“Thanks, but we’ve got transportation covered.”
The man smiled but there was no humor in it. “It wasn’t an offer. It was an order. Admiral Ward’s orders.”
“I don’t take orders from Admiral Ward,” Queen retorted. “Or you. And you don’t have the legal authority to arrest me—not here on Canadian soil. Now, I don’t want this to get any uglier, so why don’t you get back on your whirlybird and tell Admiral Ward where he can shove it.”
The man seemed genuinely surprised by her reaction. “Uh, I’m sorry. I think maybe we need to take a step back. I know all about your status. In fact, I might know more about it than you do.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“The Admiral could have rolled you up any time he wanted, but he didn’t because you were far more valuable as a rogue element. Hell, he even called you our secret weapon.”
Queen shook her head. “So…what? You’re drafting us?”
The second man gave another snort of laughter. “That’s funny. You know, ’cause this is Canada, and you’re like draft dodgers.”
“Don’t mind him,” the first man said, quickly. “His filter doesn’t work.”
“Yeah, we’ve got one of those.”
“Love you too, babe,” Rook said in her ear.
“But you’re right,” the man with the flashlight continued. “You’re being drafted. Recalled to active duty. Call it what you want. Your country needs you.” He gave her a long hard look. “The impression I got from the Admiral was that you would be down with this.”
“Sorry you came all this way for nothing. I don’t accept rides from strangers.”
The man was taken aback for a moment. “Is that the problem? Why didn’t you just say so?”
He raised his hands in a fair imitation of her own subservient pose and slowly began walking toward her. Queen tensed, ready to drop her arms and go for her rifle, but the man made no threatening moves. As he got closer, she was able to get a better sense of his size—he stood about five-ten, but was broadly built. She guessed that under his camouflage shell, he had the physique of a body builder. He stopped about three paces away and extended his hand.
“Master Chief Petty Officer Stefan Yehle.”
“Master Chief?” She raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said you were Army?”
“TAD’d to Delta. You know how it works at JSOC. Your branch ain’t as important as your skills.”
“You’re an operator? A SEAL?”
“That’s right. Recruited into a special unit that Admiral Ward created. My handle is ‘King.’” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to his companion. “That’s my boy ‘Bishop.’ We’re the Chess Team.” Then Yehle grinned. “Just like you.”
Queen stared back, dumbfounded for a moment. “The fuck you are.”
7
Ashburn, Virginia
The wave slammed the already dazed King into something hard and held him there. He was pinned momentarily by the crushing weight of so much water. Then, just as quickly, the weight was gone, and King crashed down into a mass of soggy cardboard. He raised his head and found Bishop, a few feet away, still stunned by the crash and its watery aftermath. All around them, the frame of the pallet rack rose like the bars of a protective cage. It had prevented the rushing flood waters from sweeping them away. If they didn’t get moving though, it would become a different kind of cage—a snare trap to keep them immobilized until the shooters recovered from the deluge.
“Bish!” he shouted. “Still with me?”
She raised her head, shook it and then flashed him a thumb’s up gesture.
His mind turned to the threat. There was little doubt in his mind that their attackers were Russians, and they almost certainly possessed military training.
There might have been an innocent explanation for the contents of the warehouse. Maybe Genrikh Ludvig, the mysterious CEO of the shell company had a soft spot for international military memorabilia and had gotten an insane wholesale bulk deal on Russian Army field rations. Maybe he was so paranoid about protecting his stash that he not only lied about the purpose of the building but also hired mercenaries armed with submachine guns to protect it. It was possible. Anything was possible, but King knew from experience that the simplest interpretation was usually the correct one.
The simple solution to the puzzle was that the Russians had established a military supply depot thirty miles from America’s capital city.
The men guarding the cache were almost certainly Spetsnaz—Russian special forces. Russian rations, Russian soldiers. Hell, even the names, TSAR and Genrikh Ludvig, reinforced the Russian connection. Russia, or some faction within its military or political leadership, was setting the stage for an invasion of the United States.
And Julie?
That was the part that defied a simple explanation. It was the piece of the puzzle that did not quite seem to fit, and yet it was the very piece that had led them here.
He shook his head. The answer wasn’t going to magically appear in the air. He gripped the frame of the rack and hauled himself up high enough to peek over the top.
The surrounding area looked like the aftermath of a hurricane. Although the rows of pallet racks behind them were untouched, a foot of standing water covered the floor in all directions. The vertical water tanks had been scattered like bowling pins. And toppling them had triggered a domino effect across the rest of the warehouse, almost completely obliterating whatever had occupied the rest of the floor space.
He put a hand to his ear, checking to make sure that his Bluetooth was still there. Miraculously, it was. “Blue, you still with us?”
Deep Blue’s relieved voice came back. “I’m here, King.”
“We need an exit.”
“The front entrance is in the middle of the north wall. I can only assume it’s not fake like the fire doors, but there’s no way to tell from here. I wish I could be more helpful, but the blueprints on file are crap. You might be better off heading back to the roof and rappelling down.”
