Double Crossfire Read online

“I’ll ride back here. Prep the gear,” Cassie said. She sat in the backseat and retrieved the weapons from the cases. The magazines were filled with shiny 5.56 mm ammunition. She saw an ammunition can filled with smoke grenades and removed a few of those. Outer tactical vests were laid out on the opposing backseat. Cassie donned one, stuffing the pockets with magazines and smoke grenades. She filled Zara’s outer tactical vest and passed it forward. As she was driving, Zara snaked her arms through the vest. They still had their night vision goggles from the safe house Zyklon B mission.

  Cassie was feeling the thrum of excitement. A new mission. A new purpose. She was focused. Clear. Except for one thing.

  “I’m not going in this time without knowing the chain of command and the threat. At least give me a two sentence mission statement.”

  “We’re protecting the Speaker of the House. Going to meet him at his boat. He texted me a distress signal. People with guns are closing in on his position”

  Zara wound her way across the Fourteenth Street Bridge, looped onto the George Washington Parkway, heading south, and was quickly turning into the parking lot for Daingerfield Island. She pulled as close to the marina as she could. They exited the vehicle, and by now, Cassie’s veins were pumping pure adrenaline. She walked quickly with her rifle held at eye level, as if she were crossing a danger area. The parking lot had cars, but there were no people visible in the darkness. The George Washington Parkway hissed behind them by fifty yards. They were shielded by trees and a high hedge row. Inside the sleepy marina, there should not be anyone moving at five a.m. Zara pointed out the Speaker’s boat.

  “There,” she said. Cassie recognized it from their visit last night. It seemed like days ago, so much had happened.

  They stepped onto the creaky wooden pier, their footfalls light but not totally silent. Cassie flipped her night vision goggle over her right eye and scanned. The water smelled musty and the temperature was that perfect mission coolness. No humidity, clear skies, and just a little fall bite in the air.

  She immediately saw two individuals at the far end of the pier walking toward the Speaker’s vessel.

  “Bogies at eleven o’clock,” Cassie said. “Two people. Looks like they’re holding pistols.”

  “See them. We’ve also got another two coming from across the parking lot,” Zara said. “Stay here and cover me. I’m going to run. Shoot them if they make a move on me.”

  Cassie felt the dilemma. Let Zara go in and possibly kill the Speaker of the House or stay and fight off the attackers? Was the Speaker a part of the Resistance? Jake’s intelligence on him had been unclear. Rooting out Resistance members was nearly an impossible task. The people providing the intelligence had tried a soft coup already. That failure inspired this full bore junta. The Plan called for her to monitor Zara. Her tactical acumen kicked in, however, and convinced her that self-preservation was the first order of business.

  “Roger.”

  Zara darted forward along the pier as Cassie knelt behind one of the pylons and found relative cover and good fields of fire. She had the two approaching, almost head-on, and the other two that were at her three o’clock. All four appeared to be relatively average height, if not on the smaller side. They were slender and quick, moving in synchronized effort, apparently. Cassie considered herself lucky to have beaten them—potentially two Resistance members—to the Speaker’s boat.

  The two coming head-on saw Zara and bolted into a sprint, lifting something in their hands that looked like pistols. That’s hostile intent, Cassie thought. She knew her rules of engagement. Using the PAQ-4C infrared aiming light, she zeroed in on the faster of the two, led the body just a bit, and squeezed the trigger.

  The person fell, tumbling head over heels, causing the teammate to slow, stop, look down, and then look up, scanning. That was when Cassie fired a double tap into the face of the would-be assailant.

  Her silencer wasn’t completely silent on this still night. The traffic was light enough that the ambient noise did not envelop the ratcheting of the bolt, the miniature explosion in the chamber, nor the exit of the bullet from the muzzle.

  The two attackers at her three o’clock had taken cover and were scanning in her direction. Her opponents were wearing night vision goggles, eliminating her night vision advantage. Two shots snapped off above her head, spraying splinters into her face. The cover was thin gruel. She pressed her shoulder into the narrow pylon and kept her angle coincident with the axis of their movement. To her right was a hedgerow filled with thick boxwoods that would provide better concealment, but less cover. The bullets would easily blow through sticks and leaves, but her current position was untenable.

