“There are some people who want to be on this stage,” Michaels said. “And let me tell you, Gary Newton isn’t one of them. He’s a humble servant to us all in the way that he’s encouraged honesty and integrity in branches of the military where he’s served. And I can tell by the color on his cheeks right now that he’d rather be anywhere but here.”
The crowd broke into laughter as Newton shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Michaels raised his hands in a gesture to quiet the room.
“Now, the funny thing is, Gary’s wife would gladly accept this for him tonight because she loves the limelight,” Michaels said.
Newton furrowed his brow and then shrugged.
Michaels pulled the medal out of coat pocket and held it up. “This is just a symbol, something that was created years ago to acknowledge the sacrifice made by the men and women of our great military. But the real thing we need to celebrate tonight is what’s inside of Gary Newton. He would never do anything to harm his country, putting everything else ahead of his own life. So, after I hang this around his neck, I want you to cheer like you’ve never cheered before.”
Newton turned his back to the president, who wrapped the ribbon around the front of Newton’s chest and fastened the lock in the back. When Michaels was finished, Newton turned around and shook the president’s hand before embracing him, all to the roaring approval of the audience.
Just as Newton broke free and headed toward the wings, the lights inside the Kennedy Center blinked and then went dead. A handful of women shrieked as mild concern swept over the crowd. However, everyone settled down when another video started rolling behind Michaels.
He whipped his head around and then glanced over at the program director standing just off stage. Michaels walked over to her and asked what was going on.
“I don’t remember you telling me this was going to happen,” he said. “I feel like a fool.”
The woman shook her head and scowled. “I have no idea what this is all about.”
She spoke into the mic on her headset. “Ben, what the hell is going on back there? This wasn’t in the program.”
The volume was up loud enough for Michaels to hear Ben’s response. “I don’t know what this is. But I sure as hell ain’t playing that video.”
Ominous music boomed through the sound system along with an announcer’s voice. “Twenty-five years ago in Islamabad, there was a murder that’s never been solved, one that nearly brought relations between the U.S. and Pakistan to a boiling point. The killer walks the earth free. Would you do something about it if you could?”
“Turn this off!” Michaels demanded, pointing his finger at the program director.
“I can’t,” she said.
“This must be stopped immediately.”
“My tech guys don’t know how this is happening. They aren’t doing this.”
“Kill the damn power if you have to, but this must end now,” Michaels screamed.
Seconds later, the room went dark again.
CHAPTER 32
THE MOMENT BLACK SET foot inside the prince’s jet, he looked toward the cockpit as Vogle raised his gun and took aim. Black dove to the opposite side of the spacious cabin for cover behind one of the seats. Vogle swung the plane around at the end of the runway and turned in the opposite direction, preparing for takeoff.
Black fired a couple shots at Vogle, hoping to draw him out. And he did what Black had hoped for. However, Vogle escalated the confrontation by charging Black and firing repeatedly. When Vogle reached the door, he slammed it shut and locked it.
Black reloaded his weapon and took aim at the lock. The door repelled the bullets with ease.
With Vogle still holding the flash drive, Black couldn’t let the rogue agent get away with such a high crime. And with takeoff imminent, Black considered his options.
He could ride in the plane and address the situation when Vogle landed. Or Black could stop the jet from ever getting off the ground. Weighing the two choices for a moment, Black decided on the latter.
He scrambled around the cabin, looking for anything that he could use as leverage to get inside the cockpit. After quick search, he couldn’t find anything sharp enough or hard enough to spring it open. But with the door still open, he tried a different tact.
Ripping open one of the parachutes he found, Black threaded some of the twine around the door handle until the line was snug. Then he unfurled the rest of parachute onto the tarmac as the engines whined in preparation for takeoff.
Black rushed over to a seat near the back of the plane so he could take cover if the door blew in his direction. He buckled up and gripped the armrests.
The plane lurched forward as it began to pick up speed, rumbling as it rolled along the runway. Black glanced out the window and could see the parachute flapping beneath the glow of the taxi lights. As the plane hurtled toward the end, the parachute opened wide and, with a swift jolt, yanked the door off its hinges. The door followed the parachute outside, clanking against the tarmac.
But before Black could unbuckle and stop liftoff, the jet’s nose turned skyward. The wind tore through the cabin in an almost deafening roar. But Black could still hear the faint sound of Vogle barking over the intercom.
As the plane leveled off some, Black made his move. With his gun drawn, he rushed toward the cockpit in an attempt to overtake Vogle. But he was ready and fired a warning shot toward Black.
Black rolled away from the side of the door, yet found himself in a lurch seconds later when Vogle banked the plane right. Black reached for a flapping seatbelt and wrapped it around his wrist and pulled himself to safety. After a few seconds, he made another attempt, this time driving both of his feet into the back of Vogle’s head before he could turn around and take another shot.
