by Stephen Frey
“People think it’s just a coincidence that we haven’t had another terrorist attack inside our borders for more than a decade,” Bill spoke up after a few moments. “Well, it isn’t a coincidence, Mr. President. Not even close. And we must continue what we do exactly the way we do it, which is however we see fit without any interference. We can’t have our president trying to shut us down or limit our interrogation powers.”
“So you and the other associates provide the money.” Dorn’s voice was hushed.
“And the houses and the boats and the planes,” Bill explained, “along with doing our regular jobs.”
“My God,” the president whispered. “I had no idea this thing was so well organized.”
“It has to be.”
Dorn gestured at Bill. “Now that Roger is gone, are you effectively the leader of Red Cell Seven?”
Bill nodded deliberately after a few moments. “Yes.” He paused. “But I can’t keep doing it. I can’t lead RCS and be the CEO of First Manhattan. I don’t have the personal bandwidth, and worse, sooner or later someone’s going to figure out that I—”
“Mr. President!”
All three men flinched at the shout coming from the other side of the door and the loud knocking suddenly accompanying it.
“It’s Agent Radcliff, sir. I must see you right now.”
“Come in, come in,” the president called.
The Secret Service agent burst into the storage room, followed immediately by two more agents. All three men seemed distraught.
“For God’s sake, what is it, son?”
“There’s been an attack, Mr. President,” Radcliff explained. “It was out in northern Virginia, in McLean at that big Tysons One Mall.”
“What kind of attack?”
Troy heard footsteps running toward them.
“Shooters. Two to four of them, according to eyewitnesses at the scene. They had automatic weapons. Eight dead and twelve wounded so far. The men just walked through one entrance of the mall and opened fire. The place was jammed with people.”
Dorn cringed. “My God. Were they caught?”
“No, sir. Fairfax County Police and the state people found a couple of vehicles that were suspicious, but no persons in or around them.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Ten minutes.”
Stewart Baxter pushed his way past the agents into the middle of the room. “Mr. President, you need to get back to the Oval Office immediately.”
“Yes, of course, Stewart.”
Troy heard more footsteps hustling toward them.
“We don’t know if—”
“Mr. President!” Another agent burst into the room. “Sir, we have reports of more attacks. It’s the same thing as Tysons Corner. Huge malls. Houston, Los Angeles, St. Louis. Shooters opening fire at crowds with automatic weapons. Seven attacks so far.”
The president glanced from Baxter to Bill and then back at Baxter. “Gentlemen, we are under attack.” He motioned to Radcliff. “Get me back to the Oval Office.”
As Radcliff wheeled the president out, Baxter pointed at Bill and Troy in turn. “Where were you pricks on this one?” He stared hard at them for a few moments, eyes flashing accusingly. “Nowhere, obviously,” he hissed as he stormed from the room. “Nowhere!”
CHAPTER 7
AS TRAVERS raced down the railroad tracks through the darkness, bullets strafed past. He turned and darted into the dense forest lining both sides of the double main line. Going into the trees was his only chance.
Three minutes ago he and Harry Boyd had been ambushed at the gas station. Boyd had been shot dead through the windshield by one of the men who’d attacked them back there. But Travers had escaped by hustling out the back of the van, then racing onto the tracks that lay at the bottom of a steep ravine at the edge of the gas station’s parking lot.
Now he was running for his life.
KAASHIF AND the driver glanced at each other when a DJ broke into the rap song playing on the vehicle’s radio to announce in a trembling voice what was unfolding across the country. Huge high-end malls were being attacked in big cities all over the nation.
When the announcer finished, they high-fived each other—just as they pulled into the short driveway of Kaashif’s “parents’” house.
“STAY WITH ME,” one of the EMTs said loudly as they rushed the young woman toward the mall entrance where the three assassins had opened fire on the crowd eleven minutes ago. “You’re gonna make it,” he said as they guided the gurney around the security guard’s dead body. “Don’t give up.”
Jennie could barely make out the features of the man above her. Everything about him seemed out of focus, and she couldn’t feel the pain anymore. Had they given her drugs, or was her body shutting down? She couldn’t remember them giving her anything. That couldn’t be a good sign.
“The little girl,” she whispered. “Is she all right?”
The EMT leaned down. “What?”
Jennie couldn’t say the words again. Her strength was gone, and her eyelids slowly slid shut.
The EMT shook her shoulder gently as they guided the gurney through the outer doors of the mall lobby. But she was unresponsive.
“We’ve gotta hurry,” he urged his partner as they raced her toward the ambulance, “or we’re gonna lose her.”
“Looks like we may already have,” the other EMT responded dejectedly.
“NO DOGS,” Major Travers muttered thankfully as he dodged the trunks of leafless trees coming at him through the gloom. Unfortunately, most of them weren’t wide enough for a man his size to hide behind. “That’s good. A couple of Dobermans would have been a problem.”
Travers hurdled a wide stream, clawed his way up the steep bank on the other side, and then hustled into the trees. He had time—though not much. Still, that narrow window provided an opportunity. If they’d sent dogs out on him, the odds of success would have dropped drastically. And life was all about odds.
