With a start, Charlie woke from his uneasy sleep as the airplane began to descend. They were nearing Los Angeles, and he felt his ears pop as he yawned. Casually, he glanced at the impassive Secret Service agent in the seat next to him (and the two behind him, and the two in front of him) and then out the window.
What he saw shocked him. On the outskirts of LA, the suburbs, everything was normal. The same applied for the affluent business section as well.
But the slums, the lower-class areas, were smoking. From this distance, he couldn’t tell more than that, but at the least a serious fire was occurring.
“Look at that!” he said, nudging the agent and pointing out the window. The agent grunted, looked for a few moments, and then returned to his previous pose without changing expressions.
Something had gone wrong in the hours between Houston and Los Angeles, as the fires looked to be spreading rapidly. But the pilot hadn’t said a word, and if the agents knew something, they weren’t telling. Anxious, Charlie’s mind ran through the possibilities. Fires, bombs, riots, gas leaks... the list was short.
And then, with a jolt and the screech of tires, they were on the ground, taxiing to a stop, and then they were at a standstill.
Hastily, the ground crew ran up a moveable staircase to the door, and it opened as a second staircase was wheeled up to the back door. As a block, the agents stood and escorted Charlie down the steps and onto the tarmac.
A car was waiting for them, and he was ushered in, the agents waiting outside. Inside the car were two other agents. The driver put the car in gear and began to drive to another flight, on the far side of the airport. “Your plane to Honolulu takes off in one hour,” he informed Charlie.
“Thanks,” he responded, “But what’s going on out there? I saw parts of LA in flames!”
The first agent only grunted, but the second said tersely, “You were right. There are riots in most cities—except in the Mormon Belt, strangely enough. In most places, however, all the conspiracists and crazies are coming out now that all that their conspiracy theories were ‘right’—No matter how wrong they actually are, and are protesting for ‘the truth,’ or something along those lines. Most of the poor and the criminal are joining them for various reasons, too. Looting’s rampant.” He fell silent, having summed up the situation nicely.
“What cities, exactly?” Charlie ventured.
“D.C’s fine because all the government people are keeping it down,” he replied. “Salt Lake, Boise, Denver, and Pheonix are mostly fine for now, but just about every other city is flaring up. Detroit’s in really bad condition—there were already enough tensions there before this whole mess, and entire blocks are up in flames. The South is going to worsen, too, as blacks and whites start using the riots as cover to kill each other, and it’s not going to be long before the black moderates and the white moderates can’t hold back their respective sides.”
Charlie blew out a breath. “That bad?”
The agent nodded in confirmation. “Once the news gets past censors to the Warsaw Pact, it’s going to be much worse there. America’s going to get off lightly if the Reds can’t keep a lid on it—and they’re never able to for long.”
The driver broke in, “It’ll die down in a few days, just like every other riot. You’ve got nothing to worry about—they aren’t anywhere close to the airport, and won’t be much closer before your flight takes off.”
Charlie nodded, knowing it didn’t affect him personally—but, still! Nationwide riots, predictions that it was only going to get worse... and they said it would be light compared to what was going to happen behind the Iron Curtain. What really could be worse than nationwide rioting?
He tried not to think about it, fixing his gaze on the plane drawing nearer.
“Wait a second,” the driver said. “What are those cars doing on the tarmac?” He pointed out three cars, in a line with the third significantly behind the first two, coming across the runway at dangerous speeds.
The other cursed. “Perimeter security was supposed to secure the area!” He motioned to the third car. “Idiots obviously didn’t react fast enough and are behind the people who shouldn’t be in here if they had been halfway competent!”
Their angle made it clear they were making for the airplane, and the driver jammed the accelerator. The car leapt forwards, but as soon as they hit full speed and were committed on their course, going much too fast to turn more than slightly, it became clear that it had been a mistake.
The two unknown cars only had to make a slight course correction to come into an intercept. There was no time to react, and Charlie had just enough time to put his head down and brace himself before the car was hit side-on.
The world spun crazily, knocking Charlie about. Pieces of the spinning maelstrom hit him, sending his body careening in the backseat. One particularly nasty hit cracked at least one bone in his arm, but it hadn’t begun to hurt before the car skidded to a stop, upside down.
Charlie groaned and reached for the car door, surprisingly, largely unharmed. The same could not be said for the agents. The driver was in a pile on the ceiling—or rather, the floor, now—with what looked like a broken neck.
The other agent was a mess. His left leg was bending the wrong way at the knee, and a nasty gash over one eye sleeted blood as he shakily tried to escape.
Then Charlie was out, crawling onto the asphalt. The car was a wreck and would never drive again. Its opposing car hadn’t fared much better—instead of flipping around the long axis of the car, it had gone hood-over-trunk and landed with much greater force on its roof. The metal sheeting was completely crushed, and the oil leaking from the block held a suspiciously reddish tinge.
The other two cars hadn’t collided, though, and the first screeched to a halt. The front window shattered, and a bullet zipped past Charlie’s arm. He was being shot at—again!
Diving to the ground unthinkingly, he landed on his broken arm and couldn’t suppress a scream as his vision turned red. In the seconds it took him to recover, a bullet pinged off the asphalt in front of his head.
A second was closer—it tore a strip of skin off the back of his shoulder, burning like fire.
Knowing that the next bullet would likely be a solid hit, Charlie desperately leveraged himself upright with his good arm as the third car finally arrived on scene, agents within already spitting lead towards their opponents.
Soon, another shootout (his second in less than twenty-four hours) ensued as agents on the other plane sprinted towards the battle. The agents within the car looked to be having the best of the exchange, but the shooting was prolonged until the other four agents began taking potshots from the other side. Flanked, the bullets from the offending car soon ceased, and more blood spattered the windows of the car.
The six agents now nearby, having disposed of the immediate threat, now dashed to Charlie. One said, “Sir, we must get to the plane!” and took him by the broken arm.
Once again, Charlie’s vision redded out, and his legs gave out. When he could see and feel again, he was being carried, gingerly, by two agents as they trotted to the plane.
Carefully, they set him down at the bottom of the steps, and one grabbed a first aid kit from the airplane. As he tended to the furrow in his back and prepared to splint his arm, he nodded to the two other agents. “Just in time. Where were you assigned?”
“Perimeter security,” one said. “There were three other cars—peeled off in different directions and lured away the others. Then the other two showed up, and we were the only ones at the post.” He sighed. “Good thing, too. One more car, and our assignment would be dead.”
Charlie nodded, “Thank you for the assistance, sir—“ and then blacked out as his arm was set in an explosion of pain.