Wildfire (28 page)

"At least now we know what to get him for Christmas." The young deputy marshal in the left rear seat laughed. "One of those illustrated self-help books."

"I'm not sure we should wait that long," the other rear-seated deputy marshal responded. "Sounds to me like ol' Joe's gonna need it tonight."

"Like riding a bicycle." The gray-haired driver shook his head with a broad smile.

"I think we better get this show on the road before our driver here starts to lose his concentration," the team leader commented as he reached for the radio mike. "Tango-Uniform-Three to Base One, we are en route from the Arlington Courthouse with one Poppa in custody. Activating homer now."

Reaching forward to the dashboard, the team leader flipped a heavy-duty red switch to the ON position.

On the roof of the armored transport, a small but powerful transmitter began to send out a locator signal to a grid of receivers mounted on towers and high buildings within the greater Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The receivers close enough to detect the signal relayed directional information to the primary base receivers. These devices, in turn, calculated the triangulations and displayed the precise locations of all the activated homer units on seventeen-inch computer monitors back at the base stations.

It was a very effective way to keep track of vehicles involved in sensitive or hazardous operations, such as transporting federal prisoners who stood accused of serious felonies and were thus likely to make a serious attempt to escape custody . . . with or without outside help.

"Base One to Tango-Uniform-Three, your homer is confirmed, fifteen-twenty-two hours."

"Tango-Uniform-Three to Base One. Homer activation confirmed, fifteen-twenty-two hours," the team leader repeated. "See you in a few."

"Base One to Tango-Uniform-Three. Ten-four. Base One, out."

The four deputy U.S. marshals drove the next twenty miles in comfortable silence as the driver took Interstate 66 west to the Washington Dulles Access Toll Road, and then continued north on the toll road to the number two exit that would take them out past President's Park to the secondary road leading out to the holding facility.

As they entered the long off-ramp, the driver noted the presence of a Fairfax County repair crew working just past the shut-off gate.

"Looks like we made it just in time," he commented. "You think they're ever gonna get this road done the way they want it?"

"Not in our lifetimes," the team leader predicted.

As they headed up the long off-ramp, the driver moved over into the right-hand lane. As he did so, he reflexively noted the presence of a light-gray minivan with smoked windows taking the off-ramp right behind them and then coming up even with the transport van's rear bumper in the left-hand lane.

As the minivan came to a stop at the left-lane toll booth, the uniformed driver slowly brought the armored transport van to a stop in the right toll booth marked "Passes and Correct Change Only." Then he waited patiently for the young female attendant in the left-hand booth to raise the bar gate.

As she did so, and as the uniformed driver concentrated on slowly shifting and accelerating the heavy van up the remainder of the long off-ramp, he failed to notice in his rearview mirrors that the county working crew had closed and locked the ramp gate behind the gray minivan and were in the process of getting into their clearly marked white truck.

And as the driver continued to accelerate the heavy van through its low-range gears, he also failed to notice that the attendant was no longer visible in the window of the left-side toll booth.

In fact, the first indication the driver had that something might be wrong was when the gray minivan suddenly pulled up alongside and maintained an even pace with the larger transport van. That was when he became aware that the right front passenger side window of the minivan was rolled all the way down.

He started to yell, "Hey, watch!" when the left rear door of the van cab suddenly seemed to explode inward.

The force of the impact actually rocked the heavy transport van sideways on its heavy duty shocks, throwing the driver and the team leader over to their right.

When the driver finally managed to recover his balance, he discovered that his view through the transport van's armored glass windshield was partially obscured by something bright red and viscous. Momentarily paralyzed from shock, the driver had only the span of a second to realize that he and the team leader and the entire interior of the cab were all covered with splattered blood.

Shaken to the point of forgetting their training, both the driver and the team leader reached for the radio mike at the same moment. They ended up knocking it to the floor. The team leader made a second attempt to grab the mike and found himself being held back by his shoulder-restraint belt.

