Back-Tracker

by Bob Blink

  “He knows you, so I’ll be the one who follows him,” Tony said. “Once he is gone, you break into his room and plant your device.”

  They had decided to try and plant a pair of devices. Tony was hoping to place one of the devices in the crutches that Graper was using, believing that would be their best chance of picking something Graper would bring with him to the meeting in the morning. Jake would see what might suggest itself inside the room. The drones and their payload had the ability to select between multiple frequencies, so when they saw which signal was the strongest at the time of the attack, they would target that one.

  Then it was a matter of waiting. They didn’t believe Graper would go far. With his bad leg and crutches, it was likely he would remain in the hotel for dinner. There was even the possibility he would choose room service and stay inside the entire evening. In that eventuality, they’d have to hope Tony could plant the tracker in passing when Graper left in the morning. Without the trackers, they would have to go to the backup plan and target the two men independently.

  “That’s him,” Jake said when he saw Graper hobble out of the room, clearly still having trouble with the crutches. He set one of the crutches against the wall, balanced on one foot and favoring the other, and pulled the door closed and locked it. In Jake’s mind Graper would have done better to use a single crutch and his good foot.

  “Let’s hope he’s going to dinner and not to the meeting,” Tony said.

  “The meeting wasn’t until tomorrow,” Jake assured him.

  “Wasn’t?” Tony asked, looking at Jake oddly.

  “That’s what my informant assured me,” Jake said, annoyed at his slip. “The meeting with Rizzo wasn’t planned for today. Rizzo is away somewhere.”

  Tony shrugged and stood to leave.

  “I’ll be waiting for him downstairs. Once I tell you he’s on the lower level, head to his room. I’ll warn you if he heads back up.”

  Tony headed down the stairs that allowed one to descend without triggering alarms to the lobby level, but not to exit the hotel, nor to enter any other floors. He was standing across the room from the elevators when Graper stepped out a few minutes later. He followed a discrete distance behind, taking his own place in the restaurant when Graper settled in.

  Several levels up, Jake made his way down the hall to Graper’s room. The device Tony had given him was supposed to overcome the electronic lock on the rooms. Jake had never tried to defeat the kind of lock that hotels currently used, and wondered how well the device would work. To his surprise, it was quick and effective, and almost as quickly as if he’d had one of the issued cards, he was inside.

  The room was identical to his own beyond being a mirror image layout. The bed was rumpled, suggesting that Graper had taken a nap, or at least rested for a while. He had brought very few items, fitting into a single medium sized suitcase. Clearly he planned on returning home soon. He was obviously confident that his fellow agents would be concerned with the aftermath of the terrorist threat, and his little trip would not be noticed.

  Hanging in the open closest was a sports coat and pants, presumably so they would shed their wrinkles before the morning meeting. A pair of dress shoes sat on the floor, and Jake briefly considered planting the device under the insert. Then he wondered if Graper would wear the shoes. He’d been wearing running shoes when he’d left the room. Given his wound, the more formal shoes might be uncomfortable. After considering his other options, Jake slipped the tracker through a small slit he made in the lining of the jacket after pressing the small pad that activated the device. The tiny battery would power it for just over a day, and by then it wouldn’t matter any longer.

  When Tony returned to the room an hour later where Jake waited, he indicated success as well. He’d been able to plant the second device under the padded armpit rest on one of the crutches when Graper had left it at the table when he visited the men’s room hobbling rather than having to deal with two crutches in the men’s room. The scanner showed both devices functional, and the one with Graper who was still in the dining area was transmitting the background sounds of the restaurant.

  With nothing more they could do at the hotel, they left the voice activated recorder running to monitor any conversations Graper might have, and left the hotel to scout the area around Rizzo’s compound to locate where they would set up and launch the drones.

  Chapter 45

  Jake was annoyed with himself that he hadn’t thought to pin down the time of the meeting between Rizzo and Graper when he’d questioned Brusca back in California. As a result, Tony and he had left the hotel very early so as to be sure to be in place when Graper showed up at the residence. They had a certain amount of setup to do, and they didn’t know how large an operational window they would have once Graper reached Rizzo’s compound. There was the very real possibility that he would scan for hidden bugs and discover the devices they had planted. That would be bad for Graper, but would also make their plan nearly impossible.

  Rizzo’s compound was very impressive. The large, two-story stone house was set well back from the street. The grounds were completely surrounded by a ten-foot wall, with a guarded and gated entrance in the front. There were many trees that helped shield the place from view, and the inner courtyard was large enough to easily accommodate a dozen vehicles simultaneously.

  The small hill a quarter of a mile from the Rizzo compound provided a clear view of the front gate so they could see if anyone arrived, and an angled view of the second level window that the plans said was the private study of the house. A long balcony and multiple floor to ceiling windows faced outward, and would provide easy access to the room once the first of the drones was triggered to blast through the glass. They would use the exact same scenario that had been planned when the attempt was made on the Senator and Mark LoBue.

