“We’re still on track for eleven thirty, sir. Shouldn’t be a problem,” Frank replied, quickly glancing at the fifty-five-year-old director with a Marine crew cut and forty-year-old physique. Some men just age well, Frank thought, reminded of the small love handles he carried around his waist. Must be a Marine thing.
“Good to go, Frank.” The general looked down at his classified personal iPad and then spoke to his aide, a young army major, who sat in the right passenger seat next to him. “You’re sure this is correct, Mike?”
“That’s what the SID DIR said,” Major Mike Winston replied, referring to the signals intelligence director responsible for the production of all SIGINT. “It looks like the North Koreans are getting ready to do another launch, and it could be as early as tomorrow.”
“Christ,” General Taylor said. “When will that guy learn? All he’s going to do is piss off South Korea more—and maybe even China, if he goes too far—and get more sanctions placed on him.”
“I know, sir, but that’s not how he thinks,” Major Winston said, referring to the Democratic Republic of Korea’s infamous leader. “He thinks that provocation will bring us, the south, and other members to the table.”
“He’s fucking crazy, is what he is, by playing with fire like this,” General Taylor responded as he looked at the cars they passed on the parkway. “And I’ll make sure the senators understand that. I can’t believe any of them would even consider opening negotiations with this lunatic, at least not until he starts acting like a responsible adult.”
“Agreed, sir, but you know how squirrelly they get, especially around election time. It’s all about the optics,” Major Winston stated with resignation.
“Fucking optics are what’s going to ruin this country,” the general replied with disgust. “But all hope is not lost,” he added almost absentmindedly.
“What do you mean, sir?” Major Winston asked.
“I mean there are people in Washington—both in Congress and out—who believe strength is the only way to handle bullies like this one and that we can’t ever let our guard down,” General Taylor said.
The black Suburban suddenly slowed, and General Taylor looked forward through the windshield. He saw two rows of brake lights, brightening and moving toward them like an airport runway lighting up for the first time. “What is it, Frank?”
“Can’t tell, sir, but it looks like some kind of construction,” Special Agent Beckmann replied. “Can you see anything, Matt?” Frank asked Special Agent Matt Browning in the front passenger seat.
“Negative, but I don’t think it’s traffic. I see flashing lights up ahead. Probably another accident. Let me see if I can find out on the scanner, sir,” Special Agent Browning said, turning the volume up on the police scanner on the dashboard of the Suburban. The steady sound of static emanated throughout the SUV’s interior, even as he changed channels.
“That’s odd,” Frank said.
“It could be that super solar storm they were talking about on the news. It’s supposed to be one of the biggest ones we’ve ever seen, and I thought I heard them say it could disrupt both radio and cellular communications,” Major Winston said from the backseat.
Fan-fucking-tastic, Frank thought. Just what I need—a solar storm.
The traffic slowed to a crawl in the late-morning commute to DC, and vehicles in the right lane began to merge into the left one.
“Looks like we’ll be through it in a few minutes, sir,” Frank said.
“Good to go. Just don’t let anyone get between us and the lead vehicle. You never know,” General Taylor said in mock suspicion.
“Never, sir,” Frank said, and kept his attention on the lead Suburban in front of them before finally spotting the source of the delay.
An eighteen-wheel flatbed truck with a large commercial, bright-orange Hitachi excavator on the back blocked the right lane, and several Maryland State Highway Administration vehicles were parked at odd angles in front of it. The excavator’s powerful articulated boom hung off to the side, above the left lane of the parkway. The two lanes of southbound traffic merged into the left lane as a flagger in a yellow hat methodically waved traffic past the chaotic scene.
I feel for you, buddy, Frank thought, remembering his long days of manual labor at the port.
The lead Suburban moved over, and Frank nosed the director’s vehicle close behind to avoid some aggressive Maryland driver from separating them.
