During the service, Clipper and Peters were both uncomfortable with the inactivity, but Peters, well known in the department for his aversion to wearing a uniform, seemed particularly uncomfortable. As they filed out after the service, he quickly peeled off to attend the Homeland Security daily briefing, and Clipper grinned inwardly at the thought that Peters had volunteered for the boring briefing just for the opportunity to get out of the hated uniform.
Members of the Sheriff’s Department had volunteered for traffic duty, freeing up Bangor officers so they could attend the funeral, and they had their hands full as the funeral procession, scores of marked police cruisers, vans, and motorcycles, stretched for more than a mile across the city to the Mount Hope Cemetery. Clipper managed to get to within a hundred yards of the grave site before abandoning his vehicle and proceeding on foot. All of his detectives were briefed to observe the crowd, and he suspected that Homeland Security also had agents in place, but Clipper still hung back, scanning faces and looking for anything out of place as the graveside service started.
Mount Hope is a beautiful old cemetery of some three hundred acres with graves dating back to 1834. It’s the second oldest garden cemetery in America and has aged into a peaceful field of marble and granite, dappled with the greens of twisted oaks and ancient moss situated on rolling hillsides that span both sides of a wide street that runs parallel to the river on the east side of the city. The Collins family plot was in one of the newer portions of the cemetery on the far side of the road, on flat land overlooked by the hills that rose along the river.
As the graveside service was closing, Clipper attention was caught not by suspect activity, but by the sudden stiffening of one of his men. A hundred feet away, Detective Allen Oaks was pulling a slim portable radio out of his jacket pocket while staring intently over Clipper’s head at the highest point on the grounds.
‘727, I got movement and maybe a gun on top of the hill’, Clipper heard on his own radio as he turned to look. Oaks continued, ‘Female, long blonde hair, and I think she’s got a rifle. She ducked back behind the trees.’
Without bothering to answer, Clipper whirled and pounded up the hill, weaving between tombstones, eyes locked on a small grove of old maples on the ridgeline. He dropped to his knees at the first tree, breathing heavily, the Kimber steady in his hand, but the hilltop was deserted. He stood and started forward, moving slowly now, eyes sweeping right and left across the tombstones down towards the river, when a glimpse of movement at the far end of the cemetery caught his eye. The tiny blonde figure stopped and looked back at the top of the hill, then lifted her fist in a brazen salute before hoisting herself over the low fence and disappearing.
Clipper called the incident into dispatch, requesting patrol to check the highway below, and was picking his way back down the hill when his cell phone chirped.
John Peters sounded stressed. “Clip, you might want to get over here. Things are heating up.”
Clipper got to Rick Fowler’s borrowed office at the Bangor’s Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building, just as the briefing was ending. The few local, county, and state officers who wanted to stay in the loop were filing out as Clipper and Janice got off the elevator. They entered the office to find John Peters huddled over a map with Fowler and Rebecca Sousy. Fowler glanced up with a silent raised eyebrow at Janice, but said only, “Glad you could make it. Two hours ago, we received a telephone bomb threat against this building scheduled for tonight.”
Clipper sighed. “Is it credible?” he asked.
Sousy glanced at her watch. “We’re starting a building search and evacuation now,” she said, “even though the caller specified nighttime.” Clipper nodded, realizing that the most effective bomb searches were those done with the participation of the supervisors and employees who were most familiar with the suspect areas. When the inside of the building was cleared and evacuated, it would be sealed. “What else?” he asked.
In answer, Fowler hit a switch on his desk, and played an audio recording. The voice was low and distorted, but recognizably male. ‘They are going to blow up the Bangor Federal Building tonight’, it said. ‘I can’t stop them’.
Clipper felt his hackles rise. He had listened to many taped bomb threats over the years, usually excited juvenile voices seeking a day’s relief from school, but this was different. Adult, measured, and coldly factual, the call sounded utterly authentic. “All right,” he said briskly, “Sergeant Peters will command our end. Anything you need from us, just ask. I’m going to brief my Chief and the City Manager, but I’ll be on the air,” he held up his portable radio, “and my cell, if you need me, and I’ll see you back here this evening.”
