by Don Brown
The poet Robert Frost once said, “The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”
And what would the morning bring?
She got up from the sofa and went to the living room mirror. She stared curiously at herself with blonde locks now draping over her shoulders. The redness in her eyes from crying over the death of her two friends, and especially over P.J., whom she had hoped to know better, made her look like a hapless drunk coming off an all-night drinking binge.
She mouthed the words of the poet. “ ‘The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.’ ”
The words haunted her. For she feared, in the deep recesses of her soul, that she might never see another afternoon.
She would see the morning. That she knew. She would step out the doors of this townhouse and see if the animal had taken the bait. And if he took the bait, she could only hope and pray that Mark Romanov and his NCIS agents would spring the trap and break the rat’s neck before her own skull exploded under the destructive force of a high-powered sniper’s bullet.
Sitting alone, with a deep foreboding that this might be her last night on the face of the earth, she bowed her head and began to pray.
“Lord, it’s been awhile since I prayed. I’ve not always acted as I should. I’ve been selfish, conceited. You’ve given me so many gifts and abilities. But too often I’ve used those gifts for my selfish ends.
“And now, with all this death, with all this senseless murder, it’s like you’ve brought me face-to-face with my own mortality.
“Lord, I don’t want to die. But yet, I want my life to mean something. Maybe someone is telling me to do this. To lay down my life for a greater cause.
“Lord, I should be scared. But somehow, I’m not. Maybe that’s you.” She wiped a solitary tear. “I feel sad that I’ve accomplished so little in my life.
“Whether I live or die, let this last act make a difference. Help us catch whoever is doing this and bring him to justice. And if you do take me, then please, tomorrow, bring me to rest in your arms, now and forever. In Jesus’ name, I pray.”
She set her alarm for 5:00 a.m., lay down on Caroline’s sofa, and closed her eyes.
CHAPTER 37
OPERATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
U.S. NAVY DRONE COMMAND
U.S. NAVAL AIR STATION “PAX RIVER”
LEXINGTON PARK, MARYLAND
WEDNESDAY, 5:43 A.M.
Commander John Jefferies, operating on perhaps two hours of sleep, stood in the command center of the U.S. Navy Drone Command and sipped his black coffee. He was staring up at the center screen, which at the moment displayed a live-feed aerial view of the predawn suburban sprawl of Springfield, Virginia, about fifty-five miles by the flight of the drone to the northwest.
Jefferies knew they were all taking a chance of facing both legal and political blowback by flying this mission. He sipped more coffee and thought about that.
Not that the mission itself was the problem. Right now the command had only a handful of drones and a virtually unlimited budget for training missions in all kinds of conditions, including predawn hours as it was at present.
The problem was that this mission wasn’t just a training mission. It was hands-on operational. And if the cat got out of the bag, it could be misconstrued as military interference in a civilian law enforcement operation, thus violating posse comitatus.
Personally, John felt satisfied with Victoria Fladager’s legal explanation and defense, that by keeping civilians out of the loop, it remained a military operation only.
But what if the shooter wasn’t a foreign national or member of a terrorist group? What if he or she turned out to be a U.S. citizen?
Wouldn’t that make this a military operation to capture a civilian?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Either way, John believed in his new boss, Captain Paul Kriete, who presented a confident, patriotic demeanor that would make any red-blooded patriot want to follow him. And if Lieutenant Victoria Fladager had bravely volunteered to put her neck on the line for the sake of stopping these attacks on naval officers, John Jefferies could at least put his career on the line. Even if Kriete had promised to step up and take all the heat, John Jefferies would stand with him on this.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to see a little better in a few, sir,” remarked the lieutenant serving as remote pilot of Navy Drone Flight 241. “Only fifteen minutes till sunrise.”
“How much longer until we’re in position over the target residence?” John took another swig of coffee and checked his watch. By “target residence” he meant, of course, the residence of Lieutenant Commander McCormick, where the morning aerial surveillance of Lieutenant Fladager would begin.
Unfortunately, even with all the advances in drone technology over the years, it was still difficult for a drone to see much in the dark, unless, like any aircraft, it was firing a bright spotlight down onto the ground. Part of the problem with firing a spotlight onto the ground was that the drone’s position would be revealed, which would defeat the whole point of operating in the skies in relative obscurity.
“Two more minutes, sir. We’ll go into orbit at one thousand and keep her there until the sun comes up or for as long as it takes. If anything moves down there, we’ll see it.”
“Very well.” Jefferies took his last swig of coffee. “Steady as she goes.”
“Aye, sir.”
WALTER REED NATIONAL MEDICAL CENTER
BETHESDA, MARYLAND
5:45 A.M.
“P.J.!” Caroline sat up in bed, her eyes wide open, her heart pounding like a battering ram inside her chest. He had been there. She knew it.
“Victoria! Help her! Where am I?”
“Are you okay, Commander?” A Navy nurse rushed into her room.
“Yes, I . . .”
“It sounds like you were just having a bad dream.”
“I . . . Somebody’s going to get killed. I know it.”
“You’ve been through a lot, Commander. Let me get you something to help you rest.”
“No! Victoria! I’ve got a bad feeling.”
