Critical Error

by Murray Mcdonald

  “Politics because I felt I could make a difference. The Presidency because I have no choice, I have to make a difference,” he answered from the heart.

  “I’ve not heard you say it like that before?”

  “That’s because you’ve only ever heard me in public before. The Vice President was almost guaranteed the Presidency at the next election and I just can’t allow them to continue with what they’ve been doing to our country for the last eight years. They’re systematically tearing our democracy apart. Another eight years under Russell would effectively kill the United States as a democratic nation.”

  “You make him sound like some sort of dictator. I’ve met him once, he was charming.”

  “You, my dear, are a very attractive and unthreatening young woman, I am not in the least surprised you found him to be anything but charming. But let me assure you, once the doors are closed and the private Andrew Russell comes out, there’s no colder soul than that ruthless little shit.”

  Silence fell between them as they digested the possibility of the ruthless Russell being the man who had targeted Baker and his brother. Surely not, Baker told himself, but the more the thought played on his mind, the more sense it began to make.

  “You don’t think?” Agent Clark broke the silence and paused, the thought too horrific to verbalize.

  “I’m thinking the same bloody thing,” replied Baker. “Russell!”

  Chapter 20

  Sam gunned the 425 horses as he exited the ferry and had no intention of letting up until he reached Newark. The car rocketed out of Rockland as Sam considered the route, back roads or main roads. US Route 1 ran through Rockland and would connect him to I95 but that was the most obvious route and would leave Sam seriously exposed for over 50 miles. The back roads, cutting North to pick up the I95 to the North of Rockland, offered a less obvious solution but this meant his journey time would be extended by almost an hour. An hour Sam ventured he didn’t have. So US 1 it was. With no obvious tails being picked up as he sped through Rockland, he felt comfortable that he had at least a couple of hours before he’d have anything to really worry about.

  With his route selected, Sam’s mind began to fall back to Goat Island and the family and life that had been wrenched from him. Sam Junior, Goldie and Jane, his wife, slaughtered. Sam knew he should stay focused but the picture of his wife and child torn apart wouldn’t leave him. The adrenalin rush that had helped him overcome the attackers and got him to the mainland was wearing off and the cold light of day was hitting home; he was alone again. During his working life, Sam had remained single. His life had never been one to share. His new life had been though. Sam punched the steering wheel in anger. The resulting horn blast snapped him back. He had to leave Sam Junior, Jane and Goldie behind, not forever, but at least until he had avenged their deaths. He had to remain focused. Every single person who had had a hand in their deaths had to pay and to ensure that, Sam had to keep his mind focused.

  First and foremost, Sam had to get to his brother and see just who it was he had pissed off this time. Charles had a habit of taking things too far and neither realizing nor taking account of what or who he was up against. In Montana, it had been an Albanian gang who had been prosperously running a prostitution and drug ring before the Senator had waded in. Little did he know how close he had come to being at the end of a three man hit team, sent by the Albanian ganglord. Sam had taken care of the hit team and the ganglord quietly and in such a fashion that nobody would ever again consider something so stupid, certainly not in Montana. But Montana had been a small stage. Charles was now playing with the big boys and obviously Charles had continued to push people way over the edge.

  Sam considered the possibilities. Top of the list would be defense contractors. If Charles had taken issue with one, as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the impact could have been massive, involving billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Next were the usual whack jobs, white supremacist groups, Nazis, terrorists etc… but none of them would have known about Sam or his family.

  Before he could consider anymore, Sam reached the junction with US Route 1 and the 131, his turning should he wish to use the less obvious circuitous route. He paused at the junction before making a final decision. He floored the accelerator and pushed out of Thomaston and on down the US Route 1. Time was of the essence.

  The Avenger looked down on the junction and the clear open countryside ahead. From Rockland to Thomaston, the road had been lined with buildings and homes. After Thomaston, the road cleared and offered little or no cover for Baker, not that he even had hint he needed it. The Avenger was locked on and silently following its target’s every move from over 25,000 feet above him.

