by Brad Taylor
Situated above an electronics store that took up the whole bottom floor, there was only one way to access the top three floors: a stairwell in the back. The store operated as a legitimate business, but all of the people working there were Hezbollah, and half were armed.
The computer in question was in an office on the third floor, surrounded by other offices. The server farm occupied the second floor, and the case officer was unsure what was on the fourth floor.
The building had a small alley on the left and right that ran about seventy meters deep before dead-ending into a wall. The case officer had assured them that there was no secondary entrance. The building to the left was an apartment complex, the one to the right some sort of mix of residences and offices.
Initially, it had looked like there was simply no way to infiltrate the place. Anyone entering the electronics store would be under immediate scrutiny and completely unable to enter the offices in the back that accessed the stairs. Trying to skip the first floor and enter through the second, using a ladder in the alley, was out as well, since the server-farm windows were all heavily barred. They kicked around the idea of bringing a ladder in that would reach the third floor, then realized they were talking insanity.
They toyed with a concept of coming through the roof, but since the asset could give no information on the fourth floor, they tossed it aside. That option would simply be blind.
In the end, it was Pike who’d made the connection. Jennifer remembered his question, and the chill it gave her. What about going from building to building? Work your way around the ledge on the third floor?
The men had all started analyzing the photos of the exterior, seeing the six-inch shelf that went from the buildings to the left and right, around through the alley wall, and across the target. She had known where this was going. With her acrobatic skills, they would expect her to make the climb. She silently waited for someone to say this idea was also insanity. Instead, Samir read a sign in Arabic on the apartment building and stated they were advertising openings.
Pike had looked at her then, a question on his face he didn’t need to verbalize. She said, “I can’t get in an apartment there! Come on, I’m a Caucasian female.”
Samir said, “Nobody would know if you wore an abaya with a niqab veil covering your face. Just keep your eyes downcast to hide their color. You’ll look like every other pious Muslim woman.”
“Who’ll get me in? What if someone asks me a question?”
Pike said, “One step at a time. Let’s contact the case officer and see if his asset can rent an apartment on the third floor facing the building.”
She felt sick to her stomach at the thought of the mission, but the pieces had rolled relentlessly into place. The asset had managed to rent a suitable space, had given the key to the case officer, who had passed it to the team at a hastily established dead-drop. From there, she’d dressed from head to toe in a black abaya, hidden her face with a niqab, and walked into the building behind Samir, moving straight up to the apartment.
They’d passed another male on the stairs, and staring at the steps as she walked, she was certain the man could hear her heart thumping like a bass drum.
Samir had left her there, waiting on nightfall, and had loaded Pike and the others into a panel van, parking it on the street outside the target. They were her only means of rescue should things go wrong.
She looked out the window at the target building, dimly lit by streetlights, running through her mind the thousands of things that could go wrong and how she would counter them. She felt her cell phone vibrate and saw a text from Pike.
How’s it going?
She’d sent a status report every ten minutes, per their plan, but knew Pike was worried about her. As he should be. Asshole.
She replied, Fine.
PIKE: Hot as hell in van. No AC. Should have planned for that.
JENNIFER: Serves right. Ur not doing any work.
PIKE: Let’s f’ing hope not. If I am, things have gotten bad.
She really didn’t need that reminder, and simply sent back K.
Soon, much, much too soon, it was time to go. She texted that she was going off cell and onto radio comms, then prepped for the mission.
Dressed in a black Under Armour second-skin top and bottom, she cinched her hair into a tight ponytail, affixing the covert earplug into her ear canal and the small transmitter/receiver to a nylon belt around her waist. After getting a communications check with Pike, she did one final scrub of the cloning device and mini-computer she would use to crack the system in the target, getting a green light. She placed it, two flashbang grenades, a lockpick kit, and a thermal imaging device into a backpack. Once she was satisfied at how the equipment was weighted in the backpack, she strapped on a shoulder holster with a suppressed Glock 30, her only means of defense. The last thing she did was place a circular glass cutter inside the neckline of her Under Armour shirt, trapped against her chest by the material.
She shrugged into the backpack, took a deep breath, and said, “Exiting the building.”
She heard a “Roger” as she was maneuvering the backpack through the small window opening. Standing on the thin shelf, she ran her hands up the rough wall, reaching for the shelf on the fourth floor. Once she made contact, she called, “Moving,” and began a slide-shuffle down the ledge toward the wall of the alley.
The trip went smoothly until she made the final corner from the alley wall to the target building. Sliding her hand forward, she hit empty air as the ledge above her disappeared.
She slipped backward and teetered for an eternity, held on to the wall by just two fingers of her left hand that still had contact with the upper ledge.
She regained her balance and closed her eyes, getting her breathing under control. She looked up, trying to determine where the ledge began again. She knew it did from studying the target window during the day. The gap had to be small. Something that had just crumbled through time.
She strained to see through the gloom, wishing she’d worn night-vision goggles. She had decided against them because of their lack of depth perception, but she could have used them now.
A passing car spilled enough light for her to see the ledge, a mere foot away. But it might as well have been a mile.
