Mystery: Satan's Road - Suspense Thriller Mystery (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Suspense Crime Thriller) (19 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The young suicide bomber stood unsteadily, sweat trickling down his back.

He knew they had drugged him. He knew this because he sensed he couldn’t possibly feel this good knowing he was carrying twenty-pounds of C4 explosive, wrapped tightly around his chest. But he didn’t care. All of his concentration now was focused on just trying to stand as straight as possible, as soldierly as he could command, the extra weight constantly bowing him forward and over.

Standing there, waiting, he noticed for the first time the plastic explosive smelled slightly of tar – like he was standing downwind of newly pitched driveway. He liked the smell, but now it was all that he could think of. The odor was burrowing into his brain. All of his fellow soldiers, standing around him, were now bound by this pheromone of destruction – unintentionally signally their intentions to each other like giant hive insects.

The other soldiers were as silent as him, their eyes on the ground or the sky or their hands, not able to look at each other, feeling their gaze might burn a hole right through the man standing next to them. That’s how powerful and intense they felt – terrified and frozen, yet God-like.

That’s what a God, does after all; gives up his human life to accomplish a greater good.

There were fifty of them – young men with scruffy beards and sideburns, wearing baseball caps and casual slacks, running shoes. They wouldn’t be carrying rifles today, which is what they were used to. They had been chosen to blend in. They would pile into cargo vans and be dropped off at various locations in Washington – at malls and monuments and in front of the police and FBI offices. They would blend in until it was time.

They had no wives, no children. If they had parents, they hadn’t seen them for years. They were bred for this duty – schooled in hate for Western culture, branded as brave and sacrificial Jihadists. For months they were fed only the finest food, the best liquor  – provided only the most beautiful and compliant female companionship. They were the elite of their community. And now they will not hesitate to pull the cord on their jackets and send themselves to glory. They were Gideon’s chosen – the highest honor known to a Soldier of Patmos.

Then the cargo vans came and everyone looked up, afraid for the very first time.

This wasn’t a dream anymore. The packs they wore suddenly felt impossibly heavy. Some of the soldiers lost control of their bladders. Some mumbled favored religious passages. But the shame of not performing would be worse than death. So they climbed into the vehicles.

Their lieutenants came to join them once they were inside. He said a prayer and went around and shook hands with the boys. They were packed into the windowless vans, ten per – crowded, sitting along the bare metal sides, feeling the explosive packs dig into their backs. Their driver, looking nervous, knew how much firepower was enclosed in the confining space. Each believed a simple fender-bender could mean a mushroom cloud of C4, blood, bones and thin Detroit sheet metal.

They drove slowly and carefully down the gravel road that divided their fortress, getting curious looks from the residents. Some went west, others east.

Finally, two of the lead vans passed through the gates of the guardhouse.

Chris Hanlon was the first FBI sniper to fire. He had received a squad radio call from his commander at Quantico, who was monitoring the movement of the caravan using a high-altitude drone.

The FBI had been watching the compound for years, but more intensely these past few months. The cargo vans were of interest. They implied militia activity off the compound. And based on recon, the FBI knew the vans weren’t being used to send kids to water parks. They sat mostly unused and were only involved in periodic drills. Soldiers would line up and crawl inside. Then after half an hour, disembark.

Intel from a year ago traced a black market purchase of hundreds of pounds of C4 to Parkhurst. Hanlon shook his head when he heard. You can bribe customs officials and cops until the cows come home, but you can’t hide that much C4 from the feds forever.

The FBI was convinced the vans would be used for some terrorist activity on or around what the intel community was calling J-Day. The soldiers who had crawled inside weren’t carrying guns and were dressed as civilians. That was suspicious. Even more so, they were all wearing heavy coats on a warm summer morning.

So, one of the three snipers on point, on his stomach in the light forest across from the gates, shot out the front tires of the leading van with his MK-11. A provocation? Yes. But no one would be hurt. The vans were crawling out of the gates. They would see what the vans did next.

