Home Invasion - J. A. Johnstone [125]
“This is Bud Conway reporting from Home, Texas,” Bud said into the portable radio he had patched into the big set inside the truck. “If anyone is hearing me, please record this. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to broadcast.”
He had taped dozens of reporters doing remotes during his career. It had never seemed that hard to him. Now he had a chance to try it for himself. Nobody had told him to. It had just occurred to him that somebody ought to try to document the momentous events that were going on here today.
“War has broken out here in this small Texas town, war between paramilitary killers from the Rey del Sol drug cartel and the embattled citizens of Home. There’s something else happening, too. A helicopter has just crash-landed in the street, and armed men are pouring from it and joining in the fight, cutting down whoever happens to get in front of their guns. That appears to be mostly the cartel gunmen. People are dying all around me. It’s like a scene out of a nightmare. Blood and smoke and bullets are everywhere. Please, if you’re listening, record this.”
A little blond-haired guy with a mustache suddenly loomed out of the smoke and grabbed Bud’s arm. “Are you a reporter?” he demanded.
“Yeah, I guess,” Bud answered. “Who’re you?”
“Earl Trussell. I’m a scientist from Casa del Diablo. Gimme that radio.”
Before Bud could stop him, Earl had ripped the radio out of his hands and brought it to his mouth.
“Listen to me, world! Put this out on the Internet as quick as you can, as often as you can. Upload it everywhere! The President has a secret bio-weapons lab in the mountains west of Home, Texas. I know it’s true, because I worked there. They’ve been making nerve gas to use on his political enemies. He’s going to wipe out all the opposition and make himself president for life! I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true! Somebody has to stop—”
A shot rang out. The radio slipped from Earl’s fingers as he crumpled, but Bud caught it before it hit the ground.
A tall, red-faced man in a black combat outfit strode toward Bud and Earl, smoke curling from the barrel of the pistol in his hand. In his other hand he carried some sort of blue plastic canister.
Bud slipped the radio in his pocket but left it on. He thrust his hands in the air and said, “Don’t shoot!”
With an angry snarl on his face, the man said, “I heard what he was saying. Who was he talking to?”
“To … to me,” Bud stammered. ‘Just to me. He was talking crazy, I don’t know what was wrong with him.”
“Do you know who I am, son?”
“N-no, sir.”
“General Weldon Stone,” the man snapped. “A true patriot! That’s why you have to die, and I have to die, and everybody in this town has to die, so that America can be transformed.”
Bud swallowed hard. “Then … then it’s true? What he was saying?”
“Of course, it’s true!” The shooting was dying away now. The battle seemed to be coming to an end. That made it easier to hear General Stone as his voice rang out clearly. “You don’t think a visionary like our President would let a little thing like the death of a few citizens stand in the way of bringing our country the change it needs, do you? Of course, he’ll do whatever’s necessary to put his policies forward. That’s why he ordered those scientists at Casa del Diablo to develop that nerve gas. It’s for the good of the country! That’s what all those damned Jew-loving right-wingers never seem to understand! It’s for the good of the country!”
“So … we all have to die?” Bud asked.
Stone held up the canister. “As soon as I open this valve, the nerve gas inside it will spread all over Home. No one will be left to tell the truth of what happened here, and the President will be safe to continue his work.”
“His work of murdering everybody who disagrees with him, you mean?”
Stone smiled and holstered his gun. “It’s not murder if it’s in a good cause.”
He reached for the valve on the canister.
Bud was ready to jump him and try to stop