by Leigh Barker
Ethan glanced at the dead man slumped in the passenger seat, stood on the brakes, and brought the hummer to a sliding stop.
He jumped out of the vehicle, ran around to the passenger door, wrenched it open and pulled out the rifle case from behind the passenger seat and slung it up onto the hood. A moment later he lifted out the McMillan Tac-50 sniper rifle and snapped it together without thinking about it. Then he grabbed a single five-round magazine. If this one didn’t do the job, then a hundred rounds wouldn’t make any difference. He flipped down the bipod, rested it on the Humvee’s hood, and took a long slow breath. And stopped.
The Schmidt and Bender telescopic sight was at maximum, and the fuel truck was huge at thirty-two times magnification, but he couldn’t see enough of the cab to get a shot at the driver, and he could empty the mag into the tank with zero effect. Shooting the tires out was for movies, because this semi had eighteen wheels, and quick as he was, there was no way he’d do enough damage to stop it before it hit the fence.
He changed his position and put a round through the control tower window, snapped the bolt back and followed it with another; then he switched to the brightly lit administration block. He smiled and fired the remaining rounds into the top floor windows. That would be where the brass would be, though at this time of the morning, it would be lowly brass. Still, it should do the trick.
It did.
The second round blew out the window Shapiro was looking through, missed his head by a respectable distance, and punched out a nine-inch hole in the wall behind him. It took him several seconds to recover his wits, but then he grabbed the phone and screamed at the base security officer.
A minute later the base was ablaze with searchlights criss-crossing the desert, and with airmen shouting go… go! Go!
Creech Airforce Base was lit up like Coney Island in its heyday when the garbage truck pulled up at the main gate. The driver handed over his papers and nodded towards the main buildings. “You got a party goin’ on in there?”
The guard glanced up from the papers. “No, this one’s the real thing.” He handed the papers and a pass up to the driver. “Some nutjob is trying to ram the perimeter with a truck.” He shrugged. “Happened before, it’ll happen agen. That’s the way it is with… nutjobs.” He waved the driver towards a waiting area. “You’re gonna have to stay put there until it’s over.”
The driver poked the muzzle of the silenced handgun out of the window and put two into the guard’s chest, then stepped out of the cab and walked calmly up to the gatehouse. The second guard put down the phone and turned. He was reaching for his sidearm when he died.
The driver dragged him back to the truck, lifted him as if he was just a kid, and threw his body into the back. A minute later the other guard’s body joined him in the garbage.
The truck moved off slowly, past the admin buildings and out towards the north-east quadrant and the drone hangars.
Ethan pulled the mag from the rifle and tossed it into the Humvee with the Tac-50. No point leaving a loaded rifle lying around. One of the terrorists might survive and come looking for it. Not likely, but being cautious was second nature. You can be careless and lucky a thousand times, but it doesn’t count if you’re unlucky once.
He looked up as a 50-cal opened up from the base and saw the tracer rounds bouncing around the fuel truck as it hurtled towards the perimeter. Then another 50-cal joined in and a growing crackle of small arms fire.
He leaned back on the Humvee’s hood and waited for the fireworks.
The tracers were now crossing each other and chewing up the truck, and sure enough, the fireworks started. A jet of flame shot up from the rear of the tanker, then ran forward like it was eating the cylinder until the whole thing was a blazing ball of liquid white fire. It was still heading for the wire, but it couldn’t last. A moment later the C4 detonated and the truck just vaporized. Not a controlled explosive sequence, so no fuel-air bomb.
Ethan climbed into the blood-spattered Humvee and set it moving towards the base. The assault on Creech was over. And scratch four terrorists.
He’d covered maybe twenty yards when the first 50-cal tracers screamed past. He didn’t waste a second debating the stupidity of driving towards a base that had just been attacked, or the stupidity of the airmen firing indiscriminately. He stamped on the brakes for a second, opened the door and jumped.
He hit the sun-baked sand at around twenty miles an hour, not enough to kill, but enough to hurt like hell. He tucked and rolled to minimize the damage, skidded to a stop on his back, and lay still while he checked himself out for fractures or gushing blood. He was completely uninjured, if he discounted the lacerated hands and back and the bruises that were going to make him pay tomorrow.
Kelsey ran along the perimeter fence to the guard post where the 50-cal was thumping rounds out across the desert. “Cease fire!” she screamed at the airmen, but the noise drowned her out. She stepped into the concrete placement and slapped her hand on the gunner’s shoulder.
He looked back quickly, saw her, and returned to turning the Humvee into a burning wreck.
Then he had a sudden urge to stop what he was doing and remain perfectly still.
Kelsey took her Glock from in front of his face but kept it visible. “I said cease fire,” she said quietly. “You’re firing on the man who just saved your ass. All our asses.” She smiled. “You gung-ho fuck.” The smile stayed.
The airman glanced at the other member of his crew, looking for support but getting none from the sergeant, who was finding that the burning Humvee required his complete attention.
The airman looked up at her and scowled. “How do you know that’s your man? It’s just another vehicle heading for the wire. It could be another attack.”
