Nightwatch

by Richard P. Henrick

  “One of my deputies just reported seeing three bikers in full colors turn into the driveway leading to the farmhouse, with a large Ryder rental truck following close behind.”

  Though he would have liked to call in an ATP Special Response Team, Thomas knew they didn’t have the time. The Ryder truck most likely meant that Whitten was about to be on the move, and could indicate that the next IED was going to be substantially larger.

  “Make certain that your men don’t move in until we get there,” warned Thomas while they sprinted over to the nearby parking lot.

  “As planned, we’ll meet at the turnoff to the power plant to consolidate our forces.”

  Thomas accepted a thumbsup from the Sheriff and climbed behind the wheel of his own car, a well-broken-in aTF Chrysler.

  With the Sheriff’s vehicle leading the way, siren wailing, Thomas stepped on the accelerator to follow him. They had a fifteen minute drive ahead of them, most of which was on well-paved, two-lane highways.

  Once Union was behind them, the road began traversing a series of rolling hills. For the most part, this was farming country.

  Corn and soybeans were the major crops; an occasional pasture was filled with grazing cattle, pigs, or horses.

  Traffic was light, and the Sheriff was able to turn off his siren and travel at a good eighty miles per hour, using only flashing warning lights. Thomas easily kept up with him.

  When they turned onto State Highway T, they passed a group of cyclists. It was obvious that the bike riders were making the most of this glorious summer morning, and Thomas couldn’t help but envy them. An avid rider himself, he remembered well his last bike trip. It had taken place during the Memorial Day weekend, on his last full day off from work.

  Brittany had joined him then for an invigorating, early-morning sprint on the bike path from Alexandria to Mount Vernon.

  Their continued relationship turned serious last fall, shortly after he returned home from England because of his near brush with death aboard the QE2. Brittany felt responsible for forcing him to volunteer for the mission, and upon his safe return, there was an even tighter bond between them. From that moment on, weekends were spent exclusively together.

  Lately they had been making plans to move in together, and Thomas was genuinely disappointed when she revealed that she wouldn’t be able to join them at the lake for the Fourth. Brittany couldn’t tell Thomas the reason that she couldn’t come to Branson.

  She was beginning her last year representing the U.S. Navy as the Military Aide to the President. This was a job of vast responsibility. With an office in the East Wing of the White House, Brittany was one of five officers whose duties included maintaining the President’s emergency satchel — the infamous “football.”

  She also provided a liaison between the White House staff and the Navy, and acted as the Commanderin-Chief’s aide-decamp.

  As Thomas and the Sheriff continued speeding down Highway 1 and passed by the village limits of Labadie, the approach of an elementary school on the left side of the road caused the Sheriff to dramatically slow down. He also switched off his warning lights, and after passing through a single-lane, one-way tunnel, he activated his left-turn signal. Thomas did likewise, and followed the Sheriff’s vehicle onto the road leading to the Missouri River and the Labadie power plant.

  A trio of police cars was parked across from a quaint country inn, where they drew up a hasty operations plan. Because of time constraints, Thomas knew it was essential that this plan be simple and basic.

  He contacted his forward observer team by two-way and learned that the trio of newly arrived bikers had joined Conrad Whitten inside the farmhouse. The Ryder truck had been backed up to the front door. Its driver was a leggy redhead whose short shorts and skimpy halter top hadn’t escaped the notice of the aTF sniper watching her every move from the shelter of the surrounding bushes. Before entering the farmhouse herself, she had unlatched the truck’s back door, revealing an empty cargo hold.

  “It’s obvious that whatever they’ve got going on inside that farmhouse, they’re about to transfer something of significant size into that truck,” mused Thomas to the seven men of his raiding team.

  “My biggest fear from the start of this case was that the bomb maker would try to construct a real attention-grabber, like the ammonium nitrate fuel oil device that took out the Oklahoma City Federal Building. That Ryder could easily hold such an IED, and we could be getting there right when they’re prepping it. So use your weapons only if absolutely necessary, and if you are forced to shoot, pick your targets carefully and don’t miss!”

