Act of War

by Dale Brown

  “Bastantes! Aquele é bastante!” Ruiz said wearily. “I do not want to argue about this again. We will use all of our best information and resources to determine the best time to meet again. Until then, we will all keep a low profile, gather as much data as we can about our targets all over the world, and come up with recommendations. When it is safe to do so, we will meet and decide on a plan of action.” He grasped both Zakharov’s and Pereira’s hands in his. “There is much work to be done, meus amigos bons. Colonel Zakharov has struck a mighty blow for our cause, but the fight is not yet over, and I feel it will become more difficult. We must be strong and united until our common enemy is brought down. Sim?” When he did not receive a response from either of them, he grasped their hands tighter. “Agreed?” Finally Pereira and Zakharov nodded and shook hands. “Muito bem. Good luck to you, my friends. May God be with you both.” Pereira endured a stern glare from Zakharov’s aide Khalimov, but he was accustomed to that—and the aide was not so tough without his boss nearby, Pereira knew, so he didn’t concern himself with the big Russian.

  “That peasant Pereira deserves another helicopter ride, Colonel—I would be happy to show him the sights of, for example, the Atlantic Ocean, about two hundred miles offshore,” Khalimov said.

  Zakharov thought for a moment, then: “Track him to his safe house—somewhere in São Paulo or Santos, along the wharves I think. When he’s safely inside, contact our man in the PME and have him arrested. They can publicize his capture, but then I need for Pereira to try to escape or try to kill a guard, at which time the people of Brazil should be spared the expense of securing, trying, and incarcerating him.”

  “Da, rookavadeeteel,” Khalimov said, grinning. “Ya paneemayoo.”

  “I want to meet with our strike leaders at the farm first thing tomorrow night.”

  “They will be there, sir,” Khalimov said.

  Zakharov smiled and nodded. With Pereira out of the way and Ruiz scared out of his wits, the operation was looking better and better all the time. Zakharov gulped another shot of vodka, disappointed as ever that his favorite drink got so warm so quickly in this damnable forest, then headed out to his waiting armored sedan.

  About an hour later, Yegor Zakharov’s car pulled off the main highway into São Paulo onto a two-lane road that twisted through farms and patches of forest. After another thirty minutes’ drive, he turned down a dirt road and a few minutes later approached a comfortable-looking adobe farmhouse with a red tile roof, an expansive walled courtyard in front, and a barn and a maid’s quarters in back. The car drove immediately into the barn, and the doors were quickly closed by men armed with machine guns. Khalimov got out of the driver’s seat, withdrew a submachine gun, and carefully kept guard while several men approached Zakharov’s car. The men saluted as Zakharov emerged from the sedan.

  “Report,” the ex-Russian Strategic Rocket Forces Colonel ordered.

  “All secure, sir,” one of the men reported. “No unusual activity in this area, and the commandante of the local PME barracks reports no unusual movement or strangers in the area. Radio traffic is routine.” He handed Zakharov transcripts of local radio and telephone conversations.

  “The airspace?”

  “Last PME patrol aircraft flyover was yesterday, sir,” the man reported. “Photos and identification are in the report. One American Keyhole-class photoreconnaissance satellite over our area—its orbit is elliptical, optimized for the northern hemisphere, but obviously it can be adjusted quickly to scan our area. Next flyover will be in six and a half hours.”

  Zakharov nodded. The lower-altitude intelligence satellites were easy to avoid or spoof—it was the high-altitude satellites and the unmanned long-range drones that were the real threat. The best tactic was to avoid all exposure as much as possible—change codes, shift frequencies, alter timetables and travel routes, and move from place to place as much as possible to cover their tracks.

  Zakharov dismissed the security men and stepped outside to a shaded patio to get out of the hot sun. Pavel Khalimov, his submachine gun now hanging on a snap-cord around his neck so he could quickly raise it, approached him, holding a portable satellite phone. “He has called twice now, sir,” he said simply.

  “Let him call. It is far safer for him than it is for me.” But at that moment the phone rang. Zakharov swore under his breath and motioned for the phone. “Have you ever heard of communications security?” he asked in Russian, after engaging the security circuits.