  Especially since the two had split up in order to gain an angle on her. Two more shots sang overhead. Cassie rolled to her front and low-crawled twenty meters to the hedge. The shooters were spraying and praying now, and as happens with that technique, their fire was inaccurate. There was a small gap in the hedgerow where Cassie was able to slither through, observe her attackers’ movements, and then pop out on the opposite side as they closed to her rear.

  They had reversed positions. Confused, they stood there for a moment too long, wondering where Cassie had gone. She used that opportunity to rise to one knee and fire to her left, knocking that target down, then to her right, missing at first, but then winging the person.

  Cassie jogged around to the right and was upon who she assumed was a wounded Resistance member, who was a woman. She had been hit in the upper left chest area, above her heart and just below her clavicle.

  “Who are you?” Cassie asked, baring her knife at the throat of the woman.

  “You know me, Cassie,” the woman said.

  Cassie’s breath caught. She did recognize the woman from the Valley Trauma Center. Her name was Sally something. A world-class pentathlete, Sally had been injured in a motorcycle crash and had been directed to the Valley Trauma Center for rehab. Cassie had seen Sally only on brief occasions. Sometimes in the cafeteria, other times doing physical training.

  “Sally?”

  “Yes. Sally Bergeron. Don’t kill me, please.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Probably the same thing you’re doing,” Sally said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Killing whoever you’re told,” Sally said. She coughed up some blood.

  Sally had a hard edge to her. For the first time she noticed an amateur tattoo crawling out from under her sleeve. There was nothing about Sally that gave off the world class athlete vibe now that Cassie studied her.

  “What was your crime?” Cassie asked. It was a wild guess, but Sally, if that was her real name, appeared more San Quentin than Quintana Roo, the renowned triathlon bike.

  “What?” Sally spat.

  “Leavenworth? Folsom?”

  “Fuck you,” Sally coughed.

  Cassie lifted her eyes, cast a glance toward the pier where Zara had turned. Three dead bodies and Sally Bergeron hanging by a thread. She now expected all of them to be women, perhaps from the Valley Trauma Center. Perhaps convicts?

  Broome and Zara had been training assassin squads for the Resistance revolution, that much was obvious now. The physical training and marksmanship, all explained to her as rehabilitation. Easing her from combat to something less traumatic, a rifle range. She assumed the others were in similar situations. There had been no group sessions. The staff and doctors told her that each individual’s rehab plan was highly specialized, and too much interaction with other patients, who were equally or more psychologically damaged, might alter each person’s recovery. She had been a newbie, though. Some of the women had been there for nearly a year. The Valley Trauma Center was tantamount to a remote jihadi training center in the Blue Ridge Mountains. But the question was a good one. Where would the Resistance recruit enough hard killers to do this bidding? With Syd Wise from the FBI involved, the federal prison system was certainly a possibility.

  A series of gunshots, muffled but loud enou
gh, sounded from the direction of the Speaker’s boat.

  Cassie reacted swiftly to a quick movement beneath her. Sally’s knife sparked off hers as she blocked the wounded woman’s thrust. A fighter to the end. Cassie drove her knife deep into Sally’s neck. The carotid artery sprayed into the hedgerow like a water sprinkler. Cassie wasted no time as she ran toward Sally’s partner, saw her on the ground, and placed a hand against her neck to confirm. No pulse. She believed she recognized this woman also.

  What is happening?

  She jogged along the pier and knelt next to the two women she had shot as Zara ran to the Speaker’s boat. This was nothing short of a combat operation. Zara had known what they were about to face and had prepared them well. She reached into the ammunition pouch of her outer tactical vest and switched magazines.

  Her head turning, the night vision goggle catching every flicker of light, every movement, Cassie rose and walked to the boat aptly named Two, which she presumed was his position on the depth chart for ascendancy to the presidency.

  Is the Speaker behind all of this? she wondered.

