by Sam Fisher
For a moment there was only silence at the end of the line. 'Roger that, Josh. We've been trying to clear it but it's chaos down there. Leave it with me a minute. Out.'
'This is a designated emergency scene. Exit the aircraft with your hands up,' came the radio transmission again.
Josh looked out through the canopy. The building was a complete mess. Fires were still raging inside, flames licking up the exterior walls. There were bodies strewn everywhere, ripped asunder by the powerful blasts and thrown around like rag dolls. Outside the building stood a dozen fire trucks and at least another dozen patrol cars. But only a few figures were moving around. Josh realised the shooter must have had them pinned down.
'This is Silverback 4,' he said into the mic, transmitting the message to the sender of the police message and through speakers on the outside of the plane. 'I'm supposed to have clearance. I'm here to help.'
Silence the other end. Silence from Base One.
Josh flicked off the mic and swore loudly.
'There has been no official clearance for your aircraft. I repeat, this is a designated emergency scene. Exit the aircraft with your hands up,' came the police response.
Josh looked through the canopy and saw four officers approaching, sweeping their guns in front of them. Others were out of the patrol cars and leaning over the roofs of their vehicles to provide cover. One group kept their guns trained on the roof of the gas station. The rest were pointed at the Silverback.
'Mark?' Josh said, his voice betraying his growing exasperation. 'I need help here . . .'
'We're working on it, Josh. Bear with us.'
Josh knew he could simply sit tight. Nothing the LAPD could offer would so much as scratch the Silverback. But he had come here to do a job and he was being thwarted – by red tape, for Christ's sake!
'I'm going out there,' Josh announced to Base One.
'No, Josh. Don't do that –'
But Josh switched off his comms and was pulling off the helmet again. His finger hovered for a moment over the virtual keyboard, and after a second of indecision he unlocked the canopy and let it slowly pivot upwards.
Outside, the four cops stopped advancing and crouched down. They kept their weapons trained on Josh as he lifted himself free of the craft and began to back down the steps from the cockpit. Reaching the ground, he turned slowly with his arms raised. Two of the cops ran forward, grabbed his wrists and pulled restraining plastic strips around them. They led him to the nearest patrol car.
After telling his captors his name and purpose, Josh decided to say nothing more. The fire trucks were emptying now. Hoses were pulled into action as the fire crews dashed into the building. Two policemen ran over to the youths who had been gunned down just inside the concourse. Captain James McNally covered the bodies of his colleagues as they lay side by side close to the wall of the CCC. Then he joined the remainder of Fire Station 9 inside the building.
Josh was bundled into a patrol car and watched over by a single cop, a young man who looked like a scared rabbit. His blue shirt was soaked with perspiration. They were sitting in the front of the car and the cop had his gun level with Josh's left temple. The cop's hands were shaking.
Josh was growing increasingly concerned. But his concern was tempered with frustration. We're all on the same side, he kept telling himself. He was about to say something to the young cop when he saw another policeman approach the patrol car. By the look of the stripes on his sleeves, he was a senior officer. He ordered the rookie to go into the CCC.
'You're Josh Thompson,' the cop said.
'I believe so.'
'You're part of something called E-Force.'
'Correct.'
'What are you doing here? You can understand we're a little anxious.'
'If you know my name and where I'm from, I don't need to answer that.'
The cop sighed. 'Humour me.'
'Two more vehicles will be here soon, carrying my colleagues and specialised equipment,' Josh said. 'Our task is to rescue Senator Kyle Foreman, who we believe to be alive inside the building.'
The cop simply stared at him. 'FBI?'
'No. We're also keen to help the emergency services in any way we can.'
'Yeah, well, we need it,' the officer said wearily, looking at the cataclysmic scene beyond the window of the patrol car. 'And if that fancy looking thing out there is anything to go by –'
But before he could finish his sentence, an ear-splitting noise erupted from outside. The cop looked startled. Everyone was jumpy as hell. But then he saw a huge hamburger-shaped object lowering itself onto the plaza 50 feet from Josh's Silverback, and he relaxed a little. 'Looks like your buddies are here,' he said, stony-faced.
