PointOfHonor

by Susan Glinert Stevens

  The background checks run against the CIA database turned up nothing. These people appeared to be deep cover resident agents planted—maybe years ago—by the Red Chinese. The homes had been purchased in the late seventies and early eighties. Both families were established in their communities, paying taxes, mowing the grass, and buying a new car every five years. They had credit cards and monthly VISA bills. They seemed to be ideal American citizens, except for the fact that no trace of their lives existed prior to 1975.

  Both families popped into existence and began developing a paper trail. The Social Security numbers were duplicated in the Health Care Finance Administration database. While this was not impossible or even rare, the fact that all four people involved had duplicate numbers for people deceased between 1960 and 1966 pushed the coincident envelope to the breaking point.

  The college records appeared to be real until names of those issued the diploma were checked against a special death and birth database maintained at Langley. The four people had either died in college or after high school. It was a sophisticated, deep cover operation capable of creating the forgeries and the paper and data processing trails necessary to make four people look real enough to the IRS and the SSA. They even got letters from their congressman asking them how they felt regarding the important issues of the day. The most recent voter registration listed them as active voters and two had served on jury duty in the past five years.

  According to the AAA databanks, they had taken separate trips to Disneyland, Grand Canyon, and the Wisconsin Dells. There was even a Tommy Bartlett water show bumper sticker on one of the cars. However, never had they ventured beyond the confines of the United States where scrutiny regarding passports and visas could take place. Not even day trips to Canada. Nor had either attempted to purchase a firearm. Obviously, they had acquired a sufficient amount of firepower from other sources.

  They blended into the American landscape and vanished from the counterintelligence consciousness—perfect spies, until today. The unsettling item that Louis Edwards mulled was where there were two, there would be more. He figured neither family knew the other. They simply followed the same sort of path towards American success, and in a country of two hundred fifty million, it was impossible to analyze all the patterns related to a false identity.

  The surveillance team reported the station wagon was leaving the house with two Asian males. Harvey looked to the back seat at Edwards and said, “What do you think?”

  “Could be your friends from last night,” he suggested.

  “Take them or leave them?”

  Edwards drummed his fingers on the back of the front seat. “Have one of the cars follow them. The other two are still inside. They own the place. They’re the ones we really need right now.”

  Harvey nodded and picked up the radio microphone. “Car one, stay with the wagon. Everyone else sit tight.”

  They turned off the Leesburg Pike and angled into the maze of winding suburban roads called Odricks Corner. It was a disconcerting site as a black van with its blinking blue and red strobe lights coursed down the quiet heart of suburbia. People poked their heads out from under raised car hoods, and an impromptu football game took pause to watch the three vehicles wind through the twists and turns until they emerged on the street where the white Cape Cod style home lay.

  Harvey clicked the microphone and said, “Right through the fence.”

  Edwards eyed the two kids playing with the scooter as the car skidded to a halt. The FBI van smashed through the picket fence splintering the wood planking. The van gouged an ugly divot through the green grass coming to a halt inside the tulip bed and churning the magnolias.

  The rear and side doors exploded with an eight-man team boiling out like an oversize army of black ants. No warning or shout as the two men with shotguns rushed the front door. They fired together on both sides of the door:top—middle—bottom . Then stood back as the other six hefted the battering ram and ran towards the door. They hardly noticed the welcome mat.

  Harvey emerged from the car holding his gun down at his side and hanging his FBI shield around his neck. Mister Smith and Mister Jones came to flanking positions around Louis Edwards. The members from the two surveillance cars had hopped over a couple of back fences to ensure no one tried a quick exit out the back door.

  The front door snapped in two as the ram drove home into the living room. As quickly as it had been hefted it was dropped. Two flash bang grenades sailed through the opening and the black clad men instinctively tensed and flattened themselves to cushion the shock. The interior windows flashed momentarily and the thunder of battle rolled through the quiet neighborhood.

