by David Spell
Still standing next to Wilkerson, Richards swung his .45 pistol towards the opening, waiting for whoever had just shot Ishmael to show himself. Chloe exploded out of her seat, grabbing Aaron’s wrist and the pistol with both of her hands, throwing her right shoulder into his chest and bulling the big man across the room, slamming him into the wall. Richards was much bigger and stronger than the woman but Chloe’s strength was enhanced by her fear and adrenaline.
McCain burst around the corner, his suppressed MP5 up and seeking a target. Footsteps sounded from the other end of the house, coming his way. At the same, another crash sounded from the back of the residence as Hollywood and Jimmy smashed through the rear door from the deck into the living room.
Gunfire roared from the other side of the home, the distinctive sounds of AK-47s and MP5s exchanging fire. Chuck attempted to get a shot on Aaron Richards as the former Green Beret fought with Chloe. Richards saw the big man with the subgun standing just twenty feet away, and pulled Wilkerson tightly against his body as a human shield, even as they fought for control of his pistol, his rifle useless with the woman pinning it to his chest. The traitor noted the muzzle of the newcomer’s MP5 was pointed over his head for fear of hitting the black girl.
A scream came from the living room as McCain kept glancing down the hallway, as well as waiting for his opening to take out Aaron.
“Clear in the living room!” Jones’ voice called out.
Even more gunfire exploded from the basement as Scotty and Andy were engaged with gunmen there. Suddenly several shots rang out from the dining room as Aaron’s eyes grew wide, a guttural sound coming from his throat. Jennifer had grabbed one of the Glocks off of the table and rushed over, shoving the pistol into the muscular man’s crotch, emptying seven rounds of 9mm into his groin.
The Springfield clattered to the floor, his grip on Chloe weakening. She pushed herself away, diving to the floor, as Richards forced himself to stay on his feet. He attempted to bring his M4 into play, even as his life blood was pumping out onto the hardwood floor. Chuck triggered a two-round burst, the first hollow point striking the bridge of his nose, the second puncturing his forehead.
After reloading and checking on the two women, McCain called out, “Clear in the dining room!”
Jones and Estrada sprinted across the backyard on McCain’s command, running up the steps onto the deck. The suppressed clatter of Chuck’s submachine gun could be heard on the other side of the residence. Hollywood glanced at his partner to make sure that he was ready and then drove his boot into the center of the double-French doors, shattering the wood and breaking some of the glass panes.
Hollywood moved to the left as he made entry, his own MP5 up and looking for targets. Jimmy turned to the right inside the living room, two black men with AKs suddenly materializing across the room. Both AK-47s barked, their rounds striking the wall behind their intended targets, neither man having ever fired live ammo before. Estrada and Jones, however, were trained professionals, calmly cutting both of the terrorist wannabes down. The smaller of the two cell members screamed in pain as he crumpled to the floor in a fetal position, the beige carpet around him turning red.
“Clear in the living room!” Jimmy called out as he and Hollywood kicked the rifles away from the downed gunmen.
Andy outran Scotty to the exterior basement entrance, but paused to let his bigger and stronger friend use his size fourteen boots to kick in the door. As soon as the two warriors burst inside, they came under intense fire from three terrorists, rifle rounds slamming into the door and wall around them. They dove for the floor in an attempt to get out of the line-of-fire. Andy heard his friend grunt in pain, even as the former Ranger returned fire at the shooters on the other side of the room. Within seconds, two of the AK wielding men were down and out of the fight. Gunfire could also be heard over their heads in the upper level of the house.
“Reloading!” Scotty called out as they moved in opposite directions, looking for something to hide behind.
Fleming popped to his feet to cover Smith as he reloaded. The remaining soldier of Allah had dropped to a kneeling position on the far side of the basement, continuing to fire his rifle towards both of them, sending 7.62x39 rounds whizzing by. Suddenly, Andy found himself on his back, unable to catch his breath. The remaining suspect jumped to his feet when he saw his target go down. The terrorist lined up his AK to shoot the downed man again.
