ROGUESTATE, page 40
The first casualty bobbed into view as they arrived at the point where they had split into two groups. The point man swept the multiple tunnels in a half crouch as the rainwater poured in from the streets above and the current pulled harder towards the outflows.
Explosive burns had caught the man along one side of his face. He never had chance to protect himself before the HEAT round fried his skin as effectively as a hot skillet. “Flash burns,” muttered Gurov.
The chilly water did nothing to lessen the sense of dread permeating Gurov’s men. They had come on a hunting expedition and found themselves looking over their shoulders for the hunted.
Gurov realized he had a few seconds to figure out what to do next. He doubted if he could convince Gennadiy Panferkov to authorize further forays below the streets. There was no retreat and no chance of reinforcement. He would have to kill the Chechen now.
There was no tomorrow.
* * * *
Clinton leaped back when the floater glided against the side of the sewer tunnel.
Cecil pinned the dead man with his torch and Harvey moved quickly to roll the man over. High caliber rifle shots at point blank range are extraordinarily damaging and this man’s face was no exception. The bullet holes were washed clean by the grimy water and a broken visage stared back at the three men. The back of the man’s head was nonexistent.
“Rifle fire,” observed Harvey grimly.
“Maybe we should get some help,” suggested Clinton. It was one of the saner things said that night in the sewers.
Cecil scowled. “They’re down here fighting a war,” he whispered.
Harvey considered their handguns against rifles in the darkness. He did not favor their odds at successfully defending themselves. “What do you want to do?”
Cecil lifted his head and said, “Maybe they’ll kill each other off.”
“Too much to hope for,” whispered Harvey. It was getting colder and his fingers felt numb in the damp world.
“Hey, I signed on to show you how to get around down here. I didn’t say I wanted to be part of any private war!” protested Clinton.
Harvey picked up his radio and said, “Brian, we’ve got problems down here.”
“What are you going to do?” hissed Cecil.
Harvey lowered the radio and said, “We need backup, Cecil. We don’t have the firepower to take this on ourselves.”
The older man shook his head. “There is no backup we can call. We’re on our own in this thing.”
Clinton mourned sorrowfully. These uppity white boys were a pair of cowboys riding into a firestorm. “What do you mean we’re on our own?” he whined.
Harvey understood the desperate tone in Cecil’s voice and the meaning of his words. Harvey had visited the same lonely place before.
“All right, we’re on own,” Harvey said as he checked his weapon and added grimly, “Let’s go find them.”
* * * *
Parvez lifted his head from the brackish water and stood on his knees. The ice-cold water rippled across his chest, but he ignored the pain. Parvez had huddled in the frigid Caucasus Mountains in the dark without a fire to warm his numb limbs as Russian attack helicopters crisscrossed the sky and shot up anything that dared to move. The Russians cared not for the death they sent from the sky, nor the ground they tore apart as they hunted for Chechen fighters. Parvez knew the value of waiting for the proper moment, and the delicious rush as he unleashed a devastating fusillade. He would become death swift and certain to these Russian intruders. It had worked on the broken Grozny streets and along the barren mountain passes.
It would work here.
The Russians were moving away from him. Their flashlights played over the rough walls. The master detonator switch was wrapped in heavy plastic and strapped inside the pack on his back. Slowly and silently, he lifted the AK-74-SU SMG out of the water. He waited for the water to dribble out of the barrel.
Three of the five soldiers had rounded the tunnel and were beyond his range. Cautiously he brought the weapon to his shoulder’s hollow and pulled the weapon tight to his body. Killing a straggler would cause them to bunch together and make a better target. He brought the weapon up and fired a three-round burst into the back of the nearest man.
Parvez purposely aimed for the trauma plate at the center of the man’s back. He wanted them to follow. He was returning to the battle below Grozny. These Russians had raped women and buggered children. These filthy Russians thought they could destroy and pillage his homeland. He would show them differently, and considered a way to make them understand the terrible mistake they had made in violating his homeland.
The three rounds punched like a mule kick and the soldier dropped to his knees vomiting. He struggled to turn in the swirling current, only to have his legs slide away. His compatriots sloshed through the water, flashing their lights at the end of the tunnel. They found nothing.
Gurov lifted the coughing man to his legs noting the fabric tears along the soldier’s body armor and dents in the ceramic trauma plate. He patted him on the shoulder and nodded towards the end of the tunnel. The other three were moving quickly to find the elusive Chechen, but Gurov knew he was gone.
The bastards never stayed to fight.
* * * *
The staccato crispness heartened Harvey. They were getting closer to the action and he gripped the heavy 10mm autoloader in his hand.
Clinton Kennedy had decided it would not be a good idea to catch up with the bad guys inside his sewer system. A cold damp sweat plastered his shirt to his back and stomach. A shootout inside the long dark tunnels made his lunch swim about nastily—and to think he had expected to gross out his two white defenders.
Cecil knew he had no time to reconsider his decision to press forward. What would they do if the Russians prevailed? How could he expect the Chechen to handle ten Russians armed with SMGs? The old man doubted his judgment and realized it might be time to get out of the game—just as soon as he caught his Russian.