“You’re going to be fine, ma’am. You’re suffering from a little post-traumatic shock.”
A sharp pinching stung her upper arm. Caroline looked over at another nurse injecting medication through a syringe.
“Please relax, ma’am. Dr. Berman will be here in a few hours and he’ll talk to you. We’re here for you.”
The hospital room started spinning, and she felt a foreboding desperation to stop it. “Please, someone warn her . . . please . . .”
She felt her head hit the pillow.
Darkness overcame her as she slipped from consciousness.
OUTSIDE LIEUTENANT COMMANDER CAROLINE MCCORMICK’S TOWNHOUSE
NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF HUNTSMAN AND SYDENSTRICKER ROADS
OXFORD HUNT
WEST SPRINGFIELD, VIRGINIA
5:52 A.M.
Mark sat behind the wheel of his government-issued Taurus and watched Caroline McCormick’s home.
At a distance of a hundred yards or so, he would hopefully blend into the graying dawn, a gray lizard along the sidewalk, all in the hopes of not spooking the shooter, if this was the morning the shooter would take the bait, if the shooter were ever to take the bait.
Mark brought the Red Bull to his lips and took a swig. The caffeine jolted him immediately. Not that he needed the jolt. His adrenaline had been in orbit all night, since Captain Kriete had shown him the inadvertently captured aerial shot of the killer fleeing Simmons’s condo.
Mark had studied the great heroes of law enforcement of all time. Wyatt Earp. J. Edgar Hoover.
But the greatest of them all, the hero Mark aspired to be like, was the greatest sharpshooter in the history of the FBI, a twentieth-century agent named D. A. “Jelly” Bryce.
Born in Oklahoma in 1906, Jelly Bryce became an FBI legend, drawing his gun faster than anybody on the planet and shooting with greater accuracy than any
body in the universe.
Wielding a long-barreled .357 magnum, Bryce had by 1945 gunned down at least ten bad guys in face-to-face gunfights and made the cover of LIFE Magazine. By the time he retired in 1958, Bryce’s larger-than-life legend made him the envy of lawmen all over the country. If there were a Mount Rushmore for federal agents, Jelly would dominate the jutting granite on the far left, the position held by George Washington on the mountainous wall of presidents.
What had made Jelly Bryce such an unstoppable force?
Mark had considered this many times and had come to one inescapable conclusion.
Ultimately, though it was not a politically correct thing to say, a great lawman, at the end of the day and like a deer hunter tracking his prey, had to enjoy killing.
Killing.
Not the innocent, but the guilty.
The willingness to kill, and the necessary enjoyment of killing that fueled that willingness, separated a mediocre federal agent—and most were mediocre—from a great agent. Few were great.
Mark knew he had to embrace killing, in a controlled manner, in a limited manner, to become a great lawman. And he would do just that.
Mark looked at the long-barreled .357 revolver that sat on the passenger seat. Ah, yes. He had purchased it years ago on the street, for cash, from a witness who needed money. The serial number had long since been removed, making the gun virtually untraceable. And though he rarely fired it, he kept it with him, as both a reminder and an inspiration of the career of the great Jelly Bryce.
If he could pull this operation off, he would be positioned to fleet up from the NCIS to the FBI, achieving his lifelong dream. Once that happened, Victoria would take notice—that is, if she survived today—that as an FBI agent, he would have matched, if not surpassed, the professional status of the great P.J. MacDonald.
Yes, she would notice. He would make sure she noticed.
Enough reminiscing.
He needed to nail this guy. For a number of reasons. With him, and parked at triangulating positions around the neighborhood, were six other NCIS agents in three unmarked cars. One sat parked on Sydenstricker. Two others were parked on Oxford Hunt.
He would lead this operation, and the new agents hiring committee at the Justice Department would take notice.
“Task Force Leader. Drone Control.” The radio message from Pax River broke his thoughts.
“Drone Control. Tango Foxtrot Leader. Go ahead.”
“Task Force Leader. Be advised. Bird is on station. Waiting for the sun.”
“Drone Control. Roger that. Bird is on station. You are our eyes.”
“Task Force Leader. Roger that. We’ll keep you posted. Drone Control out.”
“Roger that. Task force out. Task Force Leader to all units. Acknowledge receipt of transmission from Drone Control.”
“Task Force One. On station. Copy Drone Control. Ready to execute.”
“Task Force Two. Also on station. Copy Drone Control. Ready to execute.”
“Task Force Three. Copy that, sir.”
“Very well. Stand by for further instructions. Leader out.”
UNIDENTIFIED TOWNHOUSE
NEAR LIEUTENANT COMMANDER CAROLINE MCCORMICK’S TOWNHOUSE
NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF HUNTSMAN AND SYDENSTRICKER ROADS
OXFORD HUNT
WEST SPRINGFIELD, VIRGINIA
5:55 A.M.
Following the illuminated beam of the flashlight, the shooter stepped into the upstairs master bedroom for one last check before going downstairs. He wanted to double-check, to make sure they were fully dead. No point in risking faint breathing or a faint pulse.
He always double-checked, even when there was no doubt.
