The Queen pbf-5

by Steven James

  They didn’t move.

  “Don’t test me. Guns on the bed. Do it now.”

  At last, unwillingly, they obeyed.

  “Get out. If anyone comes through that door in the next twelve minutes I’ll kill Riley.”

  “No, we take him-”

  “Go.”

  The two men hesitated at first, then finally backed out the door. When they were gone and the door was closed, Terry repositioned himself to better cover it.

  “Hang in there, Riley,” Terry told him, then, thinking of the militants who would be showing up any minute, he added honestly, “I’m not going to kill you.”

  I flared around the corner, saw a woman in military fatigues straddling the rec room entrance, AR-15 aimed inside.

  “Put down the-” I yelled, but she spun, faced me, laser sight on my chest. I fired. Three shots. Quick. Center mass.

  She went down.

  I rushed forward and found her alive, stunned, wearing body armor. I cuffed her, then scanned the room.

  Three men in Master-at-Arms uniforms lay inside, as well as five other naval personnel all gagged and restrained with plastic handcuffs. Sometimes terrorists will tie up some of their own people along with their captives so if you free the hostages you’ll inadvertently also free some of their men. There was no time to sort all this out now. I turned to leave.

  No, Pat! There are ten or more Eco-Tech members. Cassandra ordered these people eliminated. Someone else will come by to kill them.

  I found the ranking MA, a man whose name tag read T. Daniels, ungagged him.

  Donnie loves his family. He would talk about them.

  He would “How long have you known Commander Pickron?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “How long!”

  “Six years.”

  “When did Ardis have Lizzie?”

  He looked at me oddly. “She was adopted.”

  That was enough for me.

  I flicked out my knife to cut him loose.

  Tessa found a plastic container with an assortment of nails. Grabbed it.

  Sprinted back upstairs to the bathroom.

  I handed Daniels my knife. “Free everyone from your team. Secure this level.”

  Then I rushed toward the stairwell that would take me down to the control room.

  Tessa slid the nail in, jiggled it, and within seconds the lock clicked.

  She threw open the door.

  And saw Amber lying unconscious on the floor, an empty bottle beside her left hand.

  No, God, please, please, please!

  Tessa ran to her, called her name, but Amber didn’t move. Tessa shook her, and Amber’s head lolled listlessly to the side.

  This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening!

  Tessa felt for a pulse. It was there, thready, but present, and Amber was breathing, but Tessa didn’t know how long she’d survive, how serious an overdose it was.

  Obviously it’s serious! The pills are all gone!

  She snapped out her cell, found the number for the hospital in Woodborough, and when a woman finally answered, Tessa blurted, “Get me a doctor, now!”

  “What’s the emergency, ma’am?”

  “An overdose! I need to wake someone from an overdose!”

  She expected the woman at the hospital to ask her what kind of pills had been ingested, or how many had been taken, or the victim’s sex or build, but instead she said, “Just a moment,” and put Tessa on hold.

  On hold!

  Tessa set down the phone, turned on the speaker, said to Amber, “You’re gonna be okay.” After a quick search, she assured herself there were no more empty bottles around. The bottles of depression meds were still nearly full.

  You need to get her to the hospital.

  Amber’s car was in the driveway. She could No, Amber might stop breathing on the way. You have to wake her up before you do anything!

  Tessa had a friend who’d overdosed last year. She’d survived only because they got her stomach pumped in time.

  Still no doctor.

  Still on hold!

  Tessa couldn’t make Amber regurgitate while she was still unconscious-she’d aspirate on her own vomit.

  Wake her up, you have to wake her up!

  Tessa’s eyes fell on the shower stall.

  She grabbed Amber’s armpits and dragged her across the floor.

  Alexei reached the command level, found a militant waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.

  Using the eight-inch blade Ka-Bar Tanto he’d acquired from the man he’d disabled a few moments ago, he put the militant down-in less than a second, the blade was red, his adversary’s neck was open, and with a soft and susurrus gurgle, he was fading to the ground.

