We met back at the motel, and went inside Vinny and Tran’s room. Lawrence had been complaining because of the crowding in the Land Rover, so he was first out of the vehicle. He was a big guy.
On the other hand, Zeke was getting smaller. He didn’t seem as hungry as I had been, but he was still eating more than normal and he kept grabbing the roll of his gut and shaking it, with a big pleased look on his face.
“My pants are getting looser. Hot dog, this stuff is a weight-loss miracle too. It must boost the metabolism like crazy. I feel awesome!”
I looked at him soberly. “Every high has its low, and every benefit has a cost. We just don’t know what this is yet.”
“You won’t just let me enjoy it, will you?” He laughed again.
“All right, enjoy it while you can. I’m a pessimist by nature, I guess.” I’d lived with that serpent too long.
Vinny dragged the round motel table into the spot between the two beds, so we could sit on chairs and bedsides and all see. He had a row of portable computer stuff on a folding table on the other side of the room, and he’d printed out hardcopy photos.
“Pictures of everyone’s apartments. Nothing much to see. They are either not home or staying indoors. If they take the two scientists back off the island this evening, then we can expect just Elise and one or two minders when we go in for the snatch.”
“What if some don’t leave the island? Or what if different ones come off? What if they rotate some overnight?” asked Skull.
“Does it matter?” Zeke asked. “Once we see, we’ll know something. We’ll go in with all five of us. Sorry Vinny. Wrong skill set.”
He shrugged. “No problem, man. Until I get some superhero powers too, I’d rather stay away from bullets, thank you very much.”
Spooky glared.
Vinny shrugged again.
Zeke went on, “Okay, general plan. Skull will drive the boat and provide overwatch, secure our line of retreat. We’ll pull in here, into this channel, and disembark behind these scrubby trees. Spooky will take point. Then me and Dan, with Larry and Alan watching our backs. We’ll move in quiet. Here’s the objective rally point, where you post, Skull.” He pointed at a spot just inside the tree line, about fifty yards from the buildings. “Spooky, you’ll do the forward look and report back to us there. If we can’t pinpoint everyone, or anyone, we’ll enter, search and clear the buildings.”
“We will try to stay quiet as long as we can. Once it’s time to enter the main building, DJ and I will breach and go in heavy. Presumably we can take more hits than you guys now, with the XH in us. Our objective is this woman, Elise Wallis.” He held up the picture. “Use your best discretion when engaging armed resistance.” He looked across the table at me. “DJ, I know you want to keep this clean but I’m not going to tell people to add risk to the op just because you want to avoid hurting anyone.”
“Avoid killing anyone, you mean. Hurt them all you want, it will give me something to do,” I said sardonically. My new, XH-enhanced conscience was not really on board with that but I had to maintain a certain image with these guys.
Zeke chuckled. “Either way, I hope we get in quiet, they surrender in their beds, we zip-cuff them, then get outta Dodge with our answer girl. That’s the overview. Larry, what we got?”
“I got flash-bangs for everyone, some boom-boom for me, and all sorta body armor, and a lot of other miscellaneous gear. Since we only moving a quarter mile or so, I suggest you carry all you want.”
Spooky snorted.
“Ev’body ‘cept you, I guess,” Larry said.
“Cannot be quiet in body armor,” replied Tran. “I will take the chance. You got NVGs?”
“Yeah, I got goggles for you and anyone that wants ‘em.”
I shook my head. Night vision gear was fine for certain circumstances but as soon as any shooting started or someone turned on a light, they were useless. They would be useful for Spooky for the first look-around, and for Skull on overwatch, maybe.
“Okay,” said Zeke, “Any immediate concerns?”
Spooky nodded. “Better to clear both small buildings first. Probably living quarters, separated from main building. Main building has no windows and this,” he tapped a photo, “look like NBC filter.” He meant nuclear-biological-chemical, a containment system. “See, negative pressure system to make sure nothing leak out. Maybe jail cell in there, but nobody normally want to sleep in dangerous laboratory.”
