Iron Triangle: A Jackson Pike Novel (Book One of The Iron Triangle Series) (17 page)

12:10 AM- Sunday,
September 10
^th

Sumner, VA

Jackson could remember the feel of the rough and cool
facility floor. He recalled the tiny pieces of broken concrete that had dug
into his face as he lay in the disconcerting warmth of a slowly spreading pool
of his own blood.

Now, as his eyes opened and closed of their own accord, he
found himself staring into a flickering fluorescent light. He could feel his
vision constricting from the periphery.

His eyes closed momentarily before reopening and gazing
upward at the EMT crouched above him as he struggled to breath. The ambulance
that carried him bumped down the pitted road towards the hospital, each bump of
the road causing misery to the wounded Jackson as the ambulance made its best
speed.

Strong hands and soft caring eyes looked down at Jackson's
face through the clear oxygen mask that helped him breath.

"Hang in there, buddy." The EMT's voice was soft
but authoritative.

As Jackson lay motionless being jostled about by the
condition of the road, he drifted in and out of consciousness.

As he flitted back and forth between his conscious mind and
his subconscious desires, he was carried alternately from a world of searing
chest pain and EMTs to a world where his ex wife and daughter leaned over him,
forgiving him for his indiscretions and for his failures.

Somewhere between these two worlds, Jackson died.

Jackson knew death. He had seen and visited death upon
others countless times.

He could hear the single tone of his heart rate monitor flat
line.

The tone continued as Jackson greeted death.

He didn't even feel the electricity of the paddles surge
through his body. All Jackson knew was that suddenly his world exploded with
light and pain, and his eyes jerked open.

He became vaguely familiar of the kind eyes of the EMT once
more. This time they were more panicked and fearful than the last.

Jackson could feel himself becoming more aware of his
surroundings as the air brakes of the ambulance sounded and the vehicle
screamed to a halt. He lay still as the ambulance driver and EMT stepped
purposefully down from the vehicle flung open the ambulance doors and wheeled
his gurney at a high rate of speed into the bright lights of the emergency
room.

The voices that echoed off the sterile hallway of the
corridor cascaded through Jackson's mind as he closed his eyes once more. He
could sense the medical professionals who surrounded his gurney, and could hear
their frantic orders as the din blended together into a simultaneous cacophony.

The ER physician's voice carried over the rest. "Get me
a pint of O negative, stat."

Those were the last words Jackson would hear before his
world darkened.

Jackson found himself suspended between worlds once more as
he drifted from consciousness.

He was greeted by a bright white light, a force that seemed
to envelop the unconscious Jackson, his eyes greeting the brightness without
being blinded by it.

"Jackson." The voice was quiet and recognizable.

"Leigh?" Jackson turned around in his fantasy, rubbing
his eyes. There, standing before him suspended in the light was his ex-wife.
She held Clementine in her arms and smiled sadly.

Jackson tried to run to her, but the light held him still.
"I'm so sorry." He cast his eyes downward.

Leigh smiled knowingly. "It wasn't your fault, Jackson.
You did everything you could."

Jackson felt the bitter warmth of a tear begin to roll down
his face as his guilt wracked him.

Jackson opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He
stared at Leigh and Clementine, slowly sobbing, tears flowing liberally down
his face.

He paused to take a deep breath. "Will I be able to
stay with you?"

Leigh smiled sadly. "No, Jackson. Not yet. It's not
your time. Your mission isn't complete yet."

Jackson squeezed his eyes shut and the bright white light
illuminated the red capillaries in his eyelids as he absorbed Leigh's words.

When he opened his eyes once more, Clementine was waving,
her tiny fingers bidding a final farewell as she spoke for the first time.
"Goodbye daddy."

"Goodbye sweetheart," Jackson replied
,
sobbing as the two disappeared from sight.

The light began to fade as Jackson turned around, voices
seeming to surround him.

"He's waking up," said one of the voices as
Jackson found himself facing a bright surgical light, his arms and legs held in
restraints. He could feel salty tears streaming from his eyes and rolling down
his face as the image of his family was burned into his recent memory, even in
the waking world.

Jackson struggled as best he could as a medical professional
placed a clear mask over his nose and mouth. He was greeted by darkness moments
later.

It was darkness both pleasant and familiar, the darkness of
dreamless sleep.

02:43 AM- Sunday,
September 10
^th

Sumner, VA

There really is nothing like waiting for the bomb squad to
clear a device, or in this case twelve devices, thought Jimmy Howe. He frowned,
biting his lower lip while they waited for the all clear from the bomb squad.

The reports that Jimmy Howe and the Chief had received back
in the mobile command post trailer had been staggering.

