A Triple Thriller Fest (75 page)

Still shaking, but trying to compose herself for her children’s sake, the young mother tried to make light of the situation.  “My, wasn’t that exciting?  Just like T.V.”

The left front door of her yellow Cutlass was yanked opened.  The young mother screamed as an unshaven, middle-aged John Trent slid into the front seat, pushing her over to the passenger side of the car.  Holding a small automatic to the woman’s back, Trent yelled, “Stop screaming, lady, god damn it.  God damn it.”  He started the car and placed it into reverse.

“Hey!  Some asshole’s getting away!” shouted Wicker, noticing the yellow sedan backing up.

He ran for the Suburban and jumped into the driver’s seat.  He put the vehicle into gear and roared off after the sedan.  Mike and the rest of the men ran toward the Cutlass.

Wicker’s Suburban caught up with the sedan just as Trent placed it into drive.  Seeing that the vehicle contained not just the fugitive but also a female civilian and two small children, Wicker decided he had to stop the sedan at all costs.

Trent stepped hard on the accelerator.  The car jerked forward and its front tires squealed as they grabbed the road.  Trent, the woman and her children were slammed back into their seats as the Cutlass bolted forward at great speed.  Wicker stepped hard on the accelerator of his Suburban, catching up to the sedan in a matter of seconds.

As Wicker’s Suburban drew parallel to the yellow sedan, he pulled his steering wheel to the right.  The Suburban slammed into the side of the Cutlass with a loud crunch.  With this maneuver, Wicker bumped the Cutlass into the brush lining the narrow road.  The Cutlass came to a stop.  Trent opened the front door, grabbed the woman around the neck, and pulled her out of the car.

The young mother screamed uncontrollably, as did her two small kids who cried, “Mommy!  Mommy! Don’t let him hurt Mommy!”

Trent pointed his automatic at Wicker and pulled the trigger.  The bullet ricocheted off the Lexan window.  Wicker murmured to himself, “Thank God for modern science.”

By this time, Mike and the others had reached the scene.  Rifles were aimed at Trent and the screaming, crying, hysterical woman.

Mike stepped forward, Walther in hand.  “Drop that weapon.  No one is going to hurt you if you let that woman go.”

“If you don’t drop your fucking guns, I’m gonna blow this fucking broad’s brains out,” screamed Trent.  The young mother let out a loud cry and shook violently as Trent put the muzzle of his automatic against her forehead.  “I said drop your guns, assholes!”

Mike dropped his Walther to the ground.  As the gun fell to the blacktop with a metallic clatter, Trent swung his gun at Mike.  Seeing Trent’s gun swing from the woman’s forehead, a Marine squeezed off one shot from his AR-15 carbine.  The full force of the bullet caught Trent square in the right temple, passed through his brain, and explosively exited from the left side of his face, splattering blood, skull fragments, and flecks of grayish white brain tissue onto his hostage and the ground.

Trent’s facial expression was one of utter surprise.  In one last spasmodic twitch, his trigger finger tightened and one shot from his automatic caught Mike in his upper right arm, ripping through the uniform jacket.  Trent released his hold on the woman and his body sank slowly to the ground.  The shriek from the young mother was deafening.  A Marine rushed forward to catch the woman as she fainted and started to fall.

“Good shot,” said Mike, holding onto his right arm as his uniform sleeve became bright red from the rivulets of blood streaming from his superficial wound.

As the HumVee came to a halt, the Marine platoon leader leaped out from the front passenger’s seat.  He ran up to Mike, whose Navy uniform identified him as the highest ranking officer present.  Saluting Mike, the Marine said, “Seems like you have everything under control, sir.”

Overhead, the Marine flight leader saw the HumVee and the troop truck reach the battle zone and noted that the action below had died.  Banking left, the flight leader contacted the Pautuxent Naval Air Test Center.  “Pautuxent Control.”

“Pautuxent Control.”

“This is Red Leader, ground action has been secured, cavalry has arrived, returning home.”

As the Marine flight leader continued his bank, his remaining wing man silently followed suit and soon the two remaining Hornets had disappeared.

Mike, Wicker and Lee huddled together and discussed their strategy.  Mike and Wicker would take six of the uninjured men and proceed to CSAC/Washington.  David would take the wounded and the rest of the men on the trooper carrier back to Pautuxent.  Three Marines were assigned to assist the young mother and her children and to await a special CSAC incident team to arrive and debrief the family.

