by Basil Sands
“Details,” he said. His face color quickly returned to normal.
“A terrorist in Anchorage?” Tomer said. “Nothing has come across our radar.”
“Remember that car accident a few days ago,” Lonnie said, “the one with the newly married couple?”
“Yeah,” Warner replied.
“I was there,” Lonnie told him. “Immediately after the accident, a man pulled up in a white Audi and offered to help. I felt strange about him and his companions, as if he had somehow caused the accident, like maybe he was chasing the man who hit the couple. Next day, Hilde recognized him on the news.”
“He’s a known operator named Steven Farrah,” Hilde said. “I spent the morning at the FBI building, checking into his full cover story.”
Seriousness descended on the group as the two women explained what happened at the rail yard and their husbands' discoveries at the port. The discussion paused briefly when Myriam brought plates of food, then continued once she left. Once the explanation was done, they started brainstorming, voices low.
“Okay, how would he hit the president in this environment?” Tomer asked.
Hilde swallowed the final bite of her sandwich. “He’s a petroleum engineer by education.”
“That would obviously be his cover,” Lonnie said wiping her lips with a napkin then dropping it onto her empty plate, “but how would he use that for an assault on the president?”
“Describe again what Marcus and Mike saw at the port,” Warner’s eyes blazed with intense concentration as if he were crunching data with a built-in in computer in his head.
“There was something Marcus said.” Lonnie picked up her purse and rummaged inside it. “Let me give him a call and have him tell you exactly.” She slumped in exasperation. “I left my phone in the hotel room. I’m going to run up to get it. You guys keep talking—I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
“I’ll pay for your lunch, Lonnie, and we’ll meet at the lobby of the hotel,” Hilde said. “About fifteen minutes.”
“Okay, thanks” Lonnie said. “See you there in fifteen minutes.” She rushed out the door as fast as her pregnant form could move.
Warner leaned in to the table. “We inspected a pretty long segment of the underground tunnels around the park strip and downtown. I didn’t see any overt signs of tampering—just normal maintenance.”
“Of course,” Tomer said, “if this guy is a petroleum engineer, he would know how to hide his work.”
“Let’s get some bomb dogs down in those tunnels,” Tonia said. “That seems to be the most likely place to try something.”
Tomer nodded. “It’d have to be a pretty big bomb to blow through the ground and still have enough power to kill the president.”
“But it’s possible. It’s always the unknown stuff that gets you,” Warner said. “We’ll have snipers on the roofs all around, plainclothes agents mixed into the crowd, and dogs all over the place. It would not be easy to get any kind of attack by on the surface, unless they plan a battalion-strength assault.”
“Other scenarios here, folks,” Tonia said. “We need to think of other scenarios.”
“Here is not the place to get into details,” Tomer said. “Let’s head back to the office.”
“Okay,” Hilde said. “I’ll go get Lonnie and meet you guys at the FBI building.”
Hilde paid hers and Lonnie’s bills. Tonia paid for hers and Tomer’s.
“Hey, I’ve got per diem,” she said with a wink. “I’ll cover you, Tony.”
Warner was last to pay. When Myriam handed back his receipt, Warner felt something extra in his hand. He looked at it before pocketing the register receipt. Myriam had included a slip of paper with her phone number on it. He looked up in surprise.
She smiled, and as the others turned away, she mouthed the words “call me.” The late-afternoon sunlight glinted off her gold nose stud and her eyes sparkled. A weak grin twitched at the corners of Warner’s mouth, the blush returning to his cheeks. He turned and followed the others out the door.
Chapter 17
Lonnie entered her hotel room and made another bathroom stop to relieve the constant pressure the baby placed on her bladder. She came out, picked up her phone, and put it in her purse, then glanced quickly around the room to make sure she wasn’t forgetting something before stepping back out the door. It shut with a solid click and she tried the handle, verifying it was locked before she moved toward the elevators.
