SECRET OF THE ICON (Donavan Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  Voices now could be heard. He strained to hear the words. One man spoke with a Middle Eastern accent. From his experience in that area of the world, he initially believed the voice came from an Iranian, but on second thought he realized the man might be Iraqi. He still didn’t believe the men from the truck hadn’t spread out in a perimeter. He would have done that if he were them, but take a gift when offered.

  “What the hell are you doing? I see you in my scope. You’re close enough to ask them to dance.” John’s voice came in a low whisper.

  “Let’s go inside,” said the Iraqi. Matt could now hear him clearly.

  “I prefer to conduct our business out here,” came an answer. The voice exhibited a slight foreign accent. Matt tried to place it. Neither German nor Scandinavian. He didn’t believe it was Italian or Greek but possibly Hungarian or Bulgarian.

  “We have the money. We’re here to get our weapons,” said another voice that Matt recognized as definitely Iraqi.

  “They are not yours yet. Not until I count the money,” said the Caucasian. The porch light made visible the cloud of steam formed by the man’s breath in front of his mouth when he spoke in the night’s cold air.

  Matt could now identify the speaker, a Russian. No doubt about it. The large man sported a full face beard.

  “Here is your money. Now I want the surface to air missiles and the AR-15’s. You are supposed to also deliver fifty pounds of C-4. That was the agreement.”

  Matt heard the truck start and reverse as it repositioned the tailgate next to the porch. This tactic would make it easier to load the rear of the truck. He took this opportunity to take a few steps back from the edge and pulled his hood completely over his face. This action, plus the noise of the truck, should conceal his voice.

  “John, did you hear that? These fuckers are going to start a real war with that firepower,” Matt said. “This is no meeting. It’s a major arms transfer. Where the hell is ATF when you need them? We have to act, not just do a recon.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We have to stop them,” Matt said. “If they get those weapons loaded and get out of here, we have no way to follow. They will disappear without a trace into some garage in the area and we’ll never find them. Our car is clear on the other side of the hill.”

  Matt took another two minutes to quietly sneak back to his previous position because the truck engine now turned over at idle. On peeking around the corner, he observed four men carrying crates out of the house and putting them on the truck. He put his iPhone on video and carefully placed it around the corner and on the elevated porch. He used his instincts on how far to elevate it and then propped it against the building. He withdrew out of anyone’s view from the porch.

  “We believe the FBI knows something about this,” the Iraqi said. “You had better get out of here quickly.”

  “We don’t have a leak. So if they knew, it must be from your people,” intoned the Russian in a loud voice pointing a finger at the Iraqi.

  Matt originally wanted only to get pictures but now he switched mode from observer to one of action. He knew they somehow received a tip on this meeting but never visualized it to be of such importance. The muscles in his neck tightened and he believed they now needed to take the initiative. A plan formed in his mind, but probably not a good one.

  “John, can you take out any of them?”

  “Yes, I can get two before they react.”

  “OK, I’ll take the ones on the porch. You get the ones on the truck before they get anymore loaded.” Matt took off his gloves and retrieved his pistol. The weapon stung his warm fingers with its freezing metal.

  “OK, I’m ready,” John said.

  “On three. One… two… three,” Matt counted. He hoped this wasn’t a mistake, but knew he must do it. His gut told him this offered the right course of action and that he would most likely catch hell for it. No choice remained in his mind. These guys were terrorists of the worst kind, the kind to attack Americans on American soil. No choice remained to him except to prevent that from happening.

  “This is the FBI,” boomed John’s voice from the hillside. “Lay down your weapons and raise your hands.”

  One of the men near the truck opened fire with an automatic weapon strafing the mountainside. He pointed the rifle up toward the voice and continued to fire at the hill.

  Matt swung around the corner. One man, who just jumped onto the porch, raised his pistol toward the hillside. Matt immediately aimed and fired. The man dropped. He quickly repositioned his weapon on the Russian with a rifle pointing at his partner. Matt fired. He hit the man in the head with two rounds. There remained the one who previously had not spoken but only appeared beside the bearded Russian.

  His heart pounded as he realized they were still outnumbered. He dove off the porch and rolled on the ground. At that moment, automatic rifle fire tore into the position above where he previously hid. Now the rounds crept closer to Matt on the ground. John’s weapon fired from the hill. The spray of bullets headed toward him stopped.

  “Matt, you OK? I got two, but the others are racing for the truck.”

  The motor of the truck roared as the vehicle sped away from the killing zone in front of the house.

  Matt jumped up. “Keep me covered.”

  He rushed to the front door, now came the dangerous part, he realized. No backup and going into a hostile location by himself. Damn, this sucked. He glanced around the doorsill, the room empty except for some crates. Luck favors me, went through his mind. Those looked like weapon containers and, therefore, he hoped they prevented the surface to air missiles from being taken to the truck. He heard the crack of a rifle.

  “Damn, I’m hit.” Matt heard over his com. “That bastard must have IR. I think he’s near the barn.” Things went from bad to worse.

  Matt heard a loud crashing noise. It sounded like wood being splintered. He rotated to see the barn door shatter outward and a Hummer came roaring out. The passenger side window opened and a rifle protruded. The weapon fired on automatic.

