Tactical Deception: Silent Warrior, Book 2 (23 page)

“Where’s Angie?” He could hardly draw a breath.

Dekker answered. “On her way to the hospital. Unconscious but stable. You’re on your way just as soon as you tell me what in the hell went down here, Corporal.”

Rico realized he was strapped to a stretcher with EMTs at his head and left side, with his shirt torn open exposing the bruised area over his ribs, oxygen over his mouth and nose and an IV in his arm. How long had he been out? He went through his story, minus the suppressor on his Beretta, describing in detail the trap that had been set for him and Angie.

He could see the back of Angie’s mangled car and the upturned cab. His stomach churned. What had he done?

“How many men were here?” SA Gibson asked.

“Six. One behind us in the black Honda, which we backed into. Look for front bumper damage. One in the cab ahead and four men, armed with guns coming out of the hotel room on the left. They are behind the Piedmont Park shooting. You’ll likely find burkas and a baby stroller in their hotel room.”

Gibson shook his head. “We’re about to check the rooms out now. We’ve only got three at the scene. Two dead men, one in the cab, one on the street beside it. And one injured teen over there,” he pointed to a stretcher closer to the hotel rooms. “Teen says he and the other two are the only ones involved. We’ve confiscated your weapon for ballistics until this investigation is complete. And you’re confined to a hospital room with a guard as well.”

“A teen? Christ.”

“Anything else you want to tell us, Santana?”

“Only that several of the surveillance cameras covering the ATM at the bank over there might make some interesting video.” Rico coughed and thought he would die as his body spasmed with pain.

“We’ve got to take him in,” the EMT said, pushing the FBI back.

“I’m going in with him,” Holly Gear said. “With your permission, that is, General, sir.”

“Permission granted. Corporal, can you still hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Stay your ass in bed. That’s an order, soldier.”

Rico gritted his teeth. He’d stay in bed only if Angie was all right. Once she pulled through without any problems, then he’d only be around until he could walk to BFE. He’d almost gotten her killed and should be shot. He’d been trained to look beneath the surface of what was happening around him and he damn well knew that nine times out of ten a shark waited. What the fuck had he been trying to prove? Had he subconsciously attempted to make up for his lame arm by lone-wolfing the sniper trail? How many opportunities today had he passed up bringing the FBI in on the chase? He was bad news for his Angel.

Dekker left with SA Gibson, moving toward the motel. Holly stayed. As the EMTs slid his stretcher into the ambulance, Rico got full view of the motel and the teen he’d shot. On a stretcher, outside another ambulance closer to the motel, the young man lay with a bloody bandage plastered to his right leg. It struck Rico as odd that the teen had his gaze intensely centered on the FBI agents with a man jangling a set of keys, moving toward the motel room.

The teen no longer moaned with pain, no longer begged Allah for—son of a bitch!

Rico met Holly’s gaze. “The boy. He begged for Allah’s blessings! A bom—”

“Everyone! Get down!” Holly yelled as she spun around from the ambulance. “A bomb! Get down! Get back!” She ran after Dekker and SA Gibson, tackling them from behind. All three hit the ground. The agents close to the motel door dove for the asphalt. The teen screamed.

The front of the motel room exploded in a deadly burst of heat, concrete and glass as a deafening blast rocked the ambulance on its wheels. The EMT standing at Rico’s feet, half in and half out of the ambulance, propelled face-first into the metal frame of the stretcher. The twisted door to the motel room flew sideways like a giant decapitating blade and would have taken the head off anyone standing. Instead it sliced into the frame of the ambulance as glass and concrete pellets pinged off the metal and embedded into flesh. Rico’s chest and face stung with pain.

A fireball ignited inside the motel room as if a tanker had slammed into a volcano. The stench of smoke and gas assaulted his lungs as moans and cries from the downed agents filled the air. Before anyone could move or react, the teen exploded. Body parts of the boy and the EMT at his side along with pieces from the stretcher flew in a horrifying, 360-degree splatter.

Rico blinked in disbelief. SA Gibson yelled for an EMT as he helped Dekker. The general was struggling from beneath Holly because Senior Airman Gear wasn’t moving, and was likely dead or dying. A metal rod protruded from her back.

