Andrew Britton: The Operative

While Samson took the spare fuel and filled the tank for a rapid getaway-and to provide a reason for them being there, in case anyone looked over-Hunt went to the open area of the cockpit and picked up the rocket launcher. He knelt, as if in prayer, as he raised it to his shoulder.

“Let me know when you’re ready,” he told Samson.

“It’ll be a minute,” the scientist told him.

There was no one near enough to stop him. He smiled. They had done it.

This was going to happen.

Kealey was a restless, unhappy passenger.

It was a rule of the field that, in the absence of intel, staying put was a good idea. The operative got a chance to know his or her immediate vicinity, find the strengths and weaknesses, plan a quick-exit strategy if necessary. Even though the enemy might know where to find him or her, so did allies or extraction teams. For Kealey, it wasn’t the chopper sitting over the George Washington Bridge that gnawed at him. It was not having intel flowing in.

He had contacted Andrews, who had the National Reconnaissance Office turn their space eyes on the river. They could see boats in the breaks of cloud cover. But the angle of the Taurus 9 geosynchronous satellite gave them only the east side of the river, the side with the power plant. It would take time to move another set of eyes into place. The sporadic cloud cover didn’t help.

“What about the plant?” Kealey asked Perlman. “They’ve got to have cameras on the river.”

“They do,” the intelligence officer replied. “Access code changes daily. I’m trying to get it, while my tech team is working to hack it. One way or another, we’ll get in. Just may take some doing.”

Kealey shook his head. Goddamn bureaucracy. It was one reason he got out of this game. You hire people to do a job, let them do it. Meanwhile, one of their trusted insiders, Assistant Director Alexander Hunt, had turned rotten and was about to blow them a new “mole hole,” as the CIA called it. The big damage radius caused by someone with an all-access pass.

Kealey looked out the windshield, saw moisture rippling from the middle to the top of the sloping glass. It was condensation from the clouds just above.

“Is rotor wash doing that?” Kealey asked.

“No, sir,” Sagal replied. “That gets deflected around us. That’s a southeasterly air movement.”

Kealey’s heart was running at full throttle. You hire people to do a job, let them do it, he thought again. “Mr. Sagal, let’s head up to Indian Point.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. The wind is blowing toward the city. Toward Newark. Toward all of Westchester County and part of Connecticut. If I were a bad guy, I’d want killer doses of radiation riding that stream.”

“If we do that-”

“We leave the city open. I know.”

Nothing more was said. Sagal nosed into the wind and headed north.

Kealey watched the river on the monitor next to his station. There was a built-in mouse so he could scroll the nose camera, zoom in or out, look ahead. He had the printout of the boats in his lap, watching for any of them. He thought he saw one of the yachts, checked it on the monitor, did not see anything that suggested either great haste or a weapon. He did not see Hunt on deck, or a porthole that would accommodate a rocket launcher without blowing out the inside of the vessel. He didn’t think the AD was prepared to die for this.

“I’ve got you into the IP security camera,” Perlman said. “Not legally, but we’re in. Sending it over.”

“Thanks.”

Kealey was looking at a view of the river from a slightly elevated point. The camera was either on one of the domes or the smokestack. It was slowly panning north to south, then back again.

“I don’t suppose we’ve hijacked the zoom capability,” Kealey said.

“Afraid not. But if you see something you want to look at, we might be able to do that from here.”

Kealey watched the screen. Perspiration was dripping into his eyes. He blinked it away, bent closer to the screen. “Slow” had never been so frustrating. He saw trees. He saw rust-colored rocks. He saw river and boat traffic, a security vessel…

“Whoa. Can you grab this image?”

“Yes.” Perlman hit a button, froze the screen. “Enlarge it?”

“Yeah. You see-”

“The blue runabout tied to the branch.”

“FBI jackets,” Kealey said. “Magnify on the woman sitting in the cockpit.”

Perlman did so.

“Her torso,” Kealey said.

The picture blurred, then sharpened. It wasn’t perfectly clear, but it was enough to see what he wanted: she wasn’t wearing a holster, shoulder or hip.

“She’s not FBI,” Perlman said. “And that canvas top… perfect cover.”

Kealey did not have to give the order. Sagal pushed the helicopter ahead as Kealey and Perlman went back to the live view.

“I’m going to call this in,” Perlman asserted.

“No!” Kealey barked.

“Mr. Kealey, they have people on-site-”

“If anyone approaches him, he will fire. He has to think he’s safe until we’re in range.”

“HQ is going to ask where we’re racing. We’re not exactly off the grid,” said Sagal, stating the obvious.

“Don’t answer,” he said.

“That’s not going to work,” Sagal told him.

“We don’t have a choice! ” Kealey insisted. “You tell them, they tell Indian Point, and hired-hand security charges in. Unless they’re going to gun this guy down, he-”

The conversation was cut short by a dinging sound.

“That’s him,” Perlman said gravely. “The weapon’s been activated.”

There was no more talk. Kealey had a sense of motion like nothing he’d ever experienced, not even in an F-16. The cockpit of a fighter was aloof from the air, the elements. This helicopter was pushing against that barrier, slamming it hard, not letting the air roll around a streamlined design.

“I need the OICW,” Kealey said.

Perlman looked at him.

“We’ve got seconds, not minutes,” he said. “Please.”

The officer handed him the weapon. Kealey threw off the safety, kept it pointed down. The contours of the Hudson shores were winding past, like separately undulating snakes. He saw the domes of the plant. The western bank curved in a way that did not allow him to see the site from the surveillance camera.

“Take us down,” Kealey said.

The chopper dived forward. Kealey put a hand on the door. The power plant was coming into view.

That also meant Hunt couldn’t see them, though he’d hear them approaching. Hopefully, he would be too focused on his target, on waiting for the go-ahead signal from the rocket launcher…

“As soon as that boat comes into view, you’re going to have to hit the brakes and turn me toward it,” Kealey said.

“Don’t open the door till I do that,” Sagal said.

“Yeah.” If Kealey thought that by flying from the chopper, he could stop Hunt, he would gladly take the flier.

“He’s hot in ten… nine… eight…,” Perlman said.

They were about a half mile downriver and 1,000 feet too high.

“ Push it! ” Kealey shouted.

“Seven… six…”

Kealey felt the harness dig into his chest as the helicopter screamed forward. It didn’t matter if Hunt knew they were there. He couldn’t fire for another few seconds…

“Five… four…”

The chopper came out of the half-parabolic dive, just skimming the Hudson.

“ Brake, now! ” Kealey yelled.

Kealey grabbed the door handle hard. The turn was so sharp that Kealey was thrown against the left side of the harness, but he retained his grip. As the chopper leveled, he yanked the handle, popped the harness, and put his foot to the door.

“Three… two…”