EMPowered- America Re-Energized

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EMPowered- America Re-Energized Page 32

by Diane Matousek Schnabel


  Lightning flickered. Rain and hail drummed against Abby’s skull as she settled onto the edge of the platform. She dangled her legs into the void then knotted the rope around an ice-encrusted steel girder.

  The train’s horn was bellowing.

  Two long blares. One short. Another long.

  The noise was unnerving yet reassuring because once the locomotive occupied the bridge crossing, the horn would cease.

  Soaked and shivering, Abby threaded the rope between her feet, beneath the left and atop the right. Clutching the lifeline just below the knot, she lunged into the darkness. Her body accelerated downward, stopped with a jarring jolt, and began to sink slowly. The black nylon rope was gliding through her gloved hands, and Abby pressed her right foot tight against her left, wedging the rope in between. The resulting lateral S-shape functioned like a brake, a foot-locking technique that diminished reliance on upper-body strength.

  The train’s horn fell silent, replaced by the sound of wheels speeding over seams in the rails. Ka-klack, ka-klack, ka-klack.

  The entire bridge shook.

  The train cars seemed unending; the storm, unrelenting.

  Winds buffeted her like a flapping flag, driving her dangerously close to horizontal—a position that negated her foot-locking technique. Abby clamped her knees around the rope and stole a glimpse at the Potomac two stories below. Through night vision, eerie greenish chunks of hail were bombarding the river of sewage, making the water look like it was boiling.

  Finally, a second locomotive chugged past, propelling the freight train from the rear. As its growling engine faded into the howl of the wind, Abby began to climb. Drawing her legs upward into a squat, she squeezed the rope between her feet and pushed herself into a standing position. After two more repetitions, she brushed the slushy coating from the steel girder and grabbed onto it with both hands.

  Having done hundreds of pull-ups throughout training, Abby confidently started her upward motion. Halfway through, her arms began to tremble under the strain. With each passing second, gravity grew stronger; her muscles, weaker.

  Alternately holding her breath, exhaling explosively, and gasping for air, a sense of abject fear coursed through her.

  I’ve never attempted pull-ups while weighted down with seventy pounds of gear!

  155

  District Three, Washington, D.C.

  BRADLEY’S KNIFE PENETRATED flesh.

  Goliath flinched. His flashlight dropped, and he emitted a low, truncated snarl. The barrel of the M4 pivoted toward Bradley’s face. He pitched forward, using his body weight to drive the knife deeper, and jerked the blade upward. It carved through muscle, and as it severed the connection between brain stem and spinal column, Goliath collapsed with the grace of a falling refrigerator.

  Bradley struggled to ease his unwieldy carcass onto the ground, and despite his effort, the M4 clanged against the tracks and sent a chinking thunk through the tunnel.

  Panting and sweating from the effort, he commandeered the dead man’s tactical headset. Hearing no angry Russian retort, he retrieved his CS/LR4 rifle and backtracked to Forest Glen Station with mute footfalls. The glow of Ames’ combination flashlight-lantern silhouetted two figures on the platform. Muddled voices carried through the stale, moist air; one male, one female, both speaking English.

  “Why ... Are ... You ... Here?” the woman demanded.

  Bradley gazed through the scope. Roberta Hanssen, he thought, director of the FBI.

  Ames hesitated for a long beat, vigorously pawing at the back of his neck. “I’m meeting with a confidential informant.”

  “Liar!” Hanssen’s arms folded across her chest, unnaturally so. Her right foot bleated out an impatient cadence against the tiled floor. “You’re here to betray General Sun.”

  Their eyes locked in an exchange of mutual hatred.

  Ames took a step toward her, and Hanssen’s right hand whipped forward, grasping a gun. “Get down on your knees! Don’t make me deny General Sun the pleasure of executing you.”

  Dmitry began babbling over the headset—in Russian—and Bradley cringed.

  Is he ordering Goliath to stand down or shoot?

  The crack of a gunshot ended his deliberation.

  156

  TEradS West Headquarters

  Langden Air Force Base, Texas

  RYAN ANDREWS SAT SLUMPED in a chair inside Med Center South. Although exhaustion had overtaken his body, his mind was still zinging ever faster, in dizzying circles.

