Sedition (A Political Conspiracy Book 1) (27 page)

“Vickie Lupo.” Laura pointed at her boyfriend and then clapped. Her face was still covered in a damp cloth that was quickly acclimating to room temperature.

“
The Avenue
is her show, right?”

Lupo appeared on screen briefly before the “live” video of the procession replaced her. She continued her exposition.

“So we understand that from this point at Sixteenth Street and Constitution in front of the White House South Lawn, the procession moves down Constitution at the other end of the Mall. Once it arrives at Fourth Street, military jets will fly overhead and assume a missing-man formation.

“Now as we watch, the caisson begins its path to the Capitol,”
she continued almost breathlessly.
“I want to take a moment to talk about tomorrow’s funeral and give you a sense of the history there.”

“See.” Thistlewood pointed at the screen in disgust. “What did I tell you? History professor Vickie Lupo.”

“Are you threatened, baby?” Laura’s tone was sympathetic. And it was obvious that she was joking. “Is the big, bad news anchor coming to take your job?”

Thistlewood knew that Laura was teasing him and he laughed. In reality, he was bothered that highly paid teleprompter readers got to play the part of historian in front of such large audiences. He knew, and Vickie Lupo knew, that the information she was spouting was fed to her by a producer and a researcher. And they both knew that she was merely reading it from a script or from notes. It irritated him that a person of such little education, but with a flair for the dramatic, could command such attention.

As a lover of history and politics, he should have been thrilled that anyone with a soapbox might deign to educate. Any discussion of political perspective was good and was needed. An informed electorate was the only path to a true democracy.

But Thistlewood was small and paranoid. And despite Laura’s sense of humor, he knew that if someone like Vickie Lupo wanted a job teaching politics at a university, she’d get one. She had cachet. She had a name, even if he had trouble remembering it.

Thistlewood was certain that was how Bill Davidson got his plush gig at Hanover. It wasn’t because the former AG had some stout political mind, the professor surmised. It was because he had a name.

Everyone knew that Davidson was an ineffective lawyer at every level. But his name, or more correctly his father’s name, scored him one advantage after another. It made Thistlewood want to rage against the machine.

The professor sat there seething, but faking an understanding laugh to appease Laura, and his motivation became clear. As much as he wanted to deny it to himself, he knew the real reason for his involvement in the plot.

He wanted to make a name for himself. He wanted others to study his papers and discuss his intellect. It wasn’t about the greater good. It wasn’t about country. It was about his deviant, pathological need for recognition.

It was a godless epiphany that initially took Thistlewood by surprise. Had he really done this because of his ego? Had he devolved into a homegrown terrorist because his mother didn’t breastfeed him and his father never played catch? Suddenly the room was spinning, and it was he who needed the cool cloth and painkiller. Almost as quickly as it began, the spinning stopped and Thistlewood again focused his attention on the screen in front of him.

It was better to push aside his Freudian rationale and instead focus on the task ahead. The self-realization was too painful. He could convince himself again that his calling was much higher than that of narcissism.

“The service at Arlington National Cemetery will be historic for a number of reasons,”
Vickie Lupo said, back on screen now, framed to the right. The procession video filled the left half.
“Only two other US presidents are buried at Arlington. John F. Kennedy was laid to rest there in 1963, and William Howard Taft was buried there in 1930.”

“She didn’t mention Wilson,” chimed Thistlewood. “He’s not buried at Arlington. But while she’s giving a lecture, she might as well mention Wilson.”

“Why?” Laura was feeling better. She was sitting up and had removed the cloth from her head.

“He’s the only other dead president not buried in his home state. He’s buried at the National Cathedral.”

“Where are the non-dead presidents buried?” She giggled.

“Funny.” He wasn’t laughing.

Lupo was again replaced with a full-screen shot of the procession. Hundreds of people were lining the streets as the president’s casket passed.
“And as for President Foreman, he will be buried near the Lockerbie Memorial. It’s one of twenty-five monuments and memorials at the cemetery.”

