Overture to Disaster (Post Cold War Political Thriller Trilogy Book 3)

by Chester D. Campbell

  As Burke listened, he heard a dispatcher alerting officers in the vicinity of the Washington Monument to a baffling emergency. The "exhaust gas," as she called it, from a vehicle had created panic in the huge crowd. One motorcycle officer had been seriously injured, another killed by gunfire. A blue minivan was being sought.

  Inside Base Operations at Andrews, the Security Police staff sergeant stopped and turned to one of the clerks at the operations counter. "You got a room we can hold this prisoner in till the medics get here?"

  Rodman had come willingly, offering no hint of resistance, and as he stood there he could feel the hands relax their grip on his arms. Once they got him in a room, he knew, it was all over. The only chance he might have would be to make a move here. As he spotted someone starting to open the nearby door leading to a parking area in front, he knew it was now or never.

  He jerked both arms downward, freeing them from his captors' grasp. He followed this with an outward thrust of both arms, shoving the two men with all the force he could muster. And then he bolted for the door that had just swung open wide.

  The SP's, caught completely off guard, wound up off balance from the shove. "Stop him!" the sergeant yelled, seeing Roddy headed for the door.

  The person coming in was a teenage boy looking for his father, a navigator on a flight that had not yet arrived. He stared, eyes bulging as if ready to pop out of their sockets, while Roddy raced by. Then he looked out and called back, "He's running over to that line of parked cars."

  Roddy dashed into the row of vehicles, finding himself between a van and a pickup truck. The back of the pickup was loaded with several bales of straw and a large bag of grass seed. A sheet of black vinyl partially covered the bales. Roddy hurdled over the side, jerked the vinyl off and burrowed beneath it. He lay motionless.

  Moments later, he heard shouting nearby.

  "I don't see anything underneath," one voice said.

  "Use your light and look inside every damned vehicle." It was the sergeant.

  Then Roddy felt the truck bed shake as someone jumped onto the back bumper. They poked around on the vinyl and tugged at it, but Roddy had grasped one edge so that it wouldn't budge.

  "Hey, Sarge," the first voice said. "A bus just pulled up down the street. Reckon he could have—"

  "Get on the horn and have somebody intercept it. Tell them who we're looking for."

  Roddy felt another shake as the man jumped down to the ground. Then the voices began to fade away. Apparently they were moving their search to another area.

  Roddy waited a minute or so until he thought he would suffocate. Then he eased the black plastic sheet aside and rose slowly to look around. The area was quiet. He saw no one. He climbed out of the truck bed and moved to where he could see the front of the building. Then he noticed a large truck parked at the corner of the building beside a high wire fence. The flight line lay beyond. Keeping his body low, he made his way down to the truck and carefully climbed onto the hood, then on top of the cab. Throwing caution aside, he jumped across the fence. His knee buckled as he came down on the hard pavement, but he rolled onto one side to break the fall. When he got up and brushed himself off, he found he had suffered no more than a few scrapes on his arm. Fortunately, he had rolled onto the side opposite the shoulder that suffered the bullet wound.

  Looking around, he could see no one along this area of the flight line. With the holiday, operations were virtually at a standstill. If there were any guards, they had evidently joined the group out front searching for him. The Pave Low still sat there with its navigation lights flashing. He could see a light on in the cockpit and figured Dutch was probably still there talking with Sergeant Nickens.

  He walked quickly toward the chopper. Entering through the open cargo door, he made his way forward to the cockpit. When Dutch Schuler turned around and saw him, his mouth fell open with a look of shock.

  "Colonel, how the hell—"

  "Damnit, Dutch, listen to me before you say or do anything else. I don't care what Wing Patton said, I am not crazy. I did not kill Elena Castillo Quintero. Matter of fact, she was a damned close friend. The guy who killed her is the one who's responsible for what's about to happen at the Capitol. I've been working closely with two people on this. He's already killed one of them tonight." He pulled the radio from his pocket and switched it on. "Let me see if I can raise the other one. Burke, this is Roddy. Do you read me?"

