by Dalton Fury
* * *
It took ten minutes for Timble and Raynor to make it off Suitland Parkway and onto Southern. Once on Southern, TJ did his best to keep his speed in check as he passed a police cruiser at every intersection. The two bearded men looked like craftsmen or laborers heading off to work early on a Sunday morning. Since the bed of their pickup was empty and there was no way they could have stashed an SA-24 missile with them in the cab of the vehicle, they did not garner much interest as they passed the checkpoints and roadblocks.
As they approached the entrance to the Buy-Rite, though, flashing lights around them had them both looking into the rearview.
Behind them a Maryland State Police patrol car approached quickly. It squawked its siren, and the lone officer spoke into his PA. “Pull over to the right.”
“I wasn’t speeding!” Timble said to Raynor.
“Just pull over before every cop in the county drops what they’re doing and heads over here.”
Timble slowed and turned on his blinker, but he kept moving forward, heading to the Buy-Rite parking lot. The trooper squawked the siren again.
TJ pulled into the parking lot and turned off the engine.
Raynor and Josh both looked at the several unattended semi-trailers in the back of the lot, a hundred meters from their position. They could not see the roll-up doors at the back of the semis, only the front portion of the big containers where the legs and the kingpin were.
“Son of a bitch,” Kolt said.
“We have to get over there,” Josh said.
“We going to run from the cop?”
TJ seemed to consider it for a moment, then he deflated with a long, frustrated sigh, and said, “No.”
* * *
One hundred meters away, David Doyle watched the live feed from CNN streaming onto his tablet. Over a caption of “President Returning to White House,” Doyle counted five Sea King black and white helicopters rising into the air above Andrews Air Force Base.
He looked at his men, who were nearly hidden in the dark, and said, “It is time, my brothers.” He used the light coming off the tablet, and he pointed at each man in turn. “You fire at number two, you at number three, you at number four, you at five.” Doyle had decided that the first helicopter would not be carrying the President, so he had two more missiles than he had targets. He decided he would have his fifth cell member fire a second missile at helicopter number three, and David himself would fire a second shot at chopper four.
In just minutes six powerful warheads would be streaking over Maryland and, inshallah, one or more of those warheads would decapitate the American government.
* * *
As it turned out, Lieutenant Colonel Timble had overestimated his ability to talk his way through any law enforcement they encountered in D.C. When the officer approached the driver’s side of the vehicle, Josh rolled the window down and tried to talk to the young policeman, but Officer Weizer just held his hand up. “You gentlemen weren’t speeding, but you passed me a couple of stoplights back and I couldn’t help but see your North Carolina tags. You sure looked agitated for a couple of tourists.”
Josh told the officer he and his friend were military officers in town for the weekend, but the beards on their faces and their nonregulation haircuts only created more suspicion in Weizer.
“Why don’t you boys step out of the truck for me?”
Timble gritted his teeth. “Is that absolutely necessary, Officer?”
Weizer replied, “I’m not going to tell you again.”
* * *
A minute later, Raynor and Timble stood with their hands on the hood of Josh’s truck. They’d handed over their IDs, and Weizer looked them over slowly and carefully.
The two men had stowed their guns under the seat of the truck, so they did not expect trouble from the officer, a young man who seemed, to both men, to be a little too amped up.
Josh lowered his hands and turned to the officer, desperate to be sent on his way either with or without a ticket, but the movement spooked the Maryland State Police officer. He took a few steps back in the street, ordered Timble to put his hands back on the hood, and used his radio to call for backup.
When he heard a low thumping in the distance, Raynor looked over his right shoulder. There, to the southeast, he saw two, and then three, and finally a total of five VH-60 Sea King helicopters in the presidential colors. They were four klicks away, maybe a little more.
“Shit!” said Kolt.
Josh now looked back over his shoulder. When he saw the helos he lifted his hands from the hood and stood up again.