  Within the hour, the sun would be rising over Washington, D.C., fifteen hundred miles to the northeast.

  Franny should be at the extraction point, he thought. Abby should be in position, setting up her hide; and Bradley should be engaging the traitors. Would all three show up? Would they jettison their security details as hoped?

  “If federal agents show up, you’ll have to make the call,” Ryan had told Bradley, a vague instruction he now regretted. Would the Sniper fight his way out, potentially injuring innocents? Or submit to arrest and force Ryan to instigate a smear campaign that would brand his best friend a murderer and traitor?

  Teeth grinding, his thoughts turned to Sybil and Izzy; and the searing coals in the pit of his stomach blazed hotter.

  Would Master Sergeant Bissel have consented to the dangerous surgery?

  Would Colonel Ludington?

  Though fairly certain he knew the answers, Ryan wasn’t sure he could handle a tragic outcome.

  Not a particularly religious man, he looked skyward, wondering if he was being punished. Why else would he be saddled with so many life-or-death decisions regarding Franny, Bradley, Abby, Sybil, and Izzy—the people he cared about most?

  “Captain Andrews?”

  Ryan glanced at a surgeon dressed in pea-green scrubs, a tired-looking man with dark puffy patches beneath his eyes and a mouth that sagged into a permanent frown.

  “How’s Gwen?” Ryan asked, rising from the chair.

  “We successfully removed the capsule without ruptur—”

  “Smallpox?” Ryan blurted.

  “We don’t know yet.” Gnawing his lower lip, the surgeon consulted the clock. “It’ll take time to analyze it. A lot of precautions have to be taken.”

  “But the devices can be removed safely?”

  “All surgical procedures come with inherent risk.” The surgeon’s drab brown eyes warmed with an unspoken empathy for Ryan’s predicament. “I need your decision, Captain. Will the children be undergoing the procedure?”

  157

  District Three, Washington, D.C.

  ROBERTA HANSSEN’S slender body seemed to implode, leaving behind a puddle of pricey tweed fabric.

  Thank you, Dmitry, thought Bradley.

  The Russian had eliminated his secondary target; and now the enraged gunman was stomping toward him, one hand gesturing wildly, the other clasping his rifle.

  Shit! Bradley took aim.

  “Dmitry!” Ames shouted as he irreverently dragged the dead woman into the darkness of the outbound platform. “Get back into position and shut the fuck up! Sun will be here any second!”

  The irate Russian reversed course and ranted angrily into his tactical headset, undoubtedly cursing Goliath.

  Ames began to pace around the lantern, casting a tapered shadow that swept the tiled floor like the long hand of clock. The CIA director looked relatively calm for a man who had betrayed his own nation and double-crossed another. What motivates someone to become a traitor? Bradley wondered. Duress? Ideology? Financial gain? Power? Ego? What had been the turning point for Ames? Did the Chinese and Russians seduce him prior to the EMP? Or was he an opportunist? Not that it mattered; there were no mitigating circumstances for treason. The penalty would remain the same. Death.

  The door to the emergency stairwell chirped open.

  “Hey, Aldrich.” Ben Arnold, director of Homeland Security, had a pudgy face pocked with acne scars and his bulbous nose traced the length of the platform. “Sun’s not here
yet?”

  “Late as usual. The man gets off making people wait.”

  “Well, the old fool’s not going to like what I’ve got to say. We’ve got a serious problem.”

  That’s an understatement, Bradley thought, grinning.

  “Our problem?” Ames asked. “Or the tardy general’s problem?”

  “Both. I just received some troubling intel regarding an assassination plot.”

  The tiny hairs at the nape of Bradley’s neck prickled. His head shook as if to whisk away a disturbing question. Who could have tipped off Homeland Security about the black operation? Mentally, he began listing those with knowledge of the mission: the President, commander of Cyber Command, director of Secret Service, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Ryan Andrews, and ...

  Bradley swallowed against the sourness rising in his throat.

  158

  District Three, Washington, D.C.