The entire fleet of trucks, twelve in total, was rigged to
explode. The detonators seemed to be cell phone actuated electrical charges,
the type used as primer in improvised explosive devices in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

The bombs themselves, however, were not improvised. They
were planned expertly for maximum devastation to targets both near and far.
There
was
enough C4 plastic explosives rigged in each
truck to wipe out a city block, and enough chemicals inside the canisters
wrapped by the explosives to kill and injure hundreds or thousands more nearby
inhabitants.

The bomb squad had come back with a rudimentary chemical
analysis of the fluids on board the trucks within the first hour.

Each truck contained the exact same quantity and mixture of
the two chemical elements Ethylene and Sulfur Dioxide. The chemicals were pure,
the type used in manufacturing and industrial production.

The bomb squad analyst had been certain. In this
combination, the chemicals had been designed to create a chemical cloud of a
type not seen since World War I, and outlawed by the Geneva Convention.

Mustard Gas.

Jimmy's eyes were closing of their own accord as he leaned
heavily on the table of the mobile command post.

The call finally came minutes later.

"All clear."
The call
woke Jimmy immediately, and his eyes widened as he stood from his chair.

The Chief nodded to him.

The men stepped from the mobile command post through the
dark of the evening, flanked by members of the SWAT Team and the FBI fast
response Hostage Rescue Team.

The men were determined in their stride, but hesitant in
their pace. The fact that they had stood feet from a weapon of mass destruction
was not lost on them, and for the rest of their lives, they would not take
their survival for granted.

The building had finally been swept for bombs and electronic
monitoring devices.

Now the men were entering to see with their own eyes what
the bomb squad and SWAT Teams had reported, and begin the long process of
collecting evidence.

The calls had been staggering as they had come in.

The facility was outfitted as a makeshift barracks. Twelve
cots were arrayed in the main chamber.

Downstairs, a small filming room was set up to resemble the
studio from videos sent by terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden in the wake of the
September 11
^th
attacks.

A tape had been found at the scene. It was currently being
analyzed by the local FBI field office.

As the men stepped through the blood red door of the
facility for the first time, they stepped over the cold bodies which littered
the gray concrete floor.

The first thing the men noted was that these four men had
been shot from behind, most likely by the man found approximately fifty feet
down the hall by the paramedics; the likely hostage and only survivor, a man by
the name of Jackson Pike.

Jimmy Howe and the others continued down the hall and turned
left past the makeshift barracks and into the stairway landing. Another body
lay prostrate on the floor.

He was dead, like the rest.

But the coroner would have to wait. The crime scene needed
to be thoroughly analyzed.

There could be no botching of this investigation.

The largest terrorist plot in American history was sure to
be global news by tomorrow morning, and all eyes would be on the investigation.

Jimmy sighed and shook his head.

He still couldn't believe that the hostage in question, the
lone survivor was none other than Jackson Pike.

Police in the area had been searching for him since Saturday
morning when his ex-wife and daughter were discovered slain in their apartment.

The men stepped finally into the long narrow corridor which
led to a second red door which led to the docks above.

On their right sat the makeshift film studio. Directly
before the door was a corpse, dead of a gunshot wound to the head from close to
point blank range.

The Chief paused as they reached the door to the makeshift
studio.

The muscular Chief stepped over the cold body of the dead
terrorist and began to speak. "We start here. Somehow, this room, and this
Jackson Pike are central to our investigation."

The two men stepped together into the room. Flashbulbs
popped in the background as evidence collection teams began the grisly work of
collecting photos and data.

The recurrent flashing light from the cameras cast eerie
flickering shadows in the dark and dank basement of the facility. A cold shiver
ran up Jimmy's spine as he stepped into the room.

Two flags hung which framed a single scimitar bladed sword
braced against the concrete of the far wall. A second sword lay on the cold
concrete ground.

A black video camera was set up on a tripod.

In the center of the room, a solid aluminum chair sat tipped
to its side, plastic zip ties still lying on the floor near the metal legs. The
Chief looked towards Jimmy after assessing the room.

"This is where Pike was held."

Jimmy nodded.

The Chief turned to face the thick officer. "Howe, I
need you to get over to the hospital. Find out what Pike knows."

Howe nodded and stepped from the room without saying a word.
The Chief and the FBI could take it from here.

Howe was a born interrogator, and the Chief knew it.

Jimmy stepped down the blood spattered concrete hallway and
tried in vain to avoid stepping through large pools of blood in his shiny black
shoes. He shook his head, as he walked up the stairwell and overheard the buzz
of dozens of conversations taking place simultaneously.

The crime scene was swimming with uniforms as well as agents
in suits from a variety of federal investigative services. Each man and woman
had had his or her own theory as to what had happened at the abandoned shipping
and receiving dock.

Jimmy stepped onto the top concrete landing of the stairwell
and walked past the barracks room on his left.

