Chapter 47
The epiphany stayed with me for the whole flight back to Tiki. I planned the whole way. First, running the most likely scenarios to occur next, then reviewing every asset and option I had available.
When we landed, I jumped right into it. “Rose, can I get some things from my pack?” I asked.
I handed it over and she got me my bag. Then I headed to Red’s area to set up my daily call with Mr. Coors. I had some specific things to go over with him. After that, I retreated to my room and went through my bag. It was afternoon craft time at FBI summer camp.
I took apart one of the ballpoint pens in the suite’s desk.
Several of the facility guards actively used vape pens.
Over the course of my stay, I had thought about acquiring a couple empty vape cartridges, but then noticed one of the guards had micro blunt-tip syringes for refilling his cartridges from concentrate.
I might have borrowed one. The little syringe fit nicely inside the body of the fattest pen in the drawer.
Rose had left everything in the pack. Everything, including the bigger ketamine syringe. I also dug out my own special pen, the one my dad had gotten when he came home from his final deployment. It had the 75th Ranger scrolls on it and had a few special features of its own.
When I finished my project, I felt better.
Not perfect, but at least not helpless for what was coming.
I cleaned up and removed all evidence of my activities, flushing what little scrap I had from the pen project down the toilet.
Next, I went through the small set of outfits Rose had found for me and hung the best of the bunch in the bathroom while I took a hot shower.
After that, it was nap time. Twenty-three minutes later, there was a knock on the door and then Rose came in.
“We’ve been summoned,” she said, her manner serious.
“Director?”
“White House. You’ll need your best… outfit,” she said as she saw my grey dress pants and jacket hanging on the bathroom door. “You’re not surprised.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No. Plus you already have on your G-girl suit, soooo…”
She pointed at the hanging outfit. “Let’s go, Kreskin.”
Twenty minutes later, I was ready. My hair is short and I don’t wear much makeup; sometimes that rules.
We found Agent Steele and Director Brown waiting for us along with Red, who looked a bit nervous.
Likely her first call to the big house. We piled into black SUVs and headed out.
At the White House entrance, I was a teeny bit nervous myself.
No problems, though, because we sailed through the metal detectors.
I was careful not to meet Rose’s gaze as she looked curiously at the two pens I had put in the x-ray tray.
Why have two pens when I rarely used one?
Although I do sometimes write out concise information for other people, so not that far out of character.
Our escort was Kevin Burke, again, but with the addition of three Secret Service agents.
“You four wait here,” Burke said, pointing at chairs and nodding to two of the agents. “He wants to see her first.”
Then he led me into the room, the third agent coming in behind me and firmly shutting the door. He then stood against it. Two men waited for me in the sitting area. I expected President Stormer, but it was Charles Mueller, White House Chief of Staff, and… William Cramer.
“Ah,” I said. “I expected the president and William Cramer, but now it all makes sense.”
“Does it, Cassie?” Cramer asked, leaning forward. “I’m absolutely fascinated to hear about it.”
“I figured that you have enough blackmail ammo to lay hands on me. Just didn’t expect it to be you, Charles Mueller.”
“I won’t let him give up this office because of some trumped-up girl with delusions of grandeur,” Mueller said.
“So instead, you’ve made the decision to hand over a natural-born US citizen to a billionaire oligarch for private experimentation. How does this work? Cramer has dirt on the president and probably twice as much on you and therefore you’re giving me over to him for his mad science lab?”
“I don’t care if he chops you into little pieces and feeds you to the sharks,” Mueller said with a nasty sneer.
“I see. So, Bill, did my mother survive your attention?” I asked Cramer, holding my hands in front of me.
“She gave her life in service to the greater good,” he said, then laughed. “My greater good.”
“So she’s dead,” I pressed.
“There’ll be no loving reunion… in this life,” Cramer said.
“Well, thanks for the closure,” I said. “And thanks for confirming that you intend to kill me like my mother.”
The modified pen was in my left jacket sleeve, moved during our rush through the building.
I plucked it free with my right hand as I spun clockwise to face the agent at the door.
My left hand flicked at his eyes, causing him to lift his right arm to block.
It was just a feint, though, as I shifted my strike downward toward his holstered pistol on his right hip.
Again, he moved to knock away my left hand, and that’s when I threw a right jab at his exposed throat.
Judo might have been my martial art of choice, but Dad had me trained in numerous disciplines.
My boxing instructor, a former Golden Gloves champion, told us that I had fast hands.
Very fast. I couldn’t punch as hard as a male, but I was among the fastest he’d seen.
And it turns out that a throat punch with a modified plunger pen loaded with one milliliter of Ketamine has lots of impact.
He grabbed his neck with his right hand while his left shot out at me.
I grabbed his thoughtfully extended arm, turned my hip into his pelvis, tucked my left arm under his right, and threw him in a classic judo throw.
Hanging onto his arm, I rolled him between me and Kevin Burke, who was mostly just looking shocked.
My full weight dropped onto my left knee in the middle of the agent’s back.
Cramer and Mueller were starting to stand, but I was already pulling the agent’s Glock from his hip holster, which thankfully had little to no security retention features on it.
My right hand met my waiting left hand in a solid grip; the red dot sight filled with nasty old man and then I calmly shot William Cramer twice in the chest and once in the head.
The gunfire was stunning inside the confines of the office.
Falling to my knees as Cramer pitched over backward, I dropped the gun and laced my fingers behind my head just as the door burst open.
What followed next was pretty hectic, even with my recall.
Lots of yelling, my face slammed to the floor, heavy weight on my back, Director Brown’s loud voice, Mueller’s yelling, and then the sound of the President of the United States demanding to know what had happened.
How he got into the room without being hustled away by Secret Service is a mystery.
The person on my back smelled of familiar hair products.
“Rose, the pen in my coat pocket,” I said.
She reached under me and snagged it as she said, “Cassie, what the literal fuck?” Then I was yanked to my feet and hauled away by furious agents who applied fists liberally to my back, neck, and head.
They threw me into an empty office, my face bouncing off the hardwood floor. From there, it was a lot of waiting, silently reviewing everything that had happened and everything I had done. And I waited.