Richter in surprise. “You didn’t bring a gun, Major? I knew you’ve spent too much time in those robots.” He pushed the M-16 rifle into Jason’s hands. “Don’t let that traitorous bastard Chamberlain get away.”
Jason hesitated—he knew Khalimov was nearby, and the sergeant major was helpless—but the increased roar of the Black Hawk’s rotors told him time was running out, and he hurried away.
When Richter ran off, Khalimov came out of cover, his weapon raised, and approached Jefferson. “Why, it’s the old sergeant,” he said. “I owe you something, Sergeant.” Khalimov shouldered his rifle and started to trot as if he was a soccer player lining up for a game-winning penalty kick. “I believe you said, ‘Hey, asshole,’ just before you kicked me in the head back in Brazil. Hey, asshole sergeant, this one is for you.” He aimed carefully at Jefferson’s unprotected head…
…but at the last instant Jefferson caught Khalimov’s boot centimeters before it landed and twisted it as hard as he could. The Russian cried out as his right foot was twisted at an unnatural angle and went down hard. He came up, roaring like a wild animal, with a huge knife in his right hand. Just as Jefferson was trying to get up to face this new threat, Khalimov lunged at him…
…but when the Russian tried to put weight on his right foot to make the final thrust, his broken ankle collapsed. Jefferson grabbed Khalimov’s right hand and twisted the knife out of his fingers as he fell. Using the Russian’s own momentum, he rolled on top of Khalimov, twirled the knife around in his left hand, and jammed it into Khalimov’s unprotected throat.
“That’s Sergeant Major to you, asshole,” Jefferson growled. He didn’t let him go until he felt the last liter of blood pump out of his body.
It was the first time since Officer Candidate School that Richter had even held an M-16 rifle. The Black Hawk began to lift off, just a few dozen meters away now. He could see Chamberlain and Zakharov in the troop compartment—Chamberlain cowering in fear behind the sliding door, and Zakharov waving gaily and mugging Jason’s awkward running with the rifle.
Jason dropped to one knee, raised the M-16, and squeezed the trigger. Nothing. He looked at both sides of the weapon before remembering the selector switch, found it, moved it from safe to auto, raised it again, and pulled and held the trigger. He saw the Black Hawk in his sights for just a split second before the muzzle suddenly took on a life of its own and jerked wildly into the air.
For Christ’s sake, Jason admonished himself, he couldn’t hit a huge helicopter just spitting distance in front of him! Jason fought to remain calm, and found when he did that he remembered sitting in on a couple of lessons Doug Moore gave Ariadna on the firing range. To his surprise, Doug’s words came back to him, reinforcing his own shooting lessons from so many years back: relax; focus on the front sight; squeeze, don’t pull the trigger; calm down and just do it.
Jason flipped the selector switch from auto to semi, lined up on the Black Hawk’s open cabin door, took a deep breath, let some of it out, and started to gently squeeze the trigger. The weapon’s sudden report startled him. To his surprise, he saw the Black Hawk starting to swerve in the air, and he also saw Robert Chamberlain lying on his side, his hands clenched on his stomach, his mouth and eyes wide open in obvious agony…and a dark stain spreading quickly on the front of his body.
Yegor Zakharov scrambled for his Dragunov sniper rifle—Jason could scarcely believe how fast he had it on his shoulder. He could practically feel Zakharov’s eye on him through the Dragunov’s telescopic sight, feel the crosshairs aligning on his forehead…
No! Jason screamed at himself. Remain calm! Remain focused! He lined up again on Zakharov, took a deep breath, and started to let it out…
He saw a wink of light from the helicopter door and knew it was the Dragunov’s bullet heading for him…but he forced himself to relax, and squeezed the trigger, and again the M-16 barked before he expected it. Jason thought the sudden burst of air he felt across the right side of his forehead was the muzzle blast from his M-16—it was probably a good thing he didn’t know it was the Dragunov’s 7.62-millimeter round whizzing just millimeters away from his head. He fired three more times before he forced himself to look, expecting a Russian bullet to obscure his sight as it zeroed in on his brain.
Instead, what he saw was Zakharov writhing in pain in the door of the Black Hawk helicopter, both hands over his left eye. He was kicking and thrashing in agony, yelling something hysterically at the pilot. The Black Hawk did a steep left turn over Lafayette Square, quickly picking up speed and altitude, and was soon lost to view.
“Good shooting, Jason.” Jason lowered his rifle and saw Ray Jefferson walking painfully over to him. He knelt down and motioned to a large patch of disturbed lawn where Zakharov’s round had hit—well within the shadow of Jason’s head cast on the ground. “I’d say that one had your name on it, all right.”
“Doug Moore was talking to me, Sergeant Major,” Jason said. “I could hear him coaching me.” He looked at the M-16 rifle in his hands, then slowly, deliberately, moved the selector switch back to safe. He turned it over a few times experimentally, then nodded in mock wonderment. “So this is an M-16 assault rifle—a real infantryman’s weapon, huh?” he remarked.
“That’s right, sir,” Jefferson said. “No batteries, no air data sensors, no targeting computers—but in the right hands, every bit as deadly as a CID unit.”
“Cool,” Richter said. “Maybe you could teach me how to use it sometime, Sergeant Major?”
“Be glad to, Major,” Ray Jefferson said with a smile. “Be glad to.”
EPILOGUE
Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland
Two days later
It was the very same hangar in which they had all first met, Jason realized, but so much had changed since that first demonstration. They had a nicer plane now, an Air Force C-37A, the military version of the Gulfstream Five, instead of the old C-130 Hercules; there were three Cybernetic Infantry Devices in the hangar instead of one, although one of them, the original CID, was pretty badly beaten up. But the most important thing was that they had a team, a real team…
…at least, he hoped they still did.
“I remember almost from the very beginning that you thought something was fishy about our task force, Jason,” Special Agent Kelsey DeLaine said. “I never believed in what you were saying because I judged you by your looks.”
“No—you judged me because of my attitude, which I’ll admit was nothing short of totally suck,” Jason said. “I never believed we were meant to succeed, and it turns out that’s exactly what Chamberlain had in mind right from the beginning: he picked two inexperienced, uncooperative rookies to lead a first of its kind unit; he picked an old hard-nosed noncommissioned officer to train us; he mixed experienced operators in with unproven technology just to make us butt heads; he encouraged us to make the wrong decisions.”
“All for revenge,” Kelsey said. “Zakharov and Chamberlain, both scorned employees, working together to kill thousands of innocent persons and attack two major U.S. cities—just to hurt their ex-boss.”
“Who are you calling ‘old,’ Major?” They turned and saw Sergeant Major Ray Jefferson walking toward them, wearing a suit and tie with the jacket draped over his shoulders, his right arm in a sling, supporting his injured shoulder.
“Is…is that you, Sergeant Major?” Jason remarked. “You’re…in a tie?”
“Button it, sir,” Ray said. “I can still kick your butt up and down this hangar.” They clasped hands warmly.
“No doubt, Sergeant Major,” Jason said.
“Call me Ray, sir—you look a little constipated when you try to follow military protocol,” Jefferson said. He clasped hands with Kelsey, and she gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“I dunno—I was getting used to a buzz cut,” Jason said, running a hand over his newly close-cropped hair. “I think I’ll keep it.”
“At least I taught you something.”
A few moments later a dark Suburban was admitted to the hangar, and soon the President of the United States and Harold Kingman emerged from it, surrounded by Secret Service agents with submachine guns. The three snapped to attention. “At ease,” the President said immediately. He shook hands with all three. “I wanted to see
