by Sean Parnell
Steele saw a tiny head peering around the corner and lowered his rifle. A woman appeared behind the little girl, Bassar’s wife, he assumed.
“We don’t have time to talk right now,” Steele said. “Do you have a safe room?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Show me.”
“Asif, what have you done? Why is this man here?”
“Everything is going to be okay, I am here to help you,” Steele replied in Arabic.
“Just do as he asks,” Bassar pleaded.
“Move,” Steele ordered, prodding the man with the barrel.
Bassar led him around the kitchen and into a room that looked like a closet. “In there,” he said.
“What is your wife’s name?”
“Esta.”
“Esta, I am here to protect your family. If there is anything the child needs, headphones, a toy, get it now, but do not do anything stupid.”
She nodded and rushed out of the room, leaving her daughter looking up at Steele with curious eyes.
“How do you know Ali Breul?” Steele asked.
“We went to the university together,” Bassar answered.
“You are supposed to be dead.”
Bassar looked confused. “Dead? I have been living here since your CIA smuggled me out of Iran. They paid for all of this,” he said with a sweep of his hand that was meant to encompass the house. “In fact, the United States pays the Spanish government to let me live here.”
Steele wasn’t sure what to believe. He didn’t have time to conduct a proper interrogation, but little bits and pieces of Bassar’s story filled in the gaps of what he already knew.
“Do you have any idea why Breul would give me your name?”
“I can only think of one reason, and that would be the weapon we worked on.”
“You worked on it together?” Steele asked.
“Parts of it, yes. It was just a prototype at first, something the leaders in Tehran could use to threaten Israel if they launched an attack on our reactors like they did in Iraq.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Steele demanded.
Bassar shrugged. “As a Muslim it was my duty to protect Islam from the infidels.”
“You said was. Are you not a Muslim anymore?”
“Of course I am, but things have changed. If this bomb goes off the war between America and Islam will never end. Millions of innocents could die.”
“Tell me about the device.”
“Like I told you, it was a prototype, the core is unstable.”
“But it will still explode?”
“Yes, if it is armed it will explode.”
Esta appeared with the girl’s headphones and unlocked the safe room door. Steele ushered them inside and before shutting the door handed Bassar a cell phone.
“There is only one number you can call on that phone. I have put a charge inside it, so if you do anything stupid”—he made an exploding motion with his hand. “In a few minutes, you will get a text. Call the number. A woman will answer saying she is with a security company. Do you understand?”
Bassar nodded.
“Do not come out until I get you. It is going to be loud, but if you trust me, you will live.
Steele waited for the door to lock and then set a motion detector near its edge. If Bassar tried to come out, he would know. Once that was in place, he went upstairs. He picked the room with the best field of view and worked quickly to build the hide site.
He cracked the first window. This was where he planned to use the rifle, and he quickly constructed an impromptu hide site with a sheet of rolled-up screen he had brought with him. When it was secured across the opening he pulled a chest that came up to his knees in front of the window and then checked his field of fire with the SCAR.
Satisfied, he went to the second window and pushed it open all the way. He couldn’t use the screen technique here because it would deflect the trajectory of the 40mm grenades, so he pulled the curtains closed, leaving a small slit to see through. When he was good to go he took the MGL and a bandolier of the 40mm grenades out of the bag and laid them on the floor.
“I’m set. Do you have the scanner working?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s rock and roll.”
Meg had turned out to be worth her weight in gold and gave Steele the chance to test out a piece of gear he’d never had a chance to use. Unlike the scanner he’d taken with him in Beirut, the equipment Meg had with her was designed for military-grade cryptology. Not only could it break encrypted frequencies, but it could also lock the signal at the source.
“Bassar is waiting for your text.”
“Got it.”
Steele took the MGL and went through the plan in his head. He snapped the grenade launcher’s breech open and examined the grenades he had brought with him.
The most common round used by the U.S. military was the M381. It looked like a fat, stubby bullet and was designed to explode on impact. Steele had managed to get his hands on a case of the brand-new Rheinmetall airburst grenades, which were perfect for catching a team out in the open. He slid the projectile into the slot, followed by a 381. The third round was an M583 parachute flare, a nonlethal gamble he prayed was worth the risk.
Outside the floodlights came on first, illuminating the yard and pushing the shadows back a few feet. Now the only thing left for Steele to do was wait.
Chapter 50
“Sir,” the radio operator said, interrupting West in the middle of the brief.
“What?”
“Ghost 1 and 2 are reporting activity around the target location.”
There had been nothing since the doctor went to sleep an hour ago. West was planning to wait until 0200 to launch the raid because the pattern of life his recon element established pointed to this time being when the target would be in his REM. If they were right, West knew his assault team would be in the house before the man woke up.
“Get them ready to move,” he told Villars, and then turned toward the communications desk.
