Rogue Threat (16 page)

He was in the right place. This was Ballantine’s cabin. He felt a surge of adrenaline coupled with a tightening of his stomach.

He experienced another flash, like before. A flash of memory, maybe. The flash was a face matched to words. A sound, actually. He was picking out intonations, bits of words they were saying. Something about “inside,” then the sliding of the window. He waited, listening.
Had they seen him?

And what was the flash?
Like a camera snapping a picture in the night, he had a blind spot in his eyes until he could focus again. In the flash, he saw a face, a haggard, worn man, worried about something.
What triggered the flash? The location, the mission, the voice, what?

Five minutes turned to twenty. The rhythmic croak of a frog kept him company as he slowly shifted his vision 360 degrees, watching, listening. Another fifteen minutes. It was almost four o’clock. Serious fishermen would be waking in an hour or two. He needed to move.

He slowly edged his way back using his hands to push into a reverse low crawl. He got to the edge of the shrubs and scanned the cabins one last time. Seeing no movement, he raised himself to all fours and crawled until he reached the dense undergrowth about fifty meters into the woods. The pines began to envelope him, heightening his sense of security. He began to walk hunched over, increasing his speed until he was deep into the forest.

Boudreaux shifted his attention to his front, expecting that he had been spotted near the cabins and that Ballantine had alerted security. It was the worst case scenario, he knew, but it was how he operated. Plan for the worst and expect it to happen. Now he was sliding through the trees, upright, with his M4 carbine at the ready, the reassuring weight of the 9mm pistol slapping his thigh. His goggles pressed against his face and the thin sapling branches reached out, clawing at him, making light scratching noises.

He spotted the flashing strobe, grabbed it, and shut it off immediately. Moving up the stream about one hundred meters, he found a small rock outcropping he could slide under. He checked his night scope on his M4 and braced it against a small rock.

Boudreaux was ready for whoever might come; he would wait to take down Ballantine. Perhaps he would find the operations center first. He figured the command node was probably in one of the mines or caves that he had seen.

As he rested and recalibrated his next moves, he had another flash, blinding him. There was desert, sand, heat, guns, and a face. What was the face? Was he just seeing the target photos of Ballantine that Rampert had prepared? Or was this something from his memory surfacing from another time and place?

CHAPTER 20

Boudreaux’ eyes moved to the sounds of leaves rustling about twenty meters away. During his short rest, his hands never left the butt stock of his M4 carbine. Peering through his scope, he watched two squirrels dart through the brush.

He looked at his watch. It was just past five in the morning;
0500 hours
, he translated. Military time for a military man. More firecrackers were popping now, flashbulbs bursting with photonegative images appearing briefly in their wake and fading just as quickly.
Uniforms, weapons, men shouting, gunfire, a young man with a radio, someone named Slick, palm trees, rice paddies . . .

Reality. He had been hiding and resting for an hour. It would be another hour before the sun would rise, so he snapped his night-vision goggles onto his headset, then watched a small deer nose its way past him, stop, stare at him with large eyes, then move slowly toward the lake. He could see the lake shore one hundred meters below him. A beautiful calm morning was about to dawn, just like . . .
Just like what? What exactly was it just like?
His hand scraped the dirt.
What is happening?
So far he had been executing his tasks with machine-like precision. “No emotion, no mistakes”—that was what they had told him.

But the darkness and morning tranquility settled over him like it had another time. He vaguely pictured soft, rolling hills that gave way to mountains—gentle ones that rose subtly from the foothills. There was a stream, with rocks.
But where was it?

He slowly moved from the rock crevice, less than an hour until the sun nosed over the horizon. What the military called “before morning nautical twilight.”

Boudreaux picked his way past the stark trunks of the pine trees, sometimes finding more space between the trees than he was comfortable with, increasing his chances of being detected. He listened to the Canadian morning sounds that joined the rhythmic echoes of his breathing. Animals were awakening and so, he figured, was his prey. He counted his paces as he strode, tying a knot in a cord hanging on his equipment for every one hundred meters. He had nine knots so far. He checked his global positioning system, a small on-demand, illuminated watch-like piece of equipment he wore on his left wrist. He was within one hundred meters of the third objective area, according to the data he and Colonel Rampert had preloaded into the system.

He stopped and went down on one knee. His fingers flexed around the grip of his weapon. He had a mental image of his objective. He pictured a small cavern built into the face of a wooded hilltop. He looked up and scanned the higher ground to his front. Through his night-vision goggles he detected a faint shimmer of light, undetectable to the naked eye, sneaking beneath a dark spot in his display.

He moved quietly, one foot over the next; a hunter stalking his prey. He was acutely aware of everything that moved, the slightest twitch of a branch in the wind, the turn of a chipmunk head away from an acorn in its grasp. He was also aware that if he had been detected near Ballantine’s cabin that the objective area would be at a heightened alert status, whatever that meant for this particular group. He moved to the west of the lighted area in order to come down on the objective from higher ground.

Echoes of a past too soon forgotten began to ring in his ears.

CHAPTER 21

“We may have a visitor,” Ballantine had spat into the phone.

Chasteen placed two guards at the only entrance to the mineshaft that housed their command center. One guard was outside of the entrance in a makeshift fighting position that provided clear observation of any approach. The other guard positioned himself directly inside the mineshaft opening in case the first position was compromised.

Chasteen felt his adrenaline surge. All of the preparation was manifesting itself today. First, the three successful attacks, and now he had received an intruder alert. And this was only the beginning.

