McDonald Array - Divide and Conquer

He entered the building. So far, so good. Katie had said the third floor, apartment five.

Sean walked towards the door, careful to make no noise. No peep hole, good and bad. They couldn’t see him but he couldn’t see the movement that would tell him if they were behind the door. He stood to the side of the door and knocked loudly.

He heard footsteps approach the door, one set, not light not heavy, Katie’s. The guy was holding James at gunpoint. Motherfucker. Sean’s blood was boiling. Sean heard the door unlock and it began to open.

The explosion caught them all by surprise.

Sean burst through the door, he had done it many times before, clearing rooms in hostage situation, hard and fast. As Katie had opened the door, before it was open even an inch, Sean had the flashbang in the hallway. He burst through the door, knocking Katie clear across the room and saw the man holding James by the throat at the end of the hallway. His hand had gone to protect his eyes but far too late. Two taps on his trigger and the man was down. Hard and fast, no mercy.

Sean checked the other rooms just in case but just as Katie had warned there was just the one. James detached himself from the gunman and ran to Sean and latched onto his leg.

Katie picked herself up and looked at Sean with some confusion.

“What the hell was that?” she asked, recovering from the effects of the flashbang and being hurled against the wall.

“Don’t mention it,” said Sean having just saved their lives.

“What if there had been four or five of them, how the hell did you know there was only one?!”

Sean suddenly realized what could have happened and just how reckless he had been. Jesus, what if there had been three or four, he thought. None of that, however, would calm the current situation.

“Heat sensor,” he said, lying through his teeth. Three heat sources, one small,” he said, pointing down at James. Then, pointing at Katie, “A medium one and a big fat dead one,” he pointed to the gunman.

Katie gave him a look that made it clear she’d believe him but wasn’t convinced. Jesus, she really could read him like a book.

“Any idea who he was?” asked Sean checking the gunman for id and finding none.

“He made me call you and said little else. I think he was going to kill you the second you showed your face though.”

“It’s got that effect,” he said but it obviously wasn’t a time for jokes. Katie frowned and removed James with some effort from Sean’s leg.

“So what now?” she asked, taking Sean into a small bedroom away from the body.

“I make a call and you cease to exist!”

Vincent promised to make the call and place Katie and James within the Witness Protection Program. How he was going to achieve that was another matter. The wife and son of a drug dealer with nothing to offer in return for their expensive and lifelong protection were not the usual beneficiaries of the service. Vincent used every ounce of his charm and when that failed miserably, he offered to allocate funds in excess of the actual cost to the US Marshalls for doing him the favor.

An hour after Sean had arrived at the apartment, the full force of the US Marshall’s relocation and witness protection program rolled into action. Katie and James Fox were swept away and would, as far as the world outside the US government was concerned, no longer exist.

Sean watched the car drive off into the distance before walking back to the hospital to find a cab. The governor’s driver sat waiting and waved to Sean. He folded the newspaper and started the engine, as Sean walked towards him.

“What are you still doing here?” asked Sean quizzically, as he climbed into the car.

“Katherine told me to wait and bring you back,” he replied, selecting 'Drive’ and pulling away. “And trust me, what she wants I give her!” he said with a wide grin.

Sean gave the driver a look, the look that men know, the look that said, you are fucking kidding me. The driver was in his fifties overweight and had not been blessed with looks.

“Fuck no, man, but I can dream!” he laughed.

With a few minutes to spare, he called Vincent.

“Sorry I never asked, how are you feeling?” asked Sean.

“About a million times better than yesterday,” he replied, the strength had still not returned to his voice.

“You really should be taking it easy, V,” replied Sean. Vincent may have been a million times better than the day before but he was still a million times worse than he’d been the day before that.

“There’s too much to do, Sean,” replied Vincent.

“Let somebody else deal with Surkov!” he argued.

“I can’t Sean. There’s just not enough evidence to convince anyone, we’ve lived it, we know it’s real. Other than that, what do we have? Mike’s been retired since the cold war and to the boys on the Russian desk, he’s a dinosaur. Christ, half of them don’t even know who the KGB were they’re so fucking young now!’

“OK, OK but please, just try to take it easy. It would be good if you were still around when I got back from Moscow,” suggested Sean. “Look, I’m at the mansion, I need to go.”

Vincent replaced the receiver and stared at the handset.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jane, rushing over.

“The call I had with Justice this morning, they are serious. They are going to throw the book at Sean. I thought they might have calmed down overnight but not a chance. They have a team of prosecutors gearing up to hit him with everything and anything they can think of. They warned me to say goodbye to my boy, I’ll not be seeing him for a very long time.”

“But it wasn’t just Sean, I made the calls!” she said. “We should all be in trouble!”

“You’re a CIA employee, they wouldn’t dare. Same with Mike, he was being paid for his work”

“Say Sean was working for you!” she countered logically.

“He’s already told everyone he’s not a CIA employee,” replied Vincent, shaking his head.

“They’re going to charge him with smuggling on a national scale and for hooking up the cartel and the East coast suppliers!”

“You’ll think of something,” smiled Jane.

“Quote 'you can’t get him out of this V, drugs are the President’s big thing’ and that’s straight from the Attorney General, the childhood friend of the President! He’s about to risk his life for a country that wants to lock him up and throw away the key. That same country who protected the Senator that nearly got him killed!”

“Tell him not to go!” she said defiantly. “Fuck them all!”

Vincent stared at Jane in shock. In all the years he had known her, she had never once blasphemed, never mind use the F word.

“I can’t, it’s the same country I would give every last breath to protect!”

Katherine led Sean through to the Governor’s study where the Governor sat, despondently staring into space.

“Good afternoon, Governor Brown,” said Sean, taking the seat next to him.

Katherine waited until Sean looked at her, took the hint and left.

“I’ll leave you to it,” she said, closing the door behind her.

Sean had a list of things he had been told not to discuss with the Governor. Specifically anything to do with Surkov and what they may or may not think he was up to, along with the Russian President. As they had been warned previously, relations with Russia were at an all time high. It was not the time for the next US President to storm into Russia and declare their president was hooked up with a lunatic of world ending proportion.

The man was broken. Nothing Sean said was going to change that. And nothing he said was going to get the Governor on a plane to Moscow any time in the near future. He stood up and patted the man on the back before joining Katherine in the hallway.