by P. R. Adams
Stockton crossed his freckled, leathery arms over his chest and settled his jaw atop his right fist. Muscles slithered along his powerful forearms. “With those two new feeds, that gives us seven.”
Rimes squinted at the displays, examining the crispness of the picture. “What model drones?”
“Cytek 701s.” Stockton beamed. “They can record mosquitos fucking from fifty meters out. You can’t really see them at night and they’re quiet as the wind.”
Rimes felt Stockton watching for a reaction. Rimes studied the images on the displays until Stockton finally returned his attention to the feeds, then cycled through each one on the leftmost display. The static display highlighted the area of each feed shown.
He’s proud of what they’ve done. He should be.
“Northeast, observing from Eads Lake,” Stockton said as the first feed flickered, then disappeared. The second filled the display. “Southeast, just inside the Providence Road wall.”
Pasqual pointed at a form at the edge of the display. It was mostly hidden by a clump of shrubs. “What’s that?”
“One of the groundskeepers.” Stockton frowned grimly. “The Harpers didn’t bother to include them in the information they gave us initially. There were eight of them. We’ve identified five of their bodies so far.”
Rimes exchanged an annoyed look with Pasqual. “Any other surprises?”
Stockton’s jaw muscles worked, and his eyes narrowed angrily. “We’ve asked their people to triple-check their staff information. We’re still trying to find a few stragglers, but we think we have everyone accounted for now. This security firm they hired to manage the estate, they’re in over their heads. Thirty-one gunmen. They weren’t prepared for anything like that.”
And no one’s going to hold them accountable for this mess. “What about the other drones?”
Stockton seemed to shrink ever so slightly. He exchanged a glance with one of his men, who gave a quick nod. “To the south, two just outside the Harper Hills Road wall, about one hundred meters apart; southwest, one hanging inside the Botanical Gardens; west, between the Mayfield Road wall and the canal; and here, north, in this stretch of private woods that runs along the eastern wall.”
Rimes cycled through the feeds himself, watching each for several seconds. As he passed from the Botanical Gardens to the canal feed, Pasqual held up a hand. Rimes flipped back.
Pasqual pointed to a dark patch where vine-covered trellises shielded the grounds from the drone.
Blind spot. Rimes leaned in to examine the image. “Can you reposition the drone to get us a look here?”
Stockton tapped one of the technicians on the shoulder. The image shifted, transitioning from a path bordered by magnolias and a terraced span of azaleas to the top of the trellis enclosure.
A form moved, resolved.
“Gunman,” Stockton mumbled. “Mark him.”
The technician tapped away at virtual controls, and a red stick figure image overlaid the gunman’s position, eventually filling out and generating three-dimensional shading. There was a barely perceptible flicker as the force composition overlay updated.
Thirty-two.
Rimes ran through the data feeds one last time. “We’ll need live updates into our combat control systems.”
Stockton’s face twisted into a sneer. “I know that, Lieutenant. Our guys installed the interface software. We’ll need a quick check, but there’s no reason to believe it won’t work. Battlefield Awareness System 3?”
“Three-three,” Pasqual corrected, watching Rimes instead of the screens.
Stockton sucked at his teeth, annoyingly. “Three-three. My team runs BAS one-oh modules. We don’t have your budget.”
Rimes looked at Pasqual, who gave a quick nod. “We could really use your team’s help, Captain. Maybe you could provide some insight into how you’d planned your operation? You know the area better than we do.”
Stockton languidly ran his eyes from Rimes to Pasqual then back, as if searching for any hint of inauthenticity. “All right.” He shambled toward the door.
Rimes followed, Pasqual in tow.
A gentle wind ruffled Stockton’s thick, almost colorless hair. “We like to use terrain to our advantage as much as we can. We may operate mostly in urban environments, but the concepts are the same—lines of sight, cover, the works.
“This particular situation presents a lot of problems. Aside from the hostages, you’ve got the outer walls and the wide open fields surrounding the mansion, the gunmen they’ve got hidden inside the wooded areas…”
He sighed heavily. “It’s going to be a bloodbath.”
