Graves Mill, Virginia
It was his bladder that roused him, but it was the sound of the TV that brought him fully awake.
Reaching for his crutches, David Lay swung himself out of bed, grunting as his feet hit the floor. Losing some weight wasn’t a bad idea.
He’d only been out of bed a couple times since Rhoda had brought him to the trailer. She didn’t think he was ready.
Ready. He pushed open the doorway of the bedroom and tottered out into the hallway. She’d been sleeping on the couch ever since his arrival. There had been a time when that might have been different, but neither of them had been prepared to commit. Once burned, twice shy, as the saying went.
Rhoda was sitting at the table, her back turned to the hallway, a glass of milk in front of her. The channel changed just as he entered the kitchen. “What are you doing up, David?” There were moments when he could have sworn the woman was psychic.
He eased himself forward, bending down to kiss her dark lips as she turned to face him. That was how he remembered her. The smell of pot filled his nostrils and he grimaced. Yes, another of the reasons the relationship hadn’t worked out.
“What were you watching?”
She smiled, gesturing at the TV. “Cooking. Old re-runs of Paula Deen.”
Another time he might have found the response humorous, but not now. “Don’t lie to me, Rhoda,” he retorted, an edge of steel creeping into his voice.
Her gaze faltered and a cold chill seized his heart. Before she could react, the remote was in his hand and he pressed the button for channel return. CNN.
“…the death count is still climbing in West Virginia, with 34 FBI agents now counted among the fatalities. Sources within the administration have confirmed that the ambush of the Hostage Rescue Team was connected with the ongoing search for the rogue CIA agent. If you have information regarding this case, please contact…”
The voice of the anchor seemed to fade away, the room beginning to swirl around him. He felt his fingers grip the edge of the tabletop as he sank back into the chair, burying his face in his hands.
What had he set in motion?
3:01 A.M.
The airfield
Northern Kentucky
The lights of a pick-up truck pierced the cockpit as Harry guided the Sikorsky to a rolling stop, placing the right side of the helo away from the Cessna and the lights. “Ready?”
Han nodded before ducking back down beneath the seat, disappearing. Harry reached into his jacket and extracted his Colt 1911, screwing a long suppressor into the barrel of the weapon. Who they were dealing with, he didn’t know—but it wasn’t legitimate.
And illegitimate meant people with guns.
He swung his legs out the window of the helicopter and clambered down. The cabin door was already open. Han wasn’t wasting any time.
Footsteps as he rounded the bulbous nose of the Sikorsky. Five men, moving across the runway toward him, their figures backlit by the lights. Amateur hour.
“Who the devil are you?” the leader demanded, a Kentucky twang flavoring his words. He was a big man, heavy. Some people might have said he had a beer belly—it looked more like he had swallowed the keg. “What you doing here?”
Harry smiled, taking in the odds. Five men, three white, two Hispanic. Only one visible weapon, a pistol-gripped Mossberg shotgun, but this was Kentucky.
“My name doesn’t matter,” he replied, shrugging. “I’m not a cop. As for what I’m doing here—just passin’ through. Ran out of fuel.”
The big man took a step closer, running a hand across his beard. At length he shook his head, spewing a viscous stream of tobacco into the dirt. “You sure picked a bad night for it.”
Sammy should be almost ready. Harry inclined his head, measuring the distance between them. “I agree—for you.”
At his words, a pair of muffled shots rang out from Han’s suppressed Sig-Sauer, sounding like hammer blows in the night. The headlights of the pick-up went out almost simultaneously, plunging the airfield into a darkness punctuated only by the eerie orange light of the flares.
The big man swore, reaching inside his jacket, but Harry’s Colt was already in his hand. “Don’t even think it. Light ‘em up, Sammy!”
The SCAR’s laser came flickering out of the darkness, centering on the head of the redneck with the Mossberg. For a moment it looked like he might drop the scattergun and flee.
