“Kill them.”
“Copy that.”
He heard shots over the comm channel and shrugged at the shocked look on the officer’s face. “They kidnapped children. Hundreds of children go missing every year and are never found. Some are sold across the border into child porn or slavery. Same thing probably would have happened to these children, to Tiara. In my book, anyone who preys on children deserves to die. No question.”
The officer nodded and looked like he was supposed to say something.
Carl nodded toward the door. “You may leave now.”
The officer stood up and adjusted his uniform shirt and utility belt. He was a slender fellow, but his upper body looked bulky due to the vest under his shirt. The officer held his hand out toward Carl. Carl left him hanging, though, and glared at the young man until he made a fist of his extended hand and took a couple steps back. Carl watched him pivot and walk through the open doorway. He crossed the dimly lit patio of diners and blended into the darkness of the dark sidewalk.
Carl looked at the former FBI agent for a moment. He hadn’t seen her since the conclusion of the events surrounding the Contagion outbreak. He’d been the carrier, Patient Zero, and had infected a lot of people, including Cummings and her daughter.
“How’s Lisette?”
“She’s okay. She’ll be fine…I think.”
Carl looked away. “Lenore, she’ll never be fine, not after what I did to her. To you.” Before the Contagion. Before I infected them.
Lenore Cummings reached out under the table and held his hand. “Carl, we both did terrible things to each other. We have to find a way to forgive each other.”
He looked at her again. His voice broke and he felt his bottom lip quiver. “I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”
She nodded, and this time she was the one to look away. “I know. Your son died because of me, but my child lives because of you.”
Carl took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “If it wasn’t for me, your child would never have been in danger in the first place.”
He pulled a fifty from his pocket and laid it on the table. A two-hundred-fifty percent tip. He stood and reached behind him to make sure his Glock was securely tucked in the back of his pants, under his T-shirt, then studied the agent as she studied him. The plain truth was, he never wanted to see Lenore Cummings or her daughter again. It was too painful.
“Watch your back, Lenore. I thought this was a setup. Someone on the police force knows about us who shouldn’t, so I didn’t expect it to end this neatly.” He hesitated for a moment, feeling like he needed to say something else, but no words came. He turned and left the diner.
Chapter 4
Lenore Cummings sat in her mother’s rocking chair in the living room all night. It reminded her of her childhood. It smelled like…well, she didn’t know exactly what it smelled like. It smelled like comfort. It smelled like safe. The brown leather was well worn, soft and smooth.
Whenever she needed comforting way back then, Lacey Cummings would hold Lenore in her lap and rock her in that very same chair. When Lenore’s father had died a few years ago, Lacey had been so distraught over the loss of her life partner, she had thrown out everything in the house that reminded her of her late husband. Everything except the chair. It remained parked next to the couch in front of the wall-mounted TV.
Now, though, the chair held no comfort for Lenore. She slept fitfully throughout the night, curled up tight in the chair. She kept thinking of Carl and his dead son and wishing she could alter the past, somehow go back and save the innocent young man.
Dawn was just kissing the sky with a wave of light blue color, but the yard beyond the living room’s sliding glass door was still in deep darkness. A night light on the wall behind her provided just enough light in the room in case she needed to move around. She turned on the wall-mounted TV with the remote that sat on the stand beside her chair and muted the volume. The next thing she realized, the sun was up and her mother had just set a piping hot cup of coffee on the stand beside her chair.
“Thanks, Ma.” She looked at the pendulum clock in the corner. It showed seven-thirty. The digital thermometer above the clock read seventy-three. It was going to be another one-hundred-degree day.
“Did you sleep in here all night?”
Lenore nodded. “I can’t get him out of my mind.” She sipped her coffee. “He sat next to me in the diner. On the same bench seat. His shoulder touched mine. His leg touched mine.” She shuddered. “The last time he touched me…”
Her mom knew what Carl Johnson had done to her and her daughter. They had discussed her feelings and her simmering anger many times. They had discussed her feelings on how he had a shootout with assassins to save her and her daughter, how he took a bullet in the back of his body armor for Lisette, and how he had recklessly jumped out of an airplane to save them a second time.
