Caution was required. If someone in the Suburban was watching him in the rearview mirror and observed him hitting the brakes, it might alert them that someone was onto them. Waiting until the shadow of the Suburban faded into the darkness, he flipped off his lights and braked. His tires squealing on the asphalt, he spun the wheel hard to the left. The rear end of the vehicle spun to the right and the car did a one-eighty turn. His tires smoked as they bit into the road, and he gave the Escalade gas. A few miles ahead this road would reach the county highway leading to San Antonio. He couldn’t be sure, but off in the distance he thought he saw a set of taillights, but they blinked out of sight as the road rose and dipped.
That was the most direct route back to the city and if the sheriff was up ahead with Miss Ruby on his tail, he hoped he could get there in time. The pavement was long, flat, and black. He again thought he spied a set of taillights, and offered up a silent prayer that it was the sheriff’s car. But without warning, cutting through the dark night, high beams suddenly burst to life, followed by staccato bursts of light that could only be automatic-weapons fire.
Dirk punched it.
Attacked
I tried to will the sheriff to go faster. It didn’t work. I tried poofing, like Boone. No good.
“Do you suppose all this is true, what the president told me, about terrorists and all that?” the sheriff asked. He was still using the “ask a question to try to get ’em talking” technique. Sheriff Hackett had yet to figure out he was no match for Angela.
“I don’t know why the president would lie about something like that,” Angela said. “After all, Sheriff, they were holding Q, weren’t they? And by the way, do you think we could pick up the pace?” she said. As if to emphasize the urgency, Croc barked from the backseat where he sat on his haunches between us. The sheriff gave the car more gas.
“I reckon they are what the president says they are. Still, this just sounds like something out of a Hollywood movie,” he muttered.
“Believe me, Sheriff,” Angela muttered. “Movies don’t even come close.”
“I suppose. You seem to know a lot about this stuff, miss. How is that, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“My mother is … was … a U.S. Secret Service agent,” Angela said quietly.
“Was?” the sheriff asked, looking at us in the rearview mirror. Angela stared out the window into the dark.
“She died in the line of duty,” I said. Even though the president had recruited the sheriff, I’d learned that Boone believed in the need-to-know doctrine. And the fewer people who knew that Malak Tucker was really alive, the better.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t … I had …” the sheriff was at a loss for words.
But not for long.
“What do you suppose is the story with this Dirk fella?” he asked. “The president said he—”
Without warning the interior of the car was filled with blinding light. A huge SUV had emerged from the darkness and then hit the brights from only a few yards behind us.
“Gun it, Sheriff!” Angela shouted.
The rear window exploded in a hail of automatic-weapons fire.
A Bit of a Pickle
Glass flew everywhere. The noise from the guns was overwhelming. Croc barked and growled. I’m pretty sure I was screaming as the car was swerving back and forth. The seat belts kept us strapped in place and Angela and I both grabbed hold of Croc but it still felt a little like we were on an amusement park ride.
“Holy—!” the sheriff shouted, jerking the wheel to the left to get out of the line of fire. The Suburban immediately followed and the gunshots started again. I could hear bullets thumping into metal and sparks flew all around us.
“Stay down!” the sheriff hollered. It was hard for us to get very far down below the rear window with our seat belts holding us in place. It was a tough choice. If we stayed belted in, we were probably going to get shot. But if we undid them and climbed down on the floor, we could be injured in a crash. Angela and I reached the same conclusion—we’d rather not get shot—and released our seat belts and rolled onto the floor. I just hoped the sheet metal of the car could stand up to the onslaught.
“If you’ve got a phone, get on it and call for help! The radio just took a bullet,” the sheriff shouted.
“Q! Can you do it?” Angela shouted. She was holding on to Croc with all her might, trying to keep him from flopping around in the backseat. Broken glass was everywhere and if we weren’t careful we were going to cut ourselves to ribbons.
“Hold on!” the sheriff shouted.