  A surprising amount of equipment had been packed in the back of the SUV, and Jake helped Tony unload and open the various boxes. The first unit to be powered up was the portable monitor that would detect the carrier from the tracking devices they had planted the night before. It would also record the audio and video the units produced. Up to four units could be supported simultaneously, so they would be able to record video from both drones. At the moment there was no indication of the carriers.

  “Hopefully it is just that they are out of range,” Tony explained. “There is always the possibility Graper discovered the units. If that’s the case, we’re screwed. There will be no way to tell where Graper is and whether the drones will be able to hit him and Rizzo. We’d be sending them in blind. Not a recipe for success.”

  Jake knew if that happened, he would abort the attempt and back-track so they could try something different. With the monitoring unit set up, they went to work on the drones.

  The tiny drones were smaller than he’d expected, and packed less carefully than most military gear he was familiar with. Partway through the unpacking and setup he realized these boxes were not the original containers. He said as much to Tony.

  “The factory boxes are still in storage where I acquired the drones,” he said. “It will be a long time before anyone realizes the containers are empty and the contents borrowed. Even then they won’t have a clue who took them or when.”

  Snapping the lifting blades into the locks that held them deployed, they positioned the armed drones on the grass a dozen feet away, and opened the battery powered control modules. These they had charged in the room the previous night, and they powered up without difficulty. Tony made the connection to each of the drones and completed a systems check and declared the units ready to go. He took a few minutes to show Jake how the units were operated. They weren’t much more complicated than a remote-controlled toy airplane. There were controls to select the elevation, and then directional flight. There was a frequency select switch that allowed any of a dozen frequencies to be selected, and a switch that placed the unit in auto-track mode. Tony set the frequency switch to different positions on each of the
two devices.

  “Assuming both our trackers are intact, they will track the different devices. That will protect against a drop out of one or the other.”

  Tony would control the first drone. He would target it toward the windows, having the device fly directly into them with a trigger on contact switch set. Jake would have the less demanding job of having the second unit hovering nearby. If he felt uncomfortable trying to fly the final approach. Tony would take over and fly it home after the first unit detonated.

  “Have you used these before?” Jake asked.

  “I’ve trained with them, but never actually used them for a hit,” Tony said. “I saw the results after someone else used them. It is quite impressive. You wouldn’t think there was so much explosive in those little things.”

  Then it was a matter of waiting. They had picked up fast food and coffee on the way. Despite being cold, they sat and ate while they watched the front gate and the signal monitor.

  “We’ve got signal,” Jake observed over an hour later.

  Tony took a look and nodded. “Both devices are working. We have both carriers. I’d guess they’re five miles out or so.”

  Not too much longer a large sedan drove down the road toward the estate. It appeared that Graper had been picked up at the hotel. That meant he’d talked to someone at the house, and Jake wondered what might have been said. There might be something on the recorder back at the room, assuming Graper had been close to the trackers when he’d been on the phone.

  The windows of the sedan were darkened, so they couldn’t tell who was in the vehicle. The signal from the trackers indicated that Graper was inside, the directional needle following the car as it had come down the road. The car paused momentarily at the gate, then drove inside to the courtyard when the gate slid back. Once inside the yard, the car pulled up close to the front door, and they only caught a glimpse of the passenger, the only person to exit, as he stepped out and into the protected arch around the front door.

  “Ah, Mr. Graper,” said a voice a few moments later that Jake was certain he recognized. He was certain that Graper had been met by Brusca. “Mr. Rizzo is waiting for you in the study upstairs.”

  There were sounds as they walked across the room, and then Brusca spoke again.

  “How is your leg? It appears you are having trouble with those crutches. Will you be able to manage the stairs?”

  Momentarily Jake worried that as a result of Graper’s wound the meeting might be relocated, but then Brusca provided an alternative.

  “Perhaps we should use the lift? Mr. Rizzo’s mother is an invalid, and as a result Mr. Rizzo has had a small elevator installed.”

  Graper thanked Brusca, and Jake heard the sounds of a metal door being opened, and then a moment later closed. Graper and Brusca exchanged small talk, a clear indication they knew one another from previous encounters. Then the door noises repeated, as the two men moved down the hall.

  “Mr. Rizzo,” Brusca said respectfully. “Mr. Graper is here.”

  “Don, come talk to me,” a heavily accented voice said. “I am very interested to hear about this Trask fellow, who you think might be the Stan Mathews who fucked up my hit on LoBue last year.”

  “We’ve been very lucky,” Tony said with a grin. “Both transmitters are operating, and it doesn’t appear that they have given any thought to checking Graper. They are too trusting.”

  “Graper probably believes that everyone is too busy in Washington cleaning up the aftermath of the attempted attacks there to be thinking about him,” Jake said. “It also sounds like Graper and this Rizzo hood are on good terms.”

  Tony checked the directional signal on the monitor.

  “This thing is coarse, but it appears to be on a line with the window we have identified as the study. I think they are where we think. Without a visual there is no way to be a hundred percent certain. It’s your call.”

