by Jeff Edwards
“Not this time,” Blandy said. “I was there. I saw it happen.”
Allen latched the jaws of the wire cutters onto the thin metal of the seal. “Eye hazard—look away.”
Both men turned their faces away from the door of the shipping container, and Allen squeezed the handles of the wire cutters. The seal parted with a metallic twang and fell to the deck.
Allen turned back toward the container. “Clear.” He retrieved the errant seal and shoved it into a canvas pouch attached to his belt. He grabbed the latching handle of the Conex box and lifted. The handle moved slowly, with a groan of protest. “Give me a hand with this,” he said.
Blandy went rigid. “Shhhh …” He swung the beam of his flashlight around to cover a narrow corridor between two rows of stacked shipping containers. “You hear that?”
Allen gave him a sour look. “Knock it off, goofball.”
Blandy’s hand went to his holster. He unsnapped the strap and wrapped his hand around the butt of his 9mm. “I’m serious,” he said, playing the beam of the flashlight around in the labyrinth of shadows. “Somebody’s down here.”
“We’re still in Security Condition One,” Allen said. “That weapon stays in its holster.”
“Do you see me drawing the damned thing?” Blandy whispered. “Anyway, we can cock and lock if we’re threatened, even in Security Condition One.”
“I don’t see any threat,” Allen said. “And I don’t hear anything.”
“Shut up and listen!” Blandy hissed. “There it is again!”
Something thumped in the darkness, followed by a scraping sound. Then there was silence.
Allen put his hand on the butt of his own 9mm. “I heard it that time.” He keyed his headset mike and spoke in a low voice, “Blue One, this is Blue Two, over.”
Chief Deacon responded immediately. “This is Blue One, go ahead, over.”
“Blue One, this is Blue Two. We have somebody moving around down here, approximately ten yards forward of my position. Do you have any teams working in this part of the hold besides us? Over.”
“Negative, Blue Two. Our personnel are all accounted for. I am in route your position. Take cover and don’t do anything until I get there, over.”
“Blue Two, aye.”
Allen touched Blandy’s shoulder. “Shut off your flashlight and get down.”
The beam of Blandy’s flashlight vanished, plunging them into the yellow-tinged gloom of aging sodium-vapor lamps. The cargo hold was not completely dark, but the shadows were numerous and thick, and the feeble glow of the overhead lamps did little to penetrate them.
Both men crouched against the doors of the steel shipping container. They were still exposed to the sides and the rear, but at least they had cover against attack from the forward end of the compartment—the direction from which the sounds had come.
They heard the noises again. They seemed to be closer this time.
“That’s it,” Blandy said. “I’m drawing down.”
“No you’re not!” Allen whispered fiercely. “Keep your weapon holstered. That’s an order.”
“This is bullshit!” Blandy hissed. “At least three of these fuckers are unaccounted for, and there could be a half dozen more who aren’t even listed on the crew manifest. You can bet your ass they don’t have to get a note from mommy to draw their fucking weapons.”
Allen held up a hand. “Shhhh …”
Something else was moving—something behind them. Allen looked over his shoulder. Damn. They had no cover in that direction. Hopefully it was the chief. But what if it wasn’t?
Allen bit his lower lip. Maybe Blandy was right. Maybe it was time to stop thinking about the rules and start thinking about self-preservation.
In the pre-mission briefings, the Combat Systems Officer was always saying, “No matter how spooked you are, it’s nearly impossible to accidentally shoot a man if your weapon is holstered.” When you were suiting up on the boat deck, that sounded like good common sense. At the moment—crouched in near darkness in this foul-smelling cargo hold with possible hostiles coming from two directions—Allen thought it sounded a little thin.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Calm down,” he said. “And keep your weapon holstered.” He realized that he was talking to himself, more than to Blandy.
The sounds from behind them grew nearer. Someone was moving toward them rapidly. Allen was about a second and a half from throwing his safety training and Security Condition One out the window, when OSC Deacon’s voice crackled in his earphone.
