They regarded each other during the pause in the fight, each looking for a weakness in the other.
The young man said, “How did you know?”
“I’ve gazed into the eyes of many killers in the last few months.”
Then they went at each other again. Sparks flashed off the colliding blades, knees and elbows glanced off muscle and armor, fists bounced painfully off skulls—well, painfully for Carl.
He heard Palmer’s voice through his comm device over his own heavy breathing. “What’s your status, Carl?”
He gasped as he struck at his killer again. “I’m attempting to interrogate the assassin.”
“It doesn’t sound like an interrogation.”
“Yeah. He’s resisting.”
“Well, wrap it up quickly. He has support moving in on your position. ETA, three minutes.”
“Copy that.” If his support team were moving in, then they were tracking his position electronically because Carl was certain no one had followed them. They had to be using different frequencies than the police. “Find his frequencies and kill his comms.”
“Done.”
The young man was a tornado of kicks, punches, and stabs in the confined space, but in the end, physics won over talent. Carl weighed a hundred-seventy, and the killer might have weighed a buck-twenty after a heavy meal. He forced the smaller man into the corner, all the while dodging his expert stiletto jabs. When Carl moved in for the kill, Chrissy raked his stiletto across Carl’s forehead. It was a fast swipe that burned like a paper cut and started bleeding immediately and profusely. But finally, Carl rushed him and buried his combat knife in the young man’s shoulder.
The assassin screamed a high-pitched wail of pain. When he tried to twist away, Carl picked him up by the waist and body-slammed him to the floor WWE-style. Then he pulled the knife from the man’s shoulder and stabbed it deep into his thigh. The assassin screamed again, and Carl twisted it. He pulled it out and rolled off the killer. The beaten man tossed his stiletto away and curled up against the far wall, a growing pool of blood on the floor beneath him. On his knees, Carl pulled all the quick releases of his armor suit and the hard black plates fell from his body.
Carl crawled to Chrissy, rolled him onto his back, and parked the tip of his knife against his chest. “Talk.” He pulled a handkerchief from a pant pocket and held it against his forehead wound to quell the blood dripping into his left eye and down his face.
“Don’t kill me.”
“Talk!”
The assassin confessed to the murders, then said he’d been hired by someone named Mr. Karuhl.
“Where can I find him?”
Chrissy grimaced and groaned. “I went to his office. I met with him and the police chief. His name was Bildemeyer.”
“Where?” Carl roared.
“The Stennhauser Building, on the top floor. I spoke with them by cell just a few minutes ago. I think they’re still there.”
“Both of them?”
Chrissy nodded.
Palmer’s voice said, “ETA, one minute.”
Carl raised his blade.
“No, please,” Chrissy whimpered. “I can give you intel.”
Carl nodded and slid his knife into its scabbard.
The assassin continued, “It was some kind of experiment in a new crowd control technology.” Chrissy groaned again. “They can control the police. I don’t know how, but it’s like a prototype test. I was hired to eliminate the survivors from the coffee shop and engage you if you showed up at the protest.”
As bizarre as all that sounded, Carl was unsurprised, since he’d heard something similar from Malik Tavares, the police assault victim. But he needed confirmation of his gut feeling that Rainman, the man responsible for the attempt to kill President Shirley Mallory, was involved.
“Why you? These people could have hired any number of assassins.”
“They called me because you got involved yesterday by eliminating their kill squad, the four police officers. They said I fit your profile. They said your weakness is your need to help the helpless. I was supposed to act vulnerable so I could get close to you.”
Palmer said, “ETA, thirty seconds. Get out of there, Carl.”
“Unfortunately for you, they misjudged me.” Carl stood and retrieved his PDW. “Vulnerable is not part of my profile.” He pointed it at the assassin’s head. “This is my profile.”
“Please don’t kill me.”
“You murdered three innocent people.” Carl pulled the trigger. Head shot. Point-blank range.
“Breach is imminent,” Palmer said.