  They decided to assault the farmhouse from the woods surrounding the backyard. One of the deputies revealed that he knew of a gravel road that would convey them to these woods without being seen from the main compound. The two highway patrolmen were tasked to block the main driveway near where it intersected Highway T. While they got in position, Thomas climbed into the Sheriff’s car, along with the other men of his raiding party, and they sped off for the gravel roadway.

  They assembled in an abandoned apple orchard. Before moving in by foot on their objective, Thomas made sure that each of them had his body armor properly fitted. After doublechecking their weapons’ load, he contacted both the Highway Patrolmen and his forward observer team on the two-way to synchronize their movements. When one of his snipers reported that the bikers had just begun loading the truck with a variety of crates they were carrying from the house, Thomas said a brief, silent prayer, crossed his fingers and gave the assault order.

  They moved forward in a modified wedge formation, with Thomas at the forward point of the inverted V. His own weapons were limited to a Winchester Model 12 shotgun, with six 12gauge rounds in its tubular magazine, and his Glock 17 9mm handgun. His five associates were also armed with a variety of revolvers and shotguns.

  He took some solace knowing that his two forward observers were expert marksmen, armed with state-of-the-art Heckler & Koch PSG-1 semiautomatic sniper rifles. They fired specially selected 7.62mm Lapua Winchester match ammunition, put on target by times six magnification telescopes, and pity the poor biker whose wallet-chained ass ended up inside the illuminated crosshairs.

  With his greatest worry being that they hadn’t had the time to properly rehearse this raid beforehand, Thomas completed his climb of the small rise that lay between the orchard and their objective. Upon sighting the gabled roof of the farmhouse, he immediately signaled the men behind him to halt and kneel.

  Thomas knelt himself, before lying prone on the weed-filled rocky soil and slowly crawling forward.

  The back of the clapboard farmhouse was directly in front of them, at the bottom of a gently sloping hill, a bare one hundred yards distant. He smiled upon noting that the sole window was boarded up, and slowly scanned the thick bushes that extended beyond the left side of the structure. Somewhere inside this cover, his ghillie-suited snipers were situated, and even though he knew the general area in which they were deployed, Thomas spotted not a trace of them.

  Thomas crawled backward, stood, and signaled his party to stand and form a tight line behind him. This would be their assault train, and the strategy now was to rush down the hillside at the back of the house and utilize the cover of their snipers to move forward along the structure’s left side. Then, without hesitating, they’d sprint around the corner of the house with weapons raised, and hopefully catch their suspects by complete surprise while attention was still focused on loading the truck.

  They initiated their movement and reached the back of the house without giving away their presence. The moment of truth was almost upon them, and as Thomas led the assault train around the structure’s left side, misfortune struck when the Sheriff tripped and fell to the ground with such force that his shotgun discharged. The element of surprise now compromised, Thomas had no choice but to lead the rest of his troops around to the front side of the house, where their destinies awaited.

  “Federal agents!” he proclaim
ed to the shocked group of leather-clad longhairs standing alongside the partially filled rental truck.

  The smell of marijuana wafted past his nostrils, and Thomas scanned the astounded faces of the four bearded men and one gorgeous woman who stood with jaws agape, staring at the assortment of weapons pointed their way.

  “Conrad Whitten, I have a warrant for your arrest,” one of the deputies informed him.

  “Aw, shit!” cursed the tallest of the bikers, a beer-bellied giant of a man with a full, bushy red beard and long, scraggly hair to match.

  While the deputies moved in to frisk their suspects, Thomas peeked inside the back of the truck. A rectangular wooden crate sat within reaching distance, and he thought he could make out a light coating of black powder covering the lid.

  “See something of interest in there, Mr. Pig?” asked a deep male voice from behind.

  Thomas turned around and found himself staring into the stubby barrel of a chrome revolver. The muscular, tattooed biker who held this weapon had apparently been on the far side of the truck during their initial raid, and he called out loudly so that all could hear him.

