Halon-Seven (17 page)

“Sir,” a voice called in Russian from across the room. “I have something. A black Volkswagen Jetta initially made a slow pass of the target. It has since circled back and parked forty meters west of our location.”

Dargo tapped a series of keys on his laptop and brought up one of the external cameras mounted on their house’s exterior. His team had secured a home across the street and two homes east of Alfie Ahmed. Ahmed was the only remaining member of the Meridian team. The rest had fallen off the face of the planet. Surely they had gone to ground. But why not Ahmed?

Dargo’s technical team had wired up the exterior of their house with a number of hidden high-resolution cameras. They had an unimpeded view of the front of Ahmed’s home as well as the street and sidewalks leading to it from both directions.

Last night, the team surveilling Reese Knoland’s apartment had contacted Dargo to report an abrupt outbreak of gunfire on the same floor as her apartment. Soon after, the team had piped over a live video feed displaying the events as they unfolded. Cameras hidden in the hallway and stairwell outside the apartment had told much of the story. But Dargo had opted not to place surveillance gear inside the apartment, due to the increased risk of discovery. He had watched in fascination as two Hispanic men tried to abduct Miss Knoland from her home. It came as no surprise when Cyrus gave chase and shot both of the fleeing men dead before recovering Miss Knoland. What had surprised him was the follow-up report from his team. It turned out that prior to recovering Miss Knoland, Cyrus had apparently been attacked by two more men with automatic rifles. Somehow the young man had managed to throw one of the men from the tenth floor balcony and shoot the other in the head.

If Dargo’s information was to be believed, Cyrus had been out of the game for a number of years. The young man had walked away from the Coalition following Dargo’s last encounter with him. That resignation was a crucial deciding factor for Dargo. The resignation was proof that Cyrus found the collateral damage of that mission unacceptable, and it was the only reason Dargo had chosen not to hunt Cyrus down and kill him for all that had happened.

But if Cyrus Cooper was back in the game, it meant one of two things. Either Dargo had been fooled by his supposed resignation, or Cyrus was sincere in his disillusionment and had somehow been forced back into the fold. And if Cyrus was sincere, it meant there was something more going on than Dargo had been led to believe.

Putting his personal concerns aside, Dargo knew he faced a still greater paradox. The live video feed his men had sent of Cyrus’s fight with the Hispanic gunman had followed his own sighting of Cyrus in Meade’s office building by only minutes. That Cyrus had managed to exit the office unobserved was troubling. But that he’d managed to cross the city in a matter of minutes was simply unexplainable.

“Sir, I have confirmation,” the technical operative reported, pulling Dargo from his dilemma. “Cyrus Cooper and Reese Knoland have just arrived on scene.”

Dargo tapped a series of commands into his computer and adjusted the camera view while he watched Cyrus and Reese approach the front of Alfie Ahmed’s home. Dargo had considered further surveillance on Ahmed to be his last chance to leverage a situation that was slipping from his grasp. The rest of Professor Meade’s research team had suddenly gone to ground, following the attack on Reese Knoland. Impressively, there had been no hint of an alarm being raised. Ahmed was the only member of the team who failed to go into hiding. So Dargo had gone to the surveillance post to monitor the situation personally.

The circumstances had escalated even before he arrived on site. Dargo had still been in transit when the head of the field team contacted him reporting that a pair of Hispanic men had arrived and conducted a sloppy recon of the street. Shortly after, one of the men had crawled under the Toyota pickup truck parked in Ahmed’s driveway and secured some sort of device to the undercarriage. They then departed minutes later.

When Dargo arrived on station, he took a look under the Toyota. It was a gamble, but a calculated one. He risked exposing his operation by approaching the pickup truck, but he needed to understand what the Hispanic men were doing. Had they attached surveillance gear to the truck? If so, why weren’t Dargo’s techs able to piggy-back the signal coming from the device? It turned out not to be a tracking device but a plug of plastic explosive that was left behind. All in all, a rather sloppy job, at that.