Carl sprinted up the hallway and ducked through an exit hole his mercs had several days ago cut in the dining room wall shared with the vacant brownstone next door. Inside that room, he found the mercs’ normal stash of defensive weaponry that might be useful in covering an escape. Since the equipment was untraceable, the stash was always left behind in a hurried escape or, in the current situation, when none of the other mercs were coming back.
He dropped his PDW and quickly opened a green metal case holding several RPGs and grabbed two. He made his way up to the fourth floor—the roof access door—and found Wizard waiting inside the door, shakily pointing a gun in his direction.
“Jesus, Boss!” Wizard blurted. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Yeah.” Carl put down the RPGs and held the now blood-soaked handkerchief against his head. “Forehead cuts bleed like a stuck pig and are the hardest to clot, but it’s not as bad as it looks.”
“I dunno, Boss, it looks pretty bad.”
“Get our reporter friend, Miss Logan, on your cell. Let’s do a video call.” He leaned over with his palms braced on his knees to catch his breath.
The assassin hadn’t seriously hurt him through the body armor until he got his helmet off, but the young man’s feet and knees had knocked him around and bruised him pretty thoroughly. Carl was tired, and his whole body ached. His nose throbbed, and his eyes burned from the blood running down from his cut forehead. He had to breathe through his mouth because of the blood clogging his swollen nose. His jaw hurt, and his lips were split. He hadn’t had two fights in his entire life, and now in his mid-fifties, he’d had to go up against two highly trained professional killers half his age. And he won! Not that you could tell that by looking at him.
As Wizard worked he said, “Agent Palmer canceled the jamming of cell phones, but the police comm is still being blocked as is the hit squad’s comm. She says the assassin’s support team just breached.”
Carl nodded. He’d heard the report through his comm as he climbed the stairs.
“We’ve detected their mini-drone. It’s still orbiting at one thousand feet. Ours is at twenty thousand feet.”
A mini-drone was the perfect surveillance tool for a hit squad to deploy because it was small, mobile, and could be deployed wherever the hit squad set up camp. A military drone like the TER asset Carl’s team used, however, was larger and far more capable, though less mobile. The sensors on the TER drone could collect data from all directions, while the mini-drone only had lookdown capability.
That was the targeting device for the missiles that had hit Cummings’s house, though Carl hadn’t known it at the time. It made sense, though, and Agent Palmer had set Wizard and her government team to locating it. It was difficult because, as Carl suspected, the tiny drone was almost entirely nonmetallic, invisible to radar.
Wizard spoke quietly into the phone, then said, “The reporter is ready.” He pointed the back of the device at Carl.
“Oh my God!” The reporter gasped at what she saw on her video link. “What happened to you?”
“Just make sure you broadcast this to the world.” Carl wiped blood from his forehead and looked into the cell phone camera. “A man named Karuhl sent an assassin to kill me. It was the same assassin he sent to kill those innocent civilians yesterday. The assassin succeeded yesterday, but he fell short today. By the way, this Karuhl fellow ordered P
olice Chief John Bildemeyer to send those rogue cops to ambush Malik Tavares, and he ordered the police to assault the protestors.”
Agent Palmer transmitted the killer’s confession over the cell phone channel. In Carl’s comm earpiece, she said, “The support team is withdrawing.”
Wizard followed with the cell phone camera as Carl picked up two RPG tubes and went out onto the roof. He laid one on the roof near the ledge, then leaned over the waist-high parapet. He pointed the second RPG at the car in the street below. Wizard pointed his cell phone down at the car as the hit squad abandoned the brownstone and got in. Carl pressed the trigger and the warhead shot down, trailing smoke and flame. The last man getting into the car must have heard something because he looked up. He locked his gaze with Carl’s for a millisecond, then he, his team, and the car were consumed in a fiery explosion.
Carl straightened up and glared into the camera.