  “Keep those hands where I can see them, and back away from the truck real nice and slow.”

  Thomas did as instructed, with the biker jamming the pistol into Thomas’s stomach while addressing the others.

  “Drop those weapons, deputies, or your buddy here is gonna have a new belly button.”

  The deputies appeared to be momentarily flustered by this unexpected command. They looked to each other for guidance, and when they finally lowered their weapons, Thomas exhaled a long breath of relief.

  “Attaboy, Jester,” said Whitten, who reached out for one of the deputies’ pistols.

  Before the redheaded giant could gain possession, the firm voice of the Sheriff broke from the right side of the farmhouse.

  “Freeze!” he ordered, while chambering a fresh round into his shotgun.

  All eyes went to Whitten, who took a second to consider the risks involved before slowly backing away from the deputy and meekly nodding in submission.

  “You fucking pussy!” shouted Jester, who roughly pushed Thomas to the ground and went sprinting for the nearest Harley.

  The chopper roared alive and peeled off down the gravel driveway, leaving a cloud of exhaust in its wake. Thomas scrambled to his feet and listened as a pair of high-powered rounds exploded from the nearby tree line. A bare second later, the motorcycle went tumbling on its side, its tires shredded by a salvo of expertly aimed bullets.

  With his pride bruised more than his body. Jester was pulled out from beneath the bike and led back to the porch. The deputies quickly cuffed him, and reinitiated the frisking process.

  Only after he was certain that there were no other bikers who had yet to be discovered did Thomas return to his inspection of the truck. He reexamined the powder-coated crate, and spotted the label cherry bombs stenciled in red on its side. With the edge of his pocket knife, he cautiously pried open one of the slats.

  Packed in sawdust inside was a line of bright red, gum ball-sized objects with short fuses projecting from them.

  “I tell ya, all we’re doin’ out here is makin’ a bunch of fuckin’ fireworks!” pleaded Conrad Whitten to the Sheriff.

  “Sure, we’re also smokin’ a little skunk, but it’s only for personal consumption.

  And I swear that I was gonna get that fireworks permit as soon as I could afford it.”

  Thomas found it hard to hide his disappointment as he entered the farmhouse and got a good look at their operation.

  “Theresa, I told ya Whitten was nothin’ but a pussy,” said Jester to the only female in their midst while she was being cuffed.

  “Shut the fuck up!” countered Whitten, who now sported his own pair of shiny steel bracelets.

  “We’re in enough trouble as it is, and I’m not gonna take your rap of threatening to shoot a police officer all for a mess of bootleg fireworks.”

  Thomas had busted an illegal fireworks factory before, and as he stepped inside, everything he saw confirmed that this was what the bikers were doing here. A pair of long wooden tables held a variety of commercial powder presses, cardboard wrapping material, and several boxes of fuses. He also discovered three large barrels of black powder, an invoice made out to St. Alban’s Country Club for three dozen high-altitude star clusters, and an assortment of red, white, and blue airburst projectiles.

  Although Thomas could take some satisfaction in knowing that a dangerous operation had been shut down, he realized they had failed to apprehend the bomb maker. He shared this disappointing information with his forward observers as they emerged from the bushes in camouflaged ghillie suits. For all effective purposes, they were back at square one, and when his cellular phone began ringing, Thomas supposed that he’d next have to pass on the frustrating news to the Special Agent in charge of the St. Louis field office.

  The gravelly voice on the other end of the line was strangely familiar. Yet Thomas still found himself totally caught off guard when the caller finally identified himself.

  “Thomas, you old dog. You’re harder to track down than the Secretary. It’s Ted Callahan. I realize I’m about the last person you expected to hear from today, but I was able to convince Director McShane to divulge your number. I understand from the Director that you’ve got your hands full with a major investigation, but he gave me the all-clear to ask a little favor of you.

