Hell Fire Riders MC: The Complete MC Series, page 49
Jasmine laughed. “Down boy, you haven’t got her yet.”
Jethro shook his head. “No, but I will and when I get done with her, she’ll tell me what I want to know.”
Chapter Ten
Three hours later, Kenn stopped by the house to pick up Michael and Judson. Harper was with him as they drove toward the White House. Kenn had Phoebe moved by one of his most trusted agents for the time they would be gone.
Michael began briefing them on what he was able to uncover, “Did you know Alex Daniels is really Prince Ali Rudan? He’s a member of the Syrian Royal family. The same Syrian royal family that banished Drake Carrington’s father for almost allowing a family member to be killed forty some odd years ago.”
“No, I didn’t,” Kenn looked stunned.
“Ali came here more than fifteen years ago on a student visa to attend college. He roomed with Drew Carrington and before he got here, he changed his name to Alex Daniels. I believe he’s the kingpin in the Vipers.”
“Why do you think that?” Harper asked.
“Because there’s an arrogance about the man, I don’t know if it’s because he’s a royal or just used to getting his own way, but there’s something about him that makes me think he wouldn’t accept anything but the top spot. He also knows how and who to recruit for lesser posts within the group.”
“Where does Hussian Al Mira come into play?” Kenn asked.
“I think Al Mira is second only to Ali,” Michael explained. “As second in command, he would have been the one to do all the dirty work. He would have been the one to take the fall if the plot was ever discovered. The one to protect Ali, in fact he still is. No one knows about Ali yet.”
“How did you discover the assassination plot?” Harper questioned.
“Gage told me about this woman who hacked onto the Vipers chat room. She found chatter about a plot against our government. It mentioned the assassination plot but it was confirmed when I saw Matthias had a video on his flash drive. In the video, a group of people were discussing the attempt we broke up five years ago. There was one man in the group with a scar on his face who was using sign language to someone else in the room. You couldn’t see who he was talking to but he was telling them they would have to lull everyone into believing they had been thwarted, at least for a while. Then when they struck, it would be with deadly force and by taking out the President and most of the government with one blow, the next one would devastate the country and they could walk right in and take over.”
There was silence in the vehicle as the plan soaked into their minds. “My God…” Kenn exclaimed. “If their plan succeeds they would have devastated the United States.”
“Not to mention, they would murder thousands of people while carrying out their plans,” Harper added.
“But somebody screwed up everything,” Judson said.
Michael nodded. “Somebody jumped the gun. The explosion in Kansas City wasn’t supposed to happen yet, nor was the fire at my house. Glen got a little carried away, too soon.”
“You said something earlier about different targets,” Kenn reminded him. “Were you able to find them?”
Michael nodded. “From the files you recovered from Glen and Sean, I figured out something. Each of the players was given a specific task. They were only supposed to do one thing. Each of them had a different thing to do and they didn’t know what the next person was doing. I doubt even Glen knew what Sean was doing.”
Harper’s eyes widened as she realized the extent of the plot. “That way, no one person could claim they knew anything else about the plot. My God, Ali is clever.”
Michael turned to face her. “Actually, I don’t think Ali is alone in this. He may think he’s the one to fill the top slot but I think there is someone else working behind the scenes. Someone more powerful than Ali could ever be.”
“Like who?” Kenn asked.
Michael shook his head. “I haven’t been able to uncover his identity yet. I did see his hand and I know he uses sign language. He also has a gold ring on his finger with a jade inlay. He was on the video Matthias had on his flash drive but that was all I could find of him.”
Kenn stared at Michael. “We haven’t been able to put a name to the face you found on the video from the fire at your house.”
Michael shrugged. “I didn’t think you would find him. He’s a hit man and the only way a hit man isn’t identified is by not getting caught. To not get caught you have to be careful. He’s tried twice to kill us and I’ll bet you money, he’s the one who beat Matthias to death.”
“How can we stop him if we can’t find him?” Harper asked.
“He’ll show his hand again,” Michael assured her. “And I’ll bet it won’t be too far in the future. They may move up their timeline if they still want the element of surprise to bring their plan around.”
They turned right on Constitution Avenue and drove around the corner into the parking lot of The Eclipse. Parking the car, they walked toward the building. Once inside, they took the elevator to the basement and entered the hallway. The left hall would have taken them to the boiler room but they turned right. It brought them to a locked door.
Kenn took a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door.
They entered the hallway and began the long walk down the hall. When they reached another locked door, Kenn knocked on it and they could hear someone unlocking the door from the other side.
When the door opened, Kenn came face to face with Scott Winger. Kenn smiled and Scott’s face didn’t change. His scowl deepened. “What is so damn important that you have to sneak in the back door? And why can’t anyone know you’re here?”
Kenn grinned. “My friend, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me or you won’t go another step.” Scott crossed his arms over his chest and stood in the doorway.
