The Olympus Device: Book Three (24 page)

Concrete barriers on three sides of the White House grounds were the targets, the Abrams making short work of the protective barricades. Less than three seconds later, the Secret Service uniformed division suffered its first casualties, a guard post obliterated by a Hellfire missile launched from a charging Stryker.

“Code red! Code red!” screamed the rooftop observer, reaching for his long-range rifle. “We’re under attack by tanks and armored vehicles. Repeat, we’re under attack!”

His hand never made it to the weapon, one of the Humvee’s rooftop-mounted .50 caliber machine guns blitzing the agent’s position with its deadly hailstorm of lead. 

Throughout the White House and surrounding facilities, alarms began sounding. Sleepy agents poured from ready-rooms while the president’s protection detail burst into the executive bedroom. The four brawny men didn’t waste any time trying to wake or warn the snoozing Commander in Chief. Instead, they simply lifted the drowsy man from his mattress and made for the elevators leading to the underground situation room.

Sub-machine guns, sniper rifles, and M4 carbines were no match for the armor-protected, massive firepower brought to bear by the rebels. Of the two shoulder-fired rockets available to the defenders, only one hit its mark, barely scarring the Abrams’ paint. The president’s defenders were outgunned, outnumbered, and unable to maneuver. Within 90 seconds of the first shot being fired, Armstrong’s dismounted infantry had completely surrounded the White House.

The admiral knew the fight was far from over. While he could have easily taken the physical structure, his plan had been very specific – no one was to enter the actual building until he specifically ordered the breach. After giving his assault teams a few minutes to clean up any pockets of resistance on the grounds, he ordered half of his force to pivot and face outwards. Every cop in Washington, DC would be rolling for Pennsylvania Avenue, as well as the two companies of Marines from the Washington barracks. He didn’t want to put himself in the same untenable position as his foe, trying to hold a fixed location. As long as they remained outside, they could maneuver.

After receiving a satisfactory progress report from groups B and C, the admiral sat quietly in his command Humvee, waiting for the reaction that was sure to come.

Despite the constant drone of the watercraft’s engine, the Texan heard what sounded like the rumble and crack of a major fireworks display. “Odd,” he whispered. “Who is setting off firecrackers at this early hour?”

Hugging the darkened shore, Dusty quickly developed a routine of scampering from one point of cover to the next hiding spot. The first was a tall plot of cattails near the eastern bank. Next was a private pier jutting out into the waterway.  A few times the darkness prohibited his ability to discern the next cover, so he’d motor ahead until spotting a good place to hide.

It was during one of these blind runs that the first police boat came into view. Dusty had been running open water for nearly a quarter mile, desperately looking for someplace to pause, listen, and scout. Out of nowhere, he heard a screaming motor and spotted the patrol boat coming up from behind him, apparently running full speed in an effort to return to Washington. If the crew noticed him, they didn’t show it.

The Texan was pretty sure the second unit was a Coast Guard boat. For a brief second, he thought they’d detected him, but then it too turned and gunned its engines, heading back for the capital. “Must be a shift change,” Dusty shrugged, continuing up river and making reasonable time.

His landing spot in the District of Columbia was a marina that his map labeled the Washington Channel. Idling up the narrow opening, Dusty soon spotted row after row of large, bristling white private yachts, some larger than his house back in Fort Davis.

He’d seen pictures of such vessels before and remembered that the owners of the lavish craft often carried along “water toys” for the enjoyment of family and guests. The very machine he’d stolen was a popular choice.

Acting as if he was a yacht mogul out for an early morning ride, Dusty turned into a row of mega-boats and quickly idled up to an open mooring. A few moments later he’d tied off and was strolling up the pier with the rail gun under his overcoat.

He was about to cross Maine Avenue when a harsh voice startled the Texan.

“I’ve warned you bums to stay the fuck away from this marina,” growled a man in the shadows. “I need this job, and my boss said if I didn’t keep you homeless nuts out of here, I’d be fired. Now, I’m going to teach you a lesson so you can go tell all your friends to stay the fuck away.”

Wearing a blue uniform and brandishing a nightstick, Dusty spied the big watchman moving in for the assault. The Texan initially backed away from the sentry, holding up his hands in surrender and saying, “I’m sorry, man, but I got lost.”

“That’s what you all say. I’ve had enough of this bullshit.”

The large fellow kept coming, backing Dusty into a pool of illumination from the streetlight above. It became evident he wasn’t going to let the Texan be on his way. Making a snap decision, Dusty decided he’d release a little of his pent up frustration at the oncoming security guard.

