True Faith and Allegiance

Alexandru Dalca heard the siren as he stumbled exhausted through the trees. His legs had all but seized from the lactic acid buildup, but he pushed on, often pulling himself with branches or shoving off tree trunks, flailing his arms to propel himself to the north, knowing that the main road through this part of the park was just up ahead.

He had no idea if men had climbed out of the van and were in pursuit of him now, so he couldn’t just wait here in the dark and hope for the best.

The headlights of a vehicle began moving through the trees around him, shifting shadows like ghosts chasing from all sides. He broke out into the clearing by Aleea Michael Jackson, and into the glare of the headlights. He knew, without any idea how he knew, that this was the white van. Instantly he saw the police car whip into the tree-lined street a hundred yards behind the van.

Thank God, he said to himself, and with a fresh jolt of adrenaline Alexandru Dalca darted across the road right in front of the van and disappeared into the trees on the other side.

The van raced up to where Dalca had passed and slammed on its brakes, but as the side door opened and men ran around the rear of the vehicle to pursue their target, the red-on-white police car shined a spotlight on the men and skidded to a stop, just thirty meters behind them.

The three men stopped and raised their empty hands.

* * *

Felix Negrescu pulled to the side of the road with his headlights off. Just to his right was the entrance to Aleea Michael Jackson. In the front passenger seat Chavez held up a pair of binoculars. Although it was dark, the lights from the police car on the van revealed three men standing there, held at gunpoint by two local police officers, each of whom stood behind his open door.

A second police car approached from the northeast end of Aleea Michael Jackson, but Chavez could tell this only from the flashing lights in the woods on the far side of the two vehicles.

Midas was in the backseat. “You see our target?”

“Negative,” Chavez said. “Ryan, what’s your poz?”

Ryan’s whispered voice came over the men’s earpieces. “I’m in cover in the trees. One hundred feet to the right of the white van on the south side. A squad car is pulling to a stop right in front of me, and another is holding subjects at gunpoint at the back of the van. I do not see Dalca, but if he got to the other side of the road, I can’t get to him now without exposing myself to the local cops.”

Chavez replied, “Roger that, hold position.”

Midas had scooted over and put his own binoculars to work sizing up the situation. “If these guys from the van want to shoot it out with the cops, do we get involved?”

Chavez said, “There are five of them, minimum. There are three of us with guns, and these are untested and unfamiliar pistols.”

Midas didn’t take his eyes off the road. The men behind the van were clearly not doing what the cops were telling them to do. They just stood there, as if they were waiting for an opportunity to act.

Midas said, “You know, in the Unit we used to say, ‘You piss with the dick you got.’ These blasters will get the job done.”

Chavez focused his binos to the south side of the road, at the tree line, and he saw movement. At the same time he heard one of the police officers at the rear of the van shouting orders to the men standing there.

Midas saw it, too. “One pax on foot, south side of the road.”

Chavez snapped into his mic, “Jack, get back in cover! We see you!”

Jack whispered, “I am in cover. Trust me, you do not see me from your poz.”

As Chavez and Midas watched the shadowy figure stepping out of the trees, to the right and just behind the two cops with their guns on the three men at the back of the van, the figure raised a pistol with a suppressor. Quickly he fired off two rounds, flashing in the darkness of the wooded park road.

Both cops behind the van dropped to the ground, dead. The three men who’d been standing there with their hands up now drew their weapons, and turned to move around the van to engage the other cops there.

Chavez barked an order, “Jack, cleared to engage!” He turned to Felix behind the wheel. “Go!”

* * *

Jack Ryan, Jr., did not respond to Chavez’s command, he just spun around the tree and dropped to his knees. He knew he was in view of the man behind the wheel of the white van, plus anyone else inside, plus the three men behind the van. He’d heard the suppressed gunshots coming from the edge of the same tree line he was tucked into, but he hadn’t seen the flashes from the shots, so he didn’t have this man’s location pinned down.

He also had two cops outside their vehicle close to him, but he was shielded from them by the tree on his right shoulder. He hoped the guys he was trying to help wouldn’t get an angle on him and shoot him, and he worried about another siren he could hear in the distance approaching from the east.