by Brad Taylor
I said, “Sir. Really?”
He said, “Yeah, really. Let me get to work. Tell the OP to call if they leave. Hopefully I can get something in place.”
Jennifer and Nung were digging through our Pelican cases, pulling out concealable body armor and weapons.
Blaine glanced at them, then said, “I need the time or they’re going to get away.”
I said, “Only if we let them.”
He turned from the computer and said, “We can’t do an assault, Pike. No way. Jesus, it’s bad enough that I’ve got an Irish drug dealer chained to the toilet.”
“Sir, you already said it. We’re screwed. The only thing that can stop this is the Taskforce. We have the assets, and we have the skill.”
“Pike, we can’t do an assault on Irish soil. It’ll be a huge diplomatic mess. I can’t ask . . .”
He sat for a minute, then shut down the computer.
“Fuck it.”
I leapt up, running to the kit, him right behind me. I started sorting out weapons and charges, slapping things all over my body with Velcro when he said, “You got guns for me?”
Jennifer looked at him, confused, and I paused.
He said, “What? You need the help.”
I laughed and said, “You have lost your mind. No way.”
“What?”
“Somebody’s got to deal with the shit storm, and better to prep the battlefield than deal with the mess later.”
I finished digging, telling Jennifer, “Get a package for both Brett and Retro.” I turned to him. “You can’t go.”
He said, “Pike, I’m going to get fired for this. Please. You can be in charge. I’ll follow your lead. Let me get something.”
I appreciated the desire. I really did, which is what I would have expected. He wouldn’t have joined the Taskforce if he weren’t a meat-eater, and it had nothing at all to do with his skill. He was a killer. But it made no difference. I gave him a hard truth, like NCOs since the Revolutionary War.
“Sir, what you’re about to do is more important than a gunfight. Get the cleaning crew on standby. Get the Taskforce read on. Get the National Command Authority ready for the hurricane. Make sure someone’s got my back. That computer over there is the most valuable thing we have right now.”
Blaine stood, watching us kit up, disgusted. Feeling impotent. He said, “You’re going to take the damn mercenary over me?”
Nung said nothing, continuing to work his kit.
I said, “Hey, sir. It was your call that got us here. Remember that. Courage isn’t just under fire.”
He turned away, muttering, “What a load of horseshit.” He walked back to the computer and booted it up, saying, “I get to hear the screaming from DC, and you get to save the day.”
I snapped the lid to the Pelican case closed and said, “We’ll see about that. This goes bad, and I’m going to need some serious backup from the NCA. Don’t let me down.”
Blaine said, “Don’t screw it up and I won’t.”
Jennifer checked the function of her HK416 and said, “What’s your definition of a screw-up?”
Outside of her initial introduction, Jennifer hadn’t said a single word to Blaine since he’d landed, not being sure how he felt about her conducting operations on the ground. Not knowing if he was a typical Taskforce he-man women hater. Now, she was talking at the worst possible time, because she was about to execute instead of him. I thought it might push him over the edge, and I wondered where she was going with the statement.
He glared at her and said, “My definition of a screw-up is two dead hostages.”
She moved to the door saying, “Okay. Just wanted to make sure.”
I followed her, Nung behind me. Blaine said, “Make sure of what?”
Jennifer opened the door and peeked into the hallway. She turned to me and nodded, then said, “Make sure you don’t mind bodies.”
There was no humor in her expression, and she wasn’t trying for bravado. She just said it as fact. He looked at her with new eyes, and so did I.
She said, “What? You think I’m wrong?”
I said, “No. There’s definitely going to be somebody dead tonight. Don’t let it be you.”
She slipped into the hallway saying, “It won’t be. Let’s go get Kylie.”
68
Macroom was only ten minutes away from the target, and I was thanking my lucky stars that we’d decided to jump TOC from Cork City to the small hamlet. It had been much easier to conduct operational activity in a Cork hotel room, as the bed-and-breakfast we’d found was hosted by a nosy couple who really wanted to show us the best of Irish hospitality, but Cork was forty minutes away. The B&B had made things difficult, to say the least—especially when we had to smuggle in Clynne without them knowing—but the time saved could be the difference between life and death.
Jennifer drove and I relayed the plan, talking to Brett. There would be no time to sit around and hash out a detailed OPORDER over a sand table, but I knew I didn’t need to worry about that. The minute Retro had made the call, he was thinking about assault.
I said, “We’re six minutes out on the blacktop. Get your ass off the hill and meet us at the road. I have your kit.”
All business, he asked, “Plan?”
“Stalk from the river. Me, you, and Retro. Koko and Nung take the car to the far side and lock it down with long guns.”
“Explosive breach?”
“Yeah. Unless you have a better idea.”
“Nope. I got the breach-point. See you in six.”
And that was the plan. All of it.
We passed the mill on the main road, the dirt lane snaking off into the darkness, then crossed the river and turned left on the two-lane blacktop, paralleling the water. We drove for another minute, and I saw a penlight flash. We pulled into a cutout, seeing Brett and Retro kneeling with ghillie suits on and holding their recce kit.
