Firepower

by John Cutter

  There was another gunshot and Flesky yelled in pain.

  A roaring filled Mac’s ears. He couldn’t see…

  Then the roaring receded, and he felt as if he were going down a drain, like all his blood was draining away into the earth. With an effort, he opened his eyes and saw two faces looking down at him — one was the Asian fed, frowning. The other was Shaun, standing behind him, eyes wide, ogling down at Mac. The black fed joined them, clutching his bleeding side. Somewhere a siren was wailing.

  “He still with us, Richie?” asked the black fed.

  “He’s still alive, James,” the Asian-looking guy said. “But maybe not long…”

  Mac wanted to get out his phone and try to press the number code to explode the vest. But he couldn’t lift his arms. There was no strength in them. He had just enough strength to speak. “It’s coming… Firepower… Firepower is coming. You… are…”

  The words died in his mouth, then, choked by rising blood. But before he died, he did have one last thought. They’re too late… too late to stop us…

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It was 9:25 a.m. and the H225 rotorcraft helicopter was skimming the rooftops, sliding in over Washington D.C. It flew as low as Deirdre dared to fly it to stay under the radar. She was flying so low, sometimes she had to pull it quickly, forty feet up, to keep from hitting power lines.

  Vince had pushed the M134 Dillon forward on its tracks, locking it in place so its heavy-duty titanium muzzle was jutting out the open hatch. He was standing behind this modern, electrically operated Gatling, hands on the big machine gun’s controls, a heavy black safety belt around his waist stretching to a bolt that the Brethren had installed in the starboard bulkhead behind him. A damp wind whistled through the open hatch.

  “You know the Air Force is going to scramble jets, gunships, whatever, to come after us, because I’m not answering the radio,” Deirdre shouted over the roar of the rotors and the wind.

  “I’m still hoping you can get away without them identifying you,” Vince shouted back.

  “My fingerprints are all over this thing! And Bobby’s probably going to have to testify, Vince! I don’t want him to perjure himself.”

  Vince’s mind was more focused on the immediate challenge. They’d just had word from Gus Gresley that the senators and a large crowd were gathered at the Lincoln Memorial — but some of Chang and Deirdre’s allies at the FBI had finally decided to risk getting fired; they’d gotten through to organizers and the presentation was to be cancelled. Someone was on the stage right now, making an announcement to the four hundred people already gathered…

  Too little too late, Vince thought. The crowd was already there — and so was the H225 heli now, as it soared in over the long narrow reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, low enough that its rotors were making waves. A crowd was gathered in front of the steps leading up to the statue of Lincoln, while on the steps, near a portable podium, stood a group of men and women, who’d been ready to speak to the crowd through the PA system set up on either side. Television cameras were ready; microphones were propped up…

  But a man in a braided police uniform was on the podium, waving his arms, telling them, Vince presumed, that the event was cancelled. The fancy-dressed people behind him were now hurrying away… Police were coming up from their cars, directing the crowd…

  Maybe it had been stopped in time. Maybe what Vince had planned wouldn’t be necessary.

  He was scanning the vehicles coming to the streets beside the open area near the Lincoln Memorial…

  There — a caravan of large delivery trucks, painted with fake logos on the sides: George Washington Laundry Service, Jefferson Davis Deliveries Inc., and four more; six rebuilt 46-foot delivery trucks with stolen plates, driving from two sides up the access streets. Pulling up, three on the north side, three on the south. Men in Brethren uniforms jumped out of the cabs, ran to open the trailer doors, releasing the militia assassins. They came piling out, guns in hand.

  They were all wearing paramilitary togs, which Vince figured to be a big mistake on Gustafson’s part. “The General” wanted to keep up his façade, his facsimile of an army — it was all about his vanity. But it made the gunmen visually easy to separate out from the non-militia. It made them targets.

  Already, uniformed cops were turning toward the men jumping out of the backs of the trucks. But the Brethren began firing their weapons; AKs and AR-15s, fired toward the cops and the crowd.

