Power Down

by Ben Coes

  Each flight of stairs caused the rupture at his shoulder to tear and bleed. His chest burned, while blood loss caused him to feel light-headed. Glancing back from a landing at the top of the eighth flight of stairs, he spied the killers. The first was a younger man, wearing a gray T-shirt with a red Puma logo on it. The short-haired Arab stared forward at his path, moving like an athlete up the steps, no hesitation or fatigue in his pace. A short, shiny black submachine gun he held like a sprinter’s baton in front of him, waving it through the air as he moved. But if the first killer was closing in, it was the second who worried Dewey more. Less than half a flight behind the first Arab, the second man suddenly raised his head. His black eyes caught Dewey with a menacing glare, a look of determination, confidence, even enjoyment. The look sent a small, cold tremor through Dewey, an unwelcome sensation that he knew all too well: fear. He quickly tried to push it out of his mind.

  The second killer yelled and the first one suddenly raised his machine gun and ripped a quick burst of slugs up the stairwell. Dewey ducked against the wall and continued his ascent, keeping fear as far from his mind as he could by concentrating on, even welcoming, the intense pain that now flowered in his gaping shoulder blade. He could deal with pain, work through it, let it guide him even. But fear had no antidote; it was the enemy of the warrior.

  On the ground, blood spatters followed Dewey like the proverbial bread-crumb trail. The blood dripped in a scattered line from his fingertips as he climbed. Soon, he was at the top landing of the motel. A large steel door with the number fourteen on it stood in front of him, leading to the hallway and guest rooms. Dewey stopped, again glanced down, then looked at the doorway. They would follow him, and the blood was their guide. Worse, the blood was now flowing unabated, a steady stream running from his hand, like a leaky spigot. If he did not repair the arm soon, it wouldn’t matter if they caught up to him or not; he would bleed out. He could try to take them on the stairs, but he only had two bullets left in the Colt. One false shot and he would die right then and there, outgunned by a pair of fully automatic machine guns with loaded magazines.

  Dewey stared at the entrance to the fourteenth floor for several seconds. The sound of the footsteps grew louder from below. He reached for the door, placed his blood-soaked fingers on the steel handle, pulled the door open.

  Then he stopped. He let blood course from his fingertips across the cement of the landing to the fourteenth-floor entrance, a rough, crimson line that led onto the dark purple carpet of the floor. He turned, looked down the stairwell in the direction of his pursuers. He pressed his body against the outer wall of the stairwell. Carefully, he began his descent. He hugged the wall as he moved, letting the blood from his hands drip down onto the path of blood already on the ground. He moved down the stairwell, his head light, reeling in pain. The killers were rising quickly he knew, but he kept moving.

  With his right hand, Dewey held the Colt in front of him, cocked to fire. He took the first flight, looked at the entrance door to the thirteenth floor, and kept going. At the twelfth floor, he glanced again at the floor entrance, but kept moving.

  The scratching sound of shoes on cement came from below, louder, closer and closer now. But still, Dewey moved down the next set of steps. He descended as quickly and as quietly as he could, careful to let the blood from his arm drip onto the same scarlet track he’d left on the way up the stairs.

  He could not allow the terrorists to look up and see him, so he kept pressed to the wall. But it meant he would have to guess where they were, and how close they had gotten.

  He passed the entrance to the tenth floor, then the ninth, and could, suddenly, hear the fast, labored breathing of the first terrorist, so close now, coming up the steps. And yet, Dewey slipped past the ninth floor, step after step, until he saw the small white number eight affixed to the door of the eighth floor. At the eighth-floor landing, the killers sounded just below him, less than half a flight. A shadow danced ominously on the white wall just below. Pressing his arm and hand against his chest to stop the dripping blood, Dewey slipped through the stair exit into the dim hallway of the eighth floor.

  Dewey waited just inside the door frame, his Colt M1911 out, raised and cocked to fire. The men passed the door in a loud sprint, following the trail of blood to the top floor.

