by Brad Taylor
Durham looked stunned, having never seen Hannister show any emotion whatsoever, least of all a penchant for violence. He slowly nodded, and Hannister said, “I will pretend you never said those words, and I will expect absolute loyalty and the same unvarnished truth you gave President Warren. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir. I . . .”
Hannister cut him off with the wave of a hand. Returning to his usual calm, analytical self, he said, “Water under the bridge. What do you recommend now? What’s Russia doing?”
“They’re staging on the border of Belarus. At least two divisions, with others mobilizing. The death of the president has caused a pause in their plans, but they’re on the verge of invading. Nothing we can do about that, and they know it. They’re going in.”
“What’s Belarus saying?”
Beth said, “They’re vacillating. One minute they denounce the Russian posturing over the supposed terrorist attack at their airbase, the next minute they’re talking about their close ties with the Russian people and insinuating they’ll invite them in. President Warren’s death has caused chaos. They’re not sure what to do.”
“Because they see us as a threat?”
“Yes.”
General Durham said, “It’s irrelevant what they ‘see.’ Russia is the threat, and Putin is playing us like a fiddle. Sir, I’m telling you, there is no walking this back. No matter what we do, Russia is going in. They’ll just change the language of why. Whether it’s a terrorist attack against their interests, or shoring up an ally against our ‘provocation,’ Putin is getting what he wants.”
“So what do you recommend we do?”
“Show strength. Show him we mean business. Show our NATO allies that we are serious.”
“But that’s a fine line. If we project too much strength, we get exactly what we don’t want. Total war.”
“Sir, Putin killed our president. Putin engineered this. We are just reacting, and we can do exactly like he envisioned we would, giving him a fait accompli, or we can stop him.”
“And what if he didn’t?”
“Didn’t what?”
“Didn’t kill Peyton Warren? What if he’s sitting in his country right now freaking out over the death? What if he’s only reacting to us?”
General Durham sat back and rubbed his face, then said, “Sir, we can only use the evidence we have, and it’s pretty conclusive. I don’t want to go to war any more than you do, but I think I need to make clear what’s at stake here: a complete restructuring of the world order. We don’t push now, and Putin will use that opportunity to invade the Baltics. At that point he’ll have triggered a NATO response, which we will no longer control. You worry about World War Three, but sitting and doing nothing will guarantee it.”
Hannister closed his eyes and leaned back, the vibration of the helicopter soothing. Everyone else waited for a response. When one wasn’t forthcoming, Alexander Palmer said, “Sir?”
Hannister opened his eyes. “Okay. Okay. Let’s make a statement, but the statement is predicated on the death of our president.”
General Durham nodded and said, “What do you want?”
“You said you had enough forces to hold, right? Enough to show we mean business?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get them to the crash site. No more tentative in-and-out stuff with only a few vehicles. Roll in with all the firepower we need. The reason will be body recovery. Finding the men and women we couldn’t from the first incursion. Also, drive forward to the launch site with whatever we need. Tell the world that we’re just trying to figure out what happened. We show we mean business, and it’s all under the cloak of humanitarian reasons. No use of NATO at all.”
Durham nodded and said, “Do we?”
“Do we what?”
“Do we mean business? If someone tries to stop us, do we back off, or press forward?”
Hannister considered what the chairman had asked, realizing it was easier to utter the words than to actually put someone in danger. “Can we press forward without jeopardizing lives? I’m sorry for the question, I honestly don’t know.”
“Sir, the use of force will always jeopardize lives, but if we do it right, the lives won’t be on our side. If Russia stays out, we can deal with anything. If they decide to intervene . . .”
He left the rest unsaid. Hannister turned to his newly minted acting secretary of state and said, “Beth, notify them. Tell Russia we’re going in, and nobody is to stop us. Warn them.”
Looking slightly ill, she nodded. Hannister turned to Alexander Palmer and said, “Is this right? Are we doing right?”
Palmer said, “I can’t see how anyone could fault you for that decision.”
Hannister barked a false laugh, then said, “Nobody will fault me today, but history might very well tomorrow. If we still have someone recording it.”
—
And so the horses were led to the stall, confident in the sprint they were about to run. Happy to be let free on a course that was dictated by rails built by adults in the international community, they thought it would be a straight race around the track, flexing their muscles and pulling at the bit with little risk, not realizing that the dirt they were about to chew had no rails dictating the path. Others were hell-bent on destroying them, and one man’s machinations would allow the horses to run free, out of control of their riders, bringing with them a destruction unseen in the history of the earth.
As Marine One set down onto the White House grounds, a single person held the key, and he didn’t even realize it. Kurt Hale sat in front of his office computer, reading a message from a man he no longer controlled. A warrior that nobody in the upper echelons of the government trusted, but one who Kurt believed in without question. Pike Logan had sent him a back-channel message outside of the normal Taskforce communication, directly to him, and it was simple.
Don’t do anything stupid. What’s going on over here is not what it seems. Give me time. Report later.
