Текст книги "Gideon's War / Hard Target"

Автор книги: Howard Gordon

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Gideon's War and Hard Target

“Too late for that.”

“You sure you’re up for this?”

“It’s not like I’m giving up any big plans I had. Plus, I didn’t like owing you, but I think I’m gonna like you owing me.”

Gideon laughed. Although their previous estrangement had been resolved, Gideon felt their bond being burnished by Tillman’s solidarity. They ght niswere now not only brothers, but also brothers in arms. But whatever gratitude Gideon felt was tempered by the fear that his brother was putting his life on the line because of him.

“Fine, you stay with Verhoven but you need me to shadow you. Especially to get through the FBI perimeter,” said Gideon. “I’m monitoring their comm frequency, so I can clear your escape route. Remember that game we used to play in the woods? Tracker?”

A voice called out from the house. “Tillman? What are you doing?”

“I gotta go,” Tillman said.

“Head down to the logging road at the rear of the compound. I’ll direct you from there.”

“Copy that,” Tillman said, pulling the radio from his ear and shoving it deep in his pocket. Ten seconds later he pulled up to the house with the ATV. Verhoven and Lorene were sitting on the other ATV, Verhoven’s fatigues sticky with her blood.

“Sir!” someone shouted from the building. “Where are you going? What are we supposed to do?”

“I’m getting Lorene to a safe place. Whatever you do, don’t let the FBI follow us.”

“We need you to—”

Before the man could finish his sentence, Verhoven’s ATV leapt forward, throwing up a spray of dirt. Verhoven cranked the ATV’s throttle to the peg and headed toward the logging road at the perimeter of the property.

20

ANDERSON, WEST VIRGINIA

Ervin Mixon had been in the chair for a long time. Long enough that the open seam of flesh where his eyelids had been had finally stopped bleeding.

Gideon's War and Hard Target

The sclera of his eyes were dry and caked with blood, and...

And she was right.

He began to cry. Slowly, the tears spread across the dry surface of his eyes, stinging like a thousand tiny needles.

And as they did so, they slowly washed away the crusted blood. And just as slowly, the blurry surroundings began to resolve into focus around him.

Same concrete walls, same chemistry equipment, same barrels of ether and bags of chemicals.

The air was heavy and thick. After leaving him there, Verhoven and his monster of a wife had turned off the air system. It was a completely sealed space, Mixon knew, kept livable only by a quarter million dollars’ worth of filtration and air circulation equipment. The minute you turned the air off, you started consuming all the oxygen in the air. Once the CO2 concentration reached 3 or 4 percent, you began suffocating.

He sensed it was now getting close.

Wherever Verhoven was going, whatever this crazy missio rrrrrrg cloon he was on, he was leaving and he was never coming back. What a mistake it had been, trying to make a buck off of Verhoven, and now he would pay for that mistake with his life.

Verhoven’s sick bitch wife had cut off his left thumb, his ears, and skinned his right hand so that he appeared to be wearing an oozing brown glove. After she was done, she had tossed the skin onto the floor. He could see it now, a shriveled wadded thing, like an old-fashioned kid glove.

She hadn’t done the sick shit to get information. No, she had done it because she liked it.

The result was that he kept fainting from the horror of what she was doing to him. Skinning his fucking hand, especially. It wasn’t the pain. It was just the invasiveness, the wrongness of it, slowly slicing away all his skin like that with the small, precise strokes of her tiny little knife.

At first he had lied and told them that he had only given up the meth operation. But after she took off his thumb, he’d given up on lying and started telling them that he knew about the terrorist operation. After that, they’d focused on exactly what he’d said and to whom. But he hadn’t given up Gideon Davis’s name. Not because he cared, or had any sense of honor, but because he hadn’t stayed conscious long enough to tell her. And in preserving that secret, keeping that one piece of information to himself, he had accidentally preserved some small shred of dignity. It was his last comfort as the room darkened through his lidless eyes, and he fell into a permanent sleep.

21

ANDERSON, WEST VIRGINIA

Gideon was situated behind the shooting ranges, looking down on Verhoven’s entire spread, trying to find a clear path for Tillman through the FBI’s cordon. They had called in reinforcements, and he could see the ATVs carrying Tillman, Verhoven, and Lorene moving up the hill. He sprinted through the woods toward the road where the FBI was approaching, a chopper flying toward them, just over the treeline.

He reached the road just in time to see a black SUV barreling toward him on the rutted dirt, kicking up a cloud of dust as it pulled to a halt. He didn’t have much time. He’d been monitoring the FBI’s comms on the radio. One team had been assigned to the logging trail at the rear of the property. He didn’t know how big a team was, though. Was it a single car? Four cars? Ten? No way to know. But he had heard a radio call for assistance to the state troopers and to the Milner County sheriff’s department. They would be closing off the county road to the east. Which meant he’d need to steer Tillman to the west. There were no paved roads for several miles in that direction, and the smaller logging trails were not shown on any maps.

