Rogan pulled into a spot and shifted the car into park. With the capture of the Resistance members and the relocation of the planning cell, their time was up. They needed to move much sooner than they’d been planning to do. It was time to get the ball rolling. If they had any hope of succeeding, it needed to happen tonight before the NAR had time to beef up security against the threat.
The lack of planning meant that something was bound to go wrong, especially with inexperienced operators, but it couldn’t be helped. At times like this, Rogan relied on the saying that he’d learned as a private in the military when time was up and the mission had to move forward.
“Fuck it, we’ll do it live,” he grumbled as he reached across the seat for his pistol.
FIVE
“We’re not wasting this opportunity,” Rogan murmured into his throat microphone as he walked quickly up the street toward the senator’s house.
“Are you sure these things are secure?” Chase’s voice crackled in his ear.
The older model ICOM radios with earpieces were another gift from his SF buddies at Bragg. The Group had moved on to some ultra-high tech twelfth generation shit, whereas these things were only sixth or seventh generation and had been shoved in a corner of a connex out in the motorpool for years. It was a good thing that most supply sergeants were pack rats because the radios and ear pieces still worked great.
“Yeah,” Rogan replied. “These are secure. Frequency-hopping, the whole nine yards. I’m not a commo nerd, but I do know that we used these exact radios to operate in northeastern Afghanistan near the border with China and we weren’t concerned with the ChiCom’s ability to intercept our communications.”
“Okay. If you say so, man.”
“Don’t worry. Just keep the lingo vanilla and you’re golden.”
“Uh, I think I know what you mean,” Chase said hesitantly.
“I’m almost there. I’ll be going silent for a while. Just keep the engine running.”
Rogan chuckled at the little joke since the Range Rover engine turned off every time the car stopped. Chase was parked about a mile away, behind an abandoned Catholic church. All churches were abandoned these days. The NAR had forbidden all Christian religions from congregating together due to the Crud narrative. Christians had been forced to switch to online worship, leaving the buildings mostly empty, while other religions were allowed to attend services in person. Most of the nation’s “good ole boys” identified as Christian in its most basic form, even Rogan, who wasn’t religious, identified as such. From a totalitarian control standpoint, it was easy to see why the NAR wanted the religion shut down and discriminated against. It was just another example in a very long list of reasons of why the NAR had to go.
Rogan looked around the block as he walked toward the house they’d spent the day observing. Jackson, the unofficial leader of the small group, agreed with Rogan’s assessment that it was now or never for the mission.
There were thirteen simultaneous operations occurring across DC and Northern Virginia tonight, including a team going back to Senator Clifton’s residence where the other two had been captured. The Resistance was going after every member of the NAR’s Inner Council and the National Director of the CEA. They’d decided that the CEA deserved special attention since it was the most heavy-handed of the federal organizations, made up of mostly newly-appointed officers with little law enforcement background. Rogan hadn’t originally agreed with the decision, but once the group confirmed they were going after him, he wanted to take that assignment for personal reasons. His request was denied and McKenzie’s team volunteered to go after Morningstar. The bitch hated him and the military, and she took his target as an opportunity to give him the finger. As the most experienced member of the team, Rogan had been given the main objective of going after Senator Bradley. In addition to the senator being the most important target, his arrest was the most likely to result in bloodshed. He was fine with that, though. His mom always told him that you had to break a few eggs to make a cake.
The team had several hackers of varying ability who’d been working the security footage from all of the sites, manipulating feeds and looping video, as appropriate. They were also responsible for disengaging electronic locks and keeping the local cops busy elsewhere. He hoped they were even half as good as Taya, but he had no way of knowing. The only assurances he had from them was that they’d do their best. Their best better not get him shot.
He arrived at Senator Bradley’s house and took another furtive glance around. Had anyone seen him? More importantly, had anyone noticed him? He could handle being seen, but when people started paying attention, that was when he needed to worry.
He reached a gloved hand to the gate and pulled gently. It didn’t budge. Had the cyber nerds not done their job? They were supposed to remotely disengage the locks to allow him access. Rogan pushed away from the gate in frustration. He’d— the gate swung inward. Whoops. It opened inward to the yard, not outward onto the sidewalk.
Maybe he needed to give the cyber team some credit. They’d said they’d disengage the locks and they did. Next step, the house locks.
He slipped inside the tall stone wall and took a hard right into the shadows. The landscapers had been gracious enough to leave a foot-wide path between the cinder block wall and the backside of the shrubs. It was a perfect spot for anyone looking to hide out and observe the house. If he’d been in charge of the site security, he’d have ordered the landscapers to let the back sides of the bushes grow out and fill in the space between them and the wall. The fact that the landscaping was so accommodating gave him hope that the security team’s knowledge was lacking in other areas as well.
Kneeling down on one knee behind the bushes, he watched. He knew from piggybacking onto the security camera feed that the security team executed a roving patrol once an hour. The cyber guys assured him that they’d spoofed that feed and it was on repeat for anyone watching from inside. Since his entrance into the yard hadn’t raised an alarm, Rogan had to assume that they’d accomplished that task as well.
