Suddenly, it all made sense to Jackson as he sat dumbstruck by his friend's ability to realize the obvious in a sea of obfuscation.
"The chemicals," said Jackson, his mind beginning to piece together the complex plot that he had unwittingly stumbled across.
Mike was calm now.
"The chemicals must be a part of whatever Carmike Industries has planned. If we can find the chemicals, we just might be able to find the rest of those responsible for Leigh and Clementine's murder and possibly stop a terrorist plot in the process."
Jackson asked a question he already knew the answer to. "What about the police?"
"Not a possibility, Jackson."
Mike was clear on this topic. "Not only will they never deign to believe us, but you are still a wanted man. And, you just iced two Carmike SSG personnel. I think it is safe to say that the authorities are not going to be on our side with this one, at least not until we have proof."
Jackson began to leaf through Winters' appointment book.
"We need to find the chemicals. Maybe there is a note in here." He turned the pages of the book hurriedly and came to today, the 9th of September.
Jackson looked up while he pointed with a trembling finger at the page of Winters' appointment book.
"Here. Under today, it just has an address."
The address listed in Susan Winters' appointment book was 214 Riverside Drive, Sumner.
Jackson knew the place. It was formerly a shipping and receiving dock for Carmike Industries in the local area. But the facility had fallen into disrepair in recent years as Carmike Industries had moved the bulk of their heavy shipping to the Port of Norfolk.
Mike spoke up.
"If Ms. Winters was keeping this book and this financial information as an insurance policy, then it's a sure bet that the chemicals are there. If we can prove it, we might have a chance of getting the authorities on scene before whatever these bastards have planned has a chance to happen."
Jackson nodded. "Agreed. I just hope that the chemicals they took from the Carmike Chemical facility are still there."
Mike spoke softly now. "Me too, Jackson. Me too."
They both would later swear that the waitress was a mind reader. She seemed to sway into sight, her wide hips cutting through the crowded diner, drawing the eyes of most of the diners in the small facility.
Cheerfully, she said, "Here's your check, boys."
Jackson paid the bill while Mike collected the papers that were laid out across the table of the diner and tucked the scattered pages back into the manila folder Jackson had obtained from Winters' office.
The men were in sync.
They both rose and simultaneously walked to the swinging glass door of the diner, nodding at their chubby waitress as they walked from the famous eatery. Their steps fell heavy on the asphalt of the parking lot as they walked quickly to the waiting Chevrolet Silverado, the two disgraced former Navy SEALs silent, both finally understanding the gravity of tonight's mission.
Chapter 31:
10:30 PM- Saturday, September 9th
Sumner, VA
Assad Ali was hoping for a quiet night.
The next day was going take a lot out of he and the eleven other drivers who waited patiently in the makeshift "ready room" of the abandoned shipping yard which stood on the shore of the navigable portion of the Sumner River.
He yawned, looking around the room at the other men.
Four were on patrol, as dictated by protocol and ordered by Mohammed Fatal in the operations briefing earlier in the week. The others were resting. Some played cards, others slept. Still others watched the small glowing television in the corner of the room.
Assad's eyes fixed on the flickering screen for a moment. This time of night, as usual, the programming had switched from live coverage to prerecorded imagery and stories. The newscaster seemed to be doing a story on September 11th ceremonies scheduled around the east coast.
Good, thought Assad with a cool calculation. The more media attention that these events derived, the more effective their mission would be.
The plan was simple. Each of the twelve men would depart for their assigned city tomorrow. They would park the trucks in a population center and take a taxi to the airport. Their tickets and new identities, along with their payment would be waiting for them.
None of the men knew what their name would be tomorrow, nor to where they would be sent.
But all of the men knew this to be a mission from which there would be no resurfacing anywhere in the civilized world. They would be the most wanted men in the world after tomorrow.
But it would be worth it.
One day's work and each of the twelve men were guaranteed early retirement. Two million dollars awaited each of them in a numbered Swiss bank account. Upon completion of their mission, they would receive this account information along with their new identities and plane tickets to parts unknown.
Assad sighed heavily, looking around the room again.
Twelve cities, twelve trucks.
The farthest away would be Miami and Boston.
The closest, Washington D.C. and Norfolk.
Twelve trucks. All loaded for bear with a potent mixture of Ethylene and Sulfur Dioxide, along with several hundred pounds of C4 plastic explosives.
The high explosives were laid out in such a fashion as to give the weapons maximum devastation at close range from a mixture of high explosive incendiary effect along with shrapnel.
But, the explosion was only a means to an end. The real nasty stuff was in the fifty-five gallon drums that his coworkers had liberated from Carmike Chemical yesterday.
Ethylene and Sulfur Dioxide.
Simple enough chemicals, but when combined in the right way yielded a very potent weapon. One that had fallen out of favor in recent years.
Mustard gas.
Assad leaned back on his cot. He supposed he shouldn't think of himself as Assad anymore. His employers had, after all created two new identities for him. In the first, the one that the news media would emblazon across the world, he was an Iranian student, like all of the other men in the room.
He glanced around at the others, most of whom had now settled in for the night.