He ducked back into the woods, plunging through a thicket of briars that tore at his clothes. When he came to the other side, he searched until he found a trail that had clearly been formed by the wheels of ATVs. He then picked out a large oak tree and cut a double chevron into the bark with his pocketknife. He piled three rocks immediately to its left. With that he slowly worked his way back down the hill toward the logging trail.

Gideon's War and Hard Target

When they were boys, he and Tillman had lived in a fairly...

Once they had realized that they were never going to match Natty Bumppo’s magical skills at reading smudges and broken twigs, Tillman and Gideon had developed a language of twisted vines, stacked rocks, and blazes on trees that they used to direct each other. It wasn’t magical . . . but it worked.

The chevron that Gideon cut into the tree indicated danger ahead. The piled rocks indicated that safety lay to the west of the tree. He could hear the muted sound of a V8 engine chugging up the logging road. As long as he could identify exactly where the FBI was, he could steer Tillman and the Verhovens around them. To do that, though, he needed to get closer to the road. Doing so exposed him to possibly being caught by the FBI. But it was a risk he would have to take. He had to get Tillman out of there, and then follow him to whatever the Verhovens had planned.

Working his way down toward the road, he paused occasionally to scan the woods with his night-vision scope, which helped him pick out objects in the morning gloom. Eventually he got close enough to the road to see a couple of the agents and a black Suburban. It appeared that there was only one vehicle—which meant there were probably only four agents.

He moved quickly back up the hill and piled more rocks, indicating that Tillman should continue moving west. Eventually he came across a clear-cut—a broad patch of recently logged land. In the distance stood a ramshackle truck that looked operable. If Tillman or the Verhovens could hot-wire it, they’d be home free. He slid back into the undergrowth at the edge of the clear-cut and waited.

Tillman hit the small rise on the other side of the shooting ranges, then tore down the hill, trying to pass Verhoven. If Gideon was going to leave a sign for him, he needed to be in front.

Just as he passed Verhoven, he saw it—the old danger sign from their childhood.

He slammed on the brakes so hard that Verhoven nearly ran into him.

“What the heck are you doing?” Verhoven said.

Tillman held up one hand, then signaled to turn off the ATVs.

Verhoven shook his head. It was obvious he wanted to plunge down the hill and get the ATVs to the logging trail.

Tillman turned off his ATV, then reached over, grabbed Verhoven’s key and twisted it.

“Are you out of your mind, son?” Verhoven said.

Tillman held one finger to his lips, then pointed down in the direction of the logging trail, still hidden by the trees.

“What?” Verhoven said angrily.

“I thought I heard something. If the FBI’s down there, they’ll hear our engines.”

Verhoven scowled. “We can’t move Lorene without the ATVs,” he said.

Gideon's War and Hard Target

“We have ed em"to.”

Verhoven reached toward the key. But as his hand hit the switch, Tillman heard a muffled thump in the distance. A car door.

Verhoven slowly took his hand away.

“Look, I’ve hiked hundreds of miles with eighty-pound packs,” Tillman said. “Put her on my back. I can make it a mile or two. We’ll follow this ridge to the west. It’ll skirt the road and let us get around the Feds.”

“No,” Verhoven said. “We should go east. That gets us to the county road.”

“That’s the point,” Tillman said. “If they’ve got people on this logging road, I guarantee you they’ll have somebody down there cutting off the county road to the east.”

“We have to take that chance,” Verhoven said.

“This is my world,” Tillman said. “You need to listen to me.”

“He’s right,” Lorene said.

“You need to get to a doctor,” Verhoven said.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

She climbed slowly off the ATV, as if to demonstrate.

“Let me help you,” Tillman said. “Give me your hands.” Tillman grabbed her wrists and wrapped them around his neck, draping her behind him, piggyback style, and hefting her off the ground. “Let’s go,” he said.

Lorene Verhoven weighed a lot more than the standard eighty pounds of gear that he used to carry in the service. After the first few steps, Tillman realized it had been a very long time since he’d done a full ruck march through wilderness terrain.

He began moving gingerly down the hill, trying to distribute her weight evenly across his back. At each footfall she moaned slightly.

“A mile or two, that’s all,” he said. “You’re gonna make it.”

“Yeah, but can you?” she said.

“Piece of cake,” he grunted.

It took about half an hour to get out of the woods. Tillman’s back was aching and his knees felt wobbly. Verhoven had spelled him a couple of times—but he was a decade older and thirty pounds lighter than Tillman, so he wasn’t able to carry his wife very far.

Finally they reached a broad clear-cut. Sitting near the edge was a rusting old pickup truck, attached to a trailer full of branches. Tillman set Lorene down and said, “Let me try something.”

