From his hidden vantage point, he had watched as the six teams set up and approached the house. From there he also had a clear sight line to the window the terrorists had broken that opened into the basement crawl space in the back. The one they’d been using as a hidden entryway to move supplies in and out of the crawlspace. If the terrorists had an inkling they were about to be attacked or even that they were being watched, he would see them emerge from that broken window.
Cheese knew that one or two of the SWAT teams would reach the back of the house before attacking. He assumed they had been briefed on his broken window Intel but couldn’t be sure.
And he couldn’t call anyone now.
He watched the one he assumed was the SWAT team leader signal, and saw the six teams start to move in.
*
Linda looked up from the document to see that the others were all looking at the aerial map of the jihadists’ neighborhood. “I’m fine with either version of this. I’ll sign either one. Up to the rest of you.”
Nobody took their eyes off the aerial map or said a word.
She sighed, and set the papers down to watch with everyone else. Grabbed a candy bar. Noticed that Nancy hadn’t touched her bowl. Linda had learned long ago that these ops did just fine without micro-observing every second. Even the ones you had planned and set up.
The members of the Paladins Task Force were merely spectators at this point. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. But she resigned herself to joining the rest of the voyeurs.
She leaned back and watched.
Moose, alone, was standing up close.
“Colonel?” Licht said. “Any of your people in there?”
“Yes,” Tom and Linda said simultaneously.
They could see the six teams converging on the house, two heading into the backyard, one at each side, and two on either side of the front porch.
“All ready?” the SAC said.
Six simultaneous voices called out, “Roger”.
They could see the first team slam down the front door and enter the house. And they could hear the growing tumult in the house.
*
Cheese could hear the commotion at the front of the house and see the two teams in the back at separate angles to the back door. On alert.
He then heard gun shots from inside the house. Then more.
He watched as one of the two teams in the back rushed to reinforce those at the front. Could see the backup teams now driving up at the front of the house. Tires squealing, more agents swarming out and toward the front of the house.
More gunshots.
Then he heard the shouting escalate. He, incongruously, felt the concussion before he saw the explosion, as the windows on the second floor blew out and flames erupted from all the windows. The doors he could see also were blown out, but there didn’t seem to be any flames on the first floor.
He watched as a lone figure crept out of the crawl space through the broken window from under the house. As the terrorist, masked and all in black got out, he pointed an Uzi at the backs of the three SWAT team members watching the back door.
But when it was clear they were preoccupied and weren’t going to see him, he scrambled to the covering brush and trees and hid from sight.
Cheese thought about his options.
Selected one that eliminated any risk of his being caught.
*
Some fourteen hundred miles away, the Paladins Task Force members were now all standing. Watching the scene unfold as if it were below them.
They had seen the agents swarm into the house, then the explosion.
Could hear the SAC ordering all but essential agents back out of the house.
They could hear the ambulance sirens through the SAC’s microphone getting closer.
The gunfire had stopped. They couldn’t tell anything about any casualties. The agents themselves were trying to get a handle on that through the smoke and the growing flames.
*
What they couldn’t see was what Cheese was looking at. An escaping jihadist was now trying to exit from the back yard of the house.
Given Samms’ direct order, Cheese knew that any murder of the jihadist would have to be done in a manner that could not be traced back to Samms or himself.
Samms had given her word that her team would stand down.
If he were seen or the terrorist were killed by a sniper not on the SWAT team, it would be too transparent that Samms had broken her word.
Cheese left his vantage point, keeping the house and the trees between him and the agents in the burning house.
Thank God, he thought, that the JTTF had cleared the area. He could be pretty sure that he would not be seen. Every time the terrorist turned to move away, Cheese sprinted toward the spot he seemed to be heading for.
Bit by bit he gained. The terrorist didn’t seem very good at this.
Then Cheese spotted an opportunity to get ahead of the terrorist and cut him off. There was a house in the jihadist’s path that Cheese could sprint around.
The sound of sirens everywhere disguised any sound he made sprinting to intercept the terrorist.
He arrived at the ambush corner of the house and waited. There was nobody visible anywhere in the neighborhood.
He squatted at the corner, waiting to hear the jihadist approach around the house. Then he heard him approaching along the side of the house, precisely where he had expected him to arrive.
He raised the butt of his rifle and clocked him on the side of his neck as he emerged at the corner from the side.
Cheese stood in shock. What he had thought was a mask was a hijab.
It was a young girl. It could be a terrorist, but it definitely wasn’t a he.
Cheese ripped off her hijab. She was definitely a young woman. In her twenties. Not a young girl.
He hesitated.
What if she weren’t a terrorist? What if she had just been being kept prisoner by the jihadists and had escaped.
With one of their Uzis?
He looked around. Tried to think of a frame of reference for what to do.
Every nerve in his body said, “Kill her. Kill her with her own Uzi.”