Vogle’s temple banged hard against the navigational control as he fell forward and pushed the stick down. The plane’s nose followed suit. Black snatched Vogle’s head back.
“Where is the flash drive?” Black barked.
Vogle struggled to look Black straight in the eyes.
“Where is it?” Black asked again.
Vogle reached for his weapon, but Black pistol-whipped the agent’s hand, knocking the gun loose.
“I’m not gonna ask again,” Black said.
Vogle leaned forward before exploding backward, head butting Black’s face. Stumbling backward in pain, he hit the wall as the plane rose. Vogle attempted to escape the cockpit, but Black regained his footing and delivered a throat punch. As Vogle gasped for air, Black trained his weapon on the agent.
“Hand it over,” Black said with a growl.
Vogle held up the device and smiled. “You think this is the only copy I made? If there’s one thing you need to learn about me is that I’m always two steps ahead of you. If you kill me, everyone’s name on this list will be public within an hour.”
Black shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“You only had one accomplice tonight, and he’s dead.”
“Your arrogance will be your downfall,” Vogle said with a sneer.
Without hesitating, he flung the flash drive out of the cockpit toward the back of the plane.
“Go and get it, little soldier,” Vogle said.
The move caught Black offguard for just enough time so Vogle could yank the stick back and put the plane’s nose almost straight up. Black stumbled before he slid down to the back of the plane and past the open door. By the time he regained his balance, Vogle slammed the nose down, sending Black flying toward the cockpit.
Vogle then yanked the stick back again, as the jet lurched skyward. Only this time, he left the cockpit with Black and grabbed onto the chair closest to the door.
“When she stalls, you’re done for,” Vogle shouted.
Then he climbed up near the opening and jumped out into the night air without a parachute on his back.
Black spotted the flash drive but left it. He neede
d to scramble up to the cockpit to keep the plane from stalling. Once it couldn’t climb any higher, getting back to the controls while in a freefall would be next to impossible.
He stretched to reach one of the overhead bins and flipped it open. The other parachute had slid closest to him. He pulled it out and decided what to do next.
An out of control plane over a city as populated as Washington spelled disaster if the jet hit the ground. It could kill a handful or many depending on where it struck. Black couldn’t take any chances.
He unfurled the parachute and used it like he would a rock climbing rope. Bit by bit, he lassoed a fixture in the plane and worked his way toward the cockpit.
Just as he reached the doorway, the stall alarm blared from the control panels.
Black knew he had only seconds before the plane would enter a freefall.
One . . . two . . . three.
Black pulled against the doorjamb with all his might, fighting gravity with all the strength he had left. He managed to lock his hands inside and reach the cockpit.
The moment he climbed into the captain’s seat, the plane started to drift downward. Black fought the controls for what felt like an hour but in reality only last a few harrowing seconds. When he regained control, he leveled the plane out and put on his headset. He glanced out the window and found a pair of fighters that had been scrambled into the air to escort him back to the ground or use other means of force.
Black saluted the two fighters on each side of him. “Hello, gentlemen. I’m one of the good guys, and I’m going to be putting this bird down now. No need to worry.”
“Roger that,” one of the pilots said. “But we’ll stick with you just to make sure.”
Black then turned his attention to a matter that had become even more pressing. His coms had fallen out during the struggle, so he contacted one of the nearby towers to patch him through to Shields’s cell phone.
“I’m sorry, sir, we don’t provide that service,” the air traffic controller said.
“Thousands of lives are at stake,” Black said. “If you don’t patch me through, I’m going to make sure that you’re held accountable for their deaths. Now call the number I gave you, dammit.”
“Fine, whatever,” the man said.
Seconds later, Black was speaking with Shields.
“I was following as best as I could from the satellites, but I couldn’t tell what was going on,” she said.
“I’ll explain everything later, but there’s some major trouble brewing.”
“What do you mean? Did you get the flash drive?”
“Yeah and Vogle’s dead, but we’re not out of the woods yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need you to find out where Miriam Parsons is right now.”
CHAPTER 33
SHIELDS AND THE REST of the Firestorm team had been operating under the assumption that Vogle and Acworth were the only two agents who were still alive that had been in Wellington’s special secret program. And they were right. But in all their fervor to track down Vogle, they hadn’t combed through Parson’s files with the same vigor.
“We missed it,” Black said.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I missed it,” Black said. “I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. There weren’t any visible connections to Parsons and Wellington. So, I just assumed that her connection to Vogle was what loosely tied her to the case. But I didn’t get the sense that she was involved or even wanted to be involved.”
“That’s because there was no link between her and Wellington.”
“Not one that we found. But Vogle told me something before he jumped out of the plane to his death. He said that someone else had the information on the DEA agents and would make it public if he died.”
“And you think that person is Miriam Parsons?”
“Triangulate her cell phone right now,” Black said.