  One of the boys on the scooter grinned widely and said, “Cool.” His suddenly attentive mother grabbed both boys off their feet and ran for the protection of her own home, uncertain as to what was happening.

  The shotgun toting team members rolled around the yawning doorjamb and moved quickly into the house. The smoking hole swallowed the rest of the team six seconds later.

  Harvey said into a handheld radio: “Find the basement first.”

  The man trimming his hedge stopped clipping when the van shattered the picket fence. He stood to one side, craning to see what all the fuss was about. After the shotgun blasts, it occurred to him to grab his camcorder and start recording the event. He would get his name on the evening news.

  Louis walked down the driveway towards the garage. The door was shut tight. He eyed the distance between the corner of the house and the garage. He waved Smith and Jones forward, drawing his own sidearm. It seemed there was a reasonable distance for a tunnel to be constructed. A tunnel could conceal a number of curious items.

  The roar of a heavy caliber weapon broke the queasy din. It was met with the sharper and faster bursts from the MP-5s. Another roar responded. Edwards glanced up at the dormer windows where the muzzle flashes bounced off the glass. One of the windows starred as a stray bullet punched through. The drapes swayed as a second roar thundered from the upstairs.

  He dismissed the action as a diversion. No one would seriously hide something on the second floor. Escape routes were non-existent. Obviously, they had sufficient firepower available and they were not timid about using it. Tactically, it drew the FBI team away from the basement and bought precious seconds. He idly wondered whether it was the husband or wife making the ultimate sacrifice. He quickened his pace towards the garage.

  From inside he heard the muffled scream, “Grenade!”

  The windows on the rear of the house exploded with thick and furious tongues of fire. Glass splinters rocketed across the carefully groomed yard and caught some of the plain clothes Federal Agents. They dropped back bleeding and cursing. The heat roiled upwards just as quickly, and the double hung window frames cartwheeled drunkenly across the back yard coming to land next to a swing set.

  Jones tried the garage side door, finding it locked. He glanced back to Edwards who nodded. Jones stepped back and double tapped the doorknob only to find the door still firmly sealed against his entry.

  Edwards lifted his handheld radio and said, “Harvey, are they in the basement yet?”

  “Not sure. This isn’t going too well.”

  A second concussion grenade exploded towards the front of the house, knocking one black clad agent backward onto the front lawn. Nasty gray smoke billowed from the blast.

  Edwards sighed. It probably always went according to plan when they ran the drill at Quantico. He motioned Smith, yelling, “Get the car.”

  The twelve gauge shotgun broke the neighborhood’s lethargy next. Someone decided to charge up the steps towards the dormer.

  Pump!

  Blast!

  Pump!

  Blast!

  Pump!

  Blast!

  The window facing the driveway broke outwards as a body smashed through the frame. A final crack from a .44 Magnum revolver flamed from the falling figure, only to be met by a fourth and final shotgun blast. The bloody
and broken remains of a young woman in her late twenties or early thirties—it was hard to tell—slammed like a broken doll to the driveway below.

  Edwards stepped across the blood-spattered body and kicked the heavy Smith & Wesson from her hand. He crouched down and felt for a pulse on her neck. The accusing eyes glared defiantly at him and the lips moved awkwardly as the life glow faded and the body stilled in its final seconds.

  The home’s interior resembled something from a bad World War II movie. One of the entry team members was propped against the wall. His leg was broken in three places. Another was winding a self-made tourniquet around his arm. Bullet holes from the H&K’s 9mm rounds, bigger holes from the Mossbergs, and ragged holes from the fragmentation grenade were grim reminders of the battle.

  Harvey moved through the blasted furniture and blistered walls to the door leading to the basement. It appeared to be a solid piece of steel half an inch thick. The entire staircase seemed to be lined with some sort of steel plate from the basement, making it impossible for the small arms fire to penetrate the walls, much less breech the most vital section of the house.