“The gunmen still have no interest in negotiating?” Rimes shifted uncomfortably. It’s all just an extended massacre played out for dramatic effect.
“No demands when this started, no demands now. When they communicate, it’s to issue orders or announce an imminent execution. We keep hoping they’ll finally give us something to work with, but so far…”
“So you were going to risk the east woods?” Pasqual asked.
Stockton blinked. “Yeah. Only five gunmen in and around there, not enough to really cover the area effectively. We were hoping to get a couple of our snipers on the wall. Their people have excellent cover, though.” He ran a beefy hand through his hair.
Rimes kicked at the ground with a booted toe. “How deep is that canal?”
“Four meters at its deepest, just over three most of the way. The water itself is no more than a meter and a half deep.” Stockton sucked through his teeth again. “If you’re thinking of going in through there, you might want to reconsider. We think they mined it.”
“Mines?” Rimes and Pasqual asked in chorus.
Rimes caught Pasqual's glance—skeptical, challenging—and immediately looked away; Pasqual wasn't buying the genie angle.
“Improvised, probably. A drone picked up one of them dropping into the canal with a loaded travel bag. He came out later and the bag was clearly empty.”
Mining the canal. They’ve really thought this through.
Rimes rubbed his forehead. “You’re right. This is definitely sounding less and less like a typical hostage situation.” He played the security videos through his memory again. “You see any similarities to the murders up in New York and Boston last month?”
“They’re rich, but that’s it. New York, Boston, San Jose, and what happened out in Salt Lake City, those were disorganized mobs. And the Claremont family killed up in Philadelphia, everything points to a lone gunman. Nothing like this.”
Rimes looked back at his helicopter, then scanned across the open field that had once held houses. He stopped at the edge of a towering wall that marked the outer extent of the Harper property. Why intervene this time? Why just two squads if we suspected something this big? What’s the angle here? “This Harper, is he influential?”
Stockton snorted. “You could say that. Nouveau riche. Made it all about twelve years ago.”
“How?”
“Ran a private corporation, made a few big biotech patents, then sold everything to ADMP and climbed the metacorporate ladder for a bit. Wiped out 10,000 good jobs in this city in the process. He walked away from it all at forty-nine, worth more than all of Central America combined. Now he runs Atlanta. Gives ADMP all the good deals in town.”
“Could this be rivals?” Pasqual asked. “EEC? SunCorps?”
“Sure, it’s possible.” Stockton’s voice was flat, his face pinched.
Rimes considered Stockton’s body language. He was confident, not just combative. “So you think it’s some sort of criminal operation?” Rimes nearly winced when the slightest hint of incredulity seeped into his voice. Neutral. Don’t antagonize.
“Nope. A team of thirty-two people detected so far, military-grade weapons, and way too much sophistication and planning.” Stockton’s head slowly turned until he was staring at the pale gray silhouettes standing in front of the vague helicopter shadow. “If I had to guess, I’d say
it sounds like some sort of military operation. Lieutenant.”
THE GRASS CRACKLED beneath their boots in the quiet as they walked back to the waiting Commandos. Rimes felt annoyance working its way through him, leaving in its wake an unwelcome nervous energy. He shivered as if the night were cold. Pasqual’s gait—uneven, almost awkward—hinted he was similarly affected.
Pasqual jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Pretty sharp for a cop.”
“I’ve run into quite a few bright ones. Don’t get cocky, Rick. No matter how good we are, there’s always someone better than us out there.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Pasqual shrugged, but it was weak and unconvincing. “Don’t you worry, m’man. I know my limits.”
We should all be so lucky.
Pasqual exhaled loudly. “If you’re worried about the team, don’t be. They’re all good.”
“I heard otherwise. Tell me about Meyers.”
“He’s good. He reminds me of you, but smarter.”
Rimes chuckled and fought off the urge to flip off Pasqual. “Smart’s good. But we won’t keep someone like him. Doesn’t take a genius to know the military's a dead end.”
