Hidden Threat

by Anthony Tata

  “Maybe so,” Amanda said, smiling weakly. “But I’m going to fix what I can, and I just needed to talk to you. I’ve got the courage to do this now. So, thank you.”

  “You’re scaring me, Amanda,” Riley said. “Don’t make me bop you with this cast.”

  Amanda leaned over and kissed Riley on the forehead. “Get you anything before I go?”

  “Why don’t you stay with me tonight?”

  Amanda walked toward the door, as if pulled. “I told you, I have to go fix things.”

  As she pulled onto the freeway, Amanda never noticed the vehicle that had been waiting in the shadows of the tall elms just past Riley Dwyer’s house.

  CHAPTER 69

  THE CLIFFS at KEOWEE, SOUTH CAROLINA

  Speeding along I-85, she checked out her new, disposable cell phone. She had left her Droid at Brianna’s house with its GPS tracker switched on.

  She punched her address book in the disposable cell, pulled up one of the few numbers she had added, and dialed. “Hey, Mister Dagus. I really need to talk to someone tonight. My mom bought this new house. I was wondering if you could meet me there.” She provided him the prestigious address at The Cliffs and then said, “Sorry I missed you the other night, but I had waited and had to rush out. Call me, please.”

  After an hour, including two stops, she had finally reached the winding road that led to her mother’s recently purchased mansion in The Cliffs at Keowee. She reached the long gravel drive just as the sun was dipping below the hills to the west and gripped the steering wheel with tense anticipation. Could she pull it off?

  She noticed that Tad had been so efficient that he had already placed a SOLD sign on the lawn.

  Checking her watch as she parked in a noticeable position in the front, she thought once more about the car. It should be okay, she reassured herself. Looking at her watch, she figured she had an hour before Dagus showed up, if he got the message. She still registered shock when she thought about the video with Brianna, but his weakness would serve as her bait.

  While she didn’t know to what degree Dagus was complicit with her mother, Amanda did know that he had written the article trashing her father. He had most likely beaten Riley Dwyer and had also likely burned her father’s house.

  Amanda pulled a small duffle bag out of the trunk of her car. She tried not to think about her plan as the reality of execution began to set in. Too much thought, she figured, might lead to inaction. She needed action.

  She placed the bag on the brick porch with a clunking sound. The real estate agent’s lockbox was behind a fern hanging from the porch ceiling. She spun the combination and got lucky on the second try. Extracting the key, she opened the door and was taken aback a moment by the beauty of the foyer.

  Large oak plank tongue-in-groove slats shone pristinely beneath her feet. Tad had mentioned that they had just been freshly lacquered. The staircase to the left was directly out of the movie Gone with the Wind and, she considered, may even have been the actual version used in the movie. Her mother had told her the house was beautiful, but this was breathtaking. She walked straight through the foyer, across a luxurious authentic Persian rug that absorbed her feet, and into a large family room studded with floor-to-ceiling windows across its rear-facing wall. The view spread from the deck onto the crisply mown sloping lawn to a boathouse that looked like the main residence. She could see the moonlit shimmering waters of Lake Keowee beyond the pier.

  “Like mini-me,” she giggled, noticing how the boathouse was brick with a white rotunda. The reflection of an ascending moon was a broadening yellow stripe as it skidded across the water’s still surface. Taking in the view, she got down to business.

  She took the Gone With the Wind steps two at a time and was pleasantly surprised to find a large den at the top of the staircase. A maroon-felt pool table was situated in the center of the room, which opened onto the landing at the top of the stairs. Someone playing a ball from the near end of the table would be visible from the front door. This same pool player, if he looked up from a shot, would be staring at a six-foot-square plasma television screen deeper into the room.

  “Perfect.”

  On that notion, she unzipped the duffle bag and placed the revolver in the middle of the pool table.

  ***

  Lenard Dagus steered his car along the winding road, fumbling with his cell phone. Finally able to retrieve his last call, he punched send and let the phone ring.

