Normal traffic, both vehicular and on foot, took up the rest of the morning. People came to work and suffered through a Friday morning rush hour. By noon, Reaper announced himself ready to abandon the OP. The two men carefully policed the area. Outside of some scuffed gravel, not a sign showed that the SEALs had even been there. Reaper even tossed the cigarette butt that he found on top of the tarp back underneath the billboard support grid.
Climbing down the walls, the two men headed back to their van. Bear had already secured his bike in the back and they were ready to go. After almost a full day in a camouflaged hide, Reaper had something urgent to attend to. Standing in the cover of the van, Reaper relieved himself into the weeds.
Chapter Eighteen
The ride back to the shop was a somber one for Reaper and Bear. Outside of locating Arzee, they hadn’t seen a single positive sign of Reaper’s wife or son. Now reaction was setting in from their long mission. A numb, dead tiredness hung over them from being up for more than a day manning their observation post.
During the trip back to Deckert’s, Bear had dozed off while Reaper drove. He only woke up as they pulled into the driveway leading to the farm. Bear leaned forward in his seat and stretched out with a wide jaw-cracking yawn and deep growling groan. Reaper thought Bear suddenly resembled his nickname even more than usual.
“You need a tree to scratch your back against before you crap in the woods?” Reaper asked as they pulled up to the house.
A loud fart was Bear’s first response.
“Arrgh, me mouth tastes like a she-cat littered in it,” he said.
“What?” Reaper said as he pulled the van back around to the rear of the house and parked out of sight of the main road.
“My favorite line from an old Viking movie,” Bear said. “It was a Richard Widmark flick called The Long Ships. It had lots of great tits in it, too.”
As Bear turned to look at his staring friend, he explained. “Hey, I just had the music going through my head okay? I used to think about it during those long swims back in the Teams.”
“Whatever works for you,” Reaper said with a grin and a shake of his head.
Inside the house, the two SEALs carried their packs with the camera gear into the office where Deckert was waiting.
“Here you go,” Reaper said as he handed Deckert the memory card from the Nikon camera.
Without a word, Deckert started downloading the digital photos into his desktop computer. He had software that would let him easily manipulate the pictures the two SEALs had taken during their observations of the Factory. Important shots could be printed off as hard copies for further study.
While Reaper hovered over his friend’s shoulder as he worked, Bear sat down at a desk and went over his notes and logbook. He added details and scribbled notes on the margins as he looked at the sketches he had made of the interior of the Factory club floor. There was little talk and no joking as they began to analyze the raw intelligence data gathered during their long vigil.
Looming over Deckert’s shoulder got old fast for Reaper. He gathered up the logs, printouts, and other materials, and went out to the kitchen table where they had room to spread out a little. All types of information lay across the table top; satellite and aerial photographs, hard copy photos from the computer, maps, logbooks, sketches, even street maps, newspapers, and Detroit magazines. None of it told Reaper the location of his family. But it did show him the size of their target in graphic detail.
Bear stepped into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. Carrying his steaming mug, he walked around the counter to the table where Reaper sat. As Bear approached, Reaper put down the pair of dividers he had been measuring a map with. Pushing himself from the table, Reaper leaned far back in his chair and stretched, rubbing his face with both hands as he did so.
“So,” Bear said as he sat down at the table, “figured out anything yet?”
“Yeah,” Reaper said as he ran his fingers back through his hair, “it’s big, really fucking big. That damned factory building is more than 480 feet long, 130 feet wide, and over ninety feet tall. That’s more than 62,000 square feet per floor—and there are six floors. That’s a whole lot of area for just two guys to cover.”
Bear picked up a picture from the pile on the table as Reaper sat back straight in his chair. The picture Bear looked at showed the full east face of the Factory building.
“The first floor is pretty much a wash for anyone being there,” Bear said. “It’s mostly a big open space broken down into dance pits and band stages. There are a couple of bars and some areas with tables, but no place there could be much in the way of an office. The whole front area near the doors was the kitchen—at least that was where the food came from. There’s a coat check on one side of the doors and that’s about it. On the southeast end is a stairway going up. It’s behind a set of steel fire doors and the guy working at the front door keeps a close eye on it.”
“That stairway must also open up on the garage,” Reaper said. “It’s at that corner of the building.”
“Makes sense,” Bear said. “The only other way up to the other floors was by a ramp on the north side of the building, and that was closed off behind the main bar. There are three different freight elevators on the south side of the building, but the gates to those are chained and locked. Except for the smallest one up near the front, none of them even looked used. The two main elevators had their platforms up on the second floor, blocking them off.”
“During the night,” Reaper said, “the only floor that showed any activity besides the first floor was the top floor, the sixth. That one had lights on. Everything I’ve seen indicates that there’s offices only on the eastern end of the building.”
“That matches up with some of the stories Deckert came up with about when that was an active auto plant,” Bear said. “All of the admin offices and white-collar work went on at that end of the building. The plant manager had his office somewhere on the top floor. Everything else was assembly lines. They even left some of the line machinery as decorations around the main floor—it separated some of the dance pits and stages.”