Pasqual’s head sank. “You’ve got to try.”
“We don’t need geniuses, Rick. You’ve seen the sort of trouble that gets us into. What we need are miracles.”
“Not everything has to be about your pet project, okay? Not every soldier has to be the perfect weapon. We're human, Jack.”
“That's not good enough. Not anymore.”
Pasqual let out a soft groan. “Let it go.”
They walked, Rimes listening to the sound of the hard dirt crunching beneath their boots. He thought he could hear one of the Commandos’ voices. “Can we trust Meyers?”
“Yeah. I really mean it. He’s good. You just gotta get past how much of an asshole he is, that’s all. He’s brilliant, and he likes for people to know it.” Pasqual’s head drooped. “I know the unit ain’t like it used to be, m’man. Commandos ain’t no better than Delta anymore. Way too much IB influence. But we’ll get this done. Just…trust your people, okay?”
After working with the Intelligence Bureau to hunt down Kwon, Rimes had no illusions about their intent with the Commandos. “I do. Hang in there a little longer. They’ll approve my proposal eventually. I’ll need someone like you to make the ERF work.”
Pasqual snapped his fingers, a dull, dry sound thanks to his gloves. “Just like that, huh? And then we're 'Captain Singh and the Space Marines'?”
Rimes winced. He'd suffered through plenty of comparisons between his ERF concept and the horrible yet popular Captain Singh Bollywood movies while in OCS. Good-natured or not, the comment hurt coming from Pasqual.
One of the Commandos separated from the rest and approached. Meyers. He was young for a sergeant and good-looking, with a lean frame. His sandy blonde hair was short, his eyes bright blue, his nose hooked. Everything about him—his posture, his stare, his tight-pressed lips—exuded confidence bordering on cocky. He exchanged a look with Pasqual, then turned to Rimes, eyebrows raised in a mixture of curiosity and challenge. “What’s up, Lieutenant?”
Don’t take the bait. Let it go. “They’re getting us access to their network now. When everyone’s on, we’ll move out. We’ll enter through the canal. Is your team ready?”
Meyers nodded casually. “I heard force composition over thirty. That’s a tall order, even for my team.”
He just has to test my limits. We can’t afford this, not at this point. Rimes did his best to appear calm. “Sir or lieutenant. Either one is fine, Sergeant. I’m sure your team can handle this.”
For a moment, Meyers just stared, his face emotionless. “Roger that. Lieutenant.”
Rimes returned Meyers’s stare and for a moment felt Kwon’s whisper: strike him. The moment passed. He needed Meyers, despite all his baggage. “We have some things working in our favor.” Rimes glanced over his shoulder at the mobile command post. They weren’t being monitored. “IB has someone inside,” he whispered, indicating the estate walls with a jerk of his head.
Meyers shifted so that he was facing Pasqual. “The Intelligence Bureau’s involved? So why didn’t they call in a Delta team?”
“A lot of the big brass are very uncomfortable with IB getting so close to the Special Security Council. If they could, the Joint Chiefs would shut Delta down and completely pry IB out of military operations.” Rimes looked at the other Commandos huddled in front of the helicopter and wondered what the politics of the Delta situation meant at a personal level. At some point, all politics becomes personal. “They might yet.”
Meyers defocused for a moment, apparently thinking things through. “Okay. I follow you, Lieutenant. IB gets inside this group, they ask for Delta, someone flexes and says no, and we’re up next. Skipping the politics, what makes you think one IB agent is going to make that big a difference? We’re still seriously outnumbered.”
“Thanks to that insider, we know a lot more about them than they do about us—their weapons, the technology, intelligence capabilities, and training.” Rimes pointed to the helicopter. “And thanks to all the precautions we’ve taken, we still have the element of surprise.”
Pasqual turned in a slow one-eighty, his head bobbing up and down as if riding gentle waves. “We’re in their network.”
Rimes’s BAS chimed, and the police network feed began populating his optics, wrapping everything in a fantastical illusion of brilliant wireframes, colors, and symbols. He took a moment to synchronize with the digitally augmented reality he’d been away from for so long. More real than real.
