by Jon Land
Fowler looked up to see Reverend Rule hands clasping the catwalk’s handrails, eyes aimed down at the television broadcasting the State of the Union speech to follow the remaking of history. Fowler found his own gaze drawn there, unable to resist picturing the sight on screen when the deadly poisonous air flooded the Capitol and laid waste to all.
The president would fall.
The government would fall.
The country would fall.
All glorious. And inevitable.
Until he heard the distinct crackle of automated gunfire as windows shattered.
CHAPTER 97
Washington, DC
McCracken and Wareagle led three of the Palestinian commandos in the first wave of the attack, adding their fire to Sal Belamo’s as soon as he’d dropped the four Rock Machine gang members who’d emerged from inside the building. The element of surprise was theirs only until they burst through the gate, angled themselves before the front casement windows, and opened fire.
And that’s when time froze, nothing but the staccato bursts of sound and glimpses of movement registering with him at all.
Time changed, places changed, but not battle, one exactly like the last and the next. Context, location, and purpose always distinct, while sense and mind-set remained the same.
And McCracken took to this one, just as he’d taken to all the others. Nothing was forgotten, each piece of every other battle he’d ever fought leaving an indelible mark. There was the sense of the assault rifle vibrating slightly as it clacked off rounds, warm against his hands, steady in his grasp. The sight of the muzzle flash, the strange metallic smell of air baked by the heat of the expended shells and his own kinetic energy. The world reduced to its most basic and simple objects. There was the gun, his targets, the glass and wall between them, and nothing else. Welcome and comfortable in its familiarity with all thinking suspended and only instinct left to command him.
He felt himself moving, return fire heating up before him, the hisses of air telling McCracken how close it was coming. He let instinct continue to steer him, aware of Johnny Wareagle launching himself airborne and crashing through the remnants of a shot-out window. Wareagle hit the floor shooting, spraying fire toward the motorcycle gang members diving, crawling, or rushing for cover amid the clutter of piping, pumps, manifolds, and baffles.
McCracken followed Johnny through the same chasm, everything slowing down before him. The assault rifle seemed weightless in his grasp now and he felt himself firing before his feet had even touched down, slamming a fresh magazine home as soon as they did. He’d done this so often, it was easy to be swept away in the memories, to lose track of the reality of the moment and the surreal nature of it. His ears took the brunt of the initial assault, as he darted between piping and steel stanchions for cover. Continuing to sweep his eyes and weapon about the whole time, keenly aware the tide could turn at any moment given the opposition’s still superior numbers.
And it seemed to be doing just that, with gunfire pouring at him from seemingly everywhere at once. McCracken slammed his shoulders against a manifold, unable to spin out in either direction for the time being with the concentrated fire clanging against the steel and ricocheting with ear-numbing pings. The bullets continued to drum against the steel, Blaine feeling the vibrations at the core of his bones and being. The assault rifle wobbled in his grip and he concentrated on keeping his breathing steady, so he’d be ready.
Ready when the smoker grenades rolled across the floor past him.
Zarrin and her team had managed to successfully breach the building’s rear at last. The smokers ignited with a poof!—spreading thick noxious vapor across the floor, adding to the chaos now safe for Blaine to enter with a deft twist to the right, assault rifle leveled.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the state of our Union is strong and getting stronger. And we’ve come too far to turn back now. As long as I’m President, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on the economic crisis we’ve pulled ourselves from in the first place. No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits. Tonight, thanks to the grit and determination of the American people, there is much progress to report. After a decade of grinding war, our brave men and women in uniform are coming home. After years of grueling recession, our businesses have created over seven million new jobs. We buy more American cars than we have in ten years, and less foreign oil than we have in twenty. Our housing market is healing, our stock market is rebounding, and consumers, patients, and homeowners enjoy stronger protections than ever before. Together, we have cleared away the rubble of crisis, and can say with renewed confidence that the future is bright.”
Boyd Fowler’s ears were ringing. He’d been in gunfights before, in war as well as battles against rival biker gangs, but never anything like this. It was constant, it was incessant, and it seemed to go on forever as it was muddled by the smoke that was thick everywhere, dominating the air. It obscured his vision and took him out of touch with his own positioning on the cluttered facility floor where a misstep could cause disaster in its own right.
The smoke distorted his sense of direction, stole the easy sight of the switching station that would send the contents of the tank containing the barrels that the Rock Machine had trucked from West Virginia flowing up the line. The deadly vapors on course to kill, to asphyxiate everyone they came into contact with once the Capitol’s underground frozen pipes burst under the pressure. He only wished he could be there to see it, the Rock Machine’s grand plan at last realized, their name to remain known for all time.
Fowler couldn’t help but wonder how many the gas might claim collaterally beyond the Capitol. There was no way to be sure, given so many variables like wind, temperature, and how much of the deadly cloud would actually seep out of the building with virtually all the US government left dead in its wake.
