Stealth Attack

by John Gilstrap

  “Some, I guess. It’s a small town.”

  “Is he in the military?”

  “Not anymore,” Roman said. “He used to be.”

  “Does he talk about that?”

  “Not with me.” Roman seemed to grow uncomfortable with the topic. “To be honest, Mr. Jonathan doesn’t talk to me very much about anything.”

  “But he must talk with your mother.”

  “Of course.”

  “What does she tell you about his military service?”

  “Not much. I mean, I don’t ask. There’s not a lot of talking about anything in our house, to be honest with you.”

  Silva considered that. Such must be the case in many households with teenagers, he supposed.

  “Does your friend, your Mr. Jonathan, have any friends who are very large people?”

  The flash of recognition could not have been more obvious. It didn’t present itself for long, but it was there.

  “Before I ask my next question, I want you to take another good look at my friend, Alberto Bris,” he said, pointing. He waited while Roman got a good, long drink of the image.

  “He is in that state because he works for me and he failed to do his job. He ran one of my business interests. Until earlier today, when some men burned the place down, stole my property, and killed some of my customers.”

  Silva enjoyed the aura of fear that enveloped the boy. “In retrospect, I worry that Guzman was perhaps too harsh with him. Alberto merely failed to stop the harm from happening. He didn’t cause it himself.”

  Silva leaned to the side to get better access to his back pocket and the folded paper he’d placed there.

  “I’m about to show you something, and your only chance of coming through this experience without being a cripple for the rest of your life is to be honest with me. If you lie, I will see it in your eyes.”

  He unfolded the paper. “These are the men who did all that harm to me and my business.” He presented the photo of the terrorists to the boy. “Take a good look. Do you recognize these people?”

  * * *

  Jonathan and Dawkins pressed in close as Big Guy launched Roxie on a mission to scope out the hacienda Sofia had told them belonged to Cristos Silva. Night was falling fast, but Roxie could provide both low-light and infrared imagery. The issue now was the light of the computer screen. Boxers had parked the Durango well off the road, in a wooded area, but there weren’t many artificial lights illuminated in this patch of the world, so any glow posed a potential problem.

  To compensate, Boxers had draped an emergency blanket over the screen, the corners of which were held up by Jonathan and Dawkins, creating a kind of tent. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it would do.

  As before, Big Guy had Roxie take them on a relatively high-altitude orientation tour of the property. The place looked like a ranch that could have been any other ranch of its kind. The main house was the most obvious structure, a one-story affair that seemed well appointed, at least from the outside. The heat signatures coming from the house indicated that it was occupied, though Roxie’s detection capabilities at that level were rudimentary at best.

  Roving guards, armed with what appeared to be MP5s, walked in pairs along the fence line, chatting like chums, their awareness levels hovering near cluelessness. The main gate, nearest the house, was equipped with the same kind of Beefeater shack that they’d seen at the rape house they’d burned.

  “Same architect,” Boxers quipped.

  Sofia had said the hacienda sat on hundreds of acres, and Jonathan had no reason to doubt that assessment. All of it appeared to be fenced by tall chain-link barriers.

  Other buildings on the property included pole barns for heavy equipment and stables for critters. The structure closest to the main house, about fifty yards distant, was a large barn that seemed in ill repair. Roxie detected cracks in the roof, and through those cracks, they could see the glow of a dim light inside.

  “What are we looking for?” Dawkins asked.

  “If you see it, let us know,” Boxers said.

  “See what?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Jonathan said. “We’re exploring. Ideally, we’ll see a sign with Silva’s name on it.”

  “No,” Big Guy said. “Ideally, the sign would say Roman is in here.”

  “Is it your intent to hit this place?” Dawkins asked.

  “Again, we’re just gathering intel at this point. What we see will determine what we’ll do next.”

  “So, we’re winging it,” Dawkins concluded.

  “You’re not new to our little family,” Boxers said. “I miss the days when we would actually plan an op, but winging it seems to be our new normal.”

