by Dale Brown
“We’re going to stage out of this old barnyard,” Danny told Boston, showing him the GPS coordinates. “It’s two klicks from the target area. We’ve got Predators watching overhead, but be careful anyway. These guys are full of surprises.”
Flash was sitting in the car, watching the video feeds when Danny drove in. There was activity at the Black Wolves’ farm—a lot of it.
“Two trucks came in about a half hour ago. Four more guys total,” said Flash. “Two went into the building and moved things around. The other two put up some new defenses outside.”
“They expecting us?” Danny asked.
“That’s what I thought when I first saw them, but everything’s back here by the house. I think they made their exercise more specific.”
“You have the computer compare it to Kiev?”
“Figured I’d wait until they were done.”
“Right. So have they started yet?”
“No, sir.”
That was bad. The later they started, the later they could move. Keeping a strike force sitting around for several hours doing nothing was always problematic. But Danny knew he had no other choice.
“Let’s see if they’re any good,” he told Flash, pointing to the screen.
They didn’t have long to wait. Tonight there were eight Wolves involved in the exercise, six on the assault team and two inside the building, posing as targets.
The assault group moved more quickly than they had the night before. Four members moved up the road to the large building and slipped inside. The others took posts covering the approach. The infrared sensors on the Predator caught small explosions inside the building—flash-bang grenades, probably, though the thermal signatures were not big enough to see.
“Time them,” Danny told Flash.
“Yeah. On it.”
Flash tapped a set of keys that began keeping track of the elapsed time. Exactly two minutes and fifty-three seconds after he had flicked it on, a grenade flashed near the door. The two men on the outside began shooting into the woods.
Guns began firing back.
Flash zoomed to the spots where the guns were firing from. There was no one there; only weapons.
“Gotta be remote controlled,” said Danny. “Part of the exercise.”
“Yeah. But they were hidden so well we didn’t see them, not even with the ground radar.”
“They’re good. No doubt about that.”
The team came out of the building, moving at close to a dead run. Two men with them, bound and gagged—hostages.
“Only two?” said Flash.
“Two’s a lot for six guys to handle,” said Danny. “I’m surprised they’re taking any.”
Boston joined them, watching as the Wolves worked their way to the cottage and different gun emplacements opened up. Once more they got onto the skeleton helicopters and flew across the compound.
“These are the guys we’re hitting?” Boston asked Danny.
“Yeah.”
“They got a lot of gear.”
“Sure do.”
“At least they’ll be tired when we go in,” said Boston.
The Wolf team practiced their assault three more times. By the time they were done, Danny could have done it with his eyes closed.
They used live ammunition on the last trial. The bullets perforated the trees.
It was almost 3:00 A.M. by the time they packed up. Danny waited until they had been in the house for a half hour before giving the order to saddle up.
“Our turn now,” he told Boston. “Let’s take our shot.”
43
Northeastern Moldova
Nuri slouched in the front pew of the small church,pretending to be sleeping. The grumbling of the policemen around him had settled into a low background hum, the sort of sound a generator makes when some of its bearings are worn. Part of him hoped they would grow so bored and disillusioned they would simply go home. Another part of him feared they would decide to lynch him.
It could go either way.
He remembered a somewhat similar operation in Africa, when he’d been working with a local government against guerrillas who had taken to a particularly nasty form of piracy—the guerrillas would hijack buses on a deserted route, holding the passengers for ransom. To prove they meant business, they would kill the person they figured was the poorest, and send body parts to the local army barracks.
Grisly as it was, it was just business to them, and part of their costs included protection from sudden army or police raids. Every time the government threatened action against them, the cost of that protection went up—and so did the ransom amount, and eventually the number of kidnappings.
The CIA began working with the government when the daughter of a prominent Episcopalian bishop was among those kidnapped. An eavesdropping program quickly revealed that the local army general was getting kickbacks—something Nuri guessed the first day he’d been briefed on the assignment.
Still, the government insisted that the local army unit be notified when Nuri arranged a raid by SEALs to rescue the hostages. He had spent several uncomfortable hours in the African commander’s home, basically under house arrest, while the raid went forward.
In the end he got out alive by suggesting that the general could make more money on the CIA payroll than by working with the guerrillas. The general proved to be very handy with numbers, and they soon cut a deal. For all Nuri knew, he was still collecting a paycheck.
He nearly jumped to his feet as his sat phone rang.
“This is Nuri,” he said.
“We’re in place,” Danny told him. “Give us ten more minutes, then come along and secure a perimeter. Sign into the Whiplash circuit when you’re ready.”
“Thank God,” said Nuri, shutting off the phone.
44
Northeastern Moldova
The key to the operation was a device that looked a little like a lawn mower, assuming the motor was replaced by a large fan mounted horizontally and covered with black plastic grills. A pair of the devices was used to create a resonating magnetic force that matched the field surrounding the farm. Placed side by side, they created a corridor approximately six meters wide for the Whiplash team to slip through without being detected.
