Gnash (6 page)

The litany of reactions in the room ranged from surprise, to shock and anger.  The television crackled to life and a reporter talked over the raw footage being piped in.  There was a “LIVE” caption flashing at the bottom of the screen.  “…pulled out a gun and shot the president point blank in the face then fired rapidly at the other heads of state seated behind President Gosebeck.  The Secret Service took several seconds to react to the shooter, who appears to be an agent himself.  Those seconds allowed him to fire at the other leaders on the stage before he was apprehended.  The gunman was standing less than two feet away from the president when he began shooting.  By the time the gunman was shot and taken into custody, the president and five other G-8 leaders had been shot.  The Chancellor of Germany, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister of Japan, the President of France and the President of Russia all seem to be among those hit.  Again, if you’re just joining us, the President of the United States has been shot and video of the scene appears to show a Secret Service agent doing the shooting.”  There was a pause in the voice over as the camera scanned the room shakily.  People were crowded around the prone bodies, several performing CPR.  It seemed that the medics hadn’t even arrived on the scene yet.

“Yes, we can confirm that the man seen in the video, the man who shot the president, is indeed a Secret Service agent.  We don’t have his name yet, we’re working on that, but he’s been one of the agents who we’ve seen with the president since the election more than four years ago.”  A dark red liquid began to ooze off the stage towards the foreground.  “What would cause a man like that to do this?  Secret Service agents are the only people trusted enough to be allowed to have weapons near the president; even military members don’t carry weapons when he’s around.  Again, the president has been shot, along with the leaders of five other nations in Portland, Oregon just now.  Those other nations are Japan, Germany, Russia, France and the United Kingdom.  Oh this is just terrible.  It brings to mind the chaos when President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot in 1963.  This will be a defining moment of a generation, just as that assassination defined a generation.  The leaders were attending a press conference at the annual G-8 Summit, held in Portland this year, when one of the president’s bodyguards opened fire on them.  He’s been taken into custody, we’re getting word that his name is Mike Winters, a fifteen-year veteran of the Secret Service.  The president, and I want to caution everyone that we don’t know his condition as of yet, was betrayed by one of his own.  One of the men that have…”

The scene switched to the newsroom and the anchor sitting in his chair.  A woman was leaning over whispering something in his ear, her face was blocked by a sheet of paper she was holding over it.  The anchor’s expression went from composed to horrified.  “Uh, we’re getting word that there has also been some sort of incident at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.  Very preliminary reports here folks, but apparently the building has been locked down as the result of a chemical attack of some kind.  We don’t know what happened, but I’m being told all the emergency doors slammed shut and an alarm is sounding outside the building.  That alarm is triggered only in the event of the detection of chemical agents inside the Pentagon...”  The briefing room around Grayson was deathly silent and every eye was fixed on the television as stock footage of the Pentagon ran across the screen.

The announcer continued, “Once again ladies and gentlemen, this has been a terrible and dreadful day for America.  There has apparently been an attack on the Pentagon, the very symbol of American military might, and a member of the Secret Service has shot the President of the United States, along with the heads of state from other member nations of the G-8 in Portland, Oregon.  We…” he was interrupted by the woman leaning in once more, “This just in.  We can now confirm that the President of the United States is dead.  Murdered by an assassin’s bullet.  That assassin was a member of his own bodyguard detail.”

Grayson turned away from the TV. 
Emory!
he thought and pulled out his cell phone.  He dialed her number and got a busy signal.  He tried her office line.  She answered the phone, “Hello, I mean, Senator Ann Marie Fergusson’s office.”

“Emory, its Grayson, are you alright?”

“Oh Gray, have you heard the terrible news?  The president and the Pentagon both attacked on the same day.”

“We’re seeing it on the television here.  Is everything alright at your building?  I mean are you guys safe?”

“Yes, we are.  There’s been reports that the chemical agent alarms at the Pentagon have been going off and they found a dead Pentagon Police officer beside one of chemical agent detectors holding a broken bottle or test tube or something...”

“What the hell is happening?” Grayson muttered.