  Army CID needs your help, good buddy. And I’m willing to forget about those Orioles tickets you promised me last Labor Day and never delivered, for a couple hours of your time down here at Fort Leonard Wood. A mere hundred-mile drive down Route 66 is all it will take to square the account, my friend. So get cracking, before I’m forced to send out the MPs!”

  Chapter 5

  Friday, July 2, 1458 Zulu

  Nightwatch 676

  Commander Brittany Cooper had certainly drawn her fair share of unusual duty slots during her career, yet her current assignment was unique in all the military. The flying command post to which she was assigned was officially designated the E-4B and called the National Airborne Operations Center, though it was better known by its code name Nightwatch. The massive Boeing 747 was one of a fleet of four such airplanes, reserved for the National Command Authority, to provide secure command and communication in the event of war.

  Though she had toured Nightwatch previously, this was her first real airborne mission, and she was spending much of her time getting better acquainted with the massive aircraft. Most of her duty so far had been confined to the main deck in Operations, and she eagerly took the opportunity to expand her knowledge of the plane by using a coffee break to explore the flight deck.

  A spiral stairway led her past a serious-faced, black-beret-clad, armed security man. Halfway up these stairs, she felt the force of clear-air turbulence and had to halt in mid-step and grab onto the railing. The deck vibrated and slightly dipped, so Brittany waited for the shaking to stop completely before continuing into the upper-deck rest area. She headed forward through the flight crew’s sleeping quarters and, before entering the open flight deck, was forced to a halt by yet another pocket of rough air.

  As she finally stepped into the back of the cockpit, a powdery blue sky could be seen through the wraparound windshield. First to acknowledge her presence with a smile was the engineer, who was seated to her immediate right, a complicated, instrument filled console before him.

  She nodded in return, remembering him to be First Lieutenant Jake Lasky. A native of Pasadena, California, Lasky had given Brittany her initial tour of Nightwatch back at Andrews, and she enjoyed the curly-haired officer’s quick wit and the stories of his adventures on the Santa Monica bike path.

  “I tell you. Coach, you’re all wrong on this one,” proclaimed the copilot, who was seated directly in front of Lasky, his eyes scanning the dozens of digital readouts set into the cockpit around him.

  This officer was yet another Californ
ian. Captain Charles “Lucky” Davis lived in Manhattan Beach. His wavy blond hair was almost touching the collar of his flight suit, and Lucky displayed a surfer’s good looks and a lean physique to match.

  Seated to his left was Major William Foard, or Coach, as he was better known. Their current pilot was from Boston and a Yale graduate. Brittany had conversed with Coach only briefly, but she liked him instantly. He had a blunt, no-nonsense manner, and it was obvious that he had long ago earned his men’s respect.

  Coach had one gloved hand on the plane’s yoke, and he had his attention riveted on making an adjustment to the autopilot.

  His hazel eyes were hidden behind a pair of wire-rimmed, aviator-style sunglasses, and Brittany was surprised to find him wearing a faded “NO FEAR” baseball cap.

  As Brittany stared out the windshield, she realized that it was a gorgeous day for flying. The only clouds visible hugged the northern horizon. From their current altitude of thirty-one thousand feet, the sparkling waters of the Black Sea stretched in all directions, and it was as Brittany caught sight of a single ship below that the copilot finally realized they had a visitor.

  Brittany accepted a pair of headphones from the navigator.

  An intercom patch allowed her to hear Coach as he swiveled around and spoke into his chin-mounted microphone.

  “Welcome to the flight deck. Commander.”

  “I hope this isn’t a bad time for a visit,” she said.

  “Not at all,” replied Coach.

  “In fact, you’re the perfect person to prove my point,” said Lucky, who pushed back his right headphone and greeted Brittany with the same warm, boyish grin that was responsible for melting the heart of many a beach bunny.

  “Commander Cooper, we were just having a friendly little discussion about who was the world’s most powerful person. Since you’re responsible for the football and know what’s inside, perhaps you could remind my co-workers that our Commanderin-Chief’s the only person in the world who can change our planet’s destiny with a single order.”