Rose City Kill Zone

by D L Barbur

  “I’m guessing the people that helped Marshall steal all that money. I think Hubbard is deeper into this than any of us realize.”

  I nodded.

  “I think you’re right. He’s CIA, so I don’t know how to touch him.”

  “Well, he just kidnapped a US Attorney, so I’m about to make life living hell for him.”

  For the first time since the explosion, I was beginning to feel like things were looking up a little bit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Laughlin agreed to meet with us, but not at the command center, so I suggested the boat ramp. We spent the night at the safe house, then the next morning we drove back down to Lehigh Valley. The hour and a half drive from Ontario to Lehigh Valley was one of the many things on my list of worries. It was a miles-long funnel we had to traverse. There were no good alternate routes.

  Eastern Oregon was refreshingly devoid of automated license plate cameras and similar systems that were common-place in more populated areas like Portland, but I was still nervous about my team traveling the same stretch of road in the same vehicle more than once. These days, fears of electronic surveillance weren’t just for the tin foil hat crowd. Big Brother really was watching. A city in Arizona had disguised license plate readers in fake cactuses. Cities like Baltimore routinely vacuumed up information about thousands of cell phones without a warrant and stored it on a server indefinitely. In cities all over the United States, millions of license plate numbers were routinely recorded by cameras, often with an accompanying shot of the driver.

  We were being careful with our burner cell phones, only turning them on when absolutely needed. Ideally, we would have been replacing them every few days, but there were only so many places you could buy them for cash in a place like Ontario. If we bought too many of them, that would attract attention, not just from the store staff, but potentially from someone watching the store’s electronic inventory. Somebody like Hubbard could have one of his technological gnomes creep their way into national databases and watch for sudden spikes in pre-paid phone sales in the local area. From there, the store’s digital video surveillance records could be searched at the times the phones were sold. Nobody would need to leave Langley, Virginia to do it. Hell, they wouldn’t even need a real person. The computer could be instructed to run facial recognition software and report back any matches.

  Even with all the precautions we were taking, it was only a matter of time before Hubbard found us if we stuck around. The smartest thing to do would have been to scatter to the four corners of the earth, as individuals or in pairs and lie low until we weren’t interesting anymore. We all knew it, but none of us were doing it.

  Laughlin was waiting for us when we pulled into the boat ramp. The FBI agent was alone and looked pissed that he was waiting on us. Ordinarily I would have been the first one to arrive at a meeting like this, even if it meant I had to get there hours ahead of time, but in this case, I had an ace in the hole. Dale was across the river, snuggled up to his favorite rifle and doing his best impersonation of a piece of sagebrush. He’d been there before sunup and had given me the go ahead before we pulled in.

  Likewise, Casey and Henry were in the rental van. It wasn’t quite as well equipped as our old one, but she assured me they had everything she needed to spot lurking ambushers by their radio and cell phone transmissions. Just in case we were all wrong, Dalton, Jack and Robert were standing by a mile or so back to come in guns blazing.

  Not for the first time, I thought about how I didn’t want to live this way forever.

  Burke had recovered nicely from being kidnapped. It was either that, or it just hadn’t hit her yet. She got out of the car and strode up to Laughlin like she hadn’t been worried about being shot and dumped in the desert only hours before. On the other hand, I couldn’t help looking around as we walked up, eyeballing places for potential ambushers to be hiding.

  Laughlin looked like a changed man. He looked thinner and haggard. His eyes had the look of a man who realized his life was over and was just waiting for the hammer to fall.

  “I don’t have much time,” he said. “I’ll be missed.”

  “That’s fine,” Burke said. “I’ll get right to the point. I want to know what directions you’ve been given regarding securing Henderson Marshall when he’s eventually arrested or surrenders.”

  A look passed across Richard’s face like he’d been stabbed in the abdomen.

  “I don’t think you understand. This is all going to be over day after tomorrow.”

  “What? How?”