He stayed in top physical condition with the kind of insane workouts other men his age would have died from. But when it came to physical ability and stamina, working out was no match for youth. He knew that as well as anyone. Despite the heavy workouts, he knew he’d lost a step.
The key difference between most other men in their fifth decade and Travers: He accepted timeless truths and used experience and cunning to turn those truths to his advantage.
Sooner or later the two men chasing him like wolves—steadily and relentlessly—were going to catch up. That outcome was inevitable. He’d seen their faces back at the gas station during the chaos in which Harry had been killed. They were much younger, and they could certainly go longer and farther than he could. More important, they were hungry with much to prove, like most men their age.
And that would be their downfall. He would use that hunger against them.
THE TWO ASSASSINS raced through the leafless forest of oaks and poplars with their pistols drawn, then on into the dense pine forest and the gathering dusk. They were closing in on Travers, the primary target of their mission.
“Don’t stop until both men have been neutralized, and bring me back the right forefinger of Harry Boyd as proof of your success.” That was the order from their superior, Shane Maddux.
The young man running second had Boyd’s finger stuffed in his pants pocket. Now he wanted Travers. Dropping that dead finger on the table in front of Maddux was going to be a proud moment. But snaring Travers was much more important because it would absolve him of his failure in Los Angeles.
AS THE two pursuers broke into a secluded clearing, Travers dropped down from above and slammed his right knee directly between the lead man’s shoulder blades. Most men would have crumpled to the ground out cold, but this kid was in tremendous shape. He remained conscious.
Travers could feel that natu
ral, youthful energy and strength surging through the young body as he wrapped his arm around the assassin’s head so the face was buried in the crook of his elbow. Then he twisted wickedly, fast and hard. It was a shame to do this to such a valuable asset, but he had no choice. This fight was to the death.
The sound of the neck breaking was loud, like a dead branch cracking beneath a boot, and the kid died instantly without even a groan.
Travers dropped the lifeless body to the leaves and whipped around, then lunged immediately to the right just as the other young man fired his pistol. The bullet blew through Travers’s jacket and grazed his left side. But with all the adrenaline pouring through his system, he didn’t feel it. He lunged again as the young man aimed. But he beat the second bullet, too, and then chopped down like a sledgehammer on the wrist of his attacker so the fight became a hand-to-hand struggle when the weapon flew off into the woods.
The younger man caught Travers flush on the cheek with a brutally fast left, but Travers was leaning away when the punch landed, so the impact did minimal damage. Travers retaliated with a sharp elbow to the Adam’s apple, a powerful chop-kick down onto the right patella, and a knee to the groin. It was over that fast, and now Travers had a willing witness—though the kid didn’t realize how willing he was about to be.
Travers splayed the victim on his stomach on the wet ground like a deer carcass. Then he quickly broke the man’s right shoulder by straddling the lower back, grabbing the right wrist with his right hand, pressing down on the right shoulder with his left hand, and then rotating the young man’s arm all the way around on the axis as he held it straight out until the joint snapped as loudly as the other man’s neck had. Travers repeated the technique with the left shoulder and left arm, and now there was no risk of counterattack or escape. The kid was done. He wouldn’t even be able to make it to his feet without a herculean effort.
“You shouldn’t have fired at me so fast,” Travers hissed as the man beneath him cried out in terrible pain. “You should have taken your time. You always have more time than you think. And you shouldn’t have run so blindly into good cover like this.” Travers nodded respectfully and thankfully to the thickly needled limbs of the pine trees above him. Then he leaned down so his lips were close to the ear of the young man, who only now did he see was also African American. Up until this moment he’d been too focused on survival to notice. “Tell me who sent you.”
“I can’t,” the other man gasped. “You know that.”
“What’s your name?”
“No.”
Travers stood up, spread the man’s legs wide, and then kicked the scrotum again with the steel toe of his boot, as hard as he could. He’d popped at least one of the testicles with that strike, no doubt.
“Just kill me,” the kid moaned pitifully as Travers dropped his full weight down on the lower back once more. “Let me die.”
The pain was excruciating, Travers knew. But unfortunately for his victim, he knew how to keep it going, to keep him just on that edge, without letting him pass out. And he fully intended to do just that until he received the answers he sought.
“Please,” the man begged as he struggled for every breath. “I can’t take any more.”
“What’s your name?”
“I can’t— Okay, okay,” he yelled as loudly as he could when Travers started to stand up again. “I’m O’Hara.”
Travers eased back down onto the kid’s back. “O’Hara?” he murmured. “Ryan O’Hara?”
“Yeah,” the young guy gasped.
Travers hadn’t trained O’Hara like he had Nathan Kohler. Typically, he was only involved with one of every three new recruits. So it wasn’t like he’d recognize the kid. But he’d heard of him. “You shot the president in L.A.”
“Yes.”
“Shane Maddux sent you after me,” Travers muttered as his eyes darted around, as he tried to see anything through what little remained of the late afternoon light.
