End Game

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The Raven crashed on impact and broke apart, just as it was designed to do. A soldier-proof system, it was built to be frangible on impact so that the wings and the horizontal stabilizers in the rear would separate easily from the fuselage. That eliminated the need for smooth surfaces to allow for long roll-out landings. Georgie found the crash to be particularly entertaining, laughing far too loudly for the otherwise quiet night.

“A little stealth would be good right now,” Jonathan said to him as he collected the pieces and laid them across the bed of the Expedition. He locked the door when he was done and went back inside, where Boxers had cued up the recorded images.

“I’ve been looking at this, Boss,” Big Guy said as soon as Jonathan entered the room. “Good news — this is definitely the target.”

Jonathan smiled. “Confidence level?”

“Ninety-nine and change. Look here.”

Jonathan kneeled next to the chair Boxers had commandeered.

Big Guy rolled the wheel on the mouse and zoomed in on a sedan that was parked in the rear of the plant. “Look at that license plate.”

“That’s our guy,” he said. The plate matched the one that transported Jolaine from the jail. He clapped Boxers on the back. Since this adventure began, they’d been chasing assumptions. Before any shooting started, it was good to know that they were really in the right place. “What tactical info do you have?”

“I know we’ve got at least six bad guys, but it’s probably safe to assume twelve to fifteen.” He pointed to the screen with a capped pen as he spoke. “We’ve got two on each of the three main entrances — the white, black, and green sides. The red side is the loading dock, where the blueprints show an overhang. The IR doesn’t show anyone there, but no guarantees that’s not guarded, too.”

Boxers clicked the mouse, and the screen changed to the infrared view. The imagery transformed to black and silver and the details got fuzzy, nearly to the point of being a blur. “Here, we’re limited by technology,” Boxers said. “You can see on this section here”—he pointed to a spot against the black (back) wall that was twenty feet from the green (left) wall—“that it’s much, much colder than anywhere else in the building. I think that means they’ve turned the freezer on.”

“Which means they had a reason for doing it,” Jonathan said, closing the loop. “Assuming they’re not just cooling beers, the freezer holds something we want to see.”

“That’s where I was going,” Boxers said. “So if we assume eight people on the doors, nobody’s gonna work alone inside, so that’s at least ten. No way we can have a hard count. The kids say twenty to twenty-five.”

Before raiding a place, it helped to know precisely how many bad guys there were. It mattered less when the opposing force was massed together — say, in barracks, where mass-casualty tactics could do a lot of harm with relatively little effort or danger. But when the enemy was spread around like this, the team was looking at a lot of individual gunfights, and there was no way to know when the last bad guy had been dropped.

Enter the concept of the force multiplier. Through advanced fighting techniques, Jonathan and Boxers could tilt the odds away from the strengths of the enemy — cover and knowledge of the surroundings — toward their own strengths. Chief among those strengths were the ability to maneuver and shoot effectively in darkness.

“Superimpose the electrical feeds Mother Hen sent us,” Jonathan said.

“I guess we’ve got to assume that they haven’t jury-rigged something on their own,” Big Guy said. “If that’s the case, there appear to be two of them. The main box is here on the red side, on the loading dock. Then there’s another one — a big one — on the black side, on the outer wall of the freezer.”

Jonathan squinted, staring at the screen. It was so much easier to blow one source of power and move in. Now they would have to sequence two blasts. That wasn’t a big deal, necessarily, but it meant more time on target, and time meant additional exposure.

“That’s not the shit I worry about,” Boxers said.

Well, of course not, Jonathan thought. Boxers was most self-actualized when he was playing with explosives.

“I worry about how we’re going to get close enough to do what we need to do without being seen.”

He raised a good point. Breaching a fence was barely a challenge, but then what? Getting in was only half the mission. Getting out quickly with precious cargo intact was the greater challenge. With the entire perimeter fenced in, and with guards stationed outside, they couldn’t just crash the front gate and race up the driveway because it would take too much time and make too much noise. The key to an 0300 operation was to get the precious cargo out alive. With that kind of advance warning, the bad guys might panic and create a barricade situation that rarely ended well for anyone.

“Is there a back gate in the fence?” Jonathan asked.

Boxers shook his head. “We don’t have plans for the fence, and it doesn’t show in the imagery.”

“Sort of,” LeBron said.

Jonathan and Boxers turned in unison to face him. In his peripheral vision, Jonathan noted that Dawn’s face wore a similarly intrigued expression.

LeBron grew uncomfortable with the attention. “There was stuff back there,” he said. “Lots of scrap metal that nobody wanted, so maybe someone cut a hole in the fence.”

Dawn was aghast. “You stole? How could you do that? You have a family to support now. The judge told you that one more—”

“I didn’t steal,” LeBron said. “It was just there. It’s junk. Nobody wants it.”

