Back in the New Mexican pizza shop, Hiccock’s cell phone rang. He flipped it open. “Ray …What?” As he learned about the press secretary’s attempt to assassinate the president, CNN played her ominous speech to the press corps.
“Was she on the Internet just before?” Hiccock said.
“Dear God. I’ll get right back to you,” Ray said and hung up.
Hiccock turned to the major. “I’m going to make an executive decision here. Since there is nothing to indicate any other secured facility within fifty miles of where we are, I am going to assume we have found the terrorists. It is imperative that we stop them within two hours.” He nodded toward the TV and replay of Spence’s threat.
“I got communications personnel and a few MPs. The hombres at that facility are Ranger School valedictorians, dug in and probably well fortified. If it comes down to a firefight, our guys will be slaughtered.”
“Reinforcements?”
“I can try Fort Carson, but it’s going to be pure luck if they are even mustered in a day, no less in war-fighting mode.”
“Where’s all the RD divisions I hear of in briefings?”
“All our rapid-deployment units face outward, most in other countries. Getting them here is a big-time turnaround … maybe twelve hours.”
“And if this were Kuwait or Saudi Arabia?”
“Two hours.”
The Admiral walked up and interrupted. “I have a suggestion. Is there a phone book?”
The manager produced one and Parks turned to the yellow-page section. She started looking under D for demolition. She found a small display ad and called out the number. Hiccock punched it in and handed her the phone.
“Hello, is Mack there?” the Admiral said and then waited. “Mack, Henrietta Parks, I’m fine but I need your help. You boys still playing with firecrackers?”
Engles was a brute, a mass of muscle and sinew compressed into the presence of a commanding officer. His Air Cav troops were, to the man, the ultimate best. This achievement came in no small part because he made it his duty to be better than any one of them — a better soldier, a better athlete, a better flyer, and a better fighter. On this day, he once again proved alpha male, as he showed them how far they’d have to go to be better than him. Using an OH 58C Bell Ranger reconnaissance helicopter, he snagged three garters in three passes. His next-best pilot snagged two out of three.
It was a game he invented after one of his men returned from a wedding having caught the garter. He challenged him to snag the garter from a hook three feet off the ground using the tip of the strut on the helicopter’s landing rails. Like grabbing the brass ring, only at seventy miles per hour, three feet from the floor, with a margin of error of two feet to death. His Air Cav unit was number one, mostly because of his personal challenges to all of his men.
What Engles had great difficulty flying, however, was his computer. The phone line he commandeered to be his dedicated modem line was faulty when the wind wasn’t blowing, and today the soft Fort Carson, Colorado, breeze was playing havoc with his barely 56 kbs connection to his e-mail. His sister wanted to buy a new Jeep Wrangler and he was trying to enlighten her, by way of a letter, on the merits of getting a heavier suspension. Between constantly being booted and losing his connection, he hadn’t noticed the periods of inaction he had undergone, during the moments when he was hooked up, when he didn’t move or blink.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Emmerts, one of the guards at the Alison Industries main gate, was personally amused and professionally curious when he saw the three beat-up Jeep Wagoneers and an old International Scout, with fishing poles and coolers on the bumper, pull right up to the gate. “C’mere, look at this,” he called to Renko.
They watched as two old guys got out of the front vehicle, 140 or so odd years of living between them. As they approached the guard shed, one sucked his dentures and asked, “’Scuse me there, young fella. This here Alison Industries?”
“Yes, but why do you want know?” Emmerts turned and smiled at Renko. A bunch of other old guys started unloading.
Renko hustled over. “No, I’m sorry you can’t stop here, please get back into your vehicles.” One of the guys strayed from the crowd and headed behind the guard shack. Renko followed, and he witnessed him unzipping his pants, preparing to pee. “Sir, don’t do that.” The man didn’t respond and disappeared behind the structure. Renko trotted over to the back of the shack, “What are you, deaf, too?”
“No, son, I ain’t deaf.” Mack’s hand came up with amazing speed as he took the young trooper in a sleeper-hold, a chloroform-soaked rag woven between his fingers smothering the guard’s nose. The startled Renko was totally caught off guard. “Just had to get you out of the range of them cameras. You sleep tight now.”
Meanwhile, Emmerts was still dealing with the other oldster. He didn’t see the dust-covered letters on the Jeep, barely discernible as Mack & Harry Demolition Albuquerque N.M. “You have to move your vehicles.”
“But my grandson said to come stop by anytime and see the place. His name is …” he patted his pockets. “Where is it? Whoops ’sin the back.” He hobbled to the back of the Wagoneer.
Emmerts followed him, “Look, I don’t give a rat’s ass who …” As the guard came round the back of the vehicle, he came face to face with a Beretta Model 92f 9mm semiautomatic with silencer, pointed an inch above the bridge of his nose.
The old guy pushed a soaked rag toward Emmerts’s face. “Take a deep breath or die.”
Emmerts started to deflect and go at him low. Nevertheless, the old codger was surprisingly fast, blocking the younger man’s attempt and reversing the hold.
Another older guy slammed the rag on him. As the guard started gulping chloroform-saturated air, the old guy got in his face. “When you have the nightmare that will follow this little embarrassing scene, don’t forget to give the boys of UDT Unit 1, retired, the credit.”
Two guards were monitoring the entrance in the command center. “What the fuck is going on out there?” one of them said. “Where’s Emmerts and Renko?” They were startled by Mack, one of the old men, who appeared behind them.
“They got bamboozled,” Mack said. “Bye!” Two Tasers got each guard on his shoulder, jolting them out of their seats and onto the floor by the 20,000-volt sting of the handheld weaponized version of cattle-prod technology. Two other older guys ragged them, prompting Mack to comment, “This is too easy.” As if on cue, Mack’s shoulder exploded in a red ball of mush. Mack’s comrades hit the deck rolling and firing back at the source of the shot as alarms began to sound. They aimed low, taking out the shooter from the legs down. When he crumpled, another UDT guy ragged him.
With the first line of defense put to slumber, the septuagenarian fighters and Hiccock’s MPs and communications troops made their way to the main entry door. It was actually a giant vault door, programmed to close automatically upon the alarm. Mack’s friend Charlie and another old Navy grog dashed over to the upper and lower actuating arms that were linked to the motor that closed the doors. They slapped a soft package on each arm as it swung and pushed into it a firing pin connected to a detonator cord. With the skill and light step of dancers, they retreated behind the big door itself and yelled, “Fire in the hole!”
One of them keyed the detonator as the other UDT veterans down the hall ducked. Harry grabbed young Kronos, who was too curious for his own good, and pulled him behind a wall. With the explosion, the metal arms were severed and mangled. The door stopped with a groan. A piece of the arm stuck in the wall, like a javelin, where Kronos’s head had been a moment earlier.