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Alina pressed the disconnect button on her phone and closed her laptop with a snap. Hawk had gone up to take his shower two hours ago and hadn't come back downstairs. She descended into her lair and was in the process of consolidating all her files on her hard-drives when Stephanie called. The conversation had been brief. The bugs inside the house where Johann was staying had just confirmed: Johann was launching his attack tonight.
Alina stood up and quickly disconnected multiple cables from the back of the laptop and reached under the counter for the bag. She packed the laptop, network cables, and power cords into the laptop bag before tucking the external hard drive into a separate bag. She then reached up and started pulling cables from the LCD screens along the walls and, one by one, they went black. Rolling up the cables swiftly as she went, Alina tied them neatly and set them to the side before turning to the multiple hard-drives and the two servers.
Ten minutes after she had hung up with Stephanie, her command center was decommissioned and all the equipment was ready to move. Alina headed up the stairs and emerged into the kitchen. The afternoon sun had faded and the kitchen was dark after the bright fluorescent lights in her command center. She blinked a few times and then pressed the button under the sink to slide the island back into place.
Outwardly, she was calm, but the under-lying tension present all day had morphed into that feeling of anticipation mixed with apprehension that Viper knew well. Once she was moving, the feeling would dissipate and calm focus would replace it. But for now, Alina took a deep breath in an attempt to settle the trembling that was trying to creep into her belly and legs. She rolled her head a few times and took a few deep breaths, forcing herself to focus her attention inward, rather than on the next few hours. It was going to end tonight, one way or another.
And neither Johann nor the Engineer would go down easily.
The house was silent as Alina went upstairs. She went into her bedroom and came to a stop at the sight of Hawk, spread out on his stomach diagonally across her bed, fast asleep. He was wearing his jeans, and nothing else. Alina stared for a long moment at a long, jagged scar that ran right to left from the center of his right shoulder-blade to below the low waist of his jeans. It wasn't very old and she wondered how it happened. Viper knew she was covered in her own scars, but she had always thought of Hawk as almost invincible. Seeing the scar made her realize that he was human, just as she was.
Alina frowned and went into the closet silently, not wanting to consider their very real mortality. She changed into black cargo SWAT pants and a microfiber tank top, then picked up her black utility boots and went back into the bedroom.
Damon was still sleeping. Alina glanced up at Raven and smiled slightly. Her pet hawk was also asleep, with his beak buried deep in his feathers. As she looked from one to the other, somewhere deep inside, Alina felt something as close to peace as she had she felt in a very long time. Frowning again, she pushed the feeling aside and set her boots down on the floor near the bed. She looked at Damon, considering the best way to wake him up.
“Is there a reason why you're standing there staring at me?”
Damon spoke, breaking the silence in the room and causing Alina to flinch in surprise. He opened his eyes and peered up at her.
“It's time to work,” Viper told him simply.
She went over to the dresser to get a pair of socks. Damon noted her SWAT pants and tank top and rolled over, stretching with a wide yawn.
“What's the plan?” he asked, sitting up as she sat down on the side of the bed to put on her socks and boots.
“I'm meeting Steph and John at their outpost.” Alina laced up one boot before removing her ankle strap and knife from the other one. She strapped it onto her leg before putting her right boot on. “I'll take care of Johann on the Island before heading back to his base on the other side of the river. Our Fearless Feds can handle the rest of his crew. I have a bigger fish to fry.”
“The Engineer?” Damon asked.
Alina nodded.
“He'll wait for him somewhere near the house,” she said.
“That's what I would do,” Damon agreed, standing up.
Alina finished lacing up her other boot and stood up, her pant leg falling to cover the knife.
“Me too,” she said.
Damon headed toward the door as she went over to the dresser to grab her watch.
“I have clothes in the car. I'll get changed,” he said over his shoulder before disappearing down the hall.
Alina moved into the bathroom and a few minutes later, her hair was braided and ready to be tucked away under a dark cap. She took a deep breath and considered her reflection in the mirror. The square bulge under the top at her side drew her attention, and Alina stared at it thoughtfully for a minute. She stretched in a full stretch to the right, arching her left arm over her head and leaning to the side. She frowned when the bandage at her side pulled taut and tape started to pucker away from her skin.
Well, that's not going to work, Alina thought, taking the tank top off impatiently.
