American Terrorist Trilogy Read online

  He hopped a westbound bus, then caught a southbound connection and ended up at the huge Wal-Mart superstore on Eubank Boulevard just south of the interstate. There he bought a new set of clothes and shoes. He also picked up a light jacket and a thin head glove as the mid-November temperature in the high desert was unseasonably cool. He bought a disposable razor and shaved in the restroom.

  Properly dressed and cleaned up, Carl trashed Stan’s clothes and left the restroom. He walked north to Lomas where he caught the westbound bus to Wyoming Blvd, and then he caught a north-bound connection to his son’s apartment complex three miles north. As he sat on the northbound bus, he reflected on how long he’d lived in Albuquerque—over twenty-five years. He’d tried to leave a few times to pursue other opportunities, but the call of home always pulled him back. This time, he thought, coming back home felt very different.

  On the westward journey with Stan Harbor, he decided that he was not going to pursue legal action against the city police and the FBI. What was the point anyway? Neither law enforcement agency was going to admit any fault in the mistaken identity.

  “Yeah, we’re really sorry we gave you to some secret government agents who kidnapped you and beat the shit out of you and tortured you, but, hey, we thought you were a terrorist. It was all really just a big misunderstanding, so no hard feelings, okay?”

  He knew the city and federal governments could throw a hundred attorneys into combat against the one low-budget attorney he could afford. They’d keep paying their attorneys to stall the process with lots of trivial motions until Carl ran out of money and gave up. That’s the way the federal, state, and local governments conducted legal business, and they didn’t like to lose.

  In truth, Carl just wanted to put the whole terrible nightmare of the ordeal behind him. He still couldn’t believe he’d only been in custody for eleven days. Without a doubt, his captivity had been the longest eleven days of his life.

  He sat in the section of forward-facing seats on the right side of the bus and wondered how he could ever get back to living a normal life after what he’d been through. He felt the same mix of anger and rage that had simmered inside him for nearly a year in the aftermath of his first assault by those downtown cops four years ago, except this time it felt a hundred times more intense.

  Carl felt someone touching his shoulder and he spun around so fast he nearly fell out of his seat. The elder woman seated behind him flinched at his sudden movement, then she spoke to him.

  “Are you alright, young man?”

  “What do you mean, am I alright?”

  “You were shaking and mumbling. I thought—”

  “You thought what?” Carl said. “You thought maybe you were going to help me? You have no idea—”

  He stopped suddenly as he realized he was shouting at the woman, and everyone on the bus had gone silent. They were all staring at him.

  “Just mind your own goddamn business,” he said.

  None of these people had the slightest idea how to help him. They were scurrying about their silly little meaningless lives, having inane conversations or arguments about pointless things, running stupid errands, or working at dead-end jobs. They had no clue how horrible their government was, or what the government would allow their legions of covert soldiers to do to them on a whim, in the name of National Security.

  Over the past four years, Carl had finally been able to let go of his anger after the downtown cops jacked him up, though it had taken many months. At least, he thought he’d let go. After his defiant reaction to the FBI during his take-down at Starbucks, he was sure he’d never truly gotten over that experience. Maybe a shrink would say his defiance was some kind of defensive adaptation.

  “I wonder what a fucking shrink would say about me now.”

  The elder woman behind him gasped. He had vocalized his thoughts and hadn’t even realized it. If he didn’t have control over his thoughts and feelings, much less over what came out of his mouth, how could he go back to work?

  In sales, one had to be upbeat and positive all the time, “always on,” as they say in the business. He had to smile and mean it. If he couldn’t do sales, how would he earn a living? What kind of job could he get?

  Then he had a crazy thought. Even if he had a shrink to help him, who would believe his story? Besides, how would talking about it change anything or help him? It hadn’t helped him in two marriages, and he sure couldn’t see the benefit of counseling about his new trauma.

  What he needed was to beat up somebody to work out his anger and frustration. Maybe if he ever had the opportunity to catch that woman cop or that government agent in a dark alley somewhere....

  Carl laughed aloud, and the guy in the seat two up and across the aisle looked back at him. He glared at the young man. What the fuck are you looking at? The man looked away quickly.

  Yeah, he was tough with a scared fat guy on a bus, but against Agent Klipser.... Hell, ten of him couldn’t beat up that trained agent. That was one scary government man, and the mere thought of seeing him again made Carl shiver involuntarily.

  Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you.

  He forgot what smart person originally said that. He’d seen it on an old episode of Star Trek. The one with Picard, not Kirk.

  Life wasn’t fair all the time, Carl thought. Sometimes you got your ass kicked and there’s nothing you can do about it. Sometimes getting on with your life was the only real option.

  Carl felt a tremendous need to see his son. Ever since Mark was a baby, they’d never gone a single week without talking by phone. Before his arrest, they still texted several times a week. So, instead of commiserating with a best friend, Carl felt an almost overwhelming desire to get a long, loving hug from his son, and then sit around and eat popcorn and watch action flicks or goofy comedies all day.

