“Who are they?”
“Viktor–and another man. Don’t know his name.”
“Viktor the microbiologist?”
“Yes.”
“Describe the other guy.”
“Big, reddish hair, wearing jeans and boots.”
“Where have you got him?”
“In the bigger part of the house–on the other side of the double doors.”
“Okay, slowly back out and stand up,” Marchetti instructed. When Kamaka was standing clear of the car, he said, “Where’s Viktor?”
“Back in the lab, at a bench toward the front.”
Marchett pulled Kamaka’s pistol from his belt holster and stuck it in the outside pocket of his own jacket. “Is Viktor armed?”
“No.”
“Is there a phone inside the house?”
Again he nodded. “In the back room by the sink... another in the lab.”
“Okay, Kamaka,” Marchetti said, “we’re going to walk up the steps into the back room. If you talk, resist, or otherwise fail to cooperate, I’ll blow your brains out.”
Kamaka slowly led the way up the steps with Marchetti following close behind. Marchetti held Kamaka’s belt with one hand and the Glock against his neck with the other. When they got to the top of the steps, Marchetti let Kamaka ease the door open and nudged him forward into the small room.
He looked around and saw an unkempt room probably used by Kamaka and the others for meals and guard duty. The double door was straight ahead, and there were two other doors to the left of the refrigerator. He walked Kamaka over to the two individual doors and opened them one at a time. One was to a food pantry, the other a bathroom.
He then steered Kamaka back to the double metal doors across from the rear entrance and nudged the pistol against the back of his head. “Where would the redheaded guy be?” he asked in a low voice.
Kamaka paused for a moment and whispered, “In a storeroom to the left, near a large wooden table.”
“Any other rooms on the other side of this door, or just one big room?”
“One big room, with partitions.”
Marchetti thought for a minute and said, “Okay, we’re going in. I’ll be holding onto your belt like I’m doing now. Real slowly... lead me to my buddy. If you so much as pick your nose, I’ll drop you right where you stand, understand?”
He nodded, and Marchetti eased the door open.
Marchetti held on to Kamaka but kept his eyes focused on the lab area straight ahead–ceiling-mounted flourescent lights, steel benches with small ovens at each end, assorted beakers, test tubes, and wall-hung cabinets throughout. On the long table to his right was a small Bunsen burner and microscope. Marchetti barely passed high school chemistry, but to him everything in Hollingsworth’s lab looked pristine and organized, yet threatening at the same time.
They crept further toward the north windows until within twenty feet of the wall. In a low voice, Kamaka said, “To the left.”
“All right,” Marchetti said and edged him forward. “Open the door slowly.”
Kamaka looked around for a moment, then reached for the knob. He pushed the door open and hung his head. Even in the darkened room, Marchetti could see Tom cuffed to a chair, his hands behind him and a gag across his mouth.
Marchetti reached to his left to switch on the lights but quickly changed his mind. “Where’s the key to the cuffs?”
“My pocket.”
“Hand it to me.” Kamaka slowly reached into his right jeans pocket and passed him the key. Marchetti then told Kamaka, “Get on the floor with your arms spread.” Kamaka dropped to his knees and stretched out on his stomach.
Tom opened his eyes and instantly became alert.
“Hold on,” Marchetti said. “I’ll have you out of here in a minute.”
He walked around the chair and untied Tom’s cloth gag. It was then that he noticed the bruises on Tom’s face and scalp. “Bastards,” he muttered.
Tom breathed a sigh of relief. “How in hell did you find me?”
“Janine came up with an approximate location. Once I found the right house I walked up and saw your car in back. I just hoped you were still alive,” he answered and began unlocking the cuffs on his wrists. “How long have you been here?”
“Since last night.” As Tom struggled to stand, he said, “We don’t have much time. These people are insane.”
“How?”
“They plan to murder the president!”
Marchetti looked at him in disbelief, then handed Tom his Glock and drew Kamaka’s handgun from his own jacket pocket.
