Echo Six: Black Ops 4 - Chechen Massacre (30 page)

He nodded soberly. It had almost driven him insane before when she’d talked him out of it. He nodded his understanding. “You’re right, but he may meet with an accident, who knows? I can always hope.”

She grinned. “As long as it’s an accident.”

There was no need. She led down on the cargo bales, close enough to be near, but not too close to impinge on military correctness. He glanced at her, and her eyes met his. He held her gaze for a few seconds, and in that fraction of time, they both came to a new understanding. He finally settled back to sleep. He could feel her next to him, not physically, but all the same, she was there.

* * *

Just before they landed at Luke Air Force Base, the NSA decrypted the location of the telephone call. When the wheels hit the tarmac, the plan for the rescue was already at the advanced stage. They rushed down the ramp, with Ho held captive between them, and were confronted with a beautiful sight. Lines of elegant F-16 fighter aircraft parked on the stand in neat rows.

“It’s a training base for the Fighting Falcons,” Brooks explained, “the last such base in the US. The 56
^th
Fighter Wing has one hundred and seventy of F-16s, a total of twenty seven squadrons.”

“I’ll bet those babies can perform,” Talley nodded.

“They sure can, but they’re talking about replacing them with the new F-35. A fine aircraft, but not so pretty.” He looked across the tarmac. A vehicle was speeding toward them. “They’re on the ball. It looks like we have transport on the way.”

A pair of Humvees stopped only meters away. A USAF lieutenant climbed out of the lead vehicle and saluted.

“Admiral, welcome to Luke, Sir. They’ve allocated a hangar as a base for the rescue mission. If you’d like to board the jeeps, we’ll take you right there. Unless there’s something you need to do first?”

He meant like finding chow and somewhere to wash up and change their clothes. Like ordinary people did, when their kids’ lives weren’t in the balance.

“Just get us there, Son. I don’t think the people we’re dealing with are likely to wait around.”

The Humvees braked to a halt outside a large hangar. Parked a hundred meters away were two unmarked Black Hawks. They entered through a narrow personnel door. The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team was inside, preparing, more than twenty operators and all dressed in identical black coveralls. They glanced up briefly as Brooks and Talley entered, then returned to their tasks, the endless checking of weapons and equipment prior to undertaking a rescue mission.

One man emerged from a room at the rear of the hangar, dressed in black like the rest of the men. He looked to be in his early thirties, heavily muscled, a man who obviously took care of himself. He came forward, arm outstretched, a tight smile on his face.

“Gentlemen, it’s good to see you. My name is Special Agent in Charge Dwight Masterson. I’m in command of this outfit. If you’d like to come into the operations center, I’ll show you what we have.”

He was short, maybe five feet six, but his shoulders were just as wide. His blonde hair was cut in a Marine buzz cut, and his intense eyes watched them coldly as he waited for them to join him. Like he was expecting problems with the new arrivals.

Is he worried we’ll muscle in and take over his operation? Politics, always politics.

“Have you pinpointed their location?” Talley asked him directly. It wasn’t a time for niceties.

A pause. “We have, kind of. Wait until you get inside, see for yourselves.”

“Boss, I’ll stay out here with the men, give you some space,” Guy called to him. "Besides, we need to keep an eye on the prisoner."

He nodded. Guy meant they’d take a look around and see how it looked. The FBI’s HRT was good, but Echo Six was better, much better, and vastly more experienced. Talley followed the FBI man into his ‘Operations Room’. It had been a storeroom that had been hastily converted by pushing store cupboards and filing cabinets to the back. They’d installed a large planning table in the center of the room, with a huge map board mounted to one wall. Masterson picked up a pointing stick and indicated a spot on the map. There was a red pin pushed into a place about two hundred kilometers northeast of Phoenix.

“This is the area from where they used their satellite phone. We only got the data in literally minutes before you landed.”

“So your men out there are preparing to go in right away?”

He gave Talley a condescending glance. “Not so fast, Commander. It isn’t that easy.”

“No? If you’re not prepared to move fast, I have my own men outside. We can go in and do the job ourselves. These are my sons we’re dealing with here, Masterson.”

The FBI man nodded slowly. “Yours is a NATO outfit, Talley. Some of your men are not even US citizens. So let’s get something straight. First, your men will not interfere with an FBI operation, no way. Try it, and I’ll have you locked up in a Federal Penitentiary before you can even get off this base.” Talley went to interrupt, but he held up his hand. “No, wait. I guess you think I’m some kind of a Washington desk warrior, afraid of getting burned if something goes wrong. You’d be wrong. We have a problem here.”

Brooks had been looking at the map, and he shifted his gaze back to the FBI man. “Indians?”

Masterson nodded. “Native Americans. The call was pinpointed to a site on an Apache reservation, and the conversation mentioned losing money at a craps table. Less than two kilometers from the location is a casino, the Hon Dah. It’s on Apache tribal lands, which makes everything very complicated.”

“You’re the FBI!” Brooks shook his head. “The Federal Authority, you can go where you like, anywhere in the US of A. What are you waiting for?”

The agent shook his head. “Technically, that’s correct, but it’s not that simple. We can’t just invade Native American territory. We have to obtain an agreement with the tribe concerned, and that means working through the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs. The procedure is they forward our request to the tribal leaders, and when we have their agreement, we go in.”

