Flightsuit Page 2

  It's always easier when there are others around. Hack glanced around the campfire into the faces of Rudolfo's terrorist cell and mirrored their emotions onto his face. When it's just one-on-one talking to Rudolfo, it’s a lot harder to decide how one of his true-believers would respond to his logical way of presenting something that's totally nuts.

  That's what makes him so dangerous. He's smart and thinks logically, but underneath there's nothing but himself. Everyone else is collateral damage as long as they enable him to achieve his goals.

  The eleven men and two women standing as closely as the heat of the fire in the center allowed were a mixture of emotions. Hack knew they were all at the end of very long ropes. The weeks hiding in the woods sapped them. They were excited about tomorrow, but so tired and hungry that they really just wanted to crawl into their sleeping bags. They firmly believed tomorrow would be better.

  Eduardo Rudolfo kept talking.

  Hack shuffled from one foot to another as if trying to get more comfortable as he stood around the fire. He twisted his back pretending to stretch out a kink and moved an inch closer to Rudolfo.

  The guy's good. He knows what they need to hear so well. They need to feel there's no other choice, like they've tried every other way to accomplish their goals and they just have no choice. They're somehow unable to grasp that the people who have more work harder to get it. They aren't deep thinkers anyway, but I'll never understand how they can't see that the people they hate work for what they have. They just keep making demands that people give up what they've earned, and they're willing to kill anyone that doesn't.

  Eduardo Rudolfo was able to connect with them by pulling together their piecemeal ideas and beliefs into something that came close to logic. Close enough.

  "Everything else has been tried before," Rudolfo said. He paused, taking time to look into the eyes around the fire. Hack nodded slightly in acknowledgement and Rudolfo continued.

  "We've worked our whole lives alongside them. They come home to their families at night while we keep working. At the end of our day, we come home exhausted with barely enough money to feed our family for one day. They waste and throw away more than we have. Who gave them this right? Who decided they should have everything and your children would have nothing?"

  Rudolfo looked to his left, "Did you decide, Daniel?"

  "No."

  "Rachel did you decide that your boys would be hungry out here in the woods while the rich people's children stuff food you can't afford into their fat mouths?"

  "No. It wasn't me, Eduardo."

  Hack marveled at their delusion. By the way, Rachel, what are the boys doing while you're out here? Have you even said two words to them today between meeting Rudolfo in his camper for drugs and meeting him later for something else?

  In the six years Hack spent pretending so he could get close enough to stop people like the ones around him, he'd come to realize they were remarkably uniform. Somewhere along the way, normal people learned the cause-and-effect of hard work that was lost on these people.

  They have never actually tried any other way. Make demands that require everyone else to give up what they've worked for so we can have what we deserve. Then be angry when we don't get what we want. Be miserable that the only way you've ever tried failed again. Surprise. Build on your misery, talk of fairness and the justice you're going to extract on the privileged. They have something we want. They won't give it to us so we will…take…it.

  It seemed to Hack that people like this were everywhere. Like seeds flung and forgotten that germinated for years and sprouted long after anyone remembered they were there. Terrorists and revolutionaries sprouted everywhere, in both cities and rural regions. There are whole countries that talk like these people, ready to upend society and take their chances in the chaos.

  At any moment, Hack and other federal agents were tracking and working to infiltrate a half-dozen different radical cells. Hack knew two agents that were killed in the last year. One was tortured for a week. Hack had seen the pictures.

  Two nights ago, he and Rudolfo talked about the possibility that there might be an infiltrator in the group. As the strike date approached, Rudolfo became increasingly convinced there was. The arrival of the fertilizer moved the group into the major leagues of domestic terrorism. It wasn't just talk anymore, and Rudolfo was sure they must be on some government agency's radar now.

  "You know there is someone here who isn't really one of us, don't you Sam?"

  Hack met his eyes and held them long enough that he hoped Rudolfo interpreted open interest in his question. "Sam" was the cover name he'd used when he met Rudolfo months ago. He considered whether Rudolfo was talking to him or about him.