  Dewey belted the pistol and walked down the hallway. He knocked on the third door, heard footsteps, then said, “Lo siento, accidente.” He knocked on the next door and heard nothing. He took the knife from the sheath, pushed aside the jamb, and inserted the blade along the door edge, then forced the blade down onto the lock and pushed in. The door popped open. He took the DO NOT DISTURB sign and placed it on the doorknob and shut the door, then chained it.

  Inside, a suitcase was open on the floor, a suit laid out on the unmade bed.

  He walked into the small bathroom and flipped on the light switch. He reached up and ripped away his sweat-soaked, bloody T-shirt, throwing it to the floor. He stripped away duct tape and pulled the blood-soaked rag away from his shoulder. The blood oozed faster, but he didn’t feel much pain. He was going into shock. Feeling dizzy, he reached out and held the side of the sink. He steadied himself but felt faint.

  Hold on, he told himself.

  It was time. He knew what he had to do. He had rehearsed it several times before in his mind. But now it was time to actually do it.

  He reached for the towel on the shelf above the sink. He held a side of it in his mouth then yanked with his right arm, ripping it in half. He took one of the strips and laid it atop his left shoulder. He wrapped it around twice, then pulled as tight as he could.

  He took a toothbrush from the side of the sink and lodged it between his teeth, gripping it so that he could bite down and not scream.

  He took water from the sink and poured some of it into the wound, then he reached down and took his knife from the sheath.

  He leaned close to the mirror and guided the blade to a patch of skin just above the blackened, bruised bullet hole. He bit down on the toothbrush and carefully carved the ruined skin away from his shoulder, widening and deepening the entry wound until the knife tip struck bone. Moaning, he dropped the knife and stuck his fingertips into the open passage. He reached and dug around, searching for the bullet. At first he used one finger, then two. Soon all four of his fingers were exploring the wound. The tissue was soft and warm. His fingers were now immersed in his own shoulder, up to the last knuckle.

  The pain encompassed him so completely that he knew he should have fallen into shock. But he did not. He could not. For if he did, he knew, he would bleed to death in a shabby motel bathroom in a poor section of Cali. They’d bury him in a beggar’s grave.

  He told himself not to look in the mirror, but he had to now in order to have any chance of getting the slug out. He looked for a brief moment at himself, at the eyes of a dead man. He couldn’t believe what he was looking at, so bizarre was the scene, so unexpected and random.

  And then he kept on digging. Dewey had to survive. For his men, for himself.

  At last, he felt a small object. He maneuvered his index and middle fingers around the object and slowly lifted it out. There, in his blood-covered hand, he held a long, misshapen piece of lead, a 7.62 mm cartridge fired from a Kalashnikov. He dropped it in the sink, where it made a dull clank.

  He dropped to his knees. For a full minute, he closed his eyes. Then, somewhere above him, he heard the dull staccato of an automatic weapon being fired. They were coming, moving floor-by-floor, looking for him. He stood up. He reached for the small mirror and opened the medicine cabinet. There was a needle and thread, a traveling salesman’s sewing kit. He took the needle, which was already threaded with black thread, and slowly pushed the needle down into the ragged wound’s rim. With difficulty, he sewed his shoulder back together, then gently washed it.

  Down the hallway, he heard a door being kicked in, followed by a woman’s scream, soon silenced by automatic weapon fire. Then another door,
and a man’s voice, yelling something he couldn’t understand. Then more gunfire, a short staccato blast that silenced the man’s voice. Then more footsteps, closer now.

  Quickly, he took the clean, dry washcloth and placed it against the sutured wound. He wrapped duct tape several times around the shoulder, as tightly as possible.

  Another door was kicked in. Through the wall, he heard footsteps and words as one of the killers said something to the other. The anger in the man’s voice gave him a chill.

  Through the window, in the distance, he heard sirens. Dewey moved toward the bedroom. He took the Colt from the back of his pants as he entered the dimly lit room. The sound of a heavy boot struck the wood of the door. The door flew open. The younger killer entered first. His eyes bulged in recognition, excited, surprised he had found his quarry. Before he could swing his machine gun up, Dewey fired a blast into the man’s head. The force of the shot pushed the young Arab into the air and backward, momentarily causing him to leave his feet as the back of his skull shattered and blew off behind the force of a single shot from the .45-caliber handgun.

