Project StrikeForce (15 page)

Eric’s ear-piece crackled. “Roger was watching the
back, no one came out. Dyer’s got to be inside,” Martin insisted.

It didn’t make any sense. “I don’t know where the
hell he could be.”

“We need to check the back,” Kelly said.
“Sometimes they have stairs to basement storage.”

John crept around the bar and checked the
bartender for a pulse. “He’s gone.”

“So are these four,” Kelly said.

John lifted a rug from the floor and threw it over
the dead bartender. “Yep, there’s a trapdoor.” He motioned for Kelly to follow
him.

Eric struggled to his feet. “I’m going, too,” he
said.

“You’re injured,” Kelly said. “We got this.”

Eric gritted his teeth. “I’m going.” He stepped
around the bar and saw the trapdoor, heavy wood planks nailed together with an
iron ring in the corner.

John lifted the door and Eric peered down the
stairwell. “It’s dark down there.”

John flicked a switch that turned on the light
below, and they carefully lowered themselves on the steeply pitched stairs to
the dirty cement floor.

The basement was brimming with beer cases stacked
to the ceiling. Eric pointed to a steel-plated door, the only other thing in
the basement. “A reinforced door? He’s in there.”

“How are we going to get in?” Kelly asked. “The
breaching charges are in the van.” He inspected the wall, looking for hinges.

John put his hand on Eric’s arm. “I can open it.
Activate the pump.”

Eric looked from the door to John, then nodded.
“Clark, we need an enhancement.”

“Roger that,” Clark replied. There was a long
pause. “Pump activated.”

John shuddered and his eyes widened. “Oh yeah,” he
breathed. “That’s the stuff.”

“You sure you can open it?” Eric asked. “It’s
damned big.”

John clenched his fists. “Stay back.” He stepped
to the far wall and then sprang across the room, a rolling wave of energy. He
hit the door with his shoulder, a moving blur.

There was a crash and a pinging noise as the hinge
pins sheared off. The door exploded inward, thrown completely into the room and
against the far wall with a mighty crash. Eric followed John, Kelly right
behind him, their pistols drawn. A long table with twelve chairs filled most of
the room, but it was the chair at the far end that caught his attention.

Everett Dyer, the head of the APR, sat at the head
of the table. He was a tall man in his late sixties, his face a mass of
wrinkles and liver spots, his hair a badly dyed comb-over.

Dyer had preached for years for strict racial
separation and the FBI had investigated him for a string of bombings at
universities across the country, targeting professors of ethnic studies, but
somehow Dyer always got off.

Eric knew what made Dyer dangerous. He was a true
believer. He patterned the APR both as a political party and a religious party.
He invoked the Federalist Papers while preaching from the pulpit. His message
about racial separation played well with the bigots.

No, Dyer was dangerous, and now he sat, impassive,
his left hand on the table, his right hand holding a device in his skeletal
grip.

“Good morning, gentlemen. I’m assuming you’re here
to arrest me or kill me,” Dyer said, his voice barely a whisper.

“We’re not here to do either. We just need some
information,” he said.

Dyer tilted his head and laughed softly. “You
killed the men above, yet you are not here to kill me?”

“They drew first,” Eric said. “We just defended
ourselves. It didn’t have to go that way.”

“Do you know what this device is?” Dyer asked.

Eric’s stomach dropped. “That’s a dead man’s
switch.”

John and Kelly took a halting step backward.

“That is correct. If I take my thumb off this
trigger, it will be a bad day for you, indeed. Now, are you with the police? Or
the FBI?”

Eric shook his head. “None of those. We don’t care
about your white power group. We just need information. We can all leave here
today.”

“White power, is that what you think we are? I
founded the APR in hopes that we could stop the mixing of races in this great
country. I’m not a racist. I’m a patriot. Like a patriot, I am willing to spill
my blood to refresh the tree of liberty. The men above, however, were
innocent.”

Eric saw John flinch. “I told you,” he repeated,
“it didn’t have to go that way.”

“You killed without mercy, or due process under
the law. You killed my men and now you wave your guns at me. Tell me, young
man, do you love this country?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” He wanted to put a
bullet in the man, but he couldn’t rick killing the one man who might know the
location of the caesium. “That’s why I serve it now.”

