Point of Crisis (24 page)

“A lot can change in a few months.”

“For the worse, potentially. If the troops get word that a brigade of soldiers arrived in southern Maine, convincing them to carry out sustained insurgency operations will be a tough sell.”

“I can be pretty persuasive,” he said, patting his holster.

“That worked once.”

“It’ll keep working,” said Eli.

“Trust me, blowing a man’s brains out in front of three dozen armed men has a short half-life as a leadership tactic. Let me know when you plan to kick off that campaign, so I can be on the other side of the state.”

“What do you suggest?” he hissed. “I just give up on this whole thing. Find a nice house on the lake and curl up by the fire all winter?”

Just as McCulver stepped uncomfortably close to Eli, a small sedan raced past the vehicles lined up along the dirt road leading out of the farm.

“I’m not suggesting you quit altogether. As your deputy commander, I’m suggesting a smaller, more symbolic target. Something completely in line with the insurgency role you’ve established. Test the waters with that, and see where it leads.”

“Revisit our friends in Limerick,” muttered Eli.

“Sort of. I didn’t tell you everything Barrett passed over the radio,” said McCulver. “The name Fletcher came up.”

Eli cocked his head.

“
Captain
Fletcher. Regional Recovery Zone security officer. He established Homeland jurisdiction over the mayor’s crime scene. Got the statue cleaned up before sunrise. Seems like he has the Sanford PD in his pocket now.”

“Son of a bitch. This Fletcher guy has his hand in everything.”

“And he still travels back and forth to Sanford from Limerick,” said McCulver.

Eli put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I know what you’re thinking, and I approve,
after
we find a new headquarters. Something much smaller. Suitable for wintering over.”

McCulver glanced around furtively. “How much room will we need?”

“Enough for one squad. Roland Byrd’s crew.”

Chapter 22

EVENT +11 Days

Forward Operating Base “Lakeside”

Regional Recovery Zone 1

Alex opened the front door and shielded his eyes from the halogen lamps illuminating the field across the driveway. The persistent low-pitched growl of a diesel generator bounced off the trees, reaching his ears from multiple directions. The neighbors were going to love this.

Unlike 4
^th
Brigade Combat Team’s daytime arrival, Lieutenant Colonel Grady’s battalion rolled across the Maine/New Hampshire border at “zero dark thirty,” arriving at their designated locations between midnight and 3AM. The battalion’s vehicles left Londonderry and linked up with Route 95 near Hampton, driving the vacant turnpike north into Maine. Refugee traffic had been diverted westward several miles before Hampton, in response to the growing crisis at the Seabrook nuclear power plant.

Two Matvees and a medium utility truck detached from the long convoy before it reached Sanford, bringing twelve Marines, a DRASH (Deployable Rapid Assembly Shelter) unit and support gear to “FOB Lakeside” in Limerick. Alex would ride back to Sanford in the truck to meet with Grady, returning later in the day to assume command of the Forward Operating Base. He’d still serve as the battalion’s primary liaison with the York County Readiness Brigade, which required frequent trips into Sanford to oversee the recruiting station and guide the training of the battalion’s provisional security platoon. His duties threatened to take more time than he’d hoped, but it bought him peace of mind. With six armored vehicles and twenty-four Marines permanently stationed at his house, he could finally sleep easier.

A hand touched his shoulder.

“Looks like one of those eerie scenes in a post-apocalyptic movie. You know, where the government sets up a command post in the middle of hostile territory,” said Kate. “The lights attract the zombies or whatever; then they get overrun.”

“I’d say that was pretty farfetched if I hadn’t spent the last few days repairing bullet holes,” he replied, kissing her hand.

“I’d try to hug you, but I can’t seem to get my arms around all of your gear.”

“Grab lower,” he said.

“Nice. I’m sure the Marines wouldn’t appreciate the show.”

“Quite the opposite. They’d probably turn a few more of the lights in our direction.”

“Grady really needs to see you at five-thirty in the morning?” asked Kate, stepping next to him on the porch.

“He’ll be running at full speed, 24/7, until the battalion settles into their new role. I’m just hoping he doesn’t request my presence every morning at the battalion staff meeting.”