Opening the vanity cabinet, she surveyed her options and took out a long ace bandage. She ripped open the package and wrapped it around herself, effectively securing the bandage and giving her side more support. She pulled the tank top back on and looked at herself again. Her middle looked thick, but it would work. Without giving her injury or appearance another thought, Alina switched out the light and left the bathroom.
Viper was ready to go.
Alina dropped silently over the wall to land next to Stephanie. The Island was dark and silent in this area. The two reactor funnels, dead since 1979 when the Island had its infamous meltdown, rose imposingly into the night about 200 meters away, eerily silent in the darkness. In the distance, on the far side, the two functioning reactors spewed thick, white clouds into the night air, illuminated by the bright lights around that side of the compound. Stephanie jumped as Alina landed next to her, startled. She glanced behind her at the wall.
“Oh my God!” she hissed. “Where did you come from? You just scared the crap out of me!”
Alina smiled slightly.
“Sorry,” she retorted.
Stephanie took in Alina's black clothing and the black knit cap that covered her hair. She was wearing a light-weight black jacket with multiple pockets over what looked like a Kevlar vest, and a black strap ran diagonally across her body, holding a rifle bag on her back. A leg holster with what looked like a .45 was strapped to her thigh, and a pair of night vision goggles hung around her neck. Stephanie blinked, unsettled at the sight of her old friend in what appeared to be normal work gear for her.
“You look like you're going to invade a small town,” she muttered, turning her attention back to the area in front of her.
Alina glanced at her.
“Not tonight. Maybe next week,” she replied.
Stephanie shook her head with a reluctant grin and the two women were silent for a moment as Viper surveyed the area. The edge of a cement peripheral road started a few feet away and she looked to the right in the darkness, toward the edge of the island.
“That's your best bet,” Viper whispered, motioning to their right. “Go along the edge, past the funnels, and stay in the shadows. Do you have an exact location?”
Stephanie shook her head.
“I know he'll be somewhere between the two pairs of funnels, but I don't know where,” she answered.
Alina nodded and glanced to her left.
“I'm going to cross over to the other side of that access road,” she said, nodding toward the road that ran down to the main reactor compound. “I'll set up on a rooftop on the other side.”
Stephanie nodded.
“I'm still not happy about you not wearing a com unit,” she said. “How are we going to communicate?”
“We won't need to. You'll be fine,” Alina replied.
She looked at Stephanie, dressed in jeans and a jacket, her 9mm Glock at her waist.
“Where's your backup?” Alina asked her, motioning to the gun. The blank look she encountered from Stephanie answered her question perfectly.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Alina blinked.
“You don't have a backup firearm?” she asked.
Stephanie shook her head.
“I didn't think of it,” she admitted.
Alina shook her head and reached into her back holster, pulling out the modified Glock that she carried as a backup.
“That does not make me feel confident,” she muttered, handing Stephanie the gun and reaching into one of her cargo pockets for the clips. “It's modified. It has a longer range and better accuracy than your standard issue. And it has a bigger kick-back to it, so be prepared for that.”
“I can't take your gun!” Stephanie started to protest, but a cutting look from Alina's dark eyes silenced her.
“You can,” Alina told her, handing her the clips, “and you will. I don't want your death on my conscience.”
“That's a little dramatic,” Stephanie retorted. “I'm wearing a vest. And this isn't exactly my first rodeo,” she added.
“Good.”
Alina nodded shortly and Stephanie was struck with how calm and focused her friend appeared. She was all business. Stephanie suddenly felt that there was no one else that she would rather have on that rooftop than this cold, efficient stranger.
Viper glanced at her watch. She had already done a sweep of the other side of the island and would have liked to have done one more, but they were out of time. According to Johann's time schedule, they had to get into position now.
“They never found the body of the security guard, so keep an eye out for two players,” she told Stephanie. “The guard may be in on it.”
“Got it.” Stephanie nodded, tucking the gun away.
Alina looked at her.
“Be accurate,” she added. “Johann won't miss.”
Stephanie nodded again and Alina smiled slightly.
“See you later,” she said, clapping Stephanie on the shoulder lightly before disappearing into the darkness.
