“You said ‘freedoms you enjoy,’” she said. “Why not ‘freedoms we enjoy?’”
The Chairman looked confused. “What are you on about?”
“When you were talking before, you spoke as though you weren’t one of us, as though the freedoms promised by the Constitution didn’t apply to you.”
“A slip of the tongue. Are you a linguist, dissecting every word I say?”
“No,” Diane replied. “It just struck me as odd.”
The Chairman leaned in closer. “Well, let me tell you what’s odd. For a woman whose life is hanging in the balance, you don’t seem very worried.”
She stared back at him. Of course she was afraid. But not so much about what might happen to her. It was the fate of Gregory and Emma that worried her most. By going on that mission, she’d risked losing everything, but the Chairman had said it best himself. Sometimes to protect the things we love, we must bend the very rules we seek to preserve.
“Who ordered you to slip that powder into my drink?” he asked. His hands were gripping the chair back.
“No one,” she replied.
A loud clap filled the room as he slapped her face. A deep red mark bloomed on her cheek.
“I’m going to ask you again,” the Chairman said as his hand rose above his head. “Who ordered you to steal the presidential papers?”
“I don’t—”
Whack!
Blood dribbled down her chin. Diane felt her lower lip start to swell.
She held out for a few more minutes before the Chairman swore in frustration.
“Get Chiang!” he called out to someone Diane couldn’t see.
A large sliding door opened and one of the Secret Service men slipped out. A moment later he returned with a short, frail-looking man holding a briefcase. Another man entered with them, carrying a small table. He arrived first and set it down. Chiang then laid his metal briefcase on top, undid the combo and opened the lid. Inside was a row of stainless-steel instruments.
Chiang was old and slightly hunched, the flesh around his eyes puffy with age. His mouth curled into a permanent grin.
“Hello, young lady,” he said, addressing her, his breath reeking of fish sauce. “I have a certain level of experience encouraging people to tell me things they’d like to keep secret.”
To his left, the Chairman looked on with glee.
Diane’s heart began to hammer in her chest. This was like some horrible nightmare you couldn’t wake up from.
“Yes, Chiang. She’s a stubborn one, no doubt about it. Perhaps you could encourage her.”
Diane’s eyes darted between Chiang and his briefcase packed with torture devices. The old man seemed to be surveying his options, trying to decide which one to use.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Diane clenched her teeth, almost able to feel the excruciating pain that would soon rack her body.
Chiang pulled out a scalpel, that sick, widening grin plastered on his weathered face. “We start small.”
He began to approach her and then stopped, shaking his head.
“What is it, Mr. Chiang?” the Chairman asked.
“No, too easy. This is too easy.” He turned to the Secret Service agent who’d disappeared back into the shadows. “Bring the little girl.”
“Which one?” the Chairman asked. “There are two.”
“Emma,” Chiang said. “We start with Emma.”
The agent brought Emma in and sat her roughly in the chair opposite Diane. Her daughter was crying from the moment she entered the warehouse and grew louder when she spotted the blood on her mother’s face.
“Don’t do this,” Diane howled. “I’ll tell you everything you wanna know, just don’t hurt her.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” the Chairman said flatly.
Chiang looked Emma up and down then turned back to his briefcase. He was whistling a happy tune that Diane had never heard before. After a moment, his fingers settled on a head clamp with a row of inward-pointing screws. Emma’s eyes grew wide when she saw it, her chest heaving with fear.
Chiang swung around, holding it out as though he were about to crown a princess.
“His name’s Edward,” Diane said, a mist of blood spraying out as she spoke. “He came to my cell and gave me the knife, said he wanted me to stick you with it the next time you asked to see me.”
Chiang moved toward Emma as she struggled in her seat.
“Mom, please make him stop.”
“He was the one who got us transferred to the apartment,” Diane said, firing the words out as quickly as she could. “Then he told me there’d been a change of plan. They didn’t want you dead anymore. They wanted the presidential commission you kept in your breast pocket.”
The Chairman held up a hand and Chiang paused, the crown of screws still outstretched in his hands. A growing look of disappointment was on the Asian man’s face, as though he hadn’t wanted Diane to talk before he had a chance to play with his toys.
“How’d they know where the document was?” the Chairman asked.
Tears were streaming down Diane’s face. “I have no idea. All he told me was to drug you and check your inside pocket for the papers.”
“What about the knife?” the Chairman asked.
Chiang’s arms were starting to shake.
“That was in case I failed.”
“And fail you did, although not entirely. Where did you hide the document? Did you give it to this Edward?”
Diane shook her head. “I stuffed it into a mailbox.”
“The one on Main?”
She nodded. “That’s all I know, I swear. Just please let Emma go.”
The door behind them opened and the agent slipped out.
“I hope for your sake it’s still there.” The Chairman turned to Chiang. “Put that thing down before your arms fall off.”
Less than five minutes later, the agent was back. He approached, stepping into the single shaft of light. He had a wide face with small eyes and fleshy lips.
“And?”
He shook his head.
The Chairman turned to Diane, who looked just as shocked.
“It must still be there,” she cried. “Look again.”
“I believe you,” the Chairman said. “Which is why I’m going to let your daughter go.”
The agent untied Emma and held her back when she tried to lunge forward to hug her mother.
“But treason is something I will not tolerate,” the Chairman told her. “That’s why tomorrow you’ll be taken out and hanged in front of the entire town. I want them to see what happens when people break the peace in Oneida.”
Chapter 36
The radio crackled to life as Rodriguez waved Marshall, John and the others inside the command tent.
“John Hancock, this is Patriot One, your signal strength is ten over nine, go ahead.”
‘Patriot One’ was Rodriguez’s call sign, which meant that ‘John Hancock’ must be Edward, their contact in Oneida.
“Patriot One, I have the Chairman’s presidential commission in my possession. I’ve spent the last thirty minutes going over it in detail and I’m about as certain as I can be that it’s fake.”
John’s breath hitched in his throat. The revelation wasn’t completely shocking, but the words sent chills up his spine. The implications were staggering.
“Ask him how he can be so sure,” John said. This wasn’t something they wanted to leave to chance. Taking out an imposter was one thing, but murdering a presidential envoy, no matter how corrupt, could bring the might of the US military down on them.
Rodriguez asked the question.
“Patriot One, gosh, where do I start? First off, the document is laced with grammatical errors. Mostly missing conjunctions. ‘And,’ ‘or,’ ‘so,’ ‘but.’ Parts of it are readable, but others seem like they were written by a foreigner. Most of the problems I’ve found, however, show up in the presidential seal. As you may know, the number thirteen plays a big part in the seal. There are supposed to be thirteen stars in the crest, thirteen stripes in the shield, thirteen arrows in the eagle’s talon, as well as thirteen olive leaves and thirteen olives. In the Chairman’s seal, those numbers are all over the place. For example, the eagle’s only carrying a single arrow.”