  Matt sprang off the porch and splayed on the ground. Sweat rolled from his forehead despite the bitter cold. He rotated his body to a firing position and emptied his weapon into the fleeing Hummer.

  “What else could go wrong?” Inwardly, he realized this had turned into a clusterfuck.

  Silence again filled the freezing night.

  CHAPTER 2

  Roanoke, Virginia

  “John, how bad is it?” Matt asked through the com link.

  “I’ve been hit worse by a wet noodle,” came the reply from John. “You’ll have to go get the car, buddy. There is no cell phone coverage up here. I can’t call anyone. I’ll keep watch to make sure they don’t come back. I’ve moved my position so even if they do come back I won’t be where they expect. Besides, it’s only a deep flesh wound at the top of my leg. Feel like I got hit in the gut. Now go.” He grunted. “It will hurt less than the shit storm at the office we’re now in for.”

  Matt looked around. He counted five dead. There might be someone still left inside. He decided to check it out before heading off to retrieve their car. John didn’t talk like he was hurt too bad and a minute or two spent now might be profitable to photograph the inside of the house with the weapons present.

  He picked up his phone and then entered the building again, gun outstretched before him. After searching the three rooms, he found no one. Then he started taking pictures of the inside. He found seven crates and looked into each. Ground to air missiles, some AR-15s and a crate of C-4, all of which he photographed. Then he took pictures of the entire inside of the house. There were drapes over the windows. No wonder we saw no movement in all those hours we observed the place. He saw a medium-sized religious picture. It stood up against the wall on top of a small dresser. Matt picked it up, sat it on a nearby table, and photo’d it.

  He left the house and retrieved the car. He returned in twenty minutes, John climbed in. Matt didn’t think he
looked so good.

  “You are going to a hospital, right now.”

  “No, let’s get a tac team out here and help them collect the goods,” John said.

  “I’ll notify headquarters and a team will be on the way, but right now you’re going to the hospital.”

  Matt delivered him to Roanoke Memorial Hospital at 3 a.m. Once he saw to his admittance as a federal agent shot in the line of duty, they immediately rushed John into surgery. Matt wanted to return to the farm to secure the scene till the lab guys got there. At least, John rested in capable medical hands and he couldn’t do anything at the hospital. John would understand him leaving.

  The tac team and a forensic team were at the farm when he arrived. They came from the Roanoke office. He identified himself and the agent in charge relayed instructions for him to report to the Deputy Director of the FBI in Washington in the morning. What the hell does he mean in the morning? It’s already in the morning and I’m four hours drive away.

  He walked into the farmhouse and looked around. All the crates were in the same positions as he left them. The picture, however, was missing. He asked if anyone had seen it, but the FBI teams were not interested in a picture when they captured a major arms cache in their possession.

  Matt departed and made a quick stop at the hospital to check on John. He found out that the wound was much more serious than either of them believed. The doctor told him John would have to stay for a few days and they needed to do more surgery. That wasn’t good news.

  When Matt left Roanoke, he headed for Washington and his meeting with the deputy director. This would be one meeting he didn’t look forward to and he planned on returning later that day to see John. A Wild West type shoot-out, five men dead, weapons in the hands of terrorists, and last, but not least, an agent shot. He could see the DD questions now. It would likely start like, “Other than that, Special Agent Higgins how was your evening?”

  Matt used the time during his drive to the capitol to analyze his response to what he knew would be the DD’s attack on his actions. He wanted to stay in a positive mindset. In his opinion, he acted out of necessity and did what the situation demanded.

  His mind tried to recall that picture. Why hadn’t it not there when he returned to the farm? No matter, he had taken a photo. He pulled into a rest stop and examined the photo again. The picture must mean something to someone. He surmised that perhaps the Russian had returned to get it while he took his friend to the hospital. That made sense. If so, the picture must have significance. If the Russian risked coming back so soon to that killing field, it must be so.

  The terrorists hadn’t seen or been inside the house, so they wouldn’t know about the picture. The Russian did escape in the hummer, so he had to be the one who returned to retrieve it. No one else could’ve done it, no one else possessed any reason to do it. After looking at the image, Matt conceived another idea. A long time passed since he had spoken to his old sergeant, not since she saved Benjamin Schultz in a motel near Alexandria, Virginia. She owed him a favor for what he did to ensure the shooting fell within legal parameters.

  With the screen displaying the photo, he emailed it with a note saying he had no idea about this picture. He requested her help in discerning its importance or meaning. He hit send and drove on toward Washington.

  On the bright side, he and his partner had interrupted a major arms transaction, taken out what he considered terrorists, and captured almost all the weapons. As the senior agent on the scene during the takedown, responsibility would fall to him for all his actions. He believed he acted correctly to protect the country from gangsters, terrorists or whoever intended to use those types of weapon on American soil.