This won’t be much of a delay, after all. The lead Suburban had just entered the choke point in the left lane when Frank had a realization—the flagger was gone. That’s odd. Where the hell did that guy go? It was the last thing he’d remember before his quiet morning turned into a chaotic nightmare.
A small Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition, known in the military as the M2 SLAM, that had been buried in a preexisting pothole and covered over with a thin layer of gravel, detonated, triggering the ambush.
B-BOOM!
The enormous explosion thundered across the quiet parkway as the antitank mine sent a copper EFP—or explosively formed penetrator—upward and directly into the engine block of the lead Suburban, immediately destroying the engine and disabling the vehicle. Small chunks of pavement tore into the Suburban’s tires, but the run-flat tires functioned as designed, and the vehicle lazily rolled forward, nearing the cab of the truck as smoke filled the vehicle.
Frank’s senses were momentarily overwhelmed from the proximity of the explosion. His head rang with a loud buzzing-ringing, but his tactical training and muscle memory took control of his actions, even before he could fully process the situation. Have to get the director out of the kill zone.
He’d heard the stories about Iraq from his military veteran peers at the NSA Police. When an ambush occurred, there was often only one option—move forward and through the kill zone and beyond to safety. The thought of leaving his brothers-in-arms on the PSD to fend for themselves pained him, but the director’s safety was paramount, and he knew they’d understand.
He heard shouting from the backseat, but he ignored it as he slammed the accelerator down . . . and went nowhere.
The left rear window of the Suburban imploded, and the rending shriek of metal on metal filled the inside of the SUV.
Frank turned around to his left and saw enormous black tines from the excavator’s bucket protruding into the backseat. The director and his aide were crouched down on the floor space, although neither appeared to be injured. That’s one small mercy, he thought, his positive nature somehow looking for a silver cloud in the black reality of their situation.
The bucket suddenly angled up and pierced the roof of the vehicle, securing a grip on the armored SUV.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Special Agent Matt Browning screamed from the passenger seat, but suddenly they were in motion.
We’re out of options, Frank thought as the excavator suddenly tilted the Suburban on its side, pinning it against the wheels and undercarriage of the flatbed truck at a forty-five-degree angle. We’re fucked.
He heard a small pop and watched in horror as a black-gloved hand dropped a small, cylindrical canister through the opening the excavator’s bucket had created. Oh no.
Thick, gray, acrid smoke quickly filled the backseat of the Suburban, and Frank looked forward, catching a glimpse of the scene playing out near the other Suburban.
The four doors of the disabled SUV were open, as the trapped members of the PSD had realized their only option had been to stand and fight. Unfortunately for them, it hadn’t been much of a fight. Four attackers—two on each side—clad in all-black tactical gear and neoprene balaclavas, fired shotguns at point-blank range into the Suburban. A third shooter on each side stepped in behind the shotgun-wielding attackers and fired a type of pistol Frank didn’t recognize. The gun didn’t matter, but the fact that there was no return fire from the Suburban sent a fresh rush of adrenaline-fueled panic through him as the smoke filled the front of the SUV and obscured his vie
w.
“Get out now!” Frank screamed, reaching for the handle of the Suburban with his left hand and drawing his Smith & Wesson .40-caliber M&P pistol from its holster on his right hip.
He heard scrambling movement from the backseat as the driver’s door swung upward and slammed back down on its hinges, open. Frank switched the gun to his left hand, pointing it through the opening at the sky beyond, and released his seat belt with his right hand.
He looked down and saw Special Agent Matt Browning doing the same thing. “We have to get out of here or we’re dead!”
Frank knew he needed to get out of the vehicle as soon as possible and help the director in the backseat. He stepped on the side of the cushioned seat, trying to gain leverage to get up and out of the vehicle.
As he grabbed the doorframe, the Smith & Wesson was firmly yanked from his hand, and he was pulled out of the Suburban and sent crashing to the pavement below.