  He and Rudolfo sat alone at a small fire outside Rudolfo's camper. Hack glanced over his shoulder as if he were looking about the camp for someone who didn't belong, but he was really giving himself time to decide what reaction was most appropriate.

  Hack decided to go with a confused response. It was usually safe for Rudolfo to think people didn't understand him. He thought everyone else was an idiot so appearing confused usually fit his expectations. He asked, "What do you mean?"

  "Think about it Sam. How many groups like ours are caught before they are even close to acquiring the means to fulfill their promise? Very few make it this far. One in a hundred maybe. McVeigh made it all the way, but all the others? No. They are caught long before they are ready. We are ready now. We have the explosives and Monday morning our long mission is over."

  "Yes, everything is ready," Hack smiled, trying to come across with the right balance of exhaustion, excitement and admiration. The exhaustion was easiest. Everyone in the camp had been on lean rations since they left the original compound. Rudolfo stood in line with them at mealtimes as if he was just one of the folks, but it was a poorly-kept secret that the courier brought him food along with the newspapers and supplies. Everyone knew it, but no one said anything. Out here he was in complete control. If he ordered someone killed, they'd be killed. No questions asked.

  He'd grown up making his own way. His mother was hooked on drugs and the worst kind of men. Little Eduardo stayed clear of them except when there was food. Then he had no choice. They'd leave him nothing if he just stayed back and waited, so he edged into a corner of the table, trying to pretend he was supposed to be there. He'd get a few bites before one of them shoved him back. Otherwise, the men barely noticed him.

  He received all the frustration his mother carried from her life's disappointments and the way the men abused and left her. She criticized his every move, and begrudged the minimal obligation she had for him. If he was quiet, she accused him of being surly or too good to speak to her. When he reached out to her she pushed him away and said he was pathetic.

  The survival of children like little Eduardo Rudolfo is miraculous. Living in the worst environments imaginable, they tenaciously hang onto life. Their reward is the cycle's continuance. They bring more children into the same poor circumstances. Few escape the cycle. A tiny fraction achieve great success, recounting the trials of their childhood as testimony to their hard work and determination. The rest, in multitudes, merely survive, the miracle uncelebrated.

  Rudolfo stayed out of prison until he was old enough for a judge to finally put him there. He'd known misery and isolation all his life. He survived the first horrible year in prison by watching and learning. No one guided him. No long-term mentors to take an interest in him and keep him from making mistakes. No one needed a weaker partner that didn't know the ropes in a place where enemies were made from the smallest offense. He was a liability, so he watched and learned and made the mistakes himself. Because the penalties for mistakes were harsh, he learned quickly. Rudolfo was a survivor and prison taught him to be subtly manipulative. People on the outside were oblivious to small visual cues and voice inflections that meant life-and-death in prison.

  Rudolfo's eyes never left Hack as he waited to see what Hack would say next.

/>   "We're close," Hack said, "I'd say it's natural to be edgy. Has someone been acting suspicious?"

  Rudolfo waited before responding. "Fisher," he said.

  Hack held his breath to avoid sighing in relief. Rudolfo never took his eyes off you and talking to him, especially one-on-one was nerve-racking for Hack. "What makes you suspect Fisher?" Fisher was a big gregarious man. Everyone in camp liked him, including Rachel. Hack figured Rudolfo was jealous, but wasn't sure if it was for Rachel's attention or the group's. Either way, Hack felt sorry for Fisher. He was an ok guy who was working construction until he met Rachel in a bar and started chasing her. The guy was two days away from losing a reasonably decent life, either way it came down.

  Hack asked, "You want me to keep an eye on him?"

  Another of Rudolfo's frustrating pauses, and then he said, "Yeah. Yeah Sam. You watch him for me. If he does anything that makes you suspicious just off him. Don't even bother checking in with me on it. I don't like the guy anyway."

  "He's, ah…" Hack started, "He's a big guy man. When are we getting our guns back?" Rudolfo had taken up all their guns, cellphones and batteries a week ago. Hack felt exposed without it, especially knowing what was coming.