The Suburban’s headlights got suddenly brighter because the vehicle rammed into the rear of the cruiser and we were flung head first into the back of the front seat. It hurt. All the while I was scrambling to reach the phone and just as I cleared it from my pocket the Suburban rammed us again and it was jolted from my hand. It skittered away under the seat and out of reach.
“Go faster!” Angela screamed.
The noise was deafening and I was pretty sure this was it. We’d run out of time and luck. I just hoped that Boone would be able to find the SUV and stop the bomb before anyone else got hurt.
But lucky for us, Sheriff Hackett had a trick or two up his sleeve. The cruiser was a powerful, heavy vehicle lined with thick steel. It was also capable of great speed. We felt the car accelerate and the gunfire stopped momentarily as we swerved back and forth and pulled ahead of the Suburban, leaving Miss Ruby and her henchmen unable to get off an accurate shot.
I tried reaching for the phone but couldn’t find it in the darkness with the car swerving all over the place. The interior of the car grew brighter again as the Suburban gained on us. When they were right on our tail, the sheriff cut the wheel to the left into the other lane and hit the brakes. The big SUV shot past us as the cruiser screeched to a halt.
The SUV’s tires bit hard into the pavement and the driver must have had to struggle to keep it from rolling over. I peeked my head up over the seat to find the windshield a spider web of cracks. The sheriff was grabbing his shotgun from the gun rack attached to the dash.
The sheriff racked the shotgun and was about to open the door when, out of nowhere, Dirk Peski’s Escalade shot into view. It slowed just slightly as it pulled past the cruiser, then accelerated, hitting the Suburban broadside. Dirk’s vehicle pushed the Suburban along the pavement, its wheels churning black smoke. Keeping his foot on the gas, he shoved the Suburban another thirty yards down the road. It collided with a bridge overpass.
“Stay here!” the sheriff yelled. He left the car and ran toward the wreck, holding the shotgun at port arms. Reaching the driver’s door of the Escalade, he yanked it open and pulled Dirk free. Dirk looked a little rattled and the sheriff looped Dirk’s arm over his shoulder and hustled him away from the smoking mass of twisted metal.
“Get down!” the sheriff shouted. Angela and I ducked down in the backseat just as the gas tanks of the Escalade and the SUV caught fire and exploded in a massive fireball.
Counting Down
“Uly, what have you got? I need a status report!” Boone said over the Bluetooth. He was near the rear of the crowd that had piled into the plaza and he could see the Alamo behind the stage. While he waited, he kept scanning for any sign of the terrorists. There was silence on the line as everyone waited for Uly to respond.
“Uly? Copy?” Boone asked again.
“Sorry. I think I’ve got eyes on one of the guys but I can’t tell. He’s wearing glasses and a different hat. And it’s dark. I’m sending a photo to X-Ray now for confirmation,” Uly said.
“Okay,” Boone said. “Keep him in sight while X-Ray runs it.”
“Copy,” Uly said.
X-Ray’s fingers flew over the keyboard as the picture appeared on his screen. The screen flickered and blinked as it compared the photo to the four from the warehouse. Boone waited and a few seconds later X-Ray’s voice said, “Negative. It’s not a match.”
“Negative, Uly,” Boone said.
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“Copy that,” Uly said.
Boone strolled along, weaving in and out of the mass of people, looking for anyone matching the description.
“Felix,” he said. “Have you got anything?”
“Negative. I’ve had my binoculars on every white SUV I’ve seen and I’ve yet to spot a Tahoe. I’ve seen Fords, Toyotas, Chryslers, and a Hyundai, but not a single Chevy. I think it must be a state law that you have to own a white SUV to live in Texas. But I haven’t seen one that looks suspicious yet. Nobody making any circles around the plaza or anything,” Felix said.
“Copy that. Stay alert. Holler if you see anything that’s at all weird,” Boone said. “Vanessa, what’s your location?”