Special Agent Frank Beckmann looked up into the bright morning sun, coughing as the dark outlines of multiple figures appeared over him. Smoke billowed out of the Suburban above him, shrouding him from the sun in dancing shadows of darkness, and he heard additional attackers pulling the other members of the PSD and the director onto the pavement next to him.
“Who the fuck are you guys?” Frank asked, his eyes watering and lungs burning, knowing all hope had been lost. He didn’t really expect a response, but he at least hoped for a quick death. They executed this flawlessly. No chance we walk away.
Special Agent Frank Beckmann was right—one of the attackers stepped close to him, pointed a black tactical shotgun at his chest, and fired point-blank. He felt a punch to his chest that knocked all the breath out of him and immediately immobilized him. That hurts a lot more than I thought it would, he thought. He’d heard enough stories from men who’d been shot, and it was always, “Man, I didn’t even know I’d been hit.” Not this time. It hurt like hell.
A second gunman pointed the odd-looking weapon he’d spotted earlier and fired, and Frank felt a sudden sting on the right side of his upper chest. He looked down and saw a small white dart with a black feather on the back sticking out of his shirt. What the hell?
His stunned mind suddenly remembered a call to the Baltimore Zoo he’d responded to in his early days on patrol. One of the large cats—he couldn’t remember what kind—had somehow escaped its enclosure, and the zookeeper had shot it with a tranquilizer dart. The tranquilizer had taken less than a minute to work, sedating the animal into nonthreatening unconsciousness.
In Frank Beckmann’s case, it was a much stronger dose of a newly developed and quick-acting agent, and he drifted off into oblivion within seconds.
CHAPTER 5
“Sir, we’ve got to be out of here in four minutes if we’re going to make the rendezvous. There’s no doubt more than one of these civilians has already called this in,” one of the operators said. “The chaos might buy us some extra time, but we need to do this now.”
The Baltimore–Washington Parkway had become a parking lot. Several people had exited their vehicles and were fleeing northward, away from the scene. Traffic had come to a standstill, and abandoned vehicles now formed a permanent blockade that would take hours to clear. The two northbound lanes were forty yards away, separated by a median with intermittent clusters of trees. The vehicles were slowing down, their drivers instinctively aware that something had happened on the southbound side, but unsure as to what, they kept moving northward to their destinations.
Six members of the ambush team fanned out in order to provide perimeter security around the flatbed truck and the two disabled Suburbans. Fortunately, no civilians had decided to be impromptu heroes, delusions of Die Hard glory playing out in their heads. The assault team and the four-star Marine general were the only living souls within two hundred yards.
The leader of the assault team stood over the director of the National Security Agency, whose olive-green service alphas were torn in several places after the rough extraction from the Suburban. The director was obviously distressed at the sudden and violent ambush, but there was an underlying current of anger and resistance that shone forth above everything else.
“Who the hell are you?” General Taylor asked with restrained contempt, the combative Marine ever present. “You’re obviously not some ragtag bunch of assholes.”
The leader of the assault team nodded to another member, who jumped into the Suburban. The interior was now clear, the smoke having dissipated.
“No, Tom, we’re not,” the leader responded. General Taylor cocked his head slightly, recognizing the tone of the voice. The leader lifted the bottom of the balaclava, momentarily revealing the face beneath. “It’s good to see you, brother, even under these circumstances.”
A look of resignation washed away the anger on the general’s hardened face, and his posture softened slightly in acquiescence. “Hey, Jack,” General Taylor said to the chief of security of the Organization. “I guess if it had to be anyone, I’m glad it’s you.”
“I’m not,” Jack said, and lowered the balaclava back down. “We were friends once. Hell—more than friends. That bond forged in combat never dies, Tom. You know that.” Jack’s voice was thick with emotion. “But you betrayed the Organization, and you brought this on yourself. You and the other traitors on the Council. Why?”
“It’s the world, pure and simple. The Founder’s approach was too passive. A few of the Council members believed a proactive strategy was necessary, and I agreed. I won’t apologize for it,” General Taylor replied.
