“Charlie?” he said, shaking him, making sure that he was still with them.
The old man stammered, looking for the perfect words to say to them to get him out of one more jam. Just one more. He wanted to cry, to beg for mercy. ‘Pathetic,’ he thought. He’d lived his life like a warrior, or so he’d thought. But what could he do? There were two of them. Much younger and stronger than he was. They most assuredly had knives, probably guns.
No. He was checkmated. The king must accept defeat and lie down.
“Okay okay,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. Tears began to roll down his face. He didn’t even attempt to wipe at them. What would be the point of that? “I… I can’t mix it myself,” he stammered. “I’m shaking too damn much. You’re going to have to do that.”
The man standing closest to the door nodded and exited the room. A few moments later he returned with a spoon, one big enough to take Charlie on his biggest… and last… ride on the Devil’s Highway.
Charlie watched the intruder who was standing at the foot of his bed. His accomplice was rolling up the right sleeve of Charlie’s pajama top. He wrapped surgical tubing around the skinny but flabby arm and started looking for a vein.
“Damn Charlie,” he said, almost laughing, “you’ve used these veins up haven’t you!”
Charlie had accepted his fate and he was no longer nervous. He would go out like a warrior. He was a Weatherman, after all. While he did not fight them, he raised his chin in defiance as they filled the syringe and stuck it in his arm. He looked down as the leader depressed the plunger, sending enough of the drug to kill three people into his bloodstream.
The deaths of Anna Radinski and Charlie Henry hit Blue Creek like a hurricane, but the media did their best to downplay the mess. Despite their best efforts, the result was inevitable—Patton Larsen’s screwy conspiracy theories crept back into the public consciousness. More importantly, it made its way back into the public square. One of the news channels hunted him down for an interview and Patton basically gave them one big “I told you so.” Tyler Redding was also sought out for a response, but he could not be found.
It was a half-hearted effort by the media to find the truth. They shepherded Governor David Asher through the recall debacle, the delaying of the elections, and his slim victory over Patton Larsen. It seemed unlikely that they would do anything to damage the governor at that point. Despite the media’s best efforts, though, the controversy lingered in the public’s mind for another month. Asher’s popularity inevitably suffered. Things were so bad, in fact, that Asher and his security agency drew up plans in case Blue Creek citizens rose up against the government. It all became moot, however. Nothing of consequence happened. After a few weeks, people went back to their lives.
The public didn’t know that the other shoe was about to drop. The final set of policy proposals, which Anna and Charlie developed before their deaths, was about to hit the City Council for a vote. Charlie and Anna had planned on gradually putting these policies in place, with Tyler Redding as governor of Blue Creek. However, with his fellow conspirators out of the picture, Asher thought that it was the right time to submit the policies to the Council.
Instead of reducing taxes and regulations, Asher doubled down and increased both, all in the name of helping those who couldn’t help themselves. He increased his security and police force even more and started construction on a huge prison complex on the eastern hills overlooking the city. It didn’t end there. During the campaign against Patton Larsen, Anna learned that the organizers of the experiment had inserted spies into the community. Luckily for Asher, she’d notified Brian White of this fact. Anna had all of suspected spies followed. She had notebooks full of names, addresses, and other identifiers. Now that Anna was gone, Asher was going to take things a step further.
For Bao, the killings marked the moment when everything changed in Blue Creek. Things had been on a downward tilt ever since David Asher had become governor, but after the deaths of Charlie Henry and Anna Radinski, events in the city began to feel like a runaway train. Perhaps Patton hadn’t been so crazy and paranoid after all.
In early July, the unthinkable happened. In the cumulative report to the executives of Insight, the line that usually read “all agents in place and reporting” had changed. Instead, it read, “2 agents unaccounted for.” This change sent a shockwave through Bao’s community. His suspicions that he had been followed were confirmed. Someone was onto their network and now two people were missing.
A week later the report was amended to show that the agents were again in place, but something didn’t feel right to Bao. He knew one of the two who had disappeared. Although direct contact between agents was forbidden, Bao decided to contact her to see what had happened. When she him on her doorstep, she tried to close the door in his face. Bao blocked the door with his foot.
“Hey,” he whispered, “let me in.”
When she relented and opened the door to let him in, he looked both ways down the street to make sure no one was watching them. Satisfied that no one was there, Bao stepped into the woman’s house.
Lindsay Andres was a young and pretty African American woman, two years older than Bao. She’d applied for the experiment, but with her experience with computers, Insight asked her if she wanted a job instead. She accepted and now here she was. Bao watched her walk into her living room. She was noticeably limping.
“Lindz?” he said, concerned.
She turned and smiled weakly at him, then turned and sat on her large leather couch. She was obviously in pain. Bao sat next to her and an awkward silence passed between them. When he asked her what happened to her, tears sprung to her eyes and she looked away from him.
“Have you been followed too?” he asked her, his hand placed affectionately on her knee.
She winced at his touch, but instead of being apologetic he became angry with her.
“Dammit Lindsay! This affects me too! I’ve been followed by someone. Did someone follow you?”
Lindsay was taken aback by his reaction. She nodded vigorously, tears now streaming down her face.
“Who?” he asked.
Lindsay shook her head, refusing to answer.
“Who?” he asked, angrier than before.
“Bao…” she whimpered. “They told me they would kill me if I told anyone anything,” she said, her whole body shaking now.
Bao’s eyes went wide and he pulled away from her.
“Bao…” she said, looking around the room conspiratorially. “You need to leave. And you need to watch your back.”
Bao stood and staggered away from the couch. He opened the door slowly, just a crack, and looked across the street to see if anyone was there. He didn’t see the car that had followed him before. He pulled the door open wider and stepped out into the warm, dry air. Not knowing what else to do, he decided to leave his car, which he’d parked around the corner. He walked home. As Bao crossed the first street, a dark car pulled away from the curb behind him and slowly followed him as he made his way down the sidewalk.
CHAPTER 24
Now that Frank and Patton were both in semi-retirement, they vowed they would get out on the lake to fish at least twice a week. This was going to be their first outing since Mike was killed. Instead of using Patton’s boat, they decided to go out with their old friend, Tom Perry. When Tom was out fishing with them, at least one of them would have a great day. Their excitement turned to disappointment, though, when they got to the door of the shop and found a “Closed” sign on the window. Patton looked at his watch and then looked at the hours of operation sign on the window.