The second van stopped behind the lead van, which was slumped down on the shattered tires. There was no movement for several long seconds. Then the second van pulled around, spinning up dust and gravel, and passed the first.

Chris fired again twice. Two more tires exploded, and the van slewed across the road into the opposite ditch, nose down. Still, no one inside moved and no one left the vehicles. Another minute ticked by.

Then the militiamen behind the guardhouse walls opened fire on the sniper’s positions. Luckily, the FBI was hunkered down just below a slight ridge. All of the fire chewed up the hardwood and pine bows above them and spat sandy soil up into the air. Chris would always remember that day for the smell – pine scent and cordite.

The snipers were ordered not to return fire. Yet. But that would never be necessary.

The math worked against the bombers that day. Twenty of them were packed together in two vehicles. A stray bullet from one of the militia guards hit the second van, pierced the side and plowed into one of the suicide bombers, who screamed out in pain and toppled forward into the aisle. Panic filled the confines of the truck as young men looked at each other, sure that the end would come now and not later as planned.

One terrified bomber over-reacted, afraid he would die before fulfilling his destiny, and tried to escape from the van. In his haste and confusion, crawling over the other bombers, he accidentally activated his suicide vest. The C4 ignited, and the resulting explosion consumed the first van instantly. Which consumed the next cargo van in line, like a violent conga line of destruction.

The chain reaction completely evaporated most of the front gate of the Parkhurst compound, killing most of the guards and everyone else within a five hundred foot radius.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Tommy had the bear in his sights; at least he thought of him as a bear. Relentless, broad shouldered, with a big squarish head and cruel eyes. That was the cop that had towered over Gideon, his arm muscles bunched up under his jacket. He was angry; Tommy could tell. It came off the cop like waves of heat off hot pavement.

Tommy watched through the scope from the living room of the farmhouse. What could Gideon have been negotiating? There were only minutes until the launch. Gideon as usual was calm. Tommy could see his head moving, not quite a smile on his lips, when he turned back to the farmhouse. There was one other officer they had to deal with, a man who had Sherriff written across the back of his black nylon jacket in bold yellow letters. Why only two? If they suspected the scale of what was about to come down, they should have an army at the gates. Something was wrong.

Tommy had a simple solution – two shots, and the problem would go away. They could get back to the work at hand. Final tests needed to be run; Gideon’s orders had to be cleared – his ever-present checklist reviewed. But no, they were playing houseguest with two cops.

Then Tommy ducked involuntarily when he heard the gunshots from the porch. Through the scope, he watched his fellow militiamen shred the cop car. Finally, they were doing something.

Tommy ran up to the big oak door and looked out. Gideon was still standing there in the open; his hand up, the air full of gun smoke. Then the lights in the house flicked out momentarily, and the shooting stopped. Tommy looked back into the house, missing the injured woman falling to her knees outside, an important moment for everyone. But he was wondering how the power could go out with all the backup technology they had. And why his men had stopped shooting. He sensed the two cops were still huddled behind the black and white SUV, but he couldn’t see them.

Then he saw Gideon march over to the area where the resident women had gathered and disappear into the commotion.

Tommy’s face betrayed his confusion. Within seconds of seeing his leader disappear, he heard massive explosions from the front gates, which he assumed was an attack on the compound by the Army or the FBI. Then the lights in the room blinking out. The farmhouse seemed to settle into silence in a matter of seconds, ticking like a cooling engine block, the extended explosion from the distance still ringing in his head. He could also hear the battery alarms going off upstairs, one after the other. Disconnect alerts. The Internet connections were down. Phone lines had gone dead.

Within seconds, his cell phone rang.

“What’s happening with the power?” asked Gideon, sounding out of breath.

“They’ve cut us,” said Tommy. “I don’t know how. But it won’t stop
J-Day
. Or the server shutdowns. They’re on timers. They think they’ve got us, but it won’t effect anything.”

“I don’t give a fuck about J-Day,” yelled Gideon. Tommy had never heard Gideon swear before. “But without power, we lose our biggest chess move. The underground bunker.”