“What if he does?”

“He’ll have to settle for my smiley face on one of his computer screens. I should get going. I’ll ring the satphone when I get a chance.”

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t know. Depends on how much time Grady wants to spend with me. He’ll want to see what we have set up for the recruits, maybe take a trip downtown to the recruiting station. I’d like to introduce him to the chief of police in Sanford. Lots of little things. I’ll keep you posted,” he said, leaning in to kiss her.

“Why can’t you take one of the Matvees? I don’t like knowing that those militia nuts are still watching us.”

“The truck is armored,” he said.

“It doesn’t look as safe.”

“I wouldn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence insisting that I ride in a more heavily protected vehicle. The truck is fine, trust me.”

“Be careful,” Kate said, kissing him again.

“I’m always careful.”

“That’s not exactly what Ryan described in Boston.”

“I had everything under control…more or less,” Alex said and jogged away before she could delay him any further.

Thirty-five minutes later, the vehicle transporting Alex passed through a reinforced checkpoint at the junction of Route 109 and Airport Road. Two rows of concrete Jersey barriers stretched across the two-lane road, reducing it to a single lane flanked by a modular, armor-plated sentry post. A small generator concealed from the road by one of the barriers powered the portable light towers illuminating the road in front of the checkpoint.

Once inside the Maine Operating Base’s outer perimeter, the driver activated the vehicle’s headlights and followed Airport Road to the gate behind the battalion’s hangars. A sandbag post framed by a hastily constructed wood structure greeted them at the airport’s outer fence. A ranger dressed in full combat gear and helmet stepped in front of the vehicle with a flashlight and a handheld device. On his way to the passenger side of the cab, he placed the device over one of the barcode tags on the side of the MTVR’s hood and read the illuminated screen. Alex slid the thick ballistic glass window back several inches and held out his identification card as the soldier approached.

“We’re headed to 1
^st
Battalion, 25
^th
Marines,” said Alex.

“Copy that, sir,” said the ranger, saluting.

“Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Aside from your expert marksmanship and superb grenade-throwing skills, how do you stop a hostile vehicle from breaching the airport perimeter without a gate?”

“You really don’t want to know, sir,” said the ranger.

“Now I
have
to know.”

“You’re parked over a reconfigured M19 antitank mine. Remote detonated,” said the ranger.

“Fucking-A. Can we get moving, sir?” asked the lance corporal driving the MTVR.

“Sorry I asked. Carry on, Sergeant,” Alex said, and the MTVR lurched forward.

They turned left on a crumbling asphalt strip and drove behind a dark two-story hangar, continuing to the interior fence separating the Marine battalion’s hangar complex from the service road. Bathed in the MTVR’s headlights, several Marines manually opened the sliding gate and waved them forward.

“Drive around the back of the rear hangar!” one of the Marines shouted through the driver’s window.

Alex leaned across the private first class squeezed between him and the driver. “Where’s the battalion TOC?”

“Front hangar to the left, sir,” replied the sentry.

He grabbed his rifle and opened the door. “I can take it from here, Marines. Have a detail bring the prisoners from the first raid to the TOC. I have no idea what to do with them. Thanks for the ride.”

“Ooh-rah, sir.”

Alex jogged toward the first hangar along the airport’s westernmost taxiway, taking in the drastically changed runway scene. More tents crowded the five-acre triangle of grass between the taxiway and the airport’s secondary runway, completely surrounding the Mobile Tower System (MOTS) deployed by members of the 258
^th
Air Traffic Control Squadron. 4
^th
Brigade Combat Team’s Tactical Operation Center lay hidden somewhere in the jumble of tents growing to accommodate the brigade’s widening footprint at the airport. Alex had assumed that the brigade staff would occupy the hangars adjacent to the Seacoast Aviation office suite occupied by Captain Adler, instead of going through the trouble of erecting a small city of tents and generators.

When you bring toys, you tend to play with them—and the army had a lot of toys.

