by PETE DAVIES
Simon had driven into the city to check the mobile phones and then he rang Greg.
“I’ve got a location confirmation on a number at the finca. The guys had a whole bunch of matching contacts, so I took those as being all OCG guys. I’ve got Alex’s number listed, but he’s not appearing on the Tracker App which is pretty much what we expected and as I’ve only got one number showing on the App at the finca, it suggests the other guy there is going to be Alex, just as your DI Garcia suggested.”
“Simon, that’s brilliant mate. What’s the name of the other guy and I’ll check him out with our two guests?”
“It’s Tigran. I’ve now turned the phones off and I’m heading back to the finca.”
Greg was by now back at the finca and he updated Terri.
“I’ll find out what they know about this other guy,” said Terri and headed off to the temporary detention room.
She entered with a cheery greeting, “So guys, how are you doing?”
Both men sat up and looked at her warily. Davit’s head and testicles were still very sore, whilst Vardan was holding his broken arm gingerly. Neither looked like they would offer much resistance, so she decided on going easy with them.
“Quick question guys. Tell us what you know about Alex and a guy called Tigran,” asked Terri.
Davit looked at Vardan. He could see again the fear in his eyes that he didn’t want to be the one doing talking. Davit just shrugged, ‘I might as well tell them. We’re probably dead either way, so I might be able to do a deal if I try to help them.’
‘Total submission,’ thought Terri.
“Alex Krikorian is in charge of us. He’s Sonny’s second in command. They are both ex-special forces, so we’re always careful around them as they take no shit from anyone,” said Davit.
“What’s going to happen to us lady? Are you going to kill us?”
“No, of course not mate,” said Terri as she turned to go out. “Not unless you make me that is.”
The two men just sat there. If they did get out Sonny would probably kill them anyway if he suspected they had said anything, so maybe it was better to stay here and wait to see what happened.
Terri closed and locked the door and then rang Lori and briefed her on the information as to who Pérez’s team could expect to meet when they approached the finca and that they should bring a signal jammer, just in case there were Wi-Fi alarms set out in the grounds surrounding the finca.
*****
Anna had managed to get some sleep. She had woken up hearing the sounds of birds singing. It was light and she could hear movement from the next room. She checked her body again and she had no physical injuries. She got up and went to the window and by standing high up on her toes she could just see out. There was a man in the distance. Maybe eighty to a hundred metres away, so too far to positively identify him as one of the men from last night. He had a machine pistol slung over one shoulder. She heard a kettle boil nearby and the noise of cups or mugs. She looked around the room for a bucket or a bowl. Nothing.
“Hello, hello, I need the toilet please.”
“Wait.”
“Okay, thank you, but I’m afraid I can’t wait too long.”
No response. But that was now two people she could say were there and she hadn’t heard any other sounds to suggest there were more than two. If he came and took her to a bathroom then what she saw would be very telling. She hoped he would be wearing a face covering. That at least gave her hope of a safe release. If he wasn’t worried about being seen, then things weren’t looking good. She didn’t have to wait long and the door opened and the second man stood in the doorway. He was wearing a balaclava. She felt herself breathe out with relief.
She christened him Dick and the one outside would be Harry. Dick was six foot plus with an athletic build. He looked like an ex-soldier and was dressed in black trousers and white shirt that he had obviously been wearing since yesterday. His clothes and his shoes looked expensive, which suggested Dick was reasonably high up in the organisation. She recognised his voice as he had been the first of the men who had come into her room and was therefore presumably in charge of this operation.
She made a point of not looking directly into his eyes, but she saw enough to make her think he was a man not to mess with. She had already formed a strategy of compliance to avoid antagonising her captors. With no easily available source for a weapon of any sort and now given the size of this man, she dispensed with any thought of overpowering her attacker, even using the element of surprise as they were unlikely to expect an old woman to attack them. Escape was possible if there were indeed only two of them, but her only exit seemed to be through this door as the window was too small.
‘Okay, let’s find out what I can see if he lets me go to the bathroom.’ With that Dick motioned to her to come to the door. The bathroom was immediately to her right and she tried to close the door behind her, but he pushed it back open. She expected him to do that. She put on a little show of being embarrassed, although it didn’t faze her in the slightest as something like this was normal in her previous life in the field. She noticed that he didn’t grin or snigger. He was above that. He had a job to do and that was to ensure she didn’t escape and was held for as long as was needed. There was toilet paper which she was grateful for and she thought back to her previous experience when she had been held. This place was like a hotel compared to that. She was still only wearing her night dress, so he could see she wasn’t going to be able to hide anything. She stood up and he stepped to one side to let her come out and as she did, he handed her a paper cup of water.
“Thank you,” said Anna.
He said nothing. She turned left back into her room and he closed and locked the door.
TWENTY
They had arrived at an RV point about a mile from the finca. It was now 6.00am and there was some movement in the area.
