“So you recruited my man to assist you in your stupidity.” McCabe smiled, then grabbed Laurel’s chin and roughly turned her to face him. “Now, my dear, do you know why your assassination attempt failed so miserably?”
Laurel didn’t fight the roughness of McCabe’s touch. She just allowed her eyes to seek out his and remain fixed as the sickening feeling started in the pit of her stomach.
“Your shooters turned on their seeker heads far too early. They could have launched the Stingers and then brought the software online. When the target became illuminated the Air Force would not have been able to react so swiftly.”
“You told them to light up the target, you said-”
“Indeed I did. Do you think killing the president would have had any bearing whatsoever on the plan? It would not. It would have only infuriated the people of this country, which you’ve managed to do anyway. After I’ve covered my tracks in Ecuador, I am finished. With money in hand I will depart forever. I suspect I can take care of all my business down south, tie up loose ends, and be on my way. You, my dear, can go for the technology in the second gallery if you wish. Personally I believe it’s going to be a little hot there in a few hours.” He smiled as he released Laurel’s chin and slapped her across the face. Then he slammed a fist into her cheek and pulled her onto the seat. He held her there, staring at her with hate-filled eyes. “And you and your father are two of those loose ends. I think you can make that call now, only we’ll change the wording somewhat.”
It had only taken Sebastian Krell two hours to return with three of his men to inform Jack that Everett was being held inside a fortress that was covered by an army of police. Collins took the news like a blow to the solar plexus. He sat in the large aircraft and turned away from the German commando and his gathered men. Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III reached out and patted Jack on the back.
Pete Golding saw for the first time the closeness of Colonel Collins and his second in command, Carl Everett, and felt he had to do something.
“Major Krell, would it be possible to get me video of the building the captain is being held in?” Pete asked.
The German tuned to Pete and shook his head. “Anything is possible, Professor, but what practical good would a video of the police headquarters be?”
Pete stood from his chair and paced the aisle. He placed his hand to his chin. That was when Charlie Ellenshaw saw that Pete was formulating a plan. He had seen it before when Golding worked with him on a few projects with help from Europa, his baby. When Pete went into planning mode, he was a dynamo.
“To start, I need every exit the building has. I also need to know approximately where Captain Everett is located.”
“I can tell you that,” Sebastian said, wondering what the tall and very thin Golding was getting at. “He’s being held in the detention area in the basement. The security for a country like Ecuador is far beyond what it was a few years ago. There’s no rushing the building to break the captain out.”
Pete stopped pacing and looked up at the German. “Rush the building? I’m afraid what I’m thinking is far more ambitious than that.”
“Okay, Pete, what gives?” Jack asked, as he regained a margin of hope.
“If I can do what I think I can with the help of Europa, I can maybe give the captain a window of about five minutes.”
“A five-minute window to do what?” Sebastian asked and looked from Golding to his men. There was a smirk on the commando’s face.
“Why, to allow Mr. Everett the time he needs to walk out of that building.”
Jack smiled and looked back at Sebastian. He returned his gaze to Pete. “Of course. What were we thinking?”
The ten-man team of FBI agents from the Los Angeles field office had waited for twenty minutes. The second team had just raided the palatial residence of the Reverend Samuel Rawlins. The Reverend was not at home, meaning the odds placed him at his office. They had to act before anyone informed the evangelist that the FBI had a warrant for his arrest.
The agent in charge of the team nodded his head and the ten men ran to the glassed-in offices of Faith Ministries with guns drawn, identifying themselves as federal agents. The staff of forty office workers stood as one. Some of the women screamed and others panicked at the abruptness of the raid.
“Everyone down, down, get down!” the lead agent called as he ran the forty paces to the large double doors with gold lettering across them. He placed his shoulder on the polished wood as he hit it on the run. He was covered by three other men as he aimed inside the office. He saw immediately that there was no one there. He cursed and stood, holstering his weapon.
“Check the employees,” he said to the men who had followed him into the office. “Find out where the Reverend has gone.” He stepped around the large ornate desk and saw that the computer was still on. He adjusted the monitor with his wrist, not wanting to place his fingerprints on anything in the office. On the large screen monitor was a live shot of the Vandenberg launch facilities. “Inform Washington that Reverend Rawlins is not here.”
The field agent knew that in one hour all air traffic over Los Angeles and the far west side of California was due to be shut down for security reasons for the double-double launches of the shuttles and the Ares platforms, but to his way of thinking that was far too much time.
“Damn it, contact Washington. I need the commercial and private corridors for Los Angeles shut down an hour early. No planes in or out.”
As his men started calling on radios, the man in charge of the L.A. field office watched the countdown of the Dark Star mission hit the sixty-minute mark. As the clock went to fifty-nine minutes he had a feeling in his gut that the evangelist had this particular CNN broadcast on for a reason, and he also suspected the Reverend was already in flight out of the state. The suspicion that he was in partnership with this Colonel McCabe was slowly being confirmed. He looked at his wristwatch and saw that it was two P.M. Pacific Time.
On the monitor, the view of Vandenberg Air Force Base showed the Combat Air Patrol as the group of four fighter aircraft shot over the launch pads for the final time before the launch.
“Well, at least they have the launches well covered. I don’t think anyone will mess with the Air Force on this one,” his second in command said as he safed his weapon and placed the nine-millimeter into its holster.
The lead agent looked at the man and shook his head.
“Yeah, that’s what worries me.”
“I don’t get you.”
“They had the same Combat Air Patrol over Washington last night and they still attempted to kill the president.”
The two agents were interrupted by a third who walked into the office.
“The director contacted the Pentagon. All air traffic except for military and law enforcement has been shut down from Oregon to Ensenada.”
“This goddamn thing is far too large in scope for the Reverend and this Colonel McCabe-someone is backing them, and it’s not just your regular bunch of terrorists. This has to be an organized military action.”
“Well, preliminary data on the weapons used last night say that the Stingers were definitely from the lot numbers on the manifests of the ones stolen from Raytheon. If they were backed by a government, why go to all the trouble? Why not use that government’s military equipment?”
“I don’t know, but as I said, this is too large in scope for one man, I don’t give a damn how rich he is.”
An hour later, the agent’s worries would be borne out.
