Coldfall Page 22

  “Still worried about that.”

  “Jesus Christ, Jack!” Carter shouted. “You’re worse than my ex-wife. The third one. First two were alright.”

  “Kiss my ass, Bill,” Timmons said, no longer smiling. “Sure, the Joint Chiefs balked. Wouldn’t follow her orders. But there’re others who will.”

  Carter nodded, a slow smile spreading across his face.

  “They’ll try, but it won’t be enough. The boys in uniform aren’t going to start shooting at their own family and friends. What we’ve got to worry about is the timing.”

  “Timing?” Timmons frowned as he sat forward and thumped the whiskey glass onto the polished table. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about a military coup. These officers that are refusing to follow orders might decide it’s in the country’s best interest to remove the president from office and close down Congress. Normally, that would be a pipe dream, but things are far from normal. What would be unthinkable is now a possibility and the most dangerous part of our plan. It’s imperative that the next phase happens as quickly as possible.”

  “No shit,” Timmons said, sitting back with his face creased in concern. “But those bastards should have been ready. All they were waiting on was an invitation from the White House.”

  “Agreed, but there was only so much advance preparation that could be completed without risking someone taking notice and asking questions that couldn’t be answered. We’ve got thirty-six hours, give or take. All she has to do is hold things together for a day and a half.”

  “What if she can’t? What if…”

  “Shut the fuck up, Jack!” Carter bellowed. “This is it! There’s no turning back, now. Quit whining about it. Just lie back and enjoy the ride.”

  The two men glared at each other, Timmons finally looking away and returning to his phone. He scrolled for a few moments, then slipped it into his pocket and stood.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Going to go whine in my suite,” Timmons said, somewhat petulantly. “Let me know if anything happens.”

  As soon as he left the office, Carter pressed a button on his desk phone, dialing an internal extension that was answered almost immediately.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Timmons’ phone. You monitoring?”

  “Yes, sir. No unusual activity.”

  “I’ll decide what’s unusual!” Carter snapped. “He talking to anyone?”

  “Only the normal escort agency, sir. He has two Russian girls coming to his suite.”

  Carter snorted a laugh. Timmons thought his seeming unquenchable desire for very young and nubile women from the former Soviet Union was his little secret. But nothing that Carter wanted to know remained hidden for long.

  “Are the cameras in his suite online?”

  “Yes, sir. All are operating properly and streaming to our servers.”

  Carter disconnected without another word, removing a laptop from a drawer and opening it on his desk. With a few clicks, he was looking at a sharp, color image of the inside of Timmons’ opulent suite. He was seated on the sofa, drinking whiskey and seemingly staring at the opposite wall in contemplation.

  The sound of a muted bell came clearly over the laptop’s speakers and Timmons rose to his feet and went to the door. Opening it, he smiled broadly and stepped back to allow two scantily dressed young women to enter. Both were very pretty and chattered to him in their native tongue as they passed.

  Following them with his eyes, he turned back when a hulking man in a dark suit stepped partially into the room. Carter knew this was the escort agency’s driver and body guard for the working girls. He was also the only one who ever touched the money.

  Timmons pulled a thick envelope from inside his jacket and the man pocketed it without looking inside. Turning away, he disappeared to wait for the girls in the lobby. Jack closed the door and returned to the sofa, pouring himself a fresh drink before leaning back.

  One of the girls said something in Russian and he nodded as he made a get on with it gesture with his drink. The other strutted across the room to a stylish stereo and fiddled with the controls until loud music blared from hidden speakers. They began dancing together, slowly removing each other’s clothing. Timmons watched closely as the two girls moved close, their nude bodies writhing against each other as their lips met in a passionate kiss.

  Chapter 41

  My eyes snapped open when BK prodded me. Looking around quickly, expecting to see passing countryside, I was confused when it appeared we were inside a large building. Tanya was asleep next to me, her head pillowed on my shoulder with my arm around her. I didn’t remember settling in with her.

  “Where are we?” I asked groggily as I gently shook Tanya.

  She came awake with a sharp intake of breath, but didn’t move away from me.

  “We’re safe,” BK said. “Come on.”

  Lifting the arm that had been around Tanya, I grimaced when my shoulder protested from having been in the same position for too long. Everyone else was already out of the van, but I didn’t see Trippy or the prisoner. Ashley stood next to BK and a smaller man wearing jeans, boots and a Stetson. Climbing down to a smooth concrete floor, I waited for Tanya who surprised me when she took my hand as soon as she was out of the vehicle.

  The building was massive with a pair of tall rolling doors to my rear and a high ceiling. There were no windows but it was brightly lit by brilliant overhead lights. To my front, a dozen Hummers and five six-wheeled military trucks were neatly parked in three rows. There were lots of men, dressed similarly in cargo pants and T-shirts moving about. All of them wore holstered pistols and had rifles on slings at their sides.

  BK waved me over and I slowly approached with Tanya close by my side.

  “Joe, this is Mr. White,” he said.

