Breach of Protocol

by Nathan Goodman

  Cade’s mind flashed back two years. At the time, he and Jana had fled toward the exit of the Thoughtstorm building during an FBI raid. When a guard had pointed a rifle at Jana, Cade shot the man at point-blank range. Cade reached for the Glock and a chill ran through his body. “Yes, I’ve used one.” He yelled toward the cockpit, “Pilot, I want you at max speed as fast as physically possible. And then I want you to increase speed.”

  “Sir, max speed for this aircraft is .92 mach. Federal Aviation Regulations prohibit exceeding max V-speed—”

  “Don’t make me come up there,” Cade screamed.

  The pilot began to speak but thought better of it. The jet rocketed down the only runway and took flight, banking northwest. Cade felt the strong g-forces push against his body. He held a thumbs-up to Kyle.

  Thirty minutes later, a secure video uplink was established with NSA headquarters.

  “Uncle Bill,” Cade said into the video monitor, “what assets do we have on the ground in Yellowstone?”

  “US Parks Service Rangers have fanned out across the park, looking for anything. We’ve also got a handful of agents from Idaho Falls, Butte, Bozeman, and Billings en route. And National Guard has a couple of Hueys moving in to meet you.”

  “Wait, Bill,” Kyle said, “that’s it?”

  “Kyle, that’s everything in the region. We’ve tasked three other hostage-rescue teams to come in from Washington, but those are the closest ones. Remember, Washington is on lockdown. All assets from around the country that are not currently deployed to an active warzone were sent to that region. You and hostage-rescue team six are the closest things we have.”

  “Cade,” Knuckles said across the video screen, “we’ve retasked several satellites to scour the area of Wyoming nearest to the caldera.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Everything and nothing. Look, this is the wilderness. It’s a national park of over thirty-four hundred square miles in size. There are hikers and campers all over the place. The satellites are picking up heat signatures scattered throughout. Not many of them, mind you, because the area is so remote, but it’s not like we can pinpoint exactly where to send you.”

  “We’ll head straight for the opening of the caldera,” Kyle said. “Why wouldn’t we? That has to be where Jarrah is headed.”

  Dr. Branson leaned into view of the video monitor. “Agent MacKerron, I know what you’re thinking, that Jarrah will just walk up to the mouth of the caldera and drop the weapon down the hole, but it’s not that simple. The topmost magma chamber of the supervolcano is very close to the surface but the magma chamber is huge. It stretches underground for a couple of miles. If he detonates anywhere in that area, the explosion will penetrate the upper chamber which will cause a cascading effect down to the superchamber below. Once that is unleashed . . .”

  “You are full of good news,” Cade muttered. “Did I tell you yet that I don’t like geologists?”

  “No, but thanks for sharing.”

  Agent Murphy leaned over Kyle’s shoulder. “I’m in comms with the chopper pilots that will meet us at Yellowstone Airport where we touch down. We’ve got two National Guard Hueys out of Driggs, Idaho, inbound at this time.”

  “That’s impressive,” Uncle Bill said.

  “I’ll split my team up into two units. But there’s no space on those choppers for Agent MacKerron here and Mr. Williams. Sorry, boys. I’ve got to put my most seasoned operators into the field as first priority.”

  Cade stood. “What? But Jana is out there somewhere! I’ve got to find her.”

  “Sorry, son—Washington. I’ve got my orders. You know as well as I do that finding that device is top priority.”

  “Cade,” Kyle said, “I don’t know how to tell you, but he’s right. HRT has a fairly powerful radiation detector. They’ll be on the hunt for that nuclear device, not Jana.”

  Cade sat and buried his face in his hands. He looked at Kyle. “I can’t leave her out there. I don’t care what it takes. She’s not going to die like that. Not like that.”

  “Come on. It won’t be long before we’re on the ground. Let’s get you a Kevlar vest.” Kyle turned to the HRT weapons specialist. “What can you spare?”

