by Dalton Fury
He stepped over the fallen Delta operators and started up the stairs.
Shaft lay sprawled out on his back just below the open door that led out onto the roof. Blood from a scalp wound was streaming down his face and staining the front of his jacket, but he was still breathing.
Raynor continued past the wounded operator, easing the door open wide to make sure there was no one waiting to ambush them on the other side, but did not go through.
Slapshot spoke from behind him. “Grazed him. Probably has a concussion. He’ll make it, but he needs a doc, ASAP.”
“As soon as we clear the roof.” Raynor knew he would get no argument from the sergeant major. Security had to be the first priority. He looked down at Shaft, placed his nonfiring hand on the man’s upper arm. “Hang in there, brother.”
“Ready when you are, boss.”
Raynor counted to three and then moved through the door, turning left just as if he was clearing a room. His sector of fire was empty, and he saw no movement in his peripheral vision, but the door was facing east, and he knew that Shiner had been facing north, toward WRNMMC.
“Left side clear,” he whispered, moving close to the southeast corner of the raised superstructure.
“Right clear,” Slapshot answered.
“Stay tight.” He sliced the pie on the corner, expecting to see Shiner hunched over a rifle at the building’s edge.
Miric was there, all right, kneeling with his weapon raised and ready, but it wasn’t aimed at the distant military base. He was pointing it right at Raynor.
Kolt drew back and went to the prone position, even as the rifle barked. Concrete exploded from the corner, spraying him with grit. Raynor immediately alligator-rolled out into the open, firing at the spot where Shiner had been the moment before, but the other man was already gone. Kolt caught a glimpse of movement, but the other man ducked around the far side of the superstructure before he could adjust his aim.
“I have been waiting for you, Racer,” Miric called out. “Now we end this.”
Raynor rolled back behind cover and got to his feet. He looked at Slapshot, then pointed up. Slapshot nodded, stowed his pistol. He flexed his legs, then jumped, reaching up to grasp the edge of the roof of the superstructure. Straining silently, he pulled himself up, and with a final dynamic exertion, heaved himself over the lip, disappearing from view.
Miric shouted again. “Tell me, Racer. Do you play chess?”
“Not really. I’m more of a Call of Duty guy.”
“Pity. You will die without understanding how you were beaten.”
Raynor listened intently, trying to determine if the other man was moving, perhaps trying to come around from behind. “Slap, you there?” he whispered.
“Moving,” came the whispered reply.
Raynor was not particularly interested in bantering with the sniper, but as long as the other man was talking, he was distracted, and that would give Slapshot a chance to get close enough to take him out from above. “I’m beaten?” Kolt shouted. “Even if you get past me, you aren’t getting off this roof alive.”
“You and I, we are just pieces in the game. Sometimes the lesser pieces must be sacrificed to ensure victory.”
The sniper’s confidence was more than a little unnerving to Raynor. “What victory is that? You missed your chance. The president is safe.”
“Do you think so?”
“Got eyes on,” Slapshot whispered over the open phone line. “He’s hugging the wall. North side, right below me. I can take him, but—”
“But something stinks,” Raynor finished. He thought about Athens and the explosive deception at Miric’s apartment, and Jersey City, where the sniper had tried to shift attention to the militia movement and the Russians.
And chess.
“Shit. It’s another fucking psy-op. He’s playing us.” He took a breath and called out again. “Let me guess. You’re just here to create a diversion. Distract us while your buddies attack from somewhere else.”
“Very good, Racer. I always knew you were not that stupid.”
Raynor felt stupid. All his assumptions about Shiner had been wrong. Miric wasn’t simply a revenge-crazed lone-wolf killer. He was playing for bigger stakes. And he was getting big-league assistance.
“Won’t happen,” Raynor retorted. “You don’t think we thought of that? That’s basic military tactics.”
When Miric did not immediately reply, Raynor wondered if the bluff had worked. He pushed harder. “We’ve already got them in custody. They’ll talk. It’s over.”
