The Fallen: A Derek Stillwater Thriller (27 page)

Mandalevo, voice quiet, said, “Your numbers keeping dropping, Mr. Juarez. Or is it El Tiburón? You are now five armed men trying to control nearly five hundred. As our conditions grow worse—as we get hungry or thirsty or require toilets—we will be more and more difficult to control. They can just wait you out, you know. We can sleep, take naps, but it will be difficult for you and your men to remain alert around the clock. Your message has been heard—”

Juarez rushed at Mandalevo, slamming the butt of the MP-5 down on his head. Fireworks exploded behind his eyes. Mandalevo groaned and collapsed to the floor next to Maria. Vaguely, far off, he felt the miraculous soft touch of Maria’s hand on his forehead. He tasted blood.

Juarez screamed, “I am in charge now! We will do things as I say! And I say that we are in control and our demands will be met!” He stepped back, chest heaving, eyes dark with rage. “Does anyone else want to challenge me? Anyone?”

The crowd was silent, watchful.

From the front of the ballroom President Langston said, “President Pedro Gomez has done a great deal to bring your country’s civil war to an equitable end. He has put democratic reforms in place, marginalized the drug cartels, negotiated truces, and is working to disarm the paramilitaries. Your efforts to overthrow his government will only hurt the people of Colombia. And your choice of a replacement is quite a puzzle to me. Francisco Vasquez can’t even run his own organization, let alone an entire country. He’s a very weak leader. Is that your goal? Try to get someone into office who will be somebody else’s puppet? Or be overthrown in a very short period of time? The potential for starting up the civil war again is very high. You can’t believe this will work. This is a no-win situation, Mr. Juarez.”

From the floor, nausea churning his stomach, Mandalevo peered at the stage. Blood trickled into his left eyes. He blinked it away. “Shut up, Jack,” he whispered. “For God sakes, shut up.”

Juarez stalked to the front of the room, jumped up on stage, and crouched over President Langston. “The Gomez government has won their peace by supporting the drug cartels and turning the people into cocaine whores! They have slaughtered anyone who stands up to them rather than giving due process. The AUC has splintered into a hundred shards like a broken window, with most of the cowards’ loyalties being bought with a few pesos and cans of food! You know nothing about my people! Nothing! And it doesn’t matter, does it? You will be dead if they do not meet my demands!”

Juarez looked at the BlackBerry he still held in his hands, then dropped it to the floor and stomped it to pieces with his heel. He leaned closer to President Langston and said, “And if your foolish people attempt to rescue you, we’ll take the world down with us.”

General Puskorius shouted into his phone, “What? Who…? The Madeleine? We need SEAL teams in there to retrieve them! Yes, scramble them now!” He was simultaneously pounding on the keys of his laptop, tracking down the right people to coordinate operations. “Yes—”

Secretary Johnston was also on his phone, talking to the Coast Guard commandant, Admiral Bill Dyce. “Yes.” He eyed Puskorius. “They’re pulling together SEAL teams now, Admiral, but you may have people in place. Yes, hang on.” He punched another line and made sure the Naval officer was in on the call. “Admiral Dyce, I’ve got Captain Brockman with the USS Carl Vinson on line. He’s going to provide the coordinates for you and we’ll patch in General Puskorius to help coordinate—”

The PEOC was awash with mingled voices, the clack of keyboards, and the buzz of nervous energy. Johnston could practically smell the testosterone and adrenaline in the air. President Newman was pacing the PEOC, scowling. Puskorius and Johnston hung up at almost exactly the same time. President Newman said, “I want a report. General?”

Puskorius, jowls heavy, looked tired. He straightened his spine and threw back his shoulders as he described how The Fallen Angels had set some of their people off on an offshore oil platform and a cruise ship and how several of them had ditched into the Gulf of Mexico just before the chopper was blown to pieces by a Navy Super Hornet. “I’ve got three SEAL teams going after them, sir.”

“With orders to shoot on sight, I assume.”

Puskorius hesitated. “Sir—”

“Shoot them on sight.”

“Yes sir, but it’s possible that they will try to take hostages. I’m still waiting on intel about the oil platform. There could be a couple hundred
people working on it. And the cruise ship could have anywhere from a thousand to two or three thousand people. And we’re spread a little thin.”

