He unwrapped Ames’ package, and his heart rate skyrocketed.
A hard drive? What the hell?
Bradley removed the battery from Dmitry’s satellite phone and deposited it into his rucksack along with the hard drive.
Are Russian special forces infiltrating the U.S. to thwart the Chinese Century? Or to acquire intel for a future attack?
Dousing the flashlight in favor of night vision, Bradley returned to Goliath. A mountain of dead tissue was already piquing the interest of resident rats and insects. He shooed away the carnivores, placed the Chinese-made CS/LR4 on the dead man’s chest, and helped himself to the suppressed, American-made M4 and two magazines in case he had to fight his way out of the tunnel.
Although all three targets had been rendered harmless, the most dangerous part of the operation still loomed ahead: getting back to the extraction point—in time.
161
District Three, Washington, D.C.
ABBY GAPED AT THE museum’s rooftop. There, in the exact position she intended to shoot from, was a Chinese counter-sniper team.
The sight was a psychological blow more draining than her acrobatic routine on Long Bridge. Although Abby could dispatch her target from the alternate location, the presence of counter snipers significantly diminished her chance of survival.
Exiling negative thoughts, she stowed her handgun and pressed onward. The streets were glistening with puddles and strewn with leaves and branches. Hearing the drum of footsteps, Abby ducked into a recessed doorway. Then spotting a group of civilians headed east on Jefferson Drive Northwest, she scurried to catch up with them.
A few toted backpacks. Most appeared to be well into their fifties, if not sixties, and their murmured conversations hinted of a protest at the Surrender Ceremony scheduled for 1100 hours.
Admiring their courage, Abby veered away from the group, taking cover beneath a canopy of trees. She bolted toward an eight-foot hedge; and head lowered, hands protecting her face, she threw herself through the web of branches. A peek between sodden leaves confirmed that the counter snipers were still assessing the seniors through binoculars that restricted their field of view.
Abby stole into the shadows of the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a boxy bureaucratic office building supported by massive cement stilts. She dashed from pillar to pillar, wary of roving peacekeepers.
The glass doors of the building’s entrance had been shattered, and Abby climbed through. Handgun drawn, she located the stairwell and ascended to the top floor.
A flood of paper, computer carcasses, and broken office furniture inundated the commercial-grade carpet. Copper thieves had gouged the walls, fluorescent light fixtures dangled from the ceiling, and the aroma of moldy paper hung thick in the humid air.
Given the building’s enormous size, clearing the endless maze of cubicles was impractical; so senses on high alert, Abby made her way to the northwest corner which overlooked the Climate Change Museum.
Encased with sleek white marble, the eco-friendly building had a modern feel with rows of green mirrored transom windows ringing its four floors like high-tide markers.
With a gloved hand, Abby whisked glass shards from a toppled filing cabinet and sat down.
I have four hours to conjure a solution, she thought, rooting through her backpack. And good intel is the way to mitigate risk.
Abby downed a bottle of water then tore into a pouch of beef teriyaki, her attention fused to the counter snipers. They lay side by side on a plywood platform that elevated them above the wall of planter boxes enclosing the roof. Each man was outfitted with a battle dress uniform, a blue peacekeeper helmet, and an M99 .50 caliber rifle with a high-powered scope—an ideal weapon for defending against bomb-laden vehicles.
Through binoculars, the larger man continued surveilling the civilians en route to the Capitol Building, just over a mile away. The smaller man, wearing dark wraparound sunglasses, jumped down from the platform, lifted the cumbersome M99, and began to patrol the rooftop in a clockwise direction.
Popping handfuls of trail mix into her mouth, Abby noted the way he propped the weapon against his right shoulder, the motion and rhythm of his stride, the rigidity in his posture, the tilt of his head, the intense scrutiny of his stare. He paused every ten yards, raised the binoculars that hung from his neck as if offering a crisp salute, and lingered for a full minute before moving on. He dawdled at each corner, two minutes on average, and spent another minute inside a cinder-block stairwell on the northwest side of the building, listening for intruders. The entire circuit took nearly a half hour and when he returned to the platform, his partner did not break focus. Neither man spoke.
