Hard Road

by J. B. Turner

  Harper sounded officious. “I’m in charge of the Office of Infrastructure Protection. We’re supposed to reduce the risk to our critical infrastructures and key resources during any acts of terrorism. Isn’t that exactly the opposite of what you’re asking me to do?”

  Meyerstein felt her blood pressure hike up a notch as she watched the train’s CCTV. “Listen, I don’t want to hear your bullshit. We need to shut down a small segment of DC and we need to do it now. If we don’t, we’ll all be plunged into darkness if this attack is successful.”

  “You can’t seriously expect me to–”

  “Listen to me, this is not the time for a lengthy discussion. Here’s the choice. You either make that decision right now or I’ll be on the phone to the Secretary of Homeland Security, your boss, who reports direct to the President, demanding to know why you are obstructing this critical request.”

  A beat. “Are you threatening me?”

  “You’re damn right I am. Either you speak to Pepco and pull the plug on the Pentagon City Metro or I’ll drag your bony ass out of there and do it myself.”

  She let out a long sigh. “OK, leave it with me.”

  “I didn’t ask to leave it with you. You do this now, or you’ll be facing Federal charges, do you understand?”

  “I’ll do it right now.”

  Then she hung up.

  Meyerstein slammed down the phone on the desk and began to pace the operations room. She adjusted her headset, needing direct contact with Reznick in this critical phase. A few moments later a phone rang and Stamper picked it up. He nodded then hung up.

  “Ten seconds to blackout.”

  Meyerstein turned and stared up at the huge screens. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The train was moving into the tunnel.

  FORTY

  The train lurched forward as it headed into the tunnel and Reznick was thrown to the floor.

  “Jon, I’m giving you the full authorisation,” Meyerstein said into his earpiece.

  Reznick crouched down low as he peered into the first carriage. Dead bodies, glass strewn everywhere, pools of blood on the floor, bodies of two dead Feds and innocent passengers. At the front of the train, he saw one of the bad guys at the controls in the operator’s cab and the man with the gun barking instructions. But he couldn’t see Caan. “What about the lights?”

  “Jon, five seconds till the power goes down. Do you copy?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Jon, you must stop these guys at any cost, do you understand?”

  “Leave it with me.”

  A click signaled the conversation was over.

  Reznick was on his own. He peered through into the first carriage. The man with the gun was still shouting instructions. Time slowed as he heard his heart pound.

  Suddenly, they were plunged into darkness. Muffled screams from the rear carriages and terrible wails as the train ground to a screeching halt.

  Reznick crawled fast towards the first carriage. Head low, body low, flush with the ground. The military low crawl was perfected in muddy trenches under barbed wire, battle-hardened Marines screaming abuse. Stay low or get hit.

  Closer and closer. Inches.

  He now saw three separate silhouettes. Two in the driver’s compartment and one up in the far right of the carriage.

  He crawled on into the first carriage and he felt thick fluid on his hands. Blood. To his right were the dead FBI men lying slumped. He felt in the dark through the men’s clothes, and took out a handgun magazine from an inside pocket which he put in his back pocket. Then he groped around on the floor until he felt the cold metal gun.

  He pulled back the slide and focused on the guy at the far right.

  Shoot, move, communicate. The soldier’s mantra.

  He edged a few inches closer. Then he aimed and squeezed the trigger. Flashes of fire spewed out of the gun illuminating the darkness around him. The figure collapsed in a heap. Reznick rolled sideways and aimed at the tallest man in the operator’s compartment. He fired off two shots and the bullets tore through the glass and into the man’s head. The fire from the gun lit up the blood-spattered shards of glass. The smell of cordite and smoke heavy in the air. But the third man had disappeared.

  Had he hit the ground? Had he been hit by a ricochet?

  “I’ve hit two of them, both down!” he shouted. “Can’t see the third.”

  Reznick crawled fast down the first carriage, keeping his head low. He moved past the slumped body of the first man he had killed. The sound of broken glass crunching as he crawled through on his hands and knees, ignoring the searing pain as the glass cut into his skin.

