Ray Carlisle felt the vibration of the pocket pager, yawned and stood up from behind the desk in the lobby of Lockheed SC5. This was an innocuous building which housed a number highly secret payloads. Having been readied for the shuttle, the cargoes were now undergoing some weight-saving changes in preparation for the advent of the Titan IV/Centaur G-Prime upper stage launch vehicle. This Complementary Expendable Launch Vehicle or CELV for short, had been built to complement the lifting schedule of the shuttle program. With the catastrophic failure of the STS, January 28, 1986, the CELV was now the only road to lifting the hundreds of military cargoes once scheduled to be lifted by the Shuttle.
In fact, Ray had been called in to investigate the explosions of the Centaur's predecessor the Titan 34D in August 85, and then again in April 86. Especially in the case in 1986, military folks were highly suspicious of failures of the extremely reliable and well proven launch vehicle. The Centaur upper stage had been tested on the old Atlas launch vehicle, the perennial grandfather of the U.S. satellite program, and was now a fully certified piece of the Titan system. Ray, through his own personal interest in the space program, had learned that the new Titan 34D-7 Centaur system could lift over 10,000 lbs into geo-synchronous orbit, or approximately 31,000 lbs in low earth orbit. With the movement of the launch program back into "production" at Vandenburg, Ray had been assigned into the Terrorist Team. Alburger had requested him, for god knows what reasons, he had never met the man before.
Blowing out a long breath, he dialed up the number appearing on the pager faceplate.
"Carlisle"
"Alburger. Action at 100 Mayfield Ave., Mountain View. Take Central, past Castro, on your right. Call in from there. See if it's the Angel, and then get the hell out of there."
Damn that Tylor. Leave it to him to be there when the shit hit. How did the man do it?
Then Alburger's voice continued, "Word has it two men are down, at least one is a police chief. Get there fast Ray!"
His bosses words hit home. Man down! Oh Damn.
"Yes Sir" replied Ray in a steely voice.
He jumped up, flew through the door, only stopping to let the guards know to step up their defense posture, then fled to his car.
With red light flashing, he raced down Moffet Field Road, turned right then cursed the totally un- synchronized lights on Central all the way to the site of the shooting. As he pulled in the drive way, he saw the ambulances and white Mountain View police cars. Just as he made his turn, he saw a Coronor's wagon coming from around the parking lot up to the front door.
"Shit" he said out loud, and then parked up on the grass, next to the crazy metal sculpture on the building's front lawn.
Flashing his badge at the cop out in front, he was waved by, and almost stopped to look at the shattered glass windows on the right side. It told of a grim battle, and his heart sank. One man against a possible dozen trained and insane terrorists. Damn.
The cop at the door inspected the ID more carefully, checking the face with the picture at least twice. Once waved through, he ducked under the yellow tape of the second police line, and stopped just inside the lobby doors. A chalk outline marked the position of one body right next to the once beautiful vanilla colored wooden semicircle of the Receptionist. Blood and more darker substances now draped the desk, and Ray swallowed his usual urge to heave. One hard swallow was usually all it took for him, but he awaited the time when he couldn't control it.
Directly to his right, a man was drawing a chalk line around another body, this one sprawled on his back, but with his legs askew. It looked like the man had wilted on the spot, and the smell of excrement stung his nose, making him cough. Moving around that body, he saw a glimpse of a woman's body next to the blasted window, and as the photographer shifted position, another woman's, body was revealed, her long blond hair now an ugly pink and gray that Ray tried to ignore. Facing the side lobby know, he saw a huge blood stain slightly to his left, and the once comfortable looking couch was in shambles, obviously the result of a shotgun blast.
He turned full around now counting bodies. 1, 2-3, 4, and 5. If these were all terrorists, where were the good guys?
He tapped a uniform on the shoulder, flashed his badge, and asked "Who stopped these folks?"
