All Necessary Force

the fluids in his system to mitigate the loss of blood. His pallor was gray, his lips going blue.

Jennifer said, “His pulse is thready. He’s going into shock, and he’s lost a lot of blood.”

He doesn’t get to a trauma center soon, and he’s dead.

I said, “Help out Decoy. He’s got an in-and-out to his shoulder.”

I dialed Kurt and filled him in on what had occurred, saying, “I need a medevac right now, or Retro’s going to die. A helicopter. I don’t think I can get him to a hospital soon enough.”

Like the good commander he was, he completely ignored the fact that two active-duty Taskforce members were out hunting terrorists with me, getting right to the heart of the issue. “Pike, I’ll do what I can, but the emergency response system is overloaded. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get you rotary wing any quicker than driving. You need to make a hard call. You stay there, he might bleed out because I can’t get anything.”

“What about the fucking president? Can’t he get something done?”

“You want the president to choose one life over another? He won’t do that. If there’s a helo available, it’s headed your way, but if not, it means it’s on another medevac.”

“No, I don’t want him to choose one life over another. I mean that the guy owns helicopters. Send me Marine One. This LZ is big enough.”

I heard nothing for a split second, then, “That’s genius. Stand by.” I waited, the phone mute, then heard Kurt say, “It’s launching right now, with the White House doc. Give me a grid.”

I relayed the grid to the open area in front of the substation, then Jennifer and I moved Retro down to the makeshift LZ, getting him as comfortable as possible.

I said, “Decoy, can you handle exfil?”

“Yeah. No issues.”

“It’s all yours. Helo’s probably ten minutes out.” I smiled. “Don’t forget to lock the Suburban when you leave.”

He didn’t smile back, and I knew he was still beating himself up. “Pike—”

I held up my hand. “I don’t want to hear it. Get Retro to a hospital. That’s your mission now.”

He nodded. Jennifer bent over him, tightening the bandage on his shoulder. He caught her arm, causing her to stop.

“Hey, that was some good shooting. Thanks.”

She wiped his blood off her hands, looking physically ill. All she said was “I had a good teacher.”

I said, “You ready for round three?”

She checked her Glock, reflexively ensuring there was a round in the chamber, then opened the driver’s door to the Suburban, her face devoid of any emotion. She fired up the engine.

Decoy said, “Looks ready to me.”

I wasn’t so sure.

We took the beltway to Pennsylvania Avenue, weaving across lanes and using the shoulder whenever we got bogged down. Crossing into Maryland, we continued southeast down the peninsula into a rural area and away from the D.C. traffic, allowing us to pick up speed. Jennifer continued driving on the ragged edge of losing control, barreling down Highway 4 toward the nuclear plant.

Pulling up the moving map display on my cell phone, I could see the target phone was still in the park. In fact, it didn’t look like it had moved much at all since we’d first locked on to it. I called the techies to make sure my data track was functioning. I got some bad news.

“Pike, the phone’s GPS is disabled. He turned it off. We’re only tracking it by triangulating its signal through the cell towers. It’s not that precise. You’re going to have a plus or minus of over four hundred meters out in that park. Sorry.”

“So he’s in the park, but no telling where?”

“Yeah, that’s about it.”

I thought through the ramifications, then called Kurt to let him know our status. “We’re still about thirty minutes out. Put the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant on high alert. I don’t see how he could get through their tight-ass security and get close enough to use the EFPs against the reactors, but there’s nothing else near the geolocation of the phone. We’re headed there now, but it’s going to take some time.”

He said, “Pike, we’ve done a range analysis on a facility map. He can fire the EFP and hit the reactor dome from outside the fence line.”

“How? It’s still just an EFP, even if it’s a powerful one. He’ll be shooting from over a hundred meters away, outside of the envelope the congressman gave me. It won’t have the power to penetrate the dome.”

“A test version was used on a covert action in Sudan. I just found out it exceeded all parameters. He fires it, and not only will it hit, but it will penetrate.”

Jesus Christ. I shouldn’t have wasted effort on the other team.

I said, “I’m not going to get there in time. Where are we on the police response? Flood the damn place. Get enough in there, and they’ll get it done, whether they know what they’re looking for or not.”

“All jurisdictions are swamped with the power outage. It’s turning into chaos on the streets. Looting and other bullshit. There are no police. We’re trying to break some free, and getting ones and twos from individual jurisdictions. It’s not going to be coordinated and it sure as shit won’t be quick. They’re coming from all over. They certainly won’t beat you there.”

“What about the CAT team? Get their ass in the air. They’re trained for this sort of thing.”

“Pike, the threat against the national command authority is too great. The Secret Service isn’t going to release the counterassault team to go offensive. Their job is to protect the president, and believe me — they’re taking that job seriously. This place is turning into an armed camp.”

“I get that, but what about the guys off duty? Get them moving. All hands on deck. The CAT’s got at least four full teams, and they aren’t all manning a wall.”

Kurt paused for a moment, then said, “Yes. That’s true, and they’ve been mobilized. The only men available went with Marine One to extract Retro and Decoy.”

Shit. That hit just keeps on giving.

I threw out one final idea, knowing I was sending in children to fight a grizzly. “Get the fucking forest service guys that work the park to start looking. That’s where he’s at. Find some high ground with a clear line of sight to the reactors. That’s where he’ll be. It’s nothing different from countersniper work.”

I ran out of stupid suggestions, and waited on his response.

Kurt said, “Pike, bottom line is you’re it.”

He let that sink in, then said, “Stop him. You hear me? All bets off. Stop that son of a bitch. I don’t care what it takes. Pull the rabbit out of the hat. Like you used to do.”

With a sense of failure building in my gut, I said, “No issues, sir. I’ll get it done.”

And hung up.

There was one bright point that Kurt hadn’t considered: I had Jennifer with me, and we kicked ass as a team when under pressure. Shit, especially under pressure. As much as any man I had ever served with — even Knuckles. It was something subliminal, something that couldn’t be taught or measured, but it was there, and I would need every single bit of it.

Unfortunately, right now I was unclear of her mental state. The choices boiled down to two — split up or stick together. Splitting up was the better option because we could cover more terrain, but I didn’t want Jennifer to get hurt if she got caught off guard. I was having doubts that she could pull the trigger unless she was in a completely defensive, life-threatening situation. And that might cost her dearly.

I mulled it over for the rest of the ride, getting pulled out of my thoughts when Jennifer said, “This is it.”

We drove up to a yellow shack and paid five bucks to a man-boy to get in the park. I couldn’t tell if the uniform he was wearing was an official Park Service one or from a Boy Scout troop. Yeah, these guys have the attack under control.

Winding around the parking lot, I saw some sort of playground structure made out of old tires, looking like something from Mad Max, with kids happily climbing all over the used rubber.

I said, “Get to the farthest point north you can. That’s where he’ll have entered.”

She parked on a spit of grass, and we exited, looking at a map of the trail network. I saw three that sprouted from the trailhead and went generally parallel to each other. Splitting up really was the best option, because I had no idea which trail he might have taken. Two out of three were better odds than one out of three.