American Terrorist Trilogy

by Jeffrey Poston

  Palmer said, “Except they’d need the satellite link to relay that order.”

  Carl broke the long silence that followed by saying, “So they’re trying to isolate us. Why?” No one said anything. “We really need to know who our enemy is in our own government.”

  “At this point, who it is doesn’t really matter,” Palmer said. “Based on what El Patron said to Carl, we’ve been assuming he and his associates had high-level informants or partners in our government. They confirmed that when they jammed our comms.”

  Merc Three said, “In which case, we’re fucked because we’re going into this mission blind now.”

  Palmer nodded. “Worst case, they’ve compromised TER and we no longer have government support.”

  “In which case, we’re royally fucked because they now know everything the TER op center knows about why we’re down here.” Merc Three cursed some more. “We’re in a foreign country, without support, and our visas were just expired. You know what I’m saying?”

  Carl said, “Okay, so now they know we didn’t crash. Took ‘em long enough.” He considered several mission options in his mind for a moment. “But, I can think of an even worse scenario.” Everyone looked at him. He pulled the tiny comm device from his ear and seemed to study it as he continued. “What if they only disabled the receive circuit on these things, but left the transmit circuit live and can hear every word we say?”

  Merc Three said, “Hell, what if they can track us with these things? You know, like GPS or something.” He pulled his comm out as did everyone else. Everyone dropped their device to the carpeted floor and stomping sounds echoed throughout the interior for several seconds.

  Carl nodded. “So, McGrath’s team is no longer calling the shots.”

  Merc Three grunted. “We think McGrath is no longer calling the shots.”

  “Maybe,” Carl said. “Whoever is in control wants us to cease and desist. That tells me we’re on the right track.”

  “It’s not McGrath,” Palmer said. “I promise you that. But whoever they are, we’re a threat to them.”

  Three nodded. “If they really want us isolated, first thing they’ll do is notify Mexican authorities. They’ll manufacture some kind of story about how dangerous we are, and they’ll send the big guns after us.”

  Palmer agreed. “If they’ve shut down my op center, they’ll also go after Mr. Garcia because they’ll assume that you and he have a backup method to communicate.”

  “There is no backup communication plan other than by cell phone, so as long as I don’t call him, there’s no chance they’ll find him,” Carl said. “I told him about this quote my pops used to say. ‘When the shit hits the fan, get out of the fan business.’ As soon as we went dark, Garcia automatically packed his bags, grabbed his family and some money, and left the city.”

  Merc Three said, “Maybe we should head back. If they’re trying to terminate this mission, the first thing they’ll do is hit the Reyes house and send out a team to greet us at our destination.”

  Carl looked out the window at the approaching homestead. It was early evening and lengthening shadows from the nearby hills were crawling across the valley floor. The homestead was well lit by perimeter and interior lights. The sky was still bright overhead, and full darkness was still maybe thirty minutes away.

  He turned his attention back to his team, glancing from Merc Three to Palmer and back. He turned sideways in his seat and gazed at the other three intense-looking mercenaries behind him. One was a Black man about Carl’s complexion. The second was many shades darker than Carl. The third was a short brown-eyed redhead who looked like he could win the Arkansas hog-wrestling championship. Everyone seemed to be waiting for him to make a decision, so he made the only call he knew was viable.

  “Their action plan or their timetable is vulnerable. They think we can do some damage or shed some unwanted scrutiny on their plan. They’ll know I won’t be discouraged. So they’ll keep trying to stop us until they succeed. If there is a strike planned against the Reyes mansion, we can’t get back there in time to make a difference, and I’m pretty certain Merc Four will have arrived at the same conclusions that we have. I’m guessing she’s already taking precautions.” He glanced forward at Three, who nodded. “We need answers, and those answers are potentially right below us.”

  Palmer nodded. “Our adversary likely knows we’re on the way to Orizaga’s house.”