  Burke Hill's voice blared from the small set. "I just tried to call you. From what I heard on the police scanner, Romashchuk's guys have released that neurotoxin around the Washington Monument. All hell's broken loose over there. How soon will you be here?"

  "I've run into a problem. My old co-pilot, Major Schuler, has been brainwashed by General Patton. He thinks I'm crazy. He's sitting here right now."

  "Can you hear me, Major?" Burke asked.

  Dutch directed a critical frown at Roddy. "Who is this guy?"

  "Burke Hill. He's a former FBI agent, the guy who saved the American and Soviet presidents from that assassination plot in Toronto a few years ago. Remember?"

  Major Schuler nodded and held out his hand for the radio. "This is Major Schuler, Mr. Hill. If somebody's plotting to fire mortars at the Capitol, why isn't the FBI or the police doing something about it?"

  "That's a long story, Major. I'll be glad to tell you on the way. But if we don't get there in the next twelve to fifteen minutes, it will be too late. My family is in that audience as well as Roddy's, and untold thousands of others. I hope I don't have to blame you for letting them die."

  Dutch clenched his teeth with a grimace that reflected the perilous state in which he had suddenly found himself. It was almost more of a burden than he could handle. His career had just been successfully rehabilitated. He was in line for an assignment that would be the envy of any young field grade officer. But if he assisted Colonel Rodman in getting away from Andrews after the instructions General Patton had given him, he would probably face a court-martial as unforgiving as the one that had convicted Roddy. That was one horn of the dilemma.

  He had seen his old commander acting under extreme stress many times in the past. The man he saw now appeared to be just as much in command of his faculties as the Warren Rodman of old. Also he could not ignore the implications of Burke Hill's rebuke. Could he chance being held responsible for failure to save countless thousands of innocent people? He didn't understand the police report of neurotoxins released at the Washington Monument, but it would certainly tie in with the Colonel's concern about a mortar attack involving nerve agent shells.

  All of these conflicting thoughts and observations, the highly troubling pros and cons, seemed to overload his capacity to sort them out quickly on a cold, rational basis. As a result, he went with his emotions, with the admonition of that plaintive voice deep within that said forget about trying to cover your own ass, do what seems the right thing to do.

  The engines were still warm. They had used only a minimum amount of fuel on the previous flight. He tossed the radio back to Roddy and turned to the flight engineer.

  "Sergeant, let's fire up this sucker and get it in the air."

  A grinning Roddy pressed the transmit button on the transceiver. "We're on the way, Burke. Get that flashlight ready."

  "Hope you don't mind taking the copilot's seat, Colonel," Dutch Schuler said as the twin turbine engines began to whine.

  "It's been awhile, but I think I can handle it," Roddy said as he eased into the seat.

  75

  "America's soldiers have always fired their guns in the pursuit of peace," said the voice on the radio.

  Burke listened with growing apprehension as the dramatic tones of E. G. Marshall came through the speaker in Walt Brackin's Blazer. Time was an implacable enemy. Could they possibly find the terrorists in what little time they had left?

  "With our nation thankfully at peace on this day that commemorates its founding, we hear the sound of cannon fire only as part of a musical tr
ibute, a recognition of the sacrifices, for many the ultimate sacrifice, made by the men and women of our armed forces over a span of more than two hundred years. The United States Air Force Band, the U. S. Army Chorus and the Salute Gun Platoon of the Third U.S. Infantry join the National Symphony Orchestra in Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky's thrilling 1812 Overture."

  The music began almost too softly to hear, but there was no mistaking the sound that reached Burke's ears from outside. It was the sound of a helicopter. He jumped out of the vehicle and ran into a cleared area, where he began to wave the flashlight in a circular pattern as the thunderous noise came closer.

  When the chopper appeared suddenly over the trees, its forward progress stopped and it began to drop straight down like a massive, free-wheeling elevator. Before it had even touched down, he saw someone in a flight suit beckoning from the open door. Running at a crouch, he moved beneath the huge, whirling rotor blades. A hand reached out to grab his arm and pull him into the aircraft. It was his left arm, and Burke winced as the tugging strained the stitches in his shoulder. He stared about wide-eyed as he was hurriedly pushed toward the front. He had never been in such a huge helicopter.