“Blue Two, this is Blue One. I’m coming up behind you, over.”
“Copy, Blue One.” Allen relaxed a fraction. At least one thing moving around out there was friendly.
A shape appeared, moving toward them in the gloom. After a few seconds, it resolved itself into OSC Deacon. He stopped at close whispering distance and crouched down. “Have you seen anything yet?”
“Negative, Chief,” Allen said softly. “But we definitely heard something.”
Chief Deacon nodded. “I’ve notified the lieutenant. He was already in the process of getting clearance to upgrade to Modified Security Condition Two. In the meantime, he’s authorized me to use my judgment in accordance with the tactical situation.” The chief paused for a second and then drew his own 9mm Beretta. “We’re going to go cocked and locked. But, I swear to God, if either one of you shoots at anything, it had better be armed and in the process of cutting your fucking throat. Are we clear on this?”
Allen and Blandy both nodded and drew their weapons.
“All right,” the chief said. “These corridors aren’t wide enough to do right-left properly, so we’re going to have to do high-low. Blandy, you’re the shortest, so you’re low. I’ll take the high position. Make sure you keep your head down after we turn a corner so you don’t foul my field of fire. Allen, you’re jackrabbit.”
Allen frowned. In the jackrabbit position, his job would be to lag behind whenever the others turned a corner and opened themselves up to attack. Allen would only follow when the new stretch of corridor was proven to be empty of attackers, or if Blandy or the chief went down, in which case he would jackrabbit around the corner with his 9mm blazing—providing rapid and (hopefully) unexpected backup. “Chief, I’m taller than you are,” he said. “I should be high and you should be jackrabbit.”
Chief Deacon shook his head. “Negative. You’re the best shooter on the ship. I don’t want you hit by the first bullet that flies. If one of us goes down, you’re our best chance of getting out alive.”
“But …”
The chief grabbed Allen’s shoulder and squeezed it. “You’ve got your orders, Sailor.”
His words were gentle, but Allen knew him well enough to know that they were utterly nonnegotiable.
Allen nodded. “Aye-aye, Chief.”
The chief stood up and shifted his 9mm to a two-handed combat grip. Allen and Blandy did likewise. The chief nodded. “Let’s go.”
Blandy went around the starboard corner of the Conex box, low and moving fast, his weapon swinging from side to side in short, precise arcs as he covered the shadowed corridor ahead. The chief swung around the corner a half-second behind him, his own Beretta carving a similar back-and-forth arc above Blandy’s head. They moved forward at a fast walk, their eyes and weapons ceaselessly scanning the gloom ahead of them.
In accordance with jackrabbit doctrine, Allen counted to three before swinging around the corner and following at the same brisk pace, his own weapon tilted up at a forty-five–degree angle so that an accidental discharge wouldn’t hit one of his teammates.
They covered the distance up the length of the first row of Conex boxes without incident. There was a five- or six-foot gap between the end of the first row of containers and the start of the second row. This space formed another makeshift corridor that intersected their corridor at a right angle, leaving short left- and right-hand passageways to investigate. They halted just short of the interse
ction.
OSC Deacon tapped Blandy on the shoulder and pointed to the left passageway, then he touched his own chest and pointed to the right passageway. “You check left, I’ll check right.”
Blandy nodded. Still in his low-man crouch, he swung around the corner to the left and screamed.
Allen jumped so hard that he nearly squeezed off a round before he caught himself. He flattened himself against the steel wall of the shipping container to his left, trying to see what was going on.
Blandy threw himself backward, his arms and legs flailing as he struggled to get away. Still scrambling in a sort of crazy crab-walk, he crashed into the back of OSC Deacon’s legs, bringing the chief down on top of him. Blandy screamed again.
