Black Flagged (The Black Flagged Technothriller Series) (26 page)

**

Colonel Farrington locked and shut the door to Julio's custodial closet, confident that the nosy janitor wouldn't be found until tomorrow morning. He liked Julio and was glad that the confrontation hadn't turned deadly. He hadn't suffered a heart attack and didn't show any abnormal vital signs. He would wake up in a few hours, hog-tied to the floor, unable to make a sound. Beyond a little panic, he'd be fine.

Farrington had been onto Mendez from the beginning. The slightly cracked open closet door was so obvious to him, he had found it next to impossible to ignore over the past few months, and when the telltales left in the lower cabinet had been disturbed, he knew Mendez was up to something.

Once the authorities tore the tape off his mouth, he'd be able to tell them how close he had come to foiling the colonel's plan by staying late to keep an eye on him. This had been the final tip-off for Farrington today. He had checked the assigned work schedule for the Compartmentalized Information Section, and Mendez' shift ended at 4 p.m. The man never worked a minute past his assigned shift and had said goodbye on his way out every day for the two years Farrington had worked in the section.

He went back to his desk and reloaded the Taser, rechecking his equipment one more time. Everything was in place. He took a deep breath and walked over to the Sanctum's access panel, shifting the long, thin commando knife to his left hand in order to press the fingers on his right hand onto the fingerprint recognition scanner. Once this was completed, he entered numbers on a keypad and shifted the knife back to his right hand, placing it in a concealed grip, with the flat part of blade pressed against his wrist and lower arm. The door's locking mechanisms clanged, and the door slowly opened. At this point there was no turning back, so he stepped inside.

He passed through a small entry vestibule containing several coat hooks filled with suit jackets and entered the main room. He assessed the situation quickly, as he walked purposefully toward Derren McKie, who was seated at a gray, metallic table in the middle of the room, with the open Black Flag briefcase in front of him. Keller looked up at him from an office chair on the other side of the table. Only one of the FBI agents, Calhoun, sat at the table against the wall on the right side of the room, studying several sheets of paper. The other agent was out of sight, presumably taking a nap or using the bathroom.

Technical Sergeant D'Onofrie and Staff Sergeant Brodin were located exactly where he expected to find them, on the left side of the room at the secured communications workstation. D'Onofrie sat in front of the fax machine, feeding a few sheets of paper cleared by McKie through to the FBI, while Brodin observed. The marine staff sergeant looked up at him with a slightly surprised look. He usually called her before re-entering the Sanctum, and his presence always meant that the accessed file had been closed.

"The file's closed, sir?" she asked, and McKie turned his head lazily toward Keller and Calhoun.

"Gentlemen, that's it for the file," McKie uttered, and these were the last words anyone would hear him speak.

Colonel Farrington lunged past the table and grabbed McKie's thick, brown hair, yanking his head backward. McKie managed to get a hand up to grab Farrington's arm, but it was a futile effort. Farrington plunged the seven-inch blade downward through the right side of McKie's neck, just above the collarbone, instantly severing the carotid artery and slicing through the spinal cord. Farrington felt the man's body slacken and knew he didn't need to waste any more time on McKie. He left the knife buried in his neck and wheeled the dying man's chair toward the secured communications station, which averted a potential disaster. Staff Sergeant Brodin had already cleared half the distance between the station and the colonel when she collided with the chair, giving Farrington the time he needed to properly react.

Farrington drew two Tasers from holsters that were attached to his uniform belt behind his back and aimed one in each direction. His first priority was Brodin, who was now covered in bright red arterial spray from McKie's neck. She pushed the chair out of the way and hesitated, unsure of how to proceed against Farrington. He fired the Taser leads into her chest, and she dropped to the blood-slicked floor, convulsing.

He had set the Taser to deliver an incapacitating initial shock, followed by a continuous stream of lower voltage "reminders" that would keep her down until he deactivated the device. Through the pulsing spray of blood, he caught an image of Technical Sergeant D'Onofrie, frozen in horror with a blood-splattered sheet of paper in his hands. He wouldn't be a problem anytime soon.

