*
Chris Abrams forced a grin as he slowly opened the Hamilton Arms lobby door. He and his men walked upright, at ease. Although their rifles were live, with rounds in the chamber, they did not assume an attack posture. Looking like friendlies was key to their success.
There were four Green Berets in the lobby, kneeling behind a barricade of stacked furniture. Their backs were to the main lobby door, rifles trained on the building’s primary escape routes — elevator and stairwell. When Abrams’ men came into view, sporting U.S.-issue weaponry, Ulysses uniforms and shaved heads, the Green Berets stood and dropped their weapons to their sides.
“Who called in Ulysses?” one of them cracked.
Abrams’ reply was a burst of M4 fire that cut two Green Berets across their waists and sent the other two diving over a couch. Both were quick to respond with grenades, which was a risky move at such close proximity. Abrams’ crew dropped and rolled to either side, seeking cover.
Both grenades went off simultaneously. Abrams felt a stinging jab to his left side that stunned him. He opened his eyes in time to see a long, square segment of metal ventilation shaft falling from the ceiling. He rolled behind it as the surviving Green Berets sprayed the cloud of smoke, dust and bodies with gunfire. He pressed his hand to his aching side. Though his uniform on that side was frayed, and his fingers pressed through the riddled body armor to his tenderized flesh, there was no blood.
Just three feet from him, a dismembered, claw-like hand twitched. Abrams considered playing dead and then surprising his attackers as they rose to count their kills. But these were Green Berets he was up against. They were too smart for that. Unless Abrams’ crew started firing back, and with a vengeance, the Green Berets would only keep lobbing grenades into the debris until there was nothing left of it.
Abrams removed the pin from one of his own grenades and flung it in a high arc to the other side of the room. It never made it that far. Abrams heard the sound of metal-on-metal as his grenade lodged into a piece of fallen ceiling. It hung there for three seconds until it exploded, bringing more chunks of the second floor raining down on them.
*
Elvir was baffled by the echo of explosions and gunfire downstairs. He had half-expected the government to come looking for Angie Jackson, but she was here before him. The two remaining members of his crew woke not ten feet from him. So who was fighting whom?
He flung open the bathroom door to check on Angie. He found her in the bathtub, wielding the shower curtain rod like some medieval jousting lance. “Easy, woman,” he yelled. “Remember for a second who saved you!”
His eyes searched the room and eventually came to rest on the magazine on the floor. He kicked it aside. He recognized the optic probe immediately.
He put his foot over the probe’s lens and looked at Angie. “Who’s watching us?” he demanded. Angie did not know the answer. She had thought the camera was Elvir’s.
An M4 salvo ripped through the floorboards. A round passed straight through the sole of Elvir’s boot and came to rest within the ball of his foot. Angie released the shower curtain rod and cowered in the tub just as another burst of automatic gunfire came from the apartment below. Elvir collapsed to his knees, bleeding from his groin.
Through the open bathroom door, Angie watched as Elvir’s cohorts rose from bed and got to their feet. But gunfire sliced through the carpet and cut them down before they could escape.
*
Carver stood looking through a series of holes in the ceiling that he had made with his own gunfire. A familiar face from Apartment 309 stared back at him. And he knew without a doubt she was the SECDEF’s wife.
“We’re pinned down,” came the frantic voice over his radio. “Two down in the lobby.”
Carver turned and barked at the two Green Berets. “Go up to 309 and get that hostage safe. Use the fire escape. I’m headed to the lobby.”
He was down the stairwell in thirty seconds. The door separating the stairwell from the lobby was blown clear off, and Carver was stunned to see that some of the second floor had caved in. The room was a haze of dust and smoke, but he spotted two surviving Green Berets, both half-buried in collapsed drywall. At the opposite end of the lobby, three guns returned fire near the main entrance. Carver shot from the third stair step and was sure he saw a spray of blood as the muzzle flash went dark.
