Burying the Past Read online

  As they were walking out, Taylor turned back towards the now standing men and said, “Why Amberville? I get you wanted a city to put your system in to show it worked, but I’m sure a larger city more like the places you ultimately want to sell the systems to, would also take the free setup. Why go to a smaller city? I mean, wouldn’t big cities like Chicago or whatever second guess the example since things work differently when the water supply is so much bigger?”

  “It’s actually our second test platform. We already had one in place with Buffalo, but there were a few cities that had unique water systems that kept our system from fully purifying the water supply. Amberville had a similar setup so we gave them our system to both show it worked on these types of water reserves and to make the necessary adjustments since we had trouble duplicating the effects in our labs.”

  “Do a lot of cities have this alternate setup?” Whitaker asked.

  “No, it’s actually pretty rare. We were considering not doing it at all, but DC had asked for our proposal and we really wanted our system there, since it’s better for regulators to be familiar with your end product. No matter how many white papers you show them, nothing beats firsthand knowledge.”

  “Is that the system you put in DC and what other cities have that alternate system in place?”

  “Yes, that’s the system we put in DC. At the moment, it and Amberville are the only ones we’ve changed.”

  “Get me a list of every water treatment plant in DC you upgraded. I need it now!” Taylor said.

  “Wait a minute,” the lawyer started to say.

  “You can either get it voluntarily for me now, or I can get subpoenas and turn your world upside down,” Whitaker said.

  “Just do it, Joel,” Andopollis said.

  “Can you give us the room, we need to make a call,” Taylor said, pulling Whitaker back into the conference room and out of the doorway, making way for two employees to leave.

  “Sure, I’ll have that list for you in a few minutes,” Andopollis said as he walked past them.

  Taylor was already dialing his cell phone and put it on speaker as soon as he'd finished dialing.

  “Crawford,” he said as soon as the agent picked up before the man could say anything, “the attack’s happening in DC, and it’s happening tonight.”

  “What?” Whitaker said. “I agree we have enough to say the attack is happening in DC, but how do you know it will be tonight?”

  “Can you two slow down and tell me what’s going on?”

  “We figured out where Whitaker knew Allied Mechanical Systems from. She read a thing about their installing a new water filtration system in DC, and a few other areas. They built a system that injects chemicals into water systems so a smaller amount can mix with more water. They use it for chlorine and other disinfectants. They have two versions, one they’ve put into a bunch of cities, and a second alternate one for unusual water systems where their original version doesn’t work. They put their test platform in Amberville, and the only other city they’ve installed that one in, is here in DC.”

  “Shit.”

  “How do you know its tonight?” Whitaker asked again.

  “Tonight’s Presidential debate is here in DC. Can you think of a better time, from Qasim’s perspective, to make an attack? You have the current Vice President in a room with one of the most powerful voices in the Senate in the same room. Except for the inauguration, I’m not sure there’s a better time to attack. I’m sure the White House has its own, separate filtration system so they couldn’t target the president, and the inauguration is too far away. He wouldn’t spread his test run and the actual attack too far apart. He’s smart enough to realize you’re already working on remedies to what happened. Normally I’d say he’d make the attack just a day or two after the test, unless something made waiting a little longer worthwhile, which this debate would do.”

  “It’s worse than that. The President’s supposed to be there. He promised his guy he’d show up as a show of support, especially with how Caldwell’s kicking his ass in the polls. He only announced it yesterday, and from what I know, it was a last-minute decision. There’s no way they could pass up the target, now.”

  “We’re getting a list of water treatment plants they upgraded, now,” Whitaker said. “We should probably have someone go back to Amberville and look at their injection system. It would help to know what modifications they’ve made if we have to dismantle these things. I thought they were just dumping something in the reservoir. It never occurred to me they’d done anything to the mechanisms themselves.”

  “They might not have,” Taylor said. “They may just be taking advantage of the system that’s in place to get their chemicals mixed in enough.”

  “Hold on a sec,” Taylor said as the door opened back up and the lawyer from before stepped back into the room.

  “This is all the information we have on the Amberville and DC installation except for trade secrets. The city council approved three installations as a test, but we’ve only gotten one set up. It’s actually not that far from here, since it serves most of Capital Hill.”

  Taylor grabbed the paper out of the startled man's hands and dashed out the door behind Whitaker, who went around to the drivers' side of the car and stopped, looking at the bumper to bumper traffic.

  “How far is it from here?”

  “Looks like about three blocks,” Taylor said, looking at a map of the area on his phone. “We’re never going to make it in this mess and the debate’s only a few hours away. If they aren’t there now, they will be any time.”

  “Screw it! Let’s just run. Call Crawford and have him get anyone he can to meet us there. Locals, tactical team, other agents … hell, the national guard or park police if they’re nearby.”

  “Right,” Taylor said as both began to run down the street.

