walls were instantly splattered with blood.

  Several large Chinese men entered the office from the entrance foyer. They looked down expressionless at the lifeless bodies at their feet. Their still-smoking guns left a trail as they entered.

  “Where were you?” Mason asked, still shaking. “Another thirty seconds and I would have been dead on the floor.”

  A small, officious-looking Chinese woman in a baby blue Mao-style suit followed the Chinese men into his office.

  “Madame Xu . . .”

  Seeing Xu Li in person stunned Mason and he took a step backward to the windowsill. “It is an honor to be in your presence,” he said, regaining his balance and bowing deeply.

  Xu Li smiled wanly as she looked at President Murray’s body. “I see you have decapitated Denali.”

  “Yes, Madame Xu, I have,” Mason said, regaining his composure. “I’ve done what generations of Communist agents have only dreamed of doing.” He looked over his desk and pointed. “Look out this window. Look at what we have accomplished.”

  Xu Li walked around the desk and stood beside him.

  Mason folded his arms behind his back, standing at attention. He towered over Xu Li by more than a foot but felt like a scared child in her presence.

  “Do you see that, my heroic leader?” Mason said. “The Capitol dome’s statue of Freedom is gone. Your agents are taking every statue, every painting, every symbol of freedom and democracy out of the building. Come tomorrow there won’t be anything left here to keep the government running.”

  “You have indeed done your duty, Crimson,” Xu Li said quietly.

  “I’ve done more than that,” Mason replied. “I’ve altered the course of world history.”

  “We have altered the course of world history,” Xu Li boomed. The fully exposed whites of Xu Li’s eyes betrayed her chilling fanaticism.

  “It is time for us to establish the new regime,” said Mason. “I stand ready to serve.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Crimson,” Xu Li said.

  “What do you mean?” Mason was taken aback. “I’ve devoted my life to making this happen. I’ve succeeded beyond your wildest dreams. You owe me.”

  “Crimson, you have indeed succeeded. We never could have gotten close enough to the president alone to kill him as you did. But our plans for the United States beyond this point do not involve you. Your help is no longer needed.” Xu Li turned toward Mason, her eyes still wide. “You are no longer needed.”

  Mason shuddered and took a step away from Xu Li.

  ‘You’ are no longer needed?

  Mason turned toward his office door. Two Chinese agents stood guard, blocking the exit. One menacingly rubbed the gun slung over his shoulder, eyeing Mason the way a lion eyed its prey.

  “We cannot have you involved in the post-capitalist government,” Xu Li said. “I need someone who is thoroughly obedient and trustworthy. How can I trust someone willing to betray his own country? No, Crimson, your work is done.”

  Mason could feel the terror building within. He looked at the gun he’d dropped on the ground. He didn’t think he could reach it before one of the Chinese agents shot him.

  “Take this.” Xu Li handed him an envelope. “These are your new instructions.”

  Mason took the envelope. He pulled a piece of paper from the envelope, slowly unfolded it, and began reading.

  Agent Crimson is awarded the Order of Mao, the Ministry’s highest honor. Agent Crimson completed Operation Pripyat by killing the president of the United States, the leader of the world capitalist faction. His obedience, devotion to duty, and willingness to sacrifice himself for the Revolution shall be an example to all Ministry agents. We honor Agent Crimson’s memory with the posthumous awarding of the Order of Mao. He will forever hold a place in the history of the Revolution.

  His eyes widened as he reached the end of the paper.

  “But Madame Xu, I didn’t die,” said Mason.

  “Yes, you did,” Xu Li said, a sinister smile creeping across her face.

  One of the Chinese agents walked toward him slowly. He grinned sadistically and caressed his gun like a baby.

  Mason turned to Xu Li. “You can’t do this to me. I’ve completed the mo
st important mission in the history of world Communism.”

  Mason frantically looked for a way out. The office door was still blocked by one of the Chinese agents. He surveyed the room for another exit, but all he saw was the window. The approaching Chinese agent was now in front of the desk, his gun still draped over his shoulder. Mason watched as he began to remove the safety on the gun.

  “I have to do this to you, Crimson,” Xu Li said emotionlessly. Her clinical indifference terrified Mason more than her sinister visage. “I cannot have this story told.”

  “How can you—”

  Mason saw the flash of the Chinese guard’s gun out of the corner of his eye and felt a puncturing of his stomach. The note he had just read fluttered out of his hand, followed by the sound of glass shattering and thousands of stabbing pains in the back of his head as his skull crashed into the window behind him. He crumpled to the floor and felt warm blood gushing over his hand as he futilely tried to cover his stomach wound.

  “You have served your purpose, Crimson,” Xu Li said.

  The Chinese agent, still grinning sadistically, sidled up to Xu Li.

  “But . . . but . . .” Mason whispered.

  “I need this.” Xu Li snatched the note and envelope from the floor.

  Mason coughed up blood while Xu Li carefully folded the note, put it back in its envelope, and slid it into the pocket inside her jacket.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Crimson, I have to get to a meeting.”

  “A meeting?” said Mason in barely a whisper, gurgling blood as he spoke.

  “Andrea Gartner is waiting for me.” Xu Li looked down at him. “Farewell, Crimson.” Then she turned to the soldier and nodded.

  The soldier stood over Mason, his smile broadening. He cocked his gun, aimed for Mason’s head, and fired.

  Andrea awoke in a dark basement tied to a chair. Not one of those expensive ergonomic chairs in the White House, but one of those old-fashioned wooden chairs with the flat bottoms and stiff backs that doubled as a treatment for scoliosis. A single lightbulb hung over her head. The walls were damp, and she could hear the drip of water through cracks in the ceiling and walls.