“Tell your men to put their guns on the ground.” The leader’s hand reached toward his belt, but Harry shook his head. “Left hand. Pull it out with your fingers.”
“What do you want, man?” the leader demanded, his words almost a hoarse scream. He was wearing a long-barreled .44 Smith & Wesson—too long for a good draw. It fell to the ground with a dull thud.
“That depends—what you boys smuggling?” Harry asked, moving in closer, his pistol still leveled. “Marijuana? Hillbilly heroin?”
The man looked momentarily frightened. “None of your business, lawman.”
Movement out of the corner of his eye and Harry saw a pistol materialize in the hand of one of the Hispanics, a report reverberating out through the night as the bullet sliced through the air past his head.
Time seemed to slow down as the Colt came up in his hand. He fired two shots, both of them going wild in the darkness. Pandemonium. Harry threw himself prone. The big man dove for his discarded revolver.
There could be no hesitation—there wasn’t time to second-guess yourself, no matter how much you hated it. Han felt the bile rise in his throat as he lined up the laser sight on the young man’s chest. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen, twenty at the most. Not even old enough to drink.
No time.
He knew what to do, his finger curling around the SCAR’s trigger, taking up the slack. A motion as natural as taking breath as he squeezed—once, twice, three times in rapid succession.
The .308 slugs caught the kid high in the chest, smashing through his lungs. The pistol fell from his fingers and he toppled backward, his arms and legs moving spasmodically.
Dear God…
The leader had been elsewhere the day they passed out the brains. He heard the kid cry out and froze, realizing that he was staring down the barrel of Harry’s Colt less than six feet away. He didn’t take his hand off the butt of the S&W.
Harry shot him once, in the left knee, and the man pitched forward, groveling in the dirt as he screamed.
And the firefight was over as quickly as it had started, the rest of the drugrunners shocked into submission. Harry walked over to the groaning man. “Nobody needed to get hurt,” he said, a quiet menace in his voice. “Now, we’re taking your plane.”
“No, no, you can’t do that,” the big man screamed, trying to roll onto his back. Harry kicked the revolver away, out of reach. Remove the temptation. “Manuel’ll kill me.”
“Doesn’t sound like my problem,” Harry responded coldly, tapping the suppressor against the man’s temple. “All you need to worry about is what I’ll do if you get in my way.”
4:57 A.M.
The White House
Washington, D.C.
It was moments like this when he questioned how much he really wanted the Presidency—questioned all he’d done to retain this power. Power? He’d never felt more powerless. His fifth phone call—nothing. And Shapiro hadn’t been able to do anything to help.
“Roger—we need to talk.” Hancock slipped the iPhone into his shirt pocket and turned.
His “better half” stood in the doorway of the Residence’s bedroom. At forty-six, Nicole Hancock was several years his junior, a tall, elegant brunette. She looked like a First Lady.
She might have even carried it off with him, if not for the look of steel in those emerald green eyes. God—if there was a God—knew she was twice the political operative he was.
He let out a bitter sigh. Could this night get any worse?
“I don’t suppose this can wait?”
“You’
re not the only one keeping late hours, Roger. I just got in from a meeting with Trevor Ellison at the Hay Adams.”
That got his attention. Ellison was the managing editor of The Washington Post. “What did he want?”
She closed the door behind them and gestured to the manila envelope on the Victorian-era writing desk by the bed. His bed—she slept elsewhere in the Residence, a fact that the media had yet to latch hold of. They didn’t call it the Secret Service for nothing.
A premonition seized hold of Hancock as he ripped open the flap. The first picture showed him on-stage at a summit in Cancun the first week of October. Mary Workman was standing at his shoulder, along with the rest of his staff. But her face was circled in red. The second picture, from the same summit, had been taken with a telephoto lens.
Mary, dressed in a black bikini, standing on the balcony of his hotel. She’d been watching the sunset, he remembered. He looked closer at the photo and his breath caught in his throat. A pair of arms were wrapped around her bare waist in a loving embrace, a figure leaning over her shoulder.