“What’s the point of this?” asked Thistlewood rhetorically. “Are we watching
Jeopardy!
now?”

“The Lockerbie memorial is officially known as the Pan Am Flight 103 Memorial Cairn. It was built with two hundred seventy blocks of red Scottish sandstone, one for each of the victims of the 1988 terrorist bombing of that plane.”
Lupo was affecting a softer tone intended to convey empathy.
“It is amazing to think,”
Vickie Lupo said, histrionic now,
“that in just twenty-four hours from now, our president, Dexter Foreman, will be buried alongside those important, historic Scottish stones. Let’s pause to think about that.”

Thistlewood thought about how wrong she was. He thought about how different the world would be in those twenty-four hours. He imagined how his own monumental place in history would change in two full sweeps of the mantel clock. It chimed and a sardonic smile stretched across his face. It was almost teatime.

*

Ings chose to ride the tour bus, rather than drive his own car or take a taxi, to avoid easy identification by security. He hoped being part of a large group of bag-toting tourists would help ease his entry and egress.

“Arlington Mansion and two hundred acres of ground immediately surrounding it were officially designated as a military cemetery June 15, 1864, by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton,” the bus narrator said.

The bus passed through Memorial Gate and turned right onto Schley Drive. Ings shifted uncomfortably in his seat and pressed his left foot against the backpack. He could feel the sweat forming under his armpits.

“And here we are passing the monument for President and Justice William Howard Taft.” The narrator’s voice was deep and without accent. “President Taft was interred in Arlington National Cemetery March 11, 1930. His widow, Helen Herron Taft, was buried beside him May 25, 1943. Following the president’s interment, the War Department placed an order for a headstone with the Vermont Marble Company.”

Ings watched as they drove by the fourteen-and-a-half-foot-tall monument. He looked at the small Arlington Cemetery map the tour guide had given him when he boarded the bus. The lettering was too small for him to read.

The bus made a left onto Sherman Drive, another left onto Sheridan, and then slowed in front of a small circle to the right. They were in front of the memorial to President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy.

“From here you may visit the Kennedy family gravesites,” the narrator offered as the tourists stood from their seats. “And a short walk to the northeast will put you in front of Arlington House and the Robert E. Lee Memorial. Please feel free to explore the immediate grounds and meet back here at the bus in twenty minutes.”

Ings reached down to pull the backpack up onto the seat next to him, slinging one of the straps over his right shoulder as he stood. He carefully filed into the line of tourists and stepped off the bus and out into the cemetery.

He looked at the map again, and though he still couldn’t read it precisely, Ings had a sense of where he needed to go. He walked purposefully to the northeast with a small group interested in foregoing the Kennedy plots to see Arlington House.

The group stopped at the house; Ings kept trekking. He passed the Civil War Unknowns Monument and found himself back on Sherman Drive. Walking north across the Chaffee parking lot, he could see the Pan Am Flight 103 Memorial Cairn straight ahead. To its left was a barricaded area that Ings assumed was reserved for President Foreman’s funeral.

The drunk carefully and inconspicuously trudged up to the memorial and stood a foot from it, admiring its height. It stood slightly taller than a basketball hoop. From a plaque on its side, Ings read the inscription: “IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY PEOPLE KILLED IN THE TERRORIST BOMBING OF PAN AMERICAN AIRWAYS FLIGHT 103 OVER LOCKERBIE, SCOTLAND 21 DECEMBER 1988 PRESENTED BY THE LOCKERBIE AIR DISASTER TRUST TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”.

Ings pulled the backpack from his shoulder and placed it on the ground in front of him. He knelt and carefully unzipped the small front pocket, pulling out the small card containing the number for the Nokia cell phone attached to the explosives in the larger portion of the backpack. He stood, slipping the card into his pocket, and picked up the backpack.

Ings looked over his shoulder toward the parking lot, and to his left at the area readied for the next day’s funeral, before placing the backpack down at the base of the cairn.

Ings slowly backed away and then turned to quickly cross the parking lot, and it never occurred to him how ludicrous it was to do what the knight had asked of him. It also didn’t cross his mind that he’d been set up. Not even when he heard someone calling his name from behind him.