  ABBY’S MUSCLES WERE cramping; her strength, waning. Rain slapped her face, wind gusts walloped her body, and the force of gravity seemed to be intensifying. Desperate, she drew her legs higher and thrust herself upward, overshooting the girder. Steel bit into her thighs; her body pivoted like a gymnast on uneven bars; and the night-vision gear catapulted off her head.

  Abby’s right hand swiped at the goggles, catching only raindrops; her left arm slammed atop the wooden platform. She threw her head and shoulders backward, another overcorrection.

  Her thighs began to slip along the girder and Abby flung her right leg over the beam. She heaved and writhed until her torso rested lengthwise along the slushy steel; then hands braced against the platform, legs in a scissors grip, Abby slinked forward along the girder like an inchworm.

  She hauled herself onto the platform and rolled over a rail, exhausted and wheezing. Her body felt like it was trying to shake itself apart. Was she shivering from the cold? Trembling from the acrobatic routine? Or shuddering from the blackness that surrounded her? Without night vision, visibility was less than a yard.

  When the panic in her pulse subsided, Abby removed her knife and groped with her right hand until she found the rope looped around the girder. One slash sent it sailing into a watery grave, then—given lousy visibility, high winds, and a slippery layer of slush—Abby chose to advance on hands and knees.

  After five hundred yards, the platform gave way to traditional railroad ties separated by beds of gravel. Relieved to have reached land, Abby stood and began walking, mentally counting off yards. From the mission briefing, she knew the Yellow Line tunnel was 130 yards ahead.

  Confident her measurement was reasonably accurate, she turned north and plowed through a band of trees and underbrush. Rain splattered against leaves. Weeds and saplings clawed at her legs, then a flare of lightning provided a glimpse of a cement retaining wall. She climbed over a chain-link fence and lowered herself onto the tracks of the Yellow Line Metro, eight feet below.

  The tunnel entrance lay to her right, and she hurried into its protective shelter. The acrid smell of mildew and decay assaulted her senses. Abby’s eyes were tearing. Her nasal passages stung.

  Ignoring the discomfort, she removed her backpack. The water-resistant fabric of her cargo pants had repelled the rain, but everything else was saturated. She wrenched off her T-shirt, twisted the soaked cotton, and wiped down her face and arms. She wrung out the shirt again before pulling it back on.

  Abby’s right hand dove into the backpack, rummaging for the red-filtered flashlight, then she hefted the heavy bag back onto her shoulders.

  Holding the flashlight and Norinco handgun with numb fingers, she treaded deeper into the putrid-smelling cement tube, unable to see beyond the hellish red patch at her feet. Doggedly, Abby crossed beneath the Washington Channel, passed the merge with the Green Line and entered L’Enfant Plaza, a major transfer station. Relying on mold-covered signs, Abby descended a level to the Blue Line, grateful the foul smell had abated. She followed the Metro route west, below D Street, and after a bend to the north, she hoisted herself upward onto the platform of Smithsonian Station.

  An escalator, masquerading as a flight of stairs, led upward. She cleared the ticket booth, and a faint shaft of light beckoned her toward a street-level exit.

  The first breath of fresh air permeated her lungs, rejuvenating and quenching like a plunge into a lake on a July day. The rain had stopped, and the sun had breached the horizon, a reminder that she had fallen behind schedule. Sunlight was shining through breaks in the chunky clouds, stealing her cover, and Abby hastened her stride.

  Her eyes followed an elevated pedestrian bridge across Independence Avenue to a white, multistory Beaux-Arts-style building, former home of the Department of Agriculture. Her gaze panned higher toward her intended shooting position: the partially constructed Climate Change Museum. The modern cement structure stretched four stories and bordered the National Mall, just west of Smithsonian Castle.

  Then Abby’s stomach spontaneously combusted.

  159

  District Six, Texas

  HUNKERED BENEATH A Chinese tallow tree, Kyle Murphy smiled at the aptness of its name. The species sported greenish-yellow and white flowers in spring, but its innocuous, heart-shaped leaves released chemicals into the soil as they decayed, toxins that killed other plants, making the Chinese tallow one of the most noxious and invasive species in the southern United States.