  Then he pointed his gun at the remaining glass in the operator’s compartment and fired off the rest of his magazine. Glass shattered. The sound was deafening in such an enclosed space. His ears were ringing. In the distance he heard a scream.

  Reznick got up and kicked in the operator’s door. The slumped body of a man in uniform, drenched in blood, glass covering his body, and Caan’s second accomplice. Then he saw a floor panel had been lifted.

  Caan had escaped.

  “Our guy has gone! I repeat, he has gone.”

  “Get after him!”

  Reznick ejected the magazine from his gun and slid the new magazine until it locked into place. He pulled back the slide and tucked his gun into his waistband. Then he lowered himself down onto the tracks and crawled out from underneath the train.

  Further up the line, in the tunnel, the sound of crunching footsteps on gravel.

  “He’s on the tracks heading towards Pentagon Metro station! I’m on it, over!”

  “Take him out, for chrissakes!”

  Reznick sprinted along the wooden beams along the tracks and headed deep into the blackness of the tunnel. He reckoned Caan had a one hundred yard start. Maybe more. His brain went into overdrive. The seconds seemed to slow down.

  His blood was pumping and his heart pounding as he gave chase in pitch darkness, all senses switched on. He made the calculation. Caan was barely one hundred yards into the tunnel. It was a mile or so or one thousand seven hundred and sixty yards. Therefore, just over one thousand five hundred yards until the target reached the Pentagon Metro station.

  On a running track it would take around four and a half minutes. On this terrain, nearer six.

  He pumped his arms harder as he went deeper into the darkness of the tunnel. Up ahead on the right, he saw a pale blue light. He knew that would be an emergency call box. The smell of dirt and damp and oil pervaded the musky air. But the ghostly light gave Reznick the first glimpse of the running silhouette.

  The guy was fit. And he had a bag slung over his shoulder.

  “He’s got to be stopped. And quick. We’re checking the train as we speak for any other bio-materials, but nothing so far.”

  Reznick knew a headshot still wasn’t possible. His mind raced, scenarios running through his brain. He had to stop him now, in his tracks. But a shot to the back – the best target area – might inadvertently pierce the bag as well, and release the bio-contents, releasing them into the tunnel.

  Reznick was gaining on him. The silhouetted man – Scott Caan – weaved and bobbed along the tracks. Then he disappeared from sight.

  “Fuck!”

  Reznick slowed down to gauge where Caan was.

  “Reznick, talk to me!”

  Up ahead the sound of heavy panting and stones crunching told Reznick that Caan was still on the move, but perhaps struggling with the terrain or conditions.

  Reznick picked up the pace. He felt the sweat sticking to his shirt, beading his forehead.

  “Reznick!”

  His breathing was getting harder. He didn’t need distractions. But he didn’t want to pull out the earpiece or lapel microphone. They needed to know what was happening. He stopped for a moment, panting hard. He turned his head slightly so the peripheral vision could kick in better. He knew that the human eye has rod cells – sensory cells at the back of the eye,
apart from the center, opposite the pupil – meaning peripheral vision is better in low light and detecting movement.

  Reznick looked down in the pitch-black tunnel and saw two tiny pale yellow strips. Rear reflective strips from Caan’s trainers.

  He locked onto the tiny yellow dots in the distance and began running along the concrete ties, which ran down the track. Faster and faster, gaze fixed on the yellow strips, moving up and down like pistons, as Caan kept running.

  A couple of hundred yards up ahead a soft red light. Not a train signal, but like a road sign.

  Reznick’s eyes were getting more accustomed to the pitch dark. The light bathed the track in a soft red glow. The silhouetted figure was heading straight for it.

  Suddenly the figure stopped and turned. A glint of metal and a flash before a deafening bang and what sounded like a ricochet.

  A searing pain tore through his right shoulder as if it was on fire. Reznick gritted his teeth as the pain threatened to overwhelm him. It was like a hot poker pressed into an open wound. He stared into the suffocating darkness and tried to pinpoint the whereabouts of Caan as sweat dripped from his brow. He tentatively touched the wound. Superficial graze, albeit painful.

