He meandered down M Street, heading east. The buildings all around were relatively small by the standards of other major urban areas, because skyscrapers did not exist in Washington. Nothing was taller than the Washington Monument; buildings were instead spread out, or excavated to create space underground. Swanson paused. Just ahead, M terminated as it crossed the Potomac River into Rosslyn on the Virginia side. With the heat of the day finally gone, a slight mist was rising from the water. A well-used pathway led to the boathouses clustered under the Francis Scott Key Bridge, named in honor of the writer of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” He followed it down to the water’s edge, giving plenty of space to a young couple making out in the shadows.
Bridges, he thought. What is going on with bridges? His Nikes padded silently along the board of the dock where the long canoes were stacked and secured. Sailboats. Motorboats. Sculls. Jet Skis. Why wasn’t there a big river going under that big bridge in Pakistan? The mist was thicker on the water.
With his hands in the pockets of his jeans, Kyle turned toward the lights of the city downriver. The upper part of the monument could be seen, with small red lights at the top blinking to warn pilots of its presence, as if the big floodlights that bathed the obelisk at night did not provide enough of a clue. To his right were the elegant lines of the Kennedy Center, and closer was the stack of concrete-and-glass pancakes of the Watergate Complex. He went halfway up the grassy bank, found a dry spot of grass, lay down, and fell asleep just after seeing the faraway sparkle of a falling star.
He heard an oar sluggishly moving against the Potomac water and instantly knew it was not some sculler out for a midnight row. The smell told him so: dried tears, dead flowers, fresh blood. Swanson let out a groan. The Boatman had arrived. He knew the ragged figure emerging from the fog was nothing but a dream, a character that had a habit of showing up in his mind when there was a crisis. Invariably, death followed in his wake.
Hello.
You’re on the wrong river. The Styx is underground somewhere, down in hell. This is the Potomac.
A slender thread of crooked laughter made Kyle look up. Charon was still in his boat, the long oar over the stern bumping ever so lightly against the boardwalk.
We will be doing more business soon. Carry plenty of gold coins to put on their eyes or beneath the tongues, Gunnery Sergeant. I give no free passage from this world.
Swanson looked across the river to the Virginia shoreline, which was being eaten by a churning wall of fire.
I will never pay you to take a man to hell.
But you are the one who sends them there. It is only fair that I be paid if I am to further your work.
The silent laughter rose again, and the Boatman pushed back the hood of his rotten cloak. A bald bone skull seemed to grin, and the black holes of the eyes had seen an eternity of life and death.
Why are you here, you decayed piece of trash?
Why is there a bridge in Pakistan, in a place with little or no water?
There was a huge flood. Thousands died. Don’t you watch the news?
Yes. I have been busy there, and with paying customers. Their friends and relatives do not want the souls of their loved ones stuck on this side of the veil, to loiter around as unwanted ghosts. If the flood collapsed dams, no mere bridge would have held back such water. So the bridge is over a tributary waterway, not a major river. And why is a bridge needed at all now that the flood has receded? I can hardly paddle my little boat in that trickle.
Kyle waited a minute before speaking again.
I have known you many years.
Yes.
This is the only time you have ever made any sense.
Do not forget the gold coins. And take two for your own eyes, and two more for those of the girl. She also will be on this voyage.
Gold is too expensive. Copper pennies will have to do. How about I pay you a dollar in advance? Give me room to work.
The skull turned upward and looked toward the sky, and the skeletal arms were raised wide.
You would bargain with death?
Yes. And I will cheat you every time.
The laugh turned into a shriek from the gaping mouth, and the Virginia inferno climbed higher, licking the bottom of the night clouds. Kyle’s nostrils seemed clogged by the thick scent of charred, dead bodies. There was a flash of light, and the Boatman vanished with a final hiss: “It begins now…”
Swanson snapped awake, with all senses alert, although he kept his eyes closed and his body immobile. He picked up the sound of cars going across the Key Bridge, but there was something else, a slight movement in the stillness, weight being gently pushed against the heavy grass on the slope where he lay, and he heard a man breathing, moving closer. With one approaching cautiously, there was probably another nearby. He heard the creak of a board from the dock, so the backup was down there, about fifteen feet away beside the water, to cover his partner.