  Jonathan tapped Dawkins’s arm. “Do me a favor and pull up the ransom video Roman shot.”

  Dawkins pulled his phone from his pocket, tapped it a few times, and turned it so Jonathan could see.

  “Hey, Big Guy,” Jonathan said. “Take a look at Thor’s screen.”

  Boxers clicked a button to cause Roxie to hover in place, then straightened. “Whatcha got?”

  “Look at the background behind Roman,” Jonathan said. “Zoom past him, Thor. I want to see the fence rail behind him.”

  Dawkins took the phone back, used his thumb and forefinger to stretch the image, then held it out again for everyone to see.

  “Okay,” Jonathan said. “Take Roxie a little lower.” On Roxie’s image, he pointed to the corral fence on the far side of the barn. “I think that fence is the same one in the background of the ransom video.”

  Boxers leaned into the computer screen, then shifted over to the image on the phone. “A fence is a fence, Scorpion. Yeah, it could be the same one, but I think you could say that about the fence at your compound in Charlottesville.”

  “Look at the alignment of the trees in the background,” Jonathan said.

  Dawkins said, “Jeez, Scorpion, I see what you’re talking about, but is it the same, or do you just want it to be?”

  “Two things can be correct simultaneously,” Jonathan said. He knew what he saw. He understood the dangers of overcommitting to a hypothesis, but he also knew that not every good thing had to have a dark side.

  “Take her up and see if we can peek through the cracks in the roof,” Jonathan instructed.

  His earbud popped to life. “Scorpion, Mother Hen.” The suddenness of the interruption startled them all.

  Jonathan keyed his mic. “Go ahead.”

  “I have the transfer location. Gunslinger paid a visit to the middleman, and he shared it with her. It’s going to happen at midnight.”

  Shit like this always happens at midnight, Jonathan thought. “Can you download the location to my GPS?”

  “Already done.”

  “Who was the middleman?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Venice said. “It didn’t end well for him.”

  “Is Slinger okay?”

  “Physically, I believe so.”

  Jonathan knew what that meant. Gail’s tolerance of moral ambiguity was less generous than his own. He didn’t pursue it further.

  “We’ve also verified that Cristos Silva is the kidnapper,” Venice said.

  Jonathan turned to the others. “We’ve got ’em,” he said off the air. He keyed his mic again. “I think we’re getting close, Mother Hen.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “No eyes on yet, but other signs are good. I need to go.”

  “Please keep me in the loop,” Venice said.

  “Of course. Scorpion out.” He turned to the others. “Soldier up, gents. Plates, lids, the whole shebang.” The ballistic armor they’d worn earlier was fine for stopping pistol bullets, but a rifle round would pass right through as if it were a T-shirt. By slipping ceramic plates into the vests, they gained protection against all but the largest caliber rifle rounds. The lids—helmets—would also deflect most rifle rounds. It’d be a helluva a bell ringing, but at least their brain woul
d stay encased between their ears.

  Kitting out for combat was an exercise in tradeoffs. The extra weight and armor could only be achieved at the expense of greater energy expended and less mobility and flexibility of motion. Sometimes, you had to roll the dice and hope for the best, but this time, given the fact that they were here to bring Roman home, Jonathan opted for maximum protection.

  Nothing damages a rescue attempt as quickly or thoroughly as losing a rescuer in the process.

  They moved the computer around to the tailgate so they could continue to watch the feed as they geared up. The light was still a problem, but the extra illumination allowed them to kit up more quickly. Jonathan and Dawkins went first so Big Guy could continue to pilot Roxie around the hacienda, looking for solid confirmation that Roman was, in fact, present. The cracks in the roof were too narrow to reveal anything useful, but shifting shadows made it clear that people were moving around inside.

  Jonathan had just rested his vest onto his shoulders when the air filled with the sound of fast-moving vehicles. “The hell is that?”