Debris from both bombs continued to fall in a surreal rain of agonizing death and pain. It stabbed Rico squarely in the gut as two tons of guilt settled on his shoulders. He’d brought this whole damn thing crashing down on everyone.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Outskirts of the White Aryan Vipers (WAV) Militia Training Camp

Harnett County, North Carolina

1400 hours

Dugar felt as if the bugs were eating him alive. Just like they were eating Lloyd’s rotting corpse. He turned down the dirt road leading to the Viper camp and a fly nailed him between the eyes. He couldn’t park the windshieldless Chevy fast enough.

Before reaching the guarded gate, he veered onto an old logging road and parked the vintage ’57 out of sight from others passing by. It wouldn’t do for Slayer or any of his brown-nosed informants to see the missing windshield and dried blood all over the vinyl seat.

Where Bean had shot him in the shoulder early this morning hurt like hell, but Dugar had patched himself fairly well and if he didn’t get an infection then he’d just leave the bullet in his shoulder as a reminder to never let anybody “hang” with him ever again.

The Vipers were going to ask an ass-load of questions. They’d want to know where in the hell Bean was, for one. And when the migrant camp slaughter hit the news, Slayer would get suspicious. Dugar had to have a plan.

He could tell the truth and nail Slayer between the eyes with a bullet before the SOB could eliminate him. He could pretend he didn’t know anything about Bean or the migrants until Slayer challenged Dugar outright then Dugar could kill Slayer and take over as leader. Or he could pretend Bean killed the migrants and headed for Texas. A story that might play well for him.

The more he thought about the unbelievable shit with Bean, the more convinced he became that Bean had to have had someone else working with him, someone else infiltrating the Vipers. And he didn’t have a clue as to who the hell it could be. The only Viper Bean had latched on to had been Dugar himself.

But if Dugar pinned the migrant slaughter on Bean, then whoever challenged Dugar’s story the most, defended Bean the most, would have to be Bean’s partner. He should have thought of all this before he beat Bean to death. Should have asked him some questions first. Might not be too late to find out something, though.

Bean could have some information in his pockets, maybe even a cell phone. And what had happened to that bag Bean had had with him?

Whatever. Dugar needed all he could find before he walked his ass back into camp, which meant he had to go sneaking back into that cave where Lloyd’s rotting body lay with the bugs eating the shit out of him.

Dugar plowed out of the car then shivered and slapped at his face and neck, still feeling the gnats and flies and other shit on him. It took him two full minutes to calm down enough to gather Sugar and enough ammo to pump Bean’s corpse full of lead twice.

Today had been one fucked-up day and he cussed under his breath all the way to the tunnel. His stomach roiled as he reached the entrance. Facing what was left of Lloyd, his mentor, tore Dugar up inside. He didn’t want to end up all rotted like that, with bugs and maggots feeding on him.

Damn that shit. He’d rather go down in a blaze of glory, burnt to a crisp in a flash.

Bean had lied. Lloyd wouldn’t have shot himself just because Bean was arresting him. Lloyd would’ve fought hard. Bean likely lured Lloyd into the cave and shot him in the back like a sniveling coward.

Taking a deep breath, Dugar plunged into the cave and soon reached the spot where he’d left Lloyd’s body. “What the hell?” He spun a three-sixty. Bean’s body was nowhere in sight. The bag Bean had wasn’t there either.

Heart pounding, Dugar searched all legs of the tunnel and found a bloody handprint on a stone near the opening that exited the militia camp completely. There were too many damn leaves on the ground outside to see footprints. Had Bean left on his own? With help? How in the fuck was the SOB still alive and moving? Dugar had wailed on Bean’s ass but good, so he couldn’t be far.

Dugar set out to find Bean.

“Beck should have stayed until I got here.” Jack glanced at his watch and clenched his fist.

Surf laughed, indicating Jack had lost his mind. Mac rolled his eyes. “An army couldn’t have held him back.”

Jack knew that, didn’t mean he had to like it. After following Dugar to this isolated area and realizing a compound was hidden in the woods, Beck, Mac and Surf had set up surveillance across the highway from the dirt road where Dugar had parked Neil Dalton’s stolen Chevy. Then Beck went lone wolf to check out the situation while Mac and Surf waited for Jack and the other authorities supposedly on the way. They should have been here by now and Beck was taking too damn long.

GPS of the area didn’t show any roads leading into the forest here. They weren’t more than a quarter of a mile from the Cape Fear River, so there was very little distance for Beck to cover, relatively speaking. He walked like a ghost and moved like the wind. There wasn’t a man on earth that Jack trusted more than Beck when it came to undetected recon. Still, it was hell to wait.

