Target Response (19 page)

They were deep into the casino when their approach was temporarily balked by Tom Bland, head of the security detail.

Villard had his lawyers serve Bland with legal papers.

“To save time I’ll explain them to you,” Villard said. “What they mean is that control of Transworld Capital Fund and all its assets, most definitely including MYRMEX, has been assumed by its rightful owner, Faye Blaylock. Formerly known as Faye Blaylock Gunther. She no longer wishes to be known by her married name.”

“MYRMEX being one of her assets, she further deposes Blaise Carrollton from his position as CEO of the company and installs General Lucian Vickery in his place. That means you’re taking orders from me from now on, sonny, and if you want to keep your overpaid post, you’ll do as I say and damn quick!” said Vickerly, clearly relishing the assumption of command and the authority that goes with it.

It was all sewed up neat, proper, and legally. Faye, currently being guarded in a safe house by Jessie and Diaz, as well as a cadre of retired Special Forces and SEAL team members, had signed the paperwork, all of which had been prepared well in advance by Villard’s law firm. Once she’d affixed her signature to the documents, they’d become legal and binding.

The higher echelon of Army brass at the Pentagon, not without its own set of powerful friends and assets and resentful of Gunther’s blackmailing, had worked with Kilroy and friends to lower the boom on the financier and his creatures.

Counselor Villard handed the dazed MYRMEX security chief another set of documents.

“This is an injunction freezing all Simon E. Gunther’s assets, revoking his control over them and reverting all rights to their original and legal owner, Faye Blaylock,” Villard said.

“Gunther, Carrollton, and their crowd are going to the federal pen for the rest of their natural lives. Unless you want to join them, you’ll fall in line and hop to it,” General Vickery said.

Bland, no one’s fool, knew which side of his bread had the butter on it. Snapping to attention in a rigid brace he hadn’t held since his days as a West Point cadet, he said, “Yes, sir! Awaiting orders, sir!”

“Now you’re talking,” the general said, smiling wolfishly.

A short time later, an unusual scene developed in the Imperium penthouse tower as the squad of MYRMEX guards posted there to reinforce the Morays in protecting Gunther and Carrollton deserted their posts and thronged in front of the penthouse elevator.

Gunther stood there in slack-jawed disbelief, the Morays in simmering, seething rage.

“Stop! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Carrollton screamed at the MYRMEX squad.

“We’ve been ordered to stand down and report to the lobby,” said the squad leader.

“Ordered? By whom?”

“By Tom Bland, our unit commander.”

“Bland? Bland works for me, you idiot! I own this company!”

“Not anymore. You’ve been fired. We’re working for General Vic Vickery now. And I don’t mind telling you that after some of the stuff I’ve seen around here, it’ll be a pleasure,” the squad leader said.

“You’re fired!”

“You can’t fire me. You’re the one who’s out of a job, bub,” the squad leader said.

He and his men got into the elevator car. Carrollton was still shrieking obscenities at them after the door closed and the car started its high-speed plunge to the lobby.

Gunther put a hand against the wall to steady himself and keep from falling.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” he said.

Clan Moray—Jules, Olcott, Lillian, and Skye’s twin brother, Rory—exchanged significant glances.

“The world’s gone mad!” Carrollton frothed, spewing saliva from his lips, his face beet red. He looked like he was going to have a stroke. “What’s happening, Gunther?”

“It’s Faye,” Gunther said in a near whisper, his face expressing a look of stunned incredulity mingled with dawning realization. “That’s why they snatched Faye from Dunkel’s clinic,” he said.

“I don’t understand—”

“Don’t you see, Carrollton? Everything I own was bought with Blaylock money! As long as I had power of attorney while she was safely locked up in the nuthouse, nobody could touch me! But now that’s she’s loose and able to get her own lawyers, she’s moving to retake control of her property!” Gunther shrieked.

Carrollton staggered as if struck, reeling like a drunken man.

The Morays went into hasty family council, standing off by themselves, away from Gunther and Carrollton.

In the lobby, the elevator disgorged the MYRMEX squad who’d been guarding the penthouse. The squad leader reported to Bland for further orders.

Catching Steve’s eye, General Vickery nodded significantly.

“All clear,” Steve said into a radio handset, transmitting his message.

“Acknowledged,” was Kilroy’s response.

Several minutes later a black helicopter flew in from the west, closing on the Imperium tower. It was a modified Apache chopper bearing no identifying markings or registry numbers.

