As he struggled to regain his feet, the attempt hampered by his refusal to let go of his pistol, Rod sprang forward. He landed directly on Grigovich’s body, and he heard the man exhale forcefully as the wind was knocked out of him. There was no time to retrieve his pistol. Or to reach the 32 automatic inside his backpack. Instead, his hand went instinctively to the Schrade Extreme survival knife on his belt, under his jacket. Without realizing he’d done it, Rod unsnapped the knife’s retaining strap and drew the shiny, silver 420 stainless-steel blade.
Grigovich had just enough time to assume a look of horror before the blade sank hilt-deep into the soft spot of his solar plexus. Rod’s full weight was behind the blow, and the stiletto-style blade easily pierced Grigovich’s heart, stopping at the solid mass of his spine. Rod as quickly jerked the blade outward, and the backward-facing serrations along the spine of its blade tore bits of flesh and gore out with it. Grigovich started to scream in acknowledgment of his death, but the sound subsided to a gurgle of blood. Grigovich stared into Rod’s eyes, and his last thought was that this must have been what Brenda Waukonigon felt before dying on Aziz’s blade.
Rod just stared back in horror as the life went out of Grigovich’s eyes. This was the second man he’d killed with a knife in as many days. Once again, he hadn’t meant to do it; it was simply an automatic act of his subconscious. He’d reacted from pure survival instinct. For just a moment, Rod lay atop Grigovich’s corpse filled with remorse, wishing with all his soul that he could undo what he’d just done.
The commotion must have attracted attention from above, because he felt a vibration on the chain-link, and when he turned, there was a bridge patrol officer behind him. The officer was wearing a safety harness, and he wasn’t prepared for the sight he encountered. The officer reached for his holstered weapon, but the speed of his draw was slowed in that position. Rod, spurred by fear, and still in self-preservation mode, dove forward before the officer could draw, grabbing his safety harness in one hand. The other hand pressed the tip of his survival knife hard against the underside of the officer’s chin. The silver blade was smeared with fresh blood.
The officer’s eyes went wide, and he put his hands in the air, his gun still in the holster but unsnapped. On his other hip he wore a Taser.
Take it easy, Dude,” the officer said. “We can work this out.”
Rod grinned in spite of himself at the bridge cop’s obvious law enforcement training. It was amazing how easily telling lies came to these fucking servants of the people. Letting go of the officer’s harness but keeping the knife pressed hard enough to convince him not to resist, Rod deftly flipped the Glock forty-caliber out of its holster and over the edge of the chain-link. Then he did the same with the Taser.
Real fear came into the cop’s eyes when he was disarmed. He felt truly helpless now. Rod added to his insecurity by handcuffing the officer’s hands behind his back with his own handcuffs.
Next, Rod conducted a quick search for the bomb that he knew was there somewhere. He didn’t have much time to find it; that was pretty clear. And he didn’t know what it looked like; he wasn’t sure he’d recognize a bomb even if he saw it. If he did locate it, what did he know about disarming any explosive device? His entire strategy consisted of throwing the thing into the Straits below.
The bridge cop made the decision for him. He started screaming, “Help! Help!” at the top of his lungs. He was heard over the racket. A moment later, several faces appeared, peering over the railing.
Rod resheathed the Schrade and automatically snapped its retaining strap—even without giving it a conscious thought, his knife was his most valued survival tool. Then he picked up Grigovich’s Desert Eagle and the 9-millimeter Beretta he’d dropped. He held one in each hand for only a moment before tossing the Beretta over the edge. Fifty caliber was better than 9-millimeter, and he might need all the stopping power he could get. He found two loaded spare magazines in one of Grigovich’s pockets, the same way he had with McBraden.
“Look,” the handcuffed cop said, still spouting police academy rhetoric, “you can’t just walk away from this. Give yourself up now, and maybe we can work something out.”
Rod just grinned at him humorlessly, and then climbed over the man, and shimmied up the cop’s harness rope to the bridge railing. Nearly all of the few people still left on the bridge had witnessed what had happened below, and none of them was willing to be a hero against a man who was armed, and who had already killed someone. They were painters and welders by trade, and the armed bridge officer someone had summoned had apparently been subdued by this killer.