  Jake would have been less certain if he didn’t have a means to retroactively abort. This is what he’d come here for. From the comments Rizzo had made a moment before, it was clear that Graper had already alerted the hood to what he suspected. That meant taking out Graper alone at an earlier time wouldn’t fully solve the problem. Rizzo deserved to be killed. He had admitted that he had planned the attempt on the Senator, something Graper was a participant in as well. In addition, there were and would be other murders the two owed restitution for. Now it was necessary to eliminate the leak.

  “Let’s do it,” Jake said without hesitation.

  Tony lifted one of the control units, flipped the switch that activated the lifting blades, and raised the drone a hundred feet in the air. Then he started it toward the house.

  “Power up yours and take it over to the road,” Tony said. They had walked through the sequence earlier, but Tony wasn’t sure of Jake since they had never worked together before.

  Moments later Jake had his drone airborne and following along behind Tony’s. He was amazed at how controllable the units were. The small video screen showed what the camera was seeing, but Jake was more comfortable watching the unit rather than trying to fly by watching the monitor.

  Jake could hear Graper and Rizzo talking as he piloted the drone to the agreed to location. He couldn’t really concentrate on what was being said, but it was all being recorded and he would listen in later.

  “Okay, we’re ready to go. Are you comfortable with flying it in, or do you want me to take over after I take out the windows?”

  “I’ll do it,” Jake said. He wouldn’t really be flying it as Tony implied. They had agreed if they had the signal, Jake would wait for a count of ten, then flip the auto-track switch and allow the drone to home on Graper’s signal. Only if the first blast somehow damaged the tracker device would there be an issue. In that case they’d have to switch to the alternate frequency, or go entirely to manual. Even in that case Jake was confident he could handle the device.

  “Be ready,” Tony said, and started his drone toward the balcony windows.

  Moments later the sharp blast was exceptionally loud in the early morning quiet of the residential neighborhood. Glass and wood blasted away from the house, a portion of the balcony railing dropping away as a result of the explosion.

  Jake checked as he counted, seeing the tracking signal remaining solid. At a count of ten, he flipped the switch and allowed the drone to take over control of its own destiny. The device started immediately for the house. He watched as it disappeared into the smoke of the room, waited a heartbeat, then pressed the trigger button that would detonate the warhead. A second blast shook the house, blowing out the rest of the front wall and several windows in adjacent rooms. This was what had been intended at the hotel when Rizzo had planned Mark LoBue’s death.

  “Damn!” Jake cursed. Tony had been right about the magnitude of the explosion.

  They had already cleaned up everything and put it in the SUV. They only had the controllers, which they threw into the back seat, then climbed into the vehicle, and headed away from the area. Police and other official vehicles would be flooding the area very soon. There was nothing to be gained by sticking around.

  Ten miles away in a nearly deserted shopping mall, they parked and scanned the video. The picture was small, but clear enough to see what had happened. As Jake’s drone flew into the room, they could see Graper, Rizzo and Brusca. Brusca was already in motion, moving toward Rizzo in response to the explosion that had destroyed the outside of the house. Graper had his mouth open in surprise, and Rizzo was beginning to turn toward the door of the room. Then the video feed went blank.

  “The news will confirm later, but there is no way they could have survived the blast,” Tony said. “The last frames showed the drone was within a dozen feet of them when it went off.”

  Jake nodded. He didn’t know why, but he felt a little uncomfortable now that it was done. He had killed men before, but that had been with a rifle or handgun. Use of the drones and remote control was unsettling. He told himself it h
ad to be done. Others would live as a result of this action, and more importantly Karin and Janna would now be free of threats.

  Tony pushed a small button on the face of the unit, and a tiny door popped open. He retrieved the memory chip and handed it to Jake. Then he did the same with the other unit.

  “We’ll ditch all of the equipment,” he said. “The voice and video recordings are all captured on the memory chips.”

  Tony pulled the SUV over to the curb at O’Hare airport. Jake held out his hand. He would be flying home commercial, while Tony would be taking the chartered Learjet back to Washington via a roundabout route. They had returned to the hotel and checked out, retrieving the rest of their stuff. Tony would deal with disposal before he flew back. They shook.

  “Thanks for your help,” Jake said sincerely. This wouldn’t be over if it hadn’t been for Tony’s resourcefulness and participation.

  “Maybe we’ll work together again,” Tony said, certain that Bob Trask, or whoever he was, was more than he’d ever revealed.

  “You never know,” Jake said noncommittally. Then he reached into his belt and withdrew the holstered Sig that Carlson had given him when he’d come to Washington. “Give this back to Susan. Tell her thanks, and that I’ll be talking with her.”

  Tony accepted the weapon and slid it out of sight under the seat. Then he took a last look at Trask as he stepped away from the car. He knew there was something he was missing, but also knew that Susan would never tell him what he wished to know about Bob Trask. Checking the traffic, he pulled out, and headed away from the airport. He knew where a dump was located. He’d clean out the SUV, then call the crew and have them prepare for the flight back to Washington.