It had been “borrowed” from a nearby Army base whose personnel had been ordered to stand down and do nothing after their commander had received a scrambled phone call from a high-ranking officer attached to the office of the Army’s Chief of Staff. No record of the message existed; officially it had not happened.

The result was that the copter, containing a pilot, Kilroy, and Osgood, was now closing on the Imperium tower.

In the penthouse, Clan Moray was restive, sullenly rebellious. The Morays darted hard looks at Gunther and Carrollton.

Gunther reached a decision.

“There’s only one thing to do: Faye must die! With her dead, my attorneys can legally tie up ownership of the assets long enough for us to acquire enough funds for a getaway!” he declared.

“Before we do that, we have to know where Mrs. Gunther is,” Jules said, his voice ominously gentle. “Do you know where she is, Mr. Gunther?”

“I can find out! I’ve still got sources left, there’s still time to save the situation—”

Gunther had to shout to be heard over the racketing drone of the approaching helicopter.

Suddenly the black helicopter dropped into view, nose pointed at the long rectangular plate-glass window set in the penthouse’s west wall.

Seen from the cockpit, the penthouse was like an exhibit under glass, a well-lit dollhouse where Gunther, Carrollton, and the Morays stood out in clear view.

Kilroy said, “Do it!”

The pilot thumbed a red button in the control handle, loosing a blast from the copter’s bow-mounted chain gun.

The devastation was enormous as the chain gun streamed high-velocity rounds through the plate-glass window and into the penthouse.

Glass disintegrated along with flesh and blood as the chain gun scoured the penthouse with hundreds of rounds in a matter of seconds.

A scythe of lead harvested the Morays and Carrollton.

Gunther was turned into hamburger and the hamburger turned into holes and blue smoke.

The fusillade ended; the penthouse had become a slaughterhouse.

Rising, the black helicopter touched down on a helipad on the tower’s flat roof. Kilroy and Osgood, outfitted with flak jackets and armed with M-4s and grenades, stormed the rooftop entrance, descending to the penthouse for the mopping up.

Quick reflexes and sheer luck had combined to spare Jules and his nephew, Rory, from the slaughter; the rest of the clan was dead, shredded and pulverized. Jules and Rory crashed through a fire door, raced down the stairs in search of escape.

They hadn’t gotten very far when they met Steve on the landing, where he’d posted himself to forestall any such escapees.

Steve opened up with the M-4, cutting them down.

Jules spun, falling sideways over the handrail and dropping into the stairwell to plummet several hundred feet, bouncing off rails and stair edges before pancaking on hard concrete at the bottom of the shaft.

An instant’s realization of how much Rory resembled his twin sister, Skye, flashed through Steve’s head even as he fired into Rory’s face, obliterating it.

In the penthouse, Kilroy and Osgood prowled the scene, examining the bodies. Some were beyond recognition; all were in a complete state of death.

“Don’t shoot; I think this belongs to you,” a voice said from inside the conference room, which had been out of the firing line and escaped the devastation.

Kilroy and Osgood covered the newcomer with their M-4s. The speaker was George Knight and he was not alone. He led out another man at gunpoint.

“No tricks, mister. Lose that gun,” Kilroy warned.

“I’m putting it down now that you’ve got him covered. This is a very tricky fellow here,” Knight said.

“Who’re you?”

“George Knight. I used to work for Gunther, but I quit.”

No need for Kilroy or Osgood to inquire the identity of Knight’s prisoner. They knew him all too well.

Emerging from the stairwell, Steve entered. He stopped in amazement when he saw the captive.

“Doc Wenzle!” he gasped.

Wenzle stood there with a hangdog look on his face, eyes downcast, mustache drooping, the corners of his mouth turned down.

“I saw you die,” Steve said, amazed.

“You saw a look-alike,” Kilroy said. “I thought something wasn’t kosher about the setup at the Gall Building. The ambushers could have killed you, but instead they went to great pains to take you alive. Why?

“It all makes sense now. You were going to be turned over to the authorities so you could testify that you’d seen ol’ Doc here die. If he was thought dead he wouldn’t have to worry about the Dogs or anybody else looking for him. That’s the way you worked it, eh, Doc?”

“Pretty much,” Wenzle admitted.

“He’s been stooging for Gunther and Carrollton all along, feeding them inside information,” Knight confirmed.

“We’ll take him from here,” Kilroy said. “You go downstairs and report to General Vickery—and tell him Kilroy sent you.”

“Will do, and thanks,” Knight said.

