“So where is he?”
“We don’t know where he is now, we just know where he called from last night. He called from about twelve miles west of Clarksville, off of Highway 79. We’ve narrowed it down to about a dozen possible homes and trailers. They’re down on someplace called Roaring Hollow Road. Of course, he also could have made the call from a vehicle, or he could have been on foot and not in any house at all. The phone didn’t have GPS, so we could only triangulate off of cell towers.”
Bullard said, “I thought all cell phones were GPS trackable today.”
“I thought so too, but apparently not. It was a prepaid phone, an old one, but it still had an active account. I’m told the GPS function can be hacked out of those phones, even if they were originally GPS capable. We’ll figure out how that happened later.”
“So who owns the phone? Dolan?”
“No way to tell. It was bought for cash two years ago in North Carolina. More minutes have been put on it with airtime cards a couple of times, but they were always bought with cash, in little stores that don’t have surveillance cameras.”
“So the owner is a pro,” observed Bullard.
“Or just careful.”
“Dolan… Can we place him in North Carolina two years ago?”
“I have no clue. We’re just starting to work him up.”
“What about these homes on Roaring Hollow Road? What do we know about them?”
“Nothing yet, we just got the alert message from Omnivore. We’re starting from square one.”
“Well, get a Predator over them, and record all activity in and out. People, phone calls, radios—anything. Get the property tax and title information on all of the landowners, rental contracts and any other records. Give them a data-mining rectal exam. And find out everything you can about Private Dolan. Find out about Dolan’s family, especially his mother.” Bullard smiled, and cracked his knuckles. “This is great—this is just the hook we needed. Keep me informed at each new step.”
“Will do, boss.”
“And show me where this Roaring Hollow Road is.” Bullard stood and walked across his office to a large-scale wall map of Tennessee and Kentucky, and found Fort Campbell and Clarksville. Then he traced his finger west along Highway 79.
“The road is too small to see on this map,” said Sinclair. “You’ll have to look on your computer to get down to the right scale. It’s about here, south of 79.”
“That’s on the north side of the Cumberland River. Damn, that’s close.” Rivers formed natural barriers and choke points in Tennessee, especially since so many bridges were still down after the earthquakes. The remaining key bridges were tightly guarded, and watched carefully. But not carefully enough, evidently. Their terrorist quarry had already managed to cross the mighty Tennessee River undetected at Carrolton. Now they were apparently on the north side of the Cumberland, the last remaining water obstacle before Clarksville and Fort Campbell.
“Close is right,” agreed Bullard’s assistant. “They could practically walk here from where that call was made.”
“Okay, get some surveillance teams out there. Put remote video snoopers on all of the intersections; just make sure the installation teams are careful. Any strangers driving down those back roads are going to be spotted in about five seconds. These guys must be damned good to have made it this far—we don’t want to spook them by being clumsy. Keep at least one Predator on top of Roaring Hollow Road around the clock. That’ll be easy this close to base. Keep on top of all of the cell phone activity in that sector in real time, in case they slip up again. I’ve got a bad feeling about these guys. After what they did in West Tennessee, I don’t want to take any chances. I’d like to take them alive if possible, but not if it means we spook them and they take off again.
“Let me know about any suspicious activity we spot from the Predators, and then I’ll decide if we’re going to go for a SWAT raid, or if we’re just going to drop a Hellfire on their asses. In case we decide on a raid, put the tactical response team on standby. Just be careful, and don’t tip them off before we can pin them down and corner them. I’d rather just blow them to hell with a missile than tip them off and have them scatter.”
Bob Bullard did not mention another factor that was consuming his thoughts. This Roaring Hollow Road, between the Cumberland River and Highway 79, was practically in Fort Campbell’s backyard. Miles of Highway 79 formed the unfenced southern boundary of Fort Campbell. Just as he had suspected, the group that had killed over twenty Kazak, Nigerian and Mexican peacekeepers was being drawn toward Fort Campbell like bloodhounds on a fresh scent trail. Toward Fort Campbell, the home of both the 5th Special Forces Group and his own Department of Rural Pacification.