  Roddy waved back at him as Sergeant Nickens strapped him down for takeoff. The engines roared into full power and the chopper lifted off the ground, nosed forward and began to climb into the glowing night sky. Burke quickly checked his watch. It was 8:42. He looked around as the Sergeant handed him a helmet that was plugged into the intercom system. As he pulled it over his head, he heard Roddy's voice through the built-in earphones.

  "We're about eight blocks out from the Capitol, Dutch. Let's fly a circular pattern around it. If we don't see anything on the first orbit, we'll shorten the radius. Keep a sharp eye out for a yellow dump truck with an air compressor hitched to the back end."

  "Roddy, this is Burke. The 1812 Overture was just starting when I left the car. That was about three minutes ago. I don't know the exact timing, but I'd say we only have another seven to ten minutes."

  "Roger on that. Any ideas on what to do if we find the truck?"

  "Not if, when. We have to find that damned truck. Do you still have the Beretta?"

  "Negative. The Security Police took it from me at Andrews."

  "We've got a couple of M16s on board," Dutch said. "Don't know if we have any ammo, though."

  "Yes, sir," Sergeant Nickens replied. "I have a couple of thirty-round magazines stowed away. Never thought we'd need them except for demonstration purposes. We're pretty well equipped. There's even a grenade launcher and tear gas aboard."

  "We've been studying the possibilities for using Pave Lows to support law enforcement," Dutch said. "In areas like riot suppression and drug interdiction. With all the budget cutbacks, the Air Force is looking for new roles in the post-Cold War era."

  "Better get the M16s ready," Burke advised. "We may need some heavy firepower. There should be three Peruvians, plus Major Romashchuk. Have you told your Air Force friends what's going on, Roddy?"

  "I gave them a quick fill-in. They know who we're looking for and what's about to happen. What will happen unless we put a stop to it."

  "Jerry," said Schuler, "how about putting Mr. Hill in the port minigun position. We don't have the guns hooked up, but he can help us look for that truck. Then get those M16s ready."

  When he was plugged in at the door beside the minigun mount, Burke could see the Capitol out in front of him, bathed in floodlights, standing on its hilly perch. They were flying at minimum airspeed, just above the tops of the buildings, easing ahead slowly. He could see everything clearly on the streets below. They were coming around the east side of the Capitol, past the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court Building. The traffic appeared to be moving fairly well in this area. There was no sign of a yellow dump truck, but the flashing lights of several police cars and motorcycles could be seen heading west on Constitution Avenue.

  When they were near Union Station, with a clear view to the southwest, Dutch Schuler came on the intercom, his voice filled with awe. "Holy shit! Look at all the blue lights flashing over toward the Monument. Half the cops in town must be over there."

  "That's where the neurotoxin was released," Roddy said. "But they have no idea what's about to happen over this way."

  Now that he was facing the west lawn of the Capitol, Burke could see the stage and the towers of lights bathing the orchestra from amidst the huge, spread-out audience. It looked like a blimp's-eye view of a football crowd, only there was no gridiron and the crowd was four times larger than had ever seen a football game. He saw the big guns lined up along the street beside the reflecting pool, awaiting the signal to add their deep-throated accents to Tchaikovsky's musical score. His watch showed 8:46. The orchestra was almost seven minutes into the Overture.

  Cruising in a gentle turn, the chopper tracked west of the Municipal Building, heading over the monstrous structure that housed the National Gallery of Art. Below, Constitution Avenue was filled with traffic, including two ambulances that were dodging their way westward toward the Monument. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people crowded the Mall. Dutch dropped lower. The buildings here were not as tall. Lights about the striking structures and along the streets between them made it easy to distinguish the types of vehicles that swarmed the central area of the capital on this disarmingly warm and pleasant July evening. They saw no dump truck.