  44

  CLIPPED SILENCE

  Yellowstone Airport, West Yellowstone, Montana

  The tires on the Gulfstream barked onto the single runway of the remote Yellowstone Airport. FBI Hostage-Rescue Team operators burst from the cabin in a sprint toward two Bell UH-1 Huey helicopters, both with rotors thumping. Kyle and Cade stepped off the plane and stared at the choppers as they lifted off and headed in separate directions.

  “Come on,” Kyle said as he shouldered the sniper rifle given to him by HRT. “Let’s hit that ranger station over there.”

  The pair jogged toward an old log cabin nestled underneath fir trees at the edge of the runway. A female park ranger stood on the porch and leaned against a wooden post. The absence of makeup added to her rugged beauty.

  “Is it true?” she said.

  “Every bit of it,” Kyle said. “I’m Agent MacKerron, FBI. This is Cade Williams, National Security Agency. We need your help.”

  “I bet,” she said as she tipped her hat to them. “Ranger Parker. Come on inside. Those Hueys make a hell of a racket, don’t they?”

  As they walked through the open wooden door, Cade spoke first. “Ranger Parker, sounds like you’ve been briefed on the situation.”

  “I didn’t really give them a choice, about whether or not they were going to brief me, I mean. Told those National Guard pilots, ‘My park, my rules.’”

  “Yes, ma’am. Then you know what we’re up against, and what they’re looking for.”

  “Yeah, and I know there’s no point trying to evacuate the park. We’d never get the tourists out in time. It would take us a couple of days just to get the word out to them. Besides, if we don’t find the bomb, there won’t be a park left to evacuate. How can I help?”

  “Show me where we are on that map,” Kyle said as he pointed to a framed map of Yellowstone National Park on the wall. “Hostage Rescue will be sweeping an area . . . let’s see, yeah, should be this grid area up here. They’ll run a grid pattern all across this hill country.”

  “Why do they think the device is there?”

  “The caldera,” Cade said. “If he detonates anywhere in this grid, he’ll be able to penetrate into both the upper and lower magma chambers of the supervolcano.”

  “Got it.”

  Kyle continued. “To be honest, aside from helping us get out to this locale, I don’t know what else you can do for us. But maybe with your familiarity with the area, you can point us to anything that comes to mind. The psycho we’re after has kidnapped one of our agents and we assume she’s here. If that’s true, he’d want,” he looked at Cade, “somewhere private. I don’t know. Is there anything in this area that jumps out at you? Any caves, cabins? Anything like that?”

  “Well,” Ranger Parker said, “the area you’re pointing to is a somewhat remote area of the park. Not nearly the most popular area for tourists. But there’s a campground right over here in the Mount Sheridan area. Lots of RVs and camp sites up and down this ridge. That’s the most likely place to find people. But I overheard one of the Huey pilots talking about being assigned to sweep that area from the air, which I didn’t understand, by the way. How are they going to just look out the chopper door and find the thing? Do they have some type of equipment on board they can detect a nuclear device with?

  “That’s right, ma’am,” Cade said.

  “If that area is already being covered, we should focus somewhere else. Besides,” Kyle said, “if this is a campground, I’m not so sure he’d hide in there.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’d want more privacy than that. He would need to be away from prying eyes.”

  “So where was the other Huey headed?” Cade asked.

  “Up over here. A place called Caldera Rim.”

 
; “Aside from the obvious, what’s there?”

  “Just an overlook, really. See, it’s on Grand Loop Road. The road runs alongside the Gibbon River. Caldera Rim is just like a small park where you can look out over the falls. Not much there, just a place to park your car and see the beauty of nature.”

  “Well, Kyle, it’s still well within the target zone. But why did the second Huey choose this spot?”

  “Sounds too obvious, you know?” Kyle replied. “A place called Caldera Rim?” He repositioned the sling of the sniper rifle higher on his shoulder and looked at the ranger. “How remote an area is the overlook at Caldera Rim?”

  “Believe it or not, Grand Loop Road is a fairly busy thoroughfare. Not exactly a Los Angeles rush hour, mind you, but cars and tour buses move up and down the road all the time. To answer your question, for Yellowstone, it’s not remote at all. Now if you were here in the winter, that’s a different story. The road is only open during the warmer months of the year. May through November. So during winter, it’s as remote as it gets.”

