by Jeff Rovin
“Did we screw up leaving those crewmen alive?” Williams asked.
“They’ll have found the chutes by now and will tell the same story,” Breen said. “Four commandos in their midst. There’s no additional damage there.”
Williams was not consoled by that and, feeling somewhat shielded by the rush for the big-money cargo, flipped on the siren and hurried toward Diego Martin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Diego Martin, Port of Spain, Trinidad
July 23, 8:20 a.m.
The two men in white T-shirts and green running shorts were listening to the police radio and receiving texts from JAM personnel embedded in the smugglers’ operations. It was a synergistic relationship, Salehi knew; the terrorists received cover in officially “tolerated” trade and the traffickers were well paid for that cover and for information.
There had been no JAM personnel in the skirmish that morning, but agents were heavily involved now. No one knew who was hidden at the condo but they knew, from the news, that their people had been involved with the hits in Montreal. It didn’t take a large, imaginative leap to figure out who the parachutists were after.
Sitting in an armchair facing the door, the gun in his lap, Salehi followed the events by watching his companions and the numbers of additional men who arrived since they sent out the call. The new arrivals were respectful nearly to the point of obsequiousness to have news-making royalty in their midst. Salehi found it embarrassing and dangerous. All it would take was one overzealous idiot to snap a photo of him and text it to a girlfriend to show how important he was. That had obviously occurred to his hosts as well, as they belatedly collected smartphones and put them in a chest beside the coffee table—a chest with sufficient ammunition clips to fight a small army.
Still, Salehi wanted to get out, to make his own moves and choices. That was how he had lived his life. This was a prison. He looked at his watch. Sadi had told him he would depart late-morning. Just ten minutes before he had managed to inquire about timing, he was informed that the jet was due in about two hours.
Inshallah, he thought as he paced the increasingly confined space. There were now seven other men in the apartment, all of them having selected weapons from the cache. Most of them were dressed in what looked like current, casual fashion including loud T-shirts, new footwear, bracelets, and earrings. Here, terror apparently paid well.
That was when Vincent received a text that caused him to say an English word Salehi was beginning to recognize: “Shit.”
The others had not been talking loudly but now everyone fell silent. The message was from someone they apparently knew. Someone named Avinash. And there was suddenly a great deal of agitation.
Vincent and Nik sent two men, in pairs, out the door. He pointed up to one group, down to another. Roof and lobby, Salehi surmised. The three remaining men took up positions inside: Nik on the terrace, Vincent with Salehi, the last man by the door.
By movement and sound, Vincent indicated that a vehicle with a siren was coming. And then, making a gun with his thumb and index finger, said one word that even Salehi understood:
“Americans.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Diego Martin, Port of Spain, Trinidad
July 23, 8:43 a.m.
The Black Wasp team reached Diego Martin unmolested. Williams extended a gloved hand and found the switch for the siren under the dashboard. He killed it and slowed. He followed the instructions of the GPS to Ajax but stopped before making the turn. He looked up 7 Ajax on the street-view map; it was the only large structure on the street.
“An apartment,” he said.
“Almost certainly not ground floor, if it’s a safe house,” Breen observed. “And if Salehi’s there, every possible access point will be covered.”
Breen half-turned and opened the sliding panel that separated the cab from the back of the ambulance.
Rivette peered through. “Why’ve we stopped?”
“We’re down the block from the target,” Breen told him. “Didn’t want to talk strategy without you two.”
Williams hadn’t been waiting for them; he’d been thinking. “If Salehi’s there,” he said, “the question is what do they plan to do next? They can’t keep him indefinitely. This isn’t something that the U.S. would just lose interest in.”
“No, and they have to be thinking of the bin Laden raid,” Breen said. “That was a guarded complex, too.”
“Question is, do we go in or wait till they come out?”
“Why waste an opportunity?” Grace asked. “There’s no guarantee one way will be safer than the other.”
“If we split up, we get two shots at him,” Rivette said.
While that hung in the air, Williams said, “The other question is, if he’s there, what do we do with him?”
“You know where I stand,” Breen said.
“Yes, and a trial would put a lot of our enemies in Iran and elsewhere squarely in the crosshairs,” Williams agreed. “But the diplomatic wrangling between Tehran and Washington would be a major distraction.”
“Not our problem,” Breen pointed out.
“I would also have to arrange for transport out of here if we’re seriously considering an extraction,” Williams said.
“Lieutenant?” Breen asked.
“Dead,” she said. “He killed, he dies.”
“I’m on that page, too,” Rivette said. “This ain’t some guy floundering in the swamp. This is a terrorist who attacked our homeland and killed our citizens.”
The four fell silent.
“There are still a lot of ‘ifs’ between then and now,” Williams said. “We should consider asking the Fourth Fleet for surveillance, eavesdropping.”
“That process can take hours,” Breen said. “If he’s there, he could run. And we are riding in a stolen vehicle.”
“Commander, we are a covert attack team,” Grace said. “This is what we trained for.”
This was the first whiff of cold feet that Breen had gotten from the man. It gave him a hint of what may have gone down between them: Williams may have been worried about casualties, but he did not want Salehi to get away … again?
