Politics of Blood (Gray Spear Society Book 8) (32 page)

Nobody made these observations tonight. The janitors simply went about their business.

They observed General Joseph leave his office and lock the door. The general walked off with an enthusiastic gait. The female
legionnaire
followed him silently.

The male
legionnaire
pulled the janitorial cart to the office. After checking for witnesses, he inserted a master keycard into the electronic lock. He typed in a code known only to members of the Gray Spear Society. The door unlocked.

He entered and closed the door.

* * *

Aaron walked into the aircraft hangar. He had seen the legate's personal jet a few times, but he had never been inside it. Very few people had. The airplane was almost as famous as her machetes.

It was about 150 feet in length, and the fuselage was completely black. The gray wings were hinged so they could sweep forwards into a conventional position or backwards for supersonic flight. Four jet engines hung below the fuselage towards the back. There were no windows except for the ones around the cockpit.

"That's not a private jet," President Haley exclaimed. "That's a damned B-1B bomber!"

"The Air Force had a few spares," Ethel said sweetly, "so I took one. It's nice and roomy inside, and fast."

"I presume it's armed."

"Standard stuff. Flares, chaff, radar jammers, heat seekers, and a few Crackerjack missiles."

He stared at her. "Those are top secret prototypes."

"Correct." She nodded. "Four of them are in my plane. I promised you safe transport."

The group consisted of Aaron, Tawni, Ethel, Boreas, and Haley. Their footsteps echoed as they walked across the concrete floor of the hangar.

Two men were standing at attention beside the plane. They wore civilian clothes but their bearing was military.

Ethel introduced them. "This is my pilot, Tom. Will is the copilot and flight engineer. Tom, we have some extra passengers tonight. All of us are going to Washington, DC."

Tom was short and thin, but all the meat on him was muscle. He had a full head of light brown hair.

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Which airport?"

"We want to make a very discreet entrance."

"Then I suggest Montgomery County." Tom turned to Haley. "I'm sure you've heard this before, but you look exactly like President Haley. It's amazing. You even have the right suit."

Haley smiled. "That's because I am President Haley."

"Huh?" Tom's eyes widened. "I had no idea you were a member of the Society."

"He's not!" Ethel said sharply.

Tom blushed. "I'm sorry, ma'am."

"My fault for not warning you. The President will be riding in the cockpit. Do not share our secrets with him."

"Yes, ma'am. I understand." Tom bobbed his head. "Sorry, again."

The open hatch of the aircraft was about twenty-five feet off the ground. Aaron looked for a staircase but didn't see one. A rope ladder was hanging down, and apparently, it was the means of entry. Everybody climbed up. The pilot and copilot took Haley straight to the cockpit.

The rest of the group went the other way. Aaron looked around with the eagerness of a child.

The Spartan accommodations in the first room disappointed him. The walls were made of sheet metal with thick ribs as reinforcement. Dull gray paint covered the metal. It looked like the interior of a bomber instead of a passenger aircraft. A dozen seats were bolted to the floor, and the cushions were covered with simple, black cloth. Ethel hadn't spent a dime on decoration.

"This is it?" Tawni said in a tone that indicated she shared Aaron's disappointment.

"I'll give you the tour after we take off," Ethel said. "Stow your gear. Strap it down in case the flight gets rough." She pointed to bins along the walls.

Everybody stripped off their weapons and armor. They quickly found seats when the jet engines started to spin up.

Big television screens were mounted on the front wall of the compartment. All of them turned on as the airplane began to move. Some showed video coming from cameras mounted on the exterior. Even though it was dark outside, the images were clear. Other screens showed radar, maps, weather, and live threat analysis. There was even a feed from the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Aaron didn't miss having windows. All the information he could want was right in front of him.

* * *

President Haley leaned back in his chair as the airplane took off. The awesome power of the four jet engines pushed him back into the cushions. In just a few seconds, they were in the air and soaring through the night.