It was amazing what good hacker could do. He had an Iranian passport, an actual visa. He had a birth certificate. Even some fake family photos.
He hoped his new identity would be as meticulously created. If it wasn't, he was a dead man.
He leaned back, his rumination coming to an end as sleep started to take him. His eyes had begun to close when the encrypted cellular phone at his hip began to ring.
Assad stood up hastily, stepping from the darkness of the makeshift barracks and into the concrete hallway which led to the parking lot where the twelve trucks were parked, silent death waiting in the darkness with a sinister purpose.
He pulled the phone from his hip pocket. He knew this call couldn't be good. Only a few men knew of this telephone. And none would call it without dire news. The number was masked from sight as he glanced at the screen.
He flipped the phone open and continued to pace down the concrete hallway as he spoke deliberately. "Hello?"
"Mr. Ali," said Michael Carmike, "do you know who this is?"
Now Assad knew that the news couldn't be good.
"Yes, sir." He said simply as he stopped in his tracks.
"Good," replied Michael Carmike. "That will save us some time. Listen. Things have changed. There is a potential threat to the operation. The threat has already killed three of our operatives, including Mohammed Fatal and the next two senior members of your team. You are now the senior operative. It is your job to assure that this mission succeeds according to plan."
Assad paused. "Roger that, sir. Do we have reason to believe the threat has information that could lead him here?"
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
"Yes." Said Michael Carmike. "I will not tell you how to go about defending your location, bu
t I would consider doubling your security and expecting a visit. The man is highly trained, and extremely dangerous."
Assad's heart was beginning to beat a little faster. "I'll comply, sir. We'll double our security details and step up our electronic monitoring. If he comes within two miles we'll know."
Michael Carmike's voice carried some audible relief as he continued. "If you catch this guy, find out what he knows and who he's shared it with. Then, terminate the threat with extreme prejudice."
Assad smiled. "Yes, sir." These last two words were cut off by the click of the phone. Michael Carmike had hung up.
Chapter 32:
10:32 PM- Saturday, September 9th
Sumner, VA
The blue Chevy Silverado's engine growled as it covered the distance from the late night eatery and turned onto Interstate 64 towards Riverside Drive. It was close to a 20 minute drive, and the men used every second of it to absorb the silence and calm of the vehicle.
In operational settings, each man responds differently to the stress and anxiety that come in the simple calm before a mission.
Jackson and Mike were both the type to sit and quietly think. In the teams, some men had joked, or chewed gum. Some even read.
But Jackson and Mike sat silently in the blue Silverado, just as they had on countless missions in the decompression chamber of a submarine or the chilly cargo bay of a C-130.
The men were not on an officially sanctioned mission, and one was a wanted fugitive. But both knew that their current task was as important as any they had ever undertaken during their careers with the teams.
If they were right, a massive US company with access to military resources was planning a terrorist attack on American soil and had enough of some still unknown chemicals to kill hundreds, even thousands of innocent Americans.
Not on their watch.
So both men sat silently in the Silverado as each contemplated his own mortality.
While Mike hoped to make it home, he had learned a certain disinterest towards the personal consequences of each mission.
Jackson, however, did not care whether he lived or died. He just wanted to take as many of the enemy with him as possible.
Mike turned the vehicle onto the dark and deserted access road that led to the abandoned shipping facility that sat on a wide stretch of the Sumner River. The vehicle bumped onto Riverside Drive.
Both of the men suddenly snapped out of their silent pre-mission contemplation and were back in the moment, rattling down the bumpy road in the near midnight darkness of the late summer evening.
Thoughts of life and death or of anything beyond the mission were banished now. Mike and Jackson were here for one purpose, to discover the location of the chemicals that had been "stolen" from Carmike Chemical and alert the authorities.
Mike drove the blue Silverado slowly. The lights were off now, and the vehicle lumbered down the bumpy darkened road that led to the riverside storage facility.
In the darkness of the vehicle, Jackson inspected the MP5K machine gun he held in his calloused hands. He tapped the magazine on the dashboard to loosen the ammunition and slid it into the receiver on the sinister looking small machine gun.
He glanced at Mike in the driver's seat. "Thank you, Mike."
Mike just nodded and pulled the well maintained blue 4X4 to a stop on the darkened road.
"This looks like a good spot. The facility appears to be approximately a half mile from here. I recommend we hoof it."
Jackson nodded in agreement and Mike shifted the Chevy truck into four wheel drive. He pulled the steering wheel sharply to the left and drove into the woods. He pulled the vehicle to a stop around fifty feet into the overgrown woods that lined both sides of the rarely used road.
The weather this evening was great for this type of mission, thought Jackson as he stared into the dark moonless night. Admittedly, he thought, he would have killed for a set of night vision goggles.
But on a mission in which stealth was key, the darkness was their friend.
The thin sliver of moon was obscured by a layer of clouds and the thick foliage of the trees which surrounded the two men further obscured any ambient lighting. The stars, too were shrouded by low ceilings making the darkness pervasive.
