He kicked open the driver side door and peered out to the rear. One of the escort vehicles was stopped, blocking the road, emergency lights flickering.
And four men were advancing, weapons drawn.
He squeezed off three quick rounds, the first two men dropping, the third round missing as the remaining two dove out of the way. Gunfire began to ricochet off the SUV from the front and rear. Kane ducked back inside and yanked the passenger’s body from its crumpled position on the roof, now floor, and shoved him into the windshield, affording them a little bit of protection from the bullets.
A hole in the windshield gave him a limited view, four men advancing, firing steadily. He aimed through the hole and took one of them out, the other three scattering.
Three down, five to go.
“Are you okay?” he asked Fang as he poked his head into the backseat, firing off another round through the rear windshield.
Four down.
Sirens sounded heard in the distance and he had no way of knowing whether or not it was police, fire, ambulance or more bad guys on their way. All he knew was he had little time left to play.
“Answer me!”
“I’m—I’m sleepy.”
“Stay awake! It sounds like you’ve got a concussion.”
He grabbed the second Glock from Fang, making sure both weapons were fully loaded.
“I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?”
“Hopefully not off to die for my country.”
He rolled out the driver side, arms extended to either side, both triggers squeezing, his aim focused on the lone gunman remaining behind them. Eliminating him meant he only had to worry about being attacked from one side.
His aim was true, allowing him to continue his roll, spreading his legs out so he ended up lying on the ground, arms stretched out in front of him as both guns belched death toward the remaining three assailants.
Another went down, a shot to the shoulder spinning him twice before crumpling to the ground. Kane turned his head to the left, ducking as a bullet ricocheted off the pavement only feet away sending shards of rock into the top of his right shoulder. He winced but kept firing, looking back quickly to make sure he was aiming.
Another was down, then the final one was out of ammo, frantically trying to reload. Kane jumped to his feet, both guns aimed at the sole survivor, the man dropping his weapon, his hands slowly rising.
“Who sent you?”
“I told you, the Military Stewardship Council.”
“Bullshit. You’re not military. You’re what, Raven?”
The man’s eyes flared for a moment.
“Thought so. Who do you report to?”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
The sirens were getting close now and he didn’t have much time.
Kane shot him in the right thigh. The man cried out in pain, both hands grabbing at the wound as he collapsed to the ground.
“I don’t have time to interrogate you properly, or legally. But then again, since we’re under martial law back home, I guess we don’t have to play by the rules anymore.” He stepped closer. “Want to talk now?”
“Go to hell!” the man spat, the pain clearly almost overwhelming.
Kane shot him in the shoulder, the impact throwing the man onto his back, his entire body racked in pain. “Care to talk now?”
“Booker! It’s Booker! Jesus Christ don’t shoot me again!”
Kane straddled the man. “Colonel Booker?”
“Y-yes.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He put a bullet through the man’s head then returned to the SUV, pulling a still groggy Fang from the vehicle. Traffic in their direction was completely stopped, but the other side, the side they had originally been on, was still moving, though the looky-loos had it down to a crawl.
He slung Fang’s arm over his shoulder and half-carried, half-dragged her to the meridian. He pointed his gun at the closest car, its driver slamming on the brakes, raising his hands.
“No, not that one,” gasped Fang.
Kane’s eyes narrowed. “Why not?”
“Look,” she said, pointing at the hood ornament. Kane frowned at the leaping jaguar, flicking the gun, indicating the driver should move on, the man relieved as he hit the gas in his Jaguar XK-8 cabriolet. Fang stood up straighter, her strength apparently returning slightly. “Even in China we know shit cars when we see them.”
Kane laughed and brought a Toyota to a stop, looking at Fang for her approval. She gave a thumbs up then passed out.
Hatfield Gate, Fort Myer, Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall (JBM-HH), Arlington, Virginia
Agent Sherrie White ached all over. Even the parts of her body that hadn’t been beaten were sore in sympathy with the parts that had. Her nose was broken, her lips split and she was certain several ribs were cracked, it painful to breathe.
But she persevered.
Barely.
Her will was starting to break. She had no clue how long she had been kept here, time meaningless in a closed room with no clock. She just knew from how exhausted she was it must have been at least two days, but she couldn’t be sure.
How much can any one person take?
She wanted to cry, to weep, but she knew that damned camera in the corner was recording everything, and her adversaries were watching her every move. So she refused to give them the satisfaction, keeping her jaw square, her eyes clear, fixed on the lens, glaring her weakening defiance back at them.
The red light was like the eye of a beast, unblinking, unwavering, keeping its constant vigil, ensuring her torture, her pain, never ceased. If her eyes closed, someone entered the room to wake her up, if she slumped over in her chair someone would come inside and pull her head back and smack her awake.
I’m so tired.
She thought about the questions. They obviously knew she wasn’t who she said she was. They had suggested she was CIA, but it was clear they didn’t truly know. Why not tell them the truth? Or at least a version of the truth. She was dead anyway. There was no way they could let her go after what they had done to her. Now it was just a delaying action. The longer she was alive, the more chance there was that her colleagues could rescue her. But the fact they hadn’t done so yet made her think they had no idea she was alive, her decoy obviously having fooled them.
