Fire Hawk

by Geoffrey Archer

  Burgess nudged him. The President’s face filled the monitors on the video wall. He was beginning his address to the nation.

  ‘My fellow Americans . . .’

  Never seen him so grim, thought Sam. The familiar face looked in shock, the eyes with none of their usual twinkle.

  The country faced a grave threat, he announced solemnly. A terrorist attack with a biological weapon that could make the bomb in Oklahoma City look like a side-show. He was sparse on detail. No names given out, no nationalities identified. A cautious President holding back on public accusations until certain of who to blame and how to retaliate.

  ‘Until this threat has passed, my security advisers have told me it’s prudent if I cancel all my public appearances. My apologies therefore to the people of Philadelphia. We shall not be able to meet at the Vets stadium tonight as scheduled. They are also advising that all other open-air gatherings in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia planned for today and tomorrow should be cancelled. Wherever possible people should remain indoors in their own homes where they will be perfectly safe.’

  Up to a point, thought Sam. If the stuff were to get into the air-conditioning ducts of an apartment block . . .

  The President kept it brief and to the point, winding up with a promise to keep the nation informed and with a plea for there to be no panic.

  ‘Let me assure you, this is a situation that our national security agencies are trained to handle. Please co-operate with them to the full. With your help we can put an end to this threat before any harm is done.’

  ‘Hope he fools some of them,’ Burgess muttered, stroking his moustache.

  The output of all the main TV networks had combined for the broadcast. Now all channels switched to a briefing room at the Pentagon.

  ‘Uh-oh!’ Burgess exclaimed. ‘The guys in the green uniforms are pulling rank over us Big Bad Feds.’ He shook his head. ‘Means the President plans to go to war.’

  The screen filled with a picture of a container truck, then dissolved to a map of the Baltimore/Washington area with an appeal for information about any similar vehicles that might have been seen off the main highways.

  ‘Hey, Dean!’

  Jess Bissett called him over. Burgess beckoned Sam to go with him.

  ‘Jess, Sam. Sam, Jess.’

  ‘Hi,’ Jess smiled just for an instant. ‘Dean, a highway patrol on Route Three, six miles south-west of the junction with ninety-seven, has just picked something up at a roadside eatery. They spoke with a trucker who saw a forty-foot container trailer turning off Route Three a couple of miles north of some place called Clifdene. Said it surprised him because the lane it turned into wasn’t much wider than a farm track. They’re sending six cars to box the area.’

  ‘Great!’ Burgess spun back to his own terminal to print off a map covering a five-mile radius from Clifdene.

  ‘First time in Washington?’ Jess asked Sam.

  ‘No. But first time inside this place.’

  She smiled and swung back to face her screen. ‘Catch up with you later, okay?’

  Sam joined Burgess by the laser printer, watching the map come off.

  ‘Will you leave it to the state police to check this out?’ he asked.

  ‘Nope. There’ll be a couple of special agents from the Washington field office heading out there right now,’ he explained. ‘Sure as hell hope this is the one.’

  His eyes were back on the TV screens. Two of the channels had gone live to cameras at the Pledge for the Family rally in the Mall less than half a mile from where they stood.

  Burgess felt strangely relieved. The rally was sure to be terminated now. Carole and the kids would soon be on their way home to safety.

  Lower Layton

  In the first of the farmsteads in the village of Lower Layton, Mrs Betsy Jones sat on the back veranda reading a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt while her husband took a nap. Neither of them listened to the radio much and they only watched TV in the evenings. The world could be about to end for all they knew and they’d never hear about it until it happened.

  A quarter of a mile further down the lane the Whitman house was deserted, the couple having taken their kids for an afternoon in the powerboat they kept in a Chesapeake Bay creek just south of Annapolis. On this ordinary weekend day in the early fall, they’d gone fishing.

  And in the house a hundred yards from the old barn that had been sold to the businessman from Philadelphia, old Matt Halcrow was bent over his accounts for the Inland Revenue Service, listening to a Sinatra CD his daughter had bought him for his birthday a couple of months ago.

