Tier One (Tier One Series Book 1)

by Brian Andrews

  “Just a few more minutes,” Smith said in his earpiece. “I expect his security detail to do a drive-by.”

  “They already left,” Dempsey whispered in his mike.

  “I know, but typical protocol is to circle back after a little delay.”

  Dempsey clicked twice.

  “I’m searching inside the house,” Smith came back.

  Smith is annoyingly chatty tonight, Dempsey thought.

  “There’s no camera in the bedroom, and I can’t get a signal from the one in the library. I had it earlier . . . not sure what happened.”

  Dempsey clicked twice, hoping Smith would just shut up until it was time to go.

  “Weird. I can’t tell you where the target is . . . No motion in the house. Nothing on the parabolic . . . Lights are all out since the wife went upstairs. He’s either in the library or the bedroom, because I sure as hell don’t see him anywhere else.”

  Dempsey’s mind flashed back to something Jarvis had said during their training: “This is an entirely new world for you, John. This is making someone disappear from bed while his wife is sleeping beside him.” Tonight it might come to that, but one way or another he was sending Kittinger straight to hell. They would clear the library first and hope the fucker was there, sleeping on the oversize leather couch they had seen before the library camera went dark.

  In his peripheral vision, Dempsey saw a car drive down Kittinger’s street. Grimes tracked it until it disappeared into the night. She turned to look at him, tilted her NVGs off her face, and gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Zero, Two,” she said. “Confirm security detail second pass.”

  “Roger,” Smith said. “Sweeping the yard and the street now. Go on my count.”

  Dempsey adjusted his posture to a knee-down crouch, and Grimes did the same beside him. He snapped down his NVGs, and she did the same. To Dempsey’s present regret, Smith had somehow convinced them to leave their SOPMOD M4s in the trunk, and so they were carrying the ridiculous .22-caliber, silenced peashooters. When Smith advised that he leave his P229 behind as well, Dempsey had refused. No way in hell was he going on a mission without a real pistol.

  “Go,” Smith said.

  Stooped in a combat crouch, Dempsey led Grimes across the side yard, around to the back of the house. He hoped that Smith had interrupted the camera or inserted a loop or whatever he intended to do for any exterior cameras. He stopped at the backdoor access to the garage.

  “We’re at the door,” he whispered.

  “No cameras in the garage, but try and be quiet,” Smith said.

  Dempsey pulled a pry bar from his pack and wedged the angled tip into the gap between the lockset’s faceplate and strike plate.

  “You should try to pick it first,” Grimes whispered.

  He popped the pry bar. The old wooden door frame yielded with a satisfying crunch. “Consider it picked,” he whispered, and followed her inside the two-car garage.

  “Okay, we’re in the garage,” Dempsey said into his mike.

  They made their way past a Lexus RX and a Cadillac CTS to the house door. He stopped by the door, slipped the pry bar back into his pack, and retrieved a MIC kit.

  “Whatcha doing now?” Grimes whispered.

  “Can’t pop this one,” Dempsey said. “Reinforced striker plate with a deadbolt.”

  “Are you crazy?” she said, looking at his hands as he prepped the material. “A breacher charge will wake the entire neighborhood.”

  “It’s a MIC, not a breacher.”

  “What’s a MIC?”

  “An intermolecular composite—aka super thermite,” Smith said over the channel. “It uses nanoparticle chemistry to create a high-energy, oxidizing, exothermic reaction.”

  “In other words,” Dempsey whispered, inserting two wires into the yellow lump of polymer, “I’m going to burn the shit out of this lock.”

  Grimes grinned at him in the dark.

  “Zero, One. I’ll burn on your mark,” Dempsey said.

  “Security is interrupted for the next twelve seconds,” Smith said. That was the maximum power surge tolerated by the system without tipping the alarm. “Burn it.”

  Dempsey started to press the MIC polymer into the lockset, but when he did, the door moved, swinging slowly open. He looked at Grimes, who stared back at him through her NVGs, mouth agape.

