Firebase Freedom Read online

  Received into my Custody, by order of

  Sarhag Kareem Ali, the Jewess Sarah

  Gelbman.

  Sam signed the name Otto Spear on the blank line, because he knew it to be the name of one of the Janissary guards back at Camp 26.

  “Come on, Jew bitch,” he said gruffly, grabbing Sarah by the arm.

  “Ow! You’re hurting me!” Sarah said. She turned back to Lewis. “Please, let me go back to the barracks.”

  Lewis laughed. “That’s what I like, for our women to look at this as their home.”

  “Come on, you’re wasting my time,” Sam said, leading her out to the car. Opening the door he shoved her into the seat roughly, then he hurried around to the driver’s side, and drove away. Not until they were at least a quarter of a mile down Carlisle Road from the camp did Sarah speak.

  “Sam, God in Heaven, how did you do this?”

  “It was easy. I just decided to wake myself up from the nightmare I was having.”

  “Oh, Sam, I love you so! I, I . . .” tears began streaming down Sarah’s cheeks. “I didn’t know if I would ever even see you again.”

  “We’re not out of the woods yet. I’m sure that by now they’ve discovered the body of the guard I killed. And this is his car.”

  “Oh, you had to . . .”

  “Kill someone? Yes, Sarah, I had to kill someone. But I look at it as no different from what I had to do when I was in Afghanistan.”

  “I’m not condemning you, my darling,” Sarah said, putting both hands around his arm.

  “Sarah!” Sam said. “Look!” They were passing a warehouse, and Sam pointed to an eighteen-wheeler that was sitting in the dark parking lot. “I recognize that truck! It’s one of the ones we used to own in the before time!”

  Driving into the warehouse yard, he parked the car, got out, and made a close examination of the big, Peterbuilt diesel truck. Even though the door had been painted over, he could see under the paint the shadow of the old markings:

  MID-AMERICA TRUCKING

  Dallas, TX

  BL 80,000LBS

  “I wonder if . . .” he said, then he reached under the left vertical stack, felt around a bit, and smiled. He pulled a little case out, opened the lid, and produced the key. “Yes!” he said, excitedly.

  “Sam, what if there’s someone sleeping in the back?”

  “Yeah, maybe I’d better check.”

  Sam pulled the pistol that had come with the black uniform he was wearing.

  “Sam, whoever it is, don’t kill him.”

  “I won’t,” Sam promised. “If there’s anyone there I’ll just order him out. When he sees this uniform I don’t think he’ll give me any trouble.”

  Sam opened the door, pulling it open as quietly as he could. A light came on, on the floor, but not overhead. He stepped up onto the step, put his knee on the seat, and looked into the sleeper cab. It was too dark in the back for him to be able to tell if anyone was there or not.

  Sam knew this truck well, and he knew where the toggle switch was that would turn on the light in the sleeper cab. He flipped it on, and the cab was flooded with light.

  It was empty.

  “Sarah, it’s empty,” Sam called down. “Get in, quick!”

  Sam thought about dropping the trailer, but decided that once the word got out, a tractor without the trailer would stand out among the highway traffic more than a tractor-trailer combination. So, leaving it attached, he drove off.

  They reached Del Rio, Texas, just before six in the morning. Turning right on Gibbs, he headed straight for the Mexican border, crossing into Mexico at Ciudad Acuña. The “open border” problem had been eliminated when the United States collapsed. The U.S. was no longer a destination for “illegal immigrants.” Instead, the opposite phenomenon developed, with Americans fleeing to Mexico.

  Sam’s trucks had often crossed into Mexico to deliver or pick up cargo, and all that was required was a twenty-four hour commercial pass at the point of entry.

  “You’d better take off that shirt before you get to the border check,” Sarah cautioned.

  “Yeah, good idea.”

  When he reached the checkpoint, a border guard, with a cigarette hanging from his lips, came out to the truck.

  “Necesito una visa commercial, por favor,” Sam said.

