O’Brien squealed the tires racing out of the parking lot, almost hitting a man unloading golf clubs from the back of a car. “Did the driver leave after he dropped off the man?” O’Brien asked.
“Dispatch doesn’t know. The driver isn’t answering his radio or his cell.”
“Which means we can’t get a description of his customer.”
“Yeah.”
“How far is this place?”
Hunter looked at the GPS. “About eight miles. Take Bay to 95, then to 105 and follow it to Hecksler. I’ll start calling for backup as soon as I get a satellite image of the area.” Hunter punched in the coordinates for the Pier 13 area and watched a satellite image appear on his hand-held screen. He zoomed in to about five-hundred feet above the buildings. “If they’re in a warehouse directly in front of the pier, we can have the snipers on the two buildings to the east and west. Maybe catch the hostiles in crossfire. Plenty of cover even for ground forces.”
O’Brien shook his head. “To catch them in crossfire is to wait for them to come out. They’ll be more cautious leaving. We don’t know if the winning bidder will come there to pick up the HEU, or if Borshnik’s men will leave it in storage for the buyers, especially if the winning bid is from overseas.”
“Could be from Mohammed Sharif’s camp. And they are somewhere in Florida.”
Hunter made a quick series of calls, creating a plan of attack with federal agents and local SWAT. “Remember, chief, there can be no sirens. Nothing but stealth, and we’re calling the shots.”
Mohammed Sharif used hand signals to direct his men as they came closer to the door. Each man carried a side weapon and held Berettas or modified AK-47 assault rifles. At the door, he reached down and carefully turned the handle. It was not locked. The Russians expected no one. Sharif pushed open the door. They stepped in, firing.
Two Russian guards died instantly. The rest returned fire. Bullets ripping through flesh, splattering blood across the gypsum walls of the old warehouse.
Jason looked in horror as a bullet hit one Russian in the throat, his body falling across Jason’s lap and tumbling to the floor, the sound of gurgling drowned by gunfire.
Two of Sharif’s men died within five seconds. But the Russians, caught off guard had nowhere to retreat. Bullets exploded the computers, ricocheting off the brick on one wall. Borshnik fired three bursts from his Makarov before a bullet caught him square in the chest, his body falling against the chair where Gates was electrocuted, water from the buckets splashing across the floor.
In less than a half minute it was over. Eight Russians lay dead. Three jihad members were dead. Sharif’s shoulder was bleeding. Heavy smoke and the smell of gunpowder, blood and death seemed trapped in the room.
Sharif looked at the HEU canisters. “Take them to the boat. We must be out of here in seven minutes.” Sharif stepped over to Jason. “Are you Canfield? Are you the son of the American hero who lost his life on the USS Cole?”
Jason looked up at the man through puffy, swollen eyelids. “Yes.”
Sharif’s dark eyes radiated hate. “Do you have a brother or sister?”
“No.”
Sharif pulled a knife out of his belt. “Infidel. When I cut your head off, it will be to remove your father’s seed and yours from the face of Earth.”
Jason’s hands trembled, his breathing rapid, bile rising in his throat.
Sharif touched the blade to the center of Jason’s throat. He smiled, his teeth wet with saliva. His men watched him for a moment, the only sound coming from a blowfly hovering and buzzing above Borshnik’s body.
He lowered the knife. “There will be a better time for your death,” he said, placing the knife in the sheath. “Perhaps you will be the young man who is there when the atomic bomb detonates in this country. It will be an explosion heard around the world. They will call you the ultimate suicide bomber. But I do not believe paradise will await you, Jason Canfield.” He turned to his men. “Take the infidel to the boat.”
In less than ten minutes, the ten U-235 canisters were loaded on the forty-five foot Sea Ray at the end of Pier 13. Sharif looked at two of his men standing on the dock and said, “Rayhan, you and Nasif take the SUV. Proceed to Savannah. We will contact you before we arrive at the docks. Meet with Hashmin and Yasir. They are holding the professor’s daughter in the house we rented. I will speak to the professor directly. I feel positive that he will be most cooperative.”
The men nodded and ran back to the Ford Navigator. Sharif boarded the boat with the rest of his men. “Cast off!” he yelled. They untied the stern and bow ropes. “Go! Go! Now!” Sharif ordered. The man behind the wheel gunned the big diesels and within a minute the Sea Ray was on plane, the pilot heading for the channel markers.
“Set a course to Savannah, Georgia. Up the river from there is a place-the Savannah River Site. It is America’s largest facility for the manufacture of nuclear bombs. And near there lives the man who will make ours.”
Sharif glanced at Jason, bound and lying on the salon floor. He said, “Your time is short Canfield. Admit and recant all of the atrocities your country does, on video, and perhaps you will live. Or you will die strapped to an atomic bomb.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
O’Brien pulled onto a service road. The chain on the gate had been cut, the gate partially open. “Follow the yellow brick road,” he said.
“Don’t follow it too far,” Hunter said, reaching into the back seat for two assault rifles. He put one on his lap and the second between the seats. “Backup’s coming. We have two choppers in the air-”
“Tell them to stay back. Stay back far enough so Borshnik can’t hear them. All he needs is an excuse to slit Jason’s throat.”
Hunter hit numbers on his cell. “Keep the birds back … yes … at least half a mile, maybe more if they’re coming over the river.”
Three vans of federal agents and six SUVs filled with SWAT team members pulled up behind O’Brien. Hunter and O’Brien got out of the car and briefed the men. O’Brien said, “We’ll look for the most obvious point of entry in relation to wherever the hostiles have their vehicles. Cab driver is a non-hostile. A twenty-year-old male is being held hostage. His name is Jason Canfield. I will need four men to follow me. Hunter can use that many on the rear and sides of the warehouse we enter. The rest of you spread along the perimeter of the buildings.”
Hunter said, “We’ll leave the vehicles here. Follow the tree line down toward the water and then separate.”
O’Brien hid behind a tall growth of weeds next to a fence and looked at the scene less than one-hundred feet in front of him. He could see at least three bodies. Something in his gut told him there would be more.
Was Jason alive? His thoughts raced, trying to suppress the images of Lauren Miles dying on the floor. “I have a visual on what appears to be three dead hostiles,” O’Brien whispered into the small microphone.
“It’s time we paid our respect to the dead,” Hunter said in O’Brien’s earpiece. “Gents, cover Sean and me as we run for the cab on the east side of the warehouse.” From where Hunter lay in cover, behind a partially crumbled seawall, he watched as O’Brien used a hand signal for the two of them to move forward. Both men ran hard, heads down, zigzagging toward the parked cab.
Except for the slight sound of a chopper in the distance, silence. O’Brien rose to look in the taxi window. “Head’s almost gone,” he said in a low voice.
“Look ….” Hunter mumbled, pointing toward two bodies. “Man, what the hell did they do to Gates?”
“Borshnik electrocuted him. Same fate his father got in 1951.”
“Eye for an eye. The second body, it’s one of Borshnik’s men. I recognize him from the Chapman’s Fish House camera. What the hell’s going on, Sean?”