  On the computer screen, the ground dropped away as Roxie zipped up to a hundred feet, and they observed a line of vehicles streaming through the front gate. Four of them flooded in during a first wave, and then, two minutes later, a second wave of eight more screamed through.

  The men who exited the vehicles looked armed for war. They carried many varieties of long guns, and most had pistols strapped to their waists and thighs.

  “What do you think this means, Boss?” Boxers asked.

  “I think it means I’m glad we didn’t dawdle,” Jonathan said. He pointed to the screen at a man who was striding from the main house toward the barn. “Wait. Who’s that? Is that Cristos Silva?”

  Dawkins leaned in and squinted. “No, it’s not,” he said. He leaned in closer still and then stood tall again. “Oh, shit. It’s way worse than Silva.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Silva listened with satisfaction as his reinforcements arrived outside. Guzman had understood his orders. The men that he’d summoned were among the toughest, most ruthless operators that Silva had ever known. Buoyed by the authority they wielded courtesy of the Cortez family, they had evolved into a useful level of thuggery that kept them well feared and even better compensated.

  When notified that they were needed, they came without question. When they were told to kill or maim, they performed without hesitation.

  If Roman Alexander’s friend, Mr. Jonathan, tried to pull the kind of shit here that he’d pulled elsewhere, he wouldn’t live to see the top of the next hour.

  Guzman pushed the double doors open and strode into the barn. His smile showed his pleasure at coming through on his mission. The ever-present sledgehammer dangled loosely from his hand.

  “They came quickly,” Guzman said in Spanish.

  “Yes, they did,” Silva agreed. “Thank you for your prompt attention. Now, I have some unpleasant business for you to take care of.”

  As if reading his boss’s mind, Guzman shifted his gaze to Roman.

  “Go and get Ciara from her quarters. Bind her hands and bring her out here.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Her father failed in his task,” Silva explained. “Now, she is merely a liability.”

  “But a very pretty one,” Guzman observed. “Could you not get top dollar for her services?”

  “Perhaps. But she knows too much about me. About us. She needs to be disposed of.”

  “And the boy?” Guzman’s lips twisted into a smile.

  “After the show-and-tell for the ransom.”

  “Do you want me to do them together?”

  Silva gave a noncommittal shrug. “I suppose that makes the most sense.” He raised a forefinger and pointed it to Guzman’s face. “Make it fast and painless,” he said.

  Some of the smile went away.

  “I’m serious about this,” Silva said. “Certainly, with the girl. Her father used to be one of us.”

  “And the boy?”

  “Why do you hate him so?” Silva asked.

  “He fought me,” Guzman said. “He hit me. No one hits me.”

  Silva understood what Guzman was thinking. As a man whose reputation was built on pure fear, he stood to lose a great deal if word got out that anyone, let alone a boy, had landed a punch without consequence, and the results could be dire.

  “All right, then,” Silva said. “Just be sure to get rid of the bodies.”

  “We’re not mailing the parts home?” More disappointment.

  “Not for this one. Roman’s mother is performing her role, and Ciara’s mother is not involved at all. I do not want to be cruel. Now, go get the girl.”

  * * *

  “That’s Guzman,” Dawkins explained.

  “If we reposition, we can take him out,” Boxers said.

  “Not yet,” Jonathan instructed. “Too many people. Too much return fire. And if Roman is, in fact, down there, we might as well shoot him directly.”

  “So, your plan is to wait?” Boxers asked. “How’s that working for us so far? While we’ve been twiddling our thumbs, a whole world of reinforcements has arrived. Are we planning to wait for more?”

  Jonathan bristled. “Personally, I think it’s better they arrived before we were committed to some balls-out strike than in the middle of one.” He keyed his mic. “Mother Hen, Scorpion. You still there?”

  “Are you going hot?” In normal times, when she asked that question, her tone was hesitant. Now it was more akin to a kid at Christmas.

  “Not sure yet. What can you tell me about the electrical grid around Cristos Silva’s hacienda?”

