Shooting someone was different. There was a different feeling to it altogether. It was personal. He watched the asshole die, but he wasn’t sad. He had no regrets. It was as primal as it could be. Kill or be killed. He just happened to kill. Spectre only wondered if he should feel more guilt.
Instead, he felt guilt for the chaplain. He wondered how he was doing. He hadn’t heard anything since he left the Sheriff’s Department. The chaplain had gone through major surgery, and they weren’t sure if he’d ever walk again, even if he survived through the night. It was horrible. Spectre felt responsible, as if there were more he could’ve done.
He looked around the empty house. It was dark and quiet, but he didn’t feel alone. He could almost feel Chloe. It was as if she were still there. The reality of her death hadn’t set in yet. Their relationship had changed so quickly. One minute they were the happiest couple on the planet, the next, she wanted nothing more to do with him. And then she crashed, leaving him to question everything.
Spectre couldn’t wrap his head around how she could just give up on them so abruptly. He had seen it before in friends, and usually the girl was cheating on the guy, or vice versa. He had counseled his friends many times before. Spectre refused to believe that. Chloe just didn’t seem like the type. He knew she had been cheated on before. It just wasn’t possible.
After finishing his sandwich, Spectre decided to take a shower. He needed it and after thirty minutes of warm water, he felt like his batteries had been recharged. Walking back to his room, he passed by the open door of Chloe’s room and stopped.
It had been a weird arrangement. What was once their guest bedroom had now become her room since she first announced they were done. They had gone from lovers to roommates almost instantly.
He turned the light on. An old flight suit was still hanging on the closet door, and her jewelry box was open on the dresser. The room still smelled like her. The bed was unmade, with her laptop sitting open on the nightstand.
With the flood of emotion the sights and smells caused, he thought back to the advice he had given to his friends. Chloe wasn’t the type. Was she?
The laptop was sitting there. He knew the passwords. They knew each other’s passwords for everything. She had never hidden anything from him.
“Chloe, forgive me,” he said as he sat down on the bed and turned on the computer. He didn’t know why he was doing it, but he wanted closure.
Spectre didn’t really know what he was looking for either. As he entered the password and logged on to Windows, there was nothing that jumped out at him. The only thing he could think of was her e-mail account. But would she really be e-mailing a lover?
As he opened up her e-mail webmail account, he scrolled through the e-mails. Besides the daily flying schedule that the squadron schedulers e-mailed out every day, there was really nothing of interest. The more he scrolled through her inbox, the cheaper he began to feel.
Convinced he had been foolish to even think of searching her computer, Spectre started to sign off. Before he reached the sign out button, the Drafts folder caught his eye. The link showed two new drafts.
Curious, Spectre clicked on the link and opened the folder. It contained two messages, each with no subject. He had a glimmer of hope as he considered that it might have been a draft to tell him she still loved him. He read the first one.
“Baby, I miss you. I can’t wait to be with you again. Love, C.”
It was dated two days before the crash, but she had never sent it. It was addressed to no one. Spectre’s eyes watered. Had she really been considering getting back together?
He pushed back the tears and opened the second draft. Maybe she had written more, explaining what was going on in her heart.
“Everything is ready. We will be together tonight. Don’t worry. – Victor”
Spectre’s stomach turned. He was confused. He didn’t understand why she would sign Victor to an e-mail. Who was Victor?
He looked at the date and time the draft was saved. It was written at 12:41PM on the day she crashed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Everglades, FL
Abdul Aalee sat alone in the living room of the small farmhouse. He had been there less than a day, but he was already starting to get cabin fever. He was not a man for sitting and waiting. He wanted action. He wanted revenge.
The day prior, he had gone to Flamingo Park and waited as he was instructed by Alvarez. He had waited for over an hour in the heat and suffocating humidity on one of the park benches sitting between the rows of palm trees. As he watched the children playing in the park, he wished he had one of his suicide bombers or a remote detonated bomb. It would have made a great target against the Americans. They could never be allowed to feel safe again.
