Authors: Stephen England
8:57 P.M. Eastern Time
The TOC
West Virginia
“We have three signatures—here, here—and here,” Klaus Jicha announced, tracing his finger across the thermal image. “It’s reasonable to assume that our two subjects are here, probably conferring. The signature here, in the corner, is likely Miss Chambers.”
“And if you’re wrong, Klaus?” Russ asked, staring at the HRT leader. He didn’t like the way this conversation was heading.
“No one is pretending this is an exact science,” the big man replied, shooting him a look of annoyance. “We can position entry teams at the side and rear—use shaped charges along the wall. As long as we know where our subjects are, it should go down clean.”
“I’d prefer to avoid that as long as possible,” the negotiator interjected, standing there in the middle of the trailer with his hands on his hips. It was an unusually aggressive posture for him. “You and I both know that the tactical solution is always the least desirable. You send in the guys with guns, it introduces too many variables. Just give me a few more hours.”
Klaus shook his head. “Three more hours—the sat goes out of range and we lose our best intel on placement of the subjects. You want to talk about variables?
That
will be a crap shoot.”
An oath exploded from the lips of Marika Altmann and both men turned to see her staring at the bank of screens covering one end of the trailer. “What’s going on?”
“We’re losing our satellite coverage,” Marika responded. “Looks like a software glitch—the whole feed’s going down.”
“Deliberate?”
The older woman shook her head. “No way to tell—but in a couple minutes we’re gonna be blind.”
9:00 P.M.
West Virginia
Korsakov found himself holding his breath as Viktor continued to type commands into the Toshiba. The kid upturned his can of Coca-cola, wiping the brown liquid away from his lips. Like most of his generation, he seemed to do his best work while in that caffeine-induced high.
At length, he looked up, a broad smile creeping across his face. “It’s done. They are—how they say, blind as bats? As long as the worm remains active and I maintain control of the feed, I can guide you right in.”
The assassin slapped him on the back. “Well done, Viktor.
Spasiba
.” Thank you.
With a shove, Korsakov forced open the back doors of the Suburban, leaping out onto the snowy mountain road. Despite the cold, he could feel adrenaline flowing like fire through his veins. It was time to make their move.
9:34 P.M.
The CHRYSALIS cabin
Things had gotten quiet after the hostage negotiator had disappeared back into the darkness. The wind howling around the western end of the cabin was the only thing they could hear.
“What are they doing?” Carol asked at length.
Harry looked back at her, to where she sat on the floor. “Staging for an early morning assault, most likely. Sometime between zero one and zero three hundred—that’s when the human body goes through its deepest REM cycles. It’s the way I’d do it.”
Han cleared his throat. “You going through with this, Harry?”
It was a good question. That didn’t change the answer one bit. “Of course. There aren’t many other options, are there?”
The SEAL shook his head. “You’re talkin’ about killing federal agents, Harry. For the love of God, these are
our
people.”
The worst of it was, he was right. “If you want to go out and give yourself up, I won’t hold it against you,” Harry replied, watching
his friend’s eyes closely. “You’ve not broken any laws—feel free to say that I took you hostage as well.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Han retorted, anger creeping into his voice. Dangerous ground there. “I’m talking about you—running E&E from the feds is one thing. Trading shots with the HRT is a whole new ballgame. We need to get the two of you out of here.”
Harry gave him a tight smile. “There’s only one way out of here—and that’s with that old surplus helo of yours. Listen to the wind, to the snow. The best pilot in the world couldn’t exfil from this mountain tonight.”
Han seemed to consider his words for a long moment, then he slung the SCAR over his shoulder and turned toward the corridor leading to the bunker.
“Where are you going?”
“Won’t hurt to have it fueled up.”
9:47 P.M.
There they were—the FBI’s sniper team. Directly ahead of him, maybe eight, nine meters. Dressed in winter ghillie suits, he never would have seen them if he’d hadn’t known where to look, the satellite feed on his phone guiding him in.
Yuri left the AK-47 on his back and bent down, removing his suppressed Beretta 92 from its ankle holster. Just a matter of waiting.
He glanced at the screen of his phone, watching on the satellite as the rest of the
Spetsnaz
moved into position. The man from Leningrad smiled in the darkness. This was going to be good.
11:59 P.M. Local Time
Air Force One
Over the Atlantic
He was going to miss this, Roger Hancock thought, glancing around at the opulence of the Presidential bedroom. It might have been 35,000 feet in the air, but you would never have known it from looking at the furnishings.
Yes, he was going to miss this, whether he won his bid for reelection or not. At some point, it all had to end. America’s living, breathing Constitution still didn’t leave enough leeway for him to remain in office indefinitely. A shame, really. Four years, or even eight, just wasn’t enough for a man to fulfill his dreams.
A knock came at the door and Hancock levered himself up to a sitting position in bed, adjusting the sheet so that it covered the sleeping form of the intern who lay beside him.
She wasn’t as much fun as Mary had been before her overdose, but it had still been an eventful night.
“Come in!” Curt Hawkins, the agent-in-charge of Hancock’s detail, pushed the door open and entered without further ceremony.
