Battle Road (15 page)

Dylan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes Sir. One shot to the head. I promise.”

“Good. So let's make sure we never have to face that situation. Do you have any other questions?”

He looked at her then at the weapons on the rack. He needed to ease the tension. “Yeah. Where the hell do you get all this stuff. It's enough for a small army.” Tien was amused, she knew what he was trying to do. “We're well funded by countries all over the world. Israel, South Africa, Venezuela, Libya. Countries that America once helped are now helping us fight for our freedom.”

Tien looked at her watch. “Alright, it's almost one o'clock. Time for lunch. You've had enough weapons training for one day.” She pulled out two large black duffel bags from one of the drawers in the wall and handed them to Dylan. “But first we need to be prepared to leave in a moments notice. Fill each bag evenly.” She started pulling down the weapons from the rack and handing them to Dylan. “One bag for me, one for you. Put the the M4 in my bag. And split the cash too,” she said. Tien left the Gatling gun in the rack. It was too big to carry. Lastly, Tien brought over the jamming device from the coffee table. “You should have room in your bag for this.”

“
After lunch, we work on our disguises. I'm thinking we'd both look good as blonds.” Tien said with a wry smile.

TWENTY NINE

At four o'clock that afternoon, Dylan peered out of a window of the condominium to see the sun's red orange rays fading for the day. Days were short in New England during mid December, during the entire winter for that matter. He stared out across the city, thinking about all the choices he had made over the past couple of days. Choices that had changed his life forever. The thought that his death could come at any time was sinking in. That Tien could die at any time.
A bullet into her head
, he kept repeating to himself.

He tried pushing the images of their deaths out of his mind. But it was of no use, until his thoughts turned to Tien and his love for her. Even if he was destined to love her for only a little while, he thought, it would all be worth it. He felt alive. And for however long his life would be, it was still better than the numb existence he had known before.

He ran his fingers through his hair. The sensation was strange. His fingers feeling the freshly cut, stubbly, crew cut length hair. Tien walked into the room, “Well, how do you like it it?” Dylan turned away from the window to see Tien's hair cut short, just above the shoulders, and dyed blond. “Wow, you look hot. It's going to take me a while to get use it though,” he said. It was common for twenty something non-Christian women to die their hair bright red or blue. Or young Asian women to dye their hair blond. But Tien as a blond, that was going to be tough to adjust to.

She sat down on the couch, leaning back to get comfortable. “Did you read the documentation for the jamming device?” she asked.

“Yeah, I read it. I'm all set with that,” Dylan responded.

“
Good, we have to know every …... ,” Tien stopped in the middle of her sentence. “Where's your sidearm?” she said, noticing Dylan's underarm holster was empty.

“
It was heavy. I just put it away for a minute,” he said, while raising his hands in a manner to express 'alright I'll get it'. He walked across the room and picked the gun up off a table and holstered it. “I know, I know. We have to be prepared at all times,” he said. Tien was satisfied. It was only his first day of training. She knew it was going to take time for him to get everything.

Dylan walked over to the couch and was about to sit down next to her when a loud screeching alarm sounded from Tien's tablet computer in the kitchen. She looked at Dylan with worry. He didn't know what to make of it. Tien sprinted to her computer, Dylan followed. Video on the tablet showed Homeland Security troops rushing into the front entrance of the building. “Shit!” Dylan yelled. Tien dropped the tablet. “Follow me!” She dashed back into the living room, Dylan stayed on her heels. “Get our jackets, put mine in my duffel bag. Grab your bag and get down the tunnel. I'll follow.”

Tien went to work quickly. Opening the weapons storage panel, she pulled out the remaining C4-B explosives, along with the detonators.

