First Strike (47 page)

The tall one reached Tariq just as the muzzle crossed the last inches of air, then was ripped upward, out of his hands, by another student.

They beat Tariq as rabid screams came from their mouths, which mixed with the high-pitched, metallic, bee-sting noise of an Uzi, firing from the door, and they all looked, including Tariq, bleeding and trapped.

It was Meuse. He held two guns, a rifle, aimed at the door in case anyone dared to enter, the other an Uzi, which he fired with calm efficiency at the students surrounding Tariq and then along the walls. He looked at the windows, where four students still stood. He swept the submachine gun across them. All four fell out, their horrible screams mixed with the sound of breaking glass. Then they hit the ground and the screams ceased.

Meuse went to Tariq, whose nose and mouth were bleeding.

“Come,” he said, holding out his hand.

*   *   *

Dewey climbed the stairs from the subbasement to the basement, entering a low-ceilinged, brightly lit corridor.

“Hold on,” said Igor over commo. “Looks like there's movement.”

“What do you mean?” asked Dewey.

“They're moving students from ten to eleven.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.”

Dewey stopped and removed a black Sharpie from his pants pocket. He looked around at everyone, then started writing on his forearm.

“Let's have the terrorists again, Igor, by floor.”

“One on the first floor, one on six, two on ten, and now it looks like two on eleven. One on twelve.”

As Igor dictated, Dewey wrote down a sequence of numbers: 11, 61, 102, 112, 121. Each number showed the floor where the terrorists were and the number of terrorists on that floor.

He handed the pen around. Tacoma, Smith, and Katie all wrote down the same numbers.

“Igor, if that changes—”

“I'll let you know if any of them move. Don't forget the four students down the hall.”

“Thanks.”

Dewey shook his head, not knowing what to do. If they released them, they would have to stay put. People could be very irrational, especially teenagers, and especially terrified teenagers.

“What would we do with them?” asked Tacoma.

Dewey thought for several seconds. He looked at Smith.

“If we get the bomb down, your guys can get in there, right?”

“Yeah.”

Dewey looked at Tacoma.

“I have an idea.”

*   *   *

Dewey moved down the basement corridor toward the door. The students were behind it.

The stench of urine was strong, even through the door.

He opened it. The students were chained across the room from the far door, which led into a tunnel that connected to the next building. There were three girls and a boy. One of the girls looked okay, if tired. The boy looked unconscious, as did one of the other girls. The last girl, Chinese, was sobbing. They were all standing. They had to, otherwise they would all be strangled by the chain that gripped their necks. The floor was covered in wetness from urine. There was also blood. Studying the students, he saw that the calm-looking girl had tried to pull her head through the chain. Her neck was cut almost completely around. Blood still trickled.

The ones who were awake did not even register Dewey's entrance, so deep was their shock and trauma.

He moved to the door and studied the shoe box. It was set lengthwise, parallel to the door. If the detonator was a trigger button, Dewey assumed it was on the bottom of the device, designed to detonate if the box fell. Dewey held the box firm to the door and removed his combat blade, inserting the tip into the seam and slashing down, tearing a neat cut along one side of the bomb.

“
No!
” screamed one of the students.

It was a horrendous yell, full of terror.

“I'm here to save you,” said Dewey. “You've all been extremely brave. It's going to be okay.”

He slashed the blade along the other side of the IED. Holding the device gently, he moved the blade to his mouth and clenched it in his teeth as he lifted the IED and moved it away.

Dewey flipped open the three dead bolts, then pulled the door in. The chain slackened. All four students collapsed to the floor.

“Please help us,” said the calm one.

The boy woke up, as did the sleeping female.

“Who are you?” said the male student.

The sobbing girl, who'd just screamed, continued to wail and sob.

“I'm American,” said Dewey. “You're being rescued. The FBI will be here to cut that chain in a few minutes. Can you hold on just a little longer?”