“We won’t be able to pass as pizza delivery guys dressed like this,” Rivette said. “We just go in?”
“Works for me,” Grace said.
Breen just nodded. Williams wasn’t wrong; they had been lucky on the river. An apartment was a very different animal. But Grace was right, too. The team had trained to move with surprise, get in and out with lethal force. If they did it Williams’s way, they had no business being here.
“We’ll need a getaway driver in case we have to abort … or if we get him,” Breen said. “Commander?”
Williams nodded at the suggestion. “Let’s see if we can park on-site,” he said. “Then I’ll figure out where we are, let my contact know.”
* * *
As the ambulance moved, both Rivette and Grace exchanged looks.
They were seated on the floor and the lance corporal scooted over.
“I feel like we lost the heart of the major a little,” Rivette said quietly.
“Traditional military rising, settings restored by the commander,” she replied. “I always felt that’s why they went with you and me at all. The brass wanted to shake things up.”
“So why the major, then? And why Williams, now?”
“Age and caution aren’t bad things,” she said. “Not in my world, anyway. But even the major knows that if we’re within striking distance of Salehi, we have to go for him.”
The ambulance turned and descended a ramp. Grace got on her knees, rapped on the partition.
“Don’t stop—but we’re getting out here!” she said.
“Affirmative,” Breen said, rolling down the window. “I’ll let you know what’s what.”
The two crawled to the back of the ambulance, popped the door, and backed out. The incline caused the door to shut. They hugged the concrete wall and made their way down
; Breen remained where he was but crouched lower and drew his handgun. Williams pulled on the bright headlights so it would be difficult to see past the glare, then put his Sig Sauer 9mm in the cup holder between the seats, grip facing up.
The ambulance slowed; Rivette and Grace kept pace with it, the woman in the lead. When it stopped at the end of the ramp, they stopped as well.
Breen said very quietly, “Two men, thirty-odd feet, row of cars between us. Semis on the hips.” He looked up. “Security cameras by the door, angled to see most of the interior.”
“I got those,” Rivette said.
The lieutenant’s knives were still sheathed; she stood facing in the same direction as the van, elbows nearly together, tapping into her energetic core, her forearms in a snake posture: hands floating, right hand slightly higher and extended like the head of a water snake.
Williams rolled down the window, called out to the men. “Dr. Newallo to see a patient,” he said. “Are you here to take her up?”
Grace was already in motion, running low and hard; if the man called up, they’d be exposed. Rivette was also moving, but only so he could see the cameras. He stopped, legs apart, and took out the cameras with two shots. He jumped back just before the men could fire in his direction.
With the two guards distracted, Grace did not stop behind the cars but dashed between them, her arms moving in front as if they were pulling her along. Standing side by side in front of a door, the men drew their semiautomatics. Grace attacked the quard on the left first, her snake-arm shooting out, wrapping over then under the man’s right arm, the arm with the gun. She wrenched up when she was coiled around his arm, causing the gun to point down. At the same time her left arm shot out across his Adam’s apple, stiffened, and banked his head back hard against the metal door.
He dropped the gun without firing. His companion, meanwhile, had turned toward Grace; while she had the first man locked up, she kicked out with her right foot and sent his semiautomatic flying from his grip.
Rivette was there to pick it up and put his own weapon under the man’s chin.
“Are there any passwords?” he demanded as Grace continued to restrain the first man, slamming his head back any time he moved.
“No, man—nothing!” the second man said.
Rivette pressed harder into the soft tissue under his jaw. “Who are you protecting?”
“Foreign dude, man. I dunno.”
Rivette pressed the muzzle even harder. “Who is up there?”
“The guy,” the man said. “The Iranian.”
“How many guards?”
“Two in the hall … three in the room.”
“Room number?”
The man hesitated. Rivette kneed his gut, hard.
“Three!” he gasped.
Breen had joined them by now; behind him, Williams was parking the ambulance and looking at the other vehicles.
Rivette pistol-whipped his man unconscious. Grace grabbed a handful of her man’s beard and rammed his head hard into the door. His knees went liquid and he dropped.
“I’ll take care of them,” Williams said, running over.
“We’ve got to hurry,” Grace said. “There may be a radio check.”
Rivette and Breen dragged the men from the door and Grace yanked it open. The other two men followed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Diego Martin, Port of Spain, Trinidad
July 23, 8:55 a.m.
After hearing from Avinash, Vincent Rowley-James lit a cigarette then made a call to the airfield. The United States could very well have sent some crazy SEAL Team Six guys in one or two waves. His own boys were good, many having trained, like himself, in the Philippines. But they would be no match for trained commandos with state-of-the-art weapons.
Ahmed Salehi was more alert than he had been since his arrival, and the Iranian seemed greatly relieved when Vincent communicated that they would be leaving. Vincent strapped a sheath to his arm and slid a hunting knife into it; the blade was serrated on both sides. He pulled on a black vest and selected a semiautomatic pistol from the weapons locker. The letters VRJ were painted in gold on the wood-paneled grip. He slid a pair of additional clips into his vest. Stepping beside him, the captain held his own weapon point up; a professional, not eager to shoot his own teammates by accident.