The ride in the sole Suburban was mercifully uneventful.  No one spoke a word for the remainder of the trip.

Deep in the woods, the driver of the white Ford F-100 truck crouched under the dense undergrowth.  He was sweating profusely and breathing heavily.  His rimless eyeglasses had fogged over.  He kept muttering to himself in a high pitched stutter, “Th-those f-fools, those g-goddamn fools.”

0800 Hours: Sunday, June 13, 1993: CSAC Offices, Washington, D.C.

“I heard that you had a tough time yesterday,” Smith said to a tired and bandaged Mike.  “Seems a lot of people want you very badly.”

The two were sitting at a conference table in a room constructed of sterile off-white Masonite paneling.  The seats in the conference room were made of molded blue plastic, the kind normally found in school cafeterias.  The fluorescent lights lent a harsh brilliance, further adding to the sterile environment.  Mike wondered who the designer of this conference room was; making a mental note never to hire that person for Franklin Smedley & Associates.

“Certainly wasn’t one of my best days,” said Mike, nursing a Styrofoam cup filled with hot tea, lightly brewed.  “So, what do we have?”

“It’s obvious that someone doesn’t like us, Mike,” said Smith, grinning as he put down his own Styrofoam cup of black coffee.

“The master of understatement,” said Mike, provoking laughter around the small table inside the windowless conference room deep inside CSAC.

The other people around the table were Twoomey, Mildred, a terrorism expert with CSAC, and Adams, now on assignment to CSAC from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Adams conjectured that they could have been coordinated attempts.  “None of the assailants carried personal identification, which suggests that the attack on Mike and the Marines was well planned.  As far as we can tell at this moment, all of the attackers have been American or European, at least the one killed by Mrs. Swensen and the ones killed during the fire-fight yesterday.”

The terrorism expert, who had been listening quietly, added, “We’ve run checks on all known terrorist cells, so far we’re coming up with nothing.  Everything seems unusually quiet.  Even the Iranians have been silent.  None of the known groups have shown any indication of gearing up for these kinds of attacks.”

“Have you run identification checks on the dead?” said Mike.

Smith nodded.  “Prints were taken off the female attacker at National Airport.  It was a difficult search, but finally we were able to get a correlation through, of all places, the National Association of Security Dealers.  Apparently, our would-be assassin was a Julie Davenport.  She was a stockbroker in Des Moines.  Worked for a small brokerage firm, Reedy Securities.”

“You mean that I was almost killed by a stockbroker?” said Mildred.

“Now, wait a minute, Mildred.  Not all stockbrokers are assassins,” said Mike, smiling.

“Sure, some are merely vivisectionists.  Oh, by the way, Mike, I met a nice young man who’s going to be working with you in New York.  Eric Johanson from St. Olaf College.”

“You didn’t kill him, did you?  You know you have a habit of doing that, Mildred.  I need that boy to help out around the shop.”

Mildred blushed.  “Oh, hush now, Mr. Liu.”

“Come on guys, flirt on your own time,” said an exasperated Smith.  “We’ve got some serious issues here.”

Adams took up the report.  “Under the pretext that Ms. Davenport was killed at a federally licensed airport, I had a background check run on her.  We should get the results within a week. Early information is that she lived alone, was a history major at Grinnell College and came from a small rural town in Iowa near Des Moines.  One interesting thing is that she graduated from Grinnell at age twenty-eight.”

“So what’s the matter with that?” said Mildred.  “A lot of women have to go back for a degree.”

“I didn’t mean that as an insult, Mrs. Swensen.  It’s just that Ms. Davenport doesn’t seem to have much of a history before Grinnell.”

“What significance does that have?”

“If this Ms. Davenport turns up in Cedar Rapids as an adult without any traceable history, it could get interesting,” said Adams.

Mike who, having finished his tea, was methodically tearing his Styrofoam cup into tiny pieces.

“What about the attacks at NAVFAC and on Huntersville Road?”

Smith scanned a sheet of paper in front of him.

