Last War (20 page)

    
Instinctively, he dropped to the floor as another chunk of debris flung over his body torpedoing into helpless humans, rag-dolling them through walls in a fireball. His clothes, once again, caught on fire. He rolled more and hopped back onto his feet.

    
He with all he had -- bruised, burned and battered -- he dragged his foot to the exit as folks pushed and shoved.

    
He felt an elbow to his rib cage in the rush to get out.

    
As soon as he exited, the firefighters had arrived.

    
His phone rang.

    
“Hello?”

    
“Mike!”

    
“Jason! Where are you?”

             
“I’m in WTC 7. What’s going on? I hear the noise.”

             
“I don’t know. The lobby blew up.”

             
Michael reached the World Trade Center courtyard. Fiery paper rained from the sky. When he looked up, the top of the building billowed a black-ash smoke.

    
“Something exploded at the top of World Trade Center, Jason. I think a missile hit it.”

    
“Which one?”

    
“WTC 1.”

    
“Vanessa’s in there!”

    
Michael heard and felt a presence nearing down on him from above. When he looked up, a screaming man in a gray suit was heading, head first, at unprecedented speeds towards him.

    
Michael dove out of the way.



    
Michael woke up frantically screaming at the top of his lungs while feeling his face. He just knew that dark red, thick, iron smelling, gook would cover his body.

    
But, it didn’t. It was just a dream.

    
A flashback.

    
His driver now wide-eyed was looking at him like he had just seen a ghost.

     “
What on the living earth that God has ever provided was that?”

    
“I get really bad dreams. I’m sorry.” Michael said rubbing his face. “Did you see anything?”

    
“No. I didn’t. A car pulled up thirty minutes ago, and turned out its lights but I’m assuming that’s just a civilian. It parked in front of a house, and did nothing else since.”

    
Michael looked at the driver and nodded his head while still attempting to collect himself.

    
“That’s probably him.”

     Michael
threw his head back onto the headrest, grabbed a few pills out of his pocket and popped them back without any liquid.

    
“So now what?”

    
Michael stayed silent—still calming his surging nerves. “Stay here.”

    
He flung open the car’s door, and walked towards the suspicious car.



Atlanta, Georgia

Si
te of the 2004 Olympics

     “Hello, America, I’m Milton Harris, your 42
nd
President of the United States. I’m pleased to state that we will be hosting the upcoming Olympic games. It’s a privilege to invite the world onto our land, and practice all that we have in store for the real life future. It’s with great honor –“

     “Cut.” The director yelled. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that sentence.”

     “Which one?” The president’s writer responded.

     “The one talking about
‘what we have in store for the future.’”

     “Why?”

     “I don’t know. Maybe we should change it and not make it political, at all. It’s a sport, sir.”

     “Son.” The president interjected. “I think that’
s our job to decide.” He stepped down off of the stage they had him positioned on. “That’s enough for now. I need a minute. When I come back, we’ll start from the top, again.”

     Vice President Frederick Tyson was there with the President. The
2004 election campaign was under way.

     “You hear much more about the debacle in our Hom
eland Security?”

     “The guy hasn’t done anything, yet, has he?”
Harris asked.

     “No. But, he’s a huge liability. This has been my concern all along: losing control of this operation.”

     “We haven’t lost control of it. We’re just leaking. I’m pretty sure the C.I.A. will do what’s necessary.” President Harris stopped walking, turned towards Tyson and put his hands on both of the Vice President’s shoulders. “When necessary.”

    
“We’ve got a campaign to worry about, right now. And if we don’t get Jane Hillary into office, then you can forget about all of this, anyway.” He patted Tyson on his left shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s go grab a bite then get back onto this commercial.”



     Jason lay still in his Mercedes barely able to keep his eyes open. He battled sleep and lacked consciousness almost to the point of giving up. He took a deep breath, and rolled down his window for fresh air. The air was a bit brisk. The dew on the grass gave the air a pure smell. Sometimes when he closed his eyes on nights like these, it took him back to pre-nine-eleven; when the American air he knew didn’t have death and destruction in it. 

    
Off in the rural pitch-blackness of quiet Bowie, he saw an outline of a man standing at the corner of the two roads in front of him. He checked his rearview mirror to see if the two boys were sleeping. He grabbed his gun before slowly opening the door.

    
The shadowy figure turned to face him. Jason froze.

    
“It’s me.” The familiar voice calmly said.

    
“Mike?”

    
Jason walked over towards Michael. “What’s going on around here, Mike? I’m completely confused. I’ve met people who are running from us, complaining about us—and hell, now I’m running and complaining. But, I don’t know exactly what I’m running from.”

    
“Us, Jay? Are you still us?”

     “Well, I don’t know! I found files in the system that I didn’t have access to, although I’m the official who signed off on them.
Some operation.”

