Fletcher had always worried about the aquifer. Though it was well-guarded and the water treated so thoroughly and deeply that pathogens couldn’t possibly pass through, it was open and exposed. If there was a weaponized pathogen that could be distributed in water, where it would grow into something bigger, maintain its effectiveness and manage not to be killed by the treatment itself—this was the perfect place to attack.
Sam had emailed a photo of Riley Dixon, so at least they knew who they were looking for.
Fletcher pulled to the side of the road, parked. He and Chalk got out and started toward the plant. A few moments later, Sam, Xander and Robin Souleyret drove up. They converged a block away from the aquifer.
Sam had Robin fill them in on her information—that her source assured her there were at least three methods being tested to get the superbug into the general population, and they were going for the water tonight.
Chalk handed Xander another clip for his M4. “Why do you think he’s here? He could be anywhere.”
“It’s just a feeling,” Robin said. “Something Riley said to me this morning. He asked me if I’d seen today’s bulletin. It’s the daily threat risk assessment we get. There was a story about a white paper done several years ago on terrorism and water supplies. A reminder of the threats we face, asking them to tighten security at all the water treatment plants across the country. We have threats like this all the time, but he’s never once mentioned the bulletin to me, and my boss mentioned the possibility of a water attack. It was clearly on everyone’s minds today, but I think it was more. I think he was trying to tell me something.”
“You never saw this coming?” Fletcher asked.
Robin shook her head. “I haven’t seen much past the end of my nose for a long time, Lieutenant. And if you’d asked me two hours ago if Riley Dixon could be involved in a terrorist attack on this country, I would have shot you just for being stupid. But I’m seeing clearly now. He removed his GPS tracker, he shut down our company’s satellites and he’s off the grid entirely. And that thought frightens me more than anything else. Now. Shall we?”
“One last thing,” Chalk said. “Do you think he’s alone?”
Robin paused a second, then shook her head. “Probably not. We normally operate alone, yes, but with a job this big? If it were me, I’d bring backup. At least a few people to cover me. But I like our odds.”
Xander gave Sam a smile. It was a compliment, one operator to another. He liked Robin, she could tell. She was tough and ballsy and ruthless. All things he respected.
With a glance at Chalk, Xander spun his finger in the air. He took the lead and they bled into the darkness, weapons drawn, a silent black wedge moving toward the treatment plant.
Chapter 52
The D.C. aquifer
THE TEAM RILEY had assembled was small, but lethal. They’d lost time getting the superbug out of the vials and into the weaponized containers that would leak the poison into the water supply. There were so many ways to do this, but Riley had done a risk analysis on every aquifer in the area, and determined this one was the best chance they had to make a devastating statement.
For the thousandth time since he’d been forced into this mess, he shrugged off the voices in his head that screamed, Don’t do this—if you do this, you’re lost forever.
He had no choice. He’d fucked up. The Pyramid owned him, and he wasn’t willing to give up his own life when it could be lived out in relative comfort and happiness half a world away. He’d spent his entire adult life being pulled through the machine that was his government, watching it disintegrate into a mocking portrait of itself.
An attack of this scale, when they weren’t looking, weren’t expecting it, would wake them up, if nothing else.
The attack had been exceptionally well coordinated from the first. The team had spread out, eliminated everyone who might be a problem. James Denon had gotten lucky, having a sharpshooter protecting him. Riley himself was one of the few people who could have made that shot this morning, across the roofs of two buildings with a SIG. He was duly impressed.
His guards watched him, balaclavas dropped over their dark-skinned faces, with something akin to wonder and mistrust in their sloe eyes. They’d killed the plant manager on duty, and all the security guards they’d come across, quickly and silently, but he could tell they hungered for more. Death was never enough to a jihadist. They wouldn’t be satisfied with blood, not until it ran in the rivers across the US. They’d been on him for three weeks now, as everything was being put into place. He knew they were ruthless. He knew they wouldn’t give a second thought to putting bullet in his head. If he tried to back out, or even hesitated, they would simply shoot him and finish the job themselves.
He was better than them. He only killed for his own purpose, not to answer the call of another.
As he loaded the canisters, each bearing waves of death, he told himself that, over and over and over.
Chapter 53
SAM PACED HER steps with Xander, the Glock tight in her hand. Her shoulders were already starting to ache from holding up the weapon, a knot forming between her scapulae. Fletcher was behind her. Robin and Chalk brought up the eastern edge of their triangle.
They were moving fast, low and tight, and it only took a minute to get past the perimeter and into the plant itself. Someone had cut the chain on the fence. They were definitely in the right place. Sam wondered for a brief moment how Robin had known it would be this particular plant, or if it was a lucky guess, then all thoughts were pushed away when she smelled the blood.
She touched Xander’s back, made him stop. They all halted. “Over there,” she whispered, and he broke off silently, returning a minute later, his lips drawn tight together.
“Five down. Executed. Stripped of weapons. Must have been the night shift.” He turned to Chalk and murmured in his ear.
“What did you tell him?” Sam whispered.
“That we might have more than one bad guy in here. Come on.”
Great, she thought. Just what I need, more bad guys. Started off after him again.
The whir and hum of the machinery covered their tracks, but it wasn’t until Xander suddenly fired into the darkness that Sam heard anything unnatural. The foopt of the silenced bullet seemed overly loud and out of place. Chalk was right there, catching the body before it hit the ground, and Robin stepped into the breach and took another silenced shot. Fletcher worked with her, and Sam felt so oddly out of place, watching them eliminate threat after threat, the terrorists falling like chess pieces.
The men who guarded Riley were lazy and undisciplined. They assumed they were safe because they’d killed the people on duty. They hadn’t expected a threat from outside. It was their only advantage.
Sam kept moving, pushing forward in the darkness. There were small lights on the ceiling that gave her the direction she needed to go. Xander stepped to her side, their flying V complete again. They wound in, farther and farther, and the hall opened into a great room, with three large water tanks draining into pools, and huge metal arms swirling through the water so it didn’t stagnate.
Riley Dixon was standing over the middle pool, dropping steel canisters into the water. Sam tripped over something metallic, sent it skittering into the darkness. It was their first stroke of bad luck. Dixon froze, then dove away.
Sam thought Robin was the one who yelled first. “Riley! Riley, stop!”
And then it was a cacophony, voices and bullets echoing off the steel containers. Xander pushed her down onto the ground, practically kneeled on her back as he emptied his magazine into the darkness, calling directions in a bizarre military shorthand that everyone but her seemed to understand.