Rend, p.20
Rend, page 20
It had taken a full two weeks for her to call him. She said that her pride almost didn’t allow her to call at all, but in the end her desire to see him beat out the professional side of her life. Since then, they’d been able to see each other a few times and she’d taught Asher the value of having a video message program on his computer. They spoke almost every day now and Asher was more comfortable with Allyson than with any woman he could remember. Maybe it was because he was more comfortable with himself now.
After that mission in Washington, he’d seen his psychologist on a weekly basis and had made huge breakthroughs beyond what he’d made after his initial retirement from the Agency. He was convinced that he was able to move on because he knew that the old part of his life couldn’t come back to claim him anymore. That allowed him to be honest with himself and open up to the woman whom the federal government paid to deal with his issues.
He’d even been the one to suggest this vacation. Normally, in every relationship Asher had been in, the woman was the one who wanted to go on vacations while he was content to stay home and sleep on his down time. But he was more at ease and decided to go out into unchartered territory when he suggested a beach vacation to Allyson. She’d agreed immediately and they’d decided on the Outer Banks as a place to meet in the middle between Quantico and Rocky Mount. To be fair, Virginia Beach would have been closer to the middle, but both of them had a hang-up with the location because of the Navy base there. She felt like all those sailors would remind her of work and he felt like he’d be reminded of his time spent on the East Coast-based SEAL Team Six and all the operations he’d went on as a part of that group. In the end, a beachfront house in Duck presented itself and they both jumped at the chance to go.
The house they rented was way too large for just the two of them, but it worked well since they were still in the experimental phase of their relationship and enjoyed one another’s company while still having the ability to go off in an unused portion of the house to be alone. It was the perfect environment for the two of them to get to know one another well enough to decide if this was going to go anywhere or if it was just a pleasant, but temporary, distraction from their everyday lives.
They’d been in the little town together for six days and Asher was sure that he was on the verge of feeling something that he hadn’t truly felt before. They spent their mornings jogging on the beach, their afternoons playing in the surf or lying in the sand and their evenings enjoying the various local eateries and ice cream shops that the island had to offer. It had been pure heaven on earth for his tortured soul.
“Allyson,” he said as he adjusted her body so she could look at him.
“Hmm?” she murmured into the ear closest to her while her fingers trailed along his other ear.
“I need to know. Are you planning on going back into DC anytime soon?”
She paused for a moment too long for Asher’s taste and said, “No. My team isn’t scheduled to go back into DC. The Bureau has a new team that they have going into a few other historical sites—like the White House and the Capitol Building—to recover some select items.”
He thought about what she’d said. He was retired from that way of life, but being able to discern when someone wasn’t telling him the whole truth saved his life on more than one occasion. “Okay, you’re not going to DC, are you going behind The Wall?”
Allyson pulled away from him and stared out at the ocean. “That’s classified,” she replied.
“Bullshit. I’ve got a higher clearance than you do and besides, I’m not telling anyone anyways. I need to know what’s going down.”
She continued to stare out at the water and said, “Okay, fine. My team is going to recover the original Star-Spangled Banner flag that flew over Fort McHenry when Francis Scott Key wrote our National Anthem.”
“Wait. Isn’t that in DC at one of the Smithsonian museums?”
“Yeah, it was normally on display at the National Museum of American History, but on the morning of the detonation, the flag was on loan to the fort for a ceremony celebrating the composer’s life.”
Asher went quickly through his American History and Geography lessons and then stated, “So you’re going to Baltimore.”
She nodded, “We’re going in a few days. The president will give his address to the nation on the Fourth of July and he wants the flag displayed behind him on the steps of the New Capitol so he can show the world that he’d lived up to his campaign promises of bringing our heritage out of the Dead City.”
“What’s your plan?” he asked, once again slipping into the role that had dominated his life for more than thirty years.
“We’re staging at Aberdeen Proving Ground in upper Maryland. It’s closer to our target than the Archives were from the Forward Field Headquarters building. From APG, we’ll insert into the fort, secure the flag and then exfil the same way.”
“Isn’t the thing massive? How are you going to get it out?”
“Yeah, it’s about thirty feet tall by forty-two long,” she answered. She’d done her homework. “We’re hopeful that the artifact is still sealed in its shipping crate that the museum sent it in. Otherwise, we’ll have to fold it up and put it into some type of case so we can carry it. Unfortunately, due to the size it will have to remain suspended below the helicopter instead of being secured inside like we’d been able to do with the encasements for the Charters of Freedom.”
He frowned and asked, “There’s nothing I can do to change your mind about going on this mission?”
“No. And I appreciate that you’ve said your piece, on a few occasions, and now you’re letting me go on the mission as I see fit.”
He glanced at the sun in the sky and said, “Well, there’s nothing else I can do. You’re a grown woman and we’re not at a point in our relationship where I can say anything to you about your career choices. So let’s enjoy today and really live it up!”