  Chapter 16

  Both Taylor and Whitaker were winded as they turned the corner and finished the run from Allied Mechanical Systems to the water processing station that held Allied’s high-pressure injection system. While four blocks weren’t that far to run normally, coming in at just under half a mile, they’d both ran flat out to get to their destination as quickly as possible, a goal made harder by the people and traffic they’d had to avoid.

  The station itself was a small, square concrete structure surrounded by a fence, and set between two larger mid-century walk-ups. Taylor knew from previous experience that much of the cities services were housed underground due to the cramped nature of DC and how little open real estate it had. The building looked to be not much bigger than the entrance to a stairwell, which it probably was, with a small driveway that ended directly at the door. It was just enough for a city works department truck to pull in and close the gate behind the vehicle when someone was working at the site.

  Taylor had been surprised to see a metro PD squad car sitting in that spot now, although with the gate still sitting open. He’d been expecting either park police or metro to be the first to respond to the call they’d asked Crawford to put out, since there were usually officers from either agency out in patrol vehicles, rather than someone from the Bureau where the agents would have to leave the Hoover building and fight through traffic to get to them.

  Taylor could see the door leading into the processing station was partially opened but couldn’t see inside clearly because the white and blue metro SUV was blocking his view. Taylor slowed to a walk, grabbing Whitaker’s arm to force her to slow as well. She was about to protest when she saw Taylor put his hand on the grip of his pistol.

  He didn’t pull his weapon yet, but he proceeded cautiously since there was a good chance they’d find bad guys inside the processing station, and the last thing Taylor wanted to do was go charging headfirst into armed hostiles.

  As soon as he rounded the SUV, however, Taylor did pull his weapon. Lying sprawled in front of the open doorway lay the metro officer, his chest a bloody mess of what looked like several larger caliber rounds and his
service revolver lying a few inches from an outstretched hand.

  Taylor didn’t say anything as Whitaker bent down and put her fingers on the man's neck, feeling for a pulse. The blank stare and motionless body were all you needed to see to know this man was no longer with them, but he understood Whitaker’s need to double-check. After few seconds she looked at Taylor and shook her head.

  Taylor gave her a tight grimace in response but didn’t say anything. Instead, he moved to stand on one side of the doorway holding his weapon held up in a two-handed grip, so it was ready to use. Whitaker stood up from the fallen officer and followed his actions on the other side of the doorway. They made eye contact briefly and, with a single nod to let her know he was ready, he went through the door, turning to the right slightly to clear that side of the room. He felt her move past him as she turned in the opposite direction.

  There wasn’t far for them to go and both trained their weapons on the stone steps leading down into the processing station proper. Taylor made a face as he looked down into the dark stairwell, poorly lit by a light on the level below he couldn’t see from his angle and light behind them from the ground level entryway. He’d had enough operational experience to realize how terrible this was, as a tactical situation. Even if they waited for backup, they’d still have to go blind into an area with at least one armed man with a rifle, based on the wounds on the officer outside. Waiting, however, wasn’t something either of them wanted to do considering what they’d seen in Amberville and the stakes if a similar attack was successfully brought off in a much denser metropolitan area like downtown DC.

  Taylor kept his weapon pointed out level at the unknown area in front of them as he started to descend along the right side of the stairwell, hugging the wall. Whitaker followed a few steps behind him, pressed against the same wall, trying to not walk flush with the gap between the different levels of stairs.

  Taylor turned around one more bend in the descending stairwell and saw the bottom of the stairs where they connected to the concrete floor through the guardrail. Besides the stairs, his brain had registered something else and he reacted without fully considering what he’d seen. The split-second reaction to half-seen danger, a skill drilled into him through relentless training and in the field experience saved his life, as he had just enough time to fall backward as the first bullet smashed into the wall he’d been standing next to seconds before.

  Taylor knew he was lucky. The shooter had been ready for him and if Taylor had stopped for even a second to consider what he’d been looking at, he’d be dead now.

  Whitaker followed suit and threw herself to the ground on the small landing where the stairs made their turn, covering her head from the chips of flying concrete that began pelting both of them as the shooter below continued to fire.

  Taylor considered his options as he pushed himself closer to the edge where the wall and the stairs met. He had a very narrow area to work with since there was only a painted guardrail on the inside part of the stairs, which meant he had to stay close to the wall to avoid getting clipped. Taylor pulled himself into as small of a ball as he could manage and turned himself around so that his head was now facing down the stairs. He started slowly sliding down the steps with his weapon trained at the edge of the stairs, hoping to get a clear view of the bottom even from his prone position.

  He tried to keep an eye on where the bullets were impacting as well, to make sure the shooter hadn’t adjusted his aim down towards the last landing. Whitaker must have noticed what he was doing because she stuck her gun over the edge of the stairwell, fired twice, and pulled her hand back before a stray bullet could hit her. It would have taken a small miracle for her to actually hit anything, but it seemed to work as bullets started impacting around the corner she had just been firing from, forcing her to scoot further back on the landing she had stopped at to avoid being hit.

