Violet took notice of her mother’s folly. “Mom didn’t go clear. I’m pretty sure she’s supposed to articulate her call sign at the end of a conversation—just like you did.”
Adam sighed. “That’s right, Vi. Every ten minutes during and once at the conclusion. But I’m pretty sure right now FCC Part 97 is the least of your mother’s worries.”
Each time the headlights from an oncoming vehicle provided enough light for Adam to see, he checked the rearview mirror and got a glimpse of the torment painted on the young peoples’ faces in his back seat. Chris looked like he’d been ridden hard and put away wet. His hair was a mess, his clothing was torn, and he had dried blood crusted on his ear, but he was otherwise alive and unharmed. He’d been lucky. As pissed off as Adam was concerning his son’s actions, and as much as he wanted nothing more than to tan his hide over them, finding Chris unscathed was all he tried to focus on.
When another set of headlights blew by, Adam took a glance at Barbie, the one he didn’t know until tonight, the one who’d lost her boyfriend. She was resting her head on Chris’s shoulder now, and she was weeping, though not nearly as heavily as before. He regarded her with compassion, then turned his attention to Jessi, taking notice of her expressionless appearance. She’d been withdrawn and practically catatonic since she’d gotten in the truck, and Adam wasn’t sure if it was due to her being traumatized by what she’d seen, or if she was just being herself—too shallow and self-absorbed to allow the evening’s events to bother her. Neither would’ve surprised him.
His contemplations were halted when he felt Violet grab his arm.
“Dad, look.” Violet pointed out her window to the north. “The sky over there…it’s glowing. What do you think it is?”
Adam took a gander. “I’m not sure, but it looks like it could be coming from Mount Weather. Occasionally they run overnight exercises up there, and they light their portion of the mountain up pretty intensely. If it’s foggy out or if the clouds are hanging low, you can see it for miles. We’ll be pulling onto 17 in a bit…we should be able to see a little better when we get closer.”
Violet seemed unconvinced. “I don’t know, that doesn’t look like lights to me. It looks like it’s pulsating or moving…like it has a life of its own.” She whipped her head around. “Do you think it could be a forest fire?”
“After everything else that’s happened tonight?” Adam let out a long sigh. “I truly hope not.”
Adam merged onto US Route 17 and continued north along the eight-mile, two-lane rural stretch of road. Just before the town of Paris and the intersection with US Route 50, the reflections of flashing red and blue lights became visible up ahead.
Adam slowed his speed and approached what appeared to be a roadblock operated by at least two sheriff’s deputies, both of whom were standing in the road outside their cruisers. Both wore reflective vests and had shotguns slung over their shoulders.
“I wonder what the hell all this is about?” Adam said rhetorically, then glanced into the rearview. “Do any of you have any open warrants, by chance?” His attempt at a joke was met with silence and stares from the three teenagers.
Violet tapped Adam on his elbow, then pointed to the orange-glowing sky high above. “See, Dad? It’s getting brighter. That’s a fire…I knew it couldn’t be lights.”
Adam shrugged and pressed the button to roll down his window when he neared the roadblock. “I don’t know, Vi. But something is definitely up.” Seeing a deputy approaching with his hand raised, Adam pulled to a stop, placed the transmission in park, and placed both hands on the steering wheel with his fingers outstretched. “Keep both of your hands near the dash, Violet. Fingers splayed, just like mine.”
Violet’s face grew sour in an instant. “Why?”
“Just do it,” Adam commanded.
“Fine.”
The deputies approached, one on either side, each using a flashlight to probe the interior of the Jeep. Neither of them looked friendly or in good spirits.
“Is everything okay, Officer?” Adam asked. “There aren’t enough of you for this to be a DUI checkpoint. Did something happen?”
The deputy at his window ignored Adam’s question and continued shining his flashlight throughout the Jeep’s innards. “What brings you out this way? Where y’all headed this time of night?”
“Home,” Adam replied.
“Where’s home?”
Adam gestured using only his head. “Just east of Winchester. Why?”