“What do you mean ‘murder the president?’”
“I’m serious. Using some kind of pathogen.” He looked at the gun in Marchetti’s hand. “That his?”
“Right.” He looked it over for the first time to see what he was holding–a fully-loaded, six-shot Colt revolver. Then he bent over and grabbed Kamaka’s shirt collar. “Get up and put your hands on your head.”
Kamaka got to his feet and raised his arms.
Marchetti motioned for Tom to follow. “Kamaka mentioned Viktor. Anyone else here besides him we have to worry about?.”
“There may be one other guy,” Tom said. “But with any luck he’s at the far end of the building out of earshot. Let’s not stick around.”
They exited through the storeroom door back into the main lab area. Marchetti held Kamaka’s pistol with one hand and his shirt collar with the other. Tom followed close behind, each of them checking the lab area ahead as they made their way back to the breakroom.
Kamaka suddenly looked to his left and flinched. Marchetti spotted the moving figure at the same time. A man with close-cropped gray hair wearing lab coat and glasses appeared from one of the cubicles twenty feet away. He abruptly stopped, then made a motion toward an exterior door.
“Freeze,” Marchetti yelled and pointed his pistol. He saw nothing unusual about the man other than his determined jaw and dark–almost black–eyes staring back at him. “Freeze!” he repeated, but the man ignored him and lunged for a red box mounted next to the exterior door.
“No!” Marchetti screamed, but it was too late. The man flipped open the cover and pushed a chrome button inside the red box. Then he ducked and headed toward the front of the house.
The cabinets directly in front of them blew open with a roar and belch of flames. The fire quickly spread both left and right along the wall in a cascade of smoke, fire, and gas. The exterior door remained closed, but the small glass windows at the top of the door blew open, sending shattered glass out toward the driveway.
Another, secondary, explosion blew a hole in the wall between the lab and breakroom, sending dirt and debris in every direction. The pressure wave hit hard against Marchetti’s face and arms. A clipboard ricocheted off his forehead and struck the back wall. The grayhaired man Marchetti assumed to be Viktor was running toward the far end of the building ahead of the flames. Tom started after him, but Marchetti quickly grabbed him and held him back.
“Forget it,” he said. “You’d be fried before you got near the bastard.” Tom nodded and reluctantly lowered his weapon. “We need to get our butts out of here fast.”
They’d only gotten another few feet when another cabinet in front of them exploded, sending shards of wood and glass into Kamaka’s chest and legs. He screamed in pain, as Marchetti and Tom kept propping him up. Then they slung his arms over their shoulders and half carried him toward the fortified double door to the breakroom.
Fire blocked the exit. “Back there,” Marchetti yelled, pointing to the window behind them. He picked up a chair and smashed the glass and what he could of the wooden frame. Then he knocked out the remaining glass using the handle of the pistol. Tom grabbed a blanket from the closet and threw it over the sill and slivers of glass remaining in the bottom frame. Marchetti nodded and motioned for Tom to go first.
Tom stuck the Glock in his belt, grabbed the sill with both hands, and somersaulted through the window h
ead first. His feet slammed hard against the ground. He turned around and nodded to Marchetti to send Kamaka next. Kamaka imitated Tom and flipped through the window, landing on his feet. Tom picked up his Glock from the ground and pointed it toward Kamaka’s chest, moving him away from the window.
Marchetti looked back one last time and saw the fire just a few feet away now. He stuck the revolver in his jacket pocket and swung through the window as Tom had done. The top of his head scraped hard against the clapboard side of the house, but he was happy to be away from the inferno and into fresh air.
“Let’s get the hell outta here before the whole place collapses,” Marchetti yelled over the roar of the fire. Kamaka appeared to drift in and out of consciousness as they dragged him away from the house.
“We’ll tie him up at that tree on the other side of the driveway,” Marchetti said, motioning toward a mature koa tree ahead.