“…And they say that the man who murdered the president was a Secret Service agent.  Were they acting together?  Are there more attacks coming?”

“I don’t know, babe. The only thing we know out here is what’s being reported on the news.”

“Hold on Gray,” she said as she covered the mouthpiece.  He could hear mumbled words being spoken rapidly.  “Hey, I’ve got to go, we’re being evacuated.  I love you.”

“I love you too.  Be safe and call me when you get to a safe spot.”

FOUR

15 April, 1601 hrs local

The Pentagon

Arlington, Virginia 

The alarm sounded loudly, drowning out the master of ceremonies speaking in front of the crowd from the podium.  The guests at the retirement ceremony for the United States’ highest ranking naval officer looked around and murmured amongst themselves as to what it could be.  The public announcement system crackled to life and a muffled voice came out of the speakers saying, “This is the Pentagon Police.  There has been an incident at the front entrance and everyone must don their emergency escape masks immediately.  This is not a drill.  A chemical agent has been released outside of the building.  As a precaution, everyone must don their escape masks now.  I repeat…”

The guests began to panic.  The emergency escape masks were bulky and the carrying satchel was unattractive, so no one had their masks with them.  They were tucked away safely in desks and lockers so they could be turned in when the employee left the building.  People began to rush towards the single exit of the auditorium towards their offices where the life-saving masks were.  Lieutenant Colonel Bryce Colton stood up and started shouting, trying to get people to calm down.  He was an F-16 fighter pilot and was able to fly during his entire career until he got orders to report to the Pentagon last year.  He’d hoped to get back in the air as soon as he finished his two years of staff time but he was increasingly drawn into the political side of the job so he would probably end up being moved to a Congressional liaison assignment after this one.

He worked his way out to the aisle and tried to calm the flow of panicky people, but it wasn’t working.  Then, a woman screamed in terror from the hallway outside the auditorium. 
What the hell?
he thought.  More people began to scream and several men wearing white catering outfits burst into the room.  They were holding large kitchen knives and were systematically stabbing and slashing their way into the crush of people trying to escape.

The men were shouting at the retirement ceremony guests in Arabic.  Even from across the room with hundreds of people between them, Bryce could see their eyes sparkling with hatred.  A few people stood up to the attackers and several were stabbed as a result.  He didn’t realize he was pushing his way through the crowd rushing away from the knife-wielding men until he broke free of the mass and there was a short, dark-skinned man in front of him slashing at anything in reach.  He didn’t even have time to think about how stupid he was being.  His Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training from almost two decades previous kicked in.  He’d attended that hellish course a few months after he qualified as a fighter pilot and when the shit hit the fan in the auditorium his reactions were automatic, as if he’d been fighting for his life every day.

He focused on the knife and followed every deadly movement.  Bryce’s opponent seemed to know how to handle a blade.  He held it in his right hand with the end of the handle near his thumb and the backside of the blade resting on his forearm for control.  Everything seemed to be in slow motion.  The attacker crossed with his fist and the blade slashed from left to right across Bryce’s chest.  He was vaguely aware of a pain across his torso but in his heightened state of awareness the pain didn’t register in his brain like it normally would have.  He moved to his left away from the knife edge as the attacker reversed the blade’s course and began to come back from his right with a backhanded thrust meant to stab him in the neck.  Bryce kicked out and the heel of his boot crashed into the man’s knee.  All his weight had been on that leg as he was bringing the knife back around so when the boot hit, the ligaments holding the knee were torn apart and he fell sideways.  Bryce didn’t hesitate, he stepped forward, trapping the hand holding the knife under his boot, and began kicking the attacker in the ribs, the head, neck, or anywhere he could land a blow.

The knife finally rolled from the limp hand of the caterer and the scene around Bryce began to expand from his personal battle to the others happening around him.  He picked up the knife and went over to assist an Army officer who was fighting off another attacker.  The two men were locked in a struggle for control of the knife.  The soldier’s hand slipped and the blade cut into his palm.  Out of instinct he jerked his hand away.  That momentary distraction was enough for the caterer to plunge the knife all the way up to the grip into the officer’s chest.

