Politics of Blood (Gray Spear Society Book 8) (16 page)

Aaron continued to scan the crowd regardless. He could always be surprised.

* * *

President Haley was in the locker room of the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team. It was a large, square room suitable for a celebration. Wooden lockers ran along the walls. The most prominent feature was a large Indianhead logo in the middle of the floor. An orange plastic fence surrounded the logo to prevent ignorant visitors from accidently walking on it. Apparently, the fine for that offense was "a hundred dollars and a punch in the face."

Dignitaries in expensive suits filled the room. All the important people had come here to escape the riff-raff in the arena. They could nibble from a buffet table laden with fruit, cheese, and wine.

The Secret Service had chosen this location for security reasons. There were no windows, the walls were made of cinderblocks, and access could be completely controlled. Getting into the room involved passing through multiple security checkpoints. Haley was effectively in a bunker surrounded by layers of armed guards.

Nonetheless, he didn't feel particularly safe. Ethel was still missing. In less than two days, that strange and magical woman had somehow become the focus of his life.

Haley walked over to Boreas who was dressed as a Secret Service agent. Ethel's bodyguard had become Haley's bodyguard in her absence.

"Any word?" Haley whispered.

Boreas shook his head. "No."

"Where could she be?"

"God only knows. She has her phone. She'll turn it on if she needs help, but I doubt that will happen. She's a very tough lady."

"Is this kind of behavior normal for her?" Haley said.

"No, and it's disappointing. She has enormous responsibilities and needs to be reachable at all times."

"That sounds like my job."

Boreas responded with a cool look.

"Why is she so upset?" Haley said.

"You'll have to ask her when she shows up. I can't speak for her."

"Can we talk to somebody else? Maybe Aaron?"

"Aaron is busy doing his duty," Boreas said. "He's in the arena looking for trouble with his team."

"Does Ethel have a boss? Can you call him?"

"I'm sure her Boss is already aware of the situation. Go back to your party, sir. Have fun. Ethel will appear when she wants to appear and not a second earlier."

Haley frowned and walked off. He wasn't in a mood to have fun.

* * *

Tawni crept towards the front door of the lighting technician's apartment on the balls of her feet. Norbert was guarding her back.

They had changed into black and gray tights suitable for a night operation. She loved how the light fabric allowed free movement, but it wasn't much protection from the cool air. She was slightly chilled. A Kevlar vest gave her a little comfort.

She took out her lock picks and went to work on the cheap lock. A minute later, the door was open. Aaron would've complained she had taken too much time, but she was satisfied with her performance.

Tawni and Norbert slipped inside. They were perfectly silent as they padded through the dark apartment. They quickly found the bedroom where the lighting technician was sleeping. He appeared to be alone.

Norbert took a squirt bottle from his utility belt. He sprayed a fine mist into the technician's nose. Tawni stayed well back and held her breath.

Norbert checked the man's pulse. "Let's get to work."

She turned on the light.

A messy bedroom made her wrinkle her nose with disgust. Dirty clothes were all over the floor, and foot odor emanating from old sneakers wafted through the air.

Norbert held a bomb detector which looked like a portable vacuum cleaner. He turned it on, and Tawni heard the whir of fans.

"I'll check in here," he said.

"Fine by me," she responded.

She left the bedroom to search other parts of the small apartment. Stacks of pamphlets, magazines, and videos were on the kitchen table. They had titles like "White Rights" and "The Genetic Destiny of Man." She wanted to set fire to the whole pile of racist shit. It took all her self-control to look the other way.

The rest of the kitchen was as disgusting as the bedroom, but she held her nose and dove in. She picked through all the garbage, checking every bit of soiled paper. She found nothing of interest. She painstakingly put all the garbage back exactly as she had found it.

Tawni eventually moved to a second bedroom. Pieces of lighting and sound equipment were stacked on the floor in place of a bed. Shelves held a great assortment of tools. Two disco mirror balls hung from the ceiling. A long wooden workbench stood in the corner.

Norbert entered. He waved his bomb detector back and forth as he walked around the room. When he reached the workbench, he stopped and swept it several times.

"Find anything?" Tawni said.

