Red Cell Seven

by Stephen Frey

  Which, of course, he did.

  The president’s nurse stood near the table littered with medical supplies. She didn’t look much better. There was fear in her eyes, too, though it was a different kind. It seemed like she’d finally gotten the responsibility she’d been wishing for all her career—and now she was wishing she hadn’t.

  Radcliff hustled to the wide-screen TV in his purposeful, ex-military stride and boosted the volume. The TV was already tuned to an all-news channel, so he hadn’t needed to run through the guide. Every news channel in the world had to be carrying this, he figured, as the sound from the two speakers grew quite loud. It was the story of the millennium.

  “No, Mr. President, you need to see this now,” he called out over the newscaster’s voice.

  “What are you doing?” Baxter demanded indignantly as he looked up from the folder. “We don’t have time for—”

  “Minneapolis police are chasing a van they believe is carrying the terrorists who just attacked the Mall of America,” Radcliff explained in his most formal voice as he pointed at the screen and the view from above of a light blue van racing crazily around and past cars on a double-lane highway. “The Twin Cities airport is close to the MOA, and a chopper that flew over to cover the aftermath of the attack peeled off when they heard about the chase. They picked up the van’s trail a few minutes ago heading north. This is happening as we speak.”

  “My God,” Travanti whispered as she moved slowly away from Dorn and toward the TV. “We must take them alive, Mr. President. We must be able to interrogate these people. All the others have gotten away. This could be our best chance to stop any more attacks.”

  Dolan grabbed a phone on the president’s desk. “This is DNI Wes Dolan,” he barked at the White House operator. “Get me Rick Burns in my office immediately.” Dolan nodded to Travanti as he slipped a hand over the mouthpiece. “Burns is from St. Paul. He’ll know how to get to the cops out there fast.”

  “LOOK AT THIS, DAD.” Troy gestured at the TV. Through a Secret Service agent, the president had asked them to stay, so they were using a small room down the corridor from the Oval Office. Bill was speaking to someone over the landline in the room, and Troy had turned on the flat-screen bolted to the wall. “Jesus.”

  Bill ended his call quickly. “What is it, son?”

  Troy was standing beside the TV, and he pointed at a light blue van that was racing down a highway, weaving dangerously in and out of traffic with police cars in high-speed pursuit. The view of the chase was from above. “They think the guys in this van are the ones who just attacked the Mall of America in Minneapolis. They shot more than twenty people.”

  “Sons of bitches,” Bill muttered as he rose and moved to where Troy was standing. “They’d better take these guys alive. I mean, they haven’t caught anybody else so far, right? Have they mentioned anything about that?”

  “All the other shooters got away from the scenes. No reports of any arrests yet.”

  “Yeah, we’ve got to interrogate at least one of these guys. What’s the latest count overall?”

  “Eleven malls were attacked,” Troy answered. “All in big cities, and the attacks all happened within a few minutes of one another. No announcement from any terrorist group claiming responsibility, and no official confirmation yet. But there’s no doubt they were coordinated. Everyone agrees on that.” Troy glanced at his watch. “It’s been twenty-five minutes since the last one. Hopefully it’s over.”

  Bill shook his head. “Maybe for today, but not for good. This is obviously not a suicide thing. Which means the plan is probably for these squads to carry out more attacks. Flying airliners into buildings is shocking, but this is much more effective. This is the nightmare scenario,” he added quietly.

  “It shuts the country down,” Troy agreed. “No one’s going to leave their house if they think death squads are going to attack the mall they’re headed to.”

