The Finish Line r5-5

by Cliff Ryder

  "This is Precision Team One. There's been a problem," Anthony said.

  "Explain," his handler said.

  "Executed on target as planned, but encountered another team of spooks on-site. Completed tertiary and half of the secondary mission. However, one of the targets escaped."

  "How?"

  "That has not been ascertained yet, sir."

  "And the primary objective?"

  "Has not been obtained at this time."

  "Casualties?"

  "Two down, one wounded but mobile. We were unable to extract the bodies."

  "Understood. Do you have a vector on the primary target?"

  Anthony's eyes flicked to the screen, which showed a bird's-eye view of London. Underneath was a small action bar that was three-quarters full, indicating the long-range tracker was almost finished with its initial sweep of the area. "We're working on it now."

  "I'm sending a BOLO general directive to all field agents in the area. If one of them gets to her first, then that's that."

  "I understand." More competition, is what it is. His handler was sending a Be On the Look Out alert to all agents in the city. If anyone else happened to spot her first and bring her in, then Anthony's team would be out of luck — no hazardous-duty pay, and no overtime for the entire job. And the boys — those who were still alive — wouldn't be too thrilled about that.

  "And you know what to do," his handler said.

  "Yes, sir." Complete the mission ASAP. "I would like to request replacements for my three members, positions two, four and five."

  "They're being mobilized immediately, and will be at your position within the hour. Get that program, above all else."

  "Yes, sir."

  The connection was broken just as the scanner beeped, signaling that it had finished its search of the area. Anthony leaned forward, mouth curving up in a mirthless smile, and rubbed his broad, rough hands together in anticipation of sweet payback. "All right, sweetheart, where the fuck are you?"

  7

  It's times like this, David mused, when I feel like even more of a fifth wheel than usual.

  Around him, everyone was absorbed in their own tasks. Cody had gone into the second bedroom to make his report. Tara had taken apart the false brick and camera and was poking around its innards, seeing what data she could extract from it. The other two team members, Kanelo, their gregarious South African medic, and Robert, the pugnacious Welshman, were talking to each other in low voices. Leaving David as the odd man out.

  He settled for fieldstripping and cleaning his weapons, making sure every part was clean, clear and ready for action. While he did that — his time spent in Marine recon ensured that any time he held a weapon for more than an hour, it got cleaned and reassembled so that he was sure it was working properly — he went over the mission, examining everyone's role and seeing how he could have executed better. After all, he was sure Cody was going to ask him that very same question later on, and he wanted to be ready with an answer.

  It was hard enough coming into a team as a rookie, but so far David had been shown up by the first woman on a Midnight Team not once, but twice. Tara's composure when she had taken the burst on her chest armor, as well as her foresight in recovering the hidden camera at the entrance, had earned her high marks from their team leader and the others. David's impetuous move to pursue the hostiles, while gaining them useful intelligence, had also earned him the label of team cowboy, which was as much a curse as a nickname.

  David knew cowboys were simultaneously admired and distrusted for their penchant to bend or break the rules of the espionage game. While they could be very effective in the field, they were also dangerous for the rest of the team, since they were often the only ones to survive their antics unscathed. That had inadvertently been the case with his last Marine recon team. The squad had been out on patrol when a shaped IED had detonated near the lead vehicle, flipping it and blocking the road. As the other members had moved up to assist, insurgents had completed the ambush by attacking with RPGs and AK-47s. In the ensuing firelight, each one of the other squad members was either killed or wounded so severely he would never fight again. David came through the entire ambush without a scratch, and was awarded the Silver Star for intrepid gallantry and courage under fire when he not only carried two of the wounded to safety, but also held off the insurgents until reinforcements arrived. After his second tour was over, he had been slated for Iraq, but had come to the attention of the folks at Room 59 first.

  It was a different game, played with a whole new rulebook, one that, he had to admit, he was still learning at times. Although Midnight Teams had huge latitude in carrying out their missions — when they were on an assignment, only a director could alter their mission or recall them — they also had to maintain even more of a low profile than the standard operative. Each operation had to be accomplished with a minimum of fuss, muss and public visibility. And I suppose chasing an SUV through a public park qualifies as exactly what we don't want, he thought.

  "Hey, I think I've got something." Tara's voice broke his musings. David reassembled his HK pistol before getting up and going over to her improvised desk, crowding around it with the other two men.

  The brick had been cut away, and the small digital camera now lay in several pieces on the desk. A tiny memory chip was loaded in Tara's universal reader, which could access almost anything, even proprietary chips that weren't on the open market. Lost in her work, Tara looked up with a start. "Jeez, I didn't expect all of you to come galloping over."

  "Well, since we're here, what do you have?" Kanelo gently prodded.

  "Well, there wasn't a lot — they must have been replacing it daily, but it did activate whenever it detected movement, and kept going for about a minute after the scene cleared. But take a look at this."