It took four or five minutes for the roving guard to appear around the back of the house, walking alongside the bushes to check the space that Rogan now occupied. The guard would make a circuitous sweep of the property, taking about fifteen minutes from this spot to return to the shack, where he took a forty-five minute break. Good gig.
The bushes would conceal him from a distance, but anything closer than a few feet and he’d be seen right away. Rogan slipped the silenced HK-45 Tactical pistol from the holster and brought it up to his chest. When it came time to fire, all he had to do was aim down the sights as he extended the weapon. Once he took out the guard, he only had the fifteen minutes or so to get to the guard shack and address the threat there. He wasn’t sure how many men the team employed, so he had to be swift and violent in his response to any threat.
The guard was only six feet from him when Rogan shot him in the face. The .45 ACP round caved the man’s features inward, passing through flesh and bone to explode into a massive exit wound that likely took half of his brain with it at this distance. The guard dropped instantly. Okay, maybe not such a good gig, Rogan thought as he quickly dragged the body into to the shadows.
He knelt in the darkness, waiting for the inevitable investigation of the sound. The can on the end of his pistol helped to reduce the noise, but it was still loud as fuck in a quiet residential neighborhood at 3 a.m. If he was lucky, people might have thought it was just a car door slamming.
No one from the security office came to investigate. Jesus, he grumbled to himself. Good help really was hard to find. “How’s the feed?” he asked into the radio.
“You’re good,” was the reply from a woman. The team only had one female hacker, so he assumed that it was her.
“I’ve come all this way,” he mumbled softly into the radio. “Might as well go and meet the host.”
SIX
Rogan lifted himself from the ground, checking the a
rea once more to ensure that the guard’s body was completely hidden in the shadows. Then, he jogged in a half-crouch between the shoulder-high shrubs and the wall. It was probably one of the worst set-ups he’d seen from a security perspective, but then again, this was America—northern Virginia, one of the most affluent areas in the nation, not some third world shithole that had to think about that sort of stuff all the time.
He reached the outbuilding that housed the security staff. It was a small, permanent structure, a twin to the pool house about a hundred feet away. This one was tucked up against the wall, out of the way, to be as unobtrusive as possible for the homeowner when they looked out over their back yard. The video feeds had shown that there were at least two guards inside.
Rogan observed the yard and pool for a moment to ensure no one was about, and then peeked through the guardhouse window. He could see two heads in front of computer monitors. Apparently, the team that had been captured observing the other guy’s house hadn’t rolled over yet because the security was lax. Most of the monitors showed the Senator’s yard and house, but the one directly in front of the guards was playing a movie. Good, he thought. Distraction is always a good thing.
He debated for a moment whether he should try to subdue the guards instead of killing them. It would ease his conscious slightly if he allowed them to live. They were simply doing their jobs; they hadn’t expected to die tonight. He weighed the options and the potential outcomes. All it would take was for one of them to wiggle their way to an alarm of some kind and push the button, then it was game over.
Rogan didn’t like killing men in cold blood, but dammit, they’d been given an ultimatum. In fact, everyone in America had been given the same ultimatum: abandon the NAR and let the Resistance return the nation to its former glory, or be labeled as a loyalist and face the consequences that came along with that. These men were going to face those consequences tonight.
He shifted the HK to his left hand and drew the long combat knife he carried on his vest. The blade was eight inches long, totally illegal in the state of Virginia, but that would be the least of his charges if he were to get caught tonight.
The knife’s spine rested along Rogan’s forearm with the tip toward his elbow and the blade facing out in a reverse edge out grip. It wasn’t the most conventional way to hold a knife, and not preferred against an opponent who also had a knife, but he’d trained for years with them and found that the ability to make multiple slashes and thrusts just by adjusting the angle of his wrist was an advantage to the grip.
Entering a room and attempting to kill two opponents with a knife before they shot him was a daunting task. Of course, he had the HK to help out if things went bad, but there was no way that anyone inside wouldn’t be alerted by the gunfire at this distance from the house. His mind disconnected from the act of what he was doing and went into autopilot, relying on his training and experience. He was a goddamned Green Beret. He would see this through without alerting any more of the security staff.
The door appeared before him and he manipulated the handle with his knife hand. It swung inward and the Angel of Death descended upon the occupants of the guardhouse.
The first guard, a woman, turned her head in time to receive a slash across her throat when Rogan swept the blade across it in a motion similar to throwing a haymaker. Hot blood spurted across him and the monitors as he halted the momentum of his arm and brought the blade back across his body in a reverse strike that imbedded the blade into the second guard’s eye socket.
The woman fell into him, her hand clutching at her neck where he’d severed her external jugular vein, possibly even her carotid artery if the slash had gone deep enough. Rogan caught her and jerked the blade free from the man’s face and his body went rigid, then stopped moving. He looked down at the woman without processing what he’d done. He couldn’t. That would come later. He eased her onto the floor and jammed the tip of the blade through her eye, ending her suffering.
