“Everything’s fine,” Young said in a hushed tone. “Just had to fend off an overzealous Secret Service chief, that’s all.”
“So, we’re not in any danger?” Madeline asked in a whisper.
“Not at all,” he said, patting her on her leg. “Just enjoy the rest of your evening.”
Young shifted in his seat and swallowed hard. He forced a smile just in case any cameras were on him. Despite how discreet he was about leaving, he knew someone would notice and offer up conjecture.
He tried to put on a brave face to show that he wasn’t worried—but he was.
CHAPTER 43
BAHIRI ZAHID CHECKED his rifle and took stock of his munitions. The SUV’s engine roared as it tore off down the road heading back to Washington. Situated in the middle row, he leaned forward to talk to the driver.
“How long will it take us to get to Washington?” Zahid asked.
The driver shrugged. “It depends on traffic. But I’d say a half-hour, especially if we don’t run into any trouble.”
“Relax,” Kazadi said. “You will get your revenge.”
Zahid leaned back and shifted in his seat. “How can you be so sure?”
“The Americans are so predictable,” Kazadi said.
“Yet one man fought as a legion against your soldiers.”
Kazadi shrugged. “What is the saying in America? ‘Even a broken clock is right twice a day’?”
Zahid scowled and shook his head. “If you’re trying to suggest that the American got lucky, I think you’re smart enough to know that the agent they sent to rescue Secretary Geller was a well-trained warrior who knew exactly what he was doing. It would’ve only been luck if you killed him.”
“A desperate man alone in the jungle is different than an arrogant government defending their home soil. Their moves will be predictable, and we will be ready to take advantage of them.”
“You better be right, for all our sakes.”
Kazadi nodded. “I didn’t get this far by being wrong.”
The SUV slowed down as they rounded the corner.
Zahid slid forward in his seat. “Why are we slowing down?” he asked the driver.
“There’s a roadblock ahead,” the driver said before he turned over his shoulder and winked with a mischievous grin. “Buckle up.”
The driver stomped on the accelerator and the car lurched forward, hurtling toward the sawhorses denying passage ahead.
* * *
BLACK GLANCED AGAIN at the flames racing toward the plane’s fuselage. There was no time for calculated guesses. He needed to take action and hope he chose wisely.
Black backed up against the cockpit door and fired his weapon repeatedly at the windshield. The glass held up after the first three shots but by the fourth one, the integrity of the windshield began to weaken. Black fired twice more for good measure before grabbing the fire extinguisher. He smashed it against the glass several times before it gave way.
Smoke seeped beneath the door and Black could barely stand the heat. He coughed before rearing back and kicking at the window, creating a large enough space for him to get through. The shards ripped his forearms and back as he climbed through the hole in the front and jumped to the ground. Black rolled when he hit the tarmac before leaping to his feet and sprinting away from the aircraft.
He dove behind a stack of wooden crates before the plane exploded, sending a flaming ball into the night sky. The ground trembled beneath Black as he peered around the side at the carnage. Metal pieces lay scattered about, some smoking, others still ablaze. Parts of the fuselage appeared to be wilting due to the intense heat from the blast.
While Black was mesmerized by the fiery spectacle, he pulled himself away from it, remembering that he’d only avoided danger to pursue more of it. He hoped Shields was still alive, wherever she was. But he couldn’t dwell on that at the moment. Young’s life was at stake thanks to Black flying the terrorists into the country—and he had to do whatever he could to stop them if he wanted to save both Shields and the president.
Black raced behind the hangar and found several cars parked nearby. He picked a newer Toyota Camry and jimmied the door open. Then he hot-wired the car and took off down the road exiting Hyde Field.
As he drove, he called Blunt to issue a status report. When Black finished explaining what had happened, Blunt sighed.
“You didn’t even at least attempt a shaky landing and maybe try to knock them around a bit?” Blunt asked.
“The co-pilot had a gun on me,” Black said. “What was I supposed to do?”
“You could’ve driven the plane into the ground, which was what I fully expected someone like you with a death wish to do.”
“Maybe I don’t have a death wish anymore.”
“What changed?” Blunt asked.
“Does something have to change for me to want to live a little more strongly than I want to die?”
“Well, those certainly aren’t whimsical decisions,” Blunt said. “And based on how you’ve relished every opportunity over the years to rush into the most harrowing assignments Firestorm’s had, I have to ask myself what was different about this time. Because I still can’t believe I’m talking to you right now.”
“Have you heard from Shields?” Black asked.
“No,” Blunt said. “But Besserman told me what you did. It’ll be a while before anyone can get to that location. Now tell me what’s the situation on the ground.”
“Three-vehicle convoy,” Black said. “I wasn’t privy to their entire plan, but based on the bits and pieces I overheard, it sounded like they were headed to the Kennedy Center.”
“Shit,” Blunt said. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Did you alert the FBI?”
Blunt waited a moment before responding. “I had no choice.”
