by David Archer
All three of the men were silent for a moment, but then Neil reached up and patted her shoulder. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way,” he said, “but I’m pretty glad you did get caught. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have you to make sure we get where we’re going in one piece. I don’t think anybody could outdrive you.”
Sarah smiled again. “Mario Andretti, maybe, but I think he’s dead. Isn’t he dead?”
“Just a minute, I’ll tell you—nope, he’s not dead, he’s just old.”
It was almost seven thirty when Sarah pulled up to the gatehouse at the JSOC Compound, and two Marines carrying M4 rifles stepped out and flanked the car. Noah rolled down his window.
“I’m here to meet Squadron A. Pass code is 14 Alpha 5-9 Zulu Charlie.”
“Your name, Sir?” the guard asked.
“The name is Camelot,” Noah said.
“Yes, Sir, you’re approved for entry. Please follow the blue stars on the roadway, they’ll take you directly to the TOC. There’s a Colonel Abrams there waiting for you now.”
The guards stepped away and the large steel gate slid open. Sarah put the car in gear and moved forward, keeping it down to the fifteen-mile-per-hour speed limit that was posted.
There were red, white and blue stars on the road, each apparently leading to a different part of the compound. Sarah followed the blue stars onto a curving road, and fifteen minutes later they arrived at a large concrete building. Another gate opened as they approached, and a soldier in fatigues directed them to a parking area.
“Neil,” Noah said, “bring your computer.”
As they got out of the car, a woman in an army uniform stepped out of the building to greet them. “You must be Camelot,” she said to Noah. “I’m Colonel Jennifer Abrams. I don’t know who you are and I don’t think I want to know, but JSOC says I am to extend you every courtesy and assistance possible.”
Noah stuck out a hand and the Colonel shook it firmly. “Good to meet you, Colonel. For now, you can call me Wyatt. These folks with me are Rosemary, Jimmy and Lenny. I imagine we’ve arrived a little before Captain Hayes, am I right?”
“I’m afraid so. I haven’t been briefed on what this is about, so I’m not going to ask any questions. However, I’ve got to tell you, I get a little concerned when Delta Force gets called into town. My understanding is that they are to answer to you and you alone for the duration of whatever operation you’re running.”
“Yes, that’s my understanding as well. Since you haven’t been briefed, I’m going to assume that I’m not supposed to tell you all the details, but I can hopefully relieve your nerves a little bit. This is a fairly simple operation with the goal of catching a single individual. I don’t believe that anyone outside the operation is in any danger, if that helps.”
Colonel Abrams smiled. “It actually does,” she said. “Around here, our biggest fear is some sort of mass destruction event. All of my kids live around here and work in DC, so when I heard Delta was coming in, it was all I could do not to panic.” She suddenly lost focus and put a hand to her left ear, where Noah could see an ear bud with a curling wire going down into the collar of her jacket. “Roger that,” she said. She looked back up at Noah. “The buses just came through the gate. We’ve got a briefing room all set up for you inside, if you care to follow me.” She turned without another word and led them into the large structure.
Colonel Abrams showed them into what almost looked like an empty warehouse. There were several dozen chairs already set up, and a speaker’s podium with a microphone at the front of the room. A table on the side held several large coffee urns along with many boxes of doughnuts. Neil let out a yelp of excitement and headed for the table, with Moose right behind him.
Noah turned to Sarah. “Rosie, would you get me a cup of coffee and one of those doughnuts? I’d like to speak to the Colonel for just a moment.”
Sarah blinked and went to do as she was told. Noah turned back to Colonel Abrams.
“Colonel, I appreciate your assistance on this. I’ve never worked with Delta Force before. Is there anything you can think of I need to know, before they get here?”
The Colonel smiled at him. “I’ll give you the same advice that was given to me the first time I had to deal with them. These men are among the best of the best, but they are trained to follow orders. The only thing they ask is that whoever is giving those orders knows what he’s doing. Something about you tells me they don’t have to worry about it, this time. You’ve got an Army bearing about you.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Noah said, “but I’m afraid my military record is classified.”
Colonel Abrams nodded sagely. “You know, it’s funny,” she said. “You remind me of a young sergeant who was all over the news about eight months ago. He had the same blond hair and blue eyes as you, but your nose and chin are different.” She looked into his eyes for a moment, but then dropped her eyes to the ground. “As Forrest Gump might say, that’s all I’ve got to say about that.”
EIGHTEEN
Noah kept his face straight and said nothing as Sarah slowly approached him with two cups of coffee and a couple of doughnuts on a napkin. It was taking both hands to carry it all and the look on her face told him the coffee was very hot. He met her partway and took one of the cups from her, then relieved her of a doughnut. He had just finished eating it when two buses pulled up outside and Colonel Abrams led the seventy men of Squadron A into the building.
A man with longish brown hair and beard looked at Noah and raised his eyebrows. “Camelot? I’m Captain Hayes.”
