Scorched Earth

by George Galdorisi

  * * *

  The kidnappers’ van rolled onto Route 1 headed north, and the driver again asked Amer, “So what now?”

  “Just drive. You can bump it up to the speed limit. Once we get to the Beltway, we’ll take the inner loop and drive until we get to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. That will take us directly toward BWI. When we get close, I’ll call out the exit that takes us to the warehouse.”

  “Okay, fine. How much longer?”

  “Rush hour is over. I’m guessing forty-five minutes maybe, perhaps a little more.”

  The driver just shook his head and continued to drive.

  * * *

  The FBI command center didn’t have systems nearly as sophisticated as those Aaron Bleich had built for the Geek Tank, but they were good enough. The feeds from the hundreds of traffic and news cameras were programmed to trigger on either of two license plates, the one on the car Amer had recently rented or the one on the van that was coregistered to Amer and another individual in Minneapolis.

  Suddenly, one of the watchstanders in the command center shouted, “I’ve got a hit!”

  The watch commander was at his side immediately. “Where? Show me. Is it the car or the van?”

  “It’s the van, and it’s right here,” the man said, bringing up the shot the traffic cam had taken only seconds before. “It’s moving north along Route 1, just north of University Park and south of the University of Maryland at College Park.”

  “Got it. Alert all units on the secure net. Pull me up a map of where all our assets are deployed.”

  A few seconds later, a display popped up. Each HRT unit had a GPS transceiver that reported its position in real time. The watch commander studied the display for less than a minute, and then pointed at the screen. “Okay, contact this unit and have them roll onto Route 1 here and pick up a loose trail on the van, and have this one move to intercept them as soon as they get just north of College Park.”

  “You got it. You gonna call the director?”

  “You bet!”

  * * *

  “Think we’ve got our team ready to head over to Pope,” Major Mike Volner’s number two, Master Gunnery Sergeant Charles Moore, said as he walked up to the JSOC team leader.

  “Thanks, Master Guns,” he replied. “This one was really short fused; I appreciate you getting everyone kitted up so fast.”

  “It’s what we do, boss. We’re up for any chance to get our beaks wet; it’s been a while.”

  While Volner and Moore grew up in different services, they were simpatico. Major Michael Volner, United States Army, and Master Gunnery Sergeant Charles Moore, United States Marine Corps, had been together for close to three years. Volner had been an Army major for just two years, while Moore was an experienced veteran who had been a Marine for almost two decades. Volner came to JSOC from the 75th Rangers; Moore came from the Marine Corps Special Operations Command. Now they were both part of the JSOC unit that served as Op-Center’s force to deal with international crises. They had acquitted themselves well, most recently rescuing the crew of a Navy littoral combat ship who were under siege by North Korean troops.

  “Mr. Dawson and Hector gonna meet us at Pope?” Moore asked.

  “Already there. The C-17 is inbound. And Master Guns, how’s our civilian analyst feel about being the only woman on the team going downrange?”

  “Ms. Phillips? She’s got big cojones—sorry boss—she’s got the guts of any of our guys. You saw how tough she was when we pulled her out of that pickle in Saudi Arabia a while back. She’s good people. How’d we get her at JSOC again?”

  “Let’s just say Mr. Williams has pull in all the right places.”

  The subject of their discussion, Laurie Phillips, had been in more than a pickle. She and a Navy helicopter pilot, Lieutenant Sandee Barron, had overflown Saudi Arabia without permission and had been shot down by a rogue Saudi prince while trying to solve the same emerging crisis that Op-Center was dealing with. Volner’s team had rescued the two. Barron was shown the door by the Navy for filing a false flight plan and losing a thirty-million-dollar Navy helicopter, and Phillips had been fired by CNA—the Center for Naval Analyses—for being part of the operation.

  But the Op-Center director had seen something he liked in both Barron and Phillips. Sandee Barron was now a helicopter pilot with the FBI CIRG, and Williams had pulled strings to have Phillips hired as a government civilian analyst and assigned to their JSOC team at Fort Bragg. Phillips had blended in splendidly in her new role and was a welcome and valued addition to Volner’s group.

  “We’re lucky at that, boss. She’s bonded with his Geek Tank folks. If they have good intel, they feed it to her in real time.”

  “I suspect she’ll more than pull her weight once we get downrange, Master Guns. For now, let’s mount up.”

  With that, Moore marched his troops onto the waiting bus. Their unit, seconded to Op-Center on previous ops in the Middle East and Northeast Asia, didn’t know yet where this deployment would take them. For these professionals, it didn’t matter.

  * * *

  There was no way to be inconspicuous. The CIRG HRT vehicles looked like the military- or law-enforcement-quality trucks they were. The men in the big black Chevy Suburbans didn’t intend to shadow the van they were after for long. Their objective was to intercept it immediately, subdue whoever was driving, and rescue the hostage.

  The crew in the trail vehicle pulled onto Route 1 and asked for intel from the HRT UH-60M Blackhawk helo overhead. “How far up ahead is the van?”

  “About a half mile,” the pilot of the helo replied. “Speed up and take a loose trail. When your partner joins Route 1, you can close in tighter. We’ll give the order to intercept.”

