Vaslik rolled twice more to change his position, then waited to see if the gunman moved again. When he did the man came up into a kneeling position and fired two rapid shots – but aimed at where Vaslik had been lying, not his new position.
Fighting a wave of nausea Vaslik put everything into the next few seconds. Recalling the endless live firing practice sessions in the police and with Homeland Security, he squeezed off three shots at the distant figure, then three more.
There was a long silence and the gunman didn’t move.
Vaslik stood up and changed to his spare clip of ammunition, then waved a cautionary signal at Ruth and Dave as they moved closer. But the danger was over. As he approached the gunman he saw why: the gunman had been struck in the head by a single bullet, although from which gun was impossible to tell.
He flicked the rifle away as a precaution, then checked the man under the van. He was alive, still, but only just. His chest was a mess.
Vaslik waved the other two in and went to the rear doors to check the interior. Nothing but a launcher on the floor, along with bottles of water and two sports bags. He checked them out but they contained only extra clothing and wash things.
‘One dead, the driver wounded,’ he reported, when Ruth arrived, with Dave following behind, talking on his cell phone. ‘Number three’s missing.’
‘I called it in,’ said Dave. ‘The local cops should be here soon with emergency services. I called Tom Brasher, too; there are going to be questions about our involvement here, but I figure he can act as a firewall if things get heavy.’ He looked past the van to where the man and children from the pickup had now stopped running and were watching them. ‘I’ll go talk to these people and make sure they’re all right.’ He nodded down at the wounded man under the van. He was staring back at them, but his eyes were becoming unfocussed and full of pain. ‘My suggestion: you might want to talk to him before he gets swallowed up in the system.’
‘Good idea.’ Vaslik hunkered down next to the man. Up close he could hear his laboured breathing, and a whistling sound from his lower chest. From that and the amount of blood it was easy to see he was in a bad way. But Dave’s suggestion was a good one and he wasn’t about to waste the opportunity. Once the emergency services got here, along with various law enforcement people from all over the state, the man would be rushed away and wouldn’t be doing any talking.
‘You speak English?’ Vaslik asked.
For a moment the man didn’t respond. Then he nodded twice.
‘Good. What was your job here today?’
‘Driv… driving.’ The man blinked slowly, his voice raspy and his accent heavy. ‘What—?’ He looked around and Vaslik guessed he was asking about his colleagues.
‘Your friend is dead,’ he told him. ‘Along with a lot of other people. Where’s the other one who was with you?’
‘Gone.’
‘Who sent you here?’
‘Broth…brother.’ The man coughed, and a fine spray of blood appeared on his lips and ran down his chin.
‘The brotherhood – I get that. But who asked for your help? Was it Malak?’ He felt no compunction about questioning him; had they arrived a few minutes later, this man and his colleague would now be holding children as hostages.
The man shook his head. His eyes were becoming dulled by shock and his chin was dipping, but he clearly had enough determination left to remain silent about who he was working for.
‘Do you know where Malak has gone?’
No response.
‘Or Bilal?’
Nothing.
‘How about the drones? Do you know about them?’
This time there was a flicker; it was momentary, hardly there at all, but it told him that the man at least knew what was going to happen. He wasn’t surprised; the magnitude of what Malak had planned had probably seeped out among those committed to the same cause, and the unusual approach of using drones would have been seen as a clever use of America’s own technology against them.
‘That’s fine,’ Vaslik told him. ‘You’ve heard of Freedom? Freedom Field? We know that’s where it’s going to happen. Pity for Malak is, there’s nobody there. They’ve shut the area down. In fact, the only person there will be Malak himself. He’s going to be a lonely man. Then he’ll be a dead one.’
The distant sound of sirens drifted across the open fields, and the man’s head lifted. He frowned at first, then nodded with difficulty and gave a faint smile, as if knowing he had a secret he wasn’t going to divulge.
Vaslik felt a chill and looked past the man as Ruth appeared. She had heard the sirens, too, and was rolling a finger through the air in a signal for him to continue. There wasn’t much time left. This was brutal, but they had to find out where Malak and his toys had gone.
‘So where is it, this Freedom Field?’ he said. ‘It’s going to be a big strike, right? An attack on the US military and the US president. You must know where it is.’
But the man said nothing more. Moments later he gave a deep sigh and his body seemed to collapse in on itself, and he was gone.
45
By the time the first of an extended convoy of vehicles arrived from the local and state police and emergency services, followed quickly by a police helicopter, Ruth was tending to Vaslik’s wound, which was slight, and Dave Proust was explaining the situation to the father of the three children.
None of them could hide their disappointment at having been unable to find out more about Malak’s whereabouts, although Vaslik was more pragmatic. He watched as Ruth used a bandage from Dave’s first aid box to bind his upper arm, where the bullet had scored a shallow path without hitting anything vital.
‘We know where he’ll be,’ he told her. ‘We just don’t know where exactly. But we will.’
‘You’re optimistic,’ she murmured. ‘Are you sure you’re not in shock?’
‘It’s a scratch, nothing more.’ He smiled but looked a little pale, and nodded at the incoming chopper. ‘Bet that’s Tom Brasher come to see how we kicked their asses.’
