by Brad Taylor
“Okay. Everyone understand that this is my decision. For the record, you all disagreed vehemently. And I mean that.” He looked at Kurt. “No more Taskforce activity without council oversight. Interdict the explosives and nothing more. That’s the mission. I don’t give a shit what they find out, that’s all they do.”
Stone-faced, Kurt said, “Yes, sir.”
Warren’s expression softened. “Kurt, I know this sounds like I’m looking for a reason to hang them out to dry, but that won’t happen. I trust you. I trust them. Get them back in the fight.”
Warren looked at the pad of paper on the desk, clenching his fists around the pencil in his hands. The pencil snapped under his grasp, surprising the room at the loss of control.
He looked back at Kurt. “Stop this attack. Do what you were designed to do. No fingerprints. Kill those motherfuckers.”
50
S
itting on a small ridgeline overlooking the Budapest farmhouse, I had begun to wonder if we weren’t wasting our time. We’d had a mobile observation post outside the place for damn near two days after the original meet time given to us by the girl in Prague, and so far nothing. I hadn’t worried at first, because every action has a reaction, and our assault in Prague to get the information was bound to have repercussions that would cause a shift as the Albanians dealt with the problem. Naively, I hadn’t thought that the threat extended across the ocean. Kurt had called me to give the Oversight Council go-ahead for Budapest, then cryptically asked if I was alone. When I told him I was, he had said, “Watch yourself. Don’t leave any fingerprints.”
“Of course. I never do.”
Kurt had laughed, then said, “Bullshit. You left a ton of fingerprints in Prague.” He paused, then said, “But that’s not what I mean. People are antsy here. It’s gotten political because of the election. Even in our world. The hit’s coming, and we have about a fifty percent chance of stopping it. We don’t do it and I’m no longer sure you guys will be shielded. Watch yourself.”
“Whoa. Is the team in the crosshairs? What are you saying?”
I could almost hear Kurt go back into commander role, knowing he’d said too much. “No… no, of course you’re not in the crosshairs. Just don’t leave any fingerprints. You read me?”
My mind running through the implications, I said, “Yeah… yeah, I get you.”
“Pike, it’s good. The president himself backed you up, but everyone’s on edge. You got the ball. Just don’t screw it up.”
I didn’t really care about myself, since I was quasi out of government service and a little bit untouchable, but the team was still in the military and could be hung out to dry if things went bad. Which they might.
“I won’t fuck up. You know that. But I need to know how far to push this. You want it stopped even if it means compromise, or you want me to back off? What’s the cut line?”
“Stop it. Fucking stop it. If it goes bad, I’ve got your back.”
“Will that be enough?”
To his credit, he didn’t lie. “I don’t know.”
And now I sat on a ridgeline eating cold pizza and drinking bottled water, hoping and not hoping that something would happen.
We’d had eyes on the place forty-eight hours after our assault on the slave house, so we’d had plenty of time to assess it. And the results were pretty grim. While it looked like every other ancient farmhouse out here, this one had a pretty sophisticated security apparatus. Offset from the main road and tucked into a little valley with a creek at the rear, it had cameras on both corners out front and over the main door, roving security patrols, guard posts on the road leading in, and no doubt a full-on alarm system on all entrances. It was a mini compound. Besides the main two-story house, there was a one-story carriage house located directly behind it, and a barn kitty-corner to the carriage house. The only good thing was that there weren’t any neighbors nearby. The closest house was located behind our ridgeline observation post, about a half mile away.
After the meet time had come and gone, we’d simply rotated people through the OP, with the remaining members of the team catching some rack in the other van down a dirt road in the tree line. After two days of waiting, having had time to let Kurt’s conversation percolate, I was toying with the idea of going home. Maybe this thread’s pulled out. Maybe our hit alone had stopped the transfer of explosives and stopped the attack itself. Not to mention, we’re all getting a little ripe.
I perked up when a car wound down the drive to the house, one of many that came and went each day. I trained the Blackjack on the car, zooming in until I could make out anyone who exited. The image wasn’t perfect, but it worked pretty well in daylight with the thermal turned off, even given the twilight of the setting sun. Enough to let me look at the place from over a quarter of a mile away and see anything suspicious. And, hooked to our computer system in the van, it had one benefit that our sorry-ass human eyes didn’t: the ability to do a screen capture and run the image through a facial recognition program.
Two men exited the car, and I began firing away with the Blackjack. It took ten frames a second, isolated the facial features of everyone in the frame, and fed that into the computer with facial recognition software. Compared against the cell phone photos that Jennifer had taken at the hotel in Prague, we hoped to get a hit. It wouldn’t be a black-and-white yes-or-no answer, but it would give us a percentage of probability.
Facial recognition was very hard to do with natural photos. The computer would have only what we gave it, so it would be comparing everything with the cell phone image. Thus, any difference in profile, lighting, or size would throw it off. The software program would mitigate that to its best ability by taking the multiple pictures fed it and isolating the ones that most resembled the pose of the cell phone before it started comparing. But it wasn’t foolproof by any means.
