by Dale Brown
“The police are on their way,” Nuri said over the radio.
Danny looked around. There was a fire escape a few meters to his right. “I’m going to check the roof.”
“I’ll get your car out of there,” Nuri said. “Don’t stay too long.”
Danny jumped up and grabbed the steel ladder to the bottom of the fire escape. He pulled it down, starting to climb even before it hit the stop. Flash, meanwhile, made a U-turn, then pulled around so it would be easier to get away.
Sirens wailed in the distance as Danny reached the edge of the roof. He stopped, pulled out his pistol, then went over, rolling over the low wall and spinning up, ready. But there was no one there.
He looked around the roof quickly. There was a mattress near the front edge.
“Danny — police are pulling in,” said Nuri. “Time to go.”
Danny ignored him, running to the front of the building. He wanted something — a shell casing, a soda bottle, a coffee cup.
Nothing except the mattress. He knelt on it and looked toward the doctor’s building.
Too much of an angle. The shooter would have been to his left somewhere.
“Danny!” shouted Nuri.
“I’m coming. Flash?”
“I’m here. Let’s move.”
Danny pulled out the MY-PID control unit and had it record a video of the roof. Then he raced over to the fire escape ladder and descended.
They saw the ambulance arriving as they drove past the building.
“Kinda late for that,” said Flash.
29
Washington, D.C.
Moldova was seven hours ahead of Washington, and Breanna was just pulling into the Pentagon lot on her way to work when Reid called.
“There are some other developments in Moldova,” he told her. “We should review them together as soon as we get a chance.”
“I can meet you after lunch,” she told him.
“Earlier, would be better. There’s been a shooting.”
“Were we involved?”
“We saw it. The person who was killed may have been connected to the Wolves. They’re still sorting things out.”
“Can you get over to the Pentagon this morning?” Breanna asked.
“Name a time.”
Breanna told him to come whenever he could and her secretary would get her.
A half hour later she made a graceful exit from a phone conference with a contractor in Rhode Island working on a project for the Navy.
“Could you get me some coffee, MaryClaire, please?” Breanna asked as Reid came in. “I’m having a caffeine fit.”
Her secretary smiled. MaryClaire Bennett was an old Pentagon hand. While their first few days had been a bit rocky, she’d relaxed considerably since. Breanna had learned to trust her people sense, which was based on many years of experience with the different personalities in the building. She’d seen many axes buried along the way — most, as the saying went, in people’s backs.
“Mr. Reid?”
“I’ve had my quota for today, thank you.”
Reid pulled a seat in front of Breanna’s desk.
“Busy day?” he asked.
“We have an aircraft demonstration coming up,” she told him. “And I’m going to have to be away from the office for a few days. So I have to get a lot of the day-to-day things out of the way. You know how it goes.”
“Yes. When are you leaving?”
“Sunday night. I’ll be at Dreamland.”
“How long?”
“Until Tuesday night.”
“Back in time for the NATO conference.”
“Yes.”
MaryClaire knocked on the door and came in with the coffee.
“General Magnus is looking for you,” the secretary said. “I told him you were tied up. He asks that you call him when you can — shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. It’s about the plane.”
“OK.” Breanna took a sip of the coffee, trying to get her brain to switch gears as MaryClaire left. “So, I saw the bulletin. The doctor was shot?”
“Yes. It was a sniper. Danny thinks the shot came from across the street, a roof, though he couldn’t find any shells.”
Reid gave her some background on the shooting. The local police were investigating. The local news services had almost nothing to report.
“The doctor was using the name of Nudstrumov. We’ve found, or at least think we’ve found, another alias. Rustam Gorgov. Gorgov owns property in northeastern Moldova, not all that far from the former training camp. And the cemetery where Mark Stoner was supposedly buried.”
He had an update on that as well — an overnight check of the DNA on the corpses showed no match.
“We have to wait for the full report and the entire testing suite, which is more extensive,” said Nuri. “But there were no matches. One of the dead men would have been about Stoner’s age and size, for what that’s worth.”
Breanna nodded.
“They must realize we’re after them,” said Reid. “The doctor visited a Russian spymaster. Maybe that was what got him killed.”
“Why?”
“Maybe he was a bad risk. Maybe they don’t work for the Russians.”
“If they don’t, we won’t have anything to worry about,” said Breanna.
A faint smile appeared at the corner of Reid’s mouth. It was an ironic smile, the sort that indicated he thought she was being naive.
“What about the property?” Breanna asked.
Reid opened his briefcase and took out a set of satellite photos, along with a satellite map. MY-PID was still analyzing different data related to the property and the surrounding area — everything from its ownership to electric bills.
No concrete ties to the Wolves had been found. But a review of commercial satellite images over the past four years showed flashes of light that appeared to be weapons.