Jack had left the Holsten Inn an hour ago. His frustration with the situation was like a squeezing vise around his throat. The teen who’d found Roger’s phone and pistol was named Ella Davidson. She’d been slightly talkative on the phone, but in person had barely answered the investigators’ questions. Jace turned out to be the teen’s mother, jumpy as a cat in a hound pen, and not happy with what her daughter had done.

Any chance they were involved in what happened to Roger was a long shot, but they were guilty of something for sure. They’d been a puzzle Jack didn’t have time to solve, so he’d left them in the hands of the local police and a CID investigator from Fort Bragg.

Something bad had happened to Roger—and Mari—he was guessing. No one had been able to locate her on post. Only a sliver of information had surfaced from everyone questioned. Jace had seen a dark van leaving the parking lot as she and her daughter had entered. No specific color. No specific make. No identifying factors. Just that it was dark in color.

Security cameras at the Inn only covered the building’s exits and the manager’s office. Not the parking lot. A quick run on the last ninety minutes of the videos had produced nothing. No glimpse of any suspicious activity or people. Analysts were going through all of the tapes from the last four to five days, but that would take more time than Jack feared Roger had.

Fayetteville had no active red-light surveillance in the area.

Jack didn’t believe in coincidences and he wasn’t a big fan of luck, but Beck’s call reporting that a dark blue van had turned down the same dirt road as Dugar had made Jack wonder if that hellbound handbasket everything was tied to had just landed in Harnett County, North Carolina.

More agents from Fort Bragg’s CID and the Harnett County Sheriff’s Department should have been here by now.

It seemed really too convenient that Roger had set up surveillance on Dugar via Surf and Mac. And that surveillance would lead to rescuing Roger from being kidnapped by Dugar. Jack refused to consider that Roger and Mari had been immediately murdered—

Jack snapped his head up in disbelief at the wail of multiple sirens coming their way. “What the hell is that?”

“Sounds like somebody’s head rolling.” Mac winced.

“No.” Surf shook his head. “That’s the sound of us getting screwed. Even if by some miracle the siren hounds aren’t heading here, Dugar and every man in that compound are now on alert.”

“Which means if Dugar does have Roger and Mari in there, things just got worse.”

“We’ve got big trouble, DT.”

Startled, Jack swung around as Beck, dripping wet and prodding a prisoner in front of him, seemingly materialized out of thin air, looking like a warrior from the past. Long black hair loose and dripping wet, shirtless with tattooed bands around his upper arms and a dagger over his heart. All he needed was a tomahawk in his hand rather than a .44 Magnum to look exactly like his ancestor, legendary Native American Civil War tracker, Ghost Walker. At the sight of an unknown, Surf and Mac drew their pistols into view.

Jack palmed his P226, ready for action. “You’re just now realizing that?” He cocked his brow at Beck then assessed the prisoner. A very pissed-off male dressed in camo and grease paint. About thirty. Built like Popeye and stiff with suppressed rage. “Company for dinner?”

“No time.” Beck wiped dripping water from his forehead with his middle finger, telling Jack what to do then shoved his prisoner toward Mac and Surf. “Shoot him in the foot if you have to, but I wouldn’t kill him. He’s either ATF or FBI, isn’t buying my story, and we don’t have time for chitchat.” He cleared leaves away and began drawing in the dirt. “Looks as if Dugar’s base is a militia camp. The Cape Fear River runs along the back of the property. Electric barbed wire and cheap motion-activated security cameras form a border on both sides and across the front of the compound. They’re armed and dangerous, serious gun-range setup and several combat training areas within sight of the river. Small cabins, about twenty of them are in this area. Large buildings are located here and here. This one looks like an armory. Parking lot is here, about fifteen vehicles. There is a dark blue van in the lot, but no sign of the commander or Mari. Three men were on perimeter watch. One at the guard gate in the front, one on each side. They did have their eyes glued to their smartphones, and would have been easy marks, but the sirens are game-changers. They’ll be on alert now. Also, we aren’t the only ones with eyes on these birds. There’s a major surveillance operation set up on the other side of the river. This guy is one of them, I’m sure, but he’s not talking. Caught him with high-powered binoculars trained on the camp.”