“Hey! Hey!” said the trooper. “Hands back on the fucking truck!”
* * *
The door of the semi-trailer rolled up, and two men leapt out onto the concrete parking lot. Once they hit the ground they turned back and each grabbed a launcher that was lying on the trailer’s wooden floor. As they did this, two more men leapt to the ground, turned, and grabbed SAM launchers that Doyle, still in the container, slid forward to them.
When all four men in the parking lot had a weapon, Doyle and the last member of the Chicago cell slid their launchers to the front of the trailer, then climbed over them and leapt to the ground.
Now the six al Qaeda operatives spread out, moved around the side of the trailer as a unit, and began forming in a line, each man no more than five to eight feet apart.
All this took forty-one seconds. His first unit of four men had managed it in twenty-eight.
The first helicopter was just passing to the southwest of their position now, heading to the north.
“Wait for my order to fire,” David said.
But on the far end of the line of SAM-armed men, one of the Chicago Saudis struggled with the weight of the launcher on his neck. He pushed the grip stock forward to reposition his weapon and, in doing so, he accidentally pressed the trigger on the Igla-S.
The long missile ejected from the launch tube, a champagne cork from a bottle, and then its propellant ignited and it streaked into the sky.
Doyle took his eye out of the sights of his weapon, his face a mask of shock and fury.
* * *
The missile streaked skyward away from the far end of the parking lot, on the other side of the semi-trailers from TJ and Racer.
TJ saw this, then jacked his eyes to Officer Weizer, who stood there with his mouth open.
“Don’t you fucking shoot us!” TJ shouted to the trooper, and then he turned and reached back into the truck, pulled his shotgun and his Glock.40-caliber from under the seat. Kolt ran around to the other side and grabbed his weapons.
In seconds they were running toward the site of the missile launch.
A stunned Officer Weizer reached for the radio on his shoulder.
Kolt was more physically fit than Josh, but Kolt’s injured ribs made TJ a faster runner. They sprinted toward the location of the launch and almost immediately they saw movement around the trailer. Two men with rifles hanging from their backs shouldering SAMs stepped just slightly around the front of the semi.
Even though Kolt and TJ were too far away to effectively engage the men with the shotguns, they could hear the helicopters in the distance, and they knew the enemy might get another shot off in seconds. Without speaking and without breaking stride, both men aimed their shotguns in the general direction of the men and fired. They were still ninety meters away; their guns would spread a pattern of small-caliber buckshot over several square feet. This was hardly the optimal way to fight men armed with powerful rifles.
But they had no choice.
After each fired off a shell of double-aught buck, they simultaneously racked their slides and chambered another cartridge as they ran on.
* * *
David was furious with the Chicago cell member for launching early. The missile was wasted, as the young man had not even managed to acquire his target before he fired. Doyle screamed at him, told him to get his rifle up to protect the rest of them, and then he asked the m
an which target he had been given, so David could attack that helicopter himself.
The man said, “Three!” as he lifted his AK to his shoulder.
David found the third helicopter in the formation, received the tone from his weapon that told him his target’s heat register had been found, and he gave the command order to fire.
But as he began pressing down to launch, he felt an impact on his right shoulder, and another in his right calf. The blows were so startling that he spun away, and nearly lost control of the forty-pound system. Almost instantly he heard the booms off to his right, and he knew it was gunfire. His sights were well above and to the south of his target as he pressed the trigger of the Igla-S. The exhaust exploded out the back of the launch tube and the missile fired into the air. Its second stage erupted and it raced into the sky faster than the eye could track it up.
He knew he had missed.
A second volley of booming gunfire came within a second, and out of the corner of his eye he saw one of his men fall backward to the ground, and he heard a second scream out in agony.
“Fire!” Doyle shouted to his remaining men.
Doyle pushed his Igla off his shoulder and reached behind him to pull his Kalashnikov off his back.
