by Roger Hayden
Burke stepped forward toward the conference phone, his headset in place, and began speaking. “Mr. Chief of Staff, is the president ready?”
“I’m here,” a voice said.
Angela could hardly believe it. It was the president’s voice, all right.
“Send the first team in,” he continued.
“Yes, sir.” Burke nodded and pushed the mic closer to his mouth. “Alpha Team, go.”
From the view of a single helmet cam, the five-man team rushed toward the building, one of its members carrying a door breacher. They went to the door, not wasting any time, and took positions at both sides, as the breacher man batted the door open with one full swing. They stormed inside with their rifles aimed and weapon lights darting around the darkened empty room.
“First room clear!” a man shouted.
The team spread out, searching the other side of a room divided by barren drywall. There were empty boxes, crates, and pallets in their path, but no sign of hostages or terrorists.
“Who owns that building?” Chief Drake asked, eyes plastered to his laptop screen.
“The county,” Burke answered. “It’s a parks and recreation storage shed.”
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s there,” Drake said.
“Better luck with the plastics factory,” Sutherland added with a sigh.
Suddenly, one of the team members stopped. “What’s this?” an off-camera voice asked. The shot then focused on two team members pointing their weapon lights toward a wall where a black ISIS flag hung.
From her seat at the end of the table, Thaxton gasped, drawing a terrified glance from Angela. Why the flag but no terrorists? The cramped, dusty rooms didn’t look as though they’d been occupied very recently. There wasn’t even any electricity.
“What the hell?” Drake said, scratching his face, perplexed.
Burke simply watched the screen with his back turned to the room. “It’s a message,” he said.
“To who?” Drake asked.
Burke turned his head to answer. “Something I’m sure you’ve seen with the cartels. Except in this case, these ISIS cells aren’t tagging their territory with graffiti, they’re using flags.”
Whatever the reason, it still didn’t make much sense to Angela. Why expose their presence in such an unmistakable way? She had hoped to see Doug and the kids, unscathed and relieved to be rescued. But as the team moved throughout the building, she realized that was not going to happen. Not yet and not there.
“All clear here,” the team captain said as his helmet cam scanned the room.
“Damn it,” Sutherland said under his breath. Angela felt the same way.
“They could have moved the captives to another location,” Burke said. “We have to expect that to be the case.”
On the conference phone, the president had said little. But just when Angela wondered if he was still there, his voice came through.
“What’s the status on Bravo Team?”
Burke quickly approached the phone. “They’re in position outside the old plastics factory.”
“Send them in, and pull out Alpha Team in case any of them come back. I want surveillance on that building.”
Burke talked through his headset, telling Alpha to move out and preparing to send bravo in. Angela watched, more nervous than before, as the helmet cam from bravo’s team leader captured their quick movement to the surrounding chain-link fence of the plastic factory.
Dressed in desert-camouflage fatigues, one of the men went to work on the fence with a pair of long cutters, making a hole for them to enter through. The team moved in, crouched low and moving with haste across the stone-covered ground. The single-story aluminum building came into sharper focus, with its boarded-up windows in full view.
Spiraling vines covered areas of the long building on both sides. The double-door entrance was chained shut, and the only other entry was through two rolling doors on a nearby loading dock, also secured by padlocks.
If her family weren’t in that building, Angela didn’t know what she was going to do. She wanted to trust Burke, and the government for that matter, and believe that her family’s fate was in good hands. But she certainly had her doubts.
The six-man team split up, as one group veered left and headed toward the door, then up two steps, where the man in front snapped the chain with a pair of bolt cutters. As the chain fell to the ground, the bolt cutter stepped aside. The men lined up at the side of the door, one hand on their rifles, and the other on their partner’s shoulder.
At the command to move, the team kicked open the double doors and stormed into the factory with their weapon lights illuminating their path. It was hard to see anything on screen, as the factory was very dark inside. Angela could make out some machines, covered in cobwebs, and one long conveyor belt stretching across the plant floor. From what they could see so far, the second raid mirrored Alpha Team’s in that there wasn’t anyone to be found.
Bravo Team worked together, clearing a large central room as dust particles drifted down like snowflakes in the rays of light coming from their weapons. The helmet camera veered over to the corner of the assembly floor, where long, rectangular crates were neatly stacked on top of one another.
The sight caught Burke’s interest, and he asked the Bravo Team captain to get a closer look.
The captain did as asked and called other team members over to help investigate. From the outset, something seemed odd about the crates. They weren’t covered in dust, cobwebs, or debris like everything else in the room. They looked as though they had been recently put there, completely out of place. As the captain circled the four stacked crates, they saw no identifiable markings.
“What is that?” the president’s voice asked over the conference phone.
“I count five crates,” Burke answered. “They’re currently investigating.”
“Open them up, but make sure they watch their backs,” the president said.
“Yes, Mr. President,” Burke said. He then approached the projector screen while talking into his headset. “Captain Eggers, go ahead and get a look into those crates, but make sure your men are covered. Be careful, there could be IEDs or booby traps in there.”
