Immune (10 page)

Jack pressed a specialized button on his cell phone, sending out a cross-frequency squelch signal. He paused then pressed it three more times in quick succession. The signal wouldn't have much range, but Janet would get it. The rest of the team would have to rely upon themselves.

Ahead, on his left, was Fuller Lodge, the parking lot filled with cars. Jack gunned the engine, whipped the wheel hard, and tapped the brakes, sending the Audi sliding into a sideways skid, which ended as he floored the gas pedal once again. The car shot through a gap in traffic and into the Fuller Lodge driveway, leaving a smoking trail of rubber in its wake.

Swerving left once more, Jack sent the car crashing through the front entryway, scattering glass and debris into the wedding crowd gathered inside. As people screamed, struggling to scramble out of the way, Jack brought the car to a sliding halt.

He opened the car door and stepped out. Immediately, the handful of people in the crowd who had already recovered from the initial shock began moving angrily toward him. Three quick shots over their heads from his Beretta sent everyone scrambling away once again. He didn't want to kill them, but he needed their panic.

Jack moved around to the trunk, popping it open to reach inside, grabbing a long case and the Kalashnikov rifle. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and moved to the stairs leading up to the loft, a mental count running through his head as he walked. If the team outside was Delta, he would have less than a minute before the lead elements of the assault team hit the entrances, perhaps as little as thirty seconds if they were really, really good. They wouldn't want to let him get temporal separation.

Reaching the loft, Jack slapped a clip in the AK-47, partially snapped open a window, and secured the weapon to the frame with the strap so that it pointed down toward the edge of the parking lot. Working quickly, he flipped open the case, extracting a small device that looked like two opposing C-clamps.

He picked up the remote control, pressed the button, and the small device expanded slightly, pushing the ends further apart and then letting them pop back together. Satisfied, Jack popped the thing over the Kalashnikov’s trigger. Grabbing the case, Jack paused at the door and pressed the button again. The noise of the AK-47 firing shook the room. Not only was the weapon reliable, it was very loud, and right now he wanted that volume.

On his way back to the first floor, Jack remotely fired the rifle two more times. It didn't matter that it wasn't aimed at anything in particular. The firing would draw his enemies like moths to a flame.

As he moved down the stairs, Jack extracted the pieces of the sniper rifle from the long case, snapping them together in rapid sequence. By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, the assembly was complete and he flung the empty case to the side.

He squeezed the remote control three more times, sending the booming echo of gunfire cascading across the parking lot. This time it was answered by a staccato smattering of gunfire that quickly died out.

Jack shook his head. That wasn't Delta out there. It was someone more concerned about limiting civilian casualties than with immediately taking him down, no matter the cost. Well, they had forced his hand. Squeezing off two more rounds from the weapon upstairs, he moved back toward the people huddled at the far corner of the hall.

His voice thundered through the large room. "Everyone! Get out of here and into the parking lot. Now!"

With no need for additional encouragement, the panicked crowd raced toward the front exit. As they did, Jack slid unnoticed out the back.

Janet walked to the flashing alarm, reached out, and switched it off. Okay. So it all came down to now. That was Jack’s signal, the thing they’d been awaiting for weeks.

She walked into the kitchen, opened the freezer, and extracted two plastic baggies, one filled with one-inch meatballs and another that held three frozen syringes of blood. Making her way around the corner and up the stairs, Janet pulled the cord hanging from the hallway ceiling and climbed the steps into the attic. The computers and SATCOM equipment sat where they had since Admiral Riles had been killed, unused since the team had been cut off from any external support. Moving rapidly from system to system, Janet removed the hard disks and memory units, setting them in a pile around a pre-wired detonation device attached to a white phosphorous grenade. She smiled. Good old Willy Pete, as they had called it before her day, back in Vietnam. It burned so hot that almost nothing could put it out.

Within a minute, she was done and moving back down the steps to the second floor. In the office, she retrieved the ultra-thin laptop and placed it in her backpack along with the two freezer baggies. Then she opened the locker, grabbed the bulletproof vest and an M95 military protective mask, and slid into both.

Next, she retrieved a pair of green M-57 firing devices, more commonly known as “clackers” because of the sound they made when squeezed. These babies would produce the electrical signals that would set off the No. 2 blasting caps on the Claymore mines. And each of those lads had seven hundred little ten-and-a-half-grain steel spheres backed by a pound and a half of C4 plastic explosive. Soon enough, like the ancient Scottish broadsword from which they drew their name, the two Claymores downstairs and the daisy chain of four out back would cut her a path out of here.

Having completed these preparations, she retrieved one last toy, the Israeli Uzi 9mm submachine gun, stuffing several ammunition clips into her backpack. The Uzi wasn’t a Jack type of weapon, but she loved it. It was light, compact, and packed a hell of a punch. Somehow, cradled in her arms, it just felt right.

Janet walked to the inside corner of the room and slid down the wall until she was seated with her back pressed up against the corner. Her fingers found the twin pairs of wires that had been secured to the wall along the baseboard with a staple gun. A quick tug popped enough of the staples to give her the slack she needed. Then, a couple of quick twists of the bare leads fastened them to the connectors on each clacker.

Settling back, she could feel the click of the valve in the filter canister as she breathed in and out through the mask. It felt a bit claustrophobic, but she had felt that before. She just had to slow her breathing and follow the plan that Jack had laid out. The hit team would expect her to run if she was warned. If she didn’t run, they would assume she could be taken by surprise. She just had to wait for them to come to her. And that probably wouldn’t happen until they thought they already had Jack under control.