“I do not believe you,” Miric said, but sounded more defiant than certain. “In a few minutes, we will see whether you are telling the truth.”
We will see …
Raynor suddenly felt numb all over. “Digger, you there?” he barked, not caring if Shiner overheard.
“Go, boss.”
“Tell Simmons to initiate ECMs. Now. There’s a bomb.”
“No!” Miric shouted.
“He’s moving!” Slapshot shouted. “Front!”
Raynor heard the distinctive report of a suppressed pistol firing several times in rapid succession. He got his own weapon up just as Shiner rounded the corner at a dead run. Raynor broke the trigger, but was too slow by a millisecond. Miric overshot the corner, and then as Kolt corrected his aim, the other man pivoted toward him and charged.
TWENTY-NINE
Digger did not question Raynor’s shouted warning. He had been following Racer’s conversation with Miric, heard the sniper as much as admit that the real attack would come from somewhere else. It had to be a bomb, and a remotely activated trigger made the most sense.
He turned immediately to Kearney. “Todd, you need to activate RF jammers. Now.”
The young Secret Service agent gaped at him in disbelief. “You said there was a sniper.”
“Fuck,” Digger snarled. “Do you want me to start shouting ‘bomb’?”
His volume was already loud enough to qualify as a shout, as was evidenced by the fact that more than a few heads turned their way. They were outside the south entrance to the medical center—Building 10, also called the Eagle Zone—a stone’s throw from the army of reporters who were camped out on the lawn. Behind it was Building 9, the Arrowhead Zone, where the actual hospital facilities were located.
“Okay,” Kearney said quickly. “Keep it down. Are you sure? Where’s it at?”
“Todd, if you don’t turn on the ECMs right fucking now, you’re going to find out the hard way.”
Kearney did not look at all convinced, but without further protest, tilted his head to the side, bringing his mouth closer to his mic. “This is Kearney. We’ve got a possible RC device on premises. Initiate electronic countermeasures.”
The noise of Raynor’s battle with Rasim Miric was suddenly gone from Digger’s Bluetooth earpiece. Hawk glanced over at him, nodding to indicate that she had lost comms as well, and within seconds, a hum of discontent arose from the assembled media as they began to realize that their electronic connection to the outside world had been severed.
Kearney was holding one hand over his earpiece, his expression grave. He looked like he was about to be sick. After listening for a few more seconds, he raised his eyes to Digger again. “Okay, Pete. It’s done. SAIC Simmons is on his way. He’s not happy.”
“He should be,” Hawk remarked. “We probably just saved POTUS, not to mention everyone standing here.”
Simmons arrived just a few seconds later, visibly fuming. He ignored his junior agent and instead advanced until he was almost standing nose-to-nose with Digger. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He kept his voice low, perhaps to avoid attracting any more attention from the reporters nearby, but there was no mistaking the menace in his tone.
Digger resisted the urge to remove the other man from his personal space. “There’s a bomb here somewhere. They won’t be able to remote detonate now, but there might be some kind of backup trigger. You need
to evacuate POTUS, immediately.”
Simmons shook his head emphatically. “There is. No. Bomb. We swept for explosives.”
“Well, you missed something,” Digger shot back.
“And just how do you know that?” Simmons shot a glance at Hawk, then returned his stare to Digger. “Kolt fucking Raynor says it, so it must be true?”
“He’s been right about everything else. Maybe you should try listening to him.”
“Agent Simmons,” Hawk put in. “We heard Rasim Miric make the threat.”
Simmons made a cutting gesture. “That’s all it was. An empty threat. There’s no way anyone could get a bomb into that hospital.”
He paused for a second, and then put his hands on his hips in a display of authority. “You two have caused enough damage. Tell Raynor that if I see or hear from him or any of you again, I will file formal charges.” He turned to Todd. “Special Agent Kearney, escort them off the base. Make sure they leave. If I see them again, by this time tomorrow you’ll be on a plane to Korea to work counterfeiting.” With that, he turned and started for the entrance.
