Killed in Action

by Michael Sloan

  The room was empty.

  Blakemore felt the frustration rising within him. One of the Homeland Security agents, a soft-spoken man named Holtzman, walked over to him.

  “I’ve questioned five or six of the Texas minutemen’s wives. There’re as closemouthed as the ranch workers. They know that the minutemen left in two vehicles, but they don’t know what vehicles or where they were parked. One of the young women I questioned was scared. She didn’t think her husband was coming back.”

  “Bo Ellsworth knows these back roads like the back of his hand,” Hank Fulton said. “No good putting roadblocks up.”

  “Put two choppers in the air,” Blakemore said.

  7:40 P.M. EDT

  Kostmayer drove down the UN parking facility to level G. He pulled over to one of the slots, and he and Gunner got out of the Chrysler.

  “Tom wouldn’t have driven down to the lowest level,” Kostmayer said. “I didn’t see his VW on our way down. He’s got a spot all picked out. Not for visitors. For staff.”

  “You take the aisle on the left-hand side,” Gunner said. “I’ll take the one in the middle. Keep eye contact.”

  They started looking for Tom’s distinctive red Beetle.

  They had twenty minutes.

  6:42 P.M. CDT

  Renquist was certain he had hit his quarry. His Glock 26 had an Osprey 9 silencer, and even though he had been aiming from the floor level in semidarkness, he did not miss a shot like that. He crept forward toward the catwalk steps. Dr. Cross would be in the third building by now. Renquist didn’t know how long it would take the doctor to disperse the poison in his vials and he didn’t care. His mission was to keep Cross isolated and focused. Once it was 7:00 p.m., Renquist’s mission would have been accomplished.

  He ascended the steps. The catwalks spread steel fingers across the water-treatment building, branching off in three different directions. The rogue assassin moved silently to the place where he had shot McCall. It was streaked with shadows.

  It was deserted.

  6:46 P.M. CDT

  When they got into San Antonio, Deaf got an update.

  “You called it, Mr. Cameron. When the cars and the SWAT team rolled into Bo’s compound, it was practically deserted. Bo and his militia are traveling, taking back roads, and there is no indication as to their destination. Agent Blakemore wants me to take you to our offices here in San Antonio.”

  “You know where the Valencia Hotel is?”

  “Sure, it just reopened with a new management team. They’re calling it the Riverwalk Hotel now.”

  “Can you drop me off there? I’m meeting some colleagues in the lobby. Can we enter from the back of the hotel?”

  “Sure. Want to tell me what this is about?”

  “I believe the hotel might be Bo Ellsworth’s target in the city.”

  “What proof do you have of that?”

  “The word Valencia in a journal that I deciphered belonging to an American student who may have been radicalized. It’s a long shot.”

  “I’ll have to call it in.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Deaf thought better of doing that. “I’ll take you to the hotel.”

  7:47 P.M. EDT

  Parking activity filtered down to Colonel Michael Ralston as he made his way up the center ramp to level F. He’d been traveling down the aisles of parked cars with a renewed sense of urgency. He hadn’t seen Tom Coleman’s distinctive red VW. He resolved that if he did not see it by the time he finished his search of level F, he wouldn’t climb any higher. He’d take the stairs to the UN complex and contact one of the security guards. He would call Helen Coleman again when he got outside.

  He’d hadn’t expected the attack to come out of the semidarkness, and yet, in fact, he had. Since his graduation from The Citadel back in the day, he had always been aware of his surroundings, whether it was in a combat zone or just walking down a residential street. Gunner had a sixth sense of danger that was ingrained in him. So he turned in a split second toward the attacker.

  He had five inches on Gunner, which made him six-foot-three with close-cropped blond hair that was almost white. He was wielding a bolas, weights on the ends of interconnected braided cords, used by gauchos in South America. Gunner knew they’d been known to bring down a two-hundred-pound guanaco, a llamalike mammal, with it. The assassin released the boleadoras, or avestrucera, one with two weighted balls, and it wrapped around Gunner’s throat. Within a second it would have crushed his trachea, but the colonel was facing his assailant now, which had not been the man’s plan. Gunner wrenched the strangling cord from his throat and brought the attacker to his knees with a vicious groin kick. Then Gunner threw the bolas. The weighted balls wrapped tightly around the assailant’s throat, crushing his larynx. His body convulsed. Gunner pulled on the braided cords until the assassin’s air was gone. Then he pulled the bolas from the dead man’s throat.