Beyond the northern edge of the tent city, rows of quiet, dark shapes lined the distant tarmac, barely discernible as transport helicopters. It was quiet for now
.
Once RRZ border security and refugee camp operations kicked into full swing, the airport would resemble a beehive, with reconnaissance, troop-ferrying and refugee relocation missions flying twenty-four hours a day. Past the tarmac, over the tops of the hangars, a faint ribbon of light blue sky merged with the star-filled sky. Reveille for MOB Sanford.

Alex reached the hangar and slowed to a walk, not wanting to surprise a tired and edgy Marine sentry near the battalion headquarters. He turned the corner and examined the well-lit, two-hundred-foot-long hangar. The interior had changed drastically since his visit in the afternoon. All of the individual bay doors stood open, likely to ventilate the stifling heat collected in the hangar throughout the previous day.

He didn’t envy the Marines quartered under the corrugated tin roofs. Beyond accessing the shipping containers to withdraw a few choice items, he had conducted most of his business outside in the shade. Even the small contingent of Marines that straggled down from Brunswick slept in the grass behind the hangars.

The far left side of the structure, front to back, was occupied by the same tables, display screens and electronics gear he’d seen inside the command tent at Harvard Yard, forming the TOC (Tactical Operations Center). The screens were blank, and only a few of the computers looked operational. Marines stripped down to tan T-shirts, utility trousers and boots worked under the tables, distributing clusters of cables and connecting fiber-optic wire. Lieutenant Colonel Grady, still dressed in combat gear without a helmet, sat alone at a table in the center of the TOC, typing on a laptop. Alex remained unobserved for the moment.

Three recently delivered shipping containers separated the TOC from a fifty-foot-wide area dominated by thick, waist-tall plastic bins and several gray folding tables. A group of five Marines helped offload a utility truck backed up to the hangar opening across from the supply area. The rest of the hangar housed several dozen Marines busy cleaning weapons or checking their personal gear. A few lounged on neatly arranged foam mats.

“Alex!” said Grady, closing the laptop.

Alex hustled into the hangar, stopping a few feet away to salute Lieutenant Colonel Grady. “Captain Fletcher reporting as ordered, sir.”

“At ease. Have a seat,” Grady said, sliding a chair over from the nearest table. “I was just looking at the after-action report from Greg Hoode’s murder. Fucking brutal. Looks like the problem bizarrely took care of itself.”

“Bizarre doesn’t begin to describe it. The .308 shell casings recovered in the forest belong to the bullets imbedded in one Edward Vega. Jeffrey Brown had the only .308 in the group and reportedly cut the mayor’s wife and daughter free. Blood-spray patterns inside the vehicle recovered at the hospital suggest that three of the occupants were quickly killed at point-blank range by the shooter in the right rear passenger seat. Had to be Brown.”

“But you found evidence that he had conducted reconnaissance outside of FOB Lakeside?”

“Right. We recovered a notepad filled with information about our vehicle movements. Nothing to indicate direct surveillance of the compound.”

“And Brown turned on them”—Grady snapped his fingers—“just like that?”

“He must have heard the women in back and had a change of heart,” said Alex, shrugging his shoulders. “The guy had a solid military record and no criminal priors, unlike the rest of the shitbags in that car. Didn’t seem like his type of crowd.”

“You indicated that two of them shouldn’t be on the streets. Tell me a little more about that. I didn’t read the full extract portion of the report.”

“Lee Hanson and Simon Shaw are—were—registered inmates at the Maine Correctional Facility in Windham, Maine. The facility was abandoned four days ago by correctional officers when a large contingent of heavily armed men broke through the gate. They used explosives to knock out the Cumberland County Communications Center across the street right before the attack.”

“Explosives?”

“At the base of the tower. No personnel casualties.”

“So, the big question is how did two inmates from the prison raid end up involved in the mayor’s murder?”

“I have a theory,” said Alex.

“Eli Russell,” stated Grady.

“It traces back to him, more or less.”

“I don’t like more or less,” said Grady.

“It’s a solid connection, sir. Prisoners from the attack identified Brown as one of the squad leaders used by Eli in the attack on my house. Brown gets picked up by the car used in Greg Hoode’s murder. Two of the guys in the car should be sitting in the correctional facility raided four days ago. Brown’s the link. If they’d been killed in a car crash before picking up Brown—”