High Treason

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The sound of sirens grew in the night as David pressed himself against the snow. The last surviving attacker was apparently as freaked out as David was. The guy fired his machine gun randomly into the woods, close enough to David’s general direction to keep his head down, but nowhere near close enough to pose a real hazard.

David didn’t know what to do. What had started as a random encounter had settled into a one-on-one hunt to the death. And the sound of sirens was growing in the distance. David would welcome any reinforcements he could get. But even as that thought formed, it amended itself. Who said that the reinforcements would be on his side?

Out of nowhere, he remembered that he hadn’t turned his radio back on. He made sure that the bud was seated securely in his ear and he pressed the transmit button. “Mother Hen?”

“Good God, Rooster, where have you been?” Mother Hen sounded both angry and relieved.

He whispered, “Those trucks. They saw me. They sent five guys to come for me, but I’ve killed four. The fifth one is nearby, but I can’t stick my head up to find him without the risk of getting it shot off. Can you help? Can you tell me where the other guy is?”

“Negative. Our satellite refresh rate is every four minutes, and the last update was two minutes ago. From that last photo, I can see six images, but I don’t know which one is you.”

His heart hammering, David tried to think it through. There had to be a way. “Mother Hen, I haven’t moved in the last two minutes, and I won’t move in the next two. That will mean that the image that does move will be the one who’s trying to shoot me.”

A pause. During the silence, David listened for signs of movement. Hearing none, he wondered if the other guy was even more frightened than he. In the distance, the sound of sirens continued to crescendo, as did the sound of an approaching helicopter. Not surprisingly, the sound from the air increased more quickly than that from the ground.

“Rooster, do you have a flashlight on you?” Mother Hen asked.

“Yes,” David answered. What the hell kind of question is that?

“Get it ready,” she said. “When I tell you, I want you to flash it three times toward the sky, and repeat it three times for a total of nine flashes. Acknowledge.”

“Why?”

“Three times three. Do you understand? And switch your radio to channel one.”

“I understand, but why am I doing that?”

“Because Striker is going to land his helicopter and save you.”

Becky was terrified. They flew at an altitude of four feet at four thousand miles an hour. In the green wash of the instrument panel, she could see that Striker wore binocular thingies over his face — she presumed them to be night vision goggles — but to her, the world outside was a blur of rushing cityscape.

A minute ago, Striker had told her over the radio headset, “Our first save is going to be your friend, Rooster. I need you in the door on the port side of the aircraft to look for three flashes from a flashlight. That will be Rooster. He’s going to do it three times. I’ll look for it, too, but I’m gonna be a little busy flying the aircraft. If neither of us sees it, we need to circle around. Do not guess. If you see it, say so. If you don’t, don’t bullshit me to save your boyfriend.”

Something in the way he delivered that last sentence offended her, but she didn’t mention it. “Which side is the port side?”

“Left,” he said. “Sorry.”

Becky rose from her kneeling squat on the floor and moved to the open door on the left side. The temperature inside had dropped to something south of frigid. It felt good to stand just to get blood moving in her legs again. Maybe by sometime next week, she’d be able to feel her toes again.

“I’ll tell you when to start looking for the light,” Striker said. “Meanwhile, what’s the status of your weapon’s safety switch?”

“It’s on.”

“When you’re in the doorway, take it off. Don’t point the weapon at me, and don’t point it at the aircraft. Other than that, if you see anybody who didn’t flash a light at you, I want you to shoot at him. I don’t care if you hit him — though it would be nice if you did. I just need you to keep their heads down long enough for us to pull Rooster aboard. After that, we’ll draw for another mission.”

Becky didn’t understand half of what she’d just been told, but the important parts got through. They were going to rescue David from wherever he was, and her job was simply to shoot anyone she saw who was not David. Frankly, she didn’t know that she was capable. Who was she to be the arbiter of who should live and who should die? Who gave her that power?

“I want you to remember that you’re here of your own volition,” Striker said, as if reading her thoughts. “When you volunteer for a mission, the least you need to do is show up. Now keep your eyes peeled for that light.”

“Flash your light now,” Mother Hen said over the radio on channel one. “Now, now, now.”

This was a mistake. David knew it in the depths of his soul even as he pointed the flashlight to the sky and thumbed the button. Once, twice, three times.

The ripple of gunfire came almost immediately, with the bullets impacting so close that his opponent must have been looking directly at him when he flashed the light.

David rolled three rotations to his right and switched his selector to full auto to rake what he thought was the other guy’s position. He fired till his magazine ran dry, and then he rolled to his back and executed a mag change that Big Guy would have been proud of. He slapped the bolt closed and released another long burst toward his opponent, hoping to keep his head down as he raised his light toward the heavens and flashed it another three times.

