The Fallen: A Derek Stillwater Thriller (23 page)

A cloud of smoke rolled off the burning Mobile Command Unit. A team of firefighters was using extinguishers to try and douse the flames of the charred skeleton of metal and plastic. The fumes stung her eyes and bit at her nostrils. The smoke brought with it the stench of burned bodies, blood, and death. She shivered, clothes wet, the mountain air suddenly feeling cold despite the warmth of the sun. Khournikova said, “Do any of your snipers have thermal imaging capabilities?”

LeVoi, who had been turning toward the main complex, halted. “Probably. You have an idea?”

Khournikova nodded. “I have at least one.”

Sprawling on the floor in the workspace, eyes pressed to a crack around an overhead spotlight cutout, Derek studied the ballroom and The Fallen Angels’ positions. Richard Coffee was staying close to the leaders on stage. Another one seemed to be sticking close to the TV cameras and their controls. There was a total of eight, all armed, spread out around the room. The hostages sat in chairs, some with their heads together, whispering, but most were silent, waiting.

He tried to puzzle out a plan. Leaning back, he inspected his MP-5. It was an assault rifle, not a sniper rifle, and he wasn’t a sniper anyway. Although he had been trained in Special Forces, his expertise was biological and chemical warfare. He wasn’t a sniper. He could probably take out one or two of The Angels from here, but that would result in a massive return of gunfire that he was pretty sure he would not survive. Unless—

He checked the rounds remaining in his sole magazine. Ten. Not good.

Not for the first time he considered the trapdoor in the stage. He was a long ways from there now.

He considered access to the roof. There wasn’t any from here. There was a stairwell that led to the roof, but he was certain it had been wired.

For a moment he rested, monitoring his aches and pains. Resting probably wasn’t a great idea. He’d been running on adrenaline for the last couple hours and he would only get stiff and slow if he rested too long. He closed his eyes, opened them, thinking that they had started out with a dozen men in the ballroom, and four on the perimeter. He had eliminated two of the perimeter men, then four of the Angels from the ballroom.

There were still two in the front lobby, but at the moment he didn’t consider them a particular threat.

He wondered if it was possible to decrease the numbers in the ballroom from where he was.

He wondered if he could do it without getting himself or the world leaders or any of the other people in the ballroom killed.

Derek crept back over to the elevator doors and looked down the shaft, pondering the drop. Glancing back over his shoulder, he considered the coils of wiring and cable. His gaze lit on a roll of electrical cable, probably fifty or sixty feet of it. He crawled back over to it and checked its thickness. Rubber coated cable. He tested it. It was strong. Strong enough to support him?

What you’re thinking is suicidal.

Derek crawled back and peered down at Richard Coffee. The angle was all wrong from where he was. He couldn’t shoot straight down. If he was to try this, he would have to choose one or two of The Angels farther back, where he could have time to set an angle of fire.

You’re crazy. Don’t even consider this.

Derek put the coil of cable in his lap and started to unreel it, wondering if there was a way to minimize his risk. The thought made him want to laugh. He hadn’t minimized his risk even once all day. Why start now?

From below he heard Richard Coffee’s voice, talking to the TVs. “I want the world to know that the U.S. government—”

El Tiburón clicked on the cameras. He did not have a good feeling about this. It was a feeling he had felt before— of a piece of cloth unraveling. It would start with a single loose thread, but soon everything would fall apart.

It was a feeling that reminded him of when he was a teenager, playing with his friends in the hills outside his village, hearing explosions and gunfire, smelling smoke. Running home, he discovered his family murdered, his house in flames.

It hadn’t taken him long to join the AUC, to become a guerilla, to try and overthrow the corrupt Colombian government that had killed his momma, poppa, sister, and baby brother. He had channeled his rage into being the best, the most ruthless, and had gained a reputation as El Tiburón, the shark, the predator who didn’t stop moving and killing or he would die.

But eventually the AUC became as corrupt, as weak, as institutionalized as the government they were fighting. So El Tiburón took his loyal men and fought their own war.