She took several deep breaths, working up her courage. When she was ready, she turned her feet left and right until they were flush with the wall, then dropped her left hand from the ledge. Spread-eagled, sliding directly against the rough brick, she inched across the gap. When she felt she had gone far enough, she slid her hands above her head and felt relief flood through her when they made contact.
Minutes later, she reached the target window. Leaving one hand on the ledge, she pulled out the glass cutter and sliced a circle directly above the window latch. Popping it free, she reached inside to twist the latch. She hesitated. The asset had said the building wasn’t alarmed beyond the first floor, but she knew she was now betting her life on that information.
So what are you going to do? Go back?
She twisted the latch and popped the window an inch, holding her breath. Nothing outward happened. She rapidly raised the window, wanting to be on the inside if a silent alarm had been triggered. In one fluid move, she squatted, rotated around, and fell backward into the room.
She rose in a crouch, drawing her Glock. When nothing happened, she reported, “Inside.”
Pike came back on, “Jesus Christ, Koko. Took you long enough. We’re out here having a heart attack. How about some SITREPs?”
She grinned at the stupid call sign she’d earned on their last mission, but said nothing, settling for a double-click of the transmission button.
She moved to the door of the office and drew the thermal imaging device, placing it directly on the wood. She turned it on, hearing the soft whine as it warmed up. Within seconds, she could pick up any heat source in the hallway on the other side. And she saw at least two. Moving.
Not good. According to the asset,
there were no guards in the building after nightfall. Just one lone sentry in the electronics store downstairs.
Maybe that’s him. Maybe he’ll move back downstairs in a little bit.
She pulled back to the far corner of the room and gave Pike an update.
He replied, “You said two? There shouldn’t be two. If that’s the sentry, it should just be one.”
She said, “Yeah, I know. Let me give it a few minutes and see what happens.”
Pike came back again, repeating himself, “Koko, you copy? There shouldn’t be two.”
She replied again, only to hear, “Koko, Koko, this is Pike, you copy?”
She keyed the mike again, but didn’t get through. She realized her radio was dead.
She heard a squeak and saw the door opening inward.
33
I tried one more time to contact Jennifer, then hammered the floor of the van.
Knuckles said, “Easy. She didn’t say she was in trouble. She sounded calm. It’s just a radio issue.”
“Maybe. Decoy, get up in the front. Get eyes out and see if there’s any sort of reaction coming.”
My imagination was taking on a life of its own, spurred by the thoughts of what I had been through in the Palestinian refugee camp.
Decoy said, “No reaction yet. Dead as a cemetery out there.”
I picked up my suppressed H amp;K UMP and turned on the holosight, checking the reticle.
Knuckles said, “Hold on. Stick with the plan. Don’t jump the gun here.”
Brett read my expression and started working his UMP.
I tried to reach her again and failed. My mind flashed to the pruning shears, the absolute terror of captivity, superimposing Jennifer in the hands of those monsters. No fucking way.
I dialed her cell phone and got voice mail. That was the last straw. I said, “Kit up. We’re going in.”
Decoy scrambled into the back, strapping the EMP gun to his side while Knuckles said, “Pike, you sure about this?”
I powered up my night-vision goggles and said, “You don’t know what they’ll do to her. I’ve been there.”
He stared at me for a second more, then started kitting up. When everyone was ready, I said, “No change to the plan. Brett leads the way. Any questions?” Nobody said a word, and I slid open the van door. We hit the ground running, reaching the front door in seconds.
Decoy, Knuckles, and I pulled security outward while Brett went to work on the lock of the wrought-iron gate covering the glass door. Within seconds he had it open, swinging it out of the way. He turned back to me, his NODs looking like cat’s eyes caught in a flashlight. I tapped Decoy, and they switched places, Decoy handing his UMP, radio, and NODs to me. He swung the EMP gun around while the remainder of us moved out in a semicircle about ten feet away.
Knuckles had said the EMP worked fine, but it had a tendency to backsplash, and the last thing I wanted was to short-circuit all of our electronics while we destroyed the alarm leads.
There was a short hum, then nothing. Decoy whirled back around, pumping his fist up and down. I tossed him his kit as we collapsed back onto the glass door.
Brett went to work on the lock just as I noticed movement inside. A flashlight hit us full on, lighting up the alcove and blinding our NODS. Decoy fired over Brett’s shoulder through the door, and the light dropped.
Brett quit working the lock and simply kicked the bullet holes, shattering the pane of glass and rushing through the gap. We all followed suit, fanning out to cover the room.
Jennifer rolled to the right, in the direction the door opened, using it to block the view of the person entering. She heard a man speaking Arabic, answered by another. She leveled her Glock at the opening, wanting to wait until the man fully entered before pulling the trigger. She hoped that the darkness and the fact that her pistol was suppressed would allow her an element of surprise, letting her get the jump on the second man before he realized what had occurred to the first.
Nothing happened. All she heard was a slight slapping of the wall. Then the lights blazed on in the room.
Oh shit.