With Brodin out of the picture, he fired the second Taser at Keller, who had at this point only managed to back his chair a few feet from the table and look at Special Agent Calhoun, who was having serious trouble extracting his service pistol. The effect was immediate, and Keller stiffened in his seat, unable to move. Farrington dropped both Tasers to the ground and grabbed two shiny metallic cylinders from his front trouser pockets.

Each device looked like a retractable toilet paper holder and held several darts fired by compressed air. The device was a one shot deal, firing all of the darts at once in a tight circle. At a range of twenty feet, most of the darts should hit within the radius of a regulation basketball and would strike with enough force to penetrate a business suit. Beyond twenty feet, the darts had a tendency to wander and lost too much kinetic energy to reliably punch through clothing. Each dart delivered a specialized neurotoxin that instantaneously disrupted the primary signal pathway required to voluntarily operate the body's musculoskeletal system, while leaving the body's smooth muscle and cardiac muscle unhindered.

At a distance of fifteen feet, all six darts hit Calhoun in the upper right shoulder and chest, just as he cleared his pistol from the holster. The effects were immediate, and Calhoun's pistol dropped to the floor. Farrington could see the agent's lips quivering, which was a telltale sign that the neurotoxin had completely disabled him. Frozen like a statue, he fell over onto the white linoleum tiled floor a few seconds later, his muscles no longer receiving the signals needed to maintain balance.

The colonel heard a toilet flush toward the back of the room and picked up Calhoun's semi-automatic pistol. He pointed it at D'Onofrie and shook his head, waiting for Special Agent Harris to emerge. The door to the bathroom swung open.

"I can't believe the bathroom doesn't have a fan. I wouldn't recommend anyone…" He froze when he saw Farrington.

The second cylinder hissed, and Harris didn't react. He couldn't. All six darts had delivered their neurotoxin through the agent's white dress shirt, in a noticeable concentric circle on his chest. As the agent teetered and fell, Colonel Farrington returned his attention to Technical Sergeant D'Onofrie, who continued to stare in shock at McKie's lifeless form, which had tumbled partway out of the chair and jammed against the rear door leading to the break area. The former Black Flag operative's body weakly pumped the last remains of its crimson reservoir onto the lower half of the gray metal door.

D'Onofrie tried to speak. "Why…what did…?"

"Tech Sergeant, I don't have time to explain this, but I need your help. The FBI agents were hit by a neurotoxin delivered by small darts. They'll be fine in a few hours. Brodin and Keller were hit by Tasers, which are still active. I need you to zip tie their hands for me, as soon as I deactivate the Tasers, and drag them into that room," he said, pointing at the bloodstained door behind McKie's body.

The air force sergeant, still dazed, glanced toward the carnage at the door and dropped the sheets of paper in his hand.

"D'Onofrie, I need you to pull yourself together, and get this done immediately. Pull the two FBI agents into the room, and we'll work on the other two. If you want to leave this room alive, you must do what I ask," Farrington said.

The sergeant looked back at the door again and hesitated. Farrington walked over to McKie's body and grabbed the dead man's blood-soaked shirt collar, yanking him back into the chair and wheeling him away from the door. He removed the knife from McKie's neck and tossed it onto the table next to the Black Flag files. Staring intently at D'Onofrie, he opened the door to the break room and jammed several thick plastic zip tie handcuffs into one of the sergeant's hands.

"You need to get to work before I decide it would be easier to kill the rest of you. Start with that one," Farrington said and pointed at Agent Calhoun with the agent's own pistol.

As the sergeant started to move Calhoun into the back room, Farrington removed Harris's service pistol and tucked it into his pants, purposefully locking eyes with D'Onofrie as he stepped over Calhoun's frozen body on his way across the room. The sergeant looked relieved to have the last gun taken out of play. Still watching D'Onofrie, the colonel ripped the fax's connection from the wall and threw the fax machine onto the floor. He stomped on it a few times to make sure it was permanently disabled. The fax machine was the only device capable of communicating beyond the Sanctum and the Pentagon.