  She brought up a snippet of video showing a tall, lean, bearded man walking up the steps arm in arm with a shorter woman with long, dark hair. They talked and laughed, and at the top step both looked around furtively before sharing a lingering kiss.

  "Yeah, so? That's the head bloke we were supposed to bring back alive, as I recall." Robert snorted his disgust. "Until those other bastards came in and bollixed up the whole op. Ruined a perfectly good smash-and-grab, they did. Dunno who the skirt is."

  David leaned in for a closer look. "I think that's what Tara's pointing out — the woman. I don't know about you guys, but I don't remember seeing a dark-haired, female body anywhere on the premises."

  "Hey, a couple of those tree-hugging hippies had long hair, so they all look alike to me," Robert said. The remark earned the wiry Welshman a cuff on the shoulder from Kanelo.

  "Stop spouting kek, you dumb bastard, and pay attention." Instead of biting the tall black man's head off — like he most assuredly would have done if David had said something like that — Robert just shrugged and turned his attention back to the screen.

  "Tara, please rewind it to where she's almost facing the camera." David leaned in for a closer look. "No, she's completely unfamiliar. I think you've just found our missing piece. Why don't you isolate that and send it to Primary for further analysis?"

  "Right."

  Cody came out of the back room just as his cell chirped. "M-One…Key word is 'isolate'…Go ahead…You're outside?…Great, we'll pop the garage door so you can pick up the package, just give us a minute." Catching Robert's gaze, he nodded at the door leading out to the garage. The smaller man slipped out. "When you see it open, come on in." He snapped the phone closed. "What's happening out here?"

  "We isolated a photo of the missing terrorist group member." Tara waved him over. "Here she is."

  Cody glanced at the monitor. "Okay, how are we gonna find her?"

  David replied without taking his gaze off the woman's face. "With London's city surveillance program, now that we have a face, its possible they can pick up her trail from the house. Primary's biometrics program should be able to read her and track her down, even if she's tried to disguise he
rself."

  "Except I got one question." Kanelo stood apart from the rest, fingers stroking his chin. "Just how did she get out of the building? All of us were there watching with thermal vision as we fought the other strike team. At no point did anyone sound off about another living heat source — they were either dead or shooters. She couldn't have hidden inside, so she must have left via another route."

  "Over, under, around or through," David muttered as he stared at the screen.

  Robert, who had come back from the garage, frowned. "The tech boyos have the package. What's he mumbling about over there?"

  David didn't rise to the bait; he was still engrossed in the picture on the screen. "It's something we learned during recon training. There's four ways into or out of any situation. Over, under, around or through. Through wasn't an option, since we locked the ground floor down. Over wasn't possible, since everyone was on the roof at one point or another. She didn't go around us, either, unless she was able to turn invisible, which leaves…"

  "Under." Tara's fingers blurred over the keys on her laptop. "I'll send this out to Primary and suggest that they find a map of the current sewer system in a three-block radius from the house. If the techs can get the data downloads of the cameras in the surrounding area, maybe we'll get lucky and spot her."

  Robert's gaze flicked to Cody. "Hey, boss, you think it could be worth going back to the house and checking the basement level, see what we can find out there?"

  The team leader thought about it for a few seconds, then shook his head. "Our profile is already too high as it is, and it's possible that nothing will be gained by snooping around a place we already shot up once. We'll let the eggheads at HQ run with this ball for a while, see what their super Cray mainframes can come up with. Good work, everybody. David, I'd like a word with you in the next room." He turned and walked back down the hall.

  With a heavy heart, David followed him into the back bedroom. It was sparsely furnished, with a small table and chair, and a cot in the corner. Cody didn't say anything at first, just motioned the other man toward the chair.

  David didn't move. "If it's all right with you, I'll stand, sir."

  "Fine by me." Cody walked over to the chair and plopped himself down, rubbing a hand over his face. "Tell me what happened at the house today."

  That was the question David had been dreading ever since they had returned. Nothing to do now but face the consequences. He stiffened against the wall, straightened his arms down at his sides, and stared at a point above his commander's head. "Sir, I disobeyed a direct order and compromised the security of the mission and my teammates."

  "And in doing so, you learned valuable information that we wouldn't have known otherwise. However, I have to balance whether the risk taken was worth the reward. It is possible that we may have found out that the woman existed through other means, either on our own or through Room 59's other people. What is certain is that you forced us to expose ourselves and our vehicle to the enemy when we had to pick you up in the street. By rights I should have left you there to make your way back to the safehouse — and avoid the authorities — on your own. But that kind of lesson would carry too high a price if you had failed."

  "I wouldn't have failed, sir."

  "No, I don't believe you would have." Cody rose from the chair to pace the length of the small room. "Why was there a delay at the start of the operation?"

  "Sir, I did not have all of the available evidence regarding the status of the house, and therefore made the decision to hold until I had gained a clearer picture of what was happening."

  "By the time we had that picture, the hostiles were already inside and taking out our targets."