“The NAVFAC attack left four dead bodies and a burned-out hulk of a stolen Toyota sedan.  The Catonsville Furniture & Bedding truck was reported stolen yesterday morning.  All the weapons at both sites were either American made or available through local gun shops or mail order houses in this country.  All the weapons had their serial numbers filed off, professional.  Even neutron analysis won’t be able to detect any numbers.  Real good job disguising the attackers.”

Smith looked up from the report.  “No identification was found on any of the dead.  The stiffs could have been anyone, some looked like Yuppies.  The helicopter was reported stolen this morning from a flying school in Aberdeen, Maryland.  The black panel truck was registered to a Jerry Mitchell of Severna Park, Maryland.  Herb is going over to Severna Park today to see if that truck was stolen as well.”

“What about the Warthog?” said Mike.

The terrorism expert had checked into that matter as well.

“The Maryland Air National Guard reported that the Warthog was missing, but Pautuxent didn’t get the report until the Marine pilots had actually intercepted the attacking craft.  It was confusing.  The early morning shift just thought that a flight request and flight plan had been misplaced.  Didn’t institute a search until it was too late.”

“The Coast Guard is now searching for clues at the crash site,” Smith added.

Mildred frowned. “Doesn’t anyone think it’s pretty weird, all these attacks by no one in particular?”

Smith shrugged, “There have been a bunch of strange things happening.  Remember that attack in Langley where someone went car to car blowing away CIA agents stopped at a light?  There hasn’t been any rational explanation for that attack yet.”

“How would these people know what our travel plans would be?”  Mike said.  “Has anyone got any ideas?  By the way, Herb, I’d like to go with you.”

Smith shook his head.  “Travel arrangements were all made separately by the CSAC office initiating the trip, so we can discount a connection there.  Mike, the old man doesn’t want you to travel, just in case you’re a target.  The same applies to you, Mildred.”

“Did Winslow’s body have the cylinder?” said Mike, ignoring Smith’s comment.

“Yes,” said Twoomey.  “But the heat of the fire may have destroyed any hope of recovering the message.  Nonetheless, the cylinder has been sent to Laurel for decoding.”

“What about the other messengers?” said Mike.

“Three cylinders have now been retrieved: Mildred’s, Winslow’s, and the one from Station One,” said Smith.

“What about Station Three?” said Mike.

“We should hear today.”

“What is all this about?” said Adams.

Smith looked up.  “Now that the old man has authorized your participation, I’ll be able to fully brief you after the meeting.  For now, all you need to know is that we have some extremely sensitive underwater watch posts in four locations around the continental United States.  Each of those posts is presumed to have transmitted a message to CSAC within the last forty-eight hours.  We received one, Mildred’s.  A second one was brought by a courier from Watch Station One.  He bummed a ride on a military plane.

“The third message is hopefully in the cylinder extracted from Winslow’s body.  The last message, which was to come from Watch Station Three, about 100 miles off Santa Catalina Island, on the coast of California, has apparently not been generated.  We’re in the process of trying to communicate with them now.”

“Why are they called ‘Watch Stations’?  What are they watching?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

Mike leaned toward Mildred conspiratorially.  “McHugh can’t hold us, Mildred.  Let’s make a break for it.”

Mildred smiled.

Addressing the others in the conference room, Mike added, “Seriously, let’s get the old man on the phone, George.  It doesn’t make sense for Mildred and me to be on ice during something this serious.”

“Wait a minute.  I retired years ago,” said Mildred.

“Come on, Mildred.  Do you really want to sit this one out?” said Mike.

“Well — no.  Count me in.”

“Let’s make the call,” said Mike as he turned to Smith.

Smith, reached for the green, push-button telephone.

A harried McHugh picked up the telephone, “Yes?”

“Admiral, this is George Smith.  I’ve got two agents chafing at the bit.  If you don’t let them fly, they’re going to leave on their own.  Kind of out of my league, thought you might want to know.  Could be one hell of a firefight if you insist I keep them under wraps.”

McHugh chuckled softly.  “Put Mike on the phone.”

“The old man wants to speak to you, Mike.”

Mike took the telephone.  “Hello, Admiral.”

“Mike, what do you want to do?  Wasn’t target practice two times in two days enough for you?  By the way, tell Smith if I ever hear him refer to me again as the ‘old man’, he’s going back to gum shoeing.  If you and Mildred really want to stick your necks out, just be careful.”