Chronicles of War

Part 1: Way of the Storm

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    "The truth will set you free, but first you will lie, cheat,
     banter, badger, barter, joke, argue, beg, plead, pray,
     denounce, debate with, chastise, detest, hate, loathe, and
     suffer it before you stop accusing it of being what it is not
     and accept it for what it is."

    - James Rahn

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Chapter 20: Sightings

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Jason Clark's imitation Italian, imitation leather dress shoes hit the
cold tarmac with little fanfare. The airport appeared practically shut
down. Planes were parked, cars were halted at the highway, and the
normal flow of holiday travelers in and out of the small airfield was
choked down to a mere trickle. No red carpet lay grandly before Clark's
measured footfalls. No rows of polished soldiers flanked his short walk
across the tarmac. No massive throng of local authorities awaited his
arrival with baited breath, and no media jackals hid just around the
corner with loaded cameras.

A single uniformed police officer stuck his hand out to greet the
arrivals. "Mark Whedley, Kennewick City Police Department," he announced
formally, his voice colored with the easy tone of a ranch hand.

Clark took in the shaved head, the neck as big around as his thigh, and
the square stance, then fixed on the face. Bushy brown eyebrows lay
heavily over pale blue eyes. The face was weathered and worn like a
familiar piece of clothing, and his lips were pressed in a dull, thin
line.

"Jason Clark," the agent said, offering his identification.

Kelly pulled her nose from the massive folder in hand and copied Clark's
movements.

The cop looked their identification over carefully but efficiently, in a
movement that had grown stale from routine. "I'll be escorting you to
the scene. Luggage?"

Clark gestured to his day pack. "Just carry-ons."

"This way." The cop gestured for them to follow.

Whedley lead them down the terminal and past packs of exhausted and
distraught travelers. Clark counted no less than two hundred eyes
holding as much baggage as their owners as he passed. He wondered where
the bars went.

The ticket counters were empty, and grim-faced police officers stood
shoulder-to-shoulder with airport security.

"Airport's under heightened security," Mark said without looking at the
agents.

They exited the terminal building through a side door--Clark realized
with a start that it was barely larger than the FBI's office in
Olympia--and entered the back of a lit squad car. Kelly and Clark slid
into the back seat while Whedley took the wheel and headed down the
highway. A shorter man with a shock of black hair waved as he left, and
Mark returned a two-finger steering wheel salute. "That's my partner,
Alex. I'm sorry he can't accompany us; they're short-handed here."

Clark asked the question burning in his brain, "Is the airport under any
threat?"

The scenery that rolled by, all brown hills and gray foliage. Clark
quickly decided the background was something worth ignoring. Depressing
to a fault, he saw none of the 'mystery of the desert' he had read about
in his little collection of travel guides.

"Most of the city is locked down, sir. We do not have the perps
contained and the chief is really on top of things. Most of the city
officers have gone through Hanford area security training, so none of
this is new. If there's a car accident in the wrong place, they lock
down the entire reservation."

"I'm sorry--Hanford?"

"Oh, nuclear reservation just outside of town. Been around since the
forties; most of the neighboring city was built by the government just
to support the work going on there during the war. They've got a bunch
of reactors out there; some power plants, some decommissioned ones that
were used to make the plutonium used in the bombs that were dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The place is huge, has its own security force
with military weapons and everything. It's a no-fly zone, et cetera."

"It rings a bell," Jason said. "If a terrorist wanted to make an
impression, he would probably strike there, then."

"Yeah, but security, man. A lot of security to deal with."

Kelly bumped his arm. It was a move so subtle that he almost couldn't
tell it apart from the normal bumps being delivered to them by the
patrol car's suspension. His eyes flickered over to the top of her
folder. A scrap of paper with blue writing was framed by her fingers.

'Doesn't involve Hanford--personal?'

Then they weren't terrorists. The only reason for involving a bunch of
random civilians was to erect a smoke screen. But who have the balls?
Clark dipped his head once and assaulted his nose with an unnecessary
scratch. Kelly looked at the paper, frowned as if she'd made a mistake
in her grocery list, and wadded it up.

"What can you tell us?" Clark asked, taking his eyes off of what little
scenery rolled by the car.

"Officially, nothing."

There was the usual line, but cops were cops and people were people.
"Unofficially?" he asked.

"People are scared and we really don't know why the hell these guys are
here."

"Anything on the caller?"

"Nothing, we can't trace him. The phone company says that whoever's
doing this has control of a switch somewhere, and they're playing it
like a fiddle. The calls shouldn't even go through, but they're working
perfectly on the local system."