  “Diez Moqaddas,” the border guard said.

  Fortunately, the guard whose uniform Sam had taken had been carrying a billfold with almost two hundred Moqaddas, so Sam had no problem paying ten for the commercial visa.

  Two hours later Sam and Sarah were in a 2008 Toyota, having traded the truck for it to someone who didn’t need the title to close the deal. When Sam crossed into the U.S. at Laredo, he was, again, wearing the black uniform of the Janissary. The border guard approached the car, but seeing the uniform, stopped, and gave the closed fist over his heart salute.

  “Obey Ohmshidi!” he said.

  Sam returned the salute.

  “You may go ahead, sir,” the border guard said. Sam nodded, then drove on through.

  “Sam, where are we going?” Sarah asked.

  “Shortly after Ohmshidi was elected, I got a letter from Jake Lantz, an officer I met in Afghanistan. He was a helicopter pilot who carried me from place to place a few times. He said that if everything went south under Ohmshidi, he was going to hole up in a place called Fort Morgan, down on the Alabama coast. He invited me down, I should have taken him up on it.”

  “Do you really think he is there?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “But right now we don’t have a lot of options left, do we?”

  “I guess not.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Alexandria

  The motel room was redolent with the hint of pheromones, and Chris and Kathy lay naked together in bed, just coasting down from having had sex. Chris’s left arm was under Kathy, who was on her back beside him, and his hand cupped her breast, gently kneading the nipple.

  “Now, if you don’t watch out, you’ll get me ready to go again, and you won’t be ready,” Kathy warned.

  “Ha! Who says I won’t be ready? Just not at this precise moment.”

  Kathy laughed, then, after a moment of silence she asked, “Chris, do you ever think of us as Bonnie and Clyde?”

  “Bonnie and Clyde? What gave you that idea?”

  “Oh, I just remember watching that movie a long time ago. And we’re sort of like them, a man and woman, living together but not married, robbing banks.”

  “Did Bonnie dress like a man when they robbed the banks?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I saw that same movie, and seems to me like Clyde was impotent. Do you think I’m impotent?”

  Again Kathy laughed. “Lord no,” she said.

  “Well, then, we aren’t like Bonnie and Clyde. And we damn sure aren’t going to wind up like them, shot down like dogs.”

  “That’s reassuring,” Kathy said, snuggling closer to him.

  Clyde picked up the remote. “It’s time for the news,” he said. “Or at least, it’s time for what passes for news.” He pointed the remote toward the TV then clicked it.

  The opening spiel had already started.

  “ . . . guides there is none to misguide, and whomsoever Allah misguides there is none to guide. You must live your life in accordance with the Moqaddas Sirata, the Holy Path. Those who do will be blessed. Those who do not will be damned.”

  The newscaster appeared then, sitting in front of the Ohmshidi portrait. “Obey Ohmshidi,” he began.

  The picture on the screen changed to that of the very recognizable George Gregoire.

  “This is the traitor, George Gregoire. Great Leader, President for Life Ohmshidi, Allah’s blessings be upon him, has tried Gregoire and found him guilty of treason. Tomorrow at one o’clock, there will be a public beheading of this traitor at the National Mall. The event will be televised for all to see.”

  “Damn!” Chris said, sitting up in bed.


  “Do they really think anyone would want to watch someone get his head chopped off? Nobody is going to watch that,” Kathy said.

  Chris reached for the phone. “That’s right, nobody is going to watch it, because it isn’t going to happen.” He punched in some numbers. “Gates? This is Carmack. Yeah, yeah, I know, I’ve sort of dropped out for a while. Look, could you meet me for dinner tonight, my treat? There’s a kabob place over on Pennsylvania Street . . . yes, that’s the one. Meet me there.”

  “Are we going out for dinner tonight?” Kathy asked after Chris hung up the phone.

  “No, I don’t want you seen. If this goes bad, I don’t want you involved.”

