“Love this thing,” he said as he sat. “At least I can expect the coffee to be good.”
The machine swooshed and gurgled.
“Would you like a cup?”
“I drink tea.”
“I know that, but this could change your mind.”
“I’m fine. About the tâys?”
The doctor spun on his chair, removed the cup, and grabbed a folder on the credenza behind him. “I think you will find this interesting. The two bodies were finally released and transported back to America a week ago. Before they left, I took tissue samples and detailed photographs of the bodies, as well as X-rays. An explosion caused the wounds, a blow easily a thousand times more powerful than a mere bullet’s. Analysis showed crushed and burnt tissue, most from intense explosive pressure and heat. The X-rays revealed minute shards of steel in the wounds, plus high levels of nitrates and other explosive residues, some my equipment can’t identify. There were also remains of some type of electronic device—circuits, the kind found in a silicon chip. But this chip was the size of a pinhead. Whatever its purpose, it was destroyed in the explosion. I assume this circuitry may have triggered the explosion when it contacted the body. Different from anything I’ve seen—and I’ve seen a lot of bullet and explosive wounds in my career.” He handed Phan the folder. “Whatever it was, it packed a fatal wallop. Even if the victims were just winged, the trauma would most likely be fatal.”
Phan looked through the pages and the photos. They brought him back to the morning at the warehouse, reminded him of the severity of the wounds. At the time he’d thought they were from something larger, like a grenade. The doctor was telling him it was a bullet, high-tech to be sure, but a bullet.
“Incredible, and you say you’ve not heard of this type of weapon?”
“That was going to be my question to you, Detective. No, I haven’t seen or even heard of one. And from the look on your face, you haven’t either.”
“None that I can think of. A science fiction movie, perhaps. Maybe this cartridge and weapon is a military experiment.”
“It doesn’t change my findings of homicide, and it certainly doesn’t get you closer to finding this killer. The one thing I can tell you: he is not your garden-variety assassin. This man has serious backing from some government, and it is not Vietnamese—at least I don’t think so. This technology can only be found in six or eight countries.”
“What are your first two guesses?”
“The Russians and British may be interested in these things. However, here in Vietnam, my guess is the US and China—I lean toward the Chinese.”
Phan pushed the folder back across the desk. “Can you send me a copy?”
“This one is yours. What else do you need?”
“To keep this information quiet. I’ll let you know when to release it. If it’s lost for a while, I wouldn’t mind. When I interviewed the employee from the on-site security company, he didn’t seem as alarmed as he should have been. I wonder why.” He tapped the top of the file. “Excellent work. Thank you.”
“That’s why I’m paid so well.”
“At least they gave you that fancy coffee maker,” Phan said.
“I bought that myself.”
CHAPTER 11
Dallas, Texas
The plane lurched to a stop at the gate of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, and the seat belt sign dinged. Rain left streaks on the small window next to Alex’s seat, and flashes of lightning lit up the darkening sky above the runways and taxiways. She slipped her phone into her backpack and put away her headphones. When it was her turn, she pulled the single bag out of the overhead compartment and trundled down the airplane’s narrow Jetway and into the concourse. Less than a month earlier she’d done the same thing in Venice.
What am I getting myself into this time?
A man in a dark suit, with a chiseled, tan face and military haircut, stood at the bottom of the escalator from the gates. He held up an iPad whose screen read “A. Polonia.” Alex walked toward him.
He smiled before she could say anything. “Welcome to Dallas, Ms. Polonia. I’m Jimmy Cortez.”
“Mr. Cortez, a pleasure.”
“Bags?”
“Just the one,” she said, pointing to the wheeled bag at her feet.
“Good; please place your hand on this iPad.”
Alex set her backpack on the floor and placed her right hand on the screen. The glass flashed, and she removed her hand. Cortez looked at the screen, then smiled.
“The SUV is at the curb, assuming that they haven’t made Bostich go once around the airport.”
