Their driver slammed his brakes on as he tried to avoid the wreckage in front of him, swerving to the left then beginning to accelerate. The windshield suddenly shattered, a hole punched through the safety glass as the passenger’s head disintegrated.
“Holy shit!” cried the driver as he began to swerve, his zigzag pattern obviously aimed at making him a harder target, but if Kane knew the sniper involved, it wouldn’t help.
It didn’t.
Another burst of blood and brain matter sprayed through the car. Kane leapt forward and put the car in neutral, letting the speed ease off as he held the steering wheel steady, then shoved the car in park with a jerk.
He opened the door slowly, looking for shooters, but saw no one. Stepping out, he held his hands up, smoke from the two flaming vehicles obscuring his view. He squinted, peering through the smoke as he saw several figures approaching.
He smiled when the lead figure emerged, an MP5 aimed directly at his chest.
“Hey, BD, ’bout time you showed up.”
Command Sergeant Major Burt “Big Dog” Dawson, leader of the Delta Force’s Bravo Team, strode forward, relaxing slightly as he cradled his weapon in his arms, the rest of the team spreading out, securing the area.
“Good to see you too. Next time you change the meeting location, give us a little more warning if you want prompt pick up.”
Kane grinned, holding out a hand and helping Fang out of the SUV. “May I present Major Lee Fang of the People’s Liberation Army. I believe you two have already met?”
Dawson nodded. “Good to see you again, Major.”
“And you too, Sergeant Major. I wish it were under better circumstances.”
“As do I. Our country’s gone to shit, and whoever’s behind it has to be brought down. I understand you’ve got some intel on that.”
Four vehicles pulled up, all civilian, none of them black SUV’s. But they were all large with luggage space and horsepower. Dawson pointed at a Chevy Impala. Kane and Fang climbed in the rear, Dawson in the passenger seat, a grinning Sergeant Carl “Niner” Sung driving.
“Hiya Dylan, long time no see. I’d welcome you home, but I don’t think that exists anymore.”
“Good to see you too, Niner. Sit rep?”
Niner put the car in gear and they were quickly rolling north, the other vehicles keeping a good distance, splitting off in different directions as Dawson explained the situation. “The Colonel put us all on leave as soon as he heard the decree, suggesting we needed to get to the bottom of things, so we just went on vacation. A lot of Delta did as did the SEALS and Rangers, most of Spec Ops. We’re not crowd control, we’re killers. Rounding up civilians and setting up road blocks is not our job. Besides, a lot of us on the boards weren’t so sure of what was going on, it all sounded a little too fishy. Then when I heard from you I knew we’d all been had. I’ve put the word out quietly, but you just don’t know who you can trust.” He shook his head. “If the shit hits the fan we’ll have help, but it might take time to arrive. Things are moving fast though. Roadblocks are going up everywhere, anybody who even looks Muslim is being rounded up, sorted out later. The news stations have all been assigned Press Officers to monitor the broadcasts so that ‘intelligence’ isn’t ‘accidentally’ leaked. Word is the Fifth Estate isn’t too pleased.”
Niner looked in the rearview mirror. “All that means is we don’t get fifty-five minutes an hour of commentary disguised as news anymore.”
“Well, there were bound to be some improvements,” said Kane. “These roadblocks have me concerned. We’re wanted fugitives.”
“We’re going to make a run for the border.”
Kane pointed at the sun. “You’re going the wrong way.”
“Not Taco Bell dude, Tim Hortons!” said Niner, pointing at the GPS. “We’re goin’ to Canada, eh!”
Kane’s eyebrows rose. “Canada?”
“Getting across the border should be easy since most of it is unguarded and the Canadians have taken a pretty cautious tone with everything that’s been going on. Frankly I think they’re terrified this new government might just turn its eyes north if they say anything.”
“Makes sense. Straight shot across Canada and back down into Washington.”
“Assuming that’s where this is all centered.”
Kane nodded. “That’s what we’re assuming, but I’ve got some good people who just might be able to confirm it for us.”
“The Bunker”, Under CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
They were under complete lockdown. There were eight armed guards on the other side of the thick steel doors with no relief on the way. Leroux presumed they would begin shifts like the eleven of them were already doing.
“Hunker down for the long haul,” were Morrison’s orders.
Leroux had sent Dillard and four of his team, along with the Op Center Coordinator Alice Michaels to quarters, Leroux to act as Coordinator and Morrison Control for now. It had been almost eighteen hours since the lockdown with no evidence anyone knew they were there. According to Morrison almost no one actually knew where The Bunker was located, nor how to get into it. And his orders to go deep had come from the top.
They had everything they would need to survive long term including dozens of hard lines dug deep underground decades ago, upgraded about five years ago by private contractors who had been brought in blind, not knowing where they were doing the work, with no plans leaving the building.
Which meant they had access to everything.
CNN and Fox, along with the BBC were on three displays to the left, the press still performing their function, though with a hint of fear except for the BBC which were unabashedly leading all their broadcasts with “Crisis in America”.
