Ryne Pearson - Capitol Punishment

Darian squeezed the ball of newsprint smaller, and pressed it into his pocket. You shouldn’t have read that, Brother Roger. It’s too late to stop now. We’ve come too far. And now you can’t come any farther. He stepped closer to his comrade. “Go get the others.”

Darian stepped aside, toward the couch, to let Roger pass. When he did, Darian reached quickly to the couch and took the Ingram in hand. He spun and raised the weapon in one smooth motion, taking the selector switch from safe to single shot with his thumb. As Roger’s hand was reaching for the bedroom door, the NALF leader shot him once in the back of his head.

A second later the door to the bedroom opened inward, Roger’s limp body collapsing completely to the floor at Mustafa’s feet. “What…”

Darian lowered the Ingram. The sound of the shot had hardly been louder than a phone book dropping to a solid floor, but that report, and the thud of Roger’s body tumbling against the bedroom door, had been enough to alert the other NALF members.

Moises pushed past Mustafa, his eyes flaring at the bloody sight. “What happened?”

“He wanted out,” Darian said matter-of-factly. “He got it.”

“Out?” Mustafa asked. “What do you mean?”

Darian tossed the Ingram across his front to the couch. “Out, Brother. Out. He was going soft on us.”

Mustafa looked to Roger’s still body. “Brother Roger?”

“Why do you think he wanted to talk to me away from you all? He didn’t have the stomach to say it in front of you.” Darian kicked the body’s feet. “Candy ass. He could have blown it all if I’d let him back away from this. He would’ve started shooting his mouth off. We could have all been burned by him.”

“Damn.” Mustafa stepped over the body.

“But how are we going to do it without him?” Moises asked.

“We’re just going to do it. Period. Now get those guns ready, Brother. We’ve got a job to do.” Darian looked to Mustafa. “So do you. Get this pile of shit out of here.”

“Bud, how’s your day?” Secretary of State James Coventry asked over the phone.

“Half up, half down,” the NSA answered blandly.

“An even split? Lucky you. Listen, Gordy’s going to be over at my place to watch the address tomorrow.”

“Oh?”

“He’s not exactly the Hill’s favorite person right now,” Coventry explained. “Anyway, I thought you might like to join us.”

Bud smiled to himself. “Heard about the compromise, did you? I keep my mug away from the cameras and Earl won’t throw a fit if the president talks about Iran.” There was a bit of sarcasm in the NSA’s relation of the political reality he’d been cast into.

“Just the smiling faces of HUD and Interior for the networks to see, I gather.”

“You gather correctly,” Bud confirmed. Earl Casey was pushing hard to craft this as a domestically centered campaign, leaving the NSA’s domain somewhat in the shadows. But a campaign was just that. Reality dictated the true importance of Bud DiContino’s expertise.

“Sure. Sounds like a plan. Who’s bringing the beer?”

“I’ll provide refreshments,” Coventry answered with a chuckle. “Oh, and Gordy’s inviting one of his agents who’s in town. You’ll remember him: Jefferson.”

“Art Jefferson? Yeah. A good man. He filled in a lot of the pieces after the assassination. I met him once. What’s he doing here?”

“Working with the D.C. Bureau people tracking down those militants.”

“What time?” Bud asked.

“Anytime before nine.”

“Sounds like a good time,” Bud observed.

“We can make it so.”

Congressman Richard Vorhees rounded the corner at a fast clip, splitting a pair of walkers coming at him on the sidewalk. “Evening.”

“Evening.”

Vorhees looked briefly over his shoulder as he moved away, his eyes admiring the women’s backsides. Both were easily over forty, but it had never been proven that a woman lost her can at that age. At least not to him it hadn’t. He looked forward again with an added bounce in his step and pushed himself along the final mile of his walk, realizing this was the only exercise he’d have for two days. His card was full for the following evening, as it was for anybody who was any—

“Freeze, fucker!”

Vorhees stutter-stopped, the rubber soles of his shoes actually skidding as the dark figure jumped from the shrubs on the right and blocked his path.

“Get ‘em up, dickweed!”

“Easy, easy,” Vorhees said, his eyes fixed on the kid’s hands. Those were the most dangerous parts of a man. These held a revolver that was pointed at his crotch.

“Get ‘em UP!”

Vorhees showed the kid his hands. Male black, five-four, maybe five-five. Dark clothing.

“Give me your money!” One hand came free of the gun and reached out. “Now!”

“I don’t have any,” Vorhees said, trying to commit more details about his assailant to memory before a fear-induced adrenaline rush made such an effort fruitless. Dark bandanna drawn across his face, maybe dark blue, and —

“Your watch! Now!”

The gun waved as Vorhees pulled his watch off. He saw that the hammer was cocked, and the punk had his finger on the trigger. It would only take a twitch. “Here.”

The thief shoved the watch in a pocket and took a half-step back, slowly, without any haste at all. That seemed strange to Vorhees, but more so were the eyes. They glowed in the harsh reflection of approaching headlights, and he could see them travel down his body, past the obvious aim point of the gun, and to his leg. The gun followed the eyes the final distance.

“You ain’t chasin’ me, fuckhead,” the thief said.

I’m going to be shot . The realization hit Vorhees before the punk even spoke. The eyes, the gun, the movement. A switch was reflexively thrown. Combat. Unarmed versus Armed. Move quick. Disarm. Eliminate. He was an 82nd Airborne trooper again, moving toward the enemy, hands in motion, one going for the gun, the other for the upper body for a control hold. There was an abundance of clothing to grab. Moving. Reaching. Almost…

BANG.

Vorhees saw the flash, sensed it even on the skin of his left hand, and felt his weight shift awkwardly. It threw the aim of his right hand off, and by now that claw of fingers set to grab had become a fist prepared to strike. It made contact with something hard, with a soft top layer, but he did not see what. He was falling left and back, one arm reaching now to break his fall. His mind searched for pain. Where was he hit? Where was…

There? He realized where just as his butt hit the sidewalk. My God, how lucky could I be?

Moises Griggs was through the shrubs and across the field of short, brown grass beyond less than thirty seconds after the shot was fired. He jumped through the open door of the waiting Volvo. The door closed on its own as Darian sped away, heading quickly for the Leesburg Pike.

“Did you get him?”

“Yeah,” Moises said. He pulled the black knit cap off and wrapped it around the .357, tossing both into the backseat.

“In the leg?” Darian pressed, his eyes darting to the rearview. No flashing lights. Whew!

“Yeah. Yeah.” Moises pulled the bandanna down to hang around his neck, then put a hand to his forehead. “Man, the motherfucker hit me.”

Darian looked right. “Shit, you’re bleeding.”

Moises rubbed above his left eye and felt the wetness. It stung at the touch. “Shit”

Darian drove with one hand and pulled his young comrade’s head over for a closer look with the other. “He gouged you.”