Kilroy, Osgood and Steve, along with their prisoner, Wenzle, climbed the stairs to the rooftop helipad and boarded the black helicopter. It lifted off, flying out to sea.

When it was a couple of miles out and a thousand feet above the ocean, it hovered in place, waiting.

“I trusted you, Doc. Why’d you do it?” asked Steve.

“It was that damned investment tipsheet I was running as part of my cover. Everybody was making money on it and I fooled myself into believing my own bullshit. I invested everything I had and lost it all when the stock market crashed. I would have had to retire with nothing but my Army pension, to live in some trailer park eating off food stamps,” Wenzle said, as if that explained it all.

“Millions of people live in trailer parks with little money without betraying their friends, teammates, and country,” Steve said.

“But you won’t be one of them, Doc,” Kilroy added.

Wenzle shrugged. He didn’t start pleading for his life until Kilroy opened the helicopter’s side hatch, unsealing an exit to empty air, a black sea, and oblivion.

Wenzle babbled, sobbing and shrieking, shouting that he knew plenty about Gunther’s dirty deals and hidden assets and how they could all be rich if only they’d spare his life.

Kilroy, tiring of his noise, stuffed a grenade in Wenzle’s mouth. He had to shout to be heard over the rotor’s propwash.

“Go to hell, Doc! And tell ’em Kilroy sent you!”

Kilroy pulled the pin of the grenade crammed between Wenzle’s jaws and kicked him out of the hatch into eternity.

It was a long way down but Wenzle blew up before hitting the water.

The black helicopter flew west.

The battle was over, but the war against America’s enemies abroad—and, more dangerously, at home—will never end as long as the republic endures.

Eternal vigilance, and death to the foe!

There’s a new President of the United States…a virulent left-wing socialist who’s dismantling the military…decommissioning America’s anti-missile system and our nuclear weapons….

He orders all domestic drilling and refining of oil to stop…. He also orders that no oilcan be imported so as to “force scientists to develop a new source of green energy….”

His plan is a massive failure. The United States is plunged into darkness…. Airplanes, cars, trucks, trains are idled. Supermarkets are empty. Three quarters of Americans are facing starvation.

But the worst is yet to come.

Islamic terrorists, exploiting the republic’s weakness, detonate three nukes. When the government totally collapses, the extremists take over, renaming America the “Islamic Republic of Enlightenment.” The people’s choice is simple: submit to radical Islam or die.

Army major and helicopter pilot Jake Lantz is not going down without a fight. With a band of eight loyal soldiers, Lantz will fight off bands of roving thugs and an “Army of Allah” who attack them by land and by sea.

Jake Lantz is going to take back America.

No matter what the cost.

Tuesday, January 10

Major Jake Lantz was thirty years old. A helicopter pilot and flight instructor in the Army Aviation School at Fort Rucker, Alabama, he was in the peak of physical condition, recently scoring a perfect 300 on his latest PT test, maxing out on the three required events: push-ups, sit-ups, and two-mile run. A not too prominent scar on his right cheek, the result of a shrapnel wound in Afghanistan, ran like a bolt of lightning from just below his eye to the corner of his mouth. He had blue eyes, and he wore his light brown hair closely cropped, in the way of a soldier.

Jake, who was a bachelor, lived alone in a three-bedroom ranch-style house on Baldwin Court in Ozark, Alabama, the town that proudly bills itself as the “Home of Fort Rucker.” He had kept the heat down during the day to save on his gas bill. Now he shivered as he turned it up.

After stripping out of his flight suit, Jake pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a red sweatshirt, emblazoned with the word
ALABAMA
across the front. He had not gone to school at Alabama but had become a big fan of University of Alabama football.

Checking the digital clock on his dresser, he saw that he had but one minute left until the program he wanted to watch came on, so he hurried into the living room, settled down on the couch, picked up the remote, and clicked it toward the TV.

The initials
GG
appeared on the screen, and then the voice-over introduced the show.

The
GG
monogram moved into the background and George Gregoire, with his signature crew-cut blond hair, slightly chubby face, and toothy smile, greeted his television audience.

The video was somewhat grainy, obviously taken not by a camera for broadcast, but by a small, personal camera. Nevertheless, it was quite clearly President-elect Mehdi Ohmshidi standing at a podium addressing a rather sizeable crowd. Many in the crowd were holding signs, saying such things as:

U.S. Is an Obsolete Concept

One People, One World, One Government

No More Flags, No More Wars

Patriotism Is Jingoistic.

