This question immediately caught the attention of the four men gathered in the backseat, as well as the vehicle’s driver, who excitedly replied, “I believe it is!”
The SAIC anxiously sat forward and peered out the streaked windshield. He could see little outside but the two bouncing shafts of light coming from their headlights, and as he scanned the clearing ahead of them, an exploding tongue of flame flashed from the blackness. It wasn’t until a heavy metallic round bounced off their roof that he identified it as a muzzle flash.
They were headed straight for the weapon, and the driver reacted instinctively.
He stomped on the brakes, causing the truck to violently lunge forward, then shifted hard into reverse. He waited to build up traction before hitting the gas, and they shot backward. Only a few feet from the woods, he lifted his foot off the accelerator and whipped the wheel to the left. The Suburban started skidding, and as the President slammed into Morrison’s shoulder, the driver jerked the gearshift into forward and once more stepped on the accelerator.
The superbly executed reverse-180-degree turn surely saved their lives, for as they sped off into that portion of woods they had just traveled, a barrage of bullets peppered off the back window.
Morrison felt a bit queasy, and as he reached down to pick up the fallen SATCOM device, the driver shouted, “There’s that road again!”
The Suburban plowed over a group of saplings, careened over a rough stone-filled draw, and settled onto the remains of an abandoned earthen roadway. It was just wide enough to hold them, and definitely offered the smoothest ride yet experienced.
“We’re heading west!” exclaimed the driver after checking the dashboard-mounted compass.
“Mr. President, we’ll get you out of this bind yet!”
That statement proved to be a bit overly optimistic, for seconds later, they ran over a steel-spike tank trap and punctured the two front tires. The truck nose-dived forward, and the driver alertly hit the brakes.
“Can’t you drive on a flat?” asked the SAIC.
“Not with two of them,” the driver answered.
“But not to worry, sir. We’ve got a spare and a can of flat fixer. Just give us a sec, and we’ll be good to go.”
The driver nodded to his seatmate, and both of them exited the vehicle to initiate the repair process. Morrison grabbed his submachine gun and joined them.
It was pitch-black and deathly quiet outside. The swirling fog hugged the floor of the forest, the heavy pine boughs peering down like silent sentinels.
A metallic, scraping sound broke the silence, and Morrison watched his men emerge with the spare. They proceeded to jack up the front end, and went to work replacing the flat right tire.
With his MP5 in hand, the SAIC circled the vehicle, his gaze locked on the tree line. On any other occasion, he would have loved to be in such a forest, where the air was clean and sweet with pine sap. Yet here the scent of death was in the air, and he couldn’t wait to be gone from this cursed grove.
“Comrade Morrison,” whispered Alexi Kosygin from the barely cracked rear window.
“There seems to be a problem getting the SATCOM on line.”
Back inside the truck, Morrison took a close look at the briefcase-sized transmitter and found that the rough ride had jarred one of the battery cables loose. He pushed the connectors together and watched as the green “transmit” light began glowing.
“I think I saw something move out there.” Major Ryan pointed into the trees in front of them.
Without bothering to switch off the transmitter’s open microphone, Morrison looked in the direction that the MIL AIDE was highlighting, in time to see two brilliant muzzle flashes emanate from the blackness. There were a pair of distinctive pops, and Kosygin dared to stick his head out the window to check the men’s progress.
“Dear God, they’ve both been shot!” he exclaimed.
This was all the SAIC had to hear to dive over into the front seat and grasp for the ignition.
“The friggin’ keys are gone!”
He madly searched the seat and floorboard, and when this effort failed to produce the keys, he knew he’d have to go out there and get them.
“Alexi, Major Ryan, if you’d be so good as to cover me with your weapons.”
Morrison readied his submachine gun, took a deep breath, and jerked open the door, ill prepared for the hard wooden butt of the Kalashnikov assault rifle that caught him full on the forehead.
He crumpled to the ground at the side of the truck, his vision blurred, on the cusp of unconsciousness. With a nightmare’s ponderous pace, he struggled to his knees in time to see a heavily camouflaged soldier materialize at the opposite doorway.
This individual’s face was covered in green and black greasepaint, and all Morrison could see were the whites of his cruel eyes as he raised his rifle and pointed it into the backseat.
“Who the hell are you, and what do you want?” asked Kosygin, his voice faltering.
An ear-shattering trio of shots rang out, and with Alexi Kosygin silenced for all eternity, the gunman flipped on his laser sight and projected the glowing red beam squarely in the center of the President’s forehead. Samuel Morrison fought back a wave of nauseated dizziness to reach for his side arm, all the while fighting to get to his feet and stand.
“For God’s sake, I’m the President of the United States. Don’t shoot!” implored America’s Chief Executive.
The assassin appeared to be relishing this moment of power, and he made certain that the dazed Morrison was still incapable of interfering, before issuing a deep laugh and pulling the trigger.
The President’s head exploded like a pumpkin, bits of bloody flesh and bone cascading onto the cowering MIL AIDE
Though he held a fully loaded submachine gun in his lap, Major Bob Ryan was in no emotional shape to use it. The assassin knew this, and lowered his rifle to scoot into the backseat himself.
“So now that your President is dead, you’re the one,” said the assassin in Slavic-accented English.
There was a certain coolness to his tone of voice, and he displayed little emotion as he shoved the President’s lifeless body out of the way, tossed aside Ryan’s weapon, and directed his glance to the black briefcase that was handcuffed to the MIL AIDE wrist.
“And what do we have here?” he asked.
“My name is Major Bob Ryan,” the MIL AIDE managed to say while he tightly cradled Satchel Alpha snug against his chest.
“And my serial number is four-nine-one—”
“No, you fool!” interrupted the assassin.
“I don’t need your name, only the infamous football that you carry. And don’t bother swallowing the key.”
Like a zombie, the SAIC continued watching this horrific drama unfold. His severe concussion kept him dazed and comatose; unable to summon the coordination to grasp his pistol, he looked on as the assassin whipped out a razor-sharp K-Bar knife and proceeded to slice through the MIL AIDE wrist. And the last thing Samuel Forrest Morrison II remembered, before the 7.62mm shells exploded from the forest and ripped into his chest to end this nightmare, was the demented screams of Major Bob Rican.
Chapter 11
The occupants of the conference room sat in stunned disbelief as Major Bob Ryan’s pained screams sounded from the overhead speaker. This real-time transmission from the backseat of the limousine arrived via the SATCOM’s open microphone, along with the series of exploding gunshots that signaled the apparent death of the President.
With forehead cradled in the palms of his hands. Admiral Trent Warner sat at the head of the table, facing a detailed topographical map of the Salgir River valley that was projected on the aft video screen. To his immediate left was Colonel Lyford Pritchard, the CO of the 747’s operations team, with Brittany Cooper positioned on Warner’s right. The rest of the table’s six positions were occupied by select members of the emergency action team. All of them were attired in matching green flight suits, and displayed somber expressions on their weary faces.