He stood up with her in his arms as he said it and carried her kicking and laughing into the water until their feet were no longer touching the sand below. He kissed her deeply as they tread water and made the most of their semi-private time in the waves where the other vacationers couldn’t tell what they were doing.
*****
08 June, 1256 hrs local
FBI Forward Field Headquarters
Quantico, Virginia
“I’m sorry, Allyson. I’d love to go on this mission, but the Bureau has pulled me off of field duty for the time being. I’m assigned full-time to Kate Belington as her personal protection element and unofficial psychologist.”
“Isn’t being a bodyguard a little beneath an HRT team leader and don’t we have real psychologists on staff to talk to victims about their experiences?”
“I hear you,” Campbell replied over the phone, “but this is coming all the way from Director Flannigan. She read my report on the Kennedyville raid and how Katie took such a strong attachment to me, so she decided that as high-profile as this case was going to be she wanted someone who’d be able to keep the witness from going crazy and killing herself out of shame or remorse. The shrink signed off on it, so here I am, happy as can be staying in a five-star hotel in New York City.”
“I’ve seen some of the news reports on the case. Is her family coughing up the insurance money that they were paid?”
“Eh, it’s an uphill battle I think, but she should be fine. Her bank refused to give her mother access to the accounts without a death certificate and New York wouldn’t file one until she’d officially been listed as missing for one year, so she made it in under the timeline before they issued the certificate.”
“Well, there’s something you don’t see every day,” Allyson murmured into the receiver.
“What’s that?”
“A bank with morals.”
“Well, instead of morals, I think I’d categorize it as a crude business sense. I’ve learned a lot as I shadow her through this process, but I think the bank probably just wants to hold on to her money as long as they can. She’s loaded and they’ve been raking in tons of money in interest off of her cash sitting in their vault.”
“Well, there goes my burgeoning faith in humanity. Are you sure that you can’t join me for this mission? I can get all of HRT Twenty-Four pulled from their training run through the mock-up of the 747 out back.”
“I’d really like to, Allyson.” Campbell paused and a noise that sounded like the agent shifting on a leather sofa came through the speaker. “I mean, I’m really enjoying getting spoiled here and Katie is an amazing person, but I didn’t join the Bureau to—” Another pause meant that he was looking around the room before continuing. “I didn’t join the Bureau to babysit a twenty-four year-old millionaire. I joined to kick ass and take down bad guys.”
She smirked into the phone and replied, “I hear Batman needs a new sidekick, maybe you should apply there.”
“Very funny. I’m sorry that I can’t help, but I’ve got my orders from Denver on this one.”
“It’s understood. Okay, Caleb, take care and I’ll see you on the flip side.”
“See ya later, Allyson,” the HRT member-turned-personal protection specialist replied.
She resisted the urge to slam the receiver down on the cradle and set it down gently while she practiced the breathing technique that Asher had shared with her. It really did work to calm her down and clear her mind. Okay, Campbell’s out. Who else is on my short list? she asked herself as she scanned her hand-written notes on the case. No other agents came to mind, so she was going to have to either assemble a team or get one of the ones on a public relations tour reassigned to her. That wouldn’t go over well since those operators were likely enjoying the down time that being on the beat parade afforded them.
She couldn’t do anything about it. Instead, she scooped up her notes so she could give Reston a quick rundown of her requirements for the mission to go ahead as planned. She didn’t doubt that he’d get her the people, but would they be able to operate as a team on such a short notice? At this point, she wondered if their weapons qualifications would even be within tolerance for field operatives.
She didn’t know, but she knew who would. On her way to Reston’s office, she ducked down a side hallway to the Human Resources office. “Hi, Shelly,” she said cheerfully to the receptionist. “I’ve got a quick question for Cherie. Is she in her office?”
“Yes, she’s in. Hold on and let me see if she’s got a moment.”
Even though the mission to recover the Star-Spangled Banner was listed as one of the director’s top priorities, the permanent teams were already engaged on previously planned missions. Allyson spent the next few hours building her team, mostly from scratch and from individuals who hadn’t worked together before and wouldn’t have much time to train together and form the team.
*****
18 June, 0631 hrs local
FBI Mission Staging Site
Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland
Allyson stood up and pulled the adult diaper back into place. She was grateful that she was able to go to the restroom instead of having to hold it in like she’d had to do for the entire mission in Washington. She washed her hands and then waddled over to the locker room bench to begin the long process of putting all of her protective clothing on.
The last week had been a lesson in patience and conflict resolution. The Bureau assembled her team, if you could call them that, from all over the United States by asking for volunteers and donations from across the Bureau. As was expected, each organization gave Allyson their problem children. She tried to bring them together and meld them into a unit by emulating Asher’s methods from her first train-up with him. It didn’t work. She wished Asher were on this mission. He had a knack for forming a team quickly.
She’d tried everything, both carrot and stick approaches, but nothing seemed to work and her gaggle of men and women all had their own way of doing things based on their various experiences and nothing seemed to go right. Finally, time for training simply ran out and she had to execute, ready or not. The Bureau had stalled as long as it could but the mission had to go forward if they were going to secure the flag in time for the president’s address to the nation.