King gave the immediate area a quick once over. “That ship has sailed. We lost our rope.”
“And my grappling hook,” Bishop added. “My big brother thought it would be good idea to use it to demolish everything.”
“You destroyed an entire warehouse with a grappling hook?” Deep Blue’s tone was a mix of incredulity and awe. “What do you think this is, a Matthew Reilly novel?”
“Whether we make it out of here or not, wrecking this place was a good idea. Someone was planning to use it as a staging area for an invasion.” He drew the pistol from his belt and replaced the empty magazine, then turned to Bishop. “You ready?”
She ejected the magazine from her pistol, inspected it and then slotted it back into the grip. “Ready.”
King clambered over the twisted wreckage of the pallet rack and dropped down into the water, the pistol extended in a two-handed grip ahead of him. There had been no sign of life in the flooded ruins of the warehouse, but he wasn’t naïve enough to believe that the shooters had all been incapacitated by the destruction of the water tanks. They were still out there, and if they were Spetsnaz soldiers, as he believed, they would never give up.
He oriented himself toward the north wall and began advancing, leading with the suppressed pistol but checking every direction, slicing the pie at every blind corner. Fifty yards out, he spied what appeared to be an alcove, blocked off by a section of chain-link fence. It was presumably erected as an internal security barrier.
“There’s our way out.” He splashed forward with equal measures of urgency and caution. There was a reason the warehouse exits had all been blocked off. The entrance was a chokepoint. If the shooters were going to hit them, it would happen there.
They covered the intervening distance in several short bursts, one person moving while the other provided cover. When he reached the chain-link, King took out his Gerber Diesel multi-plier and used the wire-cutter to clip away several links, opening
a hole big enough to crawl through. Beyond the fence lay a narrow corridor. The far end of it was cloaked in shadows. King took a step back, positioning himself so he could watch both the corridor and most of the warehouse. “Bishop, go.”
She broke from cover and darted forward, barely pausing to duck through the hole he had cut. At that instant, gun fire erupted from the dark corridor. A few of the bullets rattled the chain-link above Bishop, but most passed through without making contact. King stabbed his pistol through the net-like wire mesh and squeezed the trigger, pumping several rounds in the direction of the unseen attackers. He changed his aimpoint with each shot, concentrating his fire along the walls a foot or two above the standing water—right where he would have positioned himself. Bishop squirmed the rest of the way through, then took a breath and plunged under the water, disappearing from sight. King fired a few more shots, higher this time, then pulled back, removing himself from the line of fire. Whatever Bishop was up to, she would be able to do it a lot more effectively without him firing blindly down the hallway.
Even as he turned away, he glimpsed movement from out of the flooded depths of the warehouse. Three men emerged from behind the wreckage of the water tanks, their guns already homing in on his position. He ducked low and returned fire without aiming. The men sought cover but kept up the barrage of lead. Their machine-pistols emitted a harsh buzz-saw sound with each burst. Given the distance separating them, there wasn’t much chance of anyone hitting their intended target. King’s intention was to make sure that the gap between them remained unchanged.
A few seconds later, Bishop’s voice sounded in his ear. “All clear.”
It was the signal he’d been waiting for. He ducked through the fence and splashed down the hallway at a full run. Bishop was waiting at a turn in the corridor. She had traded her suppressed SIG for a PP-2000 machine-pistol. The Russian-made sub-gun, with its distinctive angular trigger-guard/forward grip combination, was a favorite of the Spetsnaz. That was what he assumed the man floating face down in the water a few feet away had been, up until his first and only close encounter with Bishop.
“Nice work,” King said. “Any more?”
“I do not think so.”
“Three behind me. Time to go.” King rounded the corner leading with his pistol. The bare concrete walls to either side were purely utilitarian. He had been in sewer tunnels with more aesthetic appeal. The corridor continued along for about fifty feet then made another turn, ending at a closed metal door. The hinges indicated that it swung out, but the pressure of so much water had jammed the latch bolt against the strike plate so tightly that it refused to budge. Recognizing that trying to force it open would be futile, King took aim with his pistol.
“Brace yourself,” he told Bishop, and then fired.
The .45 caliber round split the latch mechanism apart, and the door burst open, propelled by a thousand tons of water. The outrushing water swept both King and Bishop off their feet and carried them through the opening like so much flotsam in the current. The outpouring lasted only a few seconds, as the water dispersed throughout a large deserted room that was probably intended to serve as a reception lobby. Large panes of tinted privacy glass comprised the exterior wall, and right in the middle of it was a glass door, likewise tinted to prevent anyone outside from looking in. King fired into one of the lowest panes, shattering the glass and triggering yet another outpouring. As the current caught hold of him, he curled up in a fetal ball and let himself be carried through the opening and outside the fortified warehouse.
Even before the water dispersed into a thin sheen on the asphalt parking lot, King and Bishop were on their feet and sprinting out ahead of the diminishing flood. They were a good seventy-five yards away before they heard the report of a machine-pistol behind them.