Rebecca Logan’s voice floated unsteadily from the speaker. “Oh my God!” She seemed to be having difficulty deciding whether she was reporting a real-life terror event or a covert operation. “What now?”
Carl said, “The people protesting want justice, so now I’m going to kill the man and his puppet police chief responsible for those murders yesterday.”
Agent Palmer directed Carl’s attention to the correct building. He dropped the used RPG tube and picked up the second RPG, then sighted through the targeting reticule.
“Wait!” Logan said. “You can’t—”
“Can’t what, Miss Logan?” Carl notched an eyebrow at the cell phone Wizard held. “I can’t do what they did? I can’t murder people?”
“Vigilante justice is not justice!”
“What would you have me do, Miss Logan? Call the police?” He smirked. “Do you really think they’ll go over there and arrest their own police chief and the rich man he works for?” Carl was using Logan’s international broadcast to convict Bildemeyer and Karuhl of their crimes. “They murdered people yesterday, and if I hadn’t intervened, they would have murdered hundreds of unarmed protestors using cops armed with military weapons. How long do you think it would take for these rich people to make bail and escape the country?”
“So two wrongs make a right? Murder begets murder?”
“Don’t go thinking I’m some kind of folk hero, Miss Logan.” Carl turned his attention back to the RPG on his shoulder. “They call me the American Terrorist for a reason. The police and people like Chief Bildemeyer and his masters operate above the law, so I operate outside the law.”
Agent Palmer said, “The thermal sensors on the drone indicate only one office on the top floor is occupied. Two heat signatures are standing by the window that faces your position. Numerous other heat signatures are stationary in the hallways outside that office. I’m painting the top-floor office on the west end with the drone’s targeting laser. The RPG has a sensor that can home in on the laser.”
He pointed the RPG in the general direction of the Stennhauser Building’s top floor and depressed the firing button halfway. He was rewarded with the target acquisition tone.
“Target acquired.”
“Confirmed,” Palmer said. “Fire when ready.”
Chapter 16
Chief Bildemeyer listened as Rainman’s scathing criticism blasted from the speaker of Mr. Karuhl’s encrypted cell phone. The voice was heavily distorted, but finally the tirade ended.
“Mr. Karuhl, your people monitored the unsuccessful test, didn’t they?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Transmit the raw test data now.”
Mr. Karuhl accessed the live data file on his laptop and transmitted it. “Done. Even though Johnson interfered with the actual outcome of the test, a high body count was not essential to meet our test objectives. Only the violent clash between the police and the protesters was critical.”
“I disagree,” Rainman said. “You know very well our stakeholders needed to see the body count.”
“Nevertheless, the primary test objectives were met. I’d say this was a resounding success, and we can move immediately to Phase Two-A and then to Phase Three on schedule.”
Raiman was silent for a long while, then said, “I agree. Phase Three is nationwide and expected to take four to six months to launch. However, as you are aware, Phase Two-A is a more targeted short-term local objective.”
Karuhl and Bildemeyer looked at each other.
Rainman continued, “Mr. Karuhl, I was going to suggest you leave the city since your identity is now known. But since the American Terrorist also knows your identity, even leaving the country likely won’t be far enough away.”
Chief Bildemeyer had listened while Mr. Karuhl updated Rainman about the assassin’s infiltration and his hand-to-hand fight with Carl Johnson. The chief had remained hopeful even though the team’s comm was mysteriously interrupted…until he saw Johnson on TV. The terrorist was a bloody mess, but it was clear the assassin had failed in his mission. The shaky video was obviously being shot from a handheld camera, likely a cell phone. Johnson’s termination of the enforcement squad was spectacular, and it was being broadcast along with his name around the world.
How the hell could a domestic terrorist acquire military-grade armor-piercing RPGs and fifty-caliber antiaircraft guns? How would he know to bring such weaponry to a civilian protest? How could he acquire sophisticated RF jamming capability to disrupt police frequencies?
Mr. Karuhl said, “Contracting a gay assassin was your idea, Rainman. Clearly, your profile of Johnson was not as complete as you led me to believe.”
