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By the time Sarah awakened, Myles was far away. Driving the neutral grey minivan for a half hour across the farmland south of his estate he arrived in a small town where he stopped at a small storage facility and opened one of the units, then drove the van inside. The facility was owned by Mike Charlie Freehold and some of the buildings has been modified for their purposes. In this one, the units were all connected, and shortly after parking the van Myles emerged from the building at another point hundreds of feet away, now wearing a partial disguise effected by changing his jacket for one of a different color, exchanging the baseball cap for one of a different color, with a long wig under it. Different sunglasses, a modest mustache and oxygen tube completed the outfit. A cane enhanced the look of a slightly disabled senior citizen. A waiting car took him into the countryside, where they soon arrived at a small airstrip. There were several crop dusters and a couple of small aircraft, one of which was owned by the Freehold. The small twin-engine six seater was quiet and sufficiently modest as to attract no unwarranted attention. Even at the small airport outside the national capitol, there would be dozens of private aircraft, many of them larger and newer. Those able to provide their own aircraft would normally use the small outlying airports in order to avoid the traffic, both human and vehicular, in the capitol. Among other things. The old Seneca had been saved from rotting away at a small airport in a dying town in the western plains and restored by the air service of the Freehold. It was registered to a small aviation services company, one of thousands of small companies that operated a handful of small aircraft. Though the company was effectively owned by Mike Charlie, a circuitous trail of ownership relationships would make the connection difficult and to detect. The flight from the corner of South Kansas, where Myles lived, was well within the range of the Piper, but the pilot made a refueling stop about an hour from the capitol, more to throw off surveillance than for safety. On the ground, the aircraft was rolled into a hangar, and a few minutes later a dark green car emerged. As it left the airport, it was joined by three identical cars, and as they drove into the city they frequently changed their positions in the convoy. In the moderately heavy traffic it would be difficult to keep track of one of the cars, as they could be identified only by their license plates. Myles sat quietly in the back seat of one car, holding a large molded plastic case across his knees, with a small messenger bag on top of it. As he watched the scenery change from suburbs to the denser city, and eventually the old city, where the newer buildings were over two centuries old, he concentrated on freeing his mind of extraneous thoughts. Today's mission was the taking the final plunge, after standing long at the edge of the cliff. They would all do their jobs well, and appraise the results before deciding on the next step. He know, however, what the result would be. When you are dealing with an insane enemy, logic is useless. He pulled the medallion from under his shirt - a one ounce gold coin minted between the Civil Wars. Two had unfortunately not been enough, but perhaps the next one - this one - could be less destructive and bring harm to fewer people. Perhaps. The car stopped briefly, then turned into a narrow side street. He recognized his destination. Many days of reconnaissance and practice had preceded this final visit. He exited the car, carrying the rifle case and messenger bag, and entered a door which opened just as he reached it. As with the driver, he said nothing to the man who had opened the door, but headed further into the dimly lit area where the freight elevator was located. Taking the freight elevator to the top floor, he climbed a stair to the roof. The door had been left unlocked, and he emerged into the late morning sunshine over three hundred feed above street level. He looked down the street to the place where his target was expected shortly, the site of the press conference appeared to be in order, but few people were present. The news personnel and spectators would be arriving soon, and the roped-off area before the podium would be full. The target would arrive from almost directly behind the podium, walking with a handful of aides and various handlers, sycophants and the like. A little over a hundred feet from the door to the podium, a clear shot the entire time, he thought. He opened the rifle case and removed the big rifle. The latest in weapons technology. The intelligent fire control system would put as many bullets into a paper plate at a thousand yards as the shooter wished - but the range here was much less. As Myles finished positioning the rifle and powering up the computer, the range displayed was just over three hundred sixty yards. All he needed to do was acquire the target, push a button and wait for the computer to do its job. Distance to target, temperature, humidity, and wind speed would all be factored into its decision. When the shot was perfect, it would release the firing pin and send the bullet on its way. Not that he would shoot a deer this way. In the hills back home he would carry a simple rifle with a basic scope he had zeroed in, with hand-loaded cartridges, and take an offhand shot when the situation was favorable. But this was not a hunt for food or sport - the fate of hundreds of millions of people was