  “What the hell is going on down there?” Meyerstein said. “Jon, I need you to speak to me.”

  Reznick ground his teeth against the pain. His mind flashed back to the deranged pain of Delta’s vomit-inducing forty mile cross country movement with a sixty pound rucksack and weapon. Staff sergeants just looked on. No interaction. They didn’t give feedback if you were doing bad or good, or going too slow. It screwed a lot of guys up who could not adjust to it. It was all about self-motivation. Who had the will to dig deep without any help? He had to push through the pain and psychological barrier himself, time and time again. He taught himself to love the pain. Pain is your friend. Suck it up and see.

  The sound of running up ahead on gravel echoed around the tunnel. Caan was on the move.

  Reznick willed himself to ignore the pain and head down the tracks again into the blackness, only the palest of red lights for guidance. Up ahead the sound of a metal door screeching open. A sickly yellow light spilled out illuminating Caan for the briefest moment.

  “Jon, are you alright, copy?”

  “I’ve been grazed. I’m OK. I’ll survive.”

  A long pause before a sigh. “Take him down with a body shot if need be, Jon. Do you copy?”

  “Too risky. I need to get in closer.”

  Reznick felt sweat running down his face and into his ears as he pounded down the track. He felt the earpiece slipping and before he could stop it, the damn thing had fallen out of his ear. “Goddamn,” he said.

  He was on his own.

  He sprinted onward towards the red sign. A hundred yards. Then fifty. Then he saw it was a red emergency sign glowing in the dark. Yellow marking on the metallic door. He yanked at the handle and went inside. He flinched as the harsh yellowish light burned his eyes. A discarded grey sweatshirt and brown satchel lay strewn on the ground.

  He wondered if this was to change his appearance again. But he also knew the bio-material would definitely be on his person, leaving the bag behind.

  Above him scuffed footsteps and urgent breathing as Caan climbed the stairs.

  A surge of raw adrenaline shot through Reznick’s veins. He ignored the terrible pain in his shoulder and bounded up the concrete steps two at a time knowing he was a sitting duck. But he had to catch the bastard.

  Suck it up.

  That’s what Reznick told himself during the Delta selection process as he hit mental and physical walls. Suck it up. Enjoy the misery. It will not beat you. Nothing will ever beat you. Ever. He thought of his father wearing his medals at the Vietnam Memorial. Then he thought of Lauren in her hospital bed. But then he thought of his wife, the split second before the tower collapsed. He imagined the horror and fear that must have engulfed her as she disappeared into the dust and the concrete and twisted metal.

  He had to do this. He would do this. And he would catch that fuck for all of them.

  The adrenaline continued to surge through his body giving him huge amounts of energy. He heard the sound of a metal hatch creaking open. Some artificial light from the street leaked in, and the roar of traffic and peeping horns.

  Reznick’s stomach knotted as he climbed higher and higher and then emerged blinking onto a busy Arlington street. He was on a sidewalk. The sound of police sirens in the distance. He scanned his unfamiliar surroundings trying to get a fix on the target. The monolithic monstrosity that was the Pentagon loomed in the distance. But then he got a visual on a running figure in the distance. He was wearing a navy blue windbreaker with yellow lettering on the back.

  He ran across the road as cars screeched to a halt and peeped their horns as he headed towards the Pentagon. “Hey buddy, you wanna look where you’re goin’?”

  Reznick kept focused on the distant figure. Through an underpass and across another road. He saw a sign for South Fern Street and then a sign for the Pentagon Metro. He was gaining ground.

  Reznick saw a sign for South Rotary Road and ran towards hundreds of people milling around, police cars and FBI vehicles, red lights flashing. He saw a cordon and realised the Metro station had been evacuated.

  Then he spotted Caan and what looked like an ID tag dangling from his neck. Reznick fixed his gaze on the jacket as he disappeared into the crowd. The last thing he saw was that his jacket had emblazoned on his back, FBI in yellow letters.