The Internet was abuzz with chatter, the conspiracy theorists mostly getting it right this time and websites rapidly being taken down that suggested anything untoward.
But it was pirate footage of the roundups that was the most heartbreaking, along with the zealous nature in which some of his fellow citizens were participating. Homes and apartment doors across the nation were being tagged with a scarlet ‘M’ if the occupants were suspected of being Muslim. News report after news report showed Arab Christians and Jews crying on the air, terrified they were going to be targeted because of their appearance.
It made him sick.
There had been more terrorist attacks of course, with General Thorne taking to the airwaves suggesting it would take time as there were millions of Muslims to round up. CNN had shown footage earlier of military bases across the country loading hundreds of deportees at a time, the flights heading for Turkey.
No one had yet to see footage of their arrival there.
God I hope they’re not just tossing them out over the ocean.
He refused to believe that possible. These were still American soldiers, men and women who had honor, who had a code, and who were just following what were lawful orders. From what he had seen the roundups were always conducted with discipline, but some pirate footage was showing private security also participating.
And they seemed out of control.
They had analyzed the assassination footage and they felt they had the proof that the Secret Service Agent had pulled the trigger. They had the President’s dying last words enhanced and they had the nod which proved nothing. All they could prove was that Stan Reese was not the real shooter, he was simply a patsy set-up like all the others. He had apparently been forced to steal a plastic gun at a gun show the day before, stayed at a hotel in the area, sent a package to a catering company that presumably contained the weapon, and that weapon had somehow made it into the White House.
And his parents had been found dead hours after the shooting.
Other than these few facts they could prove nothing except that CIA Special Agent Sherrie White was being tortured and imprisoned on a US Military Facility by Colonel Booker, and that a once thought dead soldier was still walking, having delivered an F-35 to the Chinese.
There was nothing they had to connect the dots.
Leroux had tapped into the government’s own backbone analysis tools that DARPA used to monitor the health of the Internet and he was running an analysis now that was quickly filtering out civilian traffic. He pointed at the screen.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” he asked to no one in particular.
“Washington is the hub?” suggested one of his team.
“Yes, but that’s to be expected. Watch.” Lines connecting Internet hubs across the country were rapidly disappearing and changing colors. His trained eye watched as the civilian traffic almost faded away leaving only the government and military traffic. “Now eliminate the civilian government traffic.”
Databases of Internet Protocol addresses known to be government were immediately accessed to begin filtering them out and soon they were left with a honeycomb of lines with the epicenters of activity in Washington, DC, again, exactly as expected.
“Zoom in on Washington.”
The display enlarged the DC area and Leroux smiled.
“There it is.”
“What am I looking at?” asked Morrison.
Leroux approached the screen, pointing at a massive amount of lines in bright white, indicating heavy bandwidth usage. “That’s the Pentagon. As you’d expect, the vast majority of military traffic should be from them.” He looked back at Sonya Tong, a promising young analyst that Leroux could see going far one day. “Zoom back out and highlight the military HQ’s.” The display zoomed back out, red circles appearing around smaller white clusters of lines. “These are the HQ’s for the various commands. They’re getting their orders from the Pentagon then disseminating them to their bases and assets around the country and world.”
“As expected,” said Morrison.
“Exactly.” Leroux pointed at Washington. “Zoom in again, highlight Fort Myer.”
The display quickly changed, a red circle appearing around another bright white cluster.
“See?”
“I see a bunch of white lines. What the hell am I looking at?”
“Sir, why would a small installation like Fort Myer, that has almost no command authority, be lit up like a Christmas tree? They’re generating a shitload more traffic than they should be.”
“So you’re saying this is where they’re running things from?”
“That’s my guess. And with them holding Sherrie, it has to be. There’s no possible reason that I can think of for them to be generating that much traffic.”
“But how do we take out Fort Myer?” asked Tong.
“We don’t,” replied Morrison. “We can’t.” He looked at Leroux. “Is there any way to get back into their systems?”
“Already done,” said Leroux, returning to his station to confirm the status with a few keystrokes. “My backup tap dialed home twelve hours after it detected the primary was shutdown. There’s no evidence they know it’s there, but I’ve left it alone until we really need it.”
“Good. Who here is a YouTube expert?”
Tong raised her hand. “I’ve got a channel.”
Morrison’s eyes narrowed, Leroux noticing he was already out of his depth. “What do you usually post?” he asked.
“Movie reviews.”
“Followers?”
“A few thousand.”
Leroux turned to Morrison. “I assume you’re suggesting we get what we know out on the web?”
“Yes, but not yet. Is a few thousand enough?”
“It is if it’s juicy enough,” replied Tong. “My followers will share it with their followers. It could hit millions of views within minutes if we’re lucky, days if we’re not.”
“Or never if people are too scared to share.” Leroux shook his head. “And they could just shut it down.”
Morrison nodded. “They could, but if enough people see it, then it could go viral, especially outside of the United States. This is the information age and information is hard to control once it’s out there.” He pointed at Tong. “Start putting together the footage we’ve gathered, along with bullet points of the intel. I want a video ready to go out as soon as possible, just in case. And I want you to brainstorm ideas for pushing the message out wider.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Sir, I’ve got an incoming call from Special Agent Kane.”