“I didn’t expect you to,” Jack said. “No man of honor would, and no matter what the world will or won’t find out once this is all over, you are a man of honor.”
A black-clad figure emerged from the Suburban with a black shoulder bag. “Sir, I’ve got the iPad, an agency BlackBerry, and what looks like the general’s personal iPhone.”
“Is that where the list is?” Jack asked.
“I know you have to go, but how did you figure out it was me? Come on. You can tell me. It’s not like I’m walking away from this one.”
“Tom, you might be the director of one of the most powerful spy agencies in the world, but you’re not the only one with CNE capabilities,” Jack said, referring to NSA’s infamous cyber network exploitation. “Remember, the Organization is global, and we’ve been working with a private Russian firm. After Cain Frost went rogue and last year’s events with China, we knew Council members had gone off the reservation. The Russian firm deployed a software suite onto the mobile devices of all Council members. More importantly, they also hardened the Founder’s personal servers with additional sensors, sensors that not even your agency could detect. Bottom line—when you had the agency hack the Founder four days ago, we knew about it. And when we discovered the operation had been personally ordered by you, we had you.”
“Fucking Russians. Go figure,” General Taylor said. “We’ve been telling Congress and the president what a cyberthreat they are, but no one wants to listen or do anything about it.”
“The list, Tom. Is it on your phone?” Jack pressed.
The distant sound of a helicopter broke the silence of the ambush’s aftermath.
“Smart evac plan,” General Taylor said.
“Tom, the list? Please don’t make this worse than it already is.”
“How can it be any worse?” General Taylor said, as if scolding a child.
“The passcode, please,” Jack asked.
“One, one, one, zero, seven, five,” General Taylor replied.
“Seriously, Tom?” Jack asked. “The Marine Corps birthday?”
“No matter what you might think of what I’ve done, I’m still a Marine through and through. It’s legitimate.”
“Thank you,” Jack said, and nodded. “Are you ready? Do you want to say a prayer?”
General Taylor scoffed, “Will it help?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Jack said.
“I resigned mysel
f to this life a long time ago. Just do it. If you can somehow, let my wife and son know I died with my head held high,” General Taylor said.
“I will if I can,” Jack said, and raised the Colt M1911 .45-caliber pistol he’d held at his side throughout the entire conversation.
“See you on the other side, Jack,” General Taylor said, then raised his head and closed his eyes.
“Semper Fi, brother,” Jack responded quietly, and shot the director of the National Security Agency point-blank in the forehead.
“Godspeed,” Jack said, as the general’s body fell forward to the pavement.
CHAPTER 6
Special Agent Austin Chang fired the remaining .357-caliber rounds from his SIG SAUER P229 at the US Secret Service hostile threat target he’d hung twenty-five yards away in lane four—his lucky number—of the Baughman Outdoor Firing Range at the Secret Service James J. Rowley Training Center—JJRTC, for short—in Beltsville, Maryland.
The sprawling training complex covered five hundred acres north of the DC Beltway, directly adjacent to the Baltimore–Washington Parkway. Usually a bustling campus of advance marksmanship training, control tactics, water survival skills, and physical fitness, the multiple facilities were currently deserted due to the break between eighteen-week special agent training courses.
It was Special Agent Chang’s favorite time, when he was alone with the abundant supply of deer that ran rampant through the campus woods and training areas. He still remembered his first visit to the facility in the fall of 2000—before the world had changed—as a new cadet, where the class was scheduled to run a vehicle demonstration at the Protective Operations Driving Course, only to discover more than forty deer lounging around on the paved surfaces, as if to say, We’re here for the show, too. It had been eye opening, but in the years he’d visited the campus, he’d come to appreciate the symbiotic relationship between the deer, the cadets, the special agents, and the instructors. It was a shared habitat where the wildlife respected the humans—armed with enough firepower to make Bambi’s mother run for cover—and the humans allowed the wildlife to exist.
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