by James Hunt
The early-morning sun mixed with the greys and soft blues of the sky. The air was warm but had yet to reach the sweltering temperatures that would come in the afternoon. Agent Cooper, armored down with Kevlar, combat boots, and an AR-15, crouched at the corner of the building, eyeing the weathered front door with a strike team huddled behind her in similar garb. A second team waited twenty yards to her right, and she gave the nod.
The quick shuffle of feet against the concrete and the light sway of their gear were barely audible in their stealth movements. They kept low, hunched under the line of dirty glass in what remained of the building’s front windows. Cooper came to a stop at the building’s stoop, where both teams converged, then paused.
Cooper flexed her hand in signals, and the squad leader across from her climbed the steps. Cooper flashed another series of signals to the agents behind her, and they nodded in confirmation. The squad took a step back, aiming their rifles at the windows, while the second squad gathered on the steps, ready to pounce through the front door.
Cooper counted them down, and on her signal, gunfire erupted from the rifles behind her. Bullets shattered the windows. The pieces fell like sheets of ice from the side of a glacier, crashing onto the asphalt below.
With Cooper’s squad distracting the side of the building, the second team burst through the door, firing gunshots. With the second team inside, Cooper and her squad quickly followed.
The terrorist cell that occupied the building returned fire, and Cooper ducked behind a brick pillar. Puffs of red dust peppered the air around her from the terrorist’s bullets, and when a lull in the gunfire occurred, she edged around the corner. She lined up one of the terrorists’ heads in her crosshairs then squeezed the trigger.
The terrorist dropped to the floor with the piece of lead firmly lodged in the center of his skull. His brethren slowly retreated to the back of the building, and Cooper watched them try to collect any documents that surrounded them.
With the enemy more concerned about the filing cabinets than with defending their position, Cooper led the charge, swarming over the terrorists like ants attacking a carcass. A group of the Egyptians broke off, heading to the back left corner of the building, but Cooper spotted them. “Don, Ken, with me.”
Worn cubicle walls, desks, and chairs blocked Cooper’s path as she followed the fleeing suspects. Priority number one was capture. A dead terrorist was harder to interrogate. At least that was what the CIA told her.
Cooper stepped around the corner of the hallway, and the moment her boot crossed the threshold, gunfire lit up the corridor. Cooper dove back behind the wall, both Don and Ken stopping with her. She peeked around the wall’s edge and again was met with a barrage of lead. “Grenade.”
Don plucked one of the plump explosives from his belt and handed it to Cooper. She squeezed the lever, pulled the pin, and then chucked it down the hallway. The grenade thumped against the floor and walls, followed by the terrorists’ screams, which were cut short by the explosion that rattled the building.
The moment after detonation, Cooper stepped around the corner, drifting through the wafts of smoke, her rifle tucked into the crook of her arm. Two of the terrorists were facedown on the floor, their bodies bloodied. “Check them.”
Don and Ken knelt down and took their pulse, then patted their bodies down, while Cooper searched for the third member she had seen earlier. She crept along the hallway, being mindful of the office doors on each side. She moved slowly, methodically checking each room before moving on to the next. The closer she came to the end, the more her muscles tensed.
Two rooms remained at the end of the hallway, one on either side of her. Cooper swiveled the barrel of the rifle back and forth, looking for any sign of where the terrorist had fled, finally settling on the left. The moment her hand touched the doorknob, gunfire burst through the wood, and two bullets collided with her Kevlar, driving her onto her back.
Cooper sucked air, trying to catch her breath from the jackhammer like impact of the two dime-sized bullets lodged in her chest. She clawed for the rifle that had fallen to her side when the terrorist burst out of the room, wielding a knife high above his head.
The terrorist flung himself at Cooper, but she managed to block the blade just inches from her cheek. Cooper jammed her knee into the terrorist’s stomach, knocking him to his side while she ripped the knife from his grip, and held the edge of the blade to the flesh of his neck as she rolled on top of him.
“Move and you die.”
Don and Ken rushed over as the terrorist slowly raised his hands in surrender. “You all right, Cooper?” Ken asked, taking the terrorist and slamming him up against the wall.
“Yeah, I’m good.” Cooper flipped the blade in her hand then flung it into one of the wooden planks of the office walls, where it stuck. She radioed the rest of the team. “We’ve got one bagged in the southwest corner and two bodies for the morgue. What’s the status up front?”
“Six dead, four captured.”
“Copy that.” It was better than she’d expected, but with the head of their organization now in hiding, she didn’t expect those that were left behind to put up much of a fight, let alone die for him. This was the seventh cell in three days they had come across, and she knew there were dozens, maybe even hundreds more that they needed to find.
The terrorists were lined up in the building’s foyer while Cooper and the rest of the squad looked over the materials they had tried to destroy. Bomb schematics, target locations, pictures, maps, but no bombs, and no documents at all about Perry’s nuclear plans.
Cooper tagged one of the target location papers as evidence then walked over to the terrorist that had attacked her. He kept his eyes glued to the floor, the sullen expression of a two-year-old who wasn’t able to get what he wanted plastered on his face. Cooper knelt down, forcing her way into his line of sight. “Do you know where Perry is?”