Through the murkiness, Carver saw a uniformed figure sidewinding across the entrance. He readied his rifle to fire on the rushing attacker, and then saw a flash of an Army airborne uniform. It occurred to Carver that this could be some horrible friendly fire catastrophe — two units sent after the same target, cutting each other to bits because there was no central command authority. Carver realized he would only have himself to blame. This was the very definition of a skunk works operation.
He lost the figure in the smoky air for a moment. Then Carver saw a knife blade, its shank glimmering in the reflection of a half-destroyed chandelier that sagged low to the ground. The enemy gun went silent.
The other gun went silent around the same time, but it was difficult to see what was happening from Carver’s vantage point. Finally someone called out. “Cease fire! Cease fire!”
The voice was one he hadn’t expected to hear again. It was Sergeant Hundley.
Viper Squad’s returning fire slowly petered out. “Sarge?” someone said.
Hundley stood up straight. “Damn straight.”
Carver came down the stairs. He and the Sergeant locked gazes.
Hundley held a bloody 10-inch buck knife. The Sergeant stooped down and picked a rifle from one of the dead Ulysses soldiers. He held it in the ready position, with his finger on the trigger. The Sergeant’s huge deltoids twitched underneath his shirt. It occurred to Carver that Hundley could take his revenge now if he wanted to, and he was in no position to stop him.
“So you made it,” Carver said.
“I still run a four-four,” Sergeant Hundley replied.
“Lucky for us.”
“Agent Carver, tell you what. I’m prepared to forget about that incident on the street if you are.”
The idea of making a deal with a loose cannon like Hundley didn’t sit well. On the other hand, if Carver were to refuse, Hundley would shoot him on the spot, and the other Green Berets would undoubtedly cover for him. And there was the little matter of the national emergency to tend to.
“I don’t say this to be vain,” Carver said, “but you’re looking at the only person in America who can catch the assassins.”
Hundley grinned. “You’re an even bigger egomaniac than I am. So are we good?”
“No,” Carver said. “Seriously, Sergeant, I can’t pretend you didn’t shoot that looter. Twenty other people saw you gun that guy down. But I can tell the Army about the other things you did here today. Maybe they’ll go easy on you.”
Hundley lowered the rifle. “I can deal with that.”
Carver climbed over the debris. “So who were we fighting?”
“Ulysses,” Hundley said. He kicked one of the dead Ulysses soldiers in the ribs. Carver looked over the bodies. He picked up a Ulysses ID on the floor and regarded the photo of Chris Abrams’ chiseled head. He turned over the four bodies one by one.
Their faces were intact, but none matched the man on the ID.
8th Precinct, Baltimore
The police station was oddly quiet as O’Keefe ushered Nico to reception. The Desk Sergeant, a rail of a man with bushy, graying eyebrows, was the only person in sight. “Morning,” he said. “What’s a nice couple like you doing in a dive like this?”
O’Keefe’s left wrist was cuffed to Nico’s right. She jerked them to eye-level for the Desk Sergeant’s benefit.
“My mistake,” the Desk Sergeant said. “You looked like a couple lovebirds holding hands.”
O’Keefe flashed her old NSA badge, having learned the hard way over the past several weeks that it carried far more weight than the generic-looking credentials issued from Spe
ers’ office. “Where is everybody?” she said as she peered around the near-empty station.
“Sleepin’ it off,” the Sergeant said. “We’re not staffed to enforce martial law, but we were doin’ just that until the Ulysses boys showed up a few hours ago.”
“Everyone okay?”
“One of our guys fell asleep behind the wheel, smashed into a daycare. Thank God no kids were there at the time. Chief had seventy cots set up downstairs an’ they’re all full up. But now we got scattered reports of looting coming in, and I’m thinkin’ naptime’s over. Know what I mean?”
“Sorry to trouble you,” O’Keefe said, “but I need a secure Internet connection.”
“What, NSA don’t have wireless?”
“She said secure, genius,” Nico quipped. “That means a land line.”
“Pardon my colleague,” O’Keefe said. “Now can you help us?”
