Black Flagged Apex

Chapter 34





5:49 PM

I-95 South

Laurel, Maryland



Darryl Jackson sat in sluggish traffic that would only get worse as he approached the entrance to the D.C. Beltway. Once on the beltway, he could get out of his car and have a picnic on the roof of his Suburban at this time of the evening. He'd left his house yesterday, immediately after hearing the news of the Mount Arlington attack, and filled his SUV with bottled water and microwaveable meals purchased from the Wegmans Supermarket. He arrived in Princeton for a late lunch with Liz, after which he helped to move the water and supplies into her dorm room.

Sensing her nervousness about the Mount Arlington attack, or possibly the fact that he had shown up unannounced with enough food and water to last her a month, he decided to stay in a nearby hotel for the night. She begrudgingly ate pizza with him in the hotel lobby, before finally convincing him that she was fine. Finding himself unconvinced the next morning, he managed to linger around long enough to feed her lunch before departing too late to dodge D.C. traffic. By the time he said goodbye, he finally realized that he was much more nervous about Liz's situation than Liz herself.

The traffic crawled to a stop, and he grimaced. He'd be lucky to get home by nine o'clock. His cell phone rang, and he snatched it off the passenger seat. Cheryl. She was the other half of the nervous party.

"Hi, honey."

"Where are you? I thought you'd be here by now," she said.

He detected a thin layer of panic in her voice, which was unusual for his wife. "I'm stuck in traffic north of D.C. Just south of Laurel. I had lunch with Liz."

"Laurel? Jesus. Did you hear what happened? It happened right in Laurel!"

"What's going on, hon? What happened in Laurel?"

"They tried to attack a water pipeline in Laurel. Local police shot and killed the suspects. A police officer was killed. It was pure random luck that they even found these guys," Cheryl said.

"Honey, slow down. Who did this? What happened exactly?"

"Terrorists tried to drill into one of the water mains leading to Fort Meade. They were in the middle of a forest south of the town. The police stopped the attack, but now they're saying there's absolutely no way to safeguard the public water system. They can't guard hundreds of thousands of miles of water main pipe. Some towns are talking about shutting down the water supplies," Cheryl said.

"Who are they? You can boil the water. This is crazy. When did the attack take place?"

"Some time in the middle of the afternoon. The White House has made a statement, but they didn't give any useful details. They can attack us anywhere, Darryl. Are you sure Liz will be all right?"

"She's doing way better than we are. I'll give her a quick call to update her on the situation and make sure she understands what to do. Karl assured me that the virus would be killed by the boiling process. Can you head to Wegmans and try to stock up on bottled water? Just to make our lives easier, until they can start testing the water."

"They can't test the water if the terrorists are picking random locations along the pipeline. They could tap into a water main running through the woods behind our house, poison the entire subdivision. They'd have to test the water at every tap, continuously throughout the day. That's what they just said."

"Who are they? Who is saying this?"

"I'm hearing it on Fox, CNN. It doesn't matter, they're all saying the same thing—drink bottled water," she said.

"Then you better get over and buy some, even if you have to wait in line until I get back. Head over to Costco instead. They have a full warehouse-sized aisle devoted to bottled water. Bring your phone. I should be home by nine. We'll be fine, honey. I'll call the kids. I love you."

"I love you too. All right, I'm heading back out. Tell Liz and Emily that I'll talk to them later tonight. And tell them to be careful. No showers, no cafeteria drinks, nothing," Cheryl said.

"I'm on it. Give me a call from Costco with a situation report," he said, realizing he had just slipped into operational mode.

"Yes, sir. Call you soon," she responded, playing right along.

He hung up and stared to his left, across the jammed highway. A few miles east of here, those bastards had tried to poison the National Security Agency, along with thousands of nearby citizens. The location of the attack couldn't be a coincidence. He wondered what their bigger game would be. Taking out the NSA, or at least disrupting it had to play into their complicated plot. Berg had been light on the conspiracy details, but had told him enough to know that there was a major terrorist operation in the works. Maybe the government had the situation under control. How else could they have stopped this attack? Maybe they were in the process of similar raids across the country. After calling his children, he'd give Berg another call. He had to know what they were up against.

He turned his attention back to the creeping traffic and tuned the radio to an AM news station to get some background information before starting his calls. Unfortunately, most of the chatter relayed useless theories and guesswork designed to panic the population. He quickly gained the sense that details were scarce and the government wanted to keep it that way.