     “
You’ve gotta understand that everything we ever known is changing. Even if we would have sat still, the world will still change around us. You know what this world is coming to, and we have to fix it. You said it yourself in a cabinet meeting: ‘Technology is advancing, but producing a byproduct of a decaying human society.’ You were right. For every remote control-type device our society creates, 15 pounds on average is added to the American people. For every 1000 new websites, a library closes down. There are people who don’t leave the house because they can shop online, for god’s sake, Jason, and you know we need change. And that’s just civilian-type things. On a worldwide scale, think about how technology changes people. How it changes war. We’ve got to find a way to advance without the harmful byproduct. We’ve been working on this for years.”

    
Jason did feel that way. It bothered him everyday.

    
“So, what are we doing?”

    
“We need to restructure. Freedom is great, and we don’t want to kill that, but in order to keep some control, we need to pull in the reigns a little bit.”

    
“So, what do you want from me?”

    
“We want you on board. A lot of what we’ve done would not have been able to be done without you. You’re our Picasso. You’re our Ben Franklin. You’re our Einstein. To not have you, hurts. We much rather not be against you.”

     Jason still didn’t feel right. His intuition began to flare up, as it had been for the last week or so. It was a very odd feeling. Every time he followed it, however, he’d find himself in more trouble.

     “Get me some more information on what your plans are. Until then, I’m not sure.” Jason said.

    
“You really did do this, huh? OK, Jason. But, know this: the C.I.A. is on your trail. And this is too big of a deal. You know how the C.I.A. deals with folks who are a threat as big as you are … and I can’t stop it. I hope your little plan works because, right now, I’m supposed to kill you. I came here to try to intervene. I either need an on board confirmation, or—“ Michael gazed off into the endless dark sky before returning his eyes to a stale-faced Jason who wasn’t looking in his direction. “…or I don’t know what I’m going to do, Jay.” 

     Only the hidden creeks of crickets mate-searching sounded
before Michael continued. “I’m going to have to go back to Grambling and tell him something if I don’t bring you with me. What do I tell him?”

    
“Look. I’ll turn myself in. I need to find out some things about Vanessa.”

      “Gott-freakin—
“ Michael banged his fist on his leg. “Jason.” Michael paced in a small circle.

     “I see you’re still trying to hold back on the swearing.” Jason chuckled.

     “What do you want to know about Vanessa?” Michael griped. “She died like the rest of them. She’s gone!”

     A second
session of awkward silence ensued.

    
“This is about Jill, isn’t it?” Michael said looking into Jason’s eyes which were now staring tearfully off into the distance. “There was nothing either of you two could do. There’s nothing you can do to bring her little girl – your little girl -- back to life. She’s gone. And Jill’s gone.” Michael stepped two more steps close to Jason without touching him. “Don’t make the American people suffer because of your personal angst. This is bigger than that.”

    
Jason looked up into Michael’s eyes. He had such conviction.  “Look,” Michael said, “I’ll give you some time to think about it. In the meantime, is there anything you need? Technology, food, places, names, info unrelated to F.A.I.T.H.? Because this is the last time this type of conversation will have this outcome. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to have to find you. And when I get you, I’m going to have to kill you.”

    
Jason chuckled then straightened his face. “So, you think you can catch me, moreover, kill me?”

    
“Look, I don’t know, Jay. But, your family life has to be secondary to the American constituents, and you know it.”

    
“I need weapons.” Jason said. “Lots of weapons. And I need info. If you can get those things to me, that’d be great. When you get the weapons, leave them at the Baltimore Aquarium. Shoot me whatever little info you can about Operation FAITH to my work email. And, please, when you ‘come to kill’ me, if you
do
find me, you better bring the entire U.S. Armed Forces with you. I’d hate to take your life.”

    
Jason turned and walked back to his Mercedes. Michael watched, silently.

     “You’re making a mistake,
friend.”

    
Jason stopped just before he opened his door.

    
“Let’s hope I’m not.”



September 11, 2001 8:30 a.m.

    
Nothing but aggravation pulsed through Jason’s body. The man on the other side of the phone apparently just didn’t get it. He worked in a defense department. It was this man’s job to defend, and he had no answers for Jason.

    
Despite Jason’s urgency, dispatch had no clue whether they had lost the test flights or not.

     
“Sir, we did the AMALGAM one in June,” Jason said, attempting to keep his cool. “and we’ve had more training since. We’ve had practice since yesterday, and now you’re trying to tell me you have lost these flights again?”

    
“Sir, yes. We can’t hear the squawk; they’re silent. Something’s not right. It wasn’t this difficult before. This is damn near impossible if they don’t contact us, sir.”

    
“Difficult? See, why did I get myself into this? This is why the last captain quit.” Jason put his phone on speaker phone as he logged into the test database. “Do you think if someone’s going to hijack a plane, it’d be easy? What if this were to happen in real life?”

    
“Sir, we’ll keep working on it.”

    
“Please don’t take these drills lightly.”

    
“I swear to you, we’re not. You won’t hear from us until we finish the drill, sir.”

     Jason lifted and slammed the phone back down on the hook.

     He sat back into his squeaky chair as the monitor booted up. He was sure the men were just being incompetent. T
he system was going signal any moment, then the drill would be finished. What happened to the artificial squawks he had programmed a week ago?