by Dale Brown
Robert Chamberlain smiled…and stepped over and stood beside Zakharov. “That would be me, Harold,” he said.
“What?” Collins cried. “Chamberlain…you set us up?”
“Vicki, I could be the biggest moron in D.C. and still be clever enough to put one over on you,” Chamberlain said, pulling a Secret Service MP5K submachine gun out from underneath his trench coat. “Your immense ego kept you from seeing this plan, Harold.”
“So Richter was right,” the President said. “There was only one person who knew where Task Force TALON was headed in Africa—you, Robert. Only you could have sent Kristen Skyy to the exact place where TALON was headed. But why? Why send her all the way into a battle zone?”
“The only thing I could think of that could stop Richter and his robots was not a bigger explosive, but Kristen Skyy,” Chamberlain said. “I thought that sap Richter would try to sacrifice himself to save his lady love. It almost worked. I knew in the back of my head that it was strange that I hadn’t heard from the task force after they finished with the Egypt job, but at that point I didn’t really care. My mistake. So where are the major and his robots?”
“They’ve been stationed at the Treasury Building ever since they returned from Egypt,” the President said. “They figured out that Washington had to be your next target—it was just a matter of when. He thought the press conference with Kingman was the perfect moment.”
“He’s a lot more clever than I gave him credit for,” Chamberlain said.
“Davajte vyhodit’ zdes’, Polkovnik,” Khalimov growled.
“Captain Khalimov is getting impatient,” Zakharov said. “Harold, at first I was just going to shoot you through the head and get it over with, but now I think you’d be more valuable as a hostage. The President, his chief of staff, and Harold Chester Kingman as my hostages—if I have a chance of getting out of this city, this is it.” Chamberlain led the way out of the parking garage, with Khalimov following behind.
“There’s no way you’re getting out of Washington alive, Zakharov,” the President said.
“You forget, Mr. President—the National Security Adviser, the man everyone calls your ‘copresident,’ arranged everything for us,” Zakharov said. “Let’s go.” Chamberlain removed his trench coat, threw it over the President’s head, and held him tightly around the waist on one side while Khalimov held him from the other side, half-dragging him along.
They emerged from the parking garage surrounded by a phalanx of soldiers—more of Zakharov’s men, dressed in army uniforms and Secret Service protective vests taken from the agents they executed—and were escorted past Blair House across Jackson Place to Lafayette Square. There, an Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter had just touched down right on Pennsylvania Avenue; a second Black Hawk was across Lafayette Square on H Street in front of the Hay Adams Hotel. Smoke was still rising from the roof of the White House. Metropolitan Police and National Park Police cruisers were arrayed along Pennsylvania and New York Avenues and H Street, but their confusion as to why regular army helicopters were on the ground in front of the White House was obvious. The starboard side door of the Black Hawk opened up, and more gunmen in battle dress uniforms with automatic weapons were visible inside. Zakharov and his captives were just a dozen meters from that door…
…when Khalimov shouted, “Yop tvayu mat!” and pulled the hostages even faster. There, standing just a few dozen meters in front of the Black Hawk, was one of the CID units. “Otkrytyj ogon!” Khalimov shouted. “Open fire!” The Russian terrorists surrounding the Black Hawk opened fire with grenade launchers and automatic weapons. But the CID unit didn’t move. It deployed a grenade launcher from its backpack and drew a finger across its throat, a clear signal to the helicopter’s crewmen to shut down. “Nyet!” Khalimov shouted. “Prepare to lift off, now!” The chopper pilot rolled up the throttle to liftoff power and held in a tiny bit of collective, just enough to make the Black Hawk dance on its wheels…
…but just before the hostages made it to the chopper, the CID unit fired a grenade directly into the Black Hawk’s wind-screen. The hostages were blown backward by the explosion, hugging the ground as shards of flaming metal and shattered rotor blades flew in every direction.
Jason Richter, piloting the CID unit, turned just as several uniformed Secret Service agents, Metropolitan Police Special Services, and U.S. Army soldiers ran up behind him. “Freeze! Secret Service!”
“This is Major Jason Richter, Task Force TALON! Don’t shoot! I’m part of the President’s protection detail…!”
