End Times

by P A Duncan

  Slater glanced around and lowered his voice. “An old mission, we went up against Gaddafi’s Ukrainian amazons, and they were fucking fearless. We all had bruised balls to attest to that.”

  Alexei smiled. “My mother is Ukrainian.”

  Slater looked at the sun then his watch. “Look, Bukharin, no hard feelings for the fuck-up about to happen. You understand the chain of command.”

  “Of course. I was in the Soviet Army. I understand all too well.”

  “I do, however, get to write a report.”

  “As will I.”

  “Mince no words. I won’t. I better get back before Fitzgerald starts ordering my guys around.”

  “Right. Delta wouldn’t go for that, would you?”

  Slater smiled again and said, “Maybe someday we’ll work together. I’d look forward to that. My regards to your wife. Excuse me, partner.”

  He jogged back to the command center.

  Alexei hovered on the edge of the training area for the women’s assault team. Daylight had stopped the session. Some had sprawled on the ground in contented exhaustion. Others chatted softly as they stripped off their body armor. The occasional laugh eased his soul on a day he knew would end badly.

  Mai wasn’t among them, but he saw her custom body armor in a neat pile on the ground. He picked it up and walked over to Special Agent Dana Howard of the HRT, the team leader. The sweat of honest exertion and the early morning mist had plastered her hair to her head, but she was unconcerned. Like Mai, she didn’t fret over her appearance.

  “Hey, Tiger,” Howard said. “Looking for the Princess?”

  “Yes. Did she go to breakfast?”

  “No, she went to do that Chinese stuff. What’s up? You look, well, displeased.”

  Alexei chose his words with care. “Agent Fitzgerald will explain.”

  Howard frowned, but she was bright. “Oh, please tell me you’re joking.” That was loud enough other team members gathered around. “He’s called us off, hasn’t he?”

  “As I said, he’ll explain.”

  “Damn it.”

  The rest of the team began to murmur, their tone one of disbelief.

  “Screw this,” Howard said, “I’m going to have a word with our esteemed SAC.”

  That was sarcasm worthy of Mai. Alexei replied, “Don’t waste your breath. Did you see where Mai went? I want her to hear it from me.”

  “You know that spot behind the Commissary tent?” Howard asked him.

  He did. A line of trees shielded Mai from the curious eyes of the male agents who’d developed a fascination with her akin to adolescent obsession. She went there to wind down after the night’s exercise.

  Alexei murmured, “Thanks,” to Dana Howard, and she headed away from him, toward the Command Center.

  He paused for a moment, the other women looking at him with a mixture of frustration and anger, but he had no words of encouragement. He turned and walked away.

  As he approached the copse of trees, he caught glimpses of Mai as she moved through a T’ai Chi routine. Mai’s athletic confidence made her graceful even in a tactical uniform and combat boots. The serenity of the space made this day even more surreal.

  After T’ai Chi, she did some yoga, and he had to admit seeing her in warrior post wearing warrior gear was stimulating.

  She looked over at him and straightened. He should have been pleased their communication was so intuitive. She studied his face, and read there what he had to tell her. He tried to telegraph his anger—and his love—but she had looked away. He turned to see what she looked at: The sun rising over Calvary Locus, Isaac Caleb’s PEL flag flying high above it, where it had remained all the days—fifty of them—of the standoff. It stood out straight in the morning wind. The FBI “deejays” had already played “Brick Wall,” and Alexei knew Mai thought of Maeve Gleason, who would feel betrayal when tanks came instead of a promised rescue.

  He approached and stood beside Mai, their arms touching. “Bastard that he is, Fitzgerald wants us to watch,” Alexei said. “We could leave and let him think us cowards, but I want us to stay.”

  “For truth,” she murmured.

  “Yes. We need to be cool. I can rely on you for that, right?”

  She looked up at him. “When haven’t you been able to rely on me?”

  His answer was a smile, transitory but significant. “There are three men at the Command Center. They won’t admit it, but they’re Delta.”

