The Patriot Paradox

by William Esmont

  Jack punched in the number and positioned his thick calloused thumb over Send. He hesitated, thinking of Fish, of all of their times together.

  He closed his eyes and pressed Send. With an enormous bang, his door burst open, and a squad of marines in full battledress uniforms poured through, guns raised and pointed at him.

  “Get your hands in the air right now!” one of the marines shouted. Jack froze, his mobile phone clenched in his palm. He eyed the young man. He can’t be more than twenty.

  He raised his hands, and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed another man lurking outside his door.

  “Paul?” he called out. “Why don’t you come on in?” The marines exchanged confused glances, but their weapons didn’t waiver.

  Director Pungley, flanked by his second in command, stepped through the twisted remains of Jack’s door. “Jack,” he said, his voice laced with contempt.

  Jack held his chin up and forced a defiant sneer onto his face. “I did it for us all Paul. To finish what we fought so hard for.”

  The director frowned, obviously catching on to Jack’s use of the past tense. “What do you mean you ‘did it’?” he asked, a look of horror spreading across his face.

  Jack felt a divine sense of peace wash through his body. He said nothing.

  The director turned to the Marine captain. “Take this man into custody. Get him downstairs now.” Downstairs, Jack knew, meant the interrogation facility in the third sub-basement. He had never been there himself, but had heard stories. Whatever.

  The marines acted, one advancing on each side while the other two covered him. The marine on Jack’s left pulled a nylon zip-tie from a clip on his belt and started to bend it into shape. “Hands on the desk, sir,” the marine ordered. Jack leaned forward as if to comply, and then, as fast as he could, slipped his left hand under his desk to where his Colt 1911 was strapped. It wasn’t uncommon for agency personnel to stash personal weapons in their offices; they faced the constant threat of personal violence over the course of most of their careers, and it was a hard habit to discard, even in the relative safety of CIA headquarters. Jack was no different.

  He pulled the gun out and thumbed off the safety.

  “Weapon!” the marine on his left shouted.

  “Drop it now, sir!” the marine on the other side of his desk ordered. He hiked his gun a little tighter, focusing it squarely on Jack’s chest.

  “I’ll save you the trouble,” Jack said without emotion. He jammed the barrel into the soft flesh under his chin and pulled the trigger.

  Forty-Five

  Kurt and Amanda floated around the catwalk, heading towards a nondescript metal door with a wire-reinforced glass window set at shoulder height. Kurt peered through the window, but it was so dirty he couldn’t see anything. “So far, so good,” he whispered.

  Amanda gave him a supportive wink. He placed his hand on the doorknob and gave it a twist. It moved slightly in his grip, and then with a soft chunk, spun all the way around. “Shit!” He released the knob, as if burned.

  They stood there holding their breath, waiting for some reaction to the sound. When, after a moment, nothing happened, he proceeded. Placing his left hand on the center of the door, he pulled on the handle with his right. It swung open an inch, enough to allow him to look inside.

  The factory was dark and gloomy. Weak light filtered down through dingy skylights set into the roof, providing minimal illumination of the interior. From inside, he heard the low hum of voices speaking in a language he had never heard. Probably Chechen or whatever they speak there.

  He pulled the door open a few more inches, and they slipped through. He eased the door closed behind them until it seated in the frame with a soft click. An identical catwalk ran around the interior of the building. Twenty feet from the chipped and stained concrete floor below, it provided a birds-eye view of the entire space. Several large machines of indeterminate function occupied one end of the room. The machines were large, over ten feet tall and painted puke-green. They looked abandoned.

  “What are those?” he whispered, thinking perhaps that they were part of the bomb.

  “I have no idea. Maybe they’re some kind of electrical generators?”

  It wasn’t important. The other half of the factory was much more interesting. Inside the roll-top door was a battered black Mercedes Sprinter with blacked-out windows. Two men sat smoking on the floor nearby. A third man was typing on a laptop computer at a small wooden table.

  He heard what sounded like another voice, maybe two, coming from directly beneath them.

  Amanda nudged him in the ribs. “There it is!”

  His eyes followed her outstretched hand and he saw what was making her so excited. An open olive green crate protruded from the shadows on the other side of the factory, partially obscured by one of the defunct machines. Inside the crate was a conical device, around a meter long. Wires trailed from the device to a laptop computer, which they couldn’t see from their position.

  “Okay. It looks like there’s no one guarding the warhead. We can do this.” He took a deep, quiet breath. According to his watch, they had less than forty-five minutes until the bomb lit up the factory and central Moscow like the Fourth of July, vaporizing their bodies into a billion glowing atoms.

  “Let’s spread out about twenty meters so we have multiple angles of fire. I want to see who’s beneath us,” Amanda suggested quietly.

  Kurt didn’t argue. He made his way to the right, down the catwalk. Amanda went left. She had less distance to cover, as she would turn a corner and have a line of sight under their entrance point in a few meters. As Kurt was getting into position, there was a loud commotion below.

  “Who’s there?” a voice shouted in rapid-fire Russian.