  “Sir, we’re moving towards open road. The target has remained on US Route 1. Target is locked and weapons are hot.”

  Johnson listened as the operator fed him the update. If only Sam had made the turn. It was going to be tricky to time a missile strike and minimize collateral damage. After all, he had promised the Vice President exactly that. However, Sam was a tricky bastard and Johnson knew better than anyone, the first chance they had, may be the only chance. So with little concern for collateral, he barked his orders.

  “Fire the first clear shot you get. Just don’t hit a bloody school bus. We clear?”

  “Yes Sir,” barked the operator.

  The operator looked towards his screen which really wasn’t any different from an arcade game. His target was clearly visible in the middle of the screen and in the top left, he had a range of weapons to select from. However, in this instance, only the AGM114 showed any ammunition. AGM-114 were hellfire missiles, small and extremely accurate laser guide missiles. More than capable of destroying a car and certainly more appropriate than the other far more powerful laser guided bombs compatible with the Avenger. The operator zoomed out and keeping the target dead center, he began to note the area around the target. Release of the weapon to impact would be in the region of 20 seconds. The target’s speed was varying between 50 and 110 mph. Although traffic was light, the variables were mind-blowing. Minimizing collateral was almost impossible, other than if the road were totally clear for a couple of miles around the target which, looking at the flow of traffic, was highly unlikely.

  At least the schools were still in he thought, looking at his watch. With a long straight ahead of him and little traffic, the target accelerated again and pushed over 100 mph. Of course, the Avenger had no issue with the target’s speed, nor would the missile which could fly 10 times faster. The issue was that the distance travelled by the target from release to impact doubled. The operator considered his boss’ final words and hit ‘Fire’ — there were no school buses anywhere near!

  The missile dropped from its bay and immediately ignited its rocket, dropping and accelerating to its maximum speed of 1.3 Mach, almost 1,000 mph. The laser designator was firmly fixed on the roof of the car. The operator’s view switched from the Avenger to the nose mounted camera on the weapon, a small distance to target tracked down the meters to impact. Switching back to the Avengers view, the operator looked at the road ahead, it was looking good, the only vehicle visible in the distance that was likely to fall within the impact zone was a lone truck. Taking Sam Baker out with just one innocent victim would be a seriously good result.

  Sam looked at the long straight ahead and floored the accelerator. The Hemi engine reacted immediately and the car powered to over 100 mph. The early afternoon traffic was light and Sam looked at the clock and wished he could keep up the 120 mph pace he was now setting but there was no way the route would remain this quiet. The I 95 was a main trunk route that fed Boston and New York. However, he would make hay while the sun shone and depressed the accelerator even further, sending another surge to the drive train, increasing the speed to almost 140 mph. Covering over two miles per minute, Sam needed all his wits about him. Cars coming towards him would close at over 200 mph and he could quite easily run into the back of dawdlers trav
elling in his direction. One such dawdler was dead ahead, having just pulled out from a small side road. Sam was closing fast, travelling at little over 45 mph, Sam guessed the driver of the ageing pick-up was probably in his seventies and was certain would be wearing some sort of head wear. Slow drivers had one thing in common, they always wore a hat, well in Sam’s experience anyway. Sam edged out to see beyond the pick-up and pulled back in sharply. A large truck was bearing down on him. In the blink of an eye, Sam had to make the call, slow and pull in behind the dawdler or accelerate and hopefully just miss the oncoming truck. It would be tight and he would have to be careful. The 300 was fast but only in a straight line. Agility was certainly not its strong point. The road ahead narrowed and disappeared into a wooded area. Being stuck behind the slow moving car was not an option, so Sam floored the accelerator and for the first time, did not feel the surge of the 425 horses. At 140 mph, the car was already pushing towards its limits. Acceleration was now harder to come by. Sam flinched as he noticed the truck bearing towards him. It was going to be closer than he thought. In fact, he may not make it but at the last second, he shot past the pick-up and pulled in ahead of it. Unable not to look, Sam smiled as the old boy with a Stetson who threw him a disapproving look.