  Her body where it touched his stiffened.

  “If they’re here to observe,” he said, “no problem, but if they’re here operationally—”

  “Big problem,” Mai said. “Only three?” She looked now at the small knoll where the FBI snipers had nested.

  If he acknowledged her suspicion, she’d head off toward the snipers’ area to prove it. Mai was good at stealth, as she’d shown, but sneak up on Delta Force snipers if they were among the HRT?

  No, he wouldn’t think about that.

  “I’m sorry you have to go through this,” he said.

  “There’s that patronizing need to protect me,” she said, but there was no animosity behind it. “Is there any chance we’re wrong?”

  “There’s always that chance.”

  They exchanged a look, and her raised eyebrow meant, “Yeah, right.”

  “Let’s go see our friend Hollis,” Mai said. “I promise to be good.”

  Dana Howard entered the Command Center and walked directly to Hollis Fitzgerald. Three civilians she hadn’t seen before looked at her and backed away from Fitzgerald, making him turn to look at her.

  “I’m busy, Dana,” he said.

  “Make time.”

  Fitzgerald flushed, and a tic started in his jaw. “Agent Howard, need I remind you of the chain of command?”

  “Hollis, I was in the HRT when you were busting cigarette smugglers. You pulled me off a big case to be here to contribute to a peaceful resolution—your words. So, spare me a minute of your valuable time.”

  The civilians edged even further away and reconvened at the coffee pot at the far end of the RV.

  Fitzgerald stepped up to her until they were nose to nose. “Dana, don’t you ever speak to me that way again.”

  “I want to know why we were called off.”

  Fitzgerald’s scowl deepened. “I told that commie bastard—”

  “He didn’t tell me, Hollis. I figured it out. I’m asking you, as a fellow agent, to explain to me why I sweated my ass off the last couple of weeks to have you call me off at the last minute.”

  “It wasn’t going to work, Dana.”

  “It would have worked. We were all committed to making it work.” She looked over at the civilians, who stared back. “Was that their opinion?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It was a shit plan, and it wasn’t going to work.”

  “I was skeptical at first, but I made Fisher and Bukharin go over and over the plan, address every one of my concerns until I was satisfied. It. Would. Have. Worked. It can still work. The teams are ready. Call off the assault, on your authority.”

  “The President has made his decision.”

  “Call him back and change his mind. Christ, Hollis, people are going to die if we do this.”

  The bastard smiled. “They believe in an eye for an eye, don’t they?”

  “The law doesn’t work that way, Hollis.”

  “Today it will.”

  “You’re a sick son-of-a-bitch, and don’t think I’ll sugar-coat that in my report.”

  He smiled again, smug, self-satisfied. She wanted to smash his face in.

  “Go ahead, file your report, Dana, and say whatever you want. Don’t be surprised if the selecting official for that D.C. job you bid on hears how friendly you got with a suspect’s wife.”

  Her struggle with her temper wasn’t obvious. Long years of working with men had taught her how to hide emotions. She wasn’t so much angry with him, though she was, but at the system that would give his accusation creden
ce.

  “Whatever happens here today is on your head, Hollis. You think you have justice on your side, but one day that’s not going to protect you. I hope I’m around to watch the fall. You and your Army buddies over there enjoy your cluster-fuck. If I stay in here much longer, I’ll puke.”

  Fitzgerald glared at the door after Dana Howard slammed it shut on her exit. The three men returned to his side.

  “Problems?” the one called Slater asked.

  “No problem, except for being surrounded by bitches on the rag.”

  Another of the three said, “I heard Fisher and Bukharin mentioned. Are they in the mix?”

  “Bukharin was the one here earlier,” Slater said.

  “What’s your interest in them?” Fitzgerald asked.

  “Good success record, I hear. I didn’t realize they were players.”

  “They’re not,” Fitzgerald said. “They were advisors. Now, they’re observers. Enough about them. Time to get this show on the road.”

