MIKE NAGANO, WITH THE help of Aliki, found his way to the roof of a one-story building across the street from the front entrance of the target building. He pushed the legs of the Harris bipod forward and rested the long-barreled M110 sniper rifle on the lip that ran the edges of the building. The suppressor was in place. Next he flicked up the covers of the AN/PVS night sight, then settled the crosshairs on the smoking man at the front door.
He lay prone, still, willing his heart to slow, his breathing to calm, and his mind to expel every thought but one.
“Weps ready.”
ALIKI ROUNDED THE CORNER, jogging at a fast pace, but not so fast as to leave him too winded to do what came next.
His ears rang louder than ever before, made worse by the report of weapons fired in the close confines of the truck trailer. If communications was coming over an earbud crammed deep into his ear canal, he doubted he would hear much of anything.
You should have fessed up. Should have told, J. J. But no, you didn’t. If someone dies because . . .
He flushed the thought and focused on the next thing he had to do. He moved to the Range Rover where the rest of the team waited. He never had much use for God, but now that he might be a liability to this new team, he was considering starting a prayer life.
J. J. LOVED THE Army. He loved the action. Loved the adventure. It was good to him; made him a man. It also fed his need for guns and other weapons. It was an odd thing, he knew: devoted Christian; former sniper; present team leader about to invade a building. He held the belief that what he did saved lives even if it required the taking of a life. J. J. knew men who could kill without remorse. He wasn’t one of them. War was war and there were plenty of examples in the Bible. He reminded himself the New Testament taught that Jesus would come back again, not to die this time, but to put an end to evil. Good rationalizations. Biblically based. Still, he never felt comfortable with killing.
He did it when necessary.
And it was necessary. That didn’t mean he had to like it.
They watched and took note of the time it took for the two roving guards to complete a circuit around the building. Unless they had changed their pace or direction, they should be rounding the corner at the front of the building.
“Boss, Weps. Go.”
Nagano was in a position to see when the “walkers” were in the front of the building so J. J. gave the command decision to the team sniper.
J. J. walked up the back street toward the rear guard. The man snapped his head around, no doubt stunned by the sudden appearance of a man in a black uniform, a black balaclava, and a helmet. The man raised his T91 and managed to get the muzzle up several inches before J. J. put a round in the man’s chest and one in his head. The suppressor kept the gunfire to a whisper.
Turning, J. J. started for the front of the building. He stopped at the front corner and peeked around. Three bodies lay on the sidewalk. “Perimeter secure. Time to rock.” J. J. moved forward in a crouch, doing his best to keep his head and back below the first-floor windowsill. He reached the front door and a second later so did the rest of the team. All except Nagano, who was still on the roof. By that time Aliki had placed a small piece of ECT—explosive cutting tape—in the center of the large door. Aliki then duct-taped a large I.V. bladder he “borrowed” from Doc to the outside of the ECT. Nagano slowed, moving with a slight limp. He flashed a thumbs-up. J. J. answered with a nod.
Crispin was right, the door was metal. There was no way to cut through or kick through it. More force was needed. The fluid in the I.V. bag would direct the force of the explosive tape into the door. Aliki worked from experience. Explosives were J. J.’s responsibility before becoming team leader and he had to fight the urge to do the work himself. Aliki proved to be adept. He motioned for the team to move back and stand clear, then slipped around to the tight line they formed along the wall.
J. J. held out his hand so Aliki and the others could see it. He showed three fingers, then two, lowered his head, then—
Aliki pushed the button on the remote detonator.
The windows shook. Dust flew to the street.
J. J. started for the door, which folded in on itself like a taco shell from the charge. He kicked it the rest of the way open and sprinted through, the tac-light mounted below the barrel of his M4 scanning the lobby on the other side. A man appeared holding a handgun. He hit the floor before his gun.
The line of men parted as they crossed the threshold, spreading out so each could train his weapon on the field before them.
The lobby contained no chairs, just an empty area with a tile floor that emptied into a space where J. J. saw elevator doors. He had no interest in the elevator unless the doors suddenly opened. He doubted they would. He didn’t think the generator could provide enough electricity to run the hefty motors necessary to lift the thing. Based on the weapons he saw, they were dealing with trained gunmen, no one with experience would enter a metal box with no place to take cover.
A wide hall at the end of the lobby ran north and south, bisecting the building. J. J. sent Aliki and half the team to the south while he led Jose and Hawkeye north. On either side of the hallway were a series of small offices, all looked empty and abandoned long ago. Dust covered the floor and he saw no footprints.
“Next floor,” J. J. said into the radio.
This part of the plan had been worked out before. Crispin’s RPV revealed a vertical space on each end of the building that reached from ground to roof. There was a door with no handle at the base. J. J. took this to mean each extreme of the building had a stairway.
J. J. pushed the door open and held it in place as Crispin plunged into the stairwell, his weapon pointed up the steps. Jose followed on his heels. The men left room for J. J. to enter.
