He’d made a mistake, perhaps a serious one. What if there had been someone else in the reserve compound? Could they have done something to the second truck? Or had they ambushed Thornburg on his way out? Was that even possible?
He closed his eyes for a moment, ignoring Mertz’s quizzical look. A very long shot, but it was possible. So now what? Could they risk everything to go back and see what had happened to Thornburg?
No. They couldn’t.
Thornburg had probably had a flat tire. That had to be it. But there was a small possibility that he had been ambushed, and that was a chance they could not take. One truckload of weapons was better than none.
“Forget him,” Jackson said finally. He glanced over, and saw understanding dawn on the other man’s face.
“So what do we do now?”
“Turn around and take the alternate route to the east.” Jackson thought furiously for a moment and continued. “On the off chance that he’s been compromised, we’re going to take the long way around. Make sure no one is following us. Then, when we’re sure were clean, we’ll stop at the caves, unload the armory, then head for HQ.” Seeing a look of doubt on Mertz’s face, he said, “There were bound to be casualties, Jack. You knew that.”
Mertz shrugged as though it didn’t matter. “You’re the boss.” He turned the truck around and started back the way they’d been headed.
Jackson smiled. Not the boss. The leader. There’s a difference, and someday you’ll understand that.
SEVENTEEN
Tombstone’s command post
0600 local (GMT -7)
“No kidding,” Greenfield said into the phone, and his tone of voice caught Tombstone’s attention immediately. He left the aerial charts he was looking at and walked over to the corner of the room that had been designated as Greenfield’s office. There was a look of concentration on the man’s face as he listened, as though every atom of his being was devoted to straining out every morsel of information from the conversation. His side of the call had that peculiarly stilted rhythm of someone who’s the recipient of news. “Where?” A long pause, then, “When?” Finally, a look of grim pleasure spread across Greenfield’s face and he said, “How do we get there?”
He turned to Tombstone, something in his bearing making him look like a very dangerous man. “We got them. At least part of them. If you still have any connections in the government, you better pull them now. And later on, too, because one very tough, smart cop from Butte just saved us a hell of a lot of trouble.”
Red Run, Idaho
Free America Now HQ
0630 local (GMT -7)
Abraham Carter and his men parked their vehicles a safe way from the compound and followed the well-concealed trail back to HQ. As they approached the front entrance, he saw a small figure seated on the porch, alone and apparently unarmed. He motioned most of the men into concealment and went forward with only one other man.
“Hello,” a woman’s voice said, confident and sure of her welcome. “I’ve been waiting for you. I’m Pamela Drake.” Behind her, her cameraman held out his hands, palm up, to show he was unarmed.
Thirty minutes later, after Drake had proffered an entirely fabricated story of her success in locating them, Carter holstered his pistol. “Okay. You’re here. For now.” He turned to face his men and continued. “You all know what we’re up against. There’s a good chance they’re onto us now. Or least, we have indications that they are.” No one questioned that statement. They all knew that the organization far above their level had agents planted in every federal law-enforcement agency.
“You think you’ll have to make a stand here?” Drake asked.
Carter shot her an annoyed look. “Maybe. They’ll know the trucks and weapons are missing. If they find out we’re here, they’ll make the connection.”
There were some murmurs of agreement, and then they fell silent. “So what do we do?” one asked.
“We wait until Jackson gets the trucks here or until we hear from him. Then we move out.”
“And if the Feds turn up?” Drake persisted.
“We hold them off long enough for the trucks to get away, if it comes to that. It won’t be an easy thing. They’ll likely have helicopters and air assets to help track them, probably infrared as well.”
“What are the odds they’ll come here?” another asked.
“I don’t know.” He glanced outside. The sky was already starting to lighten. “But I think we’ll find out soon.”
Tombstone’s command post
0635 local (GMT -7)
Greenfield snapped his cell phone shut. Tombstone was still not accustomed to the wolfish expression the man’s face had taken on. “What is it?”
“Our Butte cop. He managed to snag a ride on one of the trucks and took down the driver. Jumped out the back just before it rolled over. The driver is still alive, but just barely. The cop’s okay.”
“Where?”
“About twenty miles from here, out on a pretty isolated road. The other truck started to come back to look, but evidently it changed its mind and headed east. The state fellows are scrambling now.”
“Patrol cars?”
Greenfield nodded. “Air, too, as soon as they can get the birds warmed up. Be nice if we could avoid scaring these guys off and find out where they’re headed.” He glanced at his watch. “Every second we wait is going to make it harder to find them. The country out here…” He let his voice trail off, indicating the rugged landscape around him. “Mountains, ravines, caves are everywhere. They could disappear real easily.”
“Let’s not wait for them,” Tombstone said. “We’ve got those air assets lined up, right? They’re supposed to be on fifteen-minute standby — let’s just see how well the reserves can put their money where their mouth is.” He turned to the operations officer, who he knew had had some aviation experience. “You talked to the air reserve center?”
The man nodded. “It’s an Air National Guard unit about thirty miles from here. They said they have helicopter and surface-search aircraft on standby.”
“Get them airborne. Coordinate an intercept vector with Greenfield.” Tombstone caught himself — he had almost said, “the XO.”