"Yeah. TNT molecules. Our friend was working on a bomb here."

She took a closer look at the workbench. The surface was littered with small hand tools.

"Look around for more evidence," Norbert said.

She checked the rest of the room carefully and found nothing of interest, but she wasn't sure what to look for. She didn't know a lot about building bombs.

"I think the bomb is gone," she said. "Maybe it's already at the arena."

"I doubt the bad guys plan to use it tonight. Otherwise, the technician would've stayed awake. I'll call Aaron."

Norbert dialed Aaron and put the phone in speaker mode so Tawni could hear.

"Yes?" the commander said.

"We're at the technician's apartment. We found evidence he was working with dynamite, but the bomb isn't here."

"Where is the technician?"

"Unconscious, sir," Norbert said. "We gave him a sedative. We can probably wake him up with a stimulant if we have to. Should we interrogate him?"

"No. I can't condone torture at this point in the investigation. It's too early."

"Then what should we do?"

Aaron paused. "Plant some bugs, go home, and sleep. Come back in the morning and follow the technician. Hopefully, he'll lead you to the bomb. If he doesn't, we'll figure out a plan B."

"Yes, sir. How are things at the convention?"

"Winding down. I was about to head home, too. I'm exhausted, and I'm going shooting with Olaf at dawn tomorrow. Good night."

"Night, sir." Norbert closed his phone.

* * *

Haley was in bed when something woke him up. The clock showed 1:30 AM. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed movement. There was an intruder in his bedroom.

The presidential suite was guarded day and night by squads of Secret Service agents who controlled the whole floor. In addition, Boreas was sleeping on the couch outside Haley's bedroom. He knew of only one person who might be able to slip past all that security.

"Hello, Ethel," Haley said. "I'm glad your back. I was worried." He turned on the nightstand light.

Ethel was standing at the foot of the bed. She was still wearing the gray dress from the party on the cruise ship, but now it was dirty and torn. She held her silver-plated machetes in her hands. Blood was spattered across her chest, and it didn't seem to be hers. Her pupils were so large there was almost no white left. She looked like a demonic killer from a horror movie.

Boreas appeared at the doorway wearing only his underwear. "Ma'am!"

Ethel faced him and spoke in a humble tone, "I'm very sorry about my behavior today. It was inexcusable, and no apology is sufficient. I will say the madness has passed, and it won't happen again. Let me speak with Roy privately."

"Yes, ma'am." Boreas backed out and closed the door.

Ethel turned back to Haley. She was more frightening now than ever before. Her machetes were smeared with blood. Her whole body was poised in an attack position.

"Whose blood is that?" he said.

She looked down at her chest. "I was running through the city when I saw a bank robbery in progress. The cops were there. The robbers were holding hostages. I held back and didn't kill the bad men."

"What did you do?"

"I cut off their hands and let the police take them."

He swallowed. "You're a model of restraint."

"I thought so." There was no irony in her voice.

"What's wrong with you?"

She furrowed her brow. She placed her machetes on the end of the bed and began to take off her soiled clothes.

"When I'm with you," she said, "I have feelings."

"That's normal, isn't it?"

"They're a weakness. A person in my position can't afford those feelings. I thought I had rid myself of them many years ago. They came back with a vengeance today, and I was overwhelmed."

She placed her dress on the bed. Small guns and knives were strapped to her body, and she took those off, too.

"That's ridiculous," he said.

"God agrees with you. He set me up. He's always teaching lessons."

She was naked now. The total lack of fat made her appear gaunt, but she had plenty of lean muscle. She certainly wasn't weak. Her body was exotic and fascinating, but he couldn't call her beautiful in the conventional sense. Nothing about her was conventional. She was perfect in her own unique way.

She just stood there. He waited. Whatever she wanted to do, he would agree with. He wasn't stupid enough to argue with her.

Eventually, she said, "I'm going to bed. I'm tired. I'll see you in the morning."

She walked out, leaving her clothes and weapons behind.

He exhaled with relief.

