Noble Warrior (35 page)

Stanzer peeked down the driveway.

“This'll work.”

“How close are we?” M.D. asked.

“There's an abandoned market—you know, beer, wine, lottery, that type of thing—three blocks up to the east,” Stanzer said. “Blue walls, covered with gang
graffiti, well fortified, shuttered tight. She's in there.”

Stanzer put the car in reverse, looked over his right shoulder, and backed the Chevy down the long, gravel driveway. After parking he cut the engine.

“Tell me,” the colonel asked, reaching behind him. “Are you ready to do the things we might have to do once we go in there?”

Stanzer flipped open the lid of a DU-HA weapons storage box sitting on the floor of the backseat and revealed a cache of arms: another Sig Sauer, a Ruger SR9c, two Smith & Wesson .357s, a
Mossberg 590 A1 short barrel shotgun, and an M40A1 bolt-action sniper rifle with a special 10 power Unertl scope.

“Because there are other options for you, son. I already have a team positioned five blocks down at the ready.”

“A hostage rescue team?” M.D. asked.

“No,” Stanzer said. “This team, well…we're not looking to make any arrests.”

M.D. weighed the words he'd just heard. He knew three items stood on the colonel's agenda for this operation.

Number one: Larson would exit the building.

Number two: It would be in a body bag.

Number three: Save Kaitlyn.

Number one and number two were locks, but number three was only a hope, an aspiration for Stanzer. Though the colonel didn't say it aloud, the hard truth was that, considering the
circumstances, Kaitlyn might not be savable.

With Larson standing as the last link to possibly blowing the cover off of the Murk, Stanzer needed the corrupt cop's silence guaranteed. The colonel knew that to arrest Larson meant that
a greaseball lawyer would most likely, at some point, seek to trade his client's secret knowledge about Stanzer's activities for a plea deal. What kind of bargain would be made, Stanzer
wasn't sure, but he knew General Evans well enough to know that if the choice came down to either letting a crooked city cop walk, versus shuttering a cutting-edge covert military unit with
an outstanding track record for nailing high-profile targets, Evans's decision would be a no-brainer.

The general would let Larson skate.

Guy probably wouldn't even get prison time, Stanzer thought. After all, his lawyer would argue, it was just way too dangerous for a cop like Larson to do time in a state penitentiary.
It'd practically be a death sentence. Stanzer knew if he brought Larson back in cuffs, the charges would get bargained down to the point where he'd merely be forced to surrender his
badge. Beyond that, it'd be a bunch of stupid negotiations back-and-forth about whether or not the bastard could keep his pension plan.

Dirty lawmen, they burned Stanzer. Burned him bad. But if Larson never saw a pair of handcuffs…

Stanzer picked up a .357 Magnum, extended his arm, and offered McCutcheon the handgun.

“You don't have to come with us. In fact, considering your emotional attachment to the outcome, it could be a mistake,” Stanzer said. “But on the other hand, I feel
you've earned the option.”

M.D. stared at the large, powerful revolver. He shook his head. He didn't want the gun.

“Not only have I earned the option, sir”—M.D. reached past the short barrel shotgun and grabbed hold of the Sig Sauer—“but I am exercising it.”

McCutcheon lifted the Scorpion TB model Sig 1911 with a Houge G-10 grip. It featured a 4.2-inch barrel, a low profile night sight, and a modified 16 mag capacity filled with Speer Gold Dot 185
grain jacketed hollow-points. He'd chosen a tactician's weapon, the kind favored by Marine elites.

“So what happened to your principles?” Stanzer asked.

M.D. cocked the gun.

“I have new ones.”

S
tanzer packed the Ruger SR9c into his belt loop, grabbed the custom-made sniper rifle manufactured in Quantico, Virginia, and he and McCutcheon
exited the car. After jumping a series of fences and crossing three streets, they took cover behind an abandoned red pickup truck sitting lifelessly on cinder blocks.

Stanzer put his earpiece in and spoke into a thin black radio mike that extended to his mouth.

“Everyone in position?”

No one spoke. Instead, six men offered hand signals. McCutcheon hadn't seen any of them at first, each soldier having blended into the environment with almost seamless precision. A gloved
hand went palm up by a tree. Another from behind a house. Two more appeared behind an ambulance that sat unattended in the far eastern corner of the parking lot, and another two flashed their ready
signs on opposite sides of a large bush. The invisible squad turned visible, but only for a moment so that Stanzer could gain a fix on their positions, and then each vanished again into their
camouflaged positions.

Stanzer assessed the situation. The element of surprise would be their strongest weapon. The rain helped, too. The harder it fell, the less the visibility. The abandoned liquor stored, boarded
and beaten up, advertised cheap cigarettes and beer in faded paint, but the business had long ago stopped operating. It was now a large square box with a potholed parking lot. Nothing more, nothing
less, a target easily taken by highly trained operatives.

If the operatives felt willing to accept casualties. Without windows or doors through which to peer inside, any assault the colonel initiated would start off blind.

“On my signal,” Stanzer said.

