Election Day: A Harry Cassidy Novel Page 29
He had to get the word out to Harry as simply as possible and then destroy the cell phone. He hoped a lot of his fellow residents were gabbing away, or texting, as he put in Harry’s number and hit the single letter V. Watching the vehicles out of a corner of his eye he took the sim card out of the phone and crushed it with the pliers from his emergency tool kit. He flushed the bits down the toilet, checked the vehicles once more, and then removed the battery from the phone. He placed the phone in the small microwave oven above the stove and cooked it until he heard crackling and popping and smelled burning plastic. Checking the vehicles once more he left the apartment, walked down the hall, and threw the phone and battery down the garbage chute. He hoped an agent wasn’t waiting down in the basement to catch it.
Back in his apartment he peered out at the four vehicles parked across the street. There was no way he could go into the bedroom and put his head on the pillow – no way at all. He made a pot of coffee and by the time he got back to his viewing point, he saw the taillights of the farthest vehicle slip away from the curb. He breathed a small sigh of relief and continued the vigil.
By the time the last vehicle drove off, the last pot of coffee was gone. George glanced at his watch. It read 1:25 and he was due in for the mission in an hour and a half. He was too revved up from fear and caffeine to sleep now. He might as well make some more coffee.
He sat watching a movie on TV when the apartment’s phone rang loudly, scaring him into rigidity. He calmed down as best he could, picked up the handset and said, “Washington here.”
“This is Major Zinnit, the general’s aide.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The mission is off. Go back to sleep, and report in at ten hundred hours.”
“Yes, sir.” Go back to sleep? What the hell was going on?
* * *
As soon as his men had left for home, General Thorne got back into his BDUs and met six other Homeland Security agents who had been alerted by one of his earlier telephone calls. The general couldn’t wait to discover the mole in his midst. He had to put some points on the board right now. The group drove off into the Virginia countryside.
When Harry had gotten the text from George he drove to a pay phone in town and called Jonathan Bradley. He said, “All I got was a V.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
When Professor Porlamis, sitting in his den in a small Virginia town, picked up his phone Jonathan Bradley said, “Get out right now,” and hung up.
Porlamis dressed as fast as he could in the dark and grabbed his pre-packed suitcase. He peered out the front window to see three black-clad figures creeping toward his front door. He would not have time to set the rope, but he did have time to hang the sign around his neck and bite down hard on the cyanide capsule just as his front door blew wide open in a bright, white flash.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Thorne shouted when he realized he would not be taking his first Committee member alive. “Look at that sign! He thought he was a fucking patriot! He strode over to the dead body, ripped the sign from his neck and smacked Thomas Porlamis viciously across the face with the butt of his rifle, again and again. No one dared move to stop him.
They took a few pictures of the dead professor and General Thorne left two agents with the body awaiting collection by the morgue. Back at his office he had a lot of thinking and data analyzing to do before his men arrived at ten o’clock. Porlamis had been tipped off. Which one of his group was the rat?
An hour before the reporting time the general was no closer to discovering the traitor among them than he was before the data analysis. All twelve cell phones came back clear of suspicion. None had been used to call the targets or to call any questionable numbers. And the eavesdropping at the residences of the twelve agents turned up nothing out of the ordinary – with one exception. At the apartment complex where five of the agents temporarily resided, someone had texted the single letter V to an untraceable cell phone number.
“What do you make of that?” the general asked the data analyst.
“I’m not sure, sir. It could have been a prearranged signal for something, or it could have been sent accidentally. Perhaps it was the start of a message that was then aborted.”
“Can you tell if that V was sent from one of my agent’s rooms?”
Not exactly, but the signal was very strong compared to other texts and conversations we collected.”
“Meaning?”
“It may have come from a street-fronting apartment which was closest to our vehicles.”
“Any of my agents have street-fronting apartments?”
“Two, sir. Matthew Tallman and George Washington.”
By the time his men assembled at ten o’clock the general had a plan. He had to dig out the rat. He would go at him head on.
* * *
When all the men were seated at the table, General Thorne and his aide, Major Zinnit, strode into the conference room. He and the major were in full dress uniform and the group snapped up to attention. After he put them at ease and back in their seats he said, “I have good news. A few hours ago we captured a Committee member. However, captured is actually not correct, because the traitorous fucker is dead.”
There were murmurs and exchanges of quizzical looks among the twelve men seated at the table. The general stilled the unrest by raising his hand and saying, “The dead guy is Thomas Porlamis, the guy this unit was to take down earlier today, but as you know, I changed the plans. Can anyone care to guess why?”
There were shakes of heads and murmurs of “no” among the group.
“Well, one of you knows for sure. Because one of you is a traitor!” he shouted.
When the outcries from the group died down the general continued. “One of you somehow tipped off Porlamis that he was in jeopardy, because we almost missed him last night. And if we had gone in as originally planned, Porlamis would have been long gone. Would the traitor like to stand up and identify himself?”