“Thin?”

“The closest SEAL teams are at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Panama City, Florida, sir. They’re heading out as we speak, ETA twenty-five minutes.”

“That’s too long.”

Johnston said, “The Coast Guard’s on their way. We’ll be coordinating with the SEAL teams.”

Newman continued to pace. Johnston thought Newman was struggling to look presidential. Not necessarily act presidential, but to be perceived as presidential. For a moment he felt sympathy for the man. Learning the job in the middle of the crisis wasn’t easy, and few could live up to it. Still, he thought Newman was thinking about political repercussions more than thinking about the actual crisis at hand.

Newman said, “I don’t like it. This has gone to hell. Puskorius, why in hell didn’t your people shoot down that helicopter before they offloaded?”

General Puskorius said, “Civilians were in the area, sir.” He wrenched his gaze off President Newman and studied the conference table, littered with coffee cups, notepads, and the remnants of a hastily eaten lunch. He glanced over and caught Johnston’s gaze, who shot him a brief head nod to indicate he was backing him.

Puskorius said, “It was a bad idea to allow these prisoners free, sir. The United States has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists.” The words hung there like a noxious cloud of gas.

Johnston thought that President Newman was trying to point the blame somewhere else, and Puskorius threw it right back at him. He wondered how long Puskorius would last as chairman of the Joint Chiefs if Newman turned out to be the long-term president. He knew that if this day didn’t end with a living, breathing Jack Langston that left Newman president, his own political career would be over as well.

President Newman’s eyes fixed into slits. “As I’m sure you’re aware, General, the United States has a public policy of not negotiating with terrorists, but we have often had back-channel negotiations ongoing when there have been hostages involved. And that doesn’t change the fact that the military screwed up!”

Puskorius was about to respond when Lt. General Akron raised a hand to get everyone’s attention. “We’ve got another message from Secretary Mandalevo—” He trailed off as he brought the incoming e-mail up on the main plasma screen.

5 BG NOW. DS OK. NEG ENTRY. BI

They studied the message. FBI Director O’Malley said, “5 BG NOW? Does that mean they’re down to five?”

Secretary Johnston’s phone rang and he picked it up. “Johnston here.” He listened for a moment and said, “We believe there are only five of them left in the ballroom now. We don’t know why the numbers have dropped. And yes—”

Johnston said to the room, “Snipers took out two of the terrorists who were patrolling the lobby of the Cheyenne Center.”

“Thank God!” President Newman said.

Johnston didn’t respond to that. Back on the phone he said, “We have reason to believe there are five of the terrorists remaining, and that Derek Stillwater is still alive. We’re not sure—” His gaze flicked to the message on the screen. “Hold off on your entry until we give the signal. Yes. Hold.” He hung up and looked around the PEOC. “What the hell does “NEG ENTRY and BI mean?”

Akron swallowed. “The message appears to have been cut off. At least, I think so.”

CIA Director Ballard was on the phone. “Admiral? Yes. I want to know if that BlackBerry signal is—” Ballard’s round face grew pale. “Yes sir. Thank you.” He slowly hung up. “The NSA says Robert’s BlackBerry is either turned off or dead. The signal’s gone.”

All cell phones, including BlackBerry’s and other wireless devices, kept in constant communication with local cellular towers unless they were shut off. The National Security Agency had tapped into all cellular and satellite communications in a fifty-mile radius of the Cheyenne Resort and had their entire staff monitoring all communications.

“What does that mean?” President Newman said. “Is he dead? Did his battery die? What?”

Ballard said, “We don’t know, Mr. President. It’s possible he was caught.”

President Newman eyed the messages: NEG ENTRY. BI. “What does NEG ENTRY mean?”

Akron said, “It might mean we shouldn’t try to enter the building.”

“Why?” President Newman demanded. “Why would Mandalevo say that? Is it possible that these people— El Tiburón or Pablo Juarez or whoever the hell he is— caught Bob sending messages and is sending one of his own to confuse us?”

Silence fell as everybody considered that. It was Akron who said, “I suppose it’s possible, sir, but why tell us that the numbers were down to five? And would Juarez tell us that Stillwater was still alive?”