This was an unusually long monologue for Spooky, so I knew he was concerned.
Zeke asked, “Anything else? All right, everyone start making your personal prep. We’ll meet back here at six, go over it in detail. I’ll order pizza.” He slapped his shrinking gut again, smiled.
-12-
We spent the evening going over the op plan. Then going over it again. Then again, ad nauseum. That’s the way to succeed at special ops, meticulous planning, perfect execution.
We went aboard our boat at about 2300 hours, eleven PM. We figured it would be suspicious to go out much later than that. Skull took the conn again, threading our way among the moored and anchored boats toward the Chesapeake.
Vinny had kept watch while we went over the details, and had reported that the same four people had returned to the marina around sundown, on the boat. That meant one or two more of the shooters, and at most two civilians there, plus Elise, if our chain of reasoning was correct. He stayed in the motel room, monitoring his cyberware and our tactical voice network. We were using the latest frequency-hopping radios with self-generated encryption keys. Vinny said nothing short of the National Security Agency or a full-blown signals intelligence unit would be able to even find us, much less break the encryption in time.
We took a wide course that slowly circled Watts Island to come in from the northwest. It gave us time to do our final preparation.
Larry kept fidgeting with his mask, trying to get it fit to his satisfaction. He did the same with his body armor. He was wearing a full rig, head to ankle including the skirts, which was usual only for a full breach urban scenario. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him outfitted in a bomb suit. He must have been carrying a hundred pounds of gear. Good thing we only had to move a quarter mile. I prayed he wouldn’t fall off the boat. He carried an AA-12 automatic shotgun. It took someone Larry’s size to really use one of those effectively. It could spray an awesome amount of firepower at short range. The recoil would also pound your shoulder to a pulp if you didn’t know what you were doing.
Spooky was all in black, and as we slowly wended our way toward the island he wiped camo onto his face in a tiger-stripe pattern, black and green. He repeatedly adjusted his web gear, everything carried and fastened to him, until he was satisfied. He walked up and down the tiny deck, then jumped up and down and then grunted, satisfied. No rattles, no clinks. He carried a suppressed P90, which was very good for a little guy like him – handy, lots of short-range firepower in a small package.
Skull was using a venerable HK91 7.62 NATO, night-scoped. I had talked him out of the Barrett, because we didn’t need that kind of range, and a .50-caliber rifle bullet tended to kill with one shot to any body part – it could tear a limb right off a target. We were trying to limit casualties. The HK was also a lot handier in a general firefight, if he had to move from his position.
Zeke and I both had our old standbys, M4 carbines. These were standard issue for the US military, and were descended from the M-16 family that was first widely used in Vietnam. Mine fit my hand like it was made for me. Old friends. The serpent stuck his nose out of his hole for the first time in a while, flicked his tongue out. But I had a surprise for the old snake, and anyone else who got in my way. I had a workaround for my conscience’s killing problem. Maybe.
I had my aid bag in my ruck, along with extra ammo and all the usual stuff any grunt carried – tape, zip cuffs, parachute cord, protein and granola bars, water, the list went on and on. Never knew what you might need. I also had my trusty XD on the thigh
rig and my XD compact was in a holster on my left inner ankle. My right calf was taken up with a wicked-sharp KA-BAR combat knife that had gone with Gramps to Iwo Jima and back.
Waiting was difficult. Most of us dozed, with the thoroughly ingrained ability of every combat trooper to sleep anywhere, any time. But even the longest wait ends.
Coming up on 0300 hours we made our last commo check with Vinny and each other on the small tactical radios buckled high on our chests. Each of us had an earpiece in his shooting ear and a slim mike extending from it, snugged on the same-side cheek. The earpieces not only connected to our tactical radios but contained high-tech noise suppression circuitry that kept us from being deafened by our own weapons. A tiny counterpart was in each man’s opposite ear, so we could hear as well or better than normal, while still having sonic protection from the violence we were about to cause.
