HOMELAND: Falling Down (Part 1 of the HOMELAND Series) Read online

  HOME

  LAND

  Part One: Falling Down

  A Thriller

  R.A. Mathis

  Text copyright © 2016 Robert Mathis

  All Rights Reserved

  For Gene.

  Thank you to my wonderful friends and beta readers, Gene, Claire, Steve, and Sam. I couldn’t have done this without you.

  In addition, thank you, as always, to my wonderful family for your help, love, encouragement, and support.

  “In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

  Edward Gibbon

  Table of Contents

  Contents

  First Blood

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  The Nature of the Beast

  Thank You!

  Preview of Part 2, Executive Orders

  First Blood

  Monday, October 26th

  Nashville, Tennessee

  Eight Days before the Presidential Election

  The young man stood on the far left of the crowd gathered in front of the State Capitol Building, as he was instructed to do. He had been there for hours. Waiting. Preparing.

  It was almost time.

  The unseasonably frigid autumn air made him shiver in spite of the dirty military surplus coat he wore. Unkempt hair poked from his woolen cap and ran down his cheeks to form a scraggly beard. A boyish brow framed dark, merciless eyes.

  His shaggy appearance contrasted that of the crowd of typical bourgeoisie types, well dressed, middle-class, clean-cut. Some had their kids with them, bundled up snuggly against the cold. Thousands of them filled the frigid Capitol grounds. They were here to see one person, the person he came to kill.

  Cheers and campaign chants filled the icy air as the excitement grew. Finally, an attractive woman in a thick coat and scarf stepped up to the outdoor podium in front of the gathering. She droned on and on about the Founding Fathers, tossing in a quote from one of them with every other breath. She was Congresswoman Martha Jefferson, freshman member of the House of Representatives on the newly formed Constitutional Party ticket.

  “We are being lulled to sleep,” she said, her breath an ethereal vapor in the wintry air. “The media ignores injustice and covers up scandals within our corrupt government. Instead, they serve us stories about celebrities and sports teams disguised as real news and we eat it up and ask for more.” The crowd was silent, hanging on her every word. “Our nation is on the verge of bankruptcy, and we sleep. The educational system turns our children against the heroes and virtues that made America great, and we sleep. Government policies and pop culture destroy our families. The police are militarized. Our communications are monitored. Our every move is watched as our rights are stripped from us one by one. And we sleep. Our very civilization is on the verge of collapse. And yet we sleep!” Her eyes locked onto her audience. “But we cannot sleep anymore. We must wake up! Wake up to the intentions of those who seek to destroy our republic. Wake up and halt our nation’s drift into tyranny. Wake up before our children became slaves to the State!”

  The crowd cheered in agreement.

  The young man remained still.

  Jefferson’s delivery was polished and charismatic. Her people were primed for the call to action.

  “Boycott the media. Reclaim our educational system. Refuse to vote for establishment candidates. Educate your friends and neighbors before it’s too late.” She paused. “But the biggest thing I ask of you today is your help. I know that we are leading in every poll, but Election Day is still more than a week away. A lot can happen between now and then. Now is not a time to rest. It is a time for action. It’s going to take every one of us to get the job done, but we can do it together. And with your help, I am going to be the next President of the United States!”

  The crowd erupted into raucous applause.

  Jefferson raised a hand to still the multitude. “In closing, I will defer once again to our founders. E Pluribus Unum. From many, one. They knew that our greatest strength is and always will be our unity. It is only when we come together as one that we are truly the United States. Thank you. God bless you all and God bless America.”

  More applause.

  Jefferson turned to her right and exited the stage, shaking hands with exuberant supporters as she went.

  The young man elbowed his way through the devotees, moving into Jefferson’s path until almost within arm’s reach. His hand slipped into his coat.

  “Martha!” he yelled.

  Jefferson looked to him, still smiling. She reached to shake his hand.

  “GUN!” Someone yelled.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Campaign cheers turned to primal screams as people fought to escape the gunman.

  Blood spattered the congresswoman’s face. An aid fell to the ground next to her, gore pouring from his chest and neck.

  A body guard shoved Jefferson to the ground with violent urgency.

  Hands from the crowd clawed at the young man’s arm as he tried to aim his revolver for another shot.

  Crack! Crack!

  Another body fell—a woman in a ‘Jefferson for President’ sweatshirt this time.

  The assassin went to the ground, tackled from behind by a muscular state trooper.

  More body guards rushed Jefferson into a nearby car, shut the door and pound the roof. Tires squealed as the vehicle sped to safety.

  The shooter wrestled free of the trooper as more police arrived. His quarry was gone. There was no escape. He had one bullet left.

  He put the pistol to his head and proclaimed, “Long live the revolution!”

  He pulled the trigger. His lifeless body crumpled to the frozen ground, steam rising from the bloody hole in his temple.

  “Search him!” a senior policeman ordered.

  Two officers rushed up and opened the killer’s jacket.

