Death to America (A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller, Book #4)

by Kennedy, J. Robert

  Tong nodded.

  “Are you ready?” asked Morrison.

  She nodded.

  “Then do it.”

  She pressed a button, executing the prewritten program. “Done.”

  A status display showed the various steps being executed, her YouTube channel posting, Facebook, Twitter, email blast, with another display showing how many times the video was viewed and shared to the right. Next came the flooding of every feed they had been able to think of, foreign and domestic, and by the time it was sent, counters were already starting to roll on the initial blast. In the dozens at first, quickly in the hundreds, then things began to really roll. Within minutes tens of thousands had seen the footage with the pertinent points highlighted—that the Secret Service agent had been the killer and he had nodded either to General Thorne or his aide; that a CIA agent was being held hostage at a military installation and tortured; and that CIA Headquarters were being surrounded and searched by private security.

  With “Bring the Rain” scrolling across the bottom of the screen the entire time.

  “Wireless Emergency Alerts are next,” said Tong softly as the counts continued to spiral upward. Suddenly cellphones around the room began to emit a strange tone. Leroux looked at his display, having never actually received an alert before.

  Presidential Alert

  You are being lied to. Turn on your television or radio now.

  #bringtherain

  “And now the Emergency Broadcast System.”

  Every domestic channel being monitored suddenly switched from test patters to the video they had just broadcast. Television stations wouldn’t be able to override it, which meant the Press Officers were powerless to stop it. It would have to be shut down at the source and Leroux’s team had caused enough havoc in the EBS security protocols that the only way they’d end up being able to stop it would be with explosives.

  Unfortunately their enemy had plenty of those.

  “Look at those numbers!” exclaimed Dillard, the counts now in the millions and the international broadcasters beginning to cover the story including the EBS feed on a loop.

  A phone rang startling everyone. Morrison picked it up. “Go ahead…how long…fall back and surrender if necessary, our work here is done.”

  He hung up the phone and turned to the others, all staring at him with fear in their eyes. “They’re almost through the outer doors. They estimate no more than an hour.”

  Tong let a cry slip as Dillard articulated what they were all thinking.

  “And then we die.”

  Command Center, Fort Myer, Arlington, Virginia

  8:18 PM EST

  “Jesus Christ, stop the goddamned broadcast!”

  Colonel Booker was red, beet red, his heart pounding in his ears as almost every network they were monitoring played a continuous loop that only those bastards at the CIA could have been able to push out. And every single station was still broadcasting, despite orders for the Press Officers to stop them.

  “We can’t, sir, they’re using the Emergency Broadcast System.”

  “And how the hell did they get a text message to every one of our phones?”

  “It’s the new Wireless Emergency Alerts system, sir. It’s been around for a few years, most of the newer phones are set to receive them. Presidential, emergency and Amber alerts are sent to everyone in the designated area. I’ve shut that down but it’s too late, everyone in the nation with a turned on cellphone with this capability has received the message.”

  Booker pointed at the screens showing the main networks. “Christ Almighty! They’ve got footage of this installation! They’ve got me on camera!”

  The screen flashed his name and vital statistics while footage of him with a bloodied Sherrie White played.

  Booker collapsed in his chair, wiping the beads of sweat from his forehead through his close-cropped hair. Everything was falling apart. His dream, their dream of a strong, united country, once again the envy of the world where enemies trembled and people walked the streets with confidence, not worried whether or not their neighbor was a religious fanatic hell bent on killing them. The borders would be secured and Fortress America would stand as a beacon to the world of how freedom and democracy could thrive in a world filled with hate.

  But now the dream was crumbling.

  All because of the damned CIA.

  They had lost track of the Chinese defector and her CIA handler, their mole within the CIA cut off when this Chris Leroux character had gone into The Bunker. It had saved Leroux’s life and also cut off their source of intel, The Bunker computers completely segregated from everything else. And Now Dylan Kane had escaped again from the Raven team sent to collect him and had somehow found friends that had helped them across the border to Canada and unbelievably shoot a Reaper UAV out of the sky.

  They have to be Special Forces.

  Reports from across the country were indicating Special Forces units had stood down just before the new orders were officially acknowledged as received, many of their commanders sending them on vacation, the excuse that these were trained killers not suitable for crowd control. They were right of course, you don’t send Special Forces in to tame a crowd. You send them in to kill someone in the middle of that crowd.

  “What the hell is this Bring the Rain thing?” he asked, all of the footage showing the same phrase over and over. He knew what it meant in military parlance—bring a shit storm of firepower down on a particular location—but for the CNN and CIA broadcasts to both be using it meant there was something else going on.

  It was a code of some sort.

  “I don’t know, sir, but it’s trending on Twitter like crazy. Millions of people are using the hashtag and our Google taps are showing massive activity.”

  “How many have seen those broadcasts?”

