THE GUARDIAN (Taskforce Series) (40 page)

Ike turned to the AG. “Sir, you need to relocate this RV at the back of the compound between the rear wall and the tree line.” He pointed to Toby. “I want you to evacuate every civilian out there who’ll leave, and that includes your sidekick, here.” A shadow of compassion darkened his gaze as it rested briefly on
Lena
. “Text
Jackson
and keep texting him until he answers you.”

Toby nodded. “Got it. Let’s go, sidekick.” Grabbing
Lena
’s hand, he pulled her out of the RV into the quiet parking lot. The pounding rain had subsided into a steady drizzle. Snatching a megaphone from the SWAT van, Toby ushered her toward the dozen or so vehicles and police cars parked across from the mosque’s locked doors.

“Attention, people. We have a large, hostile force moving in this direction. If you don’t want to get caught in the middle of a firefight, you need to clear the area now. You have five minutes at the most. There’s a motel two miles south of here. I suggest you wait there. We’ll alert you when the area is clear.”

As Toby herded reluctant news crews to their vehicles,
Lena
whipped out her cell phone, a sudden thought occurring to her. If the parolees had their new iPhones with them, maybe she could find out
Jackson
’s status by texting them all and hoping at least one of them answered
.

Glancing up, she saw the AG’s RV lumber into the tall grass behind the rear of the mosque. Several fearless news teams caught sight of the RV, too, and followed, ignoring Toby’s orders.
Lena
started after them.

“Hey, where are you going?” Toby caught up to her and caught her by the arm.

She shook him off. “I told you. I’m not leaving
Jackson
.” She pulled out her phone intent on composing a text, but what to say? “Did you hear from him yet?”

“Not yet.” Toby frowned at her. “What are you going to accomplish by staying,
Lena
? You’ll just be a distraction.”

“No, I’m not. I’m going to text some of the men inside. I might be able to talk them into turning on their leader.”

Toby looked thunderstruck. “You have contact with the men on the inside?”

“If they have their new phones with them, then yes.”

He searched the bustling parking lot until his gaze fell on a distinguished older gentleman in an FBI flack jacket. “Special Agent Donovan!” He waved the man over. “
Lena
, this is our hostage negotiator. Donovan, this woman has cell phone numbers for some of the guys inside. Tell her what to do.” Under his breath,
Lena
heard him add, “And get her the hell away from this building.”

“You got it. This way, miss.” With an implacable grip on her upper arm, the agent drew her toward the very back of the lot where a nondescript sedan was parked. “Let’s see if we can talk to the guys inside.”

Grateful for his guidance,
Lena
took a seat beside him and took his cues. If she could keep
Jackson
alive with a couple of text messages, it’d be a miracle.

**

Seated in the far corner of the closed closet where Ibrahim wouldn’t catch him texting, Corey responded to the message he’d received from Maggie asking him about Abdul.

He’s alive.
He glanced at the still, dark form at his feet and added,
He betrayed us.
Bitterness welled up in him at the memory of Abdul’s lies, though that part about loving Maggie had sounded tragically true. Maybe that’s what had kept Corey from joining in when the others attacked Abdul. Hell, the man was already shot. A bullet was bad enough without getting all roughed up.

To Abdul’s credit, he’d gotten in some good licks, himself. Nadim was still out there clutching his gut.

Corey’s phone buzzed. He read Maggie’s response with a furrowed brow.
The only traitor at Gateway is your leader
.

Corey’s breath sawed harshly in the small space. Her words sounded just like the voice of reason that he’d been trying to silence in his head these past few weeks. He wondered if any of his brothers were getting Maggie’s texts, whether her words disturbed them the way they did him.

Painstakingly, he texted her back.
Things is different now.

The only thing that’s different is that your leader’s plans have been exposed. He wanted to bomb
Washington
D.C.
and open fire on white people in the streets. That's genocide, Corey. Do you really want to be a part of that?

Corey stared at the word
genocide
in disbelief. All this time, he’d thought Judgment Day had something to do with spiritual purification, fasting, and maybe atonement of some kind. He’d thought the white devil was a symbol for those who were racists. But now Ibrahim was looking like the biggest racists of all
.
No,
he texted back.

There are ten of you and only one of him. It would be easy for you all to overcome him. Reclaim your future. It’s your future, not his.

Awash in a cold sweat, Corey envisioned the future as Ibrahim had depicted it:  with each parolee empowered to make a decent living. He pictured himself as part of a powerful network, a Five Percenter. A dream like that only came at a price. Each parolee had to give up his autonomy, to sacrifice himself for what Ibrahim believed was a greater cause—overcoming the status quo by force and establishing black men as rulers, but he didn’t know that meant murdering innocent people.

I never got the chance to hear your story
, she added.
But always knew you’d be the true hero of my book.

Her words gripped his heart in a vice
.

