Fate of the Union

One

Chris Bryson knew he was in over his head.

And not just out of his depth — more like going down for the third time, still conscious but holding his breath, waiting for the darkness to come.

Of course he was not in the water at all, and in fact he was already sitting in the near dark — a former Secret Service agent and Congressional Medal of Honor winner holed up like a bank robber in a seedy two-story motel/hotel in Chantilly, Virginia, where he could hear the overhead rumble and whine of the metal beasts of Washington Dulles International Airport. On the one hand, they promised escape, on the other threatened to consume him.

He grunted a laugh through the slit in his face that wasn’t quite a smile. Such melodramatic thoughts were part and parcel, he supposed, of hiding out in a place called the Skyway Farer. Not that he couldn’t take care of himself, normally. But sometimes even the strongest, most confident man could use a little goddamn help.

And right now the only person he could think of, who might be up to helping him out of this deep a hole, was Joe Reeder. He only hoped, with everything that had happened to Joe in the last year or so, that help from him wasn’t out of the question.

Five feet nine and in damn good shape for his midfifties, Bryson kept his sandy-colored hair military short, the gray barely showing, all of which conspired with his boyish features to make him look forty-something. At work he wore contacts, glasses at home.

Now, though, in this low-rent motel room, in the dim light of a bedside lamp, his eyes burned from too many contact-lens hours, and he’d left his glasses on his desk at his office. He wished he could take the damned things out, but that just wasn’t going to happen — he had to stay alert and — small detail — he had to be able to see.

There was something else he wished he didn’t have to wear. Even as he sat on the bed, legs stretched out, a pillow propped against the wobbly headboard, he was ever aware of the shoulder rig with loaded Glock, a round in the chamber. His suit pants were getting wrinkled, the fabric as loose as a used parachute, but looking sharp was not exactly a priority. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up, his tie loose as a noose before the executioner snugged it.

The room was decorated in Early Twenty-First Century Urban Blight with its Wi-Fi hook-up, small flat-screen TV, and high curved shower rod so that fat-ass businessmen could fit inside. His suit coat hung on the back of the office-type chair at a meager table of a workstation where his laptop sat, open, screen saver on. Random light trails blundered to the edges of the screen, then bounced and dissipated, a sad reminder of what might become of him if Reeder couldn’t help. Right now he would kill for a drink, but the only cocktail available was the mingled odor of sweat and fear.

In a room silent but for the muffled drone of televisions in the rooms on either side of him, Bryson pricked his ears, searching for the slightest sound from the hallway. Fear was nothing new to him. Sometimes it was like a friend whose advice was irritating but worth listening to. This nagging friend had aided him in combat, and when he stood post on the presidential detail.

But this time — was it his age? — the fear was not a friend, but some out of control stranger blurting false alarms.

Only not quite a stranger.

He’d met this kind of fear before. Like the day his fellow agent Reeder had taken a bullet for President Gregory Bennett. Yet never before this bad — he hadn’t been this fucking scared when he and a gaggle of other agents had jumped on that would-be presidential assassin and disarmed him.

No, this was different.

This was fear bordering on panic, and not just for himself — he could handle that, and maybe that was why this felt so different. This time the stranger had come to shout warnings about Beth.

His wife, Beth, who he hadn’t even dared call yet. Who he knew might come under that terrible designation of collateral damage, generating in him a fear for her safety that dwarfed anything he might feel for himself.

And what of his son, Christopher? A man by the calendar, but still just a boy compared to his father’s years. That this might touch his son was so terrible a thought, it refused to fully form.

That’s why he needed Reeder.

Working as a one-man security operation, Bryson didn’t have anyone in his current life who could handle this level of shitstorm. And he was so far out of the national security loop, he didn’t know who to call that could be trusted.

Except Joe Reeder.

If it came to a shoot-out, Reeder would be on top of it, and the man had the kind of unique standing that meant Bryson could come in from the cold. With Reeder at his side, anyway.

In the motel room’s near darkness, Bryson shook his head. How the hell had he gotten himself into so much trouble so fast?

It had begun as just another routine gig, just some normal digging — a simple background check for Christ’s sake! And now, somehow, he was running for his life — if holing up in a sleazy shithole, with his loaded gun on and his burning contacts in, qualified as “running.”

More like running in place. Waiting for help that might not come, help he hadn’t been able to even ask for yet. Of course, if he didn’t get hold of Reeder soon, his fears, his worries, would soon be over...

Last night, as part of his security work, Bryson had committed the first real crime of his career — not the middling corner-cutting anybody in his line might pull, no. But outright breaking and entering — into somewhere he should not have been, where he’d seen something he wasn’t supposed to see.

He’d known the instant he found the thing that it was bigger than he could handle himself. He hadn’t even expected to find it, had been hoping this was just a wild goose chase, a wild hair up his ass. It was neither. Although he had barely touched the damn thing, taking just one photo with his digital camera, he knew instantly he was looking at major-league trouble.

