by Brad Taylor
“Hey, where you headed?”
Remembering the man he had seen before, Rafik said, “I’m going to take pictures of the cliffs. I want to get a shot down the coast.”
The ranger cocked his head, saying, “Well, you’re going the wrong way. This trail goes to the cliffs, but it’s the long one. Why are you going into the woods?”
Rafik rapidly walked back to the trail, looking left and right to make sure they were alone.
“I can’t tell which trail goes where. The signs aren’t that great.”
The ranger looked at his tripods and relaxed, laughing. “Yeah, we need to fix them. The paint’s pretty much gone, huh?”
Rafik closed up to him. “Yes. Which way should I go?”
“Just follow this trail the way you were going. But if I were you, I’d head back to the parking lot and take the red trail. It’s the shortest. And probably safer.”
“Why is it safer? Because it’s shorter?”
“Uhh… yeah. That’s it.”
Rafik dropped his tripods and brought out a knife, whipping it straight into the man’s chest. He bowed out, his face a caricature of shock, mouth in an O and eyes wide. Before he could realize what had happened, Rafik pulled out the knife and raked it across his throat, splitting it wide open. As the man fell, Rafik grabbed his body and dragged it through the underbrush to a fallen log, hiding the remains from view of the trail.
He retrieved his tripods and sprinted into the forest, wanting to get out of sight of anyone who might be coming. He thought about the man’s response. About the danger. It didn’t make sense to say that to someone walking in the park, especially since he’d seen plenty of families using this trail earlier in the day. The Americans were petrified of anyone getting hurt in public places.
They know someone’s here. I’m running out of time.
76
Jennifer sprinted back to the Suburban for a medical kit while I began conducting initial treatment of Retro. Decoy held a wad of his shirt against his shoulder wound, doing what he could to help.
“How’d they get the drop on you?” I asked. “What happened?”
“There was only one guy checking out the EFP damage. We smoked him, then this guy came out of the wood line, blazing away. We fucked up. We both thought there would be only one, like the guy in the truck. You drill his ass?”
“Jennifer did. Two in the chest, one in the head.”
He raised his eyebrows, letting that sink in, then said, “How’s Retro?”
“He’s hit, but he’s going to make it. Just needs to get to a hospital, like you.”
I hoped I wasn’t lying, because it was bad. Retro had a neat hole in his chest, and a ragged exit wound on his back. Jennifer returned with the medkit and threw it on the ground between us, and we both went to work. Jennifer packed the entrance and exit wounds with Kerlix, capping it off with a special rubber bandage for sucking chest wounds that incorporated a flutter valve to release air. I prepped an IV and got it going, hoping to increase the fluids in his system to mitigate the loss of blood. His pallor was gray, his lips going blue.
Jennifer said, “His pulse is thready. He’s going into shock, and he’s lost a lot of blood.”
He doesn’t get to a trauma center soon, and he’s dead.
I said, “Help out Decoy. He’s got an in-and-out to his shoulder.”
I dialed Kurt and filled him in on what had occurred, saying, “I need a medevac right now, or Retro’s going to die. A helicopter. I don’t think I can get him to a hospital soon enough.”
Like the good commander he was, he completely ignored the fact that two active-duty Taskforce members were out hunting terrorists with me, getting right to the heart of the issue. “Pike, I’ll do what I can, but the emergency response system is overloaded. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get you rotary wing any quicker than driving. You need to make a hard call. You stay there, he might bleed out because I can’t get anything.”
“What about the fucking president? Can’t he get something done?”
“You want the president to choose one life over another? He won’t do that. If there’s a helo available, it’s headed your way, but if not, it means it’s on another medevac.”
“No, I don’t want him to choose one life over another. I mean that the guy owns helicopters. Send me Marine One. This LZ is big enough.”
I heard nothing for a split second, then, “That’s genius. Stand by.” I waited, the phone mute, then heard Kurt say, “It’s launching right now, with the White House doc. Give me a grid.”
I relayed the grid to the open area in front of the substation, then Jennifer and I moved Retro down to the makeshift LZ, getting him as comfortable as possible.
I said, “Decoy, can you handle exfil?”
“Yeah. No issues.”
“It’s all yours. Helo’s probably ten minutes out.” I smiled. “Don’t forget to lock the Suburban when you leave.”
He didn’t smile back, and I knew he was still beating himself up. “Pike—”
I held up my hand. “I don’t want to hear it. Get Retro to a hospital. That’s your mission now.”
He nodded. Jennifer bent over him, tightening the bandage on his shoulder. He caught her arm, causing her to stop.
“Hey, that was some good shooting. Thanks.”
She wiped his blood off her hands, looking physically ill. All she said was “I had a good teacher.”
I said, “You ready for round three?”
She checked her Glock, reflexively ensuring there was a round in the chamber, then opened the driver’s door to the Suburban, her face devoid of any emotion. She fired up the engine.
Decoy said, “Looks ready to me.”
I wasn’t so sure.