Clipper dropped Janice at home and drove to the station where he had the dispatcher set up a three-way call between his desk, Chief Norris, and the City Manager. Afterwards, with the notifications made and updates promised, Clipper called and briefed the oncoming PM and AM shift Patrol Commanders and got a list of sniper-qualified officers who would be working. Next, he put in a call to the department’s bomb squad supervisor, and finally he called the Fire Chief at home and brought him into the loop.
Knowing he had done all he could for the moment, Clipper headed home for some lunch. He’d just sat down when his cell phone sounded.
“They got another tip,” Peters said. “Sounded like a different guy and he said the Infidel Army’s moving a huge shipment of illegal weapons out of the area tonight, headed west.”
“Make sure we got people watching that camp,” Clipper said. “Stop and search any vehicle that comes out of there, and that includes any of those assholes you find out on patrol. How you doing over there?”
“Building’s empty and secure,” Peters said, “and between us and the Feds and the State, we got enough snipers and fancy equipment here to start World War Three.”
Thinking of the Washington Street ambush, Clipper said, “Make sure they think about counter-snipers. This could all just be another trap.” As the afternoon wore on, Clipper paced at home, and then at the police station and finally with Agent Fowler in the Federal Building command post. The Federal Building sat at the front of a large parking lot that backed onto the stream that ran through downtown Bangor. Fowler had commandeered a first and second floor apartment in a building that overlooked the site from some three hundred feet away on the uphill side, and police sniper teams commanded the heights on both sides of the stream.
Clipper and Fowler had spent an hour with the Federal Prosecutor, and federal warrants for the Infidel Army compound and vehicles were in the works, but now there was nothing to do but wait. To pass the time, Clipper studied the most recent logs of the traffic in and out of the Infidel Army camp. He noticed the seafood truck had been in and out twice in the past two days, but the overall amount of traffic seemed to be slowing, and there seemed to be more vehicles leaving then returning.
“Anything more on the weapons tip?” he asked Fowler.
“Not from this end, but something’s in the wind. There have been rumblings all over the Midwest for weeks about guns coming out of the East, and we’ve been hearing a lot more of them in the few days. We’ve got every cop in New England on the lookout for those black Ford pickups.”
Clipper nodded absently, still looking at the vehicle logs. Something had caught his eye, but he couldn’t pin it down.
Chapter 30
“Where the hell have you two been?” Kempton Dautry fixed Jennifer and Kashif with an iron stare. “You should have been here an hour ago.” The three were standing by Kashif’s car at the entrance to the abandoned gravel pit Dautry was using as a staging area. For two days, he had been quietly slipping the components of tonight’s operation out of the compound and bringing them here. Parked around the perimeter, mostly out of sight under leafy overhangs, was a pair of decrepit two-ton trucks whose battered aluminum sides bore the faded logo of the Atlas Seafood Company, and three of the black crew-cab Ford pickups.
Jennifer answered. “I needed
to buy some clothes and things, and I wanted to take a look at the cop’s funeral.” She licked her lips. “I should have had my rifle.”
Dautry fumed. Although the mid-day sun was warm, he looked cool and business-like in pressed jeans and a lightweight linen sports coat, but his anger was obvious.
“You both have critical parts in tonight’s operation,” he growled, “but the next time either one of you does anything other than what I tell you, I’ll replace you both. We’re too close to screw up now.”
Dautry paced back and forth for a moment, then shook off his anger and squatted down in the shade of the car. “Let’s go over it once more,” he said looking at Kashif. “At 2245 hours, Raymond’s teams hit the cell tower on Copeland Hill and the Bangor Standpipe radio repeater. At 2300 hours, you park the truck as close as you can to the Federal Building and command detonate it as soon as you’re clear. You’ll rendezvous with Larry Archer, and drive back here, as will Raymond and his men.” Dautry chuckled. “When that Federal Building comes down, they’re going to descend on the compound like locusts.” He grinned, envisioning the scene. “Neville and his boys will be waiting for them with firepower they can’t even imagine, and when they’re fully engaged, you and I and Raymond will lead the attack from the rear. When we’ve done all the damage we can, we disengage, come back here and pick up the weapons and disappear. With their commo down and their troops shot up, we’ll be long gone before they even realize we’ve left.”
