Foreign and Domestic
FOREIGN & DOMESTIC
A Jack Cameron Novel
Scott Blade
Also by Scott Blade
www.scottblade.com
Jack Cameron Series
Gone Forever
Foreign & Domestic
Reckoning Road
Nothing Left
Other Novels
The Secret of Lions
S. Lasher & Associates Series
The StoneCutter
Cut & Dry
Copyright © 2015 Black Lion, LLC.
All Rights Reserved
Visit the author website:
scottblade.com
The Jack Cameron/Get Jack Reacher book series and Foreign & Domestic are works of fiction, produced from the author’s imagination. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination and/or are taken with permission from the source and/or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Characters, places, or story arcs that seem loosely based on the creations of other authors are used under indicative permission based on the creator’s public permission, as well as express permission given by representatives of other authors. Note that copyrighted characters are not used.
This series is not officially associated or a part of any other book series that exists. Jack Cameron is his own character and series.
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Published by: Black Lion, LLC.
Visit the author website:
http://www.scottblade.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
About the Author
Dedication
To Mako
“I think someone should give him a medal and a bullet in the head and name a bridge after him.”
—Jack Reacher, Personal.
Chapter 1
ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER.
Cause and effect.
A son shoots his father in front of an entire nation, and the whole world sees it. Three bullets fired—two center mass and one miss. One thing leads to another. Cause and effect.
In the small African country of West Ganbola, President George Biyena stood offstage in a pressed suit with a black and gold tie—his country’s colors. His wife stood on a provisional platform, built the day before in preparation for his first speech as West Ganbola’s president. She faced out toward his constituents. He gazed over them through a black and yellow curtain that matched his tie, surveying the crowd of hundreds of supporters, non-supporters, and the media. He had just emerged from a vicious election cycle, fraught with back-and-forth political character assassination ads and propaganda. He had almost lost the election, but not because the other guy was more popular—or even popular. And not because the other guy was the sitting president. It was only because the people of his country were terrified of the other guy. He had been an extreme dictator, a warlord, really. The other guy wasn’t a legitimately elected official. Not in the sense of what an elected official was supposed to be. The other guy was a dictator, a military leader who overthrew a once democratically elected government twenty years ago and then installed a fake democratic one. The other guy was nothing more than a criminal.
Biyena was proud of his political victory, a road that had been thick with more than just political defeat. It had been dangerous for him and his family. This path had led him through treacherous waters and political acrimony. Where so many others had failed, forced out of the previous presidential races against the incumbent socialist dictator, Biyena had succeeded. Any of his close, personal friends would attest to his patriotism. He believed his country deserved a fresh start, a new beginning. It was truly a great day for democracy and a great day for West Ganbola.
He had not made a public appearance in the three days leading up to the election due to concerns from his head of security. His death threats had risen sharply the week before, and it looked as though he would legitimately win the election. This meant he’d have to be under close watch. He waited in secret until the ballots were cast—and he’d won. Now he was about to give the speech that would move his country into a new era of peace.
He had rehearsed the process many times in his head. Walk up the steps. Cross the raised platform. Go over to the podium and hug his wife. Stand and recite his speech, eyes locked on his people.
He had stayed up the entire night before, practicing his speech in front of his two most trusted advisors. When they had run out of energy to continue, he had practiced it in front of a mirror at the Royal Hotel on Webiga Street.
In his country, English was the official language, but in actuality, over eighty languages were used in the region. Languages other than English were especially common in the more rural areas, which was almost everywhere. Near the craggy mountain ranges and olive jungles to the east, you could walk into a village, hear a regional language that had been born there, and then turn around and travel a few miles only to hear a completely different vernacular.
President Biyena waited for his wife to announce him to the crowd. He heard her say, “I’m so proud to announce my husband as President George Biyena.”
Biyena took a deep breath and held it. He felt the air go in through his mouth and e
xpand his chest, and then he released it. He repeated the action and then stepped through the curtain, releasing his breath as he did.
The crowd was already standing and chanting his name.
“Bi-ye-na. Bi-ye-na.”
It grew louder and louder as he stepped onto the stage.
“Bi-ye-na! Bi-ye-na!”