When no one arose the general smiled and said, “I didn’t think so, but you will be discovered before this day is out, of that I assure you. Now, do any of you have in your possession a cell phone other than your regulation one collected last night?”
Three agents raised their hands and Thorne said, “Give them here.” He handed them to Major Zinnit who left the room. “Here’s what we are going to do gentlemen. You are all going to have a polygraph exam, starting with the three of you who had those extra cell phones. You will be asked some simple questions which will easily identify the traitor in our midst. Now, I ask again – identify yourself and spare your fellow agents the waste of their time.”
George Washington knew his time was up. His armpits were drenched and he wiped his sweaty hands on the knees of his slacks, making sure to raise his right pants leg up a few inches exposing his six-shot .40 caliber automatic, cocked and locked with one in the chamber.
General Thorne had made a huge mistake. All service weapons were supposed to be safely locked away in their lockers, and George’s was. But this was his personal weapon, and they hadn’t been searched before the meeting. Yes, the general had made a big mistake – a fatal mistake.
George slowly dropped his arm and felt for the handle of the gun. He withdrew it part way and slid the safety to the off position despite the hot sweat dripping from his fingers. His plan was simple – shoot Thorne, then shoot himself. Then he thought, wait a minute, I’m the only one in here with a gun. I could get away! But if I don’t, they torture me and force me to give up Harry Cassidy, and that leads to Bradley…and…
“General,” George said standing up and fully withdrawing his weapon. In response, Thorne turned and faced him full on. George put two quick shots right into his evil face. Before anyone had a chance to react, George pointed the gun at his right temple and said, “Comin’ to see you, Pappy. God bless America.”
He pulled the trigger and died instantly with a smile on his face.
* * *
When the news of the deaths
of Thomas Porlamis and George Washington hit the airwaves and printing presses, Jonathan Bradley grabbed his cell phone. The message was the same to the remaining Committee members – get out of the country now. Jonathan knew that when the pictures of the guy or gal getting the million-dollar check hit the media, there would be no place safe to hide anywhere in the country. He would try to get to Canada, somewhere near Phil MacDonald.
His last text, from his throwaway cell to Harry’s throwaway cell said, “We are all leaving USA. May we all return someday in triumph. JB.”
Harry had still not fully internally absorbed the deaths of Porlamis and George Washington when this final message jumped up on the screen of his phone. The Committee was in full-flight. He wondered how optimistic his old friend Phil MacDonald felt now.
* * *
Figuring the remaining Committee members would now attempt to flee the country, Major Victor Zinnit, General Thorne’s protégé and now in charge of the eleven-man unit, went into action. With direct access to the Secretary of Homeland Security, he had all available federal agents assigned to airports, ship terminals, marinas, and border crossings into Mexico and Canada. Every day the newspapers ran photos of the four wanted Committee members. The heat was on, and with the million-dollar bounty effectively adding millions of ordinary citizens in the mix, the four fugitives hunkered down and began carefully planning their move out of the country. It had to be done right, for they all knew they would have but one chance to make it out.
Chapter Thirty-One
Despite his personal gloom, Harry Cassidy promised himself to put on a happy face and enjoy his daughter’s wedding. His dark mood came not only from George Washington’s tragic death and the apparent defeat of the Minutemen, but a fear for his personal safety and that of his immediate family.
He was walking a tight rope hoping against hope that no Committee member was captured alive before the wedding. For they would no doubt tell everything they knew when they, and their families, were subject to the CIA’s torture. And they would tell of the meeting the Committee had at the Reverend Alton Phineas’s house and, oh yes, that the former NYMPD Police Commissioner was there. Yes, Harry Cassidy, that’s him.
And then they would come for him. And Susan. And Lizzy and Patty. And Peggy…
All these thoughts, terrible fearful thoughts, swirled through his mind as Susan fastened his black bow tie around the collar of the shirt on his tuxedo. “Let me look at you,” she said turning him around. “Oh yes, much better looking and much younger looking than that old Tom Selleck. Now, smile for Pete’s sake! Your daughter’s getting married today!”
* * *
After the ceremony at St. Brendan’s Catholic Church in Brooklyn the guests found their way to the posh Berkshire Arms Hotel in midtown Manhattan for a glorious party. Harry forced himself to bury his fears, at least for these few hours, and not to ruin Lizzy’s big day. He smiled and danced with the bride. He danced with Susan. He danced with his daughter Patty. He danced with his ex-wife Peggy, with his ex-mother-in-law, with Pete’s mother, with every woman in the place it seemed.
He chatted with old friends who Lizzy invited for his sake as well as her own – Walt Kobak, Nick Faliani, John McKee, Charlie Carson and Mark Negron. These old friends who could soon be in dire jeopardy. Stop! He said to himself. Just stop!
As the joyous evening wore down and the bride and groom slipped away to their room, Harry finally let it go. He was going to tell a few key people – Lizzy, Patty, Susan, and Peggy, that they could soon be in the government’s sights, but he chose not to. He would wait and watch, and if a Committee member were captured alive, he would make the call at that time. But not now. This could be the last happy day for most of these people for a long time.