  “Kyle, that doesn’t sound like the place. And there’s no cabins or remote campgrounds up here? Nowhere for even an RV camper to park, out of sight? This isn’t it.”

  “I agree,” Cade said.

  “Privacy, you say? Hmmm, privacy,” the ranger said as she rubbed her chin. “Well, let me think. There’s always the old Willmont homestead.” Ranger Parker placed a finger on the map.

  “What’s the Willmont homestead?” Kyle said.

  “1865,” she replied. “If you were tourists, I’d bore you to death with the details of the old place. I used to guide hikers up there. Today, it’s used as what we call a scout camp. But we haven’t had to use it in years. Man named Willmont built it just after the Civil War. He settled here after Lincoln was shot. Thought the country was going to hell.”

  “He was right,” Cade said. “It’s an old house?”

  “Cabin. About the same size as the one you’re standing in. But this one is much newer.”

  “Newer?” Kyle said as he glanced at the layer of thick dust coating the exposed ceiling joists. “This thing looks like it might fall down any minute.”

  “Watch it,” Ranger Parker said, though she was grinning. “I was a little girl when my father helped build this cabin. He was a ranger, too.”

  “Don’t pay him any mind,” Cade offered. “No one likes him very much.”

  She glanced Kyle up and down. “I doubt that.”

  “You said the scout camp hasn’t been used in years?”

  “Yeah, we try to maintain the scout camps that we have, but there are only a couple of them. They’re really only there in case we have a winter rescue and we need shelter.”

  Cade leaned in and squinted at the map. “That’s in the middle of nowhere. No easy road access, no tourists, and a cabin, hidden away from prying eyes.”

  “It would take us forever to drive over in that direction, then make the hike out there, Cade.”

  But Cade was preoccupied in a thought. “What’s this little body of water on the map, just east of the cabin?”

  “Wrangler Lake. Compared to the park’s main lake, it’s a speck on the map.”

  He walked to the open door and looked out at the only other building on the edge of the airstrip. The tail section of a small plane hung just within view.

  “How big is Wrangler Lake?”

  “Tiny,” she said. “I don’t know. Maybe a thousand feet from one side to the other? Maybe two.”

  “Is that a float plane in the hangar?”

  “A De Havilland Canada DHC-3. Why?”

  He turned to face Ranger Parker. “We’re going to need to commandeer it, ma’am. And we need you to give us a ride.”

  “What makes you think I’m a pilot?”

  “Only a pilot would be able to identify the exact type of aircraft that is.”

  She smiled then said, “Was afraid you were going to say that. Let’s go.” The group headed out the door.

  Once airborne, Kyle keyed his headset and said, “It’s a good thing you can fly. Is there much need for a float plane here in the park?”

  Under a sudden downdraft, the plane dipped and Cade made a sound from the rear seat as his stomach dropped.

  “Oh, ah, no. We don’t fly very much. We do it occasionally, of course. But the plane is more or less reserved for emergencies.”

  “Like this?”

  “Well, this is certainly an emergency. But, no, our emergencies don’t typically involve lunatics with nuclear weapons. Ours are more the type where a hiker has broken a leg and has to be extracted off a hillside or something.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Kyle said. “Happen often?”

  “Oh, those are the easy ones.”

  “What are the hard ones?”

  Parker looked at Kyle and shook her head. “Grizzlies. There’s the occasional mauling.”

  “Grizzlies. Wonderful. I think I like my job better than yours.”

  “So if you don’t fly that often, how much flight time do you have?” Cade said.

  She began counting with her fingers. “This will be my fiftieth.”

  “Fiftieth? Fifty hours of flight time? Doesn’t it take forty to get your single-engine solo license?”

  “Yep,” she said as a gust of wind torqued the tail section to the left.

  “But,” Cade continued, “if you only have fifty hours of flight time, that means you don’t have your commercial license. You aren’t allowed to fly anyone.”

