End Days Super Boxset (5 page)

An older man now exited the room, taller and with facial hair. He had on jeans, a blue summer jacket, and a small backpack as well.

“The tall one. That’s Rasheed,” Patterson said. He fished in his pocket and unraveled a folded printout of Rasheed’s driver’s license.

“Yep. That’s him,” Patterson said.

Both men had similar square-jawed facial features and thick, curly dark hair, though much of the younger one's hair was matted under his ball cap. Rasheed appeared to be examining his counterpart from head to toe. His mouth moved, but they couldn't hear anything he was saying.

“You got audio on this thing?” Patterson asked.

“Just video,” Craig said.

The younger one unzipped his jacket, exposing a small bulletproof vest with a camera attached to it.

“What the hell is that? A camera?” Patterson asked.

After closing and locking the door, Rasheed pulled a green Adidas ball cap from his pocket and placed it on his head. Both men then walked out of the frame.

Craig shut his laptop, turned and placed it on the back seat behind them after telling Patterson to keep watch.

“We might have to split up,” Craig said. “There’s more than one exit to that building.”

Suddenly Rasheed and his companion walked out the front exit of the building, just as Craig had hoped. Their suspects moved quickly with their heads down, right toward the diner Patterson had suggested going to.

“Ready to do a little legwork?” Craig asked.

Patterson nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Let's move.”

Craig and Patterson kept a careful distance, moving around people and approaching the corner of a crosswalk where Rasheed and his companion waited for the walk sign to flash. Craig could see Rasheed’s green Adidas hat in the small crowd and stopped. Ideally he wanted to keep as much distance as possible and simply observe their activities and where they went.

The light changed, their suspects crossed the street, and Craig and Patterson followed closely behind. Once they reached the next street, Rasheed and the other man stopped in front of “Lee’s Diner”
—
the same diner Patterson had expressed interest in.

Craig watched from about ten feet away as their suspects talked to each other.

“They stopped,” Patterson said, leaning on a newspaper stand.

“I know.”

“Why?”

Craig looked at Patterson in disbelief. “I don’t know!”

Rasheed hugged the boy, pulled away, and said a few more words with an intense, unblinking glare.

Craig tried to looking inconspicuous while keeping a careful eye on their suspects.

Rasheed walked off farther down the sidewalk as the young one took his backpack off and dropped it to the ground in front of the diner. Craig bolted from the newspaper stand and moved quickly in pursuit of Rasheed as he blended into a group of people walking by a Laundromat.

“You watch him, I’ll follow Rasheed,” Craig said, walking off.

Patterson gave him the thumbs up as they split up. Craig moved quickly down the sidewalk, moving as fast as he could without running. He didn’t want to make a scene or have to pull his badge out. Cellphones were everywhere. Anything he did, every movement, could be captured and put on the Internet in an instant. Ahead in a crowd, he could see the unmistakable cap bobbing along.

***

Their other suspect remained knelt at the entrance to the diner, digging through his backpack with his back turned. Patterson approached slowly while looking inside through the wide windowpane in front of him. The tables were full, as was the counter. Patrons—young and old—sipped coffee, drank orange juice, and munched on eggs, bacon, grits, and toast over conversation and the alluring aroma in the air. Servers and busboys moved about in their aprons and hats, trying to keep up with the morning rush.

As he watched the boy, Patterson thought of the bulging weight of the bag and the vest he was wearing underneath his jacket. The camera. It all made sense. He watched as the boy pulled out two handguns from the bag—one in each hand and stood up.

Patterson immediately pulled out his pistol. “Freeze!”

The boy whipped around, completely startled, wide-eyed and panicked, and fired multiple shots at Patterson without hesitation. Shots flew everywhere: through the diner's glass pane, into the diner’s walls, and directly into a patron’s head. Two rounds hit Patterson right in the gut, taking him down instantly.

Shocked but pumped with adrenaline, Patterson fired back in precise succession from the hard pavement as shell casings fell around him. Onlookers screamed and dispersed in a frenzy at the vivid blast of gunshots. The boy took several shots to the chest and fell down, stunned but not injured. The wind had been knocked out of him, but his vest had protected him. He struggled to his feet, legs shaking, gasping for breath. He then brought himself up with pistols in hand and ran into the diner, right through the swinging doors.

Patterson lay flat on the sidewalk, looking up into the sky and trembling, trying to get up. Blood gushed from his abdomen like a tapped reservoir. It was like a punch to the stomach that grew more painful with each passing breath.

