Just north of the Willmont Homestead
Jana charged up the hillside and slung the sniper rifle diagonally over her head and shoulder as her legs pounded up the rocky terrain.
Her mind flashed back to all those times at Quantico when her instructors yelled for her to charge up a daunting hill that FBI trainees had nicknamed the widow-maker. Then another memory ricocheted forward—her shooting instructor’s steely voice. Double tap, center mass, then one to the head.
She crested the hilltop and looked into the shimmering reflection of lake water below. On the far side of the lake, Jana saw the float plane. Her eyes continued to trace the shoreline until she found the mouth of Tower Creek. Before she broke into a sprint toward the creek, she couldn’t help but notice Ranger Parker, soaked from head to foot, seated on the ground with one leg stretched in front of her. She held a rope that was attached to the plane, and dug her one good foot into the thick mud in order to pull the floating aircraft closer to shore.
My kind of woman, Jana thought.
As Jana turned to sprint toward the wide creek to follow Jarrah, she said, “This one is for me,” though no one could have heard her.
Once over the hilltop, she slowed to a jog, pacing herself for the rugged run ahead. She trudged across the tilted terrain, bracing every few steps as her footing gave way underneath loose rock. To Jana, Tower Creek looked more like a river. Not the kind frequented by whitewater rafters, but a rocky fast-mover nonetheless.
She ran through thick briers, slipped on the rocky, tree-covered hillside with frequency, and collected an increasing series of scrapes and bruises as she powered forward. Although her lungs burned and her legs bled, Jana accepted the pain without a second thought.
The mission became more and more clear in her mind. Jarrah had no intention of passing the duty of detonating the nuclear device to another jihadist. He was the jihadist. He would do this himself, and die in the process.
Blood streamed down her shin from a fresh gash earned against the sharp rocks. Sweat rolled down her face, and the drops cleared streaks through the dirt and dried blood. The more exhausted she became, the harder she ran. But the stress and terror of what she’d just been through took its toll, and her mind wandered back to the first time she’d faced one of Waseem Jarrah’s nuclear devices. In that instance, she’d broken into a similar sprint moments before detonation and engaged the suicide bomber with gunfire at point blank range. Jana now knew the horror of those events would never leave her. The bullet scars she had earned that day would make sure of that, terrifying calling cards from the bright blue morning that nearly ended in her death. The scars would always remain in her sight, every time she looked in the mirror. The scars spoke to her, like echoes from a shimmering nightmare. They would not be silenced for the rest of her life.
The sounds from that day’s echoing gunfire reverberated in her head. As her feet pounded the hillside, Jana’s mind descended deeper and deeper, back to the scene. In her mind’s eye she could see the muzzle of the terrorist’s handgun as the barrel flashed, then flashed again as he fired at her. She relived the feeling of the bullets as they slammed into her chest, smelled the acrid gunpowder, and relived the shock of blue sky she saw as her head slammed into the hard ground.
Here in an all-out sprint to stop Jarrah, Jana’s vision began to blur and although she did not know it, her breathing accelerated. She was falling into a post-traumatic stress episode, and she had no control over it. Roaring sounds from the nearby river began to escalate in volume—she was nearing the waterfall.
Her feet pounded faster, the periphery of her eyesight faded further, and darkness descended upon her. It was then that she ran straight into a solid object, taking the strike at throat level—the effect something like running in a full sprint into a taught clothesline.
Her head and neck wrenched backward and her legs flew out from under her. She crashed onto her spine, and her head slammed into a rock. The wind left her lungs and her spine screamed in agony against the rifle strapped in place there.
The shockwave of pain snapped her away from the washy etchings of her PTSD episode and back to reality. Her mouth hung open but no sounds emerged. She gulped in an effort to bring oxygen back into her lungs. And standing above her was a man, a man named Waseem Jarrah.