  “Or the Exxon or the Ruby Tuesday or the Home Depot. See, that’s what they do next. They go to smaller, more specific targets. Maybe they hit nothing but Ruby Tuesdays for a few days and basically shut the chain down because no one will go there. And if they’re smart, they’ll take it to small towns, too. They show the country that no one is safe. The killings are obviously the worst part of the attack, but—”

  “But it tears the economy to shreds, too,” Troy broke in, anticipating where his father was going with this, “especially at the holidays. Every mall in the country will be a ghost town.” He glanced from the screen to Bill. He was thinking about that accusation Baxter had hurled at them as Radcliff was wheeling President Dorn out of the storage room. “Had you heard anything about this?” he asked. Bill had been the de facto head of Red Cell Seven since Roger Carlson’s death a few weeks ago. He’d admitted as much to President Dorn a short time ago. “Anything at all?”

  Bill watched the van dodge several cars. Then his eyes moved deliberately to Troy’s. “Had you?” he asked without answering.

  After twenty-eight years of dealing with his father, Troy was accustomed to that habit of answering a question with a question. “I’m a Falcon, Dad. I don’t hear as much as you. The division heads seem to do a pretty good job of compartmentalizing. There’s some crossover as far as info goes, but not much. And remember, my leader was Maddux. He was especially good at that. He didn’t tell us anything.”

  “Still.”

  Troy shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “What about a mutiny inside the ranks?” Bill asked. “What about some of the guys in Red Cell Seven defecting to go with Maddux?”

  Troy nodded this time. “I’ve heard a little along those lines since everything went down, but I thought it was just crap. I figured Maddux was out there on his own with only that kid Ryan O’Hara.” He hesitated. “Is it true? Did more people go with Maddux than just O’Hara?”

  Bill was about to answer when the van clipped the back of a tanker truck and veered left toward a railroad bridge abutment. “Look at this, Troy!”

  “Oh my God.”

  THE LEADER struggled frantically to regain control of the van as it hurtled toward the concrete bridge abutment. He’d been distracted for just a split second as he searched on his iPhone for the best way to exit this road. But that single second had been enough. He’d nicked the back of the tanker truck with the van’s front bumper. He figured cops would be throwing down spike strips on the highway somewhere up ahead, no more than a few miles or so. So he had to get off fast or face the unpleasant prospect of four flat tires and almost certain capture—which was not an acceptable outcome. That had been made very clear by his superior many times.

  He cursed loudly. He’d barely tagged the tanker, but it was enough to send the van careening to the left, out of control.

  At the last moment he swung the vehicle to the right, narrowly avoiding an impact with the abutment, which would have disintegrated the van and killed them all. They raced beneath the railroad bridge, still out of control. The sudden twist in direction sent him and the other three men barreling back toward the truck trailer they’d just clipped. He wrenched the steering wheel back to the left. He had no choice. Otherwise they would have smashed directly into the trailer, which could be carrying thousands of gallons of gasoline.

  The van fishtailed wildly for a hundred feet and then went up on its right two tires, beside the truck. For a few seconds the leader believed he could bring his vehicle back under control. But then it tipped over and everything turned to chaos. Bodies, weapons, and ammunition flew everywhere inside the van. However, the vehicle didn’t tumble. And that was key, the leader realized even as the crash unfolded. That gave them a chance.

  The van slid along the highway on its passenger side as the truck driver jammed on his brakes. The big rig jackknifed, careened off the road, slammed into a wall—and exploded.

  The van burst through the fireball and cont
inued to slide down the broken white lane markers, finally coming to a halt several hundred feet farther along the highway than the still-burning truck, screeching to a stop amidst a cloud of smoke and sparks.

  “Everybody all right?” the leader yelled.

  His left wrist was bruised and bloody, but he ignored the pain shooting all the way up into his shoulder. Capture is not acceptable, he kept telling himself. They had to do anything to avoid it, because he wasn’t at all confident that one of the men in back—possibly two—would hold up under the scrutiny he knew they would quickly be subjected to. Some people were under the impression that United States agents went the torture route only in rare circumstances. Some people were sorely mistaken.

  “Hey! Back there!”

  “Saafir is gone,” came the groggy reply. “But Gohar and I are all right.”

