“Talk to me, Wang,” Dempsey said. He watched the heart rate drop to “52” on the screen. He looked at the fitness tracker on the dead man’s wrist, which matched the number.
“The fitness tracker is transmitting wirelessly to the cell phone app here. If this was my rig, I’d have it programmed with a lower threshold so when the heart rate falls below the target number—maybe zero—it will send a signal to the detonator system here.” He pointed with a pinky.
“And when that happens?”
“Boom,” Wang said with an accompanying hand gesture for effect.
“Great,” Dempsey said. “How do we disarm it?”
“I don’t know. I could try to hack into the detonator via the mobile phone, but that’ll be complicated and would probably take too long.”
“Awesome,” Dempsey said. The heart rate now said “50.”
“But,” Wang said, an “aha” finger in the air and his eyebrows up, “I could try to hack the activity monitor instead—maybe trick it into thinking the heart rate is still above the alarm parameter.”
“Yes, very good,” Baldwin’s voice said in Dempsey’s left ear. “If it’s wireless, that should be easy. If you can’t access the fitness monitor directly, hack the phone because we know they’re paired.”
“Yeah, good,” Wang said. He dropped down and sat cross-legged, opened his notebook computer on his lap, and started mumbling to himself.
“John,” Baldwin said in his ear.
“Yes, Ian,” Dempsey said patiently. He was trying to keep his thoughts away from Kate and Jacob, whose faces kept popping into his mind.
“I’m worried that if al-Mahajer’s blood pressure drops, the sensors on the monitor won’t be able to sense the pulse and might detonate even if the heart rate remains above the target.”
“That’s just great, Ian. What the hell can I do about that?”
“You need to give him fluids and try to raise his pressure. Maybe a little Trendelenburg?”
He saw a medic with a large backpack moving toward them in a sprint. It was one of Hansen’s men, but he carried an Omaha EMS bag as well as the backpack.
“Trendel-lah-who?” Dempsey said.
“Trendelenburg position—Elevate his legs above his heart,” Baldwin said patiently.
Wang was staring at his laptop and pulling at his chin. Dempsey slapped his arm with a bloody hand. Wang looked up.
“Stick my gear bag under his feet,” Dempsey said, gesturing with his head while keeping pressure on the top of al-Mahajer’s head.
Wang dragged Dempsey’s gym bag into position, then lifted al-Mahajer’s legs and dropped them onto the bag. Then, he scrambled back to his laptop and started typing.
“Toss me the kit,” Dempsey said to the HRT agent with a medical bag, which Dempsey now saw held a cardiac monitor and a defibrillator.
“You’re the SEAL in charge, right?” the man said, ignoring him and mounting the stairs.
“Yes, but listen, bro. You do not want to be up here.”
“Boss told me the situation,” the guy said, kneeling beside him and opening up the large bag. “Sounds like it’s a big deal to keep this guy’s heart going a few minutes. I was a Green Beret 18-Delta medic long enough to know two things. I can keep a heartbeat going in a rock for a few minutes when I want to, and ain’t no squid gonna be able to do what I can do. So, way I figure, you need me.”
Dempsey surveyed the scene. The square was still in chaos around the stage. Some people were milling about in a daze, dozens of others were lying on the ground where they had been trampled, and still others were pushing past the police, cell phones in the air, trying to post snippets of the most exciting day of their lives on their Instagram feeds.
We’ve got to disarm this bomb, or all these people are going to die.
“Okay, what do I do?” Dempsey said, looking back at the medic.
“Set up the IV while I get the monitor hooked up.”
Dempsey nodded and quickly tore open an IV setup and spiked the IV bag, just as he had done countless times in their “live tissues” training sessions with the Tier One SEAL medics and a half-dozen times in the field for injured brothers.
“Wang? How’s it coming?” he called, while he finished the IV.
“Another couple of minutes.”
The heart rate dropped to “42” and the light on the detonator panel turned yellow. Dempsey’s throat tightened.
“What just happened?”
Wang looked up at the detonator display and then back at his computer where his fingers were flying on the keyboard.
