Spy ah-4

by Ted Bell

  “You’ve got assassins inside the Secret Service?”

  “That’s certainly one possiblility, however remote. The other is, someone went to a whole lot of trouble to duplicate a government Suburban. We even found pieces of light bars, the same heavy door armor the Service uses. Before the bomb went off, this Chevy was being transported in a remote-controlled tractor-trailer rig. Just like the one that ferried the sub to Virginia.”

  “You said, ‘convoy.’ How many of these big rigs, Conch?”

  “According to Sheriff Dixon, a dozen remote-controlled trailer trucks are known to be headed to the northeast from Texas.”

  “All going to Washington?”

  “I hope not. But we have no way of knowing that. I wish to God we did. We have no idea what we’re looking at here. It’s too bizarre for even me.”

  Alex was silent for a long moment and then he said, “Conch, this jungle compound I’m about to take out. It is mecca for combat droids. Armed drones, tanks, you name it.”

  “I know. I just read Harry Brock’s report. That’s why I’m calling you, Alex. I think there is at least the ghost of a chance that these remote-controlled trucks are a Muhammad Top operation. Perhaps even controlled from his jungle complex.”

  “That could well be it. Brock says there is a heavily fortified command-and-control bunker. Twenty-feet down. Two-hundred-foot antenna disguised as a tree.”

  “A tree?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Theoretically, I’ve got a dozen or more phony Secret Service vehicles driving around, each identical to the real thing. And possibly packed with high explosives. Could be plastique, Semtex, could be nuclear for all we know. Perfect bombs, Alex, hiding in plain sight. Movable. And, another weapon, possibly nuclear, may be buried in the muck in the Potomac River. I’ve got to run along now.”

  “Conch? One thing. They’ve got Ambrose. When they took him, he was deciphering a code log that could make a difference. The man who wrote the code was trying to stop these people.”

  “Oh, God, Alex. Poor Ambrose.”

  “If he’s still alive, we’ve got a chance.”

  “In eleven hours and change, the president puts his hand on that bible and takes the oath of office. That moment in time is the single most vulnerable few seconds this country faces every four years. The vice president, Congress, hell, the entire government is out there on the street standing with him. Tens of thousands of schoolchildren and—oh, Holy God.”

  “Conch, listen to me. Can’t you get the president to postpone the ceremony? Move it?”

  “Since General George Washington took the oath in 1789, the swearing-in ceremony has only been moved once. Bad weather and Andrew Jackson was ill. You think Jack McAtee is going down in history as the guy who called off his own inauguration at the last minute? What’s your next idea?”

  “I see what you mean.”

  “With or without that code, Alex. Take out Muhammad Top. I wish to God I could do it for you. But I can’t.”

  78

  ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

  J ust before dawn, Agent Rocky Hernandez swung the old Cherokee into the parking lot of an all-night diner. Across the street, the Annapolis harbor looked quiet, sailboats riding at their moorings, peace and tranquility disturbed only by the sound of halyards flapping against aluminum masts in the gusty wind.

  The two men climbing out of the car looked frustrated, haggard, and worn. The excitement over Dixon’s breakthrough discovery in Rock Creek Park was long faded. Time was running out. They had spent the last five hours combing the countryside, coming up empty. There was hardly a park, isolated farm, or stretch of rolling Virginia or Maryland woodland within thirty miles of the capital that they had not yet searched.

  “Ten minute break,” Hernandez said, “You go ahead inside. I’ll call in, see what’s going on. Please order me a black coffee and a couple of donuts. Maybe they’ll give you some water for Dutch, too.”

  Dixon entered the empty diner and took a stool at the counter. He ordered coffee and donuts and a bowl of water for the dog. Abigail, a perky high school senior, brought him the food and drink. “What kind of dog is it?” She stood on tiptoes with the bowl in her hands, looking out the window.

  “He’s a hero,” Dixon said, managing a smile.

  “Can I take the water out to him?”