And ran.

Even though his discovery had been an almost random action, he was aware that they were onto him, that his knowledge of what they’d figuratively buried could literally bury him.

He pulled out the burner phone he’d bought from Reeder’s guy, DeMarcus. No way to trace it, no way for his pursuers to know he would go to Reeder. And no sign of them, either, now that he’d gone to ground.

Should be safe to make the call. Right? Right? Still, he went through every possibility again before telling himself, No, it’s fine, the call will be safe. He punched in Reeder’s number and waited while it rang. And rang.

And rang.

Where the hell was he?

It wasn’t like Joe Reeder had a social life. Why wasn’t he answering? Bryson’s blood pressure rose in tandem with his growing panic.

Did he dare leave a voice mail?

Fuck it, too much at stake not to. When the beep came, he said in a rush, “Joe, Chris Bryson. Call this number when you get this. Life and death, brother — don’t let me down.”

He hit END CALL and stared at the phone in his palm as if Reeder might immediately ring back. When that didn’t happen, he kept staring, willing the thing to ring. When it refused to, he slipped it into his pants pocket. Watched pot never boils, watched cell never rings.

If he stayed in this room much longer, he would start bouncing off the walls. His blood sugar was dipping, his mind racing. No one knew he was here in this anonymous area — just another business traveler, right? No harm in going out for a late steak and a drink.

It’ll be fine, he told himself. No worries.

Rising, he smoothed his pants and if wrinkles could laugh, they would have. He snugged the tie a little, but not completely, the hangman image lingering. Looking like a businessman who’d had a hell of a day was in character, wasn’t it? Would help him blend in, explain the red eyes, sweat-stained collar, and five o’clock shadow that had long since lapped itself. The last he’d shaved had been yesterday morning, thinking it was just another Monday.

Now it was Tuesday evening, a day later... or was that a week, or a month? Two days had blended into a waking nightmare with some intermittent sleep last night but nothing more than a catnap since. He dare not risk more than that, at least not until he’d convinced Reeder to step up.

He went into the bathroom, ran some cold water, rinsed his face, then dried it. The face in the mirror was his, but he had never seen it look so... so stricken before. So old, so desperate, so frazzled. Didn’t look forty-something now; more like sixty. He had to do something about that.

He considered his options — color his hair? Different color contacts? These days you could get contacts at a strip-mall optician’s in under an hour. Blue-collar apparel maybe? That was easy enough. He tried smiling at himself but the bastard in the mirror wouldn’t have any.

The bastard in the mirror knew that none of that cosmetic crap mattered, that those coming after him would have access to facial recognition software and to the CCTV cameras that were fucking everywhere. With his security training, Bryson felt fairly confident that he’d done a decent enough job of avoiding them so far; but the odds — and time — were against him.

Though he knew his way around hotels, airports, and banks, and was careful at unfamiliar corners, constantly assessing his surroundings, sooner or later a camera would catch him, if it hadn’t already. He was old enough to remember when London-style CCTV surveillance wasn’t the norm in this country; that now seemed the distant past, and an all too real present carried an inevitability he could only put off for so long.

He pulled his suit coat off the chair, shrugged into it, patted the phone in his pocket, accepting the idea that Reeder wasn’t going to be calling back immediately. He’d risk that steak and that drink — just one drink, though. Couldn’t stand to lose whatever edge he had left after these endless two days.

At the door, he stopped, listened hard, heard nothing, then opened it as slowly as if it were the lid on a box of snakes. He looked both ways, stepped out into the corridor. Turned toward the elevator, then heard the door across the hall open.

He spun, but it was too late.

Two men were coming toward him; his hand swept toward the shoulder-holstered Glock. But behind him, on his side of the hall, another door opened, only with those two men bearing down, he’d have to take his chances that this was some other guest who’d happened to open that door just then, about to blunder innocently into something bad going down, stalling Bryson’s attackers just long enough... and Bryson’s hand was on the gun butt when he felt a bee sting his neck.

He reached up, as if to swat that bee, and his fingers felt the dart there, and plucked it out.

Already his legs were rubber and the floor came up and took him. He fumbled with his pistol, but his hand was weighed down with leaden fingers, his arm even heavier, yet somehow it merely drifted to his side.

He could not move. He waited to black out but that kept not happening. Sprawled on the cheap carpeting, his breathing shallow, his eyes wide open, he could manage only to stare up at the four men looming, huddling, over him. They all wore small smiles that had some sneer; none had bothered wearing a mask.

His body was paralyzed, but his brain wasn’t. It kept computing. The lack of masks meant two things: this quartet wasn’t worried about the security camera at the other end of the hall, and didn’t care if he saw their faces because they felt sure he would never describe them to anybody. Though they were dressed business casual, fitting in well at the Skyway Farer, they had the hard hooded-eyed look of the mercenary.

