“Well done, all of you. I’ll get this info to Jim immediately. In the meantime, Aaron, send this link to Mr. Williams. We’ll go see him in a few minutes.”
* * *
The meeting with the Op-Center director had gone smoothly, and he’d congratulated them on getting Jim Wright and his CIRG HRT moving. They’d passed the information to the people in the field, and the operators were treating it as actionable intelligence. Williams did say it was times like this when he missed his ops director and hoped he had him back from Baghdad soon.
For most people in the intelligence business, that was enough, and they could consider their work complete. But it wasn’t enough for Fred Morton and soon it wouldn’t be enough for Aaron Bleich.
After Bleich, Morton, and Scott got back to the Geek Tank, and as Scott peeled off to head for her cubicle, Morton said, “Aaron, a moment?”
“Sure, what’s on your mind?”
“Something’s still bothering me. That cell phone that wasn’t moving earlier still isn’t moving. This Mr. Martin was using it, and now he’s stationary in the wrong part of town. I just don’t know—”
Bleich could read body language with the best of them, “You’d feel better if you had eyes-on, wouldn’t you?”
“You bet.”
“I would too. Why don’t you grab Erin and the two of you go there? Have Maggie monitor whatever you’re covering while you’re gone. Call me as soon as you know anything.”
“You got it.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Baltimore-Washington International Airport
July 22, 1730 Eastern Daylight Time
“I’ve got Mr. McCord on the line, sir,” the woman said. She was manning the phone bank in their command post at the FAA’s air traffic control facility at BWI.
Jim Wright rushed over and picked up the secure phone.
“Wright, here.”
“Jim, we know where they’re holding the admiral. Are you in front of your display?”
“Yes, what’s the latitude and longitude?”
McCord passed the lat and long to Wright, and then continued. “It’s an old farmhouse outside of Jessup. We think you should get eyes-on immediately.”
“Wilco. I’ve got two birds airborne. Am I authorized to assault once I’ve got a force in place?”
“Expect that in a few minutes, after I talk to the boss. Let me know when you’re overhead. Out here.”
The CIRG HRT team members manning the command post knew what to do. One man handed Wright a radio to talk with the airborne Kim, while another punched the lat and long McCord had provided into his computer and then zeroed in on the farmhouse on the LCD display.
“Allen, Jim.”
“Go ahead.”
“We’ve got what we think are the exact coordinates of where the admiral is being held. It’s an old farmhouse on Dorsey Run Road. I’m sending you a link now. We want you to get a look at it ASAP. How far away are you from that posit?”
In the cockpit of the UH-60M, Sandee Barron had heard the entire conversation and was looking at the map on the display in front of her. “Tell him less than three minutes, boss. I’m bustering that way now.”
“Three minutes, Jim,” Kim replied. “Can you get the closest vehicles moving toward that house?”
“Will do. Stand by for another link soon. We’ve contacted the realty company that rented the house. They have a room-by-room description of what it looks like inside.”
“Great, we’ll need that. Out here.”
* * *
Dale Bruner had been sitting in his overwatch position for several hours and was frustrated. He’d expected the streets to be empty by now, but there was still a great deal of activity.
He’d used the time to study the information Peters had given him. In addition to the detailed pictures of the outside of the buildings that comprised the ISIL compound, Peters had mined the intel feeds his uniformed friends had provided him and gotten additional information he knew Bruner would need.
In an era where precision-guided munitions could be aimed with incredible accuracy, it wasn’t enough to just hit a building or other structure; a smart bomb could literally be put into a specific window of a building. That meant knowing what a building looked like inside was even more important than seeing what the building looked like from the outside.
Soon after ISIL began taking over wide swaths of territory in the Mideast, Joan Hszieh had approached the CENTCOM commander with an idea. His Special Operations component—SOCCENT—was on the ground in Iraq advising the Iraqi Army, especially that army’s Golden Brigade of special operators.