Dewey moved past them, down the corridor, shutting the interior door behind him in case any of the students screamed. At the end of the hallway, he opened a door. It was a janitor's closet. He placed the bomb gingerly at the bottom of a large utility sink, making a mental note to make McNaughton aware of it.

Dewey hit his earbud.

“Igor, patch in McNaughton.”

Katie, Tacoma, and Smith were waiting at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the first floor.

“McNaughton. What do you got?”

“The basement bomb is down,” Dewey said. “Those kids are a mess. Commander, the bomb is down the hallway, in a utility closet, trigger down. Looks like a shoe box. Careful.”

“How soon until I can get them out?”

“As long as your guys go in and recon the four, immediately. But they need to be quick, quiet, and they can't hang around. I don't want any men trying to come in beyond there. Even the slightest noise echoing up those stairs could lead to more casualties.”

“Understood.”

“Of course, as soon as we're clear upstairs, that can be the primary egress for your munitions people and first responders.”

*   *   *

Dewey studied his arm again: 11, 61, 102, 112, 121.

Designing an effective assault was a challenge. Ideally, they would all move at the same time, in unison, on different floors. But the terrorists were too spread out to do that. This meant that if the terrorists had some form of internal communications, anything—a grunt, a scream, even the mere absence of one of the men from their commo—would tell everyone else they were there.

Dewey hit commo. “Igor, is that guy still on one?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, listen up.”

He gestured for Tacoma, Katie, and Smith to come in closer. He trained a light on his forearm: 11, 61, 102, 112, 121.

“Our only way up is the elevator shafts. We can do it from this floor, and try to avoid the guy on one, but I think that's risky. If he hears anything, we're screwed. Besides, I kinda want to kill him.”

“Me too,” said Smith.

“The problem is, even though we jammed their walkie-talkies and cells, they probably have some sort of periodic check-in. A yell up the stairs or something. Once we kill this guy, we're in a race against time. Which means we climb hard and fast, got it?”

“Yeah,” said Tacoma. “What about up top? Who hits what?”

“We climb to seven and move in,” said Dewey. “Except Katie. You get off on six and take that guy. Then meet us on seven. Igor, we're going to need real precise movements here.”

“I'll do my best.”

“Why not hit him from seven?” asked Tacoma.

“If he hears anything, he's going to go to the sound. I'd rather have him run down the sixth-floor hallway than up to seven. He's likely to yell if he does that.”

“Got it. I agree.”

“I'll take the stairs to one and take that guy,” said Dewey, signaling and walking down the corridor, giving the design over commo. “You guys follow me up.”

“Yeah, got it.”

“We do a commo check to make sure we're all in position. Nobody moves until I give the go. No one. Let's go.”

Dewey felt a surge of adrenaline in his arms, then all over. He pulled his Colt M1911A1 from his shoulder holster, a black suppressor jutting ominously from the end.

“Igor, you ready?”

“Yes, I'm good.”

*   *   *

At the entrance to the stairs, Dewey glanced at the others, then pulled the door open and stepped in total silence up the concrete steps. He rounded the landing and kept climbing.

“Where is he?” Dewey whispered.

He reached the top of the stairs. The door to the first floor was directly in front of him. He stepped lightly to it, trying not to make any sound.

“Directly in front of the door,” whispered Igor. “Be
very
quiet. You are only a few inches away.”

The doorknob was on the left-hand side of the door. He would need to open the door with his right hand and fire with his off hand.

Slowly, he moved the gun to his left hand and reached for the doorknob. Carefully, quietly, he turned the knob as far as it would go.

“His head moved a little,” whispered Igor. “He may have heard something.”

Dewey raised the suppressed .45 and trained it on the seam of the closed door. He pulled the door slowly open, every inch taking endless moments, his heart racing, until he had the first glimpse of the black hair on the back of his skull, then his entire frame, until at last the door was fully open and the terrorist was standing in front of him, back turned, a submachine gun in his hands. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt. He had black hair down to his shoulders. Dewey trained the gun at the man's head and moved it closer until it was less than an inch away. The suppressor tremored just a bit, as if blown by a peaceful wind. He felt the ceramic trigger against his finger as he pulled it back …

A scream from somewhere up above. Arabic. A signal. The check-in?