  Three said, “And they won’t be sending luxury helicopters after us.”

  Carl remembered El Patron’s spectacular arrival at the hostage exchange site in an army helicopter troop ship. He was accompanied by a gunship that blew their surveillance drone out of the sky and killed Merc Two with simultaneous missile strikes. That kind of firepower would make short work of their luxury helicopter if it came to a fight.

  He knew their adversaries wouldn’t send under-matched rent-a-cops, either. He didn’t know for sure, but he was guessing that Mexico had SWAT cops as well trained as their US counterparts. They probably had Mexican anti-terrorist soldiers like Delta or SEALs in their army too. The question in Carl’s mind was: how long will it take our adversary to convince the Mexican government to deploy forces against us.

  “Well,” Carl said with a shrug. “Nobody said war was fair.” He looked around the cabin again. “Anybody wants out, there’s the door.” He thumbed toward the passenger slider beside him, even though they were still flying five hundred feet up.

  One of the mercs behind him said, “Hoo-wah!”

  To Agent Palmer he said, “We need intel, so let’s go get some.”

  She nodded. He raised his voice a bit to address the helicopter pilot. “Full speed ahead to Orizaga’s house. We continue with the mission.”

  Chapter 20

  1615 hours MST Friday

  Albuquerque, NM

  Garcia laid his travel bag near the front door and opened the door leading out of the office. He peeked out into the hall to make sure it was empty and reached up to throw the self-destruct switch. The destruct wasn’t anything that would blow up the building. It was merely a small heat charge that would generate a high enough temperature to melt the laptop he’d been using. There was a short time delay so he could get out of the condo in case something actually caught on fire or exploded.

  The office was on the fourth floor at the west end of the Gold Street Lofts, a mixed-use collection of luxury lofts built on top of commercial store space in the middle of downtown Albuquerque. Over eighty percent of the building was still vacant after the Great Recession, which made it an ideal location for an operations center. The office, which was really a residential condo, was leased from its owner for cash.

  Like all the other condos in the building, Garcia’s was a semi-custom unit that the owner had bought at the height of the real estate bubble. Also like many of the other condo owners, the man found himself with an over-priced asset he couldn’t afford to keep and couldn’t sell when that bubble had burst. It was completely unfurnished, except for Garcia’s portable computer, desk, chair, and cot.

  The computer equipment had been procured on the recommendation of Carl’s ex-CIA tech hacker—a man with an expensive drug habit to support. Henry Erickson had been caught in a sting operation. He’d tried to bully a supplier into providing him with merchandise by using his status as a CIA officer. Except he didn’t know the supplier was an informant.

  After the operations of the past week culminating in the rescue of the First Daughter, Erickson had been given a few days off. Garcia recalled Carl had decided the hacker would not be needed for the current operation since they now had TER support. After all, a drug-addict computer wizard was a security breach waiting to happen.

  Garcia was manning Carl’s operations center alone. It meant long hours away from his wife and new baby, but he didn’t mind. He was a mega-millionaire countless times over, thanks to helping Carl swindle the US government and Alfonso Reyes’s drug cartel collectively out of half a billion dollars.
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br />   The large, black touch-pad Garcia just hovered his hand over was the activation switch for the equipment-melting charge. He was just about to apply pressure when the chime from the computer reestablishing a TER comm circuit froze him. He slowly closed the door and cautiously walked over to his workstation. He tapped a key to get rid of the screen saver and the blank blue screen asked for his password. He typed in a long complex password and an unfamiliar face appeared on the wall screen display.

  “Mr. Garcia, there you are. I dropped your comm channel for a minute.”

  “More like five minutes,” he said skeptically “Who the hell are you?”

  “Oh, sorry.” The man on the screen was busy pounding his fingers on his keyboard. “I’m Spoke, August Spoke.”