  Alexei allowed himself no time for regret but started through the electromagnetic production room toward the hallway to the control center-then heard footsteps on his left, readied the knife, and slipped behind a generator.

  The female FBI agent he’d met a few minutes ago appeared at the doorway carrying an assault rifle, but an Eco-Tech militant burst from the side of the room, delivering a fierce punch that sent the rifle spinning to the ground. She went at the man with a powerful inner edge crescent kick, then a butterfly kick to the jaw, driving him backward.

  So, it looked like she could handle things from here.

  Alexei charged down the hallway to the command center.

  91

  Someone at the top of the stairwell shot at me, and I ducked low, spun around the corner. “Drop your weapon!” I yelled.

  In reply he fired again.

  I didn’t have time for this. I did not have time!

  A quick breath and I rounded the corner again, but another burst of gunfire sent me pivoting behind the wall.

  My watch’s alarm went off.

  One minute left.

  Solstice stared at the screen. “What did you do?” she yelled at Donnie.

  “I set it up for a retinal scan. And I won’t initiate it unless I know Lizzie is okay. Unless I talk to her.”

  Without hesitation, Solstice whipped out her FN 5.7 and fired a round through Donnie’s left knee. He screamed in pain.

  “Lizzie is already dead. I killed her on Wednesday. Killed your wife too.”

  A dark cloud of confusion, of desperation. “What?”

  She drew out her knife. “Send the signal now or I’ll cut out your eyeball and send it myself.”

  No more time.

  I raced toward the stairwell. When the shooter flashed out with his gun raised, I fired at him until he was no longer a threat, then bolted past his body and down the stairs, reloading my weapon as I did.

  Tessa sat in the shower, her stepaunt’s head on her lap, cool water spraying down on them both.

  But Amber did not wake up.

  Oh, God, please. Don’t let Amber die. Please don’t A sweep of headlights washed across the bathroom window.

  Someone was coming up the driveway to the house.

  Patrick?

  Sean?

  Yes, good.

  One of them had returned.

  At the bottom of the steps I found a man’s body, a pool of blood spilling from his slashed neck.

  Hearing a harsh grunt in the machinery room to my left, I immediately peered inside and saw that on the other side of a wire mesh partition Lien-hua was fighting one of the terrorists. “Lien-hua!”

  Too much machinery. Too much movement. I had no shot at her assailant.

  Blade hidden behind his wrist, he feinted toward her, then whipped it out and went for her abdomen, slashing in a figure eight. “Get back!” I yelled.

  She leaned to the right, away from the blade, then blocked his arm, backed into position for a kick. “Go!” she hollered to me. “I’m fine!”

  I wanted to help her, wanted to She can take care of herself.

  “I’ll come back for you!” I shouted.

  The control room lay at the end of the hall.

  I dashed toward i
t.

  The door was closed. I heard shouting inside, then a sharp crash.

  A strangled scream.

  And a dead stretch of dull, eerie silence.

  92

  I kicked open the door. “Do not move!”

  Gun steady in both hands, I took in the room.

  Workstations, control panels, computer displays, wall monitors. In the far corner, Cassandra Lillo was crouched behind a rolling chair on which Donnie Pickron sat clutching his knee, a fierce bruise on the side of his head, a look of horror on his face.

  She held an FN 5.7 to his chin.

  Alexei stood close to them, poised, bone gun in one hand, a bloody combat knife in the other. Just past him, an obese man lay unconscious atop a collapsed table.

  Two other men stood near Cassandra. I recognized them from the photos Alexei had sent me: the Eco-Tech members Becker Hahn and Ted Rusk. They appeared to be armed only with Tasers.

  “Put down the gun, Cassandra,” I called.

  “You first, Agent Bowers.”

  Donnie was in the way and I had no shot.

  She held up her left hand to show me the remote control detonator for the TATP ordnance. “Put down the gun or I’ll do it. If I press this button, the whole base comes down.”

  I didn’t move.

  A cursor was flashing on an expansive high-def screen mounted on the wall to her left, and a message: Ready to transmit. Awaiting signal verification.

