Warriors

CHAPTER 16

The day was bitter cold, cold and wet.

As the seemingly endless funeral procession wended its way across Memorial Bridge, the sleet gradually turned to snow. Arlington House, General Robert E. Lee’s beautiful and historic old mansion sited at the top of the hill, was barely visible in the storm. In this light, the house looked frozen and forlorn, even a certain shade of grey, like the general’s ghostly armies after Shiloh and Antietam, and Gettysburg.

It had been a long time since anyone had seen a Washington crowd so still and silent. The entire route, from St. Andrew’s Church to the cemetery, was lined ten to fifteen people deep with soldiers on both sides standing at parade rest to control access to the cross streets.

As the Honor Guard and the president’s caisson neared, the soldiers would snap to attention. A female major was going up and down the lines, from soldier to soldier, behind their backs, discreetly handing them sugar cubes to suck on and keep them on their feet. They’d been standing in position since long before dawn.

The First Lady had requested the horse-drawn caisson to transport the president’s body from the funeral service at the church to Arlington. It was the first time one had been used since John F. Kennedy’s funeral in 1963. In her heart, she knew Tom would have wanted to complete his journey accompanied by his stalwart stallion, El Alamein. Two days earlier, the president’s favorite horse had been flown into Andrews from the ranch in Colorado.

The big black stallion was calm, even dignified, as he completed his last journey with the late president. A short, sad trip to the heroes’ burial ground. McCloskey was a decorated war hero who’d served two combat tours as an air force pilot in the Vietnam War. He’d flown the Convair B-58, the first supersonic operational bomber, and won the DFC for heroism.

The First Lady, though distraught, was toughing it out as the day of the funeral drew nigh. The worldwide search for her husband’s assassin was ongoing, but preliminary feedback from the FBI was not encouraging. The alleged murderer, a chef in the White House kitchen, had, in all probability, slipped through the cordon around Washington and left the country.

The media was making hay twenty-four hours a day with the fact that the suspect was a Chinese national. But whether his motive was personal or political was not yet known. He had enjoyed an unblemished career, working his way up to the number two position in fairly short order. He was well liked by the staff and was one of the late president’s favorites in the kitchen.

But most Washingtonians suspected the worst: a political assassination, and already chilly relations with Beijing were now at an all-time low.

In one of the prefuneral logistical meetings held in the family residence at the White House, an eager young staffer was quick to point out to the group that horse poop in public was a very unsightly thing. He then asked if not feeding the stallion for the day before the funeral would prevent that.

“Gee, Chuck, I don’t know,” the First Lady said, reining in her roiling emotions. “What do you think the result would be if we don’t feed all the soldiers and sailors for a day before the funeral?”

“I guess that they’d probably pass right out, ma’am,” the staffer said.

“That’s what a horse will do, too,” she said.

End of discussion.

Police officers were doing crowd control. As CNN was reporting more than a million people lining both sides of the funeral route, control was necessary. Two of the younger officers on the D.C. side of the bridge were quietly chatting up a pair of young women when their lieutenant came over and spoke to them in a deadly whisper. Then they fell silent, as hushed and stone-faced as the members of the army Honor Guard marching in the wake of the caisson now rolling slowly by.

Only a muffled tattoo, a rolling tide of martial drumbeat, reverberated through the streets of the capital. For some unknown reason, the birds in the trees were twittering wildly that day. Then, too, there was also the terribly poignant and muted clip-clop of El Alamein’s hooves upon the pavement, the jingle and clink of his tack, the creaking steel rims of the caisson’s large wooden wheels.

As the somber procession entered the nation’s most revered military burial ground, people raised their eyes to the heavens. The air force flew a low-level Missing Man flyover, one jet missing from the formation. A few minutes later, Air Force One flew over, majestically alone. Bagpipes played martial music, music to fight by, as the president’s simple mahogany casket was carried from the caisson to the gravesite.

As the cortege, the Honor Guard, and the joint military pallbearers passed by the crowd on the long incline to the gravesite, the faces of many world leaders were visible. Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin, a now frail Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the king of Spain, and the president of France were among them. The kings of Norway, Sweden, and Spain. Members of the special forces had formed an honor cordon between the crowd and the grave.

Notable in their absence was the Chinese delegation.

All had come to pay their final respects to a man who had valiantly tried to reestablish America’s image around the world as a bastion of freedom and democracy. The singular country the founders had envisioned. A beacon, a shining city on a hill. It was the late president’s fervent dream that America could, and would, become, once again, as the old expression had it, “The last, best hope of mankind.”

And he had died trying.

The sights and sounds were muffled weeping, the mournful bagpipes, the quiet dignity of the nine-man detachment of the British Black Watch Regiment, and the snow falling softly on the huge banks of flowers arrayed by the grave, powdering the uncovered heads of the veiled and mourning, draping the gently rolling hillside in a mantle of white.

