by Ethan Cross
Little more than a dot in the sky, Almeida watched the drone as it grew closer and closer to the target.
All he needed to do was guide the drone to the right, bring it down over the crowd, and flip the switch to release the chemical weapon contained inside. It was so simple, and yet so monumental. With the flip of a tiny switch, a basic little plane that could have been constructed in someone’s garage would alter the course of history and cause untold pain and suffering.
But Antonio de Almeida didn’t guide the plane to the right.
He didn’t flip the switch.
Instead, he let the drone fly right past the Washington Monument, over the sea of innocent people, and above the trees bordering the National Mall.
He looked down at Ramon Castillo, the only father he had ever known, as he used his right thumb to push the small joystick forward, causing the drone to pitch down into the blue waters of the Tidal Basin.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TEN
Corrigan watched with anger and revulsion as the dark-skinned man groped Annabelle, but he didn’t bother to protest or bluster. This wasn’t the kind of man who could be reasoned with. Instead, Corrigan wanted their captor to forget about him and focus on Annabelle completely.
The man turned his back to Corrigan as he slowly popped the buttons off Annabelle’s shirt. Being careful not to draw the man’s attention, Corrigan leaned his mouth down to his right hand and started to tear off the duct tape encircling his wrist using only his teeth.
Annabelle glanced over and saw what he was attempting. Tears glistened on her cheeks, but he tried to tell her to hold on with his eyes.
Corrigan’s body hurt so badly that he could barely concentrate, and he struggled to focus all his strength. His eyes fixated on the gun tucked into the dark-skinned man’s waistband. If he could just free his wrist…
The tape came loose, and he tore it violently free.
The man turned around at the sound, surprise and then anger in his eyes.
Corrigan didn’t waste time trying to free his left wrist. On adrenaline alone, he shot to his feet and rushed toward their captor, dragging the chair with him.
The man didn’t reach for his gun. Instead, he lunged with the switchblade.
Corrigan didn’t care. He ignored the knife completely, focusing only on accomplishing his mission and retrieving the gun.
White tendrils of agony spiked through his midsection as the blade penetrated the skin and tore through his body. He ignored the pain. Nothing could stop his unrelenting push forward.
Their bodies collided, and the dark-skinned man stumbled back.
Corrigan ripped the 9mm Beretta from the rapist’s waistband. The man’s eyes went wide. Corrigan didn’t hesitate. He raised the gun to the man’s temple and pulled the trigger.
The rapist crumpled to the ground like a discarded marionette. The door to the shed flew open as the white man rushed inside at the sound of gunfire.
Corrigan shot him twice in the chest, and he fell back into the dirt.
Then, with his final mission complete, Sergeant John Corrigan dropped to his knees. He reached for the blade protruding from his abdomen, but he lacked the strength to pull it free. He fell over onto his side—the chair still attached to his left wrist the only thing keeping him falling to the concrete—and closed his eyes.
He heard a little girl laugh and felt someone holding his hand. Then he released his grip on this world and slipped into the next.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN
Moving down the carpeted walkway and searching for the roof access, Katherine’s heart dropped as she saw Munroe lying in the center of the path. She rushed forward and slid to a stop beside him. The blind man lay crumpled on his side against the wall.
His dark sunglasses hid any signs of life. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing.
She reached down to check for a pulse and jumped as he spoke. “I’m not dead yet. Don’t worry about me. Get to the clock tower. Stop Almeida.”
“Black’s on his way there now. He sent me to check the roof. What happened to you?”
“I think that bastard shot me in the back. Luckily, I finally gave in and followed Black’s advice to wear the damn Kevlar vest. That big gorilla saved my life, and he wasn’t even here. But leave me. Go check the roof. Castillo and another man are out there. Maybe you can stop them before they even launch that drone.”
Knowing Munroe was right and that stopping the attack was the most important thing, Katherine left him behind. But she only made it a few feet before two wild-eyed Hispanic men emerged from a door ahead, saw her, and raised their weapons.
~~*~~
Antonio de Almeida had betrayed his family and knew that Vaquero would make him pay dearly for it, but he didn’t regret his decision. He had done a great many horrible things in his life, but he couldn’t be responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people. He was a soldier, not a monster. One day, probably soon, he would stand before God and be judged, and he knew that the creator would never have forgiven him for such terrible wickedness. In the end, the approval of his heavenly father mattered more to him than his earthly one.
At his back, the elevator door dinged and slid open.
He acted on pure instinct. He raised his Glock pistol, opened fire, and then sprinted for the nearby door leading down the stairs.
~~*~~
Black jerked back as bullets clanged against the metal surface of the elevator. He swung out briefly, gun at the ready, and scanned the room. In his periphery, he saw a dark form slip through a door to his left.
Still cautious, he kept an eye out for any more attackers in the viewing area. Finding none, he rushed to the door and pounded down the set of gray concrete stairs that twisted through the clock tower.
