by A. J Tata
Both men were dead. He looked up at the opening. Cassie was staring down at him in disbelief.
Resorting to his training, Mahegan put his knife back in its sheath and conducted a quick inspection of both bodies. He retrieved two grenades, two AR-15s, a small backpack he didn’t have time to inspect, and five magazines of ammunition. Rolling the men over, he checked their pockets for identification, finding none.
They were wearing the exact same clothes as the two men whom Alex Russell killed on the ridge. Black cargo pants, form-fitting black stretch shirts, and hiking boots. Same brands. All relatively new looking. The men looked Turkish or Syrian, perhaps Iraqi.
He looked up at Cassie fifty feet away.
“I’m coming up,” he said. He stuffed the grenades and ammunition into the backpack, shouldered it, and crisscrossed the AR-15s across his chest using their two-point slings. Clasping the rope, he began to climb the rock wall.
Reaching the top, he was impressed that Cassie had expertly tied the rope using a round turn and two half hitches around a large oak.
“Ranger school was good for something,” she said. She had been walking back and forth atop the rocky ledge. Mahegan could see she was worried.
“Good for lots of things,” Mahegan replied. He exited the hole by doing a dip press and swinging his legs to one side. He rolled onto the rocky surface and looked up. There was dense forest in each direction, the thick trunks of pine trees creating a maze. It was overcast and late afternoon. Without the cover of darkness, they had to move.
It was a lot of coincidence that every time he went near Alex Russell, bad guys showed up minutes later.
Then he heard more noise in the cave and the helicopter circling above.
CHAPTER 21
JACKKNIFE WAS BREATHING HARD, THINKING, RUSHED, PACING IN A PLACE it was hard to pace. They had made some good moves and they had made some bad moves; rather, Jake Mahegan had made some good moves that disrupted their good moves.
Satisfied that they had made no bad moves, Jackknife was content to believe that their path was still viable. The murder of General Savage’s ex-wife using his own pistol that was still registered to Mahegan was a stroke of brilliance. Jackknife never considered the outcome of any action to be a result of fate or chance or luck. Jackknife’s own brilliance—and that alone—was accounting for the success of the operation so far.
The decapitation of the military leadership. Stalling cars on the highways using a latent remote access Trojan planted in the service networks of most major car dealers to mask the true objective of stealing the nuke. Freezing individual and business bank accounts using an exploding remote access Trojan. Sure, Gavril and Zakir were executing, but these were all part of Jackknife’s plan, precursors for sure, but still setting the conditions for the final act.
An unprecedented act of terror.
Jackknife believed that by locking down General Savage and his rogue team of commandos they had achieved a level of freedom of maneuver that allowed for mission accomplishment.
Assessing their progress so far, Jackknife was concerned, however.
The entire plan revolved around keeping Savage and his vigilantes at bay until mission completion. Mahegan was the one loose cannon. The other three were not a threat at the moment.
Jackknife had to keep close tabs on Mahegan. Mirror him. Monitor him.
It was the only way.
Mahegan needed to live long enough to provide Jackknife the precise information Mahegan had found during his raid during Operation Groomsman. That information, after all, was what this entire mission was all about.
Once Jackknife knew what Mahegan had found, then, of course, the man could die.
CHAPTER 22
MAHEGAN LED CASSIE THROUGH THE THICK FOREST, UP THE STEEP incline and back toward Alex’s condo.
They stopped about a half mile away on the west side and used Cassie’s binoculars to study the house. Two motorcycles were parked in the driveway and crime scene tape encircled Alex’s house like a fat, yellow pinstripe.
“That sucks,” Cassie said.
“It’s only because of me. Nothing you or Alex did,” Mahegan replied.
Cassie laid her hand on his arm and smiled at him. “Don’t be so sure of that, wild man.”
Mahegan nodded uphill and said, “We’ve got to get to the other side of the parkway and find the best spot.”
“Then we better get moving,” Cassie said.