  A few hundred yards to the east, seated on the large stage covered by a red and blue canopy emblazoned with white stars, nearly two hundred musicians followed the conductor's baton as the notes they played filled the night air. Strings and woodwinds alternated in a lilting, melodic segment, then the horns joined in as the music began to build with increasing intensity.

  On the street beside the reflecting pool, a burly master sergeant walked briskly along the row of three-inch guns mounted on 105mm howitzer chassis. "Heads up, everybody!" he called out. "Prepare to fire."

  The two-man ceremonial gun crews of the Third "Old Guard" Infantry Regiment from Fort Myer stood at the rear of the rubber-tired weapons, ready to fire the blank rounds that would produce thunderous blasts as background to the climactic ending of Tchaikovsky's famous work. At approximately eleven minutes and fifteen seconds into the piece, the five guns would each fire a round at one-second intervals. Two and a quarter minutes later, as the strings and horns and woodwinds were augmented by drums and chimes that produced the sound of cathedral bells, the stirring crescendo would conclude with the guns alternating in a volley of eleven more booming blasts.

  In his room at the Presidential Plaza, Adam Stern listened to the frantic calls coming over the police scanner that sat on the table beside him. Barely audible in the background were the muted sounds of the 1812 Overture. The picture on the television showed the conductor's arms beginning to move with increasing vigor as the music built toward the climax. It was a brilliant plan, he realized. The shocking finale would take place right before the eyes of a nationwide TV audience.

  What he was able to glean from the police radio was that a massive state of confusion existed. Ambulances were being summoned from throughout the city. One policeman had been killed, another injured. Several cars had wrecked in the area, with numerous injuries. And people by the hundreds were absolutely freaking out for no logical reason. There was speculation that the white smoke from the blue minivan, which was being sought in a massive hunt centered in the District's southwestern quadrant, may have had something to do with it. But the first victims were just now arriving at hospitals, and no one knew anything for sure.

  "Attention all units," a dispatcher's urgent voice suddenly crackled over the scanner. "Cancel the search for two subjects in a blue minivan. The vehicle has blown up on Maine Avenue near M Street. Repeating, cancel—"

  Stern smiled as he turned down the volume. Romashchuk's plan appeared to be unfolding on schedule. But there was always a chance for a slip-up. He would shift his full attention to the TV after one final check. He picked up the
telephone from the bedside table and dialed the number for Haskell Feldhaus' cellular phone.

  As the Pave Low circled just beyond the National Air and Space Museum, heading over the NASA Building, Colonel Rodman shouted over the intercom, "Look, down at nine o'clock, toward the end of the block. It's sitting right in that line of parked cars."

  Nine o'clock meant straight out from where he stood at the minigun position, Burke realized. His eyes quickly swept the line of cars. Then he saw it. A dump truck with an air compressor behind it. A space of about a car length had been left vacant in front and back of the vehicle. Major Schuler was dropping lower as he tightened his turn to head for the intersection of Maryland Avenue and Sixth Street.

  "The tarp is off," Roddy said. "They're climbing into the back of the truck."

  Burke gave a quick glance at his watch. Coming up on eight-fifty. "They're getting ready to fire."

  "If the Major will put us to one side of the truck," Sergeant Nickens suggested, "we can hose down the back of it with these automatic rifles."

  Roddy's reply was quick and sharp. "Negative, Nickens. You could set off those chemical rounds. The surface winds would carry it right over to the Mall."

  "Did you say you had tear gas grenades and a launcher?" Burke asked.

  "Yes, sir. Got them right here."

  "Think you could put a grenade in the hopper of that truck?"

  "Sure thing, sir," he said. "Our whole crew has been trained in firing the M16 and the grenade launcher."

  "Sounds like our best bet," Roddy added. "Put him in position, Dutch."

  Schuler brought the chopper around in a tight turn so that the right side of the aircraft, where Sergeant Nickens stood at the minigun mount, would face the yellow truck on the street below. He closed in so the distance would be no more than 500 feet, well within the grenade launcher's effective range.