Chapter 65

Chuck

One of the teams broadcast, "Got em, they are in a mass group moving through the brush. It looks like fifty to sixty of them. Not all have rifles, but the lead men do. Oh yeah, some of the people on drag have rifles too. We're coming back. They are moving toward you at your two o'clock. You won't have to worry; they don't have any perimeter guards or scouts. I'm out."

I broadcast, "Set up the wedge now at the north end of the pavilion. Find cover. See if you can find a big tree or rock or anything in case there is a blast. Remember, fire at any probable movement. Take no chances. You men in turbans come up and be a part of the welcoming committee. That should put them at ease for a few seconds. You acting as bus drivers, get your weapons in a position to get at them. Let's get set."

I watched as Lisa and Nightfox found cover and a good firing position at the corner of the pavilion. They should be able to cover their area without any problem. With them and the guys dressed up, we should be able to control anyone with rifles in the front.

Having everyone hear what everyone else was saying was a good thing. All of the men would know why I was doing something and would know how imminent contact was. It was bad though, as they all had the chance to get as scared as I was.

There was a large boulder about twenty feet out from the pavilion that I got behind. I think an entire team could have hidden behind it. Over the broadcast channel, I said, "Lisa, Nightfox, when the leaders get even with my position, tell me."

From the farthest out man in our wedge, I heard, "The leaders just passed my point. They're not paying any attention to their surroundings and just moving into the area. No one is looking to the side at all, just straight ahead. Even the men with rifles at the rear are on a Sunday stroll with their rifles slung over their shoulder."

Maybe, just maybe, we can get lucky. I looked down at my rifle and checked the position of the safety then began bunching up my muscles to stand and confront the leaders.

Lisa said, "The front is passing you now."

I stood and said, "Put down your weapons and put your hands up. Any strange movement will get you killed."

One of the men in front went nuts yelling and pulling his rifle from his shoulder. He fell backward with an unrecognizable face.

I kept yelling for everyone to put their hands into the air, but more and more rounds were being fired and more and more of the group were falling. A few men had their hands straight up with their eyes closed; probably in prayer that they wouldn't be shot. With my rifle to my shoulder, I scanned the group still standing, watching to make sure no one moved.

I broadcast, "You men at the rear begin shaking down the men still standing and tie-wrap their hands. As those guys begin taking care of that group, the next people on both sides do the same. Leave two men to provide cover and watch for movement."

I told the men still standing at the front of the group, "You three, take ten steps forward and stand." I waved at the men dressed as terrorists and said, "Shake em down and put tie-wraps on them. Be careful with the backpacks."

I broadcast, "Put all backpacks in a row out in the parking lot. Don't attempt to open them, just carry them out there and put them down."

I told the guys dressed as bus drivers, "Begin picking up the backpacks of the men who are down. You don't have to be too careful of the men; they're dead and you won't hurt them. Be careful of the packs though and look for anything hanging out."

I was still holding my rifle at the ready when a guy on the far side reached over his shoulder for his pack. I squeezed off a round that did an eye exam, but it was one of three or four rounds that nearly took the guys head off. The man next to him yelled and began crying, begging us not to shoot him. He wet his pants.

I was with that guy. I almost wet mine. As the men worked their way up from the back of the group, the guys dressed like terrorists were working their way back from the front. All the rest of the men were at the ready with their rifles pointed at the group, making sure no sudden movement occurred without immediate counteraction.

In my peripheral vision, I saw that Nightfox and Lisa were out of their positions, facing the other side of the group holding their rifles at the ready. What a way to have your intended help you with your job. But then, it's her job too. I'll bet she never figured on anything like this when she agreed to become an alternate pilot for number one.

When the last man was searched and his backpack was placed on the ground, I radioed John to tell him we were in control of the second group. John said, "Clean up your area as best as possible. If you have three buses, put all the dead in one bus. Also, police all of your brass so there is no evidence of anything happening there. We need to keep this from the general public. They don't need to know over a hundred terrorists were planning on killing a hundred thousand or so citizens."

All the men heard the broadcast and were doing a basic training ground search for any brass. They were stretched out in a line, picking up anything that was not native to the ground. The men raked branches over the ground with blood stains while trying to clean up the mess the group had made walking into the parking area.

All of the men had now changed back into their regular clothes and were attempting to get the bus drivers and terrorists off the bus one at a time to put on their own clothes.

One of the team leaders hollered at me to come to the storage area of one of the buses. He pointed at two stacks of something folded up and said, "Body bags, they expected to have bodies out here. Wonder what that's about? We'll use the bags for the dead. That way we won't smell the blood and dead people."