* * *
Two weeks after the wedding, while Lizzy and Pete still honeymooned in Hawaii, an observant citizen spotted a middle-aged, brown-skinned man among a group of brown-skinned men and women who appeared to be part of a group traveling together and awaiting their flight to Nairobi at JFK Airport. The citizen opened his newspaper to the picture of wanted Minuteman, Zachary Sampson. A bit different at the hairline, but it could be, he thought. He then stared at the other men in the group, but none were close in looks at all. He felt a bit foolish as he walked over to two heavily-armed Homeland Security agents, but hey, a million bucks was a million bucks, if he happened to be correct.
Sampson saw the agents coming in plenty of time. The fiery social scientist bit down on the cyanide capsule and his head slumped to his chest well before they reached him. The woman sitting next to Zachary wondered how he had fallen asleep so quickly, and just what was that strange odor in the air around him? Sweet, but bitter. Almonds? Yes, almond extract. That was it!
* * *
Economics and financial whiz William Lange a/k/a Dennis Nolan pondered the fate of his friend and fellow Committee members. He considered Sampson and Porlamis brave heroes of the highest order for taking their own lives to protect the lives of others – him included. Would he have the same courage he wondered as he fingered the capsule in his jacket pocket? He hoped he wouldn’t have to make the decision. The taxi was here to take him to Miami International Airport for his flight to Frankfort and an escape to freedom.
He was dressed in European style clothes and hoped that fact, and his fluency in the German language, would get him through the gate. There was one big problem, however. His U.S. passport, and the picture of him in it, was the picture most shown in the media. Lange deliberately did not go to his boarding area until he was certain that most of the passengers were all on the plane. He handed his boarding pass and passport to the gate agent keeping his head down. The agent looked at the picture and looked at Lange. “Sir,” she said, “would you please look at me?”
That question caught the attention, as it was designed to do, of a Homeland Security agent stationed a few feet away, automatic weapon at the ready. He walked over to the gate agent and said, “Problem?”
Lange began to reach for his pocket, but the Homeland Security agent jerked his weapon toward him and yelled, “Freeze! Hands up!”
Terrified, Lange stammered, “Ich nicht verstehe. Ich bin Deutscher.” I don’t understand. I’m German, in a desperate attempt to throw some confusion into his possible identity.
“Hands up!” the agent said in perfect German followed by, “Come with me,” as he pointed his weapon to an area away from the gate.
Lange panicked and ran for it, fumbling in his pocket for the capsule. The agent, in close pursuit, shouted alternately in German and English, “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”
And when William Lange ignored those commands, and his fear-driven feet started to open up the distance between him and his pursuer, the agent stopped, took careful aim, and put two bullets into the back of the fleeing Committeeman, killing him instantly.
* * *
Harry Cassidy was both saddened and relieved by the deaths of Zachary Sampson and William Lange, but two Committeemen – the last two – remained at large. Harry was not concerned as he concluded those two wily former Marines would never be caught. In fact, he assumed they were already safely out of the country. And his assumption was correct.
Using their military training and survival skills, the two men, separately crossed the wooded border into Canada, five hundred miles and eight days apart. They had each spent almost two weeks reconnoitering a safe place to get through. The three-thousand mile border with our neighbor to the North was no longer porous, but fenced along its entire length, with manned observation towers at strategic intervals consistent with the terrain. And, of course, the border agents were not interested in Canadians getting into America, their eyes were turned southward to prevent Americans, disloyal traitorous Americans, from getting out of their homeland.
When six weeks went by after the death of William Lange and no credible tips were forthcoming from the public on the whereabouts of Jonathan Bradley and Kevin Connelly, Major Zinnit hatched a brilliant scheme. H
e bounced it off the Secretary of Homeland Security who immediately went to the President with it. Nelson mulled the plan over for about two minutes, asked one question, and then said, “Run with it.”
One week later all the media were informed of the capture, by a dedicated hard-working Homeland Security Special Unit, of both Kevin Connelly and Jonathan Bradley. The leader of the special unit, Major Victor Zinnit, said the head of the Minutemen and his number one deputy were taken without incident at their place of residence.
When asked by a reporter how they were found and exactly where they were captured Zinnit said, “We located them through the diligent investigative work of our agents, and for security reasons, I cannot divulge the locations of their capture.” He went on to say that, “after the two were thoroughly interviewed they would be put on trial for treason by a military court and, if found guilty, publicly hanged at a future time.”
Harry switched off the TV and said to Susan, “What bullshit! But brilliant bullshit, I must admit.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t believe a word of it. Kevin and Jonathan are long gone, no doubt out of the country. With three million paid out, and two million dangling in the air, I assure you they would have been spotted if they were still in America. And this Zinnit knows they can’t show themselves and say, “Hey, they didn’t catch us. They’re lying!’”