The officer pursed his lips and shone his flashlight’s beam on Adam’s hands, followed by Violet’s. “Any specific reason why the two of you got your hands held up like that?”
Adam tried offering a smile, but he was just too tired, too stressed out, and too spent to muster one. “Because of the handgun mounted to the underside of my steering column. I just assumed it’s better for us to keep our hands away from it…and not get shot.”
The deputy’s expression hardened, and he took two steps backward, shining his flashlight between Adam’s lap and the underside of the dashboard. “I see. Are you the registered owner of that weapon?”
“I think so, but then again, I don’t have to be.”
“Pardon?”
Adam was tired, but he knew he didn’t stutter. “In Virginia, private sale is legal, and possession is nine-tenths. Who it’s registered to is irrelevant.”
“That’s correct—so long as the possessor of the weapon is a law-abiding citizen.”
“Which I am.”
The deputy grumbled to himself and gritted his teeth. “Then I take it you have a valid Virginia concealed-carry permit. Otherwise, we might have ourselves a serious problem, considering the location of that weapon, Mr. law-abiding citizen.”
“As a matter of fact, sir, I do,” Adam said. “You’re welcome to look it up.”
“I might just do that.”
“Look, Officer…it’s been a really long night for us. Can we not go this way or something?”
The deputy glanced at his partner before replying, “A long night, huh? Well, let me tell you, sir, it’s been a hell of a long night for all of us.” He marched to the front of the Jeep to look at the license plate. “Where exactly are you folks coming from? And do all the juveniles in the vehicle belong to you?”
Adam was taken aback by the officer’s spur-of-the-moment line of questioning. “Officer, with all due respect, I haven’t committed a moving violation or any other crime for that matter, and I don’t have to answer your questions. And I’m quite sure you know that. All of us are extremely tired, and we really would like to get home sooner rather than later. Please…just tell us if we can continue on or not, so we can stop wasting each other’s time.”
The deputy tilted his head to the side and leered. “Well, check you out, cowboy. You’re not one of them ‘I know my rights’ fellas, are you? Because if you are, let me lend you some helpful advice.” He approached, placing a hand on the Jeep’s roof. “Don’t take that path with me, son. Don’t you dare, either. I’ve been at this job for far too long to put up with any lip from some ham and egger know-it-all at O-dark-stupid in the morning.”
Violet whispered into Adam’s ear, “Dad—tell him to call his supervisor.”
“Violet, shh.” Adam blew her off. He readied himself to spout off at the deputy once more, but the deputy’s partner moved in to join him and filled in some of the missing pieces.
“The road’s closed for the time being,” the second deputy said. “There’s a pretty bad forest fire on the mountain just a little ways up the road from here, and we don’t want anyone driving anywhere near it. Between the heat and the smoke and the weather up there, it could get precarious, and we don’t want anybody getting hurt. So I’m afraid you’ll have to turn around and find another way home.”
Adam thanked the second deputy for his explanation and for his time, and without another word, backed up the Jeep and plotted an alternate course home, knowing the detour would add at least a hal
f hour to his trip.
“Protect and serve. Robocop obviously didn’t take his Midol today,” Violet quipped. “I’ll never understand why they feel the need to act like dicks. It’s just not necessary.”
Adam tapped her on the thigh. “Easy there, kiddo. It’s usually better to handle things calmly and not escalate them unless we have to. I agree, he was in a bad mood. But there’s no telling why he was in a bad mood. That could have very easily turned bad back there.”
“Turned bad? You mean, like, police brutality? He could’ve pulled you and tased you, then beat you into a pulp right in front of us while yelling ‘stop resisting, stop resisting’ the whole time, like on TV.” Violet giggled. “Know why he didn’t? Because you had witnesses.”
“You think so, huh?”
“I know so. It’s always better to have witnesses. And even better than that, to record the whole encounter.”
Adam glowered. “Right. Get the whole thing on video. Then you can upload my trouncing to YouTube for the world to see.”
