Talkin' Jive

by Erik Carter

  Dale looked to the cabin’s porch.

  Cody’s rifle was aimed in Dale and Sloane’s direction.

  Dale tried to get up, still going for Sonya.

  Sloane stopped him again. He pulled him behind a tree trunk.

  “She’s gone, Conley!” Sloane said, shaking him. “You go out there, and you’re dead too.”

  CRACK!

  Another round crashed through the trees around them, throwing down more debris.

  “We gotta get the hell out of here!” Sloane said.

  Dale took one more look at Sonya.

  She was completely still. Legs splayed. Face obscured by her hair that moved gently in the slight breeze.

  Dale nodded at Sloane, and they took off into the forest.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  An hour later, and Dale’s body was still jittery with adrenaline.

  The blaring sirens did nothing to soothe his nerves. Becker had explained that Oak Ridge had a system of emergency sirens throughout the city that were tested on the first Wednesday of each month.

  That night was neither a Wednesday nor the beginning of the month.

  This was not a drill.

  The sirens were a deep, loud whine echoing off the buildings throughout the city. Constant and head-splitting. It sounded to Dale like air raid sirens from World War II movies, which made sense, given Oak Ridge had been created for the war. Becker had mentioned that residents of the city were accustomed to hearing the tests. But the current sirens were the real deal, and judging by the racket coming from the nearby police scanner, it was clear that the city of Oak Ridge had entered a state of panic.

  Dale, Becker, and Sloane stood outside the massive doors to the building that stored Y-12’s security vehicles, a structure that looked like a small aircraft hanger. Around them, the sounds of panicked confusion melded with the blaring sirens coming from the city beyond the fence. Engines firing up. People shouting. Cars with SECURITY POLICE written on the side zipping by, one after the other.

  “City cops aren’t going to Hendrix’s meeting,” Becker said, raising his voice over the confusion. “They have no warrant, and after I told them they’d be driving into a forest full of armed fanatics, believe it or not, they were even less interested. We’d need the governor to call in the National Guard to clear those woods, and by the time that would get arranged, the meeting would be over. I’ve got the city sirens running, and I’m sending out as many cars as I can spare to patrol with the city guys. Aside from that, we’re on our own.”

  “We know Hendrix is sending forces here to Y-12,” Dale said. “That much we can prepare for. But Hendrix said he’ll be attending to separate matters at the Cherokee Building.”

  Becker shook his head. “There’s no building in town with the name Cherokee.”

  “You’re the BEI’s history expert, Conley,” Sloane said. “It’s gotta be a connection to the Cherokee Indians, right?”

  Dale rubbed his chin. “There’s no historical Cherokee connection to Oak Ridge. The city’s too new.”

  His mind scanned over what he knew about the area. And remembered something.

  Something remarkable.

  “But there’s a huge connection to Knoxville! The treaty that established the relationship between the Cherokee and the United States—putting the tribes under U.S. protection—was negotiated not forty miles from here, in Knoxville.” He looked at Becker. “Are there any Knoxville buildings with ‘Cherokee’ in their names?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Damn! That means Hendrix must be using a building near the actual site of the treaty’s signing, and I have no clue where that is.”

  Dale glanced away, saw the panic bustling through Y-12, heard the city’s sirens as they continued to blare.

  “Hendrix said that his other business tonight is more important than this strike on Y-12. If attacking a nuclear weapons facility is Hendrix’s secondary action tonight, whatever he has planned is gonna be huge. We have to find the Cherokee Building.”

  Aside from the dire situation that they faced, Dale’s pressing need to determine the building’s location also had strong personal significance. Sonya O’Neil had died to get him that information. She’d sacrificed herself. He wasn’t going to let her die in vain.

  “What are some of Knoxville’s most prominent buildings?” Dale said to Becker. “Like the towers downtown.”

  Becker thought it over.

  “Well, there’s the Burwell Building. The Andrew Johnson Hotel. The Hamilton National Bank building…”

  “Had that hotel been Andrew Jackson and not Johnson we might be onto something,” Dale said, “since Jackson relocated the Cherokee via the Trail of Tears. What about the bank? Banks merge all the time. They change names. Has it been called anything else?”

  “Hamilton National used to be Holston National. Like the Holston River. Then it was Holston-Union after that because—”

  “That’s it!” Dale said, cutting him off. He’d heard all he needed. “The Cherokee treaty was the Treaty of Holston, and you’ve said that the Hamilton National Bank building is where the CLEAN Conference takes place. Of course! Whatever Hendrix has planned is happening at the office space where he holds the conference.”

  Dale quickly looked between Sloane and Becker. “I need to get there. Sloane, can your team help protect Y-12?”

  Sloane turned to Becker. “We’re at your disposal.”

  “Good. Gotta run, fellas,” Dale said.

  And he did just that, sprinting toward the parking lot.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Asa slammed his fist into the podium.

  “…and that’s why tonight is so very important,” he was saying. “That’s why I need all of you to do what is necessary.”

  He stopped and looked to the cabin’s front entrance. More people were getting out of their seats, leaving. Lots of them. Their faces wore a variety of expressions: fear, disappointment, shock, anger.