“Do you think he feels as guilty as you do?” Lacey sat on the nearby sofa.
Lenore nodded. “I felt his pain and his guilt.” She sipped the warm liquid again. The coffee was strong, and she could smell the hazelnut-flavored cream her ma had used instead of the regular half-and-half. “God, I actually held his hand, Ma!” She gasped with the anguish of conflicted feelings.
“He needs your forgiveness, doesn’t he? And you need his.” Lacey drank from her cup also. “But you can’t forgive yourself, can you? You need to, you know. You can’t carry this burden alone forever.”
“How can I? I got his son killed.” She sipped again, then whispered, “But he can’t forgive himself either…for what he did to Lisette. He told me so.”
“Forget about the doctors and therapists. You two need to help each other. You’re the only ones who can. You have to find a way to reach him.”
Lenore was about to agree but gasped at a picture on the TV screen. The morning news showed the police department photo of a smiling Officer Diego Contreras. The scrolling subtitle was disturbing.
“Off-duty police officer gunned down outside his home. Entire family murdered. Motive unknown.”
“Oh my God!” The words that escaped her lips were barely a whisper.
“Hey!” Her cellphone pinged at her. The text message read, “GET OUT NOW! –CJ.”
“Ma, we gotta go. Right now! Go get in the car,” she said as she hopped up from the rocking chair. “I’ll get—”
Halfway to her feet, she heard a man’s stern voice. “Sit back down, both of you.” The black-clad man standing in the foyer held a wicked-looking P-90 submachine gun. There would be no arguing with him, and he stood between her and her daughter’s bedroom.
Lenore and Lacey sat back down. She heard the door between the garage and kitchen open, and five more similarly armed commandos dressed in black entered the living room. The first man who had spoken stepped down the hall and a few minutes later returned, towing a sleepy Lisette by the arm.
“Mommie!”
“It’s okay, sweetie. Come over here with me.”
The man said, “She stays with me.” At five-six, Lisette was tall for a twelve-year-old, but he towered over her by another foot.
“What do you want?”
“We want the American Terrorist. We want Carl Johnson.”
Chapter 5
Carl had kept his mercs at a heightened state of readiness, not because he expected something to happen but because a trap had not happened at last night’s operation to retrieve the officer’s niece. A little over an hour ago, one of Wizard’s automated keyword searches had announced the death of Officer Contreras, and Carl knew then that the trap he’d been expecting was sprung and Lenore Cummings was the bait. An hour ago he’d sent Lenore a text warning but she hadn’t responded. Now Carl’s team sat near her house in three SUVs, waiting for Agent Palmer to assess the situation.
As usual, Agent Palmer directed the op remotely from the TER covert Virginia. Because of her tactical experience and because she could literally see everything on-site through the drone
cameras, mission oversight and deployment was her responsibility even though Carl was technically the commander of his team of mercs and agents.
The big black SUV Carl and his team of two mercs waited in was parked two blocks away from Cummings’s house in a suburb of Albuquerque called Taylor Ranch, which, ironically, was where Carl had bought his first home almost twenty-five years ago. On his way he’d experienced a nostalgic trip through his old neighborhood, even though a lot had changed since he’d lived there. A second SUV waited behind Carl’s with two more mercs, and both drivers kept their engines idling and ready for instant movement. They faced directly east and the sun rising over the north end of the Sandia Mountains blasted blinding light straight through the front windshield.
Cummings’s house was a single-story ranch on an eighth of an acre. The floor plan he examined on his tablet indicated the two-thousand-square-foot home had two bedrooms and a bath on either end, separated by the living room, dining room, kitchen, and guest bath. A smaller window on the tablet showed an area map centered on Cummings’s house. A third SUV pulled to a stop on the next street, and that assault team had only to go through a yard and hop Cummings’s back fence to be in play.
