Threat Warning (24 page)

Authors: John Gilstrap

Tags: #Fiction, #General

BOOK: Threat Warning

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Jonathan raised his eyebrows as he slid his own knife into its sheath. “I make it a point not to underestimate anybody with an automatic weapon.”

“Actually, I thought I was overestimating,” Boxers countered with a smile.

“Are you guys safe and clear now?” Venice asked over the radio.

Jonathan touched the transmit button. “Affirm,” he said. “Wasn’t even close.”

Really?
Gail thought. What does close look like if that wasn’t it?

“You sounded pretty tight on the radio,” Venice said. “Are you sure?”

“Does it matter?” Emotionally, Venice had the most difficult job on the team. Hers was a world of impressions and anticipation, while the team on the ground had the benefit—for good or ill—of real-time knowledge. It never hurt to shield her from certain realities.

Venice said, “I’ve got all the footage I need for the broadcast loop. Are you ready to go?”

It was the statement they’d been waiting for—the statement Gail had been dreading. Was she ready to go?

“Are you spinning the recording?” Jonathan asked.

“All the monitoring company will see is uninterrupted boredom,” she reported. “But understand that I’m going to need to record again. We’re going to have to show nighttime approaching. Otherwise the monitors will see something wrong. Then, once it gets dark, I’ll need another half hour of darkness to make the loop.”

“Shit,” Jonathan cursed off the air. He hadn’t considered that.

“I’ll give you plenty of notice,” Venice assured. “I’ll also be monitoring the live feed, so I’ll be able to tell you if danger approaches.”

“Are we set?” Jonathan asked his team.

Boxers was already on his feet, walking toward the fence.

Gail nodded, but apparently, it wasn’t convincing.

“This is fish-or-cut-bait time, Gail,” he said softly.

She nodded more aggressively this time. “Let’s go,” she said.

They chose a spot along the fence in the rear sector of the estate where trees pressed in close and drooped over the barbed wire. Jonathan judged this to be a spot where the cuts they needed to make would be less likely to be spotted.

Boxers climbed the fence with a dexterity that Gail would have found impressive from anyone, but particularly given his size. Maybe it helped that by just standing at its base, he was already three-quarters of the way to the top. He planted the toe of one boot in the wire mesh of the fence and reached with one hand to raise himself high enough that the barbed wire was at face height. He’d already drawn the snips with his other hand.

“I hate this part,” he said. He placed the jaws of the snips around the wire, then hunched one shoulder to protect his neck, and looked away and down. “In three,” he said. “Two, one.”

There was a snapping sound, and then the wire sagged. He repeated the procedure for the four lines of wire on their side of the fence, and then he leaned across and dispatched the four lines on the far side. That done, Boxers continued up and over the side.

“You okay, Big Guy?” Jonathan asked. “You look a little winded.”

“Winded my ass,” Boxers replied. “When you get your little razor butt over here, we’ll arm wrestle and see who wins.”

It had been a long time since Gail had climbed a fence, and she was proud of herself for doing it with her dignity intact. When they were all assembled on the other side, she said to Jonathan, “What happens when the sentry notices the cut wire?”

He shrugged and forced a smile. “That’s another one of those moments where we pray for luck to be on our side.”

The lucky breaks were beginning to stack pretty high.

They spread out to recon the mansion from the outside. Sooner or later, they were going to have to enter the house, and before committing to that kind of risk, they needed to learn as much about the place as they could. Jonathan and Boxers split the duties to view the front and sides, each of them taking positions on either side of the long driveway, and Gail was relegated to watching the rear and reporting on what she saw.

Despite the risk of losing the Nasbes in the next hour or two, Jonathan decided to wait till nightfall to approach the mansion. The ability to function at night was such a huge force multiplier that it was worth the risk. Easy to say, he supposed, until he found out that the bad guys had harmed the family while they were waiting things out.

Jonathan worked his way into a thicket of evergreens in the southeast corner of the front yard, where he could see a good bit of the driveway and the front door of the residence. He imagined that Boxers had a similar view on the opposite side of the driveway.

Moving slowly and quietly, Jonathan settled into his hidey-hole and oh-so-carefully slipped out of his ruck. Reaching into a side pocket, he found his digital monocular, and brought it to his eye. With the digital boosting, he could dial in to sixty-power, but at that magnification, even his heartbeat made the image dance. He settled for twelve-power.

Two sentries stood guard on the front porch, flanking the front door. Both wore sidearms—they looked like Glocks, but both of them stood with arms akimbo, their hands resting on the pistol grips, making positive ID impossible. If they had access to long guns, those weapons were out of sight.

Jonathan pressed the mike button on his vest. “I’m in position and I count two bad guys at the front door.”

Boxers’ voice popped in his earbud. “I’m in position and I confirm two at the front door. I don’t see any others.”

“The black side is clear,” Gail said. In their parlance, front was white, back was black, left was green, and right was red.

“Mother Hen, how do you copy?” Jonathan asked.

“Clear as crystal,” Venice said. “The live feed shows the one sentry on patrol still, but he seems to be taking a break, and sticking close to the fence line. He’s not a problem for now.”

“Copy that,” Jonathan said. “Mother Hen, I want you to prompt us for a sit rep every fifteen minutes while we’re spread this far apart. Otherwise, let’s keep the channel clear unless there’s something to report.”

Surveying the mansion, Jonathan noticed nothing special. It was a big old place, built in the style of old plantation houses, complete with pillars in the front that would please Scarlett O’Hara if she saw them. The drawings they’d studied showed it to be about ten thousand square feet on the main two levels, plus basement space underneath.

