The Blacklist--The Dead Ring No. 166

by Jon McGoran

  “What the hell is that?” Wall whispered.

  “I have no idea,” Aram replied, “but I’m sure it’s not good.”

  The figures placed the box in front of the gate then hurried back into the SUV and sped off the way they had come.

  Cooper made a quick call, alerting the state emergency response teams to be on standby for possible terrorist activity. He tried to call the plant itself, but the call wouldn’t go through.

  On the screen, the bus came to a stop.

  Aram zoomed in and said, “They’re getting out.”

  Chapter 77

  They got off the bus just outside the spill of light from the processing plant. Behind them, the plains stretched into the black, moonless night. In front of them, the buildings, tanks, and machinery blazed with artificial light that seemed brighter than daylight. Here and there, gas flares burned off waste products. The air was thick with the smell of petroleum and combustion and the loud white noise of countless machines whirring and buzzing and roaring and whining.

  Keen could see a scattering of workers on catwalks here and there, a few of them stopping what they were doing to look out into the dark, probably asking themselves if they were really seeing something, or if it was a trick of the light.

  Keen tried not to think of what would happen to them if she failed. Instead she took the moment to scan the grounds for a camera. She felt panic rising within her the longer she looked, until finally she spotted one, off to the side, thirty yards west of the gate itself. She tried to gauge its distance from the fence. It seemed to be about twenty-five yards, but with so much at stake, she questioned her ability to tell.

  Corson stood in front, flanked by eight armed PMCs. He smiled, looking at each one of them, as if he was relishing the thought that eight of the nine would soon be dead.

  “The game will begin on my mark,” he said quietly.

  A quartet of camera drones flew by overhead, a chorus of different tones from their different altitudes and speeds.

  They all watched them fly by, and when Keen looked back at the ground-mounted camera, she noticed a tiny red light. It was recording.

  Corson clapped his hands, drawing their attention. He rubbed them together, stepped aside and barked, “Now.”

  Chapter 78

  “We have transmission,” Aram announced, as soon as it appeared on his screen.

  Half a second later, the computer chimed with the alert that he had programmed to notify them, but Cooper was already on the phone. Wall’s fingers began slapping furiously against the keyboard—a blur of flawless accuracy and absolute confidence.

  Aram allowed himself a brief moment to watch the scroll of gibberish floating up the screen, snatches of it making sense to him here and there, before it disappeared under the onslaught of Wall’s fingers. A flicker of doubt passed through his mind, how much they were entrusting to this man they barely knew. It was followed by a flash of even greater doubt as he wondered what, if anything, Wall and Reddington had discussed in his absence.

  But he took out his phone and sent a text to Reddington. “TRANSMISSION STARTED.”

  Aside from any doubts about Wall, Aram trusted Reddington, especially as far as Agent Keen was concerned. No one, not even Director Cooper, maybe not even Aram himself, was as committed to Agent Keen’s safety.

  * * *

  As soon as Dembe gave the signal that the transmission had started, Red gave the thumbs up to the helicopter pilot and the blades started turning.

  The chopper’s cruising speed was two hundred and forty-three miles an hour. They had hopscotched after the convoy based on Aram’s updates, never letting it get more than five minutes away by chopper. Now they were less than ten miles away, less than three minutes in the air.

  They lifted off early to make sure there were no difficulties, and hovered fifty feet above the ground for two minutes, waiting so as to not arrive too soon. Then they went.

  The pilot was Bud Jasper, one of Red’s usuals. Ex-Army Airborne, he had absolute discretion, unflinching bravery, and a feather touch on the controls.

  Other than Jasper it was just Red and Dembe.

  A minute and a half into the flight, they caught sight of two other helicopters, skimming the prairie floor northwest of them, headed to the same location and maybe a minute behind them. One of them would be the FBI tactical team, the other Percival and his CIA.

  Chapter 79

  By now, the nine remaining players had some idea what to expect. The instant Corson said, “Now,” the group dispersed like a rack of billiard balls hit by a break shot. Keen took off running laterally away from the gate, toward the camera on the tripod.

  She took two steps then looked back over her shoulder, scanning the tableau from left to right.

  Okoye was stumbling backwards, wisely and intentionally it seemed, getting himself out of harm’s way. Dudayev ran straight for the gate along with several others. In a single motion, Boden grabbed the head of the man standing next to him and gave it a violent, wrenching twist. At the same time he lashed out with his leg and caught one of the other ringers in the throat. Before either of them hit the ground, he was off and running.

  Before she turned back to look where she was going, Keen saw one of the PMCs aiming his gun at her, but then Corson put his hand on the rifle and gently pushed it down. His face twisted into a smile as he watched her, and at the same time, a camera drone swooped past her head, then fell into position above and behind her, pacing her as she ran.

  Keen realized Corson was hoping she was making a run for it, hoping her bracelet would detonate and take her out in spectacular fashion.

  Hunching her shoulder to hide what she was doing from the camera drone, she reached into her bra and took out the TNT as she ran. She bent it between her fingertips until she felt a soft but satisfying snap.