He could still smell the blood of his first kill, slitting the throat of a Colombian soldier on patrol. He could still feel how powerful it had felt, the hot blood gushing over his hand—

At the front of the ballroom, The Fallen stood before the world leaders. He said, “I want the world to know that the U.S. government has capitulated to one of our demands. They have released my fellow Fallen Angels from their prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, given them helicopters and freedom to fly to Colombia.”

The Fallen took a step forward. “The U.S. government has bought themselves time. I still require the release of Nadia Kosov. You have—”

El Tiburón stepped out from behind the camera and screamed, “No!
Enough! Don’t you understand? Nadia Kosov is dead. There is no negotiating on that point. Move on!”

Coffee glowered across the room at him. Turning back to the cameras, he said, “You have one hour to release Nadia Kosov and have her contact me or—”

El Tiburón snarled a wordless cry, raised his MP-5 and fired. The rounds caught Richard Coffee in the chest. Coffee crumpled to the stage, feebly reaching for his gun, which had fallen out of his hand. With a groan, he toppled off the stage to the floor.

El Tiburón raised his hand and shouted, “¿Ahora!”

As one, six of the remaining Fallen Angels turned, raised their assault rifles and fired at Didier Christophe, the one remaining Fallen Angel who was not one of El Tiburón’s recruits from Colombia. Christophe’s rifle spat out a half dozen rounds as he died, falling to the ballroom amidst screams and cries from the audience.

El Tiburón stalked to the front of the ballroom. He faced the cameras. “My name is Pablo Juarez, with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. We are now in control of the leaders of the G8. The Fallen Angels no longer exist. You will answer to me now. Our demands are very simple. Colombian President Pedro Gomez and his administration must resign from office immediately, and turn over control of the Republic of Colombia to Francisco Vasquez, current leader of the AUC. Under President Vasquez, all countries in the G20 present today will keep diplomatic and economic ties open. If I am not informed of this transition in one hour, I will kill United States President Jack Langston. To prove that I am serious—”

El Tiburón leapt up on stage, aimed his handgun at European Union President Waldenstrom and fired. He took another step, standing before German Chancellor Heidi Braun, raised the gun, and fired. He turned back to the camera.

“You have one hour.”

Derek, high above the action, rolled over on his back and closed his eyes. A lightning bolt of pain blasted through his head and quickly subsided. Momentarily he had a sensation of floating, of the vastness and antiquity of the universe, of the repetitive nature of violence. If I quit now, so what? If crazies kill all the leaders of the world, so what? There are plenty of politicians itching to take their spots.

He opened his eyes and thought, Richard Coffee’s dead again?

He felt a little sad somehow. He and Coffee had been friends once. The kind of friends who watched each other’s backs. The kind of friend you depended on to save your life in a sticky situation.

He had once thought Coffee was dead, exposed to biological and chemical weapons residue while in the first Gulf War. Then he had been miraculously reborn as The Fallen, a megalomaniacal cult leader and terrorist intent on destroying the world.

Crazy.

He rolled over and peered down at this new devil, Pablo Juarez. That was the problem with devils, he supposed. You killed one and there was always another one to come along.

What Juarez wanted was madness incarnate. Colombia wasn’t represented in the G8. Not even the G20. Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil were their closest neighbors, and it was doubtful they would want that kind of unrest in their neighborhood. Not that Colombian President Pedro Gomez was too likely to step down and turn over the reins of power, no matter how much pressure was applied from the rest of the world.

Richard Coffee could make all the demands he wanted, but Derek knew they were all window dressing. Coffee had wanted chaos. Chaos on
a huge scale, on an apocalyptic scale. Coffee, somewhere in his diseased brain, was venting his rage on the planet and all mankind, and, unfortunately, for the world, Coffee had been trained well by the United States government on how to do it.

Juarez, on the other hand, was a man with a different mission. No less crazy, perhaps, but he somehow thought his demands might be met. Or more likely, wanted the world’s attention brought to bear on Colombia, the ongoing civil war, and the AUC’s role in it. Just another suicidal terrorist who wanted to use other people’s lives as a billboard.

Suddenly filled with energy, Derek picked up the cable he had been considering, but froze when he heard Pablo Juarez speaking again.

And he was calling Derek’s name.