  “That’s right,” she said as she laughed. “Still think flying out to Wrangler Lake and attempting a water landing is such a good idea?”

  Cade leaned from the cramped space behind her and said, “Wait, you have done a water landing, right?”

  “Nope. First time.”

  “Kyle?” Cade said. “Remind me to kill Uncle Bill when we get back. I’m not cut out for this crap.”

  “Just focus on Jana, man. Hey, Parker, what’s our best approach to the cabin? Once we’re on foot, which side can we approach from high ground?”

  “You might want to approach it from the north.”

  The plane cut to the right and followed a mountain road below until a small body of water was in sight. Kyle turned and tucked the sniper rifle in between the two seats in an effort to cushion it from any jarring as they landed on the surface of the water.

  “What was all that about the high ground?” Cade said.

  “Cade, you know as well as I do that this is a wild goose chase, right? Anyway, the high ground is something used to our tactical advantage. We’d rather approach a structure from a higher vantage point.”

  “Gone all tactical on us, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, man. Can’t say as I relish the idea of spending my career working the business end of a raid. You know, knocking down doors every day. But it’s a kick of adrenaline, that’s for sure.”

  The plane descended but bounced back up. “Sorry. Sorry about that. You can’t see it from here, but the cabin is just over that ridge. Just west of the lake.”

  “We’re going to need you to stay with the plane,” Kyle said.

  “What? You guys need me. You two don’t look like you spend much time in the woods, if you know what I mean.”

  “You have any equipment on board? Radios, anything? If we run into trouble, we’ll need you to call the cavalry.”

  She turned toward Cade. “Reach behind you, in the survival pack. There’s a handheld radio. Should be all charged up. Agent MacKerron, open up that topo map and let’s have a look.”

  Kyle studied the map of the surrounding hillsides and forest.

  “Okay, here we go,” she said as she pointed to the map. “I’m going to try to land on the water on this side, and taxi toward the western edge. That will put you on the closest side of the lake to the cabin.”

  “You just concentrate on setting this thing down in one piece,” Kyle said.

  Ranger Parker performed a gentle turn to th
e left and descended to just above treetop level. To Kyle, it looked as though they might brush the tops of the conifers. Then from the engine came a loud pop, followed by a sputtering sound.

  “Oh shit,” Parker said as she vice-gripped the controls. “Hang on, everybody.” The plane dipped, regained power, then the engine sputtered once more and dropped into clipped silence. “Hang on!” she yelled.

  45

  BLANKET OF ANONYMITY

  Remote cabin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

  Jana’s eyes opened and she squinted into bright afternoon sun piercing the cabin’s window. The right side of her neck was tight with pain from her head’s being in that position for so long, and her jaw throbbed. When she saw Rafael, she wrenched her body upright.

  “Enjoy your little nap? Let me look at your pupils.” He leaned toward her. “Very nice. I’d say most of the effects of the fentanyl have worn off. Good, this is how I want you. I want you fully conscious and aware as I run my hands across you.” His grin sent a nauseating sensation through Jana. “And other things.” He began to pace the floor in front of her. “But first, there are some things I want to know from you. Things about your terrorism investigation that make me curious. For example, during your failed investigation last year that concluded with Jarrah detonating a device outside of your CIA headquarters, were you aware of my involvement in the plot?”

  “I’m not telling you anything.”

  “Oh, come now, Miss Baker. Everyone in your FBI expects you to betray your country already. What can it hurt?”

  “Fuck you!”

  “You will tell me a great many things. After all, you will be dead soon and I will be on my way out of the country.” He pulled a chair close to her and sat. “I want to know if the FBI knew about me last year. You see, I make quite an effort to remain off the grid. It helps me to maintain my anonymity, if you know what I mean.”

  “Go screw yourself,” she lashed.

  “That’s quite a foul mouth for someone in your position. I bet you won’t be saying things like that in a few minutes when I am having my fun with you.” He grabbed her jaw and squeezed. “Tell me! Does the FBI know about me?”