“Can do.” The operations officer snapped open his cell phone, consulted a scrap of paper, and a punched in a telephone number. He walked away from the two men to talk to the air reserve operations officer on the other end.
“Pretty nice,” Greenfield said grudgingly. “Air assets, all the manpower you want — hell, I bet we could even submit a pretty fancy restaurant bill on your expense account.”
Tombstone regarded him steadily. “And you’re thinking that if you had had this much support, Bull Run would have gone differently.”
The warrior look faded from Greenfield’s face. Suddenly, he looked years older. “Maybe. Maybe not.” He stared off into space, as though watching the operation unfold again. “I had enough assets on site — more than enough. It was the intelligence that sucked.”
“Speaking of intelligence, who took the trucks?” Tombstone asked. “Any idea?”
Greenfield shrugged, clearly putting the Bull Run incident away. “It could be a number of folks. From the style of it, it could be the Carters. We think they’ve been involved in a number of weapons raids and it’s always a middle-of-the-night, paramilitary sort of thing. Camouflage uniforms, the whole nine yards. Most of the other militias just pilfer the stuff. Out in this part of the country, they have enough contacts to make that happen. They usually don’t have to kill people to get what they want.”
“Pilfer?”
“They steal it. They all have people inside the active duty and reserve organizations. How hard is it to make stuff disappear?” Greenfield’s voice held a note of bitterness. “So, yeah, my money is on the Carters.”
“So where do you think they’re headed?” Tombstone asked.
“I don’t know. That’s why we need to find that other truck. They probably have a base camp
somewhere and eventually that’s where they’ll go. They need bodies to carry the guns.”
Bratton strolled up, a look of mild interest on his face. “Lands End, probably.”
“Lands End what?” Tombstone asked. Greenfield simply scowled.
“Lands End, Idaho. They have a base camp there. Sort of a training facility — it’s been up and running about six months now. Abraham Carter was headed up there yesterday, so if Junior is running, that’s where I bet he will head.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?” Tombstone asked.
“Because—” Bratton started
“Because,” Greenfield interrupted, his voice harsh, “sharing information doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing to the CIA as it does to you and me. Before this, it wasn’t relevant, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t,” Bratton said calmly.
“And now it is,” Tombstone said.
“That’s it exactly.” Bratton nodded his head. “Sharing information doesn’t mean dumping everything we have in front of you. It means that when we’ve got something that’s pertinent to your operation, we let you know, if we can do so without endangering an agent’s life.”
“You have someone inside the organization?” Greenfield asked. Bratton did not answer.
I see how it is. They’re going to cooperate, but not go out of their way unless they have to. Tombstone filed that bit of information away for later discussion with the CIA agent. Out loud, he asked, “Do you know the layout of this Lands End?”
Bratton nodded. “Here.” He passed over a few pieces of paper with drawings on them, diagrams of an area of land and an interior diagram of a house. “We can probably get in relatively unobserved coming in this way,” he said, tracing out a route through the woods behind the house. “But it’s a long haul — it runs right along the base of these mountains and would be pretty easy to keep under observation. Going over the mountains isn’t practical, and the other approaches are all clear-cut. We can get there, but whether we can do it covertly is a big question mark.”
“OK, that’s it,” Tombstone said. “For now, we’ll operate on the assumption that the Carters were behind the reserve center raid. Ops, get our air assets looking for that truck. Greenfield, call off the state boys — I don’t want them spooking that truck.” He raised his voice slightly. “Bug out, folks. I want everything critical packed and in the vehicles in fifteen minutes. We’re headed for Lands End.”
“And then we wait,” Greenfield added. “This time, we wait.”
Just outside Bull Run
0700 local (GMT -7)
Jackson Carter pounded on the window that separated him from the truck’s cab. It slid back and he shouted, “Take the next left! We need to get this stuff in the caves and get to HQ.”
The driver said nothing. Jackson studied the road behind him, searching for any sign of pursuit. “OK, keep a sharp eye out, but I think we’ve lost them. Another twenty minutes, and we’ll be at the cave. Ten minutes to off-load and then we’re history.” Jackson put his head back and let loose a loud, fierce war cry.
Finally, Jackson stopped his howling. Mertz had a sickly smile pasted on his face. “This is just the beginning, buddy,” Jackson said. “This is just the beginning.”
EIGHTEEN
USS Jefferson
1700 local (GMT +3)
Despite what Air Force pilots thought, pulling Alert Five on board an aircraft carrier was considerably more unpleasant than sitting in an F-15 ashore. The black tarmac nonskid reflected up the heat, assaulting the aircraft with shimmering waves from every direction. The smaller huffers, rarely used in the Navy, were overwhelmed almost immediately trying to provide cooling air. The pilots sweated inside G-suits, silently damning the Iraqis who had forced them to bake in their own sweat. It was one thing to want to fly, to risk being killed on a combat mission — another matter entirely to sweat to death on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
Fastball was probably the least patient of any of the pilots of the squadron, Rat reflected. He had been bitching for the last twenty minutes, complaining about everything possible on board the ship, and had now regressed to reciting indignities he had suffered while in Navy ROTC. Given enough time, she was sure she would hear all the details of how unfair his potty training had been.