  Taylor continued to push himself along head first down the stairs until he was just about the last landing where the stairwell curved before it ended on the basement floor. He couldn’t see the entire shooter, who had his shoulder braced against the frame of the doorway that led from the stairwell to the station's machinery. Thankfully the shooter wasn’t as careful as he should be as he stood in a firing stance, one leg and a hand holding the simulated wooden grip under the barrel, both of which stuck out of the doorway slightly. Had the shooter stayed somewhat inside the room he probably would have still had an angle on the last row of steps without exposing himself, but the way terrorists trained their fighters rarely focused on smaller details such as that.

  Taylor aimed from his awkward position and fired a single round that hit the man high on the foot, just below the ankle. The shooter had a look that was part pain and part surprise as he toppled forward, his head and half his body appearing as his leg was no longer able to support himself. Taylor fired once more as the man fell, the first bullet catching him center mass, where Taylor was aiming and the second in the side of the man's neck as he collapsed down into Taylor’s target zone.

  The terrorist weekly put one hand to his neck as he tried to stop the bleeding even as blood bubbled from his lips as his lungs filled. Taylor was up and moving as soon as the man hit the ground, pausing at the same corner the gunman had previously used to take a quick look down the hallway.

  Whitaker came up behind him, stopping briefly to look at the man on the floor as his movements became slower and less coordinated.

  “Qasim probably knows we’re here, now,” Taylor said as he replaced the magazine. “He’ll try and get that crap in the water system before we can get to him, even if it means he has to throw more guys at us.”

  The noise coming from the doorway was intense, so there was a chance Qasim hadn’t heard the gunfire, although even with the mechanical noise that seemed unlikely. Considering they’d also already shot a police officer and stationed a man to ambush the fallen officers backup, however, it seemed unlikely Qasim didn’t notice his man go down.

  “Go,” she said, sparing one last look at the dying man and reloading as well. “I’m right behind you.”

  Taylor stepped over the legs of the fallen terrorist and quickly poked his head through the doorway, pulling back once he’d seen the layout of the room. It was bigger than he’d expected with a series of wide machines that reached to the admittedly short ceiling across a room that was perhaps twenty yards wide and what looked to be ten yards deep.

  The noise inside the room was significantly louder than it was in the doorway since it no longer filtered through a single opening with the concrete baffling a portion of the sound. Taylor frowned as he realized the only way he’d be able to identify targets or danger was to see it since he wouldn’t be able to hear them coming.

  He hadn’t seen anyone on his first glimpse so Taylor rushed into the room at a half-crouch, putting his back against a tank of some kind that blocked enough of his legs that he didn’t have to worry about someone doing to him what he’d just done to the terrorist at the stairwell. Whitaker moved behind him, facing the other direction.

  Whitaker made a series of gestures with her hand telling him to go the direction he was facing around the wall of machinery while she circled in the other direction. He moved forward, going in spurts from one spot that offered the most protection as a shower of concrete shards from the wall on his right spraying across him was the first sign that there was trouble.

  He turned just in time to see the next muzzle flash as he moved behind another piece of equipment. Other than knowing he wasn’t hit, he had no idea where that bullet had gone. Taylor resisted the urge to fire blindly around the equipment since he had no way of knowing where Whitaker was. A look behind him told Taylor she’d already rounded the corner. The only good thing he had was there were enough pipes going across that even the ‘open’ areas still had a ton of obstacles to block a bullet.

  It wasn’t the safest option, but he had to keep moving and get around this bank of machinery if he was going to back up Whita
ker. He took a breath and sprinted to the last barrier that formed the corner of this row. Instead of leaning out at his normal height, since Qasim’s men had to know Taylor was coming around this way by now, Taylor knelt low and leaned out gun first, pointing down the narrow walkway between the wall and the equipment.

  Sure enough, there was a man there waiting for him, rifle at the ready. Taylor had been expecting that and had his finger on the trigger as he came around the corridor. The extra second needed by the man with the rifle to realize his target was three feet lower than he’d been expecting was enough for Taylor to get off the shot, dropping him.

  Pushing himself up, Taylor moved to the end of the equipment stacked in the middle of the room and glanced around the corner. A glance was all he could get as bullets began smashing into the wall and metal around him. Pain shot up his arm as he stepped back, causing his gun hand to drop a few degrees.

  A quick check told him he hadn’t been shot, a ricochet only grazing him slightly. While the pain had been enough to surprise him, it didn’t make him unable to hold his weapon, which was lucky. Taylor was considering leaning out again and trying to get a few shots off when movement caught his attention. Turning he just managed to pull his gun up when he noticed Whitaker sliding around the corner behind him.