The Prague Plot: The Cold War Meets the Jihad (Jeannine Ryan Series Book 3)

by Mosimann, James E.

The celebrities and guests in the rearmost seats had ignored the order to walk to the front. Instead, many were shoving their way to the rear exit, where they had entered.

  Harry could only guess at their thoughts as they scrambled and massed at the doorway through which they had come.

  “Get out of my way. I’m too important to die, I must live for the sake of my fans. I cannot disappoint them!”

  “Move, damn it move, let me by. The government needs my expertise. Let me by!”

  Whatever the personal rationalization, the crush at the doors grew worse, as bodies, smothered and trampled, piled up. Finally the doors gave way and individuals clambered and scrambled over the fallen mass to reach the lobby.

  There they dashed to safety through the open entrance.

  The first ones through the outside doors were horrified to find themselves on a corpse-littered battlefield.

  Still, they pushed forward. They barely noticed the gray lotion-like substance that coated the bodies, bushes and pathways and adhered to their own ankles, hands and arms.

  Not that there was time to notice.

  The vanguard, the foremost of the panicked crowd, fell gasping and retching as the deadly agent took effect.

  Moments later the second wave fell. The remainder of the crowd dropped in waves that swept backwards towards the entrance to the pavilion.

  In only minutes, the congressional doors were blocked by the stricken throng.

  ***

  In the hall, those congressional guests who had obeyed Harry Thomas’ directions to proceed towards the stage were faring well.

  Prior to Harry’s emergency announcement, most of the invitees already had left through the open left-side doors to safety. There they waited under the protection of the newly-arrived National Guardsmen.

  Thus, when at Harry Thomas’ command, the Secret Service opened the temporary glass barrier to the guests, the trip to the left-front exit and safety took only a short time.

  As for the balconies, only the lowest one still had occupants, but even there, most seats had emptied.

  Consequently, most of the spectators were safe outside at the front and left of the pavilion. They were guarded by the first of the National Guard units to arrive. No one was allowed to stray. Too many areas were contaminated.

  ***

  As Harry Thomas watched the line remaining in the last balcony, fire alarms sounded and red lights flashed above and to his left. He looked up at the Press boxes. Their windows were obscured in a gray mist, the nerve agent. Fortunately those boxes had been evacuated.

  But not all. A lone shadow pounded on the glass of the Press box before falling out of sight.

  Harry turned to the right as now the alarms sounded from the balconies. He watched a gray mist descend from the respective ceilings. He stared helpless at the lowest balcony where dozens of stricken individuals fell out of sight behind the rail.

  Now Harry looked above the stage. The ceiling was low and sprinklers were in clear view but still dry. He looked high up at the ceiling over the main floor. It was a long way down to the floor level. Would there be sprinklers that far up?

  Harry Thomas was no engineer. Is the main hall next?

  Fortunately, he did not have to answer that question. Three National Guardsmen, in Level-A protective gear with oxygen tanks came to his side.

  “Sir, you should leave now. You aren’t protected. We’ll take over. Your men are outside. They need you.”

  As a grateful Harry started to leave, one of the men tapped on his helmet. It was no guardsman. Bill Hamm shouted through the visor.

  “Harry, Bill Hamm. These guys and I are going to the fire control room. Thank God you got most of the people out.”

  “But not everyone. I wish that ...”

  But Bill had moved on. He was headed to the north side of the building

  A grateful Harry Thomas left through the south side exit.

  Just in time. Red lights flashed above and the pressurized mixture of water and Novichok-H rained down upon the stage. In seconds, the shining floor was splotched a deadly motley gray.

  ***

  The Press boxes on the right side of the pavilion were at a fourth-floor level. The two floors immediately below were occupied with offices. On the ground floor, a narrow elongate kitchen area served several large banquet halls.

  The fire control room was located on the second floor, directly above the main kitchen.