  He said it like Bond, James Bond, like Garcia was supposed to be amused. He wasn’t. A serious breach of comm security had occurred and he was primed for anything suspicious. But, the new man certainly looked like a geek analyst. He was young and wiry, and he had black, spiky hair up top. He wore a “Save the Whales” black tee and his left arm was covered with intense vampire tattoos. Monroe had looked pretty much the same, except without the tattoos.

  “What happened to Monroe and Agent Peoples?”

  “Yeah, they’re dropping like flies around here. Peoples had a seizure just like the prez and Mr. McGrath, but Monroe’s got some wicked nausea and, you know, the runs. He’s in bad shape. I don’t think we’re gonna see him again for a while.”

  Wicked nausea? Do people really talk like that back East?

  Garcia said, “So what’s up with comms?”

  “Well, your circuit went down because Peoples fell over on his computer and spilled his Red Bull into the computer fan casing. They’re using networked PCs here instead of multiple terminals hooked into a big central server. Keeps operational security local, you know? Anyway, his PC was the one commanding the satellite. When he shorted out the machine, it may have retasked the satellite by default. Probably took out the satellite comm channel or reset it or something. It’s an NSA asset, so I’m checking with them now. We’ll probably be back up in a few minutes.”

  The man took a sip from a can of Red Bull and Garcia wondered why the man would be drinking anything near his computer after what had happened with Peoples.

  Spoke said, “Anything new on your end?”

  “Carl and Palmer and a few mercs are en route to Orizaga’s home office looking for information about what was done to the First Daughter and the president. They’re also searching for intel about the other high-level players that might be involved, both in Mexico and here in the US.”

  Spoke nodded. “Yes, I have most of that in my event logs, but not their departure time.” Garcia told him. “Got it.” Spoke did more keyboard work, then looked into the camera on top of his desk monitor. “Okay, why don’t we reconnect every fifteen minutes to update each other? I’ll let you know how the satellite situation is going down there and you can update me if Mr. Johnson makes contact by cell, okay?”

  “Will do.”

  Spoke signed off and Garcia sat back in his chair. Every instinct in his body told him something was wrong, but he couldn’t put a finger on anything specific. He looked over at his travel bag on the floor next to the door. He was certainly relieved the comm link had been reestablished at least with TER, but he was worried about Carl.

  They had no backup communication plan other than the one-time-use cell phone Carl had taken with him. Since cell signals were too easily traced, cell phone contact was to be saved for an emergency. So Garcia figured there was no emergency. Either that, or the op was blown and Carl was dead.

  He settled back to wait.

  Chapter 21

  1816 hours EST Friday

  Undisclosed TER Op Station, Virginia

  August Spoke pushed the can of Red Bull aside. It was a nasty drink to someone who rarely put anything other than water into his biological machine. He pulled off his itchy spiked-hair wig and massaged his scalp beneath a military-style buzz haircut. Then, he scratched at the irritating adhesive of the fake arm tattoos. It was amazing what kind of disguise props could be found in DC on a moment’s notice.

  He activated his earpiece with a touch of his index finger.

  “Rainman, this is Spoke.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Johnson is leading a team to Orizaga’s plantation. They left half an hour ago. I figure their ETA is an hour from now, perhaps a little more.”

  Rainman was silent for a moment. “That gives us time to get there first. Retask the Unit detachment from the airport.”

  “I recommend we use the local military, sir. Agent Palmer had a defensive package air-dropped to the Reyes property this morning. Among other assets, they have antiaircraft missiles. That tells me they’re ready to repel an air assault and you can be certain she won’t have a problem firing on the Unit, though she likely won’t engage local forces. I figure you don’t want Unit assets involved in an air war down there, at this point. Perhaps Mr. Orizaga can arrange for his people to send an army contingent out and set up a well concealed ambush. The international airport outside Hermosillo doubles as an air force base and they keep soldiers stationed there for security. They can be onsite at Orizaga’s house in a little more than half an hour.”

