Search and Destroy

by JT Sawyer

  This is bullshit!

  He felt the primal urge to withdraw his pistol again, but he knew that killing federal agents would only seal his fate—a fate that someone had already pre-ordained for some reason.

  Get the hell out of here first.

  Cal saw the windowpanes rattle and felt the concerted percussive blasts in the house below as the teams breached the three entrances. He hunched forward, slipping through the open window and climbing onto the sloped overhang. He crept to the massive oak tree, climbing down the limbs and leaping onto the grass.

  Spinning around, he saw a three-man team led by Carter darting around the corner of the garage within feet of him. Carter’s eyes became saucers in her goggles as Cal rushed forward, jamming her AR into her chest then using the backward momentum to sweep her right foot from under her while clutching the rifle.

  With her thin frame partly in the air, he flung her back into the second man, who toppled over a trash can. Cal stepped forward, kicking him in the face and hearing the sound of crunching cartilage. He continued using his forward momentum, as he’d trained to do in countless close-range attacks against multiple opponents, kicking Tremblay in the groin hard enough to make his torso lurch forward. Cal used the momentum to drive his knee up into the man’s gut then shoved him into the brick wall.

  Cal spun around as Carter was trying to stand, slamming his boot down on her vest and sending her back to the ground, knocking the wind out of her. He kept his pistol trained on her face then caught a flash of movement emerging from the patio door as the team inside began flowing out.

  Cal raised his HK, snapping off two controlled rounds. The first struck the lead agent in the left shoulder, the grazing round causing his support arm to abruptly jerk the AR down as he groaned. The second round struck the OC canister on the man’s belt, releasing the noxious red spray into the narrow confines of the enclosed porch.

  With the team momentarily stunned, Cal stepped off Carter’s chest, fixing his weapon on her. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. Don’t follow me.”

  “Too late for that,” she said, sitting up then springing to her feet. He fired two rounds into the dirt beside her. She backpedaled around the corner of the garage as he bounded for the wooden fence, hopping it into the neighbor’s yard.

  The hum of rotors filled the air, and Cal knew that unlike other times when he was on the run overseas, it wasn’t the pleasing sound of a Blackhawk coming to extract him and his team. This time he was the subject of a manhunt in a suburban sprawl that had suddenly turned into hostile territory, and his only goal now was to escape at all costs.

  Darting across the street, he ran into another yard, trying to recall if the residents had a dog. Without any incident, he climbed another fence, weaving around a sandbox and swimming pool then bursting past the side gate. He made a sharp turn to the right, running for six houses then cutting across a small park, hearing the shrieks of parents near the playground, startled at the sight of an armed figure rushing past them.

  Cal knew the Feds would be creating a tight perimeter and designating roadblocks to seal him in. He was counting on it. He cut across the dirt jogging path that wound through the woods for a hundred yards, emerging near a shallow creek. The helicopter was circling over the playground, and he knew he only had a minute to gain some ground and disappear, recalling the words of his instructor during an escape and evasion course:

  Time and distance are your friends, so run like hell to break free of the initial search radius.

  He continued on, silently cursing.

  Never thought I’d be using these skills in my own fucking backyard!

  Cal tucked away his pistol then removed his leather jacket, pulling out the small drone lent to him by Vogel and shoving it in his back pocket. He hung the jacket off a tree branch, spreading out the arms. He hopped over a fallen log, crossing the creek, then trotted along the dirt bank for fifty yards before angling off towards a skateboard park.

  Once Shepard bolted over the fence, Carter retrieved her AR then slid up next to the other agent, who was groaning beside her. The man’s eyes were having troubling focusing, and she knew he probably had a mild concussion given the trauma to his nose from the vicious heel kick delivered by Shepard.

  He’s lucky that’s all he got. Shepard went through all three of us like we were training dummies. Looks like the email the director got earlier about this guy’s background wasn’t too far off base.

  She saw Tremblay staggering to his feet, gasping then sweeping his AR towards the next block of homes.

  “Put it down. The helo guys will find him. Not going to risk putting any civis in harm’s way shooting at that guy across all these yards.”

  “Fuck,” Tremblay shouted in between gulps of air, reluctantly lowering his rifle.

  She helped her injured colleague up, resting him against the garage then glancing over at the other agents in the enclosed porch, who were flushing their faces with water from the kitchen.

  He could have cut through all of us if he wanted to.

  They heard the voice of the FBI helicopter pilot splinter through their walkies. “Subject is on foot a half-mile from your location, Agent Carter, at the edge of Brentwood Park near the highway.”

  “Copy that. Stay on him. We’re on our way.”

  Tremblay rubbed his sore ribs. “Yeah, well, your boy sounds like the nutjob that the news is making him out to be. Why else would he run?”

  “He doesn’t come across as crazy, just desperate.”

  They heard their radios crackle as the voice of the other team inside came over the speaker. “Carter, we need to call in the bomb squad. Just found enough Symtex down in the basement to take out half this block.”

  “Christ.” Tremblay shook his head. “Like I said, whack-job—and he’s been trained by our government to be a fucking ghost. That’s just terrific.”