“Looks like the threshold for arming the bomb is forty-five beats per minute,” he said.
“And what’s the threshold when it blows up?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Wang said, flustered. “Just try to keep him above forty-five, okay!”
The medic beside Dempsey suddenly jammed two fingers into the man’s remaining eye socket and the pulse rate shot up to “44,” and then to “48.” The yellow light flickered and went off, and the green light came back on.
“What technique is that?” Dempsey asked.
The medic shrugged. “One that would make my heart rate go up,” he said. Then he stabbed a large needle into al-Mahajer’s arm at the crook of his elbow. Dark blood came back, and the medic slid the plastic catheter off the needle, pulled the needle out of the hub, and then hooked the IV tubing to it. He adjusted the wheel on the plastic clip that controlled the flow and then squeezed the bag with both hands, forcing fluid into the vein.
“I’m in!” Wang said. “Had to hack the phone like Baldwin said. It’s using an app paired to the activity monitor.”
“So now what?” Dempsey said. He was very eager to get everyone, including himself, as far away as possible from the human bomb. “Can you just turn it off?”
“Not sure. I need to think about that . . . I don’t want to fuck this up.”
“Great idea,” the medic said and then added, “Shit, guys. We’ve got a problem.”
Dempsey looked at the panel, which was yellow again, and then at the fitness tracker display on al-Mahajer’s wrist. The heart rate blinked “38.”
“Fuck,” Dempsey said. “What should I do?”
“Start CPR,” the medic said.
“Seriously?”
“It measures heart beat at the wrist, right? It can’t tell the difference between the heart and your compressions. Dude, fucking start CPR!”
The flashing number now said “28.” The yellow number flickered, and beside it a red light flickered as well.
Dempsey put the heel of his hand on the dead man’s breastbone, covered it with his other hand, and with locked elbows began pressing rhythmically up and down. The flickering of red stopped and the yellow held steady.
“Faster,” the medic ordered, now squeezing the IV bag with all of his might. He dropped the bag on the ground and sat on it, then pulled a black case out of his duffel. He unzipped it and pulled out a long-needled syringe. “I’m gonna give some epi,” he said, talking more to himself than Dempsey.
The green light flickered, but then the yellow came back on. Dempsey couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. I’m giving CPR to the man who I want dead the most in the whole world.
Dempsey’s torso was churning like a piston, pumping at least a hundred times a minute, but the number on the fitness monitor still said “42.”
“Wang,” Dempsey said in a low, urgent voice. “Hurry!”
Wang began to chew on his right index finger. Then his eyes lit up. “I have an idea.” His fingers danced on his keyboard again. “Demo mode!”
“Yes, yes,” Baldwin said calmly in his left ear. “Brilliant. But hurry.”
The light turned green and then suddenly the number shot to “135.”
“What just happened?” Dempsey said, stopping the compressions.
“Epinephrine, dude,” the medic said. “But now his heart is gonna push the blood out that gaping hole in his head real fast.
When BP falls this time, that’ll be it.”
“Wang?” Dempsey said. “Tell me you got this.”
Wang ignored him, laser focused and working.
Dempsey watched the puddle of blood grow beneath them and felt it soaking into the knees of his pants where he knelt.
The heart rate on the monitor fell to “80” and then “60.”
Poised over the half-dead terrorist, his hand still on the breastbone and set to restart CPR, Dempsey turned to the medic. “Now?”
“Go.”
The medic hesitated and then, seeing he’d done all he could, slapped Dempsey on the back. “Good luck, brother. Hooyah.”
“Hooyah, bro, now get outta here.”
And the man was gone.
Dempsey started CPR, but the number kept falling.
The heart-rate monitor fell to “50” and then “42.”
The detonator light turned yellow.
“Just you and me, Wang,” he said softly. “It’s now or never.”
He stared at the display on the monitor, pressing down on the breastbone now as hard as he could. He felt the sternum split under his weight, cracking in half.
The heart rate fell to “20” then to “0.”