“Bostich?”
“He’s our driver this evening and one of the probies. Everyone works when they get here.”
“Probie? God, I haven’t heard that since the academy.”
“Get used to it, because once you step into the SUV, that is what you are: a probational.”
The rain continued as they drove north and darkness fell. When the sign said “Denton,” they exited and, without the freeway lights, lost themselves in the black night. Cortez said nothing as Alex stared at her reflection in the window as they negotiated a series of highways and back roads, each narrower than the last. They turned off the two-lane road and onto what looked like a driveway. Five minutes later, the SUV slowed and a gatehouse appeared. The gate ahead was iron and looked as if it could withstand the impact of most lightweight vehicles. A guard stood at the entry.
Bostich lowered the SUV’s window. “Three, sir.”
The guard walked to the vehicle. The windows all lowered, and rain splashed in on Alex’s face. A bright light flashed through the interior. She turned and saw another guard on the opposite side of the SUV, an AR15 clipped to his chest. His flashlight provided a crosslight of the interior.
“You are good to go, sir,” the guard said.
“Thank you,” Cortez said as the windows closed. The gates ahead swung open.
“Tight security,” Alex said.
“We’ve been under surveillance since we crossed onto the property a mile back. This vehicle has been infrared scanned, had its onboard sensors checked, and has been sniffed for explosives. The works.” A big ranch house came into view. “Here we are. Bostich will take care of your bag.”
Bostich parked the vehicle in the circular courtyard that faced a well-lit porch. Alex and Cortez walked through the entry’s double doors and into the foyer. Chris Campbell stood on the slate floor, a tumbler in his hand.
“Ms. Polonia, welcome to Texas.”
Two weeks later, the Jeep lurched hard to the left, then the right, and a second later Alex’s butt rose and fell two inches off the rear seat. Lucky for her, her seat belt kept her from banging her head.
“You drive like my mother!” she yelled to the front seat. “Potholes are her specialty.”
The driver didn’t respond, but he did slow down a bit.
Alex settled back into the seat. She was alone with the driver. She rubbed her arm—she’d lost count of the number of injections. A tetanus booster, a flu shot, a pneumonia and zoster shot, and a series that included hepatitis A and B, typhoid, polio, yellow fever, and rabies. And God knows how much blood they’d taken.
“Rabies?” she had asked the nurse. “Why the hell would I need a rabies shot?”
“That’s up to the boss,” the nurse had replied. “I just give ’em. Be careful. Your arm will be sore for a week.”
The physicals and initial training at Campbell’s ranch lasted two weeks. After the physicals, blood draws, and cardiac tests—first a treadmill from hell to measure endurance and recovery analysis, then some demented running and weightlifting combination—she was exhausted. No slack was given. She was sure—after what the psychologist asked about her past, her time in the police, and her family issues—that her head was now shrunk three sizes. Her greatest thrill was the loss of ten pounds.
If Javier liked me before, he’d kill for me now.
The Jeep’s next bump and
lurch forced Alex to grab the front seat and made her glare at the driver in the mirror. A veteran TSD team leader, Jake Dumas had arrived two days earlier.
“Kandahar was ten times worse,” he said as he swerved to avoid the next hole. “And there, the Taliban were shooting at us, and I was going twice as fast, hoping to avoid the party gifts they left along the road.”
After the training she’d been through, she was pleased that her forty-two-year-old body could still function, even though in the morning it protested loudly and with pain. Her mile time was just shy of eight minutes—not bad—and she bench-pressed eighty pounds. Sure, the other boys and girls—as she called them—pressed three times that and ran six-and-a-half-minute miles, but she was still pleased. After all, it wasn’t as if she ever aspired to be an avenging Amazon cop or Wonder Woman.