This time Crispin led the way, the muzzle of his weapon pointing ahead of him. J. J. and Jose followed behind, their weapons ready. At the door to the second floor, Crispin paused, made eye contact with J. J., who nodded. He snapped the door open and now Jose was in front, J. J. one step removed from being in the medic’s back pocket.
The floor was dark. No overhead lights. No lights from the offices.
Another empty floor?
“Up.” J. J. transmitted.
NASIRDIN TANAYEV AND RASUL Djaparov readied themselves for what Nasirdin knew was inevitable.
“What are you doing?” Rasul asked.
“Buying a few moments for us.” He finished tying twine around one of the canisters of bioagent, creating a loop. He hung it around Rasul’s neck.
“Wait. I am no suicide bomber. I did not agree to this. We were just supposed to take canisters to the crowds and throw them—”
“Shut up. This is for your protection. If the attackers see this hanging on you they will hesitate to fire, giving us time to make our shot. Besides, the canister is empty. They won’t know that.”
“You have been good to me, Nasirdin. I am grateful, so I hope you won’t be offended when I tell you I don’t believe you.”
“Suspicion has kept us alive longer than most, Rasul. It is part of our makeup.”
“What if they don’t hesitate?”
“We will be dead anyway.” Nasirdin tied a strand of twine around another canister and hung it over his own neck. “Remember. Head shots. They will be wearing body armor. Aim for their heads, necks, legs if necessary.”
“The other men?”
“In place. The Americans will have to get through eight of our best men.” Nasirdin didn’t say it, but he had a sick feeling that might happen.
Nasirdin didn’t wonder when his plans went wrong. It was that woman. If he ever had opportunity he would end her life with his hands around her throat. At the moment, he had two worries. Surviving the attack, then surviving Dootkasy’s wrath should he fail.
COLONEL MAC SAT IN the
spec ops sit room in the Concrete Palace. The monitors on the wall showed only the black and gold spearhead emblem of Special Operations Command, nothing more. He sat in the isolation waiting. He watched real-time missions in this room; held conferences with generals and admirals, even the president. At the moment he had nothing but a dark room, glowing monitors, and his aide Alan Kinkaid sitting at the control bench.
Minutes flowed at glacial speeds churning the concerns living in Mac. He gave no outward sign of worry. He just waited.
And waited.
And thought of his men brought back to life and now risking them once again on the behalf of citizens of another country who would never know the truth of the matter.
“You prayin’ over there, Master Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“Good. Keep it up.”
“Yes, sir.”
Colonel Mac, decorated combat veteran, leader of men, consultant to presidents, picked at his fingernails and wondered if he was getting too old for all this.
J. J. LED HIS team up the last flight of stairs, slowing as he approached. He lessened his pace to give himself time to force the distracting thoughts from his mind. He already struggled with being a soldier with an expectant wife, but now he kept imagining her face when she learned of his “death.” The news media did them no favors and a part of him wished Colonel Weidman had kept that part of the story to himself.
The thoughts passed in milliseconds and J. J. refocused on the mission. There was no time to think of anything but what lay beyond the stairway door. How many men? How well armed? Were they lying in wait, weapons trained on the door? He had to assume that was the case.
What J. J. wished he could do was use one of Crispin’s smaller toys to survey what awaited them, but just opening the door would give away their presence. This was the last floor and, therefore, had to be the one holding the biotoxin.
Biotoxins. Why did it have to be biotoxins? It limited their options. No air strike, no mortar, limited use of explosives. “We have to know where every bullet goes,” J. J. told the team shortly before they left. The fear was releasing the biotoxin into the building and into the environment. The mission was easy to state: secure the building and the biotoxin. Except they knew very little about the building, who was in it, or where and how the airborne poison was kept. In many ways, this was a true suicide mission.
And he pictured Tess again, this time putting the twins to bed without him.
“Joker, Boss.”
“Go, Boss.” The voice was weak and awash in static. No surprise. He was in a stairwell made of concrete block as was the other half of the team. That Aliki heard him at all was a miracle.
“We go in five. Start on my mark.”
“Roger . . . oss . . . ive . . . your . . . ark.”
That sounded close enough. “Three, two, one, mark.” J. J. took a deep breath and started counting to five. Crispin crowded his shoulder.
At five, he pulled the stairwell door open and tossed in an M84 flash-bang grenade. Crispin rolled a smoke grenade at the same time. J. J. pushed the door shut.
He heard the M84 go off and felt glad he was on this side of the door. He heard a similar but more distant sound. Aliki’s M84 went off. J. J. gave the smoke device a few moments to fill the hall, then said, “Go.”
He yanked the door open and plunged into the smoke-filled corridor, Crispin and Jose behind him. Every man on the team wore tactical goggles to keep the smoke from their eyes, hopefully an advantage.
They called it dynamic entry, ever-forward flow until the mission is accomplished. J. J. led the flow from the north side of the corridor, Aliki from the south. This meant they were charging toward each other in a smoke-filled hall. An inaccurate shot meant one team member could down another.
