Besieged

by A. J Tata

  “Now!” Mahegan said through gritted teeth.

  He waited five seconds for the window to go completely down, grabbed his Sig Sauer pistol from its pouch, and rolled over the backseat into the rear hatch. He felt the braking, planted his feet against the back of the rear seats, and dove through the open back window like an Olympic swimmer at the starting blocks.

  The chase vehicle slammed into the rear of Casey’s SUV, and Mahegan landed on the hood. He shot the passenger, then shot the driver before they could react.

  As the black SUV began to slow down and veer into oncoming traffic, the windshield shattered. He reached around with his right arm and steered the vehicle back into the correct lane. He could hear honking behind the SUV as they slowed. He waved to Casey to keep going. He knew there were more where these guys had come from.

  He steered the car to the shoulder as the SUV slowed to a stop. After sliding off the hood, he opened the driver’s door and pushed the dead driver into the middle opening between the two bucket seats. He checked that the passenger was dead, as well. He’d sent two double taps into the chest of each man. He normally would have gone for head shots, but he had been concerned about the angle of the glass and the penetrating capability of his hollow-point bullets.

  But the hollow points had gotten the job done.

  He looked at the dead guy in the passenger seat. The seat belt held his torso up, but his head hung low in death. He was dressed in a white cotton shirt, gray slacks, and a blue blazer. He had a thin black beard, an angular nose, and short, oily black hair. His lifeless eyes appeared black as they stared into the console.

  He raced the SUV from the shoulder and maintained a fifty-foot distance from Casey’s vehicle. He was on the look-out for more of the SUVs, also aware that there could be some autonomous vehicles on the road. He was certain that this SUV had a GPS tracker and that some commander was monitoring his location from an operations center in the R & D location.

  If a commander was moving his forces around to recapture Misha, he would concentrate his efforts at a choke point. Route 421 coming out of Fort Fisher was nothing but one big canalized piece of terrain, with beach and ocean to the right and beach houses to the left. He knew they were approaching Snow’s Cut, which was a part of the Intracoastal Waterway. They would have to traverse a bridge, which was a perfect ambush location, if the enemy had been able to reposition in time.

  He sped ahead of Casey, motioning as he passed for her to ease off the speed, pointing at his eyes and then pointing up ahead, the universal sign for “I’m going to go check that out.”

  About the time he could see the bridge, he noticed a sign for Carolina Beach State Park, which backed up to Snow’s Cut and the Cape Fear River. It had a single road through the middle and had been his starting point last night. His vehicle was presumably still there, if it had not been towed.

  In the line of traffic coming at him, he saw a black SUV cross the bridge and then a red Cefiro sports car, just like De La Cruz’s car, pull onto the bridge and stop. He was about one hundred yards away and barreling toward the bridge when an explosion rocked the suspension of the Suburban and spit shrapnel into his face through the open gap that once held the windshield.

  He slammed on the brakes in just enough time to turn into the access to Carolina Beach State Park. He could see Casey following him and saw Misha’s bespectacled head poking up between the seats. He wished Casey would tell her to stay on the floor.

  Turning onto the road, he saw that the black Suburban had beat the red Cefiro car across the bridge. It made the turn to follow them, and he waved his arm for Casey to pass him. He wanted the vehicle he was driving in between Misha and the terrorists.

  She passed him doing seventy miles an hour on the gravel road, dust kicking up behind her. In the sideview mirror, he could see the black SUV gaining, and he wondered briefly if they thought he was one of them or if they knew the vehicle had fallen into enemy hands. He used the dust to his advantage and yanked the earbud from the dead guy next to him. He heard men speaking Farsi, possibly trying to contact the dead men in his vehicle. He knew limited Farsi and barked a quick “Follow me” in his opponents’ native tongue. He saw the SUV speed up and then slow down, as if the driver was unsure what to do. Meanwhile, Casey was maybe doing eighty miles an hour, and he thought she was probably in sync with him.