And so she sat there, grasping the clackers and her Uzi, waiting for the reckoning that was coming. If they thought they had Jack, they were in for an unpleasant surprise. Inside the clear faceplate of her gas mask, Janet smiled.

"You've lost containment. Shut the operation down now."

Darnell Freeman spun to face Garfield Kromly. "Shut the fuck up. This is an FBI operation, and I will be making all the operational decisions."

But Kromly persisted. "Look, Freeman, just have your team back off temporarily to regroup. We want Jack, but only on our terms."

"We have him cornered now, and I am damn sure not backing off just because he started running before he got all the way to the
preplanned
kill zone. In a few more minutes, the taskforce will have moved to surround Fuller Lodge. In the meantime, he is pinned down on the second floor, shooting wildly."

Kromly stepped in close, his eyes ablaze. "Listen to me, for God's sake. Gregory doesn't shoot wildly. Something is drastically wrong in there."

Freeman turned his back on Kromly, facing toward the situational displays and communications equipment that filled one corner of the
taskforce command center
.
He keyed the mike on the command radio.

"Gibson. What's your ETA?"

The speakers crackled. "We should have everyone in position in about two more minutes."

"Good. As soon as you do, have Alpha team sweep around the left flank and cover the back side of the lodge. Let Bravo and Charlie teams cover the front and right."

There was a pause on the other end of the radio.

Freeman keyed the mike again. "Gibson, did you copy that last transmission?"

"Shit. Something new is happening. I have a couple hundred civilians running out the front door."

"God damn it. He'll be mixed in with them. Get them directed to a holding area."

"No way. We're still taking fire from the second floor window. All the civies are scattering like wild rabbits. I think a couple of them are down."

Freeman cursed then keyed the mike again. "If he's firing, then he's on the second floor. Put some suppressive fire into that room."

"What if he has hostages up there?"

"God damn it, Gibson! He's shooting into a crowd of people. Put some suppressive fire up there and then take him down as soon as you have all the teams in position."

"Roger."

Freeman slammed down the microphone to stare at the situational displays. The green dots indicated the GPS position of every member of the taskforce. The last of Charlie team had just made their way into position for the assault, having had the farthest to travel from where they had been prepositioned at the planned takedown location.

The other radios in the room were filled with chatter, monitoring the inter-team tactical communications from Fuller Lodge. Now they had new problems. A host of squad cars from the Los Alamos Police Department had arrived on the scene and his teams were having to expend resources to keep them out of the way. Although advance coordination had been made with the local authorities, it had not included this unexpected detour into a wedding ceremony at Fuller Lodge.

A quick glance at his watch told Freeman more than he wanted to know about how things were going. They were almost eight minutes into the operation and still hadn't really gotten things started. Jesus, what a cluster fuck. The thought of what Kromly had said crossed his mind, but he angrily dismissed it a second time. Too late for that now.

The CIA man now stood off to one side, slowly shaking his head.
Well, fuck him
, thought Freeman. They still had plenty of firepower to get the job done, and the last thing he needed now was more advice.

Finally, the little dots on the screen were moving out toward their designated assault positions. But something about Alpha team looked wrong. Two of the lead dots had stopped moving before reaching their assigned locations. Suddenly, the radios were alive with chatter.

"Two officers down. Christ. Someone just killed Jonesy and Christopher." The sound of automatic weapon fire drowned out the remainder of his words.

Gibson's voice broke in. "Bravo Team. Where the hell is the suppressive fire onto that second floor?"

Another radio squawked. "Damn it, we're pounding the hell out of it. We've launched five gas grenades in there too."

Gibson's excited voice shifted to the other channel. "Alpha team? Where is the fire coming from?"

This time a different voice answered. "Shit. Get us some backup. We've got two more down over here. I can't tell where the hell the fire is coming from."

"Bill, can you get to your wounded?"

The other man's breathing was coming in ragged gasps. "We don't have any wounded. The bastard is shooting everyone in the head. Get us some fucking help over here or there won't be anybody left."

"Bravo, move over to support Alpha," Gibson's voice cracked with stress.

Suddenly, Freeman felt Kromly's hand grip his arm. He swung his eyes to meet those of the old CIA trainer.

"You don't have much time," said Kromly in a voice devoid of emotion. “Jack is on their flank, rolling them up like ducks in a shooting gallery."

"That was before we got the gas into the building."

"God damn it, Freeman, you stupid asshole. Don't you get it? Jack isn't in the building. He's out there somewhere among your men and he's hunting. Don't send more of them to him."

"Kromly, you're not telling me something. Why all the head shots?"

Suddenly, the Bravo team radios began to chatter. One of their men was down, but it was unclear where the shot had come from.

As much as it galled him and despite the fact that he knew this meant the end of his career, Darnell Freeman knew where his duty lay. It lay with those men out there, who put their lives on the line for their country every day of the week, those men who were getting butchered by the abomination called Jack Gregory. He picked up the microphone.

"Gibson, this is Freeman. Pull Bravo team back now."

"Sir?"

"You heard me. We've lost containment on Gregory. Get your men back to where they can establish a defensible perimeter and await further instructions. And keep those Los Alamos cops out of there too."

Having finished with Gibson, Freeman switched to another frequency. They may have lost Gregory for the moment, but taking down the other four members of his team would help take some of the sting out of it. He would, no doubt, be fired tomorrow, but that man had killed some good agents, some of them men he had known personally. It was now time to close the other two traps and bring home some of the vengeance that the FBI was owed.