A garden-variety distraction isn’t going to work, Abby thought. She lifted her backpack, gripped her suppressed .22 caliber handgun, and tiptoed through the rubble toward the center of the building to observe her alternate shooting site.
Her gaze skipped over Smithsonian Castle, skated across the grassy Mall, and scaled the Corinthian columns of the National Gallery of Art before settling on the dome that capped its roof.
Then her eyes clenched as if to shut out reality.
162
District Six, Texas
THE DRONE OF AUTOMATIC weapons echoed through Kyle Murphy’s skull, eclipsing the rumble of his heart. Bullets whizzed and thwacked around him, and with jittery fingers, he misdialed the satellite phone twice before the line began to ring.
Behind him, Woody fired toward the highway to keep the peacekeepers at the substation from overrunning the guardrail.
“One down!” Gary shouted. “Five to go.”
The sheriff was engaging a truck full of soldiers who had barricaded the warehouse entrance, effectively boxing them in.
Two rings. Three.
Come on, damn it!
Breathing rapidly through his open mouth, Kyle grimaced at the rank taste of dirty oil and gunpowder. With each shot, he could feel the concussion, an invisible wave assailing his eardrums, shredding his nerves.
Woody’s frazzled voice pierced the firefight. “Another truck just rolled up to the substation!”
Four rings. Five. The chime of the phone finally gave way to an extended silence.
“Ryan? You there?”
“Kyle ... ? What’s going on? Sounds like you’re under siege.”
“We’re surrounded,” Kyle sputtered. “Two hundred yards from the substation.”
“6A and 6B are already en route from the cellular tower. ETA ten minutes. Can you hold them off?”
Gary bellowed, “Two more truckloads of soldiers!”
“Sh-shit! Ryan, I gotta go.” Kyle clipped the phone to his belt, leveled his M4, and edged around the dumpster. Seventeen peacekeepers were aligned behind three pickup trucks like a blue-helmeted picket fence. Kyle unleashed a short burst that felled two, then a vicious fusillade drove him back behind the dumpster.
“How long?” Gary asked. “I’m down to my last mag.”
“They’re nine minutes out.” Kyle grabbed a spare magazine from his pocket and lobbed it to him. “Woody, how much ammo you got?”
“Down to my pistol.”
Kyle tossed his last rifle magazine to Woody. Then with a sidelong glance, he and Gary exchanged a hodgepodge of unspoken sentiments: apologies for getting each other into this debacle, heartfelt good-byes, and a pact to fight to the death. There would be no surrender.
Gary killed three more peacekeepers. Kyle shot two more. Then with the TEradS team still seven minutes away, their ammunition ran out.
163
South of District Ten, Idaho
NANCY HART LAY SUPINE on the cool ground and stared into the night sky, appreciating the simple beauty of the constellations, crushed diamonds scattered atop a black-velvet void. Ancient cultures believed destinies were written in the stars, and Nancy found herself wishing they would reveal her future.
Over the span of ten days, she had evolved from an introverted, middle-class woman into a clever and vici
ous warrior, a transformation that had begun with two children and a skillet of boiling oil.
That night, Nancy had slaughtered the peacekeepers who had commandeered her house. Still heady from the victory, she’d incited an armed rebellion at the labor camp, freed three dozen souls, and delivered the most compelling speech of her life.
“When people are subjected to a long string of abuses for the ultimate goal of tyranny,” Nancy had said, paraphrasing a sentiment expressed by the founding fathers. “It is the people’s duty to change that circumstance!”
Cheers had pulsed like a physical entity, energizing and motivating, filling her with unbridled courage.
“Join me,” she had continued. “Pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor in the fight for freedom ... Because I would rather die a freewoman than live as a slave!”
Bound together by gratitude, love of country, and hatred of tyranny, all emancipated workers had chosen to enlist, dubbing themselves the “Mini Militia.” By unanimous vote, they had elected Nancy Hart as their leader.