What the hell was it? Allen lowered his 9mm to a shooting angle and rushed forward to cover the threat. He had covered about half the distance to the intersection when something rounded the corner in front of him and charged up the corridor in his direction. It was low and moving fast through the darkness, its rapid steps drumming on the deck plates. It was some kind of animal, shaggy and four-legged. A dog? Allen’s 9mm jerked downward to cover the animal as it ran toward him. He sighted in on it, ready to shoot it before it could attack him the way it had attacked Blandy. Would it go for his throat or his groin? His finger began to squeeze the trigger, and then he got a good look at the animal. He broke into laughter.
It wasn’t a dog. It was a goat. Blandy’s terrifying attacker was a goat.
Still laughing, Allen stepped aside and let the frightened animal run past him.
OSC Deacon crawled to his feet and began dusting himself off. “Was that what I think it was?”
“That,” Allen said with a grin that threatened to split his head in half, “was a highly trained attack goat. It’s a miracle Blandy wasn’t killed.”
Blandy got to his feet. “That’s not funny. That’s not funny at all.”
Chief Deacon holstered his 9mm and bent down to retrieve his boonie hat from the deck. “That is where you’re wrong, kid. I can tell you already that this is one of those stories that’s going to get funnier every time I tell it.”
Allen holstered his own 9mm and turned on his flashlight. “You can count on that, Goat Boy.”
Allen turned and walked back down the corridor to the doors of the container they had been set to inspect. Blandy and the chief followed him a few seconds later.
Allen grasped the latching handle of the Conex box and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. He clipped his flashlight to his belt, freeing up his left hand. “Hey, Blandy, come help me with this.”
The chief stepped forward. “I’ll help. Blandy, you keep an eye out for goats, sheep, and other farm animals with terrorist leanings.”
“Cute, Chief,” Blandy said. “Real cute.”
Between them, Allen and the chief were able to wrestle the reluctant latching handle up into the released position.
Allen swung the door open and shone his flashlight inside. “Uh … Chief? I think you need to take a look at this.”
OSC Deacon looked over his shoulder. “What have you got?”
The beam of Allen’s flashlight revealed stacks of gray crates with stenciled lettering in yellow spray paint: FALKE ANTI-AIRCRAFT RAKETENWERFER.
“Holy shit,” Chief Deacon said. “I don’t know what Ratken-worker means, or whatever the hell that is, but the anti-aircraft part I can figure out.”
Allen sounded the syllables out slowly, “Rak-eten-werf-er … I think that’s Arabic for ‘somebody’s in a shitload of trouble.’”
CHAPTER 10
WASHINGTON, DC
THURSDAY; 10 MAY
7:22 PM EDT
On the state floor of the White House, sandwiched between the enormous East Room and the sumptuously appointed oval Blue Room, was the Green Room. Once the dining room of Thomas Jefferson, the Green Room was now a parlor, usually devoted to small receptions. It was a soothing place; the green watered-silk wall coverings and striped silk damask draperies seemed to invite introspection. President Chandler liked the Green Room a lot. He often went there to relax, and he nearly always left the little parlor with a smile on his face.
He was not smiling this evening, as his chief of staff opened the door for him and stepped back to let him in. Through the open doorway came the background murmur from the East Room: numerous voices mingled with the muted tones of light orchestral music.
Perched delicately on a nineteenth-century Duncan Phyfe settee, Gregory Brenthoven rose quickly to his feet.
The president waved him back. “Sit,” he said. He nodded over his left shoulder toward the East Room. “I’ve got fourteen South American diplomats out there, and at least half of them are trying to pinch Jenny’s bottom. So let’s try to make this quick, before my lovely wife dislocates someone’s jaw and causes an international incident.”
Veronica Doyle followed her boss into the room and closed the door behind her. “The first lady is looking especially attractive tonight.”
The president tugged at his bow tie, loosening it a fraction. “She is, indeed. But I still think it’s rude of our esteemed guests to leave their fingerprints on her anatomy.” He sighed and looked at Gregory Brenthoven. “What have you got, Greg?”
“Germany,” the national security advisor said.
“All right,” the president said. “We’ll get to that in a minute. First, what’s going on with the British Embassy?”
