by Andrew Watts
“How?”
She was typing. “Shit. They accessed your phone. When we made the call, they were able to use its GPS signal somehow. Max, I’m sorry. I was careful. I don’t understand how they were able to do this…”
“Who knows where we are?”
“I’m not sure, but I think…”
“Renee, who?”
“I’m assuming the people who wanted to set you up. Someone used your call to the MI-6 agent to track us down.”
“How is that possible?”
“The techniques they used were very sophisticated. I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting it.”
Max said, “Okay. Well, we’re in the middle of nowhere. Your alert just went off, right? It would take a long time for anyone to get here—”
She was shaking her head, frowning. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
She let out a stream of French profanity. “That was so stupid of me.”
“Renee. Calm down. We’ve got time.”
“No. We don’t. The timestamp was for two hours ago.”
“Two hours ago? That’s when they first had our location?” Max looked a bit more concerned. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should leave.”
As he spoke, the power in the house went out.
The four Russians were all former Spetsnaz. Mikhail was the most senior. He wasn’t in the same shape he used to be in, but he was still deadly. The others were all younger. Fit, athletic, and capable, these three had been part of the Forty-Fifth Guards Detached Spetsnaz Brigade. Air assault troops.
For the past few years, they had each been working for Morozov. He paid well and always had interesting work.
They’d gotten the call while waiting in their hotel room in Jacksonville. They had located the Fend boy. Morozov expected Fend to show up near his father. He was only an hour or so away from Jacksonville, where Mikhail’s team had been waiting.
It took them ten minutes to get to Craig Airport. Morozov’s pilot was already in his helicopter, rotors turning.
Once the aircraft took off, the team began putting on their night vision goggles and checking their weapons. Mikhail spoke to the pilot on his headset.
“How long?”
“About thirty-five minutes. I’ll put you down on the beach. Send me a message when you are finished and I will pick you up from the same spot.”
Mikhail texted Morozov’s computer men on the yacht. They were the ones who’d alerted him of the opportunity.
Mikhail texted: Kill or capture?
The response was immediate.
Will shut off power when you arrive. Kill any personnel in the house.
The only lights that had been on were the kitchen overhead and the bathroom light in the master suite. Both lights went out simultaneously. Someone had intentionally cut the power.
Now Max had two choices: hunker down and fight, or try to make it to the vehicle and run. He didn’t know where his adversary was coming from. Helicopter noise was coming from the beach. But what if some were arriving by car? What if some were circling around the property? If they were out in front of the house, they might just be waiting for him to walk outside towards his car so they could pick him off.
“How are you with firearms?”
Renee shook her head. “No. Max, I don’t want—”
“Follow me.” It was dark, but the light from the moon shone in through the windows.
Max took Renee into one of the bedrooms and threw the mattress up. There was a storage chamber underneath, which he opened. It held weapons and tactical gear.
“Oh my God. What, are you prepping for doomsday?”
“I like to be ready. Just in case. Quick, put these in.” He took some earplugs and handed them to her.
“Why?”
“Trust me. And take this.”
He handed her an MP-5.
“No. Max, I don’t like guns.”
“Renee, I’m sorry, but we don’t have time. Take the gun. There. Now the safety’s off. It’s in single-shot mode. You just point and shoot. And make sure you aren’t pointing it at me.”
The Eurocopter hovered just above the beach, and all four Russian mercenaries hopped off. The helicopter took back off and circled overhead.
The Russians had been told that there was likely only one target. He would be well trained. And the fact that the helicopter had just dropped them off meant that he would be expecting them. They sprinted down the beach.
“Here!” Mikhail shouted when his GPS told them that they had reached the right location. He gave a command and they fanned out into a line, about five yards between them. They scanned the backyard of the house and looked for movement in the windows.
“There,” one of the Russians said. The man depressed a button attached to his AEK-919K Kashtan submachine gun, emitting a green laser that was visible to all of them through their night vision goggles. It pointed to a room on the northern side of the house.
Two of them approached the back door. Another crept around the side of the house, keeping his Saiga 12-gauge semiautomatic shotgun pointed at the window in question. Mikhail stayed back, on a mound of sand in the backyard, keeping his weapon trained on the house and searching for any sign of the man inside.
There was no movement. No flashlights. No voices. Doubt crept into Mikhail’s mind. He didn’t like how still it was.
Max watched the attackers approach from the living room window. He hunched over behind the couch. Renee was on the other side. There were four of them. He could see their silhouettes making their way over the small sandy mound in his backyard, their weapons trained on the house. A laser pointer shot out from one of them, pointing at Max’s bedroom.
Max risked a whisper. “Can you take the one on the left?”
“I don’t know, Max.” Her voice was quivering.
“Relax, Renee,” he whispered. “It’s going to be okay. Just point and shoot—when I say three, shoot. After that, we go to my car and head for the airport. Understood? Whether we get them all or not, we’ll make a run for it. Okay?”
