Fade to Grey (Book 1): Fade to Grey

by Brian Stewart

  “What time is it now, Lieutenant Estes?” the Amazon asked.

  Estes looked down at his watch, then quickly up, unavoidably catching the colonel’s eyes as he did. “O942, sir.”

  Chapter 29

  “Lieutenant Estes, get on the radio right now and find out if the termination order has been carried out. If it hasn’t, which wouldn’t surprise me considering the sloppy way this unit has been commanded, I want you to stop it and have the prisoner returned to his cell or wherever it is that you’re keeping him,” the suit said.

  “Yes sir,” Estes replied, already moving toward the group of tables with the COM system set up on.

  Keying the microphone, Estes said, “Gamma One base to all units, Gamma One base to all units, security detail Tango Three, report in immediately, repeat, security detail Tango Three . . . report in immediately.”

  “Tango Three? What’s that?” the suit asked.

  “It’s one of the colonel’s . . . ah . . .” Estes hesitated out of habit, catching a murderous glimpse from the colonel.

  “Out with it Lieutenant, don’t make me ask again.” This time the suit’s voice matched the impatience in his eyes.

  “Sir, Tango Three is a group of handpicked soldiers assembled by Colonel Jordan. Regular army sir. They answer only to the colonel and . . . seem to be exempt from normal military routine.” Or discipline, Estes thought. His answer seemed canned, not only to him, but everybody else in the room as well.

  “Speak freely lieutenant . . . and quickly.” This time it was the red-haired bodyguard who spoke, approaching silently from his seven o’clock position, stopping just in range of his full peripheral vision. Estes noticed that the silver pistol no longer had the cylindrical noise suppressor threaded onto the end of its barrel. The same barrel that was both innocently and menacingly angled in his general direction.

  “YES SIR! Tango Three is the code name for a trio of heavy handed assholes that Colonel Jordan has been using for his dirty work,” Estes snapped.

  “Gamma One, Gamma One, this is patrol scouts Echo Bravo Niner, we have eyes on unit Tango Three. They do not appear to have COM equipment and are probably unable to report in.” The sound quality of the replying unit was amazingly good considering the diminutive size of the speakers flanking the radio area.

  “Roger that Echo Bravo Niner, what is Tango Three’s location?” Estes keyed the microphone and spoke.

  “They are walking across the courtyard by the gym, over.”

  Estes quickly mashed the transmit button down and said, “Which way?”

  After a small delay the voice echoed back, “Ah . . . say again Gamma One, what do you mean?”

  Ignoring their call sign, Estes practically jumped through the radio. “Which way are they walking . . . are they walking toward the gym or away from it?”

  “Gamma One, patrol scouts Echo Bravo Niner has eyes on Tango Three walking toward, repeat toward the gym.”

  Estes turned towards the suit and said, “In the back of the gym there’s a couple of rooms where the athletic equipment is kept. The front part of the rooms have interlocked wire fencing with a service window to pass the equipment in and out. They call ‘em cages. And right now they are. That’s where the colonel keeps . . . people.”

  The suit nodded and spoke. “Tell the patrol scouts to have Tango Three stop and hold position effective immediately. Colonel Jordan’s orders. If they don’t comply, the patrol is authorized to use any means necessary, including deadly force.”

  Estes nodded and immediately relayed the command.

  Another moment of silence passed before the speaker blared to life again. “Roger that, Gamma One.”

  Estes watched and waited silently as the next thirty seconds ticked several years worth of life away from the sweating and shaking colonel.

  “Gamma One, Gamma One, patrol scouts Echo Bravo Niner have detained Tango Three unit in the tunnel. They are requesting to speak directly to Colonel Jordan, over.”

  “Where is the tunnel?” the suit asked.

  “It’s a short concrete hallway that goes from the back of the gymnasium to the cages, sir,” Estes said.

  The suit nodded and turned his attention back to Colonel Jordan. “Well, it looks like you have a temporary stay of execution, Colonel. But keep in mind it’s only because I want my target dead more than I want you dead. So what you’re going to do is get off of your ass and over to that radio. And you’re going to order your goon squad to sit tight, understand?”

