In this sequel to thriller, "A Dangerous Freedom," a rogue group of former Russian KGB agents launch deadly attacks on Washington, D.C. in an attempt to overthrow the U.S. government. In this fast-paced action-thriller, new American hero, Dylan Reilly, is enlisted to work with the Secret Service to combat deadly assaults on the U.S. capital. The fate of America rests on their ability to identify the source of this coup d'état and stop them in their tracks. If they can’t, the country could fall to the Russians.
Ken Hack hadn’t seen it. But he’d damn well heard it.
There was no mistaking the sound of an RPG being launched. The second he heard the all-too-familiar pop and then the sound of the missile cutting through the night sky, he turned quickly to his right and could see the rocket headed straight at him.
“Incoming!” he yelled into his wrist microphone, dropping to the solid gray metal behind one of the stacks on the roof of the White House. A huge explosion shook the entire building under him. A fireball shot high and far from the Oval Office.
Lying near the ledge, facing south on the roof, he jumped up and sprinted as fast as he could away from the path of the next missile, which he was certain would be directed right at him.
Inside, his Secret Service agents were yelling for everyone to, “Get out!” Fear filled the eyes of staffers as they ran, not knowing where, fires burning in the halls. Away was the destination.
Screams echoed through the halls. The sound of the second RPG-7 pop could be heard.
Hearts raced. Feet flew. The sound of shoes pelted off the carpet. People panicked!
“Run! Run! Run!” yelled someone, somewhere, somehow, in the total chaos.
Above, Hack and his five-man team sprinted toward the far end of the roof over the West Wing, when the missile grenade struck the center of the already-damaged Oval Office. Another thunderous explosion and massive fireball shot out from the heart of the most powerful building in the world.
Hack, the incredibly strong, 6’2” Director of the Secret Service, was sent flying like a human cannonball in a circus. It felt like a bad dream, a nightmare. In the air, he could see his loyal and trusted team members around him. Arms and legs flailing, eyes bulging, mouths screaming. They were like a team of skydivers drifting through the air with no parachutes.
Hack landed hard on his back against the unforgiving roof, bouncing, keeping his head up to avoid a concussion. His shirt sleeves torn, elbows bleeding.
Hack quickly gathered himself. Bumps and bruises wouldn’t stop this heroic soldier. He bounced up like a gymnast. His men were scattered across the roof. No time to check them.
He picked up his 300 Winchester Magnum chambered bolt action rifle, ran to the front ledge and aimed toward the smoke cloud billowing from the launch point in The Ellipse, the 52-acre park on the south side of the White House.
Through his binoculars, he could see four men, all dressed in green fatigues. They were hurrying to load another RPG-7, the Russian-made weapon.
Not this time, Hack thought. He had been in this situation many times in Afghanistan, where he had earned the Bronze Star for his courage under fire. He was the best United States Marine Corps sniper in his division, with more than fifty kills. He took great pride in having saved his buddies during a period of the war when soldiers were going door to door, looking for dangerous Taliban fighters. Hack’s incredible record had resulted in the White House recruiting him to guard President Gregory H. Walsh and his family.
Over the decade he had roamed the grounds, halls and roof of the White House, he had never had to fire his weapon. It had certainly been locked and loaded the day the misguided flag-draped American man had climbed over the tall, spiked black metal White House fence. Lying on the roof, Hack had his 300 Winchester Magnum pointed at the unwelcome, uninvited intruder, who had raised his arms in victory on the North Lawn. Hack had been relieved to see three heavily armed Secret Service agents and their dogs apprehend the disturbed man, allowing the military veteran to avoid adding another kill to his record.
Despite his rifle’s lack of use over that time period, he had never lost the anxiety he felt on a daily basis. He consistently reminded himself and his team of the responsibility they held, protecting the leader of the free world.
The highly trained, muscular, 210-pound patriot knew that it only took one person, one nut, one terrorist to decide to jump that fence with a weapon and a mind full of bad intentions.
Or one cleverly disguised miscreant who outsmarted the security system and passed through the White House E Street security checkpoint.
Or, as he had found out on that evening, four misguided green-fatigued combatants firing two anti-tank RPG-7s at the Oval Office.
And on that hot first day of May in 2015, International Workers’ Day, when the dangerous projectile had been fired at the office of the commander-in-chief, President Jack Fallon, the highly determined Ken Hack had no intention of allowing a third shot at the home of a President he loved and admired for his distinguished service as a naval aviator, who had been shot down over Vietnam, but had somehow survived a long, tortuous capture by the Viet Cong. He was a great hero. A man all America admired.