***

Craig heard the shots and turned around. About a block down, he could see people running toward him. He then looked for Rasheed, who was standing ahead taking great interest in the shooting behind them. Craig didn’t want to waste another minute. He rushed after Rasheed, pushing his way past pedestrians.

Rasheed’s eyes locked on Craig. He spun around and sprinted in the opposite direction, away from the gunfire, and down the nearest alley. Craig chased him and nearly tripped over an elderly woman directly in his path. Rasheed was out of sight, but Craig continued his fast pursuit with his gun drawn, ready to take him down.

***

As Darion rushed into the diner, terrified diner patrons rose from their tables and ran to the back of the room. His GoPro camera was recording everything in front of him: the terrified expression of a group of woman ducking under her table, the chaotic and confused movements of a mob of people trying to find another way out, and the screams of a woman at the sight of her male companion lying dead on the table with a bullet through his head.

Darion spoke loudly and calmly, instructing everyone to line up against the wall. “I will not ask you again. Please do not try to escape.”

More than twenty frantic people huddled together, out of their chairs and away from their tables, trying to keep their distance from their approaching attacker. Servers joined the petrified customers just as a group of cooks came out of the kitchen after hearing the commotion.

“What the fuck?” a large, bearded cook shouted out, clutching a butcher knife.

He made a quick run toward Darion and was shot three times in the chest. More screams followed as the cook’s body slumped to the ground and the knife skidded across the tile floor. Two other cooks tried to run back to the kitchen but were shot in the back, moments from reaching the door. Cries and screams erupted through the room. No one knew what to do. A shaking, sweaty manager stood up from behind the counter with his arms up.

“What do you want?” he cried out, emptying the cash register. “Please. Take it all. Just don’t harm us.”

Darion looked at the crumpled bills clutched in the manager’s pale, shaky hands.

“I have come to deliver a message from the Islamic State. Because of your country’s continued aggression against my people, you are no longer safe to eat in your restaurants, to go to your movies, and shop at your malls. The day of reckoning for your crimes begins now.”

With the GoPro capturing every moment, Darion fired two shots into the manager, sending him spiraling into the stack of dishes behind him. A tower of clean plates fell over, crashing onto the floor. Darion pointed his pistols at the crowd as their screams intensified. Several people jumped out of the way, hid behind chairs, and some under tables. Their behavior and reactions fascinated Darion.

“Remember, please, that this is nothing personal. But it is necessary.”

***

Craig continued his chase down the alley, closing in on Rasheed just as his green hat flew off. Craig drew his gun and shouted at him to stop. Rasheed instead turned left at the end of the alley and ran to the next block in open view. He then bulldozed between a couple and pushed them out of the way as they tumbled onto the sidewalk, shaken and confused.

“Stop! FBI!” Craig shouted.

He pointed his pistol up into the air and fired. Rasheed ran across the two-lane street and jumped over some bushes into the yard of a nearby house. Exhausted, Craig pushed on. Rasheed climbed over a wooden fence into the backyard and ran on. Craig clenched his aching sides and then pulled himself over the same fence, only to see Rasheed rushing through the backyard and hurdling a divider.

Craig fell into the backyard and maintained his pursuit. Once he made it over the same divider, he watched Rasheed run out into a residential street with such frenzy that one of his shoes flew off. He lost his balance and suddenly rolled onto the pavement. His backpack flew off his shoulders, bursting open onto the street and revealing several pipe bombs.

Craig closed in with his gun drawn. “Put your hands above your head! Do it now!” he shouted.

Rasheed seemed undeterred. He recovered, jumped up with one shoe on his foot, and sprinted off twice as fast as before. Craig heard little faint pops from a distance and stopped. He turned again and yelled for Rasheed to stop, just as the man darted out in front of a large red pickup truck.

The truck's tires screeched across the pavement about ten seconds too late. Its front end struck Rasheed, tossing him into the air. The truck skidded to the side of the road and rammed into a phone pole. After a blaring crash, glass, metal, and plastic erupted on the scene flying across the road. The phone pole tilted to the side with heavy cables dangling in midair.

Craig ran to the scene, slowing traffic as he held his pistol and badge in the air. Cars abruptly halted in the middle of the road, giving Craig the chance he needed to get to the other side. Responder vehicles’ sirens wailed in the distance. Smoke billowed from the front of the smashed truck. Blood covered the cracked windshield. Rasheed’s body lay in the street, unconscious. The driver sat slumped over the wheel knocked out. As he heard the police sirens getting louder, Craig knew something had gone terribly wrong with the entire mission, and that it had all happened very fast.