Poor Chris!
Her heart broke as she thought of him, all alone, crying, thinking she was dead. She just prayed that he had found enough confidence in himself that he could move on and find someone else to love, who would love him just half as much as she did. A tear rolled down her cheek as she pictured him old and alone, a broken man, because he had recessed into the cocoon he had once occupied before they had met.
The door opened.
“Something upsetting you?”
It was the man who had been doing most of the beating. She had no idea what his name was, but his face was forever burned into her memory, and if she were to ever survive this ordeal, she’d kill him the first opportunity she had.
Slowly.
Painfully.
“Tears of joy.”
“She speaks!” he said, throwing his arms wide and looking up at the ceiling in mock shock. “And just what are these tears of joy for?”
“I was just thinking about how I was going to kill you.”
His smile broadened as he stood in front of her. “Missy, I’d love for you and me to go at it, one on one.” He stepped closer, his crotch uncomfortably close to her face as he stared down at her, his finger tracing down her right cheek toward her mouth. “Ooh, how I’d love to go one on one with you.” He stepped back then shrugged. “But, you’re to be executed for treason soon so I guess we’ll never have that chance.”
She smiled, her cracked lips screaming in protest. “I guess that means I win.”
A stinging smack was her reward, then she was left alone again. She stared at the camera, the light blinking randomly. Her eyes narrow
ed slightly as she tried to focus, then her heart leapt as she realized it was blinking in a pattern.
Morse code!
I-T-S-C-H-R-I-S
W-E-A-R-E-C-O-M-I-N-G-S-O-O-N
The message repeated twice then went back to the steady red light that had kept watch over her through her torture.
A torture forgotten.
He knows I’m alive!
The White House, Washington, DC
Mohammed Islam sat at his computer, keeping his head down as he had for the past two weeks. Cursed with a name that he would shout with pride in his birth country of Syria, here it was a curse, especially with recent events. His co-workers no longer invited him for lunch, ignored him in the hallways, and he could hear whispers behind his back. Even some people who he knew were Muslim wouldn’t speak to him, their names mercifully less obviously Islamic.
He was alone.
And scared, especially now with the military in charge. He knew it was only a matter of time before he’d be rounded up. This was the Holocaust all over again. He found it ironic since so many of his fellow Muslims were Holocaust deniers, even he when he was younger calling it a hoax perpetrated by the Zionist infidel to justify their occupation of the Holy Lands, but when he had moved to America he had seen enough proof to realize it had actually happened.
And with the fury in the streets of his adopted homeland, he wondered if roundups were merely the beginning. Muslims were dying left, right and center and nobody seemed to care. He had already ordered his wife and children to stay at home and not open the door to anyone who wasn’t Muslim, nor to go outside for any reason. Fortunately they had good neighbors who knew them and were not Muslim who were providing them with groceries to keep them fed. One family had even offered to let them stay with them to be safe.
It had warmed his heart as he realized not all were buying into the insanity that all Muslims were evil killers.
His wife had begged him not to go to work, but he had insisted, fearing that should he not report it might be suspicious, but it was the most terrifying decision he made every morning, and now with General Thorne taking to the airwaves every few hours announcing more and more restrictions, he was certain he had made the wrong choice.
“Fadi Hosein, please report to personnel immediately.”
The announcements had been coming all morning, starting with a friend of his whose last name was Abdullah. And now they were up to ‘H’. And every name announced sounded foreign. A few Middle Eastern Christians had returned from these calls along with one Muslim who had looked at him with the first expression of pure terror he had ever seen in person. The only other time he had seen terror like that was on the poor Iraqi Yazidi girl’s face inside the evacuation helicopter that CNN had covered.
That was genuine fear.
He had felt it in his homeland, Assad’s troops none too friendly to his Sunni village, but the fear in her eyes had brought tears to his.
And when his friend had walked by he had almost vomited, the fear quickly shared.
He knew his name could be next.
And it terrified him to his core.
He rose, locking his computer, then walked out of the cubicle jungle and into the hallway. He casually made his way to the bathroom, relieved himself, then performed his required ablutions. Taking a deep breath he stepped back into the hall and walked with purpose toward the employee entrance and the outer parking lot where his car was.
He smiled at the guards, waving his pass over the scanner, relieved to see a green light appear, then went through the bullet proof glass doors and out into the midday sun. Its warmth was welcome, the cold stares he had encountered in the few minutes away from his desk disturbing.
As the doors closed behind him the PA sounded again and he could just make out his name being called.
His heart nearly froze in his chest, the world slowly closing in around him. He willed himself forward, his Ford Fiesta within sight.
“If you want to fit in, buy American!”
It was something one of his friends had told him when he first arrived in America. It was good advice that he had never regretted following, choosing Ford from the beginning, never deviating. He pressed the button on his fob and the doors unlocked as he heard shouts behind him. He resisted the urge to look as someone yelled, “Hey, you! Stop!”
