Max shook his head. “And there’s no use speculating when I’ll get started as soon as Cal arrives.”
“Right. Cal,” Kaci said, referring to the only wayward member of the team, their bomb expert, Cal Riggins. “He won’t be rolling in until the last minute. At least that’s been his pattern since he and Tara got married.”
Max checked his watch. “I don’t blame him for taking his time, but the minute these long farewells with the wife interfere with an op, he’ll be reassigned.”
Max often came across as harsh. Not like he had a choice. Their team couldn’t afford to be sloppy, and he held each of them accountable. It didn’t matter how tight the group was—and Cal was most definitely one of them—Max would follow through and cut him from the team if need be.
“Get your e-mails and texts out of the way now,” he instructed as he moved to the head of the table. “Our flight’s only about an hour and we’ll spend every minute in planning.”
Rick took a seat with his teammates. None of them would touch the binders until Max gave the okay to break the seals, but Rick wanted to rip into his just to see what Max considered a worst nightmare scenario.
Not that Rick could name just one scenario, because people committed atrocious acts all the time. His stint as a Marine Scout Sniper and three years with the FBI proved that. He could rattle off dozens, maybe hundreds of horrible things he feared, but honestly, he couldn’t narrow down the list to the worst thing.
Let it go. You’ll know soon enough.
He changed his focus to his phone until Cal breezed in with a big smile on his face and settled into the nearest chair. Rick wasn’t big on smiling, but he couldn’t keep his mouth from turning up. Not even with the tension in the room. Since Cal’s recent marriage, he’d lost some of his intensity. Not on the job. He was still a guy who had the team’s back and could be counted on. He just smiled a heck of a lot more now, and it was contagious.
“I never knew getting married could slow a guy down so much,” Brynn teased.
Cal’s smile widened. “Hey, we moved farther away from here is all it is.”
Shane rolled his eyes. “Right. Maybe we should start a pool on how long it takes before you call Tara.”
Kaci grinned, looking more like a teenager than her thirty years of age. “I’ll take five minutes after we’re airborne.”
“Five?” Shane asked. “Nah, he’s not going to make it that long.”
Max clapped his hands. “Let’s get started, but before we do, Shane, put me down for fifteen minutes. Since we’re hassling Cal, I figure he’ll hold out longer.”
Cal shook his head and the team chuckled, but it was a nervous laughter, as they knew Max would soon give the go-ahead to open the binders.
The armed guard poked his head through the doorway and eyed the group, stilling the last of the laughter. He was warning them to leave the binders intact and not to even try to steal any of the confidential material.
Max gave a firm nod of acknowledgment and the guard closed the door, sealing them in. The minute this briefing ended, he’d check the binders, then put them in a burn bag to be disposed of at FBI headquarters.
“I don’t have to tell you that our briefing is highly classified,” Max said. “And you’ll curtail any discussion of the material to private, secured locations.” He let his gaze travel over the group, pausing at each person to make his point.
“Aren’t these directions overkill?” Shane leaned back in his chair. “We’ve been through so many classified situations that the protocol is second nature.”
Max pinned Shane with an intense stare. “You haven’t been through anything like this, I assure you.”
“So let’s find out what this is,” Rick said, wanting to move things along.
“Open your binders, read the intro paragraph, and then we’ll review it before getting into a discussion of the mission.”
Rick tore through the seal and flipped to the first page. He read only one line before his mouth fell open, and he shot a look at Max. “Self-steering bullets. Our op is about self-steering bullets?”
“As you can see,” Max said with deadly calm, “the Department of Defense has recently tested a smart bullet.”
“A freaking bullet that gives a novice shooter the same skills as a highly trained sniper,” Rick grumbled. “You weren’t kidding when you said this is my worst nightmare.”
“Can someone explain, please?” Kaci asked.
“It’s simple, really,” Rick said, but the mission would be anything but simple. “The EXtreme ACcuracy Tasked Ordnance program, EXACTO, has done what was once thought impossible. They’ve created a small-caliber bullet with continuous guidance to target. And don’t be confused by my small-caliber comment. I mean small only in comparison to a missile. We’re talking .50 caliber here.”
Cal let out a long, low whistle.
“Missile guidance in a .50,” Brynn muttered. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish I was,” Rick replied. “And in case you’re not up to speed on rifles chambered for .50-caliber ammunition, this rifle is considered one of the most destructive weapons legally available to civilians in the U.S. The ammo will shoot through armor plate and reinforced concrete.”
Kaci’s face paled. “How does this smart bullet work?”
“The ammo is paired with a custom infrared scope. The bullets have optical sensors in the tips that communicate with the scope and send signals to fins on the bullet to adjust the path to the target. As long as the shooter keeps the scope trained on the target, the bullet will adjust course to hit the target. Even circling back if needed.”
“So any yahoo with this scope and these bullets could kill a mark without any training?” Brynn clarified.
Rick nodded. “Takes a special weapon without a rifled barrel, but yeah, anyone on the street possessing these tools instantly becomes a highly accurate sniper. And if that’s not bad enough, they can do so from a long distance. The record sniper kill for a .50 without the aid of this technology is a mile and a half, and the bullets travel 2,800 feet per second. Means the shooter would be long gone before anyone figured out where the round originated.”
“Whoa,” Shane said.
Max scowled. “Exactly.”
Cal sat forward, his gaze steady, but Rick caught the unease he was trying to hide. “Then I’m assuming we have state-of-the-art security for this ordnance.”
Max widened his stance. “Yes, but—”
“Wait,” Rick interrupted as their mission became clear to him. “You’re not going to tell us someone stole the technology?”
“I’m afraid a rifle, scope, and bullets have fallen into the wrong hands.”
“So anyone, and I mean anyone, can take out a target at an extreme distance without a lick of training.” Rick made strong eye contact with Max. “And our mission is to find this ordnance before someone gets killed.”
“Unfortunately,” Max replied, his gaze uneasy, “someone already has died, and our mission also includes hunting down the killer.”
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Fatal Mistake--A Novel Page 33