Glenn Beck - The Eye of Moloch

A young man appeared at his door.

“Yes, what is it?” Landers asked.

“I think I know where these people are headed.”

“Show me.”

He’d brought a folding map with him and he spread it across the desk. It had a number of locations circled in black in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic and only one in red, farther west. “This hardware chain, you’d told us to send a team to all the stores and they didn’t find anything—”

“I know that.”

“Okay. But we missed something. They’ve shuttered a bunch of stores in the past ten years and we didn’t look at those, of course, but they’d taken one of them and turned it into a sort of clearinghouse for old inventory. They give all the merchandise there to the needy, disaster relief, and such.” He pointed to the red circle. “And that place is right here.”

Landers put on his reading glasses and bent close to the map.

Butler, Pennsylvania.

Of course.

“Do we have anyone in this area?”

“Only a few assets and they’re not that close. We moved almost everyone farther east. Should I reroute the units we’ve got nearby to this place?”

“No,” Landers said. “Now listen to me. Send whoever’s available to the front gate of location number seven of Garrison Archives. It’s outside of Butler. They can’t miss it: it looks like the entrance to Fort Knox built into the mouth of an old limestone mine. Tell them they’re to immediately lock that gate down tight.”

The young man was writing down these orders in detail. “We could get some help from local law enforcement and the DHS—”

“Absolutely not. This is all ours. It’s going to be a feather in Talion’s cap and we don’t need to muddy the waters with eyewitnesses. We’ll announce what’s happened when it’s over.”

“And what about that warehouse?”

“I’ll handle that myself.”

“It’s a six-hour trip from here by car, maybe more with the terror alert—”

“We’re not going to drive,” Landers said, “we’re going to fly. I want you to go and see that a helicopter gets prepped for combat if there’s not one ready in the arsenal now, and tap four good men to come with me. How long will that take?”

“I don’t know, maybe an hour.”

“You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Landers enjoyed a cup of coffee while he waited, made a few necessary calls, wrote a note to update Aaron Doyle, and then brought up a recent satellite image of his objective. It was a big, open building, relatively isolated from any commercial or residential development, and it looked like there was only one road in or out.

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

“You’re ready to go, Mr. Landers.”

The young man who’d proven so valuable had returned to the doorway, far ahead of schedule and having done exactly as he was told. As Landers stood and put on his coat he looked the fellow over. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Rutherford, sir.”

“See me when I get back, Mr. Rutherford. This is good work you did, and I’m going to have a lot more for you in the future.”

“Thank you, sir.”

As he strapped himself in and went about starting the engines, Landers rechecked the route and thought it all through. There was bad weather coming in but with any luck they’d beat it, get the job done, and be home in time for a late dinner and a modest celebration.

He would have been more comfortable going in with greater force, but Talion was spread quite thin across the country. Most of the men and resources had been deployed to make a public show of strength for the company, making appearances at the many smaller incidents he’d spawned with the help of George Pierce. After today’s heroic crescendo there would be more to work with, and great new opportunities on the horizon.

And George Pierce was another matter. He’d been useful enough but he would no doubt be cooking up a mutiny before very long, and that would have to be dealt with swiftly. Putting him down would be a great pleasure, though this and many other rewarding deeds would have to wait for a less eventful afternoon.

That old saw was true: there really is no rest for the wicked.

Warren Landers confirmed his final clearance with the tower. Shortly thereafter the last of the men boarded and stowed another long case of ammo for the M134 minigun mounted behind him. An assortment of gas canisters and satchel charges were already loaded.

Without further ado he lifted off into a high, rock-steady hover, and then he pitched the craft sharply forward and set them off with all available speed on his course toward western Pennsylvania.

Chapter 59

Hollis awoke with a start, sweaty and tense and even more weary than he’d been before he closed his eyes. His swollen arm had been killing him and he’d put his head in his hands for only a moment, he’d thought, but the clock on the wall said he’d been out for almost two hours.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

Young Tyler was at the table across the office, still monitoring the radio.

“No change,” he said. “They’re working in the back; the manager guy sent the rest of the employees home, like you said, and left us with the keys. I’m waiting to hear any news that comes in, but there’s nothing so far. I would have woken you up if there was any reason to. It seemed like you needed to sleep. Man, are you seriously okay? Because you look like a crap sandwich.”

“I’m fine,” Hollis said, though his voice didn’t sound it. “Who’s watching those water heaters?”

Tyler pointed to a nearby TV that showed six inset close-ups of the temperature readouts on the tanks. “Wireless home security system,” he said, “from aisle seventeen. Lana and I set it up over an hour ago. This place has got everything.”

Hollis stood and waited for his balance to settle. “That was good thinking,” he said. “You stay, I’m going to go and check on the others.”

When he rounded the last corner into the vehicle bay he could hardly believe his eyes.

The extra hours of unexpected waiting had been put to very good use by Cathy Merrick and her helpers. For the first time he saw the finished product stripped of all the masking tape and drop cloths.

The old road-beaten company truck she’d been given as a blank canvas had been steam-cleaned, repainted, and ingeniously augmented with repurposed items from the plentiful warehouse shelves. The truck was transformed from stem to stern into the glossy spitting image of a Pennsylvania hazmat emergency vehicle complete with realistic siren horns, diamond-plate running boards, rooftop strobes, and more.

If you got close enough, some of the lettering appeared to be of the press-on type one might use to put an address on a mailbox, but it was so well integrated that the overall look was near perfect. Most every other label, official seal, and logo was hand-painted, including the government-coded license plates. The only visual clue that these things weren’t real was that the artist was still touching up her work here and there with a makeshift palette and a tiny brush.

“This is outstanding,” Hollis said.

“Thanks.” Cathy Merrick swept her bangs from her eyes with her wrist and looked up at him. “I think it’ll pass, as long as no one gets too close. Let me show you where it’s weak, though.”

The overall shape and size wasn’t correct and there was nothing that could be done about that; she’d accomplished what she could with deceptive shading and other airbrushed optical trickery. Still, it looked good enough to fool almost anyone unless they broke out a tape measure with a set of factory dimensions.