Then the power came back on momentarily. Then blinked out again. They could hear the systems upstairs cycling up then droning down into silence again.

“What’s going on?” asked Gideon.

“They’re cycling,” said Tommy. “A computer takes about thirty seconds to boot up, so they’re turning the power on and off every thirty seconds or so. The computers never get started. And the back up power from the generators never comes on because the power has to be off for over two minutes for the diesel plants to kick in.”

“We should have been prepared for this. I have to go and look after the bunker bomb. You have to get that small generator in the back field going. All I need is two minutes of power. Do you understand?”

Then Tommy got it. A few minutes of power would give Gideon the time he needed to reset the timers that would trigger the bomb in the cave.

“Do you understand?” barked Gideon, his voice ragged.

“Yes,” said Tommy.

With that, Gideon clicked off.

Tommy lifted his rifle and snugged the stock into his shoulder. Hyde’s head was increasing in size in the viewfinder. He was on the porch now, his face in shadow, approaching the front door. Tommy had the cop’s nose in his sights now, through the colored glass of the entry doors where the police officer had paused, reaching for the doorknob. Tommy squeezed lightly on the trigger, a smile forming. He was in the zone.

Then he heard the floorboards creak and was struck hard from the left. Someone had driven him down and sideways. The gun fired, but high, shattering the glass of the front door, passing over Hyde’s head.

Kam O’Brien, who had crept through the farmhouse from the east entrance, had hit McDane at a run when he saw the shadow of Hyde in the front window.

Tommy went down hard on a table built of heavy planks. Kam could almost hear the ribs snapping. The rifle clattered across the floor and came to rest against the wall about ten feet from the young soldier. O’Brien grabbed McDane, who was crawling for the gun, and hammered his fists on his head where he still wore a bandage. Tommy twisted, moaned and grabbed his head.

Hyde was through the door now. When he saw the two men on the floor, he kicked the rifle further into the far corner.

“Where’s my wife?” yelled O’Brien. He had both hands on Tommy’s collar, shaking him.   

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
 

Tamara walked with a limp for only one reason; she had a camping hatchet wrapped around her calf with a stretch bandage. When she saw Eliza climb up the side of the first vat, she headed back past the others; looking for the power cable they had talked about earlier. She was nervous. Eliza didn’t seem worried about the time. How long had they spent lollygagging with those two guards until they keeled over? She wished she had a watch. When she heard the guards enter the room, she ducked low and was just circling the last of the four vats when she saw the cable. A steel conduit was sunk into the concrete floor just inches from the edge. A shielded cable snaked out and ran part way up the side of the retaining wall. Attached to the plastic side was a round aluminum box, like a squashed coffee can. Fuel bombs need a detonator to trigger an explosion. This can was either the blasting cap itself or contained whatever was needed to ignite the bomb from some electric signal. She raised up her hatchet, getting a sense of the weight. She was a good baseball player, a hitter in high school. She needed a good solid strike to sever the cable.

“Where’s Earl?” she heard one of the men say, some anger in his voice, but also curiosity. He knew there were two women, but only one was present. And of course, he knew that Earl and the kid were missing. He was also probably trying to figure out where they had disappeared to. Probably thought they were all off in a corner somewhere getting naked two minutes before Armageddon. Only a man would think like that.

The guard’s voice echoed off the high ceiling and seemed to linger in the air. Eliza didn’t answer or move. She knew what Tamara had to do.

Tamara held her breath. How much time did she have now? How many lives would be gone in a flash if she failed? She kept thinking the whole room could explode seconds before she severed the power, before she had a chance. So she swung hard at the spot where the cable entered the bottom of the round can. Almost in mid swing, the lights went out.

Tamara heard the clang of the axe head cutting into what she hoped was the armored cable and saw sparks. Then she lost her balance. The darkness was so complete it seemed to suffocate her. She tripped and fell hard against the side of the vat. She knew that the hatchet had not caused the power outage. If she had swung a second later, she might have. But now she felt a sliver of hope. She heard one of the guards swear. Then he yelled in her direction.

“What the hell are you doing back there?”