at stake. Not that they deserved to be saved, he thought. Most of them had either voted for the creators of the oppressive regime that was rapidly pushing the country in the direction of a tyrannical dictatorship, or at best had done nothing at all. The arena was nearly full now, and Myles turned his attention to the task at hand. Sighting the rifle on the group of microphones at the podium, he waited. He did not have to wait long. Almost too soon, he thought. A small dark-haired woman emerged from the expected location, surrounded by a handful of other people. There was no mistaking her though. He had seen that face many times, too many times. Norah Parkhurst, majority leader of the National Assembly for the past six years, had overseen the rapid march from a failing republic to a near dictatorship. The idea of killing a human being, something Myles had never done, remained a gnawing disquietude inside him. Yet the things he had seen - bodies shot, burned, and otherwise mangled in the actions taken against dissidents - and those unseen ones, disappearing into secret prisons or who knew where, made further inaction indefensible. This woman - and her accomplices and enablers - had the blood of many on her hands, and that was a fact. She was halfway across the open area between the door and the podium. He could make a head shot while she stood at the podium, but the smaller target was a bit risky. He got the sight picture he wanted and pressed the button. A couple of seconds later the rifle stock banged against his shoulder and the unbelievably loud crack of the shot bounced around the buildings around him. The boat-tailed bullet, just under a third of an inch in diameter and just over a third of an ounce, expanded to twice its original width as it shredded the heart and exited the back, bouncing across the slate floor into a flower bed. Seeing the target crumple behind the podium was all the watching he needed. Myles quickly replaced the rifle in its case and moved, quickly but without risky haste, back into the building. It was likely that a gunshot detector would quickly indicate the location, but it would take a while for investigators to arrive. Well outside the immediate area of the victim, there was little danger of being stopped or even observed as he egressed. Exiting the freight elevator on the ground floor, his silent assistants guided him quickly to the waiting car, and in not much more than five minutes he was several blocks away. Reversing his earlier journey, he was at the airport before it could be shut down. He walked quickly but not with visibly undue haste to the aircraft which waited, engines running and door open. The airport was still calm and traffic light, and in minutes they were in the air.
On the other side of the country, Glenn Miller had finished his preparations earlier and was waiting for the end result. He watched the street below him as he had for weeks, keeping an eye on the small white sedan in the corner of a private parking lot near the intersection. Santa Cruz was the state capitol but not an especially large city, and the traffic in this district was light at this time of day. He moved the microphone of his headset into place and spoke to unseen confederates. "Felix, Andy - I'm in position. You copy?" "Andy here, ready to go" came the reply. "Felix here, all set" said a second voice. They were all observers - once armed the device was automatic. It had to be taken out of human hands to work properly. One side of the white car was fake - just a plastic shell covering the device inside. A motion detector and timer connected to a high-explosive charge behind a heavy copper plate facing the street. When the target was about to cross the line of fire, the device would be armed. As soon as the vehicle broke the detection beam, the timer could count down and fire the charge so as to hit the vehicle in just the right place. The Secretary of Justice did not know it, but he had just minutes to live. He was on the west coast to visit his state-level counterpart, who sat beside him in the back seat of the limousine. The Cadillac was lightly armored against small-arms fire or relatively small explosive devices, but they might as well have been in a cardboard box. "Coming at you now" said a voice. "Black Caddy limo. Occupants verified." The car had tinted windows, making it difficult to identify the occupants even at close range. The operatives would have observed the occupants as they entered and then kept the car in sight at all times afterward. Miller watched the car turn the corner and approach the trap. "How's it look?" he asked. "Still good", Andy replied. Felix would have the final say, confirming there was no danger to bystanders as firing time, in just a few seconds. "Go!", came Felix's call. Miller pressed the button on the controller, arming the device. Less than five seconds later the limousine rolled past the white car and the device detonated. The heavy copper plate was propelled outward at over six thousand feet per second, changing its shape from a round disk to a rounded slug. The center section of the car disintegrated, the force of the impact lifting it off the street and pushing it up onto the sidewalk. The tail car had turned off onto a side street just before the explosion, and left the area in a casually expeditious manner. Miller made his exit as well, casually walking the few blocks to his car. It would be a while before a significant law enforcement presence arrived and began to cordon off the area. He would be well away, as would Andy and Felix.