***

Darion continued his siege of the diner, terrifying the men and women backed up against the wall, holding each other. Some had their eyes closed and were praying. Others pleaded with the shooter to let them go. Darion heard sirens and realized that he was running out of time.

He swung around his backpack, pulled out his MacBook, and placed it on a nearby table next to a plate of half-eaten eggs and spots of blood. A USB cord dangled from the MacBook’s side input. Darion was about to plug it into his camera and make the upload, when he realized that he wasn’t quite finished with the carnage. One of his pistols was empty. The other still held rounds. He dropped his empty pistol to the ground and scanned the faces of the people along the wall as their screams rose.

“You have meddled in the affairs of the Islamic State far too long. And we condemn you to death!”

***

From outside, Patterson suddenly came to. He could hear the wailing of terrified patrons from inside the diner as he struggled to get up. The pain in his stomach was almost too much to bear. A puddle of thick, sticky blood had formed around him on the dry, hot pavement. Most people had fled the area, not sure who Patterson was or why he had been shot.

He struggled to stand. His legs felt as frail as toothpicks and unable to support his weight. He vomited on the ground and gasped for breath, dizzy and quickly losing consciousness. Despite his injuries, he pushed himself to move. The screams from within the diner intensified, and even with the emergency sirens getting louder, he knew he had to do something before it was too late.

With one hand against the side of the building, he moved to the entrance, wobbling ahead, one foot in front of the other. He hunched over as blood dripped from his wounds, leaving a trail along the sidewalk.

He pushed his way inside through the swinging door just as Darion was delivering his final messaged to the terrified patrons.

“Allahu Akbar!” Darion shouted, pistol aimed and ready.

Patterson raised his pistol in the air with all the strength he could muster and fired. More screams pierced the air. Then silence. He watched as the blurry figure in front of him collapsed. Darion had taken a shot to the head and joined his victims who lay dead and dying on the bloody tile floor. The boy never knew what hit him.

After some confused commotion and tears the room went silent, as people clung to one another sobbing softly. Patterson stumbled forward and fell face-first to the ground right at the feet of the shooter. The emergency responder sirens outside grew deafening. Police surrounded the building. Patrons remained low to the ground, aghast in their hiding spots. Patterson felt himself drifting. The pain became less intense, and soon everything went black.

When Detective Harper entered the scene, he hadn’t ever seen anything quite like it in his thirty years with the Richmond PD. Eight people lay dead in the diner. Three cooks. One manager. And four patrons. The police quickly herded everyone out of the diner and to safety. Paramedics were quickly on the scene and overwhelmed by the carnage. Richmond hadn’t experienced a mass shooting of such size in recent memory, or probably ever.

Every casualty was pronounced dead on site except for one man with shaggy gray hair and an FBI badge affixed to his belt. He had a steady pulse and was breathing slowly, but had lost a lot of blood. Identified as Agent Josh Patterson, he was promptly taken to an ambulance and rushed to the emergency room. The perpetrator was a young man wearing a camouflaged bulletproof vest.

“He should have been wearing a helmet too. Eh, Detective?” one of the officers said to Harper.

Harper scratched his scruffy face and knelt down to recover a small GoPro camera amidst a bag of hundreds of rounds of ammo. He was astonished that the boy had killed only eight. The presence of a lone FBI agent only complicated the situation more. What had he been doing there? Eyewitness reports of a brief firefight outside before the massacre only piqued his curiosity. A frenzy of reporters and news cameras had flooded the scene outside, held at bay by tight-lipped crowd control officers.

Detective Harper noticed that Darion had failed to upload his video in time. After recovering the busted-up GoPro, he viewed the recording and was met with gruesome scenes of the carnage—death captured in real time.

Harper placed it in a sealed evidence bag to be transported to the evidence room with everything else. The detective did a Hail Mary and then tried to get some ID on the shooter. Nothing on the scene directly linked him to a terrorist network. He had no identification on him. Suddenly, Harper heard on his radio that another man, who resembled the diner gunman, had been hit by a truck, not far from the diner.

***

Craig tried his best to maintain control of the crash site. He called Patterson repeatedly but only got voicemail instead. A sick feeling brewed in his stomach as he heard sirens blare from a few blocks over.

Police were everywhere on the street around him. Paramedics had the driver of the truck—an unconscious white-haired man—on a wheeled stretcher and fitted into a neck-and-shoulder brace. As they pushed him to the ambulance, one EMT held an oxygen pump over the man’s face and pumped intermittently.

