The Last Patriot

Dodd unlocked the front door and slipped inside. He knew every creak in every stair up to his apartment and ascended like a ghost.

He kept his eyes peeled for any portable intrusion detectors that may have been placed along the stairwell, but saw none. Near the final landing, he raised the imaging device to his eyes and once more searched for the forms inside his apartment. He found them just as he set foot on the third floor.

Moving into the hallway for the best possible shot, Dodd leveled his weapon at the drywall and began pulling the trigger.

CHAPTER 53

Ozbek had no idea what had happened until he heard Rasmussen yell, “I’m hit,” and then things all around him started exploding.

He leapt into the bathroom and dove into its cast iron tub just as rounds began pinging off of it. Whoever was shooting at them was doing so with a suppressed weapon and was firing right through the drywall. Activating his bone mike, he said, “Raz, how bad are you hit?”

“Bad,” replied Rasmussen. “Motherfucker shot me in the leg! It’s bleeding all over.”

Both men were wearing low profile cargo-style pants by Blackhawk Industries that included a revolutionary integrated tourniquet system. “Clamp it,” ordered Ozbek, though he knew Rasmussen was probably already doing it.

He could hear Rasmussen shout from the other room as he lifted the flap on his pants and spun the carbon fiber bar that tightened a cord in the fabric around his upper thigh and cut off the blood flow. The pants had been designed to help minimize loss of blood and get you back in the fight as fast as possible. Everyone on Ozbek’s team wore them and had trained with them extensively.

Ozbek was about to confirm that Rasmussen had activated the tourniquet when he heard another series of rounds drill into the apartment.

“Son of a bitch,” groaned Rasmussen over his mike.

“Take cover,” ordered Ozbek.

“I did,” his colleague replied. “This asshole knows exactly where I am.”

Ozbek was about to climb out of the tub when silenced rounds started pinging off it yet again. How the hell does he know exactly where we are?

He looked up to see if there were any cameras that might tell him how the shooter was pinpointing their locations and then his heart dropped into his stomach. The thermal imaging device.

Ozbek clicked his transmitter in rapid succession. Nothing. He tried to raise Whitcomb once more, and when he received seven clicks to the tune of Shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits he knew that Whitcomb was dead. He also knew that he and Rasmussen were both sitting ducks. The shooter not only had the imaging device, he had Whitcomb’s radio. What he didn’t have, though, was their alternate frequency.

Ozbek didn’t need to tell Rasmussen to switch freqs. He’d heard the same thing and was already on their alternate cha

“He’s got the imaging unit, doesn’t he?” whispered Rasmussen, his voice strained. He didn’t bother to ask about Whitcomb. He didn’t want to know the answer.

“Yes,” replied Ozbek as he looked up at the bathroom mirror hanging on one hinge. Through its broken glass, he could see where the rounds had come through the drywall. “He’s firing laterally in four-to-six-inch patterns.”

“What do you want to do?”

Ozbek needed to come up with something fast. If he and Rasmussen fired blindly into the hallway, their rounds would penetrate the apartments on the other side and very likely kill i

If only the shooter couldn’t see them.

Suddenly, Ozbek knew what they had to do. “Raz,” he said over the radio, “is there a thermostat out there?”

Rasmussen sca

“Can you get to it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you have for cover?” asked Ozbek as he turned on the cold water in the tub.

“The couch.”

“You’ve got to reach that thermostat. We need to get the heat up as high as possible.”

Rasmussen studied the distance and gave the couch a nudge with his shoulder. It moved but only barely. He tried again, harder this time and it moved a little bit more. On his third shove, bullets came through the wall all around him.

Rasmussen yelled out loud as he planted his good leg and pushed the couch with all of his might. It moved more than he expected and shot off at an angle jamming up against a bookcase.

Crawling behind the length of the couch, the injured CIA operative got his hands behind the bookcase and pulled as hard as he could, sliding it away from the wall, careful not to tip it over. Finally, he had it far enough out that he could snake behind it and reach the thermostat on the other side.

Pushing himself up on his good leg, Rasmussen reached out as far as he could and flipped the temperature gauge as high as it would go.

He dropped back to the floor as more rounds pierced the bookcase and drilled into the wall where he had just been standing.

“It’s done,” said Rasmussen.

“Hang in there,” replied Ozbek as he slipped fully clothed and with his body armor into the tub that was rapidly filling with bone-chilling water.

There were multiple risks to what Ozbek was doing and he was aware of them all, but he was also aware that he had no choice. The key was in discerning the proper moment to get out of the tub.

Even if the heating unit was only adequate, the small apartment shouldn’t take long to heat up. The longer he waited, the better chance he had of his plan working, but that held true for the shooter as well.

Ozbek knew there was only so much of a drop in body temperature he could expect in a short amount of time, but every little bit would help. Being an older generation, the imaging unit had its limitations. Ozbek needed to get his temperature as close to the apartment’s as possible, thereby rendering his heat signature as near to invisible as possible. Once he did he would have to move fast.

From the reports he was getting from Rasmussen, the shooter seemed to be focusing entirely on the wounded man. Three more waves of fire had come through the wall, splintered the bookcase, and slammed into the couch.

The shooter had apparently given up on Ozbek for the time being. By taking out Rasmussen in the living room, he’d then be able to enter via the front door and take Ozbek out from inside the apartment.

Ozbek knew they couldn’t wait any longer. “Raz,” he said into his mike. “How hot is it out there?”

“I can’t see the thermostat, but it’s getting hot,” he replied.

“Okay, I’m going off comms and coming out. Don’t shoot me.”

“Roger that,” replied Rasmussen.

Ozbek pulled out his earpiece and then submerged his head beneath the water for as long as he could.

Breaking the surface, he quickly soaked a towel, draped it over his head, and slid out of the tub.