Violet grinned and shrugged innocently. “Of course. It’s a surefire way to instant fame, Dad.”
Adam took in a deep breath and sighed, attempting to wake himself up a bit. “I don’t want fame, Vi. I just want to go home.”
At the point they’d finally made it back to town, Chris gave directions to Barbie’s house. It was decided between the three, Jessi would be staying with her tonight, both to console her and so Barbie could take her back to the parking lot to retrieve her car later the following morning.
When they got home, Chris strode directly to his room without so much as a word to anyone, and Violet followed not long behind, heading to her bed after telling both her mother and her father goodnight.
Adam gathered his gear from the Jeep and carried it inside, passing Elisabeth on the way to his office. She was standing in the living room with the television on, fully transfixed on the current news broadcast.
After dropping his things off, he returned to the living room and inched his way behind his wife, placing both hands on her waist and a kiss on her neck. It was at that point he noticed she was fully dressed in a set of freshly ironed scrubs.
“It took you a lot longer to get home than what you said,” Elisabeth griped. “Where in the heck have you been?”
“We had to make a slight detour. County sheriffs had a roadblock set up at Paris, and they weren’t letting any traffic through due to a forest fire on the mountain. We had to drive around Cockrobin’s barn and follow interstates back. The rest, I already told you. I had to drop Chris’s girlfriend off at her cousin’s house before heading this way.”
Elisabeth didn’t respond. Her attention was absorbed by every word that escaped the news anchor’s mouth, only breaking at the point the broadcast switched to commercial.
“Liz?”
“What?”
“Why are you dressed for work? Did you get called in?”
“No, not yet,” Elisabeth said, shaking her head nervously. “But I’m expecting to.”
Adam didn’t comprehend her answer. “I don’t understand. And what’s on TV that’s got you so stupefied right now?”
“I’m not stupefied. I’m worried.”
“About what? We’re all home now, and Chris is safe.”
“I know that, and I’m glad. I’m very glad all of you are home,” Elisabeth said, then paused. “But that forest fire wasn’t just a forest fire.”
Adam looked confused. “Then what the hell was it?”
“It was a plane crash.”
“What?”
Elisabeth elaborated. “A Southwest airliner crashed into the mountain about twenty minutes after midnight. They’re saying it hit right next to Mount Weather. It might’ve even clipped some of their buildings.”
Adam studied the television and the reporter’s remarks as they came forth. “Damn. How bad is it?”
“No one knows yet. They’re still trying to get the fires put down. They won’t allow rescue workers on the scene until it’s safe…but it doesn’t look good.”
“That’s crazy,” Adam said. “You know, a TWA flight crashed up there back in the mid-seventies due to an abnormal approach to Dulles. I wonder what caused this one to crash.”
Elisabeth huffed. “Or better yet, what’s causing the rest of them to crash.”
“What are you talking about?”
Elisabeth began switching channels. On seemingly every news broadcast, there was a breaking news report concerning an airliner that had crashed somewhere in the continental United States. “There’s been several other crashes since, and they all started after midnight. This one at Mount Weather is really bad…I’m just waiting to get the call from work.” She turned to him, worry and exhaustion inundating her eyes. “Adam, this is really starting to scare me. You don’t think this is a—”
“Liz, honey, I’m too tired to think. I’m too tired to do anything right now, for that matter. It’s been entirely too long of a day.” Adam stepped forward and pressed the power button on the television, shutting it off. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to know what was happening, he was just too exhausted to care. At the moment, it wasn’t affecting him or his family in their backyard, and he didn’t feel inclined to concern himself with it until it did. “Come on. Let’s go to bed. Both of us need our sleep. We’ll deal with whatever comes when we get up.”
Twelve
Mayflower Hotel, 1127 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC
Friday, March 28
Nihayat al’ayam plus 10 hours
I awoke in a fog when I heard the alarm clock bellow from the nightstand on Natalia’s side of the bed. My nerves were still about half-shot from last night’s adventure, and my heart was beating with such vigor it felt like it was trying to break out of my chest.
