Trigger Warning

  Copyright ©2014 by Allan Leverone

  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is unintended and entirely coincidental.

  1

  “I’m wondering if you’ve ever spent any time considering the subject of irony.” Jack Sheridan stopped what he was doing and glanced at his companion for the evening.

  No answer.

  The man returned Jack’s gaze, his eyes angry and smoldering—and perhaps a little afraid—above his gagged and taped mouth. A verbal response at this point seemed unlikely.

  Jack shrugged. “I didn’t think so,” he said as he finished drilling a series of pilot holes into the surface of a sturdy wooden workbench.

  He placed the drill to the side and picked up a screwdriver. “You don’t strike me as the introspective type, what with your affinity for blowing up innocent people under the guise of radical Islamic jihad.”

  He placed a hastily constructed iron frame over the pilot holes and began screwing down the base, taking his time to ensure a secure fit. “Oh, I don’t doubt you’ve convinced yourself you are ‘justified’ in taking innocent lives and terrorizing people who’ve never done a damned thing to you or the lunatics you represent.”

  The screwdriver went next to the electric drill on the workbench and Jack grasped the frame with both hands, manipulating it to test his work. It featured a wide footing, with a thick, two-foot-high metal pipe spiking straight up off the base. An inch below the top, Jack had drilled a pair of holes into the pipe.

  The contraption was rudimentary. Jack had never paid much attention in metal shop as a kid, and he’d been out of school a long time. But his creation seemed solid, and unless he missed his guess it would serve its purpose well.

  And that was all he cared about.

  “Let’s face it,” he continued, locking eyes with the man sitting bound and gagged just a few feet away. “You’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer, anyway, are you Muhammad?”

  The man blinked in surprise and Jack smiled. “That’s right, I know your name. Muhammad Abadi. I know a lot about you, Muhammad. As my mother used to say, you were stuck at the end of the line when they were handing out brains, weren’t you?”

  Abadi’s eyes darkened and Jack continued. “There’s no shame in that, by the way. There are plenty of people in the world a hell of a lot smarter than me. But really, Muhammad, couldn’t you have at least tried to show a little originality? I mean, blowing up a pressure-cooker bomb at the finish line of the New York City Marathon seems so…passé, don’t you agree?”

  He shook his head in mock confusion. “Been there, done that, am I right? And you must have seen how everything played out for your brothers-in-arms in Boston. Those guys weren’t the sharpest knives either, and they didn’t last very long after their short time in the limelight, did they?”

  He picked up a small wireless remote control device that featured a single red plastic button and began securing it to the top of the metal pipe, using a pair of thin but strong wire cables. Abadi’s forehead wrinkled as his concern began to grow, and Jack guessed he had by now figured out the gist of what was happening here.

  By the look on his face, he didn’t seem to like it much.

  Good.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Jack said as he slipped the cable through each of the holes he’d drilled in the pipe and wound it around the inside several times before feeding it out the other side.

  He spoke chummily as he worked, just one stranger chatting to another. Passing the time. “You’re wondering how the hell I was able to find you when the police, the FBI, DHS, and all those other alphabet-soup agencies have been whiffing on you for months.”

  Penetrating stare from Abadi.

  “Here’s the thing, my fanatical friend. As even someone of your limited intelligence has undoubtedly determined by now, I do not represent traditional law enforcement. In fact, I don’t represent law enforcement at all.”

  He picked up a welder’s mask and slipped it over his head, then lifted a welding torch and lit it. He began securing the wire cable to the pipe. A moment later he extinguished the torch and removed the mask, then placed it neatly next to the drill and the screwdriver on the workbench.

  “You see, Muhammad, my employers are not subject to the limitations imposed on law enforcement agencies within the United States. What’s more, they’re privy to avenues of information unavailable to those in official positions. And that information is almost always accurate, particularly in cases like yours.”

  Jack grasped the remote and began tugging on it, testing his welding skills.

  “The fact of the matter is, Muhammad, you’re not very well liked, even among the local scumbag population. It was not a difficult task to get people—the kind of people who would never talk to the police or FBI in a million years—to spill their guts to us.”

  The cable seemed to be holding, so he pulled harder. It was critical Abadi not be able to free the remote from the pipe, and he would soon be highly motivated to do exactly that.

  “And I hate to have to break this to you, Muhammad.” He lowered his voice and spoke conspiratorially. “Slimeballs were falling all over themselves to give you up. They were like teenage girls storming the stage at a One Direction concert. Hell, we had so many informants we had to turn them away after awhile. You may have thought you were operating in secret, but this neighborhood is actually quite tight-knit. It’s hard to hide everything from everyone, Muhammad, as I suppose even you must have concluded by now.”

  He yanked with all the leverage he could muster against the cable and it showed no sign of snapping. Finally he nodded in satisfaction and turned his attention back to his prisoner.

  “Looks like everything’s set for the main event. Before we get started, though, weren’t we discussing something important, getting to know each other a little, before I got sidetracked onto the subject of how badly you fucked up by killing all those innocent people?”

