Threat Level Black

by Jim DeFelice

  “Help,” said someone.

  “I’ll help you,” Tyler answered.

  It seemed as if he were swimming, as if he were out on the river at night, under a bridge or a ledge, trapped as the current twisted around him.

  “Out—we’re getting out,” he said, and there were raindrops now, the splatter of something against the surface of the water nearby.

  He pulled and then pushed and could stand, and wasn’t in the water anymore. And someone yelled, “Here,” and the voice inside his head once more called him a coward. And then he saw that his hand was grabbing at a shirt. He stood and he pushed; he moved backward. Then he started to move forward.

  “Come on,” someone shouted. “You’ve got them all, come on. They’re gunning for the helicopter.”

  Tyler threw himself backward, tumbling onto a sandy beach.

  Not a beach: the strip, away from the downed helicopter, away.

  The ground was farther than he’d thought it could be—so much farther. His head finally hit and the pain shot up against his mouth and then back to his ears and to his neck and down his spine, and he vibrated as he swam again, the voice calling him a coward over and over.

  Chapter

  15

  They drove over a set of railroad tracks, down a road with weeds tall enough to flank the sides of the car. Howe saw two buildings ahead, metal warehouses with green and white walls. They hadn’t been driving long enough to get out of Virginia, but where exactly they were he had no idea.

  Howe looked at Alice. She blinked her eyes at him.

  “Run,” he mouthed silently.

  She blinked again but didn’t nod. The man in the front passenger seat got out of the car and walked around the front of the car.

  Telling her to run was useless. Where would she go?

  The door on her side opened. Howe grabbed her arms, holding her in the car.

  “Let her go. You want me, right? Just let her go and we can work this out.”

  “Just shut up,” said the man next to him. He opened his door and, as he was climbing out, gave Howe a sharp elbow in the side. Howe groaned and bent forward over Alice’s lap; he felt her press down on top of him.

  “Run as soon as you get a chance,” he told her. “Just run.”

  Alice pushed her chin down into his back; if she said something, he couldn’t hear.

  If he was going to make the call, now was the time; they couldn’t see him. He reached into his pocket and slid out the phone, fingers jabbing the buttons. The man who had gotten out of the car reached back and pulled him out. Jerked upward, Howe dropped the cell phone near Alice’s feet and stumbled out. He managed to fall down and rolled on the ground; he figured he might be able to overpower one of the goons if they got close enough.

  But the men weren’t that stupid. One squatted down in front of him, well out of reach, pointing his weapon at his face.

  “You fuck with us, we shoot you and the lady. You want that?”

  “I want you to let her go,” said Howe.

  One of the other men had come around on the other side of him and kicked him in the ribs.

  “Just let her go,” Howe groaned. “What do you need her for?”

  The man kicked him again.

  Fisher twisted the phone around so he could see the number as he hit the button to receive the call.

  “Where are you?” he asked, but he got only a muffled reply. He pressed the phone to his ear, listening.

  By the time the man grew tired of kicking him, Howe was writhing in pain. The kicker stooped down and picked him up, hauling him to his feet. Howe wobbled somewhat, moving forward unsteadily, trying simply to get his breath back. He couldn’t seem to manage it, and though he willed his body to help, it just didn’t seem able.

  “Hey, this way,” said one of the other goons.

  “Let her go,” muttered Howe.

  “Tough guy, huh?” The man pushed him backward; Howe slipped and fell against the car.

  “You know who I am?” Howe said.

  The man laughed. “Like I give a fuck, right?”

  He reached down and pulled Howe to his feet. Somewhere in the back of his head Howe heard a voice tell him to grab for the gun. This was certainly the right time for it: It loomed right in front of his stomach, angled away; it was far from a sure thing but it was a decent chance, maybe fifty-fifty. But his body wouldn’t cooperate. His arms stayed frozen in front of him, weighed down by the handcuffs; his chest refused to supply the energy he needed, and the moment passed.

  Alice was out of the car, being pushed toward the building. Howe finally willed himself toward her.

  Slow, go as slow as you possibly can, he told himself.

  But don’t let them kill her.

  Chapter

  16

  Coward! Coward!

  “That was a brave thing you did, saving those kids in the helicopter,” said Somers, helping Tyler up. “Foolhardy, but brave.”

  Tyler stared at him.

  “Major?”

  He turned around. The Ranger captain had a distressed look on his face.

  “You okay, Major?” asked the captain.

  “Yeah.”

  “We have two gunships inbound. We’ve chased the North Koreans out of their hide holes and have a pretty good idea where they were firing from. Mortar fire has stopped. We got their machine gun.”

  “Good work,” managed Tyler.

  “Everybody’s okay,” the Ranger commander added.

  “Yeah, good,” said Tyler. He frowned.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I know we fucked up.”

  “What do you mean?” Tyler asked.

  “We should have found those bastards before they fired.”

  “This is war,” said Somers. “You can’t see everything. The other side has a vote.”

  “That’s right,” said Tyler.