  “I guess. Truck’s open. He’s in the back. His handler’s out there making a call.”

  “Dutch says thanks, he was thirsty,” Hernandez said, taking a seat a few minutes later. He took two gulps of coffee and bit into his donut.

  “How is it back in Washington, Rocky?”

  The agent looked over at Dixon, his eyes red with strain. “It’s bad,” he said.

  “I figured.”

  “Chaos. A lot of pressure from the First Lady and others in the Service to evacuate, postpone, or at least move the swearing-in ceremony. Take the whole show inside. Some secret location they’re working on. Outside of Washington. My guys are going crazy right now. The media smells blood and they’re hounding the White House every step of the way. It’s a lose-lose situation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We postpone, we move, we evacuate? And nothing happens, we’re idiots. Don’t evacuate, don’t postpone, and something happens, we’re idiots.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “Doesn’t matter how I feel. I know how the president feels. In five hours, he’s going to walk down those capitol steps in the sunshine and put his hand on that bible. Period. End of report. I know that man better than I know my own soul.”

  “I guess we were wrong about wooded areas,” Dixon said, taking a sip.

  “We’ll keep looking, that’s all. The Virginia truck, the Rock Creek truck. Both wooded areas. Secluded. Where the hell else are you going to secretly unload something as big as a Suburban?”

  Franklin stared down at his cup in silence.

  “A garage,” he said quietly.

  “What?”

  Dixon, looked at him, his tired eyes alight. “Rocky, how long you figure it takes to run a cross-check on every garage and body repair shop in Washington? Cross-check the ownership? Match the owners against all the names on the DC counter-terrorist watch list?”

  The agent slammed his fist on the countertop. “A garage. Jesus. Why didn’t I think of that? Let’s get started.”

  Franklin put five dollars on the counter and headed for the door.

  HALF AN HOUR later, they were on their third garage. The first two had been small one-man body shop operations, no way to back an eighteen-wheeler inside. The one they were headed for now was off Massachusetts Avenue, near Union Station. It was called the Teapot Dome Body Shop.

  “This one feels good,” Rocky said as they cruised by the place and pulled around the corner to park, “I don’t know why, but it does.”

  They got Dutch out of the back and sprinted around the corner to the entrance. They were moving fast, Dutch racing ahead as if he knew the schedule was tight. They had eleven more garages on their A list, six more on the B list. It was seven-thirty a.m. on what promised to be a clear blue Inauguration Day. The president’s address was now less than five hours away.

  A tiny bell above the door tinkled when they pushed it open. The office reeked of sweat and oil. Old-fashioned nudie calendars hung on the walls. A fat dark-haired man in filthy white mechanic’s coveralls sat behind a battered wooden desk, littered with invoices, catalogs, and greasy automobile parts. He had an Arabic newspaper spread across his lap and looked up from it slowly.

  “Help you?” he said, a smile spreading across his moon face.

  “Secret Service,” Hernandez said, flipping open his badge. “Special Agent Hernandez.”

  Franklin tipped his hat. “Dixon. Prairie County Sheriff.”

  “Yeah. So. What can I do for you two?”

  Dutch had something. Inside the desk. On the man. And behind a door on the right. He went for the door.

 
; “Where’s the garage?” Franklin asked the man, moving quickly toward the closed door just right of the desk. “Through here?”

  “Private property, cowboy. You got a warrant?”

  Franklin ignored that, put his hand on the knob and turned it. Dutch bolted ahead of him through the narrow crack.

  “Hey! I said, this is private—” The fat man was coming out of his chair.

  “Gun!” Hernandez shouted, “Gun! Get down!”

  Franklin shoved through the door and dove to the cement floor. He rolled twice, heard two loud shots explode inside the office, and pulled his weapon. Through the door he saw the gun still in the mechanic’s hand, his arm coming up, even though the upper part of his coveralls were soaked with blood.

  Franklin shot the fat man in the head.

  He looked through the doorway at Agent Hernandez. On the floor behind the desk, but he was getting to his feet.

