American Terrorist Trilogy

by Jeffrey Poston

  Albuquerque, NM

  Carl cradled the handset and ran to the back of the plane. He used the ten-digit code Agent Palmer had given him for the weapons lockers and rummaged through the drawers and cabinets. He lifted an item from a drawer, pulled it out, and examined it. It looked almost like an ordinary backpack made of black rip-stop nylon. Instead of normal shoulder straps, Carl saw a complicated harness assembly that looked like it might have been borrowed from the seat of a jet fighter cockpit, not that he’d ever seen one of those.

  He grabbed a black boxy handgun, which looked sort of like his Glock nine-mil. It was a little heavier, a little wider in girth, and the barrel was a tad longer. He pocketed an extra magazine from the drawer beneath the shelf of guns, checked to make sure it fit, and grabbed a sound suppressor, checking its fit also, not content to assume all the items were universal or interchangeable.

  He put the suppressor in his left tactical thigh pocket, and slipped the gun and a spare mag in his right pocket. From another drawer he pulled two dark gray grenades. They were rectangular and had dark pins that could be pulled out with one finger. He pocketed those and pulled a small black bungee cord from the drawer, closed everything up, and raced back to the front of the plane.

  He slung the parachute pack over his shoulders and shrugged his way into the harness on his way back to the cockpit, fastening black metal connectors that seemed like they logically should fit together. The pack was loose so he looked for and found Velcro pull-straps, which he yanked to tighten the harness.

  Carl opened the small locker below the flight phone and pulled out the metal case with the antidotes inside. He wrapped the six-inch rubber bungee cord through the handle of the case, then through his hip belt loop, and snapped the connector ends in place.

  “Johnson, what the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m going to save some people.”

  “Have you ever jumped out of an airplane before?”

  Carl shrugged. “Jump out, pull the cord. Hit the ground, do a tuck and roll, don’t break a leg. What’s so hard about that?”

  Opening the metal case, he pulled out a vial and the injector. He snapped the vial into place, placed the business end of the device against bare skin on the colonel’s neck, and pressed the trigger. The man didn’t argue. He closed the case.

  “It’s been an honor serving with you, Colonel.”

  “Likewise.”

  Carl took two steps out of the cockpit and faced the portside door. Unlike the starboard door, the port door did not have a bulky stairway built into it.

  “Wait a minute while I slow the plane to just above stall speed.”

  “No time.”

  Carl took a deep breath and yanked the latch a quarter turn clockwise. In the next instant, he realized he shouldn’t have done that. Since the Gulfstream was traveling nearly two hundred miles an hour, a hurricane-force wind sheared over the skin of the airplane. As soon as Carl unlatched the locking mechanism, the door popped open an inch. In an instant of time too brief for Carl to even flinch, the wind grabbed onto the leading edge of the open door seal and ripped the entire door right off its hinge mechanism. Carl, his left hand still locked around the latch release, felt an indescribable pain in his arm and shoulder socket.

  The door was ripped from his grasp and his upper body was pulled halfway out of the plane and into the slipstream. The two hundred mile an hour wind slammed into the right side of his body like a brick wall and rammed the left side of his body into the edge of the doorway. The wind, a sudden and painful physical force, did as much damage to his unprotected head and face as the doorway did to his left hip.

  Carl screamed in pain, but the sound was sucked right from his chest by the icy blast of rushing air, and then he was tumbling away into the darkness. He reached for the ripcord at his left shoulder, but in his violent tumbling he couldn’t find the handle. His fingers were numbed instantly in the frigid air.

  A memory flashed into his mind of his last trip to the Sandia Peak ski resort in the dead of winter. Even fully decked out in ski bibs with mittens and a thermal cap, it had been frigidly cold with a cutting wind. On that day, at an altitude of ten thousand feet, even the radio towers of the antenna farm had been coated with a thick frosting of ice in the sub-zero temperature.