He needed to get away from here. Get rid of the rifle, the stolen car, and get out of town. All his experience with disobeying orders told him to get it over with as quickly as possible and get home victorious.
He looked down at her. “What are you? What are you doing here?”
He reached down. Picked up the hijab. Used it to pick up the Uzi. Checked the magazine.
Squatted down next to her and checked her pulse.
He looked around. There was a long rope attached to the porch rail. For a dog.
But there was no dog.
Cheese took a deep breath. He had to move out. Quickly. He could hear more and more sirens converging on the burning house a mere two blocks away.
*
The Paladins Task Force had watched and listened as the fire trucks arrived, as the SAC got his agents out of the burning building, and as he had radioed in his summary.
No casualties, but three wounded agents. None seriously.
One wounded terrorist. Badly. Probably wasn’t going to survive. The ambulance had taken him to the hospital less than five minutes ago. An unknown number of dead occupants on the second floor.
There had been two explosions with no way as yet to determine if they were both suicide bombers or one had set off the other.
The firemen were still putting out the fires in the building, and the SAC had called off all further attacks. He had entered the building and come out several times emphasizing the all clear call.
He had just got off the call briefing Washington, which the Paladins Task Force had been able to listen in on.
A Houston cop rushed over to him. “There’s a report of a wounded terrorist two blocks from here. Somebody called nine one one to report an unconscious, bloody woman with a machine gun just over there behind those houses.”
<
br /> “A woman?” the SAC asked. “How did they know she was a terrorist?”
“It’s just what the dispatcher says. It’s all I know.”
“Alive?”
“Unconscious is what she said.”
He ordered one of the FBI agents to accompany the cop to the reported location of the wounded terrorist.
They arrived at the address the dispatcher had called in. Two of Houston’s finest squealed in right behind them in a squad car.
All four got out of the two cars, guns drawn, and looked for any signs of life. Terrorists, bystanders, wounded women? Anything.
They could see nothing. Not a soul.
The FBI agent said, “All we have is the address? Nothing more?”
The driver of the other car said, “The dispatcher said that’s all the caller gave her.”
“Have we tried to call back the caller’s phone?”
“No answer.”
“Try again.”
The cop who had been in the passenger seat in the other car, a young Hispanic female cop, took out her phone, hit re-dial.
All four looked toward the right side of the house where a phone started ringing loudly, ducked behind their cars, and waited for it to stop.
“If it’s the bystander,” the FBI agent said, “he should come out now.”
Nobody emerged.
The closest cop yelled out, “Come out. Come out now. Hands clearly visible.”
Nothing.
“Well either the bystander has been disabled or he left his phone behind,” the FBI agent said.
“Or,” the young Hispanic policewoman said, “he used the terrorist’s phone to call nine one one. Or it’s an ambush.”
They all looked back at the house. Then each did a slow 360 to see if there was anything suggesting an ambush.
The FBI agent shrugged. “You two go around the house to the left. We’ll head for where we heard the phone ringing.”
He pointed to the two suggested routes. “One at a time, covering each other. I’ll go last. Once we’re all in place,” he said to the cop with the phone, “call again. If nobody emerges after it stops ringing, we’ll go in.”
After the first three had reached each side of the house without incident, he ran, staying low, toward the right side.
After a ten beat, he heard the phone ringing again. Close. Just around the corner.
It stopped ringing. He signaled the cop behind him to follow him.
Staying vertical, with his back to the wall, he crept toward the back yard. His Glock 23 held in both hands, pointing toward the area where he’d heard the phone ringing.
He stopped when he reached the corner. He signaled to the cop to be ready. Squatted and took a quick look, then pulled back.
He signaled to the cop to follow him and stepped away from the wall into the backyard.
There, ten feet away was a person, dressed in black, lying on the ground. Apparently unconscious.
They both looked around, but could see nothing else.
The FBI agent called out to the other two cops, “Coast clear. The area is secured. We found our terrorist. I think.”
The four walked over to the prone figure.
It was definitely a woman. A young woman. Her black hijab crumpled against a discarded Uzi.
The agent squatted down. He looked, without touching, at the blood on her forehead. Then he examined the rope that was securing her hands and feet behind her. Lifted the Uzi. Examined it.
“Somebody sure knew what they were doing here,” he said to nobody in particular. “This was no innocent bystander. The rope knots are professional. Somebody who knew how to tie up a prisoner and hold them for a very long time. And,” he pointed to the Uzi, “just in case, how to empty an Uzi magazine.”
“Call your dispatcher. Tell them we need a prisoner picked up and taken to a secure hospital location. I don’t think she’s badly wounded, but I’d sure like her to survive long enough to tell us her version of how she wound up here.”
“She one of the terrorists?” the driver of the other squad car asked.
They all looked down at her.
“Either that, or a very unfashionably dressed, and very unlucky young woman.”
*
“So,” Moose said when the two aerial maps were disconnected, “maybe we’re not so bad at this counter-terrorism stuff after all.”