As soon as Kyle opened his eyes, the nearest man made his rush, holding a thin, extended steel baton high above his head and ready to slam it down. He leaned in to make the strike, which made him slightly off balance on the gentle slope. Swanson dug his left foot into the soft dirt and pushed over into a roll hard to his right toward the attacker, and the baton swished harmlessly through the air. It smacked the ground at the same time Kyle rammed his shoulders into the man’s ankles.
The unknown assailant fell forward and hit the ground facedown with a loud grunt, stunned. Kyle finished the roll and smoothly came to his feet, drawing the .45 Colt from the shoulder holster beneath his jacket. The downed man wore a gray sweatshirt and straight-leg jeans, was probably about six feet tall, and had enjoyed too much fried chicken and pizza. Kyle stomped hard on the spinal column at the base of the skull with his left foot and felt and heard the C-2 neck vertebra give way with a loud snap as it forcibly parted from the C-3 under great force, in a classic hangman’s break.
He swiveled to face the second threat and saw the man charging from the dock, a dark figure moving fast but from lower ground. He was shorter and even wider than the other one and had Asian features. The blade of a knife flashed in the subdued lights below the bridge. Kyle raised his pistol and fired point-blank into the face, and the man jerked to a halt as the back of his head blew off in a spray of blood and bone. The body fell backward and landed on the grass with a wet sound. The double-tap of gunshots echoed wildly beneath the arch of the bridge.
Kyle held his Colt in both hands and methodically quartered the area around him. The choice of a baton and a knife instead of guns meant the two men were not expecting to be unsuccessful in the attack, and therefore they were likely professionals. It was unlikely that they had brought along even more support. Two tough pros would normally have been more than enough. When Swanson was certain no one else was there, he holstered his pistol and made a quick search of the pockets of the dead men. Neither had a wallet, nor any identification. Pros, for sure. Swanson for a moment considered dialing 911 on his cell but decided it would be better to just move on out of there. Let someone else report the sound of gunfire.
He walked up the hill and back into Georgetown. This whole thing was out of control. It was time for Trident to go black on it, and for Kyle and Beth Ledford to vanish. He was tired of people knowing where the fuck he was at.
11
THEY WERE ON INTERSTATE 95 only a few hours after the attack. Glowing strands of headlights marked the commuters flowing into the Washington corridor. Within an hour, the traffic would thicken in the southbound lanes to bind the cars trapped on it into a slow-moving parking lot. Swanson and Ledford were going the other way, as Kyle glided a big Land Rover north, heading for a small airport just outside of Providence, Rhode Island, that served private passenger planes. He would have preferred something less conspicuous than the big SUV but was thinking defensively, and the specially equipped vehicle was rigged with bulletproof glass, heavy-duty bumpers, tires that would resist gunfire, and interior weapons storage areas. It also ha
d the advantage of sheer weight in case somebody tried to ram it, and its enhanced four-wheel drive would take it almost anywhere. The Land Rover had been part of the FBI fleet until earlier that morning, when Special Agent Dave Hunt checked it out in his own name, then handed the keys to Kyle with the warning that it was lousy on gas mileage. The wipers clicked methodically against the windshield as they drove through a light rain.
“Why don’t we just use a military flight out of Andrews?” she asked, leaning back in the big comfortable seat. “The general could clear it, right?”