  Before either could respond, all hell broke loose.

  Forty-Six

  The first shot came from somewhere across the room. Two inches to the left and it would have taken off Amanda’s head. As it was, she felt the heat of the bullet as it whizzed by and ricocheted off the catwalk railing. She ducked, cursing herself for not paying better attention. She held her gun over the railing and fired off two quick shots in the shooter’s general direction, and then scuttled to her left, seeking cover behind a rusty iron pipe.

  Twenty feet away, she saw that Kurt was having his own issues. With the element of surprise gone, he was a sitting duck. The apparent rebel leader, a bearded man of indeterminate age, screamed and dashed toward the bomb. A bullet spanged off the other side of the pipe, and then everything went silent.

  She ventured a glance around her cover, trying to check Kurt’s position. He was no better off than she was. Crouched behind an identical pipe, he gave her a worried look and shook his head as if to say, “There’s no way.”

  She wasn’t ready to give up yet. She fired again. Once. Twice. Click. Click. “Shit!” She was out of bullets. Ejecting the empty magazine with one hand, she grabbed another from her pocket and jammed it home, raked the slide to chamber a round.

  As she was about to rain fire onto the factory floor again, Kurt yelled, “Amanda! Behind you!” She swung around, searching for the source of his alarm. The man who had disappeared at the beginning of the shootout, the man she had assumed was running to protect the bomb, had flanked her and was ascending a set of spiral stairs with his AK-47 at the ready.

  She spun and put two shots into the man’s face, sending him tumbling down the stairwell, his gun discharging in a wild burst as it crashed to the factory floor. That’s one, she thought with bitter satisfaction. How many more are there?

  The rebels, seeing their leader lose his life on the stairs, made no further attempts. They knew all they had to do was run out the clock. At the same time, she and Kurt were pinned down. The rebels had excellent cover and were able to defend their positions with little effort. She checked her watch. It was smashed, broken in the firefight. She had no idea how much time they had left.

  Kurt’s right, she thought. There’s n
o way. We’re going to die here. She felt sick at the thought of making it so far, getting so close. She could barely see the bomb from her position behind the pipe, but its presence was impossible to ignore. It meant instant death for her, Kurt, and everyone within ten miles or more.

  The air was thick with the scent of cordite and old grease. she heard footsteps below, followed by frantic whispering. Then, through the ringing in her ears, she heard something else. She cupped her ear. Is that…? The distinctive whump-whump of a low-flying military helicopter, hovering above. No, she realized. Not one. Several.

  One of the men below stepped from his hiding spot. She put two into his chest, dropping him where he stood. That triggered another furious round of gunfire as the men below retaliated for their fallen compatriot. Just as she thought she couldn’t stand it anymore, there was a series of loud crashes on the roof over her head, boots, moving fast.

  Turning, she saw four uniformed men burst through the door to her rear. The greasy skylight exploded, raining glass shards on the factory floor as another cluster of men fast-rappelled through empty space, guns blazing. Before she was shoved face-first to the floor, she saw a group of soldiers materialize behind Kurt and pile on top of him as well.

  It was over in less than thirty seconds. Staccato bursts of gunfire rang out as the soldiers, Russian, Amanda realized, mopped up the Chechens on the factory floor.

  “Vse Yasno! All clear!” she heard from several soldiers within the building. The man covering her extended a hand and helped her to her feet.

  “How?” she asked, incredulous.

  The soldier, a solid slab of killing muscle in his early twenties, shook his head as if to say he didn’t speak English. He held up his left forearm, upon which were strapped pictures of both her and Kurt. He motioned for her to follow, tapping his wristwatch.

  The bomb! She joined up with Kurt, and they raced down the stairs to the warhead.

  A small team of soldiers had clustered around the device; they were inspecting connections and tracing the wiring from the internals to the attached laptop computer.

  “Who’s in charge?” she asked in Russian, desperate for information.

  “I am the commander,” a compact man with a close buzz-cut answered in English. He pointed away from the warhead. “Please stand over there.”

  She got the message loud and clear and took a step back.

  A few seconds later, a young soldier barely out of his teens stepped away from the bomb and pulled the commander aside. They had a quick, hushed conversation in rapid-fire Russian, out of Amanda’s earshot. The commander seemed to agree with whatever the soldier was saying.

  With a quick smile, the soldier reached into the interior of the warhead and yanked with all of his might, straining as he did, until there was a loud pop. The smell of burnt electrical components permeated the air. The technician held up a fistful of wires and waved them in triumph.

  The commander relaxed, his body sagging as the tension ran out of him like water down a drain. He turned and wobbled towards the building entrance where he leaned up against the wall for a moment before pitching forward and vomiting into a trash barrel.

  She and Kurt raced to catch up to him, reaching him as he wiped the last traces of vomit from his lips. “Sir?” she started.

  He held up his hand, motioning for them to wait. The color was creeping back into his face. He turned and strode through the door toward a slight man clad in Russian fatigues. He retrieved a mobile phone from the man and started speaking. After a moment of back and forth Russian, he offered the phone to Amanda.