  "Yes, sir. However, I did not want our team to rush in without assessing the situation and having a solid plan of action. I gave the order to engage the hostile team when I felt confident we could do so with the maximum chance of success."

  "Our success rested on taking the people in that house alive, not dead. You and your other team members have to execute the primary mission and handle any other friction that comes up, regardless of what it is or how incomplete your data is."

  Cody stopped at the window and clasped his hands behind his back. "I read your file, including your psych profile, before I agreed to take you on." He continued despite David's surprised look. "Unlike the armed forces, directors allow Midnight Team leaders more flexibility in assembling our units. I don't believe you're a cowboy — your actions in Afghanistan and your plan to stop those shooters in the park tell me that. And yet you jeopardized not only yourself, but your entire team by pursuing unknown hostiles against orders. So how do I reconcile that — do I have a very good operative in my squad who is prone to only occasional lapses in judgment?"

  "Sir, you have an operative who will do whatever is required to get the job done…" David could have left it at that. It would probably have satisfied his leader. But he didn't want to leave anything in the air between them, even if that meant he would be reassigned. "Even if that means reinterpreting the directives of the mission at times."

  "Or my orders?" Cody asked.

  "Sir, at the time I responded in what I felt was the appropriate manner for the situation. I chose to follow the hostile team myself because — because I would not order another team member to do something that I wouldn't do myself."

  Cody turned on his heel and came right up to David's face. "Is that the real reason you went off hotdogging by yourself? Or do you think you're just that much better than the rest of us? That you don't need a team to accomplish a mission?"

  "Sir, I do not believe that. I rely on my other team members as much as I know they rely on me to get the job done."

  "Do you, now? I wish I could believe that. But I don't know if I can. I'm sure your other teammates are thinking the same thing. For these units to be successful, each member has to know — without a shadow of doubt — that when they're going into a room, the person on their left will terminate every hostile on their left, and the person on their right will terminate every hostile on their right, without fail or deviation from their proper course of action. When doubt creeps in about a member, everything changes. They look at you differently, they act and react differently, and those different reactions — the ones that aren't in their training — are what gets hostages, them or you killed. In our line of work, there can be no hesitation, no doubt about any of us, especially about each other. If there is, then that member has to leave the team. I can't make it any clearer than that."

  David had not moved an inch during his leader's words. "Sir, I understand."

  Cody pulled back a bit. "If we weren't still on duty, I would have ordered you to stand down already. As it is, replacing you now with another team member increases the chances for more friction during the operation, so you're staying for now. When you have the chance, I'd advise you to give some serious thought to what you're doing here and whether this is right for you. That's all."

  "Thank you, sir." David resisted the urge to salute, but instead walked to the door and opened it.

  "David?"

  He paused, half expecting Cody to change his mind and deactivate him. He turned back. "Sir?"

  "For what it's worth, I think this is the right place for you. I just don't know if you believe that. Think about it — and that is an order."

  David nodded. "Thank you, sir." He walked out into the living room slowly, aware of, but not meeting, the stares of the other team members.

  "Hey, you all right?" Tara asked, ignoring the dark looks of the other two men.

  "Hmm? Yeah, fine, thanks. I just — I'm gonna head out to the garage."

  It was a lame answer, but the only reasonable one he could give. David walked down the short hallway, now fully aware of their stares boring into his back, and hating every second of it. Stepping into the single-car garage, he closed the door and leaned against it.

  What am I doing here? At that moment, he felt trapped — by his situation, by the team, by the
room itself. Normally David would have handled things by going for a long run, the mindless, repetitive exercise clearing his brain of everything else and allowing him to attack the problem with a clear head. But they had to stay put, ready to move out on a moment's notice. And that was the real problem.

  David knew that Cody had done what he needed to do — address the breach in the team's operating procedure as soon as possible. However, their meeting had also intensified David's already growing feeling of doubt in himself, and he knew that could be even more crippling to a spec-ops member. Once he started doubting himself, the fear of screwing up, of putting another team member's life in jeopardy through his actions, could balloon until he became paralyzed into inaction, not wanting to do anything because it might hurt someone.

  That's the risk that we live with every single time we go out, he admonished himself. Taking a deep breath to try to clear his head, David immediately realized his mistake. Although they had wrapped the body of the dead hostile, the enclosed space still smelled of him, still stank of blood and shit, even over the bleach cleanser the techs had used to destroy any evidence of his being there in the first place. The combination of odors was nauseating. He walked over to where the corpse had been placed and squatted down, seeing the lifeless form in his mind's eye as if it were still lying there, wrapped in the sheet they had stripped off the bed.

  What if that wasn't a hostile lying there? What if it was one of my own? And what if he died because of my mistake? Those were the questions that David couldn't answer to his satisfaction as he stared at the empty concrete, seeing a sudden, terrible vision of his team members lying in front of him, their sightless eyes accusing him of the worst crime of all — failing them.