  One of the National Guardsmen, Ted, was a fireman in real life. He spoke to Bill through his communicator.

  “The offices have low ceilings and water sprinklers. Water pressure is driving the flow of nerve agent to the sprinklers. What comes out is an emulsion of water and agent. By now, all of the offices are contaminated But the kitchen probably has local tanks set for low level suppression by carbon dioxide. There the pressure is from the tanks themselves and hopefully their valves aren’t open yet.”

  Ted opened the kitchen door, and pointed.

  “We’ll go through here and climb the stairs to the control room. It has no sprinklers or suppression tanks. The most danger will be from the sprinklers in the stairwell.”

  Bill nodded.

  They passed through the kitchen. There was no gray coating on the stoves or counters. The valves had not opened. They reached the stairwell in safety.

  They were in luck. The sprinkler heads in the stairwell were not functioning yet.

  They climbed the stairs to the fire system control room.

  ***

  In the confusion of the guest’s fatal attempt to flee through the VIP exit, and subsequent mass of bodies there, Abdul-Malik had slipped unnoticed to the north side of the pavilion.

  He had watched that kufar (Bill Hamm) dispatch both Hassan and Masoud. Malik wanted away from that killer.

  And he wanted nothing more to do with this damned pavilion.

  He picked his way carefully to the president’s gate. Once outside, he shed his Hazmat suit. No longer of use, it now served only to identify him as the enemy. But he clung to his AK-47, he was not yet in the clear.

  He pushed through the thickets and brush of a dense woodland. At every sound of scraping branches or rustling leaves, he turned, shaking, and pointed his weapon towards the disturbance, only to see nothing. After a short time traversing the woods, he was about to despair when through the trees he spotted a means of salvation.

  Ahead in a clearing was a lone car.

  ***

  At first, Jeannine Ryan had waited patiently for Bill Hamm. But at the booming shotgun blasts and the more distant rattle of small arms fire, she had left the car to walk towards the action.

  Approaching the president’s gate, she heeded Bill’s warning and stayed well back to evaluate the scene from a distance.

  She surmised, correctly, that the gray material coating the motorcade vehicles was the dreaded nerve agent. She recoiled at the bodies of the stricken marines, twisted in death, and noted with satisfaction that at least four jihadists, identified by bloodied and riddled protective suits were dead.

  But most important, there was no sign of Bill, or his body!

  My God Bill, are you all right? And the president?

  Her thoughts were in turmoil, but she steadied herself. She must go no further. Backing well away from the perimeter fence, she retreated into the trees as the roaring whir of a National Guard helicopter passed over her position and out of sight.

  You’re right Bill. Friendly fire, I’ll go back.

  All sounds of gunfire ceased and she started through the woods towards the car.

  She spotted a movement to her left. It was the shadowy form of a man, creeping through the brush, but it was the weapon at the man’s side that most disturbed her.

  The silhouetted magazine was long with a markedly forward curvature. The gun was an AK-47. The weapons by the dead Marines at the gate were M16’s with short lower-capacity clips.

  Jeannine had grown up in West Virginia where her father had been an avid hunte
r. She was used to shotguns, and there was one on the back seat of the car. Unlike Bill’s Benelli police defense weapon, it was an older Marlin 12 gauge, but it had a pump action. And on the back seat, too, were cartridges loaded with buckshot.

  But the shadowy skulker was between her and the car!

  ***

  Bill Hamm and the two guardsmen entered the control room. Immediately, Ted, the fireman, dashed for the main control unit. He flipped the main switch.

  Nothing. Needles still registered flow in all systems. The nerve agent continued to flow unimpeded.

  But Ted was not only a fireman, he once had been an engineer with NoFlame Devices, the company that had installed the Unity Pavilion’s system, before Erik Holub had tampered with it.

  Ted beckoned Bill Hamm to follow him as he raced down the stairs to the ground floor and entered a small room off the kitchen. There, a large red wheel protruded from an exterior wall.

