Troy nodded. “Maybe it is a good idea from their standpoint.”
“Good? Are you kidding me? It’s brilliant. Gadanz finds and recruits terrorists who are devoted to destroying this country but lack the money and hardware to make any real difference. He brings them into the States on the sly and trains them while he gets everything ready, while he arranges places for them to live, multiple getaway vehicles for them to use, and a way to get them cash, which turns out to be Jacob’s company in Virginia. Daniel takes his time so nobody gets suspicious, and he’s got plenty of money from the drug business to fund these guys. Then, when everything’s set, he gives the order and turns them loose. Eleven super malls are attacked within minutes of each other in big cities across the country. The population is petrified, and the economy grinds to a halt. And the death squads keep attacking, so civilians go deeper and deeper underground. Nobody shops, parents keep kids home from school, workers even stop going in.” Travers gestured ahead of them through the orange grove, toward the complex in the middle of the thousands of acres of fruit trees. “Maybe this is where he brought the terrorists initially. Maybe this is where they trained.”
Everything Travers had said made perfect sense, Troy had to admit.
“The squads completely distract law-enforcement from whatever else they’re doing, so the syndicate makes more money. And if the distribution syndicate makes more money, so does the producer. That’s why Molina loves it.”
“I hear you,” Troy agreed.
“Jacob told us this morning that Kaashif is a front man for some very nasty factions in Syria and Afghanistan, some real hard-line extremists who are ultimately committed to destroying the United States. They’d make perfect partners for Daniel because—”
Travers was interrupted by the sound of engines firing up somewhere in the distance ahead of them.
They were jet engines, Troy realized as he rose from his knees, quickly climbed the tree they were beneath, and peered through the branches at the top. He recognized the sound instantly.
“What you got?” Travers called up.
“About five hundred yards west of us, there’s a Learjet coming out of a barn with guards all around it.” He recognized the distinctive shape of the aircraft’s sleek design immediately. “Somebody’s getting out of here.”
Travers scanned the satellite images quickly. “There’s what looks like a runway on here. Maybe whoever it is got a heads-up about us. We’ve got to stop them.”
Troy dropped to the ground, grabbed the MP5 leaning against the base of the tree, and the two of them took off together.
“I saw at least five guys with guns around the plane as it was coming out of the barn. There were probably more. And it looked like they were carrying automatic weapons.”
Travers nodded to Troy as they ran through the tightly spaced trees, raising their arms to protect their faces from low hanging branches. He was calling the special-forces commander, who was already heading their way. “Get the choppers in here fast,” he ordered as soon as the man at the other end picked up. “And come straight through the main gate with the troops. No need for anything but a direct assault at this point. We’re already headed at them. They’re pulling a plane out of a barn. What? No, we didn’t see it on the satellite pics because it was hidden in a barn. Look, I’m worried somebody important is hightailing it out of here. I know you got those Apaches inbound, but can you get someone else in the air fast who can keep up with a Learjet? Maybe somebody from MacDill or Patrick with an F-16 they can spare for a little while. Huh? Well, try, damn it. Okay, thanks. And hurry up with those choppers!”
“How long?” Troy asked as Travers slipped the phone back into his pocket.
“Six to seven minutes for the troops, two for the choppers.”
“That might still be too late,” Troy muttered.
As the barn took shape between the trees, a burst of automatic gunfire rang out, and bullets shredded branches and leaves around them. Both men tumbled to the ground and quickly crawled behind the narrow trunks of different trees for at least some protection.
Troy glanced around, spotted the shooter, who was a hundred feet away along the same line of trees, and fired back as the man aimed. The guy tumbled backward violently before he could fire again.
Troy looked around quickly for anyone else, saw no one, scrambled back to his feet, and sprinted ahead, aware that the roar of the jet engines was now close. The edge of the trees — the last line in the orchard before open ground — was only fifty feet away.
As he raced around a large tree in the next-to-last row, he got a glimpse of the plane and the barn behind it. The jet was only a hundred feet away across the open ground and seemed to be parked even though the engines were whining and whistling loudly. He checked quickly left and right but didn’t see Travers.
As he sprinted toward the last row of trees, a bullet grazed his upper left arm, and he tumbled into a clump of tall weeds between two trees. “Damn it,” he hissed, checking the wound. It burned like a nest of hornet stings, but it didn’t look deep. There was plenty of blood, but the round hadn’t hit anything critical. He still had full use of the arm.
More fire from ahead that seemed to be coming from behind several pickup trucks parked near the plane. There was gunfire coming from the left as well, from down the tree line. That had to be Travers.
As Troy rose to his knees and aimed at one of the guards standing behind the bed of a black pickup truck on the left, he spotted a man who resembled Jacob Gadanz climbing awkwardly out of a green sedan that had just skidded to a stop beside the plane. The man wore a white suit and was carrying a large briefcase, and when he finally made it out of the car, he labored toward the steps leading up to the fuselage.
Daniel Gadanz, Troy realized. Big, dark, and extremely heavyset, just like Jacob — exactly as Jacob had described his younger brother. It had to be Daniel, and they could not let him get away, so Troy made the decision. He aimed low, squeezed the trigger, and put the man down even though he wasn’t brandishing a weapon. Two guards raced for the man in the white suit even as he was still falling, picked him up roughly off the tarmac, and dragged his limp form up the jet’s steps as Troy laced the steps with another burst of fire. The two guards toppled from the stairs back onto the cement like bowling pins. But someone inside the plane reached out and dragged the big man in the bright white suit up the last two steps and into the plane. The twin engines roared, and the jet lurched forward.
Troy jumped to his feet. He was going to try to shoot the jet’s tires out. But as he rose up he became aware of a man racing toward him through the trees from the right. He started to turn in the direction of the oncoming attacker, but he realized that the other man was going to have a clean shot before he could swing the MP5 far enough around.
“Have you been through the townhouse completely?”
“Yes.”
Bill had sent another RCS agent to check out the townhome. “Were there any signs of a struggle?”
“No.”
He marveled at how the man simply followed orders and answered questions. He must have been intensely curious about what was going on, but he wasn’t giving that away at all. He was being a good soldier. “Did you find what we talked about?”