  “Yesss?” He heard the suggestion in her voice.

  “Amanda, it’s Lenard Dagus. I’m on my way. Are you there?”

  “Sorry about last night. I waited, but you never showed. I really wanted to talk.”

  “I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  “See you in a few.”

  Dagus felt himself stir at the thought of what he might do to Amanda Garrett. He would try not to hurt her too much. He could make no promises, though. That scab had been picked. He knew that he was no longer in control. He was someone else now. Besides, she was playing with him. He was smart enough to detect the tease in her voice.

  He raced the engine and negotiated the winding curves like a Formula One race car driver.

  ***

  Amanda stared at the pistol and then turned as she searched for the entertainment center’s remote control. Amanda ran a light hand across the dials and buttons of the DVD player. “Come to Mama.”

  She pressed the eject button and slipped a disk into the player. Punching the remote, she watched as the television screen appeared. The DVD player came on immediately, to her surprise, when she punched the TV/DVD button.

  “Bingo.” The image she wanted was on the screen. She pressed the off button and slid the remote into her hoodie pocket.

  She was ready.

  CHAPTER 70

  Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan

  Monday Morning (Hours of Darkness)

  The UH-60 command and control Blackhawk settled with a hard rocking motion in the uneven terrain. Matt was out of his safety strap as were Hobart and Van Dreeves, the two “commo guys” he had brought along.

  “Thanks for the ride, General. We’ll be in touch,” Matt said into the headset mouthpiece. The interior of the aircraft cabin was dark save the spotted red and green lenses of staff officers’ flashlights. The crew chief opened the door so that the three men could exit.

  “Good luck, son,” General Griffin said.

  “Luck, sir, has little to do with what we’re going after, but thank you.”

  With that, Matt and his team leapt from the aircraft, took a knee and then laid flat on the ground as the helicopter powered up, spitting rocks and debris upon their backs. Once away, the Blackhawk shifted direction toward the west, lifted and flew back into Afghanistan and safer territory.

  “Let’s move,” Matt said.

  He turned on his GPS, which put him two miles from the target location where the flash drive had originally sent out the beacon. On his radio he heard the occasional spot report of troops in contact. Intermittent machine-gun fire and mortar explosions signified the metered pace of the Screaming Eagle advance through the Northwest Frontier Province. They had inserted along multiple landing zones and by now hundreds of air assault troopers were scampering through the hostile villages of this Al Qaeda stronghold in heavy handed fashion. This was no peacekeeping mission.

  Rather, this was a raid that was intended to produce at least one pearl of intelligence, whether it be weapons of mass destruction, Al Qaeda or Taliban leadership, or indicators of nation-state support to the enemy. They needed to come back with something, Matt knew, or they were screwed. Pakistan would go ape shit and America would have to hasten its withdrawal from the region. But now seemed as good a time as any to put on the full court press, which is what Matt had argued for with the National Command Authority and he was glad that Houghton had backed his recommendation.

  “One and a half miles men. We need to get there before any of the Air
borne guys,” Matt said.

  “Their objectives are in the two opposite directions,” Hobart said. “I made sure of that.”

  “These guys can get lost. We need that computer and we need to docex that bitch,” Matt said.

  “I’ve got that covered,” Van Dreeves said.

  They climbed from 12,000 feet to 15,000 feet and back down to somewhere around 14,000 feet. They quietly bypassed goat herders and kids running around in the middle of the night with all of the commotion. To the best of their knowledge they had not been compromised.

  As they approached the valley that led to the village, which was the object of their advance, Matt halted. They were standing in ankle deep snow, a cool breeze rifling through the v-shaped notch in the mountain pass. He saw a few dotted lights below in the valley and knew that they had found their mark. The satellite and Predator reconnaissance missions they had performed matched closely the sparse layout of the qalats spread through the kilometer-long valley, which was protected by knifelike ridges on three sides. Snowcapped, they looked positively impassable. How Zach had ever escaped from this location, Matt would perhaps never know.