Through his binoculars, Hack could clearly see the four attackers, each wearing a balaclava to protect their identity. They were scrambling to reload the RPG launcher. By their actions, Hack knew immediately they were experienced with weapons. No time to give them another chance to prove it.
Just then, a single shot sounded above the White House.
The combatant, holding the long brown metal launcher on his right shoulder, fell to the ground, shot through the front of his head. Dead!
The weapon landed next to him, directly in front of the comrade still holding a green rocket grenade in his two rubber-gloved hands.
Panic and fear now shifted to the lawn of The Ellipse.
Another rifle shot. Down he went, falling backwards, the RPG-7 falling straight to the ground.
The other two looked up toward the White House.
“Run! Run!” yelled a twenty-something, long-haired and bearded leader. Before he could take his first step, a third shot rang out. Right through the heart. Down he went. Dead before he hit the ground.
The three were sprawled only a few feet apart across the grass of President’s Park. Dead! Blood poured out like a stream of departing evil, filling the dirt patches in the thick green lawn.
The fourth attacker dropped his rifle and sprinted south as fast as he could possibly run, hoping to escape the range of Hack’s rifle.
Running hard but looking over his shoulder, he couldn’t find the black Suburban SUV that was supposed to pick up the assault team immediately after the attack. He was on his own. He huffed and puffed with each step, his eyes wide, his mouth open, sprinting with every ounce of energy he had in his unconditioned, unathletic body. Then, he could hear something hit the ground just behind him. A bullet, he thought. He kept running, sprinting. Then, a stinging sensation filled the back of his right thigh. It knocked him to the ground.
He struggled to get up.
Hack took another look through his binoculars. He watched the assailant pull the balaclava off his head and his long hair fall out. He was just a kid, thought Hack. A kid who was in great pain, trying to get up and escape.
Hack could have finished him off easily. But no. This young, bearded, brown-haired, pudgy-looking assailant would be kept alive for an interrogation, to find out who was behind this plot to attack the White House.
As the injured combatant rose to his feet, whoosh! A burning sensation filled his upper right thigh. Down he went. Both legs had been shot and were badly bleeding. He was going nowhere except lockup, where he would be questioned. And they would get answers.
A few seconds later, a half dozen police from the SWAT tactical unit arrived at the scene. Guns were drawn, locked and loaded. One false move, and the bleeding boy on the ground would be the dead boy on the ground. Within minutes, the tactical unit had him handcuffed and led to their armored SWAT vehicle twenty-five yards away.
Just then, two American fighter jets buzzed over the White House, the pilots looking for any enemy combatants on the ground or in the air.
Police and fire sirens blared down Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues. It seemed all of D.C. was being showered with blue and red flashing lights, bouncing off the buildings along 16th Street.
Three Mohawk helicopters appeared in the distance, heading toward the White House, armed and ready to fire.
Hack looked up and smiled. The power of the U.S. military had shown up within minutes of the attack. It was reassuring, filling him with a great sense of confidence and pride. At the same time, he felt a strong sense of remorse, so angry that someone had been able to fire two RPGs into the Oval Office, which had been totally destroyed, leaving a gaping hole at the center of the White House.
Smoke was pouring out, creating a huge rising cloud of grey and black from the massive fire inside. Hack was praying President Fallon hadn’t been in there when the missile had hit.
He scanned the park for any other combatants, anyone who looked even remotely concerned about the three dead men lying on the park’s trampled grass. This was a protocol he had followed nearly every day that he had fought in Afghanistan, so he was quite adept at spotting the enemy.
The two fighter jets buzzed the White House again. That was when Hack heard on the Secret Service Radio that the President had been in the workout room when the RPG had hit. He was fine and had been immediately rushed down to the Emergency Operations Center under the East Wing of the White House.
A big smile grew from the Director’s square jaw.
The attackers had damaged the Oval Office. So what? That could be fixed. The President was alive! That was all that mattered.
The Mohawks had arrived. One landed on the south lawn of the White House. The other moved slowly over The Ellipse, two soldiers scanning President’s Park with their active illumination night vision goggles, looking for enemy combatants.
Hack knew the drill. Those birds could take off and strike any opposing force within seconds. He loved the Mohawks. He had had plenty of experience working in them, and with them, in Afghanistan.
