Hide and Seek (38 page)

Another empty floor?

“Up.” J. J. transmitted.

NASIRDIN TANAYEV AND RASUL
Djaparov readied themselves for what Nasirdin knew was inevitable.

“What are you doing?” Rasul asked.

“Buying a few moments for us.” He finished tying twine around one of the canisters of bioagent, creating a loop. He hung it around Rasul’s neck.

“Wait. I am no suicide bomber. I did not agree to this. We were just supposed to take canisters to the crowds and throw them—”

“Shut up. This is for your protection. If the attackers see this hanging on you they will hesitate to fire, giving us time to make our shot. Besides, the canister is empty. They won’t know that.”

“You have been good to me, Nasirdin. I am grateful, so I hope you won’t be offended when I tell you I don’t believe you.”

“Suspicion has kept us alive longer than most, Rasul. It is part of our makeup.”

“What if they don’t hesitate?”

“We will be dead anyway.” Nasirdin tied a strand of twine around another canister and hung it over his own neck. “Remember. Head shots. They will be wearing body armor. Aim for their heads, necks, legs if necessary.”

“The other men?”

“In place. The Americans will have to get through eight of our best men.” Nasirdin didn’t say it, but he had a sick feeling that might happen.

Nasirdin didn’t wonder when his plans went wrong. It was that woman. If he ever had opportunity he would end her life with his hands around her throat. At the moment, he had two worries. Surviving the attack, then surviving Dootkasy’s wrath should he fail.

COLONEL MAC SAT IN
the spec ops sit room in the Concrete Palace. The monitors on the wall showed only the black and gold spearhead emblem of Special Operations Command, nothing more. He sat in the isolation waiting. He watched real-time missions in this room; held conferences with generals and admirals, even the president. At the moment he had nothing but a dark room, glowing monitors, and his aide Alan Kinkaid sitting at the control bench.

Minutes flowed at glacial speeds churning the concerns living in Mac. He gave no outward sign of worry. He just waited.

And waited.

And thought of his men brought back to life and now risking them once again on the behalf of citizens of another country who would never know the truth of the matter.

“You prayin’ over there, Master Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Good. Keep it up.”

“Yes, sir.”

Colonel Mac, decorated combat veteran, leader of men, consultant to presidents, picked at his fingernails and wondered if he was getting too old for all this.

J. J. LED HIS
team up the last flight of stairs, slowing as he approached. He lessened his pace to give himself time to force the distracting thoughts from his mind. He already struggled with being a soldier with an expectant wife, but now he kept imagining her face when she learned of his “death.” The news media did them no favors and a part of him wished Colonel Weidman had kept that part of the story to himself.

The thoughts passed in milliseconds and J. J. refocused on the mission. There was no time to think of anything but what lay beyond the stairway door. How many men? How well armed? Were they lying in wait, weapons trained on the door? He had to assume that was the case.

What J. J. wished he could do was use one of Crispin’s smaller toys to survey what awaited them, but just opening the door would give away their presence. This was the last floor and, therefore, had to be the one holding the biotoxin.

Biotoxins. Why did it have to be biotoxins? It limited their options. No air strike, no mortar, limited use of explosives. “We have to know where every bullet goes,” J. J. told the team shortly before they left. The fear was releasing the biotoxin into the building and into the environment. The mission was easy to state: secure the building and the biotoxin. Except they knew very little about the building, who was in it, or where and how the airborne poison was kept. In many ways, this was a true suicide mission.

And he pictured Tess again, this time putting the twins to bed without him.

“Joker, Boss.”

“Go, Boss.” The voice was weak and awash in static. No surprise. He was in a stairwell made of concrete block as was the other half of the team. That Aliki heard him at all was a miracle.

“We go in five. Start on my mark.”

“Roger . . . oss . . . ive . . . your . . . ark.”

That sounded close enough. “Three, two, one, mark.” J. J. took a deep breath and started counting to five. Crispin crowded his shoulder.

At five, he pulled the stairwell door open and tossed in an M84 flash-bang grenade. Crispin rolled a smoke grenade at the same time. J. J. pushed the door shut.