“Have they already killed her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Damn it,” Black said, pounding his fist on the steering wheel. “You know they have, don’t you?”
“I don’t know anything except that we have an active terrorist threat right now and the president is vulnerable—and it’s our job to help make sure that doesn’t happen. And since you’re the one who ushered these assholes into the country, why don’t you do your job and make sure they don’t kill anyone while they’re here?”
Black seethed, even though Blunt was right. All Black could think about was the fact that Shields was likely dead. He’d failed her when she needed him the most.
An explosion nearby rocked the area. A fiery ball shot skyward. Black rounded the corner and saw ground zero of the blast.
“I’m gonna have to call you back,” Black said.
“What is it?” Blunt asked.
Black tried to process the scene as quickly as possible from four hundred meters away. He let out a low whistle.
“What happened?” Blunt demanded.
Black shook his head. “Looks like a bomb just went off near a roadblock.”
CHAPTER 44
Undisclosed location
“ALL RIGHT, SWEETHEART,” Bunny man said as he marched down the hallway. “This isn’t an assisted living home. I’ve got better things to do than take you to the bathroom and hold your hand every time you have to go.”
The door opened slowly and the man strode inside the bedroom, this time wearing his bunny head. Shields was disappointed, but only because she wanted to see his expression when her demented captor figured out she wasn’t where she was supposed to be.
“What the hell,” he said once he noticed her bindings were cut and she wasn’t there.
“And then you die,” Shields said before pumping three shots into his center mass.
Bunny man staggered backward against the wall and clutched his chest. If he wanted to say something, he couldn’t get the words out. He slid down the wall and collapsed.
Shields removed his bunny head and glanced at him as he tried to mouth something. Whatever he wanted to say, she wasn’t i
nterested in hearing it. She grabbed his gun and slid it into her pocket. Next, she put on his head and headed down the hall.
She found Nixon unmasked, sitting with his back to the hallway on his phone playing a game. Despite a few heavy footfalls, he didn’t look up, instead immersed in the activity on his device.
“I’ll be glad when we can get rid of this chick,” Nixon said. “I’m tired of all her constant whining and smart ass comments.”
“Me, too,” Shields said.
Nixon dropped his phone and scrambled for his weapon lying on the coffee table in front of him. He never reached it.
Shields hit him in the back of the head with her first shot before adding two more in his back. His face smacked the corner of the coffee table, already dead before he hit the ground. She removed the bunny head and tossed it aside. Then she picked up the Nixon mask off the couch and threw it on his face.
“You’re not a crook anymore,” she said to herself with a smirk.
She rooted through his pockets for his keys and then grabbed his phone. As she hustled outside to the car, she dialed Blunt’s number.
“Oh, thank God,” Blunt said as soon as he heard her voice. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “We do need a cleanup at this location. Two bodies to dispose of.”
“Anybody we know?”
“Nah,” she said. “Just some low-life thugs, lured in by the promise of a high-paying job.”
“They would’ve never seen their money.”
“Nope. Their fate was sealed one way or another the minute they took this job.”
Blunt grunted. “I’m glad it was you who sealed it for them.”
“You and me both,” she said. “Now, what happened with Agent Black? Please don’t tell me he tried to be a hero and save me. I mean—”
She paused and took a deep breath.
“Go ahead,” she continued. “Break it to me gently.”
“For once, he abandoned his apparent death wish because he wanted a chance to save you.”
“Damn you, Titus,” she said. “That means he’s dead and the terrorists are here, right?”
“You know Agent Black better than that,” Blunt said. “He might have a death wish, but he’s got more lives than a houseful of cats.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s near Hyde Field right now,” Blunt said. “I was just talking to him a few minutes ago when he hung up abruptly after mentioning something about a bomb going off near a roadblock.”
“And you haven’t heard from him since then?”
“It was literally a couple of minutes ago. I expect to hear back from him any second now.”
“Where should I go now?” she asked.
“Maybe just come back here and help from headquarters.”
She shook her head and set her jaw. “Not tonight. I’m out for blood.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“You and I both know that Agent Black is going to need some help,” she said. “If he’s going all cowboy on us, you know what he’s thinking. As far as he knows, I’m dead and he’s on a suicide mission.”
“And so you’re going to join him? So, what—you can both die together like star-crossed lovers?”
“We’re not lovers,” she snapped. “But he is my partner, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him try to do this alone. Now, where are the terrorists headed?”
“Our best guess is the Kennedy Center,” Blunt said. “It’s where President Young is along with almost every other filthy rich politician, actor, athlete, and philanthropist in the country.”
“That makes sense,” she said. “When you speak to Black, give him this number and tell him that I’ll try to meet up with him there.”
“Why don’t you let him know yourself?” Blunt said. “I’ll text you his number.”
Seconds later, Nixon’s phone buzzed with a number from Blunt.