Standing at the gravesite, President David Rosow looked stricken. McCloskey had been a lifelong friend since their air force flyboy days, both in and out of politics. Now Tom was gone, and the weight of the deeply troubled world had suddenly shifted to his shoulders. He would be tested in the coming days, weeks, and months — he knew that. Tested, and not found wanting, he kept trying to reassure himself.

And silently he prayed, not only for his murdered friend, but also for strength for himself and his beleaguered nation.

His prayers were not in vain.

Suddenly, with a fiercely whispered arrival, a nightmare vision appeared from the sky.

It was a large black shadow at first, swooping down out of the dark clouds. Then it resolved itself into a large drone, with swept-back wings. It was about twice the size of a twin-engine Cessna. It dove down out of the snow-filled clouds. Some glanced up at it and quickly turned away, believing it was only part of the stringent security measures that the new president had ordered for the state funeral.

The sleek black drone swooped low over the large gathering at the gravesite, then climbed and disappeared once more into the dark storm clouds over the Capitol.

“Security cameras, that’s all,” someone said and, reassured by the logic of the man’s statement, the crowd at the gravesite instantly and visibly relaxed.

A lone bugle began the familiar opening notes of “Taps” and the firing party raised their rifles to commence the twenty-one-gun salute—

“Air incursion!” a Secret Service agent shouted. “Repeat! Hostile air incursion at the gravesite! Immediate assistance, all sectors! Code black, code black, code black!”

And then, in that horrible instant, death rained down on many of those gathered on the hillside to mourn the fallen president.

Two missiles slammed into the hillside simultaneously about ten seconds and three hundred yards apart, exploding with devastating effect. Bodies were flung high into the air, severed limbs and body parts flew overhead, screams of pain and panic were everywhere.

The armed forces pallbearers, still bearing the weight of the mahogany casket, had the stoic courage and wisdom to remain in place, carefully lowering the president’s body into the open grave and out of the line of fire before taking cover themselves.

Seeing the bright wink of multiple machine guns firing from along the leading edges of the approaching drone’s swept-back wings, a quick-thinking Secret Service agent guarding the new president grabbed Rosow from behind and dove with him into the only possible cover, into the yawning grave. The two men landed hard atop the recently lowered coffin.

Many of those still remaining aboveground were mowed down by the strafing drone.

Covering the president with his own body, the agent immediately rolled onto his side and began firing up at the drone with his P90, an automatic weapon capable of firing nine hundred armor-piercing rounds per minute… to no apparent effect.

He quickly realized the R&D boys would have to write a new definition of “armor-piercing” when this day was over. Whatever the behemoth was made of, it bore no resemblance to anything he knew of.

The Secret Service immediately got the bereaved widow and the Speaker of the House and the vice president to the ground and covered them with their bodies. Then they opened fire on the drone with their automatic weapons, yelling at the screaming mourners to take cover, run, get down! Get down! Crouched behind gravestones all over the hillside they watched in horror as the deadly drone climbed into the safety of the clouds once more.

But the Secret Service men on the hill were not watching and waiting. They were scrambling to retaliate. They were not trained for this kind of attack, and their response was slow in coming.

“Gimme a report!” the agent in charge shouted to his men inside the two blacked-out SUVs. They were tracking the drone with radar, thermal imaging, and acoustic equipment.

“Sir! That thing’s still got two laser-guided five-hundred-pound bombs under the wings! It’s climbing through two thousand and banking right over the Jefferson Memorial. It’s gotta be lining up for another pass, sir, a bombing run!”

Another agent stood beside one of two tactical black and armored SUVs, tracking the enemy drone with high-powered binocs as it completed its loop. He visually confirmed via radio what the men in the vans were seeing on their screens.

“It’s coming back,” the agent in charge said into his mike. “Deploy the air defense systems! I repeat, deploy ADS now!”

Just as the nose of the descending drone appeared through the clouds, and winking machine guns on either side of its fuselage opened up, the rooftops of the two SUVs slid open.

Immediately, twin launchers of the ADS rose from within the two oversized vehicles parked above the gravesite. These were the Stinger launch racks, hidden from sight within the blacked-out Secret Service SUVs. Each operator was capable of launching four passive surface-to-air weapons, Stinger FIM-92B, called SAMs, the infrared homing missiles carried a three-kilogram warhead with hit-to-kill penetration.

As soon as the attacking drone began yet another deadly pass over the crowds below, turning to the east and beginning its descent through the cover of cloud to circle for another attack, the launch order was given.

With a roar, two Stingers, one from each vehicle, belched white smoke and streaked heavenward in pursuit of the black drone’s heat signal.