Two maintenance men in brown coveralls were putting tools in a canvas bag as she passed them. She heard the zipper shut on the bag, then the sound of their heavy footsteps behind her as she drew near the elevator. As she came to a stop in front of the elevator door, she glanced at a polished brass plaque on the wall in front of her. In the reflection, she saw the two men moving close behind. She reached out and pressed the down button.
The two men stopped beside her, and she gave a sideways glance up at them. One was tall, the other short, both were thickly muscled. The tall one turned his face fully toward her, looking directly into her eyes. Lonnie’s heart thumped a painful beat and her eyes widened with surprise.
“Hey, Trooper Wyatt,” said the hard-looking man who stared down at her. A tattoo of a skull peeked malevolently above the collar of his coveralls on the right side of his neck. The Nazi SS double lightning bolt symbol balanced the look on the left side.
“Leonard Brassert, what are you doing here?” she asked, regaining her composure and giving him the coldest look she could muster. “They let you out for good behavior?”
“That doesn’t matter much to you. It’s payback time, bitch.”
“Are you stupid, Leonard? You going to shoot me right here in front of security?” She pointed to a black globe that hung from the ceiling in front of the elevators.
“I couldn’t give a shit,” said the man as the door slid open. “Get in.”
“No.”
“Then I will cut out your nigger-gook baby right here in the hallway and leave you to wallow in your own blood.”
He flicked a long, wicked-looking knife into view. The other man stepped into the elevator and leaned against the back wall. Lonnie considered her options. It was unlikely she could win a fight against these two killers even if she wasn’t pregnant. She was a third-degree black belt in both Tae Kwon Do and Hap Ki Do. That fact had given her the upper hand in many a fight, against both male and female opponents, but most people in fights are not in it for life or death. They give up when the pain hits a certain level.
Leonard Brassert, on the other hand, was not here to play a game. Any fight with him would certainly end in death for at least one of them. A life of violence in the world of organized crime and biker gangs had turned him into an animal. Five years earlier, she’d arrested him on multiple murder, rape, and drug charges. He had been accused of the torture and execution of a drug dealer and his family, but the prosecution could not gather enough evidence to prove it and he ended up with only a drug and robbery conviction and what should’ve been a ten year sentence. The look in his eyes left no doubt that if she didn’t think of something she and her baby were going to die. She didn’t know the other man, but his face showed no trace of humanity whatsoever. He looked like a shorter incarnation of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator character.
It was midday and the hotel was mostly empty. The occupants of the rooms would be busily touring the city. Those still there were likely asleep in preparation for the nightlife. She doubted there would be anyone to hear her scream.
Brassert had done a good job of keeping his back to the cameras, obscuring his actions. His broad shoulders also blocked off the view of Lonnie’s face. Security would have nothing to act on. She’d be dead before anyone was even aware there was a situation. Lonnie stepped into the elevator. Brassert followed her, the knife pricking her back as he drew close.
“If you let out a sound, I will slice you so fast, you won’t even feel it until you’re holding your bastard in your arms.
And I will gut the little shit in front of your face. Now stand by my friend, with your back to the wall.”
She complied, mind racing. Her phone and her Glock were both in her purse. She felt the weight of her backup pistol, a blued-steel Walther PPK .380 that was seldom even noticed after years being of worn on her ankle every day. Both guns were loaded with specially designed, and very expensive, MagSafe ammunition. The bullets, a mixture of epoxy and steel birdshot encased in a brass shell, transformed the power of a standard .380 into something comparable to a .45, and that of a .45 caliber pistol to the power of a .50 caliber. They were among the most lethal ammunition available in the world. But both weapons were worth very little at the moment because neither could be reached faster than Leonard could slash with the knife.
Her only hope would be to make a loud, attention-grabbing scene as they stepped into the lobby. That hope evaporated a moment later when Leonard slid a key into the maintenance switch and turned it to override. He pushed the button marked “B,” and the elevator started its non-stop descent to the basement. The likelihood of survival plummeted with every floor they passed.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, defiantly refusing to sound afraid. “Take me for ransom?”
She fed the idea to him, hoping to change his intentions from what she assumed were torture, rape, and murder.