Chi-pads and Chi-phones seized from the labor camp had exposed the Chinese use of implanted tracking devices. Through experimentation, Nancy had learned how to degrade the weak signals with metallic shields fashioned from discarded cans—protective chain mail for modern freedom fighters.
Within a week, the group had swelled from a platoon to a company and had successfully raided three supply convoys and four peacekeeper outposts. Stolen weapons, ammunition, and food were being smuggled into District Ten and distributed among the captive population along with a plea to fight.
Alternating surges of hope and dread jostled Nancy as the predawn sky began to show the first glimmer of sunrise.
Will the people stand up and fight?
Or will they be cowed by the threat of smallpox?
By day’s end, the battle would be decided. Either District Ten would be free or Nancy and her compatriots would be lying dead in pools of their own blood.
164
District Six, Texas
THE INCOMING GUNFIRE abruptly ceased and Kyle Murphy peered around the dented corner of the dumpster. Ten peacekeepers remained behind the bullet-riddled pickup trucks, arrayed like a firing squad.
“What the hell are they waiting for?” Gary grumbled.
A mile beyond the great wall of Chinese soldiers, Kyle saw an all-terrain vehicle, yet another peacekeeper racing to join the fight.
“Maybe they’re waiting on a commander,” Kyle said. “There’s an ATV closing—”
The thought fractured.
His eyes tracked the flight of a dark object against the cloudless sky, then he shouted, “Grenade!”
Sandwiched between two open-topped dumpsters, Woody, Gary, and Kyle flung themselves flat onto the asphalt and covered their heads.
A dull, steely thunk preceded the detonation, a noise so loud it transcended hearing. Kyle could feel the energy of the explosion vibrating through his joints, shaking his lungs, rattling his brain. Stunned and disoriented, he tried to lift his head and immediately succumbed to dizziness.
Slowly, it registered. He was still alive. He could move his arms and legs. No shrapnel had punctured his body. The grenade had landed inside the dumpster.
He called out to Gary and Woody. Then unable to hear his own voice, he clumsily patted the side of his head, fearful that his eardrums had ruptured. The bandage had fallen off the amputated upper lobe of his ear. Thankfully, he was not bleeding.
Kyle lifted himself onto hands and knees and scrambled toward his friends, struggling against vertigo. Gary was sitting upright, hands kneading his face. Woody rolled onto his side; his mouth formed inaudible words. Both men seemed dazed, but otherwise unhurt.
Gripping one of the dumpster’s reinforced vertical seams, Kyle pulled himself upward on unsteady legs. The ground beneath him felt like a ship careening in rough seas. He toddler-walked along the steel structure to maintain his balance then gawked at the enemy in confusion.
All the peacekeepers were down, their corpses visible beneath the chassis of the trucks. The driver of the ATV was speeding toward him. Dressed in a Chinese battle dress uniform, the man shed the blue helmet, unveiling a mop of chestnut-brown hair.
Kyle’s mouth fell open; Peter Francisco’s widened into a vindicated grin. The boy that he had deemed too young to fight had just saved his life.
Peacekeepers from the substation were storming the highway. Kyle shouldered the strap of his empty M4 and ran to the ATV. He and Woody shared the seat, sitting sidesaddle, back-to-back, one foot lodged on a rear fender, the other planted on the foot rail. Gary perched atop the handlebars, feet resting against the front fenders.
Lead slugs began to ping around them.
Peter straddled the ATV’s gas tank in a crouched stance and gunned the throttle. Bearing the weight of four men, the engine whined; and as they accelerated past the mound of dead peacekeepers, a bullet ripped through flesh, adding a mist of blood to the ATV’s rooster tail of loose gravel and dust.
165
District Three, Washington, D.C.
SINCE THE RUSSIANS were outfitted with flashlights rather than night-vision gear, Bradley chose to remain in the subway tunnel as long as possible. He stopped frequently during the three-mile trek to evaluate suspicious noises—the scuffle and squeal of rats, the drip of water seeping through cracks, the swish of air.