  “Are you certain he’s gone?” the leader yelled, slamming his shoulder against the jammed door to open it. “Give him a bullet if you aren’t.”

  A gun went off immediately.

  “Follow me,” he called, gratified that they were still obeying his every order. “Come on.”

  As he tumbled to the pavement outside the van, a police car burst through the fireball and skidded to a stop twenty feet away. As the other two followed him out of the van and jumped to the ground, the leader calmly reached inside his jacket, pulled a grenade from one pocket, and tossed it at the police cruiser.

  The cruiser exploded instantly, and the cop who’d just climbed out of it was engulfed in flames. The man staggered around for several seconds, arms outstretched in front of him as the blaze torched his body. Finally he dropped to the pavement on his knees, and then fell forward on his chest and face. His flesh began to boil on the asphalt as it peeled away from the bones in smoking chunks.

  CHAPTER 9

  “OKAY, SO maybe Shane Maddux is a little crazy.”

  Troy was watching the tense standoff outside Minneapolis on the flat-screen. He’d seen a lot of gruesome things during his six-year career as an RCS Falcon, but the image of that cop’s body falling to the pavement, engulfed in flames, would stay with him forever. Just as the image of Karen kissing Jack’s coffin this morning would.

  “I’ll give you that, Dad.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Bill acknowledged sarcastically. “But I wish we’d found that out a long time ago. At least then we’d have a president who could deal with these lunatics at full strength.”

  After killing the cop, the three terrorists had abandoned the van, raced past the still-burning tanker truck, and taken refuge beneath the railroad bridge. They were holed up behind a three-sided concrete barrier that gave them excellent cover, even against the army of law-enforcement authorities who had them surrounded.

  “Looks like the cops out there got the word.”

  “You mean about taking these guys alive?”

  “I’m sure that’s why nothing’s happened yet. They could take out these guys in thirty seconds if they really wanted to, if they didn’t care about interrogating them. And they saw the one guy throw that grenade and kill one of their own. We all did. So everybody knows they’ve committed murder, even if they can’t be absolutely linked to the Mall of America attack yet. The authorities would certainly be justified in moving on them. But they’re waiting. And whatever’s going to happen probably won’t for a while. They’ll probably wait until dark to finish it.” Bill checked his watch. “It’ll be light in the Twin Cities for at least another hour.”

  Troy was getting edgy sitting around waiting for President Dorn. With all that had happened and given how exhausted Dorn looked, Troy figured the odds were pretty low that they’d see him again today. At any moment some aide would come in to tell them to go home. Because Dorn had to focus solely on the “Holiday Mall Attacks,” as they’d already been tagged by the media.

  He felt like a caged animal in here. He just hoped he never had to take an office job. He’d probably kill himself. Troy hated walls even more than he loved the outdoors, which was saying a lot.

  “I get Shane,” he said quietly. “I mean, you have to be a little crazy to do what we do, you know, Dad? I think he deserves some understanding from us on that.”

  Bill looked over like he figured Troy had suddenly gone off the reservation as well. Not as far as Maddux, but still off. “Have you lost your mind, too?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Easy there, son. I’ve got enough problems.”

  “Maddux loves this country more than most people can possibly understand, Dad. He’s dedicated his entire life to protecting it. That objective drives everything he does.”

  “According to you, he shot your brother. Does that deserve our understanding?”

  “Well, I—”

  “And he probably shot the mother of your child,” Bill added.

  It was frustrating to argue with Bill, because he was damn good at making points. People always said his father could have been a top litigator if he hadn’t gone the investment banking route. “Maddux shot Jack because in his mind, Jack weakened the country. Killing Jack was simply getting revenge for America, and more important, making sure Jack never did anything again to weaken the country. If you think about it, it was actually a compliment. Maddux was worried Jack would strike again. It’s the same way Maddux looked at killing President Dorn. For Maddux, Jack and President Dorn were traitors. Neither one of those shootings was personal. It was only about protecting this country.”