The next picture was a duplicate, lightened and digitally enhanced. In it, you could clearly make out the face of her lover. It was him.
He ran a hand over his face and laid the photos down. “I need a drink.”
“It gets better, Roger,” the First Lady observed, standing there against the door, her arms folded across her chest. “The journalist that approached Trevor with the story has established that Mary had no prior history of drug use. He’s speculating that she became an inconvenient paramour. Your paramour.”
“Is he going to run the story?”
She sniffed. “No. No one prizes their access more than Trevor Ellison—he’s not going to give that up just to publish a speculative hit piece.”
Hancock let out a long sigh of relief, but she wasn’t done yet. “When we were first married, we both knew that our union was nothing more than a political alliance. That’s why I agreed that it would be an open marriage. I only had one requirement, Roger. Do you remember what it was?”
He did. All too well. “That my affairs would be discreet.”
She threw the balcony picture down on the desk. “Does that look discreet to you?”
And she was gone.
6:17 A.M.
The airport
Northern Kentucky
They still had roughly another hour till the sun was up, but the faint glow of the morning sun had started to creep over the trees. Time to leave.
Harry walked back over to where the four surviving drugrunners lay in front of the hangar, their hands zip-tied behind their backs. “I’m sure Manuel will come looking for you sooner or later, so don’t worry.”
The leader shook his head furiously, but he couldn’t speak past the oil-stained rag stuffed in his mouth. Harry took another look at the bandages Han had applied to his shattered knee and nodded. “You won’t bleed out, but if I were you, I’d lose a few pounds before I put weight on that knee again. Manuel can find his cocaine over in our helo, so don’t worry about him,” he added, turning to leave. “Call it a Christmas gift to my favorite drugrunners.”
Harry paused as if in afterthought, extracting a small black box from the pocket of his leather jacket. His finger pressed down on the detonator, the Sikorsky exploding in flame, a pillar of fire lighting up the sky.
“Softly as I leave you,” he whispered, a dark smile passing across his face.
He turned and walked away into the sunrise…
Chapter 12
12:47 P.M.
FBI Regional Field Office
Richmond, Virginia
Suspended pending further investigation. Part of her knew it was protocol—she had been the S-A-C overseeing the worst disaster in FBI history. Another part of her couldn’t escape the notion that there was something deeper. That they’d been set up.
Her gut.
Marika Altmann sat there for a few more minutes, staring at the black screen where Director Haskel’s face had been only moments earlier.
Time to go. She rose and left the conference room, both hands thrust into her jacket, lost in her thoughts.
“Special Agent Altmann!” She turned to see a young agent walking toward her, his hand outstretched. “I’ll need you to turn in your sidearm.”
She nodded, pulling her jacket aside to remove the holstered Glock. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Vic Caruso coming down the corridor toward them, and she handed over the weapon without another word. The Italian’s right arm was bandaged and cradled in a sling.
“There’s something going on, Marika,” Caruso announced quietly, taking her by the shoulder and guiding her into a nearby alcove.
“You’ll need to talk to someone else about it.” She shrugged off his hand, turning to face him. “I’ve been suspended.”
He nodded. “So have I. Same deal with Russ. See what I mean?”
That didn’t make any sense. Caruso went on. “Everyone that walked off that mountain has been sidelined. And they’re saying that the Russians were working with Nichols.”
“Did they already take your statement?” Marika asked, glancing around to make sure their conversation was private. Another nod. “There’s no way to draw that conclusion—what do they think, that we killed those four Russians in the cabin?”
She reached up, brushing a strand of silver hair back from her forehead. “Last time I checked, land mines weren’t Bureau issue.”
“There’s something going on, something we’ve not been briefed on—a larger picture.” An agent walked by and Vic stopped talking.