Ohmshidi began to speak and because the sound wasn’t of the best quality, his words were superimposed in bright yellow, over the picture.

Ohmshidi’s closing shout was met by thunderous applause and cheers from the audience.

The picture returned to George Gregoire on his New York set.

In freeze-frame, on the curtain behind the speaker’s stand were the words
WELCOME TO THE GOVERNMENT CONVENTION
.

Beneath the welcome sign were the opening and closing dates of the convention, June 6–-June 10. The year was two years ago.

“Jake, are you in here?” a woman’s voice called from the front door.

Jake picked up the remote and muted the TV. “In here, Karin,” he called back.

Karin Dawes was a captain, an Army nurse, who was still wearing her uniform. She had short black hair, brown eyes, an olive complexion, and the same body she had when she was a college cheerleader. She was also a world-class marathoner who had just missed qualifying to represent the United States in the last Olympics. Seeing George Gregoire on the silent TV screen, Karin chuckled.

“You’re watching Gregoire. Of course, it’s six o’clock. What else would you be watching?”

“You should watch him,” Jake said. “Maybe you would learn something.”

“I do watch him,” Karin said. “As much time as I spend over here with you, how can I help but watch him?”

“Ha! Now I know why you spend so much time over here. Here I thought it was my charm. Now I find out it’s just so you can watch George Gregoire.”

“I confess, you are right,” she said. She leaned over to kiss him, the kiss quickly deepening.

“Damn,” Jake said, when they separated. “That’s what I call a greeting. Do I sense a possibility that this could go further?”

“How can it go any further?” Karin asked. “It’s at least half an hour before Gregoire is over, isn’t it?”

Jake picked up the remote again, and turned the TV off.

“You’re sure I’m not taking you away from George Gregoire?” Karin teased. “I certainly wouldn’t want to be accused of alienation of affection.”

“Woman, you talk too damned much,” Jake said, kissing her again. “Besides,” he said, “I’ve got a TV in the bedroom. I can always watch him while—”

“You try that, Major, and you’ll have George Gregoire in bed with you before I split the sheets with you again,” Karin said, hitting him playfully on the shoulder. Jake laughed out loud, then put his arm around her as they went into the bedroom.

There was an ease in their coupling, the assurance of being comfortable lovers who knew each other well, and yet their relationship was not so stale that it couldn’t still be fresh with new discovery. Outside, the wind was blowing hard, and Jake could hear the dry rattle of the leafless limbs of an ancient oak.

Afterward they lay together under the covers, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her, his hand resting on her naked thigh. It was, as always, a feeling of total contentment.

“Jake?”

“Yes, my love?”

“Will we always have this? I don’t mean are we going to get married, or anything like that. I just mean, will we always have this sense of joie de vivre?”

“Is there any reason why we shouldn’t?”

“I don’t know,” Karin admitted. “I know I tease you about watching George Gregoire all the time, and about listening to all the right-wing radio shows. But, what if they are right? What if the country has made a big mistake in electing Ohmshidi?”

“There is no what if,” Jake said. “We did make a big mistake. Well, we didn’t. I’m not a part of the we, because I didn’t vote for him.”

“I didn’t either.”

Jake raised his head and looked down at her. “What? You, Miss Liberal Incarnate? You didn’t vote for him?”

“I couldn’t bring myself to vote for him,” she said. “Not when I knew the way you felt about it.”

Jake kissed her on the forehead. “Maybe there is some hope for you yet,” he said.

“But you didn’t answer my question. Will we always have this?”

A sudden gust of wind caused the shutters to moan.

When there was an uncomfortable gap in the conversation that stretched so long that Karin knew Jake wasn’t going to answer, she changed the subject.

“I wonder if it’s going to snow.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “It never snows in Ozark, Alabama.”

There were three inches of snow on the ground the next morning as Jake drove the ten miles into Fort Rucker. Because snow was so rare here—it had been fifteen years since the last snow—neither Ozark nor Dale County, had the equipment to clean the roads. As a result, Jake drove slowly through the ruts that had been cut in the snow by earlier cars. He returned the salute of the MP at the Ozark gate, then drove down Anderson Road, which, like the streets in Ozark, was still covered with snow.

As Chief of Environmental Flight Tactics, Jake had his own marked parking slot, though the sign was covered with snow. He exchanged salutes with a couple of warrant officer pilots as he covered the distance between his car and the front door of the building, which held not only the offices of the faculty but also classrooms for the ground school.