While taking a moment to catch my breath and gather myself, it was reassuring to see that my instincts were still intact—as evident by the G19 on standby in my clutches. Predispositions aside though, I still felt anxious and out of sorts, and I used my free hand to slap myself a few times just to verify I wasn’t dreaming.
I reached over my wife’s motionless body to silence the alarm, making several attempts to find the right button. Usually, the snooze bar was the largest and easiest one to locate, but it wasn’t my first choice this morning. It had been a long hectic night for us. Even after a few modest hours of shut-eye, I was still dog-tired, and I knew Natalia was recuperating—her experiences having been much more…eventful than that of my own. Her body hadn’t moved so much as a millimeter throughout the alarm’s squawking tirade, and looking at her now, I didn’t believe she’d moved much since tucking her in for the night.
I flipped over onto my back, let out a long breath, and stared up at the ceiling while slowly recalling the roller coaster of events making up the last forty-eight hours. We’d encountered our share of setbacks, but the operation had ultimately been a success. Most of the holdups had been minor, while one of them remained rather significant.
We’d spent the daylight hours yesterday and the day before going over and memorizing the various forms of intel made available to us concerning our target, his fortified security detail, and the compound where we’d ultimately be paying him a visit. We’d studied all the OSINT, or open source intelligence, from maps and satellite images of the compound from various sources to the PHOTINT, or photographic intel, which Jonathon had provided to us. Then we’d performed our surveillance of the compound in the evening hours, by car, by boat, and on foot. I’d even gotten a chance to break in a new pair of Brooks trail running shoes.
Natalia took it upon herself to handle the ground-work portion of the op while I acted as her overwatch. I kept her movements, as well as the actions of anyone within her proximity, aligned with the reticle of the thermal scope mounted to my suppressed Nemesis Arms Vanquish rifle chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor. Natalia had easily infiltrated the outside layers of embassy security without so much as breaking a sweat, and had only encoun
tered resistance twice in the process. The armed sentries had met their demise rather swiftly and hadn’t even seen her coming until it was too late for them.
Once she’d gained access to the residence, I’d lost visual of her and only had her voice in my earpiece to go by. While I waited, I watched for her whereabouts through the windows, but never once caught sight of her.
Everything had gone according to plan and had done so in short order. In less than ten minutes upon gaining entry, Natalia had located the target. A minute later, he was confirmed down. She’d sent me the photographic evidence of yet another job well done, and soon after, she’d begun preparing for exfil, dutifully asking for me to clear her avenue of departure.
I’d thought we were home free—that is, until the point of hearing the all-too-real sounds of a struggle through my earpiece. Natalia had fallen prey to an attack by multiple assailants. At first, it had sounded like she was holding her own, all up until I’d heard her screams of anguish through my earpiece. One of them had gotten to her. And that, as the phrase goes, was when all hell broke loose.
It felt like I had translocated—like I had somehow moved outside my own body—by the time I’d departed my roost and tossed what remained of my sanity out the window. Like a bedlamite with nothing to lose, I’d dropped the Vanquish and broke cover, then made a mad dash through the main gate and into the heavily guarded grounds of the Saudi Arabian embassy to retrieve my wife. I don’t even remember what opposition I’d encountered along the way. But now, feeling the soreness in my hands and in my joints and the throbbing pain in my forehead and kneecaps, I must’ve done a number on a few.
I pulled down the sheet, exposing the field dressing that now enveloped most of Natalia’s left arm, from her lower bicep to her wrist, while recalling the initial sight of the wound. On her way out of the building, she’d been cornered by two sentries and had engaged them in what she thought would be a short-lived hand-to-hand encounter. But while she was distracted, a gigantic, burly man had attacked her from the shadows with a sword, of all things. If she hadn’t sensed his approach and sidestepped right when she had, the blade would’ve undoubtedly sliced off more than just her skin.
Until Nothing Remains: A Hybrid Post-Apocalyptic Espionage Adventure (A Gun Play Novel: Volume 1) Page 13
