The Consultant

by TJ O'Connor

MILES OFF THE secondary country road, tucked away in rural farmland and surrounded by dense woods and countryside, I sat in the basement of a two-story nineteenth-century farmhouse. Shepard had led me here after we bumped and jumbled along the country roads hours ago.

  This was another of LaRue’s safe houses. He was a real boon for the local real estate market.

  It was a good place to do what we were doing—interrogating prisoners and hiding a body. We were miles from the nearest neighbor, and no one could hear or see what we were up to.

  Not that we were up to anything really bad, mind you. But time was ticking, and we weren’t getting anywhere on Khalifah and Operation Maya. We separated the two men, who were as I’d suspected, Fariq and Azar. The third man, the dead one, had no ID and no one was offering any information. Shepard patched them up better than most combat medics I’d seen in action. After hours of questions, we were no further along than we had been last night.

  Fariq sat on a metal folding chair in front of me in the main basement, and Azar sat on an equally rickety chair in another room behind us. What we got from them was nothing. Azar refused to give up his name. That was really stupid since he knew I knew it. Fariq refused to look at us when we spoke.

  One little thing changed the dynamics a bit.

  Shepard leaned down into his ear and spoke in Persian. “We know about Maya. We know about the next attack. If you help us, we will give you immunity.”

  Fariq grinned and stole a glance at Shepard’s watch. “I think you do not know.”

  I moved to Oscar standing in the rear of the room observing us. “It’s soon, Oscar. He got all giggly when he saw Shepard’s watch. We’re out of time.”

  “I agree.” LaRue raised his chin and looked at me but called to Shepard, “Please begin with the ADS.”

  Shepard slapped Fariq on the back. “Oh good, pal. It’s time for the death ray. Last chance, talk to me.”

  Fariq spit into his face.

  “I’m going to enjoy this, asshole,” Shepard said. He went to a table on the side of the room and pulled a dustcover off a large suitcase. From inside the case he took out a strange gadget that reminded me of a toaster oven.

  I said as much to Shepard.

  “You win the prize.” Shepard looked at Fariq. “See this, Fariq? It’s like a microwave oven, but without doors. It cooks things that turn until we get answers. I turn it on, microwave you until you’re done, and you’ll give me answers.”

  The Iranian gritted his teeth. “If I do not?”

  “Then you’ll fry. Literally.”

  I looked over the device and recognized it from its testing in Kabul several years ago. It was an Active Denial System and it was mean.

  Shepard aimed the device at Fariq. “I’d move, Hunter. Unless you want to sauté, too.”

  He turned on the device.

  Seconds later, Fariq vibrated in his chair—twisting and thrusting and trying to escape some unseen pain. He broke into a sweat, gritted his teeth, and thrashed around, trying to break the bonds. After several seconds, Shepard turned the device off.

  “Now, have anything to say, Fariq?” Shepard asked.

  The Iranian spat again. “Kill me, pig. I am ready. Allahu Akbar.”

  Shepard repeated the episode and received the same resistance—spit, denial, resistance.

  Enough. I went to Fariq and leaned in close, pulled my .45 out, and stuck it into his chest. “I’m done with these games, pal. How about you?”

  He tried to grin, but the tension on his sweaty face stopped him. “Pig. My brother and I will not talk.”

  “Brother?” I winked. “Azar is your brother? Say good-bye.”

  LaRue came forward. “Hunter? What are you doing?”

  “Saving time.” I walked across the basement to one of the two doors there. One remained locked, and behind the other was Azar. I swung the door open, went inside, and slammed the door behind me.

  Azar was strapped to a chair that was bolted to the floor in the rear of the room. He was stripped down to his shorts and nothing else. His head was covered with a black hood and his ears deafened with a pair of large noise-cancelling headphones.

  “Alright, asshole, where’s the next hit? Today?” I yelled loud enough to be heard in the next county. “Talk, now.”

  Nothing.

  “Talk.” I lifted the .45 and fired.

  The man bounced in the chair and screamed. Even .45s can get through noise-cancelling headphones.

  “Where is it? Tell me.”

  Nothing.

  I fired again.