“The drone shows all the blinds are drawn,” Palmer said over the comm net. “So, Eighteen, I want you to trade your long rifle for an assault rifle and join the breach team.” Carl knew Merc Eighteen was in the SUV two streets over.
Palmer continued. “High-resolution infrared shows nine thermal units inside the house. The way they are positioned, these six are high-probability hostile targets.” A red circle appeared on Carl’s tablet, highlighting the six hostiles. “These two in the center are likely Cummings and her mother, based on body size.” Blue circles highlighted those two.
“But this thermal imprint here,” Palmer highlighted the thermal target nearest the front door, “This one’s a double target, likely a hostile and the child.”
From the SUV behind Carl’s, Three said, “Boss, I don’t like this. We have hostages all over the place in there, and we can’t pick our targets until we get inside. This is clearly a trap and they’re expecting us. They’ll have us pinned down before we even get a shot off.”
Palmer said, “But it’s a tactically inferior distribution of forces inside, Carl. They’re all bunched in one room. Amateur nonsense. They’re all concentrating on the hostages, and no one’s guarding other access points—the garage, the other bedrooms, the backyard.”
Three interrupted. “You think there are other tangoes hidden inside the house invisible to infrared?”
“No doubt,” Palmer said. “They’d know we’re coming fully armed. They know we have drone support, which, by the way, shows no other obvious thermal targets near the house.”
“Air support?”
“Negative.”
“Boss, what do you want to do?”
Carl said, “Well, it’s clearly a trap, so let’s pretend we’re falling for it. We’ll launch a frontal assault right through the front door.”
The comm net went completely silent.
Three spoke tentatively. “Um, Boss, I’m not sure I like that plan. If they have support inside we can’t see—”
“Right,” Carl said. “So we nuke the two bedroom wings with rocket-propelled grenades. The RPGs will take them by surprise for a second, make them flinch. The backyard team shoots up the living room. Aim high. Lots of noise and shattered glass. That will distract them further, so we can blow the front door and I can get a clean shot at the guy holding Lisette.”
Palmer added, “That only leaves five hostiles inside.”
“We leave those to Cummings.”
“You assume she’s armed?”
“I know she is. Every minute of every day, she told me. She’s in the mix, so let’s use her. I guaran-damn-tee you she knows me, so she knows what’s coming. She’ll be ready.”
More silence filled the net.
“I tell you what,” Carl said as he adjusted his armor and prepped his PDW. “I’m going in. Anyone that doesn’t like the plan can stay safe in the SUVs.”
“Whew! Thanks, Boss,” Three said. “Since we have that option, I’m staying in the SUV.”
Another voice said, “Seriously?”
“Hell no!” Three said. “Six, Eighteen, you’re on RPGs. Hit both bedroom wings on my command. Thirteen, use a non-explosive RPG round on the front door to force it open. Zero, you hit the hostile holding the child. Nine, Ten, spray the living room, aiming high. Former Special Agent Cummings takes out the other five hostiles…if she has a weapon. Any questions?”
Carl looked at the merc sitting beside him and in the rear view mirror at the driver. “Well, when he lays it all out like that, the plan doesn’t sound too smart.”
“Best we have at the moment, Boss,” Three said.
Agent Palmer said, “There are quite a few unknowns on-site, Carl.”
Carl held out his arm and bumped forearms with his mercs. “Well, let’s go eliminate some unknowns. Agent Palmer, send a smiley-face text to Cummings’s cellphone. She’ll know what it means even if they’ve taken her phone.” He pounded on the driver’s backrest. “Drive!”
The SUV rocketed forward and navigated two streets to Cummings’s house. Since they were expected, they made no attempt at stealth. When the truck skidded to a stop, Mercs Six and Eighteen fired RPG rounds into the bedroom windows of the brick house, which exploded in billowing flames. At the same time, the backyard team lit up the glass doors and windows of the living room.