  She approached the boat, its stern abutting the pier. Stepping onto the ladder, Cassie surveyed the deck and saw two guards dead on the floor. Her head swept left, then right as her foot found the deck, and she walked toward the galley stairs. She cocked the night vision goggle and locked it into place on her head harness, switching to the flashlight beneath the rail of her M4.

  As she descended into the galley, the flashlight beam caught the reflection of something slick on the floor. Dark and red, the blood pooled at the bottom of the ladder. She crouched, using one hand to press against the sidewall, another to hold her weapon and shine the flashlight into the dim bowel of the galley. Two more guards were dead on the floor, both of whom she recognized from their visit last night to this very boat.

  Speaker Josh Williams was slumped, face-first, onto the navigational map of the world lacquered atop the dining table. Sitting with her back to the wall, Zara was clutching her shoulder. Blood oozed between her fingers. In the harsh beam of the flashlight, Zara appeared to be a theater actor onstage. Tight grimace on her face, pistol in her right hand, wounded shoulder clutched in her left. Her M4 rifle was lying in a pool of blood next to her.

  Sirens wailed in the distance. Could be random, could be for them—she didn’t know. Coming down a bit from the testosterone high, Cassie felt an ebb in her energy and an inverse surge in her empathy. Everything was connected. The top three elected officials in the country. Killed in one night. And somehow she was in the middle of it.

  She did her best to step over the blood and cross the galley to retrieve Zara. The sirens grew louder, not far away at all now. Zara lifted her pistol and aimed it at Cassie.

  “Zara, no,” Cassie said. “You’re hurt.”

  “I couldn’t save him,” she said. “They got him.”

  “Who got him?”

  “The women. The Resistance.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Cassie said. “We can figure it out later. There are sirens. The police are coming.”

  Cassie was talking to a woman who had either failed in her mission of protecting the Speaker of the House or succeeded in her mission of killing him. What stood out to Cassie was that the four bodyguards were the same four men who had been on the boat last night when they had arrived here. Either there was an insider threat or Zara had been the trigger puller.

  Which is it?

  Zara’s hand wavered as she pulled the trigger, the bullet blowing past Cassie’s head. Cassie charged Zara and kicked the pistol out of her hand. She used the butt of her M4 to place a solid stroke across Zara’s head, knocking her unconscious. As the sirens wailed in her ears, she retrieved Zara’s set of keys from her pocket.

  The footsteps on the pier grew louder. Escape through the stern was unlikely. She stepped over Zara’s unconscious body into the bedroom. She shone the flashlight up and saw the square hatch. She fumbled with the latch as footsteps thundered closer. Harsh voices fired through the night like gunshots.

  “Cover me . . .”

  “Alpha team going in . . .”

  The hatch was open. Cassie slid her weapon through the gap. Someone was on the boat. Two people, maybe three.

  She pulled herself through the hatch, straining from pull-up motion to dip motion, like a gymnast performing. The mainsail was wadded and tied around the mast, providing momentary cover for her. Sliding her butt onto the deck, Cassie lifted her legs out of the hole. She carefully closed the hatch and inched her way toward the bow.

  “We have dead bodies!” a voice shouted from the galley.

  “Secure the area. Bravo team, face outward, look for movement.”

  Cassie slipped the two-point sling over her neck and let the M4 hang diagonally across her back. She slid over the lip of the bow beneath the stanchion and suspended her weight from her two hands holding on to the lip of the bow. She was staring at the anchor, held in place by its chain and the winch inside the boat. Her shoes were touching the water. She didn’t know how deep the marina basin was, but did know this was her only slim chance of evading the authorities. Retrieving her M4 from the deck caused more noise than she had anticipated, but she was able to slide off the bow and enter the water amidst the shouting.

  Her feet touched bottom after her head was about three feet under water. She turned north and swam, the only way out of the marina. She swam awkwardly underwater, fumbling with her gear, not gaining the traction she needed. She counted the hulls of five boats she had passed. At the sixth, she had to risk gaining a breath, but decided no, go for the seventh. She pulled and slid beneath the V-shaped hull of a large sport boat. Using her hands along the hull, she pulled herself up for oxygen, letting her face barely break the meniscus of the water. Her nose and mouth were above the surface. The dank water dribbled into her mouth, interrupting her attempt to breathe silently. The cold water stung the incision Rax had made to remove the tracker that had been placed in her back at the Valley Trauma Center.