43
The Dragon had watched gob-smacked as Josh Thompson's Silverback came out of the night sky and settled on the concrete of the plaza.
Perching up here had been extremely risky, but necessary. His employers' instructions were clear. He had to make sure Foreman did not survive even if he escaped the impact of the blast. To make doubly sure, he needed to hamper the rescue operation in any way he could. The Four Horsemen were nothing if not thorough. The Dragon respected that.
His police scanner told him SWAT teams were minutes away and he had already decided it was time to go, but seeing the futuristic craft appear out of nowhere threw him off. He snatched up his bag and headed for the trap door at the back of the roof.
The key to any successful sniper mission was to prepare an escape route. The trapdoor had been left open for a speedy exit, but the Dragon was leaving at his own pace. Crouching low, he ran across the roof and quickly sank into deep shadow. He slithered into the opening in the roof and his feet found the rungs of a metal ladder. Once inside, he flicked on a torch and pointed it downwards. The light illuminated a narrow access way, but beyond the dissipated beam there was nothing but blackness.
The Dragon pulled down the cover and threaded the lock, clicking it into place and testing it. Next he moulded a knuckle of plastic explosive into the rim of the door, set a tiny pressure fuse and retreated down the ladder.
The access way led directly to the gas tanks under the station forecourt. A dozen feet below ground, an inspection channel a yard wide and two high ran between six chambers, one for each pump. Doors led off the inspection channel into each chamber, with windows at head height. The Dragon reached the foot of the ladder and saw the opening into the inspection channel directly ahead. Flashing the torch beam into the darkness, he could make out the curves of the first two chambers, one on each side of the inspection channel. He took three paces into the darkness. Peering in through the first window on the left, he could see the tank was half-full. The one on the right was almost empty.
It took just a few seconds for the Dragon to run the length of the channel. At the far end stood another ladder pinned to the wall. He climbed it, counting the rungs under his breath. Reaching the top, he flicked off his torch and pushed on the metal door above his head.
Clambering out into the stinking air, the Dragon carefully lowered the door back into place and crawled away to the cover of some bushes just beyond the perimeter of the gas station. Between him and the burned-out CCC stood a row of tall bushes that stank of burned vegetation. In their matted branches lay detritus from the blasts.
The Dragon could see just beyond the bushes to where the fire trucks and patrol cars stood, the devastated Conference Center their backdrop. Hearing shouts from close by, he watched as two Saracen assault vehicles rumbled past, their 7.62 mm turret-mounted machine guns pointed directly at him. But he was quite invisible, his dark form merging seamlessly with the night.
44
As the Big Mac landed on the concrete, billowing pink and purple fumes from the massive engines in its underside, two armoured Saracen assault vehicles rumbled onto the forecourt of the gas station. A 'Night Sun', a massive light, was mounted on each. They were switched on simultaneously, tearing twinned columns of light through the evening gloom. The
lights swivelled towards the roof of the gas station, casting a blaze of white.
The SWAT teams in full body armour jumped out of the two vehicles and adopted classic defence–assault formations. Two men swung around 360 degrees, sweeping the scene. The others crouched low and ran for cover. It was a short dash to the stairs at the side of the gas station. The glass front of the building was smashed to pieces. Inside, the aisles had been shoved out of position and resembled a pile of dropped dominoes. Cans of drink and packets of potato chips and biscuits were scattered across the wet floor. A freezer unit at the back of the station was split open, a great plume of water from a burst pipe disgorging across the mess, pattering on the plastic containers and flowing out of the building and onto the tarmac.
The SWAT team ascended the stairs and emerged onto the roof, sweeping the area with their Heckler & Koch UMP 45s. Within seconds, eight men were on the roof and fanning out. At the leading edge of the roof they found a pair of M60 7.62 mm machine guns on tripods. Scattered around them were spent shells, hundreds of armour-piercing M61s.
