The Phoenix Affair

Chapter XI Major Events and City Hell Two days later Shapp had what he needed in a locked briefcase attached to his wrist. He was travelling in an armoured limo with two of his personal body guards and they had just turned into Third Street NW, another two cars were in front and to the rear of his vehicle with the usual White House security. He was otherwise alone as he didn’t want any witnesses at the impending meeting with Gavin. This was going to be a difficult move for him to make. Sure, his money was safe but as Vice President there were no options like making a complete disappearance. If he did that the CIA would soon arrange with the Swiss to seize any assets he had there and he’d be left with nothing. His only hope was to play along with the CIA, as long as he had the information they wanted Gavin would leave him intact with his ill gotten gains and his reputation in one piece. When it was over, then what? He had no way of knowing. Certainly his position with the President wouldn’t save him; he would throw Shapp to the dogs, to save his own skin. Especially, once he had found out what the Vice President had got involved in. Shapp was remembering that the President himself had been at earlier meetings with Brady and his cohorts when they tried the same sales patter on the US Government. The President would have pilloried Brady except for the fact that Xeonite was a big exporter of more ‘normal’ chemical products. The President was clean enough, more is the pity, Shapp thought. It was a nice day, the sun was out despite the snow laying about and it shone through the buildings and trees onto the streets casting flickering shadows as they drove. Some of those shadows were moving faster than others at the edge of the highway -- including a forty ton truck which suddenly crossed the central reservation and ploughed into the side of the Vice Presidents limo at over fifty miles an hour. The Lincoln was swept to one side and was slammed ahead of the massive tractor unit. Despite its’ heavy armoured construction of the Lincoln, the impact from the front of the huge truck stove in the nearside front and rear doors taking the central pillar cleanly away as if it was made of tinfoil. Both doors were crushed and fell away with the pillar as the truck came to shuddering halt. Shapp was strapped in the rear seat between his two guards and some of the impact was absorbed by their bodies as all three were slung towards the offside door. The Limo failed to turn over and remained on its four wheels but the body shell had been distorted to such a degree that even the offside doors had sprung open. The Vice President was dazed and he viewed everything through a veil of red mist as he struggled to free himself from his two companions. One of them was unconscious and was lying across his body. The other was trying to grip the remaining ‘B’ pillar and was pulling himself painfully out of the doorway, trying to release his Colt from its shoulder holster at the same time. The world suddenly exploded in front of them as twinkling flashes from automatic weapons blinded them as they all received the concentrated fire from two different weapons. Two of the attackers had raced in to positions on each side of the wrecked limo. Eden Shapp was struggling in that moment to free himself from his entanglement with the unconscious bodyguard. His briefcase was still chained to his wrist and had become jammed beneath the bodyguards’ heavy frame. He dragged it out from under the guards body and turned just in time to see those muzzle flashes and the terrible sound that the automatic weapons made. That was the last thing that the Vice President saw, two hooded figures and the sparkling orange effect from the muzzles of those weapons. His last thoughts were that he had missed his meeting with the CIA, it was then that blackness took over his thoughts as his head exploded. The attackers were dressed in black with hoods and the two that had opened fire through the open door of the Lincoln were trying to avoid the security teams emerging from the escort vehicles, all of which were armed with Hodgkiss machine pistols. The Lincoln started to burn; its fuel had started to spill out of its ruptured fuel tanks and had been ignited. The two Presidential security teams had split up to surround the scene and they were rapidly firing at the attackers as they ran. One of the attackers took several hits and he spun round from the impact of them, fell into the flames and his clothing caught on fire immediately. Although mortally wounded, the man rolled over and over screaming trying to subdue the flames that were consuming his body. Then he screamed no more. The second attacker fired a quick burst from his machine pistol which felled one of the security team who was slammed backwards by the impact of those bullets as if hit by an invisible sledgehammer. His colleague had dived to the ground taking up a prone position, firing as he dropped. The second gunman went down in a hail of bullets, his face and mask disappearing in a mist of red as the bullets struck home. A third attacker had emerged from the cab of the tractor unit which was largely unscathed from the impact, but he was caught by a hail of bullets as he tried to drop from the door. He still dropped, hit the step and rolled onto his back, his lifeless eyes looking at the sky above. A fourth and last attacker had escaped by rolling under the trailer of the articulated vehicle and he was emerging from the other side away from the flames. He was met by the security guards from the convoys lead vehicle who had recovered from their stunned surprise and had seen the fourth member trying to get away. They opened fire on him from behind their escort vehicle and there was no way he could escape the bullets that intercepted him. The security team had lost two of their men who were in the car with the Vice President, his driver and one other who was wounded in the cross fire. When it was safe to do so the remainder of them spread out and cordoned off the street at a distance from the fire, just as the limo’s fuel tanks blew up. The City Police were arriving plus a couple of fire trucks, their sirens were creating mayhem with anyone’s ears who just happened to be close by, but it was over. The attack had last a few minutes but as a result, the Vice President of the USA was dead and the fire had almost consumed his body before foam from the tender’s hoses extinguished the hungry flames. His briefcase was still chained to his charred body. The news of the attack reached Gavin within minutes, the Vice President’s escorts were mainly from the internal ‘wing’ of the CIA. He quickly gathered some of his team around him and they all exited from their building to their respective vehicles within minutes, all headed to the same location, all armed and taking with them a CIA forensic team who would take over any investigation from the City police. It was a well practised emergency exercise that ran like clockwork. The scene was chaos; the streets were jammed with commuter vehicles, which the traffic police were trying hurriedly trying to redirect to alternative routes around the burnt out wreckage of the truck and the Vice President’s Lincoln. The fires had been extinguished by the fire tenders and their crews, who had attended within minutes of the alarm being raised. The smell of burned out plastics and metal hung heavily in the air. A security helicopter swung into sight above everyone’s heads with the heavy throb of its rotor blades and engines adding to the general clamour, its loudspeaker booming instructions to the crowds below to move out of the zone. Due to the lack of any wind, embers and ashes were falling like blackened snowflakes all around the rescue teams, then they were being swirled about further by the downdraft from the helicopter loitering above.