“Third office down the hall, right side. Knock yourself out.”
Just as the Sergeant said, they found a small meeting room with an outdated public-use computer. Nico stood before the ancient machine, nervously chewing the nails on his free hand as he gazed at his EVA tattoos.
O’Keefe picked up the telephone and called Eva’s extension at Fort Campbell. Eva picked up on the first ring. “Put me on speaker,” she instructed before launching into an explanation of Speers’ theory that someone inside the military had pre-selected Marine One’s flight path on the President’s fatal flight. “If we can find out who did this, we can follow the trail all the way up the command chain. Can you do it?”
Nico began chewing on his nails again. “So let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re asking me to do the very thing that you put me in prison for in the first place?’
“I’m asking you to help solve a murder. If you can pull this off, then you’ll get your pardon. Can it be done?”
“I can do anything given enough time.”
Eva let out a short, sharp laugh. “You don’t have any. We needed this yesterday.”
He sighed. “At least give me a contact at CENTAF. Then it’s at least like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“As opposed to what?”
“A needle in a stack of needles.”
Over West Virginia
6:45 a.m.
Major Dobbs piloted the Blackhawk chopper at treetop level over the rolling West Virginia countryside. Speers held a handkerchief over his mouth as the rollercoaster-like trajectory played havoc with his stomach. Looking out the window, he spotted a herd of deer scattering across a rocky ridge beneath them. The ridge soon gave way to a valley of green farmland and, below that, a pig farm and a river of winding brown sludge.
A small town was nested at the far end of the valley. “Where are we?” Speers said over the grinding hum of the rotors.
“That’s Martinsburg.”
“Does the MARC run out here?” Speers said, referring to the commuter train that ran from West Virginia and through Maryland to D.C. “I gotta get back to the District.”
“Risky,” Dobbs said. “If they haven’t done it already, the Joint Chiefs are going to break out the bloodhounds. Count on it.”
“But they’ve severed my VPN connection,” Speers explained. “I’ve gotta get on the network. The only way is to go to the office.”
Dobbs eased off the throttle and set the chopper down in a cattle pasture. Three dozen bewildered cattle ran for the hills.
“There’s a MARC station on the other side of that river,” Dobbs said. “Watch out for water moccasins when you cross it.”
“Wait — you’re not coming?”
“Negative on that, Chief. I wanna live.”
“What’s your plan?”
“I’ll set this baby down on the other side of the Canadian border and wait for the Mounties to come.”
“Political asylum isn’t all it’s cracked up to be these days. As an attorney, I’d have to advise…”
“Save it, Chief. And for God’s sake, find some deodorant. You stink.”
Speers reluctantly shook the Major’s hand and wished him good luck. He ran, crouching, as he exited the chopper until he had cleared the expanse of the rotor blades. He stood watching as Dobbs took off again and flew due north. He put his nose to his underarm and flinched. Dobbs was right. He smelled absolutely putrid.
He walked past awestruck cattle toward the river. His patent leather shoes squished deeply and loudly into the mud.
Aside from a city park, Speers had never actually been in a forest. The closest that the 42-year-old had been to experiencing the great outdoors was with a car window rolled down while antiquing in rural Maryland. Raised as an only child by his late mother in D.C., the sum of his boyhood adventures had taken place in museums and theatre houses and video games. He had never been camping, nor had he, like most of his colleagues, taken up running or hiking or kayaking.
He gazed at the river in the distance, which looked at least 20 feet wide. “How in Hades am I going to get across that?” he said aloud. Even at this distance, he could hear the roar of the water. It was like the audio file of nature sounds that helped him sleep at night.
The unmistakable whirr of helicopter blades roared overhead. Speers looked up smiling, expecting to find that Major Dobbs had decided to join him after all. He was mistaken.
Two Apache AH-64 attack helicopters flew so low that Speers could have hit them with a rock. Speers ran backwards toward the tree line, unable to take his eyes off the twin airships. The Apache on the left wing suddenly released two white sparrow missiles. They dropped perhaps six feet before emitting a shower of white flame and hurling northward at breathtaking speed.