While the Blackjack took the photos, I kept an eye on the video image. Two men exited the car, both looking like Arabs to me. Come on. Turn and face the camera. Give me a smile. One scanned the area, providing me a full-on face shot. The other just looked at the house, at best giving me a profile. They were met by security and searched. Which means they aren’t part of the family.
I gave a warning order to the other van. “Get everyone kitted up. We might have jackpot.”
I got an acknowledgment as I watched the men disappear into the house. Two minutes later, the computer spit out its prediction. Seventy-two percent chance on one, fourteen on the other.
Seventy-two. Good enough for government work.
I got on the radio. “Bring up the van. It’s showtime.”
51
K
amil and Adnan were led into the house by two large men, neither making any effort to hide the weapons on their hips, or any effort to act civilly. Kamil felt like he was starting all over again, having to prove he was trustworthy. Which made him uneasy, especially since Draco had called off the initial meeting at the last minute for no reason whatsoever. The entourage led them through the simple farmhouse to the rear, stopping at a rustic den with a large glass window facing the carriage house and barn in the rear, the sun already dipping below the horizon. Draco was seated on a couch, giving off a glowering anger instead of the insincere happiness from their first meeting. The security men simply pointed at the chairs opposite the couch.
Sitting down, Kamil said, “Thank you for seeing us again. I hope the profit we brought will help with the inconvenience.”
Draco ignored Kamil, addressing Adnan instead. “What do you know of Prague?”
Kamil saw Adnan look to him for guidance, but he didn’t know where this was going. He said, “Draco, Adnan is just my explosives expert. He—”
“Shut the fuck up and let him answer.” He returned to Adnan. “What do you know of Prague?”
“Uhh… I know nothing. I stayed in a hotel and moved when I was told. I don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Who has your friend here met with?”
Draco lied, “Suppose I told you I had planted a tracking device on your friend here, and I know where he went. What he did. And now suppose that if you lie to me again, I’m going to cut your throat. Will that change your answer?”
“No.”
Draco flicked his eyes at the security men, who descended on Adnan, one holding him in the chair while another brought out a knife. A third drew a pistol and aimed it at Kamil when he leapt up.
Kamil shouted, “Why are you doing this? What have we done?”
“My transit point in Prague was raided. After your visit. Given your reluctance with my product, I’m thinking you had something to do with it.”
“No! We had nothing to do with it!”
“We’ll know soon, I’m sure.”
He nodded at the security men. The one holding Adnan in place torqued his head to the side, exposing the carotid artery. The other placed the knife against his neck.
Draco said, “You have one chance, my friend. Who did Kamil talk to after he left my house?”
Adnan said, “You have the tracker. You know. Nobody.” He quit struggling and closed his eyes. “Do it.”
Draco took in Adnan’s willingness to die, then assessed Kamil. He waved off his men.
“Understand this: I don’t trust you or your group. I think you had something to do with my losses, either directly or indirectly. If I see you again after tonight, I will consider you an enemy. And make no mistake, if something else happens to my enterprise because of your visit, I’ll hunt you down wherever you are.”
Kamil simply nodded.
“Did you bring the money?”
Kamil said, “Yes. Your men took it.”
Draco waited until it was retrieved. When the case was opened, he smiled.
“Well, at least you didn’t lie about the cash.” He addressed one of the security men. “Bring in the box.”
Waiting on the team, I watched the sun sink below the horizon and thought about our chances. The house itself was smaller than the slave house, with about the same amount of manpower. But it was still daylight, and this house had a helluva lot more electronic security.
The mission was to stop the attack, and looking at it logically, the only way we were going to do that was to hit the meeting itself. If we waited until the Arabs left, we’d get them, but we might not get the explosives. Odds were they weren’t going to drive to the airport with them in their car, and we still had two terrorists unaccounted for. We couldn’t take a chance that they’d simply make arrangements to ship the explosives, forcing us to hit the house anyway.
Ordinarily, we’d just recock and keep on truckin’, running down the threads, but not with the knowledge of the EFPs and the intel on the impending attack. We needed to knock this out right now. Which, given our manpower, sucked beyond words.
Life was much easier when I used to just hammer the shit out of a target, slicing through and overpowering everything in my path with a squadron’s worth of killers. Now, once again, our entire assault was predicated on nobody knowing we were there. On silently clearing rooms and taking out targets before the next one knew there was a threat. That wasn’t a problem when we were hunting an individual man in a specific hotel room. It was a little bit different taking on an entire force spread out over a building. With a single team. Not impossible, but damn well harder.
I heard the van door close and turned away from the Blackjack screen.
“Well, here we go again. The targets just entered the house.”
Nobody said anything. The men looked grim, knowing exactly how hard this would be. Jennifer looked a little sick, reminding me of the opening scenes from Saving Private Ryan.
I used the Blackjack image on the laptop screen to brief. “We do a dismounted approach, sticking to the wood line here in the east. We enter the house from the door here on the eastern side, leaving Jennifer in the wood line for security.”