They couldn’t infiltrate the houses in the ISIL compound in Mosul, but they could move freely about other buildings in the city where ISIL wasn’t in control. And given how frequently the terrorist group moved as the coalition bombing raids continued, buildings the Iraqi Army team mapped one day could well be occupied by ISIL the next.
That was precisely what had happened. ISIL’s current compound had been mapped—floor by floor and room by room—several weeks ago by a Golden Brigade team. Bruner now had a schematic of that building’s interior on his tablet. Once inside the building, he knew where he was going to go.
* * *
From the moment he was grabbed at the Franconia-Springfield Metro station, Jay Bruner had hoped for a chance to talk with his captors, to bargain with them, to try to somehow have them see the value in releasing him. That hadn’t happened in the four days he’d been a hostage. But now he got his opportunity.
How many times had he rehearsed what he would say? He’d run it through his mind dozens of times. But now, with his gag off and standing in front of a man who didn’t look old enough to vote, he fumbled for the right words.
“Look, you don’t have to do this—”
“Shut up,” Amer replied.
“What’s your name?”
“I said, shut up!” he hissed.
“I won’t talk long, I promise. I recognize your voice. I can tell you’re one of the ones who’ve been holding me hostage. But I know you’re not the one pulling the strings—”
The idea that he might not be the one to take the fall if they were caught got Amer’s attention, and he lowered the gun slightly.
Bruner kept talking. “Someone ordered you to do this. If you let me go, just let me walk out that door right there, I promise I won’t tell a soul—” The words weren’t coming out exactly as Bruner wanted them to, but he had his eyes riveted on Amer, looking for a sign, any sign, his captor was going to let him escape.
* * *
“Jim, we’re above the farmhouse at three thousand feet. There’s no sign of activity,” Kim began.
“Nothing?” Wright asked.
“No. Not at all.”
“Are there any vehicles parked there?”
“No, but there’s a large, detached garage; it looks like it could hold a few cars.”
There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments, then Kim finally blurted out, “Jim, you’re the on-scene commander, what do you want us to do?”
“Does the house have a clear view of the roads around it?”
“It looks like it. Do you want to roll your nearest vehicles this way? How far away is the closest one?” Kim prompted.
Each of the CIRG HRT trucks had a transceiver that reported its position via a GPS satellite. Wright looked at the LCD screen in his makeshift command center. “I’ve got one over by State Road 174, near Severn, and another one west of Guilford, off of State Road 32—”
“How far, Jim?”
“The one by Severn is the closest to you, just over four miles.”
Over the intercom, it was Barron. “Boss, we can fly over there and pick up a team and fast-rope them down to the farmhouse. You see what the traffic is like on the roads down there. It’s rush hour, and if our guys do drive over this way and get close to the farmhouse, the people inside will see them no matter which way they come down Dorsey Run Road.”
/> Kim considered this. He knew Jim Wright, and he trusted him, but Wright wasn’t processing what he was hearing fast enough. “Jim, it’ll take either truck too long to get here. Give us a vector to the one over by Severn. Tell them to find someplace where we can land—a big parking lot, a field, anything—and we’ll pick them up there. I’ve got fast-rope equipment aboard. I can take the team leader plus four.”
Hearing Kim spit out this detailed plan roused Wright out of his momentary lethargy. “Will do, Allen. I’ll vector our second helo over to Guilford to pick up the team in the truck over there. They’ll be your Dash-Two,” Wright said, using the common term for the second aircraft in a group of two. “Out here.”
Sandee Barron banked her Blackhawk hard and pointed the nose of her aircraft directly at the triangle on her map representing the HRT vehicle she was headed for.
* * *
Aaron Bleich picked up his cell on the first ring. The display told him it was Morton. “Whatcha got Fred? You find the cell phone?”
“I did. I’m here with Erin in a big vacant lot. Our info told us it was somewhere here, so we started doing a grid search while we called the number. We finally heard it ringing.”