“Understood.”
“One…two…three.”
He fired two three-round bursts. The rattle of the MP-5s rang out in the night air. Empty shells fell onto the hardwood floor. Bullets holes riddled the walls, splinters of wood and chunks of plaster flying through the dark room.
Max watched his two targets drop to the ground. Then he turned towards Renee’s side. She was frozen, her finger off the trigger. Damn.
Max took aim at a section of the wall where he thought Renee’s target might have been, then he fired at the remaining silhouette that had stayed back near the beach.
He saw the dark figure fall down in the sand, and more bullet holes began to appear on the eastern wall of Max’s home—the attacker in the backyard was firing at them.
Max flattened himself on the floor and dragged Renee down with him.
“We need to get out of here.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice muffled by his earplugs. In the moonlight, he could see her eyes, wide with fear and anguish. Household items exploded around them as an attacker fired into the home.
“Let’s go.” Max quickly looked back up and fired several more bursts from the MP-5, until his magazine was empty.
“Come on!”
He grabbed Renee’s arm and they both ran out to the Toyota in the driveway. Max emptied his magazine and reloaded another. They were both treading backwards, aiming their weapons around the house in case anyone jumped out.
They got in and Max started the vehicle and slammed on the accelerator. They sped off down the road, the sound of a helicopter looming overhead.
“Who were they?” Renee asked, her voice near hysterical. She was in the passenger seat, looking behind them.
“I don’t know. But I heard one of them say something in Russian.”
Max turned right and floored it, speeding through the closed gate of the Jekyll Island airport.
“Who wou
ld be able to come after us this quickly?”
Max slammed the brakes and the car came to a halt. “I have some ideas. Were you able to bring your laptop?”
“Yes, I got it,” Renee said, patting her messenger bag.
They both exited the vehicle and hopped the airport fence. Max looked back in the direction of his house. It was about a mile away now. He could still hear the sound of the helicopter. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was a little louder now.
“This is our plane. Get in.” Max threw the bags and weapons into the back cargo hold and then thought better of it.
“Here.” He handed Renee one of the MP-5s and an extra magazine.
She took it with both hands, not asking questions.
Starting up the aircraft went quick, but taxiing seemed painfully slow. When the helicopter buzzed them for the first time, Renee let out a yelp.
This was what Max had been afraid of.
If he got airborne, there was no way a helicopter could keep up with his fixed-wing aircraft. The helicopter would max out around 150 knots. His aircraft would leave it in the dust. But that was only after he took off and climbed out. Right now, he was vulnerable.
It was dark, and they could barely make out the helicopter as it looped around and headed back in their direction. They were still on the taxiway, but there was a lot of flat pavement in front of them.
“Hold on,” Max said. “I’m going to try and take off here.”
“Are we on the runway yet?” Renee said, looking at him with incredulity.
“No, we’re on a taxiway. But I think I can make it. If I take off now, the helicopter might get one more pass in before we take off. Then we’ll lose him. If I take the time to taxi all the way down to the runway, he’ll be able to keep shooting at us the whole way.”
“But?”
“But we might not have enough runway to take off…”
“What did you just say?”
“Never mind. I’ll tell you later.”
Max pushed the throttle forward and the engine let out a fierce whine. They were both pressed back into their seats as they moved faster along the pavement.
“Here they come again.”
Max could see the nose of the helicopter dipping down as it raced towards them from the left side.
He looked at his airspeed indicator. Forty knots. Fifty knots. Come on… He could see little yellow bursts of gunfire coming from the helicopter’s rear cabin.
A bullet burst a hole in the Plexiglas window on his left-hand side.
“What should I do?” asked Renee.
“Fire back.”
Renee took a deep breath. She reached over him and aimed her MP-5 out his window, firing three shots towards the hovering helicopter. The gunfire was very close to Max’s face, and he reflexively turned away. He could smell the odor of the spent rounds and felt the shells dropping on his lap.
“Careful,” Max yelled, his ears ringing. “That’s enough. Just have a seat.” Perhaps Renee might be better as an observer.
Renee sat back in her seat as the helicopter sped overhead.
There. Takeoff speed.
Max pulled back on the yoke with his left hand. The airflow through the broken window was intense, but otherwise, there was no sign of damage.
They quickly gained altitude and Max turned south, along the beach. The moonlight illuminated the surf. Renee was still looking behind them. The helicopter lights grew more distant.
“Relax. They won’t be able to catch us.”
Renee’s chest was heaving. “Where to now?”
“Key West.”
13
Three Days Before the Fend 100 Flight
Special Agent Jake Flynn arrived at Jekyll Island, Georgia, the next afternoon. The local news reported it as a burglary gone wrong, thanks to the local police. The FBI had a great relationship with local law enforcement around the country.