  “YES SIR!” Colonel Jordan shouted.

  “Miss Frost, will you escort the colonel to the radio and make sure that he gives the correct orders?”

  Estes watched as the flame-haired bodyguard glided over to Colonel Jordan, and with a slight tilt of her head had him moving up and out of the chair towards the radio equipment.

  “Lieutenant, you’re with me,” the suit stated as his compact frame swiveled and walked towards the door.

  “Yes sir,” Estes said while following.

  Once out in the hallway, the DHS suit quietly clicked the door to Colonel Jordan’s office shut, walked the twenty feet out to where the hallway intersected with the main concourse and looked both ways. Apparently satisfied he motioned Estes over. Estes stood at attention while the suit stared at him.

  After a pause too long for Estes’s blood pressure to remain stable, the suit finally spoke. “Lieutenant, I am a man of my word, and I believe a man of good judgment also. You seem to me like a straight shooter, so I need to ask you a few questions son, and I’m not looking for any bullshit, just your honest gut feeling, OK?”

  “Yes sir,” Estes fired off quickly.

  “And keep your voice down a bit, this conversation is between you and I, not the rest of the world, understand?”

  “Yes sir.” Estes met the suit’s gray eyes and nodded as he answered a bit more softly.

  “Good. Now the first thing I want to know is who is second in command.”

  Estes answered. “Sir, Major Larrabee is the second highest ranking officer in this unit, but he isn’t due to transfer in until this evening.”

  “And this Major Larrabee, is he the colonel’s right hand man in all ways?” The suit was watching Estes carefully as he asked.

  “No sir, Major Larrabee thinks the colonel is a useless prick who should be forced to retire at the earliest possible convenience . . . or so the scuttlebutt says, sir.”

  “Mmmm, well maybe we can help that along,” the suit said. He continued, “Lieutenant, do you think you could find six or seven hard charging soldiers who share the same commitment and integrity as yourself?”

  Estes nodded immediately and said, “Yes sir, I will personally vouch for my entire squad.”

  “How long will it take you to round them all up and get them here?” the suit asked.

  “Can I use the radio, sir?”

  “No, for now I want to keep this a little quieter.”

  “In that case sir, it will take me about twenty minutes,” Estes replied.

  The steel-eyed man stared hard at Estes for a few moments before speaking. “Make it happen, lieutenant.”

  “Sir, yes sir,” Estes said as he threw a crisp salute before turning and sprinting down the hallway.

  Chapter 30

  The soft thump of multiple boot soles on hard concrete reverberated in the short hallway. A hallway that was already crowded and was fast becoming standing room only. In the dim illumination cast from the single low wattage bulb, Michelle could see almost a dozen military uniforms in various patterns of camouflage. Six more soldiers, Estes’s squad, were behind her. Lieutenant Estes led the herd with Andy following. Colonel Jordan was third in line and directly in front of her. Intentionally. They had managed to sell their story so far, but the hardest part of all was coming up, and Michelle was sure that as soon as the boot steps stopped echoing, her pounding heart would give them away.

  “Suck it up Michelle . . . take a deep breath,” she repeated again in her mind
, maybe for the thousandth time in the last hour. Michelle replayed Andy’s instruction over again.

  “Look ‘em in the eyes like they owe you money. Count to three and if they’re still looking at you, immediately drop eye contact . . . not down though, slide your eyes off sideways and find another target. Pretend you’ve just been asked to your senior prom by an ugly fat boy five years younger than you. Imagine that he asks you which condoms are your favorite brands and how many he should bring. Disdain. That’s the look you want on your face, like everything is so far beneath you it almost doesn’t exist,” Andy had said.

  The hardest part had been learning to move her eyes sideways off the target. It was natural to look down when breaking eye contact, maybe a throwback to their animal nature. In almost every pack situation that Michelle could think of, the loser was the one that looked down first. Wolves, lions, hyenas—they all established dominance with eye contact. Of course, there was also a bit of talon shredding, fang snapping, flesh-rending knock-down drag-out fights every now and then. If it came down to that, there was no doubt that she and Andy would get the short end of the stick.

  “We can’t afford a physical conflict. We will lose. Badly. And immediately,” Andy had said.