He held up a hand again as Talley went to ask him the obvious question. “As soon as we knew what we were up against, we contacted our Washington Headquarters, and we’re waiting for them to get back to us. Until we get the go ahead, we’re stymied. We just wait. They estimate we should have permission from the Apaches inside of twelve hours. Twenty-four maximum, if they’re being difficult. No longer. The second I have the green light, I have two Black Hawks waiting to go in. You won’t be able to ride with us, so if you want to be there when we bring them out, you should consider going by road. I’d arrange a vehicle if I were you."

“That may be too late for my sons. The men holding them could decide any time to kill them and disappear. We have to go in now.”

Masterson shrugged. “It isn’t going to happen, friend. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

Talley stepped forward, about to spell it out, but Brooks intervened. “Thank you for keeping us informed, Agent Masterson. We’ll be outside. Would you let us know when you have the word from Washington?” He took Talley’s arm and began to pull him away.

“I’ll do that, Admiral.”

“Keep us posted. Commander, we need to attend to the men. Let’s go.”

“But…”

“Move it, Mister.”

The tiny Admiral was surprisingly strong, and he pulled Talley away from the FBI’s Operations Room. The two officers walked outside to the concrete apron and joined the rest of the men. Talley was trying hard to keep his temper, but it was hard.

“What was that all about, Admiral? I have to persuade that useless bastard to get his men moving before it’s too late.”

“I know that,” Brooks agreed, “but I also know guys like that live by the rules. He’s not going to budge, not one inch. Not until he gets the go ahead from Washington.”

“By which time the boys could be dead.”

“Correct,” He grinned, “which is why we’ll have to take matters into our own hands. That Apache reservation is about two hours away by road. If we can rustle up a vehicle, we can forget the Feebies and deal with it ourselves. It may be the only way to get them out alive."

"And the Apaches? They may not take too kindly to soldiers tramping over their tribal lands. They weren’t too pleased the last time the US Cavalry turned up.”

A couple of the men laughed, but Brooks kept a straight face. “Times have changed since Custer’s day. We need to get moving. I suggest we locate a vehicle and get on the road. We have some distance to travel."

"You're not planning to go without us?" Guy asked the Admiral. "The way we do things in our unit is everyone goes, or no one goes."

"This isn’t official business. We could wind up in a federal penitentiary for doing this," Talley pointed out.

"So what's new?" Sergeant Reynolds said gruffly. "Since when has the threat of ending up in a cell stopped us from doing anything? We're all with you, Boss."

Rovere nodded. "I count myself in nothing else so happy, as in the soul remembering my good friends."

"I'm in," Virgil nodded.

"And me," Alessandra said, her voice firm. "And before you argue, we've been through too much together for me to stay behind while you do this thing. Besides, those poor boys will be terrified. They'll certainly need a woman's touch for some reassurance when we locate them."

Talley nodded, almost choked with emotion. "It's appreciated, all of you. Guy, we’ll need our gear out of the Globemaster."

"Already done," the former SAS man nodded. "We kind of thought it may come to this."

"And we'll need the exact coordinates of where that satphone call was placed. It’s on the board inside their Operations Room, and I doubt they’ll let us back in there.”

"The coordinates were on a note pinned to the map," Brooks replied. "I made sure to remember them."

"So we need a car."

The Admiral nodded. "I'll have a word with the base commander. We work for different bosses, but rank has its privileges, and it may be I can persuade him to help us out."

The USAF Lieutenant was standing next to one of the Humvees, talking quietly to an enlisted man. Brooks walked over.

"Lieutenant, I need to speak urgently to the guy who runs this place. Would you to take me to him right away."

"Yessir, Admiral. If you'd care to climb into the Humvee, I’ll drive you myself."

They roared off, and Talley was left with nothing to do but wait. The entire operation would be ad hoc, with no maps, no briefing, and no preparation. But it may be the only way. They stood around on the concrete, watching a pair of Fighting Falcons swoop down on the runway and then leap straight back into the sky. Circuits and bumps, training for pilots new to the aircraft. Another pair of F-16s roared overhead, little more than fifty meters over the airfield, one leading the other in some kind of a maneuver. It was impressive stuff. He checked his wristwatch and realized he hadn't adjusted it since they left South Korea.

"What’s the time difference between Korea and Arizona?"

Rovere nodded. "They're sixteen hours ahead of us, so I guess the time right now is," he looked down, "1600 hours."

He thanked him and adjusted the time on his wristwatch. If they left very soon, a two-hour drive to the Apache reservation meant they would likely arrive in the early evening. Allowing for delays, it would be almost night when they arrived. And the night was the environment they worked best in. It took the Admiral almost a half-hour to arrange transport, but he returned with a smart-looking SUV, a Chevrolet Captiva. He gave them a cheery grin as he climbed out.

"She's a 7-seater, so there's room for all of us. The car belongs to the base commander's wife, and he asked us to take care of it. She uses it for the school run. I promised him to pay for any damage, but he wouldn't hear of it. They’re good people. We met three years ago at a NATO conference, which was a stroke of luck for us. When I told him we'd be going after your boys, there was no question."

"We’ll have to take Ho with us," Talley insisted.

Brooks shrugged. "Better stow him in the trunk. That should keep quiet."

The men smiled. In truth, the Korean looked weary after the long journey confined in the tiny cell on the C-17. His movements were stiff and jerky, but no one was very sympathetic. When he heard the comment about the trunk, he started to protest, but Talley silenced him.

"Shut it, Colonel. Anything is better than the bullet in the head you deserve. You'd do well to remember that." He looked around his squad. They were well prepared, everything ready. “Anyone have any last minute questions?”