Black Flagged Redux by Steven Konkoly Read Free Book Online Page B

toddlers.
    The memory faded, and Srecko Hadzic snapped the picture book shut. He smothered the cigarette against the side of the stone table and got up to leave the courtyard. The fresh air was killing him.
     

Chapter 6
     
     
    10:35 AM
    FBI Headquarters Building
    Washington, D.C.
     
     
    Special Agent Ryan Sharpe adjusted the files on his desk and checked his watch for the fifth time in the last minute. He was nervous about this meeting. His career hadn't exactly flourished since General Sanderson and his crew popped up and decapitated HYDRA. The Black Flag group vanished into thin air and proved near impossible to track. The quick revenge demanded by the FBI's director, Frederick Shelby, never materialized, and his significantly smaller task force began to shrink with every uneventful month, until he was finally absorbed by the Domestic Terrorism Branch.
    The time they had spent scouring the earth for traces of Sanderson's organization hadn't been completely fruitless. His task force stumbled upon some unsavory funding links between foreign organized crime syndicates and a rising domestic ultra-nationalist terrorist organization, True America. Soon after establishing these links, he had been given command of a specialized task force dedicated to investigating foreign funding sources linked to homegrown domestic terrorist groups. Thanks to Director Shelby, Sanderson's crew had been designated a Tier One domestic terrorist organization, which re-landed Sanderson high on Sharpe's list of priority investigative targets.
    He had the best of many worlds working for the DTB, a renewed sense of purpose, job security and the ear of Director Shelby, who had vowed to bring the wrath of God down upon Sanderson if Sharpe ever located his new stronghold. After reading the preliminary report forwarded by Special Agent Mendoza, he felt goosebumps. Something about the ATF summary gave him the first real glimmer of hope he had experienced in nearly two years.
    Sharpe heard a familiar knock at the door and stood up to walk around the desk. "Get in here, Frank," he boomed.
    Special Agent Frank Mendoza entered, followed by Special Agent Dana O'Reilly and a short, angular-faced female wearing a navy blue suit jacket over a sharp-collared white blouse and matching dark blue trousers. She looked extremely serious, and her dark blue eyes pierced the room with a hint of disapproval. She wore an ATF badge clipped to her suit lapel.
    "There he is. Special Agent Mendoza. Recently promoted to Ops Section One. You better not give up my favorite chair," he said, vigorously shaking Frank's hand.
    "Well, it needs to find a new home. My so-called 'promotion' landed me in a cubicle. It's a whole different world down there. Small fish in a big pond. Ryan, this is Special Agent Marianne Warner. She leads the task force that nabbed Javier Navarre."
    "Special Agent Warner, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to meet with me. Please have a seat," he said and nodded at Dana O'Reilly, who closed the door behind them.
    Once they were situated in his cramped office, he opened the file sitting at the top of the smallest pile on his desk.
    "Special Agent Warner, tell me a little more about Javier Navarre?"
    "My task force had been watching him for quite some time. He specialized in what we consider to be exotic, special order weaponry. Not the usual crates of former Eastern Bloc discounted Kalashnikov rifles or RPG-7's. High end stuff. Modern assault rifles, large caliber sniper rifles, armor piercing ammunition. Scary shi…stuff, from our perspective."
    "Please speak freely here, Marianne. Special Agent O'Reilly curses like a trucker, and Mendoza here, well…he taught me a few words I didn't learn in college," Sharpe said.
    "I might reinstate that HR complaint," O'Reilly said.
    "Don't listen to her. She's still pissed I dragged her along into Domestic."
    "Shit, we all wanted to get away from you," Mendoza said, and they all laughed.
    "Anyway. Please