  Dewey ducked as the other man blindly opened fire from the hallway, piercing the thin outer wall of the room with bullets as he searched for Dewey with a machine gun. From the floor, Dewey raised the Colt and, searching the wall for an extra moment with his eyes, fired his last bullet, which tore through wall and silenced the other killer.

  Outside, the sirens grew louder. Stepping to the window, he glanced as hotel guests ran to the street in terror.

  Dewey ransacked the suitcase in the room and found a blue T-shirt, which he put on. He stripped the leather coat from the dead terrorist in the hallway. On the back of the door, he found a bathrobe, which he wrapped around himself. He sprinted to the main stairwell and joined a group of other guests trying to get out of the hotel.

  He went through the lobby as a team of SWAT-like police officers entered, helmets on and automatic rifles at the ready. Playing the frightened guest, Dewey moved with the panicked crowd and made it through the lobby.

  Two blocks away, he threw the bathrobe in a trash can. In a small electronics store, he bought a cell phone that could make international calls. Down the street, he bought a box of .45-caliber slugs from a pawn shop. Outside the shop, he watched the street carefully until he saw what he was looking for. Half a block away, a businessman closed the door to a shiny black Mercedes, then crossed the street and entered an office building. Dewey quickly picked the door’s lock, pulled part of the drive shaft casing back, then spliced the wires together and jump-started the car.

  He hit the gas and sped down the city street, which was awash in the sound of sirens and the rush of people. As he drove away from the center of the city, he ripped open the cell phone package and powered up the phone. He dialed a number he knew by heart. After a long pause, the phone rang.

  “Anson Energy,” a female said. “How may I direct your call?”

  “This is Dewey Andreas. I’m the platform chief at Capitana. I need to speak with someone, Nick Anson, McCormick, anyone.”

  “Please hold, sir.”

  At a strip mall a few miles from the center of Cali, he parked the sedan and turned it to face the busy street so that he could see approaching cars.

  “Dewey, this is Jock McCormick. You’re obviously alive. Where are you?”

  “Colombia. I need help.”

  19

  J. EDGAR HOOVER FBI BUILDING

  Back at Jessica’s office, she and Savoy sat in front of a large white board that was covered in writing. In the middle of the white board, the word ANDREAS was written in bold red pen.

  Savoy was hoping to get good news about Ted Marks from Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver. In the meantime, Jessica and he had focused on learning everything they could about Dewey Andreas.

  They started by retrieving Dewey’s military transcripts, all the way back to his first entrance examination when he enlisted in the army. They also had the results of his entrance test for the Rangers, plus detailed reports of Andreas’s activities and progress from his supervisors throughout his brief stint as a Ranger. Jessica was able to get copies of the memo and background reports in which Andreas was flagged as a possible Delta recruit, followed by all reports tracking Andreas’s training to become a Delta.

  Finally, they had detailed mission reports of top secret operations in which Andreas played a part: a covert attempted assassination of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega as well as the later Panama invasion and ultimate capture of Noriega; the assassination of Rhumeini Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini’s brother; the initial assault on Baghdad during the first Gulf War; a botched assassination attempt on Kaddafi; a successful operation in Odessa to kill four top officers in the Russian Army who were planning a coup against Boris Yeltsin.

  The military transcripts added up to nearly six hundred pages. Jessica and Savoy dug in and began studying Andreas’s past.

  What emerged was a portrait of an ideal warrior, a soldier of extreme fortitude, intelligence, and toughness, with a weakness for alcohol. More than one superior wrote they’d choose Andreas over just about any other soldier in battle.

  After poring through Andreas’s military records, Savoy and Jessica read the transcripts of his murder trial, along with every bit of coverage it got in the media.

  They finished by studying the memo Andreas had sent Anson Energy security detailing the three deaths on board Capitana, as well as transcripts of the exit interviews with the Capitana survivors. After two hours, they put down all the papers and looked at each other.