  “Just a friendly warning—stay out of the United States for a while,” the caller said in Russian. The voice was being altered with an electronic scrambler—it changed every few seconds from a high-pitched whine to a very low-pitched moan, so much so that it was impossible to decipher even if it was male or female. “The FBI, CIA, and every American military investigative unit will be…”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve heard it before,” Zakharov snapped. “Listen, you wanted TransGlobal to bleed, and now they’re bleeding. You think anyone was going to pay attention to attacks in Panama or Egypt?”

  “Just a word to the wise, that’s all, you big asshole,” the voice said affably. “Every government agency is going to be on the lookout. We don’t want to spoil the big finale. Everything is on schedule and going according to plan—just don’t blow it now by being too anxious. Concentrate on the African and European target list I’ve already given you. Stay out of sight for a few weeks.”

  “Stop telling me what to do, zalupa!” Zakharov shouted. “If you had the guts to do what I have done, you would have done the same. You know damned well that Kingman’s base of power is the United States. You want him destroyed, my friend, then you go to America.”

  “You did a fine job, Colonel,” the caller said. “I’d hate to have such a fine career cut short. Once again, a friendly word of advice: stay out of the United States.” And the call was terminated. Fifteen seconds from start to finish—even when angry and wishing to chew one of his subordinates out, Zakharov thought, the chief of the Consortium maintained the strictest communications security. The most sophisticated eavesdropping systems in the world—TEMPEST, Petaplex, Echelon, Enigma, Sombrero—couldn’t intercept, lock, and triangulate a satellite call in less than fifteen seconds.

  But he had to grudgingly hand it to him: the head of the Consortium, known to Zakharov only by his code name Deryektar, the Director, was one cold-blooded son of a bitch. He had money, lots of it, and he wasn’t squeamish about where to spend it as long as whatever happened furthered his objectives.

  Fuck him, Zakharov thought. He was running scared. Yegor Viktorvich Zakharov had just become the greatest and most deadly terrorist in the world—he wasn’t about to run and hide now.

  “What is the plan now, Colonel?” Khalimov asked.

  “A few days to rest while you find Pereira’s safe house,” Zakharov replied. Operational security procedures, instituted by himself—Ruiz was not tactically smart enough to set up such rules—detailed that individual members of GAMMA did not know where the others’ safe houses were located. They used blind phone, letter, and e-mail drops to communicate while in hiding, then set up a different meeting location every time to plan the next operation. “I need to find out what the Americans will do and plan a course of action. What are your thoughts, Captain?”

  “Security will be extreme,” Khalimov said. Pavel Khalimov had been an aide-de-camp and tactician for Yegor Zakharov for many years, and he had learned to trust his opinions and expertise implicitly. “Penetrating even local or private security or law-enforcement patrols will be difficult. We may have more success at European or Asian targets, although they will be substantial as well.”

  “Our benefactor said the same,” Zakharov said. He paused for a moment, deep in thought. Then: “Very well, we continue as planned. The last time America was attacked within its own borders, it lashed out mostly at terrorists overseas—the nation’s leaders did not have the stomach to combat terrorists on its own soil. It is too politically in
correct, too unpopular with their constituents. They set up a few security measures here and there, mostly in airports and a few docks and border crossings. But Americans are so enamored of personal freedoms, their precious Bill of Rights, that they would rather allow an entire society to be threatened with death or horrible injury by weapons of mass destruction than inconvenience their citizens with more exhaustive searches and investigation. Stupid.”

  “Our mission is proceeding as planned,” Khalimov said. “We anticipated the American government instituting severely increased security measures after our first attack—in fact, we were hoping for it. Most of our forces are already in place and waiting for the American people’s patience to run thin.”