  “This one’s for Zach,” Matt whispered.

  “Roger that,” Van Dreeves and Hobart chimed in unison over their cordless voice microphones.

  “Hobart, give me some overwatch as Van Dreeves and I snake down this trail. It’s the only way in and we’ll need a sniper shot, I’m sure.”

  “Roger.” Hobart moved about twenty meters up the ridge, extended the bipod on his M24, sighted in, and reported, “Two guards on the number three.”

  They had mapped the 12 homes in the village and given each one a number so that they could easily reference where they were and where they needed to go. Number three was the target home.

  “Anything overwatching the pass?”

  “Hang on.”

  Matt waited as Hobart scanned for likely shooter locations. Small hilltops, caves, crevices, rooftops, and the like.

  “Got a warm body on the western side of the ledge about 200 meters above number two.”

  “Anything else?” Matt asked.

  “I’ve got something on the east side, looks like it’s aiming at the switchback we’ll have to go down,” Van Dreeves whispered. He was looking through his thermal scope.

  “Hang on,” Hobart said. After a pause. “Yeah. I’ve got him. The pussy is all wrapped up in a blanket, but he’s got a DSHK machinegun. Looks functional.”

  “Any comms on him?” Matt asked.

  “Looks like a small personal mobile radio.”

  “Okay, when I say we’re moving, shoot him between the eyes, then focus on the far side guy. We’ll take his PMR as we pass by. All set?”

  “Roger,” Hobart said.

  “Roger,” Van Dreeves agreed.

  “Moving,” Matt reported. He stepped through the snow onto the trail, his boots gaining purchase in the thick packed snowfall. He heard the audible click of Hobart’s weapon firing and continued moving, not waiting for the report. Hobart was good and odds were he killed the guy on the first shot.

  “He’s dead,” Hobart reported. “No further movement.”

  Matt and Van Dreeves moved quickly nearly a quarter mile, switching back through the mountain defile, lowering and slipping into the valley until they found the ledge upon which the doomed machinegun position was perched.

  “Good spot,” Van Dreeves said.

  “For us,” Matt said. “Search him quickly.” Matt had his flashlight out and they scanned the machinegun, then the body, quickly determining that the personal mobile radio was the only thing of value. “Leave the machine-gun alone. We may need it getting out of here.”

  “We’re moving,” Matt reported to Hobart, who came back quickly.

  “Our friend near number two is up and looking. He’s onto something,” Hobart said.

  “Kill him,” Matt replied.

  “Roger.”

  A few seconds passed when Hobart said, “He’s dead.”

  “Okay, the two guys near number three?”

  “Still there. Not moving other than kicking goat shit.”

  “We’re going to hold up at number one and then make our move on number three.”

  “Roger. I have clear shots on both guards on number three,” Hobart said.

  “Once I give the word, take those shots and then come down to number one, we’ll consolidate there.”

  “Roger.”

  Matt and Van Dreeves dove into a small ditch and waded through thigh-deep snow toward a remote house separated by a couple hundred meters from the rest of the village. They exited the ditch, stumbling on the rocks and snow as they crossed to the high walled compound.

  “You getting any activity on one?” Matt asked Hobart.

  “Nothing. No sign of life.”

  “Okay, we’re going in and if we find anyone, we’ll bind and gag. Then we’ll gather here and move to three as a team.”

  Something at the back of Matt’s mind was telling him that this was too easy, but he pressed on. He had set a few baited ambushes himself where he had lured his prey into an untenable situation, but now he was at least semi-confident that the massive raid with the 101 Airborne had put the inner security ring for Mullah Rahman on the move. How good they were was anyone’s guess, but he suspected they were not bad.