“Sir, you’re scheduled for back-to-back Situation Room briefings at nine thirty and nine forty-five,” the chief of staff said. “The topics of interest are developing events in China and the status of the British Embassy investigation.”
“That’s fine,” the president said. “But the embassy attack is on my front burner; Greg can give me the ten-cent version now.”
Brenthoven paused for a second as though mentally shifting gears. “The casualty count has stabilized. Sixty-eight people dead and forty-nine still in treatment. With the possible exception of two who are still on the critical list and could go either way, the doctors are expecting all of the remaining victims to recover.”
“Both of those numbers are higher than the ones I got from homeland security,” the president said.
The national security advisor nodded. “Yes, sir. The FBI has been tracking down people who came in contact with the agent at the embassy, but were somewhere else when they developed symptoms. They’re using the embassy visitors’ logs as a checklist, and they think they’ve found them all now.”
“That’s one piece of good news,” the president said.
“Here’s another one, sir,” Brenthoven said. “So far, everyone who’s come down with symptoms has actually been to the embassy. CDC was right. The bio-warfare agent used isn’t robust enough to spread by human contact. The concentration level has to be pretty high to ensure infection.”
“Have we identified the agent yet?”
Brenthoven nodded. “Yes, sir. CDC ran the micrographs, and USAMRIID cross-checked them. It’s a strain of T2, a trichothecene mycotoxin that comes from corn or wheat mold.”
The president frowned. “Mold? Clark told me that the highest agent concentrations were in the carpet. If we’re talking about mold, that seems like something that could occur naturally. Can we be certain this isn’t some kind of rare natural phenomenon? I remember reading an article on Sick Building Syndrome where the ventilation ducts become infected with mold or a virus and then spread it through the building.”
Brenthoven shook his head. “No, sir. There is no room for doubt. Natural forms of this mold grow on corn or wheat, not carpets. Besides, the agent used was not actually a mold at all; it was a chemically engineered mycotoxin that is manufactured from mold. The T2 mycotoxin doesn’t exist anywhere in a natural form. It’s strictly a man-made agent.”
“So we are one hundred percent certain that this was a biological warfare attack?”
“Yes, Mr. President. We also know how the agent was introduced into the building—in ca
rpet cleaning machines. It went right past the security dogs, because they’re trained to smell explosives, not biological agents. The shampooing process saturates the carpets with liquid soap, but—in this case—the liquid in the machines was about 5 percent soap and about 95 percent mycotoxin. Every carpet in the building received a massive concentration of the T2 mycotoxin.”
The president tugged at his necktie. “How much do we know about the attackers?” he asked.
“There were two men, both American citizens of Middle Eastern descent—Michael Umar and Raphael Ghazi.”
“Deep-cover operatives?” the president asked.
“Possibly, sir,” the national security advisor said. “So far, three terrorist groups have claimed credit for the attack: Assi’rat, the Islamic Revolutionary Congress, and the Hand of Allah. Langley is pretty sure that none of those groups were actually involved in the planning or the attack itself. Most of the major terrorist groups are denying involvement. We haven’t yet turned up any links between the attackers and any known organizations. There was a third man assigned to the carpet cleaning crew as well, a nineteen-year-old American Sailor named Jerome Gilbert. He was dispatched to the embassy with the other two men, but according to the logbook, he never showed up. We’re looking for all three men, but no luck so far.”
The president rubbed his eyes. “One of our Sailors was involved in a biological warfare attack on the British Embassy?”
“We don’t know that, sir,” Brenthoven said. “Seaman Gilbert was moonlighting, and he was brand new to the job. There’s a good chance that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. My guess is he showed up for work and got assigned to a crew with a hidden agenda. It’s even odds that Umar and Ghazi, the other two men on his work crew, murdered him before the attack took place—to keep him from interfering. I wouldn’t be surprised if his body turns up in a ditch somewhere.”
“If that’s true,” the president said, “then the attackers have another murder to answer for.”