  Now, he tumbled in the mind-numbing cold wearing only a T-shirt and cargo pants. He had no hat or head glove, and he screamed in agony as the icy wind at eight thousand feet—three thousand feet above the ground—burned his head, face, and arms. His muscles contracted into an involuntary fit of shivers. Carl curled up into a ball and prayed for a fast end to the agony. He felt a heavy drowsiness come over him and the icy pain thankfully faded as his entirely body went numb in about ten seconds.

  When he realized he was holding his breath, he sucked in a lungful of frigid air and suddenly he was alert again, watching the darkness around him alternate with the bright city lights as he tumbled. For an instant, he faced the ground and realized he could actually see the lights—the individual lights—on the streets and buildings.

  In a panic, Carl clawed at the ripcord with both hands. He felt nothing with his numb fingers, but he must have found and pulled the cord because he was rewarded with a sudden jerk on his harness that crushed the wind from his chest. The parachute filled with air and he swung through an arc toward the ground that was only twenty feet below him.

  Pull the cord, tuck and roll, don’t break a leg. Don’t hit a fucking building!

  He bounced against the side of a two-story, corrugated metal industrial building with a loud clang, though he felt no pain on his numb body. Then the chute, still filled with air and drifting in the breeze, yanked him up onto the roof and dragged him across its ribbed surface. He bounced off a satellite dish and an air conditioner unit before he found the fast-release button on his harness.

  Suddenly free of the parachute, Carl tumbled down the slanted metal roof and fell over the edge. He plunged headfirst, twenty feet to the ground.

  Chapter 54

  1713 hours MST Saturday

  Albuquerque FBI Field Office

  When Costa Drake reentered the room after a brief conference with his boss on an encrypted cell phone, Guillermo Figueroa observed that the vice president’s special FBI liaison held a facial expression that was completely unreadable. This was especially troubling, considering the exchange they’d just heard between the most wanted terrorist in the world and one of the best field agents the Bureau possessed. Lenore Cummings had been rated at or near the top of all her peers for the last dozen years and was a top contender for selection into the Secret Service.

  Costas Drake said, “I’ve been authorized to tell you that what he’s calling the Unit is Vice President Breen’s special TER task force established to deal with this terrorist. They’re my quick-response team, assigned to locate and apprehend Carl Johnson at all costs before he can do any more damage or kill anyone else.”

  Ed Murray said casually, “It looks like you’re having as much success as we had last week.”

  Marshall Stewart said, “Did your team have a firefight with Johnson’s mercs at Special Agent Cummings’s house?”

  “We had intel that suggested his people might show up there and attempt to kill the civilians.”

  “Intel that you decided to withhold from us?” Murray added.

  “My orders were to take the Cummings family into protective custody. My men were ambushed by Johnson’s mercenaries, and now your field agent is working with him. That makes her a suspect in this investigation. This man is an extremely dangerous and mentally unstable man. You heard him. He knows we’re listening and he knows he can’t win. He’s trying to deflect our investigation with disinformation. You should know that.

  “He blatantly admitted bombing an office building in a foreign country. Stating that an ally intends a biological attack on the US and that the vice president is withholding the cure is simply ludicrous. Imagine the worldwide uproar if that lie was ever made p
ublic.”

  Drake took a deep breath and the SAC had a gut feeling it wasn’t a pause for effect. Rather, he thought Drake intended the act as a delaying tactic while he continued weaving his cover story.

  The liaison said, “Acting President Breen is working with several companies that have antiviral stockpiles. The CDC has been testing all of these potential antidotes and several have shown promising results. Some seem to be helpful in at least slowing down the progression of neural damage caused by the virus. They don’t want to spread false hope, but I’ve been assured they’re on the cusp of adapting one of these antiviral medicines to successfully fight this disease.”

  Drake paused again, then said to Ed Murray, “And let me remind you that, by acting-presidential decree, I decide what intel to disseminate. Not you.”

  Figueroa raised his right palm in an appeasing gesture. “No need to explain your jurisdiction, Agent Drake. Your mission and your authority has been clearly explained to this office.”