“Mr. Ings?” The man’s voice was forceful. “Mr. James Ings?”

Ings resisted the reflexive urge to turn around at the mention of his name. He kept walking.

“Mr. Ings.” The voice was strong but wavering as the man began to walk hurriedly behind him. “Please stop, sir. I think you’ve left your bag.”

Ings glanced to his right and saw a second person coming toward him, a uniformed security guard. The man was moving at a pace somewhere between a jog and a run. Ings quickly looked away from him and to his left toward the Guard B Comfort Station. There was another guard moving directly toward him. Ings knew he was in trouble.

“Mr. Ings,” the voice behind him said, louder, closing in on him, “you left a bag at the Memorial Cairn. I’d like to talk to you about it.”

Ings looked over his shoulder at the Good Samaritan guard and saw the man with his weapon drawn. He was not returning the backpack. For a moment he thought about pulling out his cell phone and detonating it, but by the time he’d fully contemplated the idea, he was caught.

Guards from either side of him grabbed Ings’s arms and pulled him to the ground as he passed the Old Amphitheater at Sherman Drive. His face hit the gravel and dirt, and the wind rushed from his chest. He lay on the ground, arms behind his back, considering how quickly the men had descended upon him.

“Mr. James Ings?”

“Yes?” Ings grunted and he felt the cold metal of handcuffs clipped to his wrists. His thumbs were held against the small of his back.

“You have the right to remain silent, sir.”

That was when he got it. The clue was there from the minute he’d pressed pause on his DVR a couple of hours earlier. But he’d never bothered to ask the question. The knight had set him up and tipped off the authorities.

“Did you get a phone call?” Ings asked as two of the guards yanked him to his feet. “Did someone call you and tell you I was here?”

“Something like that,” one of the guards said as the men started escorting Ings back toward the nearest guardhouse. “How did you know?”

Ings decided to exercise his right to silence.

“How did you know?” the guard repeated, tugging on the cuffs, and Ings almost lost his balance as he trudged forward.

Ings thought about whether or not to blow the plot by ratting out the knight. It would be a fair turn. But what good would that do?

He knew that their plan was in jeopardy, that a diversion might be the only way to fool the feds, given the possibilities of what they might know. There were always necessary sacrifices in war.

Revolutionary martyr Major General Joseph Warren sacrificed his life at the battle of Bunker Hill. A single father of four, he died from a musket ball to the head a full year before the colonies declared their independence. It was his calling. And this was to be the drunk’s calling. The knight was asking him to be General Warren. Lost on Ings was the reality that he’d been duped by someone he believed to be a trusted friend.

But he would not talk; he would not risk the plot. He knew deep down that Sir Spencer believed he was the only one capable of the task.

The professor wouldn’t have the stomach for it; the artist was nearly as weak; the AG was AWOL; Sir Spencer couldn’t do it. Ings was the only one capable.

Chapter 37

Matti searched Davidson’s journals, speed-reading much of the scribbled text. She ran her finger down the center of each page as her eyes flitted from left to right, focusing mostly on nouns and verbs. Flipping page after page, she could not find any information about which of the conspirators would place the calls to trigger the phones. Davidson didn’t list any phone numbers.

She knew the phones would utilize one of two types of cellular network technology. They would either rely on Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) or Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). GSM was the worldwide standard for cellular data transmission. CDMA was more popular in the United States. Matti remembered from some of her studies for previous NSA analyses that more than a billion people utilized GSM. A quarter of that number used CDMA. But because CDMA was more widely used in the US, the chances of the Daturans using that type of technology were more likely.

Additionally, third generation, or 3G, networks used CDMA because of the additional bandwidth for data transmission. She also knew that CDMA was used in a lot of military applications, which included antijamming and secure communications.

Matti knew if she couldn’t stop the Daturans from placing the calls to detonate the bombs, her only alternative was to prevent the calls from connecting. She needed a computer. She didn’t have time to go home or find an Internet café.