“Irrelevant. Your team of enforcers should have been more than enough to handle Johnson. They had the element of surprise. There’s no way he should have won that encounter.”
Mr. Karuhl countered, “Just as there’s no way Johnson and two mercenaries should have been able to disarm trained SWAT and riot police?”
“What’s done is done, though he always seems to have multiple layers to his defensive strategy.” Rainman took an audible breath. “Johnson has proven himself to be a tactical genius, so I’d distance myself from Chief Bildemeyer if I were you. He’s the next likely target, thanks to the assassin’s confession that we just heard on national television. Fortunately, your moniker is not your real identity, but the chief is another story.”
Mr. Karuhl glared sideways at Bildemeyer.
The chief said, “A recorded conversation between a killer under duress and an international terrorist can hardly be used in court. My lawyers will tear apart that argument, and no judge in the state will issue an arrest warrant—”
Rainman said, “I mean physical distance. The American Terrorist doesn’t arrest. He kills. And it’s already too late. Look at your television.”
The two men had been facing the wall monitor though concentrating on Mr. Karuhl’s cell phone. When they looked up, both gasped. The shaky video showed Johnson picking up another RPG. He pointed it into the distance where the very tower they occupied could be seen. A flash of smoke ejected the tiny rocket from the tube, then its engine ignited, and the missile zoomed into the distance on a horizontal plume of fire. Both men looked out the broad expanse of wall glass and watched the trail of fire rise up to meet them.
“Goodbye,” Rainman said.
Chapter 17
Two hours after his fight with the assassin, Carl Johnson sat aboard his private Gulfstream 850. He still felt uncomfortable on the plane after all these months. It was, after all, the same model used by the government special ops team that had kidnapped him and carried him to an interrogation facility where he underwent eleven days of experimental torture because Palmer and McGrath thought he was that other guy. He was headed back to one of his secure compounds in central Mexico. Alfonso Reyes, the mid-level drug lord who exactly resembled Carl, had owned the compound where Carl was now headed, but that man had died in the custody of the TER agency during an extreme interrogation session. By some creative financing Carl had inherited all of Reyes’s personal and business assets for hi
s terrorist persona and his mission to find everyone associated with Rainman, the perpetrator of the plot to kill President Mallory.
A contract medic Agent Palmer had sent to attend Carl’s injuries during the flight was the only other person on board the plane besides Carl and two pilots. The medic was an older gray-haired gent, maybe ten years Carl’s senior, and Carl could tell from the man’s stocky build he’d seen his fair share of military or covert medical service. Still, the man had friendly eyes and he kept apologizing for perceived pain he caused Carl with his treatment. The medic closed the cut on Carl’s forehead with some gel and flesh-colored adhesive tape, and then reset his broken nose. He inspected Carl’s jaw and cheekbones, determining they were bruised but not broken. Fortunately Carl had no broken teeth.
Carl gulped down several painkillers and dismissed the medic to sit in the cockpit jump seat so he could converse privately with Agent Palmer over the secure comm link. He reclined his leather chair as far back as it would go. He put the doctor’s cold gel pack over his face and closed his eyes. Listening to Palmer’s voice in his ear, he thought about his nemesis. Rainman’s plan to coordinate a bloodless coup and take over the US government and the entire western hemisphere had almost succeeded except for the accidental involvement of Carl Johnson.
“You remember in my debrief about that event at the restaurant in Old Town, Albuquerque? The night I retrieved the president’s daughter?”
“You shot three men who attacked a transgender man who identified as a woman. How is that relevant?”
Carl took a deep breath and winced at the dull throbbing pain in his face. “In his position as vice president, Rainman had access to all our after-action reports up to the point when we discovered his role in the attacks on the president. He thinks he has profiled me. He thinks he knows my weakness. He thought he could send a fem-assassin to play on that perceived weakness.”
American Terrorist Trilogy Page 77