Dylan shoved their winter jackets into the duffel bags, zipped them up, and slung his over his back. He opened the door to the makeshift escape tunnel and sat down, his legs dangling into the vertical shaft. He turned the lighting system on, then pulled out a black heavy duty plastic harness from a compartment behind the secret door and put it on. It wrapped around the upper part of his body and under his arms. It fit similar to a life sling the Coast Guard might use to pull a victim out of the water. The harness attached to mountain climbing type clips affixed to the lines of the escape system. He hooked his sling in, then pulled out a second sling for Tien and got it ready. Checking what else was in the compartment, he found a third harness, a flashlight, and a map. Dylan tapped the flashlight, checking whether it worked. It did. He took a quick look at the map, seeing that it was for the sewer system beneath their building. He stuffed the map and the light into his duffel bag and called out to Tien across the room.  “I'm ready!” He shifted his duffel bag around his shoulders, checked the pulley system to make sure he knew how to use it, and waited for Tien.

“Get going now! I'll be right behind,” Tien screamed, as she finished inserting two wire prongs into the first brick of the plastic explosives. The wires were connected to a detonator that used a remote sensor for the trigger. She attached the bomb gently to the wall in the front hallway. Then dashed across the room to connect the trigger sensor to the front door. She listened through the door for a moment, her heart was beating fast, but didn't hear troops on their floor yet. She ran back to set the second brick of C4-B explosives inside the weapons cabinet.

Tien sprinted across the room once more, grabbing her duffel bag on the way to the escape tunnel. She sat on the edge of the tunnel, looking down at Dylan. “Go, go, go!” she yelled. He wasn't making fast enough progress. She quickly put the harness on and slid into the tunnel. Before descending, she held herself steady, managing to close the door behind her. Just in case the explosives didn't detonate. It might buy a couple of minutes.

Dylan was no more than twenty five feet down the shaft. Tien dropped down quickly. By the time she caught up to him, they were  at the the second floor level of the building. They could hear the sounds of the DHS soldiers kicking in the doors to the nearby condos on that floor.  Dylan was still moving too slowly. Tien whispered, “Move faster. As soon as they open the front door upstairs the whole place is going to blow, including our overhead pulleys.” “That's not good,” he said, scrambling downwards faster.

He lowering himself as fast as he could. Tien followed closely, getting nearly just above his head. They managed to lower themselves three and a half stories, down to about the middle of the first floor, when they heard what they thought were DHS soldiers kicking in the doors to the condominiums on their floor.

“Let go of the rope. Just drop!” Tien whispered as loud as she dared. Dylan hesitated to let go, still lowering himself as he looked up at her. Tien let go of her rope, yelling, “Jump!” Dylan jumped. They fell in unison as all hell broke loose from above. The explosion rocked the entire building. A fireball engulfed the top of the vertical shaft. The pulley system was destroyed instantly causing debris to fall. Dylan and Tien fell into the darkness. Their bodies banging back and forth against the walls.

Dylan landed feet first, before crashing on his side. Tien fell on top of him. Dust and debris rained down on them in the pitch black darkness of the basement. A few seconds passed. Tien moved first, pushing the debris off of her. She felt Dylan beneath her. He wasn't moving. She rolled off him, feeling for where his head lay, while coughing from the dust. She shook his shoulder and spoke to him softly in case DHS troopers where nearby. “Dylan, Dylan, are you OK?”

He began to move, coughing from the dust as he came to. He heard Tien speaking to him. He wasn't sure at first what she was saying. Quickly he came to his senses, sitting up, and feeling for Tien. “Are you OK, Tien?” he said. In the pitch blackness, Tien responded with a whisper, “Shhhh, speak softly, I'm OK.” “There's a flashlight in my bag,” he said. Each of them finding and opening the duffel bag nearest them. Tien pulled out the flashlight and turned it on. They  looked like survivors of a volcanic eruption. Tien playfully reached over with her forefinger and wiped a line across Dylan's forehead. They smiled at one another, just glad to be alive.

THIRTY
             

Agent Chang listened on his communications headset to the latest status information from the senior DHS officer in the field. He stood inside the mobile command post, a few feet away from Senior Agent Goodman and Agent Greene. The command post, parked two block away from the condominium building under siege, was an extra large tractor trailer truck with every imaginable computing and communications gear arrayed in consoles on either sides of the walls. A dozen agents manned their stations.