Rod was aware that the people who were keeping their distance from him feared him, but there was at least one more terrorist on the loose, and he was the most dangerous of the four. He’d never forget that man’s face, the face of the killer who’d mutilated, then murdered, poor Sue Morgan, and who’d tried twice to shoot him. This man, whoever he was, needed to be exterminated for the good of everyone. Rod had never felt that way about another human being, not even in his felonious youth, but this man had to be stopped—permanently.
Chapter Twenty-Five
PLANTING A BOMB
Aziz drove to the second bridge tower, almost a mile from where he’d dropped Grigovich, without incident. The bridge authority officer, who’d stopped them when they’d first arrived, was probably sidetracked by all the preparations that were being made for the governor’s appearance, less than twenty-four hours from now. Aziz had no doubt that he’d called the number for Jacksonville Painting, and that he’d gotten the answering machine—he wouldn’t have been much of a cop if he hadn’t done at least that much. But with all the uproar the day before the annual Bridge Walk, he probably wouldn’t have had the time, or the inclination, to follow up as thoroughly as he might have under normal circumstances.
Aziz descended from the bridge’s second tower to the chain-link scaffolding below the roadway without attracting attention from anyone. Every person seemed busy working his or her own agenda, and no one paid him any mind. Even the trio of men who were spraying primer onto the underside of the structure didn’t give him more than a second glance. He hoped Grigovich was being equally ignored.
The three men spraying primer were probably curious, but the respirators they were wearing, and the clatter and hiss of compressors, made normal conversation impossible. Aziz pretended to be inspecting the bridge supports until they all left to take a break topside, then he went to work.
First, he found a niche in a main support I-beam that was out of sight, in a place on the beam’s opposite side that couldn’t be seen without actively looking for it. It was a portion of the substructure that had already been freshly painted, and not likely to be seen again in the next twenty-four hours, unless someone were actively looking for the bomb he was going to plant there.
Aziz opened the ammunition box’s lid, exposing the foil-wrapped C4 that surrounded the sphere of plutonium at the container’s center. From an inside pocket in his coveralls he removed a small, foam-lined plastic box containing four match-type, electrically-detonated blasting caps, their detonator wires carefully shorted together to prevent accidental detonation.
Using a screwdriver from his tool belt, Aziz punctured the foil wrap of the plastic explosive near the four corners of the ammo can. He drove each hole about three inches deep. Then, he gently inserted the four blasting caps into each hole, so that only their detonating wires protruded. He carefully separated the wires, then twisted them together, one wire from each cap, in two sets of four. Finally, he twisted the bared end of a six-inch length of wire to the ends of each set of detonator wires, then wound the opposite ends of the two wires to a pair of screw terminals that had been electrically connected to the ringer of a Tracphone cellular telephone.
Aziz was sweating; he didn’t like this part. He’d assembled and planted dozens of explosive devices—mostly IEDs for use against American military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan—and he’d never gotten p
ast having a case of anxiety whenever he armed one of them. More than a couple of his childhood friends had vaporized themselves during this critical stage of the process, and it scared him to think that he might join them one day. He recalled a class he’d taken in college, probability analysis, which had taught him that the more times someone performed any task, the greater the likelihood of a mistake. Every bomb he set brought him closer to the inevitable, and that frightened him.
When he’d made all the electrical connections, he turned on the telephone and placed it atop the blocks of C4 in the box. He closed the lid and latched it securely. The last step was to mount the six-inch square, novelty magnet in his pocket to the bridge support, and then simply stick the ammo can onto the magnet. After that, all it would take was a phone call to the Tracphone’s number to cause detonation. Aziz grinned to himself; seven little digits were all that it would take to destroy thousands of unsuspecting Americans.
That reminded him to call Grigovich, to see how he was progressing with setting his bomb. He was gratified to see that the bar graph on his phone showed near-maximum signal strength. He should have no trouble triggering the bombs whenever he wanted from anywhere.
