Chapter Twenty-Eight

Hanson

 

There had been no action that night. He pulled himself up from his army cot, his back aching. He was too old for this kind of living, too used to sleeping in the luxurious captain's bunk. His mouth tasted like dirt, so he took a pull from his canteen, rinsed, and spat onto the dirt floor. It had been a long night, waiting at the edge, not knowing whether all that had happened would be enough to prevent an attack.

All through the night, even now, tanks and trucks were rumbling their way along highways, coming closer and closer to the border. Mexican and Canadian troops inside them, men he couldn't know, willing to risk themselves for what he believed in. The threat of their forces combined with his own could tip the balance. Maybe.

And it had been enough. Sometime in the night, around three-thirty, when the darkness was complete and it seemed like morning would never come, they'd finally realized there would be no fighting. And he'd even managed to sleep some.

Was it done? He had no idea. There had been no contact with Ashlee and Matt. If it hadn't happened, if they'd been late, if the doors had been locked, then it meant another night of waiting. Another night like this last night. Except another night might not end in the same peaceful way.

His whole body itched with dirt and tiredness. He pulled on a t-shirt and grabbed his phone as he started toward the shower block. Browsing the news headlines, he almost tripped several times. Montana had seceded overnight, and Arizona and New Mexico were running the secession process through their state legislatures. The world's press was both astounded and disgusted by the military’s firing on peaceful protesters. It was somehow comforting that there was so much support. But he knew it would amount to nothing if a real, full-out war started. As much as he was dying for the Mexican and Canadian forces to arrive, he knew once they did that fighting could begin at any moment.

The shower water was lukewarm, but he didn't mind. It was being clean that was important, and the dirt and sweat of the last twenty-four hours streamed away. He was almost done when he heard the steady chirp of his cell phone ringing. Deciding to give himself the luxury of at least finishing his shower, he rinsed off as the phone rang out. He could return the call later, he thought tiredly. But as he turned off the water, the phone was already ringing again.

“Shit,” he said as the phone almost slipped out of his damp hand.

“Hanson. What is it?” His voice sounded sharper than he meant it to.

“It's done.”

Ashlee sounded half dead, exhausted. Her voice had no life to it; she spoke in a monotone. Hanson was torn between the thrilling feeling of victory so close by, and concern for her. Hammersmith was dead. The tide was turning. But there was no telling yet what would happen. His death hadn't even been announced. Perhaps they would try to cover it up, come up with a plan B.

 

“Are you okay?” he asked, knowing the question was stupid. Obviously she wasn't okay. She'd killed a man.

“Yeah, yeah, I think so. I guess. It was . . . Callahan's dead.”

Again, the phone almost slipped out of his fingers, but this time from shock rather than because he was still wet.

“Callahan? What? What the hell was he doing there?”

“I have no idea—he just appeared out of nowhere. Kel, we were almost caught; it was so close; he saved us. He pulled Matt out of our car, but he got shot. He saved Matt, and then we had to leave him. We . . .”

He could hear her tears in the deep, shaky breaths she was taking. Callahan. He hadn't really known the man at all. And he could think of no real reason why he would’ve been in Washington, or aware of what Matt and Ashlee were doing. It made no sense.

“I'm sorry, Hanson,” Ashlee said.

She used his last name again, not his first; she was regaining control of herself.

“Are you safe now?” he asked.

“Yes. We'll be back on the road again in a half hour or so. Figured it was best to get out of DC while we still could, since we have no idea what's going to happen next.”

“Good. You've already called me once. You using a burner phone?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, then pick up a few more. Ditch this one, and give me a call after noon. I'm going to go talk to Merriweather—maybe he's got a better idea of what's happening than I do. And I certainly think he's got some questions to answer about Callahan.”

“Right,” said Ashlee.

But she didn't hang up.

“Ash,” he said quietly. “You did what needed to be done. You saved millions. It'll be a long time before you sleep at night—trust me, I've been there. But you will sleep at night one day, I promise you that.”

A long pause.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

 

***

 

“What the hell was Callahan doing there?”

Merriweather looked up from his papers as Hanson entered his office.

“What?”

“Callahan. He was in DC. What was he doing there?”

Merriweather frowned but seemed relatively calm for a man being yelled at. Hanson took a deep breath, pulled out a chair, and sat. He was tired, hungry, and had no real right to be angry.

“He left yesterday afternoon, flew in to DC,” Merriweather said. “He said he'd got an inside line, could get info, but needed to meet his source in person. That's honestly all I know. Now what the hell are you talking about?”

Hanson stared at him, calculating. He could tell the truth. He had to trust Merriweather, and he knew the man was honest and devoted to his job. Would that devotion include sitting silently when he learned what the Freedom Group had done? But it was done now; nothing could have stopped it. And there were going to be consequences. Plus, explaining Callahan's death without explaining how and why he’d died seemed wrong. Very wrong. Like him or not—and Hanson was very much in the middle of that issue—Callahan had, according to Ashlee, saved Matt's life.