  Muffled voices penetrated the water covering her ears.

  “Hatch is open! We’ve got a runner! Check all of the boats!”

  Cassie took a deep breath and sank vertically before pulling toward the shore nearly one hundred meters away. She stroked until she couldn’t pull anymore, felt like her brain was going to explode from lack of oxygen, and slowly surfaced. Her nose and mouth crested again, the rest of her body and face hovering just below the surface. The stars were brilliant tonight. She shifted her eyes and tried to look in the direction of the marina, but only caught a glimpse. Besides, she wasn’t sightseeing; she needed to escape.

  As she was preparing to surface, a wild exchange of gunfire reminded her of combat in Iran. The sounds were muted, like a mattress falling several times. Shots were coming from inside a boat. Some were more distinct with cracking noises, fired from the pier, most likely.

  She slid back under the water as a boat engine revved in the distance. Is it coming after me? Searching the marina?

  She pulled through the black water, not being able to see her hands in front of her as she reached out. There was just a brief glimpse of her white hands, like baitfish, darting in front of her. With every stroke, she felt the anxiety lessen by a degree, but cautioned herself not to get too hopeful. She’d been disappointed before, like the time she was sitting on the Blackhawk cargo bay in Iran, only to be snatched away by Stasovich.

  When Jake couldn’t save me. Or wouldn’t?

  Stop it! she admonished herself. Her mind kept swinging between two different realities: one where Jake was the perfect man for her, and one where he had abandoned her on the battlefield.

  Another forty meters or so and she had to surface. Same process. Float to the top, tilt her head upward, break the surface, and suck in air. The boat engine was puttering in the harbor, definitely searching. She took a few deep breaths and repeated the process, submerging, pulling through the dark water, the baitfish flying in front of her eye
s with every stroke. Soon she was on the far bank when her hand struck rock. She pulled herself up through two giant riprap boulders.

  One of the approach lights for Reagan National Airport was directly to her front. She was on airport property. Exhausted from swimming nearly two hundred meters, she sat on the cusp between the rocks and the hardpan of the runway. The curtain of gray was beginning to push up in the east, meaning flights would be landing in earnest soon. Her adrenaline ebbed and her body began to shiver from the cold water.

  The lights flicked on, as if on cue. She needed to move away from the airport, but was trapped on two sides by water and two sides by airport security. She stood and ran under the cover of darkness to the west, the only chance of getting away from those searching for her and the Transportation Security Administration. While TSA were mostly guys eating doughnuts and checking shoes, Reagan National had a quick response team, given their proximity to the Capitol and the clientele that normally flew to and from DC.

  As she ran, the fencing dove into the water directly before someone could gain access to the airport, or leave it, from the solid land near the George Washington Parkway. Going back in the water was an option, but it didn’t seem to be a good one.

  A bright spotlight snapped on twenty yards to her front and began scanning the fence. She saw men jogging. One was holding a snarling German shepherd. They were maybe three hundred meters away and working the fence line that she had planned on pursuing.

  She retraced her steps and walked back onto the riprap, sliding into the water. She was maybe fifty meters from a large culvert that ran under the GW Parkway. The only problem was that this was a natural collection point for trash and logs that flowed downstream from upper Virginia and Maryland. She fought her way through debris and thought maybe she could walk on the logs, but didn’t try. The dog was barking loudly, perhaps sensing her. The flashlights crisscrossed in the dense foliage along the fence, their penetrating beams not reaching her . . . yet.

  The culvert loomed large and dark ahead. She pushed sticks and detritus out of the way and gained enough leverage to pull herself up onto the lip of the culvert. The water level was even with the lower part of the concrete pipe, which was large enough for her to stand in, which she did. The shepherd was going crazy, barking and sniffing where Cassie had entered the water.