  Five years had passed since the president ordered him to the FBI following his departure from the Army. At the time, he felt sad to leave the service, but the offer made by the president at that time he accepted. His new job directed that he set up a small company the president could call on for his own use when he needed it to do things outside the establishment box. The president decided his staying in the military would not be good idea if he were to be effective in his new status. After he and Sgt. Donavan set up a private organization, she decided to leave the military and went to get her advanced degrees. So, after the original plan didn’t work out, the president sent him over to become an FBI agent and work there with limited direct access to the White House. That was a thank you for doing a great job in saving the world from a nuclear detonation in the oil fields of the Middle East. The president would be out of office in a few weeks. The new president probably would have no idea of that arrangement.

  Matt drove in excess of the speed limit up Interstate 81 trying to get to Washington "in the morning" so he could present himself at the FBI headquarters. He drove toward the capitol, still a few hours out, when his cell phone rang.

  “Special Agent Higgins this is Dr. Pulaski, Roanoke Memorial Hospital, your name was on the contact list from agent John Hades. I regret to inform you we did everything to save him. He started internal bleeding while in surgery. The wound he originally thought pierced only in his leg was much worse. The bullet entered there but penetrated into his intestinal area. The massive damage too much and after two hours of surgery your friend passed away. I’m sorry.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Pella, Greece

  At seven o'clock in the morning only a little breeze came across the flat open area surrounding the ruins of what had once been the city of Pella, the birthplace of Alexander the Great. These ruins contained the floors of the ancient houses, as they existed at that time. The city’s fame rested on the fact it contained the home of

  Phillip of Macedon, Alexander’s father. Today it comprised a small village a few kilometers outside the modern city of Thessaloniki. From this place, Alexander rode into history by conquering the largest empire in the ancient world.

  Bridget Donavan brushed away dust from a beautiful mosaic embedded in the floor. This partially uncovered exquisite floor area depicted the battle of the amazons. She had worked on this project for over a month. Her problems began after Scott’s arrival two days ago because of the news he brought. She now made her experience some difficulty focusing on the project.

  "Hey, sis, you want to stop for breakfast?" her brother Scott asked. He slowly strode over to where she bent down and examined the mosaic.

  "Sounds like a great idea. Ask the helpers and our armed guard to come and join us. You know, I think that big tough guard thinks he’s the terminator.” She gave a small laugh.

  "Yes, you’re right, a real tough guy.” Scott joined in the humor. “By the way, Gerti brought some baked goods from the city. She also has some Greek coffee. I'm sure that will wake us up, if nothing else does.”

  "Be right with you. Go on. I'll catch up," Bridget said.

  She looked around the area and noticed Scott waved toward the two hired day laborers and the guard to come and join them for food. She again became struck by what a handsome specimen Scott had turned into. Bridget thought about her brother’s piercing black eyes and his long, black hair that no one could convince him to cut. His naturally olive skin made him a handsome fellow in anyone’s book. Not bad for a twenty-six-year-old with such striking eyes.

  She had no problem seeing why Gerti appeared to be in love with him. Gertrude Schultz, a raving beauty in her own rite, but her father, however, would certainly be Bridget’s downfall if she couldn’t solve her money problem. Mr. Schultz blamed her for a deception and the theft, as he saw it, of five million dollars. That news Scott delivered on his arrival.

  On the other hand, it had been a relaxing couple of weeks while working on this excavation. No one knew where she went, until this week. She’d emailed Scott about her work in Pella and within two days he arrived with Gerti. They relayed the news that her father went on the warpath against Bridget because he thought she betrayed him.

  Gerti swore she hadn’t told her father Bridget’s location and kept him in the dark as to her ac
companying Scott on a trip. Schultz did not seem to blame Scott for any wrongdoing, so he and Gerti continued to be together and appeared to be forming a closer bond every day.

  A trained archaeologist, Bridget used some of the money from the bible sale to secure permission from the Greek government to work at Pella for three weeks. She now hoped to find something that might make up for the rift between her and Mr. Schultz. A rift, more like the Grand Canyon, over a five million dollar misunderstanding. She grimaced at the thought of it and she intended to stay out of his reach in this northern part of Greece. She decided to hide out here until she could think of a way out of this predicament. She knew it wouldn’t be long before Schultz caught up with her. He controlled enough money and employed the assets to make that happen.

  Her cell pinged with the arrival of an incoming message. She started to open it when she recognized that the email came from Matt Higgins, her old Army commander and now an FBI agent. She hadn’t heard from him since that fateful night she killed the man attempting to terminate Mr. Schultz. That night she would always remember, but why would he contact her now?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of two vehicles approaching at high speed. When the vehicles screeched to a stop at the foot of the path leading to her position, six men with AK-47s jumped out, her heart rate doubled. Now its beat all she could hear.

  "Scott, Gerti. Run,” she shouted.

  As she saw the events unfolding before her eyes, the helpers ran off, followed by the armed security guard. Some Terminator he turned out to be.

  She ran towards Scott and Gerti as they gathered their equipment. Before she could reach them, she saw Gerti swing at one of the attackers with a hammer. It connected with the man's chest, but he didn't do anything to retaliate. Two men moved in and subdued Gerti, forcing her to the ground but not hurting her. Scott struck out, using his fists, but they pummeled him to the ground.