They walked to the north, making sure to stay below the military crest of the ridge and out of sight of the police who were securing Alex’s town house. They trudged up the mountain, Mahegan carrying the bigger rucksack, with Cassie hefting the one he had taken from the two attackers. They used orienteering techniques, mostly one called “handrail,” where they would walk just below the crest of a ridge and follow it in the general direction they wanted to move. This tactic avoided the massive ups and downs of the ravines and valleys that were marginally navigable but would have been a straight line to their destination.
While the navigation took a longer route, it ultimately saved time. By Mahegan’s count, they had traversed nearly ten miles doing about three miles an hour. The sun was perched atop the mountain ridges far to the west, sinking fast. He got the acrid whiff of burnt leaves. The weight of Cassie’s rucksack didn’t bother him, but his shoulder gnawed at him, the war injury that would forever remind him of his best friend, Sergeant Wesley Colgate.
Mahegan took a knee next to a towering white pine. Cassie followed suit. She slipped off the small backpack.
“What is Alex going to think?” she asked.
“Why do we care?” Mahegan replied.
“She’s a part of this somehow.”
“We don’t have a lot of time. Is it germane to what we’re getting ready to do?”
“It could be the key to everything going on,” Cassie said. “But I’m not sure.”
“Well, indecision has never been my thing. Let’s get going.”
Mahegan led Cassie past the Blue Ridge Parkway. They walked through a drainage pipe that was big enough to allow both of them to remain upright. At the base of the cylinder, bear paw prints and the distinctive smaller print of a bobcat dotted the silt. The split hoof print of deer was also evident. The bear print, though, seemed to be the most recent, nearly obliterating the others.
Mahegan recognized the far ridge where they had parked the car about a half a mile away. It was possible that the commandos had sentries patrolling the forests, but by his count he didn’t believe they had enough men to cover the vast area above their base camp. They just needed to get to the high ridge he had seen from the tower.
With dusk creeping in, he led Cassie through the dim light, picking their way through the pine trees. As they approached the spot he had noticed from the watchtower, he lay down on his belly and had Cassie do the same. They low-crawled across the rocky ledge to its edge.
He could see the circular ring of huts and a few men carrying rifles, moving quickly from one building to the next. They were atop a sheer drop-off of over two thousand feet. About a mile across the valley was a similar rock face and cliff. At the base of the cliff he could barely make out the black outline of a mine entrance. He had seen this as well from the tower.
Though he had been compromised while up there, the intelligence could bear fruit. If Savage, O’Malley, and Owens were being held captive, that was as good as any place in the proximity to the base camp.
“See there,” Mahegan said. He pointed at the dark outline of the mine shaft.
“I can barely make it out, but yes.”
“Let’s scoot back into the wood line and suit up,” Mahegan said.
“We can’t do this at night. It’s suicide,” Cassie protested.
“It’s the only way. Our timing is perfect. Just enough light to see and just enough darkness to hide. They’ll only hear the fluttering of silk. And of course, I’d much prefer you cover me from up here, Ranger.”
“Don’t
Ranger me. You go, I’m going. You may be crazy, but you haven’t seen crazy yet, Mahegan,” Cassie said.
Something in Mahegan made him believe her. She was earnest and tough. She would go with him. They crawled into the first cut of trees and opened the nylon bags. They helped each other get situated. Mahegan’s suit fit a little tight but not too bad. The AR-15 he tucked inside made it even tighter and a tad more awkward. Steering could be a problem.
Cassie checked him out and slapped him on the ass, saying, “Good to go.”
He conducted a mini-version of a parachute inspection on Cassie’s suit, even though these weren’t parachutes.
“Good to go,” he said, then patted her on the shoulder.
Cassie was carrying her rucksack inside her suit, while Mahegan was carrying the backpack from the terrorists inside his. They walked to the edge of the cliff.
Mahegan looked at her, and she returned his gaze and nodded.
* * *
Cassie Bagwell followed Jake Mahegan to the edge of the cliff, so many options running through her mind. She was one of the first female graduates of the U.S. Army’s elite Ranger school and the first to complete Ranger training without being recycled. Her fellow male Ranger students had nicknamed her “Nails,” for being as “tough as nails.”