Nung popped our hatchback and Retro started shuffling equipment, exchanging his optics and UAV for suppressed HK UMP submachine guns.
Brett said, “They definitely moved two inside. From what I’ve seen, I think the house is a basic four-room plan. There’s a breach at the front, the side, and one in the rear. We take the rear one.”
“Where do you think they’ve got the hostages?”
“I’m thinking the front. The heat sources are all there, with the exception of two in the rear and two on the side.”
“Can we get there without compromise?”
“I can’t say. If they don’t have any optics—thermals or NODs—yeah. But I just don’t know. I didn’t see any telltale IR when looking, though.”
“So what are the two at the rear doing?”
He grinned, his teeth glowing in the darkness. “Preventing the bad man from coming.”
I nodded, asking the question I knew he’d already figured out. “What’s the approach? You got a route?”
“Yeah. We cross the river right here, then buttonhook into the draw that runs parallel to the house. It peters out about seventy meters shy. From there, we just go in.”
I said, “You and Retro on the same sheet of music?”
“Yeah. We’re good.”
Which meant I didn’t have to brief anything. I asked, “Who’s breach?”
“Me.”
I nodded and said, “Jennifer, Nung, come here.”
When they closed on me I said, “We’re crossing here. I want you guys to drive back around to the dirt lane. No lights once you turn. Get as close as you can, then walk in. We aren’t going to wait for you to get in position, but call when you are. We’ll be moving to breach.” I tapped the barrel of her 416. “Lock down the front. Don’t let anyone leave.”
Nung began working the action of his own 416 and I wondered if I would regret giving it to him. I sai
d, “Nung, Jennifer’s in charge. You understand? No shooting unless she says so.”
He looked at me with his blank shark eyes and said, “I understand. I protect her. She shoots.”
I was taken aback, because that was exactly what I wanted him to do. I said, “Yeah. You guard her flanks, she does the shooting.”
He looked at her, then me, and said, “She will be fine.”
He walked away, and Jennifer said, “I’m not so sure about him.”
“I wasn’t either, but inside that prison in Thailand, he was a holy terror. He says he’ll protect you, and it’s better than body armor.”
She said, “Oookaaay . . . ,” drawing out the word.
I said, “Get going.”
She started to leave, and I grabbed her wrist. “One final thing: If it gets hot, don’t let him start shooting. I’m not sure he gets the whole ‘discrimination’ thing. He’s liable to kill the hostages.”
Her eyes widened and she said, “What am I supposed to do to prevent that? If I’m getting shot at?”
“I don’t know. Return fire with your gun and then bump him. Knock off his aim.”
Her expression grew fierce. “Are you kidding me? I’m not taking him. I’ll go alone.”
I grinned at her attitude and said, “Just don’t let him start blazing away. He’ll listen to you. He wants to get paid.”
She looked at me with slitted eyes. I glanced around, seeing nobody near, then leaned in close and said, “Don’t get hurt. Call if you need help.”
I kissed her on the lips, a brief peck.
I’d studiously kept our relationship purely professional for anyone on the team watching, and would have never done it, but we were going into the teeth of some bad guys. And I needed to give her some courage. Something to anchor against. It would help her . . .
Okay, that’s bullshit and I had lost my mind for a moment. I just wanted to do it . . . in case. She returned the kiss and said, “More than likely you’ll be calling me.”
I chuckled. “Probably so.”
She winked at me and said, “Nung? You ready?”
They packed up and the car disappeared down the road. Retro jacked a round into his UMP and said sotto voice, “Don’t get hurt. Call if you need help.”
Brett snickered, and I realized they’d seen the whole thing. I said, “Let’s go, assholes.”
We slid across the stone wall separating the river from the road, and Brett said, “Do you think we should call her for help no matter how this turns out? I mean since you’ll be sleeping in her room and all? Get you some benny points in bed?”
I slid down the riverbank, gritting my teeth.
Retro said, “I’m willing to take one for the team. Act like we needed her help to pull us out of the fire. If you’ll text some pictures.”
He slipped and landed in the water with a splash. A loud one. We all froze, waiting to see if it mattered. Nothing happened.
I said, “You guys through fucking around? Because we’re about to be in a gunfight.”
69
Seamus paced the kitchen floor, turning circles around the two hooded captives. He said, “Kevin, come on. I’ve had enough. We’ll figure out the ferry procedures when we get there.”
Kevin said, “It’s the connection. It’s slow. Hang on. Just a couple more minutes.”
“You’ve been saying that for a damn hour. You got the ferry tickets and the hotel. Fuck the rest.”
Kevin turned and said, “Yeah, I did, but don’t you want to know the return procedures? We only researched taking ferries into Ireland. You want to show up in England and have our car searched, finding a couple of hooded hostages?”
“It’ll be the same. We need to go.”
“No, it’s not the same. You ever travel to the Continent? And travel back?”
