Point of Crisis (33 page)

“Whatever,” the driver said and flipped on the headlights.

They were twenty or thirty feet to the right of the dirt road. The runway lay several hundred feet ahead.

“Get us back on the road,” he said. “Careful turning in the grass.”

As the bus eased left, his radio squawked.

“Raider One, this is Raider Lead. Turn your lights off immediately.”

“This is Raider One. We’re off the road. We can’t see where we’re going,” said Gibbs.

“Turn your lights off—immediately. You’re compromising the mission. I’ll guide you to the runway. Follow the green light,” said Raider Lead.

“Told you,” said the driver, killing the lights.

Before the view ahead disappeared, he caught a glimpse of McCulver’s police cruiser speeding past. A few seconds later, a subdued, green glow lit the cruiser’s interior. Through the bus’s windshield, the familiar shape of a chemlight waved side to side.

“Follow that car,” Gibbs said.

Ten seconds later, the chemlight flew out of the cruiser’s window and bounced twice before stopping.

“Raider Two, this is Raider Lead. Green chemlight is your mark to turn right and proceed down the taxiway to your targets. Good luck and God bless America. Rally at the same chemlight for group extract to staging area. Raider One stay on me. The main runway is dead ahead. Out.”

The bus continued past the green mark, driving blind until the cruiser’s interior reappeared, bathed in green light. McCulver had clearly thought this one through.
Gibbs had a good feeling about it, despite the audacity of Eli’s overall plan. Casualties would no doubt be high, and there was no guarantee he’d survive to celebrate their victory, but the price paid in blood today would be well worth the sacrifice. This morning’s attack would deliver a strong message to the government, rallying patriots throughout New England and ultimately sparking a countrywide revolution. He was proud to play an integral role in a battle that would be compared to the “shot heard round the world” fired at North Bridge in Concord.

“Raider One, this is Raider Lead. Mark your turn at the chemlight and commence your attack run. Good luck and God bless America. Hit them hard and rally at the chemlight.”

The second chemlight sailed in a shallow arc, landing on the runway ahead of the bus. Gibbs pulled the door release handle, retracting the bifold door and bathing the stairwell in a cool gust of moist air. Peering through the open doorway, he could vaguely identify the dark shapes of Raider Two racing down the taxiway toward the hangars crowding the airfield’s main tarmac. As the bus started its wide turn onto the runway, he tightened his grip on the vertical handle in the stairwell and triggered his radio.

“Raider One units, this is Raider One Lead. Once you hit the runway, proceed at best speed to the hangars along the western edge of the airfield and return to the chemlight. We need to be back on Kennebunk Road in less than five minutes. Respond. Over.”

By the time Raider One-Six, the sixth vehicle in Gibbs’ formation, responded, the bus had completed its turn, accelerating on the open runway. He could barely believe they were doing this. Gibbs climbed the stairs and studied the view ahead. The obsidian murk still hid the distant hangars, but he knew the bus was headed in the right direction. A dark gray strip, several times wider than the bus, cut through the sea of black ahead. A dark shape appeared in his peripheral vision as one of the Raider vehicles sped past the bus.

“How fast are we going?” he yelled over the wind blowing into the doorway.

“Fifty-five!”

“Kick it up to seventy. I don’t want to fall too far behind the cars.”

“This thing isn’t designed for drag racing,” said the driver.

Gibbs felt a weak burst of acceleration as the rest of his attack force zipped by on both sides of the bus.

“I got the damn thing floored. This is it!”

He patted the driver on the shoulder.

“Keep it going as fast as you can,” he said, watching the dark shapes pull away.

Raider One Lead had the same problem. Three hundred feet away, running parallel to the main runway, the long, gray shape of the second correctional bus drifted further behind the pack of smaller vehicles, which had nearly disappeared in the darkness ahead. Gibbs didn’t like the separation between the buses and the cars. It was the one aspect of Eli’s plan that left him uneasy.

With the faster vehicles arriving ahead of the buses, they would bear the brunt of the return fire from the stirred-up hornets’ nest at the other end of the runway. Eli spun the situation differently, which rallied the troops but did little to quell his apprehension. He described the buses as battleships, which would shatter the confused enemy’s morale with a broadside of concentrated gunfire. A little overstated, Gibbs thought, but not a bad image.