  Harvey scowled. He had one dead agent, a stalled entry, and another foreigner loose inside the basement probably destroying everything in sight. This was quickly turning into a disaster. He looked from the steel door to the floor in the living room and brought the handheld radio to his lips. “Larry?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We need chain saws, skill saws—whatever. We need to cut through the floor of this house. Go get one of these rubbernecking neighbors and get something to chop through to the basement.”

  Outside, Mister Smith gunned the engine of his government Ford. He twisted the wheel and dropped the hammer. Stray rocks and dirt spurted from behind the rear wheels as he accelerated towards the garage door. He passed Edwards in a blur before smashing head on into the double door and coming to an abrupt stop.

  The top of the garage buckled and snapped downwards banging over the top of the car. The air bag exploded into Mister Smith, slamming him against the back of the driver’s seat and effectively taking him out of the action for the moment. A geyser of steam spewed from the broken radiator grill, creating a blue-green cloud of sickly sweet smelling antifreeze.

  Edwards saw the car only peripherally. His attention focused on the man standing in the rear of the garage. Time seemed to come to a standstill. There was movement around the man’s shoulder. The kind of movement it takes to bring a pistol upwards and to present a weapon. Louis was much quicker. Sometime between the start of Mister Smith’s run and the shattering of the garage door, Louis had jacked a round into the Sig-Sauer P220.

  He stood with a two-handed grip, one foot ahead of the other, in a modified Weaver stance. The gun slightly lowered so he could see effectively into the garage. Once he processed the man’s arm motion, it was a much easier movement to bring the front site to cover the head of the man and double tap the aggressor. The .45’s roar seemed muted in the netherworld of personal confrontation.

  Louis paused, lowered the Sig-Sauer to a ready position, and assessed the effectiveness of his shots. The arm seemed to hover for a moment. The deadly appendage of a weapon rolled over in the man’s hand before vanishing from site. The Chinese agent took a drunken step towards the left, before his legs quivered and gave out underneath. His central nervous system shut down the rest of his body as blood and brains dribbled down the side of his shattered face. He pitched forward against some shelves, and then he lay very still.

  Mister Jones rolled around the side of the garage door opening. He vaulted the broken door and skidded next to the fallen man. He kicked the gun away before dropping to one knee and checking for a pulse.

  Louis stepped behind Mister Jones and looked at the dead man on the cold concrete garage floor. A thickening pool of blood was forming near his skull, another ghost to join Louis on the coming cold winter nights. He shuddered at the thoughts and idly replaced his Sig-Sauer in his shoulder holster.

  He flipped the corpse over and stared at the dead fish like eyes. Truly, his adversary had been surprised to meet death this afternoon. He was wearing a Tommy Hilfinger pullover, and in his frenzied death, his golf clubs had scattered in the vacant spot where the other car should have been.

  The boxy dry cells and the coiled electrical wires colored red and blue brought Louis back to the present. A trap door leading down into a tunnel gave him the uneasy feeling that their Chinese comrade had been busy preparing to launch his house, the FBI High Risk Entry team, and whatever other secrets he kept, towards the moon. Visible from where Louis stood, there were thick red cylinders with blasting caps lining the walls.

  He pulled the handheld radio from his coat pocket, “Harvey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think we need a bomb squad, but I found the bolt hole for our Chinese friends.”

  “Tunnel?”

  “Yeah. Oh, and I have another corpse in the garage. And Harvey, do you think we could take down the other safe house with a few less dramatics?” He clicked off.

  Harvey came back. “By the way, we lost the other car. Any ideas?”

  Louis stared at his radio and shook his head. “No, but I would assume they’re going to try to get out of the country.” Add two missing agents to the two dead ones. It was not going well.

  It was about then he recognized the distinctive heart beat of a helicopter’s rotor blades. He stepped through the garage debris to see anEye Witness News Team helicopter surveying the damage wrought this afternoon in a quiet Virginia suburb.

