Back Blast

74

Things inside the conference room had gotten testy. A few of the male CIA officials were preparing to make a move, and DeRenzi had tried to climb back to his feet. Court held up the detonator, and this quelled some of the enthusiasm from the agitators, but he knew he needed to thin this herd immediately.

He announced to the crowd that everyone would be leaving other than al-Kazaz and Carmichael. DeRenzi protested, Court threatened to shoot him, and then DeRenzi shut up.

Court then ordered everyone to stand and head to the door.

A square-jawed CIA NSA liaison officer sat straight in his chair. “I am not leaving Director Carmichael!”

Court just sighed. “Yeah, you are, asshole.”

“Fuck you! I’m staying.” The man showed no fear. He looked Court in the eye. “You’ll have to shoot me.”

Court turned to Carmichael. “Denny, you can either order this man to hit the bricks, which will make you look noble and benevolent, or I can shoot him in the head. He’ll be dead, and you’ll look just like the jackass you are. Your call.”

“Dale, it’s okay.”

“No, sir.”

“I order you to leave with the rest of the Working Group.”

“Sir, I—”

“Christ. Fucking go, Hamilton!”

Hamilton complied, but the entire time he walked around the table and towards the exit he gave Court a look of pure hatred. Court returned the evil eye, but said nothing.

When all seventeen men and women were lined up at the door, Court taped Carmichael and al-Kazaz’s hands behind their backs and ordered them to stay seated at the table.

He then opened the door into the hallway and everyone filed forward, directly across to the heavy steel doors that led into the main hall. The three security officers out here Court had dealt with earlier were still out of the fight; two men were tending to their wounds and the third, the man from behind the security desk, was just coming out of his stupor. Court removed the weapons from the men and put them in the group with the others.

Court stepped to the side of the door and lifted his weapon, training it on the crowd. “Everybody hold your hands high. When those doors open you will have five seconds to get out, then I’m closing them again. If you see anybody trying to come in, you need to just run over them and keep going, because I will open up with automatic fire if I’m engaged.”

He heard spoken prayers and loud sobbing. “Here we go.”

He pushed the icon on his wrist controller to open the pneumatic doors, and they swung inward quickly. Outside on the second-floor mezzanine the dozen or more security officers in sight stood or knelt or lay prone, their guns trained on the movement. Several FBI agents just yards from the doors were caught in the open. They drew pistols and crouched low, ready to respond to an ambush by the attacker inside. Men down on the ground floor rushed to swing their weapons to bear on the threat.

All the men with guns held fire when they saw the large group of men and women, everyone with their hands up, moving through the doorway.

Court pressed the icon on his wrist controller to shut the doors just as fast as they opened, and he locked them down with another command.

He stepped back into the conference room and locked these doors, as well, then he stood in front of al-Kazaz and Carmichael. “It’s just us now, gents.” Court hefted his big pack and left the room, heading up to the attic.

Five minutes later he returned to find the phone in the center of the conference table ringing. Court looked at his watch, then stepped over and pushed the button to put the call on the speaker box.

“Must be a jurisdictional fight out there. It took you guys forever.”

“Who am I speaking with, please?”

Court didn’t answer.

“Is this Jeff Duncan?”

Court shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

“Mr. Duncan, this is Allen Reynolds with the FBI. I need to make sure everyone in there is safe.”

“Buddy, there’s nobody in here that’s safe, and if you and your friends come in here you’ll be the least safe of all.”

“Is Director Carmichael with you?”

“Yes, he is. He is unhurt.”

“I’d really like to check in with him, if that’s okay.”

Denny sat silently at the table, his hands behind his back and sweat on his brow.

Court said, “Denny, meet Allen. Allen, this is Denny.”

“This is Carmichael. There is one gunman.” He looked at Court with malevolence. “Just one.”

The FBI negotiator said, “I also understand there is a Saudi diplomat present, is that correct?”

Now Court said, “Al-Kazaz, meet the guys.”