She watched him and shook her head slowly. “I see where you’re coming from.” She pointed at the burning Humvee. “The terrorist was driving the Humvee at the wire, but slowly, so as not to upset his coffee.”
The airman’s mouth pinched to a thin line, and he was about to say something before his eyes locked on the Glock, and he shut up.
Kelsey turned the gun and looked at it in surprise, as if it had appeared without her knowing. She holstered the weapon and stepped back. “I’m going to see if my friend is okay,” she said as she turned. “If he isn’t, I’ll be back.”
His head turned quickly to his sergeant, but there was still no support from there.
Ethan waited until he was sure the firing had stopped, then peeked over the lip of the very shallow dip he’d rolled into. The Humvee was blazing, and the ammunition from the weapons in there was popping and zipping in the flickering light. He put his head back down for a while.
A few minutes later, and after a bit of a rest, he heard a jeep approaching and got up slowly. No point scaring the airmen and getting shot to death.
It was Colonel Shapiro. He stepped out of the jeep and shook his head sadly. “Well, Master Sergeant Ethan Gill, I think we can say you made your point.”
Ethan brushed the sand off his borrowed combats. “Don’t thank me; it was all Faraj’s doing.”
“I wasn’t going to thank you, I was thinking of having you court-martialed.”
Ethan looked up sharply, but even in the half light of the new dawn he could see the mischief in Shapiro’s eyes. “It’s no more than I deserve. I did shoot your window out.”
“And the officers’ canteen.”
Ethan chuckled. “That was the officers’ canteen? A lucky shot, then.”
Shapiro sniffed and stepped back up to the jeep. “You need a ride? Or do you like skulking about in the desert?”
“Skulking is underrated,” Ethan said, crossing to the jeep and getting stiffly into the back. “But I’ve had my fill of it for today.”
“Then let’s get back to the base, and you can explain to the brass why you ruined their breakfast.”
“My pleasure.”
“I doubt that,” Shapiro said and started the jeep moving.
He kicked the brake off one of the smaller dumpsters and wheeled it slowly past the workshop entrance and parked it so it blocked the view of the side door. He drew his silenced gun and entered the building through the unlocked door, stepped to the side, and stood dead still until his eyes adjusted to the darkness.
The shop was at the end of the Predator hangar, and he could see the secure stores at the far end surrounded by a thick wire grille. He smiled a thin smile and crossed the pale-painted floor.
Two Reaper drones were on benches undergoing routine maintenance, and he stopped for a moment to look closely at the deadly machines that had rained death down on unsuspecting civilians across the Arab world.
He picked up a pair of pliers and snipped two of the control wires. It would soon be noticed and fixed, but it made him feel better.
He put his fingers through the wire grille around the storeroom and rattled it gently, then walked slowly along its length, checking the top and bottom for any telltale alarms. It was clear, which meant those in charge of the facility were stupid, or there was some other reason for feeling secure enough to skip direct intruder detection.
He stepped away from the grille and looked around carefully. He saw the door marked Security and smiled. It was wide open. The security guards had gone to see what all the shooting and explosions were about. Not to help, just to rubberneck. He walked quickly into the office and closed the door behind him.
There were racks of computers with Star Trek flashing lights and video screens. He located the red circuit breaker and just turned them off. He turned to leave and stopped. The intruder detection system would have recorded his arrival. In true military style, the individual racks of systems were labeled, and it took only a moment to find the one he wanted. He could have stripped the hard drives from the system, but he put two nine-mils through them instead. Same result, the recording was gone.
Again he stopped at the door and turned slowly. He’d brought a nitroglycerin jam shot to blow the grille, but it was just possible… He opened the small cupboard on the wall by the door, the place someone would put a key rack, and found… a key rack. He sniffed his contempt at the military mind and took the key from the hook marked Secure Stores.
The four Hellfire missiles were already clamped into a transport cart, so he didn’t even need to lift them from the racks. He closed the grille and returned the key to its place in the security office. The nine-mils through the security box would tip them off that they’d had a visitor, but it might just take them a while to notice. Every advantage, no matter how small, isn’t that what his trainer had taught him?
He wheeled the cart out the way he’d come in and closed the door quietly behind him just as the guards returned from their exciting time at the perimeter.
The truck had a tail-lift for the big dumpsters, which was exactly why he’d chosen the vehicle, that and because it was ubiquitous and unnoticed.
With the missiles and their carrier dumped in the back on top of the dead guards, he drove slowly back along 3rd Street and out past the unmanned security gate.
God bless America. He chuckled quietly and tuned the radio to a talk radio station and headed south-east on Route 95 back to Las Vegas.
An hour later he left the garbage truck and the bodies of the two airmen behind a motel and loaded the missiles into an inconspicuous white panel van. He tuned into some blues, the only thing of any value America had given the world, and turned right onto Interstate 15, heading for Los Angeles. Today had been a good day, and it had barely even begun.
Special Agent Dryer looked up from his desk and waved Kelsey to the big leather chair and sighed heavily as he pointed at the corner of his desk.
Ethan sat on the edge of the desk and pretended it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it was.
