Iron Triangle: A Jackson Pike Novel (Book One of The Iron Triangle Series) (2 page)

4:22 PM- Friday,
September 8
^th

Sumner, VA

Overall, it was a simple plan.

In fact, a couple of days ago Mohammed Fatal would have
called it foolproof. But that was before his boss had decided to develop a
conscience.

The dark and well dressed assassin drove past the empty
guard house that stood before the main entrance of Carmike Chemical. The tiny
guard station was diminutive next to the hulking form of one of the largest
chemical distribution and storage facilities on the east coast of the United
States.

His jet black eyes, shrouded by thick black eyebrows, peered
through the window of the too-small security checkpoint as he steered the black
sports car past the small white building and into the parking lot of the large
gray warehouse.

The guard was gone, as planned. The poor bastard had been
taken out by a team more ruthless than anything his six weeks of security
officer training could have prepared him for.

Of course, the guard hadn't been the only security measure
that Mohammed and his men had to deal with. In addition to the twenty-four hour
security guard, the chemical storage facility was surrounded by a twelve foot
chain link fence and numerous security cameras, motion sensors and other
passive alarm systems.

All were sure to have been deactivated by now.

The security cameras were off. The guard was dead. The gate
was open.

Mohammed's men had done their jobs well, so far.

He exhaled heavily. Despite the interference of his captive
former boss, Mohammed's carefully laid out plan had gone well. The only loose
end sat wheezing through her broken nose on the soft leather seat next to him.

He glanced at his former boss, "I thought I told you to
shut the fuck up."

The woman let out a barely audible whimper as Mohammed
steered the vehicle through the parking lot of the chemical storage facility.

He gave himself a moment to survey the gray concrete
chemical storage warehouse as he piloted the vehicle towards the south parking
lot. The 1970's era building was solid, despite its desperate need for a paint
job. And while the large gray building may have appeared poorly maintained,
Mohammed knew it to be a state of the art warehouse facility, one that housed
chemical elements of all types and varieties.

Some of the chemicals housed in this facility required refrigerated
storage and others carefully controlled humidity. The huge warehouse provided
all of the requisite environmental control as well as security for these
volatile and expensive chemicals.

As he steered the black Mercedes through the parking lot,
Mohammed smiled a grin that did not touch his eyes. Many of the chemicals
stored in this simple looking warehouse could be deadly if they fell into the
wrong hands.

He was about to ensure that some of the most volatile would
indeed end up in the wrong hands.
His.

The handsome assassin peered once more around the almost
deserted facility, his eyes darting quickly around the empty parking lot. His
joyless smile broadened.

The truck was here, on time as instructed.

It seemed that despite the minor setback that he had
encountered when Ms. Winters decided to turn rogue, the plan that he had laid
out during the operations briefing was still on track.

The black German sports car rolled forward as Mohammed
stepped on the accelerator. The vehicle took up position behind a large yellow
truck which stood idling twenty yards beyond the empty guardhouse.

He flashed the halogen headlights and the driver of the
yellow box truck, which was innocently painted to resemble a Penske rental
vehicle, responded.

The truck rumbled through the open door of the warehouse and
into the interior of the facility towards the largest store of Ethylene and
Sulfur Dioxide on the eastern seaboard.

Mohammed stepped on the brake of the sports car as the
yellow truck came to a full stop near a large bank of chemical storage drums
inside of the vast warehouse. If he recalled correctly, the Ethylene was stored
in this location, with the Sulfur Dioxide three rows further down the same
storage rack.

He sat with an air of quiet satisfaction as he watched the
practiced efficiency of his men and shifted the expensive German sports car
into park.

He glanced to his right and looked at Susan as he pulled the
parking brake, reviewing the interrogation in his mind.

He was sure she had told him everything. But he had to hand
it to her, she could take a beating.

She would likely have made a better operator than she had an
administrator.

He sighed. It was a shame he had to kill her.

He opened the driver's side door and stepped for the first
time onto the hard concrete of the warehouse floor, smoothing the wrinkles out
of his custom made suit as he stepped around the hood of the vehicle.

When he reached the passenger side door, Mohammed tugged it
open and dragged his captive free of the vehicle.

Impressive, he thought as he pulled her towards a nearby
folding metal chair. She displayed not a hint of fear.