“Ghost 1 to Eagle,” the recon team leader said.
West had put another one of his men on the radio in preparation for the assault. One monitored the net, and tracked everything the overwatch team sent in on a sheet of paper taped to the wall, while the other monitored the phone and radio lines.
“Go for Eagle.”
“The exterior lights just came on, followed by the interior lights on the bottom floor.”
It was a deviation from the norm, but nothing to worry about yet.
The second man at the commo station pressed the headphone closer to his ears. “He is making a call.”
“Cut the line,” West ordered. His men had already captured his cell phones and landline for just this reason.
“We don’t have this one.”
“Who the hell is he calling?”
West waited for the answer, wondering if he had missed something
“I think he is calling a security service,” the man said, obviously confused.
“Put it on the speaker.
Bassar’s voice came through. He was agitated and spoke quickly in heavily accented English. “There are men outside my house.”
“Find out what team is moving around out there.”
“Eagle to Ghost elements . . .”
West tuned him out, listening to the operator Bassar was talking with. He had sent a team inside the house not only to trace and tap the phone lines, but also to check for any unwanted surprises. Lazy shits.
“Sir, I need your identification code,” the female operator said.
Bassar rattled off a number and West heard the sound of computer keys.
“Villars, go now, and hurry.”
“Both teams advise that they have not moved.”
“Well, something spooked him.”
“What is it?” Villars asked, walking over.
“We are blown, Bassar is talking to a bodyguard service . . . I thought you handled this.”
“He doesn’t have security, we checked, but even if he does we are ready for that contingency.”
“That’s not the point, Peter,” West said, pointing at the radio where the woman was asking, “We have your location, what is your emergency?” “There is a record now.”
“I already told you there are men outside my house. I need you to come and get me, right now.”
“Yes, sir, a team is on the way. Go to your safe room and stand by.”
West wanted to shoot someone, but instead grabbed his gear and rifle. “Let’s go,” he said, pointing at Villars.
Chapter 51
In the van Meg hung up the phone and pulled the screen back on the dark box she had built in the back. She used a red lens flashlight to find the power on the Foster-Miller SWORD. The unmanned robot that Steele referred to as Johnny Number Five looked like a mad scientist had gotten hold of some kid’s radio-controlled car, given it a cycle of steroids and rubber tracks, and added a 240 Bravo machine gun. Once it was ready to roll, Meg opened the back door and hit the deploy button on the controller. The robot squeaked over the metal, rolled down the ramp and out into the night.
“SWORD is deployed.”
Before closing the door she unlatched the ramp just in case she had to take off, and then it was back to her cave. The phone bit was right out of the Activity’s playbook—an oldie but a goodie. Steele didn’t want her on the ground throwing punches with West’s men, but he knew she was an asset. Inside the van she was just as lethal, but just in case anything went wrong she taped an M67 fragmentation grenade to the post next to the computer and had the shotgun ready to go.
She made sure the SWORD’s uplink was working on the laptop, ran a sensor test, and then turned to the scanner.
It had already identified the three radio positions and their point of origin, or POO. The interface marked the two scout positions with a red “X” and connected the lines of transmission with blue lines. Even better, it gave the grid of each one, and as more of West’s people got on the radio she would track them as well.
“SWORD deployed. I am sending you the commo grids,” Meg told Steele, giving him time to write them down and read them back.
“Okay, you know what to do. Be careful.”
“Don’t worry, hubby, I’ve got this.”
Chapter 52
Steele lifted the FLIR, or forward looking infrared, binoculars to his eyes and switched them to “black hot.” Unlike night vision, FLIR worked off of heat, and hot objects appeared black through the scope, while rocks and trees, which lost heat faster when the sun went down, appeared gray.
Where are they?
The men coming out of the rocks were hot from moving down the hill and gave off a powerful heat signature compared to the ambient terrain. Steele knew there were two teams in the open, but he could only see one.
These guys are good.
His plan revolved around getting as many of West’s people as possible into the kill zone, with Meg and the SWORD holding the rear. Steele knew that even if he executed a textbook ambush, some of the men would get away. And then there was the possibility that West might not even be with the assault team.
There were too many things that could go wrong, but Steele had to try. It was the only shot he had at recovering the bomb.
Chapter 53
“All elements, this is Eagle, I am en route.” It was West, and Meg quickly locked the transmission on the computer.
“You hear that?”
“Yeah. He’s here and he’s moving toward our location now.”
Meg plotted the azimuth on the SWORD’s tactical console and hit send. The robot’s internal navigation system, connected to GPS, whizzed into action, and the feed on the computer began to bounce as it moved out.
The setup was like a video game, with the majority of the screen split in half to show two camera views. The SWORD’s main camera was on the gun, facing forward with crosshairs that were red, telling the operator that the master arm was off. A heads-up display told Meg how much ammo was on board, and a row of numbers gave the heading, speed, and location in latitude and longitude.