“I checked out the parking garage across from the plaza. No Tahoe there either. I’m working the crowd now, but I haven’t noticed anyone yet that matches our perps,” she said.
“All right, copy,” Boone said, his voice full of discouragement.
“What am I missing, X-Ray?” he asked.
X-Ray was silent. He knew Boone was asking a rhetorical question and didn’t really want an answer. He’d worked enough ops with Boone to know he sometimes got like this.
“Maybe it isn’t the concert,” Boone said. “Maybe it’s some other target.”
“That would go completely against their SOP,” X-Ray said. And Boone had to agree with X-Ray. Choosing another target would be completely against their standard operating procedure. It wasn’t easy to make a car bomb. In the movies they popped up everywhere, but in real life it was difficult to gather the explosives needed to do enough damage. It would be a hollow gesture for the cell to destroy something without also killing a lot of people, or at least a few important people. They would use the vehicle in a way that would inflict the greatest number of casualties. And in San Antonio tonight that meant the concert. But what if it were something else? Boone was always willing to consider he might have missed something.
“X-Ray, aside from the concert and the Alamo itself, what other targets are there in San Antonio? The top five things the ghost cell could take out and score a major propaganda victory?”
There was no reply for a few seconds and Boone envisioned X-Ray with his fingers flying over the keyboards in the van as he researched possibilities.
“There’s an air force base nearby,” X-Ray said. “San Antonio is the regional banking center for southwest Texas. There’s the historical significance of the Alamo. If someone were to blow up or damage that old mission with a bomb, we wouldn’t need a military response. Every Texan in the state with a pickup truck and a shotgun would chase them to the gates of, well … someplace really hot,” he said. “Fort Hood is a major military deployment center but that’s three and a half hours from here. I gotta say, Boone, if I had to pick, it would be the concert and/or the Alamo itself. The most potential for death and destruction, the highest degree of symbolism, and the easiest to breach in terms of security.”
Boone thought X-Ray was probably right; he had learned to trust his team. It didn’t hurt to make sure he wasn’t missing something. So far they had yet to see any of the suspects, and that fact ate at him, making him doubt his instincts.
He was about to order Uly and Vanessa back to the perimeter when Vanessa cut in over the Bluetooth.
“I think I’ve got something,” she said. “Maneuvering for a photo now. Stand by.”
They waited silently for the image to show up on X-Ray’s computer screen. Finally the picture appeared and X-Ray ran it against the suspect photos. A few seconds later everyone heard him say, “It’s a match.”
“Vanessa, we have confirmation that’s one of the men. Move in and keep him in sight. See if he hooks up with any of the others. But if you think he’s going to use something like a detonator, or use a phone, take him out. Uly, you move toward her position. Vanessa, give Felix your location. Felix, see if you can pick them up through your scope. We might need you. Stay ready.”
The chatter between the SOS agents went back and forth on the line.
“Where are you, Boone?” Vanessa asked.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m around.”
Monkey Shines
When the noise of the explosion passed, we looked up from behind the backseat. The sheriff slowly stood up and helped Dirk to his feet. Dirk’s arm was hanging by his side, as if it were broken. Angela, Croc, and I sat up in the backseat, our ears still ringing from the noise. We were covered in broken glass. The good news was that so much adrenaline had pumped through me in the last few minutes, I felt no lingering effects of the drug.
“Are you all right?” I asked Angela.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Although I’d really prefer not to go through that again. Ever. If it’s all the same.” We carefully picked our way out of the car, trying to avoid getting cut or scratched. We were going to have to come up with a whopper to explain the way we looked. I had a scratch on the back of my hand and Angela’s cheek was bleeding.
“Me either. We’d better check on Dirk and the sheriff,” I said. I wondered how the sheriff was going to explain this to … whomever sheriffs explained things to. The car was so full of bullet holes it looked like a sponge.