The man who approached him had not been Alvarez. Instead, it had been some lackey. He said his name was Jose. Aalee was prepared to end his life on the spot, but Jose knew their code word. He gave Aalee the address of the small farmhouse in the Everglades and told him to hide until they could regroup.
But the man couldn’t tell Aalee what had happened. He had seen on the news that the kidnapping had been discovered. One man had been killed and another was in custody, but neither had been identified. The police also mentioned the search for a third suspect, but also did not identify him. That was good, for the time being. Flamingo Park was a careless choice. He would have to talk to Alvarez about such poor choices later.
He didn’t trust the Cuban. He was useful and had done well getting Aalee into the country, but his usefulness was quickly coming to an end. The operation had been a failure. Alvarez had achieved his objectives, but the greater goal had been lost. The infidels still lived. There had been no public execution as he had planned. There had been no glory for Allah and no advancement of their cause.
Aalee plotted his next move as he looked out the window. It was a small two-bedroom farmhouse located off a dirt road. Thick trees and vegetation surrounded the small house on all sides, with a dirt field beyond that. It wasn’t a terrible place to hole up. The vegetation would make it harder for traditional surveillance.
With Americans, it wasn’t traditional surveillance that bothered him. It was the drones. He had seen many of his brothers in arms killed by drone strikes. He had narrowly escaped a strike himself. The idea kept him on edge. The drones were hard to hear, and nearly impossible to see. They orbited above, only to rain down death and destruction. They were truly the instruments of the devil.
That had been Iraq, though. In America, Aalee had never heard of any drone strikes. The Americans would never allow it against their own people. They would rather send their terrorists to trial, or arrest them and let them go later. It was their weakness. Aalee smiled.
Despite having armed security patrolling the front and rear, Aalee felt alone. Tariq and Kasim had been low-level players in his operation, although Tariq showed promise. He wondered which one had been killed. He hoped it had been Kasim. Kasim was a good fighter, but he wasn’t smart. The Americans would have no trouble breaking him. He was glad neither of them knew the details of their operation in America, but it really wouldn’t matter anymore.
Since he had been in America, he had not found the glory he had hoped for. The Brothers of Freedom lacked structure and leadership. It was nothing like the operations he had led in Iraq. He had no one he could confide in, and no one he could really trust. He needed a lieutenant.
Aalee was lost in thought when he was startled by a loud noise. The sound of gunfire was unmistakable. He could almost name the caliber based on the sound alone. As he dropped to the ground, a gunfight erupted outside. He could see the heads of his guards as they ran left and right past his window, firing their MAC-10 compact machine guns. The Americans were attacking.
Aalee scrambled to his bedroom as windows shattered and his men screamed in Arabic outside. He had to arm himself to fight. He would not be taken alive, and it was the will of Allah to take as many of the infidels with him as he could.
He pulled a chest out from under his bed and opened it. His men had told him about the chest when he first arrived. It was filled with all of the weapons he needed to make a last stand. He grabbed the fully automatic AK-47 and shoved the four spare magazines in his pocket. Then he grabbed two frag grenades and closed the chest.
Running back into the living room, Aalee slapped a fresh magazine in and chambered a round. He flipped the fire selector to the center position from SAFE to select fully automatic. Glass was still shattering around him as the gunfire was ongoing outside. His men were putting up a good fight.
He ducked behind the nearest window and peeked out. He noticed two of his men down on the ground in the front yard. Aalee spotted two men dressed in black tactical gear in the nearby tree line and began firing. Within seconds, the AK-47 was empty and he slapped in a fresh magazine.
As he was reloading, the incoming gunfire stopped for a moment. Aalee noticed the gunfire from his men had stopped as well. He knew his men hadn’t stopped fighting. They were either captured or killed. He was alone. It didn’t matter. This would be his last stand.
