“Europa is just now getting her act together, so I’ll do my best.”
Jack excused himself and gestured for Henri to follow. They stepped out through the gallery and then took the elevator up to the old office area. Will was there figuring out a duty roster for his men when they arrived from Nellis.
Jack opened the door with Will and the Frenchman in tow and they stepped out underneath the old and tattered awning that covered the front stoop.
“My God, how can we pull this one off?” he asked.
Will was filled in by Henri and could see that the colonel was feeling physically ill being defeated at such an early point in the Event call.
“What now?” Will asked.
Jack just shook his head and then stepped out from under the awning and walked down the steps. He raised his face to the sky and allowed the rain to cool his face.
Will and Henri watched a man realizing defeat and it was something they could both see didn’t sit too well with the former Green Beret.
The ruse had taken two and a half hours to formulate and execute. The van was actually stolen from the federal building parking lot in Brooklyn near the courthouse area and now sat idling at a closed and deserted gas station on Flushing Avenue. The driver of the van eased himself from behind the wheel and then joined the three men watching the main front gate of the navy yard.
“That is one drive I don’t want to make again. I must have passed a dozen cops on the way here,” the man said in Russian. “I didn’t know if any of their radio signals would set that shit off. It would have blown half of the neighborhood straight to hell, not that it would be missed.”
The smaller of the three men turned and faced the driver. “The explosives are detonated on a sealed circuit, you idiot, I have told you that. Radio signals cannot set them off.”
“If you have to explain to your men their duties more than once, I wonder how well mine and my colleagues’ money was spent. Perhaps we chose the wrong organization to handle our problem?”
The small man turned and faced his contracted employer. “Have we yet to fail you and your… colleagues in any capacity?” He snorted with a chuckle at the euphemism this dark-haired man insisted on using.
“I fear there is always a first time,” the man said as he pulled his expensive coat closer to his throat. He hated dealing with these Eastern Bloc idiots. But they were the only people brave, or foolish, enough to take on the hard jobs called for to help him and his associates from time to time. These brutes had their own business concerns, but did this kind of work on a contractual basis and the Russians and the services they provided were not known to come cheap.
“If there is failure the first time, there will be a second, a third, even a fourth attempt until you are satisfied our contract has been fulfilled.”
“As long as you are aware of the situation and the people you’re putting into harm’s way. That’s the FBI over there. You may get through the civilian guards at the gate with your falsified van, but not them.”
“Obstacles to be swiped aside like dirt.” The small man laughed. “The FBI has been trying to shut us down for many years, my friend, yet here we are.”
“Have your people compensated for the design of the building and the fact that your target is in the subbasement?”
“How did you get into the position you are in by worrying about such small details, my friend? You should know that with enough explosive you can do anything.” The man turned and watched as the civilian guards started their shift change. He faced the driver. “Once through the gate you will get out at the first blind corner; my men will take it from there. Just be sure to turn on the remote device before you leave the van.”
The driver nodded in understanding. He turned and went to the van and carefully eased out of the deserted gas station and crossed over Flushing Avenue and into the navy yard without a second look from the harried guards at the gate. With a flash of the FBI magnetic lettering on the doors and the government-issued license plate, the dark-haired man watched the most powerful explosive ever to be used in the borough of Brooklyn on its way to kill the Traveler and any evidence of their past crimes.
He placed a hand on the Russian’s shoulder. The sleeve of his expensive coat was pulled back and the contracted killer looked down at the man’s exposed arm.
“Let’s hope we don’t have to try this again.”
The Russian watched the dark-haired man of forty lower his hand and turn toward his chauffeured car, which waited in the back of the station.
The Russian was left wondering about the strange numerical tattoo on the man’s forearm as he stepped into the old station’s store area that had not seen a customer or worker in over eighteen months. His men were there and as he looked at the bespectacled Russian sitting at the small desk, the contract killer could see by the red flashing light on the boxlike detonator that the remote system was indeed operational.
The driver slowed his beating heart as he passed through the main gate with nothing more than a cursory wave from the oncoming shift of civilian security guards. He drove slowly, obeying the posted limit of five miles per hour as he watched the deserted and rain-swept road near the back of the navy yard. The pulsing of the windshield wipers lulled him as he pulled around the blind corner. He immediately saw the bright lights that had been installed around building 117. He looked around as he placed the van in park and then allowed the van to idle. He didn’t wonder how the men who had hired him rigged the van, he just wanted out of it. He reached for the door handle and then he remembered to set the remote system on the dashboard. He took a breath and then flipped the small toggle switch. A small red light illuminated, indicating the arming of the system. Little did he know that it had also armed far more than the remote control. He pulled on the door handle — nothing.
“What?” he said as he felt the first stirring of fear down in the pit of his stomach.
He pulled on the handle again and the door still didn’t open. He put his shoulder to it and still the door remained locked and closed. Suddenly he heard the gearshift move from park to drive and his eyes widened. He hurriedly reached out and hit the toggle switch again. The light remained brightly lit. He repeated the same action with the same result. He yelled an obscenity and then slapped at the small radar-looking device, sending it crashing to the floor. Still the van moved forward toward the first taped-off line where two agents of the FBI waited in the rain. He hurriedly tried to shut the key off. It turned but the engine didn’t stop. He tried desperately to slam the gear lever into park but the van was moving so fast now that the transmission just clicked loudly as he sped onward.
The accelerator pedal magically went to the floor and the unsuspecting patsy was thrown back in the driver’s seat as he realized the ruthless Russian mob had murdered him for their own ends.
The FBI van hurtled toward building 117 with over a thousand pounds of the hybrid mix that crystallizes conventional plastique to HMX, the most powerful military explosive in the world.
In a combat situation, Colonel Jack Collins was an unparalleled warrior as far as instinctual awareness was concerned — unparalleled with the exception of a man who not only was trained the same as Collins, but one who also had the instincts of a developed criminal mind — Colonel Henri Farbeaux.
Before the two FBI field agents jumped free of the path of the rampaging navy blue van, which the newly installed Krieg lighting illuminated clearly, Henri had his nine millimeter free of its shoulder holster and had fired six times before Jack had even reached for his weapon. Soon he added his and Mendenhall’s firepower at the onrushing target.