“That was one of the local FBI guys. Two street cops stopped a guy carrying a black daypack hotfooting it away from the blast site downtown. He didn’t have any i.d. and tried to run. With all the commotion going on, they just threw him in a holding cell and hauled ass back out on the street. Well, they finally got around to booking the guy and guess what? His fingerprints are in the system. His name is Richard Lassiter, recently retired Chief Richard Lassiter of the U.S. Army. Warrant officer type. Special-fucking-Forces.”
Barrett smiled up at me. “Let me guess—a close personal friend and associate of Colonel Max Blanchard?”
“You got it. Lassiter’s specialty is communications and computers. He designed Nemesis’ hi-tech load package for Blanchard. When his name popped up on the NCIC hotlist, the local cops called the Bureau’s Domestic Terrorism squad in Portland. They picked up Mr. Lassiter and the bag he was carrying while we were in Tigard doing the bad thing. Lassiter is en route here under heavy guard.”
Barrett grunted. “Figure he’s the one who detonated the dirty nuke?”
“Probably. I’m starting to see where Blanchard is going with all this. Not only has he got national attention focused on Portland right now, he’s got the whole fucking world watching! If he’d just detonated the SADM without warning, there’d be no way he could be sure his message would get out after the fact, no way to claim responsibility. This way he ups the ante a step at a time. Plus, he’s got thousands of people trapped out on the streets and in the open. He’s got panic building big-time. This is a world-class media event right now and he’s using it to his best advantage. The longer the threat hangs in the air, the more his power increases. He figures that when he finally does detonate the real deal, the entire planet will know who he is, why he’s done it, and the civilian body count will be maxed out to boot because half the city will probably be sitting in their cars on the freeway. Let’s face it, it’s never been fucking politically expedient to prepare Americans for the reality of evacutation.”
Barrett shook a cigarette out of a crumpled pack and lit it up. “So we should be hearing from him pretty soon, yes? I mean, there’s been no communication about Yahweh or any of the other silly shit we heard on the tape in Washington after Beckstein was hit. The president sure as shit isn’t going to release the tape to the media. Blanchard needs to announce his agenda, and he needs to do it pretty damn quick because he doesn’t know how much time he’s got before we might get to his cell.”
Danny was right. I’d been so close to the action I’d failed to see the obvious second part to Blanchard’s plan. There had to be a public communiqué coming from Blanchard that would announce his agenda and intentions. He was a terrorist. Terrorists have grievances and demands. I’d bet my last bottle of gin that Blanchard was enough of an egomaniac that he’d be sure the nation heard his, and directly from him.
A senior airman approached with a secure cell phone in hand. “Mr. Marcinko? Phone, sir. Ms. Fairfield in Washington.” He handed me the phone and promptly disappeared.
“Whaddya got for me, Karen?”
It was a flawless connection. The best American taxpayer money can buy. “Dick, I’ve got two teams of investigators combing Colonel Blanchard’s two personal properties in Gibsonville, North Carolina, and Bend, Oregon. Nothing interesting out of North Carolina yet, but the Bend site shows signs of recent occupation. A lot of sterilizing of the area appears to have occurred. My people on the ground believe that’s where his crew took the device after the hit on NEST.”
“Good news, Karen,” I told her. Actually the information was worth fuck-all to me. We were behind Blanchard. I needed to get out in front of the bastard. I didn’t care if he’d taken the nuke home to meet his mama over a meatloaf dinner. Where the fuck was it right now? “I assume you’ve heard the local cops have a guy named Lassiter in custody? He’s one of the Colonel’s men and I’m betting he’s responsible for setting off the dirty nuke downtown. The feds are flying him here right now. We’re gonna chat with Mr. Lassiter in a short-short. Where’s the egghead you promised me?”
“He’s in the air now. Should be at your location anytime now. Who’s going to interview this Lassiter character?”
I heard the concern in Karen’s voice. I had to admit my record to date wasn’t too reassuring when it came to this shit; we were a paltry one for five now in the Blanchard survivor series. “The Feds,” I told her. “He’s their prisoner. We’ll sit this one out and see what they come up with.”