Retro said, “What about the cameras?”
“From their angles, I’m pretty sure they’re focused on the roadway in and the front of the house. I think we can bypass them by coming in through the wood line. They don’t have three-hundred-and-sixty-degree coverage.”
Decoy said, “And the alarms?”
“Well, no SCADA tricks here. From a scan, we’ve picked up a ton of RF coming from the house and isolated a couple of signals to the cameras outside. That leads me to believe the alarm system’s wireless. We’ll get to the door, isolate the signal there, and jam it.”
An alarm system, by its very nature, has a single point of failure; when a breach occurs, it sends a specific signal delivering that message. So, to work around that, you can either trick the system into thinking a breach hasn’t occurred or hijack the signal before it gets to whoever’s looking—either a human or a mechanical device designed to start squealing. We always opted for the latter. Much easier to stop the signal than to memorize eight thousand different types of sensor systems and how they alert—motion detectors, magnetic plates, acoustic triggers, you name it. At the end of the day, all would have to send a signal. With a wireless alarm, we could stop it from broadcasting by simply overpowering the radio transmission with a signal of our own, basically making the receiver deaf.
“Of course, it’s more than likely got a sensor fail-safe, so once we jam, we’ll probably get ten minutes max before the control panel misses a self-test handshake with the door sensor. From there it’s game on.”
“What if that sensor’s next on the handshake list?”
“We get about ten seconds.”
“Fucking great.”
Decoy asked, “Still going top to bottom?”
“No. We’re looking for the Arabs and the explosives, and I doubt they’re on the top floor. We don’t need to secure this place, just stop the transfer. Once that’s done, we haul ass the same way we came in, running the wood line back to the vans.”
Retro said, “Is the house designated hostile?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to do it, but I just didn’t have the force to accomplish a surgical hit. After the Prague operation, these men would be on edge, expecting an assault and trigger-happy. Looking for a fight. We wouldn’t be catching anyone with their pants down like last time, and unlike the Prague hit, there were no known friendlies inside. I caught Jennifer’s eye.
“Yeah. It’s a hostile force. My call.”
She knew it meant everyone inside who had the misfortune to cross our path would be dead, no matter if they were a threat or not, but she nodded, accepting it.
She said, “What about me?”
“Same plan as before. You stay in the wood line and interdict anyone coming down the drive. I want you to discriminate, however. I don’t want to kill police or any other coincidence that might occur. If they aren’t hostile, just alert us by radio. If they come out to play, light ’em up.”
She nodded, her eyes wide, but showing more confidence than she had last time.
“Anything else?”
When nobody spoke, I said, “I want to be in and out in less than ten minutes. Fast and quiet. Find the terrorists and explosives, then run like hell.”
I positioned Jennifer and waited in the gathering gloom for the roving patrol. We were forty meters from the side door, hidden in the brush at the edge of the wood line. From our survey over the last few days, we knew the guard would circle about once every ten minutes. After we took him out, the clock would be ticking. The good thing was the roving patrol invariably used flashlights, which meant we’d have plenty of time to see them, and they’d have no night vision.
Soon enough, we saw the bobbing light come around the back of the house. There was still enough twilight to make out the man without the aid of NODs, but he apparently felt the need to use the flashlight.
He passed our position. Two shadows separated from the wood line at a sprint, closed on him and brought him to the ground. In
short order, the body was dragged into the brush. I patted Jennifer on the shoulder and signaled the team. We crossed the open area to the door.
Decoy brought out a spread-spectrum scanner and quickly isolated the nearest signal, which should be the door sensor. He identified the frequency and dialed it into a small device the size of a billiard ball. He attached it to the wall and pressed a button. It softly chirped, then apparently did nothing, but I knew it was now blasting out a signal on the same frequency the door sensor used, overriding its ability to communicate with the control panel.
Within seconds, Retro and Buckshot had the door unlocked. Guns ready, we held our breath. Retro swung it open, and we went inside. No alarm sounded.
Retro led the way, moving to the first door he saw. He opened it to find a bathroom, empty. We kept going down the hallway, almost at a jog. Decoy pulled security on a door to the right while we opened a door to the left. Sweeping inside, we eliminated two men immediately, dropping them before they had a chance to react, the only noise the thump of their bodies hitting the floor. We exited and stacked on the other door, finding the room empty. We took a left turn and entered a wide hallway that led back to a room in the rear. I could hear men talking, at least three. A door to the left halted our advance. There was no way we were going to leave an unsecured room to our rear. We entered, found the initial room empty, but saw another door on the right wall of the room.
Then the alarm went off.
52
A
dnan picked up a brick of SEMTEX and tested its consistency, ensuring it wasn’t just a block of flour. He nodded at Kamil and counted the blasting caps, checking that each one was capable of setting off a charge. He picked up a roll of time fuse, cut off a section, and threaded it into a fuse igniter. He pulled the metal ring on the igniter, hearing a pop and the hissing of the fuse burning down, the room filling with an acrid sulfur smell. Satisfied, he said, “This will do.”