  The man with the hat stepped forward and extended his hand.

  “I knew your father,” he said, catching me off guard. “Both your fathers.”

  He looked back and forth between us as he shook each of our hands.

  “How’d you know my dad? Were you in the Navy?” Tanya asked, taking my hand again.

  “I was, Miss Meadows,” he said with a smile, but didn’t offer any additional information.

  “What is this place?” I asked. “Where are we?”

  “This?” he asked, looking around. “This is where we’ve been preparing.”

  “Preparing? For what?”

  “For what has begun,” he said, turning and gesturing for us to follow him. “To resist a tyrannical government that is ignoring the Constitution.”

  Those words gave me pause, but I continued to walk next to the man. BK and Ashley were close behind.

  “You’re one of those preppers?”

  I was unsure if the term would offend him and was surprised when he laughed.

  “I suppose I could fall into that category, though I’ve never thought of myself in that way. No, Joseph, we are all former military that saw what was coming. It’s been building and now things are reaching a tipping point. Wealthy and powerful men are driving the agenda from the shadows. It’s no longer a government of the people, by the people or for the people.”

  We reached a door and he swiped a keycard to release the lock and pulled it open. Stepping through, I was amazed to find myself in what appeared to be a modern TV news set. Several people were quietly working, not looking up when we entered.

  “What is this?” Ashley asked, sounding as surprised as I felt.

  “This is why you were recruited, Ms. Dumont,” he said, waving his arm slowly around the room.

  “I’m a newspaper reporter, or was,” she protested. “I write stories. I don’t go on air and present them.”

  White nodded, looking at her and smiling.

  “You’ve been promoted. This is how we document the truth and expose the horrific actions the government has taken to create a false crisis.”

  “I don’t have the first clue what
to do!” Ashley cried.

  “That’s why you have help,” he said, gesturing at the men and women working on computers. “When the time comes for you to go on camera, you will be prepared. They will help you put the story together. Record and edit it, with you having the final say on all content and how it’s presented. Then, they will prepare it for broadcast at the appropriate time. They’re already hard at work.”

  Ashley was shaking her head, staring at a pair of HD studio cameras which were focused on a stylish desk with three chairs behind it.

  “Look, I’m not an on air personality,” she said. “I’ll write the story. Hell, I’ve got it half written in my head already, but you need someone else!”

  White looked at her for a moment, then stepped close and spoke in a calm voice.

  “Ms. Dumont, you’ve seen the evidence that has been uncovered. Seen the horrible things this government is willing to do to achieve its goals of subverting the Constitution and drawing us into a global oligarchy. This isn’t about gun rights or gun control other than you can’t rule an armed populace without their consent.”

  “What’s an oligarchy,” I asked, drawing a sigh and eye roll from Tanya.

  “It’s a form of government where all power resides with a few unelected people or a dominant class or group within the society,” she said.

  “Quite right, Miss Meadows,” White said with a smile. “And if the forces behind this are successful, the entire world will be controlled by less than fifty people.”

  “This is crazy,” I said. “That can’t happen here!”

  “It’s already happening, Joseph,” he said. “You’ve been off the grid for a few days. Using the acts perpetrated by the government, such as the murder of your father, the president has begun dismantling the Constitution. There’s armed resistance springing up all across the country and she’s declared martial law.”

  “People are fighting back?” Tanya asked.

  “Yes. The National Guard was activated, but most didn’t report. The president ordered the military to put down the uprising, but to a man, the Joint Chiefs refused the order. That played right into her hands. She hasn’t announced it publicly, yet, but she’s about to fire all of them. And she placed an emergency call last night.

  “European Union troops are preparing as we speak. They will arrive in force in a little more than a day. Tens of thousands of them, all at the invitation of the president to assist with suppressing the civilian unrest. And, once that’s done, many more are ready to come assist with the next phase.”

  “What’s the next phase?” I asked.

  “Suppression of dissent as the plan moves forward and it becomes obvious what’s about to happen,” BK said.

  White glanced at him and nodded.

  “First there will be a voluntary program urging people to surrender their guns. Some will. Many won’t. That will be the excuse to begin confiscation. Followed by the arrest and detention of anyone the government labels as un-American.

  “By the time it’s all over, there will be an incredibly wealthy and powerful ruling class, openly running the county, answerable only to the handful of men and women who put them into power. And this is all happening at a faster pace than any of us believed possible.”

  “Hold on,” Ashley said, frowning. “There isn’t a European Union military. Each country has its own troops and there’s NATO.”

  “You are correct as far as what is official,” White said. “However, for several years Germany has been building up its strength, integrating its military with Romania and the Czech Republic. They are also cooperating with France, Belgium and several other nations to create this force which does not participate with NATO.”

  “Germany?” Tanya asked in surprise.

  White looked at her and nodded.

  Ashley began to slowly pace around the set as she thought about what White had told us. We fell silent, watching her trace a finger along the surface of the news anchor desk.