King didn’t return fire and didn’t look back, but he did alter his course by a few degrees, zig-zagging to make himself that much harder to track. There was the possibility that he would blindly veer into the path of a bullet, but that risk was no greater than if he simply kept running in a straight line.
Ahead of him, Bishop reached the perimeter and bounded over the landscaped border, out into the street. King realized the shooting had stopped, but he made a few more random course changes before lowering his head and pouring on a burst of speed to catch up with his sister.
Bishop reached the SUV first and went immediately to the driver’s door. Before getting in on the other side, King looked back and saw a single man running down the street toward them, gun held out in front of him but not firing. King considered taking a shot at the guy, but at that moment, the engine turned over and the vehicle gave a slight lurch, as Bishop shifted into drive. Dismissing the gunman, King slid into the passenger seat. It was only as they pulled away and he glimpsed the man in the rearview mirror, speaking into a walkie-talkie, that he realized why the man had been alone.
“Damn it. We’re gonna have company.”
8
Bishop navigated out of the industrial park and followed the signs to State Route 28, heading south, following the primary exit route they had chosen when planning the op. King had not directed otherwise, and until he did, she was going to continue as if nothing had changed.
Except everything had changed.
She had gone into the TSAR Data Solutions warehouse with low expectations. Maybe King would have found some clue to the identity of the woman he claimed looked exactly like their sister. Maybe he wouldn’t have. Neither outcome would have made much of a difference, as far as she was concerned. But finding a Russian military supply depot on the cusp of the D.C. metro area was on a different order of magnitude from her expectations.
Strangely, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of admiration for her former comrades-in-arms. Russia would always be her mother, and while she felt no loyalty to its current political leader and his empire-building ambitions, establishing a forward supply depot on American soil was a bold move. Impressive. But it was also enemy action, and she could not ignore that. America was her home now.
Part of her wanted to believe that the supply depot was merely some kind of holdover from the Cold War, a precautionary measure, just like the nuclear arms race. A preparation made in hopes of preventing a war rather than triggering one. But the warehouse was a new structure, the rations no more than two years old, and the men guarding it… No, it wasn’t some leftover from a different time, and it wasn’t intended as a last resort. Russia was preparing for war with the United States. The warehouse was a powder keg, and the mere discovery of it might be enough to light the fuse.
In her brief time with the Chess Team, she had fought many strange creatures, but total war was a very different kind of beast. If it was unleashed, not even Jack Sigler would be able to stop it.
“King, this is Blue. What’s your status?”
The transmission pulled Bishop’s focus back to the moment. They were heading south on Route 28. Unless King called an audible, in about five minutes they would arrive at Dulles International Airport, where they would drop off the rental and board a flight to Atlanta.
That had been the plan. Was it still?
She glanced over at King, who had not yet replied to Deep Blue. He was looking into the mirror, watching the road behind them.
“King?” Deep Blue said. “Bishop? You guys still with me?”
Bishop waited a moment to see if her brother would speak, before replying. “We’re clear.”
“We’re not clear,” King said abruptly. “We made it out, but not clean.”
Bishop checked her mirrors but all she could see were innumerable headlights. On the busy highway, it was impossible to tell if anyone was following them. “You think we have shadow?” she asked King.
“I’m sure of it. What we saw tonight? They absolutely cannot let us just walk away.” He tapped his fingers on the dashboard. “Screw the airport. Take 267 east.”
Bishop kept her gaze on the road ahead. She didn’t know the Virginia roads as
well as King, who had grown up in the state, but she knew that 267, was a major artery connecting Washington, D.C with points west, including the airport. “Just let me know where to turn.”
“You’re going to Washington?” Deep Blue asked.
“If those guys follow us into the airport, things will get ugly. They won’t hesitate to shoot the place up, just to get us. A lot of innocent people might get hurt.” He paused a beat, then said. “The exit’s about a mile from here. Blue, if you can, access the traffic cams. See who else makes the exit with us. Maybe we can figure out who our shadow is.”
“And you’ll have plenty of road to shake them off.”
“I don’t want to shake them off. I’ve got a better idea.”
“You’re the King,” Deep Blue said. “Okay, I’ve got the camera feeds up… You just passed one. I’m tagging all the vehicles that pass in the next minute. When you’ve got a second, I need to update you on what’s happened up north.”
Bishop’s breath caught in her throat. With no reliable satellite coverage in the Arctic Circle, she had anticipated that it would be another day or two before they heard what, if anything, had happened at the Alert black site. She couldn’t contain herself. “Did they find Thomas? What’s wrong?”
To everyone else in the team, Tom Duncan was still Deep Blue or even Mr. President, but her relationship with him was different. She had met him after his resignation from office, and she had become his friend long before joining the Chess Team. She secretly hoped that someday they might be more than friends, which was why wasting time chasing after Julie Sigler’s ghost rankled her.
She was grateful when King said, “Now’s as good a time as any. Let’s have it. Bad news first.”
Empire (A Jack Sigler Thriller Book 8) Page 7