At that moment, Hack watched a black SUV pull up in front of the three downed attackers. Another twenty-something man, with long black hair and a bulging backpack, ran around to the back of the vehicle and opened the back hatch. He then sprinted to the three fallen attackers.
The SWAT team still hadn’t arrived. Hack watched the man grab one of the dead men and drag him toward the SUV, lifting him up and pushing him into the back.
“Where’s that SWAT team?” Hack barked over the radio system, which now had the police and National Guard on the frequency. “They should have been there by now.”
“Right here, Hack,” blared out FBI SWAT team leader, Commander Dirk Williams, speeding toward The Ellipse. “We’re nearly there!”
Hack was growing impatient. There was no way he was going to allow that kid to load up his three dead comrades and escape. He hoped SWAT could get there before he had to stop him.
The dark-haired kid was dressed in the same black garb the other four had been wearing, so he was most certainly part of the assault team. After loading the second dead man into the black Suburban, he started looking around to see if anyone had noticed him. Then, he stood and turned toward the White House. A look of great anger filled the binoculars. That was all Hack needed to see.
A moment later, as the kid ran over to pick up the third dead man, blam! The sound of another rifle shot rang out. The bullet pierced through the young man in black’s upper left thigh, and he recoiled backwards and to the ground. Blam! A blast filled his right leg. Hack wasn’t going to let this enemy assailant escape. But he wasn’t going to kill him, either. Now they had two enemy combatants to answer questions.
Writhing in anguish and grabbing at his bleeding legs, the kid screamed out, “Lucas! Lucas! Where are you? Lucas!”
The crowd, which had fled away from the burning White House and into the park, seemed to turn in unison toward the screaming man. All could see the lone dead man on the ground with a black wool hat covering his face.
The long, pointed green grenade lying on the ground filled in the blanks. Most ran. A few remained. One young man in a Cleveland Indians baseball cap walked up to the scene. He stood looking at the dead man and the screaming man next to him.
“Help me, buddy!” said the screaming man. “Get me into my truck!”
The Indians fan ignored his plea. He bent down over one of the semi-automatic rifles on the ground.
“Don’t do it, kid!” muttered Hack to himself as he watched him through his binoculars.
As he examined the AK-15, he could hear a whoosh, a loud clink against the gun, which spun ten feet away. The boy jolted straight up and looked around, raising his hands, hoping not to be shot.
“That’s better,” Hack thought. “Now walk away.”
He did. The once-curious, but now terribly shaken, man kept his hands in the air and walked toward the stream of white SUV police vehicles with flashing blue lights and loud sirens imposing their will on the entire area. The man ran up to the first cop he could find and reported what had just happened to him.
At that moment, Commander Williams and his SWAT team screeched up to the scene in their impressive black armored vehicle, parking in front of the black SUV with the opened back hatch. At the same time, a green U.S. Army truck filled with a National Guard unit drove in from the west side. A dozen armed soldiers, fully dressed for battle, jumped off the truck.
The six-member SWAT team emptied out of the black armored vehicle. Semi-automatic rifles at the ready, they jogged quickly toward the dead man and the screaming man a few yards away.
Ambulance sirens were close.
Williams and his men checked the dead.
Two red-and-white-colored ambulances jumped the curb and parked on the grass. Two of the paramedics were directed toward the screaming young man with blood pouring out his leg.
“We made a huge mistake listening to that asshole!” moaned the badly injured man to the young beautiful brunette paramedic who was working quickly to clean and bandage his bleeding legs. “Those were my friends that got killed. They’re dead, and I can’t walk. I knew this wasn’t going to work! Asshole!”
While the paramedics were working on the driver of what was supposed to be the getaway vehicle, the National Guard cordoned off the area. A tall, thin sergeant in riot gear, holding a megaphone in his right hand, instructed civilians to evacuate the area.
Following their training to the letter, the soldiers moved people out in an orderly fashion. They also looked for anyone who was noticeably angry, carrying a backpack or dressed in black—anyone or anything that looked suspicious.
A detailed description of the enemy attackers had been provided, so the soldiers knew exactly the type of person that could be a threat. Young, long hair, a beard, dressed in black.
As Hack watched the soldiers and SWAT team below, he was anxious to find out who was behind this attack on the White House, President Fallon and the United States of America. He thought it had to be bigger than just a small group of young radicals. But who?
All Hack knew for certain was that the group or organization responsible for this attack would not get away with it. Not on his watch! He was an American through and through. He fought for his country. He would die for America. And he had faith that the FBI, Secret Service and the police would all work together to find the people behind this assault and bring them to justice.