  Abadi was breathing heavily now, no longer even attempting to hide his fear. That distress didn’t seem to have lessened his hatred for Jack, though. His eyes were every bit as angry now as they had been when Jack jammed the barrel of a gun in his ear on the sidewalk below the makeshift bomb factory Abadi had set up inside an abandoned tenement building.

  “Oh, I remember now,” Jack said, snapping his fingers. “We were discussing the concept of irony. Since our little bullshit session seems to be running low on time, I’ll get right to the point. It’s ironic that the method you chose to murder nearly a dozen innocent people during the marathon has made it so easy for me to exact vengeance on you.”

  Angry glare.

  “I mean, if not for the delicious irony, I would probably have had to use three different backpacks or a large equipment bag to haul all the tools up here that I needed to do this.” He nodded at the contraption he’d fabricated.

  “And I gotta be honest, Muhammad. You’re really not worth that kind of effort.”

  Jack stood and moved behind the chair into which he’d strapped Muhammad Abadi. He tilted it back and slid it across the dirty floor until the terrorist was positioned directly in front of the workbench upon which Jack had secured t
he wireless remote. The device hung from the top of the pipe by the two inches of play Jack had left in the cable.

  “Do me a favor,” he said, his tone almost—but not quite—friendly. “See if you can reach that.”

  Abadi shook his head defiantly.

  “Suit yourself.” Jack reached down and grabbed the terrorist’s hands, which were secured together at the wrists. He yanked them forward. He’d tied the man’s arms to the back of the chair above the elbow and Abadi gasped in pain.

  “Perfect,” Jack said with a grim smile. There was just enough play in the heavy twine he’d used on Abadi’s arms to permit the man to reach the remote dangling from the top of the pipe.

  He released the terrorist’s hands and moved to a pressure cooker he’d placed at the end of the workbench. Slid it across the bench until it was positioned next to the remote, but out of Abadi’s reach.

  “In case you’ve forgotten, or were so humiliated by the ease with which I corralled such a supposedly dangerous terrorist that you can’t think straight,” Jack said, “let me remind you that I’ve packed this pressure cooker with exactly the items you used to wreak such havoc at the marathon finish line. Nails, screws, bolts, shards of glass.”

  He glanced down at the man. “Let’s not beat around the bush, shall we, Muhammad? You know, since we’ve become so close and all.”

  Abadi didn’t answer.

  Jack took his silence as agreement that, yes, they had become close. “The cooker is packed full of shrapnel. And we both know the kind of damage shrapnel can do to fragile human bodies, don’t we?”

  This time Abadi’s glare contained equal portions of hatred and fear.

  He pretended not to notice as he continued speaking. “I believe we’re now ready to begin. And to make things interesting, I’m going to give you an opportunity I’m sure you’re not expecting.”

  Abadi’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. Jack knew he had already guessed his fate, but this curveball threw him for a loop.

  “I know you’re a religious fanatic,” Jack continued. “The fact that your little personal jihad killed a dozen people makes that abundantly clear. So, given your deeply held religious convictions, I’m going to offer you the chance, right here and now, to avail yourself of those seventy-six virgins that seem so important to you people. And as a bonus, you can remove your killer—that’s me, in case you haven’t been paying attention—from the face of the earth as well.”

  Jack grabbed Abadi’s hands again and lifted them to the remote. They were shaking badly and he grinned. “Your body betrays you,” he said.

  He placed the remote in Abadi’s hands, forcing the man’s thumb to depress the red button in its center. Then he reached down and flipped a switch he’d mounted on the side of the pressure cooker. The action activated the wireless radio receiver packed inside next to the C4 charge and the shrapnel.

  “As I’m sure even you have guessed by now,” Jack said, “the device I’ve constructed is a dead-man’s switch. I’m not too proud to admit my work doesn’t come close to matching the electronic artistry of yours, but then I haven’t had as much practice as you in the art of bomb-making, have I, Muhammad?”

  The remote jiggled as Abadi clutched it desperately, his uplifted arms stretched to their limit. “But my work, although admittedly simplistic, accomplishes my objective. As long as you continue to depress the red button on the remote, you’re perfectly safe. And, of course, by extension, so am I. The moment you stop pressing that button, though, or let go of the remote, well, I guess we both know what’s going to happen then.”

  Abadi’s arms were beginning to shake worse, and Jack wondered whether it was out of fear or from the strain of keeping his arms raised tautly against the restraints. If he lowered them even two inches, he would lose contact with the remote.

  “So here’s the deal, Mr. Dedicated Islamic Terrorist. All you need do to avail yourself of the virgins awaiting you, and to take me along for the ride, is to let go of that button. Seems to me it should be an easy decision for such a committed jihadist as yourself.”

  He waited next to Abadi’s chair. His heart was racing and adrenaline pounded through his system, but he forced calmness into his voice and nonchalance into his posture.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?”