  “So, what do you think?” asked Jessica.

  “I think he’s Dewey Andreas,” said Savoy. “Not some traitor, and not even a murderer who went free. Did you read that the prosecutor was nearly disbarred after the trial for withholding information? Andreas had an ironclad alibi. He loved his wife. Plus, she was mentally imbalanced. He didn’t do it.”

  Jessica nodded and took a sip of coffee. “I agree. So why hasn’t he made contact?”

  “My guess is, he will. Although it’s equally likely he’s dead already.”

  A knock came at the door.

  “Come in,” said Jessica.

  Chiles walked in.

  “How’s Ted Marks?” Chiles asked, looking at Savoy.

  “In ICU,” said Savoy. “He has a severe concussion. They cleaned up the bullet wound. He’s got a bad burn on his hand, a cut on his head, but he’s tough. They said he’s going to be okay. They got him heavily medicated at the moment, but I’m hoping to talk to him soon. I’m heading out there later.”

  “Good. My prayers are with him.” Chiles paused. “We’re, ah, waiting for you two downstairs.”

  Jessica looked at her watch. “Sorry. We lost track of time.”

  “Before we go down, Nathaniel Field spoke with the security chief at Anson Energy,” said Chiles.

  “And?” asked Savoy.

  “There were two ways of accessing the central pumping station at Capitana. Nick Anson and Andreas. We’re talking about either a code lifted off a computer in Dallas, or a biometric scan of Andreas’s iris. This wasn’t a padlock; it was a state-of-the-art security device designed to protect a billion-dollar pump station, not to mention access to the petroleum reservoir itself.”

  “And they needed Andreas to get inside,” said Jessica.

  “Right. And apparently they got him to do it. The Anson people never released any code.”

  “But as Jessica and I have been reading, Andreas’s no pushover,” said Savoy.

  “So you’re wondering,” said Jessica, “did he help the bombers to spare his crew, then escaped after saving some of them, as the debriefs of the survivors suggest? Or was he in on it from the start?”

  Savoy looked away and shook his head.

  “Right,” said Chiles. “But we need to take this conversation downstairs.”

  Two floors below, the interagency task force was assembled around the conference table when Chiles,
Jessica, and Savoy walked in and joined them.

  “Good afternoon,” said Chiles. “Sorry we’re late. Why don’t we start with you, Jessica.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Let’s start with prevention. We have lockdown everywhere we want it, where the White House wants it: nukes, LNG, refineries. We’ve notified allies, et cetera.” She turned to McCarthy. “We’ve analyzed employee manifests at all nukes, LNG, and refineries in the United States for Middle Eastern profile matches. Thanks for the fast turnaround, Reuben. Bottom line is there are only one hundred and fifty-four matching personnel in the universe we’re talking about here. That was a pretty wide arc we threw, too. All one hundred and fifty-four are in protective custody awaiting questioning. They’re presumed innocent, but they’re not going anywhere.

  “Next, Savage Island,” she continued. “We have a team trying to trace the octanitrocubane chain. We don’t know where it was manufactured. We might never know. We’re in the midst of a whole range of analyses on the blueprints, the handwriting, and the two individuals who planned the attack.”

  “Have we definitively tied Capitana and Savage Island together?”

  “Not yet. But it’s pretty obvious, since they occurred at the same time, targeted related industries, used embedded Middle Eastern workers, and high explosives. They almost surely planned the attack on Marks and the Ansons, but as of yet, we don’t know who ‘they’ are. That’s the key question.”

  “I can tell you that no one has stepped up to take credit yet,” said Myron Kratovil, the national security advisor.

  “We have information on the Savage Island subjects,” said Vic Buck from the CIA. “But it’s not great stuff. Nothing earth-shattering. They’re brothers. Real names are Mirin and Amman Kafele. Egyptian. Both were trained in Afghanistan by Al-Qaeda. Mirin was actually one of bin Laden’s deputies, but more than a decade ago. He can be seen in a number of period photos. The two men covered up their relationship and backgrounds when they went to work for KKB. That’s all we have.”