  “Considering during a crisis about half the nation will watch TV news channels, and it was broadcast at eight pm, so primetime, I’d say easily half the country. And don’t forget almost everybody has a cellphone and were told to turn on their TV’s and radios. I’d be surprised if there’s even ten percent of Americans who didn’t see that broadcast.”

  “What about the troops?”

  “Those on duty quite often still carry their cellphones, especially in a domestic deployment like this. Besides, their buddies not on duty definitely saw it.”

  “Show me the front gate.”

  Security footage of the front gate appeared and it confirmed Booker’s worst fears. The soldiers manning the gate were no longer in their assigned positions, but huddled around looking at their cellphones.

  “How many Raven personnel do we have here?”

  “A little under two hundred, sir.”

  “Have them deployed to the perimeter.” He sighed. “I’m going to talk to the President. Maybe I can convince him to record a broadcast to claim it’s all lies.”

  He turned on his heel and headed for the President’s cell.

  And if he won’t cooperate, there’ll be blood on the streets.

  Starting with his.

  Days Inn, Arlington, Virginia

  8:21 PM EST

  Kane exchanged thumping hugs with the rest of the Bravo Team, several rooms having been rented by the early arrivals. Six of them were now jammed into the biggest of the rooms, and it wasn’t big—at least not for five large men and one Chinese woman.

  “Sorry we’re late,” apologized Dawson as he sat on a chair brought in from one of the adjoining rooms. “There were way more roadblocks than we were expecting. Where are the rest of the guys?”

  “I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it so I took the liberty of prepping,” replied Master Sergeant Mike “Red” Belme, Dawson’s second-in-command and best friend. “We’ve got the front and rear of the target under observation and sniper teams in position should you approve my plan.” He paused, taking a more somber tone. “Did you see what happened at CNN?” Dawson shook his head. “They massacred them all for putting out
a broadcast showing the President being arrested and the CIA HQ surrounded.”

  “They also scrolled a list of dozens of reported crimes committed by those Raven bastards,” added Sergeant Leon “Atlas” James, his booming voice reverberating through the room.

  “And they were flashing ‘Bring the Rain’ on the screen,” finished Red.

  Kane’s eyebrows rose. “Really? I wonder if they knew what it meant.”

  “No idea, but chatter’s picked up. And look.” Red pointed at the television. “This has been running for almost fifteen minutes. It looks like the CIA hijacked the Emergency Broadcast System.” The screen suddenly went black then a test signal replaced it. “Oh well, for about twenty minutes the American people were getting the truth for a change.”

  Dawson clapped his hands together. “Okay, we don’t have much time. Status?”

  Red took over, walking over to a table showing a map of the area. “The good news is this: Fort Myer was never designed to protect against serious incursions. The entire east side backs onto the Arlington National Cemetery. There isn’t even a fence, just a knee wall then a parking lot.”

  “And the building we suspect is their HQ?”

  “Not the official HQ.” Red pointed at a large building. “Brucker Hall, it’s been converted into their HQ and it’s on the east side as well, just off the parking lots.”

  “That’ll make things much easier,” said Kane leaning in closer as he examined the map.

  “Yup, but it’s crawling with private security from what we can see.”

  “Raven?”

  Red nodded. “Probably. Until a few minutes ago the rest of the base was secured by regular Army but Spock just reported that over one hundred Raven personnel just deployed.”

  “That could be a good thing,” said Dawson. “It suggests Colonel Booker and his team no longer trust the reg forces to keep them secure. Chances are they’re aware of the broadcasts and might be questioning their role in things.”

  “Could be,” agreed Red. “I’ve deployed sniper teams here and here,” he said, pointing to two locations on the map. “That should cover our rear. Chatter indicates we might get some help, but we can’t be sure.”

  Dawson pursed his lips, turning to Kane. “What do you think?”

  Kane drew his finger from the cemetery to Brucker Hall. “It’s not far to cover and the aim is to get inside. Once in, there’s nobody better than us. We kill everything in sight, take down their network and neutralize their command and control, then hold until people come to their senses.”

  Dawson’s phone buzzed and he looked at the message. He smiled, holding it up for Kane to read.

  6 Ps ready to assist. Bring the rain.

  “Six platoons?”

  “That’s my guest. He’s a SEAL buddy.”

  “You guys talk?”

  “Usually while arm wrestling and drinking beer,” said Niner, stretching his arm out as if it were sore. “Those boys are strong!”

  “Can he be trusted?” asked Kane, already knowing the answer.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good.” He looked at his watch. “Thirty minutes. Let’s get in position and take back our country.”

  White House Situation Room, The White House, Washington, DC

  8:28 PM EST

  “Report!”

  General Thorne’s bark had everyone in the room jumping as he took his seat at the head of the table in the Situation Room. Displays across the far wall showed maps with green, yellow and red dots, more and more turning from green as he watched. Another bank of monitors to the right, normally showing civilian broadcasts, now all showed test signals.