Just above him, a muscular blond man, with flecks of scars scattered around his handsome face like ugly confetti, said, “Get his key card — haul his ass back into his room before someone sees.”

Bryson tried to yell, but his vocal cords were nonfunctional. Within seconds, they had dragged him back into his room, locking the door behind them. Helpless down on a carpet smelling of stale food and dust, he found he couldn’t even work up a sneeze.

The trip out of and then back into his room had taken less than a minute. He doubted anyone had heard anything, let alone seen anything, and the camera was surely broken or blocked.

Why hadn’t they just killed him in the corridor?

That would have been easy enough, had that been their aim. Instead, they had taken him down with a dart, like a beast in the jungle. Was it possible that they didn’t intend to kill him? How could that be, since he could identify them all? Or did they mean to... to torture him?

The blond leaned down. “Succinylcholine, sux. You know what that is, right? What it does?”

Bryson did know the drug — a neuromuscular paralytic used in presurgery anesthesia to relax the trachea, making it easier to intubate a patient. Also a part of the chemical mixture used in lethal injection, which explained why he was having so much trouble breathing. Wouldn’t be long now, he knew, before his breathing stopped altogether. Without benefit of the sedative combined during both of the drug’s normal uses, dying would be unbearably painful, too. The logical part of his brain reported these facts as the emotional layer screamed.

Silently screamed.

The blond grinned at the fear he saw in Bryson’s eyes. “Don’t worry, Mr. Bryson, we didn’t administer enough to kill you — just to make you compliant.” The grin became a wide smile, scar flecks on both upper and lower lips. “We’re not here to murder you.”

No use fighting it. He still could not move, and wondered if he’d ever move again. Maybe if he cooperated. Maybe he could save himself. But at what cost?

Businesslike, the blond asked, “Can you blink?”

Not trying to, he blinked.

“Good. One blink for yes, two blinks for no. Now. Did you tell anyone what you found?”

He didn’t blink at all, thinking, How many blinks for fuck you, asshole!

The blond smiled pleasantly, or as close to pleasantly as he was capable. “Maybe you told that pretty wife of yours. How about it?”

He blinked twice. He saw himself overcoming the drug, reaching up and strangling the son of a bitch. In reality, he remained motionless, the ability to blink the only thing left to him. But that meant the sux was starting to wear off. He needed this bastard to keep talking just a little longer and maybe he would have a chance.

The blond knew about Bryson, anyway enough so to ask him if he’d entrusted anything to half a dozen friends, from business associates to a pal down the block. Each time Bryson blinked three or four or five times — never giving the blond the satisfaction of a single or double blink — and felt himself start the hint of a smile. He’d figured out how to blink, “Fuck you,” after all!

Finally, the blond sighed and said, “I said we weren’t here to murder you. What’s the point in killing a man who’s about to commit suicide?”

Two of the others stepped forward and one held him while the other got his belt off him. The blond and another guy grabbed him and carried him to the bathroom, trailed by the pair with the belt, which they worked around the shower rod, inches from the ceiling, while the blond and his helper propped Bryson up. The blond wound the belt around Bryson’s neck, not making eye contact. It was as if the man already considered him dead.

That was the terrible part, not the pain, not the certainty that death was coming, but knowing that after a little time had passed, they would call on Beth, to see what he had or hadn’t told her.

As they held him up, Bryson tried to kick, but his legs remained slack and the belt cut more deeply into his neck, shutting off even more of the meager oxygen he was managing to suck in.

The blond let go of him and Bryson’s feet slipped down the outside of the tub until the belt was taut, and he was barely off the floor, the shower rod holding.

Maybe it would give — maybe it would break before anything inside his neck did!

Alone in the bathroom now, he could feel his eyes bulge and his chest burn, as he fought to draw in even a molecule of air without success.

He heard the outer door close. They weren’t even going to stay around to make sure he died! He had to think of something, had to do something. He tried to bend his feet, to touch the floor, but they barely moved. He tried to lift his hands but they were useless things, floating yet heavy.

The burning in his throat grew hotter. Sweat poured out of him like the shower was on, and he struggled to draw a breath of any kind.

Stars exploded in ghastly Fourth of July bursts as his vision darkened. He thought of Beth and begged her forgiveness, as if she could hear a pain-racked apology that would never leave his head. He hadn’t meant for any of this to happen, it was just a job, no, not even that, just him looking into something he had overheard. Something he had overheard that had gotten him killed and probably her, too, without Reeder’s help. Shit! Shit!

He loved her, always had. Now, all he wanted was to hold her one last time.

Beth, I love you, I’m sorry. Christopher, son — always said you were the man... now you are the man...

In the darkness, he felt sensation begin to flow through his limbs, his body, most of it pain, but goddamn, sensation.

The last sensation he felt was the burner phone in his pocket, vibrating.