“Can you pull up the display of recent calls—incoming and outgoing?”
“Sure, wait one.”
Bleich put Morton on speakerphone.
“Okay, Aaron. I’ve got all the incoming and outgoing calls. There aren’t that many of them.”
“Good. I’ve got you on speaker. Read the numbers out slowly; I’ve pulled up a program that’ll give me contact info for each number.”
“Here’s the first one,” Morton said as he read off the first ten-digit number.
“Got it. Wait.”
“Ready for the next one?” Morton asked.
“Wait, Fred.”
After seconds that seemed like minutes, Morton said, “Aaron?”
“Whoa, listen to this! The 202 number you read is for a David Pierce. He’s a dirt bag investigative journalist; the guy is really pond scum. The sheet on him says he’s sold some of the worst crap imaginable to the cable networks—”
“But why would Masood be—” Morton began to ask, but stopped himself, as they both reached the same conclusion simultaneously.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Bleich paused momentarily to collect his thoughts. “I want you to call this Pierce guy, but use your own phone, not the one Masood tossed. Here’s what I want you to say—”
* * *
As they frog-walked Jay Bruner into the room with the lights, the cameras, the other equipment, and the ISIS flag, Amer and one of the other kidnappers pushed him down on the small rug.
“Unbind his hands,” Mr. Martin commanded. “I want him to enjoy his last seconds of freedom.”
Amer moved quickly to comply.
At that moment, seeing the setup and knowing precisely what was about to happen to him, Bruner was unable to keep from shaking, but he tried to put on a brave face. And he had used a great deal of his remaining strength to control his bowels. I can’t let those bastards see me shit my pants, he thought. But he lost that battle. As he tried to muster saliva from his dry mouth to spit on them, he soiled himself.
“You pig,” one of the other kidnappers said as he moved away from the stench.
Martin stood in front of Bruner. He was clad in black with a black ski mask over his head. He held a book.
“Do you have anything to say before you stand before Allah?”
Should he bargain with them? Were they going to ask him to convert to Islam? Should he beg for mercy? Jay Bruner couldn’t force any words from his mouth.
* * *
Clouds of dust blew everywhere as Sandee Barron landed her helo in the parched field. The assault-team leader and four of his men were already standing next to their truck. With Sandee’s crewman already waving the team aboard, the Blackhawk’s oleo struts absorbed the weight of the aircraft as it settled onto its main landing gear.
It took less than a minute and they were all strapped in. A thumbs-up from her crewman was all Sandee needed. She pulled an armload of collective, bunted her bird’s nose over, and began a turning climb back toward the farmhouse.
* * *
“Pierce,” came the clipped reply as David Pierce answered his cell phone on the first ring.
“Mr. Pierce, good afternoon. A mutual friend suggested I call you,” Fred Morton began. “Do you have a moment?”
Pierce held the phone away from his face as he looked at the number in the display. While it was a 703 exchange—Northern Virginia—it didn’t show a name, so he knew it wasn’t from someone on his contacts list, and it wasn’t a number he recognized right away. “Do we know each other?” Pierce asked. He was on guard and seconds away from dumping the call.
“Only through our mutual friend—”
“And he or she would be?”
“Mr. Masood.”
Pierce’s guard was up. He was expecting the feed of the assassination at any moment. Who was this guy now mucking things up in the middle of what was going to be his biggest payday ever?
“And how do you know Masood?” Pierce asked. He was worried; someone clearly knew who his source was.
“That’s not important right now. He wanted me to call you and say he was sorry. The operation he planned this evening will have to occur another time—”
“What? No! I’ve made promises. Put Masood on. Is he there?”
“Just a minute, I’ll get him,” Morton said as he looked to his partner. Erin was on the line with the Geek Tank. Bleich and his team had cloned Pierce’s phone and were tracing the number.
A few seconds later Erin gave Morton a thumbs-up and mouthed the words, “We’ve got him.” They now knew where his recent calls had gone. One call a short time ago had been routed through the same cell towers that serviced the farmhouse on Dorsey Run Road.
