Black Flagged Apex

by Steven Konkoly

  “The president would like to speak with you. First door on the right,” he said cordially, betraying no emotion.

  “Thank you,” Shelby said.

  Shelby braced himself for the proverbial kick in the balls. He wasn’t sure why, but he couldn’t imagine that a sudden, private audience with the president of the United States on the eve of a national disaster would be a career-enhancing moment. He walked toward the door and was met by the Secret Service agent, who invited him into the tiny room and stepped outside once he entered. The door closed behind him.

  “Sorry to ambush you like this, Frederick. I wanted to personally thank you for getting us this far. Task Force Scorpion has exceeded all expectations. I would have congratulated you along with General Gordon, but I didn’t want him to feel like I was tacking on my condolences to a list of congratulations.”

  “I appreciate hearing that, Mr. President. I will immediately pass your compliment on to Agent Sharpe.”

  “If possible, I’d like to address the task force by video conference tomorrow morning. Just a few minutes. I don’t want to disrupt their momentum.”

  “I think we can arrange that. Let me know when you would like to address the troops. Most of them have been working nonstop for seventy-two hours. This will invigorate them. Thank you, sir.”

  “They’re standing at the vanguard. The least I can do is provide a little pep talk and thank them for what they’ve done so far. Have your agents started to interrogate any of the captured personnel?”

  He wondered where this would lead. For a moment, he had actually believed that this meeting was a genuine gesture of appreciation from the president.

  “Not to sound grim, but my agents are working with Special Forces personnel to triage and stabilize the survivors. They had a few surrenders, but most of the compound’s defenders went down fighting. Tier One operators have an uncanny tendency to hit their targets. The airspace is still under military control, so the situation is a bit of a mess. I promise you that this is one of their highest priorities.”

  “Make it the top priority. I want to know how closely linked this compound is to True America. As for the survivors, I’ll make sure General Gordon understands the importance of facilitating the immediate treatment and safe evacuation of the suspects,” the president said.

  “I understand, sir. I’ll call Moriarty and have her interrogation team go to work on anyone capable of speaking. Our best interrogators arrived with her convoy,” Shelby said.

  “Perfect. From this point forward, report any and all links to True America directly to myself or Jacob Remy. The political ramifications of True America’s involvement require special handling. Any premature accusations or links could be interpreted as a political attack. We need to be one hundred and ten percent sure about any links drawn between the ongoing terrorist plot and True America. I want you to compartmentalize the interrogation findings to Moriarty and Sharpe. Sharpe can use the results to shape his investigation, but I want to minimize the number of people with access to the source information. Our case against True America needs to be airtight. If not, True America’s pundits will ignite a powder keg of backlash against the administration right before an important election year.”

  “I’ll make sure that safeguards are implemented to compartmentalize this information,” he said.

  “Thank you, Frederick. This whole situation is a nightmare, with the potential to blow up on more than one front. I’m not looking forward to our next meeting. I’ve made a decision that will go down in the history books and make me the least popular person in the United States.”

  “Mr. President, some of the best decisions turn out to be the most unpopular. You have my support.”

  “I appreciate that, Frederick, and will not forget it. Unfortunately, the American people have a tendency to focus on the shitty ones. And this is going to go down in the record books. If you would take your seat, I’ll be with everyone in a few minutes, after I take an Alka-Seltzer.”

  “That bad?”

  “Worse.”

  Chapter 39

  2:12 AM

  Lake Wallenpaupack

  Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania

  Jackson Greely sat on the spacious deck overlooking the lake and stared at the full moon’s reflection on the rippled water. A light breeze rustled the dark shapes of several massive pine trees flanking the property and swept across the elevated wood structure. He zipped his jacket all the way to the top, closing the flannel-lined collar and preventing the chilly wind from stealing a little more of his core body temperature. Temperatures in the Poconos still dipped well into the lower forties in early May. He couldn’t sleep thinking about Benjamin Young’s abduction. Or was it a rescue? Six more of their operatives were killed, bringing their total losses to just over twenty in less than twenty-four hours, not including the three men sacrificed outside of Fort Meade. Heavy, unanticipated losses, but nowhere close to a showstopper.

  He glanced back at the tall bank of windows facing the lake, resentful that Lee could sleep peacefully at such a critical juncture in True America’s revolution. Then again, Jackson had done most of the heavy lifting since they started to put the pieces together. Not all of the lifting, but certainly the lion’s share. Lee enjoyed the publicity and rarely shied away from the camera or an audience, but he wasn’t comfortable making hardcore decisions on his own, or even suggesting them. That was Jackson’s role. Lee’s role was to support Jackson and keep the rest of their executive group in line. This was in no way an easy task, but it allowed Lee to sleep on the eve of True America’s rising.

  Greely’s cell phone illuminated the table next to him. A phone call at two in the morning could only mean one thing: Trouble. He recognized one of Brown’s numbers and answered it immediately.

  “Good news, I hope,” he said.

  “That was fast. Trouble sleeping?” Brown said.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you’ll be pleased to know that the compound has been hit. Comms are down, and some of our local contacts have reported helicopters in the general area,” Brown replied.