Both Mike and Jackson were careful as they closed the faded blue doors of the truck, slowly allowing the latches of the vehicle's doors to close.
The men walked without a word. Their black clothing obscured them in the darkness as they crept purposefully towards the once busy facility which they believed to house the chemicals that had been stolen from Carmike Chemical the preceding day.
Both men were crouched low, but somehow maintained a silent grace as they crept through the trees and towards the edge of the unlit roadway.
Their steps were silent. And while the men's hearts were pounding in their chest, their minds were clear.
The machine gun that each man held in his extremely capable hands provided a cool ache against their palms as they walked through the pitch dark September evening through the shadows and towards the facility.
Both ached to put the weapons to use, especially Jackson. Unfortunately, he wouldn't have the chance.
The men continued their slow hike. They were crouched low and their boots made no sound as they stepped along the low ditch beside the darkened road.
Unfortunately for the two men, however, while the road may not have been lit, the area surrounding the distribution center was littered with sensors. Infrared, motion, and night vision sensors were arrayed surreptitiously around the area.
Jackson and Mike had been spotted before they ever stepped from the vehicle.
Chapter 33:
10:35 PM- Saturday, September 9th
Washington, D.C.
Michael Carmike had always loved the smell of jet fuel.
There were a couple of reasons for his love of the odorous blend of high grade petroleum products. The first was money. Jet fuel was one of the most profitable products that Carmike Industries produced. At close to $6.00 a gallon, the stuff was like liquid gold.
The second reason was more personal. It reminded him of the numerous flights to exotic locations for both business and pleasure that he had taken in his Gulfstream 500 business jet.
He glanced at the jet as he stepped from the limousine that had carried him from his home in northern Virginia to Reagan National Airport. To Carmike, the smell of the jet fuel was intoxicating and liberating, especially since he knew that this particular flight would carry him away from what had rapidly become a very tenuous situation at his company.
Carmike frowned as the flight attendants removed his luggage from the trunk of the stretch limousine and carried the matching leather bags to the luggage compartment of the plane, which waited on the tarmac, its engines already beginning to turn in anticipation of the young CEO's arrival.
The co-pilot stepped from the door of the aircraft as Carmike approached, giving him the customary handshake and offering a simple question to the young CEO. "Where are we going this evening, sir?"
Michael had to laugh. This was a man accustomed to being very flexible, like all of the pilots who worked for Carmike Industries. Most were retired or former military aviators with thousands upon thousands of flight hours. And, it showed.
Michael could feel the stress of this evening begin to melt away as he looked the serious and professional pilot in the eyes.
"Aruba," replied Carmike, stepping up the ladder and into the cabin of the Gulfstream business jet.
The pilot followed closely behind, and after a quick discussion with dispatch and some hasty phone calls to customs and a Carmike employee in Aruba, the aircraft began to taxi.
The sleek jet lifted off of its nose wheel at high speed on the runway, and the lights of the nation's capitol faded into the distance as the jet climbed to its cruising altitude of 44,000 feet.
Michael Carmike stood up and walked to the wet bar, pouring himself a glass of Glenfiddich.
&
nbsp; In the Gulfstream 500, the flight to Aruba would take around four hours, or so said the Captain of the aircraft after the jet leveled off at cruising altitude at speeds close to Mach 1.
Michael Carmike sipped at his expensive glass of scotch as he eased back in his seat, the supple leather embracing his weary frame as he reclined in the seat.
There would be a car awaiting him in Aruba. A suite at the Westin. Dinner, drinks and dancing; all in all, it should make for a great working vacation for the weary CEO.
Most importantly, the trip would offer the young businessman an alibi, in case this witness continued to make trouble for the company.
Carmike began to close his eyes, reviewing the last few days in his mind.
It seemed that something was going wrong at every turn. First, there had been Winters. That had been an easy situation to resolve.
Then there had been the rotund former CFO. Yaeger had been a difficult call. But Michael's father had insisted. There could be no trusting the pudgy financier.
His hesitation had been obvious ever since being let in on the company's plans. And his supervision of the operation had been sloppy at best, inept at worst.
Yes, Yaeger had needed to be eliminated.
Michael Carmike cradled his drink in his tan hands as he pressed his jet black, perfectly combed hair into the leather seat, resting his highly polished shoes on the rear-facing seat in front of him. He exhaled loudly before taking a big gulp of the brown liquid.
Now there was Jackson Pike.
Michael had been an engineering major at Princeton. He'd always been good at math, but even he couldn't figure out the odds of the only witness to the entire operation being a former Navy SEAL, one who seemed intent on exacting revenge on the company.
Mohammed Fatal's briefing had been so convincingly simple.
But that was the thing. Operations were always simple until you involved the single variable that most notably changes the best laid plans.
People.
Michael shook his head. And these people had been the best. Or so they had claimed.
He downed the rest of his scotch as he closed his eyes. He knew his father had been right. The company could not survive the downturn created by the end of the war in Afghanistan and the expiration of Carmike's Iraqi oil contracts in the same quarter.
Iron Triangle: A Jackson Pike Novel (Book One of The Iron Triangle Series) Page 12