He was overwhelmed by the chants and the distant sounds of beating drums and blasting trumpets to mark his arrival, by the sea of faces and the rows of children brought out to see him. They held up little black and yellow flags to show their support. He watched as the flags waved in the air, not knowing it would be his last time seeing them.
The children in the crowd were dressed like the adults, most of whom were dirt poor. They couldn’t afford the kinds of clothes the richer citizens could, the ones who stood closer to the front of the crowd and on the balconies of the two- and three-story buildings lining the downtown area of the capital city.
But even though the majority of the onlookers couldn’t afford suits or ties or decent shoes, they dressed in their finest. Many of the children wore threadbare, button-down shirts that didn’t fit them with long ties that probably belonged to their fathers. Many of them were barefoot, toes digging into in the gritty dirt. They weren’t barefoot because they couldn’t afford nice shoes to wear with their father’s clothing but rather because they couldn’t afford any shoes. Many of them didn’t own a single pair. Not all, but many. Too many was Biyena’s opinion, which was one of the reasons he’d joined the presidential race in the first place—no matter the risk, no matter the chance of losing his life.
Biyena held his arms out in a gesture of embrace as if to say, “I’m here, my friends. I’m your new president.” The crowd never stopped chanting his name. Instead, they roared on.
“Bi-ye-na! Bi-ye-na!”
They grew louder and louder. They, too, had felt the rush of hope. Hope for a new future for their war-torn country—freedom from the political corruption and the fallacy of a government that had enslaved them into poverty instead of freeing them to enjoy a better economy and a better life. Parents hoped for a better life for their children. Grandparents hoped for a better future for their grandchildren. Wives hoped that their husbands could go to work and return home with a decent wage. Husbands hoped they could pay for clothing for their children and food for the entire family.
To them, George Biyena was a beacon of hope. They wanted a nation without terrorism. Without war. Without fear. Without overwhelming crime. Without brutal poverty. Without instability. Biyena was what they had longed for. He would change their lives and alleviate their struggles.
President Biyena ambled to the center of the stage with no sense of urgency. He wanted to savor this moment. He had worked hard for this victory against such a hated regime. The months of moving secretly from one location to the next had taken its toll on his wife and four grown boys. Especially his first-born son, Nikita Biyena.
Nikita was his pride and joy. He had grown into a successful businessman and was the father of three children of his own. And he was husband to a good wife. His father couldn’t be prouder of him.
President Biyena looked across the stage and saw that, near the bottom of the steps, his son Nikita was passing through the capitol police. He was waving frantically at his father. The policemen recognized him and let him pass.
His son wore a cogent look of concern on his face. He was normally the only of his sons who always kept his cool—nothing ever fazed him. Whatever was worrying him must’ve been something urgent, something that couldn’t wait. Or maybe Nikita was so proud of his father’s victory that he just wanted to share the stage with him in a show of support. Perhaps he wanted to hug him tight and was worried he wouldn’t make it. Perhaps. After all, Biyena had been so busy for months that the two had barely had any time to speak. There were even a few days when Biyena was certain that Nikita had vanished from his entourage.
Biyena reached the podium and leaned in toward an old, worn-out microphone, the kind with the steel vented face. It was called a Vintage Shure microphone, but Biyena didn’t know that, and it didn’t matter. He did know that his country had modern equipment. Just because they were a third-world nation didn’t mean they were lost in the 1950s. He wondered whose idea it had been to set up the old-style microphone. Maybe it was his campaign manager’s idea. Maybe it was supposed to present a more traditional appearance to his constituents and countrymen. Maybe the microphone would make him look like a mid-nineteenth century revolutionary who’d just won a similar election battle or an American leader like Martin Luther King Jr., giving a speech that would change a nation. Perhaps his people were waiting for him to give a groundbreaking, game-changing speech that would inform his enemies that the people of West Ganbola were no longer afraid. Or perhaps it was because there was an international news crew there covering his speech. Whatever the reason, Biyena liked to be included in all decisions, no matter how small. He believed that every little detail about his televised appearance was crucial. He believed that people remembered the details.