“We need to talk,” Hanson said.

“Perhaps we do,” said Merriweather.

Merriweather put down his pen, squared his papers, and sat back in his chair. Hanson told him everything. Merriweather was silent and still until the end.

“I will not condone what you did,” he said after a long silence. “I cannot condone that. But I can understand it. And I can understand that through an immoral act, you possibly accomplished something great. Life is not black and white, and sometimes, Hanson, we need to work in the gray areas. Sometimes we need to find the compromise between two blacks that somehow become slightly less black in being compromised.”

“Callahan . . .”

“Callahan made his own choices,” said Merriweather. “He was an expert at living in the gray areas. He knew what he was doing. He almost certainly knew what you were doing before you did it. Don't forget that for his entire career, digging up information was his speciality. He had you tracked, or bugged, or simply knew the situation well enough that he could guess what was going to happen. I have no idea. But he did what needed to be done.”

Hanson said nothing.

“That is the greatest of epitaphs, is it not?” Merriweather said. “The one that people like us can only hope for. ‘He did what needed to be done.’ There is no glory in it, and yet it is the finest thing a man can accomplish.”

“I didn't know him well,” Hanson said slowly.

“No one did,” said Merriweather with a chuckle. “But if you did, you would not have liked him. At times you would have hated him; at times you would have loved him. That was the kind of man he was. He was both the best and worst of men. And he was very, very skilled at his job. One of those men that it was better to have on your side simply because that meant that the other side didn't have him.”

It seemed a poor tribute to a man who had died to save another. But then, it was honest, and Merriweather was, as Hanson had thought, an honest man.

“What happens now?”

“How far out are the Mexican and Canadian forces?” asked Merriweather.

“The Canadian initial contingent should arrive by tomorrow evening. The Mexicans a little earlier, afternoon maybe.”

“And can you hold off further incursions until they arrive?”

“No.”

Merriweather nodded. “Then we wait. Either there's a reaction to the death of Hammersmith that will delay things, fix things, or provoke anger and retribution; or there's a cover-up, and things proceed as usual. There seems to be little we can do to change the outcome of that now.”

“If the US forces invade tonight, we have lost,” Hanson said. “Lost everything. I need your word on the battle plan. When exactly do I withdraw our men?”

Merriweather stared hard at him, then raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I think we fight on to the bitter end, don't we?”

It was what he’d wanted to hear, though he hadn't expected the words to come from Merriweather's mouth. He nodded.

“Yes, sir.”

And Merriweather didn't correct the “sir” this time.

Hanson stood up, turning to head to the door. His business here was done. The next time he saw Merriweather, if there was a next time, they'd have won or lost. The large TV screen that had been behind him still showed the protesters, statue-like and silent, cameras panning over them. There had been no shootings since the first time—a small mercy. Only as Hanson began to step toward the door did the red, breaking-news banner appear at the bottom of the screen.

“Turn it up!” he said, coming back to his chair. “Quick.”

But Merriweather was already ahead of him, grabbing for the remote, scrolling the sound up so that they caught the anchor in mid-sentence.

“. . . all preparations are underway. And if you're just joining us, breaking news just in—General Hammersmith has died in his bed at the White House at the age of sixty-three. Sources at the White House confirm that the general passed in his sleep during the night.”

The screen flashed up a picture of Hammersmith in full dress uniform as the anchor continued to speak.

“Due to current administration difficulties, no vice president had so far been appointed. The White House says that an interim leader will be appointed until such a time as an election can be held. And welcome to those who are just joining us. The breaking news is that General Hammersmith . . .”

The cycle began again.

“Died in his bed?” Hanson said.

Merriweather was grinning. “Do you understand what that means?” he asked.

“No, it sounds like a cover-up to me.”

“Oh, it is,” said Merriweather. “But a cover-up that's going to work to our favor. Someone, somewhere, some intelligent soul, has decided that enough is enough. Hammersmith wasn't assassinated, so there can be no martyrdom, no further cause to rally behind. Do you understand now?”

Hanson frowned, then looked up at Merriweather. “But that means . . .”

His words were cut off by the ringing of the telephone. Merriweather held up a finger and picked up the phone. There were a few words as Hanson sat silently, working through all this in his mind. This was not how he'd expected things to be, not how he'd thought they'd end. There was a small click as Merriweather hung up the phone.

“That was Washington,” he said. “There's an official ceasefire as of right now, with talks to begin as soon as we can get someone to Washington to hold them. Canadian and Mexican forces have already been asked to withdraw and are complying.”

Hanson finally had time to finish his thought.

“But that means we've won.”

And Merriweather didn't smile now; he nodded, his face serious. “We've won.”