In the view of his helmet cam, the team captain waved some of the other men over to help him.
“We’re going to take that one off and open it,” he said, pointing to the top crate. The men slung their rifles over their backs and lifted the crate up from opposite ends, carefully setting it down.
“It’s got some weight to it,” one of the men said.
Captain Eggers scanned the top of the crate to see that it had been nailed shut. He called over the breacher man, who pulled a crowbar from his bag.
Angela watched the events unfold, intrigued but heartsick not to see her family anywhere on the screen.
The team cracked open the top of the crate and lifted it up, revealing a heap of packaging straw. Captain Eggers stuck the barrel of his rifle into the straw and started poking it around.
“Yeah, definitely something in there,” he said, kneeling.
Angela kept her eye on Burke, who had resorted to pacing the front of the room. Why had he picked the two locations? Was he really that certain that the terror cells would be in either? As she watched the captain’s gloved hand reach into the crate, the biggest question on her mind was why they hadn’t mobilized more teams and covered more locations.
Suddenly her fist swung down and hit the table. Until everyone looked up at her, she didn’t even realize that she had done it.
“Are you all right, Agent Gannon?” Chief Drake asked with a raised brow.
“I’m fine, sir. Just feeling a little frustrated.”
“What is that?” the president asked through the phone.
All eyes went to their laptops as Burke and Angela looked at the projection screen.
With both hands, Captain Eggers held a sealed canister about the size of a large thermos. The canister was white and had a notic
eable red biohazard symbol stenciled on it. Sensing the obvious danger in holding something marked with the distinctive linked half-circles, Captain Eggers placed the ominous-looking canister back inside the crate and felt around some more.
“There’s more in here,” he said. “A whole bunch more.”
“Burke!” the president shouted over the phone. “What the hell is this? Pull them out and get a chemical team there immediately.”
“I’m on it, Mr. President,” Burke said. “Captain Eggers, get your men out of there and stand by. We’ll get a HAZMAT team out there ASAP.”
Eggers wasted no time directing his team to clear the building. But just as they assembled, they saw a group of unexpected visitors standing fifty feet away at the front entrance, armed with rifles of their own.
For a moment, everything went silent in the factory, in the conference room at the Border Patrol station, and on the president’s line.
Dressed in black, the six intruders began shouting. They raised their weapons as Captain Eggers ordered his team to take cover. His helmet-cam slipped to the side, making it hard for those watching the live video to see what was going on. Angela heard gunfire from the intruders, who were shooting at the Bravo Team. What had they stumbled upon?
“Damn it, Burke. What the hell is going on over there?” the president shouted over the phone.
Burke watched the chaos unfold on screen. He showed neither panic nor fear. He pushed the microphone of his headset closer to his mouth and told Eggers to get a handle on the situation.
“Could be ISIS. Count about six of them. Take ‘em out if you need to.” Gunfire blasted back over his headphone.
“They got us pinned down!” Eggers shouted.
Angela gripped the armrests of her seat as everyone else remained oddly quiet, their eyes locked onto their laptop screens. This isn’t how this is supposed to go, she thought.
Eggers’s helmet cam steadied enough to let them better see the intruders—young men with short black hair and thin beards—scramble for cover themselves as Bravo Team returned fire in rapid, concise bursts.
One of the men foolishly charged Bravo from behind a bottling machine. He took three shots to the chest and collapsed on his own AK-47. Bravo advanced while ducking gunfire from the remaining shooters, who were beginning to fall back with their sporadic gunfire.
Burke continued to watch the screen, arms folded, his back to the room. What had begun as a rescue mission had quickly devolved into something else.
The shaky helmet cam vaulted forward as Bravo Team advanced, taking out two more shooters as they peered out from cover, trying to fire back. Another man suddenly jumped out, appearing to escape, but then turned around with a pistol aimed directly at the helmet cam. Bravo zeroed in on him. A loud burst followed as the man’s head split open. His lifeless body plummeted to the bloodied floor.
Burke took a step forward and spoke with more urgency and caution. “Damn it, don’t kill them all.”
But it was too late. The gunfire had ceased, leaving a faint wave of smoke in the air. No one in Bravo appeared to be hit, but the same couldn’t be said for the gunmen, who had seemed surprised to find anyone else at their hideout. The room watched in shocked stillness as the helmet cam scanned the area near the front entrance, where multiple bodies lay splayed and riddled with bullets.
They didn’t look to be part of any special forces or army. They wore plain, casual clothes—T-shirts, slacks, jeans, sneakers. Whoever they were, it seemed they had laid a claim to the abandoned plastics factory and its crates of presumed chemical agents.
“How many do you count?” Burke asked over his headset.
Eggers continued to scan the room. “Looks like five of them. All males, late twenties.”
“Five?” Burke asked. “No, I counted six. Make sure you find him. We want him taken alive.”
The president’s line was silent, and Angela knew that wasn’t good.
Director Thaxton, however, decided to chime in. “The sixth man is all that matters right now. That’s priority. Now, move out so we can get a chemical team in there.”