Pulling the monocular away from his eye, he pulled the floor plan from his pocket and studied it some more. If there was one thing he’d learned the hard way it was that any floor plan that was older than five years—this one was dated thirty years ago—was as reliable as an unwound watch. All the parts would be there, you just never knew how accurate the arrangement would be. He remembered one prison rescue back in the day when all of their intelligence data told them that there would be wide-open space after turning a corner, but when they got there, he encountered a reinforced concrete wall. They’d managed a work-around, but that one nearly cost them the mission.

Still, the drawings provided a sense of scale. And important landmarks such as stairways and utility lines normally remained constant even after major renovations. As long as he could—

In the distance, a thick
crack
split the air. Clearly a gunshot, it sounded far away, but had the unique qualities of one particular weapon.

“Scorpion, Big Guy,” Boxers’ voice said in his ear. “Did that sound like a Barrett to you?”

Yes, it did. Just like that, this mission took on a new tenor.

Michael Copley tucked the recoil pad of the massive Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifle into the soft notch of his shoulder, rested his hand atop the stock, and his cheek atop the back of his hand. Through his ten-power scope, he wasn’t sure he would recognize the true nature of his target if he hadn’t designed it himself. He certainly would not have recognized the finer points of the design.

The Model 9000 Symphonic Reflector—the gold standard in acoustic reflectors—sat firmly in its frame, fifteen hundred yards away, fixed in the braces that he’d designed specifically for outdoor use. It wouldn’t do, after all, to ruin the very performances these were designed to augment by blowing over in a wind. Sturdy yet lightweight; high quality yet inexpensive. That’s what made Appalachian Acoustics so popular.

Certainly, that’s what had sold these units to the federal government. When the United States Navy Band played a concert, every note was worthy of being heard, as was every word spoken by dignitaries and heads of state. Indoors or outdoors, the Model 9000 worked better than any other on the market.

Presently, the panel on the opposite hilltop was positioned as if the concert were being delivered away from Copley, and his scope was thus showing him the back side of the panels. His sight picture, then, was the Appalachian Acoustics logo, printed over and over in a pattern that appeared random, but in fact was anything but.

At this range, every environmental factor mattered, from the slightest breeze to the moisture content of the air. As far as the latter was concerned, thank God for the cold winter. At this temperature, the atmosphere was bone dry.

He’d entered the air temperature, windage, and ammunition data into his handheld ballistics computer, and the results were as astounding as they always were. While the target was stationary, he nonetheless had to compensate for the ten-mile-per-hour breeze and the impossibly long distance. His computer told him to correct for 260 inches of drop and a lot of drift. In a sport where half-seconds of angle resulted in huge misses, this business of sighting in his scope became ridiculously important. When the time came to take his real shot, there’d be no room for trial and error.

“The spotter is safe,” said Brother Franklin from his right. “Fire when ready.” A member of the Board of Elders, Brother Franklin was one of the original founders of the Army of God, and the second-best sniper in the group, next to Michael himself. Both had trained for years.

Trained for this one shot.

Copley ran the numbers in his head, and found the appropriate mark on the logo. He placed that spot in the very lower rightmost arc of his sight picture. He took a deep breath, let half of it go, and then caressed the trigger.

The firing pin engaged, and the weapon erupted, launching its massive, 660-grain bullet at 2,800 feet per second. As the shell casing flew from the receiver, the muzzle brake and floating barrel took most of the recoil, or the kick might have broken bones. It would take over a second and a half for the half-inch-diameter bullet to traverse its nearly 1,500-yard trajectory. He’d just brought his scope back to the sight picture when he saw the panel move.

He’d hit his spot precisely; but it wouldn’t be time to smile until he knew he’d hit the true target, which was beyond the panel, and out of his sight. A few seconds later, one of the children from the compound rose from behind the rock that shielded him and waved a white flag over his head.

“Dead center,” Brother Franklin said. “White means perfect shot.” He lay next to Michael on his stomach on the ground, peering through the eyepiece of a digital spotting scope. “Great job, Brother Michael.” Truly, it was a shot that the best snipers in the world would have trouble making.

“One more,” Brother Michael said. He again settled the reticle into the most unlikely part of the scope and launched another bullet.

The boy with the flag dove for cover after the bullet hit, and then sheepishly raised the white flag again.

“Perfect,” Brother Franklin said. He couldn’t help but laugh, and then he patted Michael on the shoulder. “It was a mean thing to do to the boy, but it was perfect. Two in a row is a trend,” he said.

Copley lifted his cheek from the weapon, and then pushed himself up to a kneeling position. “This is one amazing weapon,” he said.

“But hardly practical,” Franklin countered. “What does it weigh? Twenty-five pounds?”

“Twenty-eight and a half, empty,” Copley said. “Not my first choice for close quarters.”

Copley left the weapon on the ground and stood, brushing dirt from the front of his clothes. Franklin joined him. Together, they walked to the flat rock where they’d placed their backpacks and a thermos of coffee. Copley poured into Franklin’s cup first, and then into his own.

“It has cream and sugar,” Copley said. “I hope that suits.”

“In this weather, all that matters is that it’s hot,” Franklin replied.

They sipped in silence for nearly a minute. Finally, Copley said, “I had dual purposes for bringing you here, Brother Franklin.”

“I figured as much,” the other man said. “You rarely have only one thing on your mind.”

Copley smiled at what he perceived to be a compliment. “Even more so now that the war has begun,” he said. “I want you to speak freely.”

Franklin half nodded, half shrugged.

“What do you think of the video we put out on the Internet?”

“You mean of the User family? Wasn’t that the plan from the beginning?”