Stephanie watched her go, disconcerted when Alina seemed to vanish into the darkness, as if the night was accepting her into itself. In an instant, Stephanie was alone and she headed to the right, staying deep in the shadows. John was a few miles up the river and getting into position at the train station, one of the main targets. It was a stroke of luck that Pete had been able to get the bugs into the house while Johann was sleeping last night. It was an even bigger stroke of luck that Johann had gone over the details of his plan in that meeting with his team earlier today.
Stephanie prayed that the luck would hold out tonight.
Damon's breath came quick and even as he ran through the trees along the river. He had watched Viper go into the water and made sure that she reached the island without incident, watching through binoculars as she navigated the security and climbed onto the island. Once she shed her wet suit, he turned away and started running to make his way the three miles or so downriver to Johann's house. He wanted to sweep a one mile radius around the house and find where the Engineer was hiding. If he got the opportunity, Hawk would take the bastard out himself and risk Vipers wrath later. However, he knew the odds of finding him in the darkness would be slim.
The Engineer wouldn't be seen until he was ready to be seen.
Hawk hadn't accompanied Viper to meet with Stephanie and John. Viper didn't want them to know he was back yet and he was content to remain incognito for the time being. Things were complicated enough already without being drilled about his whereabouts for the past two days. Better to get this night over with, and then he and Viper could re-evaluate. Once they knew exactly what happened down in Washington, they could better address the issue. Until then, Damon was staying well out of the way of the Fearless Feds.
When Viper told him they managed to get a bug into Johann's temporary house, his first thought was that the Feds were being played. However, as she explained the attack that had been laid out, Hawk grudgingly had to admit this was exactly what someone of Johann's caliber would have invented.
The explosion on the island was, indeed, meant to be a catalyst to cause widespread alarm and panic. Once that was established, the real attacks would begin. One bomb detonated in the train station a few miles away, towards Harrisburg, shutting down the trains. Another bomb detonated in the Harrisburg International Airport, shutting down the airport. And the final two detonated on the bridge spanning the river near Harrisburg, the bridge where the Pennsylvania interstate crossed the river. Those three locations, in that order, would cause a death toll the likes of which the US hadn't seen in over ten years.
Hawk leapt over a patch of swampiness without breaking his stride. Viper was trusting the Feds to prevent the real attacks while she took care of Johann, preventing the starter explosion. He wasn't quite as confident as she appeared to be in the skills of the agents, but he was letting her run the show her own way. Heaven itself knew how successful Alina was at planning. If anyone could make sure that this whole thing never saw the light of day, then it was Viper. That was her job.
And, in order for him to do his job, he had to allow her to do hers.
Viper settled onto her stomach on the pitch black rooftop and set her eye against the night scope of her rifle. It had taken her less than two minutes to set up, and now she scanned the area between the two sets of towers, looking for Stephanie. On her second pass, she spotted her friend moving out of the shadows and slipping across the deserted pavement to disappear behind another building that flanked a parking lot. Alina started scanning to the left slowly, searching for signs of movement. She knew Johann had to be in position. It was just a matter of finding him before he found Stephanie.
Viper scanned the area slowly, noting the cars in the lot and the movement of the security lights. She hadn't seen a guard yet, but she knew security was tight down there. Before four planes had changed the world forever, the public had been allowed onto Three Mile Island to tour the dead reactors and learn about nuclear energy and how the reactors worked. Now, the island was closed to visitors. After multiple security threats from Al Queda and other terrorist organizations, the security measures on this island had been upgraded and increased until it was just short of being a nuclear fortress. Even so, Viper thought dispassionately, it had been easily maneuvered.
Of course, they were aware that Stephanie was there. While Stephanie had agreed that alerting local authorities of the threat would cause more harm than good, she had insisted on putting the Island on alert. Viper disagreed, but she conceded the point, knowing that she would be able to avoid the security long enough to complete her own mission. She understood Stephanie's concern. Should the unthinkable happen and they fail, the Island had to be prepared.
Viper passed over a white utility van in the parking lot closest to Stephanie, then went back to it immediately. She studied it for a moment. Pennsylvania plates, security tag on the side, and pass hanging from the rear-view mirror. It appeared perfectly legitimate. And yet....Viper frowned.
She could have sworn she saw it move slightly as she passed over it a second ago.