  “Exactly. When that happens, we will strike the final blow.” Zakharov fell silent for several long moments, then said, “I want the next attack in the United States to make the one in Houston look like a campfire, Pavel,” he said finally. “We will continue our overseas operations as planned—but it will be nothing compared to what will happen in the United States.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cannon Air Force Base, Near Clovis, New Mexico

  Four days later

  Jason Richter kicked off the rough green wool U.S. Air Force– issue blanket and balsa-wood-like starched sheets. Sunlight was streaming through uncovered windows—not just through the glass, but around the edges of the window itself where the wood and masonry trim was crumbling away. The open barracks was divided into rooms with simple cinder-block walls that had no doors and didn’t even extend all the way to the ceiling; being a field grade officer, he was actually given a cubicle of his own. He was careful to shake his sneakers on the floor to be sure no poisonous spiders or scorpions had crawled inside before he slipped them on to head to the open bay latrine.

  “Let’s hit it, Ari,” he said as he passed Ari Vega’s cubicle across the building from his. All of the other cubicles, about thirty of them, were empty. Her cubicle had no doors on it either, but Ari never insisted on separate men’s and women’s facilities—if you couldn’t handle a woman in the lab, the field, or the latrine, she had always said, that wasn’t her problem.

  “Shit, J,” Ari murmured, “what time is it?”

  “Almost seven-thirty.”

  She was still wearing the black fatigue trousers and olive drab T-shirt she had been wearing for the past three days, ever since their demonstration at Andrews Air Force Base. Ari had long, wavy, dark hair, an olive complexion, and a very sexy body, but she always had her hair up, rarely used makeup, and kept her body hidden under bulky clothing; Jason had only seen her with her hair down maybe a handful of times in two years of working closely together. “Seven-thirty? We just hit the rack three hours ago!” Not unexpectedly, things ran late yesterday: the transport planes were delayed by weather and mechanical breakdowns, so they were late getting loaded up in Alexandria, which meant they got in very late to Cannon Air Force Base, the eighty-seven-thousand-acre military installation in eastern New Mexico. To top it off, there were no helpers or offloading equipment to help them at Cannon, so they had to unload the plane themselves by hand. “My brain doesn’t start until eight, man. I’m skipping breakfast. See you later.” Jason was too tired to argue.

  The water in the latrine’s shower was ice cold, and when the hot water started, it was as brown as the dirt outside. Jason let it run, hoping it would eventually clear, but he ended up showering under an adjacent head in cold water because it never did. He shaved in cold water, put on the same set of fatigues he wore the day before, brushed the dirt and sand off his boots as best he could, found his fatigue cap, and headed outside.

  They were set up in Field Exercise Support Facility Twelve, located about thirty-two kilometers west of Cannon Air Force Base in a restricted area known as Pecos East. Two large rickety-looking steel hangars perpendicular to one another faced a large concrete parking ramp. Long shafts of grass grew through numerous cracks in the tarmac. Obviously the facility had been used recently, but judging by the gang graffiti and empty beer cans they found everywhere they guessed it had not been used for any military purposes. The air was warm and breezy, with thunderstorms already building to the west. The terrain was flat, flat, flat, and Jason could probably count the number of trees he saw on one hand.

  Jason found the chow hall, a broken-down-looking place called the Tumbleweed Dining Facility with cracked windows and peeling paint everywhere, but it was closed. He swore to himself and made his way across the dusty curbless street to the front of the center hangar. A steel door that appeared to have been pried open with a crowbar several times bore the familiar sign that read, RESTRICTED MILITARY FACILITY, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, followed by a long paragraph of legalese and finished with, USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED. He pressed a button to an intercom box beside the door, and moments later he heard a buzz and pulled the door open.

  “Unit, ten-hut!” he heard. A lone Air Force security guard in desert camouflage fatigues, web belt with sidearm, and black Security Forces beret snapped to attention behind a gray metal desk. A bank of security camera monitors was set up on a desk to his left; a gun locker and radio recharging stand was on the right. “Welcome to Task Force TALON, sir,” the guard said. He was rather short and perhaps a little on the pudgy side, with horn-rimmed glasses strapped to his head with an elastic band, but he seemed professional, enthusiastic, and friendly. “May I see your ID card, please?” Jason fished it out for him. The guard studied it for a moment, took down some information from it, and returned it. “Thank you, sir. I’m Staff Sergeant Doug Moore, in charge of security here at Area Twelve.” He handed Jason a folder. “Inside you’ll find gate codes, your flight line badges, maps of the base, and other information. Is Dr. Vega with you?”