“Shut up,” Brassert replied. “You’ll know soon enough.”
His partner remained silent, standing like a stone gargoyle beside her. The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open. Brassert poked his head out. There were no signs of activity in the basement hallway. He signaled and the other man snatched the purse from her hand, grabbed her arm, and shoved her through the door. The upper floors of the Hotel Captain Cook, the customer areas, were lit with a soft yellow glow and warm, dark textures. The basement, on the other hand, was the polar opposite in terms of atmosphere. Harsh fluorescent fixtures lit the corridor with a hyperactive flicker that gave Lonnie a headache as the men led her down the hallway toward a door at the end.
Lonnie looked ahead to the doorway. If she took her out onto the street, she might be able to scream out for help. She developed a plan in her mind as she drew closer. She could hit Brassert in the back of his head with a solid palm strike. The blow would stun him. Then she could scream and kick the man behind her in the balls. Then she would bolt away, roll onto the ground, and pull her pistol from her ankle holster, then turn and shoot Brassert and his companion before they recovered. The whole plan worked itself out in her thoughts in the space of less than a second as they drew near the exit.
Brassert slammed the crash bar with a loud bang and the door burst open. Lonnie’s plan dissipated almost instantly when they stepped out. A white utility van was parked just a couple of feet away in an alley behind the hotel. A garbage dumpster blocked the view from one side. A thick cement safety barrier pole jutted from the pavement a foot from the wall. Someone had stuck a yellow smiley face sticker on the side of the dumpster, the line drawn mouth grinning at her plight as if mocking the reality that there was no one to hear her scream, no place to run. The quiet man shoved her toward the open side door of the van. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a brief flash of a sky-blue vehicle, a minivan taxi passing the end of the alley. No way the driver could have seen the pregnant lady being forced into the back of a van by two muscle-bound murderers.
Her hope meter pegged at zero. She had done everything wrong, according to the rules for a hostage crisis. As a trooper, she taught women self-defense classes that emphasized how not to be kidnapped or raped. Now she found herself stuck in the very same situation she thought she knew how to avoid. Having been in more fights and brawls than the vast majority of women would ever experience, she had never imagined herself being caught in a situation like this—locked in a van with two men intent on murdering her and her baby, and no one else, not her friends, not her fellow cops, not her husband had any idea where she was or what was happening.
The middle row seats had been removed from the van, leaving an open space just inside the sliding door. A long blue vinyl bench with no seat belts stretched the width of the compartment at the rear. The front seat area was closed off by wire mesh. All of the glass, with the exception of the windshield, was tinted a dark shade that prohibited prying eyes from seeing anything inside. It was like a cage. Brassert got in the back with her. The other man climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine, then put it in gear and moved down the alley.
“Where are you taking me?” Lonnie demanded.
“You’re going to meet my whole family,” Brassert said. An evil glint sparked in his eyes. He put the knife to her chin, then put his hand on her plump, tender breast and squeezed. She winced as a sour pain shot through her chest. “All my bros are gonna get a piece of that ass for what you did to me, you dink bitch. Then I’m gonna slice you and your baby to pieces, real slow. And then I’m tear apart your baby’s corpse in front of you before you die.”
The boldness of his statement hit her like ton of bricks. He made no pretense. He was solely focused on terror and revenge. For the first time in her career as a law enforcement officer, Lonnie Wyatt Johnson was terrified —totally, unabashedly terrified.
As the van started into the street, it lurched sideways, a loud crunch exploded with deafening force. It slammed to a sudden stop, pitching Lonnie and Brassert forward off the seat. The knife at her throat slashed across her skin. A shriek of pain and fear escaped involuntarily from her lips as she tumbled to the open floor space with Brassert. In the split second of flight through the van’s interior she Lonnie wrapped her left arm around her belly to protect the baby from the fall, kicked her leg back behind toward her butt, yanked her pants leg up and whipped the small Walther into her hand. The pistol came out with a “schlick” sound as the steel slid out of the fitted leather ankle holster. The round mass of her belly made it impossible to breathe as she maneuvered in the tight space. She forced herself to keep moving, flipping the safety, thumbing the hammer back and fingering the trigger all at once. Not knowing the extent of the cut on her throat, she feared her life was draining out. Lonnie was not going to let Brassert touch her baby. She would fight to the last second of life.