  He heard typing in the background. “Is that where you’re pinging from now?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Stand by one.” Venice clicked off the channel for thirty seconds and then returned. “He’s on public utilities, and he seems to pay his bills on time. The electric bill seems low to me, though. He must either get a special rate or supplement his electricity from somewhere.”

  “Can you locate the transformers for me?” Jonathan asked.

  “Sure sounds like you’re going hot,” she said. She clicked off again.

  “Mother Hen is amazing,” Dawkins said. “How does she access all this stuff?”

  “I know I wouldn’t understand it if she told me, so I don’t ask.”

  “I always think of her as a cyber door-kicker,” Boxers said. While he and Venice had not always gotten along all that well, the tensions had eased recently. The mutual respect had always been there.

  Jonathan’s earbud popped. “Scorpion, Mother Hen.”

  “Go.”

  “There are three electrical transformers within two hundred yards of your location. I’m sending the coordinates to your phone.”

  His pocket buzzed with an incoming message. “Standby one.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, clicked on the link, and showed it to Boxers, who copied the coordinates into his laptop. With a bit of finagling, he transferred them as red dots onto the map that Roxie had been creating as she flew.

  “Shit,” he said. “One of them’s just on the other side of the trees.” He leaned into his screen. “The others are an easy rifle shot.”

  “So, we’ve got a good chance that we can bring darkness to the compound,” Jonathan said.

  “If he’s got this much money, he’s got backup generators,” Dawkins said.

  Jonathan keyed his mic. “Mother Hen, let’s stretch the boundaries of the impossible. Can you find out whether or not Silva has backup generators?”

  “He bought two of them in the past three years,” Venice said without dropping a beat.

  “How do you know that so fast?”

  “I already told you,” she said. “The bills seemed low, so I searched purchase records from local suppliers and saw that he bought two generators. One for twelve thousand dollars and another for about eight thousand.”

  “The twelve grand would be
for a whole-house generator,” Jonathan said over the air. “The eight grand unit would be smaller, less capable.” He looked to Boxers. “Find them.”

  The ground dropped away again as Roxie climbed high.

  “I imagine the big one would be close to the house, right?” Big Guy asked, perhaps to himself. Roxie flew over the roof of the main house and into the backyard, where a squatty shed sat by itself on the far side. “I think that’s it.” He took the drone nearly into the grass and edged her forward for a better look. Sure enough, the shed was a lean-to that provided shelter to the generator.

  “We can’t hit that from here,” Dawkins observed. “The house is in the way.”

  “I told you I wanted munitions capability,” Boxers bitched. “But nooo . . .”

  “If you could use Roxie to shoot people, the streets of your neighborhood would be littered with bodies,” Jonathan said.

  Boxers grinned. “I don’t understand the problem.”

  The second generator sat in a similar but smaller shed tucked in behind the crumbling barn. If they could get just a little elevation, that one would be in view and in range.

  “All right,” Jonathan said. “If we need to take them out, at least we know where they are. Let’s hope that the transformers will help out some.” Boxers returned Roxie to her orbit over the main yard.

  “Uh-oh,” Dawkins said. “There’s Guzman again. And he’s got company.”

  “Shit,” Jonathan spat. “That’s Ciara Kelly. Mount up, folks. We need to get into position. You can leave Roxie hovering where she is, right?”

  “I can have her do whatever you’d like,” Boxers said with what could only be described as a tone of paternal pride. Big Guy leaned into the Durango’s bed and pulled the gear bag a little closer. He pulled out the pistol case for their Ruger SR22 and can suppressor. Useful for close-in work, it was one of the few firearm combos that truly were silenced by their “silencers.”

  “Whatcha doin’, Big Guy?” Jonathan asked.

  “Killing the closest transformer. Might as well take care of it now.”

  “Please don’t do that,” Jonathan said. “Not yet.”

  “Why wait for a long shot when you take a close one?”

  “Transformers blow up after you shoot them,” Jonathan observed. “Let’s wait till we’re in position and ready to charge.”