“That makes the east end of the top floor the priority target,” Reaper said. “By 0235 hours, all of the cars in the parking lot were gone. Even the working staff had left by then. But that enclosed garage at the southeast corner is an unknown factor.”
“So,” Bear said, “I’ll watch the hallway and stairs while you search the office.”
“I wasn’t asking you to go in with me on this one, Bear,” Reaper said. “This isn’t any kind of sanctioned op. I’m going after my family and I can’t ask someone to break the law and go in with me.”
“Don’t remember you asking,” Bear said as he tossed the picture he had been examining back onto the table. “You figure you can keep me out of this, brother?”
Reaper looked at the man for a moment, unable to think of anything to say.
“You’ve been up what, thirty, thirty-six hours straight?” Bear said. “Small wonder you can’t see what’s right in front of your face. Get a couple of hours of sleep and we’ll hit it again.”
“Can’t afford the time,” Reaper said. “They are going to call for more weapons by tomorrow afternoon. We have less than twenty-four hours to find my family and stop this.”
“What you can’t afford is to make a mistake, Chief,” Bear said. “Deckert is going to take some time to finish up processing the pictures anyway.”
Reaper had to admit the logic of what his friend had said.
“Okay, you’re right,” Reaper said. “I’m going to grab a couple of hours of sleep, then look at all of this again.”
“Sounds good to me,” Bear said.
The insistent buzz of the alarm awakened Reaper after what felt like only a few minutes of sleep instead of a few hours. Years of iron-hard discipline had him turn off the alarm clock and swing his feet off the bed while the rest of his body still wanted to sleep. He was a little rested now, though
not much. His eyes felt thick and gritty. If his breath smelled half as bad as his mouth tasted, he’d better be careful about where he breathed or he’d blister the paint on the walls.
A quick, scalding hot shower did a great deal toward clearing out the rest of the cobwebs in his brain. Reaper again was able to concentrate on the tactical problem of just him and Bear hitting the Factory. He knew that Deckert would want to help, but the practical questions regarding his mobility would keep him from an active role. Not really polite, but it was the truth.
A raid on the Factory had to be done quickly. The longer he waited, the greater the risk grew for Mary and Ricky. There was a good chance that they had not been kept at the Factory. If that were true, he had to eliminate that possibility quickly. The Factory was their best practical source for more intelligence and a way of developing further leads. Getting their hands on Arzee was a top priority. Reaper was more than willing to wring the man dry and toss him away like a paper towel.
Hitting the Factory and not finding his family, successfully snatching up Arzee, or even getting any new leads…that wasn’t something Reaper found acceptable to think about.
Going back into his room, Reaper pulled on fresh jeans and a sweatshirt. Feeling a damned sight more human, he turned and opened the door to go downstairs. Voices could be heard speaking from what sounded like the kitchen area. And there were more people talking than just Deckert and Bear. A quick look out his bedroom window showed Reaper no police cars, but two new vehicles sat out in the driveway. There was a silver 4x4 pickup truck with the paint on the hood peeling and an older model Buick Century sedan. These certainly didn’t look like the kind of vehicle Arzee’s people drove.
Stepping back to his bedside table, Reaper picked up the SIG-P220 he had lying there and checked the load. Fresh brass shone back up at him as he drew the slide partway back. Lowering the hammer with the decocking lever, Reaper slipped the SIG under his belt at the small of his back, then pulled his sweatshirt over the weapon. Now armed, he went downstairs to check out the voices.
Pausing for a moment on the stairs, Reaper could now better make out the voices in the kitchen and what was being said. The conversation astonished him and he knew that he wouldn’t need his SIG.
“So he came charging in from the sea with some maniac at the wheel of a PBR and pulled us out,” one voice clearly said. “When I finally asked him how he found us, he said that he got a position fix on our last radio transmission before our commo went down. It was a good thing he did too because he showed up just as the ragheads were closing in on Kafji. If he hadn’t shown up, my spotter and I would have been the first ground losses of Desert Storm. That would be a hell of a way to make the history books.”
Reaper came down to the kitchen to see a sight he never would have allowed himself to hope for. Deckert sat in the kitchen making something while around the table were Bear and another man Reaper immediately recognized.
“Well,” Reaper said. “If you hadn’t been a normal hardheaded Marine, you would have abandoned that hide before the Iraqis had gotten too close. Goddamn, Max, it’s good to see you.”
The slender younger man Reaper was speaking to stood up and embraced the SEAL chief in a fierce bear hug. As they broke the embrace, Reaper stood back and looked at the shorter man.
“You’re looking good, Warrick,” Reaper said, “but the grunge look has been out of style for years, or have they stopped letting you have anything sharp since you left the Corps?”
Max Warrick let a wide grin spread over his face as he rubbed at the week-old stubble across his chin. Chuckling, he ran his left hand back through his unkempt, stark white hair.