We took the beltway to Pennsylvania Avenue, weaving across lanes and using the shoulder whenever we got bogged down. Crossing into Maryland, we continued southeast down the peninsula into a rural area and away from the D.C. traffic, allowing us to pick up speed. Jennifer continued driving on the ragged edge of losing control, barreling down Highway 4 toward the nuclear plant.
Pulling up the moving map display on my cell phone, I could see the target phone was still in the park. In fact, it didn’t look like it had moved much at all since we’d first locked on to it. I called the techies to make sure my data track was functioning. I got some bad news.
“Pike, the phone’s GPS is disabled. He turned it off. We’re only tracking it by triangulating its signal through the cell towers. It’s not that precise. You’re going to have a plus or minus of over four hundred meters out in that park. Sorry.”
“So he’s in the park, but no telling where?”
“Yeah, that’s about it.”
I thought through the ramifications, then called Kurt to let him know our status. “We’re still about thirty minutes out. Put the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant on high alert. I don’t see how he could get through their tight-ass security and get close enough to use the EFPs against the reactors, but there’s nothing else near the geolocation of the phone. We’re headed there now, but it’s going to take some time.”
He said, “Pike, we’ve done a range analysis on a facility map. He can fire the EFP and hit the reactor dome from outside the fence line.”
“How? It’s still just an EFP, even if it’s a powerful one. He’ll be shooting from over a hundred meters away, outside of the envelope the congressman gave me. It won’t have the power to penetrate the dome.”
“A test version was used on a covert action in Sudan. I just found out it exceeded all parameters. He fires it, and not only will it hit, but it will penetrate.”
Jesus Christ. I shouldn’t have wasted effort on the other team.
I said, “I’m not going to get there in time. Where are we on the police response? Flood the damn place. Get enough in there, and they’ll get it done, whether they know what they’re looking for or not.”
“All jurisdictions are swamped with the power outage. It’s turning into ch
aos on the streets. Looting and other bullshit. There are no police. We’re trying to break some free, and getting ones and twos from individual jurisdictions. It’s not going to be coordinated and it sure as shit won’t be quick. They’re coming from all over. They certainly won’t beat you there.”
“What about the CAT team? Get their ass in the air. They’re trained for this sort of thing.”
“Pike, the threat against the national command authority is too great. The Secret Service isn’t going to release the counterassault team to go offensive. Their job is to protect the president, and believe me—they’re taking that job seriously. This place is turning into an armed camp.”
“I get that, but what about the guys off duty? Get them moving. All hands on deck. The CAT’s got at least four full teams, and they aren’t all manning a wall.”
Kurt paused for a moment, then said, “Yes. That’s true, and they’ve been mobilized. The only men available went with Marine One to extract Retro and Decoy.”
Shit. That hit just keeps on giving.
I threw out one final idea, knowing I was sending in children to fight a grizzly. “Get the fucking forest service guys that work the park to start looking. That’s where he’s at. Find some high ground with a clear line of sight to the reactors. That’s where he’ll be. It’s nothing different from countersniper work.”
I ran out of stupid suggestions, and waited on his response.
Kurt said, “Pike, bottom line is you’re it.”
He let that sink in, then said, “Stop him. You hear me? All bets off. Stop that son of a bitch. I don’t care what it takes. Pull the rabbit out of the hat. Like you used to do.”
With a sense of failure building in my gut, I said, “No issues, sir. I’ll get it done.”
And hung up.
There was one bright point that Kurt hadn’t considered: I had Jennifer with me, and we kicked ass as a team when under pressure. Shit, especially under pressure. As much as any man I had ever served with—even Knuckles. It was something subliminal, something that couldn’t be taught or measured, but it was there, and I would need every single bit of it.
Unfortunately, right now I was unclear of her mental state. The choices boiled down to two—split up or stick together. Splitting up was the better option because we could cover more terrain, but I didn’t want Jennifer to get hurt if she got caught off guard. I was having doubts that she could pull the trigger unless she was in a completely defensive, life-threatening situation. And that might cost her dearly.
I mulled it over for the rest of the ride, getting pulled out of my thoughts when Jennifer said, “This is it.”
We drove up to a yellow shack and paid five bucks to a man-boy to get in the park. I couldn’t tell if the uniform he was wearing was an official Park Service one or from a Boy Scout troop. Yeah, these guys have the attack under control.
Winding around the parking lot, I saw some sort of playground structure made out of old tires, looking like something from Mad Max, with kids happily climbing all over the used rubber.
I said, “Get to the farthest point north you can. That’s where he’ll have entered.”
She parked on a spit of grass, and we exited, looking at a map of the trail network. I saw three that sprouted from the trailhead and went generally parallel to each other. Splitting up really was the best option, because I had no idea which trail he might have taken. Two out of three were better odds than one out of three.
“Jennifer, you sure you’re good going by yourself?”
“Yeah, Pike. I told you I could. Why do you keep questioning me?”
I handed her a radio that looked like an ordinary Garmin Rhino. Instead of the pathetic distance the Rhino achieved on its family radio frequency, though, these would work over much greater range.
“You see the blip on your screen? That’s me. I can see you on my screen. If you find the terrorist, I want you to simply press the alert button. I’ll get an alarm, and haul ass straight at you. Okay?”
She nodded once.