  “Good. Let’s just hope that Bishop and his second-in-command were killed.”

  “It doesn’t matter either way,” Brown suggested.

  “You’re probably right, but I’m starting to get an uneasy feeling. I’d feel much better knowing that our insurance policy was ready to roll.”

  “It’ll be ready. Perfectly timed in my opinion,” Brown said.

  “I hope so. I’ll sleep better knowing that we’ve removed the last obstacle.”

  The call ended, and he leaned back into the Adirondack chair. Who was he kidding? Once the bottles were delivered, he’d be glued to the television twenty-four hours a day, waiting for the results. He’d be glad to lose the sleep.

  Chapter 40

  7:08 AM

  The Jacksons’ Residence

  Fredericksburg, Virginia

  Darryl Jackson leaned his hands against the brown granite kitchen island and stared at the television for a moment before turning to his wife.

  “Guess where you’re headed today?” she said.

  “Princeton.”

  There was no other choice. He’d let his daughter Liz, convince him that she’d be fine with the water and food he’d brought on his trip. She’d listened to his exhaustive list of do’s and don’ts, taking copious notes. Even Karl Berg had slightly eased his fears, stating that Princeton was an unlikely target based on the information he possessed. Darryl had countered with the fact that Mount Arlington hadn’t exactly been a high-value target, but Al Qaeda had targeted it nonetheless. Berg told him that Al Qaeda was out of the picture and that the new threat matrix had shifted radically. Strategic targets like Fort Meade were the new focus. When he asked Berg if he would be drinking water from his tap at home tonight, the CIA agent had paused and said, “Nobody should be drinking water from their tap, in my opinion, but as long as she follows the rules, she’s not in danger.”
He reminded Karl that everyone drank water down in Virginia too.

  The president’s address changed everything. Now, Darryl was less worried about the water and infinitely more concerned about a sudden breakdown of order across the country. Princeton was relatively isolated in the grand scheme of things, but it was damn near impossible to travel there without crossing through some of the most heavily urbanized areas of the country. If her school cancelled finals, he might not be able to reach her if the situation deteriorated. Based on what the president just told the entire nation, he expected it to deteriorate.

  “…attack against Fort Meade, home of our National Security Agency, had been conducted by a domestic terrorist group with the capacity to strike again in multiple locations. Given the nation’s expansive water distribution network, consisting of nearly 880,000 miles of piping, it would be impractical, if not impossible to secure the system against immediate attacks. Effective immediately, I am asking the American people to bear with their local and regional governments until reasonable safeguards are established to ensure that your drinking water is safe.

  “Many towns and counties may elect to stop the delivery of water, and we are encouraging them to do so. FEMA and Homeland Security experts have assured us that this is the most effective way to prevent intentional contamination of your water. If you must consume water from a tap, it is imperative that you take precautions to sterilize the water. Simple sterilization procedures will kill the virus. Immediately following my broadcast, the Department of Health and Human Services will outline these procedures and other steps you can take to prevent infection in the unlikely event that your water is contaminated.

  “Rest assured that we have committed the full weight of our federal law enforcement agencies to bringing these heinous terrorists to justice and preventing further attacks. The insidious attack at Fort Meade was perpetrated by a sadistic, fringe group, far separated from the free and democratic society that we enjoy as Americans…and they will be stopped. The next few days may be filled with doubt, but I trust that we will all conduct ourselves as heroes and citizens in the face of this crisis…”

  Sure. Everyone would behave charitably and walk calmly down the streets…once they had secured water for themselves and their families. If he couldn’t “persuade” his daughter to return home immediately, he would camp out in Princeton and cover her back.

  “I’ll load up the truck and get moving. Will you be okay here if I need to stay there until she finishes finals?”

  “I’ll be fine. I bought enough water yesterday to last a month. What should we do about Emily?”

  His older daughter was in her third year at U.C. Berkeley and would not finish her final exams until May 15th, nearly two weeks away.

  “Karl said that the threat appeared to be isolated to the East Coast.”

  “Did he give any more specifics?” Cheryl asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “No. But he said they had no indications that the threat would spread west,” he said, aware of the fact that Berg hadn’t exactly given him an airtight case to present to Cheryl.

  “That’s not what I gathered from the president’s address.”

  “The president can’t make sweeping promises in the face of a biological weapons attack and run the risk of being wrong.”

  “Neither can we. I get the feeling they have no idea what they’re up against.”

  Cheryl had her hands on her hips and that look on her face that would send most men scrambling for cover.

  “I’ll call in a few favors out west. If I can’t get Emily home, I’ll fly out myself.”

  “Thank you, honey. I’m going to load up my Land Rover on the way to work,” she said.

  “Bring a sheet to cover it up. I have a feeling that bottled water is about to become a valuable commodity.”

  “All right. I’m out of here,” she said, stepping over to kiss him.

  He could hear her phone buzzing in her purse. She had a long day ahead of her as deputy superintendent. They’d probably cancel school until Homeland Security could convince them that the water was safe.