  He sped up to act as though he was chasing her, and when he was about ten yards from her SUV, he did a Rockford 180-degree turn so that he was facing the oncoming SUV. He leapt out of the SUV just before the oncoming Suburban slammed into his, went up on its front two wheels, and then shuddered back to the ground.

  He saw that his air bag popped, but he wasn’t in the car to feel it, because he was running to the side of the SUV that had just slammed into the one he had been driving. He sent two bullets into the head of passenger, who was dazed and now dead.

  The driver’s face was bloody from his impact with the air bag, but he was conscious and reaching for his MP5. The window had shattered when Mahegan shot the man’s partner, and he reached in and put two rounds into the man’s face.

  He saw that Casey had turned the corner toward Snow’s Cut and was waiting for him. He spent about two minutes going through the pockets of the four men, two in each vehicle, and pulled the registrations from the cars.

  Luckily, he found a duffel bag with their ammunition, so he dumped everything in that and then jogged to Casey’s SUV. It was awkward running in his wet suit and reef boots as he carried a bagful of weapons and smartphones.

  “Did you see that? That’s the only bridge. We can’t get out of here,” Casey said.

  “See it? I felt it. Drive to the waterway, and we’ll swim and then take a cab.”

  “Swim?” she asked, looking at Misha.

  “I’ll carry her. It’s not a problem. Let’s go before the cops are on this place.”

  “What about my car?”

  “Just park it in the parking lot, and we’ll walk over to the bank and walk in. Mine’s over there somewhere. Let’s go.”

  He was getting impatient. In his operational mind-set, timelines and response times were second nature to him. He knew they had about three minutes before the first responders would be at the bridge and then the accident site. He didn’t mind leaving the two terrorist SUVs behind. He had already gotten good intel off their bodies and cars.

  They walked toward the channel, found a covered area, and ducked into the tree line that fronted the water.

  “Just ride my back like a pony,” Mahegan said to Misha.

  “Scared,” she said.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said. She nodded at him. Her blond hair was greasy and hung in loose tendrils across her face. Her blue dress was so dirty, it looked gray now. And for the first time he noticed that she was barefoot but didn’t seem to mind. She was a tough kid and was handling everything, so far. He placed Casey’s smartphone in the tight waterproof pouch that now also held his government phone and the burner.

  He walked knee deep into the water and knelt down so that she could climb on his back. He felt her staring at him from the bank when Casey lifted her and placed her on his back.

  “Just like a piggyback ride, Misha,” Casey said. “Hold on to this.”

  He saw her place his long wet-suit zipper in her hand, which provided her the perfect rein. Casey then waded in and propelled herself through the water in her scrubs. He was certain she was none too happy with him. She had a job, which made him think of Promise and where all of this had started. How big was the enemy’s plan that they would terrorize an entire school to capture an eleven-year-old girl? Of course, it had to be the code she had written on those boards, but what was the end-game? Their target?

  Based on what he had seen and heard, he knew now that he was dealing with Quds Force operatives. Iranian Special Forces. Mirza. They had fallen off the radar in the Middle East and now had reappeared here in the southeastern United States, as if by a magician’s trick.


  And piecing everything together, he believed they were the vanguard for the recent invasion of the country.

  They arrived at the far side, crawled up the bank, and walked through a neighborhood. Mahegan handed Casey her cell phone, and after a few clicks of the phone, she said, “Uber has a car five minutes out.”

  They were a scary-looking bunch but could also pass as a family whose car had broken down, each with places to be. Though he had to admit it appeared strange that they were all soaked and dressed very differently.

  When the SUV pulled up, the Indian man behind the wheel hesitated, but then he rolled down the window and said, “Hi. I’m Pateesh, your driver. So, we’re going to Hampton Inn, Landfall?”

  “That’s right,” Mahegan answered.