Noah extended a hand. “I’m Camelot, but you can call me Wyatt. They set us up with coffee and doughnuts. If you and your men want to help yourselves and then settle in, we can begin the briefing.”
“Yes, Sir,” Hayes said. He turned toward the table with the refreshments, where his men were already helping themselves. “All right, you mooks, get the goodies and take a chair. Five minutes, snap it up.”
It actually took almost 10 minutes, but finally everyone was sitting down and looking at Noah. Neil had found a digital projector and connected his computer to it, and Colonel Abrams had produced a table and chair for him. Once everyone was seated, she and the soldiers who had set up the room walked out the door, closing it behind them.
Noah nodded to Neil, and the screen on the wall behind him suddenly lit up with a photograph of Nicolaich Andropov. The photo was one that the CIA had managed to get of him a month earlier, showing him with an eye patch and a jagged scar on his left cheek.
“The man on the screen behind me is Nicolaich Andropov, a former director of wet work for the SVR in Russia. For the past several years, he used his position to allow him to gather incredible amounts of information, a lot of which was designed to force political figures to cooperate with him at his discretion. He was behind an attempt four months ago to force the government of Mauritania to enter into an alliance they didn’t want. To facilitate that plan, he arranged for the abduction of the daughter of the president of that country. My team was sent in to find the girl and recover her, which we did. In the course of doing so, I killed Vasily Andropov, Nicolaich’s youngest son. Nicolaich then used his SVR forces, in violation of Russian law, to attempt to exact revenge against me. He abducted one of my team in an attempt to draw me into a trap, but I was able to recover her and we escaped with our lives. Unfortunately, Nicolaich also survived.”
Noah stepped out from behind the podium and leaned on it with his elbow. “Several days ago, a team of mercenaries attacked a small town in Colorado. Their aim was to inflict damage on the organization that I work for, as part of yet another plan of Andropov’s to seek his revenge against me. Our investigation has led us here, where he had apparently been planning to either abduct or murder one of my childhood friends. He is currently running a team of hired guns who seem to be doing little more than surveillance. They had been watching my old friend, but I let them see that I was in town and their efforts seem to be more focused on m
yself, now. My team and I cornered three of them earlier today and learned that Nicolaich will be making an international phone call to Russia at just about 11 tomorrow morning.
“My intelligence officer,” he said, pointing at Neil, “is prepared to trace that call and determine the location from which it was made. My plan is to divide you into response teams that can be dispersed around the metro area, so that at least one team can hopefully arrive at that location before Nicolaich can get away.”
He stood there for a moment, just looking over the men in front of him. “It is absolutely imperative,” he said at last, “that Nicolaich Andropov does not escape. This man is a master of manipulation; if you get the shot, take it. Any attempt to take him alive will only increase the possibility that he will escape, and we cannot allow that.”
The men were silent, staring at the photo displayed on the screen. Each of them, Noah knew, was committing every detail of Andropov’s face to memory.
“As I mentioned earlier, Nicolaich has a team of mercenaries working with him. It is highly unlikely that you will find him alone, and it is possible that he may even have innocent civilians in the area, potential hostages. I expect you to make every reasonable attempt to avoid or minimalize collateral damage, but the elimination of Nicolaich Andropov must take precedence over anything else. This man has set himself up as a power and weapons broker, and he is in possession of enough extortable knowledge to topple governments or start wars. He presents an even greater danger to the world than Osama bin Laden ever was, and absolutely must be eliminated if at all possible, even if it means endangering civilians. Any questions?”
Captain Hayes, sitting in the front row, stood up. “Sir, how many teams do you want to set up? My men can operate well in three-, five- or seven-man teams.”
“Five-man teams would probably be ideal,” Noah replied. He looked at Neil and nodded, and a Google map of the area appeared on the screen. “We need to position five teams in DC itself, two in Alexandria, two more in Arlington and we’ll space the others out around the perimeter of the area. I’ll need a line of communications through you, Captain, to each team. As soon as we have a location, the nearest teams will immediately move to converge on it, and the rest can move in to assist as possible.”
“Yes, Sir. As soon as you’re done with us, we’ll move to strategy planning and start getting this set up. You said this call is scheduled for 11 AM?”
“That’s correct.”
“Then we’ll bunk down here tonight, and I’ll have the teams in place by six. This facility has a number of vehicles, and we brought our weapons with us. It won’t be any problem to have them on station by six AM. As for communications, I’ll give you a special secure cell number that you can send a text message to. That message will go to every team at the same instant. If you send a street address or GPS coordinates, their phones will instantly tell them how far they are from that location and offer them directions. With the spacing you seem to have in mind, there should be two or more teams within only a few minutes of any spot within that region. The closest team will take lead, and the others will coordinate with them.” He handed Noah a small handheld radio receiver. “This is set to our secure channel, it will let you listen in when things start happening.”
Noah nodded. “That’s excellent,” he said. “It sounds like you guys have done this sort of thing before.”