Instinctively releasing his safety belt with his right hand, the team leader lunged downward and to his left, in a desperate effort to grab the radio mike that was bouncing around the driver's feet, just as the left driver's side window exploded in a shower of armored glass chunks.

The upper portion of the driver's lifeless body was flung sideways into the team leader just as something ripped across the top of his left shoulder behind his head and blew the right-side window out. The sledge-hammer-like force of the glancing four-bore projectile, and the immediately following collision with the driver's limp body caused the team leader's unprotected head to be driven sharply against the right side door frame. At the same time, the sudden lack of pressure on the gas pedal caused the van's heavy-duty transmission to lug down, sending the armored vehicle to a shuddering halt as the engine cut out.

Stunned into semi-consciousness by the multiple impacts, the team leader stopped trying to get the radio mike and instead tried to do what he should have done immediately . . . which was to activate the emergency alarm button on the transport van's dashboard. As he started to pull himself back up in order to reach for the recessed button with his left hand, he heard footsteps outside the van, and his survival instincts sent his right hand fumbling for his holstered 9mm pistol. He had it halfway out of its holster when the mostly empty left driver's side window frame was suddenly filled with a huge and ominous form.

A pair of 10mm hollow-point bullets struck the team leader in the head and throat, killing him instantly. Three more 10mm hollow-points buried themselves in the heads of the other three deputy U.S. marshals, all of whom were already dead.

Then, just as the heavy armored van began to roll backward, the man known as Riser reached in through the shattered window, unlocked the door, pulled it open, and set the brake with his right foot.

The driver of the gray minivan quickly accelerated up past the armored van, made a complete U-turn around the front, drove about thirty feet past the van on the right side, and then backed up until the rear doors of the minivan were within about ten feet of the rear of the van. As he did so, the driver of the newly painted and renumbered Fairfax County truck pulled up next to the driver's side door.

"Are you ready?" Riser demanded as he reached in and placed his right hand on the transport van's red "homer" switch.

The man in the front passenger side of the truck nodded.

"Now," Riser said, pausing for a brief moment for the man in the truck to turn an identically configured homing transmitter to the on position before he switched the armored van's homer to the off position. Then as the stolen Fairfax County truck began to move forward slowly up the off-ramp, Riser reached for the team leader's gun belt, removed a ring of blood-splattered keys from one of the "keepers," and then walked around quickly to the rear of the transport van.

At the top of the number-two off-ramp, the driver of the county truck turned left and proceeded to drive westward on Centreville Road, crossing over the Dulles Access Road and replicating as closely as he could the gradually accelerating speeds of the armored transport van.

Using the team leader's keys, the huge mercenary unlocked the doors, lifted the bar, quickly pulled the heavy door open with one hand, and then stepped aside—shielding himself behind the armor-plated door— with the silenced 10mm semiautomatic pistol out and ready.

But the extra precaution wasn't necessary.

As expected, the only occupant in the isolated rear portion of the transport van was Alex Chareaux, who was futilely cursing and struggling against the unyielding handcuffs and shackles that held him firmly attached to the metal seat.

Riser transferred the 10mm pistol to his left hand, and then pulled himself up into the back of the van. Ducking his head down to avoid what was to him a low ceiling, he walked up to Chareaux, smiled at the furious expression in the deadly poacher's reddened eyes, and then slammed his massive right fist squarely into the side of the helpless Cajun's exposed jaw.

Alex Chareaux's entire body recoiled from the savage blow, his jaw going slack and his eyes rolling back in his head.

After confirming that Chareaux was out cold, Riser shoved the pistol into the shoulder holster and then turned as the driver of the gray minivan tossed him a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters. Working quickly, Riser cut Chareaux loose from the chair, leaving the waist-secured handcuffs and leg restraints in place. As he did so, the driver pulled open the back doors of the minivan.
 

Then, in what appeared to be an effortless series of motions, Riser dragged the unconscious poacher out to the end of the tailgate and casually tossed his limp body headfirst into the back of the mini-van.