Dempsey stopped his rocking compressions, closed his eyes, and waited for the pain. But the white heat didn’t come. He opened his eyes and looked at the wristband. The little heart icon was gone and the pulse rate said “0.” He turned to Wang, who was smiling, a tear running down his left cheek.
“I did it,” Wang sobbed.
Dempsey looked at the detonator panel with its glowing green light. The app on the phone showed a heart rate of eighty-two, the little heart flashing in time to the simulated pulse.
“You sure did, bro,” he said. He wrapped Wang up in a bear hug. Then he pushed him back. “Go,” he ordered, “and tell Hansen to send in EOD.”
Wang set his laptop down and sprinted from the wooden stage on shaky legs, dodging and jumping over people lying on the street as he cleared to a safe distance.
Dempsey stood.
Then, looking down at the one remaining eye of the dead, nearly headless ISIS commander, he said, “Fuck you, Rafiq al-Mahajer . . . I win.”
CHAPTER 50
Ember TOC
Newport News, Virginia
November 5, 2030 Local Time
Dempsey folded his hands in his lap and looked up at Jarvis as Ember’s Director spoke to the team.
“Success in our world is hard to measure,” Jarvis said to the room. “We lost three teammates and six civilians stopping al-Mahajer—a terrible loss—but the death toll would have been four to five hundred, and the wounded toll three times that, had we failed. Tonight, we remember the wounded and the dead but celebrate the lives we saved.” He stepped from the podium, signaling he was done. “Now secure your gear and get the hell out of here. I’ll see everyone back here tomorrow at 1600 hours for a final debrief.”
Everyone stood.
Handshakes were exchanged. Smith found his way to Chunk and his SEALs and led them to his office for the requisite paperwork drill before they were released back to their unit. Dempsey traded nods with Adamo, acknowledging the new and awkward kinship they had forged over the past forty-eight hours. Had it not been for the spook’s insights and instincts, they would never have found al-Mahajer in time. As he shifted his gaze to Grimes, he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“A word?” Jarvis said.
Grimes flashed him a knowing smile and looked away.
“Sure thing, Skipper,” Dempsey said and followed Jarvis to his office. He crossed the threshold and opted to stand instead of taking a seat opposite the Director’s desk. “Everything okay, sir?”
“Fine, I just need a minute to talk.”
A lump formed in Dempsey’s throat. He knew what this was about. “Sir, I know the Facebook thing was way out of bounds, but I can assure you—”
Jarvis raised a hand to stop him. “I have no doubt the Facebook thing has run its course. That’s not why I called you in.” He clicked the mouse on his laptop and then spun the screen around to face Dempsey. “This is footage from the Georgia Aquarium and it’s something you need to see.”
“Sir?” Dempsey asked, confused.
Jarvis offered him a crooked half smile and walked out, leaving Dempsey standing alone with the computer.
Dempsey exhaled, rolled his neck, and was rewarded with a triple pop of his vertebrae. He sat down in front of the computer and clicked the wireless mouse to play the recording. He immediately noticed that Jarvis had the sound turned off and the frame rate set to one-quarter speed. In the upper left corner of the screen in white letters was the name GRIMES, and beside it was a clock with eight digits, displaying military time in hours, minutes, seconds, and hundredths of seconds. This video was from Grimes’s body cam.
A dark cloud seemed to envelop the room as he reminded himself the operation had not been a complete success. There had been eleven people wounded at the aquarium—including two kids—and one man had died. He leaned in, resting his chin on his right hand, his elbow on the mahogany desk as he watched a terrorist with an assault rifle in his right hand turn in an arc, fire spitting slowly out of the barrel. A hand entered the frame from the right. Then the forearm.
Dempsey clicked and froze the image.
The forearm was slim, muscular, and familiar.
Dempsey squinted at the watch on the wrist. That was his watch—an old watch from the Teams that he had given his son, Jake, on the boy’s twelfth birthday. Could it really be . . . Jake?
