Tom Clancy Firing Point

by Mike Maden

  Now he stood high enough to reach the roof of the next building. He hauled himself up onto it and made his way across three more rooftops, two lower, one higher, until he reached the roof of a building undergoing renovation.

  Jack crossed over to the scaffolding attached to the west side of the building—the opposite side of the block where Crooked Nose was stationed—and climbed his way down to the street out of his sight line.

  A gray-haired woman carrying groceries saw him emerge from the netting covering the scaffolding and offered him a polite smile. Jack smiled back and waited for her to turn a corner before he sped away.

  He ran all the way to the end of the street, careful not to show himself at the intersection. He waited until a large delivery van rumbled by and used its intervening bulk to block the line of sight between him and the intruder, now examining his headphones for malfunction. Jack sped across the street and all the way down the next block so he could come around behind Crooked Nose and surprise him.

  He turned the corner once, and then once again, carefully crouching down low behind the line of parked cars in case Crooked Nose was checking his rearview mirror.

  It took Jack another minute to make his way between parked cars, still ducking low behind vehicles or into doorways, trying all at once to not be seen but to not appear to any nosy neighbor like a thief or a terrorist on the street.

  Inch by inch he made his way forward, still formulating his plan of attack. He needed to grab this guy and find out who he was and who he was working for.

  Jack was twenty yards behind the man’s vehicle on the opposite side of the street, hidden inside of a doorway, waiting for his chance. He got it when a green Mercedes diesel tour van rumbled up the street, its right turn signal flashing.

  Perfect.

  Jack jogged alongside it, waiting for it to make its rolling stop at the corner. Just as it made a sharp right, Jack dashed straight at the open car door window and threw a hard punch at the side of the man’s close-cropped head.

  Either Jack wasn’t as stealthy as he’d thought or the man had preternatural peripheral vision, but either way the man’s head ducked out of the way of Jack’s punch. Jack’s momentum practically tossed him through the open window just as Crooked Nose’s iron-hard hands grabbed Jack’s arm like a blacksmith’s vise and pulled him farther into the car.

  Oh, shit!

  With his upper torso halfway into the Audi and his right arm trapped in the man’s grip, Jack lost all of his leverage, robbing him of the power to launch any kind of a punch or even an elbow strike. His left arm was free but his own body and right arm blocked his left from doing any kind of damage.

  The only good news Jack’s brain could register in the nanosecond that followed was that the man’s attempts to punch Jack’s lights out also faltered because of Jack’s awkward position. The adrenaline surging into Jack’s bloodstream heightened his senses and fueled the years of CQB training driven into his muscle memory. Jack sensed more than saw the man loosen his grip and reach for a Kydex-holstered pistol, giving Jack’s right elbow—the hardest bone in the human body—just enough distance and leverage to drive itself into the man’s previously broken nose.

  The man cried out as the cartilage cracked and blood spurted onto Jack’s sleeve, giving Jack enough time to reach around with his left hand and grab the man’s gun hand.

  The two of them struggled to punch and grab, like two fighters boxing inside of a phone booth. It would have been comical if there hadn’t been a loaded pistol in a holster just inches away from Jack’s face. The man’s powerful legs were wedged against the floorboard and he began using them for leverage to work himself free to get enough distance between him and Jack to reach the gun and pull it out and blow Jack’s brains out all over the windshield.

  As the man’s body began pulling away, Jack’s only defense was to grab the man’s shirt and pull him back toward him. Crooked Nose only pushed back harder, inching away from Jack, his right hand making its way to the pistol.

  Jack’s big right hand opened up, and he clawed the man’s face, gouging at his eyes. The man screamed again, his panic giving him a surge of strength. His gun hand turned into a fist and slammed into the side of Jack’s skull but Jack turned his claw hand into a fist and threw a couple of short, sharp jabs into the man’s forehead.

