Torching the Crimson Flag

by Conrad Brasso

  They filed out of the club in formation and loaded into a Land Rover Defender. The team leader and one of the other guys were in front. Matteo and his mom were in the middle row. And the third combat team member was in the back.

  Tala was in shock. She’d been going through the motions and seeing everything that was happening, but she had no idea what was going on. The gnawing feeling of fearing for her life was still in the pit of her stomach.

  “Where are your things, Tala?” the team leader asked, as they were driving away from the club. Police sirens were starting to wail, and as the Land Rover drove, an ambulance swerved around them, headed to the club.

  “I don’t have any things.”

  “No passports? Nothing?”

  “Not here,” she answered honestly.

  “But, you do have those?”

  She nodded. “And some money.”

  “Back at your cousin’s house?”

  “Yes. I have them hidden there.”

  “Okay. We have to go back that way anyway.”

  She wasn’t really thinking about whether or not she should be honest. Apparently, they knew about her and her cousin, anyway. They probably knew everything else. In a way, her spirit had been broken. She realized she might never again have control over her own life. The only thing to do now was to go along with what was happening and hope that her boy would be safe. “I hid everything in the floor, under my bed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The air at LaunchPad was quietly starting to fill with tension and anticipation. Everyone hoped that Operation Wilbur would be a success. Naming the mission after the famous pig in Charlotte’s Web was Jasmine’s idea, and it stuck. Everyone was staying busy. Lin Lin Ma and Bao Zhen had just returned from shopping at a twenty-four-hour grocery store and were putting the food away in the kitchen. Saara and Ashley were still sleeping in their rooms. Jasmine volunteered to help with laundry. She started with all the salvageable linen and towels from the medical clinic, whatever didn’t have to be disposed of, and then moved on to everyone’s personal needs. Bora had moved her workstation to the little lounge over by the bedrooms. She had her laptop on the couch and was sitting in front of it, cross-legged, researching and making notes on a tablet. Dr. Stone lay down for another snooze, after asking to be woken up when the chopper was nearing its destination.

  Fox was still in the medical clinic, just sedated enough to keep him asleep to the quiet rhythmic pumping of the compression wrap device on his leg. Mechanical compression devices were invented in Israel in the 1990s and were becoming more common after orthopedic surgeries in the U.S. now. Some surgeons didn’t believe in them, but because of the damage to the femoral artery, Ashley didn’t want to pump Fox full of blood thinners as the only measure to prevent post-surgical blood clots. It was also essential to keep the circulation in his leg going while he slept. It spoke to the impressive forethought of the equipment they had outfitted the LaunchPad clinic with that this device was available to her. She was grateful that it was.

  Michi was at Saara’s desk in the middle of the warehouse under the hanging flat screens. With everything set up for Blue Team, Justin had asked her to monitor the chopper while he focused on the two phones she’d recovered from the cemetery. He had software to hack the passwords, but it took some time for it to run its codebreaking algorithms.

  With those in motion, he walked over to his normal work area against the left wall of the warehouse. It was an impressive setup—weapons lockers for each operative, large storage closets for ammunition and gear, a long working table with a bright light hanging overhead, high-tech equipment, and lots of tools. Some of the things had come from the CIA when they first moved into LaunchPad. David had added substantially to the collection by networking with contacts he had. And all the operators had some contacts that contributed to their growing collection of inventory – much of it, state of the art.

  The guns Agent Imada had retrieved from the kill team that had attacked Fox and Ashley were lying on Justin’s work table. He took a few minutes to collect what he was going to need and then sat down there to begin carefully dusting them for prints. He’d get Michi to connect with a friend of hers and run the results through the IAFIS, the computerized Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System of the FBI. They’ve been storing fingerprint information since 1999. LaunchPad had a good setup for matching prints, too, but the FBI’s could prove to be helpful. It was important to lift the prints before he started handling the weapons himself for ballistics testing.

