Headhunters

by Charlie Cole

  “Nan, come in…” he said, his voice hardly a whisper.

  “I’m here, big boy,” Nan shot back. “Howzit?”

  “I need a 20 on the data center,” Ron said.

  “A twenty…?” Nan repeated. “Oh… one sec… tenth floor, room 10E.”

  “Roger…” Ron breathed and released the transmit button.

  Ron edged the door open two inches, then held it there with his foot. He aimed the CS out the door and flipped open the small LCD display screen. The image it broadcast was transmitted from a camera under the muzzle of the gun. Ron could see out the door easily. He then took the fore-end of the CS rifle and turned it ninety degrees to the left. It looked unworldly… like some prop from a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. In truth, it would let us scope out the areas ahead of us without drawing gunfire. Ron opened the door a bit further and angled the CS muzzle out.

  He turned it slowly and I saw from his monitor that there was no one in the hall to the left. The display gave me an odd detached feeling of somehow working remotely, but I knew that imminent danger awaited us. There was no room for error. Ron repeated the operation to the right and the hall appeared to be clear.

  Ron stood and we lined up behind him. I’d learned from these two men in the short time that I’d been with them that when they “stacked on a door” like this as they called it, the last man in line would squeeze the shoulder of the man in front of him to let him know he was ready. This process continued man to man to the front of the line until the leader felt his shoulder squeezed and then knew every man behind him was ready. It made sense to me and we did that now. Geoff squeezed my shoulder, I squeezed Ron’s and a moment later, we crept into the hallway with guns up.

  It didn’t take us long to find the room. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the door was locked. Ron and Geoff exchanged positions and Geoff set to work on picking the lock in the office. I knew how to pick a lock. Had in fact, needed to do so once on an apartment in New Jersey years before, but Geoff was certainly more practiced than I. His fingers coaxed the lock into doing his bidding and I could hear the muffled clicking of the tumblers being pushed into place. At last he turned the knob and the door swung open.

  Geoff entered first, sweeping left. I entered next, going right. Ron followed. The room was empty, save for computer equipment and files.

  “Nan, I need an ETA on the hack,” Ron said into his radio.

  “We’re just… finishing… right… now!” Nan reported.

  “Nan, Billy, I need to know that you have secured that download as well as tags for the IP address you took it from,” I said.

  “We’ve got everything we need,” Billy cut in. “The electronic copy is enough evidence to try Kendrick and his people for treason. In addition to that, we have the digital audiotape of the Max Donovan shooting. We’ve got him for murder, too, Simon.”

  The news should have made me happy, but in the end, I felt like I’d sealed Randall’s fate. I was driving the last nail into his coffin and prepared to start shoveling dirt. Once I began, there was no turning back.

  “Good,” I said at last. “Let’s take down the office and get the hell out of Dodge. Jess? You holding up alright?”

  “Doing fine,” Jess said. There was stress in her voice though.

  “Our tail is still there,” Billy supplied. "He’s closing the distance. Still a few cars back, but not as concerned about being noticed.”

  That wasn’t good news.

  “We’re on our way,” I said and signed off.

  The three of us checked the servers and then began ripping out the hard drives. It wasn’t going to be easy work, but the possibility of leaving these kinds of files in the open, even after what we were planning, could be disastrous.

  We heard voices in the hallway and Ron killed the lights. I ducked behind a desk and for one dismal moment, wondered if it could stop a bullet, finally deciding that the answer was probably negative.

  “We’ve got three… no four tangos…” Ron whispered.

  Four against three wasn’t terrible odds, especially if we had the element of surprise. I just hoped it was enough.

  The moment crept on and we waited in silence. I heard their footfalls growing closer outside the door, then saw the silhouettes of their legs through the vent at the bottom of the door. If they planned to enter, their time would be now. I readied myself, and prepared to do what was needed. I thought of the man in the bathroom in Los Angeles and tried to force the thought out of my mind. If I could pick a target, squeeze the trigger, stay calm… I could get through this. I waited for the door to open, but it didn’t happen.