I thought I heard an audible sigh of relief on the other end of the phone. “Dick, that’s the best way to go right now. Let the FBI do their job. As hard as it may be for you to believe, they’re actually better trained than you are in this one particular area. Did they get any gear off him?”
“Yeah, a backpack like the one Laski was carrying. Matching cell phones, laptop, the works. He had a key to a room in a downtown hotel not too far from Chinatown. These guys are all spread out and running their operations from some pretty high-class digs. There’s even more of a pattern to all this but I’m not seeing it yet. Gimme some time, though, and I’ll figure it out.”
“How’s your team holding up? I understand everyone’s taken some pretty hard hits.”
I turned and looked out the window. A light plane was landing—my computer geek from Seattle had probably arrived. Running my hand through my hair, I considered the proper response to Karen’s question. I didn’t want Karen even to think about pulling us out because of the semi-battered condition we were in. I finish what I start and Blanchard had made this feel very, very personal to me.
I looked over at Danny Barrett. He’d told me Paul was fine, no further bumps or bruises. Trace was sore as shit and bruised to beat the band, but absolutely mobile. My hip ached but the PJ had sewed me closed with a few stitches, given me some pills for the pain and a shot of something or other to ward off infection. If Danny was feeling poorly I sure couldn’t see any sign of it. The big bastard was busily cleaning his .41 and drinking black coffee by the gallon. “Karen, at the rate the team is getting dinged, I could use a wheelbarrow full of Mix and Match pig parts and Doc Frankenstein to attach them! We’re hurtin’, but we’re good to go.”
“Then I’ll get off this line and let you get on with it. The president sends his regards. He’s weathering a pretty nasty political storm right now. But he says he’ll hang in there if you will.”
“Tell him we’re gonna pull through. I’ll get this fucker, Karen. Believe me, I’ll get him.”
“I know you will. And rest assured, if I find those pig parts, you’ve got first dibs on them. Not that you need any more pig in you, sweetheart.”
She hung up while I was still laughing.
The door to the Op-Center opened and a tall black man in khaki pants and a navy blue button-down shirt entered, escorted by a heavily armed Air Force security guard. The stranger walked over with his hand out and a friendly smile on his face. “Mr. Marcinko? I’m George Moore. I work for our mutual friend in Washington. I believe you have need of my services?”
I shook hands with George and invited him to sit down. “Danny, will you get the fucking bag of toys we got off Laski?” As Barrett headed out the door for the secure lockup where we’d stashed Jack’s boogie bag, I looked over Mr. Moore. Karen had said he was one of Wild Bill Gates’s inner circle. I wanted to know what the fuck that meant exactly.
“Karen says you work pretty closely with Bill Gates. That so?”
Moore laughed. “Yes, in a manner of speaking. I started out with Mr. Gates but later, after I made me a few bucks in software development for his company, I decided to go independent. Now I’m a consultant to the technology business specializing in software. Many of the programs the military relies upon I’ve had a hand in creating. In fact, I’d be surprised if you hadn’t encountered some of my work yourself somewhere along the way.”
“Very likely. But what I’m looking for today is somebody who can bust the firewalls I’m thinking are in
place on these laptops we picked up today. Sound like something you might be able to handle for me?”
“Most certainly.” There was a quiet strength and confidence to Moore I liked. He was no namby-pamby cyber-cowboy. He’d been around and he knew the score. Moore was a player in a world I wasn’t privy to. It wasn’t my world, but he deserved my respect and I gave it to him. Unlike some of his less evolved warrior brothers, the Rogue always appreciates people who genuinely excel at whatever their chosen field might be. I don’t give a fuck if you can shoot a gun or hold your own in a fight, as long as you know your own shit better than anybody else. If you know what you know, you’re probably gonna be okay in my book.
“What are you hoping to find on this man’s hardware, Mr. Marcinko?”
“The location of a man named Colonel Max Blanchard. And with him I expect to find a stolen nuclear device that’s due to be detonated here in the city of Portland at any fucking moment.”
