The Obsidian Chamber

68

Flavia rose from the prone position she had dropped to at the sound of the explosion. She wasn’t sure what was happening, or why, but what she did realize was that the sudden chaos was very much to her advantage. Chaos was going to be her cover, her friend.

Slipping along the edge of the island, just inside a band of mangroves, she approached the area where the explosion had gone off, which was now burning brightly, leaving a glow in the sky above her bright enough to navigate by. She heard the brief rattle of gunfire off to her left. As the mangroves ran out toward the northern end of the island, she crouched, staying behind them, and looked out at the scene of destruction.

A great crater had been blasted in the open, sandy area, dull flames flickering from it as if from the maw of a volcano. A hundred yards away, a chopper lay tilted on its side, afire, flames leaping up into the sky. Several bodies lay not far off, with two men — medics? — bending over them. She cast about and saw, just fifty feet away, in the open, another man lying on a stretcher, bandaged and moaning. He had already been taken care of, it seemed, and left temporarily while the others were triaged.

She couldn’t begin to fathom what was going on here, or why helicopters full of armed men had landed, but she didn’t care. She had only one aim: killing that bitch, Constance.

Keeping low, Flavia scurried out into the open, across the saw grass, leaving the cover of the mangroves. In another moment she stood over the man on the stretcher. His head and one arm were bandaged and his eyes were open, staring at her in dull surprise.

She quickly examined him, and there it was: a .45 in his holster. She slid it out, ejected the magazine, saw it was fully loaded, slapped it back in.

“What… are you…?” the man began, speaking painfully.

“Taking your weapon.”

He sputtered, shaking his head, his body trying to move. “No…”

“Relax. Nothing you can do about it.”

She saw he had an extra magazine in a magazine pouch on his belt; she took that, too.

“Nooo…” he said in a louder voice.

“See you later.” She turned away. Then she hesitated, thought better of it, and turned back to the man, pulling a Zombie Killer from her fanny pack.

The job took only ten seconds.

Now she scurried back into the darkness of the mangroves, stopped for a moment to examine the weapon — a nice model 1911 Colt — and then she shoved it into her waistband and headed south to find the woman.

Longstreet, on the beach, was far enough from the explosion to be merely knocked down by it, but left unhurt — though it shocked the hell out of him. The three closest men were down; he rushed to their aid as the others in Team Red came back; and then the chopper, which had been knocked on its side, caught fire and there was a second, fuel-fed explosion. Everyone was in a panic, believing they were under a massive assault, firing at everything that moved. Longstreet himself had believed the same for a moment, but when he saw the deep crater, he realized it must have been a preset explosive device. Diogenes had set a bomb in the island’s most obvious LZ, and they had fallen right into the trap. It was one of the scenarios Pendergast had warned him of. He realized he had badly underestimated the resistance they would meet, and he burned with self-reproach.

In his headset he could hear the confusion and consternation among the men, both his team and Team Blue. He immediately called in three more Zodiacs from Key West with extra men and medics to take out the wounded. But Key West lay eight miles southwest; at thirty knots the boats would take fifteen minutes to reach the island’s pier.

Longstreet had an immediate decision to make: call off the assault or finish it, full-court press. He chose the latter. If they retreated now, it could turn into a weeks- or months-long standoff, another Ruby Ridge or Waco. It was pretty clear they were dealing with a deranged individual; as horribly as the op had begun, if they didn’t finish what they’d started it would be even worse. They were too deep in it to abort now.

Longstreet rallied his men by radio. They were spooked and at the edge of control. He talked them down from their initial confusion, ordered them to stop shooting, and got them refocused. He gave the requisite orders to evacuate the wounded and ordered the two teams to proceed as planned. Team Blue, still in full force, was to go in and take the house. He and the remainder of Team Red would sweep north, clearing the island. The pincer movement would meet at the main house, where he hoped Diogenes would make his last stand. There, they could tear-gas, flash-bang, and, if necessary, burn him out.

Moving along the beach, Longstreet remained in continuous contact with the rest of the team, listening to the chatter on the channel. One of his men suddenly spoke through the comm, his voice at a whisper: “Red one, there’s someone here. In the bushes.”