“I think we can call that mission accomplished,” Dryer said and leaned back in his ergonomic mesh chair.
Ethan sniffed. “Seems to me I’ve heard that phrase before. And it wasn’t any righter then.”
Can you say righter? he thought and decided he could.
Dryer pressed a little button and rocked the chair forward to the desk. His smug expression had been replaced by a puzzled one, with just a little frown, as practiced. “I don’t follow. The terrorists are dead. Creech is safe.” The frown vanished, no point risking a furrowed brow. “Or is there something you’re not telling me?”
Ethan raised his eyebrows and sharpened the wrinkles around his eyes.
Kelsey spoke quickly before he could say what he was thinking and got them both thrown out, or worse. “Ethan believes… we believe the men in the trucks were just hired hands, the same as the ones who killed the generals.”
Dryer watched Ethan for a response and got nothing. “What makes you think they’re not the terrorists?” He shook his head. “Base security reports the two attackers not incinerated by the explosion were Middle Eastern.”
Oh, they must be terrorists, then, Ethan thought. “Guns-for-hire isn’t the sole prerogative of white Americans.”
Dryer nodded, but clearly wasn’t listening. He looked out of one of his two windows overlooking the parking lot. When he became section chief, he’d overlook the gardens.
Kelsey pulled a face at Ethan and he shrugged.
“Then we can expect further attacks,” Dryer said, as he watched his promotion slide further away.
“We always expect further attacks,” Ethan said. “It’s the price of being American.”
Kelsey put her finger to her mouth and mimed retching. Ethan ignored her; he was just helping the poor man feel better.
Dryer stood, and they both thought for a moment he was going to salute, or sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’. He did neither, which was both a pity and a relief. “Then let’s catch the SOB!”
Now Ethan stood. “Yes!” He waved Kelsey to her feet. “To the Batcave!”
They left Dryer still standing in his office, except now his mouth was open. And his tie was crooked.
“You haven’t a clue what to do next,” Kelsey hissed as they walked briskly down the corridor towards the main exit.
Ethan looked straight ahead and said nothing.
“Thought so,” she said and faked a long sigh. “Men always want to appear to know the answer. Why don’t they just ask?”
Ethan stopped, and she walked right on by before it registered. She stopped and turned. “What?”
“I’m asking,” Ethan said.
“You’re asking what?”
“What’s the answer?”
“The answer to what?” Kelsey shook her head, but it didn’t get any clearer.
“The answer I appear to know but don’t and won’t ask.” He waited, but got nothing. “So I’m asking.”
She got it and struggled to find a response. It popped into her head just like that, proving it had been percolating away in her subconscious. She frowned. “How did he know?”
Now Ethan got it. “How did Faraj know we’d be at the airbase?”
“Yes,” said Kelsey. “That whole stunt was timed to either wipe us all out if successful, or have us believe he’s dead if it wasn’t.”
Ethan looked along the corridor at the suits scurrying from one meeting to the next, but didn’t see them; his mind was processing the new data. And it came back to the same question. How did Faraj know they were there, and more relevantly, how did he put the op together so fast?
He didn’t.
“The attack on Creech was already planned,” he said. “Faraj just upped the go-date.”
And it wasn’t planned for us, he thought. There was another objective. He parked the thought in his subconscious and watched Kelsey.
“Yes,” she said at last, “that makes sense.” She was still frowning. “It still doesn’t answe
r the question—”
“How did he know to up the go-date?”
“Exactly.” She took a long breath and looked around slowly.
“We have a leak,” Ethan said for her.
“We do.”
As they walked out of the FBI office, they couldn’t help glancing at everyone they passed and wondering if this one or that one was the leak. It was stupid, they knew that, but…
“What if it’s one of our team?” Kelsey said, stopping on the steps and looking across the parking lot at the black Chevy.
Ethan shrugged and started down the steps. “It most likely is.”
She stopped and stared at him. “You can’t believe that!”
Ethan didn’t turn around. “Has to be. Who else knew?”
She watched him walk across the parking lot towards the SUV, took a long breath and followed. He was right, of course.
She climbed in behind the wheel and felt the warm air from the heater that had been running the whole time they’d been with Dryer. She thought about the two agents from the mission and tried not to guess which one of them had betrayed them. She failed.
Mancini was the obvious candidate; he’d been griping and sniping at Ethan from the start. But that would be the last thing he’d do if he was the mole, draw attention to himself. Then Rayford, he’d been ahead of the curve most of the time. And supportive. Worming his way into their confidence. Then it had to be Rayford, but it was hard to believe. Unless Mancini’s overt antagonism was a double-bluff. Or it could be Philips. He’d stayed back in Washington, away from the danger zone. Or—
She glanced at Ethan and saw him watching her with the hint of a smile on his lips. He nodded at the console, and she looked at it for several seconds, then snapped out of it, started the SUV and reversed out of the parking space. And hit the brakes when the driver of a car screeching to a halt leaned on the horn.
She pulled herself together and drove out of the Washington FBI parking lot slowly and under control, while trying to ignore Ethan’s quiet chuckling.