Captain Hayes smiled. “On a couple of occasions,” he said. “This is the kind of thing we live for, Sir. It’s why we exist.”
“One more thing,” Noah said. “I hope not to see any of your men on the after-action casualty reports, but Nicolaich is one of the most dangerous men alive. He has absolutely no morals and no compunctions against using innocent civilians as pawns or distractions. This is not a time for heroism, I’m afraid. If you expose yourselves, you will be dead. You must understand that it’s necessary to do whatever it takes to eliminate this man, up to and including the destruction of whatever building he’s in.”
Captain Hayes nodded his understanding. “Yes, Sir, we get it. I can assure you that you’ve got the right people for the job.”
“Very good, then, Captain,” Noah said. “I’ll turn this over to you, then.”
Hayes turned to face his men and barked out fourteen names, instantly splitting the group into the teams they would be operating in. Two of them grabbed a folding table that was leaning against the wall and set it up, while Hayes produced a large map of the area. The men he had named gathered around the table as Hayes pointed out coordinates on the map, giving each team leader his position. As each man understood where he was to wait with his team for the word on Andropov’s location, he walked away and began talking with the four who would accompany him. It seemed that everyone had a cell phone in his hand, and they were all pressing buttons frantically with their thumbs, synchronizing the communication devices to one another.
Noah was still standing by the podium when Sarah appeared at his side. “Shouldn’t you be over there with the captain?”
Noah shook his head. “No, he knows what he’s doing. This is his end of the operation, ours is just to let them know where to go.”
Moose, who had been sitting beside the doughnuts, joined them a moment later. “These guys seem like they know their shit,” he said, “but I’d feel a little better if they were SEAL Team Six.”
Noah glanced at him. “Delta Force is their sister organization. Both of them get the best commando training in the world.”
“Ignore him, Boss,” Neil said. “He’s just prejudiced against these Army guys cause he flunked out of SEAL school.”
Moose playfully smacked Neil in the back of the head. “I did not flunk out,” he said. “I got fed up with the crap and got myself kicked out! There’s a difference!”
“Enough,” Noah said. “I need these men to respect my orders, so act professional.” He walked over to where Captain Hayes was speaking with four men of his own. “Captain, is there any way I can be of assistance to you?”
Hayes looked up at him with a smile. “You already have,” he said. “We’ve been sitting on our thumbs for the last three months, just wishing for a mission. We train every day, but sometimes the training gets old. Guys like us, we live for the real thing. As far as right now, Sir, I think we’ve got a grasp on the situation. Colonel Abrams will assign us some nice civilian-looking vehicles that we can stage in, so I think we got it covered.” He took out his phone and began punching buttons. “I’m texting you the broadcast number now. When you get a location, send it as a text message on that number and we’ll all get it at once.”
“I will,” Noah said, as his phone buzzed in his pocket. “I’m going to take my team back to our base of operations. You’ve got my number if you need me for anything.”
“Yes, Sir,” Hayes said. “If anything comes up, I’ll be in touch. If not, we’ll just wait to hear from you tomorrow.”
Noah shook his hand once more, then turned and gathered his team by eye. They walked out the door together and found Colonel Abrams standing just outside the building entrance.
“Everything taken care of?” she asked.
“It is,” Noah said. “Captain Hayes has everything under control, I think. I’m taking my team back to our base of operations so that we can relax for a bit and get ready for the action that will take place tomorrow, but I wanted to thank you for your assistance.”
The Colonel cocked her head to one side and gave him a half smile. “I suspect that I could make an educated guess about you, but I’m going to fight off that temptation. The only thing I’m sure of at this moment is that whatever you’re doing has to do with protecting our country. I’ll be glad to give you any kind of assistance I can, at any time.”
She suddenly snapped a perfect salute at him, and Noah returned it automatically. When he dropped his hand, he extended it and shook her, and then walked toward the car without another word.
“Back to the hotel?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah,”
Noah said. “Neil can go over the setup for tomorrow and then we can try to relax for a while tonight. Take a roundabout way getting back there; we don’t want to pick up any more shadows today if we can avoid it.”
Sarah nodded and put the car in gear. She followed the blue stars back to the gate and the guards waved as they passed through it. When she got to the interstate, however, she didn’t bother to get on but continued straight until she came to a large intersection.
The ride back to the hotel took slightly over an hour, but there was no sign of any surveillance by the time they got there. A quick pass through the parking lot didn’t reveal any sign of clandestine observation so they parked and headed up to their rooms. Moose and Neil followed Noah and Sarah into their room, and Neil set up his computer on the table.
“Just on the off chance that anything were to happen to me,” he said to Noah, “I want you to see how this works. I’ve created a bot that will handle the whole trace, and it will generate a report as soon as it begs the location of the originating phone. That report will cause this little red star to flash, so if for any reason I’m not here to read for you, all you need to do is touch that icon to see the report come up.”