Their conversation had gone on long enough. Marika reached out, touching him lightly on the arm. “Go home and get some rest, Vic.”
“What about you?”
A distant look came into her eyes. “It’s time to call in a marker…”
12:23 P.M. Central Time
A gun range
Fargo, North Dakota
“Once you pick out your targets, just go through the door to the left there. I’ll ring you up on your way out.” The boy smiled. “And for pete’s sake put on your ear protection before going in.”
Alicia Workman nodded, lost in her own thoughts. A variety of targets hung on the wall—from standard round bulls-eyes to mil-spec silhouettes. There were even a few targets emblazoned with the portrait of Osama bin Laden, despite the years he had been in the ground. Or the sea, depending on which version of the story you believed.
There were none with the President’s face, and asking didn’t seem like a smart policy.
The crowd was sparse on an early Sunday afternoon, just an elderly man at the other end of the range, what looked like a Belgian-made FN-FAL in his hands. A long, snow-white ponytail hung out the back of his baseball cap as his fingers moved over the rifle with military efficiency.
Likely a Vietnam vet, judging by his age.
She attached her target to the overhead carriage and ran it out to fifteen yards, removing her pistol from its carrying case. The Bersa was a perfect fit—she’d always had small hands.
She brought the semiautomatic up in both hands, standing there, feet slightly spread. The face of the silhouette came into view through her gunsights.
Focus.
The first shot startled her, even though she was expecting it. Something to remember, she realized, emptying the magazine downrange. Three shots had pierced the head of the target. The other four weren’t even on paper.
Her lips formed a curse that would have shocked her students. She was going to have to do better…
1:03 P.M.
A mall
Dearborn, Michigan
The mall wasn’t their target, but he found himself analyzing it as though it was.
Tarik Abdul Muhammad’s eyes roved around the center of the mall as he listened to the sales clerk explain the wonders of the new Bluetooth headsets.
Only one security guard within sight—“armed” with a radio and riot baton. That might have worked i
n Hollywood’s licentious movies, but he’d be gunned down within minutes in real life.
The ultimate soft target. Tarik rubbed his chin, the bare skin feeling strange in place of the beard he’d worn for so many years. All of America was soft, a ripe fruit waiting to fall into the hand of the believer.
At length, he cut the clerk short. “I’ll take ten.”
A look of surprise came over the boy’s pimpled face, the reddish splotches contrasting oddly with his pale skin. Tarik smiled. “Extended family—Bluetooth seems to be the gift of choice this Christmas.”
He paid for the headsets and left the store, the clerk’s parting “happy holidays” ringing in his ears.
The negro was waiting for him by the central fountain, watching children toss pennies into the sparkling water.
“Ready to go?”
The Pakistani nodded, a mesmerizing look coming into his eyes. “Look around us, my brother, at how Americans are spending their Sunday.”
“Yes?”
“This is why we will win,” Tarik announced, gesturing with his hand. “These Americans—they are no longer people of the Book…”
2:45 P.M. Eastern Time
Ashland Regional Airport
Kentucky
Americans were amusing. At times. “I have nothing to do with your stupid Manuel,” Korsakov repeated, staring the drugrunner in the face.
The big man seemed to pale under his gaze. “Do you know their range?”
“Why?”
Without warning, Korsakov backhanded him across the face. “None of your concern. Just answer the question.”
“Easy, dude—just take it easy.” The American spat, a mixture of saliva and blood from his broken lip. “It’s a Skylane—maybe a thousand-mile range.”
“Is that all?”
A shake of the head. “No—we’d installed a couple of extra tanks—extends it by a hundred, maybe hundred and fifty miles. It’s a trade-off, but heroin don’t weigh that much, ya know?”
That explained the positioning of the tracker. They’d gotten quite a head start. “Are there any other planes here at the airport?” the assassin asked, glancing over at the smoldering remains of the Sikorsky.
Another shake of the head. The man didn’t seem to trust himself to speak.
Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors) Page 20