He heard the M84 go off and felt glad he was on this side of the door. He heard a similar but more distant sound. Aliki’s M84 went off. J. J. gave the smoke device a few moments to fill the hall, then said, “Go.”

He yanked the door open and plunged into the smoke-filled corridor, Crispin and Jose behind him. Every man on the team wore tactical goggles to keep the smoke from their eyes, hopefully an advantage.

They called it dynamic entry, ever-forward flow until the mission is accomplished. J. J. led the flow from the north side of the corridor, Aliki from the south. This meant they were charging toward each other in a smoke-filled hall. An inaccurate shot meant one team member could down another.

Overhead lights battled the smoke, giving the space a house-of-horrors feel. An apt feeling.

J. J. pressed forward, hunched, knees bent, M4 leveled so the barrel was chest high for any man standing in his way. One appeared like a ship coming out of a fog. He held a machine pistol. J. J. spit one round through the suppressor into the man’s forehead and continued forward.

A broad swath of light waited in the middle of the corridor. The light came from J. J.’s right.

He moved forward slowly, but always forward.

He neared the light. While he couldn’t make out details, he got the impression a wide, open space had replaced a series of offices.
Target area.

Step. Step. Another step closer. The only sound was the fizzle of the smoke canister behind them.

J. J.’s gun moved down and to the side. Something hard rammed his forehead, just below the front rim of his helmet, pushing his head back. Pain raced from his head and down his spine. Tilting his eyes up he saw a skinny, Asian man, his eyes wide, his jaw clenched. The man held a sidearm to J. J.’s head. J. J. saw the man’s trigger finger tighten before the man fell away, a round each from Crispin and Doc in his head. Something damp and sticky splattered J. J.’s goggles.

“You okay, Boss?” Crispin asked.

“Don’t know. Too startled to tell.” J. J. pushed forward. He heard other sounds now. The spitting sound of suppressed gunfire. He heard a man screaming but didn’t recognize the voice. That was good.

A brief burst of gunfire erupted behind J. J. He snapped his head around in time to see two men clutching at their chests and backpedaling. Behind them, an office door hung open. They had been laying in wait in a dark, locked office off the hall. He had no idea how Jose knew they were coming, but Doc had just saved their lives—for the moment.

“Watch your back,” J. J. said into the radio.

“Roger that,” Aliki said. “We count three down our side.”

“Four here.”

The smoke thinned and J. J. could see the light from the center right side of the building. What he could not do was see around the corner.

The lights went out, leaving only the tactical lights on their weapons to show the way. J. J. pulled another M84 from his vest. He radioed his intention then pulled the metal pin, when a hand seized his wrist, twisted, and pulled. More pain, this time radiating up his arm. Another pain scorched his thigh.

The M84 went off, sending 180 decibels of explosive sound and nearly eight million candela—the equivalent of eight million candles shining in a single burst—around J. J. and the others. The M84 flash-bang grenade did what it was created to do, stun and blind anyone in the vicinity. His ears hurt and rang as if his head was a bell; his eyes teared, blurring what little vision he had left; the force of the nonlethal grenade shook his marrow, making it difficult to keep control of bladder and bowel.

The hand on his wrist disappeared and J. J. reached forward with his left hand, searching, grabbing, finally seizing a shirt—not a military-issue combat vest—a shirt. He pulled hard and then snapped his head forward, praying for a bit of Providence. His helmet hit something hard and there was a crunching sound. A muted bellow followed.

Bringing his M4 back around, J. J. placed the barrel to the blurry man in front of him. J. J. blinked, then blinked again.

A hand shot out and caught J. J. in the throat.

J. J. pulled the trigger. The ill-formed shape fell to the floor.

“Boss!” Jose’s voice.

“Can’t see.”

“I got point.”

J. J. assumed Jose and Crispin had been able to prepare for the flash-bang. “Go.”

Two forms brushed by him. “Joker, Doc. I have lead here.”

“Boss?”

“M84 got him.”

TESS MADE TEA. BOTH
cups cooled on the dining room table. Tess took Lucy’s hand. “I need to pray.”

Lucy nodded, crossed herself with her free hand.

Both women bowed their heads.