Someone yelled, “Drop the weapon!” but they didn’t wait for him to do so—they opened fire with automatic gunfire and what felt like a grenade launcher or LAWS rocket. The sustained gunfire on the backpack weapon unit did the trick—the second rocket hit made one of the grenades inside cook off, and the backpack exploded. Jason was thrown onto his face, the backpack burning, still attached to his back.
He immediately tried to eject the burning backpack, but it seemed to be fused tight. Warning tones and messages were flashing in his electronic visor, then everything went dark, and smoke began to fill the interior. Oh shit, he thought, I’m burning to death in here!
“Jason!” he heard someone shout. “How do you open this damned thing?”
It was Ray Jefferson! Jason motioned behind him to his left belt area. Jefferson struggled through the smoke and heat coming from the backpack and felt around the waist area, finally locating the ridge and the two buttons underneath it. He pressed them both simultaneously and held them until he heard two loud pops! The burning backpack disengaged and the rear hatch flung itself open.
“Richter!” Ray climbed atop the stricken CID unit and pulled Jason out of the machine through a cloud of smoke. “Are you all right?”
“What…what about…the President?” Jason croaked, gasping for breath.
Jefferson looked over to where the President, Kingman, and Victoria Collins were huddled on the street, surrounded by Secret Service agents. “They’re alive.”
“Where’s Zakharov?” He looked around and saw Zakharov, Chamberlain, and Khalimov running across Lafayette Square toward the other Black Hawk helicopter. “I’m not letting that bastard get away,” he said. “I’m going after Zakharov.”
“Khalimov is mine, Major!” Jefferson growled, and he picked up his M-16 rifle and ran off after them.
Pavel Khalimov pushed Zakharov ahead, ran away from the helicopter, took cover behind the statue of Andrew Jackson, and opened fire on Jefferson when he was less than twenty meters away. Jefferson’s bulletproof vest protected his torso, but a bullet tore into his right shoulder, and he went down. Jason went over to him. “Jesus, Ray, you’re hit…!”
“Don’t you let that chopper get away, Jason!” Jefferson said through teeth clenched in pain. He looked at Richter in surprise. “You didn’t bring a gun, Major? I knew you’ve spent too much time in those robots.” He pushed the M-16 rifle into Jason’s hands. “Don’t let that traitorous bastard Chamberlain get away.”
Jason hesitated—he knew Khalimov was nearby, and the sergeant major was helpless—but the increased roar of the Black Hawk’s rotors told him time was running out, and he hurried away.
When Richter ran off, Khalimov came out of cover, his weapon raised, and approached Jefferson. “Why, it’s the old sergeant,” he said. “I owe you something, Sergeant.” Khalimov shouldered his rifle and started to trot as if he was a soccer player lining up for a game-winning penalty kick. “I believe you said, ‘Hey, asshole,’ just before you kicked me in the head back in Brazil. Hey, asshole sergeant, this one is for you.” He aimed carefully at Jefferson’s unprotected head…
…but at the last instant Jefferson caught Khalimov’s boot centimeters before it landed and twisted it as hard as he could. The Russian cried out as his right foot was twisted at an unnatural angle and went down hard. He came up, roaring like a wild animal, with a huge knife in his right hand. Just as Jefferson was trying to get up to face this n
ew threat, Khalimov lunged at him…
…but when the Russian tried to put weight on his right foot to make the final thrust, his broken ankle collapsed. Jefferson grabbed Khalimov’s right hand and twisted the knife out of his fingers as he fell. Using the Russian’s own momentum, he rolled on top of Khalimov, twirled the knife around in his left hand, and jammed it into Khalimov’s unprotected throat.
“That’s Sergeant Major to you, asshole,” Jefferson growled. He didn’t let him go until he felt the last liter of blood pump out of his body.
It was the first time since Officer Candidate School that Richter had even held an M-16 rifle. The Black Hawk began to lift off, just a few dozen meters away now. He could see Chamberlain and Zakharov in the troop compartment—Chamberlain cowering in fear behind the sliding door, and Zakharov waving gaily and mugging Jason’s awkward running with the rifle.