Upon reaching the Red-Line terminus, he cleared every passenger car and ticket kiosk before deactivating his night vision. A foreboding silence began tingling inside him, itching like fleas trapped beneath his skin.
Someone’s here, he decided. Spetsnaz?
As Bradley squinted against the sunlight spilling through the tented glass roof of Glenmont Station, a trio of bullets rained down. Two zipped within inches of his head; the third embedded itself in a concrete wall with a deep-toned splat.
Tempered glass crystals fell from the skylight, sparkling and bouncing off the handrails and grooved treads of the escalator.
Bradley fired at a man leaping from the roof of the station. His first shot deflected off the prisonlike vertical bars that enclosed the escalator; the next bullet punched a hole through the gunman’s chest. His body lurched backward, and his head struck the puddled pavement with a splashing whomp.
Bradley scanned for additional threats. Did Dmitry allocate more than one man to this exit?
He ascended the paralyzed escalator with painfully slow steps. His rifle barrel rotated in sync with his gaze, scrutinizing the most effective ambush sites: a water tower to the east, a rooftop to the north, and a parking garage to the west.
Instinct advised patience, wait for a potential gunman to make a mistake and reveal his position. Time, however, was a secondary enemy. If Bradley arrived at the quarry after 0900 hours, his alibi would disintegrate, dots would be connected, and he would be court-martialed for murder and treason.
He knelt beside the dead gunman, who was thirtyish, wearing casual business attire, and clean shaven; the picture of hygiene compared to Goliath.
Another suppressed American-made M4, Bradley thought. He ejected the thirty-round magazine and cleared the rifle’s chamber. A search of the man’s pockets yielded a Glock .40 caliber and spare magazines. No identification.
He deposited the handgun and ammunition into his rucksack, swept the perimeter again for threats, and hustled into a grassy area sprinkled with trees, headed toward a deserted residential neighborhood.
With a hundred yards to go, bullets began pecking at tree trunks. Recognizing the origin as the northern rooftop, Bradley sprinted for the parking garage, weaving and bobbing and varying his velocity to make himself a more challenging target.
A steady pulse of lead chased him. Rounds aerated the ground at his feet and pocked the garage ahead of him. Then a bullet hammered his back, dead center between his shoulder blades.
Although unable to penetrate his armored vest, the kinetic force jolted him forward. Bradley stumbled
, regained balance, and launched himself face-first over a three-foot wall into the parking garage.
Clutching his rifle, his free hand reached for the cement floor. He tucked his head and drew his knees in tight, preparing to somersault, then a pained howl thundered through the garage.
Bradley rolled forward into a seated position; and after seeing the blood, he realized that the pained howl had come from him.
166
TEradS West Headquarters
Langden Air Force Base, Texas
RYAN’S HEAD RESTED against the tiled wall of the hospital waiting room. Eyes shut, phone wedged against his ear, he counted each ring. Nine. Ten. Eleven.
Come on, Kyle. Answer the phone.
Ryan had almost brushed off his distress call. Precluded from telling the truth, uncomfortable with lying, and plagued by guilt over endangering Abby and Bradley, avoidance had been a tempting alternative, one that could have cost Kyle his life.
“Captain Andrews?” The puffy folds of flesh beneath the surgeon’s eyes had darkened. “We successfully removed the capsules from both children.”
Ending the call, Ryan hefted his stiff body from the chair. Relief washed through him. “Can I see them?”
“Not until they’re out of recovery. Word of advice, Captain ... ? Go home. Grab a shower and some breakfast. You look like hell.”
Ryan hadn’t slept, and his appetite was nonexistent. How could he eat while everyone he cared about was in mortal danger? Rubbing a hand over the stubbly growth on his chin, he said, “I’ll be back in an hour. Call me as soon as you have results.”
The air was still cool, the ground laced with dewy patches the sun had yet to evaporate. He noted the time and placed another call as he passed the busy commissary.
The line rang three times before a voice answered, “Corporal Walzer, TEradS Ops Center.”
“Captain Andrews calling for Captain Defina,” he said, asking to speak to his counterpart at TEradS East.
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