Scotty had smoothly dumped the empty thirty-round magazine and reloaded, triggering a long burst into the last militant Muslim, stitching him from his chest to his face. Smith rushed across the room to where the three bodies lay splayed awkwardly on the concrete floor, blood pooling around them. He kicked their rifles away and returned to check on Fleming, concern on his face.
Andy had managed to painfully pull himself to a sitting position, the heavy rifle bullet to his body armor knocking the wind out of him.
“You OK?”
“I took one in the vest,” Fleming grunted, accepting Smith’s outstretched hand and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet.
“Me, too,” Smith said. “We can compare bruises later, but we better go check on Chuck and the others.”
Scotty and Andy had just reached the top of the stairs when they heard, Chuck call out, “Clear in the dining room!”
“Coming out!” Smith called from the basement door, as they joined their companions. “Everybody OK?” he asked, shifting to paramedic mode.
“We’re all good,” McCain answered. “This place is going to be swarming with cops in ten minutes or less. You four clear the rest of the house,” he ordered, pointing at Andy, Scotty, Jimmy, and Hollywood. “After it’s secure everybody do a very quick but thorough sweep for any evidence or intel. Grab cell phones, computers, wallets and IDs. I’m gonna snap some photos. I want to be out of here in less than five.”
Everyone sprang into action. Four and a half minutes later, Chuck and the two women were in the Sequoia heading out of the neighborhood. The other four men left through the back door, sprinting through the woods to the house that they had commandeered. The other rental vehicle was parked there, and they were quickly on their way, as well. A mile down the road, two police cars passed them with their blue lights flashing and sirens activated heading towards the scene of gunshots that several neighbors had called in.
“What the hell did you guys get into?” Tu demanded when Chuck called him from the car a few minutes later. “I was just about to call you. The police are enroute to a shooting at that house.”
“Yeah, we passed them on our way out,” McCain answered, quickly relating the short version of what had transpired. “We’ll be back in half an hour and do a full debrief.”
Once they were back at the safe house, Smith and Fleming stripped off their body armor and shirts to check their wounds. The AK round that had struck Scotty had hit him dead center of his chiseled chest, leaving an ugly quarter-sized red mark. Andy had been shot on the right side of his body armor. Only a few more centimeters and the bullet would’ve found flesh. He, too, was left with an ugly welt that would turn into an ugly bruise.
“Mine’s bigger,” Scotty commented as they stood shirtless in the living room, comparing their wounds.
“Whatever,” Andy shrugged. “At least you’ve got one thing that’s bigger than mine.”
“Just don’t piss off Jennifer. She shot Richards’ dick off.”
Jimmy wandered into the living room, shaking his head at his two friends, having heard their conversation.
Chuck and Tu walked out of the bedroom they had huddled in for the last twenty-minutes, as McCain had told the CIA team leader what had happened.
“You guys get dressed and round up everybody else for a debrief,” Donaldson ordered.
An hour later, the team had rehashed and talked through the entire incident. Empty beer bottles sat on the table in the middle of the living room.
“So, we know for certain that this was Aaron Richards?” Tu asked.
/> “No question about it,” Jennifer nodded.
“Definitely.” Chloe seconded.
“I snapped photos of everybody in the house,” Chuck spoke up. “We can send them over to Kevin to try to get IDs on everyone else.”
“What about the dead guy in the garage?” Jennifer asked. “Any idea what that was about?”
Estrada shrugged, having found CoCo’s wrapped up corpse in a utility closet.
“No sé. He must’ve pissed off somebody because his throat was sliced from ear to ear.”
Donaldson looked around the room, making eye contact with everyone. “Good job. That’s another group of terrorists eliminated and Aaron Richards is dead. All-in-all, a very productive day. I just wish I could’ve been in on the fun. Stephen or Gabby, what are the local cops saying about the crime scene?”
Vargas and Chan sat at the dining room table across the room, both monitoring their computers. Stephen spoke up.