Overhead lights battled the smoke, giving the space a house-of-horrors feel. An apt feeling.
J. J. pressed forward, hunched, knees bent, M4 leveled so the barrel was chest high for any man standing in his way. One appeared like a ship coming out of a fog. He held a machine pistol. J. J. spit one round through the suppressor into the man’s forehead and continued forward.
A broad swath of light waited in the middle of the corridor. The light came from J. J.’s right.
He moved forward slowly, but always forward.
He neared the light. While he couldn’t make out details, he got the impression a wide, open space had replaced a series of offices. Target area.
Step. Step. Another step closer. The only sound was the fizzle of the smoke canister behind them.
J. J.’s gun moved down and to the side. Something hard rammed his forehead, just below the front rim of his helmet, pushing his head back. Pain raced from his head and down his spine. Tilting his eyes up he saw a skinny, Asian man, his eyes wide, his jaw clenched. The man held a sidearm to J. J.’s head. J. J. saw the man’s trigger finger tighten before the man fell away, a round each from Crispin and Doc in his head. Something damp and sticky splattered J. J.’s goggles.
“You okay, Boss?” Crispin asked.
“Don’t know. Too startled to tell.” J. J. pushed forward. He heard other sounds now. The spitting sound of suppressed gunfire. He heard a man screaming but didn’t recognize the voice. That was good.
A brief burst of gunfire erupted behind J. J. He snapped his head around in time to see two men clutching at their chests and backpedaling. Behind them, an office door hung open. They had been laying in wait in a dark, locked office off the hall. He had no idea how Jose knew they were coming, but Doc had just saved their lives—for the moment.
“Watch your back,” J. J. said into the radio.
“Roger that,” Aliki said. “We count three down our side.”
“Four here.”
The smoke thinned and J. J. could see the light from the center right side of the building. What he could not do was see around the corner.
The lights went out, leaving only the tactical lights on their weapons to show the way. J. J. pulled another M84 from his vest. He radioed his intention then pulled the metal pin, when a hand seized his wrist, twisted, and pulled. More pain, this time radiating up his arm. Another pain scorched his thigh.
The M84 went off, sending 180 decibels of explosive sound and nearly eight million candela—the equivalent of eight million candles shining in a single burst—around J. J. and the others. The M84 flash-bang grenade did what it was created to do, stun and blind anyone in the vicinity. His ears hurt and rang as if his head was a bell; his eyes teared, blurring what little vision he had left; the force of the nonlethal grenade shook his marrow, making it difficult to keep control of bladder and bowel.
The hand on his wrist disappeared and J. J. reached forward with his left hand, searching, grabbing, finally seizing a shirt—not a military-issue combat vest—a shirt. He pulled hard and then snapped his head forward, praying for a bit of Providence. His helmet hit something hard and there was a crunching sound. A muted bellow followed.
Bringing his M4 back around, J. J. placed the barrel to the blurry man in front of him. J. J. blinked, then blinked again.
A hand shot out and caught J. J. in the throat.
J. J. pulled the trigger. The ill-formed shape fell to the floor.
“Boss!” Jose’s voice.
“Can’t see.”
“I got point.”
J. J. assumed Jose and Crispin had been able to prepare for the flash-bang. “Go.”
Two forms brushed by him. “Joker, Doc. I have lead here.”
“Boss?”
“M84 got him.”
TESS MADE TEA. BOTH cups cooled on the dining room table. Tess took Lucy’s hand. “I need to pray.”
Lucy nodded, crossed herself with her free hand.
Both women bowed their heads.
ALIKI EASED
FORWARD. WITH all the lights off, the M84 would have been especially bright. He had no idea why J. J. hadn’t prepared himself for the bang and flash, but it had to be a good reason. He would ask later. If there was a later.
He, Nagano, and Pete moved closer to the area that moments ago was bathed in light. It was like approaching a cave known to be filled with angry bears. Aliki turned off his tac-light. If the baddies liked it dark, then so be it. He could work in the black as well as anyone.
When his light went, those of Pete and Nagano went out, as did those on the other end of the hall. Once, as a kid, his parents took the family to Carlsbad Caverns and paid for one of the tours. They reached a side cavern and the guide told everyone to be still; to be silent.
The lights went off. Dark was dark, black was black, but this was different. Separated from sunlight by over 700 feet of stone overhead, this black was palpable. Even breathing seemed more difficult. His heart skipped beats. Everything seemed amplified. He could hear the breathing of the other tourists. A moment later the guide turned the lights back on and Aliki saw relief on the faces of his family. Everyone beamed a smile.
He doubted he would see smiles if the lights came on again. He had no idea what he would see but it made him nervous. As in the caverns, his heart skipped beats. He strained his ears to hear the sounds of movement or breathing or the slide of a weapon being moved. All he could hear was the ringing in his ears that had been dogging him for the last month.
He stripped off his protective goggles and snapped his NGV to the front of his helmet. Black turned green as the light amplification electronics tried to arrange what little light there was into something useful.
He inched forward.
Hide and Seek Page 27