“This is it. Pasqual, I want your team on point. You heard Stockton. We’ll assume improvised explosives and some other booby traps in the canal.”
“I’ll get my best guy on it.” Pasqual waved his team over, taking his and Rimes’s CAWS-5 carbines from one of them. Pasqual handed Rimes his weapon, then jogged to the spot where the canal ran beneath the wall. The team gradually opened up their spacing to three meters.
Rimes calmly checked his weapon, finding comfort in the soft click of components, the gentle catch of the magazine sliding home. “Meyers, I realize this is probably not the most comfortable situation for you. You don’t know much about me, and what you know probably isn’t very encouraging. I’m just some snot-nosed, know-nothing lieutenant whose been out of the Commandos for three years.”
Meyers only stared.
“I’m going to ask you to trust me. I wouldn’t take us into a situation I didn’t think we were capable of handling. Can I count on you?”
“You’ll get our best, Lieutenant.”
“I couldn’t ask for more.” Rimes winked. No effect. He’s already judged me. “Let’s go.”
He jogged after Pasqual’s team, stopping at the canal to pull on his headgear. Once he was fully suited, he looked over Meyers and his team. They were experienced, highly decorated, trustworthy. And the entire flight in, they’d eyed him suspiciously.
I’m the outsider. I’m the one you can’t trust.
With the headgear on, they were completely enclosed, sealed off from the outside world. They could be anyone.
Meyers pulled his CAWS-5 from its back holster and gave a thumbs-up. Rimes lowered himself into the canal. Meyers and his team followed.
The canal was deep, the bottom slick. It felt narrow, as if it might collapse and bury them at any moment. Pull it together. Those walls may look like packed earth, but they’re reinforced with a compound every bit as sturdy as concrete. We’re safe. For now.
The Commandos stuck to the darkest shadows. If they were discovered in the canal, they wouldn’t have much hope.
Pasqual’s men sloshed through the water ahead of Rimes. They were already through the grate that normally sealed the Harper compound off from the outside world. Rimes watched them slowly edge forward on his display, pale green lights on a dark green background.
The point man stopped twenty-five meters out from the spot identifi
ed as possibly booby-trapped. A white blip appeared on the optics’ overlay. He’d discovered an explosive device and was going to disarm it.
Rimes dropped lower and leaned against a wall.
He was too far back for anything short of heavy ordnance to affect him, even in the canal’s compressed space. Still, as far as he was concerned, good training was never abandoned.
He licked his lips and waited and hoped Pasqual’s trust in the soldier wasn’t misplaced. Several seconds passed, stretching, stretching.
A minute, then another.
Finally, the white blip disappeared. Clear. They began moving again.
They were precise, expert—just what Rimes needed for his Elite Response Force concept, but without the political entanglements.
What’s taking the Joint Chiefs so long to buy into this?
They found a dozen explosive devices in all, each costing them critical, fatiguing time, time that threatened their focus. Still, it was better than losing someone to a blast or giving away their location.
The point man reached their planned exit spot and halted. Based on satellite and police drone imagery, a walled garden and several trees blocked clear line of sight from the mansion and surrounding buildings. They would still be exposed to sighting from the wooded area outside and the mansion rooftop.
They needed a distraction.
After signaling Pasqual’s team into position, Rimes slowly edged forward through the canal until he could see them. Their green forms glowed among the BAS’s wireframe silhouettes. He stopped four meters back from Pasqual and dropped into a crouch.
Rimes brought up a new interface inside the BAS display. It provided an aerial view of the estate’s dozen buildings. Slowly, it began populating the view with all known personnel, marking allies green and hostiles red.
Rimes flicked his finger over a virtual button, and a new display area occupied the bottom right of the current overlay. Six jagged graphs filled the new display.
He quickly tapped each of the graphs, listening as a stream of voices played. Finally, he stopped each of the streams and played them back, listening to each for several seconds more before opening a new window.