“Not much. The first officer on the scene told his sergeant it looked like a possible drug-related robbery. They called out their CSI and detectives. Did we leave any DNA behind?”
“Probably some fingerprints,” Wilkerson answered.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Tu said. “For now, let’s pack it up and get out of here in the morning. I’ll check and see if we can get Anderson to fly you all back to DC. Director Clark will probably want to see you sometime this week.”
“Are you not going with us?” McCain asked.
“No. There’s another cell in Detroit that needs to be dealt with. Stephen, Jen, Jay, Chris, and I are heading up there. I’m hoping we’ve got enough solid evidence that the FBI can take over, but in the meantime, we’ll be working on some leads.”
“I’m in if you need some extra bodies,” Scotty commented.
Everyone in the room added their assent. Tu raised his hands in surrender.
“I appreciate it guys, but hopefully the Bureau can take this one. We recovered some great intel from Saleem Bashir’s computer and cloud accounts and I think we’ve figured out a way for the FBI to use it without having the evidence thrown out in court.
“Chuck, I’d like to hook up with that FBI agent, O’Reilly, in the morning before you leave. Can you set that up?”
McCain nodded and pulled out his cell phone as the rest of the team packed, cleaned weapons, and took some time to decompress.
CHAPTER TEN
STARBUCKS, PHILADELPHIA, MONDAY, 0905 HOURS
Tu, Chuck, Jennifer, and Joe sat at one of the square tables outside the coffee shop. Donaldson had brought Hughes along because she had recently worked with the FBI agent and had built a rapport with him.
O’Reilly took a sip of his coffee and made a face. “How do these guys stay in business? This has to be the worst coffee on the planet.”
Jennifer smiled at the older man. “I’ve missed hanging out with you, Joe. You’re always such a ray of sunshine.”
Joe gave her a lopsided grin and glanced at Chuck and Tu. “I can’t say that I’m impressed with the company you’re keeping now.”
The young woman patted his arm and smiled sweetly. “Maybe we can work together again sometime.”
“What can the Bureau do for the Agency today?” O’Reilly asked, glancing at each of them, before stifling a yawn. “We’re still trying to clean up that mess from Saturday. Of course, having Khan in custody covers a multitude of sins.”
“I’d love an update on all of that,” Donaldson answered, “but first we have something that I think will interest you.”
McCain slid a manila folder across the table. “This is a police report that was filed last night. It’s still an ongoing investigation, but take a look.”
The FBI agent opened the folder and read the report. It was titled, “Homicide.” Joe took his time working through the three-page document. This was just the preliminary incident report filed by the responding officer. The full investigators report would be compiled over the next few weeks and would be much longer, providing much greater detail.
The incident had taken place in the quiet suburb of Wynnewood. Eight victims, all dead from multiple gunshot wounds, with the exception of a body stuffed into a closet in the garage. That male had had his throat cut. Seven black males and one white male. No identification yet on any of the victims. Six AK-47s, a stolen military M4 equipped with a suppressor, along with several other firearms had been recovered. Several of the neighbors had called 911 after hearing gunshots. One neighbor reported seeing a white SUV leaving the area at a high rate of speed, but there were no lookouts on the perpetrators.
O’Reilly finally looked up, pointing to the report.
“What am I looking at?”
“Remember that address that the judge denied you a search warrant? This was the house. I promised that we would share all the intel that we dug up in regards to Musa Khan,” Tu answered. “This was a safe house that Khan had rented. He’d been out there on Saturday morning meeting with the terrorists he was preparing to launch an attack in Phillie. For the moment, the police are calling this a drug related robbery and murder. That’s not what happened.”
“Seriously?” O’Reilly asked, eyes wide, holding up the folder. “This was you guys? What are you? Some kind of assassination squad? You can’t do this shit!”
“It’s not like that, Joe,” Jennifer said, softly. “The white male listed on the report was Aaron Richards. I’m not going to give you any specifics, but he was holding Chloe and I at gunpoint. He told us in graphic detail how he, and everyone else in the house were going to rape us before they killed us.”
