already for damn sure we were clean.”
“All right, what about-”
“Our cell phones were off the whole time. Larison double checked us. That boy’s as paranoid as you.”
I considered. “You think he or Treven could have tipped Horton off?”
“Hard to say. Maybe the hotel shooters were supposed to drop just us, not the two of them. If so, though, somebody didn’t get the memo, ’cause Larison and Treven shot the shit out of all four of them. You saw it, too.”
I nodded, frustrated and angry. Being tracked when you think you’re untrackable is one of the worst, most vulnerable feelings there are.
“Know what I think?” Dox said.
“Tell me.”
“I think we’re entering an age where freelancers like you and me are going to have to consider the attractions of retirement. I mean, there are just too many ways the opposition can get a handle on us now. Video cameras everywhere, surveillance drones being deployed over American cities, the NSA spying domestically, the government and all the Internet and telecom companies working together, satellites and supercomputers crunching all that data…I just think we’re in a world now where, if the man wants to find you, you’re going to get found. Which means you either work for the man, or you don’t work at all.”
I didn’t answer. Maybe he was right. Maybe things had reached a point where there was no room for men like us anymore. Maybe we’d become vestiges, anachronisms, cogs on one last circuit within a machine that no longer had any use for us, a machine that was preparing to snap us off and spit us out so it could grind along even more senselessly and relentlessly than it ever had before.
Outside Culpeper, as it was finally beginning to get dark, we pulled over at a gas station to fuel up and use the bathroom. Treven and Larison were soaked with sweat but they volunteered to spend a little more time in back because they were already used to it. I briefed them about the radio reports, but there wasn’t much to tell. There was a brief discussion about who should pick up provisions. Treven had green eyes, Larison had that danger aura, and I was Asian. And Treven and Larison both looked like they’d just emerged from a steam room. That left Dox as the least noticeable, and least memorable, of the four of us. He bought a road atlas, a lot of bottled water, and some granola bars, and we headed back out into the slowly cooling night.
We kept moving south, the radio nothing but anodyne local news and traffic reports. Then the announcer’s voice became suddenly alive and urgent.
“We have a developing situation,” he said. “Reports of an attack on the White House. A suicide bombing.”
“Jesus Christ almighty,” Dox said, reaching for the volume.
The announcer said, “Police and paramedics are arriving at the scene. We have reports of horrific injuries. As far as we know, no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. It’s not clear whether the president is even in the White House at this time.”
“What the hell are they talking about?” I said. “That place is a fortress. A suicide bombing? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe another airplane?”
“They would have said as much.”
He glanced at me, his face grim, then back to the road. “Whatever it is, it looks like we cleared the way for it. Damn. Goddamn. Should we stop and let Larison and Treven know?”
“No, keep driving. This was supposed to happen while we were in the city, you get that? It’s sealed off now. I’ll bet they’ve got National Guard units stopping traffic on the Beltway, everything. I want to put as much distance as possible between us and whatever’s going on back in Washington.”
I told myself it wasn’t our fault. But Dox’s words kept echoing in my mind.
We drove on, listening. There was nothing new, mostly repeats of what had already been said, in tones alternating between hysteria and ecstasy. Gradually, a little clarity emerged. It wasn’t an attack on the White House itself, but on one of the guard posts outside. Still, it was a huge explosion. There were scores of civilian casualties, and a section of the iron-barred fence that protected the property had been destroyed. Apparently the president was all right. He was in the White House, and was going to address the nation at nine o’clock.
“Prime time,” Dox observed, his tone disgusted. “Likely a coincidence.”
At Buckingham, Virginia, we left Route 15 and started tracking west. When we were just outside Appomattox, the president went live.
“We all know what happened tonight,” he said. “A cowardly individual blew himself up outside the White House, murdering and injuring many scores of innocent civilians. No one in the White House itself was injured, and, other than some damage to a fence, the building’s security was not compromised.
“What we don’t yet know precisely is who committed this atrocity, or why. But rest assured, our nation’s military, law enforcement, and intelligence services are assembling answers to those questions now. And when they have completed their task, justice will be done to the perpetrators.”
“That’s what they’re calling military action these days,” Dox said. “Justice. I guess it has a better ring to it than invasion, bombardment, and slaughter.”
“Shh.”
“Now, I want to address a rumor,” the president went on. “First, that before blowing himself up, the terrorist shouted,
“Rumor?” Dox said. “Who started the rumor? Sounds like the president is starting it himself!”
“That’s exactly what he’s doing, either deliberately, or because it’s being fed to him.”
“Well, how the hell-”
“Shh. He’s talking again.”
“Our task tonight,” the president went on, “is to pray for the victims and their families. And to thank the men and women of our armed forces and intelligence services, who, even as I speak, are risking their lives to protect our homeland and our liberties. Let us pray for them, as well.”
There was the clamor of reporters trying to ask questions, and then the announcer was back on, explaining that the president had left the briefing room.
Dox glanced over at me, then back to the road. “What the hell are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“I mean it, John. I mean…this is some top level shit we’re mixed up in here.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, false flag terror attacks? And we’ve been fingered for it? Forgive me if I sound gloomy, but I don’t see a clear way out of this.”
“You do sound gloomy.”
He laughed softly. “Well, cheer me up then.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Not to mention-”
“I know. We cleared the way for it.”
We didn’t stop again until Roanoke. It was nearly midnight and we’d been driving for over eight hours. Dox and I briefed Treven and Larison about the incident outside the White House. No one said anything, but I knew we were all thinking the same thing: we were fucked.
We picked up fast food, gassed up again, and agreed to change positions. “It’s not that bad,” Treven said. “A lot cooler than before, and your friend was smart to pick up that bubble wrap. It’s actually pretty comfortable, if you’re lying down on it.”
Dox and I had discussed our discomfort at the prospect of being closed up in the cargo area, helpless and blind, while Treven and Larison drove. If someone put a lock on the exterior, the truck would be turned into a prison. Not that anyone was carrying a lock or had time to buy one, but still. But in the end, it didn’t matter, because what choice did we have? None of us could risk public transportation. Dox had been right about our odds of hiding from the modern surveillance state. And Larison had been right when he’d told Treven that going off