He jogged to the truck. It was unlocked. Among the arcane skills he’d learned in his days with the CIA was hot-wiring vehicles—a skill that he’d hung on to better than his lock picking. Within thirty seconds he had the old Ford belching blue smoke from the tailpipe. He steered it around to where Verhoven and Lorene were crouched.

“Let’s get you both in the trailer,” he called. “The FBI isn’t looking for me, so if we get stopped I’ll 0em as be fine.”

He yanked some of the tangled brush off the back, creating a hollow where Lorene and Verhoven could hide. Once they were situated, he piled the brush back on top of them, then covered the brush with a tarp.

As soon as they were free, he saw a figure emerge from the woods. His heart started to race. But then he saw that it was his brother.

Gideon gave him a silent thumbs-up and a grin, then waggled his hand next to his ear, giving him the universal I’ll-call-you-soon signal. Then he melted back into the thick vegetation.

Tillman smiled and put the radio back in his ear. Then he headed south toward the Virginia border.

22

ANDERSON, WEST VIRGINIA

Sir, I see a white flag in the window.”

Ray Dahlgren turned to the sniper, who had his spotting scope trained on the house from the command post at the base of the hill leading up to Verhoven’s compound.

“It might be a trick,” the head of the HRT unit said. “It might be a ruse to walk our guys into an ambush.”

“Or it might not,” Dahlgren said. He felt the pressure of wanting to resolve this situation as quickly as possible, worried that it could turn into a Waco-type media circus. If it was humanly possible to avoid that nightmare, he was going to do it—even if he had to risk the lives of a couple of his guys. “Sniper, can you give cover from here?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“All right, have the hostage negotiator talk them out one by one. As they come out, place them under arrest and move them to the command post. If anybody fires on you, you will disengage under suppressing fire from the sniper and the HRT unit. And we’ll start from scratch. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

It was a painstaking process, talking the men out of the house. Dahlgren tried to hurry the process along, but he was too late. Well before the last man had been taken into custody, there were choppers circling the compound, long-lensed cameras trained at the ground. A CNN truck was parked on the road, too, its telescoping antennae thrusting skyward.

Still, two hours and ten minutes later, it was over. All the militia members in the house had been arrested, the house had been cleared, and all the outbuildings were secure.

The militia members were huddled in a group, cuffed at the wrists and ankles. They didn’t look like scary terrorist monsters, just frightened kids with too many tattoos and too few teeth.

“That’s all of them, sir,” the head of the HRT unit said.

Dahlgren studied the faces in fury. “Where’s Verhoven? Where’s his wife?”

The HRT man shook his head. “Not here, sir.”

“Goddamit,” said Dahlgren. His phone rang. It was the head of the FBI.

“It’s everywhere,” Director Wilson said. “CNN, Fox, you name it. Tell me you have this guy Verhoven.”

Dahlgren found himself struck dumb, unable to answer. Which was answer enough for Wilson.

“Dammit, Dahlgren, you better get your shit straight. Until you find that guy, this story’s not going away.”

“We have reason to believe Gideon Davis was here, and he may know where they’ve gone.” Dahlgren imagined his career hanging in the balance. Everything he had worked so long and so hard to accomplish was on the line. He held his breath, waiting for a response from his boss.

Wilson finally answered with a question. “What are you saying?”

Dahlgren explained the situation with Gideon that had caused him to lead a small group of agents to Verhoven’s compound. He discredited Gideon’s theory of a terrorist attack as a paranoid delusion and suggested that Gideon was responsible for what was happening.

“You have no evidence he was even there, Ray! This is your hornet’s nest.”

“With all due respect, sir, my hornet’s nest is your hornet’s nest. I suggest you consult with legal and find a charge against Davis you can keep in your hip pocket. If we need to play that card, we’ll have it. Meantime, we need a wounded FBI guy on TV looking all heroic and talking about how we’re putting the full-court press on the terrorists in our midst.”

The director of the FBI sighed in resignation. Dahlgren could tell that he’d bought himself some time. However grudgingly, Wilson wouldn’t yet hang him out to dry. “Find Verhoven, Ray.”

“I will, sir.”

“You goddamn well better.”

23

RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, DC

I want to close my presentation,” Kate Murphy said, “by thanking this commission for providing a real opportunity to bridge some gaps. I don’t like to accuse my fellow commission members from the oil industry of being shortsighted, but oil is a finite resource. Even if we drilled anywhere and everywhere, it wouldn’t solve our energy problems in the long term. But sticking our heads in the sand and pretending we can convert the United States to solar and wind in the next five years isn’t realistic either. Somewhere in the middle there’s a sane course of action that will help us move from prostrate dependence on fossil fuels to a world powered by cleaner, safer renewables. That course needs to be hardheaded and practical, guided not by ideology, but by a clear and carefully considered long-term strategy. Thank you.”