  Another outburst of fear and pain.

  “Where?”

  Nothing.

  My last shot ended the debate, and I returned to Fariq with blood dripping from my cheek. “Too bad. He wasn’t cooperative.”

  Fariq couldn’t take his eyes off the blood splatters on my cheek and hands.

  “What … what … what have you done?” His eyes were big and scared, and his pulse pounded in his neck. “This is America. We have rights. What have you done to Azar?”

  Shepard’s face was raw, but he didn’t speak. LaRue lowered his head and cursed at me, turned his back, and retreated to the stairs.

  “Screw your rights.” I touched my .45 to Fariq’s groin and held his eyes in mine. “Same deal, asshole. Where is the hit and when?”

  For a long moment, he stared at the blood splatter on my cheek.

  “Hunter, no,” Shepard said, reaching for my arm. “Not this way. Not again.”

  “Well, tough guy?” I whispered to Fariq. “Three, two, one—”

  “Eight a.m. Leesburg. I will tell you. Stop. Stop this now!”

  I stepped back and lowered my gun. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  Between sips of water from a bottle Shepard gave him, Fariq Wassef Azmeh, first son of Haroun and a fellow guardian soldier, told us everything he knew. He was a Pāsdār in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp. Unfortunately, he was a low-level Pāsdār, but he confirmed some important details, like Saeed Mansouri was the IRGC commander orchestrating the recent attacks, and that Caine was aiding Khalifah. Who Khalifah was and what organization he was tied to was unknown. To ask meant death.

  The mere mention of Khalifah’s name caused Fariq to beg for asylum—or execution.

  When we were sure he’d emptied his brain, I beckoned LaRue and Shepard to the rear of the basement. “Shepard, you better check Azar. I think he shit himself when I shot up the wall beside his head.”

  CHAPTER 49

  Day 5: May 19, 0815 Hours, Daylight Saving Time

  North and South Middle School, Outside Leesburg, Virginia

  THE ATTACK AT the North and South Middle School began before we were ready.

  Traffic had stopped halfway down the boulevard in front of the school as buses and parents lined up to drop off children for classes—the calm before the storm. If not for the sheriff’s deputy at the bus entrance, the lethality would have been staggering. Luck and some higher power—higher than Oscar LaRue—caused the deputy to be out of his car holding oncoming traffic. One of the school buses got stuck halfway across the boulevard while trying to enter the school. Angry drivers brought the deputy out to ensure cooler heads prevailed.

  The terrorists hadn’t expected this.

  We were three cars behind the blue sedan when it broke from traffic and attempted to veer around the deputy into the school lot. When it accelerated toward him with tires squealing, the deputy instinctively drew his sidearm. The sedan’s passenger leaned out the window and opened up with a machine gun that strafed the deputy’s midsection. He still managed to fire several shots into the sedan’s windshield before falling.

  The vehicle skidded out of control and slammed broadside into the school bus blocking the lanes. The passenger, perhaps injured, fumbled to escape the vehicle with assault rifle in hand. His door was jammed.

  “Go! Go! Go!” I yelled, but Shepard was already accelerating.

  He stomped the gas and care
ened around the line of cars. I hung out the window with an MP5 9-millimeter subgun—courtesy of Oscar LaRue’s farmhouse pantry—and readied. “Barricade!”

  We smashed through the rear of a small coupe that was trying to turn around and avoid the vehicle backup. We plowed across the lane to the school entrance. Five feet before the entrance, Shepard yanked the emergency brake, put the vehicle into a slide, and wrenched the wheel to the left. He bootlegged us to a stop, blocking the school entrance.

  My body was reacting faster than my brain could formulate commands. I was out and shooting on the run. Shepard was moving now, too.

  My first three-round burst strafed the sedan but missed the passenger. My second hit him across the shoulders as he lifted an AK-74 above the sedan’s roof to assault the bus. He got off one short burst before my third volley hit center mass and obliterated his heart. I closed on the car and put a burst into the driver.

  Two down.