For the first time, he saw his situation objectively. He didn’t want to be a part of anything resembling genocide. If Maggie was right, then the only place any of them were headed from here was straight to jail, unless...unless they did as she suggested.

Fear and uncertainty overwhelmed him. He sobbed silently into his hand.

A hand encircled his ankle, startling his head up. “Corey,” Abdul rasped in a pain-laced voice. “Free me, and I’ll make certain you don’t go to jail.”

Still frightened, Corey kicked his foot free. “How you gonna do that?”

“I’m a federal agent,” Abdul whispered. “I can protect you. All you have to do is cut me loose and get me a gun.”

“I don’t know, man. There’s six of them and only one of me. They’ll kill me if I don’t do what Ibrahim says.”

“If you don’t resist him, every one of you is going to end up dead or back in prison.” Abdul shifted, and Corey could see his pale eyes imploring him, even in the darkness. “You’re a good man, Corey. I know I can count on you do to the right thing.”

Confused and terrified, Corey scrambled out of the closet and put his back to the wall. All around him in the prayer hall, cell phones were lighting up, which meant Maggie was texting the other parolees she had numbers for. Ibrahim, sitting up at the top of the
minbar
didn’t seem to notice. He was too preoccupied with receiving his own reports on his iPhone.

Corey swallowed hard. Maybe if others joined him in defying their leader, he would do it, if only to keep from going back to jail.

In the closet, Abdul gave an audible groan.

**

When the first semi-truck came roaring down the 235, Toby’s first thought was that it resembled a Chinese dragon. Painted scarlet with amber running lights, its bold appearance inspired an immediate sense of doom.
What the hell is in it?
Toby wondered, peering around the rear corner of the dormitory.

“Alpha platoon, stand by,” murmured the National Guardsman hugging the wall next to Toby. The man was in charge of the soldiers dotting the grassy area between the dormitory and the mosque
.

“Eagle One and Two, stand by.” Ike’s voice sounded in Toby’s earpiece.

With a hiss of brakes and the bellow of a downshifting engine, the Chinese dragon abruptly slowed. To Toby’s disbelief, it veered sharply across the median, through the oncoming lanes, devoid of traffic, and headed straight toward Gateway.

“Holy shit,” Toby braced himself for impact as it bounced through the grassy ditch and, with a roar of acceleration, crashed headlong into the shed where the propane tanks had just been evacuated.

The resulting collision sent the walls and the roof of the shed flying in all directions. The truck came to a stop. If the propane had still been in it, the impact would have created an inferno so enormous that it would have incinerated the entire truck and obstructed everyone’s view of the two remaining semis.

As it was, Toby could see that they’d stopped on the highway, parking in such a way that they blocked all four lanes. Their high beams glared, blinding every set of eyes that could see. Despite the glare, Toby made out what looked like all-terrain-vehicles zipping down ramps at the back of both trucks and dispersing into the darkness.

Christ, they were going to surround the mosque and attack the SWAT team from all sides.

“Heads up,” he advised, “I count eight, nine, no,
ten
ATV’s fanning out in every direction with several armed combatants in each vehicle. They’re circling the campus.”

“Everyone spread out and cover all angles,” Ike advised.

In the distance, too far away to be helpful, the clatter of Cobra helicopters grew louder as the Marines responded to the request for air support.

When the first burst of automatic gunfire lit the night and strafed the wall where Toby crouched, he realized they were in for a long gunfight
.
    

Up on the rooftop, a member of the SWAT team fired back. Toby heard the
ping-ping
as bullets bounced off an ATV, telling him that the vehicle was armored.
Son of a bitch.

Like a horde of bees, the ATVs circled ever closer.

“Take a covered position and shoot out the tires!” roared the National Guard captain to his men.

Over shouts of alarm and the barrage of gunfire, Toby heard Ike barking into his headset. “Outrider, what’s your goddamn ETA?”

Whatever response Ike might have gotten was drowned out by the detonation of a hand grenade. A member of the Fruit of Islam had hurled it onto the mosque’s flat roof where half the sniper team crouched.

The cries of agony that accompanied the grenade’s detonation set Toby’s teeth on edge.
Oh, hell no.
As the ATV performed a one-eighty to make another pass, Toby hefted his M-21 sniper rifle, pinned the driver’s side tire in the crosshairs of his night vision scope and shredded it.

The driver immediately lost control. The ATV flipped, and those who weren’t pinned or injured crawled out only to be shot by the National Guardsmen. “Say goodnight,”
Toby muttered, turning his attention to the next ATV
.

**

At the sound of a loud crash sounding like it had come from the entrance to the campus, Ibrahim leapt to his feet. “Do you hear?” he cried, breaking into Corey’s whispered conversation with Muhammed. “That is the sound of my faithful followers, come to liberate their leader. Even now, the Devil quails before the Fruit of Islam.” The imam’s outburst was greeted with a smattering of applause.