“We’ll be landing within an hour and a half, Mr. President.” The Secret Service agent was a heavy-set man of medium height, his suits expertly tailored to conceal the Sig-Sauer P229 he carried underneath his jacket. He still spoke with the slow drawl of his native Mississippi. “Directors Haskel and Shapiro are meeting you at Andrews, as you requested.”
That was another thing he was going to miss, Hancock mused, a shadow passing across his face. A presidential “request” carried the weight of an order.
And if those two directors didn’t have the answers he was looking for, there’d be the devil to pay…
10:03 P.M. Eastern Time
The CHRYSALIS cabin
West Virginia
The snow seemed to be letting up, Harry thought, staring out the open window through his night-vision goggles.
He had no illusions about how this was going to end. The HRT was good. Even if he succeeded…he’d be killing his own people.
Blue on blue.
Dear Lord, don’t let it come to that
, he whispered, murmuring a brief prayer. He knew too many of the FBI agents. Knew their families.
Despite the legendary rivalry between Langley and the Bureau, they all played for the same team in the end.
His only hope was to hold off the HRT until the storm passed, until they could make their escape from the mountain. And that was a long shot.
A figure materialized out of the wind-blown snow and Harry brought his rifle to bear before recognizing the hostage negotiator.
It had been twenty minutes since last contact—with no phones in the cabin, the negotiation was taking on a highly unorthodox form.
“Do you remember Islamabad, Harry?” Russell asked, moving closer to the cabin. “Do you remember those three months we worked together?”
No answer. “You’ve had a fine career, fifteen years in the service of your country.
Neither one of us wants to see it end here.”
A short laugh from the cabin. Nichols’ voice. “You and I both know that it’s already ended, Russ. It was over the moment my face was splashed across national TV. I’ve been burned—there’s no going back.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way, not if we can end this now. Nobody’s gotten hurt up to this point, and I want to thank you for that. You’ve shown control. That’s going to count for a lot, but you’re going to need to meet us half-way by putting down your weapon and coming out.”
“He’s right, you know,” Carol announced from her seat in the corner.
Harry shook his head, forcing himself to remain focused on the world outside. “How so?”
“You kill one of those agents, you won’t be able to live with yourself. I know you’re just trying to protect me, to follow the orders my father gave you, but I can’t let you do it.”
“You’re not
letting
me—” There was something in her voice, an unusual intensity. He turned. She wasn’t sitting any longer—she was standing five feet from the front door, the subcompact Kahr leveled in her hands. Pointed at him.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going out there, to talk to the negotiator, to
resolve
this.”
She meant to do it, Harry realized, reading the determination in her eyes. As impossible as it was, she really meant to do it.
“They’re not going to believe you,” he replied, casting a sidelong glance toward the corridor. If only he could stall her for long enough.
Come on, Sammy
.
“Russ is trained in dealing with Stockholm. They’ll just bundle you back to the TOC
and resume their demands for our surrender.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to have good men kill each other for my sake. That’s something I’ll have to risk. Don’t try to stop me.”
10:25 P.M.
The TOC
“How much longer?” Marika Altmann demanded, leaning over the shoulder of the young computer tech. What was he—seventeen, eighteen? She could’ve had grandchildren his age, had any of her marriages lasted long enough for kids.
He jumped as her hand descended on his shoulder—probably the closest contact he’d ever had with a woman, she thought. “Uh—five, maybe ten minutes. Maybe less—it’s hard to tell. I’ve got to clear out the infected packets and restore the firewall before we can safely reconnect with the Key Hole sat.”
“Tick-tock, Bishop,” she replied, turning away. “The sat moves out of range in thirty. Get it done.”
10:29 P.M.
Icy beads of sweat clung to Viktor’s forearms as he typed in another series of commands into the Toshiba. Nothing happened. He was losing control.
He threw his arm up over the rear seat of the Suburban, fighting off the panic attack, the urge to curl up in a ball as he had done in those years at the brothel. As the whip had descended upon his naked body.
Struggling to control his voice, he toggled his lip mike to contact the
Spetsnaz
. He was one of them. He was. He was…
From the moment Korsakov heard the boy’s voice over the radio, he knew something was wrong. “They’re rooting out the worm—don’t know how much longer I can stay in control of their sat.”
“Give me an estimate,
tovarisch
,” the assassin replied, controlling his tones. He’d always known the boy’s pysche was delicate. Getting angry with him would accomplish nothing.
“
Da
. Two or three minutes before they can see you.”
The realization struck Korsakov with the force of a bullet, and he had all he could do to refrain from swearing. His men were spread out—six with him and another six spread out across the mountain. There was no time to retreat. He turned to the men immediately flanking him, both of them armed with Soviet-era RPG-7s. “One rocket through the western wall of the cabin. One into the FBI trailer. Wait for my signal…”
10:34 P.M.
The TOC
“I’ve got it, Agent Altmann. We’re coming through with the satellite feed.”
About time. Klaus and Vic were already staging with the entry teams, preparing to launch their assault in the twenty-minute window they had left. “Put it up on the big screen,” was Marika’s peremptory command as she crossed the trailer to the computer tech’s side.
Another few keystrokes and it was there. A huge image of the entire mountain. It didn’t take the older woman but a moment to realize that something was wrong. There were too many thermal signatures on the mountain to be accounted for. Way too many.
A curse on her lips, Marika headed for the door of the trailer, toggling her headset as she did so.