Politics of Blood (Gray Spear Society Book 8) (34 page)

"Manage what things?" Haley whispered.

"Important things. Don't worry. That's years in the future. I have to grow up first. You have to get through another term as President, and it won't be easy. But when you feel lost, you can always call me."

Haley stood up. All the new information had left him dazed.

"Are you finally done spilling our secrets?" Ethel said.

Wesley nodded.

"You realize you just made him one of us. He knows too much. He's permanently in the Society now."

"What?" Haley said. "I never agreed to join."

"And I never invited you." Ethel pointed at Wesley. "That little blabbermouth made the decision for both of us!"

"It was going to happen," Wesley said. "I just made it happen now."

She glared at him. "The President of the United States can't be a member of the Society. We lead secret lives. We're not public figures. Those are the rules."

"The rules are changing."

She crossed her arms defiantly. "Nobody told me."

"You know what I mean. You were just in Chicago." He raised his eyebrows. "The project. The transformation. Have they started the experiments yet?"

She lost her air of confidence. Aaron and Tawni had thoughtful expressions.

"Ma'am," Neal said, "what is he talking about?"

Ethel shook her head. "I can't tell you. That information is far too sensitive."

He furrowed his brow.

"We can't stand here all night," Wesley said. "I would like everybody to go to the Washington headquarters now. It will be crowded, so my protection team and I will stay in a hotel. We'll visit tomorrow."

"No," Neal said. "Aaron, Tawni, and the President aren't part of my team. I'm not comfortable with them visiting my headquarters."

Wesley laughed out loud. "Are you kidding? You're worried about Aaron?" He laughed again.

"What's so funny?"

"It's all right. You can trust them."

Neal sighed with obvious exasperation.

"I should go. You guys have other stuff to talk about." Wesley started walking across the asphalt. His bodyguards stayed close behind him. After going a few dozen paces, he stopped and yelled back, "Make sure Ethel and Roy stay in the same room. They're going to have sex!" Wesley walked around the corner of a building and vanished from sight.

Nobody spoke for a long moment.

Haley was the first to break the silence. "I feel like he took my brain out of my skull, scrubbed it, and put it back the wrong way."

"That's Wesley," Aaron said. "Get used to it. It sounds like you'll be working together."

In the space of a few minutes, Haley's perspective on everything had changed. Important questions had been answered, and deeper mysteries had taken their place. He wasn't just the President anymore. He had become part of something else even more interesting.

"Who is that boy?"

"That's a complicated question," Aaron said. "He always tells the truth, even when he doesn't want to. Sometimes he tells the truth about the future. God ordered us to protect the boy at all costs, and he ordered us to protect you."

Haley's head was swimming. He faced the commander. "Is this a dream?"

Aaron patted him on the shoulder. "Just let it wash over you. Eventually, it will seem normal. Neal, Wesley was right. We need to move. Please, give us a mission report on the way."

"Sure," Neal said. "Follow me. I guess we're going to my headquarters."

He started walking, and everybody else followed. The people from Chicago were still wearing their weapons, body armor, and camouflage from earlier. Neal wore civilian clothes, but he had a gun belt with a big gun on each hip. Haley felt out of place without weapons.

"My
legionnaires
observed General Joseph meeting with two other people tonight at a bar," Neal reported. "It was clearly a celebration. We'll have their identities by the time we reach headquarters."

"Where is your headquarters?" Haley said.

"Buried under the Smithsonian Institution Archives building."

"That's right in the middle of Washington!"

"It's a good location for us," Neal said. "By the way, it's a great privilege to finally meet you. I've been watching you closely for a long time. Feel free to call me Bear."

"How closely?" Haley said suspiciously.

"We have bugs in the Oval Office."

Haley wasn't shocked to hear this news. He was past the point of being shocked by anything.

"Speaking of which," Neal said, "the White House staff is frantic. All of them have been pulled into emergency meetings. Aaron, if your goal was to make our enemies believe the President is dead, you certainly did a hell of a fine job."