  That was the last thing he saw before the explosion threw his car clear across the road.

  “Direct hit, Sir,” announced the operator as he watched the center of the screen blossom into a fiery red rose indicating impact.

  “Whoa!!! Holy shit!” he followed quickly as the initial blossom bloomed and filled the whole screen.

  “What?” asked Johnson looking across at the operator’s open mouth. “What the hell just happened?” he asked impatiently as the operator tried to comprehend what had just happened.

  “I think, I’m not sure, but that truck may have been a fuel tanker of some type because there was a massive secondary explosion. It certainly wasn’t the hellfire that did that.” He pointed to a massive hole in the ground where the road had been.

  “And Baker?”

  “No way he survived that. Look, there’s just a hole where the truck, a pick up and his car were.”

  “Excellent and we can cover the explosion as a tanker accident. Couldn’t be better, well done. Now get that Avenger out of there before all hell breaks loose and the place is crawling with cops, firemen, news crews and God knows what else.

  Chapter 21

  “No, that’s absurd,” suggested Charles Baker as he considered the possibility that Russell would have perpetrated such an action.

  “Yes, you’re right,” agreed Agent Clark shaking her head. “So tell me about this brother of yours?” she asked keen to change the subject.

  “Sam? Well, I’ve not seen him in almost three years,” Baker pondered, considering a question he’d not been asked in many years. “He’s seven years younger than me. I may be older, have the education and position but he’s the brains in the family.”

  Clark turned to look at one of the most powerful men in America who was renowned for his intellect and considered the revelation that the younger brother was the brighter of the two.

  “I’m not talking here about knowledge you pick up reading books, I’m talking about raw intelligence, the type that makes you compute and see things faster and quicker than anyone else. Solving problems, seeing solutions, that’s what Sam does, he solves problems and avoids creating more problems in the process.”

  Sorry, I’m not really following you. What kind of problems do you mean?”

  “Sam never started fights but he was always the guy that finished them. He joined the air force to see the world and trained as a pilot but after a crash killed his navigator and almost himself, he retrained and became a Pararescueman, a PJ as they’re called.”

  “Never heard of them. A P what?”

  “Pararescue Jumper, they’re trained to go into enemy territory and rescue downed pilots and servicemen. One of them saved his life after his plane went down. He doesn’t talk about it much but this guy impressed him so much he gave up flying and joined the PJs.”

  “OK, he rescues people, so why the hell was a Russian assassin trying to kill him?”

  “He did rescue people but you have to understand my brother. He never does anything by half. PJs go into battle zones to rescue people. They’re trained for just about any eventuality and are considered members of the special forces. They fight their way to wherever they have to get to. Sam joined the forces during the cold war. There weren’t many battle zones that US troops were going into but training opportunities were aplenty. He signed up for just about every course he could. He learnt to scuba with the SEALs, he completed combat courses with Delta Force commandos, he tracked and observed with Marine recon, he was like a sponge. He was even signing up for training courses with the Allies, the SBS, SAS in the UK, jungle training with the Ghurkhas. You name it, he did it. Before he knew it, he was on secret ops deep in the heart of Afghanistan, helping the CIA fight their secret war against the Russians. When shit hit the fan and Special Forces or the CIA needed assistance, it was Sam that would go in to rescue their guys.”

  “Can’t believe I’ve never heard of these guys.”

  “Only those in the military really know about them. They’re the original unsung heroes. Mind you, if you’re a PJ and you walk into a bar with servicemen, you’ll never buy a drink. Because every guy in there knows that you’re the guy that’s gonna get them out when everybody else has given up.”

