Читать книгу War Tides - Don Pendleton - Страница 7

Washington, D.C.

At just after 0400 hours on a cold Thursday morning, four FBI agents hustled Dr. Philip Stout from his offices at the U.S. Navy shipyard into a waiting government SUV.

The reason for Dr. Stout’s visit to an emergency session of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was highly classified. None of the agents strayed beyond the polite conversation required by their jobs. Still, it didn’t take an advanced science degree like one of several possessed by Stout to guess that his visit likely had to do with the contents of the briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. Inside the reinforced-aluminum box were secrets so classified not a single one of the agents escorting Stout to the Pentagon had a security clearance high enough to know even the nature of its contents.

Not that they needed to. Their job was simple: transport the doctor from the shipyard to the Pentagon and keep him alive in transit.

As far as Philip Stout was concerned, the four men assigned to protect him were better off not knowing the things he knew. Stout had spent the past eight years of his career developing a prototype for the U.S. Navy, and he was about to deliver all of its secrets to the Joint Chiefs. In some ways, it made Stout feel like the member of a transplant team who had to get a badly needed heart across town with only a small window of opportunity. In some respects, it wasn’t that far from the truth. If the secrets he carried with him fell into enemy hands, it could well mean a whole new day of terror for America.

And while the FBI agents accompanying him may or may not have realized that, they did realize the importance of protecting him. Especially when their SUV stopped at an intersection a mere seven blocks from their destination and two black nondescript vans suddenly appeared in the deserted intersection.

It took only a moment for the agents and Stout to realize the intent of the passengers who poured from the backs of the two vans. They wore urban-camouflage fatigues, black hoods with red headbands, and toted SMGs. The agent riding shotgun rolled down his window as he ordered the driver to take evasive action. He reached into his jacket and withdrew a Glock pistol, leaned out the window and snapped off a few rounds. The resistance proved to be short-lived when the driver, while in the course of executing a J-turn, smashed into a massive garbage truck that had appeared out of nowhere. The truck was one of the front-loading types designed to pick up commercial Dumpsters, and one of its large steel bars punched through the SUV’s rear door with the screech of wrenched, torn metal and cracked glass.

A low rumbling emanated from the truck a moment later, the droning sound of hydraulics reverberating through the SUV’s cab. The thrumming sound hurt Philip Stout’s eardrums as the SUV began to tip forward and its rear wheels rose off the ground. Pandemonium erupted when the two agents seated on either side of him turned and began to fire their pistols at the truck. Unfortunately their efforts were in vain because the SUV continued to tip forward and soon they had to give up firing in favor of holding on to the rear seat.

Stout and the driver fared better than the rest of the occupants as they were still seat-belted in place. The two agents in back with Stout were soon clinging to their seats for dear life, their feet actually dangling in midair while they tried to hold on. Then the vehicle flipped off the steel bar of the garbage truck, the front end now providing a pivot point that dumped the SUV onto its roof.

The agent riding shotgun in the front seat screamed as his arm became pinned under the weight of the vehicle. The agents with Stout had ended up on their backs, and were trying to right themselves when the doors swung open to reveal a swarm of hooded gunmen. One of the agents reacted with incredible speed. He brought his pistol into view, snap-aimed at the closest gunman and squeezed the trigger. The report of the gunshot was deafening in the confined space, but it proved effective as the round struck the agent’s target in the chest and knocked him off his feet.

A heartbeat passed and Stout’s world suddenly came alive with the raucous, brutal cacophony of autofire. Stout shuddered amid the maelstrom of burned gunpowder, bright flashes and ear-shattering reports from a half dozen SMGs. But none of the rounds found his flesh. The firestorm of violence ended as suddenly as it had begun and left only ringing and dulled senses in its wake. Amid the searing odor of cordite, Stout detected just a whiff of blood. Lots of blood.

Before Stout could decide what to do next, rough hands cut free the seat belt and then dragged him from the SUV. Stout considered resisting but then realized it wouldn’t do him any good. Well-trained and armed FBI agents had been unable to repel these aggressors, so to even attempt such an escapade, being unarmed and unprepared, wouldn’t have been the act of either a wise or educated man.

And Philip Stout considered himself both above all else.

Stout looked into the eyes of the man he assumed to be the leader. They were dark eyes, eyes that burned with hatred and the fires of fanaticism. Stout had seen them before, eyes that belonged to men who were driven by something much deeper than mere political or religious conviction. That was a mistake so many Americans made. To think that terrorists were really interested in furthering the cause of any one group or religion bore inherent dangers. No, men like this were not driven by such trivial considerations. They considered the eradication or subjugation of those who did not subscribe to their same personal codes of belief as the paramount goal of their activities.

Before Stout could even inquire as to the man’s intent, another one of the terrorists grabbed his arm and held it out in front of him. The shiny steel manacles dangled in the streetlights for only a moment. And then, oddly, they were no longer visible and the burning sensation that followed seemed to take a very long time to reach Stout’s brain. That’s when it registered that the reason he no longer saw the cuffs dangling was that they were no longer attached to his wrist.

And that was because he no longer had a wrist.

Stout looked down and saw his hand, still twitching slightly, lying on the street directly in front of his shoes. He let out a scream even as he looked up and into the eyes of the terrorist one more time. His eyes had changed shape, crinkling at the corners, and Stout realized the man was smiling beneath that mask. Next to him, he held up a very long, sharp object—some kind of sword—coated with just a patina of sticky redness about midpoint along its length. Stout opened his mouth to scream again.

It would be his last scream.