“Could be a training ground,” said Reid. “Or just a farmer doing nighttime poaching. I’ve already applied for a Global Hawk assignment so we can get a closer look. But I’d suggest we have Whiplash check it out as well. Discreetly. And from a safe distance.”
“Agreed.”
“The question is what we do if we think they’re in there,” said Breanna.
“That’s always been the problem. It would be one thing to catch them in the act. Here…”
“Do you think it’s time to call the White House?” asked Breanna, putting down her coffee.
“I think so. If we take any direct action, outside of protecting the NATO ministers, we’ll need a finding. If the group is as accomplished as we believe they are, anything we do would be bound to…” He paused, trying to find the right phrase. “It is bound to be complicated,” he added finally.
“All right. And they’re going to need more people,” said Breanna. “We should have them ready.”
Reid nodded. Then he asked the question she’d been dreading since they were first handed the assignment:
“What do you want them to do if it’s Stoner?”
“I think, unfortunately, if he resists, they have to kill him,” said Breanna, ignoring the lump in her throat. “There’s really no other choice.”
30
Northeastern Moldova
The text message the Black Wolf received a few hours after killing the doctor consisted of one word:
EXCELLENT
It was the message he received whenever a job was complete. The doctor was the same as the others, just one more on the list.
The man he’d seen, getting of the car. A black man. African.
Or American.
Did he know Americans?
He had lived before the crash. He had a whole past, but it was locked off from him, erased by whatever they had used to resurrect him, to rebuild him, to keep him going.
He didn’t want it back.
But who was that man?
He had other things to worry about. As much as he hated Nudstrumov, the doctor had readily supplied th
e serum he needed. Who would do that now?
They would. Or he would hunt them down. Maybe he should start on that now.
The Black Wolf’s cell phone beeped with a second message. It indicated a new website.
This one was German, a listing of art shows. There was a phone number he had to call, using a prepaid cell phone.
It was best not to make the call from the house. He went out to the barn and got his motorcycle.
He’d seen the black man somewhere. But where?
A half hour later, sitting at the top of a hill ten miles from the house, the Black Wolf made the call to the number in the listing.
“The assignment has changed,” said a computerized voice in English. “You will go to Prague. A new team is being prepared. Further instructions will be provided. Leave immediately.”
The Black Wolf looked down at the phone. He pressed the 1 digit to show that he understood. Then he hung up.
31
Northeastern Moldova
Rather than waiting for the morning and the iffy connections north, Danny, Nuri, and Flash took two cars and drove up in the direction of the farm. Given that his visit to the cemetery might have tipped someone off, Danny decided they would bypass the town where he’d stayed as well as the old athletic facility and cemetery. That meant a more circuitous route, swinging farther west before turning back toward the farm from the north.
Nuri and Flash took one car; Danny drove alone. He spent much of the ride brooding about Stoner and the past.
If things had gone differently following the mission, Dreamland itself could have sent a team to check the wreck. But Dreamland had been going through its own transition. Colonel Bastian was being replaced.
Dog wouldn’t have left Stoner behind if he could have helped it. He’d blow up half the world getting one of his people back home.
They didn’t make them like Colonel Bastian anymore. He was a balls-to-the-wall SOB to anyone that crossed him. If you were one of his, however, he didn’t just have your back, he had your soul. He didn’t command you, he cared about you. He made you a better soldier. And a better person.
Dog.
Danny felt his eyes welling up, thinking about his old commander, Breanna’s dad. He reached over and turned on the radio, hunting for some music to get his mind off the past.
Hell, Danny, you’re making me into some kind of cardboard saint. You know that’s not me.
Danny felt a shudder through his body. He knew the voice was just the product of his over-tired imagination, but he was so spooked he turned the radio off and drove in silence for the next two hours.
* * *
“Magnetic field, fifty meters,” said Nuri, reading the screen on the MY-PID unit. “Runs all along the far side of the stream.”
Danny focused the night glasses, then swept slowly along the creek. These were big glasses, the size of binoculars, and besides being able to pick up the thermal image of a mouse at two hundred yards, they could accept data from MY-PID, superimposing it to create what the scientists called an “enriched and interpreted image.”
Notes from the computer. Imagine what a school kid could do with that.
“Show magnetic field,” he told the computer.
A blue wall appeared on the other side of the stream. It stretched all the way to the road, a good kilometer away, and ran into the hills on the south. It encircled the entire farm. The perimeter measured nearly thirteen kilometers.
“It has to be some sort of detection field,” said Nuri.
“Like a force field?” asked Flash.
“It’s not going to zap us, if that’s what you mean,” said Nuri. “But I’d guess that anything that moves through it would be detected.”
“As long as it’s metal?” asked Flash.
“It may be pretty sensitive,” said Danny. “Anything that could conduct electricity could set it off. There’s something similar at Dreamland. You can’t breach it without it being detected.”
He slipped back from the trees. Someone had spent a lot of money to set up the perimeter.
