Black Flagged Apex (54 page)

"This way, sir. The watch floor supervisor needs to speak to you immediately."

No further explanation was given. He could see at least three heavily armed Secret Service agents blocking the entrance to their destination. Their bullpup configured FN P90 submachine guns were held parallel to the floor, sweeping in every direction. He wasn't being arrested. Something had happened. Something big.

"What's going on?" he asked the agent behind him.

"We're in lockdown. NCTC was hit by a suicide bomber. Possible inside job. We're securing all high-value targets within the situation room."

"Where's the president?"

"You'll be briefed once inside. Please keep moving, sir," the agent replied.

When they arrived at the door, one of the agents entered a code into the keypad on the wall behind him. His escorts pushed him past the three agents, wedging him against the door, which opened less than a second later. A Secret Service agent inside grabbed him by the shoulder and guided him inside, shutting the door behind them. A tall, blond-haired man dressed in a dark brown suit approached him immediately.

"Director Shelby, George Hafferty, watch floor supervisor. The Operations Center at NCTC has been hit by an apparent suicide bomber. I know you have—"

"How big of a bomb? I need to talk to someone over there right now."

"Absolutely, sir. We're still trying to sort out the reports. From what we can tell, the bomb was hidden under a jacket. Maybe a suicide vest. I don't know how to say this, but the bomb apparently detonated in the middle of the FBI workstations. We don't have any real numbers, but first responders told us to expect massive casualties. I'm really sorry."

Frederick Shelby had visited Task Force Scorpion earlier in the day and could picture each agent seated at his or her assigned workstation. He knew every face assigned to the task force and had taken the trouble to learn something about each one of them prior to his visit. If the bomb had been as powerful as Mr. Hafferty suggested, most of them had probably been killed. Hesterman, O'Reilly, Mendoza, maybe even Sharpe. He felt a bitter anger rise up his throat, threatening to choke off his breathing. He was seething.

"My agent-in-charge? Ryan Sharpe. Did he survive?"

"I don't know yet. We've just started collecting information. I have a direct line to NCTC Director Joel Garrity. I spoke with him moments ago. He'll be your best conduit for information, sir."

"Thank you, Mr. Hafferty. Get him on the line, please," Shelby said.

The door he just entered opened again and deposited the secretary of Homeland Security, Marianne Templeton, into the room. He nodded at her before following Hafferty. On his way to the mobile watch floor hub assembled in the far corner of the room, he took note of the people in the room. He counted four Secret Service agents, two guarding each door, along with at least six personnel hovering around the four workstations comprising the mobile hub. Beyond him, Ms. Templeton appeared to be the only person worth protecting within the situation room.

"Get Joel Garrity at NCTC on a secure line for the director," Hafferty said.

Less than five seconds later, one of the analysts stood up from his chair and backed away, holding a telephone handset out to Shelby. Shelby took the phone and remained standing, stretching the cord. His first priority was to establish continuity of operations. As cold as this would sound to Garrity, the immediate survival of the investigation took priority over the casualties.

"The line is secure, sir," the analyst said.

"Joel, what happened?"

"We're still trying to piece it together, sir. I have some digital feedback showing a man in an NCTC windbreaker involved in some kind of controversy on the watch floor. Agent Mendoza shoots him in the middle of the FBI workstations, and that's where it gets confusing. A woman charges onto the scene at about the same time, dropping herself onto the bomber. An agent seated nearby shoots her in the back, and the bomb goes off immediately after that. I don't think anyone on the floor survived."

He would ask more about the woman in a moment.

"Joel, this may sound heartless considering what happened, but—"

"Continuity of operations," Garrity interrupted.

"Yes. I need you to transfer everything on your servers to FBI headquarters. I'll have one of our techs contact you immediately to—"

"They didn't tell you everything? The primary server and its backup were hit by a secondary explosion linked to the first. The investigation from this end has been wiped clean. Someone really wanted to put Task Force Scorpion out of business," Garrity said.