  Betsy Jones heard the scrunch of tyres on the gravel drive at the front of the white clapboard house and wondered who the heck that could be, coming a-calling. She got up from the wicker easy chair and walked in through the lounge.

  ‘Oh my!’

  A patrol car was in the drive, its red light going.

  ‘Oh my,’ she repeated, clutching her chest. Something terrible must’ve happened to one of their grownup children.

  She opened the front door. The fact that the police officer who faced her was a woman only served to heighten her fears.

  FBI Headquarters

  Dean Burgess stood in front of the TV monitors unable to believe his eyes. The networks were all focusing on the Pledge rally down in the Mall now. Because instead of dispersing as they’d been requested to do by their President and by the DC Police Department, the thirty thousand crowd stood calmly facing the podium set up in front of the Washington Monument, listening to their leaders praying for the Lord to stay the hand of the evildoers.

  ‘Get the fuck outta there!’ Burgess’s words came out as a strangled cry.

  Startled at the emotion in the outburst, Sam guessed there was a personal element to Burgess’s plea.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Carole – my wife – she’s in there somewhere,’ Burgess confided. ‘Kids too.’

  ‘Christ!’

  Sam stared at the screens, the cameras panning wide now to reveal the size of the crowd. At its edges, over by the Smithsonian on the far side and up towards the steps of the Capitol, faint hearts were breaking away, some walking – mothers and fathers urging kids to hurry – others breaking into a run that was only just this side of panic. Maybe the rally leaders were right, thought Sam. Tell that lot to hurry on home and there’d be mayhem, with kids being trampled underfoot.

  The cameras began to pick out faces. A crying child. A stressed and anxious father, a young, fair-haired mother biting her lip and glancing fearfully at the sky. Quick camera cuts, a new face every two seconds. Just time to register one expression before moving to the next. Two teenagers laughing, because – well, why not? Older faces, eyes closed in prayer.

  And a man in dark glasses and a Kangol cap holding a radio to his ear.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Sam jabbed a finger at the screen.

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘Are you taping this?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Good. Because if I’m not mistaken I’ve just seen Colonel Naif Hamdan!’

  43

  Lower Layton

  THE LAUNCH RAILS were extended, the barn doors flung wide and Sadoun’s anxiety had reached a point close to panic. Operating in the heart of enemy territory had never played a part in his previous military experience.

  The generator worried him most. Easily heard. Every moment that passed increased the risk of some local, coming round the corner for a look-see. If it happened he would be ready, but far from willing. Hamdan had left him a long sharp knife.

  Sadoun knew nothing about the President’s broadcast. Nothing of the police net that was closing in on him. Even if he’d had a radio or TV in the barn with him he would not have understood, because he spoke no English.

  He checked the dials on the control panel again to ensure no faults had developed in the VR-6. The firing of the drone itself was automatic. All he had to do was trigger a two-minute countdown then ma
ke good his escape in the small Chevrolet parked behind the barn, out of sight.

  The weather here was cool and overcast. If it was the same in Washington seventy kilometres away there’d be no need for them to wait for dusk for the attack. In the cool air the anthrax pathogens would settle in an even blanket, untroubled by upward air currents. Fire the drone and be done with it, escape while they still could – that’s what he wanted. He was strongly tempted to call Hamdan on the cell-phone and tell him so. His hands were hovering over the buttons when the device startled him by ringing.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We must do it now!’ Hamdan’s voice in a coarse whisper. ‘They know about us.’

  ‘Damnation!’

  Hamdan sounded agitated, out of breath as if from running. ‘Start the countdown now. I am nearly in place.’

  ‘I’m doing it,’ Sadoun snapped back, flicking the switches for the start sequence.

  ‘Firing in two minutes. God be with us.’

  Washington DC

  Dean Burgess was the fitter of the two. Sprinting down 9th Street he pulled slightly ahead of Sam. But as they passed the Natural History Museum they were forced to slow by the tide of bodies moving out from the Mall towards the Federal Triangle and Archives/Navy Memorial subway stations.