  Rudolfo just looked at him.

  "I mean, the guy's bigger than I am. Not much way I can stop him without a gun."

  Finally, Rudolfo nodded and said "Yeah. I see your point. I'll think about it."

  Hack sat awkwardly for a moment, and then nodded. "Ok. I can do that. Whatever you want." He stood up to leave.

  "Rachel says that it's you I shouldn't trust Sam. She says you're smarter than you make out." Rudolfo craned his neck to look up at Hack. He waited for a moment before showing a quick, unpleasant smile.

  "I think she might be sweet on Fisher," Hack said. "She doesn't want you to do anything to him maybe."

  Rudolfo nodded. "Yes, maybe she is. Too bad."

  5

  Hack constantly looked over his shoulder after the little fireside chat. He assumed that Rudolfo had similar conversations with others in the group and wondered who was assigned to watch him. He and Fisher both lived through the weekend as Rudolfo's paranoid mind found other worries. Fisher stood across the campfire from Hack as they listened to Rudolfo's exhortations.

  Hack noticed the wind was picking up. Rain's coming. Leaves and branches moved in the night, barely silhouettes against a dark and cloudy sky. At least it will cut his motivational speech short. Rudolfo was losing their attention as the first drops fell. Everyone was tired of being wet. The heat lifted water during the day and held it until the clouds were ready to burst. It rained in the late afternoon or evening every day they'd camped in the woods and there was no way to get their clothes completely dry. They wanted the speech to end so they could get someplace before it really came down.

  Two drops of rain splashed onto Hack's face. He looked up. They were so completely surrounded by trees that the only sky visible was directly overhead. The sky was filled with low, roiling clouds and there were flashes of light far off that were on the way to them.

  The wind began to whip the treetops first. Then the lower branches swayed, and finally the undergrowth came gradually alive with movement. The scrub brush twisted and turned. Green leaves were dark gray with undersides that were a silvery shade lighter. The shimmering leaves made the forest look like waves encroaching the clearing.

  Rudolfo railed on. "All of the hardship we've come through before hasn't stopped us. We've found a way past every obstacle this corrupt society has created, first as individuals and now as a group, a family. No one was there to help us. No one to make life easy for us. We made our own way, while they all stick together in their sickening excess. They've grown fat and comfortable. They can't defend themselves or provide their own food, while we've struggled at the bottom, with nothing."

  He paused for effect before continuing, "But we are stronger for our fight. Now we are ready and they are not. We are willing to strike while they can only hide and wait for their corrupt government to help them. But this time is different. This time it will be more than one person, more than a group – this time we will bring our full power to them – and they will reel under it." Rudolfo pointed to the rows of 55-gallon drums already loaded inside the semi's trailer. He pointed with his right hand. It held the dead-man's switch.

  Hack looked back into the open doors of the semi, I really wish he would stop pointing with that thing. If he gets too excited, we'll all be dead before we know what happened.

  In the distance, just outside the clearing, a wind gust fanned the brush and Hack saw an agent duck down lower. He'd only been visible for an instant, but it was long enough.

  Rudolfo stopped and stared, unsure of what he'd seen.

  Well, the good news is, the agents are here, Hack decided.

  Then he snapped his left hand out around Rudolfo's.

  6

  Hack squeezed Rudolfo's fingers tightly around the trigger. Without thinking, Rudolfo jerked away from Hack's pinching grip, leaving the trigger entirely in Hack's hand. Good, was all Hack had time to think, before jamming his right elbow hard into Rudolfo's throat. Hack pressed the bigger man backward like a linebacker with a good low angle on a running back. Rudolfo was off-balance and they both fell heavily against the barrels that hadn't yet been loaded. The hard metal rim creased painfully into Rudolfo's back. Hack held him against the barrels with his elbow, and kept the trigger out of his reach.

  Lightning cracked the sky.