  The voices passed and the men moved on. We were alone again.

  “Let’s get these charges set and beat feet,” Ron said at last.

  Ron and Geoff produced bricks of C4 explosive as well as blasting caps and a hand-held remote detonator. The two men began setting the charges while I took my turn watching the door.

  “Where did you get the party favors?” Geoff asked. His British accent gave the question a comical sound to it.

  “Oh… you know… friend of a friend,” I replied noncommittally.

  “More like an enemy of a friend,” Ron offered.

  We all had a nervous chuckle at that. The idea of using terrorist means and methods to combat the very same threat was something that was never lost on me. If someone had told me two weeks before that I’d be blowing up an office building on US soil, I’d have said they were crazy. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

  “Okay, charges are set,” Geoff confirmed.

  Ron stepped to the door. At the same moment that he cracked the door open, I heard the footsteps returning. And fast. It was the first group of agents. They must have heard something, known something… somehow figured out our position.

  Ron was too far committed now to close the door and hope they’d pass by. He cranked his CS rifle to the left, flipped open the monitor and stuck the weapon out the door. Ron fired in doubletaps, the same way that Isabelle had. The sounds banged against the walls in the closed room and nearly drove me deaf.

  A bullet hit the door frame where Ron had been a moment earlier, but it was coming from the opposite end of the hallway.

  “Cross fire! Cross fire!” Ron yelled. Geoff ran forward and pushed his weapon to the right and fired down the hallway in the opposite direction. The two men were holding agents at bay, but there was no way it could last forever. I crouched impotently behind the desk I’d already decided wouldn’t stop a bullet. My brain felt frozen in indecision. I struggled for a plan but none came. The closer I got to a thought, the next burst of gunfire seemed to push it away.

  Ron turned and looked at me, his face illuminated in staccato bursts of light from the muzzle flashes. He was yelling at me, but I couldn’t hear him. I realized that I couldn’t move. He shouted again and I had to force myself by sheer will to get up, make may legs work, to listen to his voice.

  “Simon! We need a way out!” Ron screamed. “We’re boxed in! We’re cut off! There’s no way out!”

  I blurted out a curse and began looking around the room, my brain running through scenarios and possibilities. At last I saw the access panel in the ceiling leading into the ductwork. My fingers fumbled at the four latches holding the panel closed, I couldn’t get them open. I whirled around feeling like a fool, performing carnival tricks in the middle of a gunfight.

  On a shelf beside a server I found a shelf bracket. I took it, climbed back on top of the desk and twisted the latches. The panel dropped down and I could see the cavity of an opening that was big enough for us to escape through. At last, a plan began to form. If we could escape through the access area, we could get away from the room and blow the explosives from another part of the building.

  “Ron!” I screamed. He reloaded and fired four quick shots, then looked back at me. “We’ve got a way!”

  Ron gave me a thumbs up and then slapped Geoff on the shoulder. Geoff looked and Ron pointed for the access panel abov
e me. Geoff didn’t hesitate, but not out of fear, but simply because there was no time.

  Geoff ran toward me and for a moment I feared he might tackle me. Instead he leapt up onto the desk, threw his gear up into the access duct and then boosted himself up, disappearing inside. A half second later, he was facing me again, hand out. There was no time to think. I grasped his hand and jumped. I struggled getting up into the opening. Geoff was trained for this. Not me. I barely managed to heave myself into the duct when I looked back down at Ron and realized that he still had the detonator.

  Ron straightened his Cornershot into a standard rifle configuration then fired the weapon one handed down the left corridor. In his opposite hand he held his backup pistol and fired it down the right corridor. In what seemed to be slow motion, both weapons locked back, empty. Ron dropped them both, his ammunition gone. He turned and ran for the access panel. I reached down, stretching out my hand to grasp his.