Once past the perimeter, they moved stealthily through the woods. While there were video cameras hidden in the trees, MY-PID had calculated a safe albeit twisted path to the fields beyond. The pattern looked like a series of drunken vees. The team had to snake through the thickest foliage single file on their bellies before finally reaching a dried out stream bed where it was easier to move.
All in all it took more than a half hour to clear the wooded area. At that point the team split into two groups. One, led by Boston, began circling to the east to cover the front half of the house and property. The second, led by Danny, continued in from the south. Danny’s group would do the actual assault.
The Predator with ground-penetrating radar provided a good view of the interior layout of the house. There were three floors above ground level, not counting the crawl-space attic. The top floor was divided into two large rooms with chairs; both appeared to be empty. The second floor looked something like a dormitory area, with small rooms boxed off on either side of a long hallway. There were staircases on each end. A total of four common bathrooms with four showers apiece were located between the rooms. All but two of the twelve people inside were sleeping in the dorm rooms, one to a room.
The other two people were in what looked like a small control room at the back of the house, directly above the basement door the Black Wolves had used to get in and out of the building. They were sitting next to each other at a pair of desks arranged in an el shape against the walls. There were no windows in the room, and the door was closed.
The basement, which appeared unoccupied, was divided into a small classroom where the debriefing had been held the night before, a workout room, and what appeared to be an armory. Besides the outside door, a single staircase
ran down from above at the exact center of the building. There were no windows.
Even more important than giving Danny the location of the Wolves, the synthetic radar painted the mechanical layout of the house, showing him where the air-conditioning vents were. Most ran in the interior walls. One set, however, came through the attic where the air handlers were located.
That was the starting point for the assault on the house. After freezing a pair of motion detectors on the southwest corner of the house with blasts of liquid oxygen from a small tank—the sensors worked by detecting heat—the assault team moved next to the building. A former Delta trooper nicknamed Tiny and a Marine the team called Bean pulled special booties over their shoes and donned climbing gloves. Cautiously, they began moving up the clapboard siding. The gloves contained tiny, razor-sharp points that dug into the wood; they were surrounded by a supersticky rubberized material that made the gloves worn by NFL wide receivers look like ice packs. The booties, which were strapped tight around their shoes, were made of the same material. The two men were essentially human flies, scrambling upward.
The nickname “Bean” had been shortened from Stringbean, and it was an apt description of the Marine’s body. A quarter inch shy of six feet, he weighed 140—or at least claimed to; Boston joked that if he stood sideways he would fit through a sewer grate with no problem.
Tiny, on the other hand, looked like an artist’s conception of a typical Delta Force trooper, with a well-developed upper body that featured muscles coming out of his muscles. But the image was blown once he stood next to someone—Tiny really was tiny, and very much so, standing five-three and a half. How he managed to get into Delta, which Danny had always thought had a strict height requirement, was anyone’s guess.
The two men climbed directly to the roof, pausing to remove the gloves and booties. Bean then grabbed Tiny’s legs and lowered him from the peak, holding him as Tiny inspected the fasteners on the attic vent.
“Star driver,” whispered Tiny.
Bean pulled him back onto the roof. Tiny reached into his pant leg pocket and removed a small cordless driver, then found the star-shaped bit in the handle compartment. Bean once more grabbed his legs, and Tiny went back over to undo the vent.
The screws came out easily enough, but the vent wouldn’t pull away from the wood. The slow settling of the house over the years had pushed the roof joists apart slightly, levering the vent into the fascia. Tiny had to return to the roof for a standard screwdriver.
In the meantime, two of the people who had been sleeping on the second floor got up. Worried that the sound of prying the vent off might alert them, Danny ordered Tiny and Bean to stop and wait.
“It looks like a guard change,” Danny told them. “We’ll just wait it out.”
The two men inside took their time getting dressed; ten minutes passed before the first one went downstairs. When the next one finally went down five minutes later, Danny told Tiny to take a shot at getting the grill off while the men were on the first floor.
Tiny leaned back over the side. He levered the screwdriver in but found he had to use two hands to get the grill to budge. Suddenly it gave way. Tiny grabbed for it, but it fell to the ground with a loud clang.
Everyone froze.
Danny turned to Flash, who was looking at the radar feed on his laptop. He had the first floor.
“Nothing,” said Flash. “Looks like they’re talking. Maybe hard to hear from there.”
MY-PID, watching the feeds along with Flash, warned that someone was moving on the second floor.
“Freeze,” Danny told the men on the roof.
The man got up and looked out the window. He stared for a few minutes, then went back to bed. It was impossible to tell if he had heard anything or was merely restless.
“As quiet as you can,” said Danny. “Let’s move ahead.”
Bean lowered Tiny to the opening. He slipped in, slithering around the frame as he felt his way to the floor.
