The old man nodded. “John Nike is now in charge of our operation.”
“Alfonse!” the third man said, shocked, but they were already turning their backs on him.
John seemed to notice the General for the first time. “Who are you?”
“General Li NRA, sir. We’ve spoken on the phone.”
“Right, right,” John said. “Excuse me, Alfonse. I have a few housekeeping matters to take care of.”
Alfonse nodded and moved off. John put one arm around Li’s shoulders and one around Billy’s. His face was inches from Billy’s, which creeped him out a little. Billy suddenly realized: this might be the John Nike that Jennifer wanted him to collect information on. “So, Li, this is…”
“The man you requested.”
This was one of those situations that required a lot of “sir’s,” Billy realized. “Private Billy NRA, Special Ops, reporting, sir!”
John looked amused. “Billy, you might get to earn your keep today.”
“Yes, sir!”
“If things don’t go our way in there, then during my speech I’m going to point at someone. I assume you know what to do then.”
“Yes, sir!”
“But not inside the House. You mark them, you wait until they leave, you do them on the steps. If you try anything in this building, there’ll be twenty Government suits on you before you can twitch. And if the Government gets hold of you, I’ll make damn sure you never get to talk to them. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir!”
“I like this kid, Li,” John said. “He’s a quick learner. Okay, Billy, piss off. Me and the General have to talk.”
“Yes, sir!” Billy said. He went out to wait in the corridor.
After a while, the lights dimmed, then brightened. Billy thought there must be some kind of electrical fault, but people started filing into the main hall, so he straightened to attention. John and the General came out together, with Alfonse and a bunch of other suits. Billy waited a few minutes, then made his own way into the main room. He fought his way to a seat in the back few rows. On the way he jabbed someone with his bag.
“Hey, watch it. What’ve you got in there, steel rods?”
“Sorry.” He found a seat and put his bag between his feet. There was a lot of messing around at the table, then people seemed to get organized and a man stood up and started talking. It took Billy a while, but he realized this was the Government President. He didn’t recognize the third group, the one with two chicks in it, but if the Government and US Alliance were here, he guessed they were from Team Advantage. Billy hadn’t known so many big enchiladas were getting together in one place.
The President started saying something about freedom and justice, and Billy tuned out. Then there was some arguing, one suit after another jabbering away, and Billy started thinking about mountains. London wasn’t so far away from some really good skiing countries. Maybe he could skip over there when all this was over. Then John got to his feet, straightening his cuffs, and Billy sat up.
“We came here in good faith, to talk about solutions.” John’s voice was piped through the hall, so it sounded like he were right in front of you. “But the Government didn’t. This morning, it conducted raids against us. It targeted our companies, only because we’ve been successful at providing products people want to buy. It trespassed on our private property and assaulted some of our executives.”
He paused. The hall was so quiet Billy could hear his own stomach.
“This is intolerable.” He stared at the President. Billy was sure he was going to point at him. But he turned back to the crowd. “By this action, the Government has proved that so long as it exists, none of us are truly free. Government and freedom are mutually exclusive. So if we value freedom, there’s only one conclusion. It’s time to get rid of this leftover relic we call Government.”
People started to talk; a few rose to their feet in front of Billy. He craned his neck. John was looking at the young woman from Team Advantage. Billy’s hands tightened on the bag.
“US Alliance has had enough of being persecuted for the crime of making money. From this moment, we no longer recognize them as an authority. It’s time for a brave new age. I hereby declare the end of Government. And you, sir, are out of a job.”
He pointed at the Government President. The crowd erupted. Billy felt no surprise. He picked up his bag and began to fight his way out of the hall.
He jogged across the road, through the square, and into a restaurant that looked like a boardinghouse. A girl was cleaning glasses at the bar. “What’s upstairs?” Billy asked. “Rooms?”
“Sure. They start at ninety dollars.”
“I want something that faces Parliament,” he said. “Um, for the view.”
She collected a key from underneath the counter. “A lot going on today, hey?”
“You said it,” Billy said.
The room was on the second floor, small with thick drapes, which was perfect. He set his bag on the bed and unzipped it. He took out the barrel and cleaned it thoroughly, keeping one foot against the wall to hold the curtain open a fraction so he could watch Parliament House. When the flow of human traffic down the steps increased, he snapped the scope and magazine into place and dragged a chair over to the window. He raised the window and squinted against the icy air that blew in.
People were gushing out of the building, most in suits. Billy worried that he wouldn’t be able to spot the President. Then came another thought: maybe he would spot the President. That would mean Billy was meant to raise the gun and line a man up in the sights. He felt fresh sweat run down his back. Billy hadn’t believed he would ever reach this moment, not truly. The moment when he would have to decide if he would kill a man to escape the NRA. He chewed his lip.
The President emerged, surrounded by a dozen Government agents. Even in the crowd, that stood out. He looked like the center of a bull’s-eye.