  Dempsey pulled his Sig229 from his thigh holster, grabbed Grimes, and pulled her through the open door into a mudroom. He eased the door shut behind him, while Grimes drew her P232 with suppressor. She gave him a “You’re using the wrong gun” look, but he ignored her. The mudroom was connected to a butler’s pantry, which he presumed led to the kitchen. He scanned ahead, but he could only see part of the room. He crept forward, crouched low, and peeked into the kitchen.

  Nothing.

  Behind him, Grimes slid a wedge into the bottom of the garage entry door to keep it in place.

  “Everything okay?” Smith asked.

  Dempsey didn’t answer. Something was terribly wrong, and they needed to be completely quiet. He raised a hand, and they moved silently into the kitchen, leading with their pistols.

  “I see you in the kitchen,” Smith said. “Tell me what you’re doing.”

  Again, Dempsey stayed silent. He and Grimes cleared their corners—his to the left and hers to the right. He felt terribly uneasy without his rifle and PEQ-4 infrared designator. There simply was no substitute for a proper weapon with a holographic sight and a clip holding lots of bullets.

  “Okay, fine, be that way,” Smith said in his ear as they moved into what Dempsey guessed was the dining room.

  “Kitchen camera is off. I’ll kill the dining-room feed and bring the kitchen back online after the count,” Smith said. “I’ll call the play-by-play and try to stay ahead of you. After the dining room, clear the living room. Then, into the library. If he’s not there, we’ll head upstairs. Five seconds . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one.”

  Dempsey kept them ahead of Smith’s count, and they entered the dining room. He moved to the left to lead them away from the French doors, to prevent anyone who might be watching outside from seeing their shadows move across the thinly curtained glass.

  “Ten seconds to cross the room. Next is the living room, and you’ll move to the right. You’ll see a set of wood-panel double doors on the far wall that leads to the library. The main staircase leading upstairs is across the foyer. Six seconds . . . five . . . four . . .”

  Dempsey moved across the living room toward the double doors leading to the library. When he saw that the right-hand door was cracked open almost six inches, he slid left and pressed his back against the wall. Grimes did the same in mirror image on the opposite side. She looked at him for instruction. Dempsey pointed to his ear.

  “Three . . .”

  Dempsey thought he heard something—like the soft rustle of clothing.

  “Two seconds, guys.”

  He thought of his dead brothers, and hot rage surged through every fiber of his body. On the other side of those doors, justice would finally be served.

  “Go,” Smith said.

  Dempsey pushed the door open with his foot and cleared left, while Grimes followed and cleared right. After clearing his corner, Dempsey angled toward the desk. In the center of the room, behind a colonial period wooden desk, sat the president’s chief of staff, Robert Kittinger. Dempsey stared at the man’s chubby face, which was lit up from below by the light of the notebook computer monitor open in front of him. His head was tilted back against the backrest of his chair; the man’s piggish nose and heavy jowls made him look like a contemplative bulldog dressed in a bathrobe. Dempsey put his pistol’s night sights in the center of the man’s chest.

  He hesitated, waiting for Kittinger to startle or speak or snore, but the chief of staff stayed perfectly still.

  Dempsey took a cautious step forward, his weapon a steady, unwavering platform in midair. He advanced to the edge of the desk. The man’s eyes we
re open and staring at a spot somewhere over Dempsey’s head. Then he noticed it—a thin tendril of black dribbling down Kittinger’s right cheek from a black hole at the edge of his temple.

  Black in the world of night vision.

  Red in the light of day.

  “Hello, John,” a voice whispered to his right, freezing Dempsey in place. “I thought you might come—both of you.”

  He spun to his right, while Grimes backpedaled. In the corner of the room, steeped in shadow, a figure sat cross-legged and motionless on the floor, his back resting against a file cabinet. It took a moment for Dempsey’s brain to register that the gray-green face he saw through his monocular night vision belonged to Kelso Jarvis.

  “Skipper?”

  With gloved hands, Jarvis collected the mess of folders spread out on the floor around him into a tidy stack. He shoved all but one of them into a bag propped against his leg. Then he stood.