  “That morning there’s going to be an assault on the compound.”

  “That’s stupid,” I said. “You’ve already lost enough men. You’ll win eventually, but you know they will fight back and there will be bodies stacked three deep.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not my people. There’s some sort of DHS team that’s going to lead the assault. My people are just going to be back up.”

  “What DHS team?” I asked. This didn’t make sense to me. There were only a handful of law enforcement special operations teams that were capable of assaulting a position like Freedom Ranch, and I’d heard of all of them. DHS had many arms, but they were mostly investigatory, and they didn’t have a team on the same level of FBI HRT.

  “I don’t know,” Laughlin said. “I’ve never heard of them.”

  That alone spoke volumes. Laughlin had been in charge of HRT for several years. The thought that there was some secret DHS team out there he’d never heard of was bullshit.

  “Hubbard,” I said and looked at Burke. “They’re going to kill him. Hubbard has enough deniable shooters at his disposal to take the house. They will have their bloodbath, and blame it all on the FBI.”

  Laughlin turned paler. I wasn’t saying anything he didn’t already know, but hearing it out loud probably didn’t help.

  “Shit,” Burke said. It was the first time I’d ever heard her curse. “What do we do?”

  I’d been turning a plan over in my head for a while now. It was probably stupid, but it was all I had. I looked at Laughlin.

  “If I can get inside the house, can you promise your people won’t interfere.”

  He shook his head. “My people only control the inner perimeter. We’re in the four Stryker vehicles and a couple of observation posts. The outer perimeter is all State Troopers and a bunch of outside agencies like Customs, ATF, people like that. We tightened up after that pilot escaped. I don’t control those folks.”

  “I can get inside the outer ring. I just need you to look away when I actually enter the house.”

  Burke was looking at me like I was crazy. I probably was.

  “When we get him out, I want to hand him directly to you,” I said. “On camera. This guy can’t disappear. He can’t be shot trying to escape, and he can’t have a mysterious heart attack.”

  Laughlin nodded. Either he was just trying to salvage his career, or maybe he was a straight shooter, I didn’t know, but right now I needed him.

  “Ok. I’ll do it.”

  We left it at that. Burke peppered me with questions on the drive back, but I asked her for time to think, and to explain my idea to everyone at once. Finally, she relented, and I had nothing but long miles of highway to keep me occupied.

  It was late morning by the time we got back to the safe house, thanks to the long surveillance detection routes we all drove. I had many worries about what we were planning, but right now my biggest one was that we wouldn’t have time to assemble everything we needed.

  We all gathered in the living room. Burke and I explained our meeting with Laughlin and everyone looked at me.

  “What’s your plan?” Dale asked.

  “We’re going to need an airplane, some parachutes, and some explosives,” I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I sneaked back to Rudder’s by myself. Part of it was because everyone else had a job to do. Part of it was a single person was less likely to attract attention if the place w
as still being watched.

  If I was going to be honest, part of it was because I just wanted to be by myself for a while. For months now, I’d been living in close proximity to the others, and it was starting to wear on me. I was by nature a solitary man. I’d lived alone for over twenty years and I was feeling more than a little stifled.

  It didn’t help that Alex was back in one of her pensive, quiet moods, keeping me at arm’s length and not talking. We’d argued about her role in the events of the next 36 hours, and she’d finally crossed her arms over her chest, blew her hair out of her face, and told me she was going to do whatever the hell she wanted, regardless of what I said. She’d reminded me of her dad so much in that moment, it had hurt, physically. I’d felt a pang in my gut like a stab from a phantom sword.

  So I’d jumped at the chance to drive the ATV for miles on bad roads, then infiltrate on foot a few more through the sagebrush and lodgepole pines until I finally hit the borders of Rudder’s place. I had one more field to cross and I’d be at his house. I paused for a few minutes, checking out the scene through my night vision goggles and feeling my sweat dry in the cool night air.

