by Ty Patterson
You betcha, he grinned.
* * *
‘THEY’RE HERE!’ Beth thumped Zeb so hard that he spilled coffee on his tee and down his chest.
Next day. A hasty breakfast before they went on a second day of recon. It was when she had spilled his drink.
‘Who’s here?’ he emptied his coffee mug in the sink and when he turned to her, took an involuntary step back from the force of her excitement.
She was bursting with energy, bouncing from one foot to another, flicking her hair back impatiently. Meghan, behind her, winking at him.
‘AHMED AND YEFREMOV. THEY’RE IN THE COUNTRY,’ Beth yelled.
* * *
A quick conference in the living room. All ten of them while the sisters briefed them rapidly.
‘Check your phones,’ Meghan ordered. ‘We’ve sent photographs of how they look. Ahmed is Eli Cohen, Israeli. Yefremov is Ryan Kasper, a Hollywood executive. They landed in LAX, separately, in the night. Eight pm and eleven pm. Nope,’ she stalled the chorus of questions. ‘We don’t know if they met. Nope, we don’t know where they are currently.’
Zeb studied the images as the sisters fielded questions. How do they know these two are our men?
He looked up when Beth began answering precisely that question.
‘We got Werner to create disguises for these men. Wigs. Cheek pads, false teeth, fake noses, anything that’s possible without surgery. And then got it to monitor the major airport terminals for those people.’
‘But –’ Burt began.
‘Some basics about a person don’t change,’ she overrode the researcher. ‘Pupillary distance, the width between the centers of the eyes. Height. We can eliminate whatever extra inches are added by shoes or padding. Several factors. Sure, Cohen and Kasper could be real people but we checked that. They have good legends, but they don’t hold up against aggressive verification. They –’
‘They arrived at night?’ Zeb interrupted her.
‘Yeah.’
That’s enough time for either of them, or both, to get to these locations.
‘Talk while we move,’ he got to his feet and signaled them to climb into their vehicles.
They would go into surveillance mode and if they were lucky, really lucky, they would see either or both the men arriving.
Chapter Eighty-Two
Zeb drove out fast, followed by the second vehicle.
‘How do you know these are our men?’ he asked the sisters.
‘Cohen, or Ahmed, is an Israeli importer.’ Beth replied and grinned at his raised eyebrows. It wasn’t lost on her that the Saudi was impersonating as a Jew. ‘Office address holds water. But no employees. Home address nonexistent. Medical records sketchy. He’s got a driving license, a bank account which has a healthy balance with regular transactions like for rent, utilities. But here’s the thing. There’s a CCTV camera almost opposite the entrance to his office. We hacked into its database. No one looking like Cohen has ever entered or exited the building. No one looking like Ahmed or any of his other disguises.’
Jackpot! Zeb gave her an approving nod and floored the gas.
‘Yefremov,’ Meghan took over. ‘is a Hollywood talent agent. Attached to a production house but is an independent. We made some calls.’
‘This early? Bear asked doubtfully.
‘Yeah. It’s surprising how many calls get answered when you say you’re casting for a new Game of Thrones movie and hint at the names backing it. He, Yefremov, has never been seen in Hollywood. Ryan Kasper has never been mentioned in social media. Which is extraordinary for a Hollywood player. And even if we give him the benefit of doubt, here’s the thing. There’s a real Ryan Kasper. He is a talent scout. He too is independent. And he looks very similar to our man, but right now, he’s fast asleep, next to his wife in their apartment in Laurel Canyon.’
‘Bingo,’ Bwana whistled softly. ‘But, why would they risk everything by coming to the US. They know we’ll be looking for them.’
‘Meg and I think this is related to List Europe and List Asia in some way.’
‘We stopped those programs. Those servers are out.’
‘Yeah, but we do not know if there were backups. What if there were copies in these locations?’
‘Even if there were, couldn’t they be activated remotely?’