The night before, she had read through a thick manual the weapons officer had handed her. The cover simply read “Weapons” at the top. At the bottom: “Property of Teton Security and Defense, Ltd.” A quick perusal of the table of contents was daunting: pistols, M9, M11, M17; submachine guns, MP5; assault rifles/carbines, M16, M4, HK416; shotguns, 500 MILS, M1014, M870; machine guns, M249 SAW, H&K MG4; Browning M2, Mk14, M110, M2010, M107. Under “Miscellaneous” were grenade launchers, grenades, smoke grenades, flash-bangs, and an assortment of antitank weapons. She checked again and was disappointed that there was nothing on mortars, tanks, Howitzers, self-propelled rocket launchers, or low-yield tactical nuclear weapons.
“Holy hell, what did I get myself into?” she had whispered to herself as she fell asleep.
“The Country Club, as Mr. Campbell calls it,” Dumas said now as he navigated another swale cut through the road, “is two miles ahead.”
“What do you call it, Jake?” Alex asked.
“The playground.” His eyes twinkled in the mirror.
The terrain changed from flat to hilly to rugged and nearly treeless. Scrub growth dotted the dry hills. A rusted sign on Highway 82 read “King County.” As far as she could tell, she was on the far side of the moon.
“There are fewer than three hundred people in this whole county,” Dumas said. “That’s one person for every three square miles. It can be a quiet and lonely place. Except when the wind blows—then you hold on to whatever you can.”
The road curved around another hill covered in dried brush. A few cattle stood idly in the wash to Alex’s right, their horns six feet across at least.
“Those are some of the boss’s longhorns. He has a couple of hundred scattered about the ranch. There’s some Hereford and Brangus out here somewhere as well. It’s a working ranch as well as our training facility.”
On a rise, Dumas pulled the Jeep to the roadside and got out.
Alex followed. “Where the hell are we?”
“The center of the ranch. It goes about three miles that way and four the other. North to south, it’s about ten miles. Seventy square miles total, or about forty-five thousand acres. A fair size by Texas standards, but it wouldn’t make the top fifty.” Dumas pointed into a wide wash that split the range of hills and formed a valley, where there was a cluster of red-tiled roofs. “The ranch complex is down there. It used to be a cattleman’s ranch built in the 1880s. The boss has improved it. You will have full access here; nothing is off-limits. Two things to be careful of, though: snakes and wild pigs. The rattlers will let you know when they’re pissed; the pigs will just run you down and slice you open. Climbing a tree is the best defense, but there are barely a dozen trees on the whole ranch. If you’re armed and one of those porkers charges you, don’t be afraid to take ’em out. They’re mighty tasty.” He smiled. “There’s also the usual scorpions, coyotes, fire ants, and wasps. Alex, it’s the Wild West here—so be careful.”
Early the next morning, Alex, after finishing her kitchen duties, stood on the terrace of the main house of the Country Club, which was a lot different from the house she’d arrived at when she landed two weeks earlier. All was silent. A spring chill still sat in the air, and she breathed it in. The day before had reached eighty degrees yet quickly cooled after sundown. Above, the lights of a jet plane flashed red and green among the million stars that still filled the sky.
“Up early?” Dumas asked.
“Yes, chores done and a little keyed up. I’ve never seen so many stars. There’s too much light and junk in the air around Cleveland. We see the big ones, but not all this.”
“I’ve been around the world, Polonia. Fought in some tough spots, but this is the most peaceful place I’ve ever been. After an operation, I look forward to coming back. Compared to the world, this place is clean and simple. And when there’s a light zephyr, you can almost feel your heart sing. I like that—it’s the sound of peace.”
“You said you were an Army Ranger. Why did you leave?”
“What I tell myself is that I was getting too old to beat the bushes and wander the streets of Afghanistan, Iraq, or some other shithole. I like my independence, and the only way to stay in the army was to shoot for an oakleaf.”
“Oakleaf?”
“Major and higher rank. I’m here because I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting in an office all day. I met the boss in 2010, during one of our joint military and civilian operations in Afghanistan. His people were guarding a trio of businessmen from Pittsburgh who were trying to sell steel pipe to the Afghans. The boss and I hit it off. He said when I was ready, come and see him. I did, and here I am.”
