“Hey!” someone shouted from the bedroom on the south side of the house. “Three black trucks are racing up the street! They’re coming right at the house!”
Tomas glared at Bworz and threw open the door to see three black SUVs screeching to a halt in front of the house. He tore off across the lawn firing from the shoulder, followed by another Chechen gunner, and Bworz kicked the door closed after them.
Running out to meet the lead SUV, Tomas fired point-blank into the FBI SWAT team as they attempted to dismount. His compatriot raked the other two trucks until his magazine ran dry, and both men disappeared down the sidewalk to reload, leaving more than half of the SWAT team dead or dying.
81
The president of the United States stood in the command center at Edwards Air Force Base watching a live UAV feed coming in from five thousand feet over Coronado Island. Most of his cabinet was present, along with the Joint Chiefs, FBI Director Don Lassiter, and Andrew Sloan, the acting director of the Department of Homeland Security.
General Couture stood off to the side, his arms crossed. He and the rest of the Joint Chiefs had urged the president to dispatch squads of Marines — already stationed on Coronado Island — to investigate the suspect addresses, causing both the FBI and DHS directors to pounce, insisting that direct action by the United States military was unconstitutional and that the FBI was prepared to deal with the situation.
The president had vacillated for an entire minute before giving the nod to the FBI and setting their agents in motion.
Now everyone stood watching as three black FBI vehicles drove up Second Street toward the house on the corner.
Couture checked his watch. At least a half hour had been wasted waiting on the FBI to arrive, and now they were racing boldly up the street like they were about to serve a warrant on a methamphetamine lab.
Moments earlier, there had been some confusion over who was in the black SUV that had already pulled up in front of the house, but when a man in sandals got out and sent the police cruisers up the street, the FBI director announced that it must be someone from the FBI’s lead element.
This had made no sense to General Couture or to Colonel Bradshaw, who exchanged skeptical glances. What kind of an FBI agent showed up to a raid in flip-flops?
A collective gasp swept through the room as two men burst out of the house firing AK-47s into the FBI vehicles. Meanwhile, thin wisps of smoke could be seen coming from the front of the house as the Chechens inside opened fire on the survivors of the onslaught, who fell out onto the pavement on the opposite sides of the vehicles.
Watching the fiasco was too much for General Couture, and he lost his temper. “This is why you send in the goddamn Marines!” he announced in an unprecedented display of disrespect for the commander in chief.
Everyone turned around in surprise.
He looked directly at the FBI director. “What did those men think they were rolling up to out there, Don, a goddamn barbecue?”
“Hey, I don’t have to listen to that! This is a highly—”
“The hell you don’t!” Couture retorted, his menacing glare passing over everyone in the room, including the president himself, before coming back to the FBI man. “This is a goddamn war! And if you people aren’t prepared to fight it, then you’d goddamn well better step aside! It’s a simple concept, gentlemen… lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way!”
The president cleared his throat, and everyone gave him their immediate attention. “General,” he said, pointing up at the screen, “do you have any idea who those men are?”
Couture’s eyes widened as he saw Brighton and his SEALs maneuvering against the house where all the firing was coming from. He knew instantly by the way they moved that they were spec ops troops. “My guess would be Navy SEALs, Mr. President.”
“Which means Pope?”
Couture shook his head. “Sir, I have no idea. This operation is such a mess, I don’t know how anyone possibly could.”
There came another collective gasp from the cabinet as the Chechen in the black T-shirt stepped out from the bushes and gunned down what was left of the FBI contingent before one of the SEALs shot him dead.
Sickened by what he saw, the president turned to the national security director. “Get every available civilian asset to converge on that location immediately. Make sure the police understand we have undercover Special Forces men on the scene.”
The security director nodded and disappeared from the room.
They watched as the SEALs stormed the house a short time later, with squad cars speeding toward the site.
“If they’ve got their finger on the button in there,” Couture said, “now’s when they’ll blow it.”
Within two minutes, the SEALs came running back out, waving the police away from the house, and a sense of urgency swept through the command center.
“My God, it’s gonna blow,” muttered the secretary of the interior, taking a step back as if there might be some danger in being too close to the screen.
The president looked at Couture, surprisingly calm. “Will we be able to see afterward? Or will it take out the drone?”
Couture looked at Bradshaw. “What’s our altitude, Colonel?”
Bradshaw answered, “Five thousand feet, sir. The cloud of a two-kiloton explosion can be expected to reach an altitude of fifteen to twenty thousand feet, but that’s not going to matter. The electromagnetic pulse from the blast will very likely fry the UAV’s circuitry. I doubt we’ll have a picture after detonation.”
The president looked across at the acting director of Homeland Security. “Forget, DC, Andrew. Get your assets moving toward San Diego. It looks like we’re in for a real nightmare.”
82
Samir shouldered into the room, moving Caraway aside as he reached into the closet and grabbed the seabag by the strap to drag it out.
Caraway snapped open a Benchmade fighting knife and gave it to the EOD man.
Samir cut the seabag open lengthwise, took one look at the corrosion around the bottom edge of the bomb casing, and said, “Everybody out, now!”
The SEALs fled the house like rats from a sinking ship, dragging the wounded Cox along with them. Only Brighton stayed behind with Samir. “How bad is it?”
Samir knelt down to examine the dead man who’d been trying to hide the bomb when Cox shot him. He thumbed back the Chechen’s lips, seeing he’d been bleeding from the gums for at least the past few days. “This is radiation sickness, sir. You’d better wait outside. He’s probably been getting sick for a while, but this room is hot.”
“Lethal hot?”
The EOD man shrugged. “There’s no way to know without instruments.”
Brighton stood beside him, taking a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and opening the screwdriver blade. “Can you open that access panel with this?”
“Yes, sir,” Samir said glumly, taking the tool. “I’ll come out and let you know what I find.”
They could hear vehicles pulling up out front, and they could hear Caraway hollering for everyone to stay out of the house, to get back, that the bomb’s core was exposed — and to get a corpsman for the wounded Cox and his other SEAL.
The weapon itself was slightly smaller than a footlocker and almost as long. Samir unscrewed the six screws securing the access panel to the battered green bomb housing and carefully lifted it up, checking for booby-trap wires attached to the underside of it before setting it aside. The modern digital clock inside read 00:22:14:03 and counting in green numerals.