This time, when his opponent opened fire, the bullets didn’t come anywhere close to him. Instead, they were all directed toward the approaching helicopter.

Tink, tink, tink, tink. The noise, which had the cadence of a card shuffle, sounded like the one you’d get from hitting an empty soup can with a wooden stick. The floor of the helicopter pulsed with each impact.

“Shoot back!” Striker shouted in Becky’s ear. “What the hell are you waiting for?”

“What do I shoot at?” Becky yelled back. “Everything I see is a flashing light.”

“Don’t worry about muzzle flashes,” Striker said. “The bright light you saw was Rooster. Sparkly flashes from that location are him shooting back at the bad guy. Other flashes are the bad guy shooting at him.”

It was all too much to process.

“You can save his life, or you can cost him his life,” Striker said over the intercom. “Choose.”

The radio in David’s ear said, “The chopper is landing for you. You need to make it there to get out.”

A second voice that sounded like Director Rivers added, “Set your rifle to full-auto and let the rounds rip while you run. That’ll keep their heads down.

A thousand questions and ten thousand objections formed in David’s head, but he voiced none of them. If this chopper was his ride to safety, he didn’t want to say anything to queer the deal.

The hum of the chopper’s rotors continued to increase in volume, and a few seconds later, he could actually see the outline of the helicopter flaring to land. His ride had arrived. But how was he going to run to it without getting shot?

As if the helicopter had heard his question, someone in the doorway started shooting back. Long bursts of automatic fire raked the area where the final shooter had been lying low.

Striker’s voice scratched from David’s radio. “Rooster, Striker. Now would be the time for you to start running.” His tone was light, almost amused.

This was a mistake. He was going to get out in the open, and he was going to get shot. With dozens of rounds being fired in both directions, it would only take one to kill him.

But staying here wasn’t an option, either.

Screw it. He found his feet and he took off, running as fast as he could with all the gear dangling from him. The gunner in the door must have seen him — good God, was that Becky? — because she opened fire again on the woods. The hammering of her rifle was so loud that he didn’t think he’d be able to tell if the other guy was shooting back.

Between the slippery footing and the heavy gear, he felt like he was running at a walker’s pace, but finally, he could feel the wash of the rotors, and three steps later, he flung himself at the open door. He’d barely landed on the floor before he sensed the lift and he knew they were airborne.

As the ground fell away, he was amazed by the number of emergency vehicles that were approaching Saint Stephen’s Island from every road and from miles away.

Len Shaw knew that he needed to settle down. It had been a mistake to follow the attackers down that corridor into a kill zone. It was always a mistake to follow your enemy’s tracks. Saint Stephen’s was his home territory. He knew every nook, crease, and chip as well as he knew the face he saw in the mirror every morning. There was no need to chase the intruders and walk into their traps. Not when he could set a trap of his own.

He’d put the Mishin family on the fourth floor because it was the warmest. From it, there was no escape but to come down the stairs and exit to ground level. Even if they chose to exit through other cell blocks, they would have to climb down to the third floor or below. And that’s where he would set up his teams to ambush them, one team each on the east and west stairwells. The instant either one came face-to-face with the enemy, they would engage, and the other team would move in to reinforce them.

As a hedge against the possibility that the attacking team left security details in the hallways to guard the stairwells — thus splitting their forces — Len decided that he had to split his as well. Four men each would enter the southern wing from the second and third floors from both the east and west. He had to assume that the attackers had taken the radio from the murdered sentries and they therefore could monitor his communication, so before he split the teams, he synchronized everyone’s timepieces and they established a precise moment when they would move into their stairwells.

As he addressed his troops, he looked each of them in the eye, assessing their commitment to the cause. With Dmitri dead, Len was the sole leader of the Movement, and the men would look to him for confidence and resolve. What he got in return concerned him. The deaths of their comrades at the base of the barracks stairs, followed by the deaths in the corridor, had unnerved them. He tried to spin them up with the glory of avenging their fallen friends, and while they nodded and said the right things, he sensed that they were ready to run.

Finally, he said, “Listen out there, comrades. Do you hear the sirens? We are ruined here. Our mission is over. Now, our choices are only two: we die in prison, or we die in the glory of our cause. If there is a third path, I’m willing to listen to anyone who knows what it might be.”

Their faces had shown sadness and anger — anger at him, he imagined, and anger at the loss of so much when victory had been so close. But Len’s instincts told him that that comment — the choice between death in prison or death in battle — had been what cemented their resolve. His troops were informed, motivated, and ready to go.