Much like the battleship Eli described, a mixed group of militia and inmates would simultaneously fire a medley of semiautomatic rifles, bolt-action hunting rifles and shotguns at the hangar. The volume of fire exiting the slatted security windows might be impressive, but it hardly qualified as a fearsome broadside. Firing into the dark from a moving platform, his team of twenty-three men would be lucky to hit anything. Despite Eli’s elevated claims, Gibbs understood that the buses functioned more as a show of force than a force multiplier. The car bomb would do most of the damage.

“Raider One Lead, this is Raider One-One. I’m seeing a ton of shit up ahead. Looks like some kind of tent city in the area between the runway and western taxiway.”

“This is Raider One Lead. Is this before or after the turn?”

“Pretty sure it’s after the turn. Jesus, I have a dozen, possibly more helicopters on the tarmac. Are you sure we’re just looking at a company of soldiers? This looks a lot bigger.”

“Intelligence reported a company-sized infantry unit housed in our target hangar, along with elements of the National Guard in Raider One’s target area. How far until the turn?”

“Coming up in a few seconds. This is not a company-sized unit. Shit, I have troop movement around the tents and vehicles. Holy fu—”

The radio transmission abruptly ceased, and a stream of red tracers raced from left to right across the black horizon, ricocheting skyward when it reached a point a few hundred feet in front of the bus. Some of the tracers continued uninterrupted on their slightly parabolic trajectory across the airfield.

“Raider One-One, this is Raider Lead!” he yelled.

No response.

Damn it!

One-One carried the explosives, and he didn’t have communications with the rest of the vehicles. Eli wanted to keep command and control simple. The rest of the cars were supposed to follow One-One to the hangar and provide covering fire while they triggered the car bomb. Lines of tracers erupted from both directions, stitching the darkness ahead of them and deflecting in wild, high arcs. He lurched forward as the bus decelerated.

“What are you doing?” said Gibbs.

“It’s a fucking ambush, man!”

He stared through the windshield at the intensifying maelstrom of crimson streaks crisscrossing their intended path. He knew each tracer represented four projectiles, which meant the space ahead of them was filled with hundreds of 7.62mm bullets.

“Keep your speed until I get clarification.”

“Clarification? They’re getting the shit pounded out of them!” screamed the driver.

“Just give me a few seconds!” Gibbs yelled, grabbing his handheld radio.

“Raider Lead, this is Raider One. Taking heavy fire from both sides of the airfield. Lost contact with Raider One-One. Request permission to abort mission.”

“Negative, Raider One. Your lead vehicle has made the turn. Proceed to target and provide covering fire for extract. Do not abandon your men!” said McCulver.

“Roger. Proceeding to target.”

“He’s full of shit,” said the driver, slowing the bus. “We’re driving into a kill zone.”

Gibbs drew his pistol and jammed it into the inmate’s shoulder. “You keep this fucking bus moving forward.”

Before either of them could process the situation, tracers skipped wildly across the runway thirty feet in front of the bus, engulfing the last Raider Two vehicle in a brilliant storm of high-velocity streaks. The SUV abruptly swerved when tracers penetrated the vehicle and ricocheted through the interior, briefly illuminating the blood-splattered rear windshield.

“Stop the bus!” screamed Gibbs, unaware that he’d just killed himself.

The driver slammed on the hydraulic brakes, propelling Gibbs through the windshield.

***

McCulver watched the battle unfold through night-vision binoculars with a tinge of disappointment. Soldiers from the tents and hangars had responded faster that he’d expected, with lethal results. Few of Raider’s vehicles made it off the runway or taxiway, striking deeper into the airfield as he’d hoped. Eli told him it didn’t matter. As long as they got close to the business end of the runway, Eli was satisfied—mission accomplished. McCulver wanted more. He’d put most of the explosives into the airport phase of the operation and hated to see it wasted. He inwardly cheered them on, urging them to break through the hail of machine-gun fire to deliver one of his creations.

The buses had been his biggest hope, but one of them had faltered, the driver a victim of “cold feet,” according to the most recent radio transmission. He focused on the stalled bus, watching bright green streaks pour into the metal coffin from both sides of the airfield. Two figures piled out of the front door, stumbling several steps before a stream of tracers swept through their bodies and dropped them to the asphalt. Through the horizontal security bars affixed to the outside of the corrections vehicle, he witnessed a bizarre light show inside the bus as tracers bounced around inside, exiting at dozens of different angles like a Fourth of July sparkler.