Moore’s eyes widened. “Well, sir, at least you’re direct. I’ll do my best for you.”
“That’s all I can ask for, friend.”
We shook hands on it.
When Barrett returned with the bag, Moore laid out its contents in an orderly row. “I’ll need a few minutes with this. Pretty standard hardware. We designed this operating system and the security firewalls for the special operations people. The owner has most likely thrown a few curves into the system but I should be able to get around those fairly easily. I’d say no more than thirty minutes and you’ll have anything of value that’s on the hard drive.”
I grabbed Jack’s two handwritten notebooks and Danny and I headed for the officers’ lounge at the rear of the building. Laski may have jotted down something of interest to us, or perhaps he just liked keeping a poetry journal. White supremacist haikus. In any event I’m computer illiterate and proud of it! I only care about results and George was here to give me those, and probably for a pretty penny once he billed Karen. Take a note: when the job is truly important, hire the best experts you can find no matter the cost. At least you’ll make that bastard Murphy do some real work when he fucks you over.
“You take one of these notebooks, I’ll take the other,” I told Danny as we reached the lounge.
But before we could even find seats and read the first word, we were stunned by the sound and almost instantaneous shock wave of a massive blast that clearly originated somewhere quite nearby. A rush of hot rippled over us and we hit the floor out of an instinct that dated back to our training decades earlier in Vietnam. The lights throughout the building flickered off, then on, then off again. Seconds later the emergency generator system kicked in. Thanks to the emergency lights, I could see well enough to get around—and to notice that both Danny and I had drawn our guns. “What the fuck was that?” I asked him.
Barrett raged, “Fucking bomb, Dick. Somebody just hit the Op-Center!”
The bottom fell outta my guts. Dammit to hell, with all that was going on, something that now seemed obvious had never occurred to me. I was instantly up and running back the way we’d just come. I tripped over an unmoving body in the dim hallway but managed to keep my balance and forward momentum. Back in the Op-Center, people all around me were calling out for help and moaning in pain. The table where Moore had laid out the electronic equipment was an absolute bonfire and that entire portion of the room seemed to be in ruins. The air was full of the hard, pungent odor of C-4 plastic explosive. Sirens were approaching from every direction. The airman who’d patched Karen’s call through to me was on his hands and knees puking. Then, in an instant I saw that he wasn’t in fact kneeling; rather, his legs were simply gone from the knee down.
“We’ve got to find Moore!” I called to Danny.
I found George Moore almost exactly where I’d left him. Or more accurately what was left of George Moore. His lower trunk and legs were still seated in a chair, but the blast had blown the upper portion of his body clean away. There was no sign of the laptop or anything else we’d left him with. While someone was working valiantly to put out the fire with a woefully small emergency extinguisher, I could see powerful flashlight beams cutting through the smoke and gloom in the Op-Center looking for survivors. Confusion whirled around us like a sandstorm.
“C’mon Danny, we need to keep moving, let the medics do their work here. Moore is dead…poor bastard. Lassiter will be here any minute. And no matter what I told Karen, I’m in no mood to go easy on him after this fuckup. Someone should have to pay in kind for what happened to George Moore, and I think Lassiter is a damn fine candidate.”
I turned and Danny followed me through the acrid gloom of the bombed-out Op-Center. In retrospect, it was obvious what had happened. Laski had booby-trapped his laptop and in my frantic state I’d failed even to consider the possibility. Jack Laski had gotten the last word after all, and George Moore had paid the price for my oversight. And obviously I’d just lost everything George might have retrieved off the computer hard drive and the Palm Pilot. Goddamn it! Every fucking time we’d seen a hint of light at the end of the tunnel, it turned out to be a train headed in our direction. I was getting seriously sick of this shit. Kicking a door that was half blown down outta my way, I marched out into the cold crisp night. Danny was coughing his lungs out from the bullshit we’d been breathing ever since the bomb went off. I was so fucking mad I didn’t care what I’d been inhaling! At least I still had the two notebooks. And Lassiter’s shit from his daypack would be in our hands soon. That thought made me stop in my tracks.