  Practicing back at her house had almost seemed comical. Thompson and Andy taking turns being her "target" and gauging her reaction as she shifted between them. Any semblance to comedy disappeared when in the midst of one of their rehearsals, Michelle turned towards Andy only to run her forehead into his index finger. Three lower fingers curled back against his palm along with his upraised thumb completed the picture. Andy made a soft click . . . boom while dropping his thumb hammer forward. His statement made her blood run cold.

  "I didn't believe you. You’re dead,” he had whispered.

  From then on it was all business.

  And to make matters worse, Michelle’s thighs were killing her. Another one of Andy’s ideas was the felt on the bottom of her shoes.

  “Perception. That’s the first rule of covert warfare. People see what they want to see, even if it’s not there. Especially if it’s not there. We don’t have to sell them the whole bushel of their fear. As a matter of fact, we don’t want to. What we need to do is paint the outline and let their own minds do the artwork. You’ve got to come across as someone very dangerous. Anybody you come in contact with once we’re inside has to immediately develop the impression that you are a killer, a predator . . . the personal representative of the Grim Reaper. You are death on toast. And death is silent. I’ve been hunting with you, I know you can move quietly through the woods. We’re going to give you a little help moving silently in the school . . .” Andy had said as they applied some self stick felt to the bottoms of Michelle’s flats.

  A quick test on the linoleum floor of her small kitchen had indeed shown a reduction in noise on each of her already quiet footsteps. It had also just about made Michelle split her face open at the first turn. If Thompson hadn’t caught her she’d be sporting a busted nose at the very least. They had quickly figured out that felt on linoleum was very slippery. It was like learning to walk in high heels for the first time. Once she got the hang of it however, it was workable. As long as she didn’t have to run. Or stand still for extended periods. In that case, her natural stance would gradually allow her feet to slowly creep further and further apart. Eventually she’d be doing a split on the floor, and while Thompson teased that the position could be useful for certain . . . ahem, “situations”, they all had their doubts as to whether it would give the impression of a stone cold killer. To prevent her feet from sliding she had to lock her thigh muscles any time she stood still. Adding to the discomfort was Andy’s little 380 pistol she had attached to the inside of her thigh with duct tape and, much to the boy’s surprise, a red lace garter. She had tried several times to come up with a workable solution to carry her Glock in the same location, but it was too bulky.

  Their small parade came to a halt directly in front of the gathered group of soldiers crowded into the faintly lit corridor. On the left side of the hallway Michelle could see the pass-through windows made from chain link mesh. Some type of flexible metal door had been lowered just on the other side of the mesh, preventing her from seeing beyond. In front of the covered window stood three scruffy faced soldiers in digital khaki BDU’s. Each of them had an orange arm band tied around their left bicep. Seven more soldiers, two of them female, had positioned themselves between the trio and the metal doorway on the left side of the hall. A quick look at the gathered faces showed a mixture of smugness and apprehension. Then they noticed Andy. Michelle watched several eyes widen and shift at the appearance of Mr. Glass’s crisply pressed suit as Andy, smiling, stepped out from behind Estes. It was almost like he was enjoying this. She wasn’t.

  Andy spoke. “Tango Three, stand down. Your orders are being modified.”

  Michelle couldn’t see Colonel Jordan’s expression, only the back of his head. From its downward inclination she guessed that he looked like a whipped puppy dog to those in front of him. Not good, and not what he was supposed to do. Her right hand firmed its grip on the stainless steel pistol riding in the shoulder holster under her jacket.

  One of the soldiers in the Tango Three trio had gone to attention at Andy’s command. Michelle saw the other two exchange glances and then tighten their grips on their rifles. One of them, a tall broad shouldered man with scruffy red hair and close-set eyes spoke.

  “Colonel Jordan, are those your orders sir?”

  The colonel mumbled something unintelligible. Three seconds of silent tension passed. Michelle’s thumb softly clicked open the snap holding the pistol in place. She had no illusions of what would happen if it came down to a firefight in the narrow hallway. Besides, her gun . . .

  Michelle’s thought was interrupted by Andy.