  Over in the kitchen, the two ladies had just gotten back from shopping. “Mom, were you nervous, shopping?” Bao Zhen asked as she took a carton of eggs out of a grocery bag and put it in the fridge.

  “A little, yes.”

  “I tried to see if anyone was following us, but the store was crowded enough to where that was kind of difficult without being obvious.”

  “Me too.”

  “And of course I’m worried about Trey and his team. It seems like everything is going well, but … I don’t know.” She stopped and turned to her mother, watching her put some cans of soup in an island drawer. “You know what’s kind of funny about all of this?”

  “What, Sweetie?”

  “When he would go on missions, sometimes he’d be gone for four to six months at a time. Sometimes, it was just a few days. But I was remembering how upset I used to get about not knowing where in the world he was or what he was doing. By the time he got home, I’d swallowed my curiosity and was able to stop myself from asking questions that I knew he’d never answer. The Company told me it was better for me. I never really comprehended that until this past year.”

  Ma chuckled, “What’s the understanding you’ve come to?”

  “It’s so nerve-wracking to know what he is doing! I’ve realized that during any mission, there are dozens of things that could go wrong really quickly. Just today, I’ve been wondering, ‘Is someone following them? Did he rendezvous with David and the team, alright? Did they make it on the helicopter? Do they have enough fuel? Can they see well enough at night? Is he staying hydrated? Did Justin prepare them with the right things in their kits? Does he have snacks?’ I could go on with dozens of more questions in my head. Some of them are answered. Like, I know they’re on the helicopter now, but still … ” She paused, then said, “I’d rather not know any of it.”

  “I can completely understand that,” Lin Lin responded, putting her hand on her daughter’s. “What did you use to worry about, when Trey was gone?”

  “I thought about him a lot. But usually, it was just, ‘I wonder how Trey’s doing right now? I wonder if he’s thinking about me?”’ She laughed. “Knowing all that he does on a mission now, I hope he’s not thinking about me! He needs to stay focused.”

  The two ladies laughed, and then Ma said, seriously, “At least this time, Jasmine is here with us.”

  “That’s very true.”

  Justin Park was intrigued by what he was finding. There were four guns in all. The long-range rifle that had shot Fox was a Mauser M03 Extreme, a highly accurate and versatile German-made rifle favored by hunters and sportsmen both in the U.S. and abroad. Both the driver and the passenger had been carrying MP-443 Grach pistols – a reasonably standard sidearm for the Russian military. They were also ghost guns—no serial numbers or identification. And when he dusted for prints, he found the guns and mags had been thoroughly wiped down. It seemed that they were facing a professional kill-team. Next, Justin turned his attention to the magazines. He removed the magazine from the Mauser. There were two rounds left, meaning that besides the one that had done the damage in Fox’s leg, the shooter had fired two others. Just to be thorough, Justin dusted one of the cartridges, and to his surprise, he discovered a partial print. With excitement, he checked the other cartridge from the M03 magazine. It held a partial print as well! The same was true of all the rounds from the Grach pistols too, there were partials on nearly all of the cartridges. These would-be killer
s had been a little overconfident or careless – not the sign of true professionals. He scanned them into some new custom software Saara had written after LaunchPad was attacked last year. She’d wanted a way to enter and process collected forensic evidence that was completely off-grid. To his surprise, all of the partial prints from the three weapons resulted were from one person. When the software lined them up and superimposed them over each other, they resulted in a single complete thumbprint. And even more unforeseen, was when he ran it against those from the three hostiles that Fox and Michi had illuminated. There were no matches. He sat back in his chair to think for a moment. Someone had prepped each of these weapons for the hostile operators. Was he looking at someone who had his role, but was on the opposite side? Or was there a fourth hostile that Fox and Michi might have missed?

  He captured a screenshot of the image and shot it over to Agent Imada to send to her friend in the F.B.I. and then prepped the weapons to perform ballistic tests.