McCutcheon, like all soldiers, had participated in this training activity many, many times. The first two members of the team would pry open the plank being used as a front door with an alloy
Halligan bar, and then a third man would blast the entranceway open with a battering ram to create ample passage for the men behind. Two marksman, weapons at the ready, would follow on their heels,
and a moment later, just like in any of the video games being played at home by young kids, it would turn into a shootout.

Aim for the bad guys, save the girl, avoid getting blasted. Pretty straightforward stuff.

“Colonel, wait,” McCutcheon said. “Let's go for wits over brawn.” M.D. knew that a straightforward assault didn't offer the best odds for ensuring
Kaitlyn's safety. “We can play to our strengths.”

“How?” Stanzer asked.

“Instead of storming in?” M.D. replied. “What if we can get them to just bring her out?”

“Speak to me.”

McCutcheon reached for Puwolsky's phone. “We send a text that everything's fine. Make up a story about a new rendezvous point, and when they move her to that car, we
pounce.”

M.D. nodded toward a late model Cadillac with a shiny black paint job.

“A car like that in an area like this, most probably Larson's,” M.D. said. “Puwolsky drove a tricked out Caddy, too. Can't be a coincidence.”

Stanzer considered it. “Well, it's better than blitzing a hornet's nest.”

Inside, they both knew, could be a nightmare. They had no idea how many Priests they'd face, no clue as to how many of the enemy soldier's were armed and not an inkling about the
type of weapons they might encounter. These weren't petty shoplifters; these were urban gang members and they'd likely be armed to the teeth. Thirty years ago, kids on the mean streets
carried low-caliber handguns; nowadays they slung fully automatic Kalashnikov assault rifles.

The biggest problem with a full frontal assault, as McCutcheon saw it, was that no one had eyes on Kaitlyn. She could be tied to a chair or chained to a pole or in any one of ten different
compromising positions. Larson might have even set up a scenario where, should they be attacked, she'd be used as a human shield. M.D. knew Priests would die and Stanzer's squad would
win the day. The girl he loved, however…her well-being was a different story.

“Definitely worth a try. Let's map it.” Stanzer spoke into the radio mike. “Hold your positions.”

They formulated a battle plan. Stanzer would lay hidden on the northeast side of the building with the high-powered rifle aimed at the front door. Once Kaitlyn exited, Stanzer would keep the
rest of the enemies pinned inside the building by putting bullets on the exit. An attack like this would leave only the men who'd already walked out of the liquor store in front of Kaitlyn to
do battle with the team.

Before initiating action, M.D. would head down to the side wall to play the point and spring from the blind side of the store's front entrance. By remaining off to the right and only five
yards away, McCutcheon would have the ability to leap in and go man-to-man in close combat, or stand his ground and fire on targets from close range, depending on what the situation called for.
Stanzer and his soldiers would snipe, M.D. would ambush, and even if five guys exited the building prior to Kaitlyn, the team would have numbers on their enemy in addition to the element of
surprise.

All angles were covered. Approximate mission time after the first shot rang out: fifteen seconds. Fifteen seconds, M.D. thought, and Kaitlyn would be safe.

McCutcheon put a wire in his ear so he could communicate with the rest of the team, and after getting the thumbs-up signal, he dashed through the rain and sidled up next to the store's
western wall. He pulled out Puwolsky's phone and prepared to send a text.

“Got eyes on me?”

“With this scope? Perfectly.”

“Sending it now.”

“Copy,” Stanzer said.

M.D. composed a message on Puwolsky's cell phone and fired it off.

“Message sent,” McCutcheon whispered.

“You know if they don't bring her out we're gonna have to go to in,” Stanzer said.

“You mean Plan B?” M.D. asked.

“I mean Plan F,” Stanzer replied. “
F
standing for
Fucked
.”

M.D. stared at the phone and waited for a reply.

“Well, I guess we're about to see how smart these guys are,” he said.

A reply buzzed in. McCutcheon looked down at the screen.

M.D. wrinkled his brow.

“What's it say?” the colonel asked.

“It's a code,” McCutcheon replied. “A verification query.”

He gulped.

“And the answer could be anything.”

M
.D. reread the text message from Larson and tried to cook up a plausible response, but guessing the proper reply felt impossible. It could be
peanuts sit in tall bushes
or it could be
basketball players smell like blue barns
or it could be
mad little mice
.

There was no way to tell. Worse, there was no way to crack it. Certainly not in the limited amount of time in which he had to reply.

“Shit!” McCutcheon said. Underestimating the intelligence of Puwolsky and Larson might have just cost Kaitlyn her life.

M.D. put the cell phone back into his pocket and pulled the Sig from the small of his back. Time for plan F, he thought.

Then a new idea struck him.

“On my signal, jam all cell phones,” he said into the radio mike.

“Roger,” Stanzer said not questioning why. The colonel knew there was a time to lead, a time to follow, and a time to shut the hell up and trust the man in the field. He'd gone
this far with McCutcheon, so now he'd have to go the whole way, and only hindsight would prove whether it was a mistake.

Stanzer removed the black case from his pocket and readied his interference device. M.D. composed a text.

He counted to twenty and then composed another.

Larson replied twice via text, but McCutcheon ignored both responses. Instead, he counted to twenty yet again and fired off a third message.