“At least keep the ECMs on,” Hawk called out. “And do another sweep.”
Simmons did not look back.
Kearney turned to them, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. “Sorry, guys. I gotta walk you out.”
“We’re not going anywhere, Todd.” Digger turned to Hawk. “We’ve got to find that bomb.”
“Simmons was right about one thing,” Hawk said, as if thinking aloud. “There’s no way the bomb could be inside the hospital. Secret Service has had that locked down since FLOTUS got here yesterday.”
“Longer than that, actually,” Kearney said, but then shook his head. “No. We aren’t having this conversation. I’m sorry. You have to go.”
“If it’s not close to the VIP section,” Digger said, ignoring the young Secret Service agent, “then it would have to be big. Big enough to take the whole building down. A truck bomb maybe, like Oklahoma City.”
“They’d never get past the gate…” Hawk trailed off, then her eyes went wide. “What if it’s been here the whole time? That’s why Shiner shot the first lady. Why he only wounded her. They knew she would come here. They’ve been planning this for a while.”
“Who?” Kearney asked, curious despite himself. “Who are they?”
“Focus, Todd. The priority is the bomb.” Digger turned back to Hawk. “All right, where do you hide a couple tons of explosives in a hospital?”
“Basement?” Hawk suggested. “Packaged as … I don’t know, a pallet of bedpans?”
“There’s no long-term storage in the building,” Kearney said. “There’s a warehouse just for that.”
Digger shook his head. “Underground wouldn’t work anyway. It would contain the blast. No guarantee of bringing the whole place down.”
“Well, you’re the demo guy,” Hawk said. “Where would you put it?”
“I’m usually trying to avoid causing maximum damage.” He took a few steps back to get a better look at the building, trying to see it through the eyes of a terrorist intent on destroying it. Rising up behind the six-story structure was the nineteen-story tower, once the centerpiece of the old Bethesda naval hospital, and currently hosting, among other things, the naval postgraduate dental school and the graduate medical education program.
Digger pointed to the tower. “I’d put a fuel-air explosive up there. Two-stage thermobaric device. The initial blast would release a vapor cloud that would saturate the air around the tower with fuel. The secondary would ignite it. The blast energy would propagate down and out. Level the whole place. Even if it didn’t, the shock wave and thermal effects would kill everyone within a hundred-yard radius.”
“You sure they aren’t just gonna lob Acme explosive tennis balls at the helipad?” Kearney said, clearly not buying Digger’s detailed analysis.
“Did you look there?” Hawk asked. “At the tower?”
Kearney ignored the question. “And no one noticed this bomb that’s been sitting there for weeks. Building maintenance was just struck blind.”
“Disguised to look like an HVAC unit or a generator,” Hawk suggested. “They could have had someone working on the inside. Brought it in one piece at a time.”
“‘They’ again. Who are they?”
“Only one way to know for sure,” Digger said.
“Simmons will have my ass if he sees you.”
“Then we’ll make sure he doesn’t see us.” Digger grabbed the Secret Service agent, propelled him down the walk. “If it’s not there, we’ll leave. Swear to God. But if it is, we need to know before Simmons shuts off the ECMs.”
Kearney grimaced. “I am so fired.” He sighed. “Come on.”
* * *
Raynor got off another shot, a center-mass hit, or at least he thought it was, but Miric did not go down. He just twisted sideways a little as the round struck home and kept charging. Before Raynor could fire again, Miric slammed into him, and they both crashed to the rooftop.
Raynor felt something hot and damp against his skin. Blood. Shiner’s blood. He had been hit, probably multiple times by both Raynor and Slapshot, but the wounds had not taken any of the fight out of him. The diminutive Bosnian wrapped his legs around Raynor’s torso and threw his arms around Kolt’s head as if he intended to rip it off his shoulders.