Dense instrumentation covered the interior of the cockpit. He had a vague idea of what some of the controls were for, but most of it seemed designed for obscurity rather than clarity. The buttons and knobs were labeled with abbreviations. Tom and Will handled the equipment with confidence though.

"You mentioned the Society," Haley said. "What is it?"

Tom shook his head. "I really can't talk about that, sir. I'm sorry I used the word."

"You people have a lot of secrets."

"Yes. Secrets within secrets."

"It makes we wonder what you're up to," Haley said. "Why does Ethel need to fly in a heavily armed bomber? Why do all of you carry so many weapons? Where did your strange abilities come from? You talk and act like soldiers in a war. Who are you fighting?"

Tom was silent.

Haley looked at Will. The copilot was just as short and densely built as Tom, but Will had blond hair and was several years younger.

"If you won't talk about the Society," Haley said, "will you at least talk about yourselves? What's your background? You can trust me to keep a secret. I am the President, after all. I have received confidential information in the past."

After a long pause, Tom nodded. "I can tell you a little bit about myself, stuff that happened before I got this job."

Will gave him a sharp look but kept quiet.

"I was an Air Force pilot," Tom said. "I flew everything from F-16's to A-10's. Eventually, I became an instructor at Randolph Air Force Base. I usually flew the enemy aircraft that the students tried to shoot down. I had a standing offer to buy a bottle of wine for any student who beat me in a dogfight. It didn't happen often. Will was the only one who ever got two bottles."

Will glanced back. "I cheated. Tom was the best."

"You're not in the Air Force now," Haley said. "Did you retire?"

Tom shook his head. "I wish. Will and I were drinking some of that wine together when we caught a colonel raping one of the female students. He was a real tough guy. It took both of us to drag him off her. Then the fight got ugly. In the end, we were injured and he was dead. We were convicted on murder charges."

"What about the victim? Didn't she testify on your behalf?"

"She was too ashamed and pretended the rape never happened. Everybody knew the truth though. When we were in jail, a man came to us, Ethel's predecessor. He gave us this job. He was an interesting guy to work for. Very inconspicuous." Tom smiled as if he had told a joke.

"Are you bitter?" Haley said.

"Not at all. Sitting in this seat is the highest honor any pilot could ever receive. This is the most important aircraft in North America. What happened that night was a true blessing." He sounded completely sincere.

"What about Air Force One?" Haley said. "Isn't that the most important aircraft?"

Tom and Will gave him dismissive looks.

So that's how it is,
Haley thought. "What happened to Ethel's predecessor? Did he die?"

"No," Tom said. "He was reassigned. Just relax, Mr. President. We'll be landing in an hour. You'll be home before you know it."

* * *

"We can begin the tour now," Ethel announced.

Tawni had already unbuckled her seat belt, and she jumped to her feet eagerly. She almost bumped into the legate in her excitement. Aaron got up in a more dignified manner. Boreas remained in his seat reading a magazine.

Ethel went through a door into the next compartment. "The armory," she announced.

Aaron and Tawni followed her into a small version of the armory back in headquarters. There was a nice assortment of body armor and weapons. The armor came in two sizes: small for Ethel and extra-extra-large for Boreas. The weapons were divided along similar lines. It seemed Boreas liked big machine guns.

Tawni noticed four identical, silver-plated machetes hanging on the wall. "I thought you only had one set of machetes, ma'am."

"I lead an active life," Ethel said. "Sometimes they get lost or damaged. I need spares."

Tawni felt a pang of disappointment. Knowing the machetes were replaceable detracted from the legend.

"Let's move along," Ethel said.

The three of them proceeded into what was clearly a conference room. A table made of clear plastic was strongly bolted to the deck. Six matching chairs were also fixed in place, but they could spin. A video camera hung from the ceiling on a movable arm, and television screens were attached to the walls.

A steel bookshelf held a complete set of the
tabella
. The leather-bound tomes made the place feel like an official Society headquarters. Each volume had a year printed on the binding in golden Roman numerals, and they were in increments of five years. Iron bars kept the
tabella
from falling out when the plane turned.