  No panic among these people, just a determination to get the hell out of there.

  Sam and Burgess crossed tree-lined Madison Drive. Once on the grass they slowed to a walk. The Washington Monument was half a mile to their right. A mass of bodies between here and there, most listening attentively to the evangelising from the platform, relayed on rock concert speakers.

  Burgess pushed through the throng almost forgetting Sam was with him. There was one face he was looking for and one face only: the pert, boyish looks that belonged to his wife. Carole was tall for a woman. Should make it easier to see her. But how the heck would he find anybody in this crush?

  ‘Dean,’ Sam panted. ‘Stop a minute.’

  Burgess swung round, a wild look in his eyes. He wore an earpiece connected to a communications set in the inside pocket of his light-grey jacket. Half his mind was listening to the feedback from the agents and police dispatched into this crowd to organise its dispersal.

  ‘Hamdan’s here because the Hawk needs terminal guidance, right?’ snapped Sam. ‘A radio signal to release the anthrax.’

  ‘We guess, yes.’

  ‘But unless he’s suicidal, standing right here among the people he’s trying to kill won’t be his plan.’

  ‘But the TV camera caught him with the Smithsonian behind him,’ Burgess pointed out. They’d replayed the tape before leaving the SIOC.

  ‘I know. But he won’t be there when the missile comes over. He’ll be well upwind of this place. Standing high up where he can see the thing coming.’

  They turned as one towards the Capitol.

  ‘Well,’ Burgess shrugged, ‘I guess that’s the only hill in town.’

  ‘C’mon!’

  Lower Layton

  Mrs Betsy Jones sat in the back of the patrol car pointing past the driver’s ear as he motored as fast as he dared down the lane that ran through the spread-out hamlet.

  ‘Two more bends, then we’re at Matt’s old barn,’ she croaked, scared but excited by the drama. Above all she was relieved beyond measure that the arrival of the police had not meant bad news about her children.

  Suddenly the driver hit the brake and swerved onto the verge. A small blue Chevvy had careered round the corner towards them.

  ‘Hey up . . . who’s that ma’am?’ the woman officer asked, her eyes tracking the darkhaired driver as the economy car zipped past them.

  ‘I’ve no idea. Certainly not anyone local.’

  ‘Okay . . .’ The officer grabbed the microphone and called in the car’s description. ‘There’s a patrol back on the highway should pick that one up,’ she explained when she’d finished.

  The police driver swung back onto the carriageway and rounded the second bend.

  ‘This it?’ he asked, pointing at the barn.

  ‘It sure is. Guess they must have put the trailer inside. There’s plenty room for it. It’s a big barn. Well, you can see . . .’

  The patrol car stopped on the stony track that led up to it. Both officers got out, unbuttoning their pistol holsters and drawing their weapons.

  ‘Stay in the car ma’am,’ the woman officer ordered as Betsy made to follow.

  ‘Hear something?’ the driver asked.

  ‘Sure do,’ the woman replied. ‘Pump or generator.’

  Suddenly there was a roar like an earthquake. White smoke exploded from the barn door, then a long, grey dart burst into the air, streaking up into the sky, streaming fire.

  ‘My God!’ the woman officer screamed, pointlessly levelling her pistol at it.

  The SIOC,

  FBI Headquarters

  Ive Stobal hunched over the central command console, his hand on the microphone that would link him live to the police, fire and public health departments.

  The alert from the patrol in Lower Layton had come in just seconds ahead of a Pentagon report that the missile launch had been detected by a Navy E-2C Hawkeye and a pair of F-16 interceptors were being vectored onto its flight path. The Hawk was heading towards Washington.

  ‘It’s DC, folks.’ Stobal’s deep voice was deceptively calm as he spoke into the microphone. ‘I guess the missile’s heading for the Mall. For God’s sake get those people outta there! And get all public buildings in downtown Washington to turn off their ventilation fans. And the subway – no more trains to enter the central area.’