We motored slowly and quietly up to Watts Island, approaching from the north, out of sight of the buildings. I lowered the anchor when Skull told me to, then watched as he filled a six-man rubber boat from a compressed air tank. We loaded from the dive deck off the back. Once we were in, we paddled the short distance to the rocky shore.
We startled some sleeping seabirds on landing. I saw a Great Blue heron fly off, skimming up the shoreline like a living hang-glider. Other than that, we got in nice and easy. We carried the boat into the scrubby treeline, then locked and loaded weapons.
Despite the many missions under my belt, my heart still thudded in my chest. It had been several years since I had been on a real, deliberate combat operation, not counting the bizarre actions that started this whole thing off. I wasn’t afraid for myself; something in me was still sick at the thought of having to kill someone.
I’d never been this way before, and I was starting to wonder about it. The XH had improved me a lot; it had stilled the serpent and healed my body, but it had also made me different in some way. I had been trying to ignore it, to wish it away, but it was really making itself felt right now. I was starting to worry I couldn’t do the job. Only my choice of ammo was letting me function right now.
I tried to imagine myself treating combat trauma, visualizing the blood, the pressure bandages, the IVs, the pain and the screaming. Nothing. But visualize shooting someone, and suddenly I felt sick. It was not too bad if I thought about shooting an arm or a leg. I tried recalling my execution of Jenkins and I was overcome with a wave of nausea and sickness. I pushed it out of my mind as we moved through the low dense woods. I couldn’t indulge in thought experiments right now, or I would screw something up. At least I knew I could treat combat injury trauma.
We came to the edge of the open space right where we expected, outside the northeast corner of the small complex. We were looking at the corner where the small northern building and the big central building almost touched. This was our ORP, our objective rally point. The helipad was to our right, next to the back of the big building. We could see the white Jeep through the gap between the buildings. Our angle blocked our view of the southernmost small building.
Zeke made a hand signal and Spooky moved off to our left, vanishing into the woods. A few minutes later I saw him crouching by one of the windows at the back of the small building. I had been looking but I had not even seen him cross the open space from the trees to the building.
“Damn, he’s good,” I breathed.
A derisive snort from Skull was the only answer.
There was a three to five knot breeze, by the wind sock swinging at the helipad on its short wooden pole. We watched the black shape against the white building move along it, looking in the windows. It slid around the corner a moment later, and we waited some more.
While we waited, Skull prepped two quick sniper positions there at the ORP, primary and alternate. He scooped out two hollows in the earth, pushing the dirt in front of him to make tiny berms. He unrolled a mat into one of the hollows, his primary position, then pulled a stretchy camouflage see-through mesh tube over his head and face. He placed the bipod of the HK behind the berm, flipped up the night scope cover, then became still. He was now pretty well hidden from the front.
We heard a faint click, then Spooky’s voice. “North small building clear. Quarters, kitchen, office, rec room. I leave east door unsecured, advise occupy. Proceeding to south small building.”
“Acknowledged.” Zeke led us fifty yards eastward, staying inside the treeline. Then we hustled across the open space, shielded from sight by the empty small building. As we crossed the space we could hear the low grumble of a generator, well-muffled, and a whining hiss that was less identifiable.
We slipped around the corner of the building to enter the door Spooky had left unlocked. Inside, we found everything as he had said – two bedrooms with two single beds each, a shared latrine and shower, a kitchen, a recreation room with a pool table, and a small windowless office with a low-end desktop computer, a printer-fax combo, and not much else. We did a quick search, finding nothing of significance. The fridge held enough fresh food to indicate that they brought groceries at least weekly.
Zeke unlocked the door at the other end of the building, which if opened would face a door in the north end of the large building across an angled gap. He put an eye to the crack in the blinds of the door window, watching for anything amiss.
I took the other side of the door and did the same, with Larry watching our backs.