  Louis wondered what else could go wrong. It was still early.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  East Of Nukhayb, Iraqi Data Center

  Monday, November 17, 1997

  2:00 P.M. (+3.00 GMT)

  One of the problems with all military plans is they tend to come apart in unanticipated ways once human beings get involved. What appeared to work on paper, or drawn in the dirt with a stick, suddenly collapses when the Murphy comes calling. Ask any soldier—they know Murphy quite well—and so it went with Harper’s war plan.

  It happened a little after two o’clock that afternoon. Anderson was hunkered down under camouflage netting and thermo blankets. Stillwell, Hayes, and Burns were catching a nap before the shooting started. Kincaid was checking his weapons for the evening’s festivities and Harper had pulled his Bible from his pack. He found another picture from another time and place.

  It was a photograph of Jerry and Jim taken ten years ago. They both had rather large Cuban cigars and a gurgling bottle of champagne between them. They had big smiles and hearty laughter, the kind warriors exchange after surviving something particularly harrowing. He could see an F-14Tomcat resting on a steam catapult behind them. They were on the flight deck of theUSS John F. Kennedy , having just exited from inside Iran.

  Harper shrugged. They had brought everyone back that time. No casualties, a couple scrapes, one bullet hole, and some blood, but there was always blood and sweat. So full of life and laughter, they had brought out a family. Sometimes they did things that avoided blowing up things, and brought out people. Harper never learned what was so important about these people to Uncle Sam. They were people who wanted to be free of a theocratic regime bent on killing everyone who failed to agree. The God of Abraham may reserve vengeance, but He also reserved forgiveness and grace.

  Lynn had slipped this one in behind the back flap. How did she always know what to do? Even if she disagreed with what he was doing, she understood the why. He tried to believe he had not failed, but he did not have the strength to bring Jerry’s body out. Too many people chasing him, too far to run to the border, and too beaten up to do the honorable thing.

  He still didn’t know how he was going to pay for Jerry’s kid’s college education. He only knew it would happen, and that Edwards better come through. Somewhere beyond them Jerry was buried, with no marker besides the cairn of rocks and a wooden cross. He considered a dying friend’s last words and
request. He was so pale and so cold. The desert night was closing in and they both knew that only one would see the dawn.

  Good men always seemed to die in the dark hours after midnight. It is a still time where the deceiver creeps into your thoughts and the harsh reality of Adam’s sin once again raises its ugly head. The grand mocker proclaims: “You weren’t meant to die, but you will die today.”

  Jerry had two requests, the spittle dry on his lips and the light already leaving his eyes. His grip was surprisingly strong for a man almost beyond the reach of this world.

  “Jim.”

  Harper touched his hand. “You’ll look after my family—my kids.”

  Harper nodded, and remembered dumbly that his friend was probably blind by then. “Yeah, I’ll take care of everything.”

  His head nodded frailly, but the mind, the most incredible creation next to the soul, was still working. Jerry said deliberately, “I know you, Jim Harper. I know your stubborn sense of right and wrong, black and white.” He paused and gathered himself for some final statement.

  “If you’re going to keep your word, you’ve got to leave me here.” He coughed, and blood dribbled from his nose and mouth. “I know all the stuff about your warrior code and soldier’s honor, but I want you to keep your word about my family, and maybe I can’t see too well, but I know. I know you’re running on empty. I want you to bury me.”

  Harper said something stupid like they were both getting out. Tears dribbled down his dust stained cheeks and transformed the dust to mud. He held his friend tighter on a nameless patch of sand.

  Jerry laughed the ragged laughter dead men seem to develop. “I can’t feel my feet anymore and my hands seem to be disappearing. I think it’s night, but I’m not sure. One of us, Jimmy, has to leave this desert alive. That’s you. You promised. You gave your word. I hold you to your word.” Jerry knew about Jim and his word. There were many things men can take from you in this world, but Jim would never let his word and his bond be something tossed away frivolously.