Ahead, he heard the escaping footsteps. Around a turn, he caught sight of Almeida and jumped down with reckless abandon, covering four and five steps at a time.
Rust-colored stains dripped down the white walls. A fingerprint smeared window in the stairwell wall showed the backside of the clock’s face and the inner workings of the tower’s famous bells. Metal catwalks snaked around the interior of the space.
Almeida was just ahead.
He couldn’t fire, couldn’t risk killing Almeida, knowing that this man could be their only way to find and save the kids.
Black dove headlong down the stairs and crashed into the other man.
They pitched forward and rolled into an old white access door. It gave way, and they tumbled out onto the catwalks inside the clock tower. Each man came up swinging.
In the real world, a fight between two trained operatives was swift and violent. No standing back. No assessing the situation. No planning a clever move. Nothing artistic about it. It was instinct born of training and strength and leverage and perseverance and a little bit of controlled fury.
They struck each other with expertly placed blows. Almeida kicked Black in the knee, nearly cracking the bone. As he stumbled forward, Black banged Almeida’s head off the catwalk’s metal railing.
Black wrapped his massive forearm around Almeida’s neck and squeezed. He pressed Almeida against the railing. One good push, and the Colombian would topple over the barrier and fall to the sharp metal protrusions of the bell mechanisms thirty feet below.
“Tell me where to find my nephew!” Black screamed
Then a ceramic knife appeared in Almeida’s hand as if by magic. He stabbed it into Black’s thigh and slammed an elbow against the side of Black’s head.
Pain rippled out from Black’s temple, and white spots dotted his vision. A terrible shooting agony burned down his leg and dropped him to his knees.
Almeida thrust a knee into his face. His vision grew dark, but he refused to go down.
He lashed out and grabbed Almeida’s ankle, yanking the other man’s feet out from beneath him.
Finally, when he felt the fight leave his opponent, he grasped the ceramic knife protruding from his thigh. With a wail of agony, he pulled it free, slicing and tearing the skin and muscle. Then he placed the small ceramic blade against Almeida’s throat.
“Now. Where are they?”
Through blood-soaked teeth, Almeida said, “I stopped the attack. I couldn’t let Vaquero kill all those people.”
Black hit him again with an elbow. Almeida’s face was a bloody mess, and Black guessed that he didn’t look much better. “Good for you. You want a medal for not mass-murdering a bunch of civilians. I’m going to ask you one more time. Where are the kids?”
“Let me go,” Almeida whispered.
Black hit him again.
“Let me go, and I’ll contact you and tell you where to find the container. There’s still time to save them. But not enough to interrogate me. Your only choice is to release me.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWELVE
Katherine dragged Munroe into a nearby office as bullets tore apart the walls around them. She raised her gun and returned fire without aiming to keep their enemies from surging forward.
She quickly examined their surroundings. A conference room. Calming, neutral tones. A large oak table adorned with sophisticated video conferencing equipment. Modern art hanging from the walls. No exits. Nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.
Pulling Munroe to his feet and yanking him along with her, she rushed to the far end of the conference table, kicked the leather rolling chair out of the way, and crouched below the table’s edge. She prayed the oak surface would stop a bullet.
With her head by the floor, she checked the door for onrushing feet, but no one approached.
Besides their heavy breathing, the room was utterly silent.
She waited. Listened.
But no attack came.
“Don’t move,” she whispered to Munroe.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Standing up with her Glock 19 stretched from her right hand, Katherine blew a stray strand of red hair from her face and slowly moved to the door.
Checking toward the roof access first, she saw no one. Then she sidestepped to the other side of the doorframe and checked the opposite direction. No one.
Still cautious, Katherine crept out onto the walkway in a low crouch, but the two Hispanic men had vanished.
~~*~~
Jonas Black pressed the ceramic blade tighter against Almeida’s throat. The sharp edge dug into the skin and drew a line of blood. He clenched his teeth and fought for a solution. Almeida was right. The Colombian was tough and well-trained, and they would never be able to break him before the kids asphyxiated.
It was an impossible choice.
Release a dangerous terrorist or allow your family to die.
“Even if I let you go, I have no guarantee that you’ll tell us where to find them.”
Almeida coughed on his own blood as he said, “There are no guarantees in life, Mr. Black. Just calculated risks. But I’m telling you the truth. I want the killing to stop. I can’t take it anymore. Do you think that it brings me pleasure thinking of those children suffocating? Well, it does not. I want a second chance to do something good with my life. To pay penance for my sins. If you show me mercy, Mr. Black, you will see your nephew again.”
“The police probably have this place surrounded. You’ll never escape, whether I let you go or not.”
“That is my problem. I have an escape route planned, but if I’m captured, I will still disclose the location.”
The knife shook in Black’s fist. It would be so easy to slit this man’s throat. One quick slash and watch his blood flow out of his body and spill through the grating of the catwalk.
But he had no choice. Or did he?
