Thrilling Thirteen

by Ponzo, Gary

  The two men at his doorstep were the only ones not pointing a weapon at him. They appeared unconcerned about any danger Angel might pose. The dark-haired man turned to his partner and gave him a look. The man nodded. He looked at Angel and held up a gold shield. Then, with the coldest stare he’d ever seen, the man said, “We’re not your friends, Angel.”

  Angel dropped the carving knife to the floor.

  * * *

  Kemel Kharrazi fought fatigue as he ascended the wooden staircase and left the basement of the safe house for the first time that day. A mild autumn breeze greeted him at the door to the living room and he took in a breath of fresh air. He’d spent the entire day monitoring communications and preparing for his departure. As front man for the KSF, he understood how important it was for him to escape capture. As long as he remained at large, his threats would carry the weight of the number one terrorist in the world. A distinction he neither relished nor cared about. But he knew enough to use its credentials to get what he needed.

  Conversations dissolved into quiet as Kharrazi strode toward the kitchen with a sense of purpose. The kitchen was a large room with a high ceiling, but it was overmatched by the throng of soldiers who were crammed into the area. The gathering of warriors parted seamlessly as Kharrazi walked unencumbered to a stepstool in the corner of the room. The kitchen was a mere shell of what it had been before the KSF inhabitation. Cabinet doors had been removed, allowing easy access to twelve-gauge shotgun shells and cartridges for Magnum autoloader rifles. Handheld rocket launchers were stacked on the countertops next to cases of heavy caliber ammunition.

  Kharrazi uncorked a bottle of Turkish Merlot sitting next to a canister of .44 Magnum magazines and poured a glass of wine. As he drew the wine to his lips, he heard the murmur from his dedicated force behind him. He turned and stood on the stepstool and appraised his soldiers. They spilled into the living room of the A-frame and craned their necks for a glimpse of their leader. They were excited to be the chosen ones. Thirty of them in camouflage gear and blackface who Kharrazi had taken from their families, smuggled into a foreign country, and convinced to take the fight to the Americans on their own turf. Some of them he’d known since they were teenagers. Most had grown up idolizing him the way American kids would idolize a rock star.

  “It is a glorious day to be a Kurd.” Kemel Kharrazi raised his wine glass and brought smiles to the faces of the usually scowling soldiers.

  Kharrazi peered down into his wine glass and focused on the vortex his swirls had created. The lives of his men teetered in his hands with the same vulnerability. He knew the minute Nick Bracco had discovered the wire in the sheriff’s office that the FBI would come after them hard. Overwhelmingly hard. His soldiers would inevitably fight to their deaths, but the outcome was of little consequence. The detonator was unsolvable, rendering it impossible to disassemble. His ferocious fighting force had been reduced to a simple distraction for his getaway.

  Now, he searched their faces and considered the words he would choose to notify their loved ones of their demise. The bravery they had displayed. The hopes for their children to live in a Kurdish country of their own. His words would of course be manipulated into a verse that supported his agenda. Kemel Kharrazi, the first dictator of a newly born Kurdish country. The father of all Kurds. The George Washington of his nation. A chance for immortality.

  Kharrazi took it all in. He suppressed a telling grin and spoke to his men with great self-importance, “The President of the United States has scheduled a press conference to take place in less than an hour from now,” he proclaimed. He slowly covered the room with his eyes, making eye contact with as many soldiers as possible, men who would gladly take a bullet for him. They listened eagerly, with a glint of hope in their eyes. Kharrazi would not disappoint them. “It has been leaked to the news media that he will be announcing the withdrawal of troops from Turkey.”

  The room exploded with cheers. The butts of machine guns pounded the floor with the rapid beat of anticipation. Kharrazi finally let loose a smile and joined in with his men who began chanting an old Kurdish victory song. Hands clapped to the rhythm of the chant while Kharrazi raised his glass in a celebratory gesture.

  Kharrazi let the cheering continue for a few minutes, then held up his hand and watched the room become still. “We have some work left before we can go home and see our families again. We must remain vigilant. We must wait to hear the President address his country. Then we will know if the withdrawal is a fact. As I have told you, the Americans are willing to trade their souls for the safety of the White House.”