‘Not if these centers operate independently, like terrorist cells. Each unit doesn’t know anything about the others. Which is what we found in Ukraine and Indonesia. You agree?’ she asked Zeb who was nodding along.
‘Yeah. But there’s only one way we’ll know for sure.’
‘By asking them.’ Bear answered gleefully.
Chapter Eighty-Three
Two hours later, hunkered down in the same location as the previous day. The same distribution. Bwana and Roger at the rear.
A brief argument, Bear and Chloe saying they wanted to go to the back, Bwana turning on the superiority by claiming that he and Roger were the best woodsmen in the team. Which was true and that ended the spirited debate.
Sunlight warming their backs. The smell of earth and vegetation surrounding them. No sounds of civilization. It was as if they were the only humans in the land.
Near two pm, a faint trail of dust on the horizon.
‘That’s near the gate,’ Beth whispered though there was no reason to. No one else was in listening distance and she was speaking in their earpieces. But, habit and tradecraft.
A line of trees and hillocks cut out their view of the drive which was visible only when it emerged from the woods and neared the house. That trail of dust resolved into a fast-moving vehicle. Make indistinguishable from the distance. Black, some kind of SUV, was all that they could discern.
Zeb trained his glasses and tried to see through its windows, but no luck. They were tinted and the vehicle was jerking and bouncing on the uneven drive.
It skidded to a stop in front of the house. Simultaneously, the ranch’s doors opened. Two men stepped out, faces concealed by large glasses and hats. They climbed down the steps, escorted a man from the ride and disappeared into the house.
‘This is the place,’ Zeb said softly. ‘See how expertly they did that. We didn’t get one look at their faces or at the arrival. Why would any ranch go to such lengths to protect people?’
The SUV drove to the left of the house, turned and disappeared behind it.
‘We’ve got it,’ Roger announced laconically. And then, ‘Nope. Dude, the driver, ran into the house, head down. Average height. Jeans. Some kind of blue shirt. That’s all we got.’
‘You think they know we’re here?’ Chloe asked.
‘No,’ Zeb said. ‘If they did, that man, whoever he is, wouldn’t come here. He –’
‘Werner says there’s a possibility he’s Ahmed.’
Zeb snapped his head to the right and gaped at Meghan who grinned and held up her phone.
‘I recorded his arrival,’ she said. ‘Asked Werner to run any kind of posture, body, face recognition. The height matches, it said. The gait has similarity to a brief clip from the LAX CCTV archives. Oh, and Zeb, shut your mouth. There are flies around.’
‘We go tonight?’ Bwana asked, yearning in his voice.
‘Yeah,’ Zeb confirmed. ‘Two goals. Shut down this List. And take Ahmed alive.’
Chapter Eighty-Four
Riyaz Khalid Ahmed was tired. This mission was draining him of his energies.
He had hustled into the ranch, head down, the moment he had stepped out of the vehicle. Two of Jake’s men had escorted him. Both, concealing their faces. Standard operating procedure.
‘Anything out of the ordinary?’ he asked Jake when the center leader greeted him. Jake for Jakob Zacharovsky. A Russian who headed a gang in L.A. which in turn was part of a larger bratva in Moscow.
Ahmed did not know how Yefremov knew him and did not care to know. All that mattered was his Russian counterpart had provided the armed guards and the programmers. Trust. It was how the three of them wo
rked. If they couldn’t rely on each other, this mission would fail. So far they had no cause to doubt one another. Jake and his men were good. The programmers were excellent. By all accounts, the software people in all the centers were some of the best in the world. It was only in Indonesia that Leslie had insisted on having Zhen and Keling instead of Yefremov’s personnel. Because of the backstory he had with those gangsters.
‘No. It’s quiet here,’ Jake answered. He had cultivated a West Coast accent, a lazy drawl, but that belied his ruthless streak. ‘It always is. Anything I should know? Your visit is a surprise.’
Ahmed debated on how much to tell the man. He, Leslie and Yefremov had been very clear on need to know. Does Jake need to know?