  I heard the last gunshot and actually felt pain in my own chest when I saw the bullet rip through Ron’s shoulder. He was falling then, but at the same time, forcing something into my hand. To my dismay, I realized it was the detonator. Ron was dropping away, his face a mask of pain. Another bullet hit him under the arm as his body twisted and this time I saw his body go slack, his face become expressionless. If I had the time, I would have wept over the body of Ron Crawford. He was my friend and died in that building trying to help me.

  I had the sense of Blackthorn agents filling the room and at the same time, Geoff Spanner pushing me.

  “Go, go, go, God damn it, ya bloody fucking Yank…” he screamed.

  And I went, but I fell into a numbness as I did. Ron had died for me. Not for some grand ideology, but because I’d asked him to come. He was my friend and my downfall was that he trusted me. What had I done?

  I crawled as fast as I could and the minutes that followed were a dark blur of ductwork and spiderwebs and screaming. And over it all was the lasting image of Ron Crawford dying because he’d done what I’d asked him to do.

  At last we came to an open utility room and I found a duct that was loose enough. I pounded it with my feet and at last it gave way and fell to the floor with a clatter. I expected hundreds of agents to swarm on us then and if they had, I would have welcomed them and embraced my fate. Perhaps it was what I deserved.

  Geoff and I made our way to the back of the building. We found a conference room that looked serviceable and entered. Geoff tugged rappelling lines out of his pack and worked at securing them to the conference room table. I watched the door.

  Some part of me wanted to be caught just then. To see agents stream through the door and just begin shooting until I couldn’t anymore.

  “We’re ready,” Geoff said simply. He’d secured two rappelling lines to the massive conference room table. We could descend from there.

  I lifted a conference room chair and threw it at the window with all my might. The glass spiderwebbed, but the chair fell to the ground. I picked it up and threw it again and this time the chair went through the glass and the pane broke into a thousand pieces.

  I hooked into the rappelling harness and Geoff and I stepped up on to the ledge. Geoff gave me a thumbs up and clicked his tongue before starting down. I wanted to return the gesture but he was already gone, bounding down the side of the building.

  I realized then that he wasn’t indicating a thumbs up. Not at all. He was indicating that I should push the button on the detonator. Of course. I lifted the detonator and thought of Ron, thought of my promise to make certain that everyone went home, thought of the agents surrounding his body at that very second.

  I pushed the button on the detonator and stepped off the window ledge and fell into open space.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I was running down the side of the building in an Australian rappel. I was facing the ground, holding the rope in my hand, trying to control the speed of my descent. I could see Geoff ahead of me, just below. I would have been scared, just frightened out of my mind, had it not been for the explosions.

  I had depressed the button on the detonator and for a full second, nothing happened. I’d already begun my descent and cursed myself. A more experienced agent would have waited, ensured that the charges went off. In retrospect, there’s not much I could have done. I couldn’t face down Kendrick’s agents alone in the hopes of detonating the charges manually.

  My heart was sinking when I finally heard the explosion. I expected something, but I didn’t know what. Would it be a minimal explosion and smoke? A Hollywood fireball that toppled the building? I didn’t know until it happened. The explosion ripped through the tenth floor and glass shattered in a cacophony of noise and light and shards of glass. My feet left the side of the building for a second and I feared I might fall, not like in the elevator shaft, but freefall ten stories and meet a sudden, terminal stop on the pavement below.

  I saw a black-suited agent fall past me then, screaming, arms flailing. His face held a look of sheer terror as he plummeted past me like a fish suddenly plucked out of water and thrown onto dry land. I saw him tumble through the air in a slow rotation, fall past Geoff below me and strike the ground in a sickening crumple of tangled bones. He’d been thrown out of the building by the force of the blast. I thought back to the World Trade Center attack and the people that had fallen to their deaths, either by the explosion inside the building or the fires that had made them want to jump.