  He peered through binoculars at the heavily guarded electrical substation 150 yards away. A wall of sandbags corralled the soldiers defending the facility. Between Kyle and the enemy, a four-lane ghost highway ran east to west, a crumbling span of concrete divided by a metal guardrail and a protruding three-foot fence designed to discourage pedestrians from crossing.

  “I count two dozen,” Woody whispered. “Eight sprawled across the front and rear. Four more on each side.”

  Gary expelled a frustrated hiss. “Same problem, different day. Shoot the peacekeepers and risk damaging the transformer.”

  “Not necessarily.” Kyle hesitated, his promise to Jessie reverberating through his conscience. It’s only a scouting mission. The TEradS will handle the assault.

  “The men on the front corners,” Kyle continued. “Numbers one and eight. We can angle our shots to clear the substation and—”

  “And stir up that hornet’s nest?” Gary interrupted.

  “Exactly.” Kyle lowered the binoculars and motioned for the sheriff and Woody to huddle closer. “We drop those two with concurrent shots. If the others try to breach the highway, they’ll be easy pickings at the fence. Best-case scenario, we lure a few of them away from the transformer; worst-case, we shoot and scoot and mess with their heads.”

  A fiendish smirk was enveloping Gary’s face. “If I move a few yards to the right, I think I can nail number two.”

  Chambering a round in his AR-15, Woody said, “I’ll take number one.”

  They agreed on a set of signals and established an escape route. Woody steadied himself against a twelve-inch diameter oak; Gary aimed without benefit of a brace; and Kyle dropped to a knee.

  On cue, a single blast rang out, and all three targets plummeted.

  The remaining peacekeepers disappeared behind the sandbags, their frantic voices drifting along the breeze.

  Kyle, Gary, and Woody retreated along a dysfunctional set of railroad tracks. They navigated around an old junkyard and two industrial warehouses littered with dumpsters and dead vehicles, then doubled back toward the highway.

  The peacekeepers were on the move, tending to the dead, chattering into radios, and raking the woods to the east with scopes and binoculars.

  “Well, they’re not trying to cross the highway,” Gary said, disappointment thickening in his deep voice.

  “Maybe we haven’t pissed them off enough,” Woody said. “Anybody interested in playing a second round?”

  Again, they selected targets and a means of egress before taking up positions. Near simultaneous shots felled three more targets. Then a withering ons
laught of lead began hammering their position. Bullets thudded into trees and thwonked off dumpsters, but the barrage wasn’t coming from the substation.

  “Behind us!” Gary shouted. “We’re surrounded!”

  160

  District Three, Washington, D.C.

  IT COULDN’T HAVE BEEN Rodriguez, Bradley decided. It would’ve taken days of torture to get him to divulge information about this op.

  Bradley elected to let the conversation play out in hopes of identifying the leak—yet another traitor.

  Ames’ hands dropped onto his hips, peeling back his suit coat, then he turned away from Arnold and resumed his circuit around the lantern. Five paces into his second lap, he said, “Damn Quenten for authorizing the TEradS. We should’ve taken him out right after the pulse.”

  The Homeland Security director’s cratered cheeks retracted, tugging his lips into a judgmental simper. “The TEradS are only part of the problem. There’s another powerful player trying to assassinate Burr and sabotage our plans ... Russian Spetsnaz.”

  A muzzle flash winked from the southern end of the tunnel, and a roar engulfed Forest Glen Station.

  Arnold drew a hand to his bleeding chest then wilted.

  “Dmitry!” Ames shouted. “I wasn’t done with him!”

  Bradley squeezed the trigger.

  Another boom peaked and faded.

  “Mikhail! Why did you shoot Dmi—”

  A rifle round drilled through Ames’ seditious heart, killing him instantly.

  Bradley waited until the residual echoes of the gunshots dissipated, then he plodded cautiously through the odor of cordite toward the southern end of the tunnel. With Goliath’s flashlight, he searched Dmitry’s pockets but found no identification.

  Is he really Spetsnaz? Bradley wondered. And is the Red Line Metro really sealed off?

 

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