  Subgun fire from behind me spun me around. I followed my front sight, searching for a target, and saw Shepard tracking a new threat. A green four-door had hopped the sidewalk farther behind us in traffic and had made a run across the lawn toward the school buses offloading children. Shepard went for the tires first. On his third burst, the driver’s front tires succumbed and the vehicle shuttered but still lumbered forward. He adjusted fire and his rounds obliterated the vehicle’s windshield.

  At a dead run, I angled between two buses and put myself between them and the four-door. My MP5 was up tracking the injured vehicle.

  The four-door stutter rolled forward as two men jumped out with AKs firing. One of them rained 7.62 rounds along a bus’s side row of windows rear-to-front. His second burst reversed direction front-to-rear at seat level.

  Crouching, I advanced on the shooter, firing three-round bursts. I put him down with the second. As I did, something punched me hard in my shoulder and chest and knocked the wind out of me. I went down. A terrorist had hit my body armor with two rounds that could have killed me—luck. All they succeeded in doing was knocking me down and stealing some wind.

  Movement was survival.

  I gasped for breath, staggered to my feet, and let fly a burst that put him down hard. I dropped the magazine, slapped a fresh one into the MP5’s receiver, and put two more rounds into each of the attackers as they lay in the grass.

  Rule four of mortal combat—victory is not for the squeamish.

  Four down.

  Subgun fire and a vehicle crash spun me around again. The four-door had fumbled along its path and crashed into the sheriff’s cruiser near the school entrance.

  Shepard advanced on the four-door, shooting high into the passenger’s compartment in tight, controlled bursts. He paused, moved in close, and yelled something in Arabic I couldn’t make out. A second later, someone crawled from the front seat with his hands in surrender.

  “Deraz bekesh, hamoonjah bemoon.”—Down, stay down—Shepard yelled.

  Children’s screams broke through my concentration.

  Ops-mode had engaged when the first terrorist fired. It controlled me still, pivoting me in slow semicircles, searching for threats, hunting targets. Another breath. Three. Four. My pulse steadied. My muscles readied. Focus.

  No other cars broke traffic. No AKs cracked the air. There was chaos. Screams. Cries. Running feet. Chaos.

  Seconds turned into minutes before I dared leave my vigil and join Shepard. He’d hog-tied his captive with zip ties and knelt beside the deputy to check his wounds.

  “He’s got two in him but he’s alive,” Shepard yelled. “Stay here. Cops are one mike out.” Then he hoisted the terrorist by the belt, dragged him to our car, and stuffed him in the trunk. “Get me thirty minutes at least.”

  “Right. Tell Oscar they started it.”

  He threw a thumbs-up, climbed in, and roared around the carnage into the open boulevard lane.

  Gone.

  Teachers ran from the school and rendered aid to the students. I kept my MP5 in hand and willed the remaining adrenaline to retreat and ops-mode to return to quarters. Carefully, watching for any telltale sign of a second wave, I moved to the front of the school.

  I’d taken ten steps when the explosion half a block away knocked me across the grass.

  CHAPTER 50

  Day 5: May 19, 0945 Hours, Daylight Saving Time

  North and South Middle School, Outside Leesburg, Virginia

  IT COULD HAVE been worse. Much worse. Unthinkably worse.

  Dozens of ambulances, as many fire trucks, and three times that in police and federal cop cars were strewn across the boulevard and school grounds. Tactical teams were just emerging from the school after two sweeps with explosive detection dogs and remote robots. A helicopter circled overhead with snipers hanging out their doors, tethered securely, ready to eliminate anything that might emerge for another wave. There were gurneys and doctors and parents and teachers everywhere. Schoolchildren corralled into a fenced playground were being examined by nurses and EMTs. Dozens of tactical cops formed a perimeter around them. Children cried for parents. Adults not consumed with the injured tried to console them.

  Terror.

  How to explain the unexplainable? How do you say “it’ll be all right” when it’s a lie a thousand times over? How do you fade the sight of their friends and bus drivers lying on the sidewalk, some draped with white cloths while others were frantically treated for life?

  How indeed.

  It could have been worse. Four gunmen with AK-74 assault rifles could have killed a hundred or more. But they hadn’t. A smart deputy with a fast draw and two lucky consultants in the right place at the right time. Tons of luck.