Climbing into his car he started the engine and pulled out, ignoring the seatbelt warning light as he put the car into drive and hit the gas. His rearview mirror was filled with half a dozen uniformed Secret Service officers chasing him and he began to cry, the tears rolling down his cheeks as he realized his life as he knew it was over, his job about to be taken away from him, his livelihood gone, his family destroyed.
All because of his religion.
And he felt a hint of guilt, a hint of the wheel coming around as he had remained silent during all the years of terror his religion had inflicted on the religious minorities of Asia and Africa, and suddenly he knew how it must feel to be a Jew surrounded by millions of people who wanted you dead.
And he vowed if he survived this to be a beacon of change.
He considered himself a moderate, part of the silent majority of Muslims in the West who wanted to live in peace, even talking at times with his friends, also moderates, that Islam needed its own Reformation, its own Enlightenment, otherwise the world was doomed to eternal war, a war which he couldn’t see any side winning.
Islam needed its own Martin Luther, its own Francis Bacon.
He had no idea how it could happen though, what with there being no overarching leader within Islam. Catholicism had the Pope, and most if not all Christian offshoots had a hierarchy with an ultimate leader at the head of each Church.
But not Islam. Anyone could declare themselves an Imam; it was only limited by how many followers you could garner.
And now as he drove toward the main gate, his foot getting heavier and heavier on the gas pedal, the guards still chasing him, he realized that he had committed to a course of action there was no returning from, and as tears of self-pity flowed down his cheeks he couldn’t help but wonder if his new country, in its panic, had done the same thing.
Two armed guards with submachine guns took up position in front of him as he approached the gate and he felt his heart slam against his chest, the palpitations of adrenaline fueled panic overwhelming any reason he might have.
Then he looked at the photo of his family stuck to the dash.
And he slammed on his brakes.
He was immediately surrounded, guns pointed at his head as his shaking hands turned off the car then unlocked the doors. Hands reached in, hauling him out and onto the pavement, and as he looked up at one of the guards, pleading for forgiveness, he was hit in the head with the butt of a rifle, the world quickly fading to black as he thanked Allah for giving him the strength to persevere, if only for a few more hours.
Entering US Airspace, off the coast of California
Lee Fang yawned then stretched like a Cheshire cat. She opened her eyes, sitting up quickly as she realized she had no idea where she was.
A plane?
Dylan Kane sat across from her, grinning. “Sleep well?”
She nodded and instantly regretted it, her head throbbing in protest. He motioned toward where her hand was gingerly touching.
“You took quite the blow to the head. You’ve been out for hours.”
She looked around, careful not to turn her head too quickly. “Where are we?”
“Rendition flight, arranged by a buddy of mine. I’ve got some people we can trust meeting us so we should be okay.”
“What’s been happening?”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.” He pointed at his laptop perched on the table between them, the Gulfstream V Turbo they were on clearly set up for comfort rather than utility. She had never seen such opulence in an airplane.
And this is a CIA plane?
She had heard of Rendition Flights before. They were a stand
ard way governments exchanged prisoners and were legal. The problem was most governments also had Extraordinary Rendition Flights, which were illegal under international law. They were used to transport the worst of the worst in the war against terror and were silently tolerated by necessary ports of call. Guantanamo Bay at its peak held a large contingent of prisoners brought in on planes like these.
And now here she was, a pariah in her own homeland, wanted for treason by her former colleagues, heading into an America that wanted to return her to stand trial, in the company of a man who was so casual yet capable, she didn’t know what to make of him.
But so far he had kept his word.
But for how long?
He spun the laptop. “General Thorne has issued a list of decrees that are being broadcast on every station in the United States.”
“You don’t look happy.”
Kane shook his head. “We’ve lost our country and the people don’t even know it.” He motioned at the screen. “He’s declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew. Violators will be arrested, and if found outside without a valid reason, imprisoned without trial. All Muslim non-citizens are to report to repatriation centers across the country. Military transports will take them to Turkey which has agreed to act as middleman—under some sort of threat, I’m sure.”
“That’s horrible! Most of those people are innocent.”
“The vast majority are. But whoever is behind this has created panic. Polling is showing these decrees are hugely popular. And get this, all Muslims have been ordered to report to their place of worship by the end of today, where they will be locked down and compared to membership rolls. All properly identified will then be moved into school and university campus facilities under guard. Those not identified will be deported, and those missing will have warrants issued for their arrest.” Kane looked at Fang. “Thorne wants every Muslim in the United States either deported or behind bars. It’s incredible!”
“How many Muslims are there in your country?”
Kane shook his head. “That’s not my country anymore.” He sighed. “There’s almost three million Muslims. I don’t know how he plans on doing it in any civilized manner. When we interned the Japanese during World War Two there were barely one hundred thousand of them. We’re talking thirty times that. There’s only one time in history where this many have been gathered up.”
Death to America (A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller, Book #4) Page 16