  Carl felt his eyes water, so he just closed them and enjoyed the pleasant warmth of the emotions and memories that flowed through him. Even though he and Mark’s mother divorced shortly after he was born, Carl had made a conscious effort to stay in his son’s life. In fact, he couldn’t imagine not being in his son’s life, couldn’t imagine not talking to him every week or seeing him at every opportunity. When Mark was growing up, Carl flew him out to visit every Christmas and every summer.

  When Mark relocated to New Mexico to live with him, their relationship continued to evolve, and they grew closer. Then, one day Carl found his son perusing the Classifieds, looking for his own apartment. Instead of getting angry, though, he made probably the single best decision of his life. He smiled at the memory.

  “Don’t worry about it, Son. You need your own place, so let’s go furniture shopping.”

  He was convinced that showing support at what had to have been a very stressful time for his son actually made Carl the coolest dad in the galaxy. He never took that gift for granted because he knew what it was like to not have his father in his life.

  The bus pulled to a stop right in front of Mark’s apartment complex. The huge complex held a dozen three-story buildings, each with maybe thirty units. A brown iron security fence surrounded the entire complex at the very edge of the property where the sidewalk separated the property from the street, so Carl had to backtrack south thirty feet to enter the apartment grounds at a break in the fence at the entry driveway. Then he turned back north toward Mark’s building and saw his son standing outside the foyer.

  Mark was leaning against the glass wall beside the turquoise door, waiting for him. He had his cell phone in his hand and looked like he was busy texting someone. Or maybe he was playing on Facebook or something. Carl actually approached within a dozen feet of his son before the young man looked up from his slider cell phone.

  Mark smiled for a moment, until a look of shock and confusion swept across his face. Carl figured his gaunt appearance must have surprised Mark. The young man pushed off from the wall and pocketed his cell. He walked quickly toward Carl and the smile appeared again. They were j
ust about to embrace when the gunfire began.

  Chapter 23

  1215 MST Friday

  Albuquerque, NM

  Alfonso Reyes rode in the front passenger seat of the blacked-out SUV, and Ricardo Guzman peered out the driver-side window of the bench seat behind Reyes. The driver cruised the big black truck slowly southbound on Wyoming Boulevard next to the median. He flowed with traffic, careful not to draw attention by speeding.

  “There he is,” Guzman said, holding up a black-and-white printout. “That’s Mark Johnson standing by the door.”

  “Good,” Reyes said. “Let’s pull in here and grab him. See what he knows.”

  The driver pulled into the left turn lane, but had to wait a long time for a gap in oncoming traffic.

  “Wait! Don’t pull in there!” Guzman slapped his palm against the back of the driver’s seat as if to reinforce the urgency of his warning. “It’s a trap. I see Federales everywhere in there. I see two on the roof of the adjacent building, and four are shadowing that man walking toward Mark.”

  Reyes craned his neck around to assess the situation. He, too, could see combat-ready men in black sneaking across the parking lot, staying hidden behind cars.

  “FBI,” he growled. “Who is that man they’re stalking?”

  “I can’t see his face from this angle, but he’s definitely on an intercept vector with our target. Should we abort?”

  Reyes thought for the briefest of moments, then shook his head. “I can’t imagine that he has any information harmful to my operation, but with everyone looking for the girl, I can’t take any chances and risk the ransom payment. We’ll kill them both.”

  Before Reyes had even completed the command, Guzman had crossed to the passenger side of the SUV and had his window powered down as the driver pulled a U-turn and sped north in front of Mark Johnson and the unknown man.

  Reyes powered his window down also, and both men stuck their automatic rifles out. They started firing even as a dozen FBI agents converged on the two men.

  Chapter 24

  1215 MST Friday

  Albuquerque, NM

  Suddenly, Carl found himself surrounded by shouting FBI agents…again. They were all dressed in black tactical gear. Agents appeared from around the back of the building and the front. They stormed from the sides. They even came from behind parked cars. It was all too familiar to Carl, but not to Mark. His son stopped in mid-stride with a panicked look on his face.

  The front door right next to where Mark had been standing flew open. Carl’s stomach jumped into his throat as he recognized Agent Klipser and the female FBI cop. They held Tasers instead of guns.

  At the same instant, he heard the loud clattering sound of automatic rifle fire coming from the street. Just as suddenly as the FBI assault had begun, all the cops had flung themselves to the ground. Carl and Mark were left standing alone in the center of the ambush. Mark’s gaze frantically touched Carl’s as if seeking a rational explanation for what was happening. His arms still reached out to Carl for they’d been mere seconds from embracing.

  Carl felt only one instinct and that was to throw himself on top of his son to shield him from danger, but before his brain could translate that thought into a physical action, bullets whizzed by his head, tugged at his jacket collar, and slammed into Mark’s body. Blood splattered as Mark was literally lifted from his feet and slammed against the brick wall behind him. The bullets that missed Mark, and the ones that passed through his body, blasted brick shrapnel into the air along with glass shards from the apartment windows and the entry door.

  Carl stood frozen with shock. In a slow-motion dream-gaze, he noticed the assault cops clamoring to their feet, dropping their Tasers and pulling handguns. They were stayed by Klipser and the woman cop. There was too much traffic. Too many innocent civilians were in the line of fire, they said.