"What? The servers were hit too?" Shelby said, glancing up at Hafferty, who shrugged his shoulders.

"What about Ryan Sharpe? Was he on the floor?"

"No. He was found unconscious in his office. He's been evacuated from the facility," Garrity said, amidst yelling in the background on his end of the phone.

Garrity interrupted the call to yell something back. When he resumed the call, he sounded defeated.

"The entire catwalk just collapsed on some of my people. Look, I'll get back to you right away with more information. We're trying to salvage something from the server rooms, but it doesn't look promising."

"One more thing! The woman that was shot. Who was it?"

"I think it was Callie Stewart. One of the DIA's liaisons," he replied.

"Listen carefully, Joel. I need you to interview anyone that is still conscious there. I need to know what happened on the watch floor right before the bomb detonated. This is critical. I'm sorry to push this on you given the circumstances. We've both lost a lot of good people tonight," Shelby said.

"A lot of good people. I'll be in touch shortly."

Shelby handed the phone back to the analyst and took the nearest seat at the conference table, pondering what Garrity had said about the digital camera feed. Mendoza had presumably shot the bomber before he could detonate the bomb. Callie Stewart happened to be close enough to drop down onto the bomber and was subsequently shot by another agent. Why, at that very moment, had she been close enough to intervene? Sharpe had told him this morning that she steered clear of the watch floor, rarely descending the stairs unless summoned. Shelby didn't believe in coincidences. Her convenient appearance could only mean one thing.

Marianne Templeton approached him from the opposite side of the table.

"What happened, Frederick?" she said.

"We've been played."

Chapter 49

8:44 PM

The Brooklyn Hospital Center

Brooklyn, New York

Ashraf Haddad sat in one of the institutionally painful chairs placed against the wall of the hospital's intensive care unit waiting room. He'd spent the past two days living in this room, punctuated by visits to the cafeteria and the occasional walk around the common areas of the hospital to keep from going crazy. General Sanderson had asked him to keep an eye on Castillo and Sayar, to make sure their best interests were represented and that they were afforded the best possible care available for their recoveries. Castillo's situation had been touch and go for thirty-six hours, but as of this morning, ICU doctors had upgraded her condition from critical to serious. Sayar remained in serious but stable condition and was expected to make a full recovery. The hospital staff seemed reluctant to give a long-term prognosis for Castillo, who had suffered multiple gunshot wounds. The hesitance tempered Haddad's optimism about her status upgrade.

He glanced at his watch. One hour remained until he would check on them again and close up shop at the hospital. He had a queen-sized bed at the nearby Sheraton hotel calling his name. After spending the past three years in training with Sanderson's Middle East group, he wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to spend some quality time with one of the Sheraton's Sweet Sleeper beds. Now that both of his friends were out of immediate danger, Sanderson had suggested that he get some rest. He wasn't about to argue with the general's assessment.

Haddad noticed a group of three men wearing suits approach from the west corridor, walking purposefully toward the waiting room lobby. Their presence immediately raised his internal alarm. A more hurried group of men emptied into the northern hallway, just beyond a set of double doors, and turned in his direction. He recognized two of the men walking briskly toward him from the west wing as FBI special agents that had previously visited the hospital. He started to weigh his options carefully, not that he had many. When the first agent pushed through the swinging double doors holding an MP-5 submachine gun, he decided against anything drastic. He reached onto the small table to the right of his chair and pushed his Starbucks coffee out of the way to retrieve his Blackberry phone. He thumbed several buttons and replaced the phone, picking up his coffee.

He took a long drink of his thick, extra-shot cappuccino. He had a feeling he wouldn't be drinking good coffee again for a while. He placed the cup on the table and read the return text message before all hell broke loose.

"Rcvd."

Chapter 50

8:49 PM

Wilkes Barre/Scranton International Airport

Avoca, Pennsylvania

Daniel Petrovich had just turned their Jeep Grand Cherokee onto Terminal Road from Interstate 81 when his phone illuminated the minivan's center console.