Yes, he’d prefer to take these boys alive, just to see who they were and what made them tick. He’d like to run a long-term aerial and ground surveillance on them, and find out all of their contacts and discover any other safehouses. But if there wasn’t a clear opening for a slam-dunk SWAT raid to take them alive, then once he located them, he’d just drop a missile and be done with it. These killers from southwestern Tennessee were extremely dangerous, and Bob Bullard had not risen to his current position by taking unnecessary risks.
****
General Mirabeau’s command sergeant major did make it back to Corinth before suppertime. In addition, on their return flight the Blackhawk’s crew chief had managed to snap a series of high-resolution digital photographs of the massacre site from 6,000 feet up. The brand new photographs were compared to archived Google Earth images of the same terrain. There was no doubt that the ravine formerly at those coordinates had been bulldozed flat. Track marks left by an earthmover were still visible on the freshly churned earth. A few dozen small pine trees had obviously been dug up from nearby and replanted over this scar on the earth. After a year or two, as grass and weeds took root and the trees continued to grow, the cover-up would have become all but undetectable. But the evidence was clear in the side-by-side imagery.
The general’s staff traveled with him and was never far from hand. He called a planning meeting for 1700 hours in his mobile headquarters RV. A folding mess hall table was set up lengthwise, extending from the front of his desk down the center of the open space. His officers took their seats on either side of the table, his CSO at the far end. As usual, they were dressed in their digital ACU combat uniforms. The late afternoon staff meeting was not out of the ordinary, but the mood was more serious than usual. The nine officers were already seated in their places by 1700, ready and waiting. They all stood to attention when General Mirabeau entered the RV at 1701.
“Seats, gentlemen,” he said as he dropped into his own chair behind his desk. “You’ve all seen the pictures, and you’ve seen the witness depositions. I’ve prayed over this, and, well, I’ve decided we’re not going to just stand by and receive refugees while Americans are massacred less than twenty miles from where we’re sitting. So this is the bottom line: I want to be ready to conduct a helicopter assault on the site of the massacre, and on the barracks and headquarters of the Kazak Battalion. I want an ops plan that I can execute in twenty-four hours. Let me know how many helicopters and how many troops we can assemble and how fast. Count all of the operational helos at Benning, Rucker and Hunter.
Our first objective will be to secure the area around the ravine, and as soon as that’s accomplished, we’ll deal with the Kazaks. They’ll surrender and make an accounting of their actions, or they’ll be wiped out. For planning purposes, assume that NORTHCOM is uncooperative. Uncooperative, but not hostile. I should know more about NORTHCOM’s likely reaction by tomorrow, but I want to be prepared to launch under a full spectrum of contin-gencies. We’ll meet again at 1900, so be prepared to brief me on options. For now, we’ll go around the table as usual. Give your normal p.m. SITREPS, and then we’ll do a little brainstorming.”
****
Colonel Spencer drove Boone Vikersun from Fort Campbell to his home in a newer subdivision
north of Clarksville. The colonel’s wife made them spaghetti for dinner, and then they retired to his office to discuss the events of the past few days, and plan their next moves. The colonel used his computer to make copies of the primary photographic and video evidence while they talked. Colonel Spencer had changed to casual civilian clothes when he got home, but “Major Garrett” was still dressed in his borrowed blue Army Service Uniform.
Boone said, “I can’t believe that the general went for it.” He had never been to the colonel’s home, and he examined with keen interest the military artifacts on the walls and shelves.
“I can,” replied Colonel Spencer. “He’s a good man. He taught at the War College when he was a one-star and I was a major. That’s where I first met him. We’ve stayed in touch, off and on. You could tell that this situation with the foreign mercenaries has been eating his guts out. He was just waiting for a push, and the massacre was all it took.”
“It seems almost like a miracle that we walked into his office right after he’d seen the other pictures. It’s almost like he’d been set up to hear our pitch. Like he had been primed for it.”