  “Good thinking. Proceed with that. Make sure Orizaga’s office is searched and all intel removed. And tell Drake to make sure Johnson is really dead this time. I want no survivors among Johnson’s group.”

  “Understood. May I recommend a backup plan…in case Drake is not as efficient as you need him to be?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Authorize an immediate strike against Reyes’s beachfront property. We have a boat in the Gulf near the property. Johnson has proven himself to be lucky and very resourceful, but without his assets at the Reyes estate, if he or any member of his team survives, they will be completely isolated. Then, as soon as we locate and eliminate Mr. Garcia, the Johnson team will have zero support assets.”

  “I like the way you think, Mr. Spoke. I was going to give you that authorization. I want the house decimated and everyone inside killed.”

  Chapter 22

  1620 hours MST Friday

  Hermosillo, Northern Mexico

  Carl felt like a badass as he stalked across the lawn toward Orizaga’s house. It was amazing how thirty hours had changed his life. Yesterday morning, he’d worn black tactical gear to get the girl, but he was unseasoned in real combat. He’d been afraid of failure yesterday. Today, he was not afraid. He’d led men and women into combat, he’d had to perform under fire, and he’d been shot. He was confident in his capabilities and knew his limitations.

  The helicopter ride from the Reyes mansion had taken a little less than an hour. At first, the pilot kept the luxury chopper at a modest cruising speed and altitude. After the comm circuit went down, the chopper hugged the ground at a slower speed so they’d avoid ambush. Carl wasn’t happy his team was on its own with the mission, but he certainly preferred knowing rather than not knowing.

  Palmer walked beside him. From his side vision, he watched the woman move. She more resembled a stalking lioness than a commando. In fact, it was her movements that he was emulating. Her gaze kept darting around and she held a very deadly looking automatic weapon in a casual but ready position, its business end loosely pointed at the ground a few feet in front of her. It was one of the six-millimeter armor-piercing PDW automatic rifles, the personal defense weapon, she’d shown him on the Gulfstream.

  All the team, including the pilot, wore black tactical gear. Palmer had also fitted Carl with combat specs, which were light-gray tinted goggles that looked more like athletic gear a cyclist would wear to keep the wind and the bugs out of his eyes. The side edges were tapered like teardrops that wrapped toward his ears, giving him excellent peripheral vision. He also wore a Kevlar combat helmet with a black mat-finish. It looked just like the ones the FBI SWAT team wore a month ago, when they’d kicked
his ass in front of the Starbucks in downtown Albuquerque at the start of his detour down Terrorist Lane.

  One of the mercenaries stayed with the helicopter to secure their exit ride. There was no perimeter security fence, so Mr. Blick had set the helicopter down a couple hundred feet beyond the back of the huge house. Carl could tell this was a completely different kind of estate from Reyes’s. Its owner lived in a different world, more reserved and less flamboyant, and he worked in a different kind of business from his clients. There were no armed guards patrolling outside, and there were no armored cars or machine gun personnel carriers.

  The huge house looked like an old adobe structure that had been remodeled into a fairly modern, two-story house with several wings added on in recent years. The exterior stucco looked fairly new, and the windows and French doors were high-end wood-frame appliances. The sand-gray color of the house blended well with the natural growth of the valley.

  Merc Four and the other two mercs had already rushed into the huge estate house to secure the family members and any security guards. Those three were also tasked with confiscating all cell phones and cutting phone lines to the house. There were only two guards—what Merc Three called rent-a-cops—on the property, and they surrendered quickly and quietly when the well-armed, black-clad commandos stormed the house.

  Carl and Agent Palmer approached the back door. They had agreed she would take the lead, but she hesitated and lightly grabbed his arm. She stared at him for a moment, and everything about her told him she was a killer. The way she focused her deadpan gaze on him, her posture, and the way she held her weapon all told him how deadly she was. Then her gaze softened and danced back and forth between his eyes.

  “In the bedroom.” That was all she said and he took the hint.