“Mr. Pierce, sorry, I must have been mistaken. Mr. Masood is busy at the moment, but we’ll call back soon.” With that, the line went dead.
* * *
The second CIRG HRT helo landed in the Guilford Elementary School parking lot. The crew took aboard the team leader and five HRT team members.
As the pilots pushed their UH-60M toward its redline speed of 170 knots—almost 190 miles per hour—they heard the same call from Jim Wright that Sandee, her copilot, and Allen Kim heard. So did the crews of the HRT vehicles also heading toward Dorsey Run Road. “Ninety-nine,” Wright began, using the standard call sign for all units on the tactical frequency. “This is Wright, quiet on the net.”
Double clicks from the operators in each aircraft and vehicle indicated all his forces in the field understood.
“The situation’s critical,” Wright continued. “We’re now certain Admiral Bruner is being held in the farmhouse you’re heading for. But we also think the kidnappers are planning on killing him and broadcasting it live during the evening news hour in D.C. That’s not long from now. Allen, it’s your show; but right now, speed is life.”
It took Kim only seconds to make the decision. “Jim, we’re less than two minutes out from the farmhouse. Looks like my bird will be first on top. Dash-Two will be just a few minutes behind me. The farmhouse has a number of dormer windows and has porches on the first and second stories. We’ll fast-rope either onto the window eves or the second-story porch,” Kim said. Then continuing, “Dash-Two, copy all?”
“Roger, Dash-One; Dash-Two good copy.”
“Did you both get the pictures of the inside of the house we linked to you?” Wright asked.
“Dash-One, affirmative.”
“Dash-Two, roger.”
Both pilots bunted the nose of their birds over and ran the engines right up and through their redline speed. As they did, the teams in the back of each bird donned their gloves and prepared their fast ropes.
* * *
Masood and Pierce had agreed that the admiral’s assassination would be carried live on the evening
news on the U.S. East Coast, but “live” was in the eye of the beholder. The networks and cable channels, as well as bottom feeders like Pierce, had been burned before when the promised live video wasn’t delivered, or just as bad, wasn’t what they anticipated it would be. Once Masood told him how long reading Bruner’s “crimes” and the actual beheading would take, Pierce decided a twenty-minute delay was all he needed.
Saad Masood, aka Mr. Martin, stood behind the kneeling and stooped Jay Bruner. Still dressed in all black and wearing a black ski mask, he now wore a large knife in his belt and was holding a book. He looked directly at the man operating the camera and nodded. The bright lights burned in the background. The camera began to roll and Masood began a long diatribe:
America, you have failed once again. This man kneels before me and before our other lions of the caliphate. You sent him and his assassins to murder us in our homes, but you failed, and we continue to wage jihad against you. But you killed our women and our children in their beds, you heinous infidels, and this man will pay dearly for that crime.
Look at this man, look at him! He fears us so much he has soiled himself. No one can stop us. We snatched him out from under your noses, close to where his family sleeps. Once we kill him, we are coming for them, and we are coming for all of you, including your president, the pig, Midkiff.
Now here are his sins he is dying for …
Masood continued to talk, enjoying the high theater, interspacing readings of Bruner’s “offenses,” with readings from the Koran.
* * *
The Blackhawk streaked ahead at two hundred feet, barely above the power lines that stretched along the roads below. Sandee Barron, her copilot, and Allen Kim, who was hunched down right behind the two pilot seats, saw the farmhouse as it came into view. A quarter mile away, Sandee started to pull up the nose of her bird while lowering the collective to maintain altitude as she began to bleed off some airspeed. The Sikorsky bird shook violently, protesting the rapid deceleration.
“Thirty seconds,” she shouted to the team in the back.
“There, Sandee, there,” Kim said over the intercom. “That portion of the roof above the second-story porch is flat. I say that’s the spot.”
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