Jihad

CHAPTER 109

Dusk came early to the thickly treed plantation about an hour and a half north of New Orleans. By then, four dozen federal officers — mostly from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, but with a smattering from Customs and the Marshals Service, and led by a core team of FBI Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) agents — were aligned within striking distance of the compound. Another two dozen state police officers were preparing to shut down traffic on the nearby roads. An army reconnaissance aircraft — officially, an RC-7B four-engined Bombardier/de Havilland DHC-7 equipped with an integrated surveillance package, referred to as a “Crazy Hawk”—had flown over from Biggs Army Airfield in Texas and was circling overhead. Had there been time, the aircraft’s optical and infrared video information would have been sent to the equivalent of a small workstation on the ground; in this case, Desk Three had fashioned an uplink to the Art Room, which then radioed information not only to Lia and Karr but to the head of the HRT team and three other FBI agents selected as team leaders. Satellite communications systems allowed everyone to talk to each other. A Coast Guard Dauphin helicopter and a small Bell chopper belonging to the state police rounded out the armada.

The question was, would the force be anywhere near enough? Peering through a pair of night glasses from the front of the state police helicopter, Lia couldn’t even see the road she’d taken past the compound because of the thick vegetation shielding it. Of the three large buildings where the terrorists might be gathered, only one could be seen from the air. At least the grounds of the abandoned plantation were dry; had the terrorists located a little farther south or to the west, the swamp alone would have protected them.

“What do you say, princess?” snapped Karr over the Deep Black com system. “Ready to rock?”

Lia swept the glasses to the west, eying the clearing where Karr and four members of an FBI Hostage Rescue Team — a cross between SEAL Team 6 and a SWAT team — were to land.

“Your landing zone is clear,” she told him.

“Get those ground boys moving,” said Karr, practically singing. “We’re zero-five from touchdown.”

Karr’s intense enthusiasm irked her. Most people got dead serious before an action; Karr seemed to get jollier.

Lia gave the go-ahead to the ground units, beginning the complicated ballet. As the state police cut off access on the roads, four different teams would move toward the compound. A fifth team would arrest the two guards who were stationed near the main entrance.

“We’re moving,” Lia told Rockman in the Art Room.

“We see. Situation is the same as it was,” he told her. “Just the two guards near the road. We haven’t seen anyone else.”

“That’s one of the things that bothers me,” she told him.

Karr gripped the handhold at the side of the Dauphin, waiting to jump off. Since the primary goal was to obtain information from the people here, the shotgun he gripped in his right hand was filled with nonlethal shells. Instead of buck-shot, shells were filled with a mixture of hard plastic balls and pellets filled with cayenne pepper, which would explode and send a disabling spray over whomever they hit. The modified Pancor Jackhammer could fire all ten of its rounds within a few seconds; Karr had two more of the canisterlike cassettes hanging off the tactical vest he wore over his body armor. His lower pants pockets held two stun grenades apiece. He also had an Uzi submachine gun, borrowed from the marshals, strapped between the two vests to use if things got very ugly, and a pair of pistols, one a .45 at his belt and the other a small Ruger strapped to his right calf. Two of the FBI agents behind him in the helicopter were also armed with nonlethal shotguns; the other two had standard assault rifles. Besides the guns and armor, Karr was wearing a lightweight set of night glasses so that he could see in the dark.

“We’re ready, Tommy,” said Art Koch, the head of the HRT team. He and his men had participated in several antiterror operations in the past, though never directly with Desk Three.

“Do it!” said Karr, leaping from the aircraft as it landed thirty yards from the largest of the three buildings on the property.

He got about ten yards before two men came around the side of the building holding rifles, Karr swung the Jackhammer level and fired three times. One of the men crumpled, screaming in agony; the other disappeared around the side.

“We are federal agents making an inspection for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms,” barked Lia’s voice through a loudspeaker projected from her helicopter. “We are serving a warrant under the U.S. Patriot Act. Anything you say can and will be used against you. Do not resist the officers. Do as you are instructed and no harm will come to you. Lay down your weapons and stand with your hands raised high in the air.”

The man Karr had shot howled, his eyes streaming with tears. Karr spun him down, then left him as one of the trailing FBI agents came up with his plastic handcuffs ready. He sprinted for the barn, some twenty yards away; when he got there Karr threw himself against the side of the building, caught his breath, then rolled around the comer, gun poised to fire.

There was no one there. He scanned the vegetation to the left, making sure the man hadn’t hidden himself there, then began crawling forward, looking for a spot ahead he might use for cover.

“Driveway is secure. Two men under arrest,” reported Team Five.

“Good,” Lia told them. “How are we doing on the buildings, Tommy?”

Karr didn’t answer. Rockman started to tell her something about the barn, but the head of the team tasked to take the building they called the Cottage reported that it had been secured; two prisoners had been taken. The transmission was so loud she couldn’t understand what Rockman said.

“All right, Cottage. Good. Hold on. Rockman, what are you telling me?”

“You have three individuals going toward the barn from the shed.”

“Did you hear that, Tommy?”

“I’m not only hearing it, I’m living it,” said Karr, huffing as he spoke.

He’ll be joking in his grave, Lia thought, picking up the microphone to repeat her warning speech.

Karr saw the three men Rockman had warned him about run down the slope toward the barn. When they got about thirty feet from him, he fired at the lead man. The shell popped him in the side and the man slid down, tripping both of his comrades like a scene from a slapstick comedy. But all three jumped right back up. Karr yelled at them to stop, then fired again, this time nailing the closest man in the head. A cloud of pepper spray descended on his as he fell to the ground. The others escaped unscathed: Karr’s next shot sailed to the side, missing by a good margin. Frustrated, he started to aim again when a barrage of gunfire sent him to the ground. The bullets missed, but he bashed his knee on a jagged rock so hard that he felt blood rush to his head.

“There! On the roof!” yelled one of the FBI agents.

A barrage of automatic rifle fire followed. By the time Karr got up, the gunman on the roof had tumbled to the ground, dead.

“You all right?” asked Koch, running up to him.

Karr growled. “Let’s get into the barn,” he told the FBI agent, ignoring his torn pants and bloody knee. “This is getting old.”