  As she approached the camera, she slowed to a stop, as if having second thoughts about escaping. She bent slightly, pressing one hand against legitimately sore muscles in her side. The other hand she rested on the tripod as if to steady herself. She paused for a moment and faked a dry heave as she firmly affixed the now-activated TNT to the tripod.

  She turned to look back at Corson. His smile faded with the realization that her death would be put off, at least for a few minutes. But he showed no sign of suspicion about what she had done or what she was up to. She turned away from him, and, with new resolve, ran toward the gate.

  Chapter 80

  Ressler and Navabi exchanged a glance across the crowded confines of the FBI’s Black Hawk helicopter. Ressler looked almost nervous compared to the tactical agents on either side of him, but Navabi knew his agitation was due to his concern for Keen’s safety.

  For three hours they had all maintained the disciplined, Zen-like patience that was necessary to keep them from going crazy in the hours before battle, putting aside all the thoughts about what was at stake, who was in danger, and what they might face. But when word came that Keen had activated the TNT signal, they had scrambled—airborne in less than a minute, thanks to the pilot’s efforts to keep the bird ready to go at a moment’s notice.

  Now, for the past two minutes, they had been hovering essentially in place, waiting for the CIA team to rendezvous with them. They also didn’t want to arrive before the five minutes had passed. After three hours of patience, those two minutes had crawled by excruciatingly slowly.

  Navabi knew Ressler was chomping at the bit to get going. He wanted to hit the ground, hit the people responsible, and make sure Keen was safe. Navabi felt the same way.

  She hoped she showed it differently.

  Finally, the interminable wait was over. The CIA helicopter appeared behind them and identified themselves over the radio.

  With a slight lurch that felt wholly inadequate to the urgency of the moment, the helicopter surged forward.

  Chapter 81

  Keen could feel Corson watching her as she sprinted across the dusty ground toward the main gate. She didn’t look
at him, instead keeping her eyes straight ahead and her mind focused on the tasks at hand.

  She had activated the TNT, so theoretically it should be transmitting, and, again theoretically, the cavalry would be there in five minutes to shut everything down and sweep up everyone involved in the Dead Ring. But things had gone wrong a few times already, and everything working out as planned this time felt far from a certainty.

  She altered her course slightly to avoid the ominous metal box of cash, explosives, and sensitive triggering devices the PMCs had placed in front of the entrance.

  The gate opened onto a short stretch of road, flanked by tall fencing that formed a brightly lit corridor, twenty yards long, funneling entrants to the plant past a gatehouse. Keen was running flat out when she passed it, trying to catch up with the others, who all had a substantial head start over her.

  The guardhouse appeared to be empty, but the wall inside it was spattered with blood. Keen stopped and ran over. The guard was on the floor, dead. Her heart sank that the grim toll for this twisted game was already climbing again. She started to run on, but then she went around and entered the guardhouse, searched the dead guard and found his cell phone.

  She pressed the home button and a message came up saying, “FINGERPRINT NOT RECOGNIZED.” Looking down at the guard on the floor and his fingers splayed from his outstretched arms, she winced and said, “Sorry.”

  Chapter 82

  Aram had estimated that it would take no more than five minutes after the TNT transmission started for them to know the plan had worked. As it turned out, a little over two minutes had passed before the window popped up on his computer confirming it—the Trojan horse had been successfully processed into the video feed, and the infected computers were already starting to ping results.

  The logistics team had brought in a huge glass screen for this part of the process. It displayed a map of the world in soft gray, as if the glass had been frosted. When Aram announced they were in, all eyes in the room shifted to it. There was life or death action playing out on the smaller screens, but just for a moment, this was the center of attention.

  As they watched, a point of light appeared on the map, just outside Washington DC. Immediately, another one appeared in Los Angeles, then London. A light appeared in Istanbul, Turkey, and Aram felt a momentary satisfaction, thinking it was probably the computer belonging to Agent Sadek’s corrupt superior.

  The dam seemed to break after that, and lights began popping up in cities and remote locations across the planet—dozens of them, scores, hundreds—one for each of the now-infected computers reporting their IP address, physical location, and whatever else the Trojan horses were pulling from them.

  Wall seemed uncomfortable with people standing behind him, looking over his shoulder. He unplugged his laptop and took it across the room. Moments later, Beckoff retreated to the work area she had set up in the opposite corner of the room.

  Cooper gave Nichols the go-ahead, clearing the tac team to go in hot. Then he called Interpol, advising them to stand by for the torrent of data that they would then forward to the various appropriate law enforcement agencies around the world.

  Aram texted Reddington, then smiled as he dove into the task of interpreting the data that was coming in from all the infected computers, tabulating the information and sending it along to Interpol. In the back of his mind, he thought about how a lot of bad people were about to have a really bad day.

  Aram turned and glanced around the room behind him.

  In one corner, Beckoff was huddled over her computer, eyes widened in astonishment and delight as she monitored the intelligence data streaming in from the CIA’s Trojan horse.

  In the opposite corner, Simon Wall stifled a giggle as he watched his own computer with an oddly similar expression.