Another guy was equally as excited when he came to me and said, "That end bus has an entire side of the storage compartment packed with explosives. Hell, it might be the entire compartment. I can't see the other side. Let me go look."

I radioed John, "We need headquarters to send a very large containment vehicle. I probably have two to three thousand pounds of high explosives on one of the buses. See what you can do. How about getting one of the helicopters over here to use for communications to headquarters?"

John said, "Now you're thinking. I'll have one on the way over there. We have an AWACS in the air checking to make sure there isn't anything flying around that could be looking at us. It's quiet so far. They are tracking any vehicles that get near the park area as well."

I gathered the team leaders and told them, "Let's unload that bus with the explosives and put it out on the far edge of the parking lot. We'll space the back packs out and look for anything that may look like a detonator."

As soon as they were beginning to move the explosives, one of the team leaders called a halt. He came to me and said, "All of them are wired together with detonators on each case. I've got men cutting wires and looking for a receiver. I think that bus was what they were going to use to destroy the bridge."

I said, "If that's true, the trigger should be up near the driver or a passenger seat behind or next to the driver, let's look. Ah, let's get everyone away from around the bus and let's move it to the other side of the parking area. I think I can drive it. Wait for me to get it moved."

As soon as I sat in the driver's seat, I found the trigger. It was a plain box that had wires that went through the floor, and also to a box with two large gel cell batteries on the floor. The wires had spade ends on them but were not connected. I used my Kbar and cut the wires going through the floor then picked up the batteries and put them outside the bus along with the control box.

Back on the bus, I looked around for another control point while walking up and down the aisles of the bus. I didn't see anything, so I went back up to the driver's seat to move the bus. Once the bus was moved to the other side of the parking area, I saw a large stack of boulders that I thought would be good to put the bus behind. If it went off, at least the boulders should shield us from most of the blast and shrapnel.

Helicopters began arriving. When one set down, a group of men got off, wearing white jumpsuits, and carrying big square briefcases. They were greeted by the team leaders and were led to the backpacks. All of the eight men began delicately opening the backpacks and inventorying the contents. Another helicopter had more men in white coveralls and they headed my way toward the bus with the explosives.

I told them about the detonators in each case of explosives and the control box and batteries that I had already removed. They just nodded and went to the bus to begin working with those explosives.

John and some more men got off some other helicopters and I went up to meet them at the pavilion. John counted our prisoners to discover we had forty-two men captured even though we had been forced to kill twenty-six. John said, "All of these men are going to be a problem. Where can we put them?"

I said, "Use the buses and drive straight to Colorado. If you can get them into the maximum security prison there, that would be as good as Cuba."

John said, "Damn, couldn't you have just shot them?"

"I was trying to be a good guy, John. I think the men would have gladly taken care of it, but we're not trained that way. We should have put them on their bus and pushed the button. That would do it. I'll bet they were planning on doing that with a busload of them anyway."

My stomach was growling, so I asked, "Do you have any food yet? I'm starved and I don't really want another MRE."

John looked at me as if aggravated, "That's all you'll get until we get this cleaned up. We have some Deputy Marshals on their way to take control of the prisoners, but you're going to have to delegate some of the teams to accompany them. I think you have the right idea of going straight to Colorado, so let's use the buses and the Suburbans and haul the prisoners straight there. I'll have our electronics tech go over the vehicles to make sure they don't have any GPS locators on them. If they do we'll just dump them along the road somewhere. Can you assemble your men for me to talk to them?"

I used the radio and broadcast, "All personnel fall in behind the pavilion. The leader wants to talk to all of usnow."

Knowing that everyone in these teams came from some form of military background, I got what I expected. Everyone, except the men guarding the prisoners, were standing at ease in three rows.

John looked around to see the guards with the prisoners so he keyed his radio and said, "I'll just broadcast this so everyone can hear this together." He took a deep breath and said, "You men have neutralized a threat to our country that is even bigger than nine eleven. It's just like the massive cache of explosives we found in Las Vegas recently. The result of the terrorists' activities would have killed thousands and would have interrupted commerce in the San Francisco and Oakland area for years. You are to be congratulated. All of you will receive commendations in your file and I'm sure that will mean something extra for you in your pay sometime soon."

John moved around a little, then addressed the men again, "I need some volunteers to ride with the buses to Colorado. About twenty men should do the trick, so any of you who want to make the trip, see Agent Peters over by the prisoner bus."

He looked at all of us standing in front of him and said, "You, we, did good on this. Good job and thanks."

John motioned for me to join him, "Chuck, you should probably write a report describing how you took the buses and terrorists' guards and then how you took down the group that came in. Don't do it on Marshal's paperwork and don't talk about it to anyone, absolutely no one. Make sure Lisa and Nightfox know that too."