  “How is revealing what the government’s doing going to stop this? If they’re this far along, a broadcast from an unknown reporter isn’t going to carry any weight.”

  “With the video proof now in our possession, it will,” White said firmly. “But we’re not relying on that alone. Other measures are being implemented to forestall the president’s plans. But the people need to know what’s happened. So far, only a few thousand are actively resisting. We need tens of thousands; hundreds of thousands of Americans to pick up their rifles and be prepared to fight.”

  Chapter 42

  Alexi Volgov dropped the pair of working girls at their apartment, then drove directly to the Russian embassy on East 91st Street. An officer with the SVR, the successor to the Soviet Union’s KGB, he was quickly admitted and hurried inside the building. His first stop was to drop off the cash he’d collected from Timmons, then he headed into an area that was secure from electronic eavesdropping. His direct supervisor, Colonel Sergei Kotaroff was waiting for him.

  “What did our American friend have for us?” he asked as Alexi entered the room.

  “Hand written, this time.”

  Kotaroff took the sheet of paper that had been in the cash envelope and after settling a pair of reading glasses on his nose, peered at the spidery writing covering both sides of the page. He read for nearly a minute, then re-read slower as he scribbled notes in Cyrillic onto a legal pad.

  “Did you read this?” he asked when he was done.

  Alexi shook his head.

  “We have a problem. That fool, William Carter, is pressing too hard. Moving too fast. He underestimates his own countrymen. How can any man be so…”

  He paused, searching for the right word.

  “Arrogant?” Alexi offered, proud of his command of the English language.

  Kotaroff repeated the word and nodded.

  “Cannot Timmons, nor the rest of the group control him?” Alexi asked.

  “He has apparently positioned himself as their leader. And now, with small victories in sight, he seems unable or unwilling to allow events to escalate naturally. The plan is weeks ahead of schedule because of him and at very great risk of failing.”

  “What do we do?”

  “I must speak with Moscow. This is too important to allow the opportunity to escape.”

  Alexi understood he was being dismissed and with a nod, turned and reached for the door handle.

  “Stay close, Alexi,” Kotaroff called. “There may be work to do tonight.”

  Alexi nodded and left the room as his boss lifted the receiver off an encrypted phone. Closing the door softly, he glanced at the uniformed soldier standing stiffly to the side, ensuring no one entered the room without the proper credentials. With a sigh, he took a seat in a chair on the opposite side of the hall and brought out his phone. Scrolling through news sites, he was amazed at how fast America was unravelling. How fragile it really was.

  He had grown up with a father who was a high ranking officer in the KGB. It seemed like only yesterday that he had sat at the dinner table and listened to stories about how dangerous and determined the Americans were. How they were so strong and that if they ever decided to do something, nothing short of nuclear war could stop them.

  He had believed every word. Feared the Americans as a child, seeing them as an unstoppable force who might someday decide Russia needed to be taught a lesson. But when he finally came to the United States, he was shocked by what he found.

  The obsession with tearing down and abandoning everything that had made them so great in the first place. The division between the people. The simmering anger that was just below the surface, waiting for the right catalyst to ignite it into a conflagration that could destroy what was once the mightiest country on the planet.

  As a Russian, he couldn’t understand why political agitators and dissenters were allowed to continually enflame the populace with false rhetoric and innuendo. He was well educated and had studied the US Constitution in great detail, so he had a firm gras
p of their first amendment, but failed to see why it protected individuals and organizations who intentionally fabricated lies for no purpose other than to further their own agendas.

  And the Americans had grown soft and fat. They had lost their will, trading it for video games and social media and incessant squabbling about bathrooms and illegal immigrants and a hundred other things that didn’t matter. They had become blinded to the sharp-toothed wolves in the world and had abdicated the pinnacle of economic and military power their parents and grandparents had fought so hard to attain. Was this really the same country that had fought and won two world wars?

  Staring at his phone, he remembered a series of lectures he had attended at Moscow University. They had been restricted to selected members of the intelligence services and he’d been very proud to have been allowed to participate. The speaker was a man who had worked for the CIA during the 70s and 80s, but had actually been a Soviet mole. The Americans never even caught a whiff of him until he went home to Russia upon retiring from a long and illustrious career.

  Over several days, he had talked about how the decay of America had begun in the early 1960s, as the first wave of children fathered by soldiers returning home from the second world war began reaching maturation. As each generation tends to do, there were those who rebelled against their parents, dismissing them as old and unaware of how the world should really work.

  The Cold War was in full swing and the Soviets recognized and acted upon a golden opportunity. Specially trained KGB agents were sent to the United States, most entering across the unguarded southern border. They were agitators. Infiltrators. Propaganda specialists. Agent provocateurs. Men and women who had spent years being taught how to instigate a cultural war within America’s own population.

  There were thousands of them, spreading across the land and infiltrating every facet of the nation’s youth. They looked, acted and spoke like every young American of the time and were incredibly successful in their efforts to influence minds that were seeking any purpose in life that wasn’t approved of by previous generations.