"All of them carry Iranian passports with student
visas." The statement came from a pair of federal investigators huddled
together sifting through the limited belongings remaining in the makeshift
barracks room.

Jimmy paused.

The flag downstairs must have been Iranian.

He shuddered. He could only imagine what the repercussions
of a successful, Iranian sponsored attack on the United States would be.

02:45 AM- Sunday,
September 10
^th

Sumner, VA

Dr. Sanders held his head in his hands and began to drift
into a dazed stupor at his desk. He felt like he hadn't left the hospital in
weeks.

It hadn't been weeks, he reassured himself glancing at his
watch as he shook his head and took another sip of coffee in a vain attempt to
wake himself up.

It was, after all 2:45 in the morning.

He began to ponder what life would be like outside of
medicine. Maybe he could find a cushy job where he could sleep until eight AM
and be home by five PM, where he was guaranteed weekends and federal holidays
off. He smiled sadly, at this stage in his career, imagining a different path
was an exercise in self flagellation.

He yawned, standing up from his rolling office chair and
pushing back from his mahogany desk. Treating patients, he didn't mind. It was
the paperwork.

Since he had been promoted to hospital administrator, the
patient care had diminished to a trickle, while the paperwork had increased to
a torrent. He was still not sure it was worth the extra pay, but he had two
kids to put though college.

The work of a hospital administrator was seemingly never
done.

But occasionally, Dr. Sanders was drawn from his office by a
particularly interesting case. Even in level one trauma centers and busy
emergency departments like this one, a patient surviving a near fatal gunshot
wound from an armor piercing slug at close to point blank range was rare.

Indeed, it was rare enough to draw Dr. Sanders from his
mahogany desk at 2:45 AM. He yawned heavily as he closed his heavy wooden
office door and turned down the hallway towards the elevator.

According to the attending surgeon and EMTs, the patient had
been resuscitated twice. He had completely flat lined; Twice.

Very few men could have survived the injuries this man had
sustained. The internal trauma had been significant. His right lung had been
punctured and his blood loss had been severe.

But the patient had survived.

And what's more, he had already woken up.

Sanders shook his head once more. This was a case he had to
see with his own eyes before the long drive back down the cobblestone streets
of Sumner to his home.

His polished shoes squeaked on the marble floors of the too
clean hospital floor as Sanders walked to the elevator. The steel doors slid
open and the white haired physician pressed the button for the first floor.
After sinking several stories, he stepped from the elevator and walked down the
long corridor which led to the emergency medicine department.

As always, he was greeted much too happily by the triage
nurse who sat in the quarter-full emergency room. He guessed that was to be
expected when you signed someone's paycheck, but Sanders was still not used to
it, even after all these years.

"Good evening Dr. Sanders" said the pretty blonde
nurse who couldn't have been much older than Sanders' own daughter.

"Good evening Rebecca," said Sanders. "The
patient with the gunshot wound. Where is he?"

"He's in a private room in Intensive Care. Room
113" said Rebecca, smiling much too broadly for 2:45 in the morning.

Dr. Sanders returned the smile and turned around, shaking
his head.

He stepped down the pristine hallway, his polished shoes
squeakily carrying him down the hall as he read the room numbers off in his
head.

Room 113.

There was a police officer standing outside of the room
looking tired as the doctor approached. He seemed bored as he checked Sanders'
identification and sat back down on the leather chair outside of the door.

This was standard procedure for gunshot victims. Until the
full story could be ascertained and statements taken, the patients were
prevented from departing the hospital. Not that this patient would be in any
condition to leave anytime soon.

Sanders stepped through the door, careful to close the latch
softly as he turned his head towards the bed. The patient was asleep, and there
was a nurse checking his vital signs as the doctor walked in.

The brunette nurse turned as she heard footsteps on the cool
hard floor behind her. Dr. Sanders nodded to her, "Good morning,
Marie."

"Good morning, Dr. Sanders." She was careful not
to speak too loudly as her white sneakers made nary a sound on the shiny floor
while she walked around the hospital bed and handed him the chart.

She lingered, and Dr. Sanders glanced at her once again as
he looked up from the chart.

"Do you recognize the patient?" She asked
,
her head turning back to Jackson's sleeping form as the
digital vital sign readout beeped surreptitiously in the night.

The doctor paused, glancing at the patient before looking
back at Marie and the chart.

In fact, he did.

Jackson Pike. The name and face were familiar. The patient
had been in this very hospital less than twenty-four hours ago with a head
injury with associated loss of consciousness and retrograde amnesia.

In fact, Sanders himself had stitched the wound on the
patient's forehead closed.

And now, the same man was lying in a hospital bed with a
near fatal gunshot wound.

Sanders shook his head. He was going to need another cup of
coffee. The chances of making it back down the cobblestone streets of town to
his luxurious home and loving wife had just decreased to zero.