  “What are you going to do, Chris?”

  “Whatever has to be done,” Chris replied.

  Chris met Bryan Gates at Mehran Kabob Restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue, within sight of the White House. The two shook hands, then found a table in the back of the room that was separated some distance from any other customer in the restaurant. Gates had been someone that Chris worked with in the CIA, and though Gates never knew about Chris’s “contract killing” job, he did know that Chris had been involved in several very classified operations.

  “What are you doing these days, Bryan?” Chris asked.

  “Whatever I have to do to turn a buck. Or, I guess I should say, a Moqadda.”

  “Do you still have inside sources of information?”

  Bryan broke eye contact, and shrugged, but didn’t answer.

  “And if you had that information, would you sell it?”

  “Chris, are you wired? Are you still working for the government?”

  “I swear to you that I am not,” Chris said.

  Bryan smiled, though the smile was strained. “You were trained to lie,” he said. “I never did know exactly what you did for the company, but I did know that it was top secret. How do I know you haven’t just taken your talent over to the SPS, or worse, to the Janissaries?”

  “I was a contract killer,” Chris said.

  Bryan nodded. “Yeah, I thought it might be something like that.”

  “I’ll give you another piece of news about me, that if it got out, would have my head on the chopping block, literally. You will be the only one who knows this, and the only reason I’ll tell you, is to show you that I represent no danger to you.”

  “What would that be?” Bryan asked.

  “I’ve already given you some information, I told you I was a contract killer. Now, I’m going to ask you for some information. If you can supply it, I will give you five thousand Moqaddas, then I’ll give you the incriminating information I spoke of.”

  “Five thousand Moqaddas?”

  “I have the money with me.”

  “Where did you come up with money like that?”

  “First, you answer a few of my questions, if you can.”

  “All right, ask. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Where are they keeping George Gregoire? In which jail?”

  Bryan shook his head. “They aren’t keeping him in any jail. He is being kept on the top floor in Grant Hall at Fort McNair.”

  “Grant Hall? Wait a minute, isn’t that the old Federal Arsenal Penitentiary where the Lincoln Conspirators were tried?”

  “You’ve got it. And it’s not by mere coincidence that he is being kept there. According to Rahimi, Gregoire is the biggest traitor since the Lincoln conspirators, so he ordered that Gregoire be kept there.”

  “According to whom?”

  “You mean you haven’t heard of Mohammad Akbar Rahimi?”

  “No.”

  Bryan chuckled. “You probably know him as Warren Church.”

  “Warren Church? Wait a minute! Do you mean that blowhard asshole college professor who was spouting off about how righteous those bastards were who murdered all those people on 9/11? And how they should be given medals?”

  “That’s the one I’m talking about.”

  “What the hell does he have to do with deciding where Gregoire is kept?”

  “Ha! You really are out of it, aren’t you? You probably think, like the rest of the country, that Mehdi Ohmshidi is in charge.”

  “Are you telling me that he isn’t?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you, my friend. The real person in charge is Warren Church, otherwise known as Mohammad Akbar Rahimi.”

  “How is it that he’s in charge? I mean, what is his position?”

  “Technically, he’s the minister of culture. But that’s much more powerful than it sounds, because he is the one who has the ear in all the Islamic capitals. He is their representative for the great caliphate they are trying to put together.”

  “An American is doing all that? He wasn’t born Muslim, was he?”

  “I don’t know what he was born, but it certainly wasn’t Muslim.”

  “Just out of curiosity, where does that son of a bitch stay?”

  “He has an office in what used to be the Harry S. Truman Federal Building. But he is living at Fort McNair in the old house once occupied by the vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army.”

  “Whoa, so Gregoire is being kept in Grant Hall, and Church lives there?”

  “Yes. Tell me, Chris, what do you want with this information?”

  Chris shook his head. “Believe me, you don’t want to know,” he said. He smiled. “But the information is worth five thousand Moqaddas.”