The rifle lay in Billy’s lap. Some snipers—amateurs—raised their guns too early, used the scope to see what was going on. That was risky, the NRA had taught him, because he could be spotted. A good sniper became visible only at the last moment. Billy waited. Then he raised the rifle and fitted the butt into his shoulder.
He rested his elbow on the sill and the barrel against the window frame. There were thirty or so steps up to the House of Commons, so he had plenty of time to line him up. When he saw the man behind the crosshairs, his stomach lurched. His hands shook minutely. There was a variable wind, and Billy thought: Maybe I’ll miss. Maybe I’ll do my best but I’ll miss.
The wind eased.
Skiing, Billy thought. I’m just skiing.
The President looked up. It was as if he knew it was coming.
54 Government
“Shit!” Jennifer screamed. Shoppers hurried away from her. She ran toward the exit Billy had escaped through, but with her helmet and body armor, it was like wading through a river. By the time she got to the door, she couldn’t even hear Billy’s footsteps.
She grabbed her radio. “Team one-nine-six, what’s your status?”
“We’re back at the van. NRA soldiers turned up ninety seconds after you left, lots of them. We never had a chance.”
“Fine. We’re aborting. Let’s do something useful.”
“Ma’am? Our orders—”
“Shh,” she said.
In normal circumstances, she would put out an A.P.B. on Billy, but today there were twenty thousand agents tied up in raids and no one had spare time to look for young, muscular men with canvas bags. But there was, she thought, really only one place a sniper could be headed. Maybe she could kill two birds with one stone. She sat in the back of the Government van and ignored the glances her team exchanged.
“Traffic’s slowing,” the driver called.
“Stop,” Jennifer said. She assembled her team by the side of the road. Parliament House was a five-minute run away, and she felt like a bit of a dick, jogging up the sidewalk with five armored agent
s. But you had to do what you had to do.
There weren’t many people outside Parliament, which was good: it meant the session hadn’t finished yet. “Teams of two,” she said. “Look for the bag. Gray with dark red straps.”
She left them to trot up the steps. A young agent with a goatee tried to stop her entering the main floor: Jennifer lashed her ID and kept walking. He didn’t chase her. This wasn’t security It was a joke.
There were a lot of people inside, and many of them were shouting at each other. She saw John Nike standing with his arms folded across his chest, smiling. The temptation to run across the floor, slam him face-first into the table, and cuff him was very strong. Maybe that Government shrink had had a point.
She made her way to the Government’s private guard. John didn’t see her. Jennifer felt glad to have a weapon.
She took a guess at which agent was in charge. These guys had earpieces, sunglasses, the whole works; they looked ridiculous. “Excuse me.”
“Shh,” the agent said without turning.
“We’re done,” John Nike announced to the floor. “There’s nothing more to discuss.”
“We are not done!” the President said. Jennifer could see a vein throbbing at his temple, which probably wasn’t a good sign for the negotiations. “Nobody’s leaving until we arrive at a resolution!”
“Hey!” Jennifer said to the agent. He didn’t react, so she prodded his ribs. “Hello?”
“Don’t poke me, Agent.”
“I believe a sharpshooter may be about to take a shot at the President.”
He glanced at her, then back at the crowd. “From where?”
“I don’t know. But—”
“Agent, we always assume somebody, somewhere is about to take a shot at the President. That’s why we’re here. Please step away.”
The noise was rising at the table. “That’s it,” John Nike said. “You people don’t know when you’re finished.” He turned and walked away. The US Alliance contingent rose and followed him.
“Wait!” the President said, but it was all over: even Jennifer could see that. She looked at John Nike’s back.
“Look, I have to go. Just take the President out the back way, okay?”
“We have twenty agents between here and his car. We’re not letting them put pictures of him running out the back door on the news.”
“What?” There was so much movement in the crowd, she was starting to see Billys everywhere. John was about to reach the corporate exit. “Mr. President!” Jennifer called.
The agent took her arm and twisted. Her sore shoulder screamed. Her vision flared. She didn’t realize he was pushing her against the wall until she hit it with her forehead. “Don’t interfere with our protection of the President, Agent. Do you understand?”
“Let me—” Over her shoulder, she saw agents box the President and begin to lead him from the hall. “Jesus!”
The agent spoke into his mike. “I am occupied with a two-twenty in the main hall, please proceed to—”
She got her legs together and tried to sweep his feet out. How this normally turned out was with them on the floor and Jennifer standing over them with a superior expression, but this guy was well trained and she succeeded only in jolting him. She felt his face brush her hair and threw her head backward. Something soft and probably nasal cracked against her skull. The agent went down, groaning. Jennifer yelled, “That was my sore shoulder!”
The President was already gone, which raised an interesting dilemma: should she save his life or arrest John Nike? But it would be crazy to try to protect the President, Jennifer realized: she’d only distract his guards. She would have to put her faith in the men with sunglasses and earpieces. She ran for the corporate corridor.
It was stuffed with excited suits, talking and gesturing. She pushed her way through. There were too many people who looked like him; she kept grabbing people with similar haircuts. People stared at her. A man said: “Jennifer Maher?” and she heard others pick up on it: “Look, that’s Jennifer Maher.”