Haley's heart ached. He had many close friends in the White House who were now grieving for him.

Aaron nodded. "And the trick is working. General Joseph already incriminated two more people. At this rate, the mission will be over in a day or two."

They arrived at a dark blue van in a parking lot. Instead of just opening the door, Neal put his hand under the front bumper and seemed to push hidden buttons. Finally, he used a key fob to unlock the doors.

Everybody climbed in. Haley and Ethel sat in the back seat, Tawni and Boreas sat in the middle, Neal was the driver, and Aaron rode shotgun. Haley could tell the windows were bulletproof by their thickness.

Ethel grabbed his hand in the darkness. Her touch helped to ease his anxiety.

Neal started the engine and drove off.

"What is the Gray Spear Society?" Haley said.

"It's simple," Ethel said. "God has a plan. His enemies are always trying to disrupt the plan. Our job is to keep the plan on track."

"That's not so simple. It introduces some rather enormous religious, philosophical, and scientific questions. How can an omnipotent Creator have enemies? Where is God? What is His plan?"

"Let's not have this conversation now. It's late, and I have a lot on my mind, but I will tell you one thing. We're a
secret
Society." She furrowed her brow. "At least, that's what I thought. We fight the Lord's enemies. When we're not doing that, we stay hidden."

"Why?"

She looked at him, and the darkness in her eyes frightened him. "Because we're monsters and freaks. You've seen what we can do. Can you imagine what would happen if ordinary people knew about us?"

Haley understood. The Society couldn't function if the public knew it existed. Some federal agencies were covert for the same reason.

"Now be quiet." Ethel squeezed his hand. "I'm done talking. Try to get some rest while you can. These missions tend to wear you out, and this one isn't done."

He settled back in his seat. The van drove into the night.

* * *

Smythe saw a blue and red sign over the highway that read, "Welcome to Indiana, Crossroads of America."

"Almost there," he said.

He glanced at Norbert who was standing at the front of the bus facing backwards. Norbert held an assault rifle aimed in the direction of the passengers. So far, the precaution had been unnecessary. Nobody had caused any trouble.

"My eyelids are drooping," Norbert said, "and we still have to drive back home."

"Yeah. At least we can sleep in tomorrow."

Smythe drove another couple of miles until he came to a rest stop. He pulled off the highway and parked in the middle of a nearly empty lot. The only other vehicle was a brown sedan. There was a small building containing restrooms, but the lights were off.

He stood up and told the passengers, "Just wait here. Anybody who tries to leave the bus will get shot. That's not a threat. It's a statement of fact."

He opened the door, and he and Norbert went outside. The night was very dark, and the air was cool. Smythe took a deep, refreshing breath.

He cautiously checked the sedan and found it empty. He didn't see anybody in the area.

"Hello," a woman said in a throaty voice. "You're Smythe, the famous healer, right?"

He turned around. A thickly built woman with short, black hair was standing there. She carried a compact assault rifle and had two more guns in holsters. Stun grenades hung on her black and gray vest.

He recognized Winnie, the commander of Detroit. He had seen her at the convention last winter.

"Yes," he said. "Are you alone?"

"No. Two of my
legionnaires
are here with me."

Smythe checked the parking lot again but saw nobody else.

"You can leave. We'll take over from here. Aaron gave me detailed instructions." Winnie handed him a set of car keys.

He took the keys and looked at the brown sedan. "Anything special about the car?"

"No. It's not even locked."

Smythe went over and sat in the driver's seat. Norbert quickly sat on the other side. Smythe started the engine and looked at the black bus one last time.
Have a safe journey home,
he thought. He drove off.

* * *

George Seferis was tired of being kept in the dark, literally and figuratively. The interior of the bus was as gloomy as a cave. A few lights ran along the center isle between the seats, and a trickle of illumination leaked in through the front windshield, but that was all.

A woman and two men entered the bus, replacing the two men from earlier. The newcomers were wearing gray and black body armor. The first man carried two USAS-12 automatic shotguns, one in each hand. The other had some kind of high-tech assault rifle which Seferis didn't even recognize, and he thought he knew them all.