One of the Chicago cell did get a positive lock and a good launch, and this missile arced into the sky after a Sea King just two kilometers to the southwest.
More booms from big rifles came; there were two distinct reports this time, and Doyle turned back to find one of his cell members clearly dead, and two more had fallen to the ground and dropped their weapons.
Now he heard a new sound, so while he knelt at the corner of the trailer with his rifle to his shoulder, he tracked the noise to the choppers in the distance. There, the line of helicopters seemed to be involved in some sort of aerial ballet. As flares fired from both sides of the choppers they banked left and right.
A puff of smoke appeared just behind the second helicopter. It had taken a hit.
Doyle looked for the threats in the parking lot, and he saw two men with shotguns running across open ground.
Doyle sprayed 7.62 rounds from the hip toward the men approaching. Both men dove for cover.
* * *
Raynor and Timble scrambled behind a cement staircase that led to a back door of the Buy-Rite. They checked each other for wounds and found, thankfully, that neither had been hit. Raynor’s broken ribs were killing him. He had to take short, fast breaths to keep the pain intensity bearable.
Both men reloaded their shotguns from shells stored in sidesaddles on the receivers of the weapons. As they did so they saw a white-topped helicopter corkscrewing in the distance ahead of an arc of fire and a haze of black smoke.
They did not know if the President was on board or not. They did know, however, that there were four other VH-60s in the sky, and they knew they had to prevent more SAM launches.
Both men stood up and pointed their shotguns at the semi-trailer just twenty-five yards away.
“Go!” TJ shouted at Kolt, and Raynor began running forward while Timble fired shell after shell to keep the terrorists’ heads down.
Kolt ran across the open parking lot, his weapon out in front of him. He saw the effects of TJ’s buckshot closer now. Four men lay dead or dying on the cement. He ran wide around the trailer, his shotgun high on his shoulder, but there was no one there. Several SAM launchers lay around the parking lot, but Kolt didn’t take the time to see which launchers had been fired and which still contained missiles.
“Clear!” he shouted, and within seconds he heard TJ approaching in a sprint. Timble had dropped his empty Mossberg and he now held his Glock 23 pistol.
He and Raynor moved to the rear of the semi to look inside. They swept around the back at the same time, and found a man with an AK there. Both men fired on the terrorist, knocking him back into the trailer.
“Is that Doyle?” Kolt asked.
TJ pushed himself up into the trailer and immediately leapt back down. “Negative.” He looked around now. Just to the south of them was a line of trees, and off to the left was the back of the Buy-Rite.
“He’s running,” TJ said.
“How do you — ”
“I know!”
And with that, both men took off at a sprint, Raynor around the corner to the loading docks of the store, and Timble into the trees.
* * *
David Doyle ran through the trees at the south end of the Buy-Rite parking lot, and here he found an eight-foot-high security fence. He climbed it as quickly as he could, but once he got to the top, he realized the injury in his leg and shoulder had weakened him. His limbs gave out and he slipped, his chest crashed onto the barbs, and then he rolled over the top of the fence and fell to the ground.
As he stood he realized his AK-47 had fallen down on the other side of the fence. He had no sidearm with him, only the survival knife he’d purchased in Arizona inside his waistband.
“Fuck!” he shouted. There was no time to climb back over for the rifle. He turned and ran off toward the cemetery, desperate to put distance between himself and the men who had ruined his operation.
Behind him he heard the fence rattle with the weight of someone climbing it.
* * *
TJ holstered his pistol, leapt onto the fence, and scaled it effortlessly. He dropped down on the other side, pulled his Glock 23, and ran through some more woods, his eyes scanning for any sign of David Doyle.
* * *
Officer Weizer pulled up next to Raynor in his squad car. They were at the back of the Buy-Rite, and Kolt was reasonably sure no one had come this way. He told Weizer to continue on around to the other end of the building, and he retraced his steps, feeling certain that TJ would be closing in on Doyle at the cemetery.