Pérez had been getting new images from Tommy and his two teams of four were all briefed on the terrain and the movements of the two tangos. Lori, Nino and Sam were in a third vehicle and Nino had an investigative team held up five kilometres away, ready to move in for evidential searching after the place was secure.
Lori made a final call to Pérez and authorised him to deploy. The operational strategy Lori had originally set was still the one Pérez was working to and he was now in command of the tactical decisions from here on in. All of his decided actions needed to be routed towards delivering a positive outcome of her strategy.
It was to be a silent approach from both sides of the finca. He had identified routes in from studying Tommy’s pictures and the topographic maps of the area. Nino was in control of the signal jammer and this was key to the teams making progress and neutralising the threat from both tangos. Lori, Sam and Nino would be able to see everything Tommy could see as he was relaying his images direct to their phones. There had been some discussion about sending up the drone, but with the light now having broken it was decided that it was too risky. The two men on guard seemed to know what they were doing and so Pérez was adopting caution in his approach, as they needed to be given a level of respect for their potential skill set, to minimise the risk to both his men and more importantly the woman who was currently held captive.
Tommy looked on the scene below and thought through the possible scenarios he would consider and compared those to the police team he knew were getting ready to deploy. The guy on the outside in the Point position needed dealing with quickly and he would have done this with a silent approach and a knife, followed by a headshot to the one by the finca.
‘Guys, you need to be positive here and deliver a level of force appropriate to the risk to the victim,’ he said to himself.
Pérez was delivering a similar message to his team. Whilst there was an inherent intention to save life, be it the victim, his officers or indeed the kidnappers, he was well aware that the risk to the victim, Anna Martínez, was at such a level that lethal force was justified. He had contemplated a sn
iper to do just that, however, whether it was defensible in a Court of Law was debateable if it could be shown that there was another way and as a police officer he knew he had to operate not just within the law, but also within the spirit of the law. He needed his teams in position and to then assess the likelihood that they could deal with the outer guy quickly and quietly without resort to lethal force. However, he made it clear that the back-up plan, Plan B, would include the option of a head shot using a supressed Sig Saur assault rifle and that would be on his order. He had been with these guys for two years and they accepted his direction without question. He checked his phone for the latest images from Tommy and called him on the radio.
“Alpha 1 Team leader to Charlie 1, sitrep please.”
He heard Tommy respond in his gentle rolling Bajan accent.
“Charlie 1 to Alpha 1. Good to go.”
Lori and Sam heard the radio communication and each took a deep breath. Sam found this the hardest part of command. Sending people in to dynamic action, with the associated risk when weapons, especially firearms were involved, whilst you sat safely back in an office or a car was still hard and he could see that Lori felt the same. Radio comms would be at an absolute minimum now until Pérez called the Operation over.
They watched on their screens as Tommy transmitted the pictures of first Pérez and the Alpha team moving into position, before switching to see the Bravo team track around the rear aspect of the finca. Two of the Alpha team broke off and moved forward in a crouched profile until they ran out of full cover and took to the floor and started crawling forward keeping to the rows of vines and taking cover when Point man looked down the row they were in. They had split up and were about six rows of vines apart. The images showed the Point man was looking around and at one stage was looking directly up at Tommy’s position before he moved on. He had seen nothing and was just scanning for any change in the environment, but Tommy was well hidden and was very mindful of the lens on the binoculars not reflecting off the morning sun.
“In position,” came the transmission from first Alpha 2 and then quickly followed by Alpha 3.
“Thirty seconds,” said Bravo 1.
Nino sat waiting for the order from Pérez, Alpha 1.
“Bravo team in position,” said Bravo 1.
“Jammer on,” said Pérez.
Nino activated the switch that turned off all Wi-Fi in a three hundred metre radius. Lori saw her phone go black and knew that Alex, the man at the finca would have just seen the same thing. Through his binoculars, Tommy could see Alex was touching the controls on the phone, trying to get the pictures back. Alpha 2 had a very small window of opportunity to move forward towards the Point man and Alpha 3 was on standby to go to Plan B if necessary. Tommy was providing short concise commentary on Alex as he would be the one to call the alarm if he realised it was a signal jammer affecting his phone. Alpha 2 got within yards of Point man and still had cover hidden under the old vines and waited for Tommy to give the call.
“Charlie 1 to Alpha 2, wait, wait, wait.”
Alpha 2 raised himself to a kneeling position, breathing slow and easily and held the Taser lightly in his hand, ready to discharge.
“Wait, wait……, good, good,” said Tommy to make sure he was heard.
Alpha 3 was ready and threw a stone to distract Point man who turned away from where Alpha 2 was rising up and in one motion fired the Taser directly into the man’s neck, releasing the 50,000 volt charge, causing Point man to drop like a stone.