  There was a sudden lull as the rotors of an approaching helicopter whumped overhead. Everyone stopped and stared at the ceiling as it breezed past the cabin at a rapid pace. When the sound of the rotors dissipated, they looked at Kharrazi.

  A leader like Kharrazi would never appear concerned. Not now. Not when they were so close. “Heading toward town,” he said, unimpressed. “As usual, they are too late.”

  The cheers sprang up and Kharrazi raised his glass once again. The climax was coming fast. Kharrazi was heading home and he strained to keep from laughing out loud.

  ***

  A half mile from their target, the troops assembled in the forest for operational instructions. Included were a squad of Marines and a dozen field agents, all rushed up from Phoenix on transport helicopters. They’d arrived just in time to intimidate Angel Herrera into disclosing the KSF’s headquarters in record time. The man was ready to drive them there if necessary.

  The Marines wore fatigues and shifted their weight anxiously, ready to run through walls, tear down buildings, and initiate a stockpile of terrorist corpses. Nick instructed the team commander that he needed a surgical approach to the attack. They couldn’t afford to go in loud and heavy. It might trigger an early detonation of the White House missiles and would defeat their purpose altogether.

  Sergeant Hal McKenna was the Marines’ team commander. He was in his sixties and looked more like someone’s grandfather than team leader of an elite group of sharpshooters and soldiers. Until you got close enough to notice the scar. A six-inch gouge from the corner of his right eye to the middle of his jutted chin. One look and you immediately tendered respect. Nick could tell it was job related without asking. The knife must have been serrated. It devoured too much healthy tissue to allow a clean repair. Some poor surgeon must have worked desperately just to keep his face intact.

  McKenna squatted low while the Marines and others gathered around him. The blueprint of the cabin was stretched out on a bed of pine needles that scratched at its underside. McKenna was at the middle of an inner circle, which spread into the murky wilderness behind them. The stand of trees where they gathered wasn’t very dense and it allowed for virtually everyone to get a clean look at him. A large streak of moonlight filtered between the canopies of pine trees and illuminated the opening where they assembled.

  “Here,” McKenna said, pointing to a spot on the diagram. “This is where they’re most vulnerable.”

  Nick nodded, half listening to the briefing and half studying the latest satellite images that McKenna had brought from Phoenix. Matt was beside him with a magnifying glass, examining the same photos. They were taken a couple of hours earlier, right at dusk. Nick was steering a penlight across the images without really knowing what he was searching for. But something bothered him. Kharrazi was too sharp to allow himself to be cornered without an escape plan. Somewhere in the photos there was a clue. He just needed to recognize it.

  McKenna was elbow to elbow with a Marine Sergeant and focused everyone’s attention to a specific target. “So we launch the 720 in this window and—”

  “No,” Nick said.

  Seven or eight heads turned toward Nick, including McKenna whose scar created a scowl on its own. “Excuse me?” McKenna said.

  Nick opened his palms and tried the soft approach first. “The reason I directed you to formulate a plan was because of your hostage rescue skills.
We need to be surgical. Quick and stealthy.”

  McKenna’s face appeared to be fighting two or more emotions. “You have a hostage inside I don’t know about?”

  “Yes, I do. The detonator. If we start a firefight, they could detonate the missiles early and make this entire mission a moot point.”

  “What about Kharrazi?” McKenna said. “Isn’t he inside?”

  Nick glance down at the satellite photos. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s great,” McKenna said. He looked down at his watch. “We’ve got sixty-eight minutes until a missile takes out the White House. Even if we get inside the building in less than thirty minutes, that gives my bomb guys a half an hour to deactivate the detonator. If they can. And on top of that, we have to be stealthy. Any other requests, Agent?”

  “That’s enough,” Matt said, locking eyes with McKenna.

  An awkward silence hung in the night air. Nick considered the restraints those sixty-eight minutes put on them. He thought about Julie lying in her hospital bed ordering him to kill Kharrazi. Her bruised face looking up at him, her eyes pleading with him for retribution. He wiped his temple and was surprised to find it moist with sweat in the cool, autumn night. He needed to stay focused on the White House, though. He couldn’t afford to let Kharrazi force him into a mistake. Not now.