Many local police had attended the FBI’s National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. The National Academy allowed local police to improve their law enforcement standards, knowledge, and training. It also forged strong bonds between the FBI and local police for when cooperation in the field was needed.
And it was needed today.
Flynn had first seen the report of the Jekyll Island incident in a bulletin when he’d logged on to the FBI email system from his hotel in Jacksonville that morning. He hadn’t thought much of it at first. Three men, dead. The location was strange, but he figured it was probably drug-related. Some meth deal gone bad.
Then his phone rang.
“Hi, I’m looking for Special Agent Jake Flynn. This is Special Agent Mike Gagliardi. I’m the SAC with ATF down in Brunswick, Georgia.”
“Mike, this is Jake Flynn. What can I do for you?”
“You the one looking for this Max Fend guy?”
Flynn sat up in his chair. He wondered how the ATF knew he was looking for Max Fend. But hell, he would take all the help he could get. Any further pretense was pointless.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Well, we’re working with local police on this Jekyll Island thing. Have you heard about it yet?”
“I was just reading up on it, actually. It says three dead. That right?”
“Yeah. Forensics is looking at it now, but they were 9mm rounds. They think they were all fired from MP-5s. And the dead guys at the scene were carrying Russian-made weapons. The type that Russian special forces use. We’ve been running their prints but haven’t found anything yet. We’re working with Interpol now to see what they have. Looks like a professional hit went wrong.”
Flynn was intrigued. “Really?”
“Yeah. First time they’ve ever seen anything like this down around here.”
“So what’s it got to do with Max Fend?”
“Fend’s fingerprints are all over the house. The owner is an LLC. Still tracking down someone to speak with there. Looks like it might have been some sort of safe house. If I had to guess, Max Fend was the one being attacked, and he and at least one other person killed these three guys.”
Flynn looked at his watch. “Alright. Let me figure out transportation. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Mike, thanks for the heads-up.”
“No sweat.”
Flynn checked the directions and called his office to let them know where he was headed. A few hours later, he was pulling up to the crime scene.
The Jekyll Island Police Department was more than happy to help them keep the news media and local gawkers at bay. The ATF forensics team had finished their initial evaluation by the time he got there. The Russian hit team had been using AEK-919K Kashtan submachine guns and some type of semiautomatic shotguns. Both weapons were types favored by Spetsnaz commandos and Russian mercenary groups.
“Jake, you’ll want to see this.”
One of the local FBI agents took him into one of the bedrooms. The mattress had been flipped up. Underneath were opened trunks. One of them was filled with cash. Stacks and stacks of twenties. Most were in US dollars, but there were tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of foreign currency as well.
The other trunks were filled with equipment. Guns, mostly. And silencers, ammunition, eavesdropping equipment. Passports, IDs, night vision goggles. Knives, medical equipment, and phones.
“This guy looks like he was ready for something. Either he’s dirty, or he’s...”
“James Bond?” one of the men offered.
Flynn nodded. “Right. So which is it?”
He decided that he needed to pay another visit to the CIA.
“Special Agent Flynn, this is Maria Blount, the program manager for the Fend 100 aircraft.”
“Yes, of course, Maria. How are you?”
“You asked me to call and update you on the upcoming test flight.”
Flynn sat in his hotel room in Georgia. He was going over his notes from the crime scene on Jekyll Island. Not something she needed to hear about. He needed to switch gears.
“One moment, please.
Just trying to find my notes.”
Jake Flynn kept meticulous notes on his laptop. He usually brought a notepad to interviews and when investigating crime scenes. He would then transcribe it all into a Word file later. That way he could search for keywords and have a more durable record of everything he found.
“Okay. Go ahead.”
“We’re still on schedule for the Fend 100 flight to proceed in three days’ time,” Maria said. “We’ve gone over everything with the FAA approver who’s been working with us, and they’ve signed off. The FAA has no safety concerns about the computer network intrusion that was detected.”
Flynn didn’t think the FAA was the best one to make that judgment, but he didn’t say that to her. He was getting the distinct feeling that there was a lot of push from Washington for this flight to occur.
“Maria, let me ask you a question. What would happen if they were to postpone this flight?”
“Oh my. That would not be good. We’ve been working on this product launch for some time. Billions of dollars have gone into it. And not just our company. Many of the airlines—our potential customers—are waiting for the Fend 100 system to get approved by the government so they can start making their orders. Like we talked about when you were here, this is a major building block in the future of commercial aviation. A lot of people, and a lot of money, are depending on it.”
Flynn frowned. “Okay. But you are feeling good? No safety concerns?”
“If you’re asking if I feel pressure to have this flight go on as planned, yes, of course I do. But we would never approve it on our end if we thought it was unsafe.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Will you be coming down for the big day?”
“We’ll see. I kind of doubt it. But I wish you the best of luck.”
“Thank you, Special Agent Flynn.”
They hung up.
The gears in his head were turning.