  He led Van Dreeves through the gate of the walled compound and turned right, calling, “Clear right,” as Van Dreeves called, “Clear left.” Matt sighted down his weapon using his night-vision monocle and saw a couple of goats wandering aimlessly. He looked at the window of the house for movement and saw none. He covered the twenty meters to the house with Van Dreeves to his left rear. They stacked along the wall opposite the doorknob. With Van Dreeves looking to the rear, Matt ducked, tugged slightly on the knob. Too stiff. Maybe rigged. He backed off, moving his hand across his throat to indicate to Van Dreeves that he didn’t like the front entrance.

  They moved as a team to the north side of the home and found a low window, maybe five feet high. It was big enough for a man to climb through. Matt stuck his head around the corner and turned on his infrared flashlight, which illuminated the room in invisible light that only his night-vision technology could see. It was an empty room with a door that opened toward the front of the house.

  “I’m in first, then you follow,” Matt whispered.

  “Roger. Hobart just made it to the front gate.”

  “Hobart, cover the front door in case anyone comes out. We’re entering from the north window.”

  “Roger,” Hobart replied, his breathing heavy from the run through the snow.

  The wind picked up and howled across the barren terrain, reminding them of their vulnerability to the elements.

  Matt climbed in and quickly went to one knee, his goggles scanning left and right, looking for the trap. Van Dreeves was surprisingly quick, landing like a cat to his left.

  “Let’s move,” Matt said.

  They stacked against the open doorway then Matt spun inward toward the back of the house while Van Dreeves turned toward the front door.

  “IED,” Van Dreeves said quietly. “Don’t move.”

  Matt froze. He had read about the “House-borne Improvised Explosive Devices.” Essentially the house could be remotely detonated to implode.

  “What is it?” Matt asked.

  “Wait, looks like it’s triggered by the front door,” Van Dreeves said.

  “Any kind of remote device?”

  “Still looking.”

  Van Dreeves was on one knee bravely using his flashlight around the device. Matt stole a look and saw a cooking pot with wires sticking out of it, one of which led to the front door. He saw the telltale playing card clamped between to drawing pins pressed into the inward edges of a wooden clothes pin. If the door were to open, the wire would undoubtedly remove the playing card from the clothespin and the two metal contacts would close a circuit powered by the battery next to the cooking pot, which Matt was
sure was filled with ammonia nitrate, the most lethal nonmilitary explosive in country.

  “Can you cut the wire?” Matt asked.

  “Rather not mess with it, you know. Not sure about anti-handling. Right now we’re okay. Let’s see what they’re protecting and get the hell out of here.”

  “Agree,” Matt said. “Let’s move to the back. Hobart, you monitor all? Do not go near the front door?”

  “Roger all.”

  By Matt’s estimation there were two more rooms to inspect. They entered the first and it was a sparsely furnished room with a sleeping roll, prayer mat, and table.

  “No joy.”

  They moved to the second room and Matt switched on his flashlight, bringing his Sig Sauer up quickly against a figure chained to the wall, his head hanging limply. Then he caught Van Dreeves’s flashlight out of the corner of his eye on a body on the floor covered in a blue sheet of some type.

  “Help,” came a low moan from the man on the wall.

  Matt moved his flashlight to the man’s face, badly beaten and bleeding.

  “Help me.”

  Van Dreeves was on one knee, his hand on the neck of the woman on the floor.

  “She’s dead. Probably earlier in the day, at least.”

  Matt recognized now it was a burqa covering the woman.

  They quickly removed the man from the wall and Matt found a tin cup on the floor, opened his Camelbak, filled it and let the man drink.

  “Hobart. One dead woman and one severely beaten man inside. We’ll need to cuff him and take him with us when it’s time.”

  “Roger.”

  Once the man was on the floor Matt gave him a few minutes, precious time he didn’t have, but if the man was a local he might be able to provide precise intelligence. So he thought it was worth the tradeoff in time.

  “Name?” Matt asked in Pashtu.

  The man lifted his head, but turned away from the light, holding up a scarred hand.