Kashif’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Finally,” he said. “We’re going to make history today.”
“What about me?” asked Jennifer.
“You stick with me,” Dautry said. “We’ll reform here after the compound, and then you’ll go with Kashif. You two will leave last, acting as rear guard when we move the weapons.” Dautry stood and turned to his vehicle. “Now, everybody get some rest,” he said. “It’s going to be a long, and very interesting, night.” When Kashif and Jennifer were settled in her car, Dautry wandered over to Neville Fuller, and the two men had a long private discussion.
Later, Kashif left first, driving one of the seafood trucks. Fuller had done a last minute check on the explosive cargo, and handed him the detonator. “It’s hot,” the older man warned. “Got a half mile range.” Kashif started the truck and with a wave to Jennifer began the circuitous route that would take him into Bangor. As he drove out of the pit, Dautry walked over and stood beside Jennifer.
“He’s not coming back, is he,” she said evenly, more an acceptance than a question.
“Well, let’s just say, he’s expected,” Dautry said with a wintery smile. “He and the others back at the compound are providing the distraction we need to get these weapons out of here.” Dautry gestured at the remaining seafood truck. “Neville and Raymond in the truck, and you and I riding shotgun in the SUV, and by tomorrow this is all just a memory.”
“And where are we going?” Jennifer asked.
“We going west to meet the buyers of these weapons,” Dautry said, “and after that, the world is our oyster.”
Chapter 31
Kashif checked the volume control on his cell phone for the third time in as many minutes. He had the old seafood truck hidden in plain sight among several similar vehicles in the parking lot of one of Bangor’s largest seafood markets. He was two miles from the Federal Building, waiting for the signal that Raymond Dautry’s mission was underway and trying not to think of the hundreds of pounds of military explosives concealed in the back of the truck. The rank smell of rotting fish permeating the truck cab, meant to dissuade close inspection and confuse explosives-sniffing dogs, was making him sick, and his fingers drummed a nervous tattoo on the steering wheel. ‘Relax’, he chided himself. ‘You’re just parking a truck.’
At ten minutes to eleven, the call came. “Set,” said Raymond, disconnecting without waiting for a reply. Taking a deep breath, Kashif started the truck and dropped it in gear. He had no way of knowing, and no reason to even think that Raymond had made the call from his father’s side in the abandoned gravel pit.
John Peters, concealed near the south end of the Federal Building parking lot, saw the truck first. ‘711, we got a seafood truck coming up Harlow,’ he said into his walky-talky.
Clipper peered out his first floor window. It was a moonless night, but the street was well-lit and without traffic, so he had no problem spotting the slow-moving truck two blocks away. It stopped for red light and then continued, and Clipper could hear Fowler issuing an alert on the radio behind him. He watched as the truck continued past the Federal Building and signaled a left turn into a strip mall a block further on. Clipper knew the mall shared its back lot with the Federal Building. He ran for the door, yelling at Fowler as he passed. “That’s it. He’s going in the back way.”
Kashif idled slowly through the rough parking lot, driving behind the buildings adjacent to the Federal Building. He got the truck to within twenty yards of his target and pulled to a stop across two parking spaces at the left rear corner of the building.
As Kashif was guiding his truck through the back parking lots, a rented SUV pulled off the road and onto the grass alongside Union Street on Bangor’s west side. It stopped just twenty-two yards away from the largest of the three tanks that supplied jet fuel to Bangor International Airport.
BIA had started life in the 1920s as Godfrey Field, a small civilian airfield. From the early forties until the late sixties it was known as Dow Field, and was an active part of the Strategic Air Command network. In 1968, the field reverted to civilian ownership, and the City of Bangor fell heir to a large, sophisticated airport with all of the amenities, including a modern underground fueling system. Located on the airport perimeter were three large white tanks and a pumping station which fed the fuel to connection points on the aircraft ramps. Although enclosed behind heavy wire fences, the tanks were basically unguarded, subject to only sporadic security patrols.