"How is your Latin coming along?" Ethel asked Aaron.

"Fairly well, ma'am," he said. "I can usually get through a whole sentence without looking at the dictionary now. The verb conjugation still gives me fits. Norbert and I try to spend a couple of hours a day reading the
tabella
."

"Are you enjoying it yet?"

"I'm starting to. Some of the stories are extraordinary. I got a little tired of the medieval stuff, so I jumped ahead to the section on the American Revolutionary War. The names and locations are more familiar and interesting to me."

"Pop quiz," she said. "Tell me about the Declaration of Independence."

He smiled. "Yes, ma'am. Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft and usually gets the credit as the main author. Probably the most famous sentence is the first line of the preamble. Let's see if I can remember the exact words. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by God with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'"

"Very close."

"It's a remarkable statement from a man who owned hundreds of slaves over the course of his life and sold them whenever he needed some quick cash. He also believed Native Americans should give up their traditional languages and religions and live like Europeans."

These revelations startled Tawni. She had always thought of Thomas Jefferson as one of the great advocates of freedom.

"In fact," Aaron said, "he never wrote that preamble, but let me back up a little. The Second Continental Congress was convened shortly after the Revolutionary War broke out. God's enemies saw an opportunity. They wanted to obliterate human rights by constructing a traditional European monarchy in the New World. They saw Thomas Jefferson as a conflicted man who could be turned to their cause. He was the delegate from Virginia."

He walked to the bookshelf and studied the
tabella
for a moment. He touched the leather binding on the one marked MDCCLXXV.

He continued, "Jefferson was far from home, far from his beautiful wife, and lonely. God's enemies chose a young prostitute as their tool. They put a special song in her head to trap Jefferson. She sang to him on the street one day, and he was instantly smitten.

"During the spring of 1776, he slept with her every night. Whenever his attention began to wander, she sang the song again. He couldn't escape. The prostitute was fiercely loyal to the British monarchy, and when they weren't fucking, she talked about kings and queens in the most romantic language. Slowly, his mind weakened.

"The Gray Spear Society had a cell in Philadelphia at the time. The
legionnaires
were keeping a close eye on the new Congress because of the obvious opportunities for mischief. They noticed Jefferson acting oddly and followed him to his hotel one night. As soon as they heard the prostitute sing, they knew something was wrong. The commander was a very wise woman. Her gift was the ability to hypnotize people with her eyes.

"The next night, she and her team went to the hotel. The prostitute was taken away. The commander spent all night talking with Jefferson. She kept him in a trance while she gently guided him back to sanity. The draft of the Declaration of Independence was lying on a desk. In a moment of inspiration, she wrote the famous line."

Ethel nodded. "Excellent. You pass the test."

"What happened to the prostitute?" Tawni said.

Aaron looked at her. "The Society silenced her song by pouring molten lead down her throat."

"Ouch!"

"Sometimes the old ways are the best," Ethel said. "Let's continue the tour."

The airplane got wider as they went farther back. They stepped into a narrow hallway with rooms on either side.

"That's Tom's bedroom." She pointed at a door. "Will sleeps on the other side. My room is at the back, but we're not going in there. Oh, this room is fun! Come look."

She opened another door, and everybody walked through. The room was empty except for a pedestal in the center. There was a single red button on top of the pedestal. Hundreds of small, dark holes were randomly scattered across the walls and ceiling. The floor sloped down to a drain in the corner.

"Press the button, Tawni," Ethel said.

Tawni looked at the red button anxiously.

"Press it," Ethel commanded.

"Yes, ma'am." Tawni pressed it.

She heard a whirring noise on all sides. Suddenly, red, rubber balls began to shoot from all the holes. They struck her skin hard enough to sting. She squealed and covered her head with her arms. The room offered nothing to hide behind, and she could only squat down to minimize her exposure.

The barrage ended after a short time. Ethel was laughing afterwards.