Black struck Almeida three times in rapid succession and rolled him over.
Then Black lifted his cell phone from his pocket and, covering the movement with another blow, slid the device into the pocket of Almeida’s pin-striped suit. Now, when Almeida ran, Joey could track Black’s cell phone in order to locate the terrorist.
It wasn’t a perfect plan, far from it. But at least it was something, and it made Black feel better about what he had to do next.
Using the railing, he pulled himself to his feet and limped away from Almeida. “Go. Get out of here. The sooner you’re gone, the quicker you can call Joey and tell us where to find the kids.”
With great effort, the broken Colombian gained his feet and hobbled across the catwalk toward the stairs.
Black seethed as he watched his enemy walk away. He added, “If you cross me on this, there won’t be a place in this world where I won’t find you.”
Almeida didn’t look back but said, “I know. You’ll see your nephew soon.” With those words, he reached the small access door and stepped toward the stairwell.
A gunshot rang out through the clock tower. The loud noise reverberated off the metal of the catwalks and the bell and clock mechanisms in a ringing cacophony.
Black watched in horror as Almeida fell back against the railing, a bloody hole in his forehead. Then the Colombian toppled over the edge and glided through the air. His body struck the bell mechanisms thirty feet below with a resounding clang.
Ramon Castillo and another Hispanic man stepped out from the stairwell. A smoking Walther pistol dangled from Castillo’s left fist. The second man covered Black with a large handgun as the cartel leader looked over the edge at Almeida’s broken body far below.
“I loved him,” Castillo said. “That’s why I gave him a quick death.” He turned to Black. “You will not be so lucky.”
Castillo pulled out a KA-BAR combat knife from his blue jumpsuit and stepped toward Black. The other man kept his pistol trained on him. Black tried to pull himself up to full height, but he couldn’t keep pressure on his wounded leg. Still, if Castillo thought that killing him would be easy, the kingpin had another thing coming.
He braced himself for the attack, but then two more shots echoed through the inside of the old clock tower. This time, it was Ramon Castillo and his accomplice who fell dead to the floor of the catwalk.
Katherine O’Connell kept her pistol trained on the two men as she stepped through the access door, kicked the guns out of the their hands, and checked for pulses.
Black said, “Took you long enough.”
“There’s a Ben and Jerry’s down in the food court,” Katherine replied. “I stopped to get a sundae. Hope you don’t mind.”
“You deserve it. When this is over, I’ll buy you all the ice cream you can eat.”
“Promises, promises. Don’t let my size fool you, I can eat a lot.”
As he looked over the railing, Black absently said, “I believe it.”
The brief moment of relief and joy he had felt at having Katherine save him had passed. Now, he stared down at the body of Antonio de Almeida and wondered, with their only lead gone, who was going to save the three frightened kids who were slowly dying at that very moment.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN
Munroe remembered taking his daughters and wife to the Old Post Office for lunch once when Makayla and Chloe were still small. He had heard that the shops and food court would soon be ousted in favor of converting the entire space into a luxury hotel. He hoped that he would be able to take the girls there one last time before the developers defaced the landmark.
Paramedics had set up shop in front of the pavilion and closed off part of Pennsylvania avenue. Although the medical personnel had patched up both him and Black, they still wanted to rush them off to the hospital
. But neither of them had time to lick their wounds. Not with the kids still in danger.
Even though he had no idea how to find them.
Then Munroe heard a voice shouting his name. Black called the man over, and an out-of-breath FBI agent said, “I’ve been trying to find you. It’s about your kids.”
~~*~~
The landfill office smelled like stale coffee and ramen noodles. A few old desks, their surfaces chipped from age, and two leather couches sat inside the small trailer. Mounds of paperwork topped each of the desks. A dry-erase calendar board and a large map of the landfill that had been scribbled on in red pen covered one wall.
Two employees, the Operations Supervisor and the secretary, occupied one of the couches, restrained in handcuffs. Two men in blue windbreakers stenciled with the letters FBI flanked the frightened workers.
During the chopper ride, Jonas Black had listened as a young FBI agent explained to him and Munroe that they received a call from Annabelle, and based on her intel, FBI and local SWAT units mobilized and converged on two businesses—Hill Crest Landfill and Hill Crest Golf Course and Resort. Annabelle was currently being treated for wounds suffered during a car crash, but he intended to thank her properly later. Unfortunately, his friend, John Corrigan, had sacrificed himself to save Annabelle and the kids, and Black would never have the opportunity to thank John for that. But he didn’t have time to mourn his friend now. They had more pressing concerns.
Black studied the map and said, “This place is huge. Can you give us any idea of where to start?”
The Operations Supervisor, a small blond man that looked like an accountant except for a thin handlebar mustache, said, “I told you. I wasn’t involved with anything illegal. I just run the dump. If somebody helped them do this, it wasn’t me.”
Katherine suggested, “Maybe we could bring in all the workers and find out which one’s been working nights?”