  “Be careful out there.”

  “Me? You’re the one that can’t stay out of trouble. You and Karl Berg.”

  “He really misses your home cooking,” Darryl said.

  She looked at him with soft, patient eyes. “You really miss him. Don’t you?”

  “He’s a good friend.”

  “Well, if he can promise to keep you out of jail, I might be persuaded to extend a dinner invitation. Don’t get excited. He’ll have to eat the first meal out on the deck.”

  “I love you. Karl Berg or no Karl Berg,” he said, embracing her.

  “Good. Because if I so much as sense that he’s asked you for another favor, the offer will be rescinded and never reissued.” Cheryl broke their contact and backed up a few feet.

  “You’ll make a great superintendent one of these days. Tough as nails.”

  Once his wife left, Darryl descended into the basement to pick out a few items for his trip north. The kind of items that would be illegal to transport through the D.C. metropolitan area without one of the specialized permits he carried. Twenty minutes later, he emerged with a dark blue nylon gym bag filled with his personal insurance policy should law and order cease to exist.

  The home phone rang, and he searched for one of their cordless handsets. After several rings, he finally found one of them buried in the couch. He thought the hidden phone phenomena would end when his daughters left for college, but Cheryl had apparently taught them everything they knew about misplacing remote controls and phones. If anything, the problem intensified when they left. He saw from the caller ID that it was the guilty party herself.

  “What took you so long? You had me worried for a minute.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I had a little trouble finding the phone you had buried between the cushions. What’s up?”

  “Don’t bother stopping for water. The stores are mobbed. I couldn’t even get close to Wegmans. I can’t imagine Giant will be any better,” she said.

  “Give it a try. I don’t want to take any from the house if you can’t find more,” he said.

  “You’ll need it if you’re staying in a hotel. Take what you need. I can boil water from the creek if I have to.”

  “All right. Let me get moving here. I’m anticipating a mess trying to get through D.C.”

  “Business as usual. Drive safe. I love you,” she said.

  “I love you too. I’ll give you a call from the road.”

  BLACK AND WHITE

  Chapter 41

  8:13 AM

  National Counterterrorism Center

  McLean, Virginia

  Special Agent Dana O’Reilly disconnected the phone call and removed her headset.

  “Well, fuck you too, Deputy Dawg,” she mumbled.

  “What was that?” Hesterman said from his new napping position at their workstation.

  “Nothing. Just some uncooperative dickhead.”

  She had placed a call to Laurel, Maryland’s chief of police, following up on a hunch. Something about the shootout in the forest didn’t make sense to her. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it triggered her need to apply “Occam’s Razor” to the situation in an attempt to try and make sense of her inexplicable discomfort with Sergeant Bryan Osborne’s report.

  “Occam’s Razor” was a principle designed to urge one to select the hypothesis or theory that made the fewest assumptions. Though on the surface it favored parsimony and economy, the principle didn’t assert that the simplest available theory should be applied. The “razor” wasn’t an arbiter between theories. In scientific circles it served as a guide. For O’Reilly, it was an interesting way to approach competing theories, especially at 8:15 in the morning, when the stimulant effect of coffee had ceased to have any impact.

  Maybe it wasn’t something specific in Osborne’s preliminary report that triggered her hunch. Perhaps it was the entire situation that d
idn’t appear to make sense to her. Occam’s Razor in reverse. Sergeant Osborne had chosen today of all days to ride with one of his newest police officers. Officer Donahue had taken him on a ride through the winding, gravel roads of a large park east of urban Laurel, which happened to be part of the officer’s patrol. Osborne spotted a vehicle parked deep in the woods from an intersection nearly one hundred feet from the dirt turnoff. Officers responding to their call for backup saw Donahue’s SUV parked on Combat Road, but had trouble finding the right path at first. Somehow, Osborne had spotted the vehicle from the intersection. Finally, Osborne called in backup, but decided to investigate with a rookie.

  He said they stumbled into the group, and the men reached for their rifles, but one of the men had been shot in the back. Backup officers said the generator was running when they arrived, which made it difficult to believe that the two officers had simply stumbled into the group and got the drop on them. There were too many coincidences and discrepancies to take Osborne’s report as gospel, which left her wondering. What had really happened out in the North Tract?

  She believed that Osborne had heard the drilling equipment, possibly spied the three men, and decided to play Rambo with his partner. Osborne would have realized this error in judgment as soon as his partner fell to the ground sans intact skull. The discrepancies in the forest could be explained by Osborne’s need to present a slightly different version of events, one in which he didn’t get his partner killed with backup officers a few minutes out. But this still left O’Reilly pondering the rest of the coincidences leading them deep into the forest.

  She was working too hard to explain Osborne’s actions, which led her back to Occam’s Razor. Was there a theory that cleared most of these assumptions and put Osborne in the forest with his partner, on the path to a deadly engagement with domestic terrorists? There was only one. Sergeant Osborne had known they would be there. Just the thought sent a chill down her spine. If true, this theory had far-reaching implications that could undermine their current investigative efforts.