Expecting a cowering, undernourished foe, Dusty’s attacker was stunned when the homeless bum turned and charged with unbelievable speed. Ducking under the nightstick’s poorly aimed arch, the Texan stepped in close and unleashed three quick jabs to his opponent’s face.

Again the nightstick contacted its target, but Dusty was too close, the short stroke landing with little force against the gunsmith’s shoulder. Old fights and lessoned learned returned to the Texan’s thoughts.
It’s hard for the other guy to throw a punch if he’s busy ducking yours.

Dusty unleashed a flurry of jabs, uppercuts, and haymakers, his fists beating a steady cadence against the stunned guard. They weren’t pretty or well aimed. Most didn’t land squarely. There was little chance any boxing coach would describe the Texan’s style as graceful.

The watchman outweighed his foe by a good 15 pounds and was almost as many years younger. But the Texan’s fists felt like sledgehammers against his skull, driven by ranch-chore hardened muscles and a built-up internal rage that wouldn’t be denied.

The security guard went down, his head receiving more punishment after bouncing off the pavement. Dusty stood over the man, his chest rising and falling as he replenished badly needed oxygen. “You should learn to treat your elders with a bit more respect, young man,” the Texan chided between breaths. “I’m not going to kill you tonight, but I will give you a bit of advice. Find another line of work.”

And with that, Dusty faded into the shadows, heading north toward the White House.

Other than the Metro Police, the single largest force facing Admiral Armstrong was the two companies of Marines stationed a short distance away.

While mostly assigned parade and ceremony duties, the naval officer was well aware that the Corps kept all of the men allocated to the post at combat-ready levels of training. One of their standing operational orders was as a backup to the Secret Service.

The early hour and lack of threat warning gave the rebel forces time to consolidate their positions. It was 15 minutes before the admiral’s observers spotted the lead elements of the Marine counter-attack moving toward the White House grounds.

Just as he knew they would, the responding jarheads came in fast and hard. Instead of trying to stop them at the perimeter, Armstrong’s men separated, allowing the nearly 200 heavily armed infantry to enter the White House compound unopposed.

For a moment, the captain commanding the Marines thought he’d been rousted out of bed for a whole mountain of nothing. Watching as his rifle squads crossed in front of the massive Treasury building bordering the south lawn, he was puzzled what all the fuss was about.

His lead elements had just made it to the southern edge of the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden when all hell erupted.

Two well-hidden Stryker Fighting Vehicles opened up with their machine guns, showing no mercy as they raked up and down the unprotected lines of Marines. Light weapons soon joined the fray, over a dozen of the admiral’s shooters peppering the new arrivals from well-concealed positions throughout the south lawn.

Several Marines went down in the initial salvo, but they didn’t break. War-hardened sergeants, tested on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, rallied the survivors, screaming at the shocked riflemen to get their weapons into the fight. The return fire was sporadic at first, gaining ferocity with every passing moment.

The Marines were also equipped with more potent weapons than their Secret Service comrades. Squad automatic weapons joined in, resulting in a blizzard of screaming lead and glowing tracers across the White House grounds.

But it was the shoulder-launched multipurpose assault weapon or SMAW that concerned the admiral’s forces the most. Similar in size and shape to the famous WWII bazooka, the modern version fired potent anti-armor rockets. It didn’t take long before a Stryker suffered a direct hit, the explosion sending a boiling cloud of flame and black smoke skyward while blowing several windows out of the nearby executive office building.

From Lafayette Park to the Ellipse and all points between, the firefight raged. Casualties on both sides began to mount. Two SWAT armored trucks were shredded after being intercepted by rebel Humvees and their roof-mounted .50 caliber machine guns. One of the Abrams threw a track while trying to roll over a concrete barrier on the north lawn, its crew quickly falling victim to Secret Service sharpshooters as the tank’s crew attempted to exit their crippled machine.

For a moment, Armstrong considered advancing his timeline, worried that his tactical advantage was slowly being bled away as more and more loyalists joined against him.

The admiral had issued strict orders forbidding heavy weapons being used against the White House proper. Until ordered, his tank cannon and missiles were only to be used against perimeter defenses and responding armored vehicles. He could end this fight quickly by unleashing that firepower, but it wasn’t time just yet.

“Stay with it,” he whispered, watching the battle rage just a block away. “Steady at the helm.”

A radio broadcast from the Group C commander quickly restored Armstrong’s confidence in his original plan. “Our ETA is four minutes. We have two camera crews in tow. They’re eager to see what all the commotion is about.”

Armstrong acknowledged the report by giving his men directions on where to meet.

A few minutes later, against a background of small arms fire and burning vehicles, the admiral met the national news crews at the edge of Lafayette Park, the wide-eyed reporters escorted into a protective ring of the rebel’s armor.