Given the political correctness reigning around women in special operations, the instructors forbade the nickname, but it still stuck. During the Darby phase in Georgia the biggest physical suck took place with the five-mile runs that seemed faster than the advertised eight-minute pace. Also, the next-to-impossible obstacle course called the Darby Queen was a major challenge. Male Ranger students several decades ago had given the obstacle course that name because she was a bitch, pure and simple. The course had been designed by men for men, and there were some things her five-foot-seven, wiry body was not meant to do, such as the over and under crawl that required weaving between wooden planks separated by five feet. Her wingspan was just that, and it took all of her strength to slide her arms and hands and body and legs from splintered plank to splintered plank.
But she had made it. She was a natural at leading patrols, and she was strong enough to carry the radio and the machine gun, which she had to do simultaneously several times as ordered by one officious prick of a patrol leader . . . who never graduated. At the end of the three-week Darby phase, her spot reports from her fellow Ranger students were solid, if not a tad sexist. Keeps up well. Surprised she’s doing so good.... Helps out when she can.... Doesn’t smell too bad.... Pretty strong for a girl.... Her daddy helped her get in but she’s doing ok. . . .
Then came the mountain phase up in Dahlonega, Georgia, where her childhood love of rock climbing and rappelling had her teaching her fellow Ranger students knot tying and rock-climbing techniques late at night. The peer evaluation reports got stronger. Helped me learn knots.... Pulling her weight (even though she don’t weigh much). . . . Just read that her daddy was a dick, didn’t want her in here.... Starting to smell pretty good.... Hell of a rock climber.
The final phase in Florida was where she truly excelled. Land navigation, compass reading, and just plain sucking it up with no sleep and little chow. She could taste graduation with every gulp of the Yellow River as she patrolled with her Ranger students through the muck toward some obscure objective. After she passed her Florida patrol, making her three for three on her patrols, she was given an honor graduate patrol. The instructors made her the patrol leader for a parachute assault onto a drop zone, which she planned and executed perfectly. At assembly, she wasted no time in forming her troops up for move out, certain that the instructors would give another student an opportunity to lead, as was customary at every natural break in the action. But, no, she planned and executed the jump, the assembly, the movement to the objective, and the ambush.
Two men fell asleep in the ambush location and didn’t fire their weapons at four a.m. when the vehicles entered the kill zone. Those two men had caused her to fail the honor graduate patrol, but she was okay with that. Honor grad would have been great, but she was happy with her black-and-gold tab. After graduation, she went downtown on Victory Drive in Columbus, Georgia; partied with her male graduates; and got the standard black-and-gold Ranger tab tattoo on her left shoulder.
While she was in Ranger school, she had missed much of the publicity about her father. He had openly spoken out against his daughter and other women serving in Special Forces. He had not attempted to parse his words.
“My daughter has no business in Ranger school and should she graduate, which is unlikely, she has no business serving in Special Forces,” Bagwell had said at the time two years ago.
Back at Fort Benning preparing for graduation the next day, Cassie had been asleep in her bunk, the only person in the desolate female barracks. The only female graduate. She could feel her body reestablishing itself after losing twenty pounds she didn’t have to lose. The fat and calories she was putting away in the mess hall were restoring her muscles, but she was still weak.
Which was why when they came for her, she was slow to react.
She was sleeping and sluggish in waking. The blanket was quickly over her head, and she could hear two male voices as someone tied her feet to the metal bunk. Another man was choking her, saying, “Say a word, bitch, and I’ll slit your throat. Just look at it this way. Your daddy sent me.”
She continued to struggle, but these were strong men who had ambushed her. Soon her hands were tied to the metal posts beyond her head. One man cut away her gym shorts with a knife and said, “Oh my. Lookie here.”
Cassie had been sleeping with her knife taped to the metal rails, and she slid her hand slowly up the slick metal, could feel the handle as the man used his knees to pry her legs open. The binding was tight but just loose enough for her to manipulate the knife in her hand. The man above her stuffed a cloth in her mouth, and she was having a hard time breathing. She was able to grab the knife handle as she turned her legs inward, trying to prevent the man from gaining further access.
