Tom Lowe - The Black Bullet

O’Brien lowered his body to hers, his cheek touching her face, his hands holding her shoulders. He could feel the warmth of tears run from her eyes and down to his lips. He could hear the labored breathing, the erratic muscle spasms of her body.

Sirens screamed in the distance. “Hold on … help’s coming. You’ll be in the hospital in a few minutes.”

“Sean, it’s okay-”

“Just breathe … easy … you’ll be fine-”

“I can’t see you. Sean ….”

“I’m here. Just breathe easy. They’re coming. Stay with me, Lauren!”

She coughed. O’Brien leaned up and wiped blood from her lips. “Don’t let Gates get away with it. He’s hurt too many people ….”

“Don’t talk … rest.”

She reached up with one hand. O’Brien held it, squeezed gently, hoping to somehow squeeze full life back into her body. “Find Jason ….” Her smile quivered. “You’re a good and decent man, Sean. You care about people … and I’ve always cared deeply for you and ….” Lauren’s chest heaved, gasping for air.

“No! Help’s coming! Lauren! Just breathe easy. Fight it!”

She stopped breathing, her blue eyes open, the light fading in the dust and smoke.

O’Brien held her hand. He leaned down to kiss her forehead, a single tear falling from his eye and mixing with her blood.

Mike Gates drove the speed limit, stopping for the convoy of police and emergency vehicles streaming toward the federal building. The only visible anxiety was the size of the sweat stain, which had grown into large, dark patches on his blue dress shirt. The odor of garlic from last night’s meal mixed with adrenaline and rose in an acrid blend from his pores. The taste in his mouth was like metal, hard water and rust. He used his cell phone.

“Yes,” Boris Borshnik said.

“I’ve been exposed!”

“How?”

“O’Brien! The fucking ex-cop! I don’t know how. I have to leave the country within the hour. I need asylum in Russia, with a guarantee I’ll be left alone.”

“No problem. You can be on an Aeroflot jet and routed from Miami to Moscow.”

“I’ll need papers, passport and money.”

“I understand. Meet me at the warehouse. You can obtain the money there. I’ll have the papers ready for you at Miami International.”

“Outside only.”

“Pardon.”

“Outside, meet me outside with the money, money still owed to me.”

“Certainly.” Borshnik disconnected. He turned to Zakhar Sorokin and said, “Gates will be arriving momentarily. Ambush him.”

“Shall I kill him?”

“No, bring him to me.”

Robert Miller sat in an opulent bar in the Ritz Carlton overlooking the ocean. He nursed a glass of Jameson and watched a news bulletin that appeared on the wide screen above the bar.

A female reporter stood in front of the federal building and began talking. Her brow wrinkled, face animated. Behind her were dozens of fire and rescue vehicles, smoke filtering ghostlike from three blown-out windows on the top floor.

“Turn it up, please,” Miller said to the bartender.

The news reporter pulled a strand of hair behind one ear and said, “The questions investigators now are asking is how did a suicide bomber get access into the federal building and who was he? It’s believed that the bomber is connected to a radical Islamic Jihad sect that may have the highly enriched uranium missing from the German submarine and the cache found on Rattlesnake Island. The body count is reported at nine now with at least a dozen people injured, many critically ….”

Miller sipped his drink and stared at the screen. His cell rang. Mike Gates was furious. “What’d you tell Sean O’Brien?”

“Nothing he didn’t already know.” Miller’s voice was filtered through Irish whiskey.

“You old fool! You didn’t have to say anything. There is no proof.”

“Don’t blame me for your mistakes. The only reason O’Brien found out was due to your carelessness-”

“I leave no trail!”

“Borshnik found you.”

“And O’Brien found you! You’ve cost me everything. I can’t even tell my wife goodbye. I no longer exist.”

“I’m sitting here watching your fuck ups. Half a dozen agents blown to hell and back. Your mistakes are massive, resulting in loss of life and property.”

“That was no mistake.”

“Then you’re sub-human. You belong in-”

“You fucking old hypocrite! You sold this country’s ass to Russia as Hitler was going down. You may be personally responsible for the deaths of thousands, from Korea to Vietnam, and you have the sanctimonious balls to lecture me. Go to hell!”

“I’d say we’re both almost there. It was your choice long ago. It’s a lonely life playing the game. But when you step out of the boundaries, you step into a house of mirrors. What you see reflecting back is whatever illusion you’ve created. Forever begins now, Gates. Hold that point up to the light from hell and leave me alone-”

“They’ll come for you, too. You just got away with it longer. You’ll go down as this country’s worst traitor! They’ll write the name Benedict Arnold over your damn grave. Do you hear me Miller? You fucking hear me!”

The phone went dead in Gate’s hand.

Mohammed Sharif sat in the back seat of the rented SUV and spoke Arabic into a satellite phone. “ Salaam alaikum ,” he said. The SUV stayed below the speed limit as the driver’s eyes darted from the road to the mirrors. Another man sat in the front, one in the back next to Sharif, and two minivans loaded with heavily armed jihad soldiers followed.

“We’re within two miles of the U-235,” Sharif said. “Borshnik does not suspect we are en route because he is not aware we know his location. Abdul-Waahid is a martyr. He is in paradise. His death bonds the umma , the brotherhood. He walked into the face of the infidels and removed at least nine of them. The FBI, CIA and the rest are in a state of chaos. I have given orders for the girl to be taken alive today. Her father will do as we order. Within a few days, we will have an atomic bomb here on American soil. Now they will learn a lesson as we do much more than bloody their noses, the same noses that they stick in the world’s affairs, hamdulihhah .”

Sharif nodded, listened in silence for a half minute and said, “ Inshallad , it will be done. Allah akbar .”

O’Brien and Eric Hunter watched EMTs load Dave Collins in an ambulance. Dave, conscious, one eye swollen, with its surrounding area the size and color of a plum, looked at O’Brien and asked, “How many dead?”

“I don’t know.”

“Lauren ….”

“She didn’t make it.”

Dave closed his eyes for a long moment, his barrel chest rising and falling. “I’m sorry … find them Sean. You and Eric make a good team. Be damn careful. America’s never experienced anything like this before. It could make 911 look like boy scouts. Bring in Gates if you can catch him.”

“Get well,” Hunter said.

As the paramedics closed the ambulance doors, one of a dozen ambulances carting the injured, O’Brien said, “Let’s move. My Jeep’s in the lot.”

“I’m parked near you. I’ve got a pretty fair arsenal in the trunk. Plenty of rounds. Let’s stop there first. Got a feeling we might need the firepower.”

More than two dozen television satellite trucks lined the parking lot. A herd of reporters and onlookers were kept behind the yellow tape. O’Brien and Hunter had to walk through the pack to get to their vehicles.

Reporter Susan Schulman stepped in front of O’Brien. A cameraman rolled, the tiny red light on the camera an unblinking Cyclops’ eye. She gripped the microphone with one hand, red fingernails like talons of a hawk holding something dead. “Mr. O’Brien, we understand the casualty number could reach as high as perhaps a dozen people. Can you give us a short soundbite? What did you see?”