About that time we heard Spooky report, “South building all clear. Quarters and kitchen, rest of building is storage of many things. Rally at north door of large building ETA one minute.”
Zeke replied, “Roger, we are inside north small building at south door, standing by.”
A moment later we saw Spooky slip around the big building’s nearest corner and ghost up to the door in the near end. He did something at the lock and then gently turned the handle. It looked like he had got it open. He reached into a cargo pocket and got out some kind of telescoping rod, like an old-fashioned radio aerial. He extended it. It had a little box on one end with a faint yellow LED, which he ran around the edge of the whole door frame. The light stayed yellow. I think it was some kind of alarm detector. He collapsed it back to pen-size and slid it back into his pocket. Then very, very slowly he eased the door off its jamb the tiniest of bits, not even a crack. He stayed that way for a full minute before letting it go gently back. He then pushed his NVGs off his eyes up onto the top of his head, lay prone on the ground, to open the door enough to press a naked eye to the crack at the very bottom corner.
I observed, fascinated. I wasn’t a snoop and poop guy, so watching a real pro at work was interesting.
“Hallway whole length of building. Low light,” he reported. “Eight doors, some with windows and lights inside. No activity. Negative air pressure confirmed.” He must be able to feel the air rushing into the crack in the door, as the air system kept the pressure inside slightly lower than outside. This would ensure any stray organisms floating in the air were unlikely to make it outside, except through the filtration system. In fact, that was probably the strange hissing we had heard crossing the field. It was kind of the opposite of NBC overpressure systems, which were usually meant to keep bad things out.
Zeke responded, “All right, we go in. Larry, hold the door, me and DJ go first and start search and clear. Spooky, go around and watch the far door from the outside. Unlock it and be ready to come in. Skull, you got clear lines?”
“Ay-firmative,” Alan answered under his breath.
“Larry, you hold the door from the inside, watch our backs and keep the line of retreat open. Remember everyone; the civilians are non-hostile unless proven otherwise. Don’t get twitchy.” Zeke pulled the end of a sheaf of zip cuffs out of his cargo pocket, easy to grab. He then took off his gloves. So did I. We were trained to shoot with gloves on, but anything delicate, such as threading a zip cuff or sticking in an IV, required tactile feedback.
“Spooky in position.”
“Skull in position.”
“Vinny in position,” came a faint sardonic voice.
I strangled a laugh. I’d hate to be him, just listening back at the motel, but someone had to do it. I took a deep breath, and I tried to reassure myself, my twitchy conscience, I wasn’t out for blood. A part of me felt like a pansy for worrying about such things; a part of me was proud.
“Execute.” Zeke pushed the door smoothly open, and Larry crossed the thirty feet or so to the unlocked door where Spooky had been so recently. We followed right behind, and he opened the door quickly, drawing it out of our way so all we had to do was go straight in.
We entered in two-man tactical stack. That meant Zeke was in front, me slightly crouched right behind him with my left upper arm firmly pressed into his back, so he knew where I was. I held my M4 to the right and down, covering the right side. My eyes swept the hallway automatically, center-up-right-down and back to center in a fraction of a second, the barrel of my weapon following in a tight circle. Zeke did the same on his left, and I heard the click of the door behind us as Larry closed and locked it from the inside, then took a knee.
We needed to get out of the hallway as fast as possible, to let Larry dominate it with his street-sweeper, and to give him a covered position. We took the first door on the left as planned.
I stayed stacked behind Zeke as he reached out with his left hand to try the door. It opened into a tiny closet with cleaning supplies. I turned and waved Larry forward. This would be his best position, allowing a right-handed shooter like him to keep good cover and still lash the hallway with heavy fire.
The plan was to stay to the left side of the hallway. We might find doors between rooms, and we wanted to avoid causing confusion if Larry had to start firing. Crossing and recrossing the hallway unnecessarily to opposite doors was bad technique. So we moved along the left side of the hallway to the next door on the left, passing a solid steel door on the right. Larry would have to cover that.
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