Clark nodded absently, having only the faintest idea of what the cop of
was saying. So no-one was out causing trouble in a nuclear reservation,
but takes a mall hostage to get at one man?

----------

In the music store, Kat listened to the sound of distant gunfire as it
echoed through the mall to her ears. Standing in this tiny store,
hearing each shot and not knowing which was snuffing out an enemy and
which might snuff out a friend, was slow torture. She couldn't want it
to stop; she couldn't wait for it to be over. She felt surrounded on all
sides, pressed down by the unbearable weight of inevitability. It was
like drowning.

What would the terrorists do with James captured or dead? She elbowed Ed
to get him to stop staring at the store's entrance. It didn't work, but
at least she had his attention.

Without moving his gaze, he grunted out, "What?"

"What if he doesn't come back?" She cautiously whispered.

His response was immediate as a bolt of lightning and light-hearted as a
nuclear blast. "We run."

"You've had some time to think about this." She realized it was true
even as she said it.

Ed nodded, and explained. "We don't have a reason to stand and fight,
and our chances of survival are better if we just run for it. Besides,
James said that they were going to use the explosives to cover up what
happened here; erase all the evidence. If they capture him and we run,
they'll try to stop us, but they won't blow the mall, not with him in
their grasp."

"They'd try to get us later." Kat said in a whisper.

Ed nodded solemnly. "They might." His fingers, wrapped around an M16,
turned white. "I won't make it easy for them."

----------

Now here was something that made sense.

James had stopped at the third corner, intending to make a quick sweep
of the area and be on his way. After the initial excitement, the next
two quarters of the store were empty. That left just the last corner,
full of kids clothes, to inspect. And here, he found a dozen soldiers
waiting to stop him.

They were arrayed around the corner of the store next to the outside
entrance. The police and their fancy little barrier could be seen easily
through the glass windows and doors. The flashing lights and unforgiving
gray sky made a fitting backdrop for his part in this little act.

He kept his pistol trained on the most exposed terrorist, while his
other hand rested comfortably in a coat pocket. "Hey, guys. Looks like
you can all surrender peacefully now."

"Drop your weapon!" One of the soldiers shouted. James couldn't see his
face through the plastic shield on his helmet, but the voice was young,
barely out of high school.

"What, the gun?" James watched impassively as the soldier quickly made a
set of hand gestures. "Suspect. Leg. One shot. Wait for mark."

The uneasy silence seemed to engulf the entire area.

"Let me guess, you guys are set up like this because the control box for
the next bomb is up there." James gestured to one of the thick columns
the soldiers seemed to be arrayed around. "In that little fire control
box. It's a fake, isn't it." Silence. "Those things are sensitive to
being...hit with bullets, aren't they?"

The soldiers stood their ground. James imagined that if he concentrated
hard enough, he could hear them blinking. As it was, he actually could
hear them breathing across the twenty or so feet that separated him from
the group.

"That's it, then. The bombs are real, your boss is a psycho, and you
guys can't kill me, so take the leg shot. Real brilliant. Of course,
that would hurt, and I might get startled and drop this." James pulled
his hand out of the coat pocket and showed off the grenade--minus
pin--that he was holding.

He didn't resist the urge to smirk. He gave it a push to a full smile as
he mentally counted the soldiers and cataloged their positions and
equipment.

James dropped the pistol and kicked it to the edge of the linoleum
walkway.

"Here's my proposal. You guys drop the guns and come at me without the
projectile weapons. Bring your Tasers and knives, bring your cattle
prods and whips and chains and pipe wrenches. Bring a gun, and you'll
see how accurately I can throw these things. You know what will happen
to this mall if the explosives are triggered." He dropped into a
fighting stance. "Come one at time, or all at once--it makes no
difference to me. I will beat you all with just one hand."

He let the smile turn into a face-stretching grin.

The soldiers charged.

Six of them dropped their weapons instantly and rushed him in a full
sprint. He knew several more were aiming to catch his flanks, so he
dashed forward, right into the main force.

The soldiers fell like wheat before a scythe. He dodged and weaved, he
turned and spun, he was moving like smoke and striking like lightning.
Taking down six men with one hand was what he considered easy training,
and it took only eight seconds or so to drop them all.

"A-ha!" He shouted, spinning to face the four soldiers that had come to
catch him from behind. They hadn't expected him to meet the initial
charge, so they arrived a split-second too late. James dodged a Taser,
kicked the weapon free of its owner's hand, then turned to take out
another one coming in low. He was a boxer at some point, his guard tight
and large. No problem; James came in close, crashing right into the wiry
man's arms, and struck him low in the abdomen.