No, he decided. But it didn’t hurt to give a hint.
‘There’ve been some complications,’ he said. ‘Nothing that alters our mission. But it needed me to be here.’
‘What kind of complications?’ Jake asked sharply.
Ahmed noted the way the man’s AR15 was slung over his shoulder, close to his gun hand. Yes, this Russian was good. He was calm, controlled, and always wary, even indoors.
‘List Europe. It got corrupted,’ he lied baldly. ‘The backup copy needs to be restored.’
‘That might take some time. The engineers are busy on their current program. The American one. They have upped the ante, like you wanted.’
‘How are they holding up?’
‘As well as you can expect. They’ve been cooped up here for weeks. But they aren’t complaining.’ He looked about and lowered his voice. ‘The promise of money, lots of it, it’s always a great incentive.’
Ahmed nodded. He knew what Jake implied. The engineers would be killed once the mission was over. That promise was only that. Words.
‘You want to meet them?’
‘Let me check out the site.’
‘Nothing’s changed since you were last here,’ Jake started walking to the computer room which was in the center of the arc. It had been the dining room but had been stripped out to accommodate the server racks, the highspeed cable connections, the monitors and the various equipment that the engineers needed. Its front walls were opaque glass with a thin transparent strip at the top through which they could look inside.
Five engineers, hunched over their screens. Some of them looked up at Ahmed expressionlessly as he strolled past, outside.
‘They look tired.’
‘We’re all tired,’ Jake shrugged. ‘When will this end?’
‘Soon,’ Ahmed promised. ‘That’s one reason why I am here. Things are heading to a close. How are your men?’
‘None of us have shot each other,’ the Russian laughed sardonically. He jerked his head at the armed men scattered throughout the house none of whom were paying them any attention. ‘They miss going out, having a beer. Having a woman. Yefremov … relax,’ he said when the Saudi looked at him sharply, ‘no one else knows his name. He told me this gig would last a few days. It’s weeks now. Don’t get me wrong. This ranch is fabulous. But it still feels like a prison.’
‘I told you. It’ll end soon.’
‘That’s the wine cellar,’ Jake opened the door that led down to a flight of stairs. ‘You know what’s there.’
‘Yes.’
‘And those are our rooms.’
The entire building had been hollowed out, keeping just the converted dining room and the bedrooms and a bathroom. A large open space running from one end to the other, with doors to the accommodations, the cellar and the computer setup.
A central table on which several monitors played the feeds from the CCTV cameras around the house.
‘Motion sensors?’
‘We haven’t changed anything since your last visit. We have them around the building, close to it. We don’t need anything else. No one visits this ranch. No one gets past the fence and the gates. A time or two a few inquisitive tourists jumped over the wire but we turned them away politely. Any work that the house needs, we do ourselves. Once a week, I or a few others go to Grand Junction and stock up on essentials.’
Ahmed had seen enough. He was confident that Carter hadn’t reached the center. He went to sleep comforted by Jake and his sixteen men standing sentry outside.
Chapter Eighty-Five
Zeb and his team hit the ranch at their usual attack time.
A larger breach through the wire to accommodate the dogs. Burt and Pilgrim running behind the machines. The operatives running alongside them, in dark combat suits, weapons and NVGs, cutting through the night.
‘You can control all of them with just those screens?’ Beth asked the researchers, pointing to their hand-held screens.
‘Yeah,’ Burt grinned. ‘That’s why I said the training takes a while.’
They covered ground easily, the robots spread out ahead of them, loping.
A breather to let the researchers recover. Zeb looked at the night sky. Millions of pinpricks in the dark canvas. A light moving slowly, a satellite. A light, cool breeze. He squinted in the night. Ranch’s half a mile away. Four minutes to hit it.
The building was lit and stood out in the distance. The only establishment in the darkness.
At a snap of his fingers, they resumed. ‘How’re you holding up?’ he asked the scientists.
‘Always wanted to lose some weight,’ Pilgrim panted.