“Why steal it, then?”

“For money. I sold it for scrap.”

“How did you get it to the scrap yard?”

“In Doobie’s truck,” LeBron said.

Jonathan raised a hand to interrupt the conversation. “Excuse me,” he said. “My clock is ticking here. LeBron, how big was the hole you cut?”

“Big enough for the truck.”

“No way that’s still there,” Boxers said. “These guys would have patched it up.”

“But they didn’t,” LeBron said. “We kinda patched it back up ourselves because we didn’t want to put up with a lot of shit from the cops if they found it — like they’d ever drive back there. We put the section we took down back up with a little wire to hold it in place. I was back there a few days ago, and nobody had changed nothin’.”

“Why would you go back there?” Dawn pressed.

“Because we got to eat, and I got no job,” LeBron said. “You never know when you might have missed something.” He paused, and Jonathan could see the wheels turning in his head. Did he want to say more or not? “Okay, and there’s one more thing. I don’t like those people. I’ve never trusted them from the first minute I saw them. They got no business bein’ here. I wanted to see what I could see.”

LeBron looked into Jonathan’s eyes. “And Scorpion, yes, there are guards at the loading dock. There are always guards at the loading dock. That’s another reason I don’t like them bein’ in my hood.”

Jonathan smiled broadly. “Well, God bless neighborhood watch,” he said. “How did you get a truck around there? The map shows trees.”

LeBron moved to the computer screen. “Zoom out some,” he said. “Get to where we can see the whole thing.”

Boxers pulled away to about the two-hundred-foot mark.

“There.” LeBron pointed to the woods line on the black side of the building. “There’s like a clearing right in here.” He squinted and leaned closer. “I don’t see it here. Can you bring back that daylight picture?”

Boxers clicked and the satellite image reappeared.

“You can almost see it here,” LeBron said, pointing. “And there’s a road that runs just behind the fence. Doobie’s truck is smaller than yours, though, and it barely fit through.”

“That’s okay,” Jonathan said. “It’s a way in.”

“It’s a way out, too,” Boxers said. “I’m not thrilled with the open-field run, but it’s doable if we stage the Expedition.”

“I’ll come with you, if you like,” LeBron said. “I can show you the opening in the fence.”

“No!” Dawn snapped. “You’ll do no such thing.”

Sometimes there was only one right answer to a controversial question, and in this case, it was obvious. “I’m with Dawn on this one,” Jonathan said as he closed his laptop and slipped it back into his ruck. “I made a promise that you would not be placed in jeopardy. I’m sticking by that. You’ve already helped us more than you know. Now it’s time for us to go.”

Boxers had already begun to pack up the Raven’s electronics.

“There has to be a way we can help. We’re in it this deep. It’s like it’s too late to quit.”

Boxers shot Jonathan a death glare. In the past, Jonathan had included people he probably shouldn’t have in the execution of 0300 missions, and almost always with massive complications.

“Big Guy and I have done this gig too many times as a duet to expand now.” He extended his hand. “Really, though. I appreciate the offer.” He shrugged into his ruck.

“Suppose we see something that shouldn’t be?” Dawn asked.

The source of the question startled Jonathan. Clearly, that showed in his face.

“Watching is different than getting shot,” she explained. “And a boy’s been kidnapped. I can’t stand by and just let that happen. Do you have a cell phone number or something?”

Boxers’ glare screamed, I’ll kill you if you do. Cell numbers were traceable, and therefore sensitive.

But the offer was one that intrigued Jonathan. They were working blind tonight. An extra set of eyes on the outside was a damned good idea. “Tell you what I’ll do,” he said.

“Scorpion.” Only Boxers could put so much menace in a single word.

“Relax, Big Guy.” Jonathan worked his way back out of his ruck and dug into its main pocket, from which he produced two standard, commercially available cheap walkie-talkies, the kind anyone could pick up in the mall. A well-learned lesson over the years preached that sometimes, as the shit hit the fan, the simplest technology worked best. He turned them both on, and keyed the mike for one of them. The feedback squeal told him that they were functioning.

He handed one of the radios to Dawn. “Just push that button to talk,” he said. “But please don’t do it unless it’s really, really important. I don’t want to be sneaking up on somebody only to have your voice blast through the night telling me that the stars have come out. Follow me?”

Dawn turned the radio over in her hands, examining it. “I understand.”

“Be sure you do,” Boxers growled. Seeing their fearful reaction, he added, “I’m nowhere near as nice as my little friend.” He shouldered his ruck as if it weighed nothing, and with the suitcase of Raven controls in one hand, and the empty aircraft sack in the other, he left.

“He means no harm,” Jonathan said to the family. “But please do us all a favor and don’t piss him off.”

“So, what happened?” Graham asked. He examined Jolaine’s wounds as best he could without the use of his hands. She wasn’t particularly cut up, but man, was she bruised. Her left eye had swollen shut, and her jaw was swollen. “Who did this to you?”

