I Want Names ...

Source

The former Secretary of Defense, Matthew Burleson, had been flown down from Maryland early Monday morning. He was being held at DC's Central Detention Facility until such time as the President could make time to interview him. President Nakagawa had made his staff free up time in his schedule for that to happen. Burleson was being brought over to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) as the President and his chief aide and head of his protective detail, Bill Aspinall, headed over there from the Oval Office.

"What sort of evidence do we have that Burleson was conspiring with this so-called Silver Dozen?" the President asked.

Aspinall responded, "We actually have tape recorded conversations of him and the leader of the Dozen, Senator Hawthorne, planning on how to get rid of the President and his immediate successors ..."

"Get rid of? Do we actually have this on tape, the two of them plotting an assassination?" the President exclaimed in horror.

"No Sir, nothing that incriminating, the conversation was more along the lines of what needed to happen in order for Burleson to assume the Presidency. All very theoretical and probably inadmissible in court."

"This will never see the inside of a courtroom, the last thing we want is this being dragged out for months by the goddamned lawyers and the media."

"Sir?" Aspinall stopped in the street outside the EEOB, "You can't be suggesting ..."

"Drum head courts martial? Firing squads at dawn? No Bill, as much as part of me wants to see that, that's the sort of thing they would do, without feeling the least bit guilty. I'm afraid that we need to play by the rules. For now."

Burleson was wearing an orange jump suit and was shackled hand and foot. He was also sporting a large bruise from a fellow prisoner at Central Detention. He had been somewhat shocked at how some of the inmates there thought of him as a traitor. Who knew convicts could also be patriots? He sat up as the door opened.

Bill Aspinall entered and looked around the room, he nodded at the man guarding Burleson and indicated that the man could leave the room. Which he did without hesitation. Aspinall had noticed that a lot of people were very nervous around him. Whether that was due to his position of being to close to the President or something else, he didn't know. But he would run with it. A lot of people were unsettled by the many changes occurring over the past few months, people had died. Most folks didn't wish to join that list.

Burleson looked at Aspinall and asked, "Who the f**k are you?"

Aspinall didn't say a word, he just returned Burleson's stare. Then the President entered.

"Well, Matthew, you've been a bad boy, haven't you? Pretending to be President, plotting with a cabal of senators and representatives to overthrow the government, and we're still wondering if you were complicit with the assassinations of the Vice President and Speaker of the House."

Burleson's eyes went wide, "Assassinations? That plane crash was an accident."

"Yeah, well, we're looking into that."

Aspinall had seen the look on Burleson's face when the President had mentioned "assassinations," there was something to that rumor!

Sergeant Jack Hollister couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched. He was, as all of the field personnel of Deepwater Security LLC were, ex-military, though not American military.

He'd served in the British Army, from which he'd been dishonorably discharged, and then the Colombian Army which he'd left after the cartels had put a price on his head. His Spanish mother had taught him Spanish, which he'd put to good use in the jungles of Colombia, when he spoke Spanish now, he sounded like a native of Colombia, but his methods were even too brutal for the jungle war against the drug cartels.

He'd been a private in the British Army, the 1st Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers to be exact. He'd been doing very well as a soldier until Yemen, apparently the King didn't approve of executing prisoners. His lieutenant had argued that the men Hollister had killed were caught in civilian clothes and bearing arms. The Crown didn't care.

He had actually made sergeant in the Brigada Anti-Narcoticos¹, his superiors in the brigade hadn't been bothered by his brutal methods, apparently the local drug lord was. His commanders had given him the option of a transfer to another unit, but Hollister knew that the price on his head would follow him throughout Colombia.

Now he had this job, supervising the protection of a group of old men and women who called themselves the "Silver Dozen." He and his men referred to them as the "Dozen Old Farts." Not to their faces though, obviously. The pay was good for a sergeant, the private soldiers hardly made any money, but then again, they also had no expenses. The company provided them with food and shelter in addition to their meager pay. The men didn't seem that bothered by that fact.

From what Hollister was hearing, the new President, this Nakagawa fellow, was dead serious about quashing insurrection and bringing those responsible to justice. While Deepwater had the assets for protecting people against criminals and the like, they were no match for even the poorest of reserve units.

The heaviest weapons they had at the compound were a couple of old M-79 grenade launchers and two M-60 machine guns. With those and thirty men, all trained but none of them up to Hollister's standards, he could bluff people away from the property. But that was about it.

Howard was lying next to Stein, surveying the property with his field glasses. "Less than a platoon I'd bet."

"Agreed. They do patrol, but they're really sloppy. My kids could penetrate that perimeter."

Howard chuckled, "I've seen your kids Avram, they scare me almost as much as you do."

Stein grinned, "Whenever POTUS gives us the green light, I'm betting that we can cut through those guys, take the lodge and everyone in there in less than half an hour."

"Ah, but what do we do with those folks inside? We'd need air to get them out, if that's what the Boss wants. Wasting them onsite would be easy, but hard to explain. The media has been weakened, but the bastards still have their supporters. Supporters the Boss isn't ready to piss off just yet."

"So we wait, huh?"

"Yep."

Nakagawa shook his head as he stood up, "Take him back to Central. Put him in with everyone else."

Burleson looked panicked, "Wait John, I can ..."

Aspinall cuffed Burleson, who yelped in pain.

"That's Mr. President to you, dirtbag ..."

Nakagawa waved a hand at Aspinall, "What can you do, Matthew? We put you in with the regular cons over at Central, I doubt you'll last ten minutes. No muss, no fuss, no costly trial, no reporters to lie for you, it's not exactly legal, sure. But hey, it's tough times right now."

"I can give you Hawthorne and his cronies. I can also give you the source of the money behind them." Burleson was desperate and it showed.

"Ah, you want to make a deal?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure ..." he flinched as Aspinall took a step towards him.

Nakagawa nodded, "Get him some paper and a pen, Bill. As for you," he gestured at Burleson, "start writing. I want every last detail of what you know. I want names, I want dates, I want details. If not, we'll send you back to Central, to await trial. A trial you know you'll never see."

Aspinall threw a yellow legal pad down on the table along with a pen. Burleson looked from one man to the other, then began writing, frantically.

¹ Anti-Narcotics Brigade