“We need to talk to the President on a matter of national security. We don’t want anyone to know we’re here and we only want to speak with the President. The less people that know what’s going on, the better,” Kenn informed him.
“I hope you don’t mind if I’m there, do you?” Scott asked.
“Of course not. In fact, I insist on you being there,” Michael said.
Scott turned to look at him. “And you are?” he asked.
“Michael Severns.”
Scott straightened at the name. Michael was known by everyone in the business. “I haven’t heard that name in a while.”
“I’ve been out of town but I’m back now.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear that.” Scott stepped aside and let them through. He peeked down the hall then pulled the door closed and locked it again. The door was a three inch steel portal. There were four locks on his side of the door and if any one of them had been tampered with, the other three wouldn’t open. Scott stepped around the group and began walking down the long hallway. They went through several special doors and when they finally came to another locked door, Scott stepped forward and unlocked it. The door led to another short hall. There, he knocked on the door and waited until someone else opened it.
When they all went through the door, they found themselves in the private apartments of the President of the United States.
Georgia Travis stood there with her husband Jack. Georgia Travis was the first woman elected to the highest office in the land. She glanced at the four of them and nodded at Scott. “Okay, gentlemen and Miss Lamb, what is so disturbing that you have to come crawling in the back door?”
“Mrs. President, we have uncovered a plot to bring down the United States,” Michael told her.
Georgia motioned for them to sit down. She glanced at her husband and sat down beside him. “And what makes this threat any more real than the last one?” she asked.
“This one has been well planned and it’s going to be put into motion very soon,” Kenn informed her. “Someone has been planning this for years and all the pieces are finally in place.”
“The first part of this plan is supposed to happen at your speech on the fourteenth,” Michael added.
“What will happen?” Georgia asked.
“That’s when they plan to assassinate you and spray the entire House of Assembly with a deadly strain of VRSA. We’ve found evidence they have enough of the virus to murder thousands of people. Everyone there will die a horrible death within days. Most of the members of our government will be there for your speech. And when they all run out of the Assembly and go home, they will spread the disease to everyone they come into contact with.”
Georgia gasped.
Scott took a step toward her and Jack jumped up to protest.
“How do you know all of this?” Georgia asked as she held up her hand to stop Scott and Jack.
“We’ve uncovered most of the plot but not all of it,” Judson replied. “We do know it starts with your assassination and moves on to bigger and deadlier things. The Bleu Vipers will take out most of the government with the VRSA spray, then ten different bombings will go off simultaneously all over the United States, murdering thousands of innocent people. In the following chaos, they will step up and form a new government, a government they will run. They will make new laws that will take away the rights we’ve enjoyed for over two hundred years. We’ll be swept back into the dark ages.”
“Do you have any proof?” Scott asked.
Michael turned to him. “Yes, we have proof. The accident in Kansas City happened seven days too early. Somebody firebombed my house. There are bombs being set in New York City as we speak. Three different blasts will devastate most of Los Angeles. NASA and NORAD will be taken out. This is going to be terrorists gone wild.”
Georgia got up from the sofa and paced the floor. “Do you know anyone in this group?” She glared at Michael.
Michael handed her a file with the pictures of the ones they knew. When she opened the file, the first face she saw was Drew Carrington. The next face was Drew’s cousin Nick. The next face she saw was another she recognized, Alex Daniels. Georgia went back over to the sofa and sat down. The file slipped to the floor and the pictures slipped out.
Jack gasped when he saw them. He turned to Kenn. “You can’t think Drake would do something like this, do you?”
“Not necessarily, but his brother Drew and their cousin Nick might be involved,” Judson said.
“What possible reason would Alex Daniels have to be included in this group?” Georgia asked.
“Alex Daniel’s real name is Ali Rudan.” Michael gave them the report. “He’s a member of the Syrian royal family. The same royal family Drake Carrington’s father was guarding when an attempt was made on the man he was guarding. Drake’s parents and he were exiled from Syria. They came here under political asylum, changed their names and became US citizens, all before Drew was born,”
Georgia was looking down at the report. “Scott, why didn’t we know this before now?”
Scott shook his head. “I’m not sure but I will find out.”
Michael interjected, “Nobody knew any of this. Ali has taken care not to draw attention to himself or his goals. There are at least two more men we do know of. Unfortunately, we don’t know where they are at the moment. One is named Jordian Yourak. He goes by an alias of Hussian Al Mira. He came after me five years ago and I think he was the one that murdered my wife and daughter.”
“What about the other man?” Georgia asked.
“We don’t know that much about him, but we think he’s the real power behind Ali. We do know he’s deaf because he uses sign language,” Michael told her.
“That doesn’t give us much to go on,” she said.
“That’s all we have at the moment,” Michael replied.
“How did they get their hands on the virus VRSA?” Jack asked.
Harper answered this question, “The CDC sent out an alert because there was an undetermined amount mailed to various private addresses. The requests slipped in under phony research requests. No one at the shipping houses noticed it until it came time to bill for the shipments. When the same address came up three times, it set off an alert. There have also been several packages detained overseas. In those packages, were the chemical ingredients for several dirty bombs.”