“Goddamn it, Danny!” I hollered. “We gotta get to a radio right now and tell the Feds not to fuck with Lassiter’s laptop! Damn thing is probably rigged like Jack’s was. We need EO-fucking-D on-site now. I want that fucking hard drive pulled the very instant after they disarm the cocksucker. You handle that. I’m calling Karen and getting another egghead sent down. I hope Gates pays his people combat wages ’cause this next fucker is going to earn ’em!” I gave Danny’s massive shoulder a friendly punch and began trotting for the control tower. From there I could reach Karen on a secure line. Danny would alert the FBI about the IED Lassiter most likely had in his kit. That would make their fucking day, I thought.
As I dogtrotted across the tarmac for the tower, I replayed in my head everything we’d faced in the last two days and, grudgingly, I realized I had to give Blanchard a certain kind of credit. I’ve taken on some serious international players in my career and been nearly done in by one or two of the best. But this homegrown son of a bitch was giving me a run for my money like no one else had. It didn’t help that he was an operator, and had a team of operators riding shotgun for him. I’d run out of options and Lassiter was my only card left to play. I knew Blanchard hadn’t already detonated the SADM only because he didn’t think he was in any danger of getting caught. I knew he wasn’t bluffing, he wasn’t going to get an attack of conscience and decide that he couldn’t do such a bad, bad thing. Nope, he was just biding his time. We—I—was nowhere close to him. I was getting the shit shot outta myself and my team and the fucking HRT. We were just nibbling at the edges of Nemesis and its self-proclaimed mission from Yahweh. I gave us a few more hours at best before the shit would really melt the fan. Lassiter’s capture would not go unnoticed by Blanchard. If Jack was Numba Two in the organization it stood to figure Lassiter was the man behind the scenes when it came to having the whole fucking plan either on his laptop or in his head. That meant he knew where Blanchard and the rest of Nemesis would be found and where the nuke was to be detonated. He’d also know Blanchard’s E&E plan. If nothing else, I planned to be waiting for him somewhere along that route with Trace, Paul, and Danny.
If my hunch was right we’d be hearing from Blanchard on the news very soon. He’d make his media appearance and scare the fucking shit outta anyone not already pissing in their drawers. Such an announcement would put even more unshielded targets on the streets and add to what was promising to be the largest mass murder in world fucking history carried o
ut by a single terrorist organization. If it was a race war Blanchard wanted, he’d sure the hell have done his best to get one started. At the very least, the current administration would crumble under the political repercussions of its failure—my failure—to prevent Portland from becoming a nuclear waste dump. The country would skew sideways under unimaginable pressures, with the already struggling economy going full tilt boogie into the shitter and our foreign policy collapsing as all efforts were turned inside our borders to save the Republic from self-immolation. Fuck! Deep breath. Okay, I needed to put this big-picture crap out of my head and focus only the task at hand, only deal with things I had a shot at controlling. If I started dwelling on the global implications of this situation, I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes on the prize. In this case, a titanium suitcase with enough firepower to take out a million or so of my fellow citizens. Not to mention yours truly!
Taking the tower’s steps two at a time I burst into the controllers’ bullpen and promptly found myself staring down the barrels of two M-9 Berettas and a 12-gauge riot gun. “Hi, fellas,” I smiled while putting both hands up, “I’m Captain Richard Marcinko. How do you like me so far?”
It took five fucking precious minutes for the air police to sort things out. While they fiddle-fucked around I lay on my belly on the floor spread-eagled like a new bride after a hard ride in the rack. I’d have to check with the accountant and see what I was charging OISA for all this fun. Whatever it was we were going to triple it!
With brusque apologies I was finally hauled up off the floor, dusted off, given back my Glock and my knife, then handed a secure cell and told to go stand in the corner. Aye-aye, motherfucker! I got hold of Karen on the third ring and ran down the most recent disaster for her. I placed my request for Egghead #2 and told her I wanted a team of shooters from SIX sent my way ASAP.
“Why SIX, Dick?” she asked. “HRT is on-site and seem to be holding their own.”
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