O’Hara had joined the RCS Falcon Division only recently, Travers knew, but he’d defected almost right away to join Maddux’s small gang of mutineers. That was what Travers had heard through the grapevine, anyway, and it was absolutely believable because that was the thing about Maddux: He had this way of convincing subordinates of anything, even something as insane as defecting from Red Cell Seven.
“You’re still working for him, aren’t you?” The realization rocked Travers. “Jesus Christ.”
O’Hara didn’t answer, didn’t confirm, but that was irrelevant. Travers took one more panic-stricken look around, then snapped the kid’s neck and took off.
As he ran, he skinned his pistol from the leather holster at the small of his back, chambered the first round, and let the smooth black composite barrel guide him through the forest. He hadn’t bothered to use the 9mm to take down O’Hara and the other kid, even though the odds had been two-on-one. He hadn’t wanted to kill them both right away so he could draw information—as he successfully had. But knowing Shane Maddux was involved in this made Travers draw his weapon even though he had no idea if Maddux was anywhere close or if he was half a world away. It felt as if he was close, and that was enough.
Trust your instincts.
So maybe it had been an instinct to draw his pistol, Travers realized—a survival instinct. Because once Maddux put you in his sights, he never stopped coming until the hunt was done and one of you was dead. Maddux had been involved in many hunts during his two decades in Red Cell Seven, and as far as Travers knew, the guy was still very much alive and free out there despite his defection—which meant all the other guys involved in those past hunts were dead. Travers had no intention of being Maddux’s next trophy.
He put his head down and ran faster. Shane Maddux was the only man in the world Wilson Travers truly feared.
CHAPTER 8
“GO, GO, GO!” shouted the leader over his shoulder as the van skidded to a stop at the outer edge of the strip mall parking lot.
Twelve minutes ago the three men in the back had opened fire with automatic weapons inside a huge Minneapolis mall that was now two miles away, spraying the holiday shopping crowd with a deadly hail of bullets. They’d killed nine people in the assault and wounded fifteen more, four critically.
When they were done, the three assassins had raced out of the mall and into this brand-new white van that the driver had waiting for them at the curb just outside the entrance.
“Come on!”
The three men piled out of the van and into the back of another van, which was parked in the spot immediately adjacent to the one they’d just pulled into, while the driver, who was the leader of the squad, raced from driver’s seat to driver’s seat. This second van was old, rusted, and painted a faded robin’s egg blue. The leader figured it would make for perfect cover with its dented sides and the ladder on top. He’d added that detail this morning just before the attack. He’d stolen the ladder from a painting company down the block from the Eden Prairie ranch house they’d been using for the last three months.
As the leader revved the engine of the second getaway vehicle, he glanced through the windshield. Two boys were straddling their bikes less than fifty feet away. Neither of them was more than ten years old, he figured. But they were both aiming cell phones directly at the two vans, obviously taking videos. They would die for it. And their parents would regret giving them such expensive toys at such young ages. Having so much money wasn’t a good thing. Flaunting it was worse. This population needed to understand that.
“Kill them!” he yelled, stabbing his finger wildly at the boys.
Two of the men jumped out of the back and fired. Job finished, they climbed into the van again as the leader sprinted to where the boys lay, grabbed their phones off the blacktop, and sprinted back to the van.
THE CHAOS at the edge of the parking lot had attracted attention. A man coming out of a dry cleaner�
�s in the middle of the strip mall had witnessed the horrific scene of the boys being shot off their bikes. He’d called 911 immediately, contacting the emergency service as the leader was running back to the van after scooping up the boys’ cell phones.
Fortunately, a local policeman who hadn’t been called to the shooting two miles away was emerging from the post office beside the dry cleaner just as the witness was connecting with the 911 operator. The witness alerted the policeman to what he’d seen, and the cop made it to his squad car before the van had even exited the strip mall parking lot.
The chase was on.
AGENT RADCLIFF burst into the Oval Office without knocking. “Mr. President,” he called loudly as he stopped just in front of the eagle woven into the carpet. “Sir, it’s important.”
“What is it?”
President Dorn sat in the wheelchair behind his desk, studying a piece of paper inside an open folder that Stewart Baxter had just placed in front of him. Baxter stood on one side of Dorn while Jane Travanti, secretary of Homeland Security, stood on the other. Travanti was tall and angular with straight blond hair cut short in a pageboy so it fell to just above her slim shoulders.
Next to Travanti was Wes Dolan, the director of National Intelligence. He was short, nearly bald, and had an all-business air about him.
A television sat on a table beside a wingback chair off to Radcliff’s left. It was turned on, but the volume was low, and no one seemed to be paying attention to it.
“You need to see something, sir,” he said, pointing at the TV.
“We’re about to go down to the Situation Room, Agent Radcliff. Can it wait a few minutes? I can watch whatever it is down there.”
Dorn looked exhausted, even more so than he had when Radcliff had wheeled him down here from the residence, and that had been only a few minutes ago. There were deep, dark circles under his eyes now, and he had a gaunt look about him, like he’d quickly gone from predator to prey. Or he had the weight of the world on his still-weak shoulders.