The terrorist spit in her face, and Cooper answered with a stiff right cross to his chin. She wiped the saliva from her cheek and flung it to the ground. “It could make things a lot easier for you if you cooperate. My friends at the CIA will figure out what you value, what you love, and when they do, they’ll turn it against you.”
“You will learn nothing, infidel. I am willing to die for Allah, and I will laugh in heaven while I watch you burn in hell.”
“Give it up, Cooper,” Ken said, walking up behind her. “These assholes don’t have a conscience.”
“I’ll give Moringer the good news, then.” Cooper stepped outside, where the dust was settling from the gunfight and the terrorists were being loaded into vans with their hands cuffed behind their backs. She dialed Moringer and waited for him to pick up.
“Yes?” Moringer asked.
“Everything was here that he said would be,” Cooper answered. “But the physical bombs are MIA. We have the locations of where they were planning on detonating them, though. Most of the areas they have circled are already evacuated, but we’ll let local PD know about the ones that aren’t.”
“Any of them talking yet?”
Cooper looked back just before the van doors closed on the terrorists glaring at her. “Not yet. They could be harder to crack than we think. Perry brainwashed them pretty good.”
“Well, it wouldn’t have taken much in the first place. Come back to headquarters, Cooper. We’ll go and have a chat with Kasaika together.”
“Yes, sir.” Cooper hung up the phone then peeled the Kevlar off her chest. She fingered the tender spots where the bullets had made contact and winced. When she peeked down her shirt, the contact areas were already turning a light shade of purple and red, and the tight wrap around her ribs along with the stitches in her shoulder only added to the Frankenstein-like condition her body was transforming into.
If Kasaika was right about this cell, then there wasn’t any reason to believe that he’d be wrong about the others. Still, the way Perry inserted himself into everyone and manipulated them, Kasaika might
just be telling them what they wanted to hear. It could just be another game Perry was playing. Only time would tell what would happen, and Cooper just hoped there was enough of it to figure it out.
***
The solemn faces matched the drab black attire of the funeral-goers as Evelyn’s casket was lowered into the ground. Dylan watched the casket’s black sheen gleaming in the sunlight and gave Sean’s hand a squeeze as his Evelyn’s body disappeared into the earth. Both Sean and Mary were to his left, with Mark on his right. Peter, Evelyn’s widower, took Mary by the hand and led her over to the edge of the grave and let her toss in a handful of dirt from the ground.
The granules thudded against the top of the casket, then Sean stepped in and dropped his own handful of soil. Dylan rose from his seat, the cuffs tight around his ankles and wrists, and shuffled forward, dropping his own fistful of dirt onto the casket. “Goodbye, Evelyn.”
Dylan hadn’t gotten the chance to say it before, so he said it now. He knew she couldn’t hear him, but it was all he could offer. Her death had plagued him since the moment Perry had murdered her in front of him. Her death had carved yet another hollow piece inside him, and he wasn’t sure how much soul he had left to be ripped out.
The U.S. Marshal that accompanied Dylan escorted him away from the friends and family that had managed to attend the service. With the country still reeling from the attacks, only those that were local to the Boston area had been able to come, and those that did refused to look Dylan in the eye. As far as they were concerned, he was the reason Evelyn was dead.
“Should’ve been you.”
Dylan stopped, along with his escort. When he turned, both of Peter’s hands were clenched in fists, his jaw jutted forward in anger, his eyes shone red with grief. Before Peter could touch Dylan, the marshal stepped between them. “They’re going to lock you away for a long time. And if there is any justice in the world, they’ll never let you out.”
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” The marshal gave Peter a gentle shove, and Peter knocked his arm away.
“You brought that on her, Dylan. You! And I’ll be damned if I let you do that to the kids.”
The chains attached to Dylan’s wrists and ankles tightened as he lunged forward, the marshal’s arm his only obstacle. “You will not be able to keep my children from me. I don’t care what your lawyers try to do or how much money you throw at it. You may have been able to buy your way into Evelyn’s life, but you won’t be able to buy your way into my children’s!”
The marshal thrust his hand into Dylan’s chest, and he stumbled backwards, almost tripping over his own restraints, and before it could escalate any further, the marshal shoved Dylan into the back of his cop car and slammed the door.
Dylan watched from behind the glass of the patrol car’s window as the marshal ushered Peter away, pointing and screaming the entire time. Pulses of anger flowed through Dylan, and as much as he wanted to break Peter in half, a part of him knew the man was right.
What had happened to Evelyn had been a direct result of Dylan’s actions. The situation was shit any way Dylan sliced it. He leaned forward and rested his forehead on the back of the passenger side headrest. A knock on the window caused him to look up. It was Mark.
The marshal opened the door and the old man leaned against the side of the cop car, partially blocking the sun behind him and still favoring the right side of his abdomen, where the gunshot wound was healing. “Hey, you all right?”
“I’m fine. Where are the kids?”
“With Peter. Until we get word from the lawyers, he’s fanning his sole custody papers. Have you heard from the attorney general yet?”