  “Son, I want you to think back to when you were in the seventh grade. That time when your grandma caught you whacking off to the pictures in the dirty magazine you found in your dad’s night stand.” Andy stepped around Estes and moved up into the face of the soldier who had spoken. “I want you to remember, really think back and remember how it felt to know that your dirty little secret was out. You know, that certainty of knowledge that no matter what you did from that point on, the cork was off and the genie was out of the bottle. I want you to remember the shame and embarrassment that stayed with you for months as your pudgy little fingers tried to separate the pages you stuck together with your own special little glue gun. And I want you to remember how you swore to yourself that you wouldn’t do something so stupid again.”

  Michelle noticed a slight cast of red creep into the soldiers face. Anger or embarrassment, she couldn’t tell. Still locking eyes with the leader of Tango Three, Andy spoke. “Patrol scouts Echo Bravo Niner, to the rear.”

  “Yes sir,” one of the female soldiers snapped. “Squad, fall in.”

  Michelle watched as a snaking line of soldiers moved to the side of the hallway and quick-stepped past the three orange arm-banded men. Five seconds later they had moved to the rear of Estes’s squad.

  “Where were we?” Andy said to the broad shouldered Tango Three speaker who towered over him and the hallway. “Oh yeah, I remember. You were trying to decide if you could waste me right here in the tunnel. You’re thinking that if you did that, the colonel here would stop pouting like a little schoolgirl and you’d still get to be the big men on campus.”

  Sixty watts of compact fluorescent light was enough for Michelle to see the soldier tighten his grip on his rifle. His finger was already on the trigger.

  Andy inched closer, almost touching the chest of the tall soldier with his chin as he looked up. “Well boy, do it. Do it if you’ve got the stones,” Andy snarled.

  Quick as a flash Lieutenant Estes raised his gun and pointed it at the Tango Three leader. Michelle heard the six men behind her follow suit.

  “DON’T DO ANYTHING STUPID!” Estes shouted at the trio.

  Mich
elle saw a cascade of emotion pass across the tall soldiers face . . . saw his brow furrow and his eyes narrow. She caught the slight lowering of his body as it tensed. As it coiled up.

  The dry metallic click of a pistol’s safety being moved to the off position sounded like thunder in the cement tunnel. The third member of Tango Three, the only one who had saluted when Andy had told them to stand down now had the barrel of his Beretta 9mm a foot from the temple of Andy’s opponent.

  “I ain’t going down for you, Weaver. I told you this frat boy shit would come full circle and bite us in the ass.”

  Bolstered by his team member’s bravery, the second member of Tango Three slowly lowered his rifle to the ground and said, “Come on Weev’ . . . it ain’t worth it.”

  Estes half-stepped over and grabbed the barrel of Weaver’s rifle, forcing it against resistance to the side.

  “Take a look around Weaver; you don’t have any friends left. Drop the gun. Now,” Estes said in a voice that was much calmer then Michelle was sure she’d have used.

  Weaver jerked his eyes away from the staring contest he’d been having with the Andy long enough to confirm that he was indeed alone. Slowly releasing his finger from the trigger guard he relinquished his weapon into Estes’s custody.

  Andy nodded towards Estes’s squad, and in the space of several minutes they had Tango Three fully disarmed and kneeling on the floor in handcuffs.

  Michelle let out a sigh of relief. Perhaps too loud. Her exhalation had caused Estes to look her way, and in the brief eye contact they shared, she caught a glimpse of . . . what . . . confusion, curiosity, maybe evaluation. And the icing on that particular cake was that she dropped her eyes straight down. Shit.

  Time for contingency plan Michelle one. Keeping her eyes closed, Michelle rolled her neck in a large slow circular pattern, as if limbering up.

  “Misdirection. That’s the second rule of covert warfare. It’s also the only real secret that magicians have. You’ve heard the expression ‘the hand is quicker than the eye,’ well that’s a crock of horse shit. What’s really going on is that your eye has been distracted, misled, purposely drawn away and focused on something else. And where your eye leads, your mind will follow. Coincidentally the opposite is just as true. Misdirection may not be the end all-be all solution, but it can normally buy you enough time to get the job done,” Andy had said.