* * *
TJ ran across the green lawn, sprinting between headstones and crypts. He saw a lone vehicle parked on a road in the grounds two hundred yards away. He thought it possible that this was Doyle’s getaway vehicle, so he focused all his attention on the car as he ran, trying to see if anyone was inside. While doing this he passed a large marble crypt at a sprint.
David Doyle dove out from around the marble structure as TJ passed.
In the terrorist’s hand he held the long survival knife.
Timble reacted to the movement, but too late to avoid the knife. Doyle plunged the blade into Timble’s chest; it sank hilt-deep into the running man’s lung.
TJ and Doyle crashed together into the dewy grass and the Glock fell out of Timble’s hand.
Doyle rolled to his knees quickly, straddled the man with the knife still in his chest, and looked down at his face. David’s eyebrows rose in shock. Even though it had been nine months since they’d last met, the al Qaeda man recognized the American military officer immediately. With surprise he said, “You?”
TJ’s eyes blinked weakly and blood ran down his lips.
* * *
Four miles north, Marine One passed over the National Mall on its approach to the White House. The South Lawn was ringed by Secret Service agents, ready to rush the President of the United States inside to safety.
* * *
Raynor sprinted as fast as his broken ribs would allow, out of the cover of trees and onto the manicured lawn at the northern edge of Cedar Hill Cemetary. In the blue sky ahead of him he saw the black smoke where a helicopter had been hit by an SA-24 and then crashed in a neighborhood in the Hillcrest Heights subdivision of Prince George’s County.
Kolt’s .45-caliber pistol swung with each stride, and his head swiveled back and forth, searching for either Doyle or TJ.
Just in front of Raynor, a wide marble crypt stood in the green grass. Kolt went wide around it to check the other side and there, twenty feet down a slight decline toward a road, David Doyle sat astride Josh Timble. The terrorist had a pistol in his hand and he leveled it, point-blank, down at TJ’s face.
“No!” Kolt shouted, and he fired a single round from his .45. The bullet nailed
Doyle in the shoulder and he spun off TJ and tumbled down onto the damp grass. The Glock fell a few feet from TJ’s head.
Kolt walked forward, his pistol still pointed at Doyle. “TJ! TJ!” But he saw the hilt of the knife, and he watched Timble grab it with both hands and pull it out of his chest.
“Don’t move!” Raynor screamed, speaking to both men simultaneously. He ran forward and dropped to his knees.
Blood spurted from the sucking chest wound. Raynor’s years of training told him instantly that the injury was not survivable. Still, he put pressure on the hole in TJ’s chest. With all his strength he pushed his left hand down on the wound.
Blood pumped through his fingers.
TJ’s eyes were glassy. Unfixed.
“I surrender,” Doyle mumbled from the grass lower on the hill.
Kolt ignored him and spoke to Timble. Blood had trickled out of both sides of the lieutenant colonel’s mouth.
“I’m sorry, brother,” Kolt said, his voice cracking. “Shit! Just hang on. Help is on the — ”
“Sir! I surrender!”
Kolt turned away from his friend now, and toward David Doyle. “No, you don’t.”
The bleached-blond man had sat up in the grass, clutching his left shoulder with his right hand. Slowly he rolled to his knees and stood up fully.
“I … I just told you, I give up.”
“You give up?”
“Yes. I know my rights, Officer.”
“Do I look like a fucking cop?”
Doyle shook his head slowly. “No. No, you don’t. You are … you are from the same unit as Captain Timble. You are in the Army. You have no jurisdiction here inside the U.S.”
Kolt stood now. “What does that tell you?”
Doyle thought it over. “You are committing a crime. You are a criminal!”
Raynor smiled angrily. “You ain’t seen nothing yet, asshole.” Kolt divided his attention between TJ and the man standing a few feet away. He pushed his knee into the wound now, but he could already tell the blood flow was slowing.
In the distance, Raynor heard a helicopter approaching.