‘Don’t change the subject. And we both know he’s not going to be pleased at the body count.’
He shrugged with his good shoulder and looked serious ‘It’s not him I’m worried about. It’s the cops. This is their turf and they won’t like the FBI muscling in. They’re going to be even more pissed when they find out civilians just wound up shooting dead two terrorists.’
They weren’t long in finding out just how bad that was going to be.
The first man out of the helicopter was of medium height and lean with the rank of a police captain, and had a face filled with thunder. He was accompanied by a civilian gofer scurrying along behind him and shouting details of what had been so far reported. The captain stopped to take a quick look at the crippled van and the bodies of the two dead men, then headed towards Ruth and Vaslik at a furious clip, scattering officers and emergency workers with an imperious flick of his hand.
‘I’m Captain Hubert Danes of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol Special Operations Section,’ the man declared loudly, coming to a halt. ‘What in holy fuck do you people think you’ve done here? This is not some private game park where you can carry on your own little wars and take the law into your own hands. In fact who the hell are you? Tell me that!’
‘They’re with me,’ Tom Brasher said, decanting fast from a police cruiser that had just bumped off the road. He held up his FBI badge. ‘Tom Brasher, FBI. They’re on approved business.’
‘Approved by who? Not by me, that’s for damned sure!’ Danes stuck out his jaw and glared at Brasher. ‘This is an unauthorised action and these three are now under my jurisdiction, so the Bureau can go suck eggs. They’ll be arrested and charged with causing the deaths of those men and I’ll see they appear before a judge tomorrow.’ He turned and studied Ruth, Vaslik and Dave Proust in turn. ‘I want your weapons handed over right now and you three had better not plan on going home anytime soon, because you won’t – that’s a promis
e.’
‘What would you have preferred we did, captain?’ Ruth replied quietly. She was reigning in an overdose of anger tinged with the aftermath rush of adrenalin after the shooting. ‘Stood here and watched a group of children get taken into a hostage situation? Watched them and their father being killed like those people back at the county jail? Or is that how you treat your citizens out here when threatened with danger?’
‘I would have preferred it, lady,’ Danes snapped, ‘if you people had stayed out of my state and out of my way. We have a procedure here in the state of Oklahoma, and we’re the ones who dictate the course of action, not outsiders like you and your friends.’ He blinked. ‘And what the hell is that accent, anyway?’
‘It’s British.’
‘Wait up!’ Tom Brasher pushed forward, looking ready for a fight. He glared at the captain and said, ‘Listen to me and listen good. These are extreme circumstances here; you’ve just had a county jail damn near destroyed by rocket fire, and officers killed along with support workers. I lost a young female colleague in the blast. The terrorists involved, which we know are part of an organisation called the brotherhood, were a direct and imminent threat to the lives of four innocent people, including small children. They’ve made threats against the lives of hundreds of military personnel and the president himself, and one of them is still on the loose. So let’s stop the pissing contest and remember what might have happened if these three civilians, all of whom have law-enforcement backgrounds including the FBI and Homeland Security, hadn’t intervened.’
‘I don’t give a damn who or what they are,’ Danes retorted, now aware of a growing audience of his own officers, listening to the exchange with more than a hint of interest.
‘Well, seems to me you should give a damn, Hubert.’ A figure stepped forward into the argument. It was the father of the three children, a tall man with a quiet voice and weathered skin, who eased his way through the crowd until he was standing alongside the captain and towering over him. ‘I’ve known you a long time – like I’ve known most of you fellas, on and off.’ He looked round at the other officers before switching his eyes back to Danes. ‘It sounds to me like you’re forgetting yourself and who you serve.’
Danes snapped, ‘Stay out of this, Harry – this is a police matter. I know you’ve had a bit of scare but it’ll be best if you just leave this to me and run along home to be with your kids.’
‘Aw, shut the fuck up, Hubert,’ the man said softly, unfazed by the captain’s bullying manner. He ducked his head at Ruth. ‘Excuse the language, ma’am, only I guess I’m a little stressed right now.’ He looked back at Danes. ‘Fact is, the young lady here told it right; if they’d waited for you and your men to come along, my kids would all be dead or held hostage by those crazy bastards. Then what would you have done – quoted the law and tried to reason with them? Set up a dialogue, like they teach you in officer training?’ He held up a large, calloused hand as Danes tried to say something. ‘No, let me finish. Look at those men, Hubert – they were armed with M4 Colt carbines with 30-round magazines, for Christ’s sake. In case you forgot, I’m ex-military and I know what that stuff can do. You think they were playing games? And you might not have given a damn, but one of these outsiders here was shot and wounded while putting himself between my kids and the gunmen, so I have more than a peck of interest in raising hell with the governor if you don’t pull your darned neck in and see sense.’
Danes said nothing for a long moment. Then his red face turned slowly back to a normal colour as he calmed down. He grunted reluctantly, then turned to Brasher. ‘You prepared to take responsibility for these people, Agent Brasher?’