  Gunner was shaken. He lifted the assassin’s right hand and saw the silver skull on his ring finger with the plain silver band beside it. Gunner couldn’t remember what was etched on the silver band, something about you had to die. He pulled both rings off the assassin’s hand and pocketed them. He dragged the dead man behind a parked Audi, tight up against one of the pillars, then straightened and moved forward.

  He had to find Tom Coleman.

  He was out of time.

  6:48 P.M. CDT

  McCall came up behind Renquist, slammed a punch into his kidney, grabbed the Glock 26, and wrenched it from his hand. But the man’s reflexes were lightning fast. McCall had taken the bullet in his left arm, leaving it numb. Renquist pitched forward on the catwalk and pulled McCall over his body. McCall slammed onto the catwalk. Renquist kicked the gun from McCall’s nerveless left grip. It skittered along the steel walkway. Renquist dived for it, but McCall slammed into him, sending him reeling. McCall gripped the catwalk railing and pulled himself up.

  The two operatives circled each other, going into and out of intermittent shadow. Renquist aimed kicks at McCall’s body and legs. McCall parried them, but he was hurt and the rogue assassin knew it.

  Renquist kicked suddenly at McCall’s left ankle. It was inflamed and the pain almost caused him to pass out. He countered with knifehand strikes aimed at the muscles in Renquist’s neck and jugular. Renquist parried them with brutal ease.

  “Thought you were favoring that ankle when I bumped into you at Arlington Cemetery,” Renquist said, sizing up his adversary. “I figure you’ve got it taped up, but how long will that hold?”

  Renquist came at McCall again, the silver skull on his right hand catching the light.

  For a split second McCall had a sense memory of Granny when the two of them had been on a mission for Control in the civil war in South Sudan. Granny had showed McCall a move to incapacitate an attacker that Granny had learned when he was in his twenties. But he’d never attempted it in a real-life situation.

  McCall struck with his rigid right-hand fingers in an upward move at certain groups of muscles around Renquist’s chest so they contracted so violently they expelled air from his lungs. Granny had called it an “air dim-mak point.” At the same time, McCall grabbed Renquist’s right wrist and gouged the pressure points there so that the assassin would think that his whole body had been hit. McCall followed it with a rigid palm strike at the “mind point” on the side of the chin where the jaw joins, just back a quarter of an inch. Granny had said it would cause serious internal damage. McCall used the fingers of his left hand to attack Renquist’s colon points on the assassin’s upper forearm. In conjunction with the other two moves, this would cause Renquist’s body to suffer extreme low blood pressure, knocking him out.

  According to Granny.

  It took McCall about a second and a half to make the moves. Renquist’s body collapsed as he pitched forward. McCall held him up, applied pressure to his throat, and pivoted his head back and forth, snapping his neck. Then McCall let the assassin down to the catwalk. McCall leaned
against the railing, forcing air back into his own gasping lungs. Then he reached down, picked up Renquist’s fallen Glock 26, and ran along the catwalk.

  6:52 P.M. CDT

  Control got out of Willis’s Lincoln at the back entrance to what had formerly been the Valencia Hotel.

  “I’ll walk you in,” Deaf said. “You can meet up with your colleagues, and I can call in our location to Agent Blakemore.”

  Control nodded and walked into the Riverwalk Hotel. He and Deaf parted company in the small lounge there. Deaf walked on toward the front of the hotel, and Control climbed up a back staircase. He ran down a hotel corridor and came out onto the big staircase to find Hayden Vallance leaning against the railing, looking down into the lobby. Below, Control saw Deaf enter, speaking into his cell phone.

  Control hadn’t made a sound emerging from the corridor, but Vallance turned to him. “No trouble yet, but we’re in the right place. I’ve spotted three men that could pass as tourists, but they don’t fit in. The tall guy below us with wavy black hair is from Croatia. He has a Makarov P-64 nine millimeter in a shoulder holster under his jacket.”