Goodman continued to personally command the operations. It was essential for him to be at the scene when Fraser was apprehended. In fact, he would have preferred to lead the soldiers into the building himself if he could have. Agent Chang called out, “The third floor has been swept. No sight of the fugitives yet. They're proceeding to the fourth floor, Sir.” Goodman nodded to acknowledge the information. “There's no way they're going to escape,” Agent Greene said. He was the second ranking officer at the scene. It was his job to see that the building was surrounded, with no possibility of escape. National Guard troops encircled the entire building. Armored assault vehicles blocked every street. A small fleet of hover drones patrolled the entire area. Assisted by State Police who blocked all traffic in a four block radius.

Goodman paced back and forth, he lit another cigarette, then called out to Chang, “Tell me what's going on.” He began to wonder whether the surveillance tracking supervised by Agent Carmen was correct. He reviewed the video recordings himself, but wasn't one hundred percent sure. Even the computer analysis wasn't conclusive. But Agent Carmen had a hunch the two people recorded exiting the City Hall Plaza subway station were their targets. It was a man and woman with the same general physical characteristics. Though more importantly, it was the way that the pair kept their hats low to cover their faces. Goodman agreed it could be them. It took the rest of the night and most of the day to painstakingly trace their route with an assortment of DHS surveillance cameras, and requisitioned video from as many business' in the areas as was possible. Eventually tracking the pair to this condominium building in the Downtown Crossing section of Boston.

“
Soldiers are now sweeping the fourth floor now, Sir,” Agent Chang called out. No sooner had he finished his update, a massive explosion rocked the building. Goodman swung around to view his video display in time to see a fireball on the west side of the high rise. Eight Homeland Security soldiers were incinerated instantly. Shards of glass, concrete, and brick rained down on the soldiers and vehicles located below. Deep black smoke billowed out from the hole in the side of the building as fire spread out across the fourth floor.

Dylan stood in the dark sewer, his feet submerged in cold filthy water. He reached up to grab the duffel bags being handed down to him by Tien. She sat in the opening of the trap door in the buildings basement. Her feet resting on the first step of the rusted metal ladder. Dylan slung the bags over his shoulder and helped her down. She was more than capable of making the decent on her own. Dylan was more concerned with the ladder breaking and Tien falling. He was lucky to have made it down himself.

The foul smell of the sewer was overwhelming. Tien coughed harshly from the fumes, almost to the point of throwing up. Dylan leaned over Tien and placed his hand on her back, “OK, take it easy. Breath shallow until you get used to the smell.” Tien took a minute to regain her composure, finally getting used to the foul odors. “I'm good,” she said, taking her bag from Dylan. She fished a machine pistol out, re-zipped and slung the bag over her shoulder. “Let's go,” she said, cocking her gun.

The sewer tunnel was an arched shaped semi-circle made of concrete bricks. It was no more than eight feet high and twelve feet wide. Old LED lamps were positioned overhead in the tunnel every hundred feet or so. Illuminating the tunnel just barely enough for human eyes to see. 

Dylan studied the map with the flashlight. “OK, which way?” Tien asked. Dylan pointed to the left, “I think it's that way.” He studied the map further. “Yeah, it's definitely that way. I just had to get my bearings.”

They started walking down the tunnel. Their feet swishing through the sewer water. “Get your machine pistol out, we need to be ready,” Tien ordered. He fumbled with the bag, as he walked, finally getting the weapon out without spilling everything into the muck. “Remember my instructions about the safety switch on your weapon. Ignore what I said. That's our standard operating procedure, orders from command. Down here, though, you shoot any God damn thing that moves. Got it?” Dylan let out a low, slightly nervous laugh before acknowledging her new orders, “Yeah, I got it.”