  “If I find out Shane Maddux really did kill your brother, one way or the other I’ll make him pay. That one’s personal for me. I’ll tell you that right now.”

  “Dorn was about to destroy Red Cell Seven. You said it yourself, Dad. If not for Red Cell Seven, this country would have been hit by two major terrorist attacks that would have made 9/11 look small by comparison.” Troy glanced up at the ceiling. “No disrespect to the 9/11 victims.” He looked back at Bill. “Maddux thinks we’ve got to have RCS or we’ll be vulnerable to terrorists. He figures the other U.S. intel arms are so weighed down by bureaucracy, chains of command, and political correctness that they can’t move fast enough to be effective against enemies who can move at lightning speed and do whatever they want with no moral or ethical limitations. And that it’s becoming a bigger problem every day as Congress tries to dig deeper and deeper into what’s going on with us in the shadows. In Maddux’s mind, President Dorn might as well have been destroying our military.” Troy was fascinated to see how his father reacted to this one. “And believe me, I heard all that stuff about Executive Order 1973 One-E signed by Nixon and how we operate outside any laws or constraints. You and I both know that in this society, without that Order, Red Cell Seven would be vulnerable. Maybe even with it. He’s just doing anything he can to keep the cell safe.”

  “He brainwashed you.”

  “Hey,” Troy shot back resentfully, “that’s not—”

  “I know, I know,” Bill said, backpedaling quickly. “Sorry, son, it’s just been a bad day. The older I get, the less I seem able to deal with the stress.”

  Or the guilt, Troy figured. If Jack hadn’t wanted to prove he was part of the Jensen family so badly, he probably wouldn’t have gone to Alaska. Then he wouldn’t have gotten involved in a dangerous deal with a dangerous man—who’d ultimately killed him. And the reason Jack felt like he wasn’t part of the family and needed so badly to prove he was? Bill had lied to him all these years about who his mother was—lied to everyone.

  “Look,” Bill spoke up, “when Red Cell Seven starts doing the same things terrorists are doing, that’s a problem for me. It’s that simple.”

  “Shane has dedicated half his life to RCS,” Troy said again. “He was the leader of the Falcons; he was my leader. He knew Dorn had told Carlson it was over for RCS.”

  “You know more than you’ve told me…don’t you, son?”

  Troy shrugged. />
  “Why won’t you tell me everything?”

  “Why won’t you?”

  “Who says I won’t?”

  They both knew how absurd the answer to that question was, so Troy didn’t even bother acknowledging the response. Bill couldn’t tell everyone everything—not even his son.

  “All I really know, Dad, is that Maddux would do anything to protect this country. And on some basic level, I have to respect that conviction.”

  “How can you say that? I mean, what about that LNG tanker?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean, Dad. He’d do anything to make this country strong.”

  “If that ship had made Norfolk, Virgina, half a million people would have died.”

  “But Maddux was convinced Capitol Hill had forgotten how bad 9/11 was. He figured they needed a wakeup call. You know as well as I do he didn’t want to kill half a million Americans. He was sacrificing some for the greater good of the whole.” Troy glanced out the window. Night had fallen on Washington. He pointed at the TV screen as his eyes moved away from the window. “Apparently he was right. We were vulnerable. And now we’re paying for it.”

  “Killing half a million innocent civilians isn’t the way to send a wakeup call,” Bill shot back. “Even with what happened today at those malls. Jesus, son, you should—”

  “I know, Dad,” Troy interrupted angrily. “And I did something about it. That’s how I got myself thrown off the Arctic Fire in the middle of the Bering Sea. Remember? I figured out what was going on with Maddux, and I tried to stop him. Just like Charlie Banks did. And I ended up in thirty-seven-degree water who knows how far from land without a life preserver. Just like Charlie did. The only reason I’m here is that one of the crew took pity on me. And Jack came to save me.”

  Bill nodded solemnly. “Right.”

  “That’s why he’s dead.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, son.”