  Abadi’s arms began to spasm, but Jack noticed his death grip on the remote hadn’t wavered.

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I thought the events of the last few minutes might have shifted your priorities a little.”

  Jack patted Abadi on the shoulder almost pleasantly. “That’s all I wanted to know. Good luck holding on,” he said. “Maybe if you can stay alive long enough, one of your accomplices will walk in here and get you out of this mess.”

  He strolled toward the door, then turned and faced the terrorist one last time.

  “Oh, that’s right,” he said. “You had no accomplices. You’re one of those lone wolves we’re supposed to be so afraid of. Bad break for you, I guess.”

  Jack walked through the door and closed it securely behind him.

  Descended the rickety stairs and walked out the abandoned tenement building into the bright Bronx sunshine.

  Walked down the trash-littered alley toward the street.

  Made it almost halfway before the sound of the explosion reached his ears.

  2

  Bradley Chilcott sat in the semi-darkness of his home study, telephone in one hand and whiskey tumbler in the other. He rarely looked forward to phone calls but had been eagerly anticipating this one all day.

  At work, even his chief of staff had even noticed he was on pins and needles. “Sir, you look exactly like a nine-year-old on Christmas Eve.”

  He’d laughed the comment off and gone about his business—not that the fucking Lieutenant Governor of fucking Maryland ever had particularly pressing business to attend to, anyway—but the fact of the matter was, Doreen’s observation had been right on the money. He did feel like a kid on Christmas Eve.

  Bradley’s chief of security, Mike Hargus, was out of state on “non-official” official business and he would be reporting in today. It was a trip that would play a critical role in Bradley realizing his long-held goal of winning the presidency of the United States, so his anxiety made perfect sense.

  It was also dangerous and risky. It was the kind of operation that could—and likely would—land him in jail if it went sideways.

  But jobs like this were exactly the reason Bradley had hired his own private security man rather than utilizing the Maryland State Police on the rare occasions protection was necessary. Hargus was ex-CIA. He was tough and efficient and discreet. He knew how to do the dirty work and keep his mouth shut afterward.

  Hargus had been with Bradley since before Bradley’s first campaign for elective office, and if everything went according to plan, he would accompany Bradley all the way to the Oval Office. Because Bradley knew that if a pissant lieutenant governor needed the kind of services provided by a man like Mike Hargus, the president of the United States would need them even more.

  The reason Bradley was so anxious to receive tonight’s phone call was because he’d painted himself into a goddamned corner; something he’d never imagined possible.

  Back when he was no more than ten, young Bradley Chilcott had sat down at his pressboard desk in his basement bedroom and composed an action plan, a chart detailing the steps he believed it would take to become the most powerful man in the world.

  Most young boys played sports and dreamed of sex with their teachers. Bradley Chilcott lusted for power and influence, and the resulting wealth that power and influence would attract.

  So he’d codified his plan: earn outstanding grades, graduate high school as valedictorian, attend an exclusive university with a Political Science major. Seek out and marry an attractive and intelligent woman. Work on political campaigns, first as an intern and then later as paid staff, gaining valuable experience before putting that experience to use in the pol
itical arena in his own right.

  As time passed, Bradley had of course rewritten and amended his action plan. Even the most insightful ten-year-old could not possibly foresee the myriad ways his life would be affected by events beyond his control. But for the most part, the chart he’d spent so much time constructing as a young boy had guided his life and career with precision and accuracy.

  Straight A’s in high school, along with participation in sports and student government. A Political Science major at Georgetown University and an impressive 4.0 GPA, followed by an MBA in Government.

  He was able to check the box on his action plan involving the acquisition of a wife while a student at Georgetown as well. Kim was blonde, beautiful and smart as a whip. She was perfect.

  The two made a formidable and photogenic pair. Bradley was ruggedly handsome, with a square jaw, steel grey hair and movie star looks—maybe he wasn’t leading-man material, but he was certainly supporting-actor worthy—that translated well to television screens, which was of course a critical piece of the modern political puzzle.

  Kim Chilcott was petite and equally photogenic, with electric blue eyes and a dazzling smile she could summon at any time and under any circumstances. And although she was intelligent—in moments of self-reflection Bradley had to admit his wife was probably smarter than he—she had no particular craving for the limelight, in direct opposition to Bradley’s personality. She was comfortable in the public eye, but there was no danger of her ever upstaging her husband. At least not on purpose.

  In short, she was the ideal political wife. Bradley wasn’t sure he loved her; hell, he wasn’t sure he was capable of actually loving anyone other than himself.

  But that was beside the point. He got along with Kim well enough, provided she toed the line, and she projected a certain veneer of respectability—the All-American Girl—that was every bit as important as good looks for achieving success in the American political system.

  After receiving their masters’ degrees, Bradley and Kim had struck out on the path prescribed by Bradley’s action plan. The pair took an apartment in Washington, D.C. and began working for senators with radically divergent leanings: Bradley for a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts and Kim for a conservative Republican from Georgia.