It was a shame that he would have to kill her.

She definitely
would
have made an excellent operator.

4:47 PM- Friday,
September 8
^th

Sumner, VA

Jackson smiled beneath the visor of his jet-black helmet as
he ruthlessly accelerated his black Harley motorcycle through the streets of
Sumner and onto the interstate. It was 25 miles to the interstate exit for his
now ex-employer.

For the normal driver, it would have taken about a half an
hour to make the trip from door to door.

Jackson finally decelerated as he arrived at the interstate
exit for Chemical Drive, the rural two lane highway that led over the Sumner
River to Carmike Chemical.

It had been 17 minutes since his bike had first growled to
life.

Jackson rode down the tree lined service road to Carmike
Chemical; passing over the company owned and maintained steel bridge that
spanned the Sumner River, a wide stretch of his town's namesake that split the
interstate from the chemical distribution facility.

His smile broadened as usual when he crossed the bridge. The
soft greens of the late summer woods and the afternoon sunshine glinting from
the algae colored water of the river always put him in good spirits.

Today, a soft Chesapeake breeze carried the smell of the
ocean as Jackson twisted the throttle of the sport bike, accelerating towards
the chemical distribution center.

A dilapidated barbed wire fence and a simple white sign
which bore the internationally known Carmike Industries logo were the only
indications to the uninformed passerby that this was an entrance to a Carmike
Industries' property.

The non-descript nature of the facility was no mistake.
Carmike Industries was notorious for their secretive corporate culture. In
fact, the corporation's profitability and continued success depended on this
secrecy.

Jackson rode past the Carmike Sign, making a right towards
the small white guard house that stood before Carmike Chemical, a subsidiary of
the publicly traded Carmike Industries, and until this morning, Jackson's
employer.

Carmike Industries, unlike this relatively small chemical
company that carried the Carmike name was a major conglomerate. It was an
organization whose component companies were involved in everything from
industrial chemical manufacture, supply and storage to the design and assembly
of 21
^st
century military hardware.

At its core, however, Carmike Industries had always been a
defense contractor and a member of what many colloquially refer to as the Iron
Triangle.

Jackson knew the term Iron Triangle to refer to the three
components of the all powerful military-industrial complex that rule cities
like Washington D.C. and towns like the nearby Norfolk. He had always considered
the three sides of the triangle to be the US military, defense contractors like
Carmike Industries, and the political leadership of Washington.

Carmike Industries was a charter member of this unrecognized
fraternity.

Not only was Carmike Industries heavily involved in
political lobbying and influence pedaling in Washington, but the company was
also deeply in bed with military leadership. They could be found exploiting
opportunities in every corner of national defense and government contracting.
These activities included things as varied as contracting galley service at
local Navy installations to providing deadly and well trained contract security
officers to US companies and federal agencies in war torn countries worldwide.

Jackson's feet touched the asphalt of the empty parking lot
as he maneuvered the bike towards the small white guard house that stood silent
sentinel before the large chemical distribution center's warehouse.

He pulled his Carmike Industries ID card from the storage
compartment of his sports bike and hung it around his neck, but didn't need it.
For the first time in the six months that Jackson had worked at Carmike
Chemical, there was no guard at the gate.

He shrugged.

The guard must be on a round, Jackson thought as he gripped
the throttle of his bike and proceeded through the wide open gate past the
imposing twelve foot security fence.

He pulled the bike up to the rear of the chemical storage
facility and shut down the Harley-Davidson, tucking his riding gloves into his
helmet. He set both on the supple leather seat of his motorcycle and walked to
the back door of the facility.

He swiped his access card and walked into an area which
contained the darkened offices and cubicles of his former coworkers. Within the
work space, a large floor to ceiling glass window pane separated the office
area from the warehouse itself. During working hours, the glass afforded
management a constant view of the main chemical distribution facility's
warehouse floor.

This evening, with the office empty and the fluorescent
lights of the warehouse on, the window bathed the otherwise dark office in
refracted fluorescent light.

Jackson walked through the office and stepped into the
nearby men's locker room, a dingy and dark room filled with rusted metal
lockers of assorted colors. He opened the rusting door of his locker and found
his final paycheck.