It was then that Speers spotted Dobbs’ chopper, still barely visible on the horizon as the missiles rushed toward him. Speers stood at the edge of the field. Even to his non-military eye, it was clear that Dobbs was flying far too low for effective evasive action. He banked the Blackhawk as hard as he could and released a torrent of flares.
The flares did nothing to deter the laser-guided sparrows. They locked onto the Blackhawk anyhow, striking its underbelly like flying snakes. Dobbs’ chopper was transformed into a comet that plummeted into a barn on the hillside.
Speers didn’t have time to grieve Major Dobbs’ violent death. He sprinted for the tree line as the Apaches rose and turned in sync eastward. The real forest was nothing like Speers had imagined from the comfort of his TV screen. The trees were thin-trunked and far too dense with underbrush for any serious running. Poison ivy was everywhere. The best he could do was squirm several feet into the thick foliage and lay down to hide. The Apaches circled overhead twice, in large circles, so low that the trees swayed in the breeze from their rotors. Speers felt something — chiggers, probably — biting his ankles, but he did not dare move.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. His heart soared as he realized he had regained signal. He longed to answer. He wanted to tell someone that he was being hunted like an animal. But even if he did, what good would it do? There was no defense against the Apaches except to hide. And it occurred to Speers that the phone was perhaps a liability. What if Wainewright’s goons had used it to track his location? What if they had listened in to his brief conversation with Eva? He reached into his pocket and held his thumb over the power button.
8th Precinct, Baltimore
6:52 a.m.
The air was close and hot in the little room. Nico sat with his orange jumpsuit unzipped to the waist as he pounded multi-colored code onto a black computer screen. O’Keefe watched over his shoulder and pulled at the ends of her long strawberry-blonde hair to stay awake.
“This is spooky ironic,” Nico said. The speed of his rapid-fire typing didn’t suffer as he spoke.
“You mean hacking into government records for the very same person who put you in the slammer for hacking into government records?”
“Not only that,” Nico said. “I’m hacking into government records in a police station. The cops are actually
helping me commit a crime. Twisted, right?”
O’Keefe took off her Kevlar-lined jacket for the first time today, revealing a gray t-shirt with the NSA emblem across the chest. “Too bad you’ll never be allowed to put this in your memoirs.”
The computer emitted a shrill buzz. Nico stood and kicked a trash can across the floor. “What?”
“CENTAF cyber sheriff booted me out. This is too much pressure. I can’t believe Eva’s doing this to me. Double-crossing beotch.”
“Watch it,” O’Keefe warned. “That’s the future Veep you’re talking about. Be nice to her. She’s got half a mind to hand you over to the Saudis.”
Nico went pale. “She really said that?”
“You know what the Saudis do to hackers, right?” She held up her arm and made a slicing motion across her wrist.
He returned to the machine and began again. His heart wasn’t in it. It was a futile exercise. Neither O’Keefe nor Eva understood that anyone with clearance to work on CENTAF’s systems could have rigged Marine One’s flight plan without leaving obvious digital fingerprints. Forensic IT work was difficult and labor intensive. It would take days or weeks to find anything conclusive.
O’Keefe walked to the other side of the table and stretched her arms high above her head and yawned. She yawned again. And a terrible idea popped into Nico’s head.
“At least switch off the lights,” he told her. “Screen glare’s killing my eyes.”
She did. Nico typed with a bit more force now. His cuffs knocked loudly against the keyboard. He kept this up for several minutes. Then, exasperated, he turned and held his wrists toward her. He rattled his cuffs for good measure. “I can’t work in these.”
“C’mon. Don’t put me in that kind of position.”
“You’re torturing me.”
“Melodramatic.”
“I’m in serious pain. Have a look if you don’t believe me.”
She took a peek at the skin of his wrists. It was indeed red from the cuff’s constant chafing.
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