In his earpiece, he heard, “Agent Figueroa, he’s asking for you by name.”
“Tell him I’m on my way down.”
The voice on the channel added, “And he says to make sure you don’t bring any Unit men with you.”
Figueroa stepped into the elevator and said, “Ask him how he knows who is in the Unit.”
“He says they’ll be the ones trying to kill him.”
Figueroa just grunted. Right now pretty much the whole government wanted that man dead, and yet, here he was at the main gate of an FBI office. Not something your run-of-the-mill terrorist would do.
Chapter 60
1832 hours MST Saturday
Albuquerque FBI Field Office
Carl studied the FBI man as he approached the barrier. He couldn’t see much in the way of details about Guillermo Figueroa because of the harsh glare of the security lights, but he certainly carried himself with confidence. He might be a desk jockey now, but Carl could see he hadn’t always been. He walked like he’d been around the block a few times. This man had been through a lot of missions and raids. He had confident-cop swag. Figueroa was short and stocky with rounded shoulders and a little extra in the paunch. He figured the guy could probably bench press three hundred pounds, but he didn’t do much cardio.
There was an electronic buzz as Agent Figueroa was allowed through the personnel gate beside the guard shack. He approached the SUV with his gun in his hand, though it remained pointed at the ground. Figueroa stopped at the driver’s side window and peered past Carl.
“Agent Murray, what’s your status?”
Murray leaned against the passenger window, but raised his left arm weakly. “Had better days, my friend.”
To Carl he said, “The rest of his team?”
Carl noted the agent didn’t ask where they were or if they were even alive. He seemed to already know the answer, but he seemed to need confirmation.
“They flew right into an ambush. The Unit took up position a couple minutes before your men got there. They waited until the chopper was about to land. They brought RPGs to the party this time.”
Figueroa grimaced. “And where are these Unit men now?”
“I sent them to hell.” Carl paused. “It was no coincidence they showed up just in time to set an ambush. I figure they had inside information.” Carl could see the man fuming.
“Indeed, they did.”
“I saw them drive past from the east, but there are only a couple of cheap hotels to the east of where Lenore was holed up. If I had to hide some mercenaries, that’s where I’d put them.”
Figueroa grunted and cast his glance over Carl’s shoulder, into the back seats of the SUV.
“Christ!” he said. “These people need to be in a hospital!”
Carl shook his head. “The Unit can get to them in a hospital.”
“So you brought them here?”
“Agent Murray said you have an infirmary. He’s bleeding out. I injected the others with the antidote, but they’ll need help recovering. He said I can trust you with their safety,” Carl said. “Can I?”
Figueroa seemed to recognize the opening salvo of a negotiation and said, “And in exchange…”
“If you guarantee their safety, I’ll let you debrief me as we fly down south with the virus antidote.” Carl raised up the medical case for a moment. “I’ll tell you everything I know about Breen and his assassination plot, and the people he’s working with south of the border.”
Figueroa glanced around at all the guns like he was trying to make a point.
“If I refuse?”
Carl wagged the grenade. “Then we all join those Unit men in hell.”
“You have evidence of the vice president’s involvement?”
Carl shrugged. “Evidence is your department. I can give you a man who knows where the antidote is stockpiled.” He sensed Figueroa wasn’t convinced. “Look, Agent. No sane leader would use a bioweapon as an assassination tool unless they had the cure. Too many ways for it to get loose…as it has.” He looked over at Murray, then added, “Shirley Mallory trusted me to save her girl. Help me finish the job. Help me save the president and her daughter.”
Agent Figueroa started to say something, but one of the guards stepped up beside him.
“Sir, Agent Drake reports that his Unit is returning from the airport. They had to shoot the plane down because the pilot refused to make the last turn on his approach.”
Figueroa looked at Carl, who shook his head. “They murdered him. Shot him out of the sky. He was a hero. He gave everything for his president—his career and his life. He had twin daughters about Melissa Mallory’s age.”
The agent nodded and holstered his weapon then reached in and closed his hand around Carl’s hand that held the grenade.
“Alright, Mr. Johnson, we’ll do this your way for now.” He motioned to Carl’s other hand for the black metal safety tab and inserted it into the device, then handed it to the guard. To the guard, he said, “When Costas Drake and his Unit personnel return, use all means to disarm and detain them. Deadly force is authorized.”
“Yes, sir.” The guard returned to his post.
“Open the gate, we’re going in.” Figueroa climbed up on the runner as Carl shifted the SUV into gear. The agent activated his Bluetooth earpiece. “Comm, vector in the nearest police helicopter to the landing pad, then have the airport tower ground all civilian and military aircraft and establish a no-fly zone over the city for the next four hours. I don’t want any more surprises.
“And have the Infirmary send a medical team out front.” He leaned down and asked Carl how many casualties he had.
“Eleven plus Murray.” Carl had also brought the dead along. He didn’t have the heart to leave them behind in the motel. “But make sure no one touches them. I don’t know how long it takes for the antidotes to work. They might still be contagious. Good thing you’re wearing gloves. I think I’m cured, but I can’t be sure.”