  The place looked deserted. It was after midnight, and the usual glow of his big screen TV was absent. I wondered if he was even home, or if he’d gone to stay somewhere else in the aftermath of the explosion. I would be disappointed to find him gone, although it wouldn’t stop me from filling my backpack with what I hoped he had at his ranch, I’d also hoped to enlist the old guy’s aid. Besides, I kind of liked him.

  I was pleased to find the latest generation night vision goggles had enough resolution to help me avoid the cow pies in the pasture. As I got closer to the house, I could see the giant hole in the driveway where the bomb had exploded. The vehicles and the twisted wreck of Dale’s trailer had been hauled away. I could smell the reek of burnt plastic and explosives though.

  I decided to do a circuit of the house before knocking. I crept along, looking in dark windows and seeing no sign of Rudder. I’d gone around three sides of the house when I heard the slightest sound behind me and all the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  When I turned around, Rudder was standing about a dozen feet behind me. In the green image of the goggles, I could tell it was him, recognizing his coke bottle glasses and his britches pulled up almost to the bottom of his rib cage. He had a bayonet in his hand, almost as long as my forearm.

  “You sure are quiet for such a big fella. Why don’t you take off those Buck Rogers glasses and come on in for a drink.”

  He walked past me and turned the corner towards his porch. Bemused I followed him inside, doffing the goggles as I went.

  He flipped on the light in the kitchen and put the bayonet on the counter, followed by a Smith and Wesson Victory Model revolver he pulled out of his waistband.

  “I’m not sure what’s worse,” he said as he collected a bottle of Pendleton whiskey and a pair of glasses. “When those damn arrogant FBI agents were here, or when they left. That’s when all the nutcases and crazies started showing up. Earlier today I had a couple men here giving me a hard time for cooperating with the federal government. I had to explain how you don’t fuck with a man that owns 160 acres, a collection of firearms, and a backhoe before they would leave.”

  He poured two fingers of whiskey into each of the tumblers, then slid one over to me.

  “I’m sorry we brought you so much trouble,” I said and picked up the glass. The whiskey was smooth going down, and I tried to remember how long it had been since I’d had a drink.

  “Hell, our trouble started the minute those assholes Webb and Marshall started buying up land here in the county. I reckon what we’re seeing now is the inevitable conclusion to letting the wrong people take up residence.”

  He looked at through those miles thick glasses.

  “What brings you here? I don’t figure you sneaked in here wearing a backpack and those fancy glasses for a social visit and a repeat of some John Wayne movies.”

  The whole time I’d been walking, I’d been debating how much to tell Rudder. Part of me had hoped he wouldn’t be here. I had a story cooked up I could tell him, not quite the truth, but not quite a lie either, but as I stood there in his kitchen, drinking his whiskey, I looked at the boarded up kitchen window where the glass had been blown out, and the picture of him in his World War 2 uniform across the living room, and I told him the whole story, start to finish.

  Rudder just stood there and listened, and about halfway through he poured another finger into the glass of whiskey I hadn’t realized I’d been drinking as I talked. Finally, I told him about our meeting with Laughlin that morning and my plan for getting Marshall out and ran out of steam. I took a gulp of the whiskey.

  “That’s one hell of an audacious plan,” he said. “You’re going to need a diversion.”

  “That’s where I was hoping to get your help,” I said. “Do you have any dynamite?”

  “Of course I have some dynamite,” he said. “What kind of rancher would I be if I didn’t?”

  He led me out to one of the out buildings, and unlocked a metal cabinet. Inside was a wooden box with “Hercules Powder” stenciled on the side. The dynamite was old, but not sweating nitro. I still felt queasy loading half of it into my backpack, along with some blasting caps and det cord. I left the other half with Rudder, along with a burner cell phone we’d procured just for him. It was one of the ones with the big buttons and displays.

