Back Blast

25

Zack Hightower could no longer hear the gunfire. He sat behind the wheel of his F-150 pickup, heading north through Bethesda, listening to an overnight a.m. talk radio station. A man had called in to tell the host about his recent alien abduction, and Zack was already absorbed in the story.

His cell phone rang and he snatched it out of the center console and held it to his ear while he drove.

“Yeah?”

Mayes said, “You need to get out of there!”

Hightower made a face at the phone. “What are you talking about? I’m clear.”

“Traffic on the Townsend inter-team radios claims they are converging on a fleeing subject through the golf course.”

“It’s not me, boss. I’m golden.”

Mayes was confused. “I’ll call you back.”

“Roger that,” Zack said, and he hung up the phone and turned up the radio.

Denny Carmichael had decided to spend another night in his office. He’d already changed into his nightclothes, but he’d remained at his desk, waiting to hear confirmation of Babbitt’s death. He had Mayes listening in on the Townsend frequency in his office, and he had confirmed the kill just two minutes earlier.

Carmichael turned off his computer and stood up from his desk now, getting ready to lie down on the couch and turn off the lights, but his phone rang again, surprising him. He snatched it with irritation. “What is it?”

Mayes spoke in his clipped tone. “Townsend is chasing a man who was on the property at the time of Babbitt’s shooting.” He paused an instant. “I spoke with Hightower. He’s clear.”

Carmichael understood almost instantly. “Gentry.”

“Who else could it be? I’ll deploy JSOC.”

“Do it. The local police will get there first, but if Gentry squirts out of the police cordon maybe they can get a shot at him.”

Carmichael hung up and immediately picked his secure mobile off his desk. He sent a brief text to Kaz.

Violator spotted in Chevy Chase. Under pursuit by private security. Vector to police traffic in area.

It took less than a minute for the text reply.

Understood.

In Arlington, Virginia, three Washington, D.C., police interceptors raced out of a parking lot and headed north, taking similar but separate routes. At this time of the evening it would take them less than twenty minutes to arrive at the destination, not that they knew exactly where they were going at this point. They would listen to police bands during the ride up, however, so they hoped to have a good idea of the location of their quarry by the time they got close.

Court Gentry crawled back up to his feet in the bunker alongside the twelfth green, spit out a mouthful of sand, and looked around. He saw the far edge of the golf course and a low wall there, and beyond that the streetlights of a busy intersection. There were several closed businesses up and down the street, but on the corner he saw the bright lights of two that appeared to be open.

He told himself he had to make it to the street to have any chance of getting away from his pursuers.

He raised his little pistol and fired two rounds into the air as he ran for the wall and the street, hoping any dismounts behind him and in close pursuit would hear the gunfire and worry they were being targeted. It was a weak move, a Hail Mary that, at best, could buy him five seconds as the attackers dropped to the ground or ducked behind a tree, but until he got to the cover of the buildings on the other side of the street ahead he saw no other option.

He made it across the last fairway without getting shot at again, though he heard shouts far behind him. He ran onto the ninth green, close to the clubhouse, and sprinted down a gentle hill towards the intersection.

Another cycle of automatic fire erupted from back at the pine trees, bullets impacted the tall windows of the clubhouse restaurant a dozen yards from Court, and the glass of the massive wall of windows cracked and shattered.

He thought about seeking cover inside the dark building, but he knew the men behind would see him enter, and although he could probably hold them back a minute or two with his pistol, he certainly couldn’t wait them out, because the police would just surround the building and fill it with tear gas and tactical officers.

Court ran on for the wall at the edge of the country club. When he arrived at the wall, he climbed over and dropped down on the other side.

He still wore his gaiter high on his face and his cap low, so he imagined he must have been an intimidating sight for the cars passing him on Wisconsin Avenue, even though he’d stowed his handgun before vaulting the wall. Looking to the left, he thought he might be able to find a vehicle moving slow enough towards the intersection on his right so he could stop them at gunpoint, but all the traffic he saw moving through the intersection was heading east to west at speed, and he was in the northbound lane.

Shouts behind him at the wall of the golf course told him the dismounted Townsend men were close, but he’d lost the Navigator somewhere back on the other side of the copse of pines.

He raced across Wisconsin Avenue, towards the lights of the open businesses, a McDonald’s and a twenty-four-hour pharmacy. Bursting armed into an occupied commercial space was not his first choice, but to break into a closed building involved slowing to pick a lock, or stopping to find something to smash a window with, and considering the armed security men so close on his heels he knew he didn’t have the time he needed for either.

As he entered the parking lot of the McDonald’s he noticed a dark alley behind the restaurant, and beyond the alley was an eight-foot-high chain-link fence with a thick hedge on the other side. Court’s spirits rose quickly when he saw this; he felt sure he could enter the restaurant to misdirect the men chasing him and then immediately exit at the rear of the restaurant. Once he did this he could climb the fence, push through the foliage, and find himself in a new neighborhood, where he had a chance to get away.

For the first time he heard the sound of approaching sirens. They weren’t right on him, but they were close enough to where he knew this entire section of the city would be locked down tight within minutes.

Just before he put his hand on the door of the McDonald’s he looked back into the intersection behind him. The black Navigator was there, approaching in his direction and slowing next to two armed Townsend men in the middle of the street, who kept running towards him as they pointed his way.

So much for ordering a chocolate shake and waiting this out, Court thought to himself. He heaved the door open and ran inside.