“Are you okay, Dirk?” I asked. His face looked a little pale, like maybe he was going into shock. The sheriff was beside himself with anger.
“All right. I’ve had enough innuendo and half-truths to last me a lifetime. Somebody better tell me everything right now!” The sheriff was beyond his boiling point.
Dirk took out his phone. “What happened is, there has been a horrible accident. Three Valiant County citizens were killed in a collision with Dirk Peski, the Paparazzi Prince, who may or may not have been intoxicated. I’m going to call 9-1-1 and you are going to deliver Angela and Q back to Boone in San Antonio. As quickly as you can.”
The sheriff reached out to stop Dirk.
“Are you insane? You can’t call 9-1-1. You’ll go to jail. Especially if you take the blame.”
“Don’t worry about me, Sheriff,” Dirk said. “As I think you know, I’ve got friends in high places. I won’t be in jail for long. There will be an investigation, I’ll spend a few days, maybe a couple of weeks at most, in the clink. Then I’ll be found to be not at fault for the accident and sent on my way. The Valiant County sheriff will warn me not to show my face around these parts again. This is how it works.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” the sheriff said.
“Sheriff Hackett, you’re a good man. And I’m sorry you got caught up in this. I truly am. But there are many lives at stake. And I’ve already said too much. I need you to see this through. Get Angela and Q to San Antonio. Hand them over to Boone. I’m going to make that 9-1-1 call. Then I’m probably going to sit down on the ground and pass out because my arm is killing me. But I need to know you’ll do what I ask.”
I decided then that maybe Dirk Peski wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
“All right, all right, call it in,” the sheriff said, “but when I get back to the station—”
“When you get back to the station, you and I are never going to speak of this night again, right?” Dirk asked.
The sheriff frowned. I admit I felt a little sorry for him. But I was also glad he was on our side. After all, he’d just saved our lives.
The sheriff helped us clear most of the broken glass out of the backseat. Angela, Croc, and I climbed in. As we pulled away, we heard Dirk saying into his phone, “Hello! My name is Dirk Peski. I think I just caused an accident out here on County Road 19. You’d better send fire trucks and ambulances …”
The rest of his words were lost as we zoomed away into the darkness.
Crowd Control
The crowd was enormous and the SOS team was moving in on its first target. Despite her small stature, Vanessa managed to make her way through the masses without being jostled or bumped. She liked to tell the team that her reflexes were razor sharp “for an old broad.” This usually caused all
of them, even Felix and Uly, to laugh nervously, for Vanessa was quite deadly. Boone also said she had an uncanny ability to read people, often referring to her as “the human lie detector.”
But another skill she possessed was her tracking ability. With her white hair, lined face, and nonthreatening demeanor, she was invisible to almost everyone. Especially her targets. Until it was too late for them. Once she latched on to someone, they had to be as good at shaking a tail as she was at following them. There weren’t very many people in the world that good.
The guy was about twenty yards ahead of her. She was glad X-Ray was able to confirm his identity. It made her completely comfortable using any means necessary to deal with him. Vanessa had done a lot of dangerous things in her time, but she considered terrorists the worst kinds of cowards. She had no regrets about taking this guy out.
She couldn’t yet see Uly over the crush of the gathering audience. Tracking a suspect in a crowd this size was difficult and dangerous. It required staying close enough that they didn’t get lost among all the people, but not so near they sensed your presence.
Vanessa always kept her wardrobe flexible, usually wearing a windbreaker tied around her waist or a sweater around her shoulders. She would keep a couple of collapsible hats in her pockets along with some scarves and sunglasses. It allowed her to quickly alter her appearance, making it more difficult for her targets to realize they were being followed.
Vanessa was reasonably sure the suspect was not giving her any thought at all. Off to her left she finally spotted Uly, who held his phone to his ear to disguise the fact that he was on the prowl. Normally Boone wouldn’t send Uly or Felix into a crowd like this because they were so easily noticed. But he didn’t have any choice.