  Jess Bissett put down the phone from the Maryland state police. They’d just arrested a very frightened Arab in a small blue car. She turned to see how Burgess was getting on and noticed for the first time that his chair was empty.

  She guessed where he’d gone. She knew more about his problems with Carole than he realised.

  ‘Dean, you asshole! What’re you doing?’ she mouthed.

  Sam’s lungs burned as they pounded towards the Capitol. No way of knowing whether the Hill was where they needed to be, but where else could they go? Burgess was ahead again, one hand pressing the communications insert more firmly into his ear.

  They’d reached the reflecting pool. Three hundred more lung-bursting yards to the Capitol steps. They were well beyond the crowds attending the Pledge rally now. The steps looked empty as far as he could see. Burgess had radioed ahead for the Police Department to send officers out from the Capitol to check for a tall man carrying a radio.

  At the foot of the steps, Burgess stopped and pressed the flat of his hand against his ear as a new message came in.

  ‘F-16 pilot has the Hawk on radar but can’t get missile lock,’ he told Sam between gasps for breath. ‘The drone’s too small. Too close to the ground.’

  Sam’s shins thrummed with pain from the running. Both of them were out of breath.

  ‘Jeez!’ Burgess gasped. ‘The pilot says the drone’s just two minutes away.’

  ‘Christ! Come on then!’ Sam thundered on up the steps. When they reached the top an overweight black police officer waddled over, waving them back.

  Burgess whipped out his FBI badge. ‘Seen a big guy with a radio?’ he panted desperately.

  ‘None that matches the description that come over from headquarters,’ the police officer drawled. ‘We done cleared the place anyways.’

  Sam spun round. The two stone staircases leading down from the Capitol were indeed empty, as was the Capitol terrace itself. His heart sank. Hamdan was going to win.

  Burgess looked down at the Mall stretching away to the west; tens of thousands of people still gathered by the Washington Monument a mile away. He felt paralysed. Among that crowd was his own family. Carole was as stubborn as hell. No way was a terrorist going to stand between her and a pray-in that might yet get her husband back on track.

  Suddenly Sam felt a cool breeze on his face, whistling up from the south
, like a softly whispered message.

  ‘This way,’ he snapped, desperately pointing along the terrace. ‘Hamdan’s going to be upwind if he’s here at all.’

  They began running again, Sam in front now. A police barrier blocked the terrace, but they vaulted it.

  ‘Missile’s one mile east of the Capitol,’ Burgess shouted, monitoring his radio.

  As they reached the end of the terrace they both looked up at the sky to their left. One mile was ten seconds, Sam calculated.

  ‘Shit!’

  No sign of Hamdan here. He’d guessed wrong. The chance to avert a disaster was slipping from their hands. He stared across at the tall buildings on the south side of the Mall.

  ‘Can people get up on top of those?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m new in town.’

  Too late anyway. Far too late. He put a hand on the stone balustrade to support himself, eyes scanning the sky for the small dot that would mean death for thousands.

  Suddenly his eye was caught by a movement on the grass below them. A man was lying there. Grubby jeans; long, unkempt hair. Looked like a tramp, except that the big brown eyes were so steady, so concentrated in their scrutiny of the sky. And he was holding a radio. A radio with no sound coming from it . . .

  ‘Dean!’ Sam croaked, pointing. ‘Down there!’

  Burgess pulled out his pistol.

  ‘It’s him?’ he hissed. ‘You’re sure?’

  Sam froze. How could he be?

  Suddenly the man sat up straight, the radio held out in front of him. A small grey dart appeared to their left and crossed above the trees. The man’s chin jutted forward in an involuntary spasm of last-minute nerves.

  ‘Hamdan!’ Sam bellowed. The man flinched and half turned.

  Burgess fired. Then fired again. In their regular range training sessions agents were taught to kill. The bullets exploded the man’s head, blowing off the wig of rats’ tails that had covered his grey hair.

  ‘Jesus!’ Sam gasped.