Grigovich’s telephone rang and rang. Aziz counted the rings; after five of them, it was answered by a male voice that didn’t belong to his partner. “Hello,” the mystery voice said. When Aziz didn’t answer, the voice said, “Who is this?”
Aziz pushed the END button immediately. That stupid Bosnian bastard had been caught. He was compromised. The entire mission was compromised. It was a matter of time before they found the other bomb, if he’d even been able to plant it. Now that the authorities were sure to be alerted to a potential threat, they’d scour the entire structure until they found the ammo-can.
The survival instructor was behind this; he knew it. He regretted everything that had happened on the Betsy River. Not because he felt remorseful for any of the killings—he’d kind of enjoyed that part—but because of all the trouble and delay that had come from it. This mission had been so well planned; it had cost so much in time, training, and money; and then it had begun to unravel from the seams as soon as they’d reached Whitefish Point. And all because Grigovich had been so stupid; his trigger finger had always been quicker than his mind.
Grigovich might also have been mentally dim enough to simply give himself away—that was why he’d been teamed with Richarde when they’d begun. He didn’t think that was what had happened, though. He was more inclined to think that this was all the doing of that survival instructor. If there was one aspect of this rapidly disintegrating mission that he did regret, it was having missed the sonofabitch when he’d had him in his sights. This survival instructor might be ex-Special Forces or something. He was good. Or maybe he was just lucky. Whatever he was, he’d ruined the best-laid plans of Aziz and his team of highly trained experts.
Fortunately, Aziz had a backup plan for everything. He’d come here to kill Americans, and by Holy Allah, he was going to kill Americans.
Chapter Twenty-Six
IGNORED WARNING
Rod Elliot wasn’t ex-Special Forces. He wasn’t ex-law enforcement. All he could claim to be was an ex-con. Before that, as a teenager, he’d served a year in the United States Navy as a gunner’s mate technician. That was at the end of the Vietnam War, and he’d only joined the navy because he was afraid the draft would be reinstated, and they’d take him for the army. When the war ended, the navy was only too willing to let him out voluntarily with a general discharge.
Aside from having a natural talent and some training with firearms and ordnance, he didn’t feel like he was anything special. Quite the contrary; he was feeling very much like a broken-down, old woodsman. His joints and muscles ached, and he felt very tired. Some of it was, no doubt, a result of coming down off the Dexxies, but he felt every year and every trauma of his life today. He’d been pushing himself beyond his body’s limits for three days now. Not only was he physically played out, but he was mentally traumatized from the blood that was on his hands. There truly was blood on his hands, literally and figuratively, and it wouldn’t wipe off.
There was also blood on his face. The big man he’d killed had hit him as hard as he’d ever been slugged. When he’d gingerly touched the bridge of his nose between a forefinger and thumb, the pain had been excruciating. It was probably broken; he could already feel pressure from both eyes swelling. At least the swelling had slowed the blood gushing from his nostrils.
Despite his pain, Rod almost laughed at the way everyone on the bridge backed away from his approach when he climbed up. Of course, he did have a 50-caliber pistol stuck into his waistband. He opened the driver’s door of a four-wheel-drive Dodge utility truck, unopposed by whomever it had belonged to, and threw his backpack onto the passenger side.
He didn’t know which way to go, and he didn’t have a destination in mind, but he knew for sure that he was toast if he stayed here. An ex-con survival instructor, who’d killed at least one man with a knife, overpowered an officer of the law, and who was heavily armed. Geez, his situation was growing worse by the hour. Based on what their computers told them, the cops would shoot him down like a dog.
Then he spotted the white panel van he was looking for. Its headlights faced southward, toward him. There was no front license plate—they weren’t required in Michigan—but he recognized the JACKSONVILLE PAINTING logo on its side; it was the same logo he’d seen on the big terrorist’s coveralls. A man climbed up from below the roadway. He swung himself over the railing and loped toward the van’s driver’s side door. Even at a distance, Rod recognized him as the last terrorist.