  “I just don’t get how rescuing people in Afghanistan leads to being targeted by an assassin 20 years later.”

  “Ah, well. It turned out that after a few years of rescuing their people from God alone knows what, Sam made a bit of a name for himself. He was the guy everybody wanted backing them up. If you were in trouble and needed help, Sam Baker was the guy you wanted. Whoever was in charge of the CIA’s Special Operations Group at the time began to take a keen interest. Sam’s name kept popping up in reports, injured agents owing their life to the Pararescue guy who had appeared from nowhere, popped a couple of Russians and then carried them to a safe extraction point. Sam’s additional training it seemed had really paid off. Particularly in Afghanistan, his time with the Ghurkhas in jungles and mountains had made Sam quite a specialist. Anyway, Sam was nearing the end of his tour when he received a call-out. An agent was injured deep in the heart of Russian occupied country. Sam was dropped as close as the helicopter dared and then proceeded on foot for the final few miles. He came across the camp where the agent was supposed to be and found it empty. He tracked the trail in the darkness, deep into the mountains and by this time was over three miles behind enemy lines. He found the new camp, took out six Russians and reported back to the extraction point, devastated to report that the injured agent had simply disappeared. He was no longer at the camp and Sam could only assume had been killed at some point and discarded off a cliff face, as there was absolutely no sign of any further tracks leading to anywhere else.”

  “Oh God that’s awful, I can only imagine what they would have done to the agent.”

  “Don’t worry, there was no agent. As Sam finished his report to his officer, a man walked into the room and dismissed Sam’s officer with a flick of the head. Sam was then face to face with, his words “the coldest bastard I have ever met in my life, I swear to God the temperature dropped when he entered the room.” He informed Sam that there was no agent, the Russians were a Spetsnaz team that had always managed to evade the CIA and Mujahedeen and had been causing untold havoc. Of course Sam took one look at the smug look on the guy’s face and shot a punch straight to his chin. The guy never saw it coming and was knocked to the floor. He never retaliated, he just stood up and welcomed Sam to the CIA’s Special Operations Group, handing Sam a letter signed by the President asking Sam to move across as his skills would save far more lives if he were the one leading the operation, rather than the one mopping up. Sam could not refuse a request from his President and so spent the rest of t
he war doing what he does best.”

  “Saving people’s lives?” asked a confused Clark.

  “No,” the Senator said shaking his head. “Ending them!”

  “Oh!”

  “Sam worked for the CIA up until three years ago. Right up until the nuclear bomb exploded in Texas.”

  Clark read between the lines. “Was he there?”

  The Senator looked around the carriage, delaying any answer as he pondered what he should tell Clark. He decided on the truth.

  “Sam was there. Sam was the guy who could have saved the day. Sam was the guy that was told not to shoot the terrorist four hours before he detonated the bomb.”

  Clark just stared at the Senator. The revelation that the government could have stopped the atrocity left her speechless.

  “Sam had tracked the terrorists for months. He had many opportunities to kill them but every time, he was stopped by his bosses. They wanted to know where the target of the attack was. It was the one thing nobody could uncover.

  “But I thought it was Washington.”

  “That’s the story but Sam says not a chance. The terrorists knew the bomb would set off every alarm we’ve got. That bomb was not ever going to get near Washington. Sam told everybody that they had to be stopped before they got to America but they just ignored him.”

  “Oh my God. So what did he do?”

  “After he was stood down, an assassin tried to kill him and very nearly did. Sam’s not sure who hired him, it could have been the terrorists or any number of people. Andriev was a gun for hire. Anyway, after everything that had happened, Sam decided to quit. He sent a picture of himself looking dead to the assassin’s contact, burnt Andriev’s body and left his own ID next to it. The Mexicans didn’t waste time checking. They just declared the body as Sam Baker and as nobody local claimed him, they buried it in a pauper’s grave. Sam used Andriev’s tickets and travelled back to the US.”