Carl raced toward the porch, ducking when he heard a shout. He felt the wind of the passing RPG round, but he didn’t stop moving. The rocket-propelled round slammed into the front door without exploding and the force of the impact literally blew the metal door off its hinges. Carl ran through the destroyed doorway at almost the same instant with his weapon up and ready, and he aimed as soon as he could see the commando holding Lisette in his grip. They both fired at the same time.
The commando holding Lisette sprayed at least a dozen rounds in Carl’s direction, and a distant corner of Carl’s brain wondered if neighbors’ homes would be hit and how many casualties there would be. But none of the man’s rounds hit Carl…
…because Lisette shoved the man’s arm.
Carl’s single shot bounced off the side of the commando’s Kevlar helmet with a ping, which Carl actually heard despite the cacophony of gunfire in the room. The man had to be dazed by the impact, then Carl was on him with one singular thought—kill. He dropped his PDW and pulled his combat blade, then tackled the commando and the girl to the floor. Even as they hit the carpet, he slammed his blade through the man’s goggles and into his brain. Twice.
Bullets punched into the wall next to him, literally exploding the pendulum clock. Carl spun and sheltered Lisette as his back erupted in pain. He’d been shot before—several times, in fact—so he was somewhat prepared for the experience. It hurt like hell and he was pounded against the wall by the impacts, but he remained fully functional.
Behind him, Cummings hollered, “Cease fire!”
“Cease fire,” Carl repeated. “All units cease fire!”
In the sudden silence, Cummings said, “Clear!”
Carl repeated the all clear over his comm.
Three said, “Ten, Eighteen, move in and clear the bedrooms. Terminate any survivors. Nine, you have overwatch. Boss, evac ASAP.”
“Copy that.”
Carl turned with the girl and examined Cummings’s handiwork. All five of the remaining commandos were down and the former FBI agent stood with her handgun pointed at the floor. She wore the same clothes she’d worn to the meeting last night with the now-dead police officer. Carl sensed she had just sent her mother out of the room because the elder woman disappeared into the kitchen. He heard a door open and close. He was just about to issue the evac order when he heard Agent Palmer’s panicked voice over the net.
“Missiles inbound! Five seconds!”
Carl repeate
d for Cummings’s benefit, “Missiles! Three seconds!” But in their millisecond eye contact, they both knew they’d never get out of the house in time.
Cumming tossed her gun aside and pivoted. “On me!”
Carl didn’t waste time questioning her intentions. He simply dropped his knife, picked up Lisette by the waist, and ran down the hall two steps behind Cummings. The bedroom closest to the street was totally destroyed and open to the sky. Surprisingly, there was no fire. He followed Cummings to the right, into the master bedroom, and he knew exactly what she had in mind.
“Everyone disburse!” he said over the net.
“Boss! Get out of there!”
The first missile hit the living room with an ear-shattering blast that blew out the nearby walls and collapsed the ceiling of the master suite right on top of them. With the girl in his grasp, Carl dove into the cast-iron bathtub on top of Cummings. A pile of debris fell on top of them and blocked out all light.
Then the second missile hit, and Carl heard screams of agony over the comm net.
Then the third missile hit point blank in the master bedroom.
Chapter 6
He became aware of voices amid the ringing in his ears. It was Three and Palmer.
“Nine and Eighteen are down, status unknown.”
“Thirteen, status?” There was a pause. “Thirteen?”
“Jesus! Thirteen’s in a bad way. Real bad.”
Agent Palmer said, “Zero is not answering. Is there any indication they might still be alive?”
Three said, “Negative. The entire house collapsed. They’re buried under thousands of pounds of debris. The mother drove their SUV right through the garage door right after the first detonation, but she was the only occupant.”
“Very well,” Palmer said. “Prepare to depart. Can Thirteen be moved?”
“Negative. He’s on borrowed time.”
American Terrorist Trilogy Page 70