Georgia stared at Jack and then turned to look at Scott. “Why wasn’t I notified of this development?”
“Usually, Homeland Security or FBI handles this sort of thing,” Scott told her.
Georgia scowled. “That’s no excuse.”
Michael shook his head. “Ma’am, don’t be upset with Secret Service. It isn’t their job to inform you of this sort of thing. It would be Homeland Security’s job to investigate stuff like this. We get tips like this every day and every day, we run down leads that usually don’t go anywhere.”
“You said this group murdered your wife and daughter five years ago,” Georgia reminded him. “What have they been up to since then?”
“We haven’t uncovered that information yet,” Michael explained.
“Then how do you know this is the same group?”
Michael leaned forward and picked up the scattered photos. He picked up the photo of Hussian Al Mira. He handed it to her. “Five years ago, I was one of several agents that hit a house on Riggs Street. We were working on a tip that some bad men were planning something there. When we got there, we found four men engaged in what we would consider terrorist acts. Two of the men were arrested and one was killed outright. The man in the photograph charged me and I wounded him by slashing his face. I gave him the scar you see. He got away from us that night and he went after my family after that. I found my wife and daughter lying in my bed with their throats slashed.”
“How did you know it was that man?” Georgia asked.
Michael gazed at the floor then looked back up at her. “Above the bed was a symbol drawn in blood. It was a triangle with a reaper inside. Below was warning written in Arabic. It said, ‘Fear the white dog.’ I didn’t understand what that meant for the longest time.”
“What does it mean?” Georgia asked.
“I misinterpreted the saying before. It should have read ‘Death to the White Dog.’ I was the white dog and the deaths of my wife and child were his way of letting me know he knew who I was and how to hurt me the most.”
“But you have no idea what they’ve been doing the last five years, do you?”
Michael shook his head. “I think we were getting very close to uncovering this plot five years ago. I think they pulled back and gave it some time. They didn’t want to draw attention to their cause. What we didn’t know back then was that this group has been here for longer than we realized. We have discovered they have here for almost twenty years.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“We’re going to catch the bastards, before any more people lose their lives.” Michael gazed right into her eyes as he spoke, “It’s already too late for the people down in Kansas City and a couple of people here, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose any more.”
Kenn spoke up now, “We lost a very good officer tonight, we won’t lose anyone else.”
“What do you want me to do?” Georgia asked as she glanced at her husband.
“I want you to let us do our jobs,” Michael replied. “You have to act like you don’t know anything. We don’t want the Vipers to move their timetable up. We need the rest of the time to find the bastards before they can do what they set out to do. We have some of the places they plan to bomb but not all of them.”
“Can you stop them?” Jack asked.
“I hope so, but we still have a lot of work to do,” Michael said. “And you can’t tell anyone what you just found out. It would only take one slip to the wrong person.”
Georgia turned her concerned gaze to her husband and nodded. “We understand.” She sighed and glanced at Michael. “How do I keep this secret though? Right now, I want to cancel the speech and break down every door in the city looking for these terrorists. Then I want to drag them through the streets and hang them on the south lawn.”
Harper chuckled at the picture the President’s words brought to mind. Kenn kicked her softly and she sobered. She looked at the President and apologized, “I’m sorry, ma’am. A picture of you leading the charge just flashed in my head.”
Georgia grinned. “That’s okay, the same picture just popped into my head.” She turned to Michael. “You have to keep me informed on a daily basis.”
Michael shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. There can be no further contact between us. We can’t be seen together. There is someone out there looking for me. He’s tried twice to kill us and missed both times, although he didn’t miss us by much. I can’t guarantee he won’t try again and I don’t want to lead him right to you.”
Georgia got up and walked over to her desk. She got a pen and a piece of paper and wrote something down. She walked over to Michael and handed him the paper.
Michael looked at what she wrote.
“That’s my private phone number. Very few people know that number. It’s a secure line. If you have to, buy a throw away phone but I expect a phone call tomorrow evening.”
Michael nodded. “Very well. I don’t really think it’s necessary but I’ll do it.”
Kenn stood and announced, “Maybe we should go. We do have two of the players back at the office and we have to interrogate them.”
“Who are they?” Jack asked.
“They are Americans, at least one of them is. His name is Glen Portman.”
“We aren’t sure about the other one yet,” Michael added. “So far, no one is who they appear to be.”
Georgia sat down again and raised her hand to her forehead. She began massaging her temple and said, “How did they dream this up? I mean, don’t they realize what they are planning will kill thousands of people?”
“They are fanatics, they don’t view people with the same ideals as the rest of us,” Michael explained. “They thrive on panic and chaos and the scent of blood. For them, the more people hurt, maimed or even dead, the more thrilling it is for them. They have the mindset of a suicide bomber without actually having to put on the bomb.”