“Alpha 2 complete,” said Alpha 2.
“Jammer off please,” said Pérez.
Nino flicked the switch back and Alex saw his phone come back on and he looked up to see where Tigran was. As soon as he couldn’t see him he realised what had happened and went to pull his machine pistol into position, when he heard a shout.
“Stand still, armed police. Do not move until I tell you,” said Pérez rising from where he had been taking cover. He had the telescopic sight of his SIG to his left eye and Alex looked down and saw a red dot on his chest.
Alex had been in prison for a year before he joined the Army. He had taken the ultimatum they had given him. Join up or stay in prison for four more years. He had hated being locked up and knew that a kidnap charge meant a long sentence, something that he wasn’t going to accept. He weighed up how far away the man with the gun was and his chances of a sudden move to escape the bullet. He knew the problem was that there would be others and they would move in quickly once they saw he was being compliant, leaving little opportunity for him to then try make a break for it. He made his decision and accepted that it could be the last one he would ever make.
Pérez saw the man standing still. He was looking at the red dot on his chest and he sensed that he was deciding what to do next. Pérez knew that this was Sonny’s second in command and that he would be a potential valuable source of intelligence if he came quietly. Pérez was by now around forty metres away from the man. If it was him in Alex’s shoes, then forty metres was a fair distance to take the chance of distance versus a moving target. The decision would come shortly and Pérez was ready.
“Don’t do it, last warning,” he said.
Alex Krikorian looked back towards Pérez and smiled. He went as though to release the Škorpion from his neck strap. He was anticipating that Pérez would relax, giving him a split second to drop to the floor and take cover. But he was wrong. Pérez didn’t relax and as he saw Alex look up and smile he guessed what Alex was going to do and it wasn’t surrender. The moment he saw Alex start to move and bring up his gun, he followed him with his telescopic sight and fired two single shots and Alex fell to the ground. Bravo 1 and 2 came from the rear of the finca and started shouting at Alex to lie still and release his weapon. He didn’t move. Bravo 1 moved forwards with cover from Bravo 2 and stood firmly on the Škorpion and then kicked it away and it moved without resistance. He lent forward and checked for a pulse. Nothing.
“Bravo 1 to Alpha 1. Target confirmed as neutralised,” said Bravo 1 in Spanish this time, followed by the same message in English for the benefit of Charlie 1.
“Alpha 1 copied.”
“Charlie 1 copied.”
Alpha team secured Tigran in plasti-cuffs and Bravo 1 started to carry out a methodical search of the finca. Bravo 1 called out twice again, once in Spanish and once in English.
“Any persons inside the finca lie down on the floor and discard any weapons.”
Anna had heard the shouting and was straining to see outside of the window, but couldn’t see anything. She then heard the sound of Pérez’s shots. The suppressor making them sound like muted whistles and then she heard what she assumed was a radio transmission as it was in a quieter voice. When she heard the same man calling out again, she answered both in Spanish and English.
“I am unarmed. I am Anna Martínez and I think there is no one else here.”
“Wait where you are.”
“Yes, understood. Entiendo,” said Anna in both English and Spanish.
“Bravo 1 to Alpha 1 contact made with Señora Martínez. House entry commencing.”
Lori looked at Sam and could see the relief in his face. They saw the Bravo team enter the finca on Lori’s phone screen, but then they went out of sight as they went in through the door.
Anna heard them coming in and heard the shouts of “¡Despejado!”, ‘Clear!’ in Spanish, from the team as they checked each room. The voices got nearer and she lay still on the floor with her hands and legs stretched out. She knew they were coming to rescue her, but she also knew that they wouldn’t make any assumptions and needed to know she was unarmed. Bravo 1 opened the door and she smiled at him.
He quickly assessed the room and asked her to stand up slowly and turn around once, which she did. He could see she was in a thin night dress and was not holding or concealing anything. He called out again, “¡Despejado!” and then took his helmet and smiled at her.
“Señora Martínez, it is nice to see you,” said B
ravo 1.
“It is nice to see you too,” she said and although she had held up really well until then, all of her strength suddenly disappeared and she started to fall back on to the bed, until he stepped forward and caught her.
*****
Lori and Sam moved quickly forward after Pérez confirmed the finca was secure and one of the Bravo team took them through to see Anna, who had tears in her eyes when she saw them.
Sam hugged her tightly.
“Mum, are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. But it’s so good to see you. Honestly I’m fine,” she repeated as if to reassure herself as much as Sam. “How did you get to me so quickly?”
“It was Greg and Terri,” said Sam. “They got a great lead and then Lori’s team did the rest. I’ll tell you all about it later, but can I just check again? Are you okay?”
“I can’t believe you got to me so quickly. But yes, to answer your question. I’m fine. They knocked me out with some chloroform or something like that, but all in all they were very fair and they didn’t harm me.”