Murquin al-Kazaz spoke in a loud and authoritative voice. “Contact Jabar Almlhan at my embassy immediately. Inform him of the situation. Then, notify—”

Court pressed the MP7 to the Saudi man’s temple, and he stopped talking.

Court said, “See, he’s fine. A little bossy, but that’s not my fault.

“Let me tell you what’s what, Allen. Right now your HRT guys are looking at the blueprints of this building, and they are figuring that the attic above the south wing is the best avenue into my location. The roof isn’t steel like the windows and doors, and it’s not reinforced with iron like the walls and the floor. It’s a reasonable assumption to make, but it’s up to you to let your guys know they are wrong. I’ve rigged a rather large explosive to a motion detector, and it will detonate if anyone tries to enter the attic. I really don’t want to blow up a bunch of poor FBI working stiffs, but now that I’ve warned you guys what will happen if you try to come through the attic, my conscience is clear on that matter, so you guys decide what you want to do.”

“I understand, Jeff.”

“That’s all for now. I’m going to talk to Denny a bit, and then I’ll be back with you.”

He heard the negotiator say “Jeff?” right before he pushed the button to disconnect the call, but Court hung up anyway.

He sat down at the table in front of the two men and positioned the MP7 on the table in front of him, the barrel pointed at Carmichael’s chest, six feet away. He said, “So much trouble to get a meeting with you.”

Al-Kazaz said, “I have nothing to do with any of this. I have diplomatic immunity.”

Court smiled again. “I’m not so diplomatic, so you aren’t immune from me. In fact, if you don’t tell me what I want to know, I can guarantee you I will be your proximate cause of death.”

Kaz clenched his neck muscles, but he did not speak.

“Now,” said Court, “I am going to sit here and pick your brains till I know what Saudi Arabian intelligence had to do with Operation BACK BLAST. You were clearly involved, because you were willing to risk your operation here in the States to silence me.”

Al-Kazaz shrugged his shoulders, an awkward gesture with his hands behind his back. He said, “I offered my agents in the hunt for you simply as a courtesy to Director Carmichael. We have a good relationship, and I wanted it to continue.”

“Bullshit,” Court said. “Denny was worried that if local PD got to me first they might accidentally take me alive. He wanted foreign hitters that would do his job for him. But for you to send a kill team into the streets here, he had some major leverage over you. What was it?”

“Our nations are simply partners against terrorism.” His eyes narrowed. “Denny told me you were a terrorist.”

Carmichael said, “Court, I initiated the shoot-on-sight order because you killed your team. Yes, I sent your team to pick you up for what happened in BACK BLAST. But you overreacted, you started shooting, they shot back, and then there were four dead SAD Ground Branch officers lying in the dirt.”

The gunfight had happened in Gentry’s Virginia Beach apartment; there was no dirt; but he did not correct Carmichael on this trifling point.

Court did, however, disagree with the larger premise. “That’s a lie, Denny, and I’ve shot men for lying to me. My team was ordered to term me.”

To Court’s surprise, Denny did not push back on this. He just said, “You know BACK BLAST was your doing. I had every right to term you after what happened in Trieste.”

“I know I shot Hawthorn, I must have screwed up the ID of the target, but that’s not a reason to terminate me.” He looked back and forth between the two men. Suddenly his tough act softened. “Just tell me what I’m missing here.”

Denny said, “Why would I tell you a goddamned thing? You are going to kill us anyway.”

Court shook his head. “Wrong. I promised Hanley I wouldn’t kill you.” Court shrugged. “I’d love to back out on that promise, but I won’t.” He then turned to al-Kazaz. “I might shoot this fuck just because I don’t like him, though.” He leaned closer to the Saudi. “You better impress the hell out of me in the next couple of minutes.”