  He’d expected as much from the beginning. He knew that his numbers would thin dramatically on the evening of the attack. It was easy for a person to listen to a speaker’s passionate rhetoric, and it was only slightly more demanding to assert your loyalty to said speaker. It was an entirely different thing for a person to stand by his or her professed ideologies and take action. Most people were, at their core, cowards. That’s why Asa had worked so diligently for so long to get his following as large as possible, building in a buffer against the mass attrition he knew would happen.

  “Go on! Leave!” he shouted at those exiting. “You’re just separating the wheat from the chaff for me.”

  He looked at the distinguished guests, who sat together in one of the front rows. He gave them a wink. They nodded, grinned, looked at each other, savoring the inside joke. The Cuban let out a small laugh and quickly covered it with a cough.

  Asa looked back to the crowd. “To those of you who are staying, thank you. This is the time we’ve been working toward. Everything has led to this. It will be dangerous. I’m not going to lie to you. But the danger will be worth it in the end. Because of our cause.”

  He gestured to Cody, sitting in his position with the other members of the inner circle at the rear of the dais.

  “Trust in Cody Ellis’s leadership. As I do. Be brave for me. But more importantly, be brave for the world. This concludes our gatherings. And I want to thank you all for your continued support these last two years. Those of you who are willing to do what is necessary, meet in front of the cabin in five minutes. Then our real work will begin.”

  Chapter Sixty

  Becker and Sloane ran through the Y-12 complex.

  Other people — armed and wearing uniforms and fatigues — darted past them in all directions. Cars zoomed by. Helicopters floated in the air above, flying low, their rotors chopping the air and their spotlights shooting down to the ground. The city’s sirens blared from behind the fence.

  As they pushed past a group of men, the lights w
ent off in front of them. They were now lit only by the red glow of auxiliary lighting on the side of one of the warehouses.

  They came to a stop.

  “What the hell is going on?” Sloane said.

  Becker looked at the red light fixture then turned around. In the immediate area surrounding them, there was only the red glow, but in the distance, the rest of Y-12 was still fully lit.

  “They’ve killed the power to this section,” Becker said. “And the security systems.”

  Sloane nodded. “Conley did say that Hendrix has spies dug deep in here.”

  “Which means we need to—”

  There was a horrible crashing sound—screeching, metallic, and loud. A burst of sparks lit the men’s faces. They both turned to look.

  The sound had come from the front gate.

  Hendrix’s forces had arrived.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Arancia barreled down I-40. The red emergency light clipped to the rearview mirror flashed, and the siren bellowed into the night.

  Dale gripped the steering wheel and narrowed his eyes. The vibrations from both Arancia’s mighty engine and the surface of the road shook through his hands and into his forearms. He weaved left and right through the traffic, which was yielding to his siren, pulling to the highway’s shoulder.

  Dale’s mind kept going back to the chaos he’d just left behind in Oak Ridge and the notion that whatever Hendrix was doing in Knoxville was even more sinister. Dale knew now what Hendrix’s overall plan was — selling U.S. nuclear secrets to a foreign power in exchange for asylum — but he had no clue what was about to happen in Knoxville. Ulan Lebedev was already in town, so it made sense that Hendrix would be selling his secrets to him. So why was there a need for the apparently momentous operation that was about to take place? Why didn’t the two of them just get on a plane for Moscow?

  Hendrix was up to something else. Something huge. And Dale had no clue what it was. Dale had been in a state of confusion for a day and a half since he received the note in the newspaper, and he was as confused now as when he’d started. Aside from ingenuity, intelligence was Dale’s most treasured trait, and being so perplexed pissed him off royally. The ambiguity he faced now was a large, dark wall looming over him, and certain words and phrases kept flashing through his thoughts. Soviets. Attack on Y-12. Nuclear. CIA. U.S. Department of State. Federal indictment.

  What the hell did it all mean?

  Logically, it was throwing Dale’s mind into a loop, frustrating him, tormenting him. But the natural, gut, emotional side of him knew exactly what Hendrix was capable of. He needed only think of Sonya O’Neil to remind himself of that. Sonya, like so many others, a brainwashed follower of the man. Sonya, who’d been molded into a would-be killer. Sonya, who’d been forced into a skimpy dress to sexually torture a man.

  Sonya, who had died to undo the sins Hendrix forced upon her.

  No, Dale’s gut instinct wasn’t confused at all. Hendrix was a monster who needed to be stopped. Dale would figure out the logistics as they arose. He’d let his instincts go to work. Instincts were what one needed to stop a creature like Hendrix, and Dale’s instincts had never let him down.

  He leaned down to look through the windshield. The tall buildings of downtown Knoxville appeared, lights twinkling in the nighttime sky.

  Dale dropped to a lower gear and smashed the gas pedal.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Asa stood beside an open door in a darkened hallway.

  A few feet away from him, standing diligently by the wall, were three of his men who Asa had brought along as muscle, should he receive any unwanted visitors. They were all armed, but their weapons were concealed, keeping the mood of this moment as nonthreatening as possible.