Once again, the sharksuit would be like her second skin and could possibly end up saving her life. The imagery analysts hadn’t been able to get any good pictures or video of the fort from satellite and UAV overflight due to the ever-present mist, which seemed to be thicker near the harbor than it had been in Washington. However, there was enough evidence to indicate that the city of Baltimore had a lot of zombies roaming the streets, so they believed that they’d overrun the fort as well. That was just what she needed, a house full of zombies looking to expand their family.
As she thought about the zombies, she added the protective radiation suit over the sharksuit and then picked up her mask. Geez, I’m already starting to sweat, she thought as she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. The last time she’d put this getup on was in early March and even then she’d been so dehydrated by the end of the mission that it took more than twenty-four hours to get back to normal. It was supposed to be about thirty degrees hotter today than it had been on the last mission. She’d drunk more water than she thought she could hold over the past seventy-two hours and gobbled down salt pills to help retain the water. It worked so well that when she’d changed into her jeans last night she hadn’t been able to connect the top button. The discovery mortified her as a woman, but as an FBI agent going into a hostile environment, she was pleased. She settled for an emotion somewhere in the middle and vowed to avoid salt for two weeks after she returned this afternoon.
Barring any unforeseen problems, the mission should take less than an hour if the Banner was still in its shipping packaging and around two hours if the team had to prep the flag for transport. The sooner this was over, the better. The director personally assured her that after this mission, she’d be promoted and would have her pick of assignment locations. While she didn’t want to scare Asher away, she was eyeing the field office in Raleigh as a potential move.
Allyson shuffled her way to the locker room door and entered into the classroom adjacent to the main hangar area where the team was assembled. Several of them were in the zone with headphones on while Simpson and Jefferson played grab-ass in the back of the group. She’d thought about what she would say to these misfits, but she hadn’t observed anything inspiring in their actions during rehearsals to get fired up about her speech. Not a good sign, she thought regarding her own lack of enthusiasm for the mission.
She set her mask down on the table in the front of the group and cleared her throat. “This is it. It’s go time. As briefed, we’ll be inserting in two helicopters. Fort McHenry is large enough on the inside to drop a Blackhawk down inside the walls on a clear day, but the weather—and that damn fog—isn’t cooperating. The temps are going to be in the low- to mid-eighties and we may get a thunderstorm around noon. All that humidity has socked in the fort even more than what we were expecting, so we’ll insert on the grounds of the fort on the harbor side. This will put us less than two hundred feet from the walls and there’s a gate into the fort in the direct center of the wall.
“Given the fact that we haven’t been able to get clear imagery of the area, expect the landing zone to be hot and we’ll go in red direct off the bird. Any questions so far?”
A hand shot up in the back, “Yeah, why don’t we just drop into the fort like we’d planned.”
She rubbed her temples while a few of the others groaned. “Because, Simpson, we don’t have clear visibility, but we know that there was a giant fucking flag pole that was sticking fifty feet into the air before the blast. If one of our birds hit that pole, sayonara everyone; I hope your life insurance is up to date. If the weather was cooperating, we may have been able to go that route, but we can’t.”
She scanned the room for more questions and then continued, “Alright, if there aren’t any more questions, I just wanted to tell you that I’m proud of you all.” What a crock of shit. “Each of you volunteered for this assignment and we’re going to pull this off quick and by the numbers. First order of business after we get into the fort is to secure the perimeter. We’ll need to ensure that there aren’t any zombies inside to greet us. After we do that, we’ll locate the Banner and determine the best method to extract it. Once the Banner is secure, we’ll exfil, undergo decontamination and debriefing and we should be drinking a few beers together at dinnertime. My treat.”
She grimaced as the two idiots in the back high-fived each other like they were in high school. I hope it’s that easy, her practical mind muttered. Allyson tried to think of something else to say, but the phone on the desk saved her from any more fake pep talks. She answered it and after a few seconds hung it up again. “The birds are here,” she announced. “Make sure you’ve got your mask and you seal it before you get on the helicopter since there won’t be a lot of room to move around once you’re strapped in.”
The mask felt strange, yet familiar to her as she shoved it into place and she went through the procedure to seal the rubber against her skin. She picked up her M-4 carbine and pushed a magazine into the magazine well on the bottom of the rifle before heading out the door. Allyson was determined to be the first of the team onto the airfield. She would lead from the front for this entire mission and try to get her team inspired.
*****
18 June, 0719 hrs local
Fort McHenry National Monument
Baltimore, Maryland
The helicopter flared slightly as the pilot brought the tail down first. Allyson stared nervously from her seat out into the swirling mass below. The fog was thicker here than it was in Washington because the humidity kept both the radioactive cloud and the moisture trapped low to the ground. The pilot assured her over the headset that he’d landed in sandstorms worse than this in Afghanistan and that they’d be alright.