A man got out of the passenger side of the SUV with a canvas satchel about the size of a child’s backpack, in his hands. He touched a device on its handle, and then, swinging it in a wide, looping arc, threw it over the fence. It was ten yards to the rim of the earthen containment ring, and only another twelve to the tank itself. The bag just made it, thumping against the base of the tank, and the man jumped back into the SUV which cut smoothly back into traffic and drove away.
Completely unaware of the trap he was in, Kashif climbed down from the truck and casually walked away, a small radio detonator in one hand and his Kalashnikov dangling from the other. He turned to his left and angled into the tree line that ran along the stream. It would take him a few blocks into the center of town where he was to meet Archer. Loping silently down the parking lot from the street, Clipper caught just a glimpse of Kashif as he vanished into the dense shadows.
Kashif had taken only a couple of steps into the trees when a voice spoke from the river bank: “Federal agents. Freeze.” He instantly threw himself to the ground and sprayed full automatic fire in the direction of the voice. Return fire clipped twigs over his head, and he squirmed backwards, continuing his own lethal barrage. He heard a heavy grunt from his front and, gambling that his target was down, jumped to his feet and ran down-stream.
When the shooting started in front of him, Clipper ran about thirty yards to his left along the back edge of the parking lot and then crouched down to listen. The gunfire stopped, and Clipper heard the sound of stealthy footsteps. He was waiting when Kashif stepped out of the shadows.
“Hold it right there,” Clipper said over the Kimber, rock-steady in a two-handed grip.
Caught looking the wrong way, Kashif stopped and then turned slowly.
“Drop the gun,” shouted Clipper.
Kashif smiled. “I don’t think so,” he said, holding up the detonator in his left hand and mashing the button.
Fifty yards away, a small red light blinked in the back of the seafood truck, and the charge, a quarter pound block of C-4 hidden among empty e
xplosives crates, detonated with a muffled thump that did little more than rock the truck on its springs. Clipper and Kashif were both staring, dumfounded at the truck when the sky to the west turned midday bright; a second later a terrible thunder rumbled through the night. An enormous fireball expanded into the sky, pulsing with secondary explosions and painting the stream bank in lurid shades of hell.
The bag at the base of the fuel tank was a simple device consisting of ten pounds of C-4 explosive, two AN-M14 thermite grenades, and a radio-powered command detonator. Its explosion was impressive, but lost a split second later in the detonation of tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel. The explosions of the two smaller tanks were almost anti-climactic.
Clipper glanced up for a split second, unable to resist the unholy light in the sky, and Kashif, his back to the distant spectacle, recovered first. The AK-47 fired, emptying its nearly spent magazine in a three round burst, and Clipper spun backwards, his Kimber torn from his grasp by the bullet that split its steel slide. With no place to hide, and hands numb from the impact of the bullet that had disarmed him, Clipper turned and faced his assailant as Kashif calmly snapped a new thirty-round magazine in place. He grinned as the bolt slammed into battery and braced the rifle at his hip, muzzle trained on Clipper’s chest as Kashif started to squeeze the trigger.
The shot sounded faint, as if from a distance, but the bullet’s effect was lethal. A black dot appeared at the bridge of Kashif’s nose, as blood, bone and brain sprayed out behind. His knees locked for a long second, and then, as if boneless, he dropped straight down to the ground.
“Drop the gun.” Clipper turned at the shout behind him and then blinked, unable to believe his eyes. A hundred feet away under a streetlight, Amos Moon stood grinning and nodding. He was clutching an ancient .30-40 Kraig rifle with a battered military stock and open sights. Twenty feet further back, John Peters crouched in a combat stance covering him with his 9mm. Moon lowered the rifle and turned to grin at Peters, nodding placidly. Then he turned back, and Clipper stood bemused as he shuffled over and stood looking down at Kashif‘s corpse. “Knew he was a bad’un,” he said nodding somberly. Then he brightened and held up his old rifle. “Still shoots pretty good, don’t she?” he said.
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