  “No bombs!” one of the searchers called out.

  The other officer rifled through the assassin’s pockets. All were empty except for one. In it he found a few dollars, a Vanderbilt University student ID, and a little green book.

  The officer examined the book. It was about the size of a pocket Testament and worn from heavy reading. Handwritten notes and highlighted passages littered its thin, dog-eared pages. A rubber band marked a page with the underlined quote,

  ‘There is only one way to shorten the death rattles of the old world and hasten the bloody birth pangs of the new—revolutionary terror.’

  The officer closed the booklet and examined the cover. Faded letters across the stained, dingy, emerald cover spelled out the title,

  ‘The New World.’

  1

  EDUARDO

  Tuesday, October 27th

  Somewhere in Syria

  2:00 PM Local Time

  The dust was everywhere. In his ears. In his eyes. In his clothes. In his mouth.

  Every-damn-where.

  Eduardo took a swig of bottled water. The lukewarm stuff tasted more like bath water. He swished it around his mouth to get the grit out of his teeth and spat it onto the parched ground.

  “Thirty seconds,” a potbellied camera man said as h
e perched his sunglasses on the bill of his ball cap and raised the camera to his eye.

  Eduardo stood in front of what passed for a hospital in refugee camps like this one. A cluster of dirty tents stood adjacent to piles of bloody linens. Severed limbs soaked the sand red.

  “Ten seconds.”

  Eduardo grabbed a little girl as she passed by and put his arm around her.

  “You’re on,” the camera man mouthed through his scraggly salt and pepper beard.

  With one hand on the girl’s shoulder and the other grasping a microphone, Eduardo began his report.

  “As the fighting continues here in Syria, the human toll grows larger each day. I’m here in one of the many refugee camps scattered across the country.”

  He pointed to the tents behind him. “Medical staff, many of them volunteers from around the world, are overwhelmed by the volume of civilian casualties.”

  He knelt by the girl. “This is Sabeen. Her family was killed this morning in the crossfire between U.S. troops and Islamist insurgents. She is the only survivor.”

  The girl looked at him quizzically, not understanding anything he said.

  “I know.” He knelt and hugged her. “It’s going to be okay.” He choked back tears. “You’re going to be okay.”

  He looked into the camera. “Like all wars, this one will end in time. All that remains to be seen is what the cost will be in human lives. How many more ‘Sabeens’ it will create?”

  Eduardo stood, keeping a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “For twelve years, I’ve covered conflicts and famines in more countries than I care to count. I’ve been your eyes and ears, all in hopes to show the truth. That’s all I ever wanted to do.” He paused. “It is with sadness that I announce my days as a field correspondent are over. I’m coming home to anchor the nightly news from our New York studio. I might be stuck behind a desk, but the job is the same…Delivering the truth.”

  He flashed his winning smile. “From Adra, Syria, this is America’s Newsman, Eduardo Garcia signing off.”

  “You’re clear,” said the cameraman.

  “Great. Time to go back to civilization.” Eduardo pulled a candy bar from his pocket and gave it to the girl. “Thanks, kid.” He sent her on her way.

  “I hate when you do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Make stuff up. You don’t even know that girl’s name. And that story was bogus.”

  “First of all, her name could be Sabeen for all we know. Second, that story wasn’t bogus. It happens here every day. Maybe it didn’t happen to her, but it happened to somebody and people need to know that. It’s called narrative license.”

  “I still don’t like it.”

  “That’s how you get to sit in the big chair in New York, Sam. Otherwise, you get stuck holding a camera here in Hell.”

  Sam shouldered his heavy camera and communications gear with a grunt. “Very funny. You know you’re gonna miss me.”

  “Yeah, about as much as I’ll miss checking my boots for scorpions every morning.” He grabbed his backpack from the ground and climbed into the back of a waiting MRAP, a heavily armed mine-resistant armored personnel carrier. These war wagons were the mainstay of American forces in the Middle East. “Let’s get back to base. I need a shower and some chow.”

  Sam entered behind Eduardo. He closed the heavy armored door as an army corporal climbed into the gunner’s turret atop the crew compartment.

  “Hang on!” said the soldier behind the wheel as he drove the steel beast toward a cluster of nearby sand-colored MRAPs identical to Eduardo’s. “Gonna link up with our guys and convoy back to base with ‘em.”

  An American medical officer approached on foot and said, “We’re finishing up here. Food, water, and medical supplies are all gone. We’ll be ready to roll in five mikes.”

  “Roger, sir,” the driver responded.

  Sam asked Eduardo, “Why can’t they just say ‘five minutes’ like normal people?

  Eduardo smiled. “All professions have their lingos. That reminds me, did you get the B-roll for our V.O. during the outro?”

  “Yes, I did, smartass.”

  Eduardo watched through bullet-proof windows as the troops stow their gear on the other vehicles.