One last ride!
* * * *
The hurricane lamps drew them like hungry mosquitoes to warm-blooded mammals on a Minnesota summer night. The three leading soldiers moved quickly towards the lantern glimmering on the wooden plank between two ladders. The light reflected off the water, creating a harsh glare and negating the effectiveness of their Xenon flashlights.
Parvez willed them forward into his killing ground. The battle below Washington would be different. This time the Russians would burn! This time he would rain death over their heads and suck the life-giving air out of their lungs! This time the Chechens would advance and the Russians retreat.
He would show them death’s red haze!
They never saw Parvez Hyder standing in the shadows at the end of the tunnel, nor did they ever examine the ceiling above them. Had they looked up they would have counted thirty shaped charges angled in specific manner to shatter the twelve feet of concrete and asphalt street above their heads.
A murderous rage engulfed Parvez. He forgot about the mission, Putin, and the motorcade. All he saw were Russian soldiers outlined by their flickering lights in the sewer. At Grozny, the Russians seemed to have an endless supply of men constantly charging, and the gasoline bombs landed on the water turning the cold sewer tubes into burning fires. The fires had driven the rats towards outgunned and outnumbered Chechen rebels.
They would die now.
Parvez flipped on the switches controlling the detonators. He dialed in the bombs beneath Connecticut Avenue
and slowly stepped around the edge of the tunnel. He whispered briefly, “Subhanaku wa ta’ala—with the help of Allah.” He pressed the ignition switch and clamped his hands over his ears.
The pavement crackers erupted, sending a spider web of splintering lines across the ceiling of the two-hundred-foot-long tunnel. His Russian victims finally checked the world above them, as the earth-wrenching cracks grew larger and louder. Parvez had positioned the hurricane lamp in the middle of the tunnel. The Russians were heavy-footed in their hip-high wader boots, and the knee-deep water sucked at their legs. They might as well have attempted to outrun gravity.
Man-size chunks dropped into the water, sending great spouts flailing into the air. The tunnel walls shuddered, and the ground gave a terrible sigh just before several tons of rock dropped ten to fifteen feet to the bottom of the tunnel. The explosion’s shock wave was far less than a conventional blast, but it still superheated the air and followed the natural path over the water and towards the outflows.
Parvez flew across the width of the tunnel and felt the air’s hot hand swat him like a nettlesome bug. He lost the master detonator switch and felt a rib crack under the impact. He gasped loudly and sucked in grit loosened from the weakened roadway above. Gravel-laced clouds billowed over the water, coating everything in a powdering gray. The pain reminded him that he had killed Russians, and Russians deserved to die for the widows, the orphans, the families, the land, the people. Hate never seemed so right.
It was a good pain.
Gurov lost his footing seconds before the explosion—it saved his life. The last Russian soldier walked into a flying, rocky wedge that sheared off his head just below his neck. Gurov dove into the water and for a brief moment he prayed to God. It was a startling revelation for a man dedicated to an atheistic state.
By the time the pressure wave reached Harvey, Cecil, and Clinton it had dissipated into nasty, gritty sandstorm. A foot high wave rolled into them moments later and the noisy cacophony as two hundred feet of Connecticut Avenue
dropped ten feet below the roadway’s surface, causing numerous traffic accidents.
Brian, Jonas, and Mark stared open-mouthed at the traffic accident occurring at the point just before Connecticut Avenue
crossed Rock Creek. A schism rolled along the pavement and swallowed ten to fifteen cars completely. Other vehicles rolled right over the edge and piled into the trapped rush-hour traffic. Jonas turned to Brian and whispered, “We’ve got to bury this fast.”
Brian nodded slowly.
Gennadiy Panferkov stared in horror at the pirated traffic camera signals. His mouth ran dry, for he knew the cause had to do with the manic FSB man’s quest to kill the Chechen. His hand shook as he reached for the phone and pressed the button that connected him directly to the ambassador. It was time to brief the political leadership on what had just happened.
They would have to fabricate a story, but they had experience—they were Russians.
The Iranian watchers exchanged horrified looks. One of them got up from his chair and went to retrieve the degaussing magnet. The other bent over the PCs and started unscrewing the covers. It was time to leave Washington. Whatever the Chechen had planned was now compromised. Regardless what story the current administration chose to tell the public, they planned to be long gone before the FBI figured out they had been monitoring the situation.
* * * *
Gurov pushed himself to his knees gasping for air. Oily rainwater ran down his face, and the fading day’s light filtered through the broken pavement. Car horns and alarms wailed mournfully above as people picked their way across the wreckage. Distantly he could hear police sirens answering.
He reached into the grime and retrieved his SMG. Shakily he got to his feet and moved away from the dead Russian soldiers. Dimly he realized Panferkov remained safely ensconced inside the embassy. When he recognized the ramifications of the action, he would have the Ambassador’s ear and a heavily coded message on its way to Moscow. Salvation had been so close, and now it was slipping beyond his grasp. There was one thing left to do—make sure the Chechen was dead. He retraced his steps towards a side tunnel. The Chechen had drawn them into a killing ground, and Eduard determined to make sure the Chechen never saw the sun again.