  But even in the fraction of a second as he took that in, Aram sensed something was not quite right on the map, and he turned his attention instantly back to it. The map was generously sprinkled with dots, all around the world, but his attention was focused on one of them in particular.

  “Look at that,” he said, turning to Cooper, who was still standing behind him. He zoomed in, then stood and pointed at one of the dots, almost on top of the location of the chemical plant. As the screen refreshed, the dot moved even closer.

  “What is that?” Cooper asked.

  Before Aram could answer, his cell phone buzzed. It was a number he didn’t recognize.

  “Hello?” he said, distant but polite, his attention still pinned to the dot on the screen.

  “Aram! It’s Keen!”

  Aram shot to his feet. “Agent Keen!” The room went silent and he put her on speaker. “It worked, Agent Keen! The tac team is on its way!”

  Cooper said, “Agent Keen—” but she cut him off.

  “Sorry,” she said, breathing hard as if she was running. “I don’t have much time, so just listen.” She told them about the bomb in the processing unit and asked Aram to look up the plant layout and tell her the location of the plant’s primary chemical reactor. “They also have us wearing tracking bracelets. They’re packed with explosives and set to go off if we try to leave, or try to remove them, or if the game is completed. I think they also have a remote control, so they can set them off at will. Can you hack into their system and deactivate them?”

  His heart plummeted. Maybe if he had an hour, even forty-five minutes. But the game wouldn’t last more than ten minutes, fifteen tops.

  “Gotta go. Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you…” he said, his voice hoarse and hollow in his ears.

  “Good.” Then she was gone. He felt overwhelmed by the likelihood that he would never speak to her again.

  The room was silent, everyone staring at him.

  “I… I don’t think I can do that,” he said, turning to Cooper. “Not in time. I mean, if I could get inside their system, I might be able to, but I have no idea where the bracelets are being controlled from. How to even access them.”

  Across the room, Wall stood up. “If they’re radio controlled, I can get you inside.”

  Chapter 83

  As the helicopter rocketed across the darkened desert, the scream of the engine and the percussive thrum of the rotors easily penetrated Red’s noise-canceling headphones. He was filled with a cold and deadly determination, calmly considering each element of what he expected to find when they arrived, and what he planned to do.

  Deep inside, he felt a smoldering rage at the world and everyone in it, including himself, for allowing Lizzie to be caught in her current situation. At the core of it was a tiny crystal of fear that she would not make it out, and that in large part it would be his fault. But he knew it was a fruitless line of thought just then. He needed to focus on what he planned to do to make sure the outcome was different.

  He was engrossed in that thought process, barely registering the small town they flew over in a flash, when Dembe turned to him and started silently mouthing words.

  Red had no idea what he was saying, and removing his headphones to hear better only served to let in the full assault of noise from the helicopter.

  He pointed to his ears, shaking his head, and Dembe took off his own headset and passed it to him.

  The headphones had remarkable noise canceling capabilities, and the outside noise once again faded away, but much less than his own had done. He realized some of the helicopter noise was coming through the speakers instead from the outside. Then Dembe held his hand up next to his head, mimicking a phone, and Red understood what was happening.

  “Hello?” he shouted into the microphone, struggling to make himself heard over the noise that his own microphone was picking up.

  “Mr. Reddington, it’s Aram.”

  “What is it, Aram?”

  Reddington listened, struggling to maintain his steely demeanor as Aram updated him about Lizzie’s predicament, about the bracelets and the explosives rigged to the processing unit.

  “I understand,” Redding
ton said. He realized now that his part in all this had become much more than personal. Everything was now riding on it.

  The lights of the plant appeared ahead of them, and in the foreground, barely visible without infrared, the matte black RV that served as the Dead Ring’s mobile control center. Their actual destination.

  It was parked on the side of the road that led to the plant. Two guards stood outside of it, both carried assault rifles and both faced the plant, watching. One of them flared in the infrared, then released a cloud of hot gas. He was smoking.

  The plant itself was massive, and Red felt another fault line weakening his implacable façade. A plant that size would go up in spectacular fashion, taking with it hundreds of workers, and very likely much of the nearby town. One more thing he would think about after it was all over, one way or another. At the moment, he needed a clear head and steady hands.

  He needed the same from his pilot. Bud Jasper was an artist with the joystick, who possessed an almost pathological lack of outward human emotion that gave him the steadiest hands in the business.

  Jasper held up his right hand with five fingers extended. Dembe turned and nodded in confirmation.

  As Jasper folded in his thumb, Red looked through the scope at the two figures standing outside the RV, taking in the details, rehearsing the muscle and eye movements.

  Jasper was holding up three fingers now. The helicopter was still moving at over two hundred miles an hour, making it hard to keep the two men in the scope, but as the helicopter drew closer, the figures grew larger. Reacquiring them grew easier.

  Two fingers. Red lined up the shot once again, went through the motions in his mind.

  One finger.

  Red took a deep breath and braced himself against the straps holding him in place. As Jasper pulled down his last finger, the helicopter came to a halt. Time seemed to stop as the helicopter hung for that moment, absolutely motionless in the air.