  The Ranger captain had a pained expression on his face; he didn’t believe him. Tyler grabbed his arm. “That’s right. It’s not your fault. If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s my fault.”

  The man blinked, not understanding, then nodded.

  “It’s my fault,” said Tyler.

  “Thank you, sir,” said the captain.

  “No, I mean it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let me talk to the helicopter people and see if they can rig up another sling with the other UAV,” Tyler said. “Get it the hell out of here before we’re attacked again.”

  Chapter

  17

  Howe walked toward the warehouse, his heels kicking against pebbles and broken glass. A railroad track was embedded in the macadam; he stepped on the worn rail, sole scuffing. The gun was now a few feet away, on his left, behind him just enough so he couldn’t see it without turning back to look at his captor. Another of the thugs pulled Alice ahead to the right, heading toward a door. The third was behind him somewhere—but where?

  Rusted oil drums sat in a pile at the corner of the building; the other direction lay bare.

  He could grab the gun, shoot the thug with Alice, take her around the side of the building.

  Guy in the back would nail him, then her.

  He turned right, trying to see. The low groan of the highway filtered past the buildings, making its way up the embankment. They were alone here, very alone. He heard a Cessna nearby and realized the civilian airport sat on the other side of the highway.

  Someone would see them. Someone.

  He heard a helicopter approaching.

  “Move it.” The thug on his left took a step forward and smacked him in the ribs with the blunt grip of the gun.

  He can’t shoot me that way, Howe realized, and in that second he sprang.

  “There—go!” yelled Fisher into the headset. He grabbed at the door of the helicopter, pushing his elbow hard against it, only to have the wind slap him back into the seat.

  “How close do you want to get?” asked Maureen Justice.

  “Hit them!” Fisher undid his seat bel
t and leaned forward against the side of the forward panel of the traffic helicopter.

  “Hit them? Andy, I don’t owe you that much.”

  “You’ll be able to broadcast it live. You’ll be as famous as the helicopter pilot in the O.J. case.” He pulled out his pistol.

  “Hey, wait a second,” she shouted. “You didn’t say you were going to shoot somebody.”

  “I told you, it’s national security.”

  “Andy!”

  “Got to get their attention!” said Fisher, firing off two rounds from his revolver.

  “Good, they’re taking out guns! They’re shooting at me!”

  “Took ’em long enough. Come on, run ’em over.”

  “Jesus!”

  Maureen swung the helicopter in an arc to the north, tilting wildly as she lurched away from the gunmen. Fisher was sure she’d seen much worse on her daily traffic reports, but there wasn’t time to argue.

  “Put me down on the roof!” he told her, whipping off the headset.

  “The roof?”

  Fisher hung on the helicopter door with one hand, belatedly realizing that the metal was thinner than it appeared. He swung his feet around, searching for the skids beneath. He looked down, saw gray concrete.

  Between the wind and the engine noise there was no way the pilot could hear him, but Fisher knew that there were moments in every case when a strategic shout was your best and only option.

  “The roof!” he yelled. “The roof!”

  Ribs of white metal appeared below. Fisher felt his grip slipping and tried to swing his body toward what he thought was the thicker part of the roof as he fell. He misjudged both his direction and the distance, crashing down four or five feet from the gutter. But the mistake was fortuitous: He hit between two rafters, and the metal absorbed a good deal of the shock as he rolled down against the surface. His pistol flew away, spinning wildly before sliding into the gutter, its long nose pointing skyward. Fisher threw himself out after it, sliding hands-first down the slope.

  Howe grabbed at the thug’s weapon, shoving his shoulder into the goon’s midsection. The world narrowed to a blue-smoke oblong, a thick hard rectangle in the middle of his eye, the middle of his head. Everything around him blackened, became a void. He felt the warmth of the metal on his fingers, then nothing; ice froze his eyes and chest and hand. He found himself revolving, then floating, then on the ground.

  The gun sat a few feet away. Something clawed at him, a wild animal, a lion. A howl shook his ears. Howe threw himself in the direction of the screech, then flew toward the L-shaped metal, the Beretta in the gravel. Something stomped on the back of his head, and the black void squeezed the side of his face. Howe pushed forward, determined to get the gun now, determined to get it and beat the blackness back.

  Fisher couldn’t stop his momentum as he hit the end of the roof. He grabbed at the gutter but the metal wasn’t tightly fastened; the lightweight aluminum shot out from the building and then immediately bent downward under the FBI agent’s weight. Fisher tried swinging his legs up and over as he fell, but he could only get them halfway before the other end of the gutter gave way. He tried to get his feet down to hit the ground in a reasonable manner, but instead slapped against the building and then crashed into the pile of barrels, which fortunately broke most of his fall as he hit the ground. He rolled in the middle of them, head spinning so badly that he had trouble reaching for the small gun in the holster on his leg.

  Howe realized he had the gun in his hand and scraped against the pavement, his skin tearing away as he tried to get up. He jerked around, saw his captor running back toward the car.

  Where was Alice?

  “Alice!”

  Where was Alice?