The attacker saw Bryce coming and started shifting his knife back and forth rapidly trying to dislodge it from the dying man’s body.  Bryce shifted the grip of the knife he was holding and ducked under the arm that was thrown out to block him.  He drove his knife upwards.  The blade entered the man’s abdomen through the chef’s jacket and Bryce kept pulling upwards as hard as he could, carrying the knife up until it got stuck, either on the breastbone or because of all the clothing that was wrapped around the blade as it made its way through the soft tissue of the stomach.

Bryce pulled the knife out and for a moment the man stood there, wide-eyed, as gore spilled from his stomach.  Finally, he toppled over on top of the officer he’d just killed.  Gunshots rang out as the Pentagon Police finally arrived and shot the remaining attackers who were still fighting with people.  Bryce dropped the knife and held up his hands as a police officer pointed his weapon at him.  “Get down motherfucker!” the officer yelled.

He lay down on his stomach and put his hands over his head in a spread-eagle position.  “I’m an Air Force officer, I was defending myself against these guys,” he said.

“We’ll see about that.  For now, I’m putting you in handcuffs and you can wait until we get the details sorted out.”

“Ok, I’m down,” he said.  “That guy over there is still alive, I only knocked him out.”

The police officers rushed over to the attacker he’d indicated and put handcuffs on him.  Then they checked the bodies of the other caterers before they went to Bryce.  After a perfunctory check of his Pentagon ID badge and ID card they unlocked the handcuffs and apologized for the rough treatment he’d received.  The police ordered him to put on an escape mask that they brought and a medic came over to assess his injuries.  The cut on his chest was quickly bandaged up.  He’d been lucky, his uniform had stopped most of the knife cut, so he had little more than a severe scratch that he could display as he told his friends the story of how he’d stood up to two armed men who attacked the Pentagon. 

He had to talk to a police detective and give him as much information as possible.  It was standard police work, but because this attack was in conjunction with the chemical attack that may or may not have happened, they needed all the details he could remember.  The detective got very little useful information for his investigation since all Bryce knew was that he’d been in the audience for a retirement ceremony then was fighting for his life against men with knives who came from somewhere outside the auditorium. 

Almost two hours passed while he waited in the hallway for the detective’s questioning, which was made harder by the emergency escape mask, and then he was free to return to his work area.  The Pentagon was still on lockdown so he really didn’t have many options anyways.  As he made his way through the hallways from the basement level he saw hundreds of people wandering around trying to get instructions on what to do.  The PA system hadn’t said anything since those few initial messages.

He swiped his access badge to get into his office and sat heavily in the chair at his desk.  It had been a busy day at work, made absolutely crazy by the events of the last couple hours.  He reached into his pocket for his ID card and stretched his hand out to put it into the card reader.  Then he noticed the dark brown stain on his hand.  He dropped his card and tried to wipe the dried blood on his pants.  In all the excitement and questioning, he’d forgotten about the blood and gore all over him. 

He made his way to the restroom and stripped his uniform top off.  He gave himself a bath as best he could in the sink without getting his bandages wet or breaking the seal of his protective mask.  He looked himself in the mirror and realized that he looked old.  The difference now though was that he
felt
old.  His joints ached from the fight and there was a slight wheezing sound as he drew in a breath. 
Maybe when this is over, I’ll go to the clinic and get checked out
, he thought to himself as he dried off with a paper towel.

The light indicating a new message was blinking on his phone when he got back.  He picked it up and dialed his pass code.  “Hey, dad, it’s me, just calling to see if you are alright.  The news keeps showing the Pentagon and they say there’s been an attack of some kind.  Call me back, please.”  He hung up the phone.  His daughter Eva lived with his ex-wife in Colorado.  She was supposed to graduate from high school this year, but too much partying and snowboarding last year caused her to be held back.  That had been a great conversation with his Ex, mostly him yelling at her about her lack of responsibility as a parent and her counter-accusing him of not being involved enough in his child’s life.  It was the same argument they’d always had even though they were no longer married.  His ex-wife was too immature and he was always absent from their lives because of the military.