“I have a meeting with him when I get back.” With all the terrorist attacks that had plagued the nation for the past two weeks, and with Dylan playing a role in them, he was the perfect scapegoat the government needed at the moment. “I don’t have much to bargain with, but I’m hoping he’ll get the judge to agree to some of my terms.”
“It’ll work out, Captain.”
Dylan shook his head. “You don’t have to call me that anymore, Mark.” It was an odd thought for him, never having the chance to be out on the ocean again. Whatever Perry had wanted to do to him, he seemed to have accomplished. The mother of his children was dead, he was going to be locked up in a jail cell for life, and there wasn’t any guarantee that he’d see his children again. The one solace he’d found in the ocean since the death of his firstborn and his subsequent divorce would never be seen again.
“Old habits die hard, Captain.” Mark rubbed the beard that consumed most of his face. “I’ll keep as close as I can to Sean and Mary without Peter calling the cops. Once you hear from the lawyers, let me know what’s going on.”
“I will.” Mark clapped Dylan on the back then left. When the marshal climbed into the driver’s seat, Dylan watched the rest of the funeral attendees scatter, and in the distance, he watched Peter load Sean and Mary into his car.
This could be the last time I see them. The authorities almost hadn’t allowed him to come, but the attorneys managed to at least give him this, with the stipulation that he remained chained with an escort at all times. They’d even placed snipers on the surrounding rooftops next to the cemetery in case Perry or any of the men still working for him tried anything.
The marshal put the car into drive, and Dylan leaned his head against the window as they drove away, watching the cemetery fade in the distance. Dylan was heading to his judgment.
***
The device was no larger than a shoebox, yet it was connected to a half dozen computers, each with its own computer engineer behind it, tirelessly pounding away at their laptops. Among the six men’s computer screens, there were hundreds of thousands of lines of computer code. Their eyes were bloodshot, strained from looking at the glare of the monitors for so long.
Perry watched from the corner, his eyes glued not to the men working but to the rectangular device on the table they all worked around. The room was dark with the exception of the glow from the computer screens and that of the candescent lines that ran across the Taipan.
“Mr. Perry?” One of the engineers raised his hand and gestured over to him in the corner. “I’ve made it through the first security wall.”
Perry leapt from his chair and crept up from behind. “How many did you find?”
“There are at least a dozen. But that’s as far as I can see from where I’m at right now. There could be more, though.”
Perry dug his fingers into the man’s shoulder, the nails piercing through the thick lab coat and into the soft flesh. “Will it take you the same amount of time to crack those as it did with the first?”
The scientist winced from the pain, his voice cracking. “H-hard to say. The learning curve should be exponentially faster, but with a device like this, the security features will no doubt only increase the closer we get to activation.”
Perry removed his hand from the scientist’s shoulder, and the man let out a sigh. If that were the case, then it could take months for them to crack the code, and every second that was wasted was one more in which the authorities could track him down. Time was a resource Perry was desperately running out of. “I want to know where everyone stands on their assignments.” His voice boomed through the room.
All the engineers straightened as Perry walked around, checking their progress one by one. He kept his hands close to his sides, toward the seam of his jacket. Once he circled around and determined who had gone the shortest distance, he pulled the engineer aside and placed him in the corner of the room. The lab coats fidgeted nervously, all their eyes locked on Perry and their colleague he held out at arms’ length.
“I brought you here because you were the best in your field,” Perry said, walking around the room. “Computer engineers, physicists, programmers, all of you more than capable of enabling the device before you. Yet it has been a week, and we have not so much as scratched the surface.”
Perry s
tepped between two scientists with their heads down. He saw the muscles along their necks and shoulders quivering. “Have I misplaced my resources in using you?” They remained silent, shaking their heads. Perry slammed his fist onto the table, shaking the computers and the device Perry so desperately coveted. “Then activate the Taipan!” He quickly wiped off the spit that had rolled onto his chin and stepped away from the table.
The engineer Perry had placed in the corner stood there awkwardly, unsure what to do. Perry walked back over to him and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, his voice calmer than it had been a moment ago. “We have no room for last place.” Perry reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol.
“No, wait, I can—”
The bullet sliced through his forehead and blasted out the back of his skull, ejecting a trail of bone and brain matter with it. The body collapsed at Perry’s feet, and the others simply gawked at what had transpired. Perry stepped over the corpse and left it there as a message and eyed each of the engineers on his way out. “Faster, gentlemen.”
Chapter 2
Cooper straightened her shirt collar and took a deep breath outside the conference room door, clearing her head. When she stepped inside, the directors of the FBI, CIA, and her own director of the DEA looked up from their laptops. “Hello, sirs.”
“Agent Cooper,” Moringer said. “Glad to have you back.”
While the suspension was still fresh in Cooper’s mind, being given the lead on tracking down the remaining terrorist cells had helped the wound heal quickly. “Thank you, sir.” She took a seat by Moringer and passed out the folders she’d brought with her. “Everything we found in the raid is outlined here. With the exception of the physical bombs, Kasaika was right about the location of the cell, as well as the number of men occupying the facility.”
“We’ve already cleared the target locations you sent over,” Moringer said. “The terrorists had already planted the bombs, but we were able to disable them before detonation.”