"Guys named Tyler and Able. Able's our chief..." Ray noticing his shoulder patch said Mountain View Police, "...and the others Chief of Palo Alto. Can you imagine, those old guys took on seven terrorists. Unbelievable."
Ray almost couldn't ask the question, and as he hesitated, the officer caught on to his dilemma and answered the question trying to escape.
"The Chief is on his way to Stanford Medical Center, he took some glass in the side." Pointing to the blown up couch, "...seems someone missed him with the shotgun, trying to shoot through the thick glass..." now motioning with his thumb over his shoulder at the jagged panes of the shattered window. "Lucky for the Chief, cuz it deflected the blast enough. But he caught a shit-load of glass, Doctor thinks he may lose an eye."
"What about the other one, Tyler?"
"They just took him outside a couple of minutes ago" replied the officer, and Ray again felt that hollow drop as his spirits died on the hope inspired by the tale of luck for Chief Able.
Turning away from the carnage, he swept back out the door to the Coronor's wagon. They were loading a body in the back, and he let out a long breath.
"Don't cry for him, Mister" said a voice next to him.
Ray turned with a savage look in his eye ready to kill the S.O.B. Tyler and he hadn't really become friends, there hadn't been the time. But he had respected that old man, and he was damned if he was gonna let some wisecrack Adam Henry put him down.
But he stopped short of swinging on the guy, never being able to hit a bandaged man. Tyler stood there with a shit-eating grin on his face, waiting for the reaction to complete.
"You son-of-a-bitch" but the words ran out.
"Yeah, well. I saw you come in, and I was about to talk to walk over and fill you in when I saw the look on your face. I swear to god if someone had hit you with a brick you would have kept scanning the crime scene. Thought you Federal guys were supposed to be tough?"
Ray looked at the Chief and tried not to grin. But the release of depression was like a drug. In a moment he was laughing and patting Tyler on the back and even let out a "whoopee" or two.
"I don't really know what happened. One minute I was looking at this character with all the teeth, then 'bang' I saw a blinding white flash. Then I'm staring up at this young blonde haired guy in a security uniform. The guy was actually cradling my head, me bleeding all over his pants. Fellow wouldn't let me move for awhile, so I thought I was really bad off. He had stopped the bleeding real well though. Smart kid. I'm trying to hire him. Anyway he says, "It's okay. Your friend is gonna make it, and only two of the bad guys walked away." Scheeze, with him talking like that I thought I only had hours to live."
"Then the Receptionist...man there's a tough woman, sat through the whole bit, splattered with number 1's blood and dialed the paramedics. Probably saved Able's life...anyway she comes walking over, legs and all, and says,
"Robert, you've got to take care of Cindy. She is going nuts over there."
"The kid lays my head down, says "Okay, you're obviously coming around now, better get outta the way, your lying in the middle of the road. Then he gives me a arm up.
"And wholla, I'm here. Could've knocked me over. The kid tells me I was in shock for about ten minutes, all I remember after that was when the Mountain View guys come pouring in with shotguns and magnums. Scared the shit out of me for a second. You know what, the kid hands me back my 357, shaking his head over the plastic bullets. Smart kid. I guess he didn't know if I was white or black for awhile there, so he didn't take any chances. Receptionist told me he came flying down the hallway at the first shot. Oh by the way, he got fired for packing a piece. Too bad. Did I tell I was gonna hire him?"
Ray grinned at the older man's release, the new found adrenaline now trying to repair the damage from the shock. Tyler had taken a huge piece of glass in the back of the head. It had stuck in there pretty good, but not too deep. He had talked the doctor out of a visit to the hospital right away. Ray wondered a bit at that. But he was so glad that the man was all right, he let him ride on it for awhile.
They were now speeding down Central again, even with red lights and siren, the trip down central was incredibly slow. Finally they pulled off onto Lawrence Expressway and hit the surface streets. At one thirty, the streets of Mountain View were still packed with lunch time traffic, so it took them almost 10 minutes to go the two miles from Central to the house of the man Jihad had asked to see.