“Ah, spoken like a military man. Tell me, do you
know what the single greatest threat to this country is, young man?” Before
Eric could answer, Dyer continued, “The mixing of the races. Negros mixing with
whites. Mexicans mixing with the Negros. When they befriend each other and
share their cultures, it dilutes them. Look at the Japanese. They don’t
encourage it. They have retained a racial and cultural purity that keeps them
strong, yet we encourage everyone to come here. The great melting pot, we call
it. What will become of the Negro culture? What will become of the white
culture? I’m thinking of the children, you see.”

Eric nodded. “Mr. Dyer, I know who you are, and I
have a good idea of what you’ve done. Don’t bullshit me.”

Dyer nodded his head. “I regret that I’ve done
some distasteful things, but like all true patriots, I’m forced to do what is
necessary.”

He was through humoring the old man. “We know the
APR stole the caesium. Where is it?”

Dyer smiled. “An angel lifted his voice and cried,
will you prove your love for the Lord?”

“Tell me what you did with the caesium,” Eric
said. “You don’t have to die here.”

Dyer smiled sadly. “Did you kill Fletcher?”

Eric glanced at John, who nodded.

“A shame. He was a good man. He knew the risk when
he acquired the caesium, yet he did it without complaint.”

“Is it still here?”

“The coming tide will lift up the white race. The
chorus of angels will sing from the heavens and the end shall become the
beginning.” Dyer nodded his head to an unseen choir. “You will never find it in
time, I promise you. The angels have spoken, and it is for no man to undo the
word of God.”

Dyer was never going to tell them anything. “I
don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to.”

“I’m wearing a vest of C4 wired to this switch,”
Dyer said calmly. “If I move my thumb, it will kill us all. I’m prepared to die
for my cause. I ask you, are you prepared to die for yours?”

Eric slowly shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.
I think you’re a smart man, and a smart man wouldn’t hold a dead man’s switch
without some kind of safety.”

Dyer shook his weathered old head. “It is wired to
the explosives, I promise you.”

“That I believe, but a smart man would build in a
delay, say, half a second.” He turned and winked at John. “With a half second
delay, you’d have time to put your thumb back on the trigger, just in case it
slipped off.”

Dyer nodded. “Perhaps you are correct. What could
you possibly do in that time?”

“Me? Nothing.
John!
”

Dyer lifted his thumb and smiled to the heavens.
Eric saw the crazy glint in his eye and then the breath woofed out of him as
John hit, practically folding him in half, driving him into Kelly. The three
men went flying sideways out of the room and back into the basement as the C4
detonated, the blast filling the room with a bloody, smoke-filled haze.

He hit the cement floor, the impact slamming
through his body and knocking his teeth together. He lay for a moment, ears
ringing, then struggled to his feet.

John and Kelly rose as well. Kelly appeared woozy
and John rubbed at his ears, eyes wide, looking into the remains of the room.

Martin and Clark were yelling in his ear-piece,
but he couldn’t understand. He grabbed John by his arm and yelled, “Good job!”

John gaped at him. “What?”

“I said, good job!”

Kelly gave him a hound-dog stare and pointed at
the devastation. “What do we do now?” he yelled.

Eric felt as if he had cotton in his ears, but he
could finally understand Martin’s voice over the ear-piece. The news wasn’t
good. “First responders are on their now,” Eric told Kelly and John. “Now we
talk to the police.”

* * *

Kandahar, Afghanistan

Nancy hung up her phone and turned
to Deion. “Okay, they’ve got eyes on the drone data and they’ve tapped the cell
phone towers in the area. Clark is working on overriding Rumple’s commands. As
soon as the orders come in, Delta will be back on site, but it’s going to take
time.”

“How good is the drone data?” he asked.

“Just video and night vision. It’s enough to let
us know if we’re in trouble, but it’s not armed.”

He didn’t like it, but Jaabir offered their only
lead. “If we want this guy, it’s all we’re going to get.”

She nodded. “I agree. He’s too valuable. We need
him.”