  Park knew that every time a weapon is discharged, it leaves its own unique imprints on the bullets and casings. The microscopic scratches or tool marks on them are like heat-related scarring. Each gun is unique and traceable. He decided to leave the external and terminal examinations to the local police, but he wanted to do an internal test, himself. From the moment the firing pin hit the primer, to the time the bullets left the end of the weapon, every barrel tells a story of pressure, bullet speed, muzzle velocity, and recoil. Federal law in the United States forbids a national gun registry. There’s a constitutional right that every individual has to protect themselves and their family. Whether it’s from an attacking thug or a tyrannical government. But he also knew that Saara had access to the NIBIN. It was a long shot, he knew. But the National Integrated Ballistic Network could help identify firearms that have been used in prior incidents.

  “Justin!”

  He turned around. It was Michi.

  “I just got a text from David. He was trying to reach Leonard, but Dr. Stone wasn’t answering his phone. I think he’s asleep. Can you check? The chopper is eight minutes out from the pig farm.”

  The helicopter hovered just over the field as Tank jumped out and got down on one knee, weapon ready. Bruce and Trey dropped the team’s gear down and then jumped out themselves. They set up in formation, each covering a different arc, while the bird rose, leaned, and accelerated away for refueling. After it’s noise faded away, everything was still. The first thing Bruce noticed was the stench in the air. It hung heavily, like the air pollution over Beijing. North Carolina is subtropical, and it was humid and hot at this time of the year, too. He could feel a bead of sweat already forming on his forehead. But he was thankful that their smeared faces bore a camo face-paint that was treated with insect repellant. The two-in-one product was relatively new to the market.

  They waited in place.

  “Blue Team, this is LP, how copy over?”

  “Come in, LP, this is Blue Team,” Trey answered.

  “We’re having problems with the uplink from overwatch,” Justin confessed.

  “Copy that. Don’t worry about it. We’re moving out.” He disconnected the call and informed the other two operators. “We won’t have any live footage from overhead. We’ll have to rely on our thermals lenses.”

  Tank always liked to get the feel of the land before he launched out on the mission, and Trey felt it was important. So they waited a little bit longer. They hadn’t been there for more than five minutes when they heard a sound that was slightly louder than a buzzing bee. It got louder and louder.

  Trey knew that shooting a small quad-bladed drone down wasn’t nearly as easy as people thought, and even very talented shooters had a hard time hitting it. If he was going to succeed at downing the thing, the best weapon for shooting it down was something with a wide spread of bullets—like Number 12 birdshot. Whoever was flying it must have seen the chopper take off but didn’t have night vision on the drone camera, or they wouldn’t be flying so low. Trey saw it come into view and waited until it was about fifteen feet away. He reached down to the ground and grabbed a fistful of small rocks and debris, and when the little remote-controlled quadcopter got within throwing range, he launched them all in the drone’s direction. The design of most of these machines is for flying, not sustaining direct contact from a shower of rocks, and when his stones made contact, the thing momentarily plummeted to the ground. Before it could right itself and relaunch, it was stomped into a heap of broken plastic by the heel of Trey’s boot.

  “We have to move quickly,” Bruce said, switching on his night-vision goggles and selecting the thermal option. “We’ve probably lost the element of surprise.”

  The trio shouldered their packs and glided through the field. They crossed over Wheat Swamp Road and kept a steady pace, pressing southwest, through the pastures and straight to the tree line. Their weapons were up, and they were fully alert. Trees in a horseshoe pattern surrounded the large retired pig-processing warehouse. The north part of the shoe was open and led to the long winding driveway that exited the property. The sides were heavily wooded, and the south end of it was where the men had just penetrated. Wordlessly, with the plan in their minds, Bruce split right, and Tank went to the left. Trey moved straight in, and when he was at the opposite edge of the tree line, now facing the warehouse, he got prone and waited for Tank to move forward.

  “In position,” he whispered tersely.