  “You’re right,” Nick said.

  McKenna raised his brow. The scowl deteriorated and the grandfather face returned.

  “Yes,” Nick continued. “We don’t have time to do this my way. But we must get to that detonator first.”

  McKenna nodded. “Okay. Where do you suspect it is?”

  “Well,” Nick looked over McKenna’s shoulder and added his own penlight to the blueprint. “Something that important would be protected fairly well. I would have to say it’s in the basement.”

  “Agreed,” McKenna said. He moved his finger around the perimeter of the diagram. “Here. This is the outside entrance to the basement. It’s in the back of the cabin below two second-story windows. We could get in there without entering the cabin. We secure the basement and gain control of the detonator before they can react.”

  Nick asked, “How, um . . .”

  “Stealthily?” McKenna finished for him. A slight grin tugged at the corner of his lip. He looked over at a young man who sat next to the group with his legs crossed. A small digital device sat on the ground in front of him. A pair of wires extended from the device to his ears where he covered them with his hands. He was concentrating so hard, his face looked as if he had an upset stomach.

  McKenna waved a hand and snapped a finger to attract his attention. “What have you got, Kelly?”

  Kelly made eye contact with McKenna for a moment, then returned to his trance. Ten minutes earlier an Apache helicopter had flown directly over the KSF cabin and dropped a transmitter on the roof of the cabin. A sticky malleable device that would fasten itself to the A-frame with little noise. Kelly’s palms pressed even harder to his ears. “Singing, Sir.”

  “Singing?”

  “Yes, Sir. If I’m not mistaken, it’s an old Kurdish anthem. Apparently they’ve heard about the President’s press conference and sense victory.”

  McKenna looked at Nick. “Let’s get over there before the party breaks up.”

  “Sir.” A soldier stood under the dipping branch of a mature pine tree. His face was painted so dark that his eyes seemed luminescent. “We have a problem.”

  “What’s that soldier?”

  “The place is land-mined with motion detectors, Sir. A quarter mile around the entire complex. There’ll be no sneaking up on them.”

  McKenna scooped up a handful of dirt and slammed it down. “This is getting better all the time.”

  Nick reached into his duffle bag and came out with a green handle and flipped it a couple of times like a baton.

  “What’s that?” McKenna asked.

  Nick pulled up on the expandable antenna and admired the instrument. “Electronic jamming device. It’ll jam any frequencies within a mile radius. We cut off their power, destroy any generators, and jam any other signals. They won’t be able to see or hear us coming. Plus, the sentries outside won’t be able to communicate with the cabin, or each other.” Nick pushed a button on the plastic handle and a green light began to blink. “Let’s see if there’s still any singing going on over there.”

  Chapter 36

  Nick crouched low in a thicket of woods outside of the KSF cabin. He looked at his watch. They had forty-nine minutes to get inside and disable the detonator. Adrenalin pumped through his veins. Beside him, Matt worked his Glock with his hands while examining the terrain with hawk-like eyes.

  Nick looked up at the night sky and felt the stillness of the night. A hundred federal employees surrounded the cabin, yet Nick couldn’t hear a twig snap. They’d set off the jamming device and had made easy work of the twenty KSF soldiers patrolling the exterior of the cabin. With silencers and superior night vision, they’d taken their positions and readied to encounter the strength of Kharrazi’s force who would certainly be waiting for them inside the building.

  But Kharrazi had months, maybe even longer to prepare for this battle. Nick had thrown together a crew of Marines and FBI agents in just a couple of hours. Kharrazi would leave little to chance.

  Nick smelled drifting smoke from a distant fireplace. A mile or so away, a father was probably reading bedtime stories to his children, blissfully unaware of the danger that lurked just over the ridge. Nick wondered what it would be like to be so insulated from the harsh realities of the world. While parents tucked in their fragile youngsters, people like Nick were chewing Rolaids by the handful, acutely aware of the threats that awaited them.