Shields climbed behind the wheel of Nixon’s car, a Ford Taurus with a rusting paint job. The inside smelled of stale fast food, and the seat cushion was visible through the rips in the cloth upholstery. She turned the key as the engine sputtered to life. There was less than a quarter of a tank of gas, though she wasn’t sure it was enough to get her back to Washington or not since she didn’t know where she was.
These fools were probably going to waste that bounty on drugs instead of getting a new car. Typical.
She opened a map application on Nixon’s phone to determine where she was: a half-hour due east from the capital. She was in some rural wooded area of Maryland.
Armed with that information, she called Black, but he didn’t answer, sending the call straight to voicemail. If she texted him from a strange number, he’d be suspicious. Even if she divulged some secret information that would confirm it was her, she knew Black would think her captors were right there with her. He needed to hear her voice.
She left a rambling voicemail, though even that might not be enough to convince him that she was freed from her captors and on her own now. Closing her eyes to think, Shields sighed and rubbed her temples with her forefingers.
She jammed the car into drive and headed for the Kennedy Center.
CHAPTER 45
Upper Marlboro, Maryland
BLACK WATCHED THE FLAMES lap the night sky in the distance. Several black sedans were scattered across the two-lane byway. Some car parts were in flames, others just smoldering. A handful of red and blue lights strobed the sky, though none of them where they should’ve been. Some were outside the vehicles, windshields shattered. Others were still affixed to blazing dashboards. But it was the bodies that gave Black chills.
He’d seen plenty of death before, but not quite like this, not on American soil anyway. The roadway was littered with bodies, likely a healthy posse of FBI agents who never fully considered the lengths to which the terrorists might go to achieve their demented end.
From what Black could tell, federal agents had set up a road block and a bomb of some sort decimated the area. Due to the shrapnel and wreckage, Black struggled to discern if the explosion was intentional or not.
He drove closer to the site of the explosion and got out of his car. Neighbors ventured out, peering at the scene. One man dressed in a suit and tie surveyed the scene from his driveway nearby.
“Did you see what happened here?” Black asked the man.
He shook his head. “I was inside eating dinner when I heard a loud boom.”
“Did you see a roadblock set up?”
The man nodded. “I came out then too when I saw all the lights, but a couple of men wearing FBI jackets told us to stay inside until further notice.”
“I guess this is further notice,” Black said.
The man shrugged. “I’d like to know what the hell was going on right outside my front door. This is a quiet road and we’ve never had anything like this happen before.”
“I’m sure it’s an outlier,” Black said. “But if you have any kids, I suggest you keep them inside unless you want them to be scarred for life. Bloody appendages have a way of doing that to them.”
“Me, too,” the man said as he winced.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
“Are you a fed?” the man asked.
“Just here to help,” Black said. “You have yourself a nice evening.”
Black hustled closer toward the epicenter, dodging flaming bumpers, hubcaps, and disconnected tires. His feet crunched on shards of glass against the pavement. He came upon two badly burned bodies and checked for a pulse. Both agents were dead.
Black walked along the road, still unsure about what exactly had happened.
Was it a suicide mission? And if so, why would they come this far just to die at an FBI roadblock?
Black’s second question was a nagging one. Surely this wasn’t the plan, but he wondered if it was the result of the impact with the FBI vehicles parked in the road. Unstable explosives, or perhaps a fire, sparked by a bullet enter
ing the vehicle.
Black walked in the grass along the shoulder, gaining a different perspective on the blast radius. Then he heard a groan coming from the bushes in a drainage ditch that ran parallel to the road. He hustled over toward the noise and found a man bleeding with a piece of metal stuck in his side and blood dripping down his face.
“Help,” the man said.
Black studied what appeared to be a piece of a car’s siding lodged in the man’s midsection. If Black removed the object, the man was likely to bleed profusely and be dead before paramedics could get to him.
“Just stay with me,” Black said. “First responders are already on their way.”
“It’s over,” the man said. “I’m not going to make it.”
Black held the man’s hand. “Yes, you will. You need to stay conscious. The minute you drift off, you’ll stop fighting and die. I don’t want that, and you don’t want that. You got a family, Agent—”
“Agent Locke,” he said, swallowing hard as he nodded.
“Boys? Girls?”
“One of each,” Locke said with a chuckle, “with a wife who told me this would happen one day.”
“You’re going to prove her wrong by living,” Black said. “Now, can you tell me what happened?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a federal agent like you, Agent Titus Black. I’m just under a different shield,” Black said.
“Good,” Locke said.
“So, what happened? Did you see the blast?”
Locke nodded almost imperceptibly. “They came right at our roadblock and never even slowed down. Bastards blew themselves up. Must’ve been completely packed with C4 explosives or something like that.”
“Are you sure?”
Locke narrowed his eyes. “If I live, that scene will haunt me to my grave.”
“That just doesn’t make any sense,” Black said.
“Terrorists don’t exactly traffic in logic,” Locke said.
“Yeah, but why would they go through all the trouble of going halfway across the world only to blow themselves up?”
State of Conspiracy (Titus Black Thriller series Book 8) Page 19