He chambered the round and stood up yelling, “ALLAHU AKBAR!”
He began to fire into the tree line when he was disoriented by a loud bang behind him. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t see anything but white light. As he turned to fire, he felt a sharp pain in his chest and he struggled to catch his breath. He fell to the ground, grasping his chest.
As he did, he pulled the rings from the frag grenades in the inner pockets of his coat.
“Allahu Akbar,” he repeated.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sean Baxter’s binoculars confirmed what the satellite imagery in their briefing had told them. The lone farmhouse was surrounded by thick trees and vegetation. There was no clean approach.
Baxter had arrived early that morning at the Joint Terrorism Task Force building. Agent Thomas was grinning ear to ear as he relayed the news. An anonymous tip had come in overnight. Someone had identified Aalee going into the farmhouse. Satellite imagery confirmed men armed with automatic weapons outside and at least one heat source inside. They acquired a warrant from a federal judge and were given the green light to proceed with the operation.
Baxter sat in the large briefing room as Agent Thomas briefed the plan. FBI SWAT would be backed up by the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s SWAT team. The first team would do a rapid deployment from their SUVs off the lone dirt road and use the vegetation for cover and concealment. The second team would fast rope from the Customs Blackhawk helicopter into the opening behind the house, and the helicopter would then provide sniper support. Any resistance would be responded to with lethal force, but the goal was to take Aalee and his men alive.
The three black GMC Yukon XL SUVs and two Sheriff’s cars were parked in a row alongside the county road. Baxter, Thomas, and Agent Gus Spencer from the ATF were huddled over a map behind the second SUV, discussing the assault plan. They were all wearing navy blue Rapid Deploy body armor vests with FEDERAL AGENT written across the back in yellow. The Level III armor vests had anti-trauma panels and were rated for rifles up to .308 caliber. The vests could defend against both rifles and knife attacks.
“Our guys really have no cover if they start shooting,” Baxter said, handing the binoculars to Agent Spencer. Spencer was easily a half-foot taller than Baxter and Thomas.
“That’s why we have to move quickly,” Thomas replied. “Once the first SUV drops off the Miami SWAT guys, the Blackhawk will come in and drop off our guys. If they start shooting, the Customs sniper will pick them off. We’ll go in with the second SUV and enter the house from the side. It’s a pretty basic layout. There are only four rooms total including the kitchen, and it is open to the living area.”
“The latest imagery we have only shows five people total, including the person inside,” Spencer interjected. “It should be a pretty clean operation.”
Thomas turned to Baxter. His balding forehead was sweating. The weight of the body armor over his plus-sized body was causing him to exert himself in the heat.
“Baxter, I know this is your first takedown, but stick with me and you’ll be fine,” he said. It was the first glimpse of decency he’d shown since they had been working together on this case.
Baxter nodded as Thomas gave the lead Miami-Dade SWAT officer the thumbs up. He and his team were wearing full black tactical gear, each with an M4 hanging from their chests and a Sig Sauer P226 in a drop leg holster. Two SWAT officers on each side grabbed the handholds on top of the lead SUV and stood on the running boards.
Baxter and Thomas climbed into the second SUV. Spencer would stay behind and monitor communications from the road with the third SUV and local police. They would drive in to assist with prisoner transport once the area was clear.
“Alpha One ready,” the Miami SWAT leader announced over the tactical frequency.
“Bravo One is one mike out,” the FBI SWAT leader replied, indicating the helo was one minute away from dropping them off.
“Green light,” Thomas directed over his radio.
The lead SUV took off, kicking up dust as it turned right and sped down the quarter mile long dirt road. Baxter followed a few moments later. The lead SUV slowed as it neared the edge of the vegetation. The four SWAT officers of Alpha Team jumped clear and disappeared into the tree line.