  “I know him. He was one of the rogue Company agents who kept me prisoner in the house in Virginia.”

  “There’s another Croatian in the bar, taking walks out onto the terraces, looking at his watch. There’s a third assassin with close-cropped blond hair, a giant, six-five, who’s out on the first deck up here.”

  Control looked out through open French doors at the terrace. It was packed with people, waitresses and waiters moving back and forth with trays of food and drinks. Control spotted the blond assassin, leaning against the wooden railing, looking down at a side road that led up to the hotel.

  “I don’t recognize him.”

  “They’re all wearing those silver skulls,” Vallance said.

  “Who’s here with you?”

  “Gabriel Paul Dubois, an Algerian mercenary I spent some time with fighting Boko Haram. He’s right there on the deck. I pointed Blondie out to him. There’s a Brit named Clive Ashley-Talbot I pulled out of the Donbass War in Ukraine. He’s down in the lobby reading magazines. He’s a little less stable than Dubois, but they both know why they’re here.”

  Below, the small-boned Croatian strolled out of the bar into the lobby.

  Control walked onto the terrace, where’d he’d seen a flicker of movement from below. Two black Durango SUVs were driving down the winding road toward the side of the hotel. Control moved back to Hayden Vallance, who had also seen them. He took out a small walkie from his pocket and said softly into it, “We’re on.”

  On the first-floor terrace, Gabriel Paul Dubois turned his attention to the grounds below.

  In the lobby, Clive Ashley-Talbot moved back toward the reception desk.

  “My guys are carrying nine-millimeter Lugers.” Vallance took out a Glock 17 and handed it to Control. “Seventeen rounds, one in the chamber.”

  Vallance took out a Heckler & Koch VP9 9mm from his jacket.

  It was 6:55 p.m. in Texas.

  6:57 P.M. CDT

  McCall moved through a doorway on the catwalk from the second water-treatment building into the third. Less machinery was humming now. McCall saw a shrouded figure at the far end of the catwalk in one of the concentric pools of light. He had his Greenbriar Mall shopping bag clutched in his hands.

  McCall moved silently toward the figure, hampered by his injured ankle and the bullet that had grazed his left arm.

  The figure didn’t look up. He wasn’t aware of McCall yet.

  McCall stole a glance at the chronometer on his wrist: 6:58 p.m.

  Why did he have the feeling that all of this waiting was going to culminate at 7:00 p.m. in Texas?

  7:58 P.M. EDT

  Kostmayer spotted Tom Coleman’s VW Beetle at the back of the last row of level D. It was jammed into a small space, right beside one of the pillars. Kostmayer could see Tom’s figure sitting in the driver’s seat. He wasn’t moving. Kostmayer made his way through the parked cars at an angle to the red VW, getting closer, not wanting to do anything that would spook Tom.

  But he’d left it too late.

  Tom stepped out of the VW. He slammed the car door and stood staring out into the parking structure. There was movement on level D, car doors opening and closing, people walking toward the elevators. Murmurs of indistinct conversations that didn’t carry to Tom. He stood completely still, his eyes glassy, his head cocked to one side, as if listening to a sound that only he could hear.

  Tom pulled down the zipper on his Windbreaker and left it unzipped.

  Kostmayer saw that the student was wearing a suicide vest beneath it.

  Still Tom Coleman didn’t move.

  Kostmayer walked to the last row of parked cars, diagonally over from the red VW, out of Tom’s line of vision.

  He was maybe six feet away from the suicide bomber.

  Tom turned his head.

  Kostmayer froze in the shadows created by one of the pillars. He didn’t move so much as a muscle. After a few seconds, Tom turned back and remained completely still again.

  Kostmayer glanced down at the watch on his wrist.

  It said 8:00 p.m.

  CHAPTER 48

  7:00 P.M. CDT

  From where he was standing on the terrace, Gabriel Paul Dubois watched the two black Durango SUVs pull right up to the side of the hotel. Bo Ellsworth climbed out with his Texas Minutemen Militia. They were wearing long black coats, ski masks, carrying M4 assault rifles and Heckler and Koch .45 semiautomatic pistols in their holsters. The last man out was carrying an RPG-7V2 reloadable launcher. They walked to the side entrance that would lead them into the main lobby.