She tried to concentrate on the book she’d brought with her, but his whining voice interfered with her concentration. Finally, when she could stand it no longer, she snapped, “Is it at all possible you could maintain radio silence long enough for me to finish this chapter? I’ve read the same page five times.”
“Well, excuuuuuuuse me,” Fastball said, seriously aggrieved. “Pardon me for assuming that perhaps some light conversation would make time go by faster. I guess I should never have assumed thought that the RIO I fly with every day would be interested in talking to me.”
“Talking, maybe. Listening to you whine, no.”
“Doesn’t Commander Busby ever whine?”
She had wondered how long it would take him to get to the heart of it. Every time she disagreed with him, he began making sardonic remarks about her possible relationship with Busby. It had been going on for a week now, and she was getting damned tired of it.
“Well, doesn’t he?” Fastball asked again, unaware of how dangerously close he was to the edge of her temper.
“No, now that you should mention it. He doesn’t. I suppose he has better things to do with his time than complain about every detail of Navy life,” she snapped.
“I knew you were seeing him,” Fastball said, satisfaction in his voice. “Don’t bother denying it anymore.”
“And just how the hell do you ‘see’ someone on board an aircraft carrier?” She snapped.
“I guess you should tell me. He’s senior enough to rate a private stateroom, right? And senior enough to be able to manage his own schedule.”
“You got something to say?” Rat demanded.
From behind, she could see him shrug. Then he turned back to glare at her, turning as far as the ejection harness would allow him. “I’m not the only one, you know. Everybody sees you two at chow. Busby’s showing up in the dirty-shirt mess all the time these days. Before, you never saw him outside of the flag mess. And you two all chummy, sitting by yourselves — you’re a helluva cheap date, Rat.”
She loosened her harness and reached forward to smack him on the side of his helmet. He let out a yelp and tried to turn to reach her, but the seat blocked his movement.
“Who I eat with is none of your business. And neither is what I do in my off hours. Not unless and until it begins affecting my performance in the cockpit. And if you got a complaint in that department, I suggest you take it up with CAG.”
“Jesus, Rat. I’m just trying to look out for you.”
“What are you, my big brother?”
“No. Just a guy who knows how other guys talk. And there’s a lot of talk going around, Rat. You may not be doing anything, but when you come out of his cabin late at night with that stupid shit-eating grin on your face, it doesn’t help matters any.”
“You’re jealous.” She stated it as a fact, not a question.
He shook his head. “No. Don’t flatter yourself. But you might keep in mind that what you do reflects on me, too. We’re a team. Or at least I thought we were.”
Not just jealousy. She realized that in a flash. No, she been closer to the mark when she’d called him a big brother. She had a sudden flash of insight. Sure, he would have heard the remarks — she’d overheard some of them herself. But she’d let them pass, not deigning to acknowledge them. Fastball wouldn’t — he was constitutionally incapable of avoiding a fight. He would stick up for her, and probably had taken a lot of crap over it. No matter that nothing inappropriate had happened between her and Lab Rat. Nothing would, not while they were on the ship. But someday, when liberty ashore was a reality again, when they were both sure about how they felt, there was a very good chance that—
“You
’re right,” she said finally. “I ought to avoid the appearance of impropriety, too.”
Stunned silence from the forward seat greeted her admission.
“And you know there’s nothing going on.” Again, she stated it as a fact.
“Yeah, I know,” he muttered. “You’re too much of a tight ass to get laid on the ship, aren’t you? Or maybe anywhere?”
She bit back a sharp reply, recognizing the outburst of testosterone for what it was. A few moments later, she was greeted with, “Sorry about that.”
CVIC
1520 local (GMT +3)
Petty Officer Carl Ellison loved his job. He was a tall, well-built man with broad shoulders that had carried him through a stellar career as a high school quarterback. He stayed in shape working out with the Marines in the gym. He had large, bold features, the overall impression of sheer physical prowess muted only by a full, sensitive mouth.
Despite his appearance, Carl was at heart a bookish fellow. As one of the more junior members of the intelligence team, he read all the incoming traffic, picking out messages of immediate importance and arranging the others for the watch officers who prepared their daily briefs. Most traffic readers simply glanced at the subject line and tossed them in the appropriate pile.
Not Carl Ellison. He read every detail, savoring the feeling of being on the inside of the war, looking forward to when he would be the one on the other end generating those reports. He could already imagine the tight, crisp, and understated phrases he would use in place of the sometimes wordy prose he was required to file.
It was his habit to skim through all the messages first, noting the subject lines, so he could pull out anything of urgent importance. This time, one third of the way through the two-inch stack, he froze. The subject line struck immediate terror into his heart, and all thoughts of his later career drafting messages went out the window.
Possible biological weapons use, confidence medium. Confidence medium — that meant they had more than a mere rumor. At least one fact or background or history to back it up. He took the message out of the stack, absorbing it in one large gulp, then going back to read it more carefully a second time. By the time he started reading it the third time, he was already on his feet and headed for the commander’s office.
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