Meg clicked the second screen on the satellite overlay map she had downloaded from Google Earth and found a dirt access road running down from the ridge, toward the target house.
I bet that’s where he is going. She used the joystick to shift the robot’s path to the southwest in hope of intercepting the vehicle. The robot had rolled a hundred feet when light played across the camera. Meg stopped the vehicle and activated the second camera situated atop a mast. This camera was equipped with a wide-angle lens, and when the mast began extending she rotated it in the direction of the light. The vehicles bouncing over the road were unmistakable.
“I’ve got three jeeps coming your way. No idea which one has West.”
“Let’s find out.”
Chapter 54
Steele flipped off the safety and looked through the leaf sight attached to the launcher. The sight was simple to use, and all he had to do was raise the muzzle of the launcher until he could see his target through the aperture. At this range he had to kneel to clear the top edge of the windowsill, and when he was sure the round would clear, he sent it.
The launcher thumped the round skyward. It sounded like a potato gun going off, a gentle thoop. The lands and grooves on the casing of the round forced the 40mm into a tight spiral, arming the fuse after a factory-set number of rotations. The cylinder rotated and he fired the second round and then waited, counting slowly in his head.
Steele knew that if these men were as well trained as he assumed, they would hit the deck, assess casualties, and then decide to break contact or move out. He needed to keep them in the kill zone, which was the reason he’d loaded the flare.
The explosion blossomed over their heads, raining razor-sharp shrapnel down on the recon team. A moment later the sound hit the house. Cruuump. The screams followed, sharp and pitiful like a wounded animal, and then the second round went off.
“Eagle . . . Ghost 2 . . .” There was anguish in the man’s voice and he lapsed into a language Steele thought was Afrikaans. The radio stayed open—no doubt the wounded fighter had left the talk button mashed down and everyone listening got a taste of what was going on.
Someone was moaning and a second voice was pleading with the man to hold on. “We’ve got to get him out of here.”
“Break, break, break,” West snapped, breaking through. “Ghost 2, give me a sitrep.”
“A mine . . . I think we stepped on a mine.”
“Ghost 1, what is your location?”
“Coming in from the east. Did he advise the area is mined?”
Steele couldn’t believe his luck. Things were working out better than he had imagined. The fear of mines would make the recon teams hesitant to attack.
“Meg, where is Ghost 1?”
“Forty-five degrees magnetic from your position, about two hundred yards out.”
“What about West?”
“He is either in the first or second vehicle. I’m about to go loud.”
“Got ya, make ’em count.”
Steele stayed low, rotating his torso in the direction the second recon team would be traveling, and got as much elevation as he could. He wanted the flare as high as possible. He fired and quickly lined up a 200-yard shot before sending two more HE rounds. He dropped the launcher and scrambled to the second position, grabbing the SCAR and lying out on the chest.
Chapter 55
“Fucking mines?” West shouted, hammering the dash with his fist. “I thought you assholes checked the damn terrain.” The mission was a simple snatch and grab, but it was falling apart because he hadn’t been there to make sure Villars did it right. If the South African had been riding with him, West would have killed him right there. Luckily for Peter, he was in the lead vehicle.
“Why are you slowing down?” West asked the driver.
“Mines, boss,” the man replied.
W
est drew his pistol, flicked off the safety, and went ballistic. “You might hit a mine, but I promise that if you don’t get your ass moving you are going to get a bullet.”
The driver floored it and then a blinding white light blossomed in the sky.
Is that a parachute flare? What the hell is . . .
West never got a chance to finish his thought. A line of tracers cut through the night and stitched Villars’s vehicle from hood to trunk.
“Contact left!” the driver screamed, cutting the wheel. In the backseat someone fired out of the window, brass spinning off the roll bar. The jeep hit a rut, bouncing it skyward. The lead vehicle was on fire, and West dropped the pistol.
Chapter 56
Meg tracked the reticle across the lead vehicle, the camera so clear she actually saw the round hit the driver in the head and blow his brains across the man sitting next to him. A tracer round hit the fuel tank and then the jeep was on fire.
She let go of the trigger and checked the ammo count, letting the gun fall. The first burst had sent a hundred rounds into the vehicle and Meg had two hundred left in the can.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” she asked, tracking the second vehicle, which cut across the open ground, muzzle flashes erupting from the back window.
She centered the crosshairs on the driver and ripped a fifty-round burst just as the jeep got air. Tracers hit the hood, deflecting skyward. Dammit. The gun’s tracking system was powered by a small motor that wasn’t powerful enough to make fast corrections at close range. It was lagging, so Meg let off the trigger, working to get back on target while trying to zoom the camera out. The driver corrected, steering the jeep right at the SWORD. Meg wasn’t sure if he’d spotted it or was just taking evasive maneuvers. Either way, all she could see was the grille.