Clearly, they had the right place. Or at least one of them.
The property consisted of three gently rolling hills, spread out over land that included two streams and bordered a third. Woods formed an inner ring around a border of open fields, an arrangement that Danny surmised was intentional — the woods would provide cover for defenders. Warned of anyone attempting to approach them, they could slip into the trees and pick them off as they came.
The next ring consisted of farm fields, nearly all idle. At the center were a number of farm buildings and one large house.
The house looked like a nineteenth-century Moldovan manor house, a three-story masonry structure with a sharply pitched roof. Two wings extended off the back, giving the building a U-shape. MY-PID calculated there was just over 8,000 square feet of space inside, not counting the basement.
There were three buildings a short distance away. One was an old barn, in an architectural style similar to the house. A six-bay garage sat next to it, at the end of the driveway. Flat-roofed and skinned with pale concrete stucco, it was somewhat newer, probably built sometime around World War II.
The third building was made of steel and didn’t look to be more than four or five years old. It reminded Danny of the gym he’d seen at the training center, though it would have fit nicely in any industrial park across the world. It was large, 92 feet by just over 280. You couldn’t quite get a football field inside, but it would be close.
It was also heated — the glasses showed that the exterior walls were warmer than the garage’s. The heat was uniform, and the walls apparently well-insulated enough to prevent the night glasses from picking up details from the interior.
Unusual for a warehouse, especially one that appeared empty.
A perfect place to set up a training exercise, Danny thought darkly. You could rehearse a dozen killings inside, run two or three teams and not have them bump into each other.
“No guards on the interior roads,” said Nuri, watching the feed on the laptop from a Predator V. The aircraft had flown from Germany, and would be assigned to Whiplash for as long as they needed it. A second was on its way; both would operate out of Ukraine. They were CIA assets, controlled from a site on Cyprus.
“Two video cameras in the front woods,” said Nuri. “They’re focusing on the road coming up to the house. And there’s a mine system.”
The Predator was reading electric currents as well as heat. The mines were wired; a belt ten meters wide surrounded the house. There were also patches in different areas where trees or bushes provided cover to approach the center of the compound.
“Parachute drop might work,” said Nuri. “Get right past the defenses.”
“We got to land on the roof?” asked Flash. There was the slightest tremor in his voice — though he had jumped often, Flash did not like parachuting. “If their ground defenses are that elaborate, you don’t think they’d have something to protect against airplanes?”
“You think they have SAMs in the barn?” asked Danny.
“Gatling guns in one of the lower buildings would do it.”
“Do they?” Danny looked at Nuri.
“I don’t see anything in those buildings,” said Nuri. “But we only have infrared at the moment.”
“We’re better off going on the ground,” said Danny, considering. “If they have this much technology, they’ll trust it. Once we’re past the magnetic wall, the rest will be easy. We’ll just pick a path around the sensors.”
“That’s like Moses saying once we cross the Red Sea, we’ll be free from the Egyptians,” said Nuri.
“You know what, Colonel?” Flash held up his control unit. He had zoomed in on a small section of the property. “Can I see this grid on the big screen?”
“Go ahead.”
Flash hunkered down with Nuri, coordinating the grid numbers.
“You look at these plants?” Flash asked after they zoomed the imag
e. “You know what they are?”
“No.”
“It’s cannabis. Pot. They have about two acres worth of marijuana growing down that hillside.”
“Two acres?”
“Shit yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Have a look.”
Danny wasn’t an expert in plant morphology, but MY-PID was. Flash was right.
“Two acres worth of weed,” said Flash. “You sure we ain’t bustin’ a drug operation?”
32
White House
Covert operations were among the most top secret of all government undertakings, but that didn’t meant they didn’t have their own bureaucratic infrastructure and procedures. On the contrary: the bureaucracy and its pathways were in some ways even more elaborate for “black” operations than those involving the rest of the government.
Legal opinions — many more than the average person would believe — as well as myriad logistical decisions and arrangements had to be formulated, reviewed, rejected (more often than not), reformulated, and finally decided upon.
These were all subject to the “serendipitous conundrums,” as Jonathon Reid put it: chance, accidents, and, last and very often least, official policy, which acted like grit in the wheels of the churning system. Even when the chain of command was set up in a streamlined way to purposely get quick decisions and emphasize flexibility, it could take days, if not weeks, to get the outlines of an operation approved.
There were surprisingly few ways to short-circuit the process. The one surefire way, however, was to go directly to the President herself.
Which was what Reid did, arranging to stop by the White House residence to play cards after dinner.
Not with the President — Mrs. Todd abhorred gambling, whether it was cards or horse racing or even the state lottery, something which hadn’t won her many friends when she proposed it be abolished while running for the state legislature at the start of her career. She’d lost that election; it was the last time she ever mentioned the lottery, on or off the record.