Kurt rubbed his eyes, the lack of sleep making his eyelids feel like sandpaper. He shut down the computer, wondering what Pike had found.
39
Even in the summer, the early morning air in Bratislava was crisp, around fifty-five degrees, which made hiding our weapons that much easier because of the jackets we wore to ward off the chill. We’d been in place behind a giant church called Saint Martin’s Cathedral since eight A.M., and while the sun was up, the church itself blocked the rays, leaving us in the cold shadow.
After an extensive reconnaissance, we’d decided that this was the route the armored car would take, as the back of the church held a little courtyard with an exit onto a four-lane highway that crossed the Danube, the river less than two hundred meters away. From the diamond wholesaler, there were only a few routes out of the narrow cobblestone city center, and most took you deeper in before letting you exit. One route was shorter, but it ended up at the promenade with the underground garage, which meant more spaghetti roads before getting to the bridge that crossed the Danube. The driver of the car would not want to traverse all that. He’d want to get out of the canalized lanes and onto a high-speed avenue of approach as soon as possible, which meant he’d go north on Venturska, then west on Prepostska—a very narrow lane barely wide enough for a car to pass—before heading south again toward the church on Kapitolska, basically making a short box to get to the four-lane. He’d turn off of Kapitolska into this courtyard, then drive right through.
Or so he thought.
We had a tiny force to deal with the issue of stopping a veritable tank, which had required no small amount of preplanning. I needed every man because we had very little time to accomplish the tasks involved, and they were formidable.
One, we had to stop the vehicle, and it was built specifically to keep moving, with bulletproof glass, an armored engine, run-flat tires, and enough torque
to climb out of a sinkhole. Two, once stopped, we had to penetrate the carriage. The bulletproof glass and door armor would protect the two driving, but our concern was the two men in the back. We had to get them to voluntarily open the doors, or it would take us blowtorches and over thirty minutes to hack our way in. Which brought up point three: We had little time to do all this and escape without compromise. We couldn’t waste a second. We had to hit, get them to give up, then flee on our mopeds before the inevitable police response.
Mossad had provided the method of stopping the vehicle in the form of small limpet mines mated to a magnet—something they’d perfected in their elimination of Iran’s nuclear scientists. They were designed to separate the tire from the wheel and render the run-flats useless. With Knuckles’s information, and a short trip to a hardware store and a gas station, we had what we needed to penetrate the carriage. All we required now was to have early warning for the assault, and this was where we ran into trouble.
We simply didn’t have enough manpower to spare someone at the diamond wholesaler for a trigger to alert both a tire team, then the assault force. Or so I’d thought. Then I’d learned what Shoshana’s comment of “magic” to Jennifer meant. The Mossad had beat out Taskforce R&D yet again.
Apparently, there was such a thing as a “selfie drone,” where the user wore a tracking device on a wrist and the drone followed just above, getting video. Biking, kayaking, snowboarding, you could get a Michael Bay–like view just by launching the drone in the air and then doing whatever activity you planned. Once launched, the drone would follow you like an obedient beagle.
The Mossad had taken that concept and refined it, and Aaron had emplaced it last night on their reconnaissance. Our target had a drone sitting on the roof, waiting to be alerted. Just a little over a hand’s width in size and mated to a tracking device, it would hover out of view of the rear mirrors and give us a literal real-time show as it drove forward. Better than any stationary man guessing at approach. The problem was that it could be launched only once, which required eyes-on to see the vehicle actually show up.
At five after nine, Knuckles had called, saying the vehicle was in place, and begun walking back toward us on the path the truck would take, returning in time to help with the assault. Shoshana and Jennifer were on the narrow lane of Prepostska, standing by with what I called their little sticky bombs. For our part, Aaron and I were getting cold in the shadow of the church, two cylinders from the hardware store next to us, waiting on the endgame.
I felt the adrenaline kick in with Knuckles’s call, but I knew we had some time. They still had to load the vehicle, and that would take at least ten minutes.
Aaron said, “I hope this thing works. Maybe we should have left Knuckles.”
What the hell? I said, “We need him. One man on each side, one in the front to control the cab. We can’t take down this truck with only two. It’s why I agreed after hearing about the drone. What’s got you spooked now?”
“The drone is activated by motion. I’ve sent it the instructions, so the next motion will cause it to launch, but sometimes the motion isn’t jarring enough. The vehicle can leave and it doesn’t realize it’s moving.”
“Jesus. Are you serious?”
He played with the tablet and said, “No. Just me venting. It’ll work out.” He smiled and said, “You know how it is. Always worrying at the last minute.”
I did. I said, “Okay. If the truck shows up without warning, we just let it go. Fall back and reassess.”
He said, “I don’t think that’ll happen. It’ll pass Jennifer and Shoshana, and even if they can’t emplace the tire disruptors, we’ll know.”
I said, “True, but we’ll have no way of stopping it.”
“Shoshana will figure that out. Trust me.”
He was probably right, which brought up another question, because I was dying to know. I asked, “What happened after I left last night?”
He said, “What do you mean?” Like I was asking if he’d had trouble with his mattress.