He walked slowly along the worn AstroTurf, ducking to avoid the low crossbeams in the shaft. He looked at a series of television screens, all displaying footage of the attacks. Scrolling news bars shouted from beneath the talking heads:
al Qaeda suspected in attacks. . . . Terror strikes U.S. again. . . . U.S. unprepared for attacks. . . . More than 500 confirmed dead in Metroliner crash. . . . Casualties unknown in Minneapolis and Charlotte. . . . Thousands believed dead.

Two radio operators sat at a small console, monitoring radio transmissions and recording significant events into small laptop computers that fed into large-screen displays the size of big-screen televisions in sports bars.

The interior of the shaft reminded Chasteen of a high school locker room, both in size and smell. With only one ventilation shaft, air circulation was meager at best. He took a deep breath of the stale air and studied the map hanging on the wall. The U.S. map had red stars covering large cities and key chokepoints where specific actions were to take place this week. He noticed the radio operator had placed three green stars on the map. Green was good. It was a go.

He took another deep breath, and the stale air made him think again of the ventilation shaft.
Why did they only have one shaft? And why was it tucked around a corner, out of the normal path of the air circulation? Surely they could cut another hole in here.

With that thought, he decided to walk outside to check on the guard and get some fresh air.

Boudreaux low-crawled
, sliding only a few inches at a time to the top of the hill. Checking his global positioning system, he found that the grid coordinate registered within plus or minus five meters of his third objective.

Sliding his hand forward, he felt metal protruding from the ground. He was concerned it could be a mine, but knew it was probably something less dangerous. He let his fingertips dance gingerly on the protrusion while he slowly turned his head to view the device. With his free hand, he refocused the monocle on his night-vision goggles. What he found was the outline of a metal leg of some type. It appeared to be a base leg, holding something up. He followed the leg upward and saw twigs and leaves covering a round, metal object.

Boudreaux slowly moved his hand and found the other two base legs, then traced his hand around a metal dish. It was a satellite dish, he knew that much.

He was in the right place.

He found the wires connected to the dish and followed them, continuing to low-crawl as he did so. Suddenly the wires dived down through some sort of hole. His goggles detected light skidding up at him. He closed his goggle eye and noticed that the light was barely discernible, noticeable only through the lens of his night-vision device.

Boudreaux removed his knife from its sheath and probed downward, following the path of the wires. His knife struck something that gave, then resisted. He felt it with his hand and determined it was a screen of some type, loosely installed. Removing his Leatherman from its pouch, he opened the pliers function and secured the screen, pulling upward slowly. It gave, and soon he had lifted the screen away from the hole.

His hand retraced the wires and now struck what felt like cloth loosely secured, perhaps to block light. He removed his night-vision goggles, allowing a minute for his right eye to regain its night vision. Once again, he used the pliers to pinch a small piece of the cloth near a corner. He slowly removed the fabric and laid it next to the wire mesh. A dim light, just bright enough for him to see that the tunnel led into a larger area, shone through the hole.

What he saw was a two-foot square cut into the ground that gave way to a larger earthen tunnel. He carefully lowered his body into the hole, feeling secure once his feet found purchase on the firm bottom. He gave himself a minute to adjust to the new sounds around him. There was only one direction to go, so he stepped carefully that way.

His M4 at the ready, Boudreaux turned a corner and saw two men wearing headsets. One man had his head buried in what looked like a notepad, writing something. The other man was staring at one of several televisions lining a wooden shelf directly above them.

To his left, Boudreaux noticed a slight movement produced by a third person. He was dressed in camouflaged fatigues and was holding a pistol. Boudreaux raised his M4 and fired a single shot into his skull.

With mild amusement, Boudreaux noticed how quickly and quietly the man slumped to the floor. He immediately aimed his weapon at the two headset-clad men, one of whom was turning toward the slight noise created by the interior guard. Wasting no time, Boudreaux double-tapped the turning man, then with robotic precision eliminated the remaining target.

That’s all they were to him: targets. Rampert had drilled into him time and time again that the enemy was not a living human being but a target, just like the wood and paper targets he practiced with in the Fort Bragg shoot house. See. Shoot. Move. He did so with machine-like accuracy.

He did a quick survey of the area, taking in data such as the five television stations on various news and weather channels, a row of communications equipment, maps of the United States with large red and green stars dotted on certain cities, and a chart. The chart was white poster board with the word
Predator
written at the top, followed by 18/18 and
Fong Hou
. A listing of city names ran down the left side. Realizing he did not have much time, Boudreaux pulled a small radio out of a pouch on his belt. He typed in a code and then a digital message:

Target No. 3. 3 EKIA. 5 SATCOMS. 5 TV. News/weather. Chart—Predator 18/18.
Fong Hou
. EOM.

His message indicated that at the third objective location he had killed in action (KIA) three enemy personnel. Also, he had found five means of satellite communications, five televisions that were indicating news and weather, and a chart bearing the words he had typed.

He had no idea what
Fong Hou
could mean.

After typing EOM, meaning “end of message,” Boudreaux scanned the city names, mentally trying to log most, if not all. Then he saw one name than made him stop: Charlottesville, Virginia.

His eyes lifted slowly to the map next to the chart. He saw several stars spotted around Virginia, but one star was distinctly separate from the others. This star was larger and seemed to have been traced many times over, almost obsessively. He walked slowly toward the map, staring at the dot with an inexplicable awe, transfixed. Almost catatonic, oblivious to any danger around him, he nearly pressed his nose to the oversized map tacked onto the support beams.