The SWAT team leader radioed his commander and transmitted video footage of the scene to an operations centre in a van parked a mile away from the CCC. 'Scene has been vacated,' he reported.
The shooter had left not only the guns and spent shell cases, but also a crate, a box with his unused shells, and some camouflage netting. They searched around the edge of the roof, peering down into the darkness at the rear and the glistening, ruddy light at the front. There were no ropes, no ladders. Towards the rear of the roof the SWAT team leader found a rectangle of metal, two feet square. He tried to get his gloved fingers under the rim. He just managed it, but the door was stuck fast.
'Escape route located,' he reported.
A second later, the trapdoor rocketed into the air, taking the team leader with it. The explosion was small, but the explosive material had been configured precisely to localise the blast, sending the door skyward. The team leader, his body shattered by the force of the door hitting him, flew through the air. In his black assault uniform, helmet and night-vision goggles, he looked like a huge bat streaking across the roof and over the edge, onto the forecourt of the gas station. He landed in the water gushing from the station store and lay still in the fiery glow.
45
With professional calm, the Dragon watched the teams search the roof, waiting for his moment to move. When it came, the bang was almost disappointing, smothered as it was by the other sounds all around. But then he saw the black human shape soaring through the air over the front edge of the roof, and he belly-crawled through the undergrowth away from the scene of the disaster. Ahead lay a narrow verge of scorched grass, and beyond that a line of trees bordering the highway. Surveying his handiwork with a final glance, he sprinted across the grass verge to the road, and – with all eyes on the gas station – he slipped away unnoticed.
Two minutes later he reached his car. His cell phone vibrated in the breast pocket of his combat jacket. He pulled it out and read the message. 'Status?'
He typed in 'Complete success.'
A few seconds passed before another message appeared on the screen. 'Hold position.'
46
Dave Golding thanked God he'd risked missing the start of Foreman's speech to pop some pills. If he hadn't been in the restroom when the bombs went off, he would surely be dead.
There was also the fact that the three Vicodin he had swallowed were all that prevented him from flipping out completely. Even so, they didn't stop him shaking as he stared around at the carnage. He was back with the senator, who was trying to comfort the old man whose wife had just died from her injuries. Todd's arm was in a really bad way. Dave had ripped up a T-shirt from his backpack and used it as a tourniquet, and had also improvised a sling. He then handed his friend a couple of Vicodin. Todd was so grateful and so distracted by pain, he didn't even ask where they came from.
'We can't stay here,' Kyle Foreman said.
'I'm not leaving her . . .' Marty Gardiner croaked.
'Mr Gardiner, I understand, but –'
'I can't.'
Foreman stood up. 'There could be more bombs,' he said quietly to Dave and Todd.
'We can't take the front,' Todd replied through clenched teeth. The Vicodin would barely scratch the surface of his pain, even when they kicked in.
'I realise that.'
'So . . . what?'
The senator did a 360-degree turn. Uniform devastation. Except . . . Looking closely, Foreman saw that the destruction wasn't actually uniform. The second blast had come from under the auditorium, but, he reasoned, the first bomb must have been hidden close to the reception desk. He could see this from the pattern of the debris – rubble, metal, plastic, body parts – which fanned out from there in all directions. But to the left of Reception and the gaping hole in the back wall, another concrete wall ran perpendicular into the Main Concourse. This had taken a hammering but hadn't collapsed, and behind it was a lobby and a set of elevators. He could see, just beyond them, an emergency exit sign.
Foreman knelt on one knee beside Marty. 'Mr Gardiner, I think you should come with us.'
The old man looked up for a moment, his eyes wet with tears. 'I'm not leaving her.'
'You can't stay here. The roof could come down. There could be another bomb.'
'I don't care.'
Foreman didn't know what to say.