  Even more lead.

  “It’s like Union Station,” a burly FBI man said, gesturing toward the billowing smoke half a block from the school. “Except they tried a direct assault instead of bombs. The vehicle in the park was meant for victims moving for cover.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said without thinking. What was it LaRue had said? Oh yeah, keep my mouth shut. Too late.

  The FBI man, Agent Linley, looked over at me. “You have another opinion, Agent Hunter?”

  Agent Hunter? Oh, right, I’d flashed my new DHS creds at the cops the moment they arrived. It was an act of self-defense so they wouldn’t shoot the only standing guy with an MP5.

  “That explosion went off minutes after the initial assault. Had these guys been successful, they’d still be shooting. There wouldn’t have been anyone escaping and no cops on scene yet. The bomb wasn’t meant for that.”

  Linley considered that for a long time. Instead of commenting, he grunted something and walked off toward the rising smoke.

  Another FBI agent approached me. She had been speaking with teachers and EMTs. As she walked over, she spoke on her cell phone, updating the WFO. Her face was pale and sunken—blood and schoolkids. The nightmare scenario.

  “Agent Hunter, I don’t get your story,” Agent Combs said, rubbing tension from her eyes. “But thank God. One of the drivers was life-flighted out. It’s touch and go. We have ten gunshot injuries—a bus attendant and nine kids. Two are life-threatening and on the life flight. The EMTs are working their asses off. Forty-three kids suffered various injuries from broken arms when they ducked for cover, to cuts and abrasions from glass and metal fragments. There are only two fatalities not counting the bad guys.”

  I looked at the first bus at the school entrance. The blue sedan was wedged into its side right at the rear wheel well. The car had been shredded by Shepard’s MP5.

  The bus driver took the worst hit. When the shooting started, Willy Strauss, a former Army grunt driving school buses to supplement retirement pay, jumped up and began herding the children onto the floor for cover. His bus was stranded between lanes and had nowhere to go. The first terrorist’s initial assault struck Strauss as he ran down the aisle protecting the children. Saving his kids cost him his life.

  “It could have been better.” I spit bile into the gr
ass nearby. “All the kids going to make it?”

  Agent Combs shrugged. “We don’t know. We hope and pray. Now, I need you to run it all by me one more time.”

  Here we go, déjà vu. She was reading from Bond’s playbook.

  “It’ll be in my report, Agent, but fine.” A deep breath and I tried to remember what I’d told her an hour ago. “My partner and I, Agent, er, Biggs, were surveilling this perp’s house.” I gave her the address Fariq had spilled earlier. “Two men left that house and we followed them here. Before we could call in for backup, this started. You know the rest.”

  “Your partner returned to recheck that address?”

  I nodded.

  “Alone?” Agent Combs stopped nodding. “What brought you to the perp’s house to begin with?”

  Good question. A better lie. “An anonymous tip. Probably a neighbor. We weren’t sure of the veracity, so we were checking it alone. That’s why we didn’t have backup handy.”

  “Right. You said that.” She shook her head. “You just happened to have a couple H&K MP5s in the front seat with you? Most of us have our tactical gear in the trunk.”

  Oops. “Look, I keep my go-bag in arm’s reach. It’s a habit from the Gulf.”

  “Iraq or Afghanistan? I was in Afghanistan.”

  Uh-oh. “That’s classified.”

  She smiled and nodded again. “You’re not really DHS, are you?”

  I winked.

  Agent Combs gave me an odd sideways look. Sort of like a parent when I picked up their daughter on our first date. She knew I was up to something but didn’t want to come right out and castrate me without proof.

  “The WFO has never heard of you and never heard of this supposed operation of yours. DHS has a record of you, but no one knows anything. Isn’t that odd?”

  “It’s classified. I told you.”

  “You did. Just don’t move right now, okay? I’m going to check.” Her cell phone rang and when she took the call, her eyes went from “who cares” to “oh crap.” She listened, saying nothing more than “yes, sir” and “no, sir” for a long time. Then she tapped the call off and slid it back into her pocket. She glared at me.