Carmichael said, “Courtland, you made a very serious mistake that hurt U.S. national interests gravely. You expected to see the assassin targeting Hawthorn. Instead you saw Hawthorn making his own move, against an AQ assassin. You didn’t bother to get proper PID.” Carmichael stared at the gun while he spoke. “You fucked up. You killed the best agent the West had in al Qaeda, crippled us in the War on Terror for years. Hell, a decade, perhaps. And to make matters even worse, you rescued an al Qaeda operator.”

The phone rang again. Court sighed, then he snatched it up. “Allen, I said I’d call you.”

“I want to help you, Jeff. Can I get you something to eat or drink? I just need to—”

Court interrupted. “Listen very carefully. This is bigger than you know. Sometime in the next few minutes a van is going to arrive and a bunch of men are going to pile out of it. Somebody with an ID that will confuse the hell out of you is going to walk up, and then a phone will ring, and someone far above your head will tell you to stand down and leave the premises. FBI and HRT will be sent packing with your tails between your legs.”

Allen Reynolds said, “Jeff, that’s what we did to the Alexandria police. Trust me, son, nobody does that to the FBI. You are stuck with me for the duration, so we should just open up a healthy dialogue here. I need to know what you need.”

“I need for you to wait for the other guys to get here. They’ll take over the scene. They’ll probably be assholes about it, they don’t hire these guys for their manners, but you won’t be able to stop them.”

The FBI man revealed a little swagger in his voice. “Who do you think is going to come for you?”

“The men that come will have orders to kill me, not to arrest me. They can’t let you guys try and hit this room, because you might take me alive.”

There was a pause.

Court said, “Allen? You there?”

“Uh… Jeff, I’m going to have to put you on hold for just one—”

Court gave a tired smile to Denny and al-Kazaz. He spoke into the speakerphone. “They’re here, aren’t they?”

“Uh… I’ll be right back.”

Court snorted out a chuckle. “No, you won’t. You’re done.” He hung up the phone.

On the second-floor landing outside the steel doors, many of the men of the FBI HRT team took their eyes out of their gun sights and looked to the stairs below them. Heading up the staircase was a large group of armed men wearing civilian attire covered in body armor and ammunition. Their rifles were newer than the FBI shooters’ own equipment, and the night vision equipment they wore on their helmets was a generation better, something the HRT boys had only seen in classified briefings about new technology.

One of the HRT snipers muttered, “Who the hell are these guys?”

FBI negotiator Allen Reynolds pocketed his phone and stepped in front of the approaching men. “Excuse me.” They kept walking. “Hey! FBI! What the hell do you think you are doing?”

A man in his early forties stepped up to Reynolds and stopped while his cohorts continued on. He wore a beard and held an assault rifle and a helmet adorned with state-of-the-art communications gear, cameras, and other gadgetry Reynolds could not identify. “Good evening, Special Agent Reynolds. Your phone will ring in five seconds. It will be the deputy director of the FBI. But don’t worry, it’s good news. You get the rest of the night off.”

The bearded man patted Reynolds on the shoulder and passed him by.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” The phone trilled in his hand. He looked down at it a moment, then answered. “Special Agent Reynolds.”

Dakota had already moved on. He and Harley walked up to the doors. Two other JSOC operators had begun looking for places to attach the breaching charges on them.

A minute later Reynolds stepped back up to Dakota. The JSOC commander was setting up a laptop and establishing communications with the CIA TOC.

The FBI negotiator stood next to him, waiting to be noticed. When he realized he was being purposefully ignored he said, “Okay, it’s your scene.”

Dakota didn’t look up. “Yep.”

“You guys must be—”

Dakota interrupted him. “Nope. That’s not us.”

“Right. Hey, look. No hard feelings. I was in myself. Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment. Did five years.”

Dakota turned dials on his interteam radio. “Is that right? Well, now you’re a cop, so go find yourself a donut shop and get off of my scene.”

The JSOC commander walked away, heading back over to the doors to check on the placement of the blast charges.

Special Agent Reynolds stood on the landing fuming for a moment, then he headed down the stairs towards his car.