Fumbling with the knife, she cut the poorly tied rope as the man had defeated her last line of defenses and began to say, “Oh yes.”
But the knife came arcing down on his left shoulder and he howled in agony. “What was that?!”
The man between her legs was no longer there. She felt him roll off and thud onto the floor. She instinctively turned her knees inward as she flipped the knife in her hand and stabbed behind her, where the man was beginning to choke her.
With this thrust she found his thigh, and he too began howling. She used the precious seconds when neither man was restraining her to cut the ropes on her wrists and ankles. With that task done, she began chasing the two men who had assaulted her.
But the lights came on as they exited through the back door of the barracks. Cassie was standing there in a bloody gray Army T-shirt with no shorts.
Staring at her father.
“Did they . . .”
“Did they what?” she asked, breathing heavily. Her adrenaline was pumping. Blood dripped from her knife. Her eyes darted wildly searching for her attackers.
“Penetrate?”
“What? No, they didn’t penetrate.” She said the last word as if she were spitting it out.
“Good. Then there’s nothing to report.” Her father turned on one heel and began to walk out.
“Wait a minute, you bastard,” Cassie shouted.
General Bagwell stopped but kept his back to her.
“You don’t walk out on me after this!” Her chest was heaving. Her legs ached from doing her best to prevent her assailant from gaining access. She was barely conscious of the knife in her hand and the three short steps she was taking as she lifted the blade.
“Stop, Cassie,” her father said, sensing her approaching.
Cassie stopped, if only because she remembered being a little girl and responding so quickly to her father’s voice. Like a puppy. Sit. Play. Roll over. At one time she had adored the man. Now she despis
ed him, and not only for ridiculing her Ranger training, which she had done as much for herself as she did to say a giant Fuck You to her father.
“Why, so there can be more secrets, Daddy? So you can pass me more shitty intel? So you can . . .”
“Stop it!” He turned and stepped toward her but stopped. She held a knife in her hand low down by her thigh. An uppercut would slice open his abdomen, and Cassie was feeling it. “There will be no talk of classified information in this barracks!”
“Then what is there to talk about? Just a little rape attempt? No, we can’t discuss that either, can we, Daddy?”
“When I’m in uniform, you’ll address me properly, Captain. Do you understand?”
But Cassie was feeling weak. Her energy was leaving her rapidly. Mind spinning wildly. Two men had just tried to rape her and here she was arguing with her father. The entire scene was beyond comprehension. Secrets. Why did there have to be so many secrets, she wondered.
And then she passed out.
That night was a blur to Cassie, but still something with which she struggled.
Her father had said it was best to keep it quiet, that this was why men and women should not be in units together, that he had been right and she had been wrong.
The next day, he didn’t show up at her Ranger graduation. One of her West Point classmates had pinned her tab on her. She cried openly that day, not with tears of joy but with hate and anger toward her father. How could he? True, he was old school, but Cassie knew that she was a leader and that Ranger school was first and foremost a leadership school. It opened the doors to promotions, advances that would provide her leadership roles where she could make a true difference in the Army and in foreign policy one day. That was all that she had ever wanted to do. And to deny her that and let her attackers go? She wondered if he even looked at her as his daughter anymore.
Then the second blow came when she had figured it all out. Four years ago while serving in Mosul in charge of special intelligence, her father had called her using a burner cell phone and directed her to meet with a French special agent, who claimed to have useful information. Despite the personal issue with her father, she was a professional. She had respected him, respected his combat service. She knew that until you were out there in a thin-skinned Humvee riding around with the potential for a bomb to rip your legs from your body, you didn’t know combat. And Cassie knew combat, too. She wasn’t your ordinary intelligence officer. She actually rode or flew along on missions to see firsthand what was happening on the ground. Her Humvee had been rocked by an improvised explosive device near Mosul as she checked on the Iraqi Army’s progress against ISIS. No one was seriously injured in that attack, but still, it counted. She was there, braving the risks of the front lines.