Ten thousand?
A hundred thousand?
A million?
No matter. He was making history here; in fact, he was rewriting it. Let time judge him, as it would the Reverend Rule. He was at peace with his decisions. A good Christian, now that he’d been baptized.
Fowler felt his body heating up at last, no longer chilled to his very core as he had been since that baptism Rule had performed in the McMillan Reservoir. Shapes and movement whirled around him, muzzle flashes cutting through the noxious smoke that was already thinning in the sprawling confines of the facility. He sighted in on a black-garbed figure wearing a gas mask and wielding an assault rifle, fired a bust from his M-16, and watched the man spin like a top, bloody spray blown from the impact points.
But the dissipating smoke also revealed Rock Machine members strewn everywhere, cut down in the initial assault fueled by surprise in tandem with the enemy’s incredibly accurate shooting for a firefight. These were clearly trained professionals for whom battle was nothing new, formidable opponents at the very least. But now the advantage was the Rock Machine’s again, the gang’s numbers, their superior weaponry, and time still on their side.
That certainty filled Fowler as fresh fire sounded from the breached rear of the building, and he swung that way with rifle already spitting bullets.
CHAPTER 98
Washington, DC
Zarrin flexed the stiffness from her hands, fought with her legs to give her all they could. Her body had been severely overtaxed these past few days, well beyond the capacity of the medication to moderate her symptoms. McCracken was right; a firefight like this required an entirely different skill set and mind-set, both of which had long grown foreign to her. She had been involved in her share of shootouts and gunfights, more than her share, but not against a force of this size, purpose, and training for a very long time. An assassin’s work was simple by compar
ison, seldom meeting any resistance, with escape being the paramount concern as opposed to survival. That gave her more respect for Blaine McCracken, the man having lived in this world for so many years.
Zarrin clacked off shots from her Heckler & Koch HK45 compact pistol with its slim-line grip and ten-shot magazine. It was smaller in length and height than the company’s standard model or any .45 caliber pistol. It also weighed considerably less while still offering the legendary .45 stopping power. Zarrin was not a fast draw or fast shot, but she’d trained herself to be deadly accurate, the precision involved not unlike that needed for playing the piano.
She’d led two of al-Asi’s commandos on a breach of the backside of the building, catching the enemy gunmen in a classic cross fire to regain the advantage briefly lost once the Rock Machine members had found cover amid the cluttered floor. The pumping station looked like the main deck of an oil rig to her, even as she clacked off shots at targets she’d zeroed in deliberate fashion. Four downed in her first magazine, two more with her halfway through the second.
That’s when the fingers on Zarrin’s right hand spasmed and locked, quivery and trembling now. She looked for the cover she’d need to steady herself and will the strength back into her hands. But there was nothing offering enough of it nearby, so Zarrin focused on a set of steel stairs leading to the catwalk swirling above and moved for that instead.
“It is our unfinished task to make sure that this government works on behalf of the many, and not just the few; that it encourages free enterprise, rewards individual initiative, and opens the doors of opportunity to every child across this great nation. The American people don’t expect government to solve every problem. They don’t expect those of us in this chamber to agree on every issue. But they do expect us to put the nation’s interests before party. They do expect us to forge reasonable compromise where we can. For they know that America moves forward only when we do so together; and that the responsibility of improving this union remains the task of us all.”
The clock continued to count down in McCracken’s head, the time drawing ever nearer to the moment when the White Death would be released into the system to rupture the soon-to-be-frozen pipes supplying the Capitol Building with water. He tried not to think beyond that, every resulting picture conjured by his mind being too devastating to even consider.
He continued to clack off single shots from his assault rifle, mixed in occasionally with a three-shot burst. The smokers had ultimately done as much harm as good by rendering it impossible for him to distinguish the controls for the feeder line holding the White Death.
Captain Seven hadn’t been able to produce a schematic of the facility for McCracken to memorize, as was his custom in preparation for such scenarios. The captain had, though, come up with a map of the exact route of piping from this facility all the way to the Capitol that Blaine had committed to memory instead. A path strangely zigzagging in nature thanks to the high water table and shale deposits that determined much of the route for the engineers who’d designed, or upgraded, the system.
Keeping a mental count in his head was difficult since he still had no firm grasp of the enemy’s actual number. Regardless, keeping track of the level and intensity of each side’s gunfire was far more important in determining the tide of the battle and its eventual victor anyway. His vast experience, far too much, had imbued him with an instinctive sense of place in relation to control of territory from a square foot to mile. And right now that instinct told him his forces were winning the day and, thus, hopefully forestalling the Rock Machine’s efforts to pump the White Death into Washington’s water system.
The lack of high-ground fire from the catwalk above told him Sal Belamo had been unable to claim that strategic point as originally planned. Through the thinning smoke, though, he saw Zarrin clamoring upward, even as he glimpsed the shape of Jeremiah Rule leaning over a railing with eyes closed and hands clasped in a position of prayer.