  She cocked her head, confused. “Who is it?”

  Without answering, he pushed the phone into her outstretched hand.

  “Hello?” she said into the phone.

  “Hello, Ms. Carter. This is President Cooper.”

  The White House

  Amanda nudged Kurt, and whispered, “Did you ever think you’d be here?”

  He grinned, barely able to contain his excitement. It had been only two days since the Spetsnaz team had eliminated the rebels at the warehouse and defused the bomb, saving Moscow from nuclear annihilation. Those two days had been a whirlwind of debriefings by a host of civilian and military personnel, culminating in this final meeting with the president.

  Still, he had no idea who employed Amanda. Every time he thought he was close to the answer, another piece of information emerged, sending him in a different direction. It frustrated him to no end. She was a testament to his brother, a living, breathing ball of contradictions. One thing was clear; they were inextricably joined by the events of the past days, fused in a new and strange partnership that neither of them quite understood.

  Immediately after the incident in Moscow, they had been transported to Sheremetyevo Airport by the Russian security services and placed on an idling U.S. government Gulfstream V. From there, they had endured an agonizing flight to Andrews Air Force Base, outside of the Capital. It had happened so fast, it felt as if he was watching a movie, as if the events were happening to someone else.

  He gave Amanda’s hand a squeeze. She returned the pressure, her fingers brushing against his wrist in a promise of things to come. His heart soared when he looked into her eyes, and she mouthed, “Later.” It was all he could do not to take her into his arms, feel her body against his and tell her how he felt. Not here.

  The President’s secretary received a call, then stood and motioned to them. “He’s ready for you.”

  His battered muscles screaming in protest, he got to his feet, He forced himself to relax.

  “Smile, Kurt. This is the fun part,” Amanda whispered. He had to admit he was enjoying the attention. He had never experienced anything like this before, and he knew it was unlikely he ever would again. His only regret was that Amelia and Heidi weren’t present to share in the excitement.

  The president’s secretary opened the door and ushered them in to the Oval Office. President Cooper was alone. He put down his pen and beamed at them. “Kurt! Amanda! Welcome. I’m so glad you could join me today!”

  As if you turned down an invitation from the President.

  “Thank you for seeing us, sir,” Amanda responded for the both of them. She’s done this before, Kurt realized with a start. The president got up and walked around his desk, motioning them towards a set of uncomfortable-looking couches.

  He regarded them for a minute before speaking. “I’d like to start off by personally thanking the two of you for your bravery in Moscow. Without your actions, the world would be a very different place today, a place I think no one was prepared to deal with.”

  Individually, they thanked him, assuring him it was what anyone in their position would have done.

  “And Mr. Vetter, I would also like to commend your brother. Although he’s no longer with us, he’s a true hero.”

  Feeling tears well up, Kurt looked at the floor. Mike was supposed to have been the star of the family, the one who had everything in the world going for him. “Thank you again, sir,” he said, raising his eyes to the president’s. “I’m sure Mike would appreciate your recognition.”

  “With that in mind,” the president continued, “I’d like to present you both, and your brother posthumously, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Very few of these have been awarded in the history of our nation, and only for the most extraordinary of actions.”

  He opened a folder from his desk and handed across three heavyweight pages, two to Kurt and one to Amanda. Each page was liberally embossed with gold stamps. The president’s signature was at the bottom of each. Kurt was confused. He thought the president had said Medals of Freedom.

  “Since your involvement in this matter technically did not happen, and since Ms. Carter is not a U.S. citizen, your medals, and these documents, will be stored in a secure facility. Your brother’s medal will be presented to his widow.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kurt said, understanding.

  “Sir?” Amanda asked.

  “Y
es, Ms. Carter?”

  “I still have one question.” President Cooper raised his eyebrows inquisitively.

  “How did the Russians know where to go?”

  Kurt had been wondering this same thing. Neither of them had spoken with anyone after the Russians had deposited them at the airport.

  The president cracked a smile. “Let me just say that President Sokolov and I go back a long way. We had a little man-to-man talk, against the advice of my advisors I must note, and worked out a deal.”

  Amanda’s eyes grew large. “You called him up, just like that?”

  “I did.”

  Kurt was impressed, his impression of this man he had not voted for rising considerably. He chewed on this news for a second. “Actually, sir, I have one more question as well.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “What happened to the CIA elements that started this whole thing? The people my brother worked for?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t comment on that,” the president replied, his smile faltering.

  Kurt expected this but was still disappointed. “I understand.”

  “Now, about your future,” the president started. Before he could finish his sentence, there was an urgent knocking on the door, and then it burst open.

  A team of Secret Service agents poured into the room with their side arms at the ready.

  “What is it now?” the president snapped.

  “Sir, you need to come with us right away,” the woman leading the group demanded.

  “Can’t you see I’m in a meeting?” he barked, his face turning beet red with anger.

  “Sir, there’s been an explosion in Norfolk. Nuclear.”