  Chris took five packets from the small leather pouch he was carrying, each packet containing fifty bills in the denomination of twenty Moqaddas. He slid them across the table to Bryan, and Bryan glanced around the dining room quickly, then he picked the packets up and started putting them in his pockets.

  “Enjoy your dinner,” Chris said, getting up before they had even ordered. He had not shared with Bryan the self-incriminating information that he was the bank robber everyone was looking for, and Bryan was so involved with the money that he didn’t ask.

  It was just after midnight when Chris drove up to the Fort McNair gate. He stopped just before he went through the gate, then unfolded a map, and was sitting behind the steering wheel when the black-uniformed Janissary who was manning the gate walked back to him.

  “What are you doing here? You can’t come in here,” the gate guard said, gruffly.

  “I think I’m lost,” Chris said. “I’m looking for this place.”

  “I don’t care what you’re looking for. Turn that car around now and leave.”

  The guard leaned over so that his head was even with the car window. When he did, Chris shot him between the eyes, using the same pistol, a Glock 19, with a suppressor, that he had used when he shot Shurayh Amaar. Again, the shot sounded no louder than a trigger being pulled on an empty chamber.

  Very quickly, Chris dragged the body into the gatehouse, wiped away the blood, then put the body in the chair, positioning him so that to the casual glance, he appeared to be asleep.

  Returning to the car, Chris drove next to the old, sprawling, brick house that was, at one time, the home of the vice chief of staff for the U.S. Army. Chris knew the house, because in the “before time,” he once attended a cocktail party here.

  Parking under the shadow of some trees, he left the car and walked across the grass, up to the house. He looked back and was pleased to see that, with the shadows, the car wasn’t immediately noticeable. Moving up to a window on the side porch, he checked for an alarm system, finding one that depended upon a continuous flow of electricity, that would be broken when the window was raised.

  “Damn, Church, you being such an important man and all, I was sure you’d have a more sophisticated system than this,” Chris said, quietly.

  Taking a copper wire from his pocket, he bypassed the alarm so that, even when the window was raised, the current flow would remain unbroken. Then, putting on night vision goggles, he slipped through the window, entering the house through the dining room. Because of the NVG he was able to see well enough to move through the house easil
y.

  Two minutes after he entered the house, he was in a bedroom, standing over Church’s bed. As he had done with Husni Mawsil, he gave Church/Rahimi an injection of Batrachotoxin. Then he put his hand over Church’s mouth, so that when he opened his eyes, he couldn’t call out.

  “I’ll only have to hold my hand here for a couple of seconds,” Chris said quietly, “because the first thing you’ll lose is your ability to speak.”

  Chris took his hand away. “Go ahead, try to speak now.”

  All Rahimi could do was make a few grunting sounds.

  “I thought so,” Chris said. “Next, you’ll lose the ability to breathe.”

  Even as Chris was speaking, Rahimi put his hands to his neck, his eyes open wide in terror.

  “Yeah, dyin’ is fun when you’re doing it to helpless people, but not so much when it happens to you, is it?”

  Rahimi gasped a few more times, then was quiet, his face contorted in death.

  Chris left by the same window he had entered, then went directly to Grant Hall, which stood right in the middle of the parade ground. The front doors were locked, but Chris picked the lock easily.

  The Janissary at the desk was looking at a men’s magazine from the “before time” and was fondling himself as he was studying the picture of a beautiful, nude woman. Because it was so late at night, and the front doors were locked, he didn’t expect anyone to come in. And because he was so lost in the nude pictures, he wasn’t paying any attention. As a result, Chris was standing in front of his desk before the man even noticed him.

  “What are you . . .”

  That was as far as the Janissary got before Chris shot him. He fell forward onto the desk, and Chris continued through the building.

  Chris went up two flights of stairs to the third floor. This floor had been turned into a prison, like the one that once held the Lincoln conspirators. There was one Janissary sitting at a desk, reading, and there were two occupied bunks.