  Jack didn’t see the man’s gun hand punch the starter button but he heard the engine roar to life. Jack twisted and turned, trying to land harder punches but his big frame wedged in the tiny car window blunted any force he might have generated. The gun hand slammed the car into gear and his foot stomped the gas.

  The car lurched forward, tires squealing. Pain shot through Jack’s torso as it twisted, whipped around by the car’s momentum. Jack yanked himself away as hard as he could, and the combination of his remaining strength and the vehicle’s trajectory freed him from the other man’s grip. He crashed to the ground.

  Jack scrambled for the next car and dove behind it, expecting Broken Nose to pull his weapon and begin shooting, but the squeal of tires and the stink of burning rubber told Jack to turn around just in time to see the Audi disappear around the corner.

  Jack picked himself up off the pavement, the pulled muscles and bruising injuries providing yet another painful reminder that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, or in his case, tossed out of a moving car.

  * * *

  —

  Jack made his way back to his apartment, informing Gavin on his AirPods that things hadn’t quite worked out the way he’d planned. Gavin commiserated with him, and suggested Jack get the hell out of Dodge before the intruder came back with some friends.

  Jack agreed. As he quickly gathered up his stuff, Gavin made arrangements for him at a luxury hotel in L’Eixample, the part of town just north of the old city that had some of Barcelona’s trendiest shops and bars.

  The first thing Jack did was snatch up the listening devices, smash them under his boot, then toss them into the trash underneath the sink.

  He then grabbed everything he’d packed for Spain and crammed it into his leather satchel, then shoved his laptop into its carry case. He pulled out a hundred-euro note and left it on the kitchen counter as a tip for the cleaners.

  He dashed out the front door and into a waiting cab that Gavin had summoned. He’d text the owner later with an excuse for an emergency back home and thank him for the extended stay.

  In the taxi ride over to the hotel, Jack formulated another plan—one that he hoped would survive another punch to the head.

  A plan that might even keep him from getting punched in the first place.

  He needed to identify Crooked Nose definitively, including an actual name. He saw the man’s uncovered face inside the Audi but the only photo he could give Gavin was a masked face.

  Was there anything Gavin could do with it?

  He uploaded the photo and called him.

  “Well . . . hate to brag,” Gavin said, “but yeah, not really a problem.” He then began to explain the work being done at places like Google’s DeepFace, and the FBI’s Next Generation Identification project, and how “machine-learning algorithms were being married to neural networks to measure and compare the fourteen major points of facial recognition, and how it was possible using—”

  “Gav, can you just ballpark this for me?” Jack finally interrupted.

  “Sorry. Sure. Even though the guy’s nose and mouth are covered with that mask, there’s still enough of his face to determine the depth of his eye sockets, the distance between his eyes, the overall shape and format of his face, and a few other points. That gives us a sixty-nine percent chance of re-creating the rest of his face.”

  “Seriously?”

  “If this mystery man of yours is in any database we have access to, we have a really good chance of finding him. But it’s gonna take some time.”

&nbs
p; “Speaking of which, any more progress on identifying the Dylan Runtso project? RAPTURE?”

  “Still working on it.”

  Jack heard the frustration in his voice.

  It matched his own.

  34

  Brossa sat on a chaise lounge on the patio of a modest, two-story stucco rental on a hillside in the Sarrià–Sant Gervasi neighborhood. She overlooked the city below bathed in the soft, fading light of a cool evening. Her father, Ernesto, was already fast asleep in his bed. The caretaker she’d just hired over the phone, a mexicana, should be arriving within the hour to spend the night, and watch over him while she was away on the raid tomorrow.

  She had just finished up a piece of tortilla her father had left in the refrigerator and was now sipping a glass of Espinaler vermut, her favorite. Her kit was ready and packed for the early morning flight up north. Time to unwind a little and forget her troubles.