He could tell she was pissed about Rumple, but at
least she was focusing on the mission. “Let’s tell Val and Neil.”

He found them at the truck, checking their M4’s.
“We’re on. Jaabir should be back anytime. We’ve got drone coverage and we’re
getting the Delta callback orders rescinded, but they probably won’t make it
back before the meeting time.”

“We understand,” Valerie said, concerned. “It’s
just this is a little more cowboy than we’re used to.”

He grabbed her hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “It’ll
be fine, Val. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

Neil squinted at him, uncertain. “What about
Nancy?” he asked, motioning to the house. “Can we count on her?”

He laughed. “She’s the most dangerous one here.”

Neil nodded, but the skepticism on his face
suggested he did not share Deion’s opinion. The sun was almost below the
horizon, and what little light it shed cast long red shadows down the street.
They finished their weapons check and entered the house to wait for Jaabir.

He removed an ear-piece from a pouch on his belt
and plugged it in to his PRC-148 and keyed the mic, “Clark? Do you read me?”

“Loud and clear, Deion,” came Clark’s voice
seconds later. “We’re patched in to the MBITR network. Karen has your position
on-screen. We’re combing the area for signs of suspicious activity.”

“Roger that. Keep us informed.”

Nancy pulled the heavy curtains aside over the
front window to watch the front of the building. She motioned to him right
before there was a soft knock on the door. He opened it and found Jaabir
waiting, his AK slung low.

“We take your truck,” Jaabir said.

They piled in the Toyota, Neil driving with Jaabir
in the passenger seat, Valerie, Nancy and Deion in the back, guns ready. Deion
left his seat-belt unfastened, just in case someone threw in a bomb. It was
easier to bail out, a lesson learned from his previous time in Afghanistan.

Jaabir guided them through back alleys and side
streets, headlights off, navigating by the meager light cast from open windows.
It took less than ten minutes before they came to a small house, a green bulb
glowing in the front window.

“Here,” Jaabir directed.

They exited the Toyota, weapons lowered but alert.
It looked like any other street in Kandahar, the dirt road nearly empty as the
people heeded the call for evening prayers, the sound blaring from a mosque in
the distance. Jaabir knocked on the door and an old man opened, nodded to
Jaabir, and swung the door wide. They entered the room and the old man motioned
for them to move back, pulling aside a dusty red rug to expose a trapdoor,
opening it with Jaabir’s help.

“You sure about this?” Deion asked.

“Yes. He is down there.” Jaabir whispered
something to the old man who smiled crookedly and exited through the front
door. “Wazir will keep watch for us.”

Deion shook his head. “I don’t find that
reassuring.”

Jaabir smiled and motioned them down the steps.
Everyone followed Deion down and into a small room where a young man sat tied
to a chair.

“His name is Koshen,” Jaabir said, kicking the
young man in the leg. “He helped Abdullah prepare the bomb.”

Deion gave Koshen a once over, and the young man
stared back, his face blank. Koshen’s face was covered in bloody red scabs and
heavy purple bruises. Flakes of dried blood caked his nostrils and the young
man coughed heavily.

“Looks like you might have already questioned
him,” Deion said.

“We asked about his involvement in the bombing.
General Azim was eager to find information that might stop this
misunderstanding between our people.”

Deion nodded. He was familiar with the shifting
allegiances in Afghanistan and knew that Azim was only looking out for himself.

“We found this,” Jaabir said. He pulled the
remains of an old book, the leather-bound cover charred and covered in soot.
“He burned it before we captured him.” He passed it to Deion. “Will this help?”

Deion opened the cover, only to find the pages
charred beyond recognition. Whatever secrets the journal contained were
destroyed. He sighed.
Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.
He turned to
the young man and spoke in Pashto. “Your name is Koshen?”

Koshen blinked, his eyes focusing on Deion, then
down to the remains of the journal.

Jaabir smacked him across the face, the crack of
skin-on-skin echoing against the cement walls. “Answer his question!”

Koshen turned his gaze to Jaabir but did not
answer. Jaabir drew back and smacked him in the face, hard enough to send a
trail of spit flying from the young man’s mouth.

“You will answer,” Jaabir demanded, “or I will
make you answer.”