A few moments passed before Shields gasped.
“What is it?” Black asked.
“I've gotta go,” Shields said. “She’s at the Kennedy Center.”
Grabbing Alex, Shields hustled toward her car. They tore off toward the Kennedy Center and arrived to total chaos.
The entire building was dark, and people were spilling out into the lobby.
“What’s going on?” Shields asked a woman walking briskly toward the door.
“I don’t know,” she said. “There was some strange video that started playing on the screen and then the power went out.”
“Upstairs,” Shields said to Alex.
The two women sprinted up three flights until they reached the control room. They burst inside and flashed their credentials.
“What’s happened?” Shields asked.
“Someone hijacked our controls,” a man behind a large soundboard said, aiming his flashlight at the two agents. “We’ve been trying to get things back, but then the power went out.”
“You didn’t turn it off?” Alex asked.
“No, someone else did.”
Shields and Alex left the room and started to search amidst the chaos.
“This is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack,” Alex said. “We’ve got to go all the way down. It’s the only place she could’ve cut the power.”
The two agents wove through the people fleeing and descended into the bowels of the facility. When they reached the basement, Shields found a Secret Service agent and identified herself.
“Is the president safe?” she asked.
“He’s secure,” the man said, “and has been escorted out of here. We’re making a sweep right now.”
“Where’s the power?” she asked.
“Opposite direction,” he said, pointing behind her. “All the way at the end of the hall, and then take a right.”
“Roger that.”
Shields and Alex bolted down the corridor and reached the power room. When they arrived, they cleared the area.
“Where is she?” Shields asked.
A moment later, the power surged back on, illuminating the building. Shields and Alex rushed up the stairs to the main floor.
“What is she trying to do?” Alex asked.
“She’s trying to take down President Michaels.”
“How exactly?” Alex asked.
“No, instead she’s going to use a sordid story about his past.”
“Is it true?”
“You’ll have to ask the president that question.”
Shields glanced around the room one final time and didn’t see Miriam.
“If she played a video, she’d need to be able to override the system,” Alex said. “And for that, she’d have to be patched in directly.”
“But she’s controlling the power from there, too?”
“Once you have remote access to the grid, it’s amazing what you can do.”
On the large screens flanking the stage, a video started playing that asked questions about President Michaels before making accusations of murder. Some of the patrons who’d stuck around recorded the screen on their phones.
Alex tapped Shields and pointed across the room. “There she is in that auxiliary booth. I guess they weren’t using it tonight.”
Shields didn’t hesitate. “Miriam Parsons, you’re under arrest.”
The woman across the room looked up and around. When Shields locked eyes with her, there was no doubt it was Parsons.
“We’ve got a runner,” Shields said.
Both agents took off after Parsons in different directions in an attempt to hem her in. However, Parsons cut through the center of the facility and headed outside.
Shields knew they couldn’t lose sight of her. Once she vanished, she would have just enough time to upload the identities of all the DEA agents and ruin scores of operations, operations that were years in the making. And Shields understood how that information would burn plenty of assets and more than likely get a few of them killed.
She kept her eyes glued on Par
sons as she zigged and zagged through the throngs scattering across the street. Shields’s lungs burned as she followed after Parsons. When the assailant reached the corner, she darted east down a side street.
When Shields reached the same intersection, she was about a hundred meters behind Parsons.
“Do you see her?” Alex asked over the coms.
“I’ve got her in my sights,” Shields said as she took aim.
She took a deep breath and exhaled before squeezing the trigger. A second later, Parsons stumbled to the ground.
Shields sprinted toward the hostile. By the time Shields reached Parsons, she was barely conscious.
“Did you send out that information yet?” Shields asked.
Parsons shook her head then held her phone up. With a wry grin, she tapped her phone’s screen with her thumb.
“Now I did.”
Shields ripped the phone from Parson’s hand and watched in horror as a green progress bar rapidly moved toward a hundred percent. Shields threw the phone down before smashing it with her prosthetic leg. For good measure, Shields shot the device twice, rendering it dysfunctional if it wasn’t already.
“You think you stopped that information from getting out there?” Parsons said.
“I know I did,” Shields said, pointing to her leg. “The combination of carbon fiber and titanium is a bitch. Just ask your face about it.”
“What?”
Shields kicked Parsons in the face, knocking her out.
Alex hustled up to the scene. “What’d I miss?”
Shields shook her head. “Nothing much. Let’s turn her over to the FBI and then get back to the office. I’ve got one more thing to do before I call it a night.”
CHAPTER 34
Washington, D.C.
TWO DAYS LATER, the Firestorm team gathered in the conference room to debrief. Confident that the potential exposure of all the DEA agents had been squelched, Blunt needed to write a report about what happened. The trail of bodies concerned Director Quinn, even though the team had spared him a major embarrassment.
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