  It took both men to twist the wheel clockwise. Ted called through his communicator to the guardsman upstairs.

  “What’s the pressure?”

  The message came back.

  “The sprinklers have stopped. The water pressure is falling fast.”

  Ted turned to Bill.

  “If you know any prayers say them now. We’re not done. We have to shut down the carbon dioxide suppression tanks in the kitchen. When we passed them, I saw they were not ours. The terrorists must have replaced them with their own tanks. They’re pressurized. They don’t connect to the water pipes. I have to shut them down before they get us.”

  Ted ran. Bill followed.

  ***

  Ted moved quickly down a long narrow storage area that was lined with red fire-suppression tanks that vented through a partition to the kitchen proper.

  “Damn it, Bill. I don’t recognize this new valve contraption. Let’s get out of here before the gas is released. Run!”

  But Bill did not move.

  “No! I saw these tanks at the W&C plant at Warrenton. There’s an override switch just left of where the remote switch assembly is welded to the tank.”

  “I see it. The red handle is vertical.”

  “It’s open. Shove it to horizontal. That closes it and overrides the remote. I’ll get the next one.”

  Together they raced down the row, shutting down alternate tanks in turn.

  Only two tanks remained when Bill heard the ominous whirring sound.

  “Quick, Ted. That’s the magnetic stirrer, the inner valves have opened. The precursors are mixing.”

  He moved forward, but Ted was faster. He literally leapt over the last tank pushing the handle down as he slid to the floor.

  Bill collapsed next to him. Gasps of relief and teary laughter sounded through the communicators of their helmets.

  The threat was over.

  ***

  North of the pavilion, Abdul-Malik licked his lips. The car would be his salvation.

  He approached, but the door was locked and there were no keys in the ignition.

  He looked back to see a woman next to a tree at the edge of the clearing.

  So this is her car and she has the keys.

  Malik reacted. He pointed and fired.

  “Br, Br, Br, Brup.”

  But the woman disappeared into a cluster of scrubby pines. He ran to the spot, but she was gone.

  Malik was not mechanically-oriented, and had no idea how to hot-wire a car. He needed those keys.

  He stood for a moment and listened. Faint sounds of rubbing branches and snapping twigs marked the woman’s path. He rushed into the woods to follow.

  A few yards inside the woods he stopped. The sounds had ceased.

  ***

  Jeannine’s hands were shaking as she gasped for breath. The bullets had splintered the tree near her, and one fragment had raked her arm. She stopped to listen. The sounds of pursuit were near. Evidently her pursuer was tenacious.

  She looked to her left. A large white oak had fallen over the edge of a small ravine and formed a slim crawl space. She squeezed under it and lay still as the man approached.

  She held her breath. The stalker passed and the sound of shuffling dry leaves grew faint. This was her chance. She climbed out from under the log and took off running as fast as she could towards the car.

  Behind her, she heard heavy sounds of pursuit.

  Key in hand and ready, she broke into the clearing and dashed to the car. She fumbled to open the door.

  ***

  Malik stepped into the clearing. He saw the woman by the car. He had a clear shot, but did not wish to damage the vehicle. Only a defenseless woman stood between him and freedom.

  He saw her open the door. Still he did not shoot, but held the AK-47 ready to fire at the first sound of a motor starting. But there was no such sound.

  He reached the car and pointed his weapon inside. The woman was not there. The rear passenger door on the other side was open. She had crawled out on his blind side.

  No matter, she could not escape There were no hiding places in the clearing.

  But a sound from behind made him turn.

  There stood the woman, next to the rear fender. She held a weapon.

  Abduk-Malik swallowed.

  A mere woman!

  “Brroom.”

  He flew backwards as the full-choke clump of buck shot rammed his chest. His finger tightened and squeezed off a burst.

  “Br, Br, Br, Brup.”

  But the AK-47 discharged harmlessly into the ground as he fell.