Shock and icy water fatigued the FSB man as he plodded blindly into the dark. He switched off the Xenon light and hefted himself to dry ground. Hunched over like a medieval gargoyle, he waited for the Chechen to appear.
He did not wait long.
* * * *
Parvez found the decapitated Russian wrapped around two boulders. Gingerly he stepped around the dead man, desperately searching for Gurov. Rainwater cascaded directly from the street and car taillights blinked through sunken roadway. Every step he took jolted his broken ribs, and it slowed his progress through the sewers. He was loath to slip through the smaller access tunnels, and the explosion had washed away his NVG. He was as blind as the Russian.
Blood ran down the back of his throat and he worried it might be something more serious than a bloody nose. It did not matter, Putin would never come to Washington in light of the security crisis he had created. He would have to find the butcher another day. One last Russian and then he would leave. He did not notice the clamor he created as he worked his way through the water. Gurov had no trouble in recognizing the passage of another person.
He worked his way along the crawlspace he had found and flicked on the Xenon flashlight. The beam splashed across Parvez’s back and the FSB man said quietly, “Chechen, this time you die.”
Gurov slipped off the ledge he had found and dropped into the water.
Parvez turned slowly to face Gurov and the blinding white light. “Do you think killing me will stop what we will do to your army?” he gasped.
Gurov laughed heartlessly. “We’ll kill every last one of you this time. There won’t be a next time.”
Parvez’s arm hung limp at his side. “It will take a lot of dumb Russian farm boys to kill us all, and you won’t be the Red Army anymore. You’ll the White Army because we’ll bleed you dry.”
“Bold talk for a dead man!” taunted Gurov as he wrapped his finger inside the trigger guard.
“One question,” whispered Parvez. He sensed there was an internal wound, because his vision quivered and blurred. “Are you the pig who killed a ninety-year-old man and his daughter?”
“Do you mean the two traitors I shot in Chicago?”
“Yes,” replied Cecil sharply as three torch beams danced over the tepid air.
Harvey braced the 10mm. He was still one of the best shots ever to come through the Academy. He bracketed Gurov’s head in the luminous three-dot sights.
“FBI,” continued Cecil. “You’re both under arrest.” He pointed his Sig Sauer in Parvez’s general direction.
Parvez vomited blood and swayed ominously as he struggled to hold onto the SMG. The two combatants hardly acknowledged the arrival of the FBI. They glared at each other over the light reflected from the water. They were creatures of the Chechen War and the hate engendered in Moscow and Grozny. The rule of law held no sway for them during this very last moment, only the need to see the other die.
“Put the gun down,” said Harvey.
Gurov let his eyes race between the steady grip Harvey kept on his pistol and the hated Chechen.
It was not much of a choice.
Gurov jerked the trigger back and sliced Parvez Hyder in half.
Harvey fired three rounds and blew most of Eduard Gurov’s head across the sewer wall behind him where it slid into the slimy water.
Clinton Kennedy crossed himself and whispered thanks to the God in heaven above.
Harvey lowered his gun and walked across the distance to Gurov’s slumped figure. There was not much to see. A 155 grain jacketed hollow point round produces a devastating wound channel, and three of them basically carved a canyon through the middle of Gurov’s skull.
He looked up at Clinton and said quietly, “You’re going to report that the rain weakened the sewer structure and caused a cave in. None of this ever happened.”
The black man stared in amazement at Harvey. “Are you nuts?”
Cecil laid hand on the larger man’s shoulder and said, “The Russian was here illegally, and I really don’t know what the Chechen was trying to do. We may never know. But we can’t let the public know that heavily-armed people with diplomatic passports are running around next door to the Vice President’s residence and blowing apart the sewer system. It really wouldn’t do—wouldn’t do at all.”
Clinton nodded.
“I’m sure you understand,” murmured Harvey.
They were Russians.
They were Chechens.
The killing had just started.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Tallahassee, Florida,UPI,November 23, 2000 –Attorneys for Governor George Bush filed suit Wednesday in state court demanding that the court reinstate hundreds of overseas military ballots rejected by county election officials.
Many of the military ballots lack a postmark or signature required by state law. However, retired military officers have argued that the Democratic Party has waged a rear guard action to deny serving men and women the right to vote, because they would presumably vote overwhelmingly for Governor Bush.
There have been ominous warnings not to trample on the freedoms and rights of the men and women under arms and in uniform who protect the very freedoms all Americans hold precious.
Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia
Wednesday, November 22, 2000
1:00 P.M. EST
Louis Edwards’ helicopter made landfall on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. He looked out the canopy at the flat marshy land separating Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. Beside Louis were his ever-present bodyguards Mister Smith and Mister Jones, who seemed relieved their charge was winging his way from inside the beltway to a secure government installation under NASA’s control. Their relief would be short lived.
The 44-Protocol had been activated not once, but twice in the last three days, and Louis considered the implications. It was an escape route established for members of theBlackest of the Black , and it had never been used before. It meant he had two agents who were seeking to escape from the United States and not be tracked by any Federal Agency.