Jason dropped to one knee, raised the M-16, and squeezed the trigger. Nothing. He looked at both sides of the weapon before remembering the selector switch, found it, moved it from safe to auto, raised it again, and pulled and held the trigger. He saw the Black Hawk in his sights for just a split second before the muzzle suddenly took on a life of its own and jerked wildly into the air.
For Christ’s sake, Jason admonished himself, he couldn’t hit a huge helicopter just spitting distance in front of him! Jason fought to remain calm, and found when he did that he remembered sitting in on a couple of lessons Doug Moore gave Ariadna on the firing range. To his surprise, Doug’s words came back to him, reinforcing his own shooting lessons from so many years back: relax; focus on the front sight; squeeze, don’t pull the trigger; calm down and just do it.
Jason flipped the selector switch from auto to semi, lined up on the Black Hawk’s open cabin door, took a deep breath, let some of it out, and started to gently squeeze the trigger. The weapon’s sudden report startled him. To his surprise, he saw the Black Hawk starting to swerve in the air, and he also saw Robert Chamberlain lying on his side, his hands clenched on his stomach, his mouth and eyes wide open in obvious agony…and a dark stain spreading quickly on the front of his body.
Yegor Zakharov scrambled for his Dragunov sniper rifle—Jason could scarcely believe how fast he had it on his shoulder. He could practically feel Zakharov’s eye on him through the Dragunov’s telescopic sight, feel the crosshairs aligning on his forehead…
No! Jason screamed at himself. Remain calm! Remain focused! He lined up again on Zakharov, took a deep breath, and started to let it out…
He saw a wink of light from the helicopter door and knew it was the Dragunov’s bullet heading for him…but he forced himself to relax, and squeezed the trigger, and again the M-16 barked before he expected it. Jason thought the sudden burst of air he felt across the right side of his forehead was the muzzle blast from his M-16—it was probably a good thing he didn’t know it was the Dragunov’s 7.62-millimeter round whizzing just millimeters away from his head. He fired three more times before he forced himself to look, expecting a Russian bullet to obscure his sight as it zeroed in on his brain.
Instead, what he saw was Zakharov writhing in pain in the door of the Black Hawk helicopter, both hands over his left eye. He was kicking and thrashing in agony, yelling something hysterically at the pilot. The Black Hawk did a steep left turn over Lafayette Square, quickly picking up speed and altitude, and was soon lost to view.
“Good shooting, Jason.” Jason lowered his rifle and saw Ray Jefferson walking painfully over to him. He knelt down and motioned to a large patch of disturbed lawn where Zakharov’s round had hit—well within the shadow of Jason’s head cast on the ground. “I’d say that one had your name on it, all right.”
“Doug Moore was talking to me, Sergeant Major,” Jason said. “I could hear him coaching me.” He looked at the M-16 rifle in his hands, then slowly, deliberately, moved the selector switch back to safe. He turned it over a few times experimentally, then nodded in mock wonderment. “So this is an M-16 assault rifle—a real infantryman’s weapon, huh?” he remarked.
“That’s right, sir,” Jefferson said. “No batteries, no air data sensors, no targeting computers—but in the right hands, every bit as deadly as a CID unit.”
“Cool,” Richter said. “Maybe you could teach me how to use it sometime, Sergeant Major?”
“Be glad to, Major,” Ray Jefferson said with a smile. “Be glad to.”
EPILOGUE
Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland
Two days later
It was the very same hangar in which they had all first met, Jason realized, but so much had changed since that first demonstration. They had a nicer plane now, an Air Force C-37A, the military version of the Gulfstream Five, instead of the old C-130 Hercules; there were three Cybernetic Infantry Devices in the hangar instead of one, although one of them, the original CID, was pretty badly beaten up. But the most important thing was that they had a team, a real team…
…at least, he hoped they still did.
“I remember almost from the very beginning that you thought something was fishy about our task force, Jason,” Special Agent Kelsey DeLaine said. “I never believed in what you were saying because I judged you by your looks.”