“There is a hole somewhere in the comm net, Beth, and we don’t know where. We cannot trust normal operating procedures,” Swanson said. “What happened yesterday at Quantico, and then last night with me, could only have been planned with advance intelligence. Too many people had access to what we were doing. So from now on, we’re dark. Only the four other people in Trident know our plan, plus a few on the other end, along with the two of us—not even your mother can know what’s going on. Nothing is being written down, entered into any computer, or spoken on any open comm line or channel. We intend to keep this new loop as tight as possible.”
She thought that over. It still felt like they were running away. “Gunny, I think we should stay here and fight whoever they are. Instead you have us going on a cruise? It’s like we’re scared.”
“Just the opposite, Beth. We’re moving toward the real fight. The cause of all of this trouble obviously is in Pakistan.”
“The bridge.”
“Yes. The bridge.”
“And Task Force Trident is able to lay on a private jet and a yacht to get us there?”
Kyle pressed a button on the console to activate a device that showed no radar was painting them, then accelerated. The Land Rover jumped forward in response. “The yacht is just a way station for us, a secure position where we can get ready in private for the final move. The plane is owned by the same corporation that is providing the yacht.”
“Your General Middleton has some pull, huh? He trusts the civilian owners?” She looked quizzically at him and saw the flicker of a smile.
“He should. It’s my family.”
* * *
AFTER A HEARTY DINNER, Chief Engineer Mohammad al-Attas took Sergeant Hafiz along on his final inspection for the evening. They buzzed through the big central tunnel in an electric cart, dodging around workers and technicians. In a subsidiary corridor, the engineer halted the cart and led Hafiz into what looked to the sergeant like the pictures he had seen of America’s space mission headquarters in Houston, Texas. Tangles of wiring hung loose from the false panel ceiling, and the temperature was a comfortable sixty-five degrees. Al-Attas stepped onto a raised platform and took a seat in a cushioned high-backed swivel chair, wrapping his hands around a pair of computer joysticks that rose one from each arm. He faced an array of flat computer screens mounted side by side and stacked in rows on wall brackets. Hafiz stood beside him, silently impressed, keeping his arms crossed. The colors on the electronic devices were crisp, the resolution perfect, and the largest single monitor in operation was divided into four sections, each showing an identical room.
The only furnishing in any of the narrow rooms that were featured was a slender Type 85 12.5 mm heavy machine gun, a belt-fed, gas-operated, air-cooled weapon that was a staple of the Chinese army and could fire up to six hundred rounds per minute. The long tubular weapon did not rest upon the usual tripod in their special caves but on a sturdy articulated arm of lightweight titanium that reached out from thick cylinders bolted into position in the stone floor. The barrels faced what appeared to be a blank rectangle of painted steel.
The chief engineer explained, “From my position here, a controller will be in command of a dozen separate weapons systems, a mix of machine guns, rockets, and missiles.” Al-Attas nudged the joystick in his left hand, then squeezed a green button, and one of the steel walls before a gun slid open to reveal a section of the valley facing south. The engineer eased the joystick straight ahead, and the robotic arm obediently moved forward, pushing the nose of the machine gun through the firing slit. Another control movement and the image of the machine gun dissolved into a wide view of the area it covered, directly ahead of the open window.
“Certain adjustments have been made to the machine gun, including replacing the manual trigger and spade grips.” Al-Attas shifted the angle to point the gun at another area. “It will be fired from here, and will continue firing as long as the trigger is depressed, or until the belt is empty. You can use it against a single target or sweep a sixty-degree sector. Then you pull it back in and shut the blind, which is camouflaged on the outside.”
The machine gun automatically pulled back into its original position with the smooth assuredness of a robot doing an assigned task. “Forgive me, Chief Engineer, but that does not seem particularly threatening,” Hafiz observed. “A single man gets close enough and takes this whole thing out with a grenade or a handheld missile.”
Al-Attas laughed. “A lone soldier may be lucky enough to get that close only if his unit is sacrificed. Our controller will be fighting with all of his other weapons at the same time, or he can slave the systems to the computer to fire automatically at targets picked by sensors and cameras hidden in the valley. Interlocking fields of crossfire will force the enemy into mined areas. When the gun is empty and retreats, and the chamber sealed and safe again, a loader who services several weapons will put in a new magazine, check the gun, and then leave to service another. Then it becomes part of the battle again.”
