“Our timetable has been moved up,” Mason began. “We’ve confirmed that Clemento is being held in a compound just outside of Izmir, Turkey.” He tapped on something on his tablet and then showed it to Preston and Elle.
It was a picture of a guy, hunched over a computer. The room he was in looked barren from what they could see: it had been taken through a window. There was a table with a computer on it and a chair. She thought she could make out chains on the floor. Yet she recognized the profile, the hunch in his shoulders. She’d watched him sit, hunched over his computers, plenty, yet there was something about the droop in his shoulders… Did he look defeated?
It was definitely Adam.
Her throat tightened, and she swallowed in an effort to loosen it. He didn’t look too bad, though, from what she could see. There was no sign of blood, at least.
She looked up to see both Preston and Mason studying her. She nodded. “It’s him.”
“Activity has increased significantly within the compound over the last forty-eight hours, both in terms of human activity as well as computer activity. It’s likely no coincidence that the CIA, FBI, NSA, and Department of Homeland Security networks are all getting hit with a potent blended threat as we speak.”
Mason paused to let that sink in.
“If we can’t stop this, we could be immobilized within the next twenty-four hours.”
If their computer networks were compromised, none of the agencies could operate. They had all gone digital years ago. Elle was sure there were protocols to handle this, but trying to implement those protocols would take time, and until then, the country would essentially be defenseless.
“We’re sending in two SEAL platoons to extract Clemento, gather intel, and destroy the place. We’re confident the servers are located there, so taking them out is our first priority,” Mason continued. “The SEALs will be wired with video and audio. Given the compromised nature of our computer systems, we’re not going to be able to monitor them from here. The two of you will be there, too.”
“We’re going in with the SEALs?” Preston asked.
“They’ll infiltrate; you’ll be in a van nearby. If they need your guidance about how to handle something there, you’ll be close: communications are less likely to be blocked. Our understanding is that every server has a physical backup disc of some sort?” Mason looked at Elle for clarification.
She nodded. “There isn’t a standard design for servers, unlike computers, but yes, somewhere in there is a physical backup disc.”
“If the servers are portable, they can just carry it out. If not, then provide the SEALs with assistance in locating the disc if necessary,” Mason instructed. “We need to know exactly what intel they have, so it’s important they locate it before destroying the server itself. Although you shouldn’t be engaging in direct contact with any hostiles, it’s imperative you two are up to speed on some of the newer firearms, since you’ll be in the vicinity.”
Camp Peary housed a lot of classified weapons that were not available to the general public, so they weren’t allowed out on the streets. It was one of the reasons The Farm, the CIA’s training facility for operatives in the clandestine service, was located there: operatives could train on the weapons in a protected environment.
Since Elle had just finished training, she was pretty up-to-date on all of the newest weapons, but practice wouldn’t hurt.
“I reserved the firing range on The Farm for your practice,” Mason said as he gathered his things. “Wheels up in two hours.”
***
Elle and Preston examined the high-tech firearms in silence at The Farm’s firing range, which was deserted. These firearms almost seemed like something out of a sci-fi movie. The lasers weren’t just for visual aiming: they could actually heat up enough to burn skin or something fairly thin, like a door. They were also equipped with grenade launchers. The weapons were fairly heavy, though. Elle had to be mindful of her center of gravity when carrying it and hoisting it up to fire: it was easy to tip over, especially if she was moving fast (like running) while using it.
“We should practice with night vision goggles,” Preston said after a few minutes.
The night vision goggles were laying out for them, but she decided not to make a wise crack about his powers of observation. They were about to bring Adam home and hopefully take down the servers that held this terrorist group’s blended threat and stolen information. That needed to be the focus right now. She simply picked up a pair and put them out.
Using night vision goggles took some practice. Everything looked green. However, Elle found she could make sense of what she was seeing pretty easily as she looked at the target range. She’d had a lot of practice using night vision goggles during her field training; it came back fast.
“I’m sorry about what happened with Beckwith,” he said as she hoisted her firearm up, releasing the safety.
“Forget it.” She focused on the closest target, using the laser just for her aim. She kept the power of it dim enough so it didn’t set the cardboard target on fire and pulled the trigger.
Perfect bulls-eye. She focused on the next target, which was further away.
“He’s the commander of one of the platoons doing the extraction, you know.”
She missed her next target completely, forgetting to even use the laser. Reese was working on the same op as her. He was going to rescue Adam, her ex-boyfriend. How crazy was that?
“You need to stay focused,” Preston said.
Yeah, like he was helping. “I’m focused.” She was not going to let him get under her skin. This op was too important.
He looked out at the targets. The one she missed wasn’t even wavering slightly, which meant she had been way off. “So I see.”
She exhaled slowly and turned on the laser. All she needed to do was focus on the little dot. She pulled the trigger and somehow- she let her body sway- she ended up hitting the target behind it, clipping it on the edge. Definitely not a kill shot.
“This is a major op,” Preston pointed out.