‘Absolutely. But I’m not taking anything away from you or your people, captain. This is your investigation. We’ll all give statements whenever you want them. That do you?’
Danes nodded, then turned to issue orders to his team.
* * *
Brasher beckoned to Ruth and led her, Vaslik and Dave Proust away out of earshot of the crowd. ‘Listen, I’ve got to sort out a few things here and call in the details of Agent Wright’s death. This place is going to be swamped soon by news teams flying in from all over, so I think it might be best if you three disappear. You can give your statements later – I’ll make sure Danes stays off your backs.’
Ruth nodded. ‘Suits me. We’ll have to get moving to Altus very soon, anyway.’
‘I get that. But where are you going to start your search?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that. If we work on the basis that the drones have an approximate range of twenty miles, that’s the circle we draw around the base at Altus.’
‘That’s a pretty big circle,’ said Dave.
‘But it’s a start,’ Vaslik pointed out. ‘They probably won’t risk getting too close to the base itself because of security sweeps. That narrows down the corridor we have to check. Can we still rely on your help?’
Dave grunted. ‘Just try keeping me out of it.’ He frowned. ‘Hang on, I just had a thought. Most military bases and some bigger civilian airports have geo-fencing in place to warn off unauthorised users entering their airspace. If these drones have GPS systems fitted, they might include a turn-back or disabling device on board.’
Brasher took out his cell phone and stepped away to make a call. When he came back he looked unsure. ‘I just spoke to a colleague in Washington. He says most geo-fencing is user-related. That is, in normal circumstances, if these drones cross the geo-fencing perimeter around Altus, an SMS message would be triggered to alert the operator.’
‘I can’t see this Malak giving a damn about that,’ said Dave.
‘True. I’ve told my guy to call the Woods County Jail and ask Donny if the machines have a disabling device fitted. He’ll call back as soon as he finds out, but I’m willing to bet that they don’t; Malak would have thought of that.’
Dave gestured up at the sky, where the light was beginning to fade. ‘I suggest we get refuelled then find a hotel. It’ll be too dark to do anything if we set off now and I doubt Malak will be standing out in the open waiting for us. Better if we get there early in the morning and get down to it once we know he’s there.’
Ruth said to Brasher, ‘Has there been any more news about the bidding chatter the NSA picked up?’
He grunted. ‘It’s like eBay for crazies out there. The bids are going up all the time, some from names we’ve never even heard of before.’
‘So it’s working.’
‘Damned right. This Malak is some piece of work, I’ll give him that. But he’s playing a high-stakes game. The big-money bids are coming from some of the most dangerous people on the planet. If he takes the cash and fails to go through with what he’s promised, it’s not us he has to worry about; his paymasters will have every asset they’ve got looking for him, and given that, I’d put his chances of survival at zero.’
‘At least that would save us a job,’ said Dave.
‘Sure. For now.’ Brasher looked round at them. ‘But let’s not forget: the genie’s out of the bottle. How long before another bunch of crazies or an individual with a grudge decides to go down the same route and get paid for carrying out their nut-bag schemes?’
It was a sobering thought.
‘Another thing,’ Brasher continued. ‘The dead men you found at the airfield were all Latinos except for one. They got a face and print match; he’s a former army jailer who got kicked out after the Abu Ghraib abuses in Iraq. He’s done some prison time since then on minor felonies. Now it looks like he got hired to carry on his old job looking after Chadwick.’
‘Would he knowingly work for terrorists?’ Ruth asked.
Brasher shrugged. ‘Depends how desperate he was. Either way, he’s paid the price.’
46
‘Are you going to kill me like you did Tommy-Lee?’ James Chadwick was seated in the rear of the blue van, his wrists cuffed to the bench seat. Malak was sitting across from him, occasionally checking one of his cell phone
s for text messages while Bilal was driving. Every now and then Malak smiled and nodded with satisfaction as he read the screen, then texted a rapid reply. When he was finished he stamped on the phone before tossing it out of the window and picking another from a box by his feet.
‘Not if I don’t have to.’ Malak lifted his eyes long enough to give James a cold look. It was like being studied by a predatory fish, he thought. So very different to the man who had first approached him after the conference outside Chicago. Back then he had come across as genial, even excited, the typical wannabe thrusting businessman with his ambitions out there for everybody to see and smelling success if only he could get the kick-start funding and advice he needed.
He had even referred to his plan by name: Freedom. As if it were already real and in place. And when James had asked, to be polite, where his company was located, he had used the same name. Freedom.
It had turned out to be entirely false, of course, the real intent soon visible when James had turned down his request for help and the over-the-top offer of money. Yet even then Malak had seemed somehow different; hopeful, maybe, while quick and lively in his look and manner – what some in business referred to as a comer. Later, when James had tried every search engine he could think of to track the man or his company, he had come up with nothing.
Now, though, something in Malak had changed; he had a permanent dullness to his eyes and his nerves seemed stretched to breaking point. It was a look James had seen in too many entrepreneurial types who had gambled everything on a single idea with no backup plan and too few resources to dig themselves out of a hole. Poised on a precipice of their own making, they had become almost dangerous in their desperation to succeed.
The Drone Page 25