  In the sudden absence of gunfire, Carl heard the overpowered engine of an SUV racing away, and his gaze followed that sound. He stared at the black truck. The rear passenger side window was sliding up, but the man in the front seat was still peering out his window, staring right at Carl.

  It was him. He was gazing right at the real kidnapper the FBI had mistaken him for.

  Chapter 25

  1843 MST Friday (3 weeks later)

  Albuquerque, NM

  Central Avenue is one of the few streets that spans the entire east and west ends of Albuquerque. It was a sizable street with three lanes each side for most of its length, and the lanes of each direction were separated by a wide median with street signs and street lamps.

  Carl sat at the north-facing window of the hole-in-the-wall burger joint on the west end of Central Avenue and watched his target. He was a big Hispanic guy with a bald head and tattoos covering his neck, shoulders, and arms. The man wore only a white wife-beater tank despite the cold, and he strutted across the street like he owned it, like he was daring drivers to hit him.

  Carl wasn’t really interested in the big man. He was interested in the man the fellow worked for. Still, he had to smile at the guy’s gall. Carl had been to countries during his military career where drivers didn’t give a shit about pedestrians. They’d just as soon drive over a human obstacle and then spit on the dumbass for the inconvenience of getting blood on their car.

  He scanned the street east and west, looking for the ever-present FBI surveillance team. Until yesterday, they had been shadowing him for the past two weeks and six days. Technically, the FBI no longer had a reason to follow him since he was now officially dead. If he saw any FBI agents, then he would know his strategy to disappear had failed. That would effectively end his first amateur mission, his first foray into the shadows that comprised the US government’s world of domestic covert ops.

  Twenty-one.

  That was the exact number of days since he’d last spoken with his son. Previously, the longest time without contact with Mark was eleven days, when he’d been in government custody getting interrogated. Before that, barely two days would pass without a phone call or a text with his son. Now it was twenty-one days...and counting.

  This time it was permanent. It was the beginning of forever.

  The Thanksgiving holiday had come and gone the previous week. Carl found it almost humorous how folks found weird ways to measure the passage of time. Sometimes it was the approach of birthdays or holidays and sometimes it was the changing of seasons, or the weeks or months between events, or sales, or other milestones. For Carl it had become much more personal.

  He’d stood there while his son was murdered within arm’s reach. Reyes held a rapid-fire Uzi—Carl had seen enough action movies to recognize that weapon—but he had stopped shooting as soon as he saw Carl. He seemed as surprised to see Carl as Carl was to see him. That was the only reason Carl still lived.

  In his mind, he replayed the scene for the hundredth time. Bullets had destroyed the front façade of Mark’s apartment building, shattering glass and metal and stucco all around his son. He saw his son’s body hit many times, both in reality and in the unending replay of his mind. Over and over again, he watched those bullets slam Mark against the wall. Blood splattered everywhere, and then he sagged to the ground, a blood halo widening under his shoulders.

  Carl had stood there through the whole gun battle, even though the cops had all smartly hit the ground. Mark was the only casualty, but Carl had trouble understanding how he had not been hit too.

  He replayed the final sight again. The SUV accelerated away as he and Reyes stared at each other. His torture suddenly made complete sense. The days of custody and all the questions now held meaning.

  Carl had gazed upon the man the US government was looking for, the man who had kidnapped the girl. It was unnerving too, because the man in the SUV did not merely resemble Carl, and he was not similar to Carl. Reyes looked exactly like Carl.

  Agent Klipser reacted first, touching his left ear and shouting into the air. Then he retrieved a belt radio and shouted into that device too.
There were sirens everywhere as cop cars and unmarked FBI SUVs suddenly screamed onto Wyoming Boulevard from the side streets in pursuit of the gunmen.

  A big FBI truck peeled around the corner of Mark’s building and skidded to a stop a dozen feet from Carl. The agents ran right by him, close enough that he could hear their breathing as they raced to catch the real bad guy. They passed so close, he could smell their adrenaline-fueled underarm odor and minty chewing gum breath. He could smell the FBI woman’s hair shampoo. They all climbed into the SUV, and it raced away from the murder scene with a roar of its engine and the squeal of rubber on asphalt.

  A horn blaring outside the burger joint suddenly brought Carl back to the here and now. The tough guy he’d been watching threw up the middle finger at whoever was laying on their horn, but he didn’t even turn around to see who it was.

  His target got up onto the far sidewalk, then walked across the parking lot of a large grocery store. The man disappeared around the back of the store. Carl had been told to look for that man, for he would lead him to another individual.

  Carl got up from his table and tossed the remainder of his cheeseburger and fries into the trash receptacle, then placed the red plastic tray in a basket next to the trash can. He headed out the side door and stopped at the curb, looking for a break in traffic so he could cross the street to follow his target.

  This was the important first step of his plan. He needed money, a lot more than he had available. He had withdrawn all the money in his personal and business checking accounts, including the holding accounts for income tax and state sales tax. He didn’t need those accounts anymore because he wasn’t going to file any more taxes—ever. Why even bother? What he was planning to do was ten times more illegal than cheating on taxes. Still, he only had a tad less than ten grand to work with. He needed more. Much more.