Callsign: King (Jack Sigler) (Chesspocalypse #1)

Suddenly, the world was transformed into pure light and noise. It was like being inside a lightning bolt. The flash of the magnesium/ammonium nitrate pyrotechnic charge in the M84 stun grenade lit up every fiber of King’s body; even with his eyes covered, he “saw” the flare as a red-yellow blaze. Simultaneously, the detonation produced a wave of sound that drove through his head like a freight train.

But King had been trained to deal with the after-effects of a flash-bang; he knew how to cope with the disorientation of sensory overload, and more importantly, knew the consequences of not taking immediate defensive action.

When he opened his eyes, the room seemed dark, as if all the lights had been switched off, but King could see two shapes moving through the room. One of the figures stopped and a tongue of flame erupted from his outstretched arm. Even through the ringing in his ears, King could hear the sound of gunfire.

His hand found the grip of his MP5 and he triggered a burst in the direction of the nearest gunmen. The shots hit center-mass, driving the man back a few steps but he didn’t go down.

Body armor. Shit, shit, shit!

King got his feet under him and scrambled to the back of the room. He could just make out the chest-high stack of equipment crates, and while he knew they probably wouldn’t stop a bullet, they would at least afford him a degree of concealment. He crouched low, scanning both angles of approach, and waited for the killers to make their move.

The attack didn’t come.

His vision and hearing were both returning by degrees, but neither sense gave him any hint of what was happening on the other side of stacked containers. No more shots were fired, and if the gunmen were speaking to each other, their voices were too soft for him to discern. Shouldering the MP5, he rose out of his crouch for just an instant, and peered over the top of the barrier.

The shooters were gone. King cautiously emerged from concealment, sweeping the room with the barrel of his machine pistol, but his first assessment was correct; the assault force had finished their grisly task and fallen back. King was alone with the dead.

He spied the unmoving form of the older man he had first spoken with. A ragged hole had been torn in his chest, almost certainly the result of a several bullets in a tight grouping.

Kerry Frey, he thought. He had a name. He probably had a family and friends. He worked with Sara….

Sara!

King started for the exit, but before he could cross half the distance, he saw another pair grenades sail through the air in the room. Not flash-bangs this time, but cylinders—like stubby aerosol cans—gray in color, marked with purple bands.

Incendiary grenades.

Shit.





5.


Fulbright thrust Sara behind him and then snapped off a couple shots in the direction of the masked gunmen. Despite openly wielding firearms, the men seemed caught off guard. They fell back, out of view and did not reappear for several seconds. Fulbright, on the other hand, had reacted almost without thinking.

He expected this, Sara thought. He knew this attack was coming.

But there was no time to give voice to her suspicions. The man she suspected of being a CIA officer gripped her arm and all but dragged her away from the gunmen and, she hoped, toward safety. She looked over her shoulder and saw the two doctors seemingly paralyzed by the unexpected violence, and then they were lost from view as Fulbright pulled her through a doorway into a stairwell which was already crowded with people evacuating in response to the fire alarm.

Sara immediately turned toward the descending flight, but an insistent tug on her arm drew her in the other direction. Up.

“My team.”

Fulbright’s voice, like his expression, was grim. “What do you think that explosion was? If your team is still alive, there’s nothing we can do to help them. I need to get you out of here.”

Still alive? If? Sara shook her head. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t.

As they climbed the stairs, pushing through the fleeing horde, Fulbright took a phone from his shirt pocket and made a call. “It’s me. Things have gone to shit here. I need air evac, ASAP.” Then, in a tone dripping with sarcasm, he added: “Five minutes ago would be nice.”

As the phone disappeared back into his pocket, Sara managed to get out a question. “What the hell is going on?”

Fulbright glanced back at her, his face stony and determined. His expression made her think of Jack; she desperately wished that he was the one leading her confidently through this crisis. She half expected Fulbright to dismiss the inquiry, but he surprised her. “That woman was exposed to something—some kind of pathogen. Something that can be made into a weapon.”

The information stimulated the analytical part of her brain, and for a moment, thoughts of grief and concern for her own safety were relegated to secondary priority. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this? We could have had security in place to prevent this. Hell, we should have airlifted her back to Atlanta.”

“I didn’t expect this.” Fulbright’s tone was self-effacing. “I should have, but I didn’t think they’d try anything like this.”