“Hurry,” Tom yelled over the roar of the fire. “We’ve got to get to the naval base.”
Marchetti continued dragging Kamaka, who lay limp and stunned. “Who’s involved in this plan, and why?”
“All sorts of reasons–too long to explain. At first I thought they were just a bunch of lunatics, but they’re serious as hell and planning to take over the government.”
Marchetti shook his head. “When’s this supposed to happen?”
“Sometime soon is all I know.”
Marchetti remembered Kamaka saying there was a landline phone in the back room. “We’ve got to tell somebody.”
“You can’t go back in there!”
“The fire hasn’t reached there yet–be right back.”
“Grab my keys and cell phone while you’re in there–white cabinet near the refrigerator.”
Marchetti nodded, then heard a car start up and peel away down the driveway at the front of the building. He dashed up the back steps and opened the door, while Tom half-dragged Kamaka across the driveway and plopped him down against a tree.
Marchetti spotted the phone on a bench near the Formica table. He picked it up and dialed 911. The operator answered immediately. “My name’s Marchetti. There’s a fire at the Hollingsworth property at 100 Kokee Road. A guy set off a couple of bombs, and it’s a raging inferno. We’ve dragged one guy out, but there could be more inside.”
“Are you far enough away to be safe?” the male operator asked in a measured voice.
“I will be as soon as I hang up,” he said and started moving toward the door.
“Okay, we’ve got an ambulance and fire trucks on the way.”
“We also have information an attempt will be made on the president’s life, perhaps today at the Barking Sands missile base.” There was a long pause, as if the operator was trying to comprehend what he’d just heard.
“Spell your last name, please.”
“M-A-R-C-H-E-T-T-I. Listen, I’ve got to get out of here now. The fire is about to breach the door... and the roof about to collapse. Sgt. Kalani of the Kauai Police and Special Agent Beth Henley at the FBI office in Dallas can confirm who I am.” Marchetti left the phone off the hook, in case they were able to trace the call. Then he dashed out the door and down the steps.
Tom lay on the far side of the driveway, watching the conflagration from a safe distance. Kamaka lay at his feet, grimacing in pain. Marchetti ran over and dropped to his knees.
He gave Tom his cell phone and car keys and nodded toward his car parked outside the gate. “Your two magazines and box of ammo are in the trunk. Follow me to the naval base. We’ll leave this guy here for the cops to find.”
37
Pacific Missile Range, Barking Sands, July 13th
Marchetti and Tom raced south on Kokee Road, then west onto Route 50 toward the missile base. They’d regained cell coverage at that point, so Marchetti again tried to call Sgt. Kalani in Lihue. A female duty officer answered and transferred the call.
Several minutes later the sergeant picked up. “Damn it, Marchetti,” Kalani snapped. “What in hell do you two think you’re doing?”
“We’re headed for the Barking Sands missile range. Kent Hollingsworth’s men have been holding Tom captive at his property on Kokee Road since yesterday afternoon. The building’s on fire, and one of Hollingsworth’s people is tied up outside the building by the driveway.”
Kalani sounded flustered, barely able to speak. “Agent Henley with the Dallas FBI office called a couple of days ago, wondering what the hell’s going on, and I don’t have a clue. I want you to stay out of police business, understand?”
“Hold on, Kalani. Tom went to Hollingsworth’s house merely to ask a few questions. Instead, they held him captive. While there, he learned they were going to pull some nasty shit while the president was on the island–including attacking him at the missile base today.”
“Not buying it, Marchetti.”
“I don’t care if you buy it or not, Sergeant!” Marchetti screamed “We’re headed there now, hoping it’s not too late.”
“What’s their motive?”
“From what Tom heard, a group of influential people are determined to remove President McHugh from office. They may also be the group behind the smallpox outbreak on the mainland.”
Kalani muttered unintelligibly, then said, “You won’t get past the main gate. Not with the president there, I guarantee it.”