  He hadn’t mentioned the humanitarian aid mission the Army was conducting a stone’s throw from his last broadcast. That wasn’t the story the network wanted to tell. They wanted stories about soldiers making orphans, not saving lives. And Eduardo sure as hell wasn’t going to buck them this close to getting out of here. He worked too long for this opportunity to risk pissing it away now.

  He told Sam, “You should come with me. I can find a place for you in New York.”

  “No thanks. Why do you want to go to back there, anyway?” The camera man was stretched out on a wall-mounted gurney, his hat pulled over his eyes.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “You think life at the network is going to be any better than this place?”

  “It couldn’t be any worse. A comfortable bed and good food would be a nice change from army cots and MREs. We’re both getting a little old to be dodging bullets.”

  Sam said, “My father once told me that you’re not truly over the hill until a comfortable pair of shoes excites you more than a great set of tits.”

  Eduardo laughed. “Sounds like a smart guy.”

  “He had his moments.”

  “I still think you should come with me.”

  “Nah. I’ll stay here. At least these people have the decency to look you in the eye when they stick a knife in you.” The camera man yawned and fell asleep instantly, a skill quickly acquired in a war zone where rest was a scarce commodity.

  Eduardo stayed awake, watching war-torn faces pass in front of his window for what he hoped to be the last time.

  It was a short trip to Camp Kerry. Located outside Damascus, it was the American military’s sprawling logistical hub in Syria. An oasis of bunkers, tents, armored trucks, sweaty G.I.s, diesel fuel, and gravel in a desert of pain and misery. Eduardo had seen many like it in more than a decade of combat journalism.

  He disembarked the MRAP, drenched in perspiration. In spite of its advanced technology, the vehicle had all the comfort of an armor-plated convection oven. Crushed stone crunched under his boots as he pulled a pair of sunglasses from his pack to thwart the desert sun. He walked to the rectangular aluminum shipping container he called home. Its exterior was covered with stacks upon stacks of sand bags to protect against rocket and mortar attacks — little solace in the event of a direct hit on the sheet metal roof. Another occupational hazard. Eduardo was more thankful for the housing unit’s wall-mounted AC unit after spending all day in the sweltering wasteland outside the wire. He took a cool water from the minifridge and poured it over his head.

  He sighed. I’m getting too old for this shit.

  The heat never got to him like this before. Eduardo reclined on his bunk. He didn’t have the energy to shower. He turned on his MP3 player, inserted the ear buds, and drifted off to sleep.

  It was almost dusk when he awoke. A shower and a meal of roast beef at the mess hall helped him feel better. The day’s last light disappeared below the dusty horizon as he finished the last of his ice cream dessert. He made his way back to his quarters by the light of the Saracen moon. Once there, he retrieved his trusty backpack from the foot of his bunk and pulled out his satellite phone. He figured it to be around lunch time in New York, so he dialed a familiar number.

  “This is Angie.” It was Angie Harington, his news director.

  “It’s me, Eddie.”

  “Yes?”

  “Not exactly a warm hello.”

  “I’m busy, Eddie. What do you want?”

  “I’m flying back to the States tomorrow. Just wanted to touch base before taking off.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you when you get here.”

  “Hey, are you still upset about…”

  “Bye, Eddie.”

  Th
e line went dead.

  Some things never change.

  Eduardo tossed the phone onto his bed with a smile.

  She’ll come around.

  *****

  Final Approach to New York City

  Thursday, October 29th

  09:00 AM

  Eduardo awoke in the first class section of a Boeing 767. He spotted the Statue of Liberty rising from the harbor mist and it occurred to him for the first time that this was a one-way flight. He was back to stay. He was home.

  Home. Eduardo considered the word, realizing it no longer held any meaning—at least not to him. He had no family, no address, and no real friends. Always moving. Never getting attached. He’d travelled like a feather on the wind for a long time. Longer than he intended when he took that first assignment in Afghanistan. He thought about that a lot over the last year or so. Maybe it was time to learn what home was again. He liked the sound of that.

  After touchdown at JFK Airport, he retrieved his backpack from the overhead. It went everywhere he did.

  He stopped at the airport Starbucks for his first real coffee in over a year. He was shocked to see the price of a latte was four times what he remembered.

  They always screw you at the airport.

  He bought one anyway, too tired to protest the gouging of captive travelers.

  The television on the wall was tuned into a cable news network.

  A pretty face caught his eye.

  Eduardo looked at the video screen to see the now familiar footage of the assassination attempt on Martha Jefferson during her recent rally.

  A grim faced studio anchor returned to the screen. “The congresswoman’s camp reports that she is devastated by the loss of innocent lives, but is in good health and determined to get back on the campaign trail in spite of the government’s continued refusal to grant her Secret Service protection.”

  He went on to say a few words about how divisive and radicalized the election had become then switched to the less cheerful subject of the economy. The phrase ‘Economic Armageddon’ splashed across the screen below his foreboding expression.