During the break Kate was approached by Tom Fitzgerald, the secretary of the interior, who said, “That was a heck of a speech.”

Kate looked up from her papers, a flicker of paranoia in her eyes. She had already spent enough time in Washington not to trust that sort of statement.

She said, “Look, I know I prinddddddsize=obably alienated everybody. But this whole commission felt like a Kabuki drama. The guys from the oil companies stand up and stake out one ridiculous, revenue-preserving position after another, and then the guys from the environmental side spin some fantasy about how everybody in America could be driving to work next year in solar-powered cars if we just wanted it bad enough.” She felt her face heating up and her voice rising defensively. “I’m sorry. As you can see, I’ve been a little frustrated.”

The secretary smiled. He was a handsome, smooth-faced man whose background was in the electric utility business. In her experience it was a sector that tended to attract the dimmer bulbs in the energy industry, but so far she had been impressed with him.

“Two things,” Tom Fitzgerald said. “First, I’m going to speak to Senator Bainbridge and make sure that you are the one to write the final draft of this commission’s report. I assume you’re okay with that.”

“Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. I’ve already spoken to President Wade about your work here, and he agrees. Although he did point out that he and your fiancé have had a contentious history.”

“Gideon’s brother was scapegoated by a bunch of politicians after he sacrificed everything for this country, and when Gideon defended him, the president sold him out.” Kate tried to keep her voice firm, but not strident. “He didn’t have the backbone to stand up to the media and do the right thing.”

“Your fiancé got caught in the crossfire. That’s an occupational hazard if you work in Washington. But say what you will about President Wade: He’s been consistent in his belief that we’ve punted on energy issues for a long time, and it’s time to develop a sane, realistic long-term policy on energy. He had hoped that this commission would be a source of unifying ideas, rather than the squabble fest that it has turned out to be. You seem to be the only person in this room speaking the president’s language.”

Kate blinked. “That’s . . . unexpected.”

“The president believes that our national security policy has been defined by energy concerns for way too long. Energy is a national security issue.”

“I agree.”

Tom Fitzgerald slid into the seat next to her and leaned confidentially toward her. “I would imagine that some pretty harsh words have been passed back and forth in your household on the subject of Erik Wade. But I think you two are on the same page on this issue. Could you put aside your fiancé’s difficulties with the president and join this administration?”

“In what capacity?”

“Probably something at an undersecretary level. I have several unfilled positions that I need help with.”

“I’m flattered.” After spending a decade tromping around on oil rigs, Kate didn’t feel particularly suited for normal work and was still sorting through her feelings about having a desk job. “I’d like to think about it for a few days.”

“Of course. Terrific.” Fitzgerald stood. “There were two things pu Am> things I wanted to ask you. The second is this—the president would like to put a face on this committee, so to speak. He’d like that face to be you.”

“Meaning what?”

“Tomorrow at the State of the Union address, the president will be making a major energy policy announcement. He’d like to tip his hat to the commission as part of that announcement. He’d like you to be there representing the commission.”

“Are you inviting me to the State of the Union address?”

“Unless you’ve got a previous engagement.”

For a moment, all she could think was that she didn’t have anything to wear. “Can I come in a pair of jeans and a hard hat?”

Tom Fitzgerald laughed, sincerely charmed. “Absolutely not.”

Kate left the hearing room on a cloud of air. It felt good to be wanted, even if she was uncertain about whether the job was right for her. But her mood quickly changed when she passed a bank of televisions tuned to CNN. On the screen was a live report about a standoff between the FBI and a militia group in West Virginia. Several people were dead, and more wounded.

Gideon.

She looked down and saw that she had missed a telephone call from a number she didn’t recognize. When she checked voice mail, there was a terse message from Gideon saying that he was okay, and whatever she might hear about him was not the truth. She tried calling him three more times, but he didn’t answer.

Where was he? What had happened? It was no comfort to her to learn that he had been right. What good was being right if he was in danger?

24

POCATELLO, IDAHO

Collier pulled the Caterpillar D4 bulldozer to a halt and switched off the engine. He was still vibrating from the experience. Half a day ago, there had been seven living, breathing human beings in the building behind him—working, dreaming, going about their business. Now they were all buried three feet beneath the frozen ground.

And he was responsible.

A sensation of power unlike anything he’d ever felt before filled him like a rising tide.

He took a moment to luxuriate in the feeling. But then he forced himself to hop off the tractor and move on. He knew this was only a prelude. In a matter of days he would be responsible for what would probably go down in history as the most famous mass murder ever on American soil. But it wouldn’t just be some aimless crazy act. It would be clean and beautiful, like the arrow of a Japanese archer, pure in its intent, just in its design, unspoiled in its execution.