  Her phone vibrated on the glass tabletop. She swore under her breath when she saw Jack’s number. She started to reach for the phone, then decided against it. Too many people—too many men, she corrected herself—were putting too many demands on her lately. Jack was nice enough but he was also too presumptuous. If he really was a civilian and not an American agent, he was the most aggressive tourist she’d ever met. Even if his passion was fueled by his sense of justice for his friend, it was still a thorn in her side that she didn’t want to deal with at the moment. Tomorrow night or even the next day would be soon enough to speak with him, and she would have good news for him after the raid.

  The phone stopped vibrating as she poured herself a little more vermut, irritated by Jack’s interruption of her last quiet moment. The phone buzzed again, signaling a text. Not Jack, please, she thought as she picked up the phone.

  She swore again. The text was from Jack. Against her better instincts, she opened it. It included a picture of a man’s face taken at an odd angle by what appeared to be a security camera of some sort. He wore a black Nike ball cap and a mask covered his face. The only distinguishing feature she could discern was the glare of his hazel eyes.

  Beneath the picture Jack had written THIS MAN IS YOUR BOMBER. I DON’T KNOW WHO HE IS BUT HE WAS AT L’AVI.

  She started to call him for more details. How did he know it was the bomber? Where did he get the photo? But she decided against it. The picture was hardly enough to go on. If Jack was right, she’d see the man tomorrow when she arrested him. If he wasn’t there, she’d deal with him and Jack some other day.

  She set her phone back down on the glass table and sat back, savoring the last of her drink. She watched a flock of seagulls winging toward her, away from the sea.

  A storm was coming.

  OCTOBER 27

  35

  The heat from the turbine felt warm on her neck in the cool of the predawn morning as Brossa climbed into the Eurocopter EC135. Within moments she was at altitude and winging her way north.

  Twenty minutes later the chopper set down on the grassy airstrip in Gurb. The airstrip was fit only for ultralight and small civilian aircraft, and in this case, a helicopter. She grimaced at the sight of the six URO VAMTACs—Spanish versions of Humvees—with their Browning M2 12.7×99mm NATO machine guns. She had spoken with Captain Asensio by phone yesterday and thought they had agreed to a quiet insertion, rather than a provocative show of force. Clearly he had changed his mind. The CNI was an intelligence-gathering unit, not a law enforcement agency per se.

  She wasn’t entirely surprised by the change of plan, either. Asensio began his career as a Spanish Army paratrooper in Afghanistan before transferring to the Guardia Civil. Quiet insertions weren’t exactly his style.

  Fortunately, the captain wisely decided not to assemble his assault team in Vic, a hotbed of Catalonian separatism. He’d even had the good sense to move his combat vehicles at night to avoid detection.

  Vic—pronounced Bic locally—was a small, ancient city of some thirty thousand people and the capital of the district. It was also the gateway to the Pyrenees Mountains, toward which they were soon headed. Brossa had been in the main square market just last week. It was a festive affair, crowded with farmers and merchants selling their infinite varieties of delicious cheeses, olives, and jamón to locals and tourists alike. But the surrounding windows and balconies above the square were festooned with banners demanding the release of the Catalonian prisoners, independence flags, and even revolutionary slogans.

  A police killing here, even an accidental one, could turn Vic into Spain’s own version of Sarajevo and ignite another bloody war.

  Brossa thanked the pilot, a woman, and her copilot before stepping onto the grass, lowering her head instinctively as the composite fiber blades spun overhead. As soon as she cleared the rotor radius, the chopper lifted back into the air with the roar of its twin turbo engines and headed back to Barcelona. The blast of warm air from the turbines felt even better in the crisp mountain air.

  Brossa approached Captain Asensio, waiting by his command vehicle and kitted out like his men in green combat BDUs, a tactical vest with armor plate, and a Kevlar ATE bump helmet. She noted the H&K USP pistol on his hip but his subordinates all carried the H&K MP5 nine-millimeter submachine guns strapped across their chests. They looked less like a police operation than a full-on military strike force.