  Bruce carefully picked his way through the woods, not wanting to break a stick and make unnecessary noise. Tank was on the opposite side of the building, making about the same pace. Suddenly, Agent Locke spotted the thermal images of movement straight ahead of him. Then he saw some movement to his right and more to his left. He froze in place, watching three hostiles coming in his direction about ten feet away from each other.

  “Contact. Three. Spread across my twelve.”

  “Copy that,” Trey acknowledged.

  “Light in five,” Agent Locke announced, lifting his night goggles off his eyes. Clipped to his belt was a light grenade. The twelve-sided ball had twenty-four blindingly bright LED lights positioned inside angled mirrors, each over 3000 lumens. Different from a flash bang, it was completely quiet and dispersed brightness in a 360-degree radius. He depressed the triggering button and threw it in the direction of his attackers. Set to turn on when it made contact with a surface, the ball sailed through the air and landed at their feet, instantly lighting them up like statues of liberty in the darkness of night. With three grouped double-taps from his M4AI Carbine, Bruce took them out. He paused, waiting to see who else his light would attract.

  Off in the distance, people started shouting to each other. He figured they were the teams guarding the long driveway. With lightning speed, he attached the M203 single-shot 40mm grenade launcher to his M4, the newer and lighter variant of the American-made M16. Angling the barrel into the air so the explosive would arc into the sky and land near the mouth of the driveway, he squeezed the trigger and fired it into the air. He knew the explosion wouldn’t be like in the movies or a video game because, in real life, the damaging radius was even smaller than a standard hand grenade. But the sound would get attention, and a few seconds later, he heard it detonate. Almost at the same time, the distinct snappy reports of an HK416 A5 rang through the air. Tank was on the move.

  Bruce kept sneaking forward, avoiding the light-radius of the brightly shining ball he left on the ground. With expert speed, he back-strapped his M4 and pulled out his semi-automatic Glock 17. He didn’t bother reporting the number of hostiles he’d put down and noticed Tank wasn’t saying anything either. It didn’t make much sense unless they knew exactly how many there were on the property.

  Meanwhile, Trey crept down the west side of the tree line, distantly trailing Tank. He could hear the action in front of him and to his far right, where Bruce was clearing the forest on the other side of the warehouse. Once he got to a parallel position with the front side of the old pork processing facili
ty, he dropped into a prone position and trained his HK UMP45 on the front door. “In position.”

  Tank had taken out four people and then crouched by a tree and fired at someone who was running towards the sound he’d created. The hostile stumbled to the ground, dead. He peered into the darkness, searching for anything that showed up in his goggles. Sometimes, it’s a challenge to wear night-vision goggles and not be aware of immediate surroundings. Some soldiers have been shot because their bodies were not properly hidden behind projection while they were looking around. Tank wasn’t like that. He knew that he needed to stay carefully hidden behind rocks and trees, only peeping out to spot hostiles. He carefully moved out from where he was, moving north towards the entrance.

  Bruce was slowly moving out, too. He scanned to his right, across his front, and to his left. He’d made about twenty feet of progress when he got a visual of another group of killers. Three of them. Frozen in place, about two hundred yards ahead of him, as if they knew he was coming towards them. He increased the magnification of his goggles and saw that they, too, had night vision, but he doubted they had thermal capabilities, or they would have seen him already. “Lakota. Owls. Cold.”

  “Copy that. Owls,” Tank confirmed.

  Bruce ducked back behind a tree and holstered his Glock on his right side while simultaneously pulling his M4 off his back and over his head. Then he stood up and popped out from the right side of his tree. He shot one of the hostiles in the head and dropped down to a knee to take out the second one. Bullets hissed by, embedding into the tree trunks around where his head had been. He expertly hit the ground and rolled out of view, hiding for a few seconds. Tank started shooting too. Bruce popped up and took out the third.

  “Left side, clear.” Tank reported.

  “Copy that,” Stone acknowledged. “Lakota. Come back towards me and make sure the west side is still clear, deeper into the woods.”