  A cold finger of fear ran down Reznick’s back as he ran towards the crowd staying focused as Caan made his way through the crowd.

  Reznick barged through the crowds who parted, some shouting and yelling, until he came face to face with two huge cops who were standing behind some yellow police tape.

  “Freeze, police!” one shouted.

  Reznick put up his hands as he slowed down and walked toward the cop. He saw Caan head into the station.

  “Easy, fella, keep your hands where I can see them?”

  Anger gnawed in Reznick’s guts. The bastard was getting away.

  Reznick put out his hands as if the officer should cuff him. The cop obligingly pulled out his cuffs from his belt and Reznick kicked the gun out of his hands. Then he smashed him in the side of the face, knocking the cop out cold. The other cop went clumsily for his gun. Reznick moved quicker and kicked the cop in the guts. He fell to his knees and the gun fell from his hands.

  He burst through the tape and down into the Metro. He headed down some stairs and then an escalator before he caught sight of Caan running past some automated ticket machines to the Pentagon screening area. Heavily armed Pentagon police with dogs blocked the way.

  A shot of adrenaline coursed through his body one more time as one of the cops took aim and fired at him. The bullet whizzed past his head and ricocheted off some metal.

  He sprinted down one escalator and then ran up another. Then another escalator.

  Caan was on it. Then he was gone.

  Then he caught sight of Caan running towards an escalator.

  Reznick closed in.

  At the bottom, Caan turned round and his black eyes met Reznick’s. The face was puffy, the nose broken, cheekbones high. It was him. He grinned and unzipped his jacket.

  Reznick didn’t hesitate. He pointed the Beretta straight at Caan’s forehead and aimed. Then squeezed the trigger twice. The shots rang out and echoed round the station. Caan collapsed as blood streamed from the side of his head.

  Reznick ran down the escalator, gun trained on Caan. He stepped over the body and then kneeled down beside him. Pressing his index finger to his neck he felt for a pulse.

  Nothing.

  Then he opened up Caan’s jacket and ripped open a huge inside Velcro pocket. Inside were two white Christmas baubles with a glitter pattern.

  Reznick carefully closed the jacket and was about to stand up when a voice behind him shouted, “Don’t fucking move. FBI SWAT.”
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br />   Reznick froze.

  “Drop the gun!”

  Reznick loosened his grip and dropped the gun, making a heavy clunking sound as it hit the escalator.

  “Turn around and take three steps backwards onto the concourse, hands on head.”

  Reznick turned around, put his hands on his head and took three steps back. “Don’t touch the Christmas baubles in his pocket, whatever you do! Look, I’m on your side. I’ve just taken this guy out. He was the target. Speak to Meyerstein of the FBI.”

  “Shut the fuck up and listen. I want you to strip off. Top, jeans, shoes, socks. Right down to your undies.”

  Reznick complied, ignoring the burning pain in his shoulder. He stood in his boxer shorts, hands on head, blood dripping onto the stone concourse.

  “Now slowly, turn around.”

  He complied and stared straight at them. They stood, guns pointing at him, their gaze locked onto his muscled torso and the red Delta dagger tattooed on his chest.

  “Very slowly, very slowly, take three steps towards us and then kneel down, with your hands still on your head.”

  Reznick walked towards them and kneeled, hands on head. “Listen to me,” he said, “do not move that guy on the ground. Do not touch the Christmas baubles, do you hear me?” He could feel himself slipping away. He fought to remain conscious. Then he looked up at the lead SWAT guy. He saw Meyerstein appear from behind. She smiled and walked towards him.

  Reznick smiled back. “What the hell took you so long?”

  Then everything turned black.

  FORTY-ONE

  The hours that followed were a bit of a blur as Reznick lapsed in and out of consciousness. He felt cold and was losing blood fast as he was rushed to the emergency room of The George Washington Hospital. The voices of the paramedics and then the doctors and nurses echoed in his head as if in dream. His every breath induced searing pain in his shoulder wound.