Figueroa passed along the instructions to prep for biohazard containment, then said, “Have all available field agents prepare to canvass the hotels on Central Avenue east of Agent Cummings’s motel. Coordinate with the local police and sheriff’s offices, and have all available officers cordon off the area, but wait until Mr. Drake and his men are in custody here. They’re no doubt monitoring police and FBI frequencies, so I don’t want to spook them.
“Then assign all local SWAT units to supplement ours. Tell them our suspects are heavily armed, paramilitary personnel wanted in connection with the murder of federal agents. Expect heavy resistance.”
Carl drove slowly up to the front of the FBI building and Agent Figueroa jumped down from the running board.
“Let’s go save the president, Mr. Johnson.”
Chapter 61
1835 hours MST Saturday
Nuevo Casas Grandes Airport, Northern Mexico
The girl, Julia, began screaming a few seconds after Nancy Palmer opened the exterior office door just an inch. She’d been scanning the brightly lit tarmac around the hangar building, at least the southwest section that she could see. Ten-foot flood-lamp posts on tripods were positioned every thirty feet or so, forming a perimeter line a hundred feet away from the hangar. Fifty feet beyond that security perimeter was the chain link fence topped with razor wire marking the outer edge of the airport property.
In the darkness of the night, a ring of light protected the airport buildings from intrusion. No way she’d get through that ring without being spotted. She had to find a way to kill the generator she heard humming somewhere in the night. To get to that generator, she’d have to navigate outside in the light. She’d already sized up the opposing force and decided they were a non-threat. The Mexican army, or perhaps the in-country equivalent of a national guard—weekend warriors—wore basic green fatigues and patrolled somewhat casually holding their old M-16s pointed to the ground. The five soldiers she could see were all facing outward into the darkness while they patrolled,
and the lights did more to illuminate the patrols than anything they might be looking for. It seemed clear the expected threat was from outsiders trying to breach the perimeter.
From the posture of the soldiers, she could tell none had true combat experience and didn’t expect any incursions deep inside their own country. After all, who would want to break into a bio-zone and rescue a contagious person in a coma?
These young Mexican soldiers were not her enemy, so she wanted to avoid engaging them if possible. It was the Unit personnel she was concerned about. She couldn’t see any of them, but she knew they were out there somewhere.
The night was relatively quiet outside, so the sudden screams pierced the night like a siren. A few of the patrolling soldiers turned and gazed toward the southern side of the hangar. Palmer couldn’t see what the soldiers saw, but she guessed they were watching a flurry of activity as Unit soldiers jumped into their bio-spacesuits to investigate. Palmer knew she had mere seconds to act.
She closed the door. Through the doorway separating her office from the huge hangar, she saw Julia Reyes sitting upright on her bed, terror-struck. Then the girl suddenly stopped screaming. She clutched the bed sheet under her chin.
For a brief moment, Nancy Palmer considered using the confusion and mayhem to escape, but she had no weapons and the logistics of escape were uncertain. She was sure she could reach one of the patrolling soldiers, disable him, and take his weapon. Someone would see her, though, and she wasn’t sure she could then escape without using lethal force. Before she even considered that option, she had to grab the vials of the antidote and find a thermos or a cooler and some ice. Only then could she attempt her escape.
She had no doubt the Unit would discretely kill Julia when they realized she had recovered from the virus. Palmer felt no emotional attachment to the girl, but Carl did, and his feelings were inexplicably important. He might never forgive her if she let something preventable happen to Julia. She was more concerned with how the girl’s death would damage him after the loss of his son. It might push him beyond recovery.
It wouldn’t take the Unit long to figure out Carl had injected the girl’s mother and the other mercenaries also. They’d kill them too. When the doctors and other attendants objected, they’d die as well. Then the Unit would turn on the Mexican weekend warriors. It would be a bloodbath, all because the Unit needed to protect Walter Breen’s secret—the antidote was real, it worked, and President Mallory didn’t have to die.
Palmer crept back to the inner door and peeked into the hangar. Julia had started crying and was trying to pull the IV needle tape from her arm. In a weak voice filled with fear, she was calling for her mother in Spanish. When she looked around at all the comatose bodies, Julia saw the two attendants in red bio-hazard suits running toward her. She started screaming again.
The scene unfolded in virtual slow motion for Palmer as her brain automatically began considering options, attack vectors, and blind spots. The three white spacesuits hurried behind the Reds. All five waddled awkwardly in the bulbous suits, and the sounds of clunky rubber boots and swishing nylon echoed through the cavernous room. One white suit had his hand pressed against the side of his head covering, and his mouth was moving behind his acrylic faceplate like he was shouting into a radio microphone. The Whites were armed with holstered handguns.
Palmer scanned the dark office around her for weapons, but found little of use. Among the debris on the floor near her, she saw a couple of ink pens and a tiny flat-head screwdriver used for adjusting small electrical gadgets. While she was fully trained in turning virtually any object into a deadly weapon, she needed weapons she could take into battle against five men, three of which were armed and likely trained combat soldiers. As she looked back into the hangar, she saw that the cavernous room was full of weapons. There was a metal IV post hooked onto the frame of each bed. There were literally hundreds of weapons she could use.