  Gritting his teeth in fury, Vince saw two cops falling under the onslaught and several people in the dispersing crowd stumbling, going to their knees, hit by the Germanic Brethren.

  “Thirty degrees right, tilt to starboard!” Vince roared as the helicopter flew up to the green in front of the memorial. Deirdre tilted the H225, giving Vince a downward firing angle. He felt the safety harness holding him in place tighten.

  Vince opened up, the big gun thundering, shivering in his hands, the 7.62 x 51mm rounds cracking down into the phalanx of oncoming militia gunmen sprinting across the grassy sward on the right. The strafe was chewing up a dozen armed Brethren, and a dozen more, so that they danced grotesquely in place as the bullets tore into them… ripping up flesh and sod… The cops were firing at the Brethren too, and so were FBI and Home Security agents, just arriving…

  Too little too late…

  “Come around the memorial building, sharp as you can!” Vince shouted, ceasing fire. “Head southeast, tilt down when we’re parallel with those other trucks!”

  “Roger that!” Deirdre circled the chopper over the white marble memorial building, came back to the line of trucks on the south side. Men were still jumping out of the trucks on that side — they were moving into action a little more slowly than those on the north side — and Vince fired directly down into the trucks, the rounds pocking through the thin metal, striking the engines, igniting gas tanks, tearing into men climbing out. Flames gushed up and pieces of truck flew and smashed into Brethren already on the ground.

  Vince fired another long strafe at a large group of gunmen running through the line of steel posts toward the memorial steps. His rounds gashed into them, splashing blood on the green lawn. He was careful not to direct fire in a way that would risk the crowd or the cops.

  A few more people in the fleeing crowd had fallen under bullets fired from the domestic terrorists, but now — as Vince had hoped — the Brethren had spotted the heli, were turning, firing up at him and Deirdre. Bullets cracked off the hull; windows spiderwebbed, and the windshield shattered on one side. At least they weren’t shooting at the crowd.

  Vince glanced over, saw that Deirdre seemed unhurt. She was ignoring the enemy gunfire and steadily controlling the helicopter. He had admired her before; he admired her even more now.

  “Swing back around to the north side!” he called. “Head northwest, tilt for fire!”

  “Copy that!” she yelled, her voice barely audible over the rushing wind coming through the shattered windshield. She circled the chopper back, heading west toward the memorial once more. Vince spotted more cop cars arriving.

  Another strafing run, Vince targeting both the militia trucks and the Brethren on the lawn; some of the Brethren had dropped their guns and were running away to the north.

  Vince fired another long burst, tracing it across the ragged line of domestic terrorists. Some of them returned fire, bullets cracking through the door around him and smacking into the bulkhead as he hammered at them; some virtually exploded with the impacts as they were hit by several big rounds apiece. Blood splashed; dirt geysered up. The trucks began to explode as he swiveled the gun to fire at them.

  “Cut due north, then circle back south, tight as you can!” he shouted.

  She shouted something unintelligible in response and veered due north. He glanced at her, saw she was talking into her headset; probably reporting who she was, saying she was with the FBI. Even giving her badge number. She wasn’t authorized for any of what they were doing up here,
but it gave the authorities on the ground around the memorial a chance to think, maybe preventing some panicky officers from opening fire on the heli.

  Vince braced against inertia, gripping the machine gun, as Deirdre swung the helicopter tightly around, its engines screaming, militia bullets cracking by from behind. He was almost pulled from his two-handed grip on the M134 by the powerful gravitational torque as they came around to the south; then they straightened out, passing through smoke from the burning trucks below, and he yelled, “Tilt to starboard!”

  She tilted and he aimed carefully, his downward fire cutting through a group of thirty more domestic terrorists who were running in all directions, some toward the memorial, some toward the crowd, others looking for cover. He fired in lethal bursts, ripping them apart like a mad surgeon.