As commander, he’d chosen to be a part of the team on the east side third floor, the one in his estimation most likely to encounter the enemy. It had been his plan to lead the team until Geoffrey said that he was insulted. He used the distinctly American phrase “glory hound” to describe Len’s effort to lead the final assault, and Len had stepped aside. It was the will of his team, in fact, that as commander, he should be the last man in.

It was a statement of commitment not only to the cause, but to him as a leader.

As the clock ticked down the final ten seconds, Len said, “Remember. Enter slowly. We remain silent unless we encounter the enemy, and we engage any enemy we see.”

They all nodded.

“Five seconds,” Geoffrey said.

The men pressed their weapons to their shoulders.

“Three… two…”

The final digits went unspoken. Two seconds later, Geoffrey turned the lock and slid through the opening into the stairwell. They moved like a single organism around the corner and into the danger zone. First man, second man, third man.

Len was just about to make the final turn when an explosion ripped the night apart.

Jonathan hit the top step to the fourth floor just as Boxers was taking out the hallway lights. He backed down a couple of steps to protect himself from ricochets or fragments. After the shooting was done and the fourth floor was as dark as they could make it, he reentered the corridor and jogged to the spot where Yelena stood outside a cell, her hands pressed against the door, as if to touch the occupants on the other side.

He heard her say, “I’m coming, sweetheart. We’re going to get you out.”

The cell was nearly in the middle of the northern wall, slightly closer to the east than the west. Despite Boxers’ head start, the two men arrived more or less together. “Yelena,” Jonathan said, “Watch the west hallway. If you see anyone who’s not us — and I mean anyone—kill them. Don’t challenge them, don’t tell them to drop their weapon. Just shoot. I’ll cover the east end.”

It was not uncommon for Jonathan to involve PCs in the mechanics of their own rescue, and experience taught that the concept of the quick kill was an elusive one among civilians raised with bullshit TV honor codes where every enemy had to be given a chance, and it was cowardly to shoot a bad guy in the back.

“Nicholas Mishin!” Jonathan yelled. “Are you inside?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m one of the guys who’s here to take you home. Josef, are you there, too?”

“What happened to Babushka?” a young voice answered. From the way it cracked, Jonathan knew that puberty had not arrived, but was on its way.

“I’m right here!” Yelena yelled.

As Boxers unslung his ruck and put it on the floor, Jonathan said, “Listen to me. I need you to—”

The building shook with four explosions in such rapid succession that an inexperienced ear might have heard them as a single blast.

Jonathan jumped at the sound and the PCs yelled.

“Oh my God, what was that?” Yelena said. She ducked to a low stoop to protect herself.

“That’s the sound of evener odds,” Boxers said. “I bet it’s a mess down there.”

“What does he mean?” Yelena asked.

“Never mind,” Jonathan said. “Keep an eye on your door.”

If nothing else, he thought, there was a lot less chance of her having to shoot anyone.

Nicholas had never felt this level of fear. He worried that his heart might bruise itself against the bones of his chest. The explosions, the shooting, the screaming of wounded men. These were the sounds of the Apocalypse, a conclusion that seemed borne out by the dancing white and yellow light of fires burning out of control.

He worried that Josef would never be right after this. That last explosion seemed to take him to a place that was literally out of his mind. He dropped to the floor in a crouch, pressed his hands against the sides of his head, and screamed.

Nicholas dropped with him and gathered him into his arms, rocking him. “We’ll be okay,” he whispered. “We’ll be okay, we’ll be okay. Babushka is here to rescue us.” He spoke as if that actually made sense. As if the First Lady of the United States routinely engaged in warfare. A distant part of him wondered if maybe he was the one who had lost his mind, and that none of this was happening at all.

“Nicholas, listen to me,” yelled the voice from the other side of the door. “Are you there?”

Josef had stopped screaming, but he continued to cry, his hands still pressed to his face.

“I’m here!” Nicholas yelled. “We’re both here.”

“We’re going to open the door with an explosive charge,” the voice said. “I need you to get as far away as you can, against the back wall. Lie on the floor with your backs to the door. Plug your ears, close your eyes, and don’t open them until I tell you.”

“Is that safe?” Nicholas asked.

“Safer than leaving you inside.”

He heard a smile in the man’s voice with that last line, and he realized how stupid a question he’d just asked.

“We’re in a time crunch here, Nicholas, so keep your head in the game. Repeat back what I just told you.”

Nicholas repeated it, and was pleased to see that Josef was already getting himself into position.

“Just a few more seconds now,” the voice said.