Viper moved the scope to the right slightly, looking for Stephanie. A shadow moved near the corner of the building and Viper knew she had Stephanie. She moved back to the van. It was perfectly still now and Alina could detect no sign of life nearby. But she was left with the unaccountably strong impression that the van had moved slightly, as if someone inside the back of the van crossed from one side to the other. It was positioned perfectly, directly in between the two sets of funnels. If an explosion occurred in that position, there would be no way to tell from either riverbank whether the explosion occurred in the live reactors or the dead ones. The illusion of another “incident” would be complete.
“Come on,” Viper whispered. “Show me where you are.”
She moved the scope again, peering through the cross-hairs as she scanned the night, looking for movement. Her heart felt like it was pounding, but her breathing was calm and her palms were dry. A quick glance at her watch told her that it was time, and yet she could still detect no movement in that parking lot or in any of the surrounding buildings.
Viper lifted her head, casting her eyes thoughtfully toward the two towers that were happily spewing forth white clouds. Could they be wrong? Could Johann have actually found a way to target the live nuclear reactor?
As quickly as the thought came into her head, Alina dismissed it. It would be virtually impossible to get any form of explosive into the nuclear reactor, let alone detonate it. She was impressed that he had found a way to get an explosive onto the island at all, and if it had been anyone other than Johann, Alina would have never believed it possible. She lowered her head back to the night scope. The explosive had to be out in the open and Viper was liking the odds on the van more and more.
Movement caught her eye and Alina watched through the scope as Stephanie moved out from behind the building, staying in the shadows, and started to move up the side. Alina had a clear shot to her friend. She watched as Stephanie stopped and pressed against the side of the building.
She heard something, she thought, as Stephanie remained completely still against the side of the building. Viper moved the scope back to the van.
There! It shifted slightly!
Alina watched as the van continued to move ever so slightly and then became still. Seconds later, a shadow moved at the back of the van and Viper slid her finger gently over the trigger. Her breathing slow, Alina allowed all thought of bombs and nuclear reactors to fade from her mind. All that was real to her right now was the trigger under her finger and the target hundreds of meters away. She waited patiently for the shadow to come into view.
When it stepped into her line of fire a few seconds later, Viper focused in on the face and swore softly. The face was the wide, round face of a very large black man who had about forty pounds and half a foot on Johann. He was wearing a security uniform and carrying a lunch bag in one hand. He looked like just another guard coming on duty, walking from his car towards his job. Alina's lips curved slightly.
“Oh well done, Johann,” she breathed softly, focusing in on the uniform.
It was the missing guard, alive and well, and Johann made sure that he was the first one out in the open, testing the waters before he committed to blowing the explosive.
Viper slid her finger off the trigger. She would wait. She was there for Johann.
She moved the scope back to Stephanie. She was still there, against the building, hidden in the shadows. Alina knew she could see the guard now as he moved out from behind the van and into the open. He was walking toward the building that Stephanie was pressed against, headed for the door at the other end of the building, away from Stephanie. He didn't appear to have seen her and Viper waited, almost apprehensively. While she was there to put an end to Johann, Stephanie was there to stop an explosion and Alina had little doubt that Stephanie had come to the same conclusion she had about the van.
Stephanie waited until the guard reached the sidewalk before moving out of the shadows. Viper watched as she walked toward the guard, her arms at her side, her posture relaxed. Alina couldn't hear anything, but she knew when Stephanie called out to him. He turned toward her, stopping in his tracks. Stephanie was still moving toward him, her lips moving and one arm gesturing, as if she was asking the guard for directions or for assistance. The guard didn't move, but seemed as if he was waiting for her to get closer.
Viper slid her finger over the trigger of her rifle again, exhaling slowly.
It was all over within a few short minutes. As Stephanie approached the guard, Viper watched through the scope as he pulled out a gun and aimed at her old friend. Stephanie didn't hesitate, pulling her own gun and, in the process, revealing the badge on her hip. Viper imagined she must have identified herself because the guard fired.
The sound of the shot echoed around the compound, reaching Viper on her rooftop, and she watched as Stephanie's firing arm came up. Where the guard had shot wide, Stephanie's shot was true and the guard was thrown back a step when her bullet ripped through his shoulder. The gun flew out of his firing hand, skipping across the sidewalk in one direction, while the lunch bag flew out of his other hand and hit the pavement in the parking lot, sliding across the tarmac before coming to rest against the wheel of a motorcycle parked nearby. Stephanie was advancing on the injured guard, both hands holding her gun steady, when he suddenly regained his balance and lunged at her.