The gruff agent liked the young woman. She was the daughter that he never had. During the short time that they worked together he had felt protective of her. In reality, she can probably protect me, he thought.
“Look, I’m not sorry Richards is dead,” he said, his tone softening. “I’m not sorry that seven terrorists are dead. I’m still a cop though, and the FBI can’t be mixed up in anything that smacks of vigilante justice.”
“And you’re not going to be,” Chuck spoke up. “We’re simply sharing intel with you and letting you know that another cell in Khan’s network has been eliminated. It might even be something that you can use against him during your interrogations.”
Joe thought it over for a moment. That was a good idea, he had to admit. It might be interesting to see how Mr. Bad Boy Terrorist responds to knowing he just lost another squad of killers.
Special Agent O’Reilly finally nodded and sighed. “Okay, moving on. How many more cells are out there?”
“As best we can determine, just one,” Tu answered. “It’s in Detroit. I’ve got some of my people enroute to do surveillance. We don’t want a repeat of what happened in Wynnewood and I’d love to get the Bureau involved and let them take down this last cell and get all the credit for it.”
“We’ll need some clean evidence that we can take to a judge,” Joe said, thoughtfully. “Like I said before, you guys get results but that doesn’t help us when we’re trying to get search warrants or arrest warrants. The evidence can’t be tainted.”
Donaldson glanced over at McCain. “You’re the former cop. What do you think?”
“Here’s an idea, Joe,” the big man replied.
Five minutes later, O’Reilly shook his head and laughed, glancing over at Hughes. “Yeah, why not? But if this goes bad and my ass ends up in prison, you better come visit me and bring me some chocolate chip cookies.”
“If this goes bad, we’ll all be in jail with you,” Jennifer answered.
THE CONSULATE GENERAL OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, TORONTO, MONDAY, 1030 HOURS
Wang Lei Chen sipped his steaming tea as he read through several American news sites on his computer. His superiors had been very pleased with the terror attacks in Washington, D.C., and Trenton, New Jersey. It was everything that he had hoped for and more. The streets of American cities were flowing with blood.
Of course, the Chin
ese government had publicly expressed outrage at the loss of innocent life, but privately those in the know, had sent congratulatory emails to Major Chen. His superior in the Ministry of State Security-International Intelligence Division, Colonel Wu Jing, told Wang that he had already completed the paperwork for the intelligence officer’s promotion to lieutenant colonel.
He had provided enough weapons, ammo, and explosives for several attacks. The Pakistani had hinted at possibly launching four or five teams over the space of a few weeks. He looked forward to seeing where the Americans would bleed next. The arrest of the cell in New York was troubling. That was where the Palestinian, Abdallah Bamya, lived. His name wasn’t mentioned in those arrested. I wonder how the FBI managed to bring down an entire cell? Chen pondered.
Wang Lei picked up his smart phone and typed a text message to Bamya.
“Please call me when you can talk.”
Abdallah had proven to be a valuable resource. As the militant Muslims went, he wasn’t as crazy as so many of his peers. Bamya and Khan were easily two of his best recruits from the Muslim world. Neither man would consider himself a recruit or a resource for the Chinese agent and Chen understood that. The give and take of the intelligence world was that they all used each other to accomplish their individual goals.
For Wang Lei, his plan of creating turmoil and chaos in the United States seemed to be working. Hopefully, Musa Khan would keep up his attacks, making it easy for the Chinese government to exert their own influence in America. China would continue to utilize a multi-pronged attack to weaken their most formidable foe.
The first prong was to renegotiate the trade tariffs so that they favored China. The second prong was to continue pilfering and stealing technology and military secrets from the Americans. The nature of an open society made it relatively easy for Chinese operatives to access and steal sensitive information. The FBI was doing much better in tracking these spies down but they would never get them all. The third prong of China’s attack on the United States was to continue buying up all the prime real estate that they could with a goal of controlling entire American cities.