“Boone, are you a religious man?”
“Religious? No, not especially. Not in a formal sense. But it’s hard not to believe that there’s a higher purpose at work when things like this happen. I mean, what are the odds? Zack and Jenny got the other camera to General Mirabeau this morning, and the pictures were on General Armstead’s desk just a few hours later—and then we come walking in. How does that ‘just happen’?”
“It doesn’t,” said Colonel Spencer. “There’s definitely something working here, I can feel it. Like when Phil Carson put that Bible on the flag with the beret. That hit me like an electric shock, like a bullet. And it was done by Phil Carson. Phil Carson? Who in the hell is Phil Carson? And where in the hell did he come from anyway, walking out of nowhere into this deal? He’s just some old Special Forces guy who just happened to have run SOG missions with your father. Then forty years later, he’s shipwrecked in Alabama, and then here he is. I mean, come on! None of this ‘just happened.’ Something truly extraordinary is going on. It’s like we’ve been parachuted straight into the eye of a hurricane. No, we’ve been put here for a purpose. Carson showing up—that’s no accident. That’s something else. I don’t know what it is, but it’s no accident.”
“Phil’s a trip. Don’t let his age fool you—he’s an operator.”
“Are you comfortable taking him?” asked Spencer.
“He wants to go, he wants to do it. And I’ve got tremendous faith in him. He makes things happen. He can adapt to anything and come out on top. I’ve seen it. Whatever happens at Camp David, he’s somebody I want on my team.”
“But can he pull off playing a general? He’ll have to be a hell of an actor.”
“He can do it,” said Boone. “No question. And he looks like a general—he’s got that hard, flinty-eyed look.”
“He’s not too old for it?”
“Hell no, he’s perfect. He’ll be a great general. Armstead has a full day to get him up to speed on Operation Buffalo Jump. I guarantee you he’ll know that op plan backwards and forwards by Thursday.”
“Boone, I know you’ll be able to deal with whatever happens at Camp David, but everything hinges on what goes down at Raven Rock. If General Armstead can initiate the EBS, everything will be a ‘go’ here at our end. We’re going to take down Bullard’s entire rural pacification program, and then I’ll make the case to the 5th Group and the 101st. I have a good plan; I’ve laid the groundwork. I have friends at Fort Bragg ready to do the same there, and after that it’ll go viral around the Army and the rest of the military. But if Raven Rock doesn’t work, if they can’t trigger the EBS, we’ll be able to abort down here. But that’ll still leave you trapped at Camp David. Then what?”
“I’m not sure what we’ll do. We’ll wing it. We’ll just see what happens. We’ll improvise, we’ll adapt on the fly. If Armstead comes back with his helicopter, we might get out that way. Otherwise, we’ll have to just escape and evade the best we can. What the hell, Colonel, I never figured I’d live forever. But that’s only if Raven Rock doesn’t work. If the EBS is initiated, then we’ll run with the ball at Camp David and hope you can do as much as you can at Fort Campbell and Fort Bragg. That’s all we can do. After that, it’s up to the Man Upstairs.”
The colonel said, “You won’t have any way to know if we’re successful down here, getting the 5th Group and the 101st on board. You’ll be on your own. And Camp David—that’s ultra high security. It has a triple fence and the best sensors in the world. If you’re trapped inside, don’t even try to get out through the perimeter. You can only get out through the gate, or in a helo. If the plan falls apart, you’ll be on your own.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Boone. “I’m used to that. We’ll just take it as far as we can, once we’re at Camp David.”
“If the EBS is initiated, you mean.”
“Or even if it’s not.”
Colonel Spencer paused to consider the meaning of that remark. “You won’t be able to get weapons into Camp David. Not even General Armstead. You’ll have to anticipate being searched and screened nineteen different ways. Every door you walk through will probably have a damn X-ray or a demo sniffer built into it.”
“Oh, that’s not a major problem. We can pick up weapons there if we need them. All of those Secret Service agents and Diplomatic Security Service guys will have guns. We’ll just take what we need along the way.”