John was uncomfortable about something, and he said, "They had me join up for this one mission and I don't think they plan on keeping me as part of their network. I think I'm even going to ask to not be invited on future missions. This was as close as I want to get to being blown to smithereens. Damn, that had to be the scariest thing I've ever seen. Weren't you scared?"

I smiled, "Sure, John. Just like any other time I've been shot at or been under attack back when in the military. At the time, it's so scary you shake, but it passes. As soon as it's over, it's over. Life goes on, John, you made it and are able to do it again another day."

"I think I'm done, Chuck. I don't want any more of this and I need to be a dad and husband. I'll do what's necessary for the Marshal's Service, but even there, I don't want any more hairy stuff. Christ, just think if that bus over there goes off. There won't be enough of me or anyone else to ship back in a body bag. I just want to get the hell out of here."

"Relax, John, go sit in the shade over there behind that boulder. Nothing is going to get around all those boulders next to the bus and that big one over there. Have some coffee, I smell it. Someone is making us a snack."

I had never seen John in this condition, but I guess this had been a real awakening to him. These few days had put that final fear into him. It had taken away his military daring and was telling him he had no more second chances. I kind of knew the feeling, but had regained my confidence each time it had happened. In his condition, John wouldn't be a good partner on something really dangerous. He might fold at the wrong time.

Lisa was waving at me and yelling, "Come on over, there's coffee and sandwiches over here. They brought us something to eat."

Nightfox was sitting with a big cup of coffee and four sandwiches in front of him. I took a couple, along with a cup of the fresh coffee, and sat with Lisa and Sam. Lisa touched my hand and said, "You know what? We do make a good team. Sam and I were your backups all the way. Between the two of us, I wasn't concerned at all. All those explosives were a worry, but you can't do anything about them if they go off, so we were just ready to keep that from happening if we could."

Sam said, "Little Lisa is a real torch. She was picking off those guys faster than I could spot them. They were all clean shots as others fired at the same time. We had a good team, Chuck. Everyone was on top of the situation and worked to make it happen."

Lisa grinned, "That's the first time I've had to use a weapon in combat. When I got shot down, I was picked up before anyone could come try to capture me. Doing this stuff is scary, but not really that bad when you have others you can depend on. We do make a good team."

We ate, or rather stuffed ourselves on some real food and had some coffee. While we were at the picnic tables, a couple of bomb container trucks arrived at the parking lot. The guys in the white coveralls began putting explosives in each of the big armored trucks. They had emptied all of the backpacks of explosives and detonators and had consolidated them into boxes to stack easily.

The three of us walked over to watch and observe, then were asked to move the bus back to the pavilion area so it could be loaded with prisoners. Two buses were going to be used for prisoners, along with the three Suburbans. Each bus was going to have eight guards and each Suburban would have four men. It was going to be a long drive, so the Secret Service had sent some professional bus drivers to take the wheel.

All of the prisoners were given a chance to go to the restroom and were now chained with waist and ankle restraints. After a small snack and a cup of water, the prisoners were chained into their seats and secured. The guards got on the buses and the other men got into the Suburbans. The bus carrying the dead brought up the tail, as it was going into Seattle to get rid of its grisly load.

John came over to us and said, "Come on, we can take a helicopter back to Seattle. The rest of this cleanup is being handled, so we're out of here. Come on, I want to go home."

Our helicopter was loading when I noticed someone I knew in the cockpit. I banged on the window and waved. Mouse grinned and waved back. He opened the door and asked, "Want to fly this thing back to Seattle?"

"Naw, you do a good job. I'm going to relax for a few minutes." I remembered something and asked John, "Where are my rifles?"

John nodded and pointed at another helicopter that he had come in on. I ran over to it and found my two field cases with the rifles in them. I pulled them out and went back to our helicopter and climbed on. Lisa smiled at me and asked, "Didn't want to forget your toys, did you?"

We flew back to Seattle fairly fast, landing at the airport in front of the hangar where the Citation was parked. I waved at Mouse as he took off again, to go back to the busy parking lot out at the park.

We walked back to the Citation and had to display our IDs to the guards there. We stashed our packs and weapons before I asked everyone. "We can find a clean bed and get some sleep or maybe grab a shower and head back now. What does everyone want to do? I'm in favor of getting cleaned up and sleeping a few hours, then flying back. We'll fly through to Andrews so John can get home, so it will be a long flight."

Even John was nodding in agreement. He said, "No sense in killing ourselves by being too tired. Let's relax, clean up, have a nice dinner, and fly home early in the morning. I'm sure our bodies are still on east coast time, so we can leave here at three or four local time.