  Jason found the flight line badge on a neck strap and put it on—he had a feeling he was going to use it quite often here. “She should be along shortly.”

  “Very well, sir.” His look of surprise obviously told Jason that he didn’t know Ariadna was a woman—she liked using her more male-sounding nickname “Ari” so she could see the surprised look on the faces of the men when they discovered she was a woman. “I’ll notify the rest of the staff that you’ve arrived.”

  “Don’t bother—I’ll find them. This way?” Jason pointed to the only other door. He retrieved his flight line badge and swiped it in the card reader, entered a code, and the door popped open.

  The hallway inside was dim and narrow, with a decades-old linoleum floor and bare walls. Jason remembered he was here last night, looking for the bathroom, but he didn’t remember much from that long night of transferring equipment from their C-130 Hercules transport plane out at Cannon into a couple tractor-trailers and then making the hour-long drive out to Area Twelve. But he followed vehicle and cargo-handling noise to another locked steel door, entered his codes, and entered.

  Containers, boxes, and equipment were strewn all over the hangar, but in the middle of it all were the two Humvees Jason and Ariadna brought out to Cannon, the working prototype they had used in the demo in Washington and another they were using to test upgrades. Jason had to show his badge to a security guard before he could check the Humvee—yes, two CID units were on board, they hadn’t been disturbed, and both were fully charged and ready to go. The first CID unit was the operational prototype; the second, like the other Humvee, was used to test enhancements to the weapon system. Two more upgraded units were just a few weeks from being ready—after Kingman City, Jason was sure that timetable was going to be stepped up. Jason went over to check on the second Humvee…

  …and found a guy in a plain gray lightweight jacket, khaki slacks, shooter’s yellow sunglasses, and outdoor all-terrain shoes sitting in the driver’s seat. He was taking notes on the various switches and controls, and he had the computer access panel open. “Who are you?” Jason asked.

  “Who are you?” the guy challenged him. “No one’s allowed near these vehicles!”

  “They’re my fucking vehi
cles,” Jason snapped.

  The guy scrambled out of the driver’s seat. He was a good three inches taller than Jason, square-jawed and athletic—he definitely looked like he could take care of himself. He withdrew a leather wallet from a breast pocket and flashed a gold badge and ID card that said “FBI” on it. “Special Agent Bolton, FBI.” He stood right in front of Jason, blocking his view of what he was doing inside the Humvee. “Step away from the vehicle.”

  “I told you, it’s my Humvee,” Jason said. “What were you doing in there?”

  “And you are?”

  “Major Jason Richter.” He lifted up his flight line badge and stuck it in Bolton’s face. “I’m commander of this task force.”

  Bolton grasped the card, read it, and nodded, after giving Richter a quick and apparently none-too-favorable appraisal. “Okay,” he said, “you’re cleared.”

  “I asked you, what were you doing in my Humvee?”

  “I asked him to take some notes for me.” Jason turned and saw Kelsey DeLaine walking toward him. The guards did not ask to see her badge, Jason noticed. “I wanted to know the difference between the two vehicles, and since you weren’t around to ask, I had Agent Bolton go in and check. Carl, Jason Richter, U.S. Army. Jason, Special Agent Carl Bolton.”

  “Agent Bolton should leave his paws off things he knows nothing about,” Jason said pointedly.

  “Carl Bolton is the Washington director of the advanced technology office of the FBI,” Kelsey went on, ignoring Jason’s warning. “He has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in advanced computer architecture. He might know more about the systems in there than you do.”

  He might indeed, Jason thought—he had heard of this guy before, but had no idea he worked for the FBI. But he was still in a peeved mood, and he’d only been awake for twenty minutes. “Then he should know better than to touch anything he’s not intimately familiar with, especially switches that can activate weapons.”