  Fisher struggled to his feet, both hands on the hideaway Glock and ears ringing loudly. He fired twice, winging the man who’d started to run to the car and sending him to the pavement. Fisher saw Howe on his right, just getting up; the girl must be inside the building.

  There was a window on the side of the building behind him. Fisher took a step backward toward it. Howe yelled something.

  “Yo, Colonel, cover those assholes near the car until the cops come,” Fisher said, shouting over the banging that had taken over his head. Then he went to the window and smashed it open with a metal shovel that lay in the grass and jumped through.

  Or at least tried to jump through. A piece of glass snagged his trousers and then his shoe, ripping them and sending him crashing to the floor off balance.

  “My third-best pair of brown pants,” he complained, pulling himself against the wall and looking at his exposed calf and sock. “Now I’m pissed.”

  Howe leaped through the open door, throwing himself to the ground. Something crashed on the far side of the building; he cringed, expecting bullets to slash through him.

  Still cringing, shaking now with fear, he got to his knees. He had the gun in his hand.

  Where was she?

  He was in a large, empty room. There were two doors twenty feet across from him, hallways into the back. Howe got up and started for them, his knees stiffening. He got to the wall and leaned against it, listening.

  Fisher saw something move in the filtered light across the open space.

  “FBI. Give it up,” he yelled.

  “I’ll kill her!”

  “That’d be really stupid,” said Fisher.

  The man replied by firing three times in Fisher’s direction. The FBI agent hit the deck, crawling around the back of what appeared to be a desk.

  “Give it up, I’m telling you,” he yelled.

  “Screw yourself.”

  Two more shots, one of which splintered the desk.

  “Maybe we can make a deal,” yelled Fisher.

  “Fuck off.”

  Two more shots, both so close that splinters sailed just over Fisher’s head. He sprawled out on the floor, pushing himself to a second desk.

  “I know you want to give up,” said Fisher. “And I’m the guy you want to talk to.”

  Only one bullet this time, and back at the other desk. The gunman was about halfway through his magazine—unless, of course, he had another mag or two with him.

  “Look, we can work a deal,” said Fisher. “Why’d you want Howe? Who hired you?”

  This time the bullets sailed within inches of Fisher’s head. He heard a muffled sound, then footsteps; Fisher started to get up then threw himself down, another bullet flying in his direction.

  Howe saw her and flew up toward her. As he leaped he saw the other hand, then the face of the man who held her. But he was already launched, already sailing into them. He crashed against their bodies and rolled downward, a siren sounding in his ear, the floor rattling as if by gunfire or thunder. He grappled for the man, threw a punch and then another punch, felt something smash against his face hard. He punched back harder and harder, furious now, his fists compressing against the hard bone of a skull.

  And then something lifted him from the floor and pushed him to the side, gently yet with a good amount of force.

  “Take it easy, Colonel,” said Andy Fisher. “You scramble his brains and I’m not going to be able to trust what he says.”

  Chapter

  18

  By the time Tyler and his people were ready to lift the UAV, the backup units had arrived. Two large gunships circled overhead as a company’s worth of soldiers scoured the hills, looking for more attackers. The unit commander was excited because they’d heard reports that there were stragglers in the area but had not been able to hunt them down; the incident represented an opportunity to put one more nail in the coffin of the old regime.

  Tyler’s stomach knotted tighter as the Pave Low moved forward. Somebody shouted something and he winced; he whirled around, found himself staring into Somers’s face, then turned back, cringing: He knew, just knew, he would see the helicopter keeling over, in flames, gunfire erupting all over again.

  But nothing like that happened. Sling attached and taut, the
helicopter lifted upward and ahead, taking the North Korean robot aircraft under it as easily as a man might pluck a piece of paper from the floor. Tyler watched as the helicopter flew toward the well-secured air base to the south.

  “You all right?” asked Somers after the Pave Low disappeared.

  “Yeah,” said Tyler.

  “That was a damn brave thing, getting those guys out of the helicopter.”

  Tyler looked at Somers. “You keep saying that.”

  “You’ve seen a lot of action, haven’t you, Major?”

  “Not really.”

  Tyler knew many, many people in the Army who had seen much more combat. And certainly when viewed against the long history of conflicts—wars that extended years rather than weeks—he had seen almost none.

  “Getting to you?” asked Somers.

  The question caught Tyler off guard. He liked the historian: He was a smart guy, insightful, and easy to like. But there was a line.

  “It’s not getting to me,” said Tyler, turning away and walking toward the Chinook that had brought the reinforcements.

  Somers caught up with him as he neared the door to the massive helicopter.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” said the older man.

  Tyler looked at him. He didn’t know how to explain what he felt and what he had done; he couldn’t describe how fear had crept beneath what just a few weeks ago had been easy conviction, how second-guessing had wrapped itself around his determination. Everything he did now he questioned. Everything he did was wrong. And he was always afraid.

  To the people on the outside, it wasn’t there. Somers saw only him jumping into the chopper.

  Why had he done it? Not because it was the right thing to do or the brave thing to do, but because it was the only thing to do. He had been scared—damn scared.