In the envelope, along with his final paycheck, he found a
handwritten note which read simply:

Please turn your
identification in to the guard house upon your departure.

Sure will, thought Jackson as he wryly recalled the empty
guardhouse upon his arrival.

Jackson surveyed his locker. The rusting metal box was empty
except for a small orange prescription bottle containing the powerful narcotic
Vicodin and his dirty gray work coveralls. He abandoned the coveralls but
tucked the bottle of painkillers in the pocket of his black leather motorcycle
jacket.

Admittedly, at first Jackson didn't pay much attention to
his surroundings as he stepped through the door of the men's locker room and
back into the darkened offices of the warehouse.

But as his steps fell on the hard concrete floor of the
office, something drew Jackson's eye. He turned and faced the large window that
overlooked the warehouse floor and took a step closer, peering into the
brightly lit facility.

Interesting, he thought. There shouldn't have been anyone
here since the facility closed at 4 PM, but there appeared to be a large Penske
rental truck idling noisily near the center of the facility.

Jackson was not overly concerned with the goings on of his
former employer, nor did he care why a rental truck would be in the facility
after hours.

Even when he was getting paid to be here he didn't care
enough to ask those kinds of questions.

Shrugging, Jackson took one step towards the back door, but
froze before his second.

Near the large yellow truck sat a blonde woman. She was
gagged with silver duct tape and sat tied to a small folding metal chair with
black plastic zip-ties. Her strawberry-blonde hair was tied in a pony tail,
strands of which had long since come untied.

The woman's face, which was certainly beautiful under any
other circumstances, was bruised and battered. She sat wearing what appeared to
be a very expensive tailored suit.

Jackson's mouth hung open in shock at the sight of the
beautiful and helpless woman as he stepped towards the door that separated the
office space from the warehouse.

His hands began to tremble, but the former SEAL remembered
to breathe deeply as he stepped towards the door to the warehouse.

Jackson was two steps from the heavy steel door when the
diesel engine of the rental truck surged to life and it began to roll towards
the open door of the warehouse.

Seconds later, a tall thin man with dark hair and a tan
complexion stepped from the driver's seat of a black Mercedes as the young
woman sat bound to the small metal chair, helpless.

The man's face wore a scowl above his dark, pin-striped
business suit. As Jackson watched from his concealed vantage, the dark stranger
walked up to the beautiful blonde woman.

Jackson could see the woman's mouth move beneath the duct
tape which formed a makeshift gag over her lips, but the serious looking
stranger with the hard eyes and a purposeful stride did not seem to notice the
woman's stifled supplications. His unhurried but heavy footsteps soon had him
in a position behind the loose strands of her blonde ponytail.

Without saying a word, the man wrapped the woman's head in
his thick arms. As Jackson watched, the man whispered something in her ear and hung
his head, raising it seconds later with deadness in his eyes that Jackson knew
all too well.

A moment later and it was all over. With a purposeful and
sickening violence, the dark stranger snapped the woman's delicate neck. She
collapsed in the small metal chair, her lifeless body slumping to the side and
toppling the chair to the ground as the assassin stepped away, coolly
inspecting the sleeves of his pinstripe suit for blood stains.

"Shit!" Jackson said, stepping backwards from the
window, his heart pounding in his chest.

In his haste, Jackson had failed to notice the small metal
trashcan that sat inches from his heels. As he stumbled into the waste
receptacle, it fell to the floor noisily.

The sound reverberated loudly through the nearly empty warehouse.

The tan stranger turned his eyes towards the darkened office
and pulled a silenced Glock 17 handgun from a concealed shoulder holster. He
stepped almost casually over the fresh corpse of the twitching blonde woman
before he began sprinting towards the door to the management offices.

He was closing rapidly on the door when Jackson acted.

Unarmed but well trained, Jackson did what any trained
special operator would do under the same circumstances.

He ran.

Jackson spun around, dropping his paycheck as he sprinted
towards the rear exit of the facility.

His muscular but shaky legs carried him through the darkened
office and past the still cubicles of his former workspace as silenced gunfire
from the unknown assassin followed him.

He could hear the muted percussions of the Glock 17 seeking
a victim as his fleet size ten feet sprinted at flat out speed to his waiting
black motorcycle.