Rasheed lay in the road unconscious among broken pieces of the truck’s front end and a backpack full of pipe bombs. It was a surreal scene, the second time Craig found himself in the middle of the street amid destruction and chaos in a matter of days. The tide seemed to be turning against him.

He forbade investigators to touch the pipe bombs and demanded that the paramedics handle Rasheed with the utmost care. If he died, Craig didn’t know where he would start.

“That man is under the custody of the FBI.” He looked to some nearby police. “I want you to escort the ambulance to the hospital and keep guards posted around his room.”

He tried Patterson’s cell phone again and again and then pulled his two-way radio from a clip on his belt. Patterson didn’t answer.

The police were still blocking off traffic as a tow truck pulled up to haul away the pickup truck that had been destroyed against the light post. Craig took pictures of the pipe bombs—five in all—on the pavement. He didn’t know where Rasheed had been headed with the bombs and why, but he was relieved to find a brown leather wallet in Rasheed’s backpack. Inside were Rasheed’s Virginia driver’s license and some credit cards. Nothing more.

Two police officers had just approached Craig for further instruction when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Craig pulled his phone out expecting to see Patterson’s number, but instead he saw that it was Assistant Deputy Director Calderon. Everything began to hit him at once: the surveillance, the chase, the diner shooting, the police, the ambulances, and the news media. It had no end. Craig hesitated but then answered.

“Agent Davis.”

There was silence on the other end before Calderon’s noticeably restrained voice began.
“Your name came on my radar a minute ago, and I don’t know why. But it seems you have a little situation out there in Richmond.”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“I’m seeing it on the news now. A total bloodbath. Is this you?”

“Bloodbath, sir? I don’t think so.”

“I just received word that we have an agent in the hospital. Your partner.”

Craig was speechless. “I-I don’t know. We were apprehending two suspects on foot and got split up.”

“What the hell are you doing out there, Craig?”

“Rasheed Surkov. He’s connected with the sleeper cell in Minneapolis.”

“And?”

“And we have reason to believe that he was planning an attack here in Richmond.”

Calderon sighed.
“We’re sending a field agent team out there. Counterterrorism. We have no choice now but to show a presence.”

“What happened at the diner? Where’s my partner?”
Craig said, dreading the answer.

“I was hoping you could tell me that,”
Calderon said.

Craig began to move quickly away from the scene. He ducked under the yellow tape and ran back toward the diner.

“You’re to come to D.C., Agent Davis,”
Calderon said.
“Immediately.”

Craig hung up the phone without responding and ran to the diner. Surkov, the pipe bombs, and Calderon were no longer on his mind. All he could think about was Patterson.

“Please let him be okay,” he repeated to himself.

When he arrived on the scene, he was unsettled to see so many people gathered around the perimeter of the building. There were more news trucks than he could count and what looked like the entire Richmond police department out in full force. Bodies were being wheeled out of the diner on gurneys with white sheets covering them, stained with blood.

Craig held up his badge and pushed his way through, trying to get a better look at the diner.

“Officer!” he shouted to a detective standing amid the chaos.

“Yes?” His name tag identified him as Detective Harper.

“Special Agent Davis, FBI. I’m looking for my partner, Agent Patterson. We were in the middle of tracking two suspects. Mine ran away on foot. The other one was here. What happened?”

Harper looked pale and queasy as if he was suffering from food poisoning, no doubt related to the crime scene directly behind them. The glass had been shot out. The air reeked of gunpowder. Pools of dark red blood were everywhere on the floor of the diner.

“There was a shooting here, and yes, an FBI agent was involved.”

Craig’s heart sank.

“But he’s still alive,” Harper said. “They took him to the emergency room a few minutes ago. Had him listed in stable condition last time I checked. Many others weren’t so lucky.”

Craig felt relief for his partner but distraught to hear that so many had died. There wasn’t much more to say.

Surkov’s young counterpart had been sent into the diner to spray the place with bullets. Surkov himself had probably been on his way to a larger target. But where?

Just as he was about to ask Detective Harper about what hospital Patterson had been taken to, Craig noticed several black SUVs pull up near the building, tires screeching. Several men in suits jumped out of the vehicles and quickly moved in.

Unbelievable
, Craig thought.

Deputy Jenkins led the pack, wearing dark shades and his typical three-piece suit. He approached Craig and addressed him with a serious tone. “You’re wanted back at FBI headquarters, Special Agent Davis.”

“You guys move fast,” Craig said. “And what division of Homeland am I answering to now? Secret Service? Coast Guard? Immigration and Customs?”