“No—you judged me because of my attitude, which I’ll admit was nothing short of totally suck,” Jason said. “I never believed we were meant to succeed, and it turns out that’s exactly what Chamberlain had in mind right from the beginning: he picked two inexperienced, uncooperative rookies to lead a first of its kind unit; he picked an old hard-nosed noncommissioned officer to train us; he mixed experienced operators in with unproven technology just to make us butt heads; he encouraged us to make the wrong decisions.”
“All for revenge,” Kelsey said. “Zakharov and Chamberlain, both scorned employees, working together to kill thousands of innocent persons and attack two major U.S. cities—just to hurt their ex-boss.”
“Who are you calling ‘old,’ Major?” They turned and saw Sergeant Major Ray Jefferson walking toward them, wearing a suit and tie with the jacket draped over his shoulders, his right arm in a sling, supporting his injured shoulder.
“Is…is that you, Sergeant Major?” Jason remarked. “You’re…in a tie?”
“Button it, sir,” Ray said. “I can still kick your butt up and down this hangar.” They clasped hands warmly.
“No doubt, Sergeant Major,” Jason said.
“Call me Ray, sir—you look a little constipated when you try to follow military protocol,” Jefferson said. He clasped hands with Kelsey, and she gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“I dunno—I was getting used to a buzz cut,” Jason said, running a hand over his newly close-cropped hair. “I think I’ll keep it.”
“At least I taught you something.”
A few moments later a dark Suburban was admitted to the hangar, and soon the President of the United States and Harold Kingman emerged from it, surrounded by Secret Service agents with submachine guns. The three snapped to attention. “At ease,” the President said immediately. He shook hands with all three. “I wanted to see you off personally. I would’ve had the meeting in the White House, but it’s going to be closed for a while for renovations. Unfortunately it’s going to be even more of a fortress than it had already become, but that’s a sign of the times, I guess.” He turned to Ray Jefferson. “Sergeant Jefferson, I’m going to ask you a favor…”
“Before you do, sir, one correction: it’s Sergeant Major, not ‘Sergeant,’ ” Jason corrected him.
The President shot an exasperated glare at Richter. “Of course, Major. Sergeant Major, it’s going to be tough for me to trust anyone from the private sector anymore, and I’ve never trusted politicians because I know they’d be gunning for my job. I’m going to nominate you to be National Security Adviser. Will you accept the nomination and work with me in the White House?”
“Me, sir?” Jefferson asked. “There’s got to be hundreds of better-qualified candidates…”
“I
can’t think of any, Sergeant Major,” the President said. “I just ask one thing from you: be straight with me. Talk to me, any time, day or night; tell me I’m full of shit; tell me I’m wrong; tell me I’m naïve—I don’t care. Just be straight with me. That’s all I ask.”
Jefferson glared at the President of the United States with that same evil-eyed stare that Jason always interpreted to mean “Are you bullshitting me or what?” before apparently deciding he wasn’t, snapping to attention, and nodding. “It would be my honor, Mr. President,” he replied.
“Good.” He turned to Jason and Kelsey. “Special Agent DeLaine.”
“Yes, sir?”
“As effective as you’ve been in Task Force TALON, your talents are required elsewhere,” the President said. “As you may know, Secretary Calhoun has resigned from her post as Secretary of Homeland Security, protesting the Oval Office’s treatment of her during this whole debacle. Frankly, I don’t blame her—I didn’t back her up like a good chief executive should have. FBI Director Lemke privately told me he was going to resign as well, but I convinced him to stay…by offering him the position of Secretary of Homeland Security, which he’s accepted. That leaves a vacancy at FBI Headquarters. I want you to fill it.”
“Me?” Kelsey blurted out. “You want me to be director of the FBI?”
“You’re a career investigator with an emphasis on antiterrorist operations—exactly what we need at the top of the FBI,” the President said. “You’re young, tough, dedicated, and have an outstanding record—the perfect choice. The Attorney General agrees. What do you say?”
She hesitated…but only for a second, then stuck out her hand. “I’d be honored, Mr. President.”
“Excellent.” He then turned to Jason. “I have to apologize to you, Jason, on behalf of your team members who died, and especially to Kristen Skyy,” the President said. “I was totally sucked in by Robert Chamberlain. I believed and trusted in him, and it got thousands of innocent persons around the world killed.”