Johnston tried to think of what BI might mean. Or what it might start, but came up completely blank. “Sir,” he said to President Newman. “Agent LeVoi and Ms. Khournikova are getting set up to enter the building. We need to let them know our decision. Should they go in or not?”

President Newman clenched his jaw. He turned and studied the cryptic message on the computer screen, then turned back to Johnston. “Tell them it’s a go.”

“Mr. President,” interrupted FBI Director O’Malley, “with all due respect, perhaps we should—”

“Director O’Malley, it’s already been pointed out to me that we shouldn’t negotiate. Juarez said we comply or Jack Langston dies. We and the Colombian government can’t comply and I do not want Jack Langston to die. Director O’Malley, order your people to proceed.”

With an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach, Secretary Johnston watched the Secret Service director phone Agent Brenda LeVoi. “Agent LeVoi, proceed with your operation when ready. The timetable is yours.”

Johnston thought: Did Newman just sentence everybody in that building to death?

For a moment Derek stared at the bomb. With a hiss, he quickly scuttled backward until he reached the opening to the crawl space and dropped to the floor. He felt ill. His stomach churned, his head throbbed, and his hands shook. He knew it wasn’t just all of the day’s battles catching up to him. It was him.

He fell to the floor, back against the wall, and propped his head in his hands. The world swirled around him and his stomach roiled. Sprawling on his hands and knees, he vomited, sucking bitter air in and out of his lungs. Spangles and fireworks danced on the screen of his closed eyelids. The unmistakable sweet smell of rotting bodies filled his nostrils. Derek shook his head, instantly regretting the action as his headache intensified.

He crawled away from his mess and lay down on the hard floor, forearm over his eyes.

Coffee, you bastard!

It was just like Coffee, a master strategist, to create backup plans within backup plans. They had been trained in the same place in the same way by the U.S. Army. While Derek had specialized in biological and chemical warfare, Coffee had focused on Psyops— psychological warfare. A linguist, he had often been charged with interacting with locals, both as a trainer and as a propagandist. Derek doubted if Coffee had much more than basic field training from the CIA before slipping into Chechnya undercover and infiltrating the culture. Of course, while there he had led Chechen rebels in guerilla warfare and terrorism against the Russian government, as practical a training ground as any for becoming a full-fledged worldwide terrorist.

He drifted for a moment, lost in his own thoughts, a million emotions and memories flickering through his brain. He thought of his
ex-wife, Simona. Reaching into his back pocket, he retrieved his wallet. The ID in the battered trifold identified him as Michael Gabriel, as did all the other supporting evidence. But there was a photograph of Simona.

He wondered if he would ever see her again, then gave himself a quick mental kick. He hadn’t seen her in years. She was a doctor in Texas. She’d never remarried. Neither had he. Sometimes, when he let himself, he wondered what that meant. Did she still love him? Did he still love her? It was his career that had trashed their marriage— years in the military, followed by years working with U.N. weapons inspection teams. He had been thinking about her a lot over the last couple years.

Biological and chemical warfare and terrorism were the tiger tail he had caught early in his military career. It was like the fascination of watching two scorpions try to sting each other to death. Fear of it drove him to try to prevent it. Yet he couldn’t let go of it, couldn’t look away. He had seen its devastation firsthand in Iraq. Included in his files were details of secret missions into North Korea and Iran, Pakistan, and Africa, where he worked as a contract analyst for the CIA. What he had seen struck fear deep in his gut. A shrink once told him, “You’ve spent most of your career looking through the gates of hell. You’d be nuts not to be a little bit nuts.”

Why couldn’t he let it go?

Images: rotting bodies of Kurds in northern Iraq, sprayed with sarin gas from helicopters; nighttime grave digging in Pakistan, performing field autopsies on corpses believed infected by biowarfare agents, victims of surreptitious government-led testing on human beings; staring at huge corroded bioreactors in Russia that showed all evidence of manufacturing genetically engineered smallpox to be used in long-range missiles.

Get it together, Derek!

Derek sat up, looked down the hallway and spied a restroom. He walked down to it, pushed his way in, and turned on the cold water, splashing it on his face, washing his hands, rinsing out his mouth. He looked at himself in the mirror. His face was covered with small scratches and scrapes. His hair was littered with dust and debris, and his eyes looked sunken and dark.