"Can you see who that is?" he asked Munoz.

Munoz grabbed the phone and examined the screen. "Sanderson," he said and answered the call.

Daniel listened to the terse exchange.

"Understood. We'll be standing by," Munoz said, ending the call. "Get us back on the highway. We might be compromised."

Daniel scanned the upcoming street signs and saw that they would have the opportunity to turn off Terminal Road directly onto a northbound ramp.

"Compromised by whom?"

"The feds. Sanderson doesn't have all of the details yet, but the rules have changed in a big way. Something happened."

Daniel turned the SUV onto the northbound ramp and accelerated to match the sparse interstate traffic.

"Is this related to Atlanta?" Daniel asked.

"He's not sure. All he knows is that one of our operatives at the Brooklyn Center Hospital transmitted the federal arrest code, and he can't get through to his liaison at the National Counterterrorism Center. The cyber team tapped into NCTC called him at 8:17 to report that they had been dropped from the system. He's trying to reach some of his other contacts within D.C. Nobody's picking up."

"This isn't good. What's our exposure here?" Daniel said.

"Minimal. Fayed and Paracha are ghosts. Everything they arranged is sanitized. This car. The house. The FBI can trace us to this airport, but no further than that."

"I thought Sanderson and this guy Sharpe had agreed on this under the table?" Daniel said.

"They did. Maybe the director discovered the collaboration and pulled the plug on Sharpe. Any of a dozen things could have gone wrong, leaving us exposed."

"We have to assume the FBI knows that we're headed to Honesdale. Sharpe has no reason to keep that a secret if he's been relieved or incarcerated. For all we know, Sharpe fucked us over and the president is planning a full-scale invasion of the city. All I know is that we're not going anywhere near that airport, and we're sure as shit not setting foot in Honesdale until this is resolved."

"I'm not going to argue with that logic. There's a Walmart right outside of Scranton that should be open twenty-four hours. We can pick up new phones there," Munoz said.

"God bless Walmart."

Daniel's phone illuminated a few minutes into their drive north. He snatched it from Munoz.

"What the fuck went wrong?"

"One of these True America lunatics somehow gained access to the NCTC Operations Center and detonated a suicide vest," Sanderson said. "Pretty much wiped out the entire task force. A secondary bomb destroyed the servers. The FBI thinks Callie Stewart helped the bomber."

"Who the fuck is Callie Stewart?"

"She was my liaison to Sharpe's task force. They somehow have it in their heads that she was involved. The director of the FBI is on a rampage. He ordered the arrest of our operatives at the hospital. The very men and women that risked their lives for the task force. We need to be careful. Warrants have been issued for all of us, and we're back on the terrorist watch lists."

"Jesus. How many were killed in the blast?"

"At least twenty, with up to fifty additional casualties," Sanderson said.

"How do you want us to proceed? I don't mean to sound grim, but if the task force is history, then nobody knows we're here. We should be clear to make a move against Mills."

"You never disappoint me, Daniel. Practical to a fault. I concur with your assessment. Take whatever measures are necessary to stop True America. I'll arrange to have your weapons and equipment delivered to a location of your choosing. I'm serious about this, Daniel. Do whatever it takes to drag these psychotic traitors down. No rules of engagement on this one," Sanderson said.

"I've never had much use for rules," Daniel replied.

"That's why I recruited you. Let me know when you've selected a location for the transfer. And get new phones. There's a twenty-four-hour Walmart in Scranton."

"Am I the only asshole that doesn't know about this Walmart?" Daniel said, throwing the phone in Munoz's lap.

"So, we're still a go?" Munoz asked.

"Yep. We just need to find a secure place to receive the gear."

"Walmart parking lot?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Daniel said.

Chapter 51

9:06 PM

Wilkes Barre/Scranton International Airport

Avoca, Pennsylvania