The woman stood at the front of the bus and yelled, "Hello. I'll be your driver for the next stage of your journey. Please, relax and try to get some sleep. I give you my solemn promise you'll be safe, provided nobody causes any trouble."

Bernard Templeton yelled back from the middle of the bus. "Where the hell are you taking us?"

"You'll find out when you get there."

"How long will that be?"

"At least ten more hours," the woman said. "I'm sure some of you need to use a restroom by now. You'll have that opportunity in a little while."

She sat in the driver's seat, put the bus in gear, and drove off. The two men remained standing with weapons in hand. They stared with steady gazes at the passengers.

Seferis sighed.

He went to the back of the bus where a nice assortment of snacks and drinks were piled on one of the seats. He picked out a bottle of water and a packet of peanuts. He had to admit his captors had gone to some effort to make everybody comfortable. He had been on worse road trips.

He looked around for a good place to sit. He was searching for the traitor by talking to everybody on the bus one at a time. He wasn't convinced a traitor actually existed, but he was under orders to go through the effort.

He spotted an empty seat beside one of his Secret Service agents, a tall man named Wilson. Seferis made his way over there, smiled warmly, and sat down.

"This is really something," Seferis said in a low voice.

"Yes, Director," Wilson said. "Do you have any idea what's going on, sir?"

Seferis shrugged. "The President didn't tell me anything." He looked for signs of guilt on Wilson's face in the poor light.

"Do you know who blew up the house, or why?"

"I wish I did."

"And how did the President know it was going to happen?" Wilson said.

Because Miss Pickenpaugh and her people are better at my job than I am,
Seferis thought. "These are all good questions. Do you have a theory?"

"Me, sir? Why would I know anything?"

"You're an observant man. Maybe you saw something suspicious or overheard an unusual conversation."

Wilson shook his head. "It's been crazy ever since the convention was bombed. I don't know what's suspicious and what isn't anymore."

His voice and expression seemed completely sincere. Seferis decided he wasn't the traitor.

Seferis settled back and munched on his peanuts. He would wait a few minutes before moving on. There was no hurry. It sounded like he had all night.

* * *

President Haley watched from the back seat as Neal drove the van through the pristine streets of Washington, DC. The irony was poignant. He was less than a mile from the White House where the staff thought he was a corpse in Illinois. He felt like a ghost returning to his home.

Nobody had spoken during the trip from the airport. Tawni had actually fallen asleep on Boreas' shoulder. Ethel had held Haley's hand the whole time as if she were afraid of losing him if she let go. He didn't mind at all.

Neal didn't drive to the Smithsonian Institution Archives building as expected. Instead, he went to a hotel a block away. He entered through the side and drove down a ramp to an underground parking garage. The jostling woke up Tawni.

Neal circled down through three more levels of parking. Eventually, he came to a steel garage door. It rolled up as he approached, and he entered an apparently empty storage room.

After the door automatically closed, the floor descended, taking the van down a long, vertical shaft. The walls were smooth, white concrete.

"How deep are we going?" Haley said.

"About a hundred and fifty feet down," Neal said.

The elevator reached the bottom. He drove through a curving tunnel big enough for a large truck. Finally, they entered a parking area. There were about thirty other vehicles ranging from motorcycles to delivery vans. Some had corporate logos painted on the sides.

Neal parked, and everybody got out. The moment felt surreal to Haley. He was in a secret, underground lair beneath the streets of Washington. It was like a scene from a spy novel.

"Stay behind me," Neal said. "Don't touch the walls."

"Why not?" Haley said.

"Because the security system will roast you alive if you do."

Haley cleared his throat nervously.

They walked through another white tunnel which was the height and width of a doorway. He realized attackers would be forced to walk single file. Steel nozzles decorated the walls and ceiling. He wondered what came out of them.
Serious security,
he thought.

Finally, everybody entered a white room. A heavy-set man with brown hair and a beard sat at a console behind a very thick sheet of glass. There was only one other door.