“All right. You take the shorter trail on the right. I’ll take the one on the left. When you reach the point where the trail begins to curve back south, mark it on the Rhino and continue north. If we don’t find them on the trail, they’re in the woods. Keep going until you bump into the nuke plant, then loop back to the trail. We’ll cloverleaf back and forth until we find them.”
She started to move to the trail, when I caught her arm.
“Jennifer, when you leave the trail and the people, you pull that Glock out and have it at the ready. If you alert, I’ll close in as fast as I can, but you need to be prepared to shoot, and shoot first. These guys are not going to fuck around.”
She tucked the Glock into the waistband of her jeans, hiding the butt with her shirt to prevent other hikers from seeing it.
She said, “Pike, I’ll be able to kill what I need to kill.”
She pulled away and entered the trail network.
77
Rafik helped Keshawn line up the final two EFPs, keeping them separated by a great enough distance so the explosion of one wouldn’t destroy the aim of the other. All four were targeted at the base of the nearest reactor dome, the hope being that the third or fourth would penetrate and damage some critical component.
Their primary problem was that there were only two of them, and only two M57 firing devices. Thus, there would be a volley of two EFPs, with a significant gap. They would need to fire the first volley, then prepare the blasting caps and connect the M57s to the second set. It would take time, and Rafik was worried about the possible response of the facility. He had been unable to find information on United States nuclear security on the Web, and imagined it was something robust and incredibly responsive.
He finished aiming and moved back to his original EFP, picking up the M57 clacker in his hand. Unspooling the wire, his actions were mirrored by Keshawn. They entered the small stand of woods on top of the ridge and placed their backs against a tree. Rafik held his hands out from his body, the clacker clasped between them. He looked over at Keshawn and could see a bead of sweat rolling down his face as the man tested the circuit of the detonation system.
Rafik squeezed his eyes for a split second, his hands shaking slightly, and gave a silent prayer for success. When he opened them again, he steeled himself, testing the spring tension of the clacker. His face grim, he looked one more time at his partner. Keshawn gave him a thumbs-up.
They locked eyes, then nodded together in a simple rhythm. Once… twice… then Rafik saw movement over Keshawn’s shoulder. He dropped the clacker and stood, Keshawn whirling around.
He heard Keshawn say, “Stop right there,” then “What the fuck else can go wrong?”
He ran over and saw Keshawn aiming his pistol at an attractive woman and a small boy of about eight.
The woman said, “We’re lost. We don’t mean any trouble. We saw the signs saying no trespassing and were just looking for help.”
They think we work for the nuclear plant.
Keshawn said, “What do you want to do?”
“I’ll handle it.”
He took Keshawn’s pistol and aimed it at the pair, motioning for them to begin walking back the way they had come. The woman began to cry.
“Be quiet. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
The woman nodded her head, holding the small boy’s hands.
Like every other infidel sheep. Walking to slaughter.
Rafik considered his problem. He couldn’t use the gun, because the noise might alert whatever magical security the nuclear plant possessed. He would have to use a knife, which meant he would need to tie them up to prevent one from running while he killed the other. He pulled out a length of rope from his pack and cut it into quarters two feet long.
He turned to Keshawn. “Give me five minutes, then initiate. I’ll be back to help with the second two.”
He pushed the female forward, forcing her and the boy back down the trail.
78
Keshawn watched until the group was lost in the foliage. He pulled his M57 over to the tree Rafik had used for cover, unspooling additional wire to make it reach. Sitting down with his back against the trunk, he consciously avoided looking at his watch, feeling the seconds crawl by.
He thought he heard movement in the woods, away from the direction Rafik had gone. He strained to pick up something besides the birds chirping. He heard nothing else, but the phantom noise put him on edge. Rafik had taken his pistol, leaving him feeling exposed should he be discovered. He glanced at his watch against his will and was aggravated to discover that only two minutes had elapsed. Why am I waiting five minutes? What’s the point?
He picked up both clackers, one in each hand, testing if he could fire them simultaneously. He found the spring tension to be too strong. He might be able to do one, but both together was asking for a mistake. He looked out into the valley, in the direction the two EFPs were aimed, and decided to fire his first. He glanced at his watch again, taking in the molasses drip of the seconds as they went past three minutes and thirty seconds. He made up his mind.
Picking up his clacker, he pressed himself against the tree, exhaled, and rapidly began to squeeze. Between the second and third stroke, the air around him cracked like a living thing, spiking into his ears, the pressure wave from the explosive charge slapping the tree he was hiding behind. Without even turning to survey the damage, he grabbed Rafik’s clacker and began to squeeze.
After the second blast, Keshawn rolled out from behind the tree to survey the damage. Running through the dust cloud raised by the EFPs, he scanned the dome the weapons had been directed against. He saw nothing. He began a methodical search, and caught a darkness near the base, about a third of the way up. He ran to Rafik’s pack and ripped through it until he found a mini eight-power monocular. He trained it on the small stain spread against the whiteness of the concrete, bringing the scope into focus. The stain crystallized into two fractures about five feet apart, with a spiderweb of cracks flowing out in myriad different directions, connecting the two together.