“Red two, wait for backup. I’m on my way.”

Longstreet scurried toward the GPS location, night-vision goggles lowered. It was another dense, overgrown cluster of buttonwoods and palmettos. He moved fast and soon connected with his teammate. The man had taken cover behind a dense stand of bushes.

“Through there,” Red two said. “I heard someone moving. I ordered him to come out. No answer.”

Longstreet listened. They were close to the shore and a maze of mangroves, which extended far into the water.

He called: “FBI! Come out now!”

No answer, but he heard the faint splash of someone moving in shallow water. He searched the dense tangle of vegetation with his goggles but could see nothing. If this was Diogenes, and he was pretty sure it was, he’d better be careful; the man would likely fight to the death.

He gestured for Red two to loop in from the right to try to cut off the person, and with a similar gesture indicated he would go in straight.

The man nodded. As they cautiously emerged from behind their cover, two shots rang out. Longstreet and Red two immediately dropped to the dirt.

“You okay?” Longstreet muttered on the comm, his head down.

“I’m good,” came the whispered reply.

“Move in diagonally through that dense cover. I’m going in straight to get the fucker.”

Longstreet crawled forward on his belly. He had to take out the shooter and he believed he had an advantage in the night vision, although he couldn’t be sure Diogenes didn’t have goggles, as well.

As he moved, he heard another faint splash — the man was retreating. From his prone position he aimed at the sound and fired twice.

That stirred the shooter into retreating faster, and he heard more splashing, which gave him a better fix. He fired twice again and thought he heard a grunt of pain.

Leaping up, he ran toward the sound, entering the water and wading fast through a tiny, winding channel in the mangroves, firing once, and then again — widely spaced shots to keep the shooter in retreat and to suppress return fire. It was very dark in the mangroves, but with his goggles he could see well; he hoped to God the shooter could not. Red two was behind him to the left, looping around to cut the shooter off. He had set up their approaches to make sure there was no chance of a friendly-fire accident. But Longstreet wanted to get to him first. If it was Diogenes, he was going to kill the man himself, and this setup provided the perfect way to do so with complete justification.

He stopped, listening. There was a blur of motion in his goggles, but it was too quick to get a bead. He pressed on, firing once again, pushing through narrow channels in the mangroves. The pressure of his approach was spooking the shooter; he heard louder crashing as the target moved hard and fast, trying to get away.

Another shot came tearing through the mangroves, clipping a branch by his shoulder, and Longstreet dropped into the water. It seemed the bastard wasn’t as spooked as he’d assumed. Two more shots, coming in high, and then more thrashing through vegetation as the target continued retreating. He wasn’t far away, and the noise made a fine target.

Longstreet rose, aimed carefully at the sound, and fired. There was a short cry and a final crash — and then silence.

Moving quickly, he bashed through a screen of mangroves — and came upon the shooter. He stared, incredulous: it was a young woman lying on her back, chest covered with blood, eyes open. For a second he thought it must be Constance Greene — but this was certainly not the woman whose picture had been in the briefing book. In fact, with a sudden shock, he knew who this was; the face was recognizable from mug shots and security videos he’d viewed. Flavia Greyling stared back at him with glittering, hate-filled eyes and, with her strength fading, tried to raise her gun, but he reached down and pulled it out of her hand. She held a wicked-looking knife with a green handle in the other. Grimacing with pain, she raised it as if readying it for a throw… and then collapsed back into the water.

His teammate came up behind him. “What the hell? A girl?”

“Yeah.” What the hell she’d been doing here on Halcyon, Longstreet couldn’t begin to imagine. This was turning into an absolute clusterfuck. Pendergast had been right, after all.

“She’s not target two, is she?”

“No.”

“Where’d she come from?”

“No idea. You get her out of this crap and to the pier, evac her on a Zodiac.”

“She’s dead.”

“Maybe. Just get her out and do your best. I’ve got to meet up with Team Blue at the main house.”

Longstreet pushed out of the mangroves and headed up the beach.