He roared in a rage and raised the knife above her body, tensing to plunge it into her. She pointed the pistol and squeezed the trigger again and again until the slide locked back on the empty chamber, all seven rounds into Brassert’s torso and face. The shots exploded with the force of thunder inside the cramped space of the van. The murderer jerked his hands to his face and throat as scores of eighth-inch pellets ripped through his skin and cracked against the ribs, facial bones, and teeth. One of his eyes burst, and fluid and blood sprayed Lonnie as she tried to squirm away.
As the shots rang out the driver jerked his attention from the blue minivan that had rammed him to the rearview mirror. He whipped a pistol up and started to turn towards Lonnie. His attention suddenly turned back to the driver of the blue minivan taxi who had jumped out of his vehicle, flailing his arms angrily and swearing in a throaty-sounding foreign language. Brassert’s partner started to swing the pistol toward the oncoming cabbie when the cursing foreigner man reached inside the driver’s window and jabbed at his face with an unexpected ferocity. The kidnapper stiffened abruptly and froze in place. His arms dropped to his sides as Lonnie fired her last round into Brassert.
As the boom of her shots died away, above the intense ringing in her ears Lonnie heard the minivan's engine accelerate gradually. No tire squealing or loud revving—it just drove away as if nothing unusual had happened.
Brassert finally stopped his thrashing and sagged into a lifeless heap on the floor beside Lonnie, trapping her leg beneath his dead weight. Sirens shrieked closer as the police responded to the shots and 911 calls of people who saw the accident.
Someone opened the doors to the van. Lonnie could not raise herself to see who was there. Then she heard the shouts of police officer
s, and the shadow of the person backed away, raising their hands. She heard voices but could not make out anything being said. After what simultaneously seemed like both an instant and an eternity, a paramedic climbed partway into the van. He saw Lonnie and the mess that had been Leonard Brassert and recoiled in shock. Another paramedic joined the first and they helped Lonnie out, leading her to a waiting ambulance. They spoke to her, but she stared at them in dull confusion, her brain unable to process the words. She thought she may have answered, but was not certain she actually said anything or whether they replied. Numb and trembling, she turned back toward the van and saw Brassert’s nameless companion sitting upright, eyes gaping, staring out the windshield, his eyes frozen in a shocked expression above the knife buried to its hilt in his open mouth, pinning him to the seat back.
Chapter 18
Goldenview Drive
South Anchorage
2:00 p.m.
Marcus’s F250 rolled smoothly over the recently paved surface of Goldenview Drive. He recalled the time years earlier when, as a teen competing in track meets at South Anchorage’s Service High School, he drove through the Goldenview area. At that time, it was little more than a dirt track with a handful of remote homesteads, much like his own hometown of Salt Jacket. Salt Jacket had a current population of eight hundred inhabiting an area of nearly fifteen hundred square miles. A third of those residents still were not connected to full-time power, telephones, and running water. Goldenview, on the other hand, was a very different story. The descendants of the original mountainside inhabitants had mostly sold out their two-hundred-acre homesteads in the nineties and early years of the current century, pocketing millions in the housing boom.
In place of lush sub-arctic rain forest vegetable farms and horse ranches, million-dollar mansions had sprung up, stacked almost literally on top of each other on plots barely larger than the six-to-ten thousand square foot living spaces custom designed for Alaska’s rich and famous. Every massive home had an impressive view of the upper limits of the Pacific Ocean, Mount Illiamna, Turnagain Arm, the Anchorage Bowl, and the roof of the house below them. Marcus despised the design that comprised the “Upper Hillside” gated communities along much of Goldenview Drive, what he often termed “Beverly Hills AK.”