Quickly he swept the flashlight around the room.
The bed was a bloody mess, unfortunately, but the bullet hole through the skull of the man was clean.
Not so much for his poor wife.
Why did some heads seem to explode under the force of a bullet, while others endured the shot, revealing only a small hole, thus keeping bleeding to a more minimal level?
Heads, he had learned long ago, were like watermelons. Some punctured cleanly. Others burst like big watermelons splatting on concrete.
What a messy profession this could be.
He stepped out of the master bedroom and down the hallway, sweeping the flashlight into the first bedroom to the right.
The girl looked to be only about thirteen years old. Fortunately, her body remained intact. No one in the family ever knew what hit them. Sometimes he felt bad about doing what he had to do when such collateral damage was involved. But business was business. And war was war.
He headed back down the stairs to the lower floors from where he would commence his operation. The security on these dime-a-dozen townhouses was a joke, to the point that any amateur criminal could get in at any time by taking a screwdriver to the French doors on the back patio.
Of course, amateurs often set off the Dollar General–quality alarm systems the public thought would keep them safe. But most left-wingers, especially in Northern Virginia and all parts north up to Maine, being anti-gun for the most part, chose to remain unarmed. Like foolish sheep would remain defenseless against the slaughter. Thus, an activated burglar alarm simply alerted the police to come clean up the mess in the aftermath.
By contrast, professionals knew how to deactivate these pesky alarms in about five seconds, which he had decided to do—that is, to deactivate the alarm—because he needed to borrow these good people’s home for a little while during the dark of night.
He had considered entering Caroline McCormick’s townhouse through the back, while she slept, like he had here, popping a few rounds in her head, letting the police clean up the mess whenever they found her, and proclaiming to his superiors that his mission was accomplished.
But he was no fool.
He knew they had placed NCIS around her and that, in light of his first failed attempt, they would tighten the security noose. He could deal with NCIS, if need be. But they were more formidable than local law enforcement, and no point in getting too messy if it wasn’t necessary to make a mess.
Of course, the fact that they would offer at least a semblance of protection energized him like electricity surging through a power grid.
Like a hunter chasing deer through the woods, killing was always amplified by the excitement of a challenge—and even more so by the excitement of danger—which would be posed by the FBI wannabe agents of the NCIS.
A professional always operated using the element of surprise.
The element of surprise ensured victory 99 percent of the time.
He was a professional. And they would be looking for him.
He would not make the same mistakes he had made last time.
He would not be spotted.
How foolish of the Navy to continue pressing this issue.
He may have missed the last time, but he would not miss this time.
He crept into the dark living room, pushed the curtains aside, and looked out the window. Across the street and five doors down, the light burned on the front stoop of Caroline McCormick’s townhouse.
When news of the assassination hit the media later in the day, some would call it a “drive-by shooting.” But in reality, this would be a planned execution.
This time his handiwork would result in a cold-blooded kill.
And the Navy would cooperate, or every officer who touched this project would meet a similar fate.
They had been warned, but they failed to realize who they were playing with.
Soon they would face, once again, the bloody consequences of their defiance.
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER CAROLINE MCCORMICK’S TOWNHOUSE
WEST SPRINGFIELD, VIRGINIA
6:37 A.M.
The sun had risen forty minutes ago, and the bustle and activity of an early-morning commute began stirring this middle-class Fairfax County community just ten miles from the Pentagon.
; Victoria stepped in front of the mirror in Caroline’s living room for a final inspection of her summer dress white uniform.
The uniform looked sharp, so sharp, in fact, that she felt a wave of guilt for thinking that P.J. would have liked it. She adjusted the green-and-white Navy Commendation medal that she received in Norfolk and reminded herself that P.J. was never hers and that, despite their rather electric rendezvous at the Grape + Bean, P.J. had always been Caroline’s.
Enough thinking about P.J.
Her father had gone to West Point, and though he feigned disappointment when she chose the Navy over the Army, he had reminded her on the day of her commission of the same creed that he had reminded her of a thousand times as a little girl.
“Duty. Honor. Country.”
Now, for the first time, in the midst of so much death, turmoil, and uncertainty, she had finally come to the sudden, unexpected understanding of what her father, Colonel Stephen Fladager, had meant in the thousand times he had uttered those three words.
And now, duty called.
She checked the gold belt buckle of the white twill belt that held up her white skirt.
The sharp attractiveness of the white uniform had led her to the Navy over the Army. “That’s a silly reason to pick one branch over the other,” her father had chided her.
He was right. He was always right. But you’re your own woman, he also said. And he was right about that too.
Here, in this surrealistic moment, she had now become her own woman, having made a life-or-death decision that most women and most men would never have to make, and wishing that it were winter so she could wear her service dress blue winter uniform. The blue uniform, it occurred to her, wouldn’t show her blood so badly as the white. And if she were going to take a bullet to stop this animal, she didn’t want to give the animal the satisfaction of so easily seeing the blood that she was about to spill on behalf of her country.
She turned away from the mirror and picked up the earpiece communications device that Mark had given her.
“We’ll be able to communicate with you when we see this guy,” Mark had told her. “It’ll help us keep you safe.”