  Now, Matt was to his left and Jennifer Steele to his right. Both had rifles tight against their cheeks aiming at the two upstairs windows, the only openings on their side of the cabin. Flanking them were a team of Marines. Agents Rutherford and Tolliver were tucked in behind the Marines with Silk. The night covered them like a blanket of moss.

  McKenna tapped Nick’s elbow and gave a silent thumbs up. Then he nodded toward a Marine Sergeant twenty yards away in the brush and got a nod back. McKenna raised his right hand. He let it hang there while the chain of command responded with their appropriate signals. It seemed he was about to drop his hand when something peculiar occurred.

  The upstairs window opened abruptly and a balloon slipped out. Just as quickly the window was shut. Nick heard the flutter of night-vision visors flapping up and down. Unlike the forest they hid in, the cabin stood in a clearing and the moon bathed the walls of the cabin with significant light. That made night vision somewhat superfluous, yet some soldiers still tried both ways.

  Matt looked over at McKenna awaiting instructions. He seemed frustrated. McKenna had given orders not to shoot until he gave the signal, but he couldn’t have anticipated this. Matt twisted his attention back and forth between McKenna and the window, then to Nick. McKenna appeared unsure, his hand still frozen over his head. Nick saw the balloon moved downward in a gradual angle toward the tree line where they hid.

  Nick saw Steele aim her rifle at the balloon.

  “Don’t,” Nick said, louder than he should. He knew that it didn’t matter now. Kharrazi obviously knew where they were.

  “Call off the attack,” Nick said to McKenna.

  “What?”

  “No time to argue. Call it off.”

  McKenna waved his hand, signaling a stand down. The balloon slowly drifted toward them. Only it didn’t quite drift. It seemed to move in a straight line. The wind was having no effect on the balloon’s direction. Nick’s stomach twisted into a tight cramp. With the time constraints given them, they had frantically planned for a sudden offensive with little regard for a defense.

  “Do you have gas masks?” Nick asked McKenna.

  “Sure,” McKenna answered, with paralyzed confusion on his face.

  It was too late. The balloon only had another twent
y feet to go. Maybe ten seconds before it hit the tree line. But where was it headed? Nick calculated the spot where the balloon would first contact the pine trees. He aimed his binoculars to the contact point, scrambling to see something. Anything.

  Then, he saw it. A razor sharp spike fastened to the first pine tree it would contact. Maybe fifteen feet up the trunk of the tree. The balloon was now ten feet away from the needle. Nick only imagined what kind of gas the balloon contained. He crouched next to Matt, handed him the binoculars and pointed to the spike. “See that? A spike sticking out of from tree.”

  Matt squinted through the lenses and said, in a surprised voice, “Yeah.”

  “See the line going from the spike to the cabin? Thin, like a fishing line.”

  “Yeah,” Matt said, seeming to get it now.

  The balloon was five feet from the spike. Ready to burst open with an array of poisonous gas.

  Matt didn’t wait for Nick to say anything. They tuned into each other’s rhythm like a lead and bass guitarist. He aimed his rifle at the narrow gap between the balloon and spike. “You going to catch this thing?”

  “I’d better,” Nick said, scrambling out from the thicket and into the open field.

  “Where are you going?” McKenna said.

  But he was ignored. Matt tightened his finger around trigger and yelled, “Cover Nick.”

  Matt squeezed the trigger and the bullet pierced the night sky with a thunderous scream. It was the only shot he would need. He clipped the wire perfectly. The balloon didn’t drop straight down, however. It swung back in an arc away from Nick. He was caught off guard and slipped on pine needles as he shifted his weight from his back foot to his front. From his knees, he could see the balloon angling toward the ground thirty feet away from him. He wasn’t going to make it.

  Nick was working off adrenalin rather than intellect; he rushed toward the balloon. It was merely five feet from the ground when it came completely free of the fishing line and became vulnerable to the laws of inertia. The external force that maneuvered the balloon was a favorable gust of wind. Nick managed to leap at the ground and cup his hand under the balloon as it gently bounced into his fingertips. He held it above his chest, just inches from his face while he tried to control his erratic breathing.