  “We’ve taken out the power supplies to the Emergency Broadcast System and destroyed the Wireless Emergency Alerts hardware. They won’t be able to use either of those systems again. We should have regular broadcasts up within an hour as Raven personnel get into position. Broadcasters will learn from the example set at CNN.”

  Tony Logan, one of the seniors at Raven Defense Services and brother to the Secret Service Agent who had taken out the President was running things from the White House adeptly to this point. Between him and Booker at Fort Myer things had been running like clockwork until thirty-five minutes ago.

  And Thorne wanted answers.

  “Who did it?”

  “The footage of the President looks like it was taken by Press Secretary Humble.”

  “Pick him up.”

  “We’ve already sent a team but they reported his house vacant. It looks like they left in a hurry with help.”

  “Help?”

  “Both their cars were still there.”

  “Put out a BOLO on them.”

  “Already done, sir.”

  General Thorne watched as several of the networks suddenly came to life with regular entertainment programming. “And the rest of the footage?”

  “CNN must have got hold of some footage of CIA HQ. Not really hard to do, sir. The CIA we know tapped our feeds at Fort Myer so that’s how they got their footage, and Homeland had already supplied them with footage of the assassination before we took control.”

  “And what’s happening at Langley?”

  “Our forces have penetrated the first level of security at The Bunker and anticipate being through the second level within half an hour.”

  “Then?”

  “Then, sir, they have to get through the secure doors of the control facility.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “It could take hours, sir.”

  “We can’t risk it. Pack the place with explosives. Blow the shit out of it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Logan nodded toward one of his men who left to initiate the order.

  “And the President?”

  “Secure at Fort Myer, but Booker has just requested the family be sent there. He wants to use them to coerce Starling into recording a statement that we can broadcast denying what was just aired.”

  “Good idea. Too bad he’ll never go for it.”

  “True, but worth a try. But we’ve got bigger issues.” Logon motioned toward the screen with the dots.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “Green are military units still sending in regular reports, yellow are units that have questioned their orders, requesting clarification on what was just broadcast, and red are units that have either stood down, recalled their troops to base, or outright demanded the President’s release.”

  “How many?”

  “Dozens in the red already, and I think they’re talking, General. It’s growing dramatically, especially those requesting clarification. Those outright defying our orders are slow to grow, but they will the longer we delay.”

  “Solutions?”

  “None that I can see. We could isolate base-to-base communications but they’ll just use their cellphones. These guys all know each other—they talk.”

  Thorne frowned. He knew Logan was right. He was part of that apparatus. He could pick up his phone and call any number of commanding officers at these bases that he until a few days ago would have called friends. Now they weren’t taking his calls.

  The tide was turning.

  All could be lost unless he acted boldly and swiftly.

  “What about this ‘Bring the Rain’ thing?”

  “We’re not sure, sir. It’s definitely a code of some sort and it’s spreading like wildfire on the Internet, but most people seem to just be repeating it like a chant as opposed to knowing what it means.”

  “So it could be nothing?”

  “I doubt it, sir. It’s definitely something. Remember, the CIA used it, not just CNN. And the CIA package was slick, not tossed together, so there’s no way they could have known CNN was going to use the same phrase.”

  Thorne shook his head in frustration. “It has to be related to the Special Forces guys going AWOL. They must be up to something.”

  “If they are, we may be in serious trouble, sir.”

  Thorne frowned, not lik
ing what Logan had said, but forced to agree. There were many thousands of Special Forces in the country and if even just a fraction of them decided to get involved this conflict would quickly become bloody.

  But he had spilled a lot of American blood already and was prepared to spill more should it become necessary. “What’s the status on the internment camps?”

  “Still secure with Raven personnel, but we just got a report of a group of civilians gathering at one outside San Diego demanding the prisoners be released.”

  Thorne pursed his lips and cursed as several more red dots appeared.

  “I’m not going to turn our weapons on American citizens. How are the deportations going?”

  “Extremely well, sir, but our schedule assumed we’d have at least twenty-four months to complete the task. We’ve barely managed to send a tenth of the visa people, let alone begin to repatriate over three million Muslims.”

  Thorne rose, his mind reeling at how quickly things had turned to shit.

  “Our orders, sir?”

  “Eliminate The Bunker at CIA, send a communique to all installations that the broadcast was faked and a statement will be forthcoming from the President himself.”

  “And if he won’t cooperate.”

  “Get his double.”

  Logan laughed. “Good thinking.”

  “Declare an immediate curfew and arrest anyone who violates it.” He paused. “And send extra units to Fort Myer. I want that place secure for as long as we can hold it.” He pointed at the screen. “And I want every one of those still in green to report their commitment to the current lawful status then to deploy their men to take over positions abandoned by their counterparts.”

  “Yes, General!”

  “Oh, and initiate three more attacks tonight and have the networks cover them. Just to remind the country how things were just a few days ago.”

  “Yes, sir!”