  He’d been with government service and, in particular, the FBI, long enough to understand the nuances of involvement from high-level political individuals with special interests in the outcome of certain investigative cases. The fact that Drake had been granted a rank equivalent to senior special agent by the Director of the FBI was a testimony to the VP’s interest in the terrorist.

  Still, he recognized the appointment as Breen’s political maneuver to install his own man at the top of the local decision chain. While Drake didn’t technically outrank Figueroa, Acting President Walter Breen was calling the operational shots in the terrorist case.

  “Then you understand the sensitivity and the importance of my mission.”

  “Of course.”

  “Good, because I don’t believe for one minute there is an epidemic arising from any outbreaks in Mexico. I think this terrorist is trying to manipulate us into wasting assets that ought to be solely focused on locating the terrorist.”

  There was logic to Drake’s argument. Misinformation and psychological warfare were often more powerful tools of war than guns and bullets. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Carl Johnson was at war with the US government.

  The possibility of the vice president sitting on a cure that could save the president and thousands of other civilians was, indeed, preposterous. It was as insane as a highly decorated air force officer, a covert agent, and an FBI agent being recruited by a terrorist. Figueroa didn’t personally know the pilot or the TER agent, but Cummings had the better part of her career ahead of her. There was no amount of money in the world that could make her go to the dark side with Carl Johnson.

  Unless she believed him. An agent like Cummings would never do such a thing without ironclad proof.

  Figueroa refocused on the men in his office. “If Johnson does, in fact, have in his possession the antidote that can cure the president, then his plane is our top priority.” He looked at his tactical commander. “Prep your SWAT team—”

  Drake interrupted. “My team is already in route to the airport and I will command the operation to arrest them and secure whatever viral substances he has in his possession, if any.”

  The SAC looked at Costas Drake and after a brief hesitation, he nodded. Drake was in command of all ops related to the American Terrorist.

  SAC said, “You have the full cooperation of this field office in your mission.” To his tactical commander he said, “Have your team on standby as needed for support in case this thing goes south.”

  Murray nodded. “You mean, further south.” He glanced at the other men in the room. “Perhaps I should send a couple of field agents to the hotel to debrief Special Agent Cummings and to accompany her and her people to the hospital.”

  Drake said, “I want those people isolated in situ. No one is to talk to them unless it’s one of my men.”

  Figueroa said, “Special Agent Cummings is one of ours.”

  “She’s in collusion with a known terrorist. You heard the conversation.” The man pointed at the speaker on the desk. “She faked her own death to help Johnson commit acts of terror, and she was undoubtedly complicit in the murder of my Unit officers this morning.”

  “We don’t know that, and neither do you.”

  “She’s a bad apple and your people are too close to her. No one talks to her and the others. Am I clear?”

  The tone of the phone conversation they’d heard did suggest that Special Agent Cummings was involved in some way with Johnson, but to state collusion and what amounted to treason as facts was a stretch. Only a few days ago, the terrorist had kidnapped her and threatened to torture her daughter. Cummings would never willingly cooperate with him. No mother would. Unless the game had changed and she knew something no one else knew, something known also by the air force pilot and the TER agent.

  Figueroa nodded and said, “Your instructions are clear, Mr. Drake.”

  “Good.”

  Costas Drake stood and left the room. Guillermo Figueroa watched him go. Ed Murray leaned forward in his seat.

  “You want me to go get her?”

  Figueroa nodded. “Take a heavily armed team over to that motel and get Cummings and anyone who is with her into protective custody. Take the tactical chopper and get there first. I don’t believe for an instant that Carl Johnson is on our side in this, but we can’t take the risk that he’s lying about releasing an airborne virus. Cummings knows something, and I want to know what it is.”

  Murray stood. “Carl Johnson is real smart. I got the feeling he was giving us a message when he said the Unit would leave her alone if he surrendered. I think his message was the opposite, but that implies that Drake’s men were at her house to kill her instead of take her into protective custody.”