“Those of us who’ve been sent here to serve can learn a thing or two from the service of our troops. When you put on that uniform, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white; Asian, Latino, Native American; conservative, liberal; rich, poor; gay, straight. When you’re marching into battle, you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails. When you’re in the thick of the fight, you rise or fall as one unit, serving one nation, leaving no one behind.”
Boyd Fowler darted from one position of cover to another, trying to chart a path to the single lever that would transfer flow of outgoing water from one line to another. A routine procedure undertaken to rotate the city’s water supply among three separate tanks of purified, treated water sucked in from the McMillan Reservoir.
One of those tanks now held the contents of the barrels salvaged from the West Virginia mountain facility where they otherwise would have done no more than collect dust for decades. Organizing the transport process had been incredibly challenging in such a limited time frame, managed only thanks to his access to trained drivers, trucks, and the proper equipment. Add to that the crucial element of already having a man in place here at this facility to fulfill the reverend’s grand plan, and Fowler couldn’t help but wonder if there really was a higher power at work.
He finally got enough of his bearings back to chart a clear path from his current position to the control lever he needed to throw in just minutes now, barely two according to his watch counting down the time since they’d released the liquid Freon. Fowler fired an automatic burst high and purposefully off target to gauge the response. A single enemy gunman lurched out, having honed in on his position, and Fowler gunned him down with the rest of his magazine, pulverizing the man with bullets and enjoying the site of misty blood froth erupting from each wound on impact.
He was snapping a fresh magazine into place when a fellow gang member on his right went down, followed by one of his left. The angle told him the fire had come from above and he twisted to see the smaller shape of a woman poised on the catwalk, sighting down with a pistol like she was some methodical Olympic target shooter.
Jeremiah Rule watched Boyd Fowler fire a burst upward, but it missed, clanging off steel, and was returned instantly by a single shot from the woman that would’ve nailed him had not some sense of danger, some cosmic warning, sent him sprawling to the floor.
Higher power indeed, the reverend thought, guiding them even now.
His eyes followed Fowler crawling across the floor, propelling himself along on his elbows to reach a nearby set of stairs that would take him up to the catwalk as well. The giant seemingly rendered indestructible, now that God was on his side.
“Amen,” Rule said out loud.
CHAPTER 99
Washington, DC
McCracken could barely hear a thing, his eardrums singed by the constant cacophony of gunfire intensified by the confined space. He could not remember a time or a battle where it had strummed more incessantly, and that forced him to rely more on his eyes.
The problem was those eyes showed him only two of the five men sent by Colonel al-Asi still standing against what looked to be far more downed members of the Rock Machine; as many as eighteen, Blaine thought. They still had more guns, but their reduced number allowed Johnny Wareagle to whirl unimpeded about the facility in phantom-like fashion. Appearing from the smoke out of nowhere behind or alongside one of the enemy whose fire ceased immediately as he dropped from the battle.
The strategy at this point was simple: Eliminate all of the enemy, and there would be no one to release the White Death into the Capitol’s water supply. Until that was the case, it was a matter of keeping members of the Rock Machine too concerned with staying alive to try reaching the feeder controls that would flush the White Death into the system.
McCracken whirled, one way and then the other, from a vast pump to an intricate coupling of piping for cover. His next twist brought him out into the open, though with far fewer guns to thre
aten his advance. His hearing returned in fluttery fashion, his ears giving up more to him as his eyes continued to sweep about in eerie rhythm with his assault rifle, locking on a shape coming up behind a crouching Zarrin.
Her fingers fought her but she won. Again. She felt the pain, welcoming it since it was much preferable to stiffness.
Steady, sight, fire… . Steady, sight, fire… .
Tchaikovsky’s Concerto no. 1 sounded in her head, the very same concerto she’d played in Istanbul, approaching its crescendo as three more motorcycle gang members dropped to her bullets. Zarrin paused again to snap another fresh magazine into her Heckler & Koch, the music only she could hear settling her mind and holding her to rhythm not at all unlike working the ivory keys.
And then she felt a shape that smelled like grass and standing water and unwashed hair and clothes pounce upon her and wrap itself around her like a snake.
“We should follow the example of a police officer named Brian Murphy. When a gunman opened fire on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and Brian was the first to arrive, he did not consider his own safety. He fought back until help arrived, and ordered his fellow officers to protect the safety of the Americans worshiping inside, even as he lay bleeding from twelve bullet wounds. When asked how he did that, Brian said, ‘That’s just the way we’re made.’ That’s just the way we’re made. We may do different jobs, and wear different uniforms, and hold different views than the person beside us. But as Americans, we all share the same proud title.”
“Die, die now!” Rule screamed at the woman, as he tried to choke her. “Die in the name of God!”