They stopped six hundred yards away. Got to the ground while the machines spread out and wandered aimlessly. No shadows appeared at any of the windows.
Another move forward, the same maneuver, with the same result.
‘Split,’ Zeb spoke into his mic when the ranch was a hundred feet away.
Bear, Chloe, Broker and Beth turned left in the night. Pilgrim joined them with fifteen machines. They took a long detour and swung to the back of the house.
‘In position,’ the twin confirmed half an hour later. ‘We’ve come through between the buildings at the back. All empty.’
‘Burt, Pilgrim,’ Zeb ordered, ‘send the dogs.’
The machines raced towards the house from the front and the back.
‘Gravel yard around the house,’ Burt called out. Stone walls. The windows are too high. They can’t see inside.’
‘Make them jump.’ Zeb trained his NVGs and saw the first of the machines leap high in the air. The others soon followed.
‘Huh!’ Pilgrim’s surprised voice. ‘The inside’s hollow,’ he said as images streamed on his and Burt’s screen from the robots’ cameras. ‘A long hallway that follows the curve of the house. It’s as if any rooms, any construction was removed.’
‘Yeah,’ Burt confirmed. ‘I can see guards. Four, no five, all armed.’
They identified seven finally, all spread out in the corridor inside. A few rooms at the center of the curve. A center table on which were several screens, a man sitting at them.
‘Control station,’ Pilgrim said. ‘I can see what that dude’s seeing on his CCTV feeds. Oh, wait. A dog appeared, and there’s another.’
‘Anything about those rooms?’
‘One of them seems to be glowing from the inside,’ Burt said. ‘The one at the base of the arc. Can’t see inside, however.’
‘That could be where the engineers are,’ Meghan stated.
Zeb nodded in the dark.
‘We keep looking?’ Burt asked.
‘Yeah, but no more jumping.’ Zeb replied.
Any motion sensors around the house could be designed to ignore animals. However, they needed confirmation.
* * *
Ahmed woke instantly when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He reached reflexively for the gun on a side-table, relaxed when he made out Jake looming over him.
‘What’s it?’
‘You got to see this.’
The Saudi dressed hastily, shoved his gun in a large pocket and followed him out. He blinked in the well-lit hallway. A few sentries nodded at him as he passed them. The smell of coffee from mugs in their hands. Ahmed stretched to his toes
and peered inside the computer room. The engineers were asleep on the floor.
‘This,’ Jake pointed to a screen. ‘I’ve never seen them before.’
Ahmed stared at the dogs as they ran around the house, some milling aimlessly.
‘They are at the front as well as the back.’
‘Wild dogs?’
‘Looks like that.’
‘What are they doing?’
‘Beats me. We get the occasional animals. Wild cats, but dogs, and this many?’ the Russian shook his head in disbelief. ‘First time any of us have seen them.’
‘Anything else on the cameras?’
‘No.’
‘Motion sensors?’
‘They’re quiet. They don’t trigger when animals pass, otherwise they’d be beeping continuously.’
Ahmed straightened and went to a front window. He shaded his eyes from the reflection and peered outside.
He spotted an animal immediately as it darted across. Its head swung in his direction as it loped.
Something about it bothered him. He kept looking at it as it disappeared in the night, but here, another came along. Same style of running.
No tongue!
* * *
‘That’s Ahmed!’
Zeb winced at Burt’s shout.
‘GO!’ He ordered.
* * *
‘THOSE AREN’T –’ Ahmed shouted.
His voice was drowned in the shattering of glass as the animals burst through the windows at the front and the back.
He froze. The guards were stunned. Jake’s jaw dropped as the animals landed on carpet.
‘GET THEM OUT!’ The Russian recovered and fired over the top of one dog. It didn’t flinch.
‘THEY AREN’T –’ Ahmed began again but rifles opened up. Sleeping guards rushed out of their rooms and more weapons joined the fray. The animals raced randomly, zigging and zagging down the corridor, moving at unbelievable speed.