She saw John. He was fifteen feet away, side-on to her, holding court to a dozen other suits. She slipped her hand into her pocket and found her gun.
Her radio said, “Jen? We spotted your boy.”
Jennifer froze. “What?”
“The building across the road from here? Your guy just went in. Canvas bag, red straps?”
A woman to her left sprayed laughter. A suit said, “—but then of course they increased their equity—”
“Jen?”
She felt sick. “I’ll meet you there.”
She burst through the doors, gun drawn. It was dimly lit, and she had to crouch there a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Her team followed her in. Jennifer felt stupid: this was a pretty good way to let an ambush kill a lot of temporarily blind Government agents. She was rushing, not thinking.
The restaurant was empty except for a girl behind a bar. “Man came in here a few minutes ago, with a bag,” Jennifer said. “Where is he?”
“Oh, he took a room.”
“Which one?”
“I dunno if I should tell you that.”
She pointed her .45 at the girl. “Tell.”
“Twenty-eight.”
They hit the stairs, then jogged down the hallway, peering at door numbers in the gloom. Twenty-eight was the final door. She listened at it for a moment. Nothing. She took a step back and kicked it.
The door popped open. It made a strange sound, like a combination of a crunch and a crack. Then she saw Billy NRA by the window and the thin smoke curling from his gun, and realized she was wrong. It hadn’t been a single noise. It had been two.
“Don’t move! Put the gun down right now!”
“Shit!” Billy said. “Shit, shit, shit!” He looked from her to the window and back. “Drop it!”
“Look what you made me do,” he moaned. “Oh, shit, look what you made me do.”
The gun shook in her hand. “Billy, if you’ve just shot the President, you’re leaving this room via the window.” She crossed the room and dragged the rifle from his hand. Outside the window, there were people milling and a man lying bleeding on the steps. A group of agents were hustling the President into a car.
“Who did you shoot?”
“I was trying to miss! You startled me! I didn’t mean to!”
“You shot someone by accident?”
“Don’t hurt me! Please?”
“You should have thought of that before,” she said.
55 US Alliance
John walked out of Parliament, trying hard to suppress his exultation. He was preparing to register shock and outrage, because there were TV cameras everywhere and no doubt some were already swinging onto him. He’d barely stepped into daylight when a man grabbed his arm.
“Sir, someone’s been shot! You shouldn’t be out here!” “Someone’s been shot?” John said. Shock, outrage. He hurried to the top of the stairs. Halfway down, medics were attending to a man in a dark suit. He was white-faced, had a thick pad strapped to his chest, and was definitely not the Government President.
John’s vision washed red. It was a few moments before he realized the media had clustered around him. “John! John Nike! Is this attack a surprise to you! Do you know this man! What’s your reaction?”
He had to swallow twice before he could speak. Then he caught sight of Billy NRA being led toward a black Government car. On one side of Billy was an agent John had never seen before. On the other side was Jennifer Government.
“I am shocked and outraged,” he said. The words trembled.
He jumped into the first US Alliance limousine he reached, which was General Li’s. That was fortuitous: John had a little something to say to General Li. He waited until the General was settled, the doors closed, and the car far enough away from Parliament so that the chance of Jennifer Government pulling it over and sticking a gun in his face was decreasingly small. Then he punched the window and put his heel into the TV monitor
.
“I understand you’re upset,” General Li said.
“I ask for one sniper to do a single job! And he manages to not only get himself arrested, but shoot the wrong guy! How does that happen?”
“Billy is an excellent marksman. I really don’t know.”
“Maybe you think this is some kind of exercise. This is no drill, Li. The Government is after my ass. And now Jennifer—”
The phone beside him rang. He was tempted to rip it out and toss it out the window, but that could be a mistake. There were some people he could yell at and some people he couldn’t, and there was a good chance this would be the latter. He pushed for speaker. “Yes?”
“Ah, John.” It was Alfonse. “That was some speech.”
“I’m glad you liked it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, Alfonse,” John said. “You asked me to express our indignation. Okay, in the heat of the moment, maybe I got a little—”
“You announced that US Alliance is a criminal organization.”
“Criminal,” he said. “What is that, anyway? Just someone the Government doesn’t agree with.”
“Don’t play games with me, John. Our organization exists to gain market share from Team Advantage. The Government is peripheral.”
“How can we fight Team Advantage with the Government as referee? The Government is the major obstacle to our goals. We can’t ignore them, Alfonse. They’re coming after us. We had to send them a message.”
“Because I partially believe that,” Alfonse said, “you still have a job. But consider yourself on notice.”
“Thank you, sir!” he said, but Alfonse was already gone. He exhaled shakily.
General Li said carefully, “Perhaps it’s just as well our sniper failed.”
John looked at him. “You can hit the President before he gets to the airport. Or you can hit him in the air. Do you people have jets?”
Li cleared his throat. “Forgive me, but… I gained the impression Alfonse is not in favor of a direct attack on the Government.”