  “You hurt?” Dixon said.

  “Not bad. Grazed my shoulder. What have you got in there, Dutch? It better be good.”

  “You won’t believe it.”

  “The Teapot is the Jackpot,” Hernandez said, smiling at Dixon and moving quickly past him to catch up with his dog.

  The garage was cavernous. You’d never know it from the facade on the street outside. Inside, it looked like two or three old warehouses had been combined into one. You could easily get twenty tractor-trailer rigs inside.

  It was now empty except for the three black Chevy Suburbans with blacked-out windows parked along one wall. Dutch was running back and forth alongside all three vans. They were sheathed in clear thick plastic covers. Hernandez crossed the greasy floor and approached the first one, running his hand along the smooth black fender where the plastic had been partially peeled away.

  “Dutch! Come!” Dixon said. He’d found something interesting on the far side of the garage. The dog raced over to him, started pawing through the stuff in the corner.

  “Will you look at this?” Rocky said, ripping back the torn plastic covering one of the big vans, his voice a mix of admiration and dread. “These things are perfect! Light bars, antennas, running boards, grab handles, the whole nine yards right down to the five star U.S.S.S. decals on the doors.”

  “Stay away from that thing, Rocky!” Dixon said, keeping his distance. “Don’t touch it!”

  “Why?”

  “Two cops already died finding out. Come here and see what Dutch has got. Huge pile of plastic wrappers over here in the corner. Maybe thirty or forty of them. That means the rest of the vehicles are already on the streets.”

  “Yeah…”

  “Don’t do that!”

  “Aw, c’mon, Sheriff, we’ve got to find out what’s inside these things, don’t we? I mean—”

  The explosion was blinding.

  79

  THE BLACK JUNGLE

  T op was ecstatic as he left the prisoner alone in his room overlooking the river that morning. He and Khan had just pushed the man to the edge of endurance and beyond. The Englishman was near death now and would probably expire before his scheduled beheading at sundown. Pity. Still, both Top and the doctor were now fully convinced the English detective had not communicated anything to this man Hawke; or to anyone else.

  Their plans thus intact, with no need of dangerous last minute alterations, he and the doctor rushed across the rope bridge leading to the subterranean bunker.

  The rain was heavy.

  His drones, sadly, were grounded. Even the patrol tanks were having a rough go of it in the deepening mud that carpeted the jungle floor. The river was rising. It was possible an early flash flood might occur. This was of no concern. His bunker was secure and his fortress built in trees for just this kind of situation. He who has the high ground, reigns, Top reminded himself.

  The hour was at hand. He was surprised to find that he was wholly at peace. Unconcerned with trivialities or small setbacks such as had occurred on the farm in Virginia and in Rock Creek Park. It was too late for the Americans. They just didn’t know it yet. Nothing could stop him now. He had built his fortress well. Nothing could stop his machines.

  There had been scattered reports of incursions on the northern perimeter. There had been probes along the western front as well. Let them probe. His men were ready. His remaining Guards would fight to the death. He was also unconcerned about an attack by this nobody named Hawke. His vessel was now stopped, stymied by the rapids just as Top had expected it would be. He’d seen her size on the live feed from the aerial drones. There was no way a boat that size could navigate this stretch of the Black River.

  Hawke was nothing but a runaway slave and when he was found, he would be dealt with in a manner befitting his station and his sins.

  Four entire divisions had moved out from this camp as well as the satellite camps in the jungle. His soldiers, wearing the new red patches proclaiming them BOLIVARISTAS, were on their way north, en route to Colombia. There, in the jungles outside the city of Medillin, his forces would join a large battalion of FARC guerillas and launch their assault on the first stepping stone in Central America, Panama. After the fall of Panama City, the unstoppable Bolívaristas would advance into Costa Rica and Nicaragua where they would be joined with yet more of their brethren.