The colonel laughed. “I’m sure you will. You never lacked for confidence, I’ll say that for you. But what about the Raven Rock mission? Do you have confidence in this Doug Dolan?”
Boone grimaced. “Yes and no. But what happens inside Raven Rock is almost entirely up to General Armstead. He says he can get them into the EBS studio. And we don’t really know what kind of resistance or cooperation they might get once they’re inside. Dolan was a communications major in college, and he’s up to date on television production and broadcasting. I think he’s the only one of us who can figure out the EBS on the fly, and make sure it happens. Ira Gersham will be with him, and he’s damned good with the technical stuff too, especially on the military side. Anyway, it won’t involve any fighting, just studio work. Dolan and Gersham should be able to pull it off, if anybody can. Plus they’ll have the massacre pictures and the videos, so if they have to recruit some of the Raven Rock support staff to initiate the EBS, they’ll even have a shot that way. I think they can do it. General Armstead says they can do it, and he knows the system. So I think they can pull it off. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have agreed to fly into Camp David.”
“But if they can’t get the show on the air, and we abort down here…your asses will still be hanging out a mile.”
Boone sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I talked it over with Phil already. We’re going to take this to the end. Once we’re at Camp David, no matter what happens, we’re going all the way. I just wish I knew how the Marines were going to react.” An elite company of Marines with special counterterrorist training was assigned to Camp David, to bolster the Secret Service guard force around the president.
“I’m working on the Marines,” said Colonel Spencer, “but we can’t risk tipping our hand in advance. It’s a fine line. A very fine line.”
“I know, I know, small and fast is the best way to go. The more players that you bring into it, the greater the chance of mission compromise. I just wish I knew how those Marines are going to handle the situation if it gets ugly. They’ve been trained to protect the president no matter what. But they also swore the oath to protect the Constitution. I just wish I knew how they were going to react, when they have to choose one or the other.”
28
“Director Bullard? It’s Harry.” The phone call came from the senior controller at UAV flight ops. “We have activity at the new target area.”
“Oh? Tell me about it.” Bob Bullard sat straight
up at his desk. It was 8:15 Wednesday morning, and he was still having his coffee and going through his email, getting up to speed for the nine o’clock staff meeting.
“Three unknown subjects just arrived at a house in our primary watch area. They came in a white SUV a few minutes ago. The house is owned by an Iraq War vet.”
“Men or women? What?”
“All men, as far as we can determine.”
“Where are they now?”
“They’re inside the house.”
“Where’s this house in relation to the call’s triangulated position?”
“It’s not exact, of course, but I’d estimate pretty darn near the center of the box. Plus or minus a few hundred yards.”
“Hot damn! Has Dolan made any more calls?” As soon as he said it, Bullard knew that Douglas Dolan could not have used that cell phone again, or he would have been notified immediately.
“No. That phone’s been quiet since Monday night. We’ve been trying to remotely activate it, but either its batteries have been removed, or it’s shielded in something thick. Or it’s been moved outside a cell zone.”
“Any evidence that Dolan is one of the three men in the house?”
“We can’t confirm that yet. The SUV is parked under a roof; we didn’t get a good look at them before they went inside the house. About all we can tell from reviewing the film is that it’s three men.”
“What about the license plate on the SUV? Did the snooper pods catch anything?” These remotely controlled surveillance devices could literally be tossed out of a passing vehicle. Outwardly, they looked like ordinary rocks the size of a misshapen loaf of bread. Once on the ground, they would right themselves if they had landed inverted, and then creep on treads into a surveillance position. The snooper pods could film in all 360 degrees, and send their video data up to the UAVs circling overhead for retransmission to base. Three pods had been dropped off at different vantage points during a single pass along Roaring Hollow Road. “Power company” technicians had also installed a video camera on a utility pole at the intersection of Highway 79 and Roaring Hollow Road. The Predator videos from on high were obviously the most useful, but for some information you needed ground-level cameras.
Foreign Enemies and Traitors Page 69