  I considered that for a second. If the agent was a victim, like the people in the towers on 9/11… what did that make me? I fought back the thought, refusing to embrace it. I wasn’t like them. I wasn’t a terrorist. I was doing the right thing here. Of that I was sure.

  At last I arrived at ground level. Geoff was waiting for me. I tried not to look at the fallen agent’s body, but the crimson splash was hard to avoid. It was all I could do to continue on.

  Geoff fished out something from his pocket and handed it to me. I accepted it without thinking and discovered it to be car keys. He pointed then and I saw twin Cadillac CTS’s sitting nearby.

  “Hell of a way to go…” Geoff said. He was looking up at the building. I shared his thoughts. Ron Crawford was in there. His body, at least, and it tore us apart to think of our friend being inside. The building was burning and Ron’s body would be incredibly difficult to recover. I had no idea if such a feat were even possible.

  “Let’s make sure he didn’t die in vain,” I said.

  Geoff jumped into his car and the engines roared to life. We took a moment to attach headsets to our radios so that we could communicate.

  “Are we running hot?” I said, testing the throat mic. “Give me a headcount.”

  “We’re all here, Simon,” Jessica replied, her voice strained. I knew what a trial this all must be. I could feel it in her and I vowed then and there never to put her in the middle of something like this again.

  “Geoff here,” he reported.

  “Where’s Ron?” Billy asked finally after a long silence.

  “He didn’t make it,” I said. I tried with all my might to keep my voice even, but feared that it didn’t come across that way. I heard Nan curse and surely couldn’t blame her. I wanted to curse too. To hang my head or shake my fist at the heavens. But there was no time for that. We each do what we can, where we can. There is no other option.

  “Billy, give me a sit-rep,” I barked. I hit the accelerator and backed the car out, shifted and fell in line behind Geoff. I was a good driver. I’d been trained by escape and evasion experts with years in tradecraft. But Geoff put me to shame.

  “We’ve got the black sedan closing on us fast,” Billy said. A moment later, “Aww, shit… he just turned on his lights in his grill. Looks like an unmarked.”

  They were trying to pull over the van now. Word must have gotten back from Kendrick what had happened. If they traced the hack and they knew we were in the data center destroying the hard drives and files, they knew the data had to go somewhere. Kendrick
’s boys were going after the van.

  “Where are you?” I asked. “Jess, where are you right now?”

  “North side of the city, Simon,” she said. “We’ve been circling and taking random streets. I don’t know how they found us…”

  “That’s not important right now. You have to get back into the city,” I said. “Come back into the downtown area.”

  “I thought you said not to get in anywhere that I’d have to stop,” Jess asked, her voice pleading.

  “I know, I know,” I replied. “Trust me here. We have to stay as public as possible. If we try to run right now, those agents will crash your van and come after you. They won’t risk doing that in the city.”

  “I thought you said this was going to keep me safe,” Jessica laughed humorlessly. “I thought this was supposed to keep me out of danger.”

  “So did I,” I replied. I seemed to be making bad choices here wherever I turned. This felt right though. I had to trust my instincts. “Head into the city, right into the heart of the— “

  “Oh my God!” Jessica screamed, cutting me off.

  I could hear the screech of tires over my radio. My face flushed with fear and frustration. I was helpless to do anything, wanting desperately to crawl through the radio, to be there. To help her through.

  “What’s happening?” I shouted.

  “They’re trying to cut me off!” Jess cried. “Oh shit, there’s a car in the road… there’s another car blocking the road.”

  This was it, I thought. They were trying to stop the van where it was, to take them down before they could back into the city. I had to find some way to stop it.

  “Jess, you can’t stop!” I said. “You have to go, just go, just hit the gas.”

  “But they’re blocking…” Jess began.

  “Trust me… do it,” I said. There was a coldness, a cruelty that had crept up into my voice and I didn’t like it one bit. I could hear Nan yelling profanities and then Billy’s direct voice as well, urging Jessica on, but my focus stayed on her.