“Maximum firepower with minimal human loss potential,” Hafiz said. “Still, if the enemy starts hitting this place with smart bombs and cruise missiles, this gun will be gone.”
“True, but that would take a number of direct hits, and I have an automated air defense system that will make even that almost impossible. Jamming devices will turn the space above and all around into an electronic wasteland: Their pilots’ radios won’t work, false returns will replace real targets on their displays, lasers cannot lock on, cruise missiles will fly off course, and all the while, our own antiaircraft guns and missiles will be shooting down enemy aircraft to panic the remaining crews. I understand, Sergeant Hafiz, that no defensive system is totally immune to attack, but a few trained technicians at the video control stations here can put up a terrific fight—I estimate that one controller and a half-dozen loaders can hold off at least an entire battalion for three days of hard fighting, and we are planning twenty control stations. When all of the weapons are finally silenced, most of the operators will have survived and should be able to leave safely. When our wireless system is perfected, the controllers will not even have to be on-site. They can guide the action from miles away. Any sort of attack—by ground or by air—is going to be a very long process, and extremely costly for the attackers. My cameras will capture the carnage and feed it to the cable networks.”
“You expect the bridge and all of these fancy defenses to be overrun?”
Mohammad al-Attas rose from his seat, turned off the display, and shrugged his shoulders. “We must face reality. Put yourself in the mind of the enemy commander. After a week of hard fighting, nothing seems to work and you have suffered horrendous losses of men and materiel. Is that a victory? So your troops finally make it in, wading through more mines and booby traps and the occasional sniper or counterattack at designed choke points. They will think they are in the devil’s toilet, sergeant. Then, just when the general thinks it is over, that he has won, internal bombs explode, and it all collapses around his ears.”
Hafiz had been told little of this when he was given the assignment of watching over the engineer. He said, “Nuclear bombs?”
“Possibly, but those would not really be necessary, and the radioactivity would create a wasteland for centuries. This land belongs to us, and might someday be transformed into a fertile breadbasket. Anyway, there are things worse than a nuclear bomb.”
“What could be worse?”
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“Breaking the will of the enemy. Our most likely attackers would be the Americans, and maybe some of their European allies. The Pakistanis will never try to take this fortress, because they are helping to pay for it. Let us not be coy, Hafiz. Important lessons were learned from the tragic death of the grand martyr Osama bin Laden, and I won’t make those mistakes. There were no real defenses at the house in Abbottabad, and it was too easy for the Americans to take him out with an extremely small force. That could never happen here.”
Hafiz pondered that statement. “So you are confident that Commander Kahn would be safe in this futuristic cave dwelling? Would you bet your own life on that?”
“I deal in facts, Sergeant. Anything is possible. But let’s look at the scenario in which they try to come after the Commander. After suffering staggering losses, the infidels would be under immense pressure from their governments to stop the slaughter. Remember, I will be televising the images of dying Americans. Generals would be replaced, elections could be influenced, politicians ruined. Commander Kahn would be totally safe during the attack and have plenty of time to be safely evacuated to another prepared position, and the enemy would understand that now they will have to do it all over again; take out the next bridge, and the one after that, and on and on, all with equally abhorrent body counts. Airpower and cruise missiles simply will not do the job, and the Americans always stop short of using nuclear weapons.
“Eventually, when the Americans leave Iraq and Afghanistan, they will focus even more on Pakistan. We will be ready. In the coming years, we are going to have a long road across the top of our country, Sergeant Hafiz. There will be a lot of bridges and tunnels, and each of them will be a sharp fang in a gigantic death trap. Would you want to fight that fight?”
Hafiz shook his head. “No,” he said. “I would not.”
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