“Naw,” he said, “I was just coming back from transporting a bail jumper to Kansas City when I got a call last night from Bear here. He said that you needed help and it was important—so I just kept rolling past Chicago and headed on here. I’ve been on the road over a week chasing that jumper down. So I just figured I’d show up and see what the party was. Maybe I’ll have time to make a run across the river to Canada and get some Cuban cigars while I’m here.”
“It’s damned good to see you here,” Reaper said, “but I don’t think there’s going to be much time to make any smoke runs across the border.”
“Just like a jarhead to become a bounty hunter to keep the blood moving,” a second new arrival said from off to the left. “Must be the jazz, just like that A-Team character you look so much like.”
“That’s Bail Enforcement Agent to you Air Force pukes,” Warrick said.
Reaper turned to face the new person coming into the room.
“Damn,” Reaper said, “if they aren’t coming out of the woodwork. Good to see you Ben.”
He reached out and grabbed the smaller man’s outstretched hand, pulling the slightly built speaker in close for a strong hug. The new individual on the scene was noticeably short, only a few inches over five feet tall, and very slight of build. To look at his craggy face, glasses, and thin brown hair, one would have first thought of either a drowned rat or a really skinny lawn gnome. But Ben MacKenzie, the ex-Air Force pararescue jumper—PJ for short—had fooled many people who had made the mistake of judging him by his outward appearance. The smaller man was engulfed by Reaper’s embrace, but he hugged back just as fiercely.
Stepping back for a moment, Reaper stood to the side as Ben walked over to the table and sat down.
“It’s not that I’m disappointed to see the two of you,” Reaper said, “but what the hell are you doing here? I haven’t seen you, Ben, since we left Bosnia, and that was what, five—six years ago? And it’s probably been even longer than that since I’ve seen you, Max.”
“I’ve been working as a paramedic in Indianapolis off and on at least up to last night,” Ben said. “That’s when I got the call from Bear that you needed help.”
“And what’s your story, Max?” Reaper said. “Ben operated with Bear and me over in Bosnia, but you never did. How the hell did he know he should call you?”
“I met him at a shooting competition and gun show down in Kentucky a year ago last fall,” Max said. “He was wearing those motorcycle leathers of his with a Trident on them. One thing led to another and we spent a long night swapping lies at some redneck bar south of Louisville. My memory is a little hazy about the general details of that night.”
“And you just took it upon yourself to call these guys in?” Reaper said as he shot a glance at Bear, who sat at the table and tried to look innocent.
“Well, yeah,” Bear said. “I phoned them last night after I had left the club and headed back to the hide. Both of them demanded to know where and when after I told them you needed help, and why.”
“Your family is involved,” Ben said bluntly. “You don’t go after a man’s family, no matter what. So why don’t you sit the fuck down and tell us what you need?”
Reaper stood for a moment looking at the table and the men surrounding it. He understood the brotherhood of warriors, how those who had shed blood together shared a bond that outsiders would find almost impossible to understand. But Reaper had never been someone who liked asking for help. He hadn’t even thought of contacting men like these, his friends, to share danger with him. It took another member of that brotherhood to recognize the situation and put the call out. That would be something he would owe Bear for a long time to come, one of those debts that are shared between close friends but are never really spoken about.
Coming to a decision, Reaper sat down and started to brief his friends on the situation.
“Short version,” Reaper said, “we have an unknown number of hostiles who have taken two hostages and are holding them at an unknown place. Our only suspected location of the hostages is at a nightclub in a converted six-story factory building near downtown Detroit.
“The building is in a poor neighborhood with a limited civilian population nearby. My intention is for Bear and me to conduct a penetration of the target building to either locate the hostages and bring t
hem out, or develop further intelligence as to their location.”
“How do you expect to develop that intelligence?” Warrick asked.
“I intend making a prisoner of the man in charge of the organization who took the hostages in the first place,” Reaper said with a cold stare at Warrick.
“Do we have identification on this individual?” Ben asked.
“Yes,” Reaper said, “he was positively identified at the target last night. His name is Steven Arzee. If he’s not the top man in charge, he can tell us who is.”
“I think he may still be pissed about Reaper ripping the ass off his favorite car,” Bear said
“Always thought a Vette was a pussy-ass car,” Ben said. “Count me in.”
“Took your family, huh?” Max said. “Sounds like a good guy to mess with. I’m in. When did you want to take him down?”
Reaper looked at the men around the table. Bear leaned back in his chair with a soft smile across his face. Max and Ben both looked committed to action and intent on Reaper’s every word. He felt a sudden surge of pride in the trust these men put in him.
“Time is something we don’t have much of,” Reaper said. “We go tonight.”
Chapter Nineteen
Having made the decision to go ahead with the operation, Reaper lost no time in bringing Deckert, Max, and Ben up to speed on what he and Bear had observed the day before. All of the men around the table were experienced professionals. They knew the risks in conducting an operation—especially a clandestine one with no official support.
In fact, there was far less than official support for their proposed actions. What they were planning to do sitting around that kitchen table was just plain illegal. Even just talking about what they had in mind would be considered conspiracy to commit a criminal act. In spite of that, they committed themselves to the action without reservations. They knew Reaper and trusted his judgment.
Undeclared War Page 17