The bridge cop below was still shouting, but his words were unintelligible over the racket of machinery that had been left running. Rod leaned out the truck window and raised his own voice to the handful of people who were still on the roadway. There were always a few idiots who refused to evacuate until it was too late.
“Get off the bridge. There’s a bomb somewhere down there.” He jerked a thumb down toward the roadway. “Somebody call the bomb squad.”
About half the people still on the bridge ran in a panic for their vehicles when they heard the word “bomb.” The other half just stood still, staring dumbly—like sheep. Rod shook his head in disbelief. He was reminded of the crowd of gawkers who’d ignored the warnings to stay back, and then had to flee for their lives when the first World Trade Center tower collapsed. Rod shook his head again. Pathetic. He doubted that anyone here would report the bomb.
He started the Dodge one-ton. Its big V-8 engine rumbled to life immediately. He pushed the stick-shifter into first gear and let out the clutch fast enough to make the rear tires squeal. Workers who’d remained on the bridge scattered out of his path as he wheeled the truck over the steel median, and into the northbound lane. Near the tollbooths at the bridge’s north end, he could see flashing lights. State police and bridge authority vehicles were blocking traffic into or out of the Upper Peninsula at the tollbooths. But they weren’t actually doing anything; they were just blocking the road.
They probably had orders to shoot him on sight, but still Rod shifted his stolen truck through its gears as he sped toward them and the terrorist. The terrorist must have seen him too, and he accelerated out of his parking place to head southward, coming toward Rod fast in the opposite lane. As they neared each other, Rod tried to think of the best way to stop the white van. He had to do something fast, so when there was a hundred yards separating the two vehicles, Rod cranked the wheel hard left; the Dodge bounced over the raised median and into the van’s path.
It didn’t work. As soon as Rod had committed himself to driving across the median, the driver of the van had done the same. Rod was still fighting the wheel, trying to regain control of the lumbering truck, when the van passed him, heading south in the northbound lane.
“Goddamn it,” Rod cussed. He pulled the steering wheel hard right again, and braced himself for a bouncing ride over the me
dian. This time he lost control, and both drivers’ side tires impacted the curb. The truck went up on two wheels, and a chill ran down his spine as he looked over the guard railing.
When the truck fell back onto all four wheels, Rod gunned the accelerator. His asshole felt puckered, but soon his fear had evolved into anger. He was scared, and that made him mad. When he caught up with that son of a bitch in the van, he was gonna kill him.
The road was clear, but there was a bridge authority truck and a squad car from the Mackinaw City Police Department parked across the exit to Interstate 75. Two more squad cars blocked the exits leading into Mackinaw City.
Rod wasn’t surprised when the white van he was pursuing accelerated into the bridge authority truck and the squad car, parked nose-to-nose like they were posing for an adventure movie. The heavy Ford Econoline van split the roadblock easily, probably making both of the blocking vehicles undrivable, and then kept going. Rod flew through the opening a second later, sideswiping the squad car again. He couldn’t suppress a grim chuckle; the fleeing officers actually had the audacity to look surprised that their roadblock had failed.
It wouldn’t be so funny next time, he knew. The small-town police had been caught by surprise. When they regrouped, it would be in force, and with blood in their eyes. They’d been caught off guard and embarrassed this time. But now, they’d likely be out for revenge as much as justice.
The white van peeled off on the first exit it came to, and headed down Trailsend Road, toward Big Stone Bay on Lake Michigan. Before it got to Lake Michigan, the driver turned abruptly onto a dirt two-track that led to French Farm Lake. Rod knew this road from many years ago, and he knew this section of Mackinaw State Forest. At least he used to. He hoped it hadn’t changed too much in the past few years.
The narrow roller-coaster road they were on split up ahead; one fork went to a primitive campground on the east end of French Farm Lake, the other ran the length of the lake to a beaver pond and a creek at its western end. To the south was Carp River, a beautiful little tributary of nearby Carp Lake, where he’d camped many times in his youth. Whichever fork the terrorist took, it was a dead end.
The Mackinac Incident Page 15