The blade came free and he did a quick search of the guardhouse to ensure it was clear, then stepped around the bodies and the pool of blood. He turned his murderous gaze upon the house. Senator Bradley was responsible for all of this. The blood was on that man’s hands, not Rogan’s.
That’s what he had to tell himself to keep going. That’s what he told himself during and after every mission when he’d been forced to take a life. If the dickbags hadn’t been doing whatever brought the attention of the United States upon them, then Rogan would have never been there and everyone would still be alive. Similarly, it was Bradley’s fault that the three guards had to die tonight.
Bradley should be the one who died, not the hired help. Regardless of what the mission parameters were, Rogan wouldn’t shed a tear if that accidentally happened.
SEVEN
Rogan was shocked at how cold the December night air felt when he emerged from the guardhouse. The chill in the air was amplified by the wetness of the female guard’s blood upon his body. When it had splashed across him moments ago, it was hot, mirroring her internal temperature. Now, like the woman it had come from, the liquid was cooling rapidly in the chill of the night and becoming sticky.
The trip from the guardhouse to the main home passed in a flash, Rogan’s mind was still compartmentalizing his actions. The Teams had shrinks on duty to help the guys talk through what they’d done in service to their nation. The Resistance didn’t have that. He glanced behind him to the small outbuilding that held the two bodies. Before all of this was over, the Resistance would probably have a need for psychiatrists. What a fucked up situation.
“Yard clear,” he whispered into the radio.
“The house is unlocked, dear,” the female replied through his earpiece. “Come on in.”
He crept up the concrete steps to the back porch. Rogan scanned the sitting area for anything amiss before letting his hand fall upon the door knob. He paused, debating whether to open the door or knock. He had zero visibility of the inside of the home. The senator’s cameras were only external to the house and he didn’t have a smart screen device sitting on a counter that the cyber team could hack into. If there were guards inside, just bulling his way inside might get him shot, but knocking would put them on alert—especially if they looked at the camera feeds from outside that didn’t show anyone at the door.
Decisions. Decisions, he mused.
“Ah, fuck it,” Rogan grumbled. He took up position beside the door for cover and reached back out to the knob. He turned it gently and pushed the door inward. The hinges squealed in protest to the movement.
He waited for a moment to see if anyone would investigate. After what seemed like forever, he eased around the corner, his weapon leading the way with the fighting knife in his support hand, blade facing downward. Even if someone managed to get the drop on him and hit the pistol out of his grip, the knife was already in hand to defend himself with.
The interior of the house was pitch black and nothing moved. He stepped lightly, trying to avoid making noise on the old, creaking floorboards. Every step seemed to echo throughout the house like he was a kid sneaking in after curfew. He had no one watching his back. In fact, Rogan realized that he’d never been alone on a mission before. Any miscalculation on his part could end in disaster. He moved slowly, methodically. There was no reason to fuck up the op inside the red zone.
From the house plans on file with the county, he knew there was a bedroom downstairs and five more upstairs, including a second master. Senator Bradley was an old man, so Rogan doubted that he made the trek up the stairs every night, but he didn’t want to be surprised. He’d needed to check the entire house to ensure no one else was up there. The elites didn’t turn in their weapons like the common folk had been forced to do and getting shot in the back by some houseguest would be a real downer.
That made him grin, remembering the old comedy sketch about Debbie Downer, the woman who was always ruining the party by saying negative things. He’d watched a lot of stupid shit like tha
t during his years in the Middle East. It was that type of dumb, mindless comedy that helped him get by after his buddies died. Too many nights were spent watching that sort of stuff.
He focused, clearing his mind. The house was older, built in the 1920s, but it had gone through several remodels, the last in the mid-2010s. Even with the more modern updates, it looked like an old lady lived there, which one did. The senator’s wife, Brenda Bradley, was somewhere in the home as well. He’d have to deal with her. Rogan hoped that he would just be able to tie her up instead of having to kill her.
Focus, he told himself. Collateral damage happened. If the woman got in the way, then he’d ensure that she didn’t jeopardize the mission. Getting to the senator was the most important thing.
He crept through the house toward the downstairs master. Every footfall and every scrape of his boots across the hardwood seemed to echo loudly. It was maddening and his only hope was that the home’s occupants were heavy sleepers.
When he reached the circular foyer, the hardwood floor gave way to polished marble. The foyer was every bit as impressive as it appeared in the floorplans. The space was bigger than his first apartment when he and Trish had gotten married. The main, overwhelming feature was the grand double staircase. Both sets of stairs started on opposite sides of the foyer and curved along the walls to meet at the same point on the second floor. It was the type of staircase that rich people had to flaunt their wealth immediately upon their guests’ arrival.
Rogan decided to go upstairs to clear the upper floor first before going to the master bedroom. There was no telling how many people might be up there, if anyone. They’d had passive surveillance, at best, so there could have been any number of people who’d been in the home before they started recording the tapes. He could go up quickly and check, then come back down. It would be better than bypassing a potential threat and the old man downstairs wasn’t going to run out the front door.
American Dreams | Book 3 | End Game [Side Mission] Page 3