Why bother responding to the obvious? She forced her shoulders to relax. She could feel the weight of the firearm on her right shoulder. It was okay. She could do this. She’d done it before.
“A lot of people will be scrutinizing our performance once it’s over, no matter how it turns out.”
Elle finally looked at Preston. “Is this supposed to help me focus?”
He held up his hands. “I’m just saying.”
She turned back to the targets, inhaled and exhaled again, loosened her shoulders, and then took aim. She hit her next three targets.
“I’m focused.”
***
The flight was the perfect time to get some sleep, but it was hard to do so. Preston didn’t have any trouble, of course. She dozed, but she was watching the sun set when he awoke. The flight was eleven hours long, and Turkey was six hours ahead, so they arrived in the early evening.
“Did you get any sleep?” he asked as he rubbed his eyes.
“Some.” She remembered watching him wake up many times. Yet, it didn’t bother her to remember when they had been dating. It was over. “I woke up just a few minutes ago.”
He stood, stretching, before going to the bathroom. Then he rustled around in the food deck area before bringing out two packaged meals. “We should eat.” He dropped one in her lap before sitting down with his box.
They flew on a private jet, but there wasn’t a flight attendant. She opened her box to find what looked like a whole wheat role and sliced turkey with the usual fixings: lettuce, tomato, onion, and even a pickle. There were even packets of mayonnaise and mustard.
She wondered what the planes were like that the SEALs flew on. They were probably flying on a military cargo plane, which was a lot more barren than their ride.
After a few minutes of them eating, Preston said, “Now I’ve told you my opinion about operatives having personal relationships.”
Where the hell wa
s this going? “I think your advice about focusing on the op is best for right now.”
He nodded, rubbing his chin. “True, but you’re stubborn.”
She rolled her eyes but decided the best thing to do was to keep eating rather than reply, so she took another bite of her sandwich.
“Tell him you kicked me to the curb,” he said before taking another bite himself.
She considered this as she chewed. “So he thinks I was sleeping with you while sleeping with him.”
After a moment, he shrugged. “I can’t think of another option. If I tell him I lied, I have to tell him why, and he doesn’t have the clearance to know about you.”
She sighed. Perhaps Reese could accept the rationale that since they were having a fling, she hadn’t actually cheated on him once he calmed down. There was no way in hell Mason would authorize her to tell him the truth, and although they were working on this op together, they wouldn’t actually see each other, since she would remain outside of the compound during the retrieval and extraction. Preston was the one they knew; he’d communicate directly with them via coms if necessary.
“I’ll see if it works.” She looked at Preston. “Thanks.”
He nodded as he took another bite of his sandwich.
***
Nothing got the blood pumping like a HALO (high-altitude, low-opening) jump. Reese checked his second-in-command’s gear before his second-in-command checked his gear. They were jumping buddies. His platoon was infiltrating the compound from the air. Since it consisted of several buildings that were fairly close together and enclosed within a twelve-foot privacy wall, there wasn’t enough room for the helicopter to land inside the compound.
After his platoon parachuted in, Gabe’s platoon would breach the front gates with explosives. The security force was estimated to be about two dozen strong, with half of them stationed outside of the privacy wall, so Gabe and his guys would have to take care of them, too, before assisting Reese’s platoon with the recon and extraction of the package.
The package was some computer guy named Adam Clemento. Apparently the guy was a grad student at one of the top universities in the country in Massachusetts. No field training. The pictures they had of him suggested he wasn’t too badly injured, but there was no telling what kind of condition he’d be in when they got to him. Well, hell, they could pick him up and carry him out if they had to.
Raddick and his partner would be watching from somewhere nearby outside the compound. If they needed information about what to destroy and what to grab, they could tell the SEALs. The computers and all wouldn’t be a problem. It was these servers that Reese wondered about. It sounded like they just had to be blown up, but of course the government wanted intel off them first if possible.
One of the aircraft service members strapped himself to a cord that connected to the interior wall of the plane. He would open the door for them to jump through, and after they had all jumped out, he’d close it. He held up a hand with all five fingers out.
Five minutes until the jump.
It was evening in Izmir at this point, so the darkness would help conceal them. They were flying on a stealth craft, which meant it could evade the detection of radar systems, but no aircraft was completely silent. Some people might hear them flying overhead, but it was unlikely they would guess it was a military plane with soldiers.
Reese and his men lined up, their oxygen masks and night vision goggles on.
The roar of the wind filled the plane as soon as the service member slid the door open. He motioned for them to jump. One by one they did.
It was a true act of faith to glide through the air, trusting the parachute would indeed open once he yanked on the ripcord, but Reese enjoyed jumping. Once they got a certain distance from the plane, it became quiet as they glided down on a horizontal plane through the air.