They continued in the direction that Dylan originally indicated. Tien in the lead, one hand carrying the flashlight, the other her machine pistol with a red laser sight. Dylan picked up the rear, carrying the heavier bag with the electronic jamming equipment. “We need to get at least five city blocks away. That should get us outside any standard sized perimeters that DHS would have set up,” Tien said. Dylan looked behind him, thinking he heard something. Probably a rat.

“
What are our chances, do you think?” he asked. Tien looked back at him. “I don't want to guess the odds. The truth is we'll be lucky to fight our way out of this one,” Tien spoke softly to avoid her words echoing down the tunnels. Dylan knew she was right. Still, he didn't like the sound of it.

They made their way a few hundred yards further, until the sewer branched off in different directions. Dylan stopped to study the map more closely. Tien walked back to shine the light above him, casting more light on the map. Finally convinced of the right direction, he pointed down one of the tunnels, “That way.”

Agent Goodman ordered more troops into the building to secure the other floors. Then ordered the fire to be put out. The explosion convinced him they were close. He was certain the fugitives were using the explosion to cover their escape. He barked out a litany of commands to various Homeland Security agents in his vicinity. “Get troops in those adjacent buildings. Put a secondary ring around the entire neighborhood. Bring in more drones.”

It took about ten minutes for the soldiers to extinguish the fire in the apartment. Agent Chang received an update from the commanding officer who was finally able to get into the gutted apartment to inspect the remains. Chang turned and walked the few feet over to Goodman, “They found what looks like an escape shaft. It leads down to the basement.”

Goodman understood the situation immediately. “They're in the fucking sewer. Get men in there right now. Get on the line with the city's sewer department. I want schematics for those tunnels downloaded to our computers within two minutes.”

“
Agent Greene,” Goodman called to his second in command. “How the fuck did you miss the sewers?” Goodman didn't want an answer. He cut Greene off before the officer could give an excuse. “You're going down there yourself and lead the effort in hunting them down. And I'm changing the standing orders. Shoot on sight. I want those motherfuckers dead.” “Sir, with all due respect,” Greene replied, “We should assume that the target has reacquired her memories. Capturing her alive should be our objective. Capturing Fraser alive could be useful in breaking her.”

Goodman thought it over for a minute. “Fuck it. It doesn't matter any longer. Countermand my last order. Take them dead or alive.”

Dylan and Tien traverse an additional three hundred yards of sewer lines. They walked silently as they wound their way through various passages. They knew it wouldn't take long for Homeland Security to figure out they were in the sewer system. Tien broke the silence, “Soldiers are probably already down here. We need to take the next manhole exit.” Dylan took a moment to study the map. “Yeah up ahead. There should be a main tunnel. Then be a smaller tunnel leading to an exit,” he said. The tunnel they were traversing narrowed even further. Crouching as they walked.

Reaching the end, Tien stuck her head out, peering both ways into a wide cavernous section of the sewer system. It looked to be thirty feet wide and twenty feet high. The tunnel, although still dark, was slightly brighter. Higher voltage lamps lit the entire length, as far as they could see. The map indicated this was a newly constructed main channel. They could follow it most of the way across the city if they chose. Dylan pointed to their left. “That way, about twenty  yards up, the second tunnel on the right leads to our way out.”

They walked side by side as fast as they could, pushing their legs through the almost knee high sewer water. Tien shoved the flashlight into her bag and took hold of her machine pistol. She looked it over once again, making sure it was loaded and ready to fire.

They made it almost twenty yards, passing a smaller sewer tunnel branching off to their right hand side. Dylan checked the map again.
I hope I'm right
, he thought. They trudged on through the filthy water. The small tunnel they were looking for was no more than five yards away. Suddenly voices could be heard in front of them. Lights flashed from Homeland Security soldiers in the main tunnel about seventy five yards ahead.

Dylan turned to Tien, “Run!” The two ran as fast as they could. Splashing about as they leaped from foot to foot through the water. They gave up trying to be silent, speed was the essential thing. Beams from a several powerful flashlights along with red laser sights swung back and forth within the tunnel. A  red laser landed on Dylan as he ran. Tien stopped in her tracks, unloading several controlled bursts of automatic fire. The DHS soldiers dove into the filthy water for cover. The soldiers lights no longer shining.