The sheer ferocity of the attack left Raynor momentarily stunned. This wasn’t a grappling bout with his mates; Miric was trying to kill him. Fire blossomed on Kolt’s cheeks as the other man’s fingernails tore at his face, sinking deep into his flesh. Shiner was going for his eyes.
That shook Raynor out of his stupor.
He let go of the Glock and brought his right hand up, jamming it into the gap between himself and his opponent, to cover his eyes. As he did this, he brought one knee up, planted his foot solidly on the rooftop, and then thrust up with his hips, launching Miric forward.
The move broke Shiner’s attack, but in no way reduced his rabid fury. Even as Raynor managed to roll Miric over onto his back, coming up inside his guard, Shiner began clawing at him again.
Raynor lowered his head, pressed into Miric’s abdomen to protect his eyes. He could feel the other man’s blood, hot and slick against his face. Miric was bleeding out. He would probably be dead in a matter of minutes, but adrenaline and pure hatred had given him some kind of berserker strength.
Kolt flung his right arm up, caught Shiner’s left biceps, and slammed his shoulder down, pinning it. In the same motion, he hooked his left arm under Miric’s right knee, capturing the leg. He leaned back, rising into a squat and holding his opponent almost upside down. Only the back of Miric’s head was still making contact with the rooftop. Then in a move Raynor had practiced so thoroughly that it was all muscle memory, he folded Miric over, stacked him up, and drove down with all his weight.
He did not stop until he heard Shiner’s cervical vertebrae snapping.
* * *
Half a mile away, in the parking lot of the base outdoor recreational area, Mehmet and three members of his operations cell had been watching the live-stream newsfeed of the president’s arrival at the nearby medical facility on the tiny screen of a smartphone. They all wore coveralls and carried badges that identified them as civilian contractors. The names on the badges were aliases, but the jobs were real. Two of the four men had been working in the facilities maintenance department for nearly four months.
They had smuggled the components in and assembled the weapon during the first two months of their employ, but in order to maintain cover and ensure that the device was not accidentally discovered, it had been necessary to continue working at the military hospital, maintaining environmental systems and performing various other tasks, while they waited for Miric to carry out his part of the plan. The delay following the failed assassination attempt in Baltimore had been unnerving. The longer the weapon stayed in place, the greater the risk of discovery. But now, finally, Mehmet would be abl
e to execute his masterstroke.
The reporter stationed outside the Eagle Zone administration building had wrapped up his coverage of the president’s arrival and now the anchor in the studio was interviewing a medical expert, who was going to speculate on the exact nature of the surgical procedures the first lady would be undergoing. Also present were a pair of opposing political commentators, who were going to explain how the president’s showing up to be with his wife was either an indication of presidential courage or a sign of weakness.
“I think it has been long enough,” he told the men. “Prepare yourself, my brothers.”
They rolled the windows down and opened the doors to reduce the effects of the anticipated shock wave.
The men—all Russian émigrés with military experience, recruited into what they believed was a sanctioned FSB operation to destabilize America—were willing to give their lives to achieve victory, but they also hoped it would not be necessary to make that ultimate sacrifice. That was why they were here, on base, partially concealed behind the Uniformed Services University building, almost a kilometer away from what would be ground zero for the detonation. There was still some risk, but it was a risk worth taking to preserve their cover to the very end.
When the authorities began investigating the cause of the blast, they would immediately assume that the bomb had been placed by someone working on the inside. That was why Mehmet could not risk triggering the device from outside the base. Suspicion would immediately fall upon anyone who had not reported for work that day, and there was a chance—if only a slim one—that the ensuing scrutiny would lead investigators back to the Turkish government, undoing everything he hoped to accomplish. No, they would detonate it from a minimum safe distance and then rush to the blast site to begin helping with the rescue effort, pulling victims from the rubble. Doing so would also give them a chance to make doubly sure that the president did not survive.
Mehmet was just about to switch to the phone dialer when the news feed abruptly went blank, displaying an error message.