“Counterterrorism,” Jenkins responded. “I’m glad to see that you find this massacre amusing.”

Craig stared into Jenkins’s dark sunglasses, enraged, and raised a finger in his face. “You’re out of line,
Deputy
Jenkins. And I don’t answer to Homeland any more than I would the Peace Corps.”

Jenkins seemed amused. “Well, since we’re out here cleaning up your mess again, I say that makes us the authority in the matter.”

“Get out of my way,” Craig said, pushing past him.

Jenkins turned around. “You look a little angry, Agent Davis. Need a ride back to headquarters?”

Ignoring him, Craig found Detective Harper and asked him where he could find Patterson.

“Richmond Medical Center. ‘Bout ten miles from here.”

“Thank you, Detective.”

Without saying another word, he left as the Homeland agents took immediate control of the scene. Even with all his work slowly crumbling in front of him, Craig could think only of Patterson. Still light on the details, he ran to his car and drove off, leaving the madness behind.

***

Washington, D.C., Tuesday

Craig sat in the small downstairs meeting room with only his Supervisory Special Agent Vince Walker and Assistant Deputy Director Calderon sitting across from him. All blinds in the room had been drawn shut over the glass window looking out into the halls.

It was a tense two-on-one—the first grilling from his superiors since his return from Richmond. He had little idea what to expect. Calderon had been vague on the phone, but Craig was prepared for disciplinary action.

Calderon sat at one end of the rectangular table with a file in hand while Walker sat in the middle, examining a copy of the same file. Seated at the other end, Craig patiently waited for their verdict.

He had written a report detailing every aspect of the Richmond investigation. In it, he took responsibility for the outcome, while claiming that their presence had prevented the Surkov brothers from fully carrying out their plans.

Calderon came across Craig’s conclusion in the report. He shook his head, looked up, and folded his hands together.

“You make a compelling case, Agent Davis. And your report clearly tries to justify your actions.” He raised one hand and pointed out the window, beyond the blinds. “I was wondering if you happened to catch Mrs. Patterson out there.”

Craig looked over.

Calderon continued, “She’s patiently waiting in the lobby for some answers on how her husband took two hollow-point shells to the gut. She wants the bureau to be held responsible.”

“Kathleen,” Craig said under his breath. In all the commotion, he had yet to talk with her face to face, although she was one of the first people he had called after arriving at the hospital.

“The doctors tell us that Agent Patterson will be eating from a tube for some time now,” Calderon continued. “But I guess we can thank God that he’s alive.”

Craig thought back to his brief hospital visit, before leaving Richmond. Patterson had still been in surgery. Craig waited for hours, making calls back home and to Patterson’s wife, apologizing for everything.

Post-surgery, Patterson was unconscious, on a million drugs, and being closely monitored. Their main concerns were infection and internal bleeding. Now back in D.C., Craig was ready to answer for everything.

His supervisor, Agent Walker, spoke up. “Your intended target was Rasheed Surkov, but you seem to have completely disregarded his younger brother, Darion. Why was that?”

“Because we didn’t know who he was,” Craig answered. “And you are correct. Rasheed was our main focus.”

Walker continued. “And this was after explicit instructions from the assistant deputy director not to pursue further investigation into this case.”

“Yes and no,” Craig answered. He appeared calm and unshaken, his palms resting flat and at ease on the table.

“What do you mean by that?” Calderon interjected.

His superiors were hard to read. They looked prepared to distance themselves from Craig, and he could understand why. Politics had infiltrated the bureau from top to bottom. The current climate did not tolerate rogue agents, despite the results of their actions.

“My partner and I discovered evidence prior to the case being closed and decided to pursue our lead without direct involvement from the FBI.”

Agent Walker cut in. “Which could be understandable, Agent Davis, but the diner shootout should be a stark reminder of what happens when you work outside your chain of command.”

Calderon was more blunt. “We’ve got bodies in the morgue. A suspect in critical condition. A driver in a coma. Your partner being fed through a tube. Families mourning their loved ones. Thousands of dollars in property damage. And no evidence linking these men to the Islamic State or any other terror organization.”

“Did you search their apartment?” Craig asked.

“Yes. We came across your spy camera still implanted on the wall outside, and you better hope the Justice Department doesn’t hear about it.”

“What did you find inside?”

“Nothing,” Calderon said. “A big fat nothing.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Look, we know that these two were up to no good. We can assume that had you and your partner not intervened, things would be even worse, but we’ve got a big problem on our hands.” Calderon took out his smart phone and scrolled down the screen and began reading.