  And then into San Salvador they would march, gathering strength as they moved into Guatemala for the final surge before joining their comrades in the mountains of Mexico. The final push would, of course, be north across that beleaguered borderline, north, always north, until the lost territories of his friends in Mexico City were at long last recovered.

  What Simon Bolívar had begun in 1820, Muhammad Top would finish. A united continent, brothers-in-arms, true believers all, faithful soldiers of Allah.

  Now, to the matters at hand.

  He and Khan entered a short tunnel, brilliantly disguised inside a large flowering fern, and came to the blast door that protected the elevator.

  Seconds later they were inside and descending to the bunker.

  Khan and Top entered the Tomb. They could hardly contain their joy at the images on the multiple screens. His black Chevrolet war wagons were circling the American capital. Their cameras were sending back pictures of a cloudy January morning in Washington. A holiday. Parade marshals were directing traffic around the capital building itself. High school marching bands gathering on side streets, tubby children tooting their tubas. Even now, joyful Americans were lining up three deep behind the ropes that lined the parade route from the White House.

  Top looked up at the digital clock he’d positioned so carefully where all eyes could read it.

  9:59 a.m.

  In two hours, the president of the United States would place his hand on the bible and swear to uphold the Constitution and defend his country. At that exact moment, America, its entire government decapitated, would go crashing to the ground with a sound that would be heard around the world.

  The bible was a nice touch, Top thought. One of Khan’s better ideas.

  “IT’S TIME,” Saladin said, handing the field radio back to his radioman. He’d just talked to Brock. The canoes were on the river, headed for Top’s compound three miles distant. Saladin moved his men quickly east through the jungle. The rain was heavy, but they’d trained in worse. At his hand signal, the men halted just inside the tree-line. The wide ravine lay ahead. And the great rope bridge.

  Thanks to Caparina, who had shaved her head and disguised herself as a lowly foot soldier inside the compound, he now knew this was the weak link. It was the back door of Top’s compound. A lot of troops had moved out, and were marching north. His scouts had pinpointed the position of the main force and communicated the troop’s position to Fire Control aboard Stiletto.

  The compound would be primarily guarded by Trolls now. But he and his demo experts had figured out a way to reduce the Troll population of the Black Jungle.

  Now, Saladin ran from man to man, making sure the main body of his squad was well situated within the tree l
ine and knew their orders. Then he looked at the two young Brazilian Spec Ops guys who would accompany him across the bridge. They had volunteered for the most dangerous part of this mission. “Ready?” he whispered

  They nodded, their faces smeared with camo paint.

  Into the jaws of death, Saladin thought, but he kept those dark words to himself.

  “We go.”

  Saladin and his two volunteers sprinted across the open ground and raced out onto the swaying bridge. He’d left the main body of his squad inside the trees, weapons ready. When it was time, they would strike. At the far end of the bridge, they could see the enemy forces aligned, waiting for them. Each of his two comrades had been told to hold his fire until his signal. They would get as close to the far side as they could before engaging. That was the plan.

  Halfway across, running hard, they could see the robot tanks forming up to defend the western perimeter. Saladin and his men kept running, weapons at the ready. A hundred yards, now, fifty…still, no one fired. The burned-out bunker had not been returned to action. But there were more enemy troops moving up through the trees. Why didn’t they shoot? He and his two men kept running toward them, weapons poised, fingers itching on the triggers.

  Twenty yards from the end of the bridge, Saladin raised his hand and signaled for the two men with him to halt. They each dropped to one knee, covering him. He ran ahead alone across the bridge. He was firing his weapon, spraying the oncoming tanks now streaming toward the bridge. The tanks returned fire, troops moving in behind their advance.

  Saladin went down. As the tanks advanced, his two comrades raced forward and grabbed their leader under each arm, retreating back across the bridge on the run, firing as furiously over their shoulders as they were able, knees pumping, running hard for the safety of the jungle where their squad was waiting. The tank controllers, seeing all this disarray, would be filled with glee. And speed men and machines across the bridge for the kill.