“Who do you think?” She spoke through nearly clenched teeth.

“I mean, which one of them?”

“Does it matter?”

He took a few seconds to answer. “Yes, it does.”

“Let’s just say they took turns.”

“Why?” he asked. “You don’t know anything.”

Jolaine closed her eyes against an obvious spasm of pain. “I kept telling them that,” she said. “It wasn’t what they wanted to hear. How did they get you?”

“They were transferring me to a foster home,” Graham said. “They killed everybody but me.” Until he said the words, he’d blocked the images of those nice people’s murders from his mind. He couldn’t even remember their names.

“I’m sorry,” Jolaine said. “That’s not right.”

“That’s why I had to tell those assholes something,” Graham said. “This… thing has killed too many people. It’s hurt too many people. It has to stop.”

Jolaine gave a wry chuckle. “I don’t know what their verification procedure is, but once they find out, my money says the end will be nearer than we want.”

“You’re giving up,” Graham said. “You can’t do that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Graham. Sometimes reality has to trump hope. It’s freezing in here.”

“Give it time,” Graham said. “This is nothing.” He walked around to stare into Jolaine’s face. “You can’t go pessimist on me, Jolaine. Not now. We’ve got time.”

“To do what?”

“I don’t know! Goddammit, I don’t freaking know, all right? Something. Our only other option is nothing, and that one sucks.”

Jolaine fought another spasm.

“I’m sorry I got you into this,” Graham said.

“And I’m sorry I didn’t protect you better.”

Graham kept walking to keep his feet from going numb.

“Why did Mom set me up?” he asked. He spoke the words without emotion.

“Now who’s being pessimistic?”

“I’m serious, Jolaine. She gave me that code knowing that people would come to get me. Do you think she knew it would come to this?”

Jolaine inhaled, hocked once, and spat a wad of blood. “I think she was scared,” she said. “I think she’d been shot and she was just trying to do something.”

“But you said that the code was for some kind of bomb.”

“Actually, I said I thought that’s what it might be.”

“Do you still?”

Another spasm, and she didn’t even try to speak. She just nodded.

Graham stopped pacing and turned as it dawned on him: “And these guys are terrorists,” he said. “Mom wanted them to have the code. That makes my parents terrorists.”

Jolaine scowled as well as her battered features would allow as she considered what he’d just said. “Oh, my God.”

Linus, the librarian in Graham’s head, was moving like crazy to arrange all the logic cards so he could read them. “She didn’t set me up for torture,” Graham said. “She set me up to help terrorists.”

How was that for a shit-sicle? How could she do that? How could they do that — Dad had to be in on it, too, right? Well, maybe not the part that directly involved Graham — Dad had already been killed by then — but the rest of it. The terrorism stuff. He paced again. He was thinking about his parents — the people who had brought him into the world, wiped his butt, and preached right and wrong. He knew he should be sad for their injuries, but all he could feel was anger.

“Holy shit, Jolaine, how could they?”

“I’m really sorry—”

“Wait,” Graham said. “No, no, no, that doesn’t make sense, either. Why would the terrorists attack and kill them if they were all on the same side?”

“Maybe Uncle Sam found out,” Jolaine offered, but her tone sounded more like thinking out loud than forwarding an actual theory.

“No,” Graham snapped. It was a stupid theory. “You heard them yelling to each other. That wasn’t English. No one yelled, ‘Freeze, FBI,’ or whatever they say in real life.” He stopped pacing again. “Gregory,” he said.

“What?”

“Gregory. That was the name of the man in the front door. Gregory. He kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, they know. I’m sorry, they know.’ Remember?”

Jolaine seemed to search her memory. “Okay.”

“The people we ran away from were the people who knew.”

“Knew what?” Jolaine asked. She looked like she was having difficulty keeping up.

“I don’t know. Jesus, how could I know?”

“Graham, I’m not even sure I know what you’re talking about anymore.”

He wasn’t either. He was trying to think his way through a problem. Finally, Linus dealt his last, most important card. “Oh, shit,” Graham said. “There’s another set of people trying to kill us.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know who, but I know why.”

Jolaine saw it, too. “To keep these guys from getting the codes.”

“Exactly,” Graham said. His sense of triumph over solving a problem was quashed two seconds later by the obvious rejoinder. He shot a panicked look to Jolaine.

“They won’t bother to torture,” she said, connecting the dots for herself. “They just want to kill you.”

In a rush, he realized the truth of Jolaine’s earlier words. Sometimes, reality really did trump hope.

Tears pressed his eyes as he faced Jolaine. “We really are going to die tonight, aren’t we?”

The door to the freezer slammed open. Teddy stood there with three of his friends. His right hand held a sledgehammer by its neck.

His eyes showed murder.