Palmer rushed into the hangar, skipped left, then charged down the center isle between the rows of beds. The attendants and the soldiers saw her coming. The soldiers in white fumbled for their guns in their bulky gloves, but the attendants froze in her path, blocking the soldiers from getting a clear shot.
By the time they could see Palmer clearly she was already in their midst. Palmer grabbed the metal IV rack from Julia’s bed and ripped it from its plastic fastener. She discarded the hanging bag of fluid, then became a ninja, swinging the four-foot long metal post like a staff. She spun, stabbed, slashed, and pummeled all five of the suits. She broke their faceplates, ripped open their bio-suits, cracked their skulls, and impaled their faces. In the space of less than ten seconds, she had disabled all five men.
Julia immediately stopped screaming at the sight of her. Palmer laid a gentle palm on her cheek for a brief second, then bent down and relieved the three white spacesuits of their guns. She tucked the weapons in Velcro pockets and helped Julia off the bed. She pulled the IV needle from the girl’s arm.
The girl looked around. “Where’s my mom?”
“I don’t know, Sweetie, but we have to go. Okay?”
Palmer grabbed her hand and started toward the entrance the spacesuits used—the open personnel door in the center of the huge hangar door. She could see there was a ribbed, clear plastic quarantine tube secured to the outside of that door. Julia surprised her by twisting the other way. The girl broke free and ran around aimlessly calling for her mother. Finally, Palmer caught the girl and forced her into a squat beside a bed.
“Julia, look. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know where your mother is, nor my other team members, but—”
“Where’s Carl,” Julia said, looking around again. Her bottom lip trembled. “I want Carl.”
“You remember that girl he came here for day before yesterday? Melissa?” Julia nodded. “Well, she’s in trouble again and he had to go help her and her mother. But he asked me to look after you, okay?”
“No, he didn’t.” She looked ready to cry again.
Palmer was silent for a moment, then said, “You’re right, he didn’t. I just said that because I need you to trust me and help me get out of here.” She smiled and Julia gave her a shy smile in return. “My name’s Nancy, and I’m sorry for talking to you like a little kid.”
“I’m hungry, Nancy.”
“Me too. Okay, first thing, let’s get out of here because there are some bad men that want to kill us because we woke up. Second thing is, we find some food and water. Third thing is, we try to find your mom. Okay, so far?”
The girl looked like she was starting to nod, but then her eyes went wide and she pointed over Palmer’s left shoulder. Palmer grabbed a gun and spun in a crouch. She looked under the nearest bed, through a forest of metal bed frames, and found herself aiming a gun at nothing. Trent Englebaum, the man Carl called Merc Three, rolled off his cot onto the floor and pulled his IV line from his arm. He caught Palmer’s gaze and gave her a head nod. She slid her gun along the floor toward him.
“Watch Julia. I’m going to create a diversion.” To Julia, she said, “Stay right here. I’ll be right back.”
She ran back into the office, swung open the exterior door, and snapped off seven quick shots to take out the six nearest floodlights. The last tripod fell over sideways, but the light remained on because her sixth bullet hit the metal housing and missed the bulb. The seventh shot fixed that problem. She knew the gunshots and the sudden pool of darkness would draw attention. It was the obvious play for someone making a desperate attempt to escape through the perimeter fence. There was nothing but open land surrounding the airport. That’s why she and the others were going the opposite way. The Unit or the weekend warriors had to have transportation somewhere near the hangars.
She ran back into the hangar and made the personnel door with the attached quarantine tube her destination, but when she looked for Merc Three and Julia, they were not where she’d left them. Instead, they were several rows away. Julia had conscripted Merc Three into her m
ission to find her mother, and the man was hefting an unconscious body onto his shoulder. He and Julia moved quickly toward Palmer.
“Mission accomplished,” Three said with a wink.
Palmer raised an eyebrow at Julia. “You told him I said to find your mother?” The girl looked like she was going to apologize, so Palmer said, “Nice move, young lady. We’ll make an agent out of you yet.” She banged her palm against the big red button on the wall and said, “Let’s move!”
The yellow warning light and the klaxon activated immediately. The two center sections of the six-section aircraft door began to separate with a loud rumble, then caught the second two sections, then the third. The quarantine tube was torn from its fasteners, and Palmer and Three burst into the open.
Ten feet in front of them, at the other end of the now-torn quarantine tube, was a long, steel RV trailer that looked like it could be towed by a heavy-duty pickup truck. Its shiny surface gleamed under the distant floodlights. There were no windows in the RV and its two doors, one of which was encompassed inside the quarantine tube, looked like pressure doors. Biohazard labels decorated both doors.
Three said, “There’s another containment trailer over here.”
Palmer glanced to her right and saw another vehicle connected to a second hangar a hundred yards away, and a third to her left. Beyond the left trailer, two large olive green tents were set up on the concrete tarmac. Towering over the tents, she saw the huge twin helicopter-like propellers of a VC-22 Osprey parked beyond the tents.
Palmer pointed with one of her guns. “Three, that’s our destination.”
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