“Sounds like it’d be hard to settle down,” she said.
“No, I’m not the settle-down type—always on the move. Someday, who knows?”
“You’re not married?”
“No. Sorry about the problems that your ex piled on you.”
“You know about all that?”
“I know everything about my people. I don’t like surprises. They put people in danger. You good with all that crap your ex left you?”
“Other than wanting to shoot the son of a bitch, yes, I’m good.”
“I like your thinking. There’s some fun stuff we’ll be training with today. Imagine him at the business end of a Browning.” A chime rang through the complex. “Breakfast. I’m buying.”
The Country Club’s dining room held forty people. Alex was introduced to four other team members that were at the facility for additional training and rest. Dumas also introduced the range officer, the weapons officer, and other support staff. She had been assigned to KP. She’d already met the cook and some of the custodial staff. She began to realize the serious scale and scope of Teton Security and Defense.
A pyramid-shaped array of photos was displayed on the wall at the end of the dining room. Christopher Campbell’s picture was at the top. In descending order were ten others, eight men and two women, and under them more photos. At the top of these photos were the teams’ names: Black, White, Red, Green, Blue, Violet, Orange, Charlie, Baker, and the last, Flashlight. Some of the teams had two subgroups under them, A and B. Each team ranged from fifteen to thirty members. None of the photos had names. Two of the photos under the Red Team had a black ribbon pinned to them. She leaned in and looked at the two photos.
“Dead,” Dumas said. “Actually, murdered.”
She looked up at the pyramid. Jake Dumas’s picture was on the second tier, over Red Team, Group A and Group B, as well as Charlie Team.
“Murdered?”
“Yes, in Saigon. A man broke into a facility we were guarding, our people were killed. We’re working on it. The boss will bring you up-to-date when he thinks the time’s right.”
For the rest of the week, they fired hundreds of rounds in the morning, then thousands in the afternoon. This was very different from the police pistol range in Cleveland. Alex relearned how to break down and rebuild her weapons, reload magazines in the dark, and shoot from every imaginable and unimaginable position. By the end of the week, her hands were swollen and her shoulders ached.
When she wasn’t at the range, she was taking a crash
course in digital technology. That was interesting, but sadly most was wasted on her because she was so tired in the evening. They flipped the order the following week, and the tech stuff was first on the daily agenda and resulted in a much higher absorption rate. TSD did not want their tactical people to become programmers or hackers—those were skills reserved for others in the company—but they did want them to be able to recognize the software and tech they saw and know how to interpret what they found.
The device that the killer used in Saigon was discussed. The instructor described it as a storage device, a key, and a transmitter. “It has a high-speed USB plug that, when inserted into a specific device, such as a server port, floods the system with a virus that extracts everything and places that data in the unit’s hard memory. When removed, the device would, through a satellite connection, automatically transmit the data. It’s fast too, like downloading ten digital movies in one minute. That’s where the greatest advance is—its speed. We assume that when the data receipt was acknowledged, the device was told to self-destruct. As you can see from the photo, it melted using a thermal implant. However, much of what the device does is based on assumptions. This is extremely sophisticated and dangerous.”
“Do we know what the information was?” one of the men asked, a question Alex also had.
“Here at Teton it is not our place to ask that question of our clients,” she continued. “We failed here, and two operatives and friends lost their lives. The client was extremely upset. They’re now doing everything they can to prepare for possible attacks and product compromises in the future. We’re helping as much as we can. This was unacceptable and may cost us dearly.”
“Is there a way to disable the device before it destroys itself?” Alex asked.
“We’re working on it. It used a small thermite plug—smaller than a hearing aid battery—and igniter. It burned at more than twenty-five hundred degrees. Once the thermite starts, there’s no stopping it.”
Saigon Red Page 7