'Forty-two years,' Marty murmured. He stroked his dead wife's hair. It was pure white, almost translucent. 'Not many marriages last a fraction as long. Certainly not in these godforsaken times. But this is my fault. I knew Nancy didn't really want to be here tonight. I railroaded her into the whole damn eco thing. I know it.'
Foreman touched Marty's arm. 'Mr Gardiner – may I call you Marty?'
The old man didn't take his eyes from Nancy's face.
'Marty, you can't blame yourself. You don't know for sure your wife thought that way.'
'Oh, I know. I knew, and I didn't say anything. I was too damn selfish. Too full of my own opinions. And now look what I've done.'
Foreman was trying to gather his thoughts. 'Okay, so let's say you're right. Why do you think she went along with it? Because she loved you, Marty.'
The old man broke down again, leaning in close to his wife's body. His shoulders shook as he sobbed.
'And you know what?' Foreman continued. 'She wouldn't have wanted you to stay here. Would she?'
Marty didn't reply. Foreman stood and walked over to the others, who were looking nervous and clearly wanted to move.
'I can't do any more,' he told them. 'Come on.'
They turned towards the back of the Main Concourse. Dave hitched his backpack and they started to weave a path through the rubble.
'Wait,' a small voice said.
They turned in unison to see Marty Gardiner in the same crouched position, with his wife's hand in both of his. He wasn't looking at the senator and the young men. It seemed like he couldn't break away from the woman he had spent most of his life with. 'You're right,' he added, still not looking up. 'You're right.'
He laid Nancy's hands across her chest, ran his fingers through her hair one last time, and eased himself up. And without looking back he picked his way over to the others.
47
The area around the elevators was the clearest part of the building. But even here lay marks of destruction. One of the three elevators had been open at the time of the blasts. The roof had come down on the two people inside, who were not moving. The doors to the elevator closest to the blasts were buckled and pitted. They looked like they would never open again. The elevator at the other end of the row appeared to be almost unscathed.
The four men walked past them towards the exit sign. It was flickering on and off, emitting a high-pitched whine as though it was about to blow. Dave tried the exit door, pushing on a pivoted horizontal rail. It wouldn't budge.
'It's either locked from the other side or something heavy is blocking it,' T
odd groaned, and lowered himself slowly to the ground with his back to the wall. He sighed heavily.
Dave gave the door a kick. Nothing. 'If it's locked we'll just break through,' he said, and surveyed the floor.
A few yards away lay a section of metal beam about four feet long. Foreman, Marty and Dave tried to lift it, but it was incredibly heavy. Their combined strength could barely nudge it a few inches along the ground.
'Useless!' Marty exclaimed.
Then Dave saw something else – a metal pole about a yard long, half-buried under chunks of concrete. Marty and Kyle helped him pull the concrete away and Dave snatched up the pole, strode over to the door and hit it with three heavy blows close to the handle. The door stayed put. Three more ineffectual smashes and Dave changed tactic, ramming the end of the pole into the wood close to the lock.
After four strikes the pole finally went through the wood. With help from Kyle, Dave pulled the pole out. He widened the hole with the end of the length of steel, and in a few seconds they could see the exit door would be useless to them – behind it lay piles of concrete and steel. It was like a false door covering a concrete wall.
'Well, that answers that question,' Marty said.
Dave helped Todd to his feet and they returned to the elevator lobby. It was only then that they noticed the rectangular metal plate on the wall between two of the elevators. A simplified schematic of the building was etched into it. Todd lowered himself to the floor again while Dave and Foreman studied the diagram. Marty stood a few paces back, looking on.
'We're here,' Foreman said, stabbing at the diagram. 'Looks like there're emergency exits at the four corners of the building. Here, here, here and the one we've tried.'
'We can't even contemplate the front ones,' Marty said from behind them.
'No. And the other rear exit is right over the other side of the Main Concourse, which would be real hard to get to.'