James ducked then, feeling a punch sweep over his hair, and launched an
explosive elbow into the attacker's gut. A follow-up knocked him out,
and a second later, the boxer was down right next to him. He broke and
ran then, the last two chasing him gamely.

James counted promptly to two, then bounced off the floor like a
super-ball and launched a flying kick at the trailing soldier. He was
more than a little impressed when the man dodged and tried to swipe as
his neck in passing. James tagged his shoulder as he landed, sending the
fighter stumbling past his partner, who was turning to face the assassin
cautiously. Maybe he was finally facing someone with a brain?

It proved to be a vain wish. The soldier charged in with a quick jab
learned in a police academy, and James faded back from the first blow,
then leaned into the second, deflecting the punch before it gain any
power. His counter caught the soldier's elbow and flung the arm into the
man's face. James stepped quickly behind his target and snapped the
man's neck without a second thought.

The other soldier screamed something incoherent and charged James,
trying to attack him before he could disentangle himself from the
falling corpse. The assassin took a glancing hit on the shoulder, then
on his free arm, while the soldier came at him in a whirlwind of limbs.
On the third strike, James dodged backward, stepping blindly into the
soldier's guard to deliver an elbow strike with most of his body weight
behind it. The blow lifted the man clean off of his feet and landed him
nicely on his ass.

James had no time to even breathe before using a back kick to catch yet
another attacker in the face. The soldier had timed his assault well,
aiming to get James' unprotected back. It was a sound strategy against
most people. Even if they managed to put a stop to a few surprise
attacks, no one could watch their back forever.

Unless they'd been hunted for so long that they'd grown eyes in the back
of their head.

As he threw the grenade into the air, watching a C-shaped handle fly
picturesquely away from the green sphere of death, James wondered what
these young men would become, given time. The entire situation was
strange; the only man with real experience was that Karl fellow. Where
were the team leaders? Where were the field commanders? Why were a bunch
of complete fucking amateurs in here? The answer, of course, was that
they didn't expect to face someone with his kind of skill. But they had
to outnumber him a hundred to one. Who needs that kind of firepower?

The winded soldier finally got to his feet with a growl. As the grenade
reached its apex, the soldier rushed James. He had time to note the
man's blond hair, green eyes, and deep tan before he was grabbing and
spinning in a tight spiral. In a second, the soldier was laid out on the
floor with James pinning him down by one arm. He adjusted his grip so
that his other hand was free, and caught the grenade behind his back.

"What--" The soldier began.

James threw the grenade.

The soldier froze as his eyes traced it. James bent down as whispered
venomously in his ear, "Now, watch them die."

The sphere fell lazily, bounced once off of the floor, then off of an
inert body. It landed on the floor for a second time and bounced to a
stop near the center of the unconscious soldiers that had fallen to
James' hands.

Somewhere, a man dived for cover.

James' eyes hardened, his face a savage glare demanding violence. He
pulled the soldier up, using his body as a shield.

The grenade exploded.

Grenades are remarkably simple weapons. Designed exclusively for
killing, they do not wound except by accident. In the case of the M-67,
James was just outside of the grenades 'kill range,' which meant he
might get off with only a missing limb or maybe permanent blindness--if
he were lucky.

The blast hit the soldier he was holding like a car crash. The explosion
made no sound at this range--only pain greeted his ears.

After a few seconds, he dared to let go of the body, noting a piece of
metal sticking out of its forehead. "Eew," he commented.

The gore left in the wake of the grenade did not need description, and
James had no time to devote to examining it. He rolled out of the
hallway as a burst of gunfire came at him from beyond the blast. He came
to his feet behind a rack of coats with matching snow pants fit for six
year olds. The last soldier, the stocky fellow he'd threw off before
taking down his buddies and using that grenade, came around the side of
the rack with a few quick punches that James fended off with one hand.
He returned fire with a kick to the man's gut and a quick shot in the
temple. The man's legs gave out. James wasted no time in putting his
backup pistol to work.

Eleven down, one to go.

----------

Mike Canesta watched a battle rage through his rifle scope. A blond
haired man was taking on a pair of guys in black. The fight was brief
but vicious, the blond man coming out of top with a serious of strikes
that make Mike wince in sympathetic pain. He'd seen match-ups like this
in a hundred action flicks, and sitting his comfortable chair with the
three cigarette burns under his right hand, it felt just as real. For a
moment, he wished he could re-wind the scene. The blond guy had just
waltzed through his opponent's guard and taken the man down with an
elbow to the face. Man, that had to hurt.