  Gabriel was watching the blond assassin turn back from the railing of the balcony. He brought out an HK submachine gun that he had been carrying slung down behind his dark overcoat. He opened fire at the tables, bullets smashing the glassware and dishes of food, blood spurting from people as they tried to scramble for cover. Gabriel upended one of the tables, ducking down from the torrent of destructive gunfire, pulling his Luger, and firing. The blond shooter had not been expecting return fire. Gabriel shot him twice in the head and once in the chest. The HK submachine gun fired in his hands as the assassin slid down the wooden railing. Gabriel ran forward and picked it up. He turned to the panicked people crouching down at the tables behind him.

  “Down the stairs!” Gabriel shouted. “Go! Right now!” He herded them to the stairs leading down to the outdoor lounges below. “When you get to the bottom, go down the rest of the steps to River Walk.”

  The tourists pounded down the stairs. Gabriel ran to where bodies were littered beside the tables. Two women in their twenties were badly wounded, but breathing. A Texan in his forties lay on the ground with his ten-gallon Stetson lying beside him. He looked up at Gabriel with uncomprehending eyes before the life ran out of them. Gabriel knelt beside a blond woman, also in her forties, who was bleeding from a chest wound. Gabriel found a fallen linen napkin, ripped open her shirt, and put it into her hands.

  “Press down tightly against the wound. Lie right here. An ambulance is on its way.”

  Gabriel didn’t know if EMTs were on their way, but the woman nodded, still in shock. Gabriel straightened and ran for the French doors leading out to the main staircase.

  Bo’s Texas Minutemen Militia burst into the lobby firing their M4 assault rifles, strafing the reception desk. The Muslim front-of-house staff were riddled with bullets. The minuteman carrying the RPG-7V2 launcher fired at the door marked OFFICE and blew it and whoever was inside to pieces. More of the militia fired indiscriminately at the people milling in the lobby or sitting on the wicker chairs and low couches. Bodies went flying. Bo reminded himself that the Jihadists would be blamed for this atrocity.

  Clive Ashley-Talbot, in the back of the lobby, drew his Luger. The minuteman wielding the RPG launcher reached into his long black coat for one of the fragmentation grenades there.

  Cli
ve shot him dead.

  FBI agent Deaf Sutherland had already ducked down beside one of the plush couches, returning fire. Hayden Vallance was running down the sweeping Mexican staircase. Some of the Texas Minutemen Militia took aim on him. Vallance fired first, taking out Teddy Danfield and Randy Wyatt. Control came down the staircase behind Vallance, the Glock 17 in his hand. The small-boned Croatian looked up at the staircase, reacted to Control as if he were seeing a ghost, and fired at him.

  Deaf took him out with one shot.

  Gabriel ran down the staircase, firing the HK submachine gun at the urban terrorists. More of the minutemen were cut down. The Croatian assassin who had talked to Cassie outside the Virginia house drew his Makarov 9mm pistol from his shoulder holster. He fired at Deaf, but Vallance reached the bottom of the staircase and fired again.

  The assassin pitched over.

  Bo Ellsworth fired at the staircase, sending Vallance to cover behind one of the easy chairs. Bo looked at the carnage around him, the innocent people broken and bleeding on the lobby tiles, collateral damage that couldn’t be helped, but where had the firepower come from? Who was shooting at him and his minutemen?

  What was happening?

  7:01:20 P.M. CDT

  McCall walked silently down the high catwalk past a long flow chart set at intervals amid the cylinders and panels that said PROTECTIVE BAR SCREEN—CHEMICAL COAGULANTS—PRE-CHLORINATION SEDIMENTATION BASIN FLOCCULATION. A little farther along, the flow chart continued: COAGULATION SAND INFILTRATION POST-CHLORINATION—CLEAR WELL—PUMP WELL. Dr. Patrick Cross had sat down on the catwalk in front the sign that had stenciled on it CLEAR WELL. He had taken his Puma ProCat tote bag out of the Greenbriar Mall shopping bag and had removed the blue Medicool vial cooler and protection case. He had the Ebola virus in four vials in front of him. He had stacked the vials right on the lip of the Clear Well.