All said, Dargo had been observing the research team for several weeks. In that time he had come to the conclusion that Ahmed was not a key member of the team. As such, he decided to leave the explosives in play and see how events transpired. First, the attempted abduction of Miss Knoland, and then a car bomb targeting Alfie Ahmed? Something could be learned no matter how things unfolded.

And now Cyrus was here.

By way of the concealed surveillance cameras, Dargo and his tech watched as Cyrus and Reese entered the home of Alfie Ahmed. As soon as they passed through the door, the tech switched to a laser microphone that, when pointed at a window, would pick up the vibrations of the glass surface and convert them into sound. It made for the perfect long-range wireless bug.

Dargo listened to the conversation inside the house, across the street, in such crystal clear fidelity that he might have been sitting in the room with the participants. He listened as Miss Knoland chastised Ahmed for not responding to the scramble code she had sent. That explained why everyone had disappeared so abruptly. Professor Meade had prepared for such a situation. The old man was craftier than Dargo had been led to believe. Radioing the rest of surveillance team, Dargo made sure they were ready to deploy. He had put them on standby prior to his arrival the night before. If Ahmed left, he wanted the man followed. He initially hoped the young lab tech would lead him to the rest of the Meridian team. That was, until Dargo discovered the bomb rigged under the truck. It would’ve negated his ability to track Ahmed, but he had still hoped to come up with a lead. Waiting to see who arrived to investigate the explosion would prove useful. It might still lead him to the research team. All the same, now he was fortunate enough to have a full compliment of surveillance personnel and vehicles standing by. If Cyrus was on site, Dargo knew his team could track him. Cyrus would personally lead him to the rest of the team.

As Dargo watched, Cyrus, Reese, and Ahmed left the house. Dargo was concerned to see Cyrus head for his own car up the street while Ahmed made his way to the Toyota in the driveway. Now Dargo wished he’d removed the explosive. Ahmed’s death would only complicate matters.

But at the last moment, Dargo watched as Cyrus stopped and turned back to the truck. He called out to Ahmed before sprinting toward the man. Cyrus suspected something was wrong with the truck! But why? What had he seen? Dargo watched in fascination, as Cyrus circled the vehicle before finally crawling underneath. Moments later he emerged holding the disassembled explosive device.

Dargo was speechless. He had no idea how Cyrus had concluded that the truck was rigged, but he watched in amusement as Ahmed spilled the contents of his stomach in the grass. The realization that someone wanted you dead could be jarring. Finally the three targets made their way up the street to Cyrus’s car. Dargo radioed the first follow car to ensure it was in position. It was overkill, but he had nearly a dozen backup vehicles ready to swap in and pick up the trail. He would have to move them around more aggressively now. Cyrus would most certainly be on alert after finding the explosives.

Santa Barbara, California

Wednesday, 8:33 am (9:33 am Colorado Time)

The rendezvous with the research team was delayed.

Shortly after leaving Alfie Ahmed’s home, Cyrus noticed a white Toyota Corolla in the rearview mirror. The car had done nothing suspicious other than follow them through several random turns. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the Toyota was gone. To an untrained eye, it would’ve meant nothing. Such was the nature of the nondescript car and its brief time in pursuit. But Cyrus knew differently. Shortly after it disappeared, he picked up a black Caprice. The Caprice followed them for several miles and a number of inconspicuous but indiscriminate turns. Identifying a tail was the goal of Cyrus’s haphazard course. The trick was to drive normal while plotting an unpredictable course; at the worst, he driving pattern would indicate he was a bit lost. If a vehicle stood out in the rear view, it meant there was a tail.

In tradecraft, this was known as a surveillance detection route (SDR). A good tail was hard to spot. The tail he’d picked up was proving to be exceptional. He knew they were there, because as soon as he’d picked out a follow car, it quickly fell away and was replaced by an alternate vehicle. New and constantly changing follow cars were very difficult to identify. The efficiency and dexterity of the constant rotation provided him a number of key pieces of information. First, he wasn’t being tracked by an individual—he was being stalked by a team. Second, the team was extremely professional. The follow cars had drivers proficient at blending in. Lastly, it meant that the team had resources. Normal follow teams would drive a considerable distance before trading one tail for the next because the number of vehicles was finite. This team had a rich roster of experienced drivers. The cars kept changing, and they were always unique.