Scott Summers walked casually but purposefully down the sidewalk on the west side of Toledo Street. The day was just cool enough that the light quilted vest would not attract attention. It did, however, conceal the deadly tool he carried. And it was a tool, he had reminded himself often enough. It was a tool for a job that needed doing, and the time to do it was at hand. The fact that he was about to kill a man was no longer repellent. The part of him that abhorred violence had begun do die years earlier, when his brother Gregg died during the destruction of the religious commune where he lived with his young wife and two children. He watched it on television, the armored vehicles drove through the flimsy walls and the houses inside, completely without regard for the danger to the occupants. Well, not exactly. They had always intended to kill, and they did. One vehicle had a flamethrower, and made several trips through the wreckage, setting fire to as much of it as possible. The machine gun operators, federal agents all, fired anything that moved. In a few minutes it was done, and the armored force retreated, replaced by bulldozers heaping the ruins into burning piles, destroying as much evidence as possible. Not that it mattered. There would be no real investigation, just a propaganda report demonizing the dead. The news media did its part, and before long the affair was just another obscure story about some crazy religious fanatics who deserved their fate. Scott never knew how his brother and his family died - their bodies were among those recovered, but were burned and decomposed. All he knew that his big brother was gone, brutally murdered with his wife and two young daughters, and the huge void in his life threatened to draw him into the abyss from which there was no return. Only a new purpose saved him. Learning more of the reason for his brother's death, and the numerous other incidents of that type, led him to join the growing ranks of dissidents who quietly plotted to overthrow the increasingly brutal ruling order. He concentrated his thoughts now on the nearness to his goal. Any minute now, perhaps any second, the target would be sighted. He slowed his pace, stopped briefly to adjust his arrival time. The Stinson building was ahead, across Parrish Boulevard. A voice in his ear startled him - not good, he thought. Must focus. "Coming down now," said the voice. "Should be on the ground floor in a couple of minutes, they always come straight out. Car is waiting." He crossed Parrish, and approached the Federal Building. Of the cars waiting near the entrance, only one could be the destination of the target. The Cadillac limousine was idling, light steam coming from the exhaust pipes. "Got you in sight", said a different voice. "It's the Caddy.". Then, "Here they come." His timing was perfect. He knew the target well - the two walking beside him were just a couple of bureaucrats. He would just about collide with them as they approached a point halfway to the car, so he slowed again, then moved on his target. Pulling the long knife, a handcrafted damascus blade sixteen inches long, from under his vest, he lunged at the man's back, driving the blade in near the right kidney, pulling it sideways to sever the spine, then ripping upward toward the left lung and heart. In little over one second, the deed was done, the knife withdrawn, and he was moving away. Pulling a pair of flash-bangs from under his vest, he tossed them toward the body and the paralyzed bystanders, then added a tear-gas canister to the mix. They would do no permanent harm, but would delay pursuit. Scott was in good shape, just entering his third decade, and quickly covered the distance to the corner of the building. Diving into the waiting car, he relaxed for the first time that day. There was a little blood on his clothing, but that would be dealt with soon enough. He wiped the knife clean and sheathed it. Louis Cavanaugh had been the FBI director when his brother died. He had ordered the operation and helped cover up afterwards, but his catalog of crimes was much longer. That was just his magnum opus. He had gone on to become a judge on the Seventh District Court, and had often been rumored to be a Supreme Count candidate. Not any more.
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