He leaned forward and grabbed one of the machetes. The silver plating was gorgeous. The weapon was lighter than he expected, and he wondered if it was made from an alloy instead of regular steel. He touched the sharp edge and accidently nicked his finger. Like Ethel, her blades needed very careful handling, but it was worth it.

* * *

Aaron saw the aircraft hangar in the distance. Rust had eaten through the galvanized steel walls in a few places. Vines had grown over one side. Weeds and weather had shattered the surrounding pavement.

He had listened to news radio during the long drive from headquarters. Two stories dominated the headlines, and one was the convention. According to the experts, last night's show had been a great success. Aaron didn't understand that conclusion. The speeches had struck him as uninspired, repetitive, and blatantly manipulative. The audience had responded with obligatory enthusiasm. Overall, the night had been good political theater and nothing more.

The other story was about an explosion in France. A blast had demolished a laboratory in the
Institut de Recherche Nucléaire
, killing several scientists and technicians. The circumstances were suspicious, but Aaron didn't let himself think about it. France was part of the European division of the Society. Some team over there would investigate if necessary.

He was driving a black pickup truck. He stopped on the dirt shoulder of the narrow road.

He turned to Sheryl who was sitting beside him. She had both hands wrapped around a big travel mug full of coffee. Her eyes were bloodshot. She was wearing green camouflage tights, and a matching green hairnet held back her hair. Basic tools and light weapons hung from her utility belt. She was equipped for reconnaissance not combat.

"Why are we here so damn early in the morning, sir?" she whined.

"I didn't want to waste any part of the day," Aaron said. "Be glad I didn't have you work the night shift in the security booth like Smythe last night, or me the night before. Get out. Watch for trouble. If you see any, call me."

She hopped out of the pickup truck. Still clutching her coffee mug, she walked into the surrounding woods.

They were at an abandoned airport in a rural part of Illinois. Aaron drove over to the hangar and parked inside. Morning sunlight streamed through big holes in the roof. Piles of bird droppings marked the floor. It was very quiet.

He checked his watch. He wasn't surprised to find that Olaf was late.

A short time later, another pickup truck entered the hangar. It was big and blue, and a row of floodlights was mounted on the roof.

Olaf got out. He was wearing the green and brown camouflage of a hunter. He took a .50 caliber sniper rifle out of his truck.

Aaron stepped out of his own truck with a smile. "You brought a toy."

"You ever fire one of these?" Olaf held up the rifle.

Only about a hundred thousand times,
Aaron thought. "I brought something, too." He walked around to the back of his truck and yanked off a plastic tarp with a dramatic flourish. "The Heckler & Koch GMG. German engineering at its finest."

The long muzzle was so big he could fit three fingers into the bore. The body of the gun was a complex, rectangular mechanism with multiple sights. A belt fed grenades from an ammunition box on the side. The grenades were much larger than any bullet and looked more like miniature cannon shells.

Olaf approached with an expression of awe. "Holy fuck."

"It fires 40 mm grenades at 350 rounds per minute. The effective range is 1500 meters. This thing can seriously mess up your day. I only have 100 rounds, so we'll have to use short bursts."

Olaf put his pathetic rifle back in his truck.

Setting up the grenade launcher took several minutes. It was mounted on a heavy steel tripod like a machine gun. All together, the weapon weighed over a hundred pounds.

Finally, Aaron and Olaf were ready to have fun. They stuffed ear plugs into their ears and also used plastic ear muffs.

"Go ahead," Aaron said. "Take the first shot."

Olaf aimed at a pile of rusty equipment in the far corner. Aaron ducked down behind his truck in case a piece of shrapnel came back at him. Firing live grenades in an enclosed space wasn't normally recommended.

Olaf rattled off a burst of three grenades. Even with the ear protection, the weapon made an unbelievable amount of noise. It shook Aaron's whole body. Dust drifted down from the roof.

He stood up to check the damage. The equipment in the corner had been shredded, and there were big holes in the wall.

"Fuck, yeah!" Olaf yelled.

He walked over for a closer look at the destruction. He stopped half-way and looked at the floor instead. The concrete at his feet had been shattered in a circular pattern, as if an enormous wrecking ball had crushed it. A puddle of steel had melted and solidified at the center.