“Your sarcasm is noted,” Nancy said. “But it’s hardly warranted.”
“Look, Moose.” It was Linda. “Nobody has said that the U.S. Government is incompetent.”
“Nobody?” Licht asked.
“Well, not nobody. But nobody in a responsible position in the overall effort. Bureaucratic? Sure. Necessarily so. Herding a hundred cats? Sure. Constrained by the Constitutional guarantees of individual freedoms? Sure. Slowed down by judicial process? Sure. But, subject to these constraints, the people in this room and throughout the government are competent.”
“And Samms and the Paladins?” Licht asked.
Linda shrugged. Pointed to Nancy and Tom.
“Sadly,” Tom said, “they’ve risen up to fill some of the holes created by the inefficiencies Linda just noted.”
“Sadly they rose up, or sadly there was a need?” Linda asked.
“The latter, of course. I think we’ve all come to believe that now.”
There was a knock on the door.
Before anyone could respond, Nancy’s number two walked in and handed her a piece of paper.
She read it. Looked up. Handed the note to Linda. “The young woman found two blocks away from the scene? A known American citizen Al Qaeda operative. She was released from police custody more than a year ago, then disappeared from sight in Iraq. None of us had any idea she was back in the States.”
“Is she talking?” Linda asked.
“She’s in shock,” Nancy’s lieutenant said. “Yes, she’s talking. Whoever hit her gave her quite a concussion.”
“She getting medical and legal attention according to protocol?” Moose asked.
The four in the Paladins Task Force shook their heads, as the FBI officer replied, “It seems the lawyers are slow in arriving.”
“Any information from her?” Linda asked.
“She asked where her friends were. We told her they had apparently blown themselves up. Then she asked ‘all three’? And when they asked what had happened to her, she had no memory of it. We told her she was tied up and her Uzi was empty and she said, believably, she had no memory of what hit her or anything after.”
“Any theories on the ground as to who took her down?” Tom asked.
He shook his head. “It wasn’t some housewife wandering around in her backyard looking for her kids or dog, though. We’re sure of that, Colonel.”
Shit, Samms suddenly realized to herself. Cheese. Really, Cheese? So close to the finish line, and then this? Shit.
“Thank you,” Licht said. Then after he had left, “We are now pretty sure of one thing and certain of another. We know Samms’ Intel missed one of the terrorists, and we’re pretty sure that one of her people continued to hang around after she promised us they had stood down.”
“Which turns out to be a good thing,” Nancy said.
“I don’t disagree.” He turned to Moose. “Can you please send in our lawyer on your way out, Moose?”
As Moose departed and their lawyer entered, Linda said, “What an officious ass.”
The lawyer looked flustered.
“No, not you,” Linda said. She turned to the rest of the Paladins Task Force. “We’ve kinda reached the part where you three have to make decisions, guys.”
Getting no response, she went on, “Let me make this easy. I’ve signed the version where all four of us say we’re either Samms or a member of the Paladins. Do any of you refuse to sign that version? Let’s get on with this. If you don’t want to sign it, then the Paladins, whichever of us it is, will go forward alone with this deal.”
“Just so we’re all
clear on this version,” Licht said. “By signing this version, all four us claim, some falsely, that they have been carrying out vigilante murders over the past several years?”
“Correct,” Linda said.
“And the President will pardon us, the guilty along with the innocent?”
“Correct.”
Licht looked over at the lawyer. “If I sign that version of the document twice, first as a confessed member of the Paladins, and then second in my official capacity representing the President, does his pardon in the document cover me?”
“We would have to modify the original document giving you that authority.”
“And would I still have the granted authority even as a confessed gang member?”
That got the intended wince from Nancy and Linda, but not Tom.
“Again, I would have to modify the assignment from the President.”
“Are they both doable?”
She handed him a copy of the document that she had already marked up. “I anticipated your question. It is, of course, up to the President to sign the revised assignment.”
“Of course.”
“Do you think he will do that?” Tom asked.
“I think so,” Licht replied. “Linda’s proposal gives him both more leverage and more flexibility going forward. It makes it easier for him, just as it does for one or two of you.”
“Tell me,” Nancy said, “what’s our continued liability under the revised agreement?”
The lawyer looked thoughtful. Thumbed through the agreement and looked across Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Your only risk from this agreement is that a future President would rescind the pardon.”
“Not that he or she would rescind our ability to carry out the covert counter-terrorism operations in the agreement?”
“No. Then you’d just be out of a job. Your only risk is that a future administration un-pardons you.”
“Can they do that?” Licht asked.
“It’s never happened before that I know of. It’s a risk. You’d almost certainly win an appeal on double jeopardy grounds.”
“Years later,” Nancy said.
The lawyer nodded.
“None of you has yet to answer my question,” Linda said.
The Point Of A Gun: Thriller Page 30