Glancing at the taxiway, the second bus lumbered forward, somehow miraculously continuing its doomed journey toward the end of the airfield. If it survived the next fifteen seconds of concentrated gunfire, McCulver might get secondary explosions from the fuel-laden helicopters crowding the tarmac.

He zoomed in on the cluster of protected hangars closest to the taxiway, searching for evidence of the pickup truck assigned to ram through the fence and shoot up the mini-compound. Based on the extra layer of security surrounding the buildings, they guessed this had to be some type of headquarters. He spotted the pickup truck buried halfway through the chain-link fence next to a long hangar. Figures scurried across the inner perimeter firing into the wrecked vehicle, presenting an opportunity he couldn’t resist.

A quick check on the second bus confirmed that it wasn’t going to reach the helicopters, so he tuned the handheld radio to the first of three preset frequencies and pressed the transmit button. The view through his binoculars flashed bright green, followed by a sharp explosion that rattled the police cruiser. Temporarily blinded, he panicked and jabbed at what he hoped was the button that advanced the preset. He hit the transmit button. Nothing.

“Pratt, I can’t see. Dial this to preset channel two and press transmit. Repeat for preset channel three,” he said, holding the radio out.

“What do you mean, you can’t see?”

“Night-vision flare. I need you to do this fast,” said McCulver.

Really fast.

Their car was two thousand feet away from the nearest hangar, still within range of the heavy-caliber machine guns reported by Tim Barrett.

“Jesus, you’re a regular clusterfuck,” said Pratt, snatching it out of his hand.

A few seconds later, with his vision slowly returning, he still hadn’t heard the explosions.

“I can’t figure this cheap piece of shit out. Where the fuck did you buy these?” said Pratt.

“It’s a basic handheld radio! How hard can it be?”

Several blurred flashes passed the windshield, followed by loud cracks.

“They’re ranging us!” McCulver shrieked. “Hurry the fuck up! It’s a radio not a Rubik’s Cube!”

“I can’t make any sense out of these buttons. Who the fuck buys a radio with only three buttons?” said Pratt.

“Someone who’s working with a bunch of dipshits. Give me the radio and get us out of here!”

“I’m done taking orders from you,” said Pratt, pressing something metallic against his left temple.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” said McCulver, gripping the binoculars tightly.

“What I was ordered to do—by Eli.”

McCulver jammed his left hand upward, pinning the pistol to the roof of the car, while he slammed the binoculars into Pratt’s head. He repeatedly pummeled Pratt until the pistol clattered against the center console. Opening the door, he jumped onto the runway and slammed the door, feeling his way to the back of the car. Risking a glance over the trunk, he registered movement and ducked, barely avoiding two suppressed bullets. The sound of scuffling along the asphalt on the other side of the trunk forced him to scramble to the front of the car. A line of red tracers arced over the car, illuminating Pratt’s figure kneeling by the trunk.

Shit!

He rolled in front of the car as bullets snapped by his head.

Peering under the front bumper, he spotted feet shuffling down the side of the car. Before he could react, a bright red flash tore through one of Pratt’s feet, followed by a torrent of bullets striking the cruiser. Lying flat, he watched Pratt’s body crumple to the runway in a hissing pile of battered flesh and clothing. McCulver scrambled behind the engine block and crouched on shaky legs, listening to the distant crackling of small-arms fire over his thumping heart. He waited for another burst of machine-gun fire to rake the cruiser, but several tense seconds passed with no incoming fusillade.

McCulver weighed his options. Driving the car would attract bullets. If the cruiser had been pointed at the fence, it might work, but they had parked facing the other direction so he would have a clear view of the attack through the passenger-side window. The time required to turn the vehicle spelled the difference between life and death, eliminating that choice. The only hope of escape lay in the trees due east of the car. He didn’t know the distance to the tree line, but he knew it was far enough away to present a serious challenge. Crossing several hundred feet of open terrain with night-vision-equipped M240 machines at his back sounded like a bad bet. Unless he could distract them.