But the team conducting surveillance was also at a disadvantage. Every change of the follow car required the carefully orchestrated handoff of the target. It was crucial to prevent drawing undo attention during the handoff, but it was also essential not to lose it in the process. With all of this in mind, handoffs were never conducted more frequently than absolutely required.

The tail on Cyrus was passing him off like a hot potato. They were aware of his skills in counter surveillance. The observation raised more questions and provided no answers. Logic dictated that Cyrus had picked up the tail upon leaving Ahmed’s house. Even though he had detected no surveillance of the house, it was entirely possible that something had gone unnoticed. Especially if these guys were as skilled as they now appeared. But why have all of these resources tied up watching Ahmed’s home after they had already planted a bomb in his truck? Fine, leave one observer behind to ensure that the bomb went off, but the tail that he had now indicated that an entire team had been lying in wait. He could’ve picked up the tail prior to his arrival at Ahmed’s home, but he felt certain it would’ve caught his eye earlier in the morning. He was confident in ruling that out. All of this led to a growing suspicion that two parties were interested in Alfie Ahmed—one that planted the bomb and a second that was content to sit back and surveil the events as they transpired. But as much as the evidence pointed toward this new conclusion, why would someone go through the trouble of surveilling Ahmed while still doing nothing to prevent his murder? The contingent of follow cars might be a clue. Either the surveillance team was there to watch Ahmed, or they were there to track whoever showed up to visit the man.

With questions stacking up and no answers to be had, Cyrus decided to continue as planned. It seemed more critical than ever to get the research team off the streets and stashed some place safe. It took longer than expected, but he eventually eluded the tail. In the end it had been victory through attrition. He kept driving until they either ran out of cars or suffered a breakdown in organization. Whichever it was, he finally evaded his pursuers, and he did it without providing any overt signs that he knew he was being followed. It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as it was in the movies, but it was effective.

Faria Road, Ventura, California

Wednesday, 11:55 am (12:55 pm Colorado Time)

It should’ve been a straight shot south down the 101. Given the skill of the team tailing them, it was well over an hour before they saw the last signs of the surveillance team. Sooner or later even the most skillful tail would succumb to the rigors of city driving. All the same, Cyrus ran another full hour of SDRs before finally feeling confident they were finally alone. Only then did he point the car south to complete the original 30-minute drive.

Most of the drive was along the western coast of California. They were almost always within sight of the ocean to the south and west while it was mountainous terrain to the north and east. The fallback location was a second-story set of small offices over a large woodworking shop, just off the craggy coastline.

As he had done before, Cyrus had driven the Jetta past the address once to get a lay of the land. As they passed, Reese identified several team vehicles parked in a lot beside the woodworking shop. The street had almost no traffic and nothing appeared out of place. Cyrus turned the car around a mile down the road and doubled back.

Reese was nervous. Her apprehension had grown since
 
the discovery of the explosive in Alfie’s truck. The lengthy drive only served to intensify her anxiety. The realization that they were being stalked hadn’t helped either. For some reason, the threat to her team resonated with her in a way that the threat to her own safety had not. That was curious, she decided. Was that a healthy reaction to the situation? The logical side of her mind struggled for control, suggesting there was no such thing as a healthy reaction to these circumstances.

As Cyrus swung the car into the parking lot, Reese considered how best to address the team. Walter was gone. He’d been a natural lead, quick to earn the respect of everyone on the team. She had kept things operational since his passing, but had never been assertive when it came to taking a leadership role. That would have to change. Walter had intended for her and Cyrus to continue the project after his passing. The problem was, she didn’t have a clue where to begin. They were under attack and she was out of her depth.

Cyrus stopped her at the door to the stairwell leading to the upstairs offices. “Could you go up and get everyone settled? I need to make a call.” He thought for a moment. “They’ll be spooked by your emergency transmission. Try to get everyone pacified. I’m afraid my being here will only further raise their hackles.”