  Pateesh got them there in forty minutes, fighting traffic the entire way. Upon arrival at the hotel, Misha and Mahegan waited in the parking lot as Casey reserved them a suite on the fourth floor.

  Once in the room, he asked Casey, “Can you check on Promise?” Then he sat down, exhausted.

  She called, asked a few questions, hung up, and said, “No change.”

  He nodded, then used his government phone to contact Patch. They texted over secure messaging because he didn’t want to call and have Casey or Misha hear his report. He recapped the night and day for Patch, whose simple response was “Damn.”

  Mahegan asked him to make sure General Savage knew about the containers and the presence of the Quds Force on American soil. Patch typed back that Savage was monitoring their texts. Then Mahegan got a text from Savage that said, Can’t attack Cefiro. POTUS not authorize. Iran and Cuba deals too important. Wants eyes on only.

  Mahegan was furious but ate his anger. They had a known terrorist presence on U.S. soil, and Savage had basically told him to stand down and watch the building, which was what “eyes on” meant.

  The good thing, though, was that he didn’t give two rats asses about what the president or Savage said. He respected the offices but wasn’t going to stand by and let terrorists get a stable foothold.

  Mahegan thought about the number of men he had seen at the Cefiro compound; he imagined their force was between thirty and forty strong. Five containers, eight per container, plus equipment. Seemed reasonable.

  If they had started with forty, they were down four from the car chases and another four or five from the shoot-out in the tunnel. He wasn’t sure what their mission was, but he knew that when forces like the Quds lost mission-essential men, they lost significant capability. Like U.S. Special Forces teams, they were one deep. One medic, one communications guy, and so on. He felt good about the damage he had inflicted and about getting Misha back.

  He stared out of the window, then looked at Misha. “Misha, can I see those glasses?”

  CHAPTER 17

  CASEY GAVE MAHEGAN A CONFUSED LOOK WHEN HE ASKED TO SEE Misha’s glasses, as if she didn’t have time for trivia.

  “I’ve really got to get back to work,” she said as she peeked through the curtains into the parking lot.

  Misha didn’t move, so he let it go for a second.

  “I know,” he said to Casey. “Plus, I need you to get eyes on Promise. I need an update directly from you. I don’t like this ‘no change’ stuff.”

  “No change isn’t necessarily bad, Jake. Her brain needs to recover from the impact. That means the swelling needs to go down.”

  He understood what she was saying. “I’m just worried. Frustrated. Also, speaking of brain injuries, can you check Misha for a concussion before you head out? She’s got tremors in her hands.”

  Casey nodded and knelt in front of Misha; did the left, right, up, down test; and asked her how her head was feeling.

  “Hurts,” Misha said. “But . . . better.”

  Casey grabbed a bottle of water from the hotel supply and gave it to Misha; then she took her into the bathroom. They reemerged a few minutes later.

  “She’s probably dehydrated, with a mild concussion, which could involve anything from memory loss to nothing. I’ve checked her bandages and will bring new ones later tonight.”

  Misha was watching Mahegan as Casey approached him and gave him a hug. He held her a second more than he should have, and then she pulled away.

  “I’ve requested an Uber. Better get downstairs,” he said.

  She left, wearing her wet scrubs.

  Mahegan had turned on the heat so that Misha could sit next to the vent and dry out after Casey had used the towels to dry her off as much as possible. He had unzipped the back of his wet suit so he could cool off.

  After Casey left, he handed Misha the water bottle again and said, “Drink water.” Then he went into the bathroom and removed his Sig Sauer pistol. After ejecting the magazine, he reached into his pouch and slid a fresh one into the well. He replaced the pistol in its pouch on his wet suit. He entered the main room and went to the door, locked the dead bolt and flipped the security bar into place.

  Sitting on the sofa, which would be his bed tonight—they planned for Misha to share the bed with Casey—he asked Misha again, “Can I see your glasses?”

  “Special,” she said, a hint of defiance in her voice. She kept her eyes cast downward at the carpet and swayed just a bit from left to right.