He could see the compound through his goggles. It looked exactly as it had in the aerial photographs from their briefings: two regular sized buildings and one smaller one near the front gate, the only entrance to the compound. That small one was thought to be the guard’s station. They were going to land in the back of the compound, behind the two bigger buildings and away from the guards. Gabe and his guys would deal with them once Reese and his men had landed. Since they were all wired with audio and video, they could see what was going on with each other.
Reese yanked the chord, and his parachute opened. Time to roll.
As soon as all of them landed inside the compound, Reese made the hand signal for them to split up. He would lead half the platoon to the building where the computer programmer was thought to be holed up while the other half of the platoon, led by the second-in-command, would raid the other building. As each team made their way to their respective buildings, careful to move as quietly as possible, the sound of an explosion filled the air.
Gabe and his guys had just blown open the front gate.
When they reached their building, Reese’s explosives guy started sticking plastic to the door frame around the handle. He had the door blown open within fifteen seconds and then tossed a flash grenade inside. Anyone sitting nearby was blinking from the blindingly bright flash of light and a boom loud enough to make ears ring. They all poured into the building. Reese could hear shouting and see people scrambling.
They were in a large foyer. He motioned for two guys to clear a large room to the left, two more to clear the room to the right, two to head to the back, and he and another guy headed up the stairs. All of them had their guns out and poised, ready to engage. They threw smoke bombs as they went to provide extra cover and further disorient the people in the house.
The op was on.
Chapter 27
The sound of an explosion jolted Adam out of the almost trance state in which he sat, slumped over the computer keyboard, trying to type code. He didn’t even know how long he’d been stuck in this godforsaken hellhole. Days bled into nights and into more days. Had weeks passed? Months? He honestly had no clue; it felt like forever.
One minute he’d been eating pizza after midnight while working on more code for Tech Guard in his apartment; the next he’d been fighting off two guys who pushed their way into his apartment as soon as he opened the door to their knock. His building wasn’t known for break-ins; he figured it had been a neighbor who needed something. They were all grad students, and the building itself was locked, so he hadn’t even thought to check his peephole before opening the door.
Damn stupid. He’d never make that mistake again.
He wasn’t a fighter, but he tried to get to the kitchen to grab a knife. It hadn’t done him any good. A few punches had him blinking as his nose bled. The stinging in one eye told him it was going to swell shut soon. One guy held him in place while the other guy injected him with something. Within what felt like seconds he could barely stand up, and his tongue felt too thick in his mouth for him to talk. He was vaguely aware of them virtually carrying him out of the building and dropping him into the backseat of a car.
When he woke up, he was here, chained to a bed. Some guys came in and started ordering him to write code like he’d been writing for Tech Guard, to create a blended threat for them.
At first Adam had resisted: no one could make him write code if he damn well didn’t want to. When they broke several of his toes, he reconsidered that stance. His toes still ached horribly, but they broke some small ones (his baby toes and the small toes next to them), so he could still walk. His ankles were scrapped raw from the shackles circling them. He was chained to the damn floor like an animal, and at night, he was chained to the cot where he slept.
They fed him soup, bread, some meat, and even some meds to dull the pain of his toes at night as long as he produced code, so he produced code for a blended threat, just like he had for Tech Guard.
He figured it would buy him some time until he got the chance to escape. So far, the opportunity hadn’t presented itself. He didn’t know how much code they wanted, but he had a feeling once
he had produced it, he was dead, so he made sure his blended threats did some things but not other things, so they had to keep having him write more code.
He wondered if anyone was coming to rescue him. Who would? Surely the people at school had figured out he was missing, but he suspected he was far away from Massachusetts. The kidnappers spoke to each other in a language he didn’t recognized; it had taken a while before he could reliably understand their accented English.
But now, something was happening. He could hear shouting and a lot of footfalls after the booms that sounded like explosions. The door to his room flew open, and the guard came in, gun out. He knelt down to unlock Adam’s shackles.
“We’re under attack: come with me or they’ll kill us both,” the guard told him.
Would they kill them both or just the guard? He blinked as the guard motioned for him to stand up.
There was another boom in the hallway and then smoke wafted toward them. Adam bent low, trying to use the guard as a shield as they entered the hall. It wouldn’t bother him in the slightest if this guy was shot and killed. This was the asshole who had broken his toes.
The question was: were the guys invading this place hostile towards everyone in it, including him, or just his kidnappers? Obviously whatever these guys were doing wasn’t on the up-and-up, but the guys breaking in may not be any better. It wasn’t like they had shouted out “Police” or anything else to identify themselves.
“Dur!” someone yelled from within the cloud of smoke that was mushrooming through the dark hallway. More sounds of yelling and scuffling were coming from downstairs.
Adam didn’t know what the hell “Dur” meant, but the guard in front of him responded by raising his gun.
There was a popping sound, and the guard crumbled.
The smoke stung Adam’s eyes and made them water. He darted to his left, down a hallway that was pitch black but free from smoke. His feet ached, but he couldn’t let that stop him. This was likely his only chance to escape. Once he got the hell out of the building he’d figure out what to do next.
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