  Standing next to Asensio was a man in his forties with fierce brown eyes behind his rimless glasses. He was shorter than Asensio but obviously physically fit and wore a tactical armored vest over his civilian clothes.

  “This is Mr. Dellinger. He’s with the American consulate and will be observing today’s events.”

  “Mucho gusto, Agent Brossa,” Dellinger said, shaking her hand.

  “Igualmente, Señor Dellinger.” Brossa nodded at the tactical vehicles. “Change of plans, Captain? I thought this was a simple arrest.”

  “New intelligence reports suggest they are heavily armed. I had to make adjustments.”

  “We need to take them alive.”

  He nodded toward one of his troopers behind a heavy machine gun. “A show of force will make them think twice about resisting. The cowards will piss their pants and drop their weapons when they see us pull up in these.”

  Brossa wanted to argue, but what was the point? Asensio was in charge of the tactical operation. She was only in charge of the arrests and crime scene investigation.

  “Anything else, Agent Brossa?”

  “We should get moving. No telling how long they’ll be hanging around.”

  “Agreed.” He barked orders into his comms and the six diesel engines coughed into life. The captain pulled open the door of his command vehicle and Brossa climbed in for the ride up into the high granite mountains above, Dellinger right behind her.

  * * *

  —

  The abandoned eighteenth-century two-story farmhouse was built with rough-hewn granite stones from the surrounding mountains, as were two of the smaller outbuildings nearby, both in severe disrepair. A fourth building, a crumbling cow barn, was mostly wood. The ancient dairy farm stood at the end of a dirt track that ran off the small, winding asphalt road leading up from Queralbs, less than five miles from the French border.

  Captain Asensio reviewed his plans with Brossa over their headsets inside the roaring VAMTAC. He pointed out the approaches his men would take on the infrared photographs his drone operator had made the day before. The narrow road would be blocked on both ends a half kilometer out, and his troopers would approach on foot to maintain the element of surprise.

  A sniper team was already in position on the hill behind the farmhouse and reported that thirteen tangos—nine males, four females—had arrived the evening before and were still in place. At least one AK-47 and two Beretta 92FS pistols had been spotted through the windows. The sniper had permission to take out any RPG or other heavy-weapons operator on sight but to otherwise maintain
fire discipline until ordered into action.

  “There won’t be any problems,” Asensio assured her with a confident grin. “It will be sweet and easy, like a sip of your grandmother’s sangria.”

  Flirting? Now? Seriously? she said to herself.

  “Oh, Captain. If you only knew my grandmother.”

  * * *

  —

  Over the captain’s objections, Brossa jogged along with the rest of the assault team, approaching the farmhouse under cover of the surrounding trees and low rock wall. Dellinger remained behind in the company of a young private as ordered.

  According to the sniper team, no lookouts had been posted outside of the building, though men frequented the windows, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. It was just after seven a.m. now, and everyone inside the farmhouse appeared to be awake.

  The captain raised a bullhorn to his mouth. “Attention! You inside! You are surrounded by the Guardia Civil. Come out with your hands empty and over your heads!”

  His second-in-command, Vázquez, another combat veteran, ordered the remaining four VAMTACs forward at top speed.

  Panicked, angry voices shouted inside the building, as the ground-floor window shutters slammed shut.

  Asensio swore under his breath.

  “Easy, eh?” Brossa said.

  The captain jabbed a finger into her tactical vest.

  “No matter what happens, you don’t move from this spot until I give the command for you to advance or I’ll shoot you myself. Understood?”

  Brossa forced a single nod of her head in reluctant compliance, swearing silently to herself at the man’s arrogance.

  The four VAMTACs roared up closer, skidding to a halt in a cloud of dust. They formed a ragged line some hundred meters from the house, machine guns pointed at the ancient stone walls.

  “I won’t make the offer again,” Asensio shouted in the bullhorn. “Leave your weapons inside and come out with your hands over your head or we’re coming inside to get you.”