The agent in charge watched in disbelief and horror as the two missiles streaked right past the giant drone and disappeared into the clouds.

“What the hell?” he screamed at the men who’d launched the ADS missiles.

Ambulances and EMS vehicles were racing across Memorial Bridge, even now, as well as police cruisers and Bomb Squad vehicles. The nation’s capital reeled, aghast at this fresh hell of tragedy wreaked upon the country. Countless millions at home were watching the slaughter of innocents unfold, knowing that this was not just an attack on the American capital. It was an attack on the entire civilized world.

In an extremely remote corner of Washington’s Rock Creek Park, a large flatbed eighteen-wheeler was parked atop a hill, off the road, concealed in a thicket of snow-covered trees. On the truck’s bed, a black rectangular container was secured, strapped down with steel cables.

It was large, about the size of two standard Dumpsters welded together end-to-end. On either side, the words MATSON LINES CHINA were stenciled in large white letters. A steamship company. On top, a number of aerials, GPS tracking cameras, and a small radar dome not visible from the ground.

The truck was positioned so as to be invisible from the road. And it was. That is, unless you were looking for it.

The two men inside the innocuous grey rental sedan that pulled into a rest stop at the foot of the hill below the truck were looking for it.

“There it is,” the man who was driving said. “See it up there?”

“Oh, yeah. Good work.”

They drove their vehicle behind the deserted restroom facility, parked, and got out. They looked at each other for a moment without speaking, then began their climb up the steep hill.

They were wearing U.S. park ranger uniforms, the wide-brimmed Smokey hats pulled down over their brows. On their hips, they wore holstered pistols, 357 Colt Python revolvers. Not standard-issue weapons for rangers, nor was the powerful C-4 explosive device in one man’s backpack, or the two P90 rapid-fire automatic weapons in the other.

There were also two men inside the container. It was a “control container” exactly like the ones used by the U.S. Air Force to execute drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and wherever else people needed killing. There was a man seated before a bank of monitors, a control stick in his right hand. He was guiding the attacking craft down through the clouds for a final low-level bombing run on the presidential gravesite.

The second man, tall and thin, elegant in his three-piece suit and bow tie, was standing behind him, gazing up at the scenes of death and destruction on the ground at Arlington National. He had a wry smile on his face. This would rock the Americans back on their heels. He was beaming a live feed of the attack to General Sun-Yat Moon on Xinbu Island. He could almost see the smile on the boss’s face.

And this was just the beginning.

In an instant, the smile on the Chinese drone pilot’s face faded. In that second, the attacking drone disintegrated in a massive blast of fire and light and black smoke high above Arlington. A Hellfire missile launched by an American F-18 had scored a direct hit. “What the f—?” the drone driver cried, unable to tear his eyes from the screens. “We just lost the drone!”

“Shit, you’re kidding,” the tall man said

Someone rapped hard on the steel door at the rear.

“What the hell?” the controller said.

“I’ll get rid of them. We need to get out of here. Now!”

“Yeah.”

There was a small viewing port in the door, and he unlocked it and slid it open. The tall man stood on his toes and looked through the slit.

Two park rangers. Great. Perfect timing.

“Can I help you?”

One of the rangers stepped forward and put his face up close and personal.

“National Park Service. Your truck is parked illegally. You need to move it, sir.”

“Can’t do that. Engine died on me.”

“Sir, you have two choices. You move this truck. I mean now. Or I get on the radio and have a tow truck here in five minutes to tow your ass to the pound. Up to you.”

“Officer, you do what you have to do.”

The first ranger stepped back, and the second ranger appeared. “Don’t worry, we will do what we have to do. ASAP.”

“What? What the hell?”

“Hello, George. How are we feeling on this red-letter day?”

Unfuckingbelievable. What the hell was Tommy Chow doing here? He was supposed to be hiding out in Bermuda or somewhere.

“Here’s what we’re going to do next, George,” Tommy said and suddenly the State Department man was staring down the mile-wide barrel of a .357 magnum Colt Python.

“Hey! There’s no need — Wait a second, man, we’re friends, right? I mean… wait!”

“No waiting,” Tommy said, pulling the trigger. “ASAP.”

The round, fired at such extremely close range, blew away the State Department man’s face and most of his head.

“Give me the device,” Chow said, smiling at his companion.

He took the IED packed with C-4 and heaved it through the port, where it clattered loudly across the floor of the steel container. The drone driver at the controls screamed and raced toward the door, grasping at his only hope, to grab the explosive device and attempt to heave it back out the opened port.

Tommy dropped the Chinese guy with a head shot before his fingertips could reach it.

As they were getting back in the car, the drone command truck blew sky-high up on the hill.