  Then he ceased fire as they passed over the crowd. Once past the crowd he opened up again, backing up the fire from the cops who were shooting at the last of the crowd of Germanic Brethren near the burning line of trucks on the south side…

  The rounds tore through the militiamen, cutting them down, and then as the heli flew through the smoke from the trucks on the south side, he saw another dozen Brethren running through the walkway, away from the memorial, some of them throwing their weapons aside, desperately trying to escape.

  “Go to hell, assholes,” he said, remembering the innocents they’d cut down in the crowd at the memorial. He shouted, “Veer to port, thirty degrees, slight tilt for fire!”

  “Roger!”

  She turned the heli and he opened fire in short bursts, picking off the fleeing Brethren. Maybe one or two got through alive — more police were arriving to sweep them up.

  Vince stopped firing, not wanting to risk hitting the cops. The surviving Brethren dropped their weapons and raised their hands.

  And then the chopper flew on over them.

  “Exfil!” Vince shouted. “Nothing more we can do here!”

  “Glad to hear it!” she yelled. They had picked a landing zone: the southeast corner of Spirit of Justice Park at D Street and New Jersey Avenue, about forty blocks away. Not far in the fast heli. A minute, and they were approaching the park.

  “Slowing for landing!” she yelled. The helicopter swung in a circle, slowing, over the park.

  Vince held onto the stanchion and waited as Deirdre landed the helicopter at the southeast corner of the park. It was a bumpy landing because it was a hasty one. She had to get the chopper down as quickly as possible.

  Then they were down, the engine shut off, the rotors slowing; Deirdre getting out of her seat, removing her helmet.

  Vince unhooked the restraining harness and jumped out through the hatch onto the grassy lawn. He saw a security guard yelling at them from some distance off and a few people staring from beside an information kiosk, but no one was close enough to get a good look at him.

  He took stock. His ears were ringing from firing the big machine gun, but he didn’t seem to have been hit by the groundfire. He had the little pack on his back, with the Desert Eagle and ammo in it, along with several hand grenades, the flashlight and his knife. He had ditched his phone — he didn’t want to be traced.

  Deirdre stepped down beside him. She was breathing hard, looking around at the park as if it were the strangest sight she’d ever seen. “Oh God. That was insane.”

  “I saw you were on the radio,” he said. “You told them who you were?”

  “Yes. I took an oath. I’ve already broken it helping you, Vince. I can’t keep this up. I’m not going to be a fugitive.”

  “Maybe they’ll see you didn’t have much choice because no one was listening to us. We saved a lot of lives today. Hundreds.”

  “And we took a lot of lives.”

  “No one who didn’t need killing,” Vince said.

  “You’ve got to get out of here,” she said. She took his hand and looked into his eyes. “You need to get to the metro.”

  He looked at her — and wanted to tell her a lot of things. He wanted to say they might try to see one another, sometime; that this could all blow over and it’d be okay…

  But he knew that wasn’t going to happen. He couldn’t risk her.

  “Deirdre — thank you. I’m sorry about what you’re going to go through now.”

  “Just remember this, Vince. If I’m not under arrest, in ten days I’ll be at Pomander Park, on the Potomac, in Alexandria. At noon.”

  This offer to meet surprised Vince. He’d been resigned to never seeing Deirdre again. “Okay. I’ll be there if I can.”

  She nodded. “Maybe I’ll have that information about Angel Lopez. You know, I can’t guarantee I won’t tell the Bureau who was with me in this heli. It depends on if they put me under oath.”

  “They probably will. They’ll want to know who the vigilante is. And anyway — there are a lot of surviving Brethren from up at Wolf Base who know who I am. They’ll tell them. They’ll tell some lies, too, of course. But — don’t hold back. No point in it.” He noticed the security guard hurrying toward them, one hand on his gun. “Guard’s coming. Gotta go. Good luck, Deirdre.”

  He made himself drop her hand and turn away.

  Then he jogged off, under the slowly whirling rotors, putting the helicopter between him and the security guard.