“Tell the men downstairs to be very, very alert,” he told Nik. “I’m taking our guest and Anthony to the stairs. Join us when you’ve spoken with them.”
Vincent went to the monitors. He saw nothing in the hall, at the stairs, or by the elevator. The only ones out there were his two men, watching both.
“Let’s go,” he told Anthony, stepping boldly from the apartment. He had found, when hosting VIPs, that it was best to act with assurance; it instilled confidence in others.
The men had only taken a few steps when Nik thrust his head into the hallway.
“They do not answer!” he hissed.
Vincent stopped the others and considered the situation. Whatever the Americans were planning, he only had one real course of action.
“Nik, come with me,” Vincent ordered. “You, too, Anthony.”
Nik ran out, leaving the door ajar in case they had to fall back in a hurry. Anthony was ahead of him and, with Vincent, they hurried to the stairs where the two others were waiting. The gunmen were grave and attentive. “There may be Americans coming up,” Vincent said. “Stop them.”
The men acknowledged and cautiously entered the staircase ahead of the others. Vincent hoped he could trust them. He knew them only passingly and he had a saying about many of the hundreds of JAM members who had passed through this building: if they were still alive, their hearts were not in it. Vincent did not exclude himself from that equation, though as a known liaison between local politicians, law enforcement, and service providers—like gunrunners and Dr. Newallo—his superiors rarely let him in the field to fight. His blood racing, and drawing breath between tightly locked teeth, he was primed to do so.
The two lead men took up positions on the landing below, one behind the iron railing, the other pressed to the outer wall so he could see down the stairs. With Vincent in the lead and Anthony behind, Salehi was ushered slowly up the steps. As they ascended Vincent wondered if commandos could have climbed the outside of the building or come down by parachute as they had in the swamp; it wasn’t likely but he could not dismiss the possibility and he moved cautiously. As they ascended he was impressed by the cool of the man they protected. The captain was over forty and from what Vincent had seen on the internet Salehi had survived many years in the field. He had escaped after planning and executing a major operation.
With all his heart and spirit, that was the kind of jihadist Vincent Rowley-James wished to be.
The staircase was growing warmer by the moment as the rising sun beat down. All three men were perspiring by the time they reached the door that opened onto the roof. Vincent motioned for the others to stop, placed his ear to the solid metal panel, and listened.
He heard nothing. That was not what he wanted to hear.
Slowly, carefully, Vincent put his left shoulder to the door. Still holding his semiautomatic, he lowered his hand onto the handle and pushed down. He opened the door a crack.
“Let our eyes adjust,” he said to Anthony. If there were enemy forces outside he wouldn’t have time to squint around picking targets.
Vincent did not realize quite how tense he was until he heard what he had been waiting for. He looked back at the others, a line of sunlight running down the center of each face. Salehi gave him a questioning look and Vincent nodded. The captain allowed himself the faintest smile.
The drumming increased steadily. If anyone was upstairs, the sound would have stopped where it was, somewhere in the distance. It did not.
Vincent waited until the beat was so loud that the door shook. Only then did he open it slowly—just in time to see the Mi-8 twin turbine tour helicopter drop a roll-up ladder from its cabin door.
The three Americans left the fourth-floor landing when they heard activity above; feet shuffling, a door creaking, weapon stocks hitting a belt clasp or button. They did not slow but kept up their steady pace. Grace was in the lead; Breen, in the rear, was shining a pocket flashlight ahead of her, sweeping it back and forth, looking for a tripwire. For all they knew JAM owned the entire building and had rigged it with booby traps. It was a strange thought for Grace to have at that moment, under the circumstances, but her admiration for Williams unexpectedly spiked; she knew without a doubt if something like that happened, the commander would charge up to try and salvage the mission or save his people. That gave her own determination a boost.
Behind her, Rivette was listening. During survival training, General Lovett’s team had noted his attention to audio detail; probably a result, the lance corporal thought, of having to survive dark streets at night and heavy-footed gang members in school lavatories.
Rivette was the first to hear the helicopter. He stopped Grace with a tap on her arm and motioned for Breen to wait. A moment later the others heard it, too.
The lance corporal listened, tapped Grace again. She turned. He had detected two overlapping sources of sound: the squeak of new basketball shoes and the rattle of a bracelet. He held up two fingers. Grace nodded. Then he held up seven fingers; she nodded again. The guards were on the seventh floor. She indicated for the men to wait.
Breen frowned. Grace removed a hand grenade from her pocket. Breen stopped frowning. He knew he would have to kill the flashlight anyway, since it would give their position away.
Grace turned ahead and began moving up in the same fluid movement. The men could see her as far as the fifth-floor landing and then she was entirely on her own.
The lieutenant had calculated the height of each set of stairs, used the sixth-floor landing above to ascertain he best place for two men to fire down. She would have to throw the grenade while she was still under the sixth-floor landing in order to remain shielded from gunfire. That meant facing away from the target and making an arcing toss up and over her shoulder.