  “We should go,” Jarvis said. “I’m sure you were in like the night, but time’s up. I interrupted the surveillance feeds and auto-alarm features, but the alarm company will notice eventually.”

  Jarvis opened a file folder in front of the corpse at the desk and spread the pages out. Then he pulled a pistol from his belt, squeezed it into Kittinger’s lifeless right hand, and raised the muzzle until it lined up with the hole in the man’s right temple. He let go. The dead man’s arm dropped to his side, and the pistol clattered to the floor.

  “Time to go,” Jarvis said, heading for the double doors.

  Dempsey, finally recovering use of his faculties and his voice, said, “Hold on, Smith will lead us out.”

  Jarvis smiled. “Of course, Shane is here,” he said, with what almost sounded to Dempsey like fatherly pride.

  “We’re a team, what did you expect?” Dempsey whispered back. “Zero, One. Ready for EXFIL. Library to rear entry. Give us the count and lead us out.”

  CHAPTER 44

  International House of Pancakes

  Manassas, Virginia

  May 27, 0410 EDT

  He should be happy, Dempsey told himself. He should feel a sense of satisfaction and vindication, but these were not the emotions he felt. Jarvis had taken the kill away from him, and he was struggling to accept it.

  Was that selfish?

  Yes.

  Was he pissed about it anyway?

  Absolutely.

  He had deserved this one. He and Elizabeth . . .

  “You haven’t touched your food, John,” Grimes said. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, he’s just pissed that Jarvis took his kill,” Smith said, shoveling a forkful of pancakes into his mouth.

  Grimes looked from Smith to Dempsey. “Seriously?”

  “Hell yes,” Dempsey growled, breaking his fifteen minutes of silence. “Kittinger should have been mine.”

  Grimes shook her head. She took a sip of orange juice and said, “There are some things I will never understand about men, and that’s one of them. The asshole is dead. Justice is served. End of story.”

  Dempsey turned to look at her. He had intended to glare at her like the big, grumpy brute that he was, but when he looked at her—attacking a piece of bacon like it was the last morsel of meat on planet Earth—all he could do was smile. Elizabeth Grimes, aka Kelsey Clarke, aka Spaz’s kid sister, was finally at peace.

  “You’re right,” he mumbled.

  She looked up at him and made an exaggerated gesture of cupping her right ear with her hand. “Excuse me, I couldn’t hear you. Could you please say that again?”

  “I said you’re right,” he repeated, this time in a normal voice.

  Smith joined in, cupping his hand over his ear. “But I couldn’t hear you—say again?”

  Dempsey laughed and yelled, “I said you’re right.”

  The waitress at the counter looked up and shot him the stink-eye, which sent Grimes and Smith into an adolescent laughing fit.

  Collecting herself, Grimes reached out and patted Dempsey’s hand. “He didn’t do it to steal your thunder,” she said. “He didn’t do it for any of the reasons your testosterone-charged, Navy SEAL brain would ever think of.”

  “Oh really,” he said, taking his first bite of food. “Then, please, Your Highness, enlighten me with your royal wisdom.”

  This made her smile. “Jarvis was trying to protect you,” she said, and then shifted her gaze to Smith. “And you . . . and me. All of us. He knew we’d go after Kittinger. So he acted first. That way if things went wrong, he’d take the fall. Him and him alone.”

  Dempsey looked at Smith. “You’ve known Jarvis a long time. What do you think?”

  “I haven’t known him as long as you, but that sounds like the Jarvis I know.”

  Dempsey raised his coffee cup. “To our fearless leader, Kelso Jarvis, who tried to take one for the team tonight.”

  “To Kelso Jarvis,” Grimes and Smith said in unison, clicking mugs.

  A comfortable silence fell over the group and lingered while they ate. Comfortable silence between teammates was a good thing, Dempsey had come to realize over the years.

  When the sole waitress stepped outside the otherwise deserted pancake house to have a smoke, Dempsey spoke up. “There is one thing that still bothers me,” he said in a hushed tone. “VEVAK must have had something on Kittinger . . . unless they bought him. Why else would he do it? It must have been blackmail, right?”