  Light poured out into the darkness from the room by which Asa stood, a conference hall. He was on the top floor of the former Hamilton National Bank tower, one of the tallest towers in Knoxville. The bank itself had merged with another in recent years, and it was in the process of moving buildings, which had given Asa the most excellent opportunity to sweep in and rent out an entire floor for his conference. The location had served him well, a perching pinnacle, almost symbolic of the mission that CLEAN had promoted, feeding Asa with a supply of idealistic, rich morons and their fat checkbooks.

  As he waved the distinguished guests into the conference room, he could see through the window at the end of the dark hallway a bit of the stunning view — the lights of Knoxville, a bit of the Tennessee River, and I-40 in the distance, the red and yellow streaks of highway traffic cutting through the city.

  He kept a warm smile on his face as he ushered the guests inside.

  “Gentlemen, please make yourselves comfortable.”

  Lebedev was at the end of the line as the men made their way into the room. He and Asa made eye contact, and they stepped aside. Asa put his hand on Lebedev’s shoulder.

  “Moy drug, vremya prishlo.”

  My friend, the time is now.

  Lebedev nodded.

  Hendrix continued in Russian. “Raise the bidding past five million, and copies of the information will be yours for the agreed price … including my asylum.”

  Lebedev nodded again, and the two of them stepped into the room. Asa shut the door behind them.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Sloane and Becker jumped out of a security police vehicle, its lights flashing. They positioned themselves defensively behind the car’s open doors.

  Sloane glanced through the window of his door.

  Before him was an open, grassy area that met up with the entrance to Y-12. A guard station was at the front of this area, flanked to the left and right by the incoming and outgoing sides of the road. There was a movable gate across the incoming side.

  Pickup trucks barreled into Y-12, past the guard station, driving through the outgoing side of the road. Each time they did, their tires burst after hitting the backwards-facing, spring-loaded road spikes built into the road. The trucks’ rims screeched against the concrete and threw sparks into the night. They continued into the complex at breakneck speeds, shredded tires flapping, and they spread out into the grassy area where they parked and unloaded their armed passengers.

  Sloane counted six trucks already parked. And there were more coming in.

  Gunshots cracked through the night. Relentlessly. It was a war zone. Sloane’s men and the Y-12 security forces were in a firefight with the intruders. Hendrix’s people — both men and women — were using the pickup trucks as cover, concealing themselves behind the sides and in the beds. But several of the trucks just kept barreling forward on their tattered tires, right toward the plant itself.

  It was the most brazen attack Sloane had ever seen outside of the battlefield.

  “We have rows of dragon’s teeth circling the facility,” Becker shouted through the car’s cab. “Impossible to get those trucks through.”

  He pointed. Sloane turned.

  There was a seemingly endless line of massive cement blocks—each spaced a couple feet apart—twisting through the complex and into the distance, forming a low barrier wall separating the buildings from the primary access roads. It was a second layer of fortification beyond the main fence.

  A piercing sound to Sloane’s left. He ducked instinctively. A bullet smashed into the car’s windshield. Sloane covered his head as shards of safety glass showered him. He looked through the crack between the car’s door and the frame, saw that the shots were coming from a truck about fifty feet in front of them. He drew his M1911 and laid down three rounds.

  Then the truck started moving.

  Its destroyed tires spun in the earth for a moment, and then it came barreling right at Sloane and Becker.

  Sloane gave a quick glance to Becker. He had seen it too. Both men dove to either side of the car, rolling out of the way just as the truck smashed into it.

  Debris thudded in the ground all around Sloane. A piece of plastic interior molding smashed into his shoulder.

/>   People poured out of the truck, firing their guns. One of them Sloane recognized. It was one of Hendrix’s higher-ups, one of the people Sloane and his team had been carefully monitoring.

  Cody Ellis.

  Sloane saw Becker running for cover behind a small shed several feet away, and he sprinted after him, crouching low as bullets hissed through the air around him.

  He threw his back against the shed and looked back to the pickup truck.

  Cody and the others had positioned a large piece of particleboard off the back of the tailgate, creating a ramp to the ground, and they were using it to roll three large machines out of the back of the truck.

  Dirt bikes.

  Sloane looked behind him to the dragon’s teeth, the cement blocks that created a barrier around the Y-12 complex. He looked at the gap between the blocks. And then turned back to the bikes again.

  They were just small enough to fit between the gaps.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Dale sprinted down the sidewalk, squeezing his way past pedestrians. The entrance of the Hamilton National Bank tower was before him, a glass door topped by a triangular tympanum and flanked by Ionic pilasters. He skidded to a stop and yanked on the door handle. Locked.

  He cupped his hand on the glass, looked inside. The Greek motif continued into the lobby, where it had been melded with Art Deco elements. He saw a vaulted ceiling with plaster rosettes and a frieze decorated by alternating triglyphs and metopes. There was a nightwatchman, in uniform, behind a desk in the back, eyeing him suspiciously.

  Dale pounded on the glass.

  A moment later, the door opened a crack, and the night watchman peered out at him.

  “Sir, I need you to—”

  Dale pulled out his badge.