  Once again he proved to be much sharper than most people would have assumed. Rudder didn’t own a cell phone because he didn’t want one, not because he was too old and daft to use one. He grasped how to use it just fine, and his old fingers were surprisingly nimble on the buttons.

  “Well I have to say this is the most excitement we’ve had around here in a long time,” he said as I hoisted the pack onto my shoulders. “I’ll be standing by to do my part.”

  “Thanks,” I said and stuck out my hand. It was all I could think of to do or say.

  “You’re welcome,” he said as we shook. “When this is over, we’ll kill the rest of that bottle and swap some stories.”

  “Sounds good,” I said and set out into the night. I had miles to go before sunrise and hoped to be back at the house in time to catch a nap before the next phase of my plan. I worked my way through the pasture, then into the sparse trees, trying not to wonder if I was about to get everyone I knew killed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It turned out to be surprisingly easy to steal a plane. After a brief rest, my little suicide squad drove to Madras, Oregon, well north and west of Lehigh Valley, but still in the dry, eastern part of the state. Sagebrush Skydiving had its headquarters there, and after nightfall, we proceeded to rob them blind.

  After 9/11 there had been a big push to secure even the light aircraft that flew out of tiny little airstrips like the one in Madras. The problem was, there were hundreds of rinky-dink little airfields, and thousands of planes. Over the years, nothing much happened, and predictably, security was walked back. According to Henry’s research, they’d gone from 24-hour security, to a night watchman, to the current plan of alarms and cameras, and the occasional drive by from a security company. Each step had saved the airport money.

  Right now, the security company was answering a rash of alarms at their various clients, courtesy of Casey and Henry, virtually guaranteeing the roving guard would be occupied elsewhere. The video cameras were showing a loop of last night’s footage, with a current timestamp. As long as we were careful with our flashlights, we were unlikely to attract unwanted attention.

  It turned out everyone had gone skydiving before except Henry. He’d turned a peculiar shade of green at the very thought, but I’d been planning on leaving him behind anyway. Hopefully, by now he was on his way back to Rudder’s ranch. While Jack and Robert got the plane ready, the rest of us were digging through Sagebrush Skydiving’s parachute loft, checking labels on packed parachutes under Dalton’s supervisio
n.

  Even with all our distractions and computer shenanigans, we were pressed for time. We quickly found chutes for everybody but me. With all the gear I needed, I would be pushing 300 pounds, so I needed a big canopy. In the military, I’d frequently been over the weight limit for our chutes and had the landing scars to prove it.

  “We may not have a chute for you Dent,” Dalton whispered around the flashlight he was holding in his teeth so he could read the labels.

  “I’m going even if I have to strip down to my jockstrap and just hold a knife in my teeth,” I said as I dug through a pile of chutes.

  “Spare us the visuals on that,” Casey said and dropped a chute on the table with a grunt. “Will this work?”

  “It isn’t perfect, but it will do,” Dalton said. I scooped up the chute and another we’d picked out for Robert and we all filed down out of the loft and across the tarmac towards a hangar. The night was clear and cold, with a stiff wind out of the east. Not the best skydiving weather.

  Jack was crawling all over the plane while Robert loaded gear into the back. The Cessna 208 Caravan could accommodate twenty skydivers, so our little group had plenty of room. While Jack did his pilot thing, the rest of us strapped on our chutes, under the watchful eye of Dalton. He wasn’t jumping tonight, the impact with the ground would probably blow his barely healed leg apart, but he had more jumps than the rest of us combined, and was a qualified jump master. So I did what he told me and tried not to think about how long it had been since I’d done this.

  The mood was somber. I kept trying to catch Alex’s eye, but she avoided me. We’d had the worst argument of our relationship a couple hours ago. I wanted her to stay behind. She insisted on coming. Short of physically restraining her, there hadn’t been anything I could do.

  I didn’t mind dying anymore. I felt like I’d been running on borrowed time since the minute I responded to that homicide call so many months ago, but I didn’t want to watch Alex die.