The terrorist looked at his watch.

Dewey's mind raced. The terrorist had heard the call, but the door had been open. His ears would've sensed it. He had to know the door was open.

Can he see me? Did he turn enough to catch a glimpse?

Yet Dewey didn't shoot. He needed the man to give the signal back. Otherwise …

Instinct.

The gunman sensed something.

It happens now.

“Dewey,” said Igor, so softly Dewey thought his mind was playing tricks.

The terrorist wheeled around, murder in his eyes. He found Dewey.

Instinct, fear, hatred—they all disappeared in that fraction of a second. It came back then, the moment he'd grown to know so well, a crucible in time, a passage that, once made, one could never return. Dewey felt himself transported to the place of his innermost desire, a primal state. Timeless, ageless, a place without borders. It was the place of the hunter, the assassin, the soldier.

He fired the Colt—three quick taps—three telltale
thwacks
from the suppressor. The first bullet struck the terrorist in the center of his neck, the throat, the larynx. The second went straight through his mouth, blowing out the back of his skull. The third ripped into his left eye. He tumbled awkwardly, silently, falling in the path of the blood and skull that rained a crimson shadow across the lobby floor.

Dewey paused, catching his breath.

“One down,” he whispered.

Smith, Tacoma, and Katie moved silently to the first-floor landing. Katie stepped toward the stairs. She removed a small flashlight and aimed it up. A massive web of thin wire covered the entire flight of stairs. Set on top of the web near the centermost point was an IED. Any movement—
any movement
—of the wires and the bomb would fall and detonate.

“That's a lot of Semtex,” she said matter-of-factly.

She leaned into the middle of the stairwell and peered up, aiming the light. She removed a powerful night optic to get a better view. She counted two more flights with banisters wrapped in wire.

“That's enough Semtex to take out half the floor,” said Katie. “Not to mention what would happen to the ones above it after the first explodes. This side of the building would collapse.”

Dewey glanced at the bomb. He understood even more clearly that the terrorists had no intention of leaving the building—or letting the students live. Every exit point was gone; the elevators were destroyed; both stairwells were wired with enough Semtex to take down half the building—and likely trip the IEDs on the other side of the building as well.

But Dewey didn't say anything.

They cut across the lobby, past several dead bodies. Tacoma pried open the first elevator door. He pulled a portable electric screwdriver from his jacket and reached up, as did Dewey a moment later. They removed the top panel of the elevator car, handing it to Smith, who put it in the hallway. A small steel door was visible at the roof of the elevator. Tacoma reached up and pushed it open. Beyond was pitch-black.

Tacoma turned, pointing at his eyes, indicating they would need night optics.

Dewey took climbing gloves and night optics from the duffel and handed them out. He looked down at his forearm. He pulled out the Sharpie and crossed off the first number:

11
, 61, 102, 112, 121.

Dewey pulled on his optics and left them on top of his head. He reached into the weapons ruck and removed a silenced M4, then strapped it to his back. He popped the mag from the Colt pistol and slammed in a new one. He grabbed an extra mag for the carbine.

The others performed a similar ritual, all in silence.

Dewey climbed up through the roof. He pulled the optics down over his eyes and flipped the switch. The lower level of the elevator shaft came into view in shades of fluorescent orange. It was vast, dark, and eerily quiet. The elevator car was like a square block of steel dangling from thick steel cables. Looking over the side of the car, he could see the ground two stories below.

Dewey stared up into the shaft. The only lights were small tendrils of yellow cutting through seams at the doors to each floor.

Dewey turned to Smith, Katie, and Tacoma.

“Igor, any movement?”

“No.”