Jack Mars - Any Means Necessary

One night, Islamic extremists came and took his wife. Perhaps some of them were his former patients, or his neighbors. It didn’t matter. He never saw her again. Even now, a decade later, he did not dare to imagine her face or her name. He simply thought “wife,” and kept the rest blocked. He could not bear to think about her.

He could not bear to think that when she was taken, there was no one he could turn to for help. The society was no longer functioning. The worst tendencies had been set loose. People laughed, or looked away, when he passed on the street.

Two weeks later, in the night, another group came, a dozen men. These ones were different, unfamiliar to him. They wore black hoods. They took him and his daughters into the desert on the back of a pickup truck. They marched the three of them out onto the sand. They forced them to their knees at the lip of a trench. His girls were crying. Ashwal could not bring himself to cry. He could not bring himself to comfort them. He was too numb. In a sense, he almost welcomed this, the relief that it would bring.

Suddenly gunshots rang out. Automatic fire.

At first, Ashwal thought he was dead. But he was wrong. One of the men was shooting all the others. He killed them and killed them. It took less than ten seconds. The sound was deafening. When it was done, three of the men were still alive, crawling, trying to escape. The man calmly walked up to each and shot them in the back of the head with a pistol. Ashwal flinched each time.

The man removed his hood. He was a man with the full beard of the mujahideen. His skin was dark from the desert sun. But his hair was light, almost blond, like a Westerner. He walked up to Ashwal and offered a hand.

“Stand up,” he said. His voice was firm. There was no compassion in it. It was the voice of a man accustomed to giving orders.

“Come with me if you want to live.”

The man’s name was Luke Stone. He was the same man who had just instructed Ashwal to steal a corpse. There was no choice. Ashwal didn’t even ask why he wanted it. Luke Stone had saved his life, and his daughters’ lives. Their lives were far more important than any job.

The last thing Luke Stone said into the phone decided him, if he hadn’t decided already.

“They’ve taken my family,” he said.

Ashwal looked at the black man in the wheelchair. “Shall we go in the back and see what we can find?”

1:50 a.m.

Bowie, Maryland – Eastern Suburbs of Washington, DC

A motorcade of vehicles had sped through the night to arrive here.

There were more than a dozen vehicles, mostly Jeeps and SUVs. All were black, with no markings of any kind. The last was a sort of paddy wagon, on hand in the unlikely event that any prisoners were taken. The vehicles parked quietly, two blocks from the house. The neighborhood was a suburban cul-de-sac. On the streets at least, there was only one way in or out. Two SUVs parked face to face across that entrance.

Meanwhile, a twenty-man assault team closed in on the house.

Eight men approached from the front, five each from either flank. Two men, the team leaders, hung back, kneeling behind parked cars half a block away. They would use their spot as a viewing and command post. The men all wore Kevlar body suits and helmets. All the helmets had internal radios.

The eight men crossed quietly in front of the two car garage. The lead man carried a thirty-pound steel battering ram, which should take the front door out in one or two swings. Each man after that had a flashbang stun grenade. Each man carried a shotgun. The plan was to blow the front door, then throw the flashbangs in. If the team was lucky, the blasts and the blinding light might disable the subjects, or might get them running from the house, where the rest of the assault team could easily take them down.

The third man in line, a young guy named Rafer, wiped some sweat out of his eyes. Truth be told, he was nervous.

He had a feeling in his bowels, a loose feeling like how it was before he went into a firefight. He could easily soil his pants. He smiled. Loose bowels were his good luck charm. Three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he’d never gotten so much as a scratch in combat.

Stop it. Pay attention.

He brought his mind back to the present moment. The line of men leaned up against the garage door. The front stairs were a right turn ten feet ahead. This had to happen fast. He pictured it in his mind. BAM! The door came down, and they threw their flashbangs. His would be second. Fall back, wait for the explosions, then rush in.

Somewhere nearby, there was a sound.

It was muffled, but it sounded like a car engine. And it sounded like it was right on the other side of this garage door.

The guy in front of him looked back at Rafer. His eyes widened. They both turned and looked at the door.

Luke sat in the driver’s seat of the Suburban inside Walter Brenna’s closed garage. Brenna sat next to him. In the back sat Susan Hopkins and Charles Berg. Brenna had his M1, lying across his knees. Chuck had a nine-millimeter Beretta. Susan had nothing. Luke was like the dad up here in the front. They were like his little family.

His hands gripped the steering wheel. It was almost silent inside the SUV. In the corner of the garage was a small video display. It showed what was happening outside the garage doors. Men were out there, outfitted like a SWAT team. Luke had no idea who they were or what they thought they represented.

Did they know there had been a coup? Did they know the real President was in here? Maybe they thought they were about to take down some terrorists.

He shook his head. It didn’t matter. They were about to hit the house, and that meant they were bad guys.

“They’re not going to expect this,” he said quietly. “So we have the initiative. But it’s not going to last.”

“Are you planning to kill those men?” Susan said.

“Yes.”

He turned the key in the ignition and the engine barked into life. There was no turning back now.

He put the car in gear and took a deep breath.

“Ready?”

“It’s a really heavy car,” Brenna said. “You have to punch it.”

Luke stomped on the gas.

The tires shrieked on the concrete floor of the garage, and the Suburban screamed forward, blasting through the door, knocking it down, splintering it into pieces. The SUV erupted into the night. They bucked over something, pieces of the door, speed bumps, men, Luke didn’t know, and he didn’t care.

To his right and left, men in black were running.

He turned left, never letting off the gas. Men crouched and fired, spraying the side of the car with bullets.

DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH…

Susan screamed.

“Susan!” Luke said. “Get your head down, all the way in Chuck’s lap. We don’t know how long those windows are going to last. I don’t want you sitting upright when they fail.”

The SUV gained speed. Luke felt the acceleration.

Two blocks ahead, two dark SUVs were parked nose to nose in the middle of the street. Men took up positions behind them. Luke saw the muzzle flashes of their guns. They were already firing.

“Where are we going, Walter?”

“Straight ahead. It’s the only way out.”

“I guess we’re going to find out how bulletproof this glass is right away.”

Luke stomped on the gas again, pressing it all the way. He watched the parked trucks zoom toward them. Closer, closer. A dozen men in black fired their weapons. Bullets strafed the windshield like wasps.

Two men leaned across the hoods of the SUVs, still firing.

“Here we go!”

BOOM!