The single phone at the communications desk was hardwired directly to Colonel Farrington's desk, which he would deactivate before he left the building. Security patrols through this section were rare, and the patrol wouldn't hear anything through the fireproof metal walls of the Sanctum. The fire alarm would be their most likely way to attract attention, and there was little Farrington could do about this, beyond confiscating any lighters and making sure they were all incapacitated. He had a few more doses of the neurotoxin for that.

He wanted to be out of the Sanctum in a few minutes, which didn't leave him with much time. He still needed to collect all of the pieces of the Black Flag file and secure it under a new uniform. McKie's blood covered most of his right shoulder, and looking down, he could see some dark spots on his collar around his silver colonel insignia. Although most of the blood would be covered by his uniform jacket, and the night security crew wasn't exactly the Pentagon's "A" team, he didn't want to take any unnecessary chances. In thirty minutes he'd walk straight out of one life and into another. A life not hampered by bureaucrats and politicians. He would finally be on the path he had chosen when he accepted an appointment to West Point, twenty-one years ago. He'd be a warrior, unhindered.

**

Wearing a black windbreaker-style uniform jacket over a brand new uniform, Colonel Farrington greeted the security guards at the main exit with the blank, zombified expression of someone who worked an excessively long day.

"Late night, Colonel?" commented one of the guards that Farrington recognized well.

"Yeah. We're receiving guests tomorrow. The kind that like to inspect everything, so it's been a long day," he said, feigning a tired smile.

"Pain in the ass for sure, Colonel. I'll be here tomorrow morning. We could pull them aside for the special treatment," the guard said, motioning to one of the private rooms reserved for random, detailed searches.

Farrington faked a laugh and scanned his name badge. "It's tempting, Ray, but I don't think it'll be necessary. Then again, we'll see how the inspection goes. You gonna be here in the late morning?"

All of the guards laughed, especially Ray, who said, "Nah, Colonel. I'm on all night, then off at 10. I could do you a solid when they arrive. Just give us a call."

"I'll keep it in mind," Farrington said and placed his briefcase on the long inspection table in front of the guards.

"Go ahead, Colonel. You're good," Ray said.

"Thanks, Ray. I'll let you know if I change my mind," he said and picked up his briefcase.

"I'll be here. Have a good night," he said.

"Yep. Keep the peace," Farrington said and turned toward the exit.

He kept walking and reached the massive bank of automated doors that led to the South parking lot. The closest door opened, and Farrington felt the warm, humid air pour over him as he stepped out of the Pentagon for the last time. He glanced back through the opening, watching as it closed. He could see the guards searching through another officer's backpack.

In the distance ahead of him, he saw a car pull up. Instinctively, he knew this was his ride. Farrington picked up the pace, nearly jogging through the empty handicapped lot and arriving at the access road on the other side of the lot. He saw Parker sitting behind the wheel of a Honda Accord and crossed behind the car to get in the front passenger seat.

"What happened to the Cherokee?" Farrington said, getting in the car.

"Ditched it. We were compromised earlier tonight. Badly. I assume you have the file?" Parker said, driving the car out of the parking lot.

"Strapped to my body. Everything went without a hitch," he said.

"McKie?"

"Dead. I assumed something happened, but the general didn't elaborate."

"Someone sent a Brown River assassination team to kill one of our operatives. They were temporarily tracking me as well," Parker said.

"Had to be CIA. I'm surprised the general didn't want Keller eliminated. Aside from the limited information sent to the FBI, Keller's photographic memory is all that's left," Farrington said.

"We still don't know the motivation behind the Brown River fiasco. They were sent on a specific mission against one of our guys, but in the context of today's events, the reason appears to be unrelated. The general wants to be able to close the loop on this," Parker said, taking the car onto Interstate 395 heading into the heart of D.C.

"Where are we headed next?" Farrington asked, unconsciously touching his chest and the thick stack of papers hidden underneath his jacket.

"First, we need to make a pickup at the Mall. Then, we'll go underground and wait for the next mission," Parker said.

"Any idea what the next mission is?"

"None. I've been flying by the seat of my pants since yesterday. It sounds like Sanderson's plan is mostly intact. The Brown River thing has been the only deviation so far, but they're out of the picture at this point," Parker said, and the car eased left onto Route One north.