  “Got it.”

  A mile ahead, the second HRT vehicle waited in a strip-mall parking lot with direct access to Route 1. On signal, it would roar out of the lot and get ahead of the van, then slow and force it to stop.

  Both vehicles were getting locating info from the Blackhawk, which was flying overhead at three thousand feet. The pilots picked that altitude because it was low enough to see the van they were after, but high enough that the van might not notice them. The two veteran pilots, Joe McDaniel and Frank Stang, communicated directly with their two ground vehicles. It was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.

  * * *

  “There’s the sign for the Beltway, I-495; it’s just a few miles ahead. We’ll turn there and go east to get to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway,” Amer told the driver. “Keep your speed up, we don’t want to draw attention for going too slow.”

  As the driver complied, the man in the back of the van said, “Amer, I’ve been watching out the back windows. I think there’s a black truck following us. It looks like a Chevy Suburban. It’s just matching our speed.”

  “Are you sure? Do you see any lights or flashers?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Should we slow down and see if he goes around us?”

  “I don’t know,” Amer said. “Let’s just—”

  He stopped in mid-sentence as he looked at the parking lot to his right and saw a second black Suburban barreling out onto Route 1. It looked like it was going to crash into their van.

  “Watch out!” Amer shouted at the driver.

  The HRT vehicle pulled right out in front of them and started slowing.

  “What are we going to do?” the driver yelled.

  “That truck behind us, it’s closing rapidly. It’s right on our tail!” the man in the back of the van shouted.

  * * *

  High above, Frank Stang was at the controls of the HRT Blackhawk and was about to key the mike and talk with his two ground vehicles when he heard his copilot.

  “Shit!” McDaniel shouted.

  “What?” Stang asked as he kept an eye on the van below.

  “Look!” McDaniel replied, pointing at the display on the helo’s instrument panel.

  “Dammit … Master caution light … Tail rotor chip
light. Reset the master caution and give it a minute to see if it clears.”

  “I did already,” McDaniel answered. “It came back on … Frank?”

  A tail rotor chip light dictated that they needed to land their bird immediately. The chip light was designed to give the pilots early warning of what could be an impending catastrophic failure of their tail rotor gear box. If that mechanism failed, their tail rotor would stop and the best they could hope for was a semicontrolled crash. Stang wasn’t only at the controls, he was the pilot in command, and he should have bottomed the collective by now to get them on the ground—and fast.

  “It could just be fuzz. Maybe it’ll burn off.”

  “You know what the procedures say; we’ve gotta land now!” McDaniel shouted.

  “All right, all right,” Stang replied. “Call command and tell them to get the other bird up. We can’t lose these guys.”

  * * *

  “Speed up and go around them!” Amer shouted at the driver. The man needed no further urging, as he punched the accelerator, moved into the left lane, and zoomed around the HRT truck.

  “Faster, faster!” Amer urged as they drove in the leftmost lane of the two northbound lanes of Route 1. But as they sped up, the two HRT trucks moved up to stay right behind them and matched their speed.

  “See that semi up there in the right lane?” Amer asked. “It must be going only forty-five or maybe fifty. Stay in this lane but slow down and match its speed. Here’s what we’re going to do…”

  * * *

  “Got it, command,” the on-scene ground commander in the HRT truck that had just pulled onto Route 1 said. “Any idea when the backup bird will launch?”

  “Should be no more than ten minutes. Don’t lose this guy.”

  “Don’t worry, we won’t,” he replied, and then he continued, speaking to the other vehicle. “This guy is slowing down. Should we get out in front of him and slow to a stop and force him to stop too?”

  “No, there’re too many cars on the road. We don’t want to cause a pileup.”

  “All right, but I’ll be damn glad when that second helo is airborne again.”

  * * *

  A crisis debilitates some people while it has the opposite effect on others, helping those in that latter category call up reservoirs of clarity and courage they often were unaware they had. Amer Deghayes was in that second group.

  He had explained the plan to the driver. The third man had abandoned Bruner and had crawled up to between the van’s two front seats and now looked out ahead with Amer and the driver. Their van now rode at about the seven o’clock position behind the semi. The two HRT trucks just continued to follow them. The other traffic on Route 1 was starting to back up behind them.

  “Start to slow even more,” Amer told the driver.

  The van started to slow, and the two HRT trucks matched their speed.

  “What’s this asshole doing now?” one of the HRT men groused.

  “NOW, punch it!” Amer shouted at the driver. The man floored the accelerator and the van leapt ahead. The two HRT vehicles started to speed up too.

  Amer hoped he had timed it perfectly. There was a cross street up ahead. The semi continued in the right lane. Their van was in the other lane, beside the semi, and had slowed to match its speed exactly. The two HRT trucks trailed the van, but at a bit of a distance. This clown had slowed abruptly before and they didn’t want to crash into him.

  “There it is up ahead,” Amer said.

  “It’s going to be close. I don’t think we’ll make it!” the van’s driver cried out.

  “Yes we will,” Amer said. “Faster, faster; stay right next to the semi.”