There was one thing unique and unexpected about the performance before
him, though. It was interactive. The blond man took down two guys,
wrestled a third late-comer to the ground, then made a throwing motion.
The black-clad man froze, then a distant thump sounded from the mall.
That wasn't...it couldn't be. But, it had to be.

The blond guy had thrown a grenade.

Mike pulled his eyes away from the rifle scope for a second to scan the
Bon Marche facade. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, he dropped his
head down and saw...a body on the floor. "The blond guy is gone," he
said.

The thin man next sitting to him had skin the color of tanned leather
and looked like he'd had the air let out of him before he came to work
this morning. He always looked like that. Watery brown eyes combed the
entrance through a pair of binoculars for a moment, then he brought a
radio to his lips. "We have a possible James Rahn sighting, east
entrance, at the Bon."

"Three guys, hand to hand. Grenade." Mike filled in instantly in his
slow, quiet voice.

"He's taken down three men in hand to hand combat and used a grenade,
over." The thin man finished smoothly.

"Copy that, over." A voice replied through the radio.

"Wait," Mike said. "I have a visual on him. He's...waving at me. Now
he's using some kind of sign language."

The thin man raised the binoculars quickly. "I see him. He's asking for
help." The thin man gave James a big thumbs-up, and saw the assassin
give him one in return.

"Base, James Rahn just asked for help, over."

The radio spoke. "How, over."

"Sign language. He saw us through the glass entrance, over."

"Copy that, over."

"What do we do? There's no hostiles near him, over."

"Two, don't do anything but watch him, over."

Mike shrugged as much as he could without disrupting his aim. The subtle
twitch of his shoulders registered in the thin man's peripheral vision.
"Strange guy," he muttered idly. "The Bear Lounge or The Pub tonight?"

"The Pub if we win, Bear Lounge if we loose."

----------

Kat picked up the phone on the second ring, but held the receiver at
arms length for a moment before putting it to her ear. "Hello?"

"This is Daniel Smith, with the Kennewick Police Department. May I ask
who I'm speaking to?"

"This is Kate. We talked before."

"Oh yes, I remember. Can you answer a few questions for me?"

"Sure, I think."

"Well, Mr. Rahn is in the Bon Marche right now. He just signed one of
our teams for help."

"You lost me. He signed who?" Kat asked politely.

Dan explained a level voice with machine-gun fire words that all cops
used when they were writing a ticket or slapping their cuffs on you. "We
have six sniper teams arrayed around the mall to watch for terrorists
and assist any hostages trying to escape. We decided that if witnessed
anything going on inside, we would inform Mr. Rahn. He fought and
defeated several of the terrorists, then used sign language to signal
one of our teams that he needed help through the Bon Marche entrance,
then went into the store where we can't see him. This happened about one
minute ago."

"He went there to look at the bomb. He had a way to tap into the
security cameras and watch the soldiers."

But what if he hadn't just watched? What if he'd hidden in a duct
somewhere and started taking them out one at a time? What if he'd got
caught at had to fight his way out? It was a moronic strategy from a
B-grade action movie, something no sane person would attempt in real
life.

Then again, this was James, and nothing about today had been sane since
ten this morning.

She almost didn't realize Dan was speaking until he finished asking his
question, but she knew exactly what he was asking about. "He was going
to tap into the security cameras? With what?"

"He and I went to Radio Shack and got a portable television and some
cables. He said that most security cameras use a standard television
signal, so you just plug them in and you can see what the security
camera sees."

"You went with him there?"

"Yes," she said cautiously.

"Do you mind if I ask you a loaded question?"

"Go ahead."

"What do you think of him now?"

Kat hung up the phone. "James just asked the police to tell us he needs
help."

"He shoot at them?" Ed asked.

Kat looked at him, marveling at how less-than-great minds think alike.
"No, he used sign language to ask one of the sniper teams for help."

Ed's face was a sloppy portrait of surprise. "James knows sign
language?"

Less-than-great minds, Kat reminded herself, but great fighters. No, not
fighters--warriors. Ed didn't even ask how they were going to do this.
He caught one glance of her eyes, and grabbed another gun. He didn't
wait for a plan to materialize. He turned to the hostages and took in
the scene they made.

"We're going to the Bon Marche. We're going now, and we're going armed.
If you want to help, grab a weapon. If you want to stay here and guard
this store, grab a weapon. If you want to do neither, hide."

Kat watched several of the hostages step forward, their faces grim. Carl
and Jimmy threw long, nervous glances at Ed. One lanky man in a business
suit picked up a gun, his hands shaking. His eyes were steady as they
locked onto Kat's. "I'll stay here," he said in a voice that matched his
eyes and not his hands.

She grabbed a gun. "I'm going."