As they turned right onto Granada, Ray saw a Santa Clara Black and White parked out on the street. Sure enough it was the correct address. Tyler got out of the car gingerly, and they both walked over into the apartment complex. Passing the pool, they wound up in the center of the buildings surrounding the almost musical water falls.
"Nice" said Jud as they peered at the numbers of the apartments. Finally a uniform stepped out of a door ahead, and nodded.
"I'm Agent Carlisle, and this is Chief Tyler of Palo Alto Police."
"Daniels. Man here appears to have been poisoned. The Doc thinks he'll be all right though. Looks and acts like food poisoning more than anything else. His wife is pissed, seems to think this is all our fault somehow."
The uniform shrugged and led them into the apartment. A thin man dressed in a terry cloth bathrobe sat on the couch, looking very uncomfortable.
"Excuse me" he said softly and made a beeline into the bathroom. It might have been funny if it was on TV, but Ray had experienced that particular feeling in Mexico, and was glad it wasn't him.
"So who are you?" rang out an incredibly contemptuous voice.
Ray turned to reply back, but chopped the words off as Jud also turned.
"We're sorry your husband is so sick, ma'am. I'm sure that you'll agree though, it's far better he's feeling sick then lying dead next to you in your bedroom. Don't you think?"
Ray was shocked at the Chief's insensitive statement, and saw that the wife was also hit by it hard. She reeled back, then suddenly the angry face was replaced with a shower of tears, and she fell into Tyler's arms.
"That's okay, let it out. Really I mean it" soothed Tyler, and Ray went off to inspect the rest of the apartment.
Later, sitting calmly, she was more rational sipping on a cup of coffee and occasionally she would reach over and squeeze her husbands hand.
"Well I thought I heard something in the kitchen, but Conn here just rolled over and murmured something about big rats. I could have choked him. I'm hearing a prowler and all the pig wants to do is sleep."
"Good thing too, Mrs. Miller. If you had interrupted them...well anyway I'm glad everyone's all right" said Tyler, still wearing his number two smile meant for victims.
"Believe me, these people were not usually so kind. One of them smiled at me while holding out a fragmentation grenade at arms length. God I thought he was going to hand the damn thing to me with the pin out. I kept waiting for the "clink" of the handle popping off."
Ray looked over at the Chief, a look of concern on his face, "you all right Chief?"
"Yeah, just a shiver or two. Guess I'm still in shock a little. Well anyway folks, thanks for telling us your story. It may turn out to be of use when we finally catch up with the two that got away."
"How many didn't make it, Chief Tyler" asked the quiet man next to his wife.
"Five won't bother us anymore, Tom."
"Thank you Chief. I mean it. From what I heard on the news, if you hadn't been there, alot of my friends..."
"Don't worry about it now, Tom. It's over. In a couple of days H.P. will be just as it was before. Your facility chief has already got crews in there making the lobby spotless. Incidentally, I hear you've got a week off. Enjoy it. Take your wife to Reno and blow a couple 'a hundred on the slots. Give yourself a chance to recover."
Outside he said, "Poor guy, he'll blame himself for years. Thinks that if he'd gone to work today that somehow it would have made a difference. You can't tell a guy enough times its not his fault. You just have to let 'em work it out for themselves. As they got in the car, the radio asked for him.
Ray handed him the mike.
"Tyler here."
"Mountain View PD reports Chief Able died at 2:10, Sir."
"Damn. DAMN!" shouted Jud. He pounded his fist on the padded dash of the federal pool car, leaving a choice dent in the material that would never come out.
As the Chief sat in quiet on the way to the hospital, Ray tried to think of the words to consul the man, but as he thought them, they sounded too pat or too trite.
"Stay with me awhile, will you Ray" requested the Chief in a quiet voice. His new partner nodded silently, and continued to drive him to the doctors.