  The driver complied. They were even with the semi’s cab, and Amer saw the truck’s driver looking down at him. “NOW!” Amer shouted.

  The van’s driver mashed the accelerator and zoomed slightly ahead of the semi. Then he jerked the wheel violently to the right as they cut in front of the semi no more than fifty feet ahead of its looming grille and headed into the cross street, tires squealing. In the back of the van, Jay Bruner bounced around like a rag doll; his head smashed against the wall of the van, almost knocking him unconscious.

  The semi’s driver slammed on his brake and simultaneously mashed his horn. The eighteen-wheeler screeched along, smoke billowing out of its brakes.

  * * *

  “Shit, we’ve lost him!” the HRT on-scene commander shouted to no one in particular. Then to the driver, “Call command, tell them this guy got off at Berwyn Road and we lost him. We’ll turn off at the next cross street and double back, but tell them to get that other helo airborne now!”

  * * *

  The van careened east along Berwyn Road as the driver held a death grip on the wheel, and Amer and the other man looked behind them to see if they had lost their pursuers. Bruner continued to bounce around in the back of the van. He braced himself as best he could, fearing the worst: that they might tip over.

  Once his heart stopped pounding, Amer reached down on the floor of the van and retrieved his map. He studied it for a few moments, and then said, “Keep going this way. I think we’ve lost them for now but we can’t get back on Route 1. If we head this way for another mile or two, then double back for a few miles, we can pick up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway here,” he continued, pointing at the map. But the driver just looked straight ahead and maintained his death grip on the van’s steering wheel.

  * * *

  At the warehouse, one of the men looked at his watch as the other continued to pack peaches in the refrigerated box. There was an art to what they were doing, as they needed to avoid suspicion should a supervisor from the company happen to drop in, but they also needed to pack the box in a way that would allow them to easily fit the hostage clad in his survival gear. And they needed Amer to get here on time.

  * * *

  When Dale Bruner finally finished on the grinder and got to his locker, he had a number of texts, e-mails, and phone messages waiting for him. He read and listened to everything on the phone, then prioritized which ones he would deal with immediately. His call to his mother was first on his list.

  “Hey, Mom,” Dale began when his mother answered. “Sorry I took so long to get back to you. I was out with a class and had all my stuff locked up.”

  “Dale, oh thank you for calling. It’s good to hear your voice. Are you alone right now?” Dale could hear the stress in Meagan Bruner’s voice.

  “Mom, what’s going on?”

  “Now I don’t want you to worry, but … well … it seems that your dad’s car got stolen, and the car-jackers took him too. I guess a shiny new BMW was just too inviting a target. I’m sure he’s okay. The West Springfield police have been very kind, and they have gotten the FBI involved, and I’m certain they’ll find him soon. But I just wanted to let you know so you wouldn’t worry if you hear something about it—and I just wanted to hear your voice too.” Meagan was fighting mightily not to let her voice crack, but it wasn’t working.

  Amber had sworn him to secrecy, texting him the full details of what was going on. In the Bruner family, there were parental prerogatives, and Jay and Meagan Bruner had made it abundantly clear to their three children that parents were the ones who delivered important news. Her mom would never forgive her if she found out that she had let her brother know about their dad’s kidnapping prematurely. Parents made these kinds of calls, not siblings.

  Dale knew enough from his sister’s text that it was clear to him his mom was putting a good face on things, and she wasn’t telling him everything. “Mom, are you okay, and are Amber and Katherine okay?”

  “Yes, dear, we’re completely fine. I know your dad will be all right. The West Springfield police lieutenant told me these kinds of car-jackings happen all the time—especially with high-end cars late at night in park-and-ride lots.”

  Dale listened impassively. His mother was trying to spin this as positively as possible, but she wasn’t doing a good job of it. “Loo
k, Mom, I’ve got leave on the books and I’ve got good people working for me here. I’ll make a reservation and get a flight home right away.”

  “Oh Dale, you don’t need to do that. We’re all fine. Your dad would flip out if he knew you left your assignment there with no notice to the people you work with.”

  But Dale Bruner had made his mind up. He would be flying out of San Diego’s Lindbergh Field and heading to Washington that evening.

  * * *

  The two men were alone in the warehouse with their mostly filled refrigerated box.

  “I can’t believe Amer decided that we shouldn’t use our cell phones. We have a schedule to meet to deliver this box, but we have no idea where he is now. If we’re late, someone will be suspicious.”

  “I know. I’m getting kind of sick of Amer running the show and not telling us everything. I just want to get this guy into this gear, pack him up, and then we can get the hell out of here. I’ll be glad to get another job closer to where we live.”

  “I’ve had about enough,” the other man replied. “We’re not doing jihad here. I’m ready to move back to Minneapolis.”

  “So am I. Tell me again about why we have to deliver this to the FedEx hangar at a specific time. Why do we have a time slot we have to meet?”

  His partner sighed. He had asked the same question and had been told that the union for the trucking company drivers had complained that they were losing time and burning gas waiting in line to make their deliveries to the FedEx warehouse at BWI. At their urging, FedEx corporate made the decision to assign delivery time slots to placate the unions. “It’s a stupid rule to keep the unions happy.”