FanStory.com - Clean Upby Bill Schott
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Ryan Deere and S'njohn Johnson
Assassin Nation
: Clean Up by Bill Schott


Characters:
Red Appleton, President
Jason Marr, President pro tempore of the Senate, now VP
Connie Highland, Senate Majority Leader
Samantha Anthra, Chief of Staff to President Appleton
C. C. Connor, former Chief of Staff to President Sullivan, currently missing
Manuel Kontroz, acting Undersecretary of Cabinet Affairs
Ben Baker, aka Butcher of Baghdad aka Bobby Do, assassin, presumed dead
G.I. Joseph, old assassin, presumed dead
Phil Rupp, Speaker of the House, assumed dead
Ryan Deere, new Under Secretary of Cabinet Affairs
St. John (Snjohn) Johnson, Assistant to the Under Secretary of Cultural Affairs

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In the previous chapter:

Assistant to the Under Secretary of Cultural Affairs, St. John Johnson, and Ryan Deere, new Under Secretary of Cabinet Affairs, have been dropped into the training area to survive. C.C Connor is assumed to be alive. Manuel Kontroz is aware that Samantha Anthra is lying to him about the survivor he sent back whom he knows was killed.
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Snjohn Johnson limped away from the body of Phil Rupp, which he'd found face-planted within a group of bushes. The body had crumpled into a space-saving ball of old flesh and bone. His pistol was still in his dead hand, but the knife was not. Johnson had recently removed it from his own leg, where Samantha Anthra had placed it, before literally kicking him out of the helicopter.  His landing was severe, but he was managing to keep ambulatory.  His wrist, snapped by Anthra as well, was swelled and useless. A boot lace served as a tourniquet for now as he moved towards the location of an enclosure. He moved forward, after relieving the corpse of the weapon, which he had to pair and hold in his one good hand.

Across the two-hundred meter firebreak, Ryan Deere was following Johnson's movements. Armed with a M-16 and a dozen rounds he could find in the grass, he watched from within the tree line. He had no magazine, so he carried eleven rounds and had one in the rifle chamber. Allowing Johnson to lead, he could let him meet obstacles first. If there were provisions or weapons, he could then eliminate him. The thought of teaming up never crossed his mind. He knew a way out of the compound, so keeping Johnson at a distance would work well.

Within an hour, Johnson was at the opening of the shelter. All the boxes and bodies were there, as no clean up had taken place. He held both nine millimeters in front of him, one precariously in a swollen and aching grasp, prepared to kill whatever moved. All was still until the sound of a single stick cracking made him spin one hundred and eighty degrees.  Nothing could be seen.  Again, behind him, another crack; he spun to face an empty scene.

"Hey!" came a call from his rear. As he turned clockwise, his right hand was jabbed with a blunt crossbow bolt, causing it to release the pistol. It fell to the ground. The same bolt was then shoved through the trigger guard of the other pistol and yanked from Johnson's weak grip.

The swift-moving man before him had disarmed him with an arrow, waved about like a conductor's wand.  Johnson looked into the man's face and realized who it was.

"C-C-Connor!"

"My friends call me me C.C. not ca ca."

"You're alive!" 

"Nothing gets by you, I see. It's Snjohn Johnson, right?"

"You know me?"

"Well, certainly, Jon Jon.  Your fame is spoken of in all the wooded areas of the Northeast."

"Wha-?"

"Your sin is being too cozy with the Department of Justice. Samantha was watching you and, I see now, decided to dispatch you."

"She was wrong. I never mentioned Switchblade to anyone."

Connor flashed a toothy grin. Taking a step towards Johnson he noticed movement on his left periphery. In another second, Ryan Deere stepped into view, rifle pointing.

"Connor?!" said Deere, startled to see the supposed dead man.

"Ryan Deere. I guess you are here for the beer too."

"That bitch Anthra and the spooky turd Kontroz left me here.  When I get back they'll both be at the bottom of the Potomac."

"Your being here is a sign from her to me that all is well back on the hill. By this time, Red Appleton is President, and Jason Marr is Vice."

"How can you know?" asked Deere. "The President had a heart attack or something."

"Yes, well, as much as I'd like to tell you two all my many secrets and machinations --"

A mushy thud was heard as the right quarter of Ryan Deere's head followed a .357 caliber slug on its mostly uninterrupted path through the forest. His body dropped straight to the ground. 

From the darkness of the tree line, a figure emerged. The man walked with a limp and signs that he had recently been either dragged through a rocky thorn patch or near an explosion.  The Desert Eagle .357 automatic was slightly lowered, smoke still rising from the barrel, but definitely aimed at St. John Johnson.

"Do you recognize this fellow, Snjohn?"

Johnson recognized the face, but not in this situation. The man appeared to be a low-level grunt who worked for someone at the White House. A face that one passes in the hall, but never generated a need for him to interact with or even acknowledge. Still, a name did come to him. It was his final utterance.

"Baker?"











 

Author Notes
Image from Google. darpanmagazine.com

All will be caught up and explained in the next chapter. :)

     

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