Burke turned to her, covering his headset mic. “Duly noted.” He turned back to the screen, slightly disregarding her, and watched with intensity as Captain Eggers led the search outside the plant for the elusive sixth man. In the distance, far beyond the hole in the fence, they could see dust clouds rising above the tree line.
“What the hell is that?” the president shouted into the phone out of nowhere. “How many men are they looking for?”
“One, Mr. President,” Burke said. “And I think he just got away.”
“Holy hell,” the president said. “I want air support. Deploy the helicopters, I don’t care. I want these ISIS bastards stopped!”
“We’re on it, sir,” Burke answered.
Angela released her grip on the armrests and placed her palms flat on the table, leaning forward with a sigh. “What about my family?” No one in the room had an immediate reply.
Burke pivoted around, his face dropping slightly and mirroring the same disappointment evident in Angela’s. “We’re going to keep looking. This is big, though. We’re close.”
“Oh, this is big, all right,” Sutherland said from his chair. “More ISIS fodder for the trough.”
“Agent Sutherland, please,” Thaxton called out, clearly not amused.
Angela said no more but simply listened as side conversations sprang up in the room, a release after the strain of the intense raid. The president signed off, citing a meeting with his cabinet. Bravo Team had evacuated the factory and repositioned outside the gate, waiting for the chemical team to arrive. Perhaps a better search of the area would reveal more clues about her family’s location. Suddenly a buzz came over the speaker phone, followed by a woman’s voice.
“Chief Drake, sir. You have an urgent call to your office. With your permission, I’d be happy to transfer it.”
Drake swiveled his chair toward the phone. “Yes, Barbara. That would be fine. Who is it?”
“A Mr. Peter Graves with the British Intelligence Service.”
Drake looked up, taken aback, with a curious expression on his face. He made eye contact with Thaxton and then shrugged. “Go ahead and send him through.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
Drake leaned closer to the conference phone as the call clicked over with the faint hiss of static in the background.
“This is Chief Drake.”
The voice on the other end was hushed and panicky, almost as if the speaker was struggling to catch his breath. “This is Border Patrol Chief Milton Drake, yes?”
“Yes, it is. Speaking. How can I help you, Mr. Graves?”
“I’m afraid I have some bad news. The Islamic State knows what you did. They know that you’re actively searching for the location of your agent’s family, and they are very displeased.”
Angela froze and listened as fear gripped her heart. Burke turned and leaned against the table, directly over the phone, as everyone listened in stunned silence.
“How do you know this?” Drake asked.
“Because they are holding me prisoner. And… have told me to contact you to emphasize that they know who you are and can reach any of you at any place at any time.”
“Where are you?” Burke shouted. “When and how were you captured?”
“I cannot divulge that information. They just wanted me to let you know that a new video message will be sent within the next ten minutes in response to your actions against them. And this time, it’ll be public.”
“Mr. Graves. Please. Speak to me,” Drake said. “We need more information.”
“I’m afraid that is all I can say.”
The call ended with a click as the ranking government officials looked at other, speechless. Angela knew that things had gone bad very fast. Her family wasn’t in the warehouse. Blood had been shed. And she now feared the worst.
A Message
Doug awoke with his head rest
ing against the coarse concrete wall of the darkened cell. Someone was at the door again, and this time Doug didn’t have the energy or physical prowess to fight back.
He longed for nothing more than to hear his daughters’ voices. A large knot on the back of his head pounded, and his bruised face throbbed. His sides hurt. One eye had swollen shut, and every part of his body ached.
Asgar’s men had really done a number on him, though Doug assumed they could have done worse for his attacking their leader. Looking back, had he another chance, he wouldn’t have attacked Asgar. He feared that he had ruined any chance of seeing his daughters and felt completely at the mercy of his captors. The paper still lay at his feet, slightly crumpled but legible.
The door opened, ushering in a beam of light from the hall. He looked up, trying to hide his fear. The two men were back. Salah Asgar—the purported leader—had addressed the men as Bosra and Nabil. Both men were towering in height, with chiseled jaws, light beards, and faces of stone. Their mouths never exhibited any expression other than a straight line of distaste. They were back, and Doug could only imagine what they wanted.
“Where is Asgar?” he asked in a strained voice.
Naturally, the two guards said nothing, only continued staring at Doug with stern, unblinking expressions, their rifles slung over their bulky shoulders.
Doug held up the paper and, in defiance, waved it around. “Your boss wants me to read this garbage? Not doing a thing until I speak to my daughters.”
The man on the right—Nabil, he believed—was slightly balding and different from his counterpart only because of his thicker, darker eyebrows and black eyes as intense as daggers.
Nabil stepped forward and held out an empty sack, no doubt meant to cover Doug’s head during his transport to the video room. He knew that the men would call his bluff eventually and drag him out of the cell if necessary.
But Doug no longer cared. He wasn’t going to give in. He locked his hands together, closed his eyes, and prayed like he hadn’t in years. And for one solitary moment, the burden of everything on his shoulders lifted. He opened them to find Nabil closer to him and holding out the sack.