  Smith shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think Kittinger was a patriot. I think he truly believed he was securing our nation. I think the president wasn’t listening to his advice on Iran, and he wanted to force Warner and the United Nations to see what we all know to be true—that no matter what President Esfahani says, or what agreements have been signed, Iran hasn’t changed. The country is controlled by the Supreme Leader, and his followers believe that Iran is destined to rule the world at the head of a great Islamic caliphate. Maybe Kittinger understood this and feared a strengthened, emboldened Iran. Maybe he understood VEVAK’s success manipulating and organizing the activities of Al Qaeda factions to serve Iran’s hidden agenda, and wanted to expose VEVAK with a story the media couldn’t possibly ignore. And maybe he saw the United States being lured into complacent appeasement of the Esfahani regime. I think Kittinger hoped to use the massacre of the Tier One SEALs to rally the president, Congress, and the Pentagon to take military action against Iran.”

  “If you truly believe that Kittinger was a patriot,” Grimes whispered, “why did you help Dempsey and me go after him? If you thought the man’s heart was in the right place, why take him out? Motive matters, right?”

  Smith took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I guess I got wrapped up in the moment.”

  “That’s bullshit, Smith, and you know it,” Dempsey said. “There are rules and there are lines. Kittinger crossed the line and made unwitting, nonconsenting martyrs of our brothers. That’s the difference between a jihadist and a warrior. Kittinger thought he was an American patriot, but in reality he was an American jihadist. For that, he needed to be held accountable. You came with us tonight because in your heart, you felt the same.”

  He noticed Grimes was staring at him. “What?”

  “Nice speech. Maybe you’re not as big a meathead as I thought you were,” she said with a sly grin.

  “I have my moments.”

  “And Ember?” Grimes asked, looking back at Smith. “Why would Kittinger task us like he did?”

  Smith ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s a forty-million-dollar question.”

  “What’s the forty-million-dollar answer?”

  “This is me talking now, not Jarvis,” Smith said, eyeing them both.

  “Understood,” Dempsey and Grimes replied in uncanny unison.

  “He needed an experienced task force to collect enough evidence to prove VEVAK was the puppet master behind Yemen and Djibouti. Without evidence, he couldn’t pin unequivocal blame on Tehran and make Iran enemy number one in the eyes of the world. But he also ne
eded complete control and leverage, which is why he dissolved the JIRG and offered Jarvis a deal he couldn’t refuse.”

  “But he had to know there was a chance we’d find out about his communication with Amir Modiri.”

  Smith shook his head. “Kittinger was an arrogant bastard and probably thought we wouldn’t start digging in our own backyard. But he was no fool. You don’t become chief of staff without knowing how to make deals and cover your ass. Ember was born in the black and outside the DNI’s purview, giving Kittinger complete autonomy and control. If something went wrong, all he had to do was pull the plug, deny Ember’s existence, and mop up the mess. And don’t forget about the ace in his back pocket.”

  “What ace?” Dempsey asked.

  “Leverage,” Smith said.

  “On us?” Dempsey asked, confused.

  “On some more than others.” Smith reached into the messenger bag on the seat beside him, retrieved a folder, and slid it across the table to Grimes.

  “What’s this?” she asked, looking the folder.

  “Leverage,” he whispered, eyeing the waitress, who had just stepped back inside. “Jarvis asked me to give this to you. He told me to tell you, quote, ‘This should take care of what the bastard had on you,’ and that you would know what he was talking about.”

  Dempsey shook his head. That wasn’t the only folder he remembered seeing Jarvis take from Kittinger’s study.

  Grimes snatched the folder off the table and clutched it defensively to her chest. “Thanks,” she said, not meeting Smith’s eyes.

  “Don’t worry, Elizabeth,” Smith said. “I didn’t look at it.”

  She looked up at him and then at Dempsey.

  “Of course if you want to tell us . . . ,” Dempsey said, grinning at her and crossing his heart with his fingertip.

  “Maybe someday,” she said, flashing him a tentative smile. “If you’re lucky.”