  “I know. That’s why I want to see them. Can you tell me how they are special?”

  He didn’t have a lot of practice speaking with an eleven-year-old girl, much less one with autism and the mind of a savant, as Patch had reported she was categorized. Misha, though, seemed to be able to connect, as if she had primarily spoken with adults her entire young life.

  She raised her hands and mimicked texting with her thumbs. It took him a second to understand what she wanted, but then he pulled out his burner smartphone, punched on the notes function, and handed it to her.

  She typed and then handed him the phone back, the screen facing him.

  They’re like Google Glass, but different. My daddy invented them. They help me be more normal. They also help me program. I write code. And when I’m not writing code, the glasses are like a cell phone, connected anywhere there is a cell tower.

  “Why didn’t you message someone that you were being held captive?”

  She stared at him for a moment—judging whether she could trust him, he believed—then looked away, snatched the phone back, and began typing.

  Because I wanted to be there. I killed my daddy, and I need to reconcile. My Day of Judgment is coming.

  He looked at the phone she held and then gauged her for a second. She had a flint of steel in her eyes. She was a strong girl, challenged or brilliant or both. He believed she had resolve. But did he believe she had killed her father? He hoped not. She was barely five feet tall and weighed next to nothing. How she had stabbed the man at the pod in the neck was a mystery to him, but then again, she had survived the bomb blast and had weathered her injury in decent fashion.

  He had no reason not to believe she had killed her father, other than the fact that most eleven-year-old kids, he believed, would have been scared out their minds. He didn’t know much about autism, but he did know that children on the autism spectrum sometimes had a hard time processing emotions and their environment, such as fear or danger. Misha stood there in her damp blue dress, bare feet, and special Internet glasses and typed with commitment. This was deeply personal for her.

  “And I said I’m here to help you.”

  Because you’re friends with Miss Promise?

  He could see her mind connecting dots at the pace of a computer processor.

  “That and because I want to know who killed your father. I don’t think you did it.”

  Oh, but I did, she typed.

  He watched her for a moment. Her unblinking eyes remained fixed on him. She reminded him of a girl from a Stephen King book, perhaps with special powers. He could visualize her mind bending a spoon or shattering glass. She stood perfectly still at the moment, somehow not rocking, as she seemed to do almost continuous
ly, and the thought of her killing her father didn’t seem so far-fetched the longer she stared inward. She was not looking outward at all. It was as if the eyes looking at him were fake, and her real eyes were turned around, searching the inside of her brain, scanning memories, looking at the potential of certain possibilities, playing out chess moves thirty turns in advance.

  “How did you do it?” he asked to break her reverie.

  That’s not important, she typed. What’s important is that he is dead and I need to reconcile.

  “And how do you reconcile?”

  By getting the men who were there, the ones who made me kill him.

  “And you think those men are in the research and development facility?”

  I know they are. I’ve seen their e-mails and text messages. Plus, they are planning something bigger.

  “Like an attack on our country?”

  How did you know?

  She seemed both surprised that he believed the same thing and disappointed that she wasn’t the only one with the secret.

  I made a mistake, she typed. Her thumbs flew across the smartphone. I said there’s something bigger. There’s nothing bigger than my daddy. I loved him.

  “I’m sure your father was a great man, and he would be very proud of you for helping stop an attack on our country.”

  They’re planning something bad, she typed. Not a question, a statement.

  “They are, but why do you say that?”

  She broke her lock on whatever she was looking at inside her mind, then truly looked at him, locked eyes with him, then looked away. He got the impression that she was not comfortable looking people in the eyes. He considered it progress when she looked at him.

  Like I said, I’ve been reading their texts and e-mails. I was able to tap into their computer network and monitor their communications.

  “Can you still do that?”

  She gave him a look that he figured she had shared many times with her father. It was a conspiratorial smirk that said “Of course.”

  “Do you use your glasses or something else?”