“You may be right. But we’ll hope base security will at least pass it on to the president’s detail.”
“What are they supposedly planning to do?”
“Expose the president to smallpox during the missile launch.”
There was a lengthy pause this time. “If you’re bullshitting me, Marchetti, I swear I’ll personally make sure the Secret Service takes you away in chains.”
“For what?”
“Filing a false report and interfering in government operations.”
Marchetti rolled his eyes. “Look, damn it, they were about to kill Tom and are just as serious about getting the president. I suggest you get your collective asses in gear or the whole damn world will learn how Kauai PD failed to protect the president, despite being given ample warning.”
38
Two Secret Service agents who’d been at or around the base since early morning stepped from the black SUV before it’d even stopped rolling. The navy vehicle carrying the president from Marine One parked on the flight line pulled up in front of the operations building. “Double Play” had been chosen as a code name for the president by the White House Communications Agency as a subtle reference to McHugh’s skills as shortstop in Double A ball. He’d hoped to make the majors three years out of college, but reality set in after his second season, when he realized he wasn’t going to be the next Dave Concepción, and he entered law school shortly thereafter.
The agent nearest the president’s car scanned the area between the vehicle and operations control center. His jacket was unbuttoned as usual for easy access to his Sig Sauer in case of trouble. He’d served on the presidential detail for ten years, protecting the incumbent and other dignitaries on hundreds of visits to varied locations around the world. And in spite of too many trips to count, he never considered any of them routine assignments. He always felt uneasy in unfamiliar territory, which was usually the case.
His eyes moved as though on swivels, constantly scanning faces and hands of guests and well-wishers, until the president was safely on his way home–or indoors where potential assassins had fewer places to hide, and the president’s actions were more predictable. No reaching out to strangers or kissing babies at that point, and no nut cases with rifles waiting in multi-story buildings for a shot at the president.
Today, however, they were on a military installation, with legitimate reason to feel more relaxed. With the exception of a few island notables, Washington dignitaries, and congressmen, everyone at the Barking Sands installation wore a uniform, ID badge, or both and had been thoroughly vetted by base security personnel before being allowed to set foot on base property th
at day. No need for metal detectors at the ops center door either, they decided, as there would usually be. And despite going to a tropical paradise, there were significantly fewer agents accompanying the president and his party this trip, which surprised the agent supervisor but didn’t rattle him enough to question it.
Seeing what looked like safe passage to the ops center, the lead agent opened the rear passenger door for the smiling president to step out. McHugh shook hands with the base commanding officer, navy Captain Douglas Walsh, and the entire entourage walked to the entrance of the main operations building where the viewing facility was located.
The party trailing the president and base CO consisted mostly of a few armed services committee congresspersons, along with several navy and air force officers stationed at the Pentagon, all anxious to witness what they’d hoped would be a successful launch. A hit on the target missile would mean increased security for Americans, more influence in negotiations with the Russians, and huge contracts for favored defense contractors who’d reward their favorite representatives with added campaign contributions.
President McHugh promised his supporters multiple times he’d cut the armed services budget sharply in his first term in office. The Aegis, a land- and sea-based missile defense system, would likely be one of the first programs eliminated, most defense experts guessed–especially if it failed its test today.
The president was walking a fine line. Conservatives were killing him in the polls for being soft on national defense. Launch failure would be grist for the DOD rumor mill about how quickly the anti-missile program would be cut. And yet certain dovish congressmen expected McHugh to stick to his promises and slash defense spending period, regardless of the outcome.
Inside the tan concrete building in a small briefing room, Captain Walsh outlined the afternoon’s operation. The launch, which they’d watch from the control room, would take place in fifteen minutes. Following the launch–assuming a successful intercept–there would be a debriefing in this same room and then a brief talk with officers and enlisted men at the base mess hall, time permitting.
The Omega Covenant Page 22