“What do you mean, ‘what do I mean’? What happened with Shoshana?”
He became flustered and said, “Nothing. I’m not sure what you’re asking. We planned the mission.” As if none of the awkwardness of last night had occurred. I said, “Okay, okay. Got it.”
He said, “Got what? I’m telling the truth. We talked about contingencies, then went to bed.”
“Together?”
He started to work the tablet and said, “Got motion. Bird’s in the air.” I thought that was possibly the worst time ever for a mission to start, but leaned over, seeing the feed.
The drone was right above the roof of the car, tracking it like a long shot from a heist movie. The vehicle turned onto Venturska, moving north. It was following our predicted path, and we were in play. I alerted the tire team.
Knuckles came into the courtyard, saying, “Girls are set. No pedestrian traffic. Good to go.”
I said, “Let’s hope your plan works out.”
He said, “It will. Nobody wants to be burned alive protecting someone else’s money.”
I tossed him the detonator for the sticky bombs, saying, “Aaron, you got the call. You have control.”
Staring at the screen, he said, “Got it. Car is making the turn onto Prepostska.”
We both leaned into the screen, seeing the small lane almost bulbous with the fish-eye lens. The car advanced, and I watched Shoshana and Jennifer walk up the middle of the street, then break apart, going left and right, ostensibly giving the lumbering beast of a vehicle access on the narrow lane. The cab drew abreast, and both knelt down, slapping the magnets onto the slow-rolling wheels.
Point of no return.
The armored behemoth turned onto Kapitulska and was approximately thirty seconds away. I glanced around the courtyard, seeing the traffic on the four-lane thoroughfare and a couple walking down the sidewalk. They’d be out of view of the kill zone before the target entered. We were good.
I pulled out my balaclava and said, “Time to play robber.”
Knuckles and Aaron did the same, cloaking their faces in black nylon. Knuckles withdrew a Browning Hi-Power from his back waistband and held it low by his legs. I reached for the cylinder to my right, a pesticide sprayer we’d purchased at a hardware store, now pumped full of unleaded gasoline. Aaron rose and set the tablet aside, saying, “Ten seconds.”
He picked up his own pesticide sprayer.
I saw the vehicle nose into the courtyard, moving at about ten miles an hour. The driver saw our covered heads and hit the gas, but the weight of the armor prevented a rapid response. It huffed, a puff of smoke coming from the tailpipe, then lurched forward, racing for the exit.
Knuckles hit the detonator and two pops erupted, sounding no louder than the backfire of a car. I saw the front wheel on my side shred, and the entire front end sink into the pavement, the tires now useless and the car driving on the rims. Sparks flew, and Knuckles stepped to the front of the vehicle, brandishing his pistol. The vehicle ground to a stop. Knuckles pointed the weapon at the driver, and he raised his arms, then realized he was protected by glass that no pistol could penetrate. He locked the doors and began talking into a radio. Alerting the police and starting our clock.
Aaron and I raced out, him on the near side and me on the far. The vehicle was built with three weapons ports on each side, two low and one high, nothing more than little tubes that would allow a person on the inside to jam a rifle barrel through it and begin firing, like an old archer’s slit in medieval castles. From Aaron’s reconnaissance, we knew they had no assault weapons to use—only pistols—but the model they’d purchased had the weapons ports. Which meant we could introduce something to the inside.
I jammed the nozzle of my pesticide sprayer into the high port and pressed the lever, jetting the inside with pure gasoline. Aaron did the same on the far side. I
heard the men cursing and screaming on the inside, but kept the lever depressed. When the air in the canister ran low, I pulled it out, pumped it up again, then repeated the spraying, getting more cursing. When my tank was expended, I ran around to Aaron’s side.
“You done?”
“Yeah. Two loads.”
I looked up the street, seeing Shoshana and Jennifer pulling security, blocking the road to prevent anyone from entering. I said, “Showtime. Let’s hope they don’t push us.”
I walked around to the front, seeing Knuckles standing stoically with his pistol raised, the cars behind him on the four-lane road obliviously passing by. I went to the cab and tapped on the window. The driver jumped, then looked at me.
I said, “Tell the men in the back to open up.”
40
The driver shook his head, his eyes wide with fear. I said, “Yes. Do it. Please. Ask them what they’re smelling.”
He spoke into a hand-mic, gesturing wildly in a manner the men in back couldn’t see. He listened to them scream about something, then turned back to me, saying nothing. I held up an extended-reach lighter, like you’d use to start a charcoal grill.
I squeezed the trigger, letting the flame leap out. I said, “That door is going to be opened by the explosion of the gas vapor in the back. Unfortunately, your men will also be roasted. They can’t stop it. All I have to do is stick this into a weapons port and press the trigger. The doors open. And your men die.”
That was complete bullshit, of course, with the exception of his men roasting. If it were possible, his eyes grew wider.
I said, “Ten seconds. Starting now.”
He yelled into the outside radio channel, trying hard to get help, but the universe was not on his side. I said, “Time’s up,” and turned away, praying.