  Carter stood up, her cheeks becoming taut. “All teams, exit the house now!” She helped the wounded man to his feet while barking orders at one of the nearest agents.

  “Get back to our car and broadcast on the loudspeaker for everyone to begin evacuating their homes. We need to get this neighborhood cleared.”

  Carter motioned to her wounded colleague with the smashed nose. “Take him, then call the bomb squad and alert first responders to set up a perimeter within a four-block radius around this location.”

  She waved to Tremblay to follow her. “We’re heading to the park to intersect Shepard’s direction of travel before he can make it to the highway. Direct our other units to that location.”

  22

  Carlos Montoya watched the black SUV pull away from Shepard’s house from his vantage point two blocks away. He had become almost as familiar with the exterior of the house as the interior after reconning the place for the past few days and then bypassing the security system inside to plant the explosives in the basement.

  He started the engine of the gray van, pulling out and following the two FBI agents.

  Montoya leaned back, speaking in Spanish to the four other men in the cargo space who were doing a weapons check on their rifles, a mix of ARs and Yugoslavian AKs. They had all served under Montoya in Colombia during his days of running the Carmesi Cartel and had been flown up to the States with Hunley’s assistance on a private jet owned by one of Roth’s shell corporations.

  “So much for the Feds catching him. Roth was right—we just need to put this guy down and not fuck around. If the FBI agents had just captured him, he’d at least be muzzled in one of their holding cells. If any of them get in the way then take ’em out too, but Roth said the priority must be on Shepard above all else. And if you get separated, remember the escape protocols and rendezvous with me at the southside boat docks by 1830 tonight.”

  The men nodded, donning their sunglasses and pulling up their face coverings.

  Montoya turned up the volume on the police scanner, matching up the roadblocks that were going into place with the mental map of the region t
hat he had memorized. This was a far cry from the targeted hits he’d done on his employer’s rivals in the rural areas of Colombia, where he could bribe or extort the police into compliance until his mission was over.

  They needed to kill Shepard quickly and get out of the States. Not only did he have to clean up the mess from the agent surviving the explosion, but there were deadlines looming in Venezuela, and Montoya needed to be in place to dispatch any anti-Rimaldi journalists or opposition leaders.

  “Shepard has had quite a run of luck,” said a thin man behind Montoya’s seat. “He survives for years as an operator in other countries then escapes the blast zone at Burke’s and now dodges a federal tac-team.”

  Montoya rubbed a long, jagged scar on his forearm, contemplating the man’s words. He had taken part in enough murders, kidnappings and assassinations over the past thirty years to recognize luck as a factor in one’s survival, but he knew that such a thing was always a random variable that could never be relied upon over a lifetime of combat.

  “Skills and tactical experience always take precedence, amigo, but when you have luck added into the equation, it sure won’t hurt your odds of seeing the next sunrise.”

  As Montoya kept pace with the FBI vehicle ahead as it wound through the suburbs, he thought about the coming sunrises on his own Colombian plantation after he retired from this job.

  23

  Cal stepped under a shade ramada, watching the helicopter circling the other end of the park. He sucked in some deep breaths, assessing his options. To his right and left were more of the same type of suburban sprawl he’d just left, and he had no desire to continue jumping fences or hiding out in someone’s house. The whole area would be swarming with hundreds of law-enforcement officers in thirty minutes, and his chances of escaping would be reduced to zero.

  Beyond the skateboard park ahead was a four-lane highway, beyond which lay a used car lot and several strip malls.

  His only chance was to procure a vehicle and get out of the search radius before they closed the net on him. He watched the helicopter arc to the left, heading north along the creek bed, then he began trotting across the field in the opposite direction.

  Cal paused at the edge of the skate park near some teenagers standing beside their bicycles, watching the other kids in the cement bowl below.

  He pointed back to the treeline at the faint outline of his tan jacket. “Hey, there’s a guy hanging around the woods here who’s creeping out me and the other parents. I already called the police, so if they show up here, tell ’em to head down by the creek, OK?”

  The cluster of teens nodded in agreement then began craning their heads towards the forest as Cal moved behind them. He lifted a phone from one of the smaller kids’ back pockets then continued trotting past the skateboard park.

  Making his way to the sidewalk, he scanned to either side then trotted along the sidewalk, looking for an opening in the steady flow of traffic.

  As Cal started to bolt across the four-lane highway, he saw a black SUV race up then screech to a halt forty feet to his left before the other side of the bridge over the creek, blocking the lanes and causing the traffic behind to bottleneck.

  Carter and Tremblay exited the vehicle, aiming their ARs at Cal as they took up shooting positions behind their doors. The traffic in the other lane was still flowing, and Cal scanned for a route through the oncoming cars. Just as he was about to bolt, a gray van forced its way into the other lane across the median just beyond the Feds, braking hard and turning sideways onto the gravel shoulder near the bridge. The abrupt action caused three vehicles behind it to collide into each other as the rest of the traffic came to a standstill.