  This distance from the fire, Rudolfo's eyes were small red reflections of firelight. "You! You after all! I knew that you weren't right," Rudolfo said through clenched teeth. "I knew you were one of them." Hack said nothing. He'd given up months of his life for this moment. He'd never get those months back and whatever happened in the next minutes, he'd never have a second chance at this either. He was all in and he focused everything on anticipating Rudolfo.

  Like Rudolfo, Hack was a watcher. Rudolfo learned to watch people in prison and became expert by necessity. Hack was a natural watcher, always on the outside and looking for what everyone else missed. He watched for the little things, like who tended to speak first after someone else – sometimes that indicated hidden disagreement. Hack watched people listening when others spoke, and he analyzed their reactions. While Rudolfo watched everyone in his "family", Hack focused exclusively on Rudolfo.

  Hack thought strategically about anything he did. Now he needed to outthink Rudolfo because he'd learned to fight in prison and he'd not been going hungry for the last three weeks. He had thirty pounds of advantage and full stores of energy. Hack had only adrenalin and desperation.

  The sky unloaded a deluge of water, and the cacophony of raindrops striking leaves and earth rose into a deafening roar. The campfire flickered quickly into darkness as the agents crept forward. Without the firelight, lightning and muzzle flash was the only illumination. The shocked and exhausted men around the fire ran to the tents and trailers. A crack of thunder that sounded too much like a rifle shot started the firefight.

  Inside the trailers silhouettes appeared momentarily at the windows before the lights were shut off behind them. Rifle shots popped from within and the agents dropped to ground.

  Behind the semi, Hack was losing ground. Weeks of poor rations tipped the scales against him. He felt the strength draining from his arms as he fought to keep Rudolfo down. Soon he would be spent and Rudolfo would take the trigger.

  He fought in complete darkness but for an occasional lightning flash. He wrestled Rudolfo by feel alone. Blindly, he leaned into a rattling blow to his jaw at the neckline while a second drove his head back. He felt Rudolfo grabbing for his left arm to pull the trigger toward him and fought harder to keep it back.

  The blows to his head made him draggy and he felt himself moving slower. He was losing. Rudolfo landed three more blows in succession. In the darkness, there was no forewarning, no opportunity to pull away. Hack focused on the trigger, keeping his arm up a
nd back, but it was dropping closer to the ground. He gripped Rudolfo's collar in his right hand and extended once more, pressing away, but Rudolfo sensed opportunity and adjusted for more leverage against the barrel.

  Unable to see in the darkness, or hear over the din, Hack felt himself slipping away from exhaustion and the head blows. He searched inside for any remaining reserves. He gets the trigger and we're all dead. He'll just blow it up as soon as he gets it. He's got nothing to lose now. He knows he can't get to the school after this, but he'll be satisfied to kill all the agents.

  But there was nothing left. He was just too exhausted to fight him off.

  Hack clenched his fist tighter around the trigger and closed his eyes, trying desperately to think of a way out. The repeated blows made it hard to think so he concentrated on holding his fingers tight around the trigger and on the place where he imagined Rudolfo's jaw would be – just above his grip on the collar. He roared in frustration, that all the months of pretense, of staying on guard every moment, all of the planning and hard work would come down to a moment that left him no choices. Hack put one last squeeze into the trigger and swung it forward into Rudolfo's face.

  The blow broke Rudolfo's jaw free, twisting it sharply askew. He stopped raining blows on Hack's face and moved his hands to protect his shattered face. Neither man could see the impact of their efforts, so Hack jabbed again, holding the trigger tight. The second punch didn't connect squarely. It grazed down the side of Rudolfo's shattered jaw, and scraped against bone. Rudolfo screamed in agony.

  Hack pulled his knees underneath to get better leverage. He turned loose of the collar, and brought his right fist back, before launching it directly into the mess of Rudolfo's face. He felt his body go limp.

  He sat back on his heels gasping for air. The river of rain still poured down. He tilted his head down and breathed cool air through his mouth to avoid inhaling water. He held the trigger up as much as his drained strength permitted and rested his chin on his chest.