“I’m inside,” he whispered. “We need the gas.”
Bean handed down a clamp and a metal pole, which Tiny attached to the top of the frame. The pole had a small pulley at its end. Tiny set a stranded metal line through the pulley, attached a small weight, then let it fall to the ground. Sugar brought up a pair of large gas canisters and attached them to the line. Tiny quickly pulled them upward, while Sugar kept pressure on a lightweight line attached to the bottom of the tanks to keep them from swinging into the building.
Tiny had just hauled the tanks into the attic when the two guards who’d been relieved earlier finally left the room on the first floor. But instead of going to their rooms, they went up to the third floor.
“Right below you,” whispered Danny.
He watched on the screen as they sat on the couch. One of them took something from a nearby table—a remote control. They were watching TV.
Tiny was supposed to drill a hole into the metal ductwork to insert a hose for the gas. But even muffled, he worried that the sound would be enough to alert the men below. He crawled next to it, waiting to see if the men might fall off to sleep or leave the room. After a few minutes he realized that he might be able to loosen some of the screws on a nearby seam. He took out a pocketknife and went to work.
45
Northeastern Moldova
The enthusiasm the Moldovan police showed made Nuri feel a little guilty as he watched them fan out around the property. The large size of the contingent did have one advantage—it allowed them to completely ring the property. They set up roadblocks about a mile away from the driveway up to the main house, out of sight of the video cameras protecting the farm. They also moved quickly, quietly, and efficiently, splitting up so it would have been difficult for a casual observer to realize how many policemen had flooded into the area.
Lacu set up a command station off the side of the main road about two kilometers from the property. The spot was on a hill, which allowed them to see the front quarter of the house, as well as the large building nearby where the Wolves had run their training session. Standing on the roof of Lacu’s car, they could make out some of the grounds on the side. The Whiplash strike team was out of sight.
“Who are the owners of this house?” the deputy minister asked as he and Nuri passed a set of infrared night vision glasses back and forth.
“I can’t remember off the top of my head,” said Nuri. It was an honest answer, though it wouldn’t have been very hard for him to look it up. “I thought maybe you would know the property.”
“No,” said Lacu. He sounded relieved.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s owned by Russians,” suggested Nuri.
“I think that’s a very good possibility,” said Lacu.
So there was the story they would use. Nuri would just let the deputy minister fill in the blanks.
“When shall we bring in the armored car?” asked Lacu.
“Hold it in reserve,” Nuri told him. The car, which drove fairly slowly, was still about a few kilometers away. “Our team will try and get the men to surrender without gunfire.”
“Without gunfire? None at all?”
“That would be the hope.”
Lacu seemed impressed. He took the glasses and turned them toward the house, studying it and the surrounding property.
“I don’t see any of your men,” said Lacu.
“You will soon enough.”
46
Northeastern Moldova
Danny looked at his watch. It was now past five o’clock. It would be light soon. And the Russians from town whom Nuri had bugged would be coming out at seven, if they held to their plan. They had to move ahead.
The two men were still in the upstairs room, watching TV.
“Tiny, can you talk?” Danny asked.
“Yes,” answered the trooper. He’d moved back to the side of the room, far from where the men were.
“What’s your status?”
“I loosened the coupling on the duct and I think I
can slip the gas nozzle inside,” he said. “I can tape around it and make it airtight. It’ll make a little noise, though.”
“Get ready to do it. But wait for my signal.”
Danny had the team outside take their positions for an immediate attack.
Plan A was to use the gas, knock everyone out, then systematically hog-tie them and cart them off.
Plan B was to go in hard, with or without the gas. Charges had been set against the wall at the guardroom, and two Whiplashers were ready to blow them and overwhelm the guards if they survived the explosion. Grenade launchers were aimed at the windows of the occupied dorm rooms; tear gas would be shot inside as the team rushed the building from below. With access to the armory cut off, they would invite the others to surrender, and proceed accordingly if they didn’t.
That was the backup plan. Things would be easier if the gas worked.
“We’re ready,” said Boston.
“Set up and start pumping,” Danny told Tiny. He turned to Flash. “You think we can increase the amount of electricity going into the building without blowing the circuit?”
“Piece of cake,” said Flash.
He opened the panel on the laptop controlling the electrical regulator and edged it up slightly. It had an immediate effect—the volume on the television increased loud enough for Danny to hear it over Tiny’s mike.
By the time the two men had turned it down, Tiny had the gas canisters in place next to the air duct. He began taping the nozzle into the hole.
With the tanks hooked up, Tiny crawled over to the air handler and undid the panel protecting the wiring. He short-circuited the thermostat control with a pair of alligator clips, kicking on the fan.
It took five minutes for the gas to empty from the canisters. By then Danny was feeling the fatigue of the long day. He leaned over Flash’s shoulder and looked at the screen.
“Show me floor one,” he said. “The control room.”
“They’re still at their stations.”
“Awake?”