  Jeannine pumped a second shell into the chamber.

  “Brroom.”

  It was only insurance. Abdul-Malik was already dead.

  She dropped her gun. She trembled all over and started to retch.

  My God I’ve killed him.

  She did not know it, but the last of the jihadists lay at her feet.

  ***

  Aileen Harris and Peter Zeleny watched as their marine helicopter landed outside the pavilion grounds. The National Guard had cut an opening in the south fence, away from the heavily contaminated main gate and right-front entrance. Aileen and Peter, clad in white Level-A Hazmat suits marked with U.S. Flags, approached the impromptu gate. They were followed by two assistants carrying cartons of syringes each pre-loaded with a single dose of Xolak.

  Inside the gate, a National Guardsman, clad in similar gear but of drab color, greeted them.

  “We’ve been waiting. We have victims still alive over here.”

  He pointed to the left-front entrance where a number of gassed spectators lay stretched on blankets.

  “These folks were gassed through the sprinkler system. They didn’t die right away like the others. We guess that the water mixture weakened the Novichok-H somehow.”

  The guardsman pointed further to a row of bodies, uniformed police and Secret Service.

  “They weren’t so lucky. They were gassed by the jihadist’s ‘fire-equipment’ spray. Death was instantaneous”

  But Peter was already leaning over a survivor. He spoke over the woman’s gasps and moans.

  “I’m Dr. Zeleny. I’m here to help you. There is no time. I’m going to inject you with antidote.”

  Aileen exposed the woman’s shoulder to the needle. Peter emptied the syringe and discarded it into Aileen’s tote.

  Almost immediately the woman’s diaphragm relaxed and her breaths came easier. But Peter had already gone to the next patient.

  “I’m Dr. Zeleny. I’m here to help you. There is no time. I’m going to inject you with antidote.”

  As quickly as possible they moved down the line. Behind them, the treated individuals lay, diaphragms moving up and down, their breathing difficult, but improved.

  The Xolak was working.

  ***

  Across from Peter, two National Guard Corpsmen administered Xolak to a second line of fallen spectators, with equally salutary effects.

  Peter came to the last of the first row of victims. She was a young attractive blonde. A ne
w wedding band shone from the third finger of her left hand. A Virginia Tech ring adorned the corresponding finger on her right hand.

  Peter knelt next to her. The injection of Xolak acted immediately.

  The young woman spoke through forced breaths.

  “I’m Monica Wilson. My husband, Barry, was with me. Is he all right?”

  Peter looked about. Not far away was the body of a young man with shaggy light hair. On his right hand was a Virginia Tech ring, like Monica’s. He was obviously her “Barry.”

  Peter looked at Aileen. She nodded in silent agreement.

  Peter turned back to the woman. He spoke slowly and clearly.

  “Mrs. Wilson, you just relax and breathe. We haven’t listed the survivors yet. Get your strength. We’ll know more later.”

  Nearby, two medics stood next to an ambulance. Peter waved them over and pointed.

  “She needs immediate attention. Put her at the head of the list for Front Royal.”

  They strapped Monica to the gurney and wheeled her away.

  Peter looked at Barry’s body. He shook his head. Sometimes being a doctor was the pits.

  Aileen nodded and looked down.

  ***

  The moment he was out of the pavilion, Bill called Jeannine. She recognized his number and spoke.

  “Bill, where are you. Are you all right? Were you poisoned?”

  “I’m fine. I’m in a Hazmat suit from the National Guard. We stopped the release of Novichok-H, thanks to a fireman-engineer named ‘Ted.’ But you? Are you OK.”

  Jeannine shivered.

  “Not really. My arm is scratched and I just killed a man.”

  “What! How? Who?”

  “A terrorist with an AK-47. I used the Marlin 12 gauge.”

  “My God, I should have told you to leave. Did he hurt you?”

  “He got off one burst. It kicked dirt on my new Adidas.”