“Major, I thought you told me that it never snowed in Southern Alabama,” Clay Matthews said. Sergeant Major Matthews was Jake’s right-hand man, the noncommissioned officer in charge of EFT.

“It doesn’t,” Jake said. “Disabuse yourself of any idea that this white stuff you see on the ground is snow. It’s just a little global warming, that’s all.”

“Right,” Clay said with a little chuckle. “Oh, Lieutenant Patterson called from General von Cairns’s office. The general wants you to drop by sometime this morning.”

“What’s my schedule?”

“You don’t have anything until thirteen hundred.”

“All right, maybe I’ll drop by his office now. I’m not surprised he wants to see me. I told him he wouldn’t be able to run this post without my help.”

“Yes, sir, that’s what I tell everyone about Environmental, too,” Clay said. “You couldn’t run the place without me.”

Jake chuckled. “Yeah, well, the difference is, I’m just shooting off my mouth when I say that about the general. But when you say that about me, you’re right.”

Like Ozark, Fort Rucker had no snow removal equipment. But it did have a ready supply of manpower, and there were several enlisted men, under the direction of a sergeant, clearing off the parking lot and shoveling the sidewalks at the post’s headquarters. Because of that, Jake was able to walk from his car to the building without getting his boots wet.

Lieutenant Phil Patterson was on the phone when Jake stepped into the outer office, but he hung up quickly, then stood.

“Good morning, Major,” he said. “Just a moment and I’ll tell the general you are here.”

“Thanks.”

First Lieutenant Phil Patterson was a West Point graduate who had recently completed flight school. Jake remembered him as bright, eager, and well coordinated when he was a student going through the Environmental Flight Tactics phase of his training. Patterson had wanted an overseas assignment out of flight school, and was disappointed when he was chosen to stay at Fort Rucker as the general’s aide de camp. But, he was a first lieutenant in a captain’s slot, so the assignment wasn’t hurting his career any.

Patterson stepped back out of the general’s office a moment later. “The general will see you, sir.”

Jake nodded his thanks, then stepped into the general’s office. Major General Clifton von Cairns was pouring two cups of coffee.

“Have a seat there on the sofa, Jake,” the general said. Jake had served in Iraq with von Cairns when he had been a captain and von Cairns had been a colonel. That was von Cairns’s second time in Iraq; he had also been there during Operation Desert Storm.

“As I recall, you like a little bit of coffee with your cream and sugar,” von Cairns said as he prepared the coffee.

“Yes, sir, thank you.”

Carrying the two cups with him, von Cairns handed the one that was liberally dosed with cream and sugar to Jake. “I’m sorry I don’t have any root beer,” von Cairns said. “That is your drink, isn’t it?”

“I like a root beer now and then,” Jake said.

“Yes, I remember your ‘beer’ run when we were in Iraq,” von Cairns said.

Jake’s preference for root beer was well known by everyone who had ever worked with him. What the general was referring to was the time Jake had made a run to Joint Base Balad for beer and soft drinks. Beer wasn’t actually authorized due to cultural concerns and was officially banned by the military, but the civilian contractors weren’t constrained by such rules and were a ready source of supply for the army. But Jake had come back with only one case of beer and nineteen cases of root beer in the helicopter. He was never asked to make a beer run again.

“How many students do you have in your cycle right now?” the general asked.

“I have twelve.”

“Can you expedite them through? Double up on the flight hours?”

“Yes, sir, I suppose I could. It would mean rescheduling some of the ground schooling.”

“I want you to do that,” von Cairns said. He took a swallow of his coffee before he spoke again.

“Jake, I’m not much for politics—I’ve always thought that as a professional soldier I should leave the politics to others. But I don’t mind telling you, this new man we’re about to swear in scares the hell out of me. I’ve heard some disturbing talk from some of my friends at DA. They’re afraid he’s going to start cutting our budget with a hatchet. If we don’t get this cycle through quickly, we may not get them through at all.”

“Surely he wouldn’t halt flight training, would he?” Jake asked. “So much of the Army is now oriented around aviation.”

“Did you watch George Gregoire last night?” von Cairns asked.

“I rarely miss it.”

“You might remember when Gregoire showed Ohmshidi speaking to the OWG group he said, and I quote, ‘the evil of so-called honorable military service.’ This man doesn’t just distrust the military, he hates the military. And he is about to become our commander in chief.”

“I understand, General,” Jake said. “I’ll get schedules revamped as quickly as I can.”

“You are a good officer, Jake. Would that I had a hundred just like you. It’s a pleasure to have you in my command.”