  He thought it was just the distraction he needed to thwart the Feds, then he heard the sound of automatic weapons fire and the unpleasant hum of bullets zinging past his head coming from the direction of the van. Cal ducked behind a Ford pickup, the occupants inside screaming as they dropped out of sight. A vehicle windshield to his right shattered, followed by the plunk of steel as lead rained down upon the highway from the approaching gunmen.

  Cal shimmied over to the other side of the bumper, watching four men with dark complexions and AKs using bounding moves as they continued firing in Cal’s direction.

  He pulled out his HK pistol, leaning on his side and squeezing off two rounds that struck the first thug in the right tibia, shattering the bone and dropping him to the pavement. Cal fired two more rounds into his neck then stood in a partial crouch before darting laterally to the next vehicle, making his way around the other side until he was along the shoulder of the road.

  The gunfire erupted again, but this time in the opposite direction, and Cal watched the two agents engaging the three remaining shooters, who were intermittently turning to take shots at the helicopter overhead.

  Carter wasn’t in position for more than a second upon seeing Shepard on the bridge when a cacophony of gunfire erupted from the side of a gray van across the median.

  At first, she thought the shooters might be there to rescue Shepard, until she saw the barrage of lead being sent downrange from the four men, who moved like a well-honed unit towards their target.

  Shepard ducked out of sight behind a truck, then she saw one of the lead men collapse to the ground as the others continued forward, indiscriminately razing the vehicles nearest Shepard.

  “Cover me,” yelled Carter as she bolted from her spot to the end of the cement median, fixing her sights on the nearest gunmen before they killed any innocent bystanders.

  Shepard crouch-trotted to the next vehicle, slipping between the two bumpers then grabbing the dead man’s AK. He dropped out the magazine, inspecting how depleted it was then inserting a fresh one from the man’s vest. He circled back to the shoulder, running parallel to the median, trying to avoid getting nailed by stray rounds from the chaotic battle.

  He crept around the side of a Suburban whose sides were riddled with bullet holes, then slid his weapon over the hood. Cal squeezed off a flurry of rounds at the nearest thug, zippering his back with 7.62 rounds that dropped him on the blacktop.

  One of the other men was keeping the agents pinned down with suppressive fire while the other made a wide arc, trying to flank Carter.

  Cal couldn’t get a clean shot, so he sent a burst of rounds into the pavement to the right of the man, causing him to swivel around long enough for Carter to get in a headshot. The figure instantly collapsed in a heap.

  Tremblay bounded past Carter after she got in position to lay down cover fire. She saw another figure near the shoulder pop up over the hood of a Suburban with an AK.

  Shit…Shepard has a rifle!

  She saw him pivot his body then shoot a flurry of rounds at one of the thugs she’d missed sneaking along the median towards her. Carter swung her AR to the side, firing a single round into the man’s forehead, spraying bone and pink mist onto the battered windshield of a Subaru.

  She crouched down beneath the median barrier again, seeing Tremblay lying on the ground, clutching the side of his abdomen at the edge of his tactical vest.

  Dammit!

  Shepard watched the last man duck and run, weaving between the vehicles as he made his way back to the gray van. The driver was unleashing what sounded like a machinegun into the median near Carter, who was pinned down.

  He saw Tremblay lying on the pavement, bleeding out from a stomach wound twenty feet away near a Lincoln with flattened tires. Shepard grit his teeth, knowing he had to use this chance to escape. He looked at the drainage basin to the right that led through the tree-lined creek under the bridge.

  Just go!

  He silently chided himself then zig-zagged through the vehicles towards Tremblay. Kneeling beside the agent, he shoved aside the man’s weapons then set his AK down, applying pressure to the seeping wound with his hands.

  The agent groaned, his eyes fluttering in horror as he looked up at who was rendering aid. Tremblay shuddered out a breath, then his head slumped back onto the
pavement as Cal continued to stem the bleeding.

  Cal heard the gunfire stop and looked up to see the van screeching away. Before he could grab the AK, Carter was already running towards him, her rifle fixed on his chest as people began peering out from their vehicles.

  She came to a halt on the other side of Tremblay, looking at her wounded partner then up at Cal.

  “You could have gotten away. Why didn’t you keep running?”

  “And let your partner die?”

  She sucked in a deep breath, a trickle of sweat running down her cheek. “It’s over. I know about your work for the CIA, and we found Symtex in your basement, just like the type used in the explosion at Burke’s place. My director received some incriminating evidence that is pretty hard to refute. He gave us orders to either bring you in or take you down.”

  He scrunched his eyebrows together upon hearing the revelation about the planted evidence, knowing that whoever had set him up had far-reaching connections and funding. “Whatever you think you know or have been told about what happened is a smokescreen to divert you away from the real players. I didn’t kill my friends, and I sure as hell wasn’t behind an explosion that would take my wife’s life.” He turned towards her. “Did you even know she was pregnant?”

  “I’m sorry for what happened, but I have to play this by the book. Afterwards, I can look into your allegations.”

  “There’ll be no afterwards. They will send someone with my skills to remove me from the equation. Anyone with the ability to manipulate the media and plant evidence in a home as secure as mine is not going to be stopped by the walls of an FBI cell. They can’t have people like myself roaming the countryside.”

  “I’ll do what I can. You have my word.”