Seamus heard the words and knew he was right. Getting to Brussels or Paris through the Chunnel was a breeze. Getting back was a nightmare of security.
He said, “How much longer to figure it out? How slow can that damn satellite hookup be?”
“Just a minute more.”
Seamus said, “Michael, let’s drug them. Get ’em ready.”
One of the hooded men began to thrash about, and Seamus saw it was the vice president’s son. If he didn’t admire the fight, he would have knocked him out with a boot. But he did.
He grabbed Nick’s head and said, “Stop it. This is going to happen. Don’t make me hurt you.”
Michael knelt over him with a needle designed for a horse, and Nick thrashed again, kicking his elbow and causing the syringe to fly across the room. Seamus snarled, “Have it your way,” and thumped his head into the floor, stunning him. Michael retrieved the syringe and thrust it into his buttocks, through his clothes. He jammed the plunger home. Nick went limp.
Seamus said, “Travis, you want to fight?”
Through his hood, Travis shook his head, trembling. Seamus handed Michael another needle, and the radio crackled.
“Seamus, OP one. I got a couple moving down the road. Coming towards us.”
Seamus held up, then grabbed the handheld radio. “What do you mean, ‘couple’?”
“It looks like a guy and a girl. Coming down the tree line.”
Guy and girl? That made no sense.
He turned to Kevin. “Where is the nearest house around here?”
“At least a mile up the road. It’s all farmland. Nobody uses that dirt track to come and go. All the houses connect to the blacktop.”
“Could they be on it for some romantic fuck-fest?”
“Yeah. I suppose.”
He keyed the radio. “Let them go. Stay out of sight. Just keep an eye on them.”
The radio call went to a whisper. “They just came into the moonlight. They have guns. They’re walking with rifles.”
Seamus pressed a fist into his eye. Guns? But why would they be walking down the road? If he stopped them, and they were a local couple out doing whatever they were doing, he’d be exposed. No longer hidden, with some clan out to skin him for the scare. Then he realized that didn’t matter. They were leaving anyway.
“Stop them. See what they’re doing. But don’t hurt them. Get them on the ground and see if they’re Serbian. If they are, take them out. If they aren’t, just hold them and call.”
“You got it. Hang on.”
* * *
Jennifer tried to stay in the shadows, tried to match Nung’s walk, but she was failing at every step. The guy was like a cat, having some ability to glide over the ground without leaving a single mark of his passing. After driving past the old water mill, they’d gone another quarter of a mile up the dirt lane with their lights off, then had pulled to the side. Nung looked at her for approval, and she’d nodded.
They’d exited, wanting to walk through the woods to their overwatch position, but had found a small brook running alongside the road, with a briar patch on the far side, like a green fence. They could either penetrate through the tangled brush, fighting their way forward and making a racket, or take the road.
They opted for the road, walking among the moonlight broken by the branches of the overhanging trees. The darkness was oppressive, but using the single-tube PVS-14 she had was like trying to walk while looking through a soda straw. No depth perception, and a conflict when her brain tried to process what it was seeing—one eye outside the green scope and one eye in. It was something she’d wished she’d practiced.
The brook took a bend to the right, and she saw an open field. She whispered, “This is it. We need to find a spot with a field of fire.”
Nung nodded and said, “We get past the creek, and we can see the house.”
She took a knee and brought out the monocle, surveying ahead. She said, “I see the road. The track that goes in. Fifty yards.”
She keyed
her radio and said, “Pike, Pike, this is Koko. We’re at the entrance. Will call when set.”
She heard, “Roger. On the move.”
She tapped Nung on the thigh and they began stalking, moving slowly. They got to the road and crouched again. She raised the night optics and a man to her right rose out of the bushes, an assault rifle in his hands. He jabbed it forward like a sword and said, “Get the fuck on the ground.”
Before the shock of his appearance had even registered in her brain, Nung whipped out like a snake, slapping the man in the face and trapping the weapon with his other hand.
He drove an elbow into the man’s throat, crushing it, then rotated around, circling the man’s waist with his legs and bringing him to the ground, ending up sitting behind him. Nung wrapped up his neck, placed a hand on his forehead, and harshly jerked to the rear, the pop loud enough to be heard thirty feet away. The weapon fell to the earth, useless.
Jesus.
Jennifer remained where she was. Nung slowly draped the body on the ground. He looked at her with a question. She said, “Sorry I ever doubted you.”
He smiled and tilted his head to the field across the brook.
70
We broke out of the bushes from the draw and held up, surveying the house. So far it looked like we were undetected, but that was pretty much what Knuckles had thought in Paris.
Brett brought out the thermals, and we saw no change. Two guys to the rear, and a host of bodies in the front, all milling about and blending into one another with their heat state. It was a seventy-meter stalk to the door. On open ground.
Retro said, “Now or never.”
“Wait until Koko’s set. I don’t want to push them out the back and lose them.”
I keyed the mic. “Koko, Koko, we’re in the last cover. About to assault. You got the back door?”