  24

  Show Time

  The helicopter gunships flew in with the sunrise, swooping low over Calvary Locus, to settle on the flattened grass near the FBI compound. Heavily armed agents hunched to avoid the rotors jogged forward and took their positions inside. The turbines wound up, and the building “whup-whup” of the rotor blades made Mai Fisher look at them. They launched one-by-one and took up their formation, still flying low and kicking up Texas dust. They buzzed Calvary Locus again before climbing and circling the buildings. The masked agents in the open doorways flashed victory signs, thumbs up, or clenched fists to the agents on the ground.

  The countryside gave way to the streets of Belfast, with the constant racket of low-flying British Army helicopters, their bright lights shining into homes at night. Mai didn’t suppress the shudder that traveled from her hackles to her coccyx. This had to be Belfast because this couldn’t be America.

  She looked at Alexei, whose eyes had fixed on the FBI sniper nest.

  Did he think the presence of the three, new observers meant Delta Force snipers were here, too?

  She lay a hand on his arm, and he turned to her, face devoid of emotion. She could almost hate him for that.

  “Don’t they understand?” she asked him.

  The Bradleys powered up, adding to the din.

  Alexei shook his head, to deny her question or to answer it, she didn’t know which.

  “Like Bosnia, we stand around and watch,” she said, her voice rising above the noise.

  “Someone has to,” he replied. “We observe and record for the truth to come out.”

  Scant comfort, but it had to be enough for now. Where there was truth, justice would follow.

  Without another word, Alexei left her side and headed for the command center. With reluctance, she followed, accustomed to his stoicism. When they entered, Fitzgerald turned to look at them. He didn’t acknowledge them, but there was no missing his smug expression.

  The three men Alexei had mentioned stood out from the BDU-clad FBI agents by virtue of their casual, civilian attire, which they didn’t wear well. Their gazes lingered on her. The one with the Fu Manchu mustache gave her a nod.

  New equipment crowded the command center, and Mai stepped forward to assess. More monitors showing the various approaches to Calvary Locus. Ah, the tanks had video cameras mounted on them. She spotted a live satellite feed as well as a view from a forward-looking infrared—FLIR—camera, likely slung beneath a small airplane circling above the helicopters. This was a step up from the typical FBI equipment. This was military equipment, specifically special forces. Special equipment loaned by the special forces. A perfect cover for the Delta Force presence. The military could, and quite often did, share its tech with law enforcement to field-test it, and they, of course, could provide that catch-all, technical assistance.

  Over the audio feeds came the voices of FBI agents broadcasting from the Bradleys and commanding the occupants of Calvary Locus to surrender. “This is not an assault,” was the oft-repeated phrase.

  Tanks rolled, warbirds circled overhead, FBI agents dressed like soldiers were deployed in ranks, and the U.S. Army’s elite strike force was on site, but this wasn’t an assault.

  A private residence, a religious refuge, was about to be neutralized.

  The FBI’s long-range listening devices played the sounds inside Calvary Locus with incredible fidelity, especially considering the drone of the tanks and the helicopters in the background. The initial panic inside was quickly quelled by men issuing instructions about gas masks and sheltering. Life went on as usual: Mothers fed children, assuring them what was happening outside was only a game “until it’s time to see Jesus;” laundry sloshed in wash tubs; guns were handed out all around.

  The insertion of CS gas canisters began, persisted, increased, and leveled off when no one emerged. Mai lost count of how many canisters had been deployed, but surely the gas must have penetrated all the interconnected buildings. Shouts of protest, the sounds of reassurance faded, replaced by a cacophony of adult screams and children’s wails as the tanks struck over and over again.

  The systematic destruction went on the whole morning, the screams became pleas for a quick death, and FBI agents looked away, lowered the sound, or left the command center. By noon, the only people left in the trailer were Fitzgerald, Alexei, Mai, and the three observers.