Stephanie was caught off guard but Viper raised an eyebrow, momentarily diverted by the awkward clumsiness of the tackle. It reminded her of a drunk man trying to throw a punch, off balance and lacking precision. However, the guard had momentum backed by sheer weight behind him, and Stephanie was thrown to the ground. Her weapon skidded out of reach and Alina winced as the guard raised his good arm and delivered a staggering blow to the side of Stephanie's face. Almost immediately, Stephanie's foot connected solidly with his chest and he was knocked away from her long enough for Stephanie to scrabble away on the ground. She reached into the back of her jeans, pulling out Alina's modified Glock just as the guard reached her gun on the pavement.
He turned and fired.
The two shots rang out simultaneously, exploding in the night and sounding to Alina, up on her rooftop, like fireworks. They were immediately followed by two more rapid shots from Stephanie. The guard was thrown backward and fell to the ground, three rounds straight through his chest ending his fight.
Viper watched Stephanie get up off the ground unsteadily and walk toward the fallen man cautiously, her gun still aimed at him and ready to fire. Blood poured down her arm, evidence that the guards final shot had caught her arm. Viper was watching as she advanced on the guard, kicking the gun on the ground away from him, when, suddenly, there was movement behind Stephanie.
The scuffle with the guard had moved them into the parking lot and away from the building. Stephanie had her back to the building and Viper caught her breath briefly as a tall shadow separated from the building, moving forward silently. She didn't need to focus on the face to know that it was Johann. The stealth with which the figure moved was more distinctive than the face could be. He had moved with that same careful grace that long ago day in Cairo, when he walked out of the meeting room into the hotel lobby. Stephanie didn't hear him and was bending down to check futilely for a pulse on the guard, leaving herself completely exposed.
Johann stopped just outside the shadows and raised his arm, the silhouette of a gun steady in his hand, aimed straight at Stephanie's head.
Alina's breath stopped and her finger moved gently, almost lovingly, over the trigger as she centered the cross-hairs. Time seemed to stand still as Viper held her breath for a few beats, listening to her own heartbeat.
She exhaled slowly as her finger squeezed the trigger.
Johann never got to fire his shot. Stephanie swung around quickly as he hit the ground, a single bullet wound in the center of his forehead.
She straightened up with a gasp. He had fallen straight backwards with the force of the shot and was laying on his back a few feet behind her. Stephanie saw the gun resting where it had fallen out of his hand and, all at once, her heart started to pound and she felt light-headed. She hadn't heard a sound as he came up behind her and she stared as blood started to pool under his head, almost fascinated by the speed with which it started to collect on the pavement. That quickly, instead of her being dead next to the traitorous security guard, one of the most wanted terrorists in Western civilization was lying dead, killed with a single round perfectly placed through his forehead.
Stephanie turned to look at the rooftops in the distance on the other side of the island. They were dark and silent, but Stephanie knew that from one of them, her best friend from days long past had just saved her life.
Alina lifted her head from her rifle as Johann hit the ground. It was over. Two years later, she had finished it.
She took a deep breath and let it out again before mechanically and silently lifting her rifle off its mount. Viper disassembled it rapidly, her hands moving confidently and setting each piece carefully back into the rifle bag. Her heartbeat was starting to slow to a normal pace again and that old, familiar feeling of cold was settling into her gut. She had succeeded in her mission, but at a great cost. Another little part of her had died along with Johann.
Viper never tried to put into words or thoughts this yawning feeling of emptiness and cold that filled her in the minutes immediately following the death of a target. Regardless of how evil or contemptible the target, she found it impossible to feel satisfaction in the death of another human being. Later, after this feeling had passed, she would be satisfied with a job completed successfully, but never with the actual death. Each one left her cold. But Alina had learned to accept the feeling, embrace the regret, and then leave it behind with the target.
Within a minute, Viper had packed up and was disappearing back into the silent night, leaving behind the cold emptiness. The only physical trace that she had ever been there was the dead body of one of the most prolific terrorists that the West had ever known.
And the federal agent whose life she had just saved.