Baxter stopped short of the tree line and positioned the massive SUV into a roadblock. After Alpha Team was clear, the lead SUV turned around and joined them. They would block any attempted vehicle escape from the target house. With the house surrounded by fields and marsh, the dirt road was the only path of vehicle escape.
“Alpha One, in position,” came the call over the radio. Alpha Team had made their way through the vegetation uneventfully. “Two armed individuals, north side.”
Baxter could hear the thump of the Blackhawk in the distance. He strained to see it coming in from the southwest as he and Thomas exited the SUV. He found the black dot on the horizon as he met Thomas at the rear of the SUV. Within minutes, they would be storming the farmhouse.
The calm before the storm was broken as the black and gold Blackhawk came in over the tree line and gunfire erupted. One of the guards had gotten spooked and started firing at the helicopter. Alpha Two took down the guard out in the open with a carefully placed bullet to the temple, but the other guard had already taken cover. The firefight had begun.
The Blackhawk aborted the drop and circled around as the Customs sniper took aim. With his SCAR-17S rifle chambered in .308 and a Leupold high-powered scope, he was well equipped for the task, taking out the remaining guard in the open on the southern side of the house. That left two guards hiding and shooting back.
With little concealment, Alpha Team took up prone positions and started firing back. The guard at the southern end of the house was using a three-foot high stack of wood and trying to shoot at the helicopter as it passed. The guard on the northern end of the house hid behind a flipped over table under the front porch and was blind firing into the tree line, leaving Alpha Team without a shot.
The Blackhawk made another orbit around the farmhouse. With the southern guard in his sights, the sniper took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The bullet ripped right through the exposed guard’s neck.
“Southern tango down,” the sniper called on their tactical frequency.
“Let’s move up,” Thomas said, motioning to Baxter. Baxter drew his issued Sig Sauer P228 chambered in 9MM from his tactical drop leg holster and followed. They proceeded up the road into the vegetation, staying low and out of sight.
With the southern area of the farmhouse clear, the Blackhawk pulled into a hover over the farmhouse. The four FBI SWAT members of Bravo Team in black tactical gear and olive drab flight suits fast roped down from the helicopter before it cut the large rope and climbed back into an overhead orbit. They met at the back door near the pile of wood.
“Bravo One, in position, stacking up,” the team
leader said. They were preparing to breach and enter through the back door.
“Bravo One, hold position,” Thomas directed. The team leader acknowledged.
“Alpha One and Two flanking west, Three and Four hold position with covering fire,” the Alpha Team leader directed. They began moving to the right using the vegetation for concealment as the other two team members on the opposite side of the road laid down covering fire to keep the guard’s head down.
“Let’s go,” Thomas said to Baxter. He motioned for him to follow, and he waddled his way through the thick brush, attempting to follow Alpha Team moving west.
More gunfire erupted from the house, this time from inside. It appeared to be coming from one of the windows. It was much louder than the MAC-10s had been, and a different cadence. Alpha Three and Four returned fire, shattering nearby windows.
Reaching the flank of the northern guard, Alpha One took aim with his Trijicon 4 x 32 ACOG scope. The northern guard popped up after reloading to continue shooting into the tree line. Alpha One had his opportunity. A smooth pull of the trigger sent the round ripping through the guard’s chest.
“Tango down,” he announced. The AK-47 continued firing wildly in the vicinity of Alpha Three and Four, but it didn’t appear to be aimed.
Thomas and Baxter followed the two Miami SWAT members to the western door. Despite the firefight, they were relatively close to some semblance of the original plan.
“Go nonlethal,” Thomas directed over the tactical frequency as they reached the door. The lead SWAT members of both doors pulled out their shotguns. Their rifles had been using live rounds, but each team had two members with shotguns loaded with nonlethal beanbag rounds. The rounds would be enough to incapacitate or stun, but not enough to kill. Thomas wanted no mistakes to ensure at least Aalee was taken alive to stand for his crimes and for possible intelligence into other attacks.
Spectre Rising Page 12