The oversize Casio Pathfinder no longer looked like a daddy’s watch on a boy’s wrist. It fit this arm. Just above it was a paracord bracelet—the one that they had weaved together, Dempsey patiently showing Jake how to keep the strands tight so the bracelet would be taut.
Oh my God, that’s my son.
He wiped a tear from his cheek and clicked “Play.” Jake’s left palm and wrist drove the shooter’s hand and machine gun upward. Then, Jake’s other hand came into view, striking the terrorist squarely in the jaw. Then his son’s face entered the screen, and Dempsey paused the video again.
He studied Jake’s face. He expected to see fear and doubt. Jake had always been timid and cautious. So risk averse, in fact, that it had been the family joke that Jake had gotten all Kate DNA and no Frogman DNA. But that had never mattered to Dempsey. He’d always loved his son, and over time he had learned to admire Jake for having the self-awareness to recognize and acknowledge his fears and limitations. The difference between father and son was that Jake had never been afraid to be afraid. In that way, this video was proof that Jake had accomplished something Dempsey never had.
Jake had faced his greatest fear and won.
The face on the screen was a warrior’s face.
When did that happen?
Dempsey surprised himself by breaking into a sob, his throat becoming tight and painful. He missed his son so much. He loved him so much. And now, it seemed, he didn’t know him anymore. Then he watched with helpless dread as the terrorist’s rifle butt smashed into the top of his boy’s head, and his son crumpled to the ground. The terrorist swung the barrel, bringing the muzzle in line with Jake’s head, and Dempsey felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
Then, a muzzle flare lit up the screen, as Grimes made her headshot, dropping the jihadi where he stood. The video clip ended ten seconds later. Dempsey watched the video until completion. Then he laid his head on his scarred left forearm and let the tears come; they ran in rivulets over the pearly white serpentine scar and pooled on the table. He couldn’t remember crying like this—not ever. And when a hand squeezed his shoulder, he didn’t startle. He didn’t spin around, grab the wrist, and rip the intruder a new one. This was his home now; no one here wanted to hurt him. No one here judged him for his demons.
He looked up at Smith.
“I counted six stitches,” Smith said.
“What’s that?” De
mpsey said.
“On the news, I counted six stitches on Jake’s forehead when he was being interviewed. The news is eating this up. He’s all over Fox News. Brian Kilmeade is hailing him as a hero: ‘The son of a slain Navy SEAL tackled a terrorist suicide bomber at the Georgia Aquarium. The son of a SEAL risked his life to save others.’”
“You saw him on TV?”
“Oh yeah,” Smith said, with a grin so wide you’d have thought Jake was his own son. “He’s shy and soft-spoken, that Jake of yours, but he has the eyes of a warrior. The soul of a warrior . . . just like his dad.”
“I miss him so much,” Dempsey said, gritting his teeth and trying to corral his emotions.
“I know, bro,” Smith said and sat down beside him. “You’ve gotta be so proud, dude. Did you know Jake would become such a steely-eyed badass?”
Dempsey grinned and then started to laugh. “Never.”
“He saved lives today,” Smith said. “Those moves, those instincts, you taught him well.”
“No,” Dempsey said, shaking his head. “That’s all Jake.”
They sat in silence for a moment, two brothers, with nothing else to say.
Dempsey wiped the last tear from his chin. “But after seeing that, I hope his mom makes him become an accountant or a pediatrician or some shit like that. The world doesn’t need another John Dempsey.”
“Amen,” Smith said with a laugh. Then he stood and clamped a hand on Dempsey’s shoulder. “You gotta let them go, brother.”
“I know,” Dempsey said, his voice cracking.
“It’s not for you, JD. It’s for them.”
Dempsey nodded.
“I know,” he said. After a beat, he pushed his chair back from Jarvis’s desk and stood. “Time to go have a beer and toast the dead fucking remains of Rafiq al-Mahajer.”
“Now you’re talking,” Smith said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Baldwin and the boys are gonna join us. Hell, even Jarvis said he might stop by. Grimes already has Chunk and the Team guys headed to your house.”
War Shadows (Tier One Thrillers Book 2) Page 34