She coiled her legs underneath her, preparing to close the gap and shorten her trigger time between targets. She rose into a crouch, focusing on her front sight post, when the sharp sound of breaking glass cratered the silence.
The two men began yammering, then she heard the sound of running feet. She waited a minute, then inched toward the entry and peeked out. The hallway was empty.
She raced to the door the asset had described, ripped out her lockpick set, and went to work. Not nearly as experienced as the rest of the team, it took her several minutes to break the lock free, the time beating her down as she reflexively looked over her shoulder for the two men to return.
She felt the tumblers click and slipped inside the office, snicking the door closed behind her. She surveyed the room in the soft glow of her flashlight and saw three desktop computers.
Which one? She didn’t have time to do all three, and the damn asset hadn’t mentioned more than one system.
She went to the back of the computers, finding their Ethernet ports. Two had CAT 5 cables running out. The one on the left had nothing. Gotta be it. Unless the damn asset was wrong about the air gap too.
She powered down the system, plugged the automated cloning device into a USB port, and fired the computer back up. When the screen reappeared, she followed the prompts to clone the hard drive. After hitting YES to the question about proceeding, she got an hourglass with a digital bar showing twenty minutes remaining.
She moved to the opposite side of the door, Glock at the ready, and pulled out her cell phone to call Pike. She saw the missed call from him and relaxed for the first time.
That explains the broken glass. All hell’s breaking loose now.
* * *
With no immediate threats on the bottom floor, we began flip-flopping toward the stairwell in back. No longer concerned with stealth, we simply mule-kicked every door that was locked.
Speed was my primary goal. I knew if they had Jennifer and realized we were coming for her, they’d evacuate and I might never see her again.
I entered the final office and saw the stairway to my front, fully illuminated from the inside. I heard feet pounding down the stairs and slammed up against the wall on the edge of the door, Knuckles on the other side. I heard Decoy and Brett still kicking doors one office over and so did the men coming down. Their chatter ceased, and I heard the distinct sound of rounds being chambered. They began a half-assed stealthy descent.
I raised my NODs to my forehead and caught Knuckles’ eyes. I did the universal finger across the throat, meaning take them without any noise. I had no idea who was above them and wanted to maintain at least some element of surprise. The suppressed UMPs were certainly quiet enough, but I didn’t want to risk an AK going off when the bodies hit the floor. Knuckles nodded and raised his NODs as well.
The two men stopped inside the stairwell, softly chattering. Eventually, they worked up enough courage to exit, but paid absolutely no attention to their rear security. They walked out with AK-47s at their shoulders, staring straight ahead.
When they cleared the frame and were about two steps into the room, I glanced at Knuckles. He nodded, and we pounced, breaking both of their necks in sequence like a macabre synchronized drill team, then softly lowered the bodies.
I called Brett and Decoy, getting them to our location. Knuckles and I positioned at the base and we flip-flopped up the stairs, two men pulling security while two went up a landing.
We reached the second floor and heard a racket down below, several men shouting and yelling in Arabic.
Knuckles said, “Looks like our exit’s fucked.”
With a single focus, I replied, “We’re moving too damn slow. Get up the stairs.”
We hit the third floor landing and exited, guns going left and right looking for a threat. I raced down the hall to the room Jennifer had used to enter and found an open wind
ow. Nothing else. Shit.
Knuckles entered behind me, saw my face, and returned to the hallway, an urgency in his expression for the first time. I followed in time to see Decoy and Brett close on the target door. Right behind them, we slid into the stack.
Across the frame, Decoy nodded and flung open the door. Brett entered first and went right. I went left, the muzzle tracking everything my eyes came across. I focused on a figure and centered the red dot on the eye orbit. And recognized Jennifer aiming a Glock at me. She immediately raised her hands, but didn’t say a word. I was almost catatonic with relief. The rest of the men piled in, saw it was clear, then got guns back out into the hallway.
Knuckles said, “Okay. What’s the play now?”
I didn’t respond, still savoring the fact that Jennifer was alive and out of the torturers’ hands. He repeated the question, and Jennifer said, “My radio went dead. I didn’t have time to call on the cell.”
Knuckles said, “Not your fault. Blame lover-boy here for not trusting you.”
It hit home that I’d made a mistake. Possibly a catastrophic one given the men downstairs. Jennifer rubbed a little salve into my wounds.
“It worked out for the best. If you hadn’t come in, we wouldn’t have gotten the clone. I was about to be in a gunfight when they went to chase you, leaving the door open for me to penetrate.”
Brett said, “Still ten minutes on this download. What do you want to do?”
I put the mistake aside, getting back to the mission.
“Shut it down,” I said. “Take what we have and move up to the fourth floor. Find a roof exit and get out of here while those guys search.”
We were on the roof in short order, making our way past clotheslines and air-conditioning units to the apartment building adjacent to the target. We reached the access to the floor below, and Decoy said, “What now? How are we going to exit here?”
I could feel the tension in the men, all knowing they would last a millisecond on the street as American infiltrators. I looked around the roof, hoping for some answer to jump out at me.