  Vince got to the street, then turned left and strode quickly off. The Capitol South Metro Station was close by. He couldn’t stay and explain himself to the authorities. He had more business to take care of with the Brethren. If he left it to the FBI, by the time they got organized to do something about it, chances were, Gustafson would escape. And even if the feds did get there on time, they’d arrest Gustafson, instead of killing him. He might be able to deny his connection to the attack — he’d likely covered his tracks pretty well. They might not take him into custody. So “the General” would escape.

  Remembering the people struck dead by militia bullets at the memorial, right under the calm, marble-carven eyes of Abraham Lincoln, Vince simply could not allow Gustafson to escape punishment.

  In a few minutes he was striding quickly along a passenger boarding dock of the subway. He had paid his metro fare as sirens from emergency vehicles roared by, and people around him asked one another what was going on. A woman said something about seeing a helicopter landing in the park, right over there…

  Now, Vince stepped through the doors of the train and sat down, keeping himself looking serene as possible. He half expected the train to be stopped and searched by the police. But it pulled out of the station and rushed through the tunnels.

  He had chaos on his side: the Brethren’s attack on the memorial, the carnage left by the rogue machine-gunner on the heli, the strange helicopter landing in the park, Chang dealing with finding Shaun Adler, and a host of cops and Homeland Security arrayed around the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs, thanks to Gus Gresley. Then there were people who had to be rushed to hospitals, there were militiamen to interrogate, and the bodies of many more Brethren shot to pieces near the memorial. All that had to be dealt with — and all of it was going to be overwhelming the local police for a good long while. They likely had no clear description of the helicopter gunman.

  Unnoticed by police, Vince headed toward the state line, and Alexandria.

  And to the first of many buses he planned to take on his way to a certain town in West Virginia…

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The rain came and went, and came again toward the middle of the next morning as the semitruck roared through the mountains.

  “Sure glad to have the company, seeing as I got to drive across two states,” said Dutch. That’s what he said people called him, Dutch, because his family was from Holland. He was a ginger-haired fellow with a clipped red beard, lots of freckles and lots of forehead revealed by a receding hairline. Vince liked the affable trucker. He had freckles on his thick forearms and even the back of his big hands as he manhandled the heavy black steering wheel.

  Vince had found that changing buses w
as going to take too long. He didn’t want to rent a car in case the feds had an alert for him, so early that morning, a hundred miles east of Alexandria, Virginia, he’d gotten out of a bus near a truck stop. He’d spotted half a dozen eighteen-wheelers in the parking lot and chatted with the drivers outside. Hoping for a ride going his way, Vince came across Dutch, the friendliest of the lot.

  Dutch had been in the army, in Iraq — his tattoo had given Vince a conversation starter — and when he heard Vince was a former Ranger, Dutch’s interest perked up. He’d asked a few questions to see if the story was bullshit, of course. Lots of guys claimed to be ex Special Forces who weren’t. But he was soon convinced. Vince didn’t mention his service in Delta Force. Neither Delta Force nor the CIA encouraged discussing it.

  “I tell you what,” said Dutch as they screeched around a turn in the mountain highway, “I admire you re-enlisting as much as you did. Four years over there was enough for me. My left arm and ear all fucked up from an IED, my buddy killed…” He shook his head. “But the service helped me get a loan to buy this truck.”

  “You like being a wildcatter?” Vince asked. “Not tempted to just join a big company and let them worry about maintaining the rig?”

  “Sometimes, because maintenance is a headache for sure! And I got to take a lot of work to make ends meet. Got to drive all the way across the country, some trips. I’d like to work regionally, round the Carolinas, where I live, so’s I can get married. I got a girl, but…” He shook his head. “Don’t know if I can ask her to put up with me being gone so much. Now, if I joined up with a company, I would always be getting paid. Right now, I got an empty trailer, coming home. Couldn’t find anything to haul back…”

  Vince could feel the trailer’s emptiness when they took the curves. Dutch liked to push his speed to the limit, and without much drag the empty trailer swung out on the curves in a way that made Vince nervous. His own nervousness amused him. Bullets had come zinging past his skull like hail, recently, and he was worried about a trucking accident? Human nature. All the same he had a tendency to clutch at a grip bar atop the door when they whipped around a tight curve.