Derek crawled back to peer down at the man, who was talking into a radio, to the cameras. Juarez spoke in good clean English with a heavy Spanish accent, but Derek had no problems hearing him or understanding him. Juarez stood there in his dark pants and shirt, an MP-5 over one shoulder. Dark-skinned, dark hair, a confident, imposing figure on a stage before the world leaders, Peter Vakhach dead, Richard Coffee dead.

Another devil who wanted to dance on the grave of the world.

“Hello, Derek Stillwater. I know you are out there. Listening. I will not play games with you as The Fallen had. So here is an ultimatum. You must turn yourself into my men in the next five minutes, or I will shoot the Israeli Prime Minister and a dozen hostages here in the audience.” Juarez looked at his watch. “Five minutes from now.”

Derek swallowed hard. He felt paralyzed. What to do? The clock was ticking.

Irina Khournikova and Brenda LeVoi and a dozen other agents watched Richard Coffee’s death on a TV in the security office at the main resort building. News had spread of Vincent Silvedo’s duplicity, and the deaths of Lee Padillo and Larry Swenson and the half dozen agents who had been killed along with them. The general sentiment was that these terrorists would be leaving Colorado in body bags.

The airwaves had been sizzling between Washington, D.C. and Colorado. It was obvious to the agents on the ground that the blame game was well underway and the D.C. pols were looking for the scapegoat du jour. Finally, it had been made clear that Brenda LeVoi and the Russian woman were now in charge. Khournikova thought it ironic that a foreign intelligence agent was being given a widely declared opportunity to share the blame if the day got any worse.

Khournikova watched the video unblinkingly. One of the Secret Service agents, a short, balding man with a Texas twang, muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

Irina said, “We’re down to six.”

“Yeah,” the agent said. “Maybe if we wait another hour they’ll all kill each other, and we can all go home.”

Brenda LeVoi shook her head, expression grim. “We’re down to the core group, I think. They’re all Juarez’s people now. He’s right. The Fallen Angels don’t exist any more. This is a different threat now.” She focused on Irina. “You have a plan?”

Irina nodded, surveying the group. She gripped the woman’s arm and pulled her away from the crowd. “Do you trust them?”

Brenda studied her. “I have to.”

Irina hesitated before saying, “Derek Stillwater has done a good job of thinning the numbers in there.”

“You’re sure it was him?”

Somebody said, “LeVoi. Incoming message from the secretary.”

“I’ll get right on it. Hang on.” LeVoi turned back to Irina. “Are you sure?”

Irina nodded. “Yes. Who else?”

“Right.” LeVoi seemed to think, then walked over to the agent who had tried to catch her attention and retrieved her notebook computer, bringing up the communication from Secretary Johnston. She studied the information for a moment. “All right, people. We’ve got intel. Somehow they’ve got somebody on the inside feeding them information. There appears there’s some delay, but if we coordinate an op, we might be able to get almost real-time data on these guys’ locations inside the ballroom. We have less than an hour. Khournikova, you have the floor.”

Irina stepped forward. “I need at least two snipers with thermal imaging gear.”

Two of the men stepped forward. They almost looked like twins. Tall, hawklike features, bold piercing stares, short dark hair. “We’re all set.”

Irina nodded. “Good. Get set up outside the front of the Cheyenne Center.” She turned back to the crowd. “We have blueprints of the Cheyenne Center?”

A dark-skinned woman pointed to a computer file. “3D CAD/CAM. We’ve been going over it. You’re considering a dynamic entry?”

Irina nodded. “We’re going to have to blow our way in.” She smiled. “But conveniently, The Fallen Angels already set the explosives in place. We just need to be ready for the timing.”

“Aw shit,” an agent monitoring the radio said. He was a blond built like a bodybuilder, with gray eyes and a sunburned face.

Everybody turned to him. He gestured to the radio. “This guy, Pablo Juarez, is communicating directly with Derek Stillwater. Says he’s got five minutes to turn himself over or he’s going to kill the Israeli PM and a dozen hostages.”

Irina turned back to the two snipers. “Go! Do it now! You know what to do!”

With a nod they sprinted from the building.

LeVoi turned to Irina. “Not enough time. How well do you know this guy?”