He dismissed his concern and stared at the microphone. A black wire ran down the front of the wooden podium and off the stage like a long, thin snake, disappearing below the gray, cedar boards of the platform. Biyena leaned forward to the microphone and said, “Good morning!”
The crowd went crazy. Chanting and hooraying. Waving their flags. The smallest sons were picked up by their fathers and held high on shoulders. Brash cheers filled the square, echoing past the low buildings, canvasing over the corrugated iron roofs, and dipping down the other side to fill the ears of people standing further away.
Biyena asked, “How are you doing?”
The crowd roared. The capital police stood out in front of the stage in a tight perimeter, preventing overzealous citizens from rushing the stage. The guys in front of the stage wore body armor and antiriot gear. Helmets. Vests. No guns. Only batons and stun guns as they weren’t authorized to carry guns. Biyena’s orders. This was an unwavering policy that he strongly believed in. It was his opinion that guns created a temptation for violence, and the last thing that Biyena wanted was for his police force to be tempted to fire their guns.
Shooting guns into a crowd of civilians was the kind of measure his predecessor would’ve taken. Not the kind of image Biyena wanted to project for the new direction of his country. So he had forbidden guns for most of the police. The only guys with guns were the snipers, Biyena’s personal bodyguards, who stood in the wings offstage, and the soldiers that stood guard on the outskirts of the capital. They waited in case there was any kind of resistance from the old regime, whose leader had vanished a few days ago when it appeared he was going to lose an election he’d assumed was in the bag. But Biyena had no fear of the old leader returning on this day because he had been told by his advisors that the old dictator had already fled across the border and would probably never be seen again.
Biyena imagined the old guy retiring somewhere warm like the coast of Brazil or Venezuela, countries he had had strong relations with, allies. Biyena and his advisors figured the old guy would most likely spend the rest of his life on a beach rather than in a jail cell where he belonged, but that was fine with Biyena. As long as the old dictator never again showed his face in West Ganbola, Biyena didn’t care where the hell he was.
He looked at his son again. Nikita was fighting with the guards on the stairs to get onto the stage. They frisked him, and he seemed annoyed and impatient with the delay.
President Biyena held his hands up high and said into the microphone, “This…this is because of you.”
Cheers grew as the crowd responded.
He repeated slowly, “This is because of you. All of you.”
The crowd cheered again, and the people continued to wave the little flags with West Ganbola’s colors, more and more, harder and harder. A sea of black and yellow flowed across his sightline. The spectacle kindled a sense of patriotism deep down in Biyena’s
bones, igniting that sense of nationalism a man feels at his core. He felt like his old self—it felt like the old days. He remembered that young, idealistic guy who had dared to challenge the militaristic government he had lived under for over five decades.
He heard his son call to him from behind him.
Biyena turned and looked at Nikita. He looked into his eyes. They were laden with emotion and a look that seemed like regret. Perhaps his son was simply overwhelmed with pride, and that was the look he was seeing. He wasn’t sure.
Biyena waved at the guards to allow his son on stage.
Biyena said, “This is because of my family. This is because of my wife. My son.” He glanced back at the spectators and then at his wife and his son.
Nikita walked toward him, his look even heavier up close, and that transferred real fear into Biyena. And he was not a fearful kind of man. Fear was a great weakness. That had always been Biyena’s belief. Fear was a tool used by the powerful to control the weak.
He had always been a fan of FDR, and he believed wholeheartedly in the man’s famous lines that there was nothing to be feared but fear itself. But even though he held this credo close to his heart, he was still a grandparent and father. And like any typical grandparent or father, there was always one thing that caused him great alarm, and that was the thought of harm coming to his children or his grandchildren.
And that fear was what immobilized Biyena.
He didn’t move from the microphone but simply half-turned and asked, “What’s wrong, son?”
His voice was low and deep. It echoed over the crowd in a low boom from the speakers near the foot of the stage. The crowd fell silent in a cohesive hush as if listening to a sermon. A hiss from the speakers resonated over them in the dead silence. Whispers could be heard wafting through the air.
Nikita walked past his mother without looking at her. Not a glance. Not a nod. Not a flicker of his fingers in a partial wave. Not a single acknowledgment.