Both Morrison and Leroux turned to look at Marc Therrien, another senior analyst on Leroux’s team who was a good fifteen years his senior. “Put it on speaker,” they echoed, Leroux immediately bowing out slightly as Morrison smiled.
“Yes, sirs.” Therrien hit a few keys then nodded.
“Dylan, this is Morrison. Status?”
“We ran into a little roadblock, sir, but a few friends managed to help us out.”
“Friends?”
“Let’s just say the next time you see them you’ll want to shout ‘Bravo’ for their good work.”
Morrison chuckled as Leroux grinned. If Delta Team-Bravo was with Kane, they just might stand a chance, it no longer one lone agent fighting the conspirators.
It’s still only a dozen people.
His momentary sense of optimism quickly failed.
“Are you secure?” asked Morrison.
“For the moment. Have we confirmed who’s behind this yet?”
Morrison nodded to Leroux, who took over. “Right now it looks like things are centered out of Fort Myer in the DC area.”
“Same place Sherrie went? I’m familiar with it, it’s kind of minor. Are you sure?”
“We can’t be sure about anything, but there’s a lot of unusual Internet traffic coming from there, and that is where they’re holding Sherrie.”
“Sounds as good a place as any to start. My friends and I are going to try and get into Canada, shoot across the north then reenter on the east coast. It should allow us to avoid the roadblocks.”
Morrison raised a finger before Leroux could respond. “Sounds good, but don’t count on the border being respected. According to the Canadian news reports there’s already been several incidents of border incursions while pursuing suspects.”
“Lovely. We’ll keep our heads down. Anything else we need to know?”
“We’ve got a worm in their system, or whatever the hell you kids call it, so we have access to their feeds if you need them. Intel though says Fort Myer has been reinforced. How many troops, I don’t know. My guess is they want to keep a low profile.”
“Who’s heading this?”
Leroux jumped in. “Colonel Booker, your dead guy’s former commanding officer, seems to be in charge of the base, General Thorne at the White House.”
“We don’t know if Thorne is involved, or just a patsy. We’re leaning toward involved, but we can’t be certain,” added Morrison.
“Why the uncertainty?”
“The assassin nodded to someone on the stairs but it could have been at Thorne or his aide. We’re just not sure.”
“Okay, let’s deal with Booker first and see if we can shut down their command and control. There’s just a few of us right now, but I’ve got it on good authority from my friends here that there is a lot more support available should we need it. It will just be a matter of getting the word out.”
Morrison nodded toward Tong. “We’re working on that right now. Contact us should you need anything.”
“Will do, Chief. And Chris?”
“Yeah?”
“Any message for Sherrie when we rescue her?”
Leroux felt a lump form in his throat. “Yeah, tell her I’m sorry for sending her on that op.”
“Bullshit! Chief, you straighten him out on that. I’ll just tell her you love her and that you said to give me a big sloppy kiss that I’d pass on.”
Leroux actually felt a flash of jealousy for a moment, but Kane’s laughter pushed it away immediately. “Careful, she’s been teaching me some moves.”
“I’ll bet she has. Kane out!”
The line went dead as giggl
es were stifled around the room, Tong having the hardest time of it. Leroux was pretty sure she had a secret crush on him, but he couldn’t be sure. He was so awkward with women she might be gay for all he knew.
All he knew was he didn’t care one way or the other.
He was a one woman man, and Sherrie was all he could ever want.
Please Dylan, save her!
Command Center, Fort Myer, Arlington, Virginia
“How the hell did that happen?”
Colonel Booker was red, he could feel it. His cheeks burned with rage as his blood pressure, already dangerously high according to his doctor, surged. If there was one thing he couldn’t abide by it was failure. Especially failure three times in a row. The first time he could excuse, it was the Chinese who had failed to recover their operative who had possibly overheard a conversation she shouldn’t have. But when his people had found out about the helicopter pickup from the USS Columbia there should have been no problem recovering the Chinese woman and her CIA escort.
But they had escaped.
Fortunately for the men who had failed, they had all died. It saved him from killing them.
But this time, on American soil, they had escaped again.
“They had help, sir. There was serious firepower used here, sir. Sniper rifles and shoulder-launched weapons of some type. Our guys didn’t stand a chance.”
“Survivors?”
“None.”
Booker snapped his fingers. “See if we have any satellite coverage of that area. They didn’t leave on foot.”
“Yes, sir.”
One of his techs expertly brought up footage and soon they were looking at shots showing the attack in progress, two cars in flames, several figures advancing on the middle vehicle.
“Anything else?”
“Look at this, sir.”
The image changed and four vehicles were shown farther down the road.
“Can you get plates on those?”
“Give me a moment, sir.”
The view changed, a shot from a different angle appearing, it clear this was from when the satellite’s orbit took it farther away, but with the view no longer top down the tech was quickly zooming in and enhancing the plates.
Death to America (A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller, Book #4) Page 18