  Beside a keyboard on the desk in front of Donnie, a retinal scanner was futilely surveying empty air.

  The signal hasn’t been sent. The missile hasn’t been fired.

  “She killed my wife,” Donnie screamed. “She killed my daughter!”

  “Why Jerusalem?” I asked Cassandra.

  “I said set down your gun!”

  “You killed Tatiana as well.” Alexei’s voice was cool. Unflinching.

  “I’ve killed lots of people.” Cassandra’s eyes flicked toward the screen. “Set down your gun, Bowers, or Donnie dies. And I’ll blow the whole base if I need to.”

  I didn’t have many cards. I threw one on the table. “We know about Terry. He wants to talk to you, to call it off.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Who’s Terry?” Becker Hahn muttered. “What’s going on? Who’s Cassandra?”

  “The CIA is willing to negotiate,” I told her, making this up as I went, trying to buy time. “You don’t want to kill those people in Israel. It’s never been about that for you, for either of you. It’s the challenge. I know that. The money.”

  Alexei edged forward. Honestly, he might have a better chance of taking out Cassandra than I did, and for a fraction of a second I was tempted to let him loose on her.

  “Terry’s in Egypt.” I gestured toward one of the computers. “His interrogators have him online right now. They’re-”

  “Quiet! Put the gun down or we all die. You have five seconds.”

  I hated the thought that came next “Four…” she said.

  — but it did come, and I had to balance it with the severity of the situation. If this is really about a missile launch, you need to stop “Three…”

  — her even if she detonates those explosives, even if the base goes down, you can save hundreds of thousands of lives if you “Two-”

  — shoot through Donnie. You have to shoot through the hostage; you have to end this! Hating what I was doing, but with no alternative, I took aim.

  But apparently I wasn’t the only one balancing those fatal thoughts, because before I could fire, Donnie spun to the side and went for the remote control detonator. Without hesitating, Cassandra sent a round through his jaw, and the lower half of his face exploded in a red, grisly spray.

  I fired at her, but Alexei had leapt forward, and I pegged him in the left shoulder. “Get down!” He stood his ground. I leaned farther, heard another shot from Cassandra’s gun, and saw a look of shock cross her face.

  She brushed a hand against a wound in her abdomen, then quickly grabbed Donnie’s head in both hands. He might’ve still been alive; I couldn’t tell. I aimed at her neck just above her body armor, then squeezed the trigger and hit my mark. Her body lurched backward and buckled to the ground.

  “No one move!” I hollered to Alexei, Becker, and Ted. They all remained where they were. Alexei finally looked at his shoulder, at the blood spreading across his shirt.

  “Put the Tasers down,” I ordered Becker and Ted.

  They dropped them, kicked them across the floor.

  Secure the TATP detonator.

  Confirm that Cassandra is dead.

  It seemed impossible that she’d survived, but I wasn’t ready to take any chances.

  Donnie’s body was slumped forward, his head on the desk, his eyes wide open, staring into eternity. From his nose down, his face was gone. Blood spewed from the cavity that used to be his mouth, covered the keyboard, drenched his shirt.

  Sickened, I moved toward Cassandra.

  It was hard to decipher exactly what had happened, but it appeared that in his last few seconds of life he’d wrested the detonator from her, then twisted the gun, angling it up beneath her body armor before it went off. Whatever the exact chain of events, in his dying moments he’d saved us from the explosion and managed to take revenge on Cassandra for what she’d done to his wife and daughter.

  On the wall monitor, the cursor was still blinking; still waiting.

  It looked like we’d stopped it. The signal hadn’t been sent.

  As I crossed the room I could see Cassandra’s legs, but her face and torso were still hidden by Donnie’s body, which was slouched on the chair. I passed Alexei and he said softly, “I wanted to do that.” His eyes were on Cassandra.

  “Step back, Alexei, and drop the bone gun.”

  The door to the house banged open. “Patrick!” Tessa yelled. “Is that you? We’re in here!”

  “It’s me,” Sean shouted.