Dylan jumped into the entrance to the side tunnel, dropping his bag once inside. He cocked his gun and leaned against the wall. Tien ran towards him. The soldiers opened up with  automatic rifle fire. Bullets flew around Tien, ricocheting off the walls, and hitting the water. Dylan leaned out of the tunnel, swung his machine pistol towards the soldiers, and held the trigger for a continuous burst of covering fire. The soldiers automatic fire stopped, giving enough time for Tien to leap into the side tunnel. A fraction of a second later a barrage of bullets from the soldiers let loose.

Three red laser targeting beams crisscrossed up and down across the entrance to the side tunnel. Then a forth laser beam. Followed by a fifth. In a course of three seconds, a dozen red lasers swayed back and forth across the tunnel, searching for their prey.

Dylan pulled out the empty magazine clip from his machine pistol and tossed it on the floor. He was shaking and trying to calm his breathing down. Tien fought to catch her breath while she spoke, “You did good. I'm really proud of you.” She handed him an ammo clip from her bag, then took one for herself. Dylan loaded his gun and moved to the opening of the tunnel. He stuck his gun out past the entrance so only his hand and wrist were exposed, firing off a quick burst. Tien leaned back against the tunnel wall. Her machine pistol locked and loaded. She held the gun in her right hand,  holding it high, pressing it against her breasts. She spoke while still catching her breath. “We have to get out of the sewer now. Or this is where we die. They've already called in our position.”

The main channel became quiet. The red laser beams continued to swing back and forth. Tien handed the flashlight to Dylan. “Get moving and find that manhole exit. I'll be right behind you. I'm going to set explosives,” she said. Dylan opened the map and began looking at it. “Fuck the map. Get moving, now!” she said, almost frantically. She moved up to the tunnels entrance and unleashed another burst of fire into main tunnel. The soldiers returned the fire. “You don't wait for me. I'll be there,” she said, then fired another burst.

Dylan didn't say a word. He dropped the map and rushed down the tunnel. As he sprinted, Tien yelled out, “When you get up above, if you see anyone holding a gun, you shoot them. OK.” Dylan acknowledged her with a quick 'OK' while he was in mid stride.

Tien fired another burst from her machine pistol, emptying the magazine clip. Again the soldiers returned fire. A bullet grazed the top of her hand. She realized how lucky she was she didn't have her hand ripped off. She licked her wound before reaching into the duffel bag and pulling out more ammo. She loaded her gun then searched around the bag again, finding the brick of C4-B and the detonator. It was only a timer detonator.
It will due
, she though.

Tien knelt down in the tunnel and started wiring the detonator to the C4-B. Her hands shook from the cold and the adrenaline pumping through her veins. The soldiers were getting closer, probably no more that thirty yards away. She knew she was lucky that the soldiers weren't shooting rocket propelled grenades or smart bullets with explosive charges. Such explosions could rip through the natural gas lines that crisscrossed the sewers, potentially killing everyone inside. That was her plan for them.

Tien turned towards Dylan. He was climbing a ladder, about twenty five feet down the tunnel, his flashlight aiming at the ceiling. She picked up her machine pistol and fired several controlled bursts out the entrance. Her automatic fire only intended to for the soldiers to think they were being fired on. Hopefully to buy her more time. She turned around again to look at Dylan, he was at the top of the ladder. The sounds of the soldiers were getting closer.

Tien punched the keys to the detonator, setting the timer for forty seconds. Enough time, she estimated, to get away. She waited for Dylan to clear the exit. “Come on, come on,” she muttered to herself. Dylan was taking too long. The soldiers were now no further than twenty yards. She fired off another short burst into the tunnel. She looked behind her, Dylan was gone. It was time. In quick succession, she armed the detonator, hit the start button, picked up her duffel bag, and ran like hell.