  “Too many holes,” one of the three civilians said. “The wind’s getting inside, dispersing the gas.”

  “You need to double the effort,” said another.

  Fitzgerald ordered agents to fire smaller tear gas canisters through the holes punched in the buildings. Within minutes the sounds of coughing and gagging from inside increased.

  For a while Mai watched the monitor showing the constant FBI press briefing. Everything was going as planned, the PR types assured the media. The media, though, was two miles away inside the air-conditioned press tent, where they could see nothing.

  The sounds playing inside the command center told another story: children coughing and wheezing because the gas masks were too big for them, of adults pleading for air after their masks’ filters became saturated.

  They began to pray. For death.

  Around noon, a few agents closest to the buildings called in to report fires, three of them, which had started almost simultaneously. Smoke and small flames leaked from the upper floor windows of the main building.

  Alexei strained to hear the voices from inside Calvary Locus. The noise from the tanks, the shouts inside made it a jumble, but he might have heard someone talking about “spreading fuel around.”

  He knew, and he assumed the FBI did, too, CS gas in large concentrations could be ignited by a spark, even from the canisters themselves when they blew to spread the gas. Given the amount of gas the FBI had injected into Calvary Locus and even with the wind, he suspected the place was a firebomb about to go off.

  Fitzgerald had to know that.

  He walked up to Fitzgerald’s shoulder and said, “Fire trucks?”

  “Too dangerous.”

  “Are they at least on standby?”

  Fitzgerald’s silence was the answer. Even the three Delta guys looked as shocked as their sociopathic makeup would allow. He turned to say something to Mai. She could disrupt the press conference, something…

  Her face was like stone, something he’d taught her but now liked less and less.

  A different noise caught his attention. Earlier in the morning, they’d heard a few gunshots ping off the tanks’ armor, but the shots he heard now came from someone on the outside firing into the buildings. He shifted to look at the monitor showing the FLIR’s view. Men fired at the rear-most building, as if…

  . . .As if trying to force all the occupants into the main building.

  The FBI wouldn’t be that obvious, not with observers present. He glanced at Slater and raised an eyebrow. Slater shook his head. Not Delta, but who?

  The people inside Calvary Locus were now begg
ing to be shot because they didn’t want to burn.Women urged children toward the concrete and steel reinforced room in the center of the main building. That place might protect them from fire, but if there were no independent source of air, they’d suffocate.

  Children screamed in utter terror, unlike any sound he’d ever heard.

  Fitzgerald laughed, and Mai’s eyes bored into his back.

  Some people got off with sex; some with death. Mai had seen both kinds. Fitzgerald’s laugh bounced around inside her head and evoked an image of his smug smile as he leaned down to an FBI sniper and gave the order to shoot a woman holding her baby at Ruby Ridge.

  He laughed again, and she looked at the monitor he watched. Someone inside Calvary Locus had tried to climb from a second-story window and had fallen to the ground. Covered in soot, face blackened from smoke, the person began to scramble away from the building but kept belly-flopping. Fitzgerald laughed each time. A flaming wall of the building began to peel away, a large enough piece if it fell it would land on the person trying to escape.

  Mai looked at Fitzgerald’s face and saw the dilated pupils, the slack jaw. Agents were on the radio asking for orders as to what to do for the struggling person, but Fitzgerald was close to coming in his pants.

  One of the three strangers picked up a radio and transmitted, “Help the civilian.”

  Mai was out the door, down the steps, and hit the ground running. Alexei called to her, and she heard his running footsteps behind her. She sprinted across the scrub toward the chaos, catching a few of his words as he shouted at her.

  “Snipers…in range…”

  In her periphery, she saw Dana Howard and the members of her team, the women she’d shared whiskey with and gotten to know, on a trajectory to intercept her. She gave a half-hearted attempt to out-run them before three of them reached her and tackled her to the ground.

  They held her fast, though she made it difficult for them. That was only fair. Alexei was there, his labored breathing at her neck, and his arms came around her, securing her.