Two minutes later, as the minivan first drove up to the top of the off-ramp, turned right on Centreville Road, and headed due east, the driver of the stolen county truck began to slow down as he approached the right-hand turn that would take him out to the federal holding facility.

Just as he was coming up on the turn, the driver of the truck reached forward, shut the homer switch to the off position, then continued on in a westerly direction.

By the time the holding facility control officer realized that something was wrong, and dispatched an emergency response team out to investigate, both the minivan and the stolen county truck had long since disappeared into the Friday afternoon northern Virginia rush hour traffic.

When FBI Agent A1 Grynard got the call, at six-thirty that Friday evening, he was just getting ready to drive his wife, his sixteen-year-old son, and his fourteen-year-old daughter over to a neighboring agent's house for dinner.

Grynard's wife, who had been an FBI agent's daughter herself, handed him the phone and shook her head with an understanding half-smile. She had immediately recognized the tone in the duty agent's voice, and thereby knew that she and her children would be driving over to their neighbor's house by themselves this evening, where they would enjoy a nice dinner and cheerful conversation with a family they had first met when they were stationed in Anchorage. As usual, she would ask the hostess to wrap a plate of food in foil and put it in the refrigerator for her husband—who might be back in time to enjoy a reheated dinner, but more likely wouldn't be home until sometime in the morning, if then.

As her mother had told her more than once, with that very same understanding half-smile, this sort of thing went with the territory.

"Grynard," he said in a resigned voice.

"This is duty agent Frost. You have an alert notice on file for any event involving a subject named Alex Chareaux?"

"That's right."

"Better grab a jacket," the duty agent advised. "It could be a long night."

Less than forty minutes later, Grynard was standing on the edge of the number-two exit off-ramp number using a flashlight to examine the massive damage that the two doors on the left side of the armored transport van had sustained.

"My God," Grynard whispered, "what did they use to do that?"

"We have no idea," the supervisory U.S. marshal in charge of the McLearen Federal Holding Facility said. "We've never seen anything like it before. Hope you guys can tell us."

There was a distinctive edge to the supervisory marshal's shaken voice that Grynard picked up on immediately. It was the voice of a man who couldn't comprehend what he could have possibly done—or failed to do—that would allow something like this to happen. Grynard had heard that sound in the voices of far too many dedicated and protective supervisors in his law enforcement career.

Moving in closer to get a better look, Grynard tried to estimate how much force it must have taken to create the deep, cone-like hole in the armored van's left rear cab door. One hell of a lot, he decided.

"How many people did you lose?" he asked in a quiet voice as his crime-scene experienced eyes took in the carnage. Two slumped-over bodies were still strapped into the rear cab seats, their uniforms soaked with mostly dried blood. Grynard could see what he assumed were three other bodies lying on stretchers nearby, covered with bloody sheets.

"All four. The whole transport team."

"What about the other one?" He nodded in the direction of the three stretchers.

"The toll booth attendant. She took a round in the forehead, right between the eyes."

Grynard took a moment to absorb the information.

"Anybody get a shot off?"

"Never had a chance," the holding facility commander said. "The team leader was sitting up front. Looks like he managed to get his pistol at least partway out of his holster. That's it over there on the floor . . . fully loaded, locked, and cocked," he said, gesturing with his flashlight beam. "Everyone else had their weapons strapped in. These guys were a good team, careful
and
alert, so we figure it had to have happened real fast."

Grynard used his flashlight to examine the inside portion of the door panel. It looked as if a sideways mounted volcano had exploded, covering the inside of the cab with a dark reddish-brown lava and rocklike chunks of armored glass.

Bigger than a fifty caliber, the FBI agent told himself. Had to be. Which didn't make any sense, because that meant military, and he couldn't imagine how someone could have gotten his hands on a 20mm cannon, and mounted it in a vehicle, and driven it up a Washington Dulles Access Toll Road exit, and somehow gotten it into a position to fire into the side of an armored transport van without four careful and alert deputy U.S. marshals noticing the damn thing.