  “Amber overdosed!”

  “What?” He was pounding up the stairs. “No!”

  “Hurry!”

  “Valkyrie’s dead,” Alexei muttered. His bone gun was now on the floor two meters away from him.

  Keeping an eye on him, I knelt beside Cassandra.

  “She wasn’t Valkyrie,” Ted Rusk mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Quiet,” I said. It didn’t take long at all to determine that Cassandra was not going to be causing us any more trouble.

  “What do you mean she’s not Valkyrie?”

  “Everyone quiet.” I didn’t need to check Donnie’s pulse. He was gone. I pushed myself to my feet.

  Rusk pointed at Becker Hahn. “He made me tell ’em she was Valkyrie. He told me that-”

  Becker whispered something under his breath.

  Is he Valkyrie?

  “What did you say?” I demanded.

  “I said, ‘Dialogue when possible, action when necessary.’” He lowered his hands toward the table.

  “Hands up!” I yelled.

  But as he raised his hands, he grabbed a computer monitor and heaved it toward me. I fired, missed him, but sent a spray of electronics exploding from the screen. I had to turn my shoulder to take the blow from the monitor, and it hit my arm hard, throwing me off balance, knocking the gun from my hand. The Glock spun toward Cassandra’s body, landed just beside her leg.

  Alexei went for his bone gun.

  Then.

  Becker was vaulting over the desk toward Donnie. I rushed toward him, but he managed to grab Donnie’s head and direct his eyes at the retinal scanner. No! It hasn’t been long enough! The eye is still perfused! It’ll still- I was almost to Becker, but Alexei beat me to him, planted the tip of the bone gun against the base of his skull.

  “No!” I shouted.

  Alexei engaged the device.

  The sound of Becker’s skull cracking was sickening, horrifying. His arms went limp and he dropped Donnie’s head, which thumped off the desk, sending his body sagging to the flo
or. Alexei was lowering Becker beside him: “Easy, now. I don’t want you to die yet.”

  I needed to stop Alexei, but my eyes jumped to the wall monitor.

  Two words flashed: Transmission complete.

  The ELF signal had been sent.

  93

  The USS Louisiana received the extremely low frequency signal, the algorithm Terry Manoji had designed synapsed through the system, the sub’s third aft missile hatch opened, and a Trident strategic ballistic missile shot into the water on its way toward the city of Jerusalem.

  I grabbed my gun, pushed Alexei out of the way, and bent beside Becker. He lay helpless on the floor, his hands twitching faintly by his sides. I wondered how long he’d survive with his skull shattered.

  “How do we stop it?”

  “What?” The word was strangled with pain. “Stop what?”

  “The missile!”

  “No, we disarmed-”

  “You just sent a message to fire a nuclear missile!”

  “It wasn’t supposed to…” His lips trembled, his eyes went large. “We were disarming…”

  He didn’t know?

  He’s anti-nuke. Of course Movement at the doorway. Lien-hua.

  She rushed in carrying the AR-15, flanked by Daniels, the Master-at-Arms I’d freed earlier.

  Thank God she’s okay!

  “Cover Alexei,” I told her. I pointed to the screen where a CGI missile was moving through a simulated sky, and asked Daniels, “How do we stop that missile?” From the graphics display I could tell the missile had been fired from a sub somewhere in the Gulf of Oman.

  His face was ghost-white. “You can’t.”

  “Can’t it be disarmed in flight?”

  “No.”

  “Intercepted? Could we fire another missile at it, shoot it out of the sky?”

  He shook his head gravely. “Fallout.”

  “Redirected?” I pressed him. “New coordinates?”

  “Not a Cold War nuke.”

  I smacked the desk.

  Earlier, I’d had Margaret put the planes into play as a last resort, but now I slid into the empty chair next to Donnie’s body, typed at the keyboard to put an online call through to her. As I did, I asked Chekov, who was standing stationary near the end of Lien-hua’s assault rifle, “The Beriev A-60. Range, you told me five hundred kilometers. And it can shoot down a submarine-launched ballistic missile?”