  Figueroa nodded. “If that is true, I don’t see how Johnson’s surrender bears any relevance on Cummings’s safety.”

  Murray nodded. “I agree, and I’m sure Johnson would know that. Unless Drake is correct and Johnson is luring us into another ambush.”

  “Go in heavy this time,” Figueroa said. Murphy nodded and turned for the door. “Bring our agent back, Ed, but be careful. Anything can happen with this guy, and Johnson tends to shoot first if it suits him.”

  Chapter 55

  1713 hours MST Saturday

  Albuquerque, NM

  Carl hit the spear-tipped canopy of an evergreen tree halfway to the ground and grabbed the foliage with a grip of panic. The tree bent over and arrested his fall. He hung with his boots four feet off the ground for a second, then simply let go of the tree and landed on his feet. He stumbled on shaky legs and leaned over with his numb hands braced on his knees.

  Fuck me!

  His whole body ached, but he had no time to massage his pain away. He shivered violently in the twenty-degree temperature and tried to get his bearings. He struggled out of the empty parachute backpack—a tough chore with numb hands—and tried to rub some warmth back into his arms. Carl took off jogging to the northeast, mostly stumbling until his legs were functional enough for a fast jog.

  The plane had been flying southwest on its approach to the airport. He figured the plane was moving perhaps a little less than two hundred miles an hour. Maybe thirty seconds had passed from when Lenore said she heard his plane fly overhead and when he jumped, so he guessed he was a little less than two miles southwest of her motel room, a ten minute-run in his youth, maybe twenty at fifty-three.

  As his body thawed, he picked up his speed, but he also began to feel the pain of his new bruises; his boots pounding the cement sent vibrations thundering through his body. The right side of his neck felt like he’d been put in a WWE chokehold from the high-altitude wind slamming into him when he jumped from the plane. It was his left hip that concerned him. The more he ran, the more intense the pain became. He hoped it was only a bruise and not something broken or dislocated.

  Regardless, he refused to stop. Had Cummings and the group been in another city, they would have been safe. The police or the feds could easil
y have gotten to them before the Unit could even move a detachment there. The Unit already had a presence in Albuquerque, though, and he knew it was a toss-up whether the feds or the Unit would get to her first.

  He caught his second wind and increased his pace even more. He found himself thankful for his fitness regimen. He’d been eating healthy for over twenty years. He’d played competitive volleyball even longer. He still played at a high recreational level—before he became a terrorist—even though his competitive years were far behind him. Until knee surgery changed his life, he’d done a lot of trail running all the way up to the peaks of the Sandia Mountains. When he turned fifty, his workouts changed. He’d bought one of those late-night infomercial fitness products—an in-home extreme fitness program—solely because the dude who was teaching the course was an old guy also.

  If he can do it, I can do it too.

  He always used to tell Mark: “Keep your fitness up, son. You never know when you’ll find yourself in some kind of emergency. When life throws a test at you, you want to be able to perform.”

  Carl knew he was taking his life test. If he failed, innocent people would die. Children would die. So he continued to run through the pain.

  He got to the motel before the Unit or the FBI and found room one-twenty-nine. He pulled his Glock and screwed the suppressor on, then tested the door. It was locked so he kicked it in and followed his weapon inside. The room was empty.

  As Carl stood in the doorway, he noticed a couple of things. The room looked lived in. The bed had been slept in and there were fast food packages on the tiny table and in the trashcan. Whoever had last occupied the room had been gone at least two days, he guessed from the smell, and there had been no maid service.

  The second thing he noticed was the sound of a TV, but it wasn’t coming from his room. The sound was coming from a couple doors to Carl’s left. Curious, he turned to leave, then paused as a particularly nasty thought occurred to him. He crept toward the sound of the loud TV. He scanned the parking lot, but saw no activity. There were maybe a dozen cars in the whole lot that looked like it could hold ten times that many.