Brothers In Arms (11 page)

“Like you said, we don’t know if we’d get any more from him that way. It might hamper getting what we need out of him. Better that Dale continue doing what he can to see what comes up in Uday’s therapy sessions.”

Ray stood up and went to the window.

“This has the feeling of something spinning out of control. We just can’t see it yet,” he said over his shoulder.

“I don’t know about that,” Callan said. “You’ve got good people on the ground . . . let it play out a little.”

“We’ve got a lot of information on the biological and chemical program from Hussein Kamel’s debriefing. It’s been an administration priority . . .”

“You’ve got a little more, now. See what comes up.”

“Right,” Ray Dalton said. “We’ll see what comes up.”

The best time for a raid is in the darkest hours of the night, in those hours right before daylight, when the body’s rhythm is at its slowest, and the brain struggles in the landscape between dream and waking. It’s an old military axiom that you want to strike when the enemy is at his weakest, and it’s at night that the defender is weakest.

Jimmy Harrison kept that in mind as he walked the perimeter around the center at 3
A.M.
He struggled to keep his mind focused and alert as he patrolled. He and Greg Ford—who was inside, sitting outside the door of Rahman Uday’s bedroom—were working the 6
P.M.
to 6
A.M.
shift. Dale Miller and Charley Payne were both sleeping in the spare patient bedroom the detail had turned into a security ready room.

Harrison stretched both hands over his head as he walked and shook them down to keep the blood flowing. Earlier in the evening he’d gone through his own workout between patrolling the perimeter: working with a rubber resistance unit, countless push-ups and chair dips and sit-ups and crunches to keep himself toned and tuned up, ready for what might come their way. It also fought the boredom of the protection lifestyle. He smiled wearily as he thought of all the starry-eyed rookies who came in on the VIP protection circuit,
expecting to be taking on terrorists in between fine dinners at the best hotels. It didn’t take long for reality to sink in, and many, in fact most, grew disenchanted with standing outside hotel rooms and pissing in potted plants because the principal was too cheap to hire enough protection. But for those who had the right stuff, and stuck it out and worked their way up the ladder, there were the gigs the rookies dreamed about, and a man could make a decent living with his earnings and still have a good time on the boss’s dime.

This was a pretty good gig. A real world threat, which helped to keep everything in focus and get a bit of the old adrenaline flowing. The pay was very good. Harrison and Ford were pulling down one thousand dollars a day each plus their minimal expenses, and Miller was a good team leader. Harrison and Ford, in their private conversations, had given him a thumbs-up and another for the second in command, Charley Payne. They thought that there should be more BGs on the detail, but agreed that whoever was footing the bill had hired the very best, and having four of the best beat having eight of the second team.

He paused to look up at the little hill. All in all, it was a good gig.

Marie Garvais studied the man walking the perimeter. She wore night-vision goggles that dropped down over her eyes and rendered everything she saw in shades of green. The ambient light from the stars and the nearby streetlights was sufficient to illuminate her target brightly. The MP-5 submachine gun she carried had three illumination sources mounted beneath the barrel: a high-powered flashlight, a laser designator, and an infrared light. She could choose which one she wanted by sliding the fingers of her support hand along the forearm stock of the MP-5 and pushing one of three pressure switches.

Marie noted that the man wasn’t wearing night vision or carrying a long gun. She’d have been surprised if he had, as he was a civilian providing protection, or so her intelligence briefing had told her. She looked over at the rest of her team. Isabelle lay flat on the grass with her
partner, a Frenchman named Andre, and Marie’s partner, a Belgian named Dougard, lay beside her within arm’s reach. Marie was the planner, and she figured four operators with submachine guns, striking at night, were sufficient. So far they had only seen two bodyguards working, and the surveillance team had confirmed that they had only seen two bodyguards as well. A ratio of two-to-one was close; she would have preferred three-to-one, but chose to rely on speed and violence of action, like any good special operator.

And of course, surprise.

Marie watched the man stroll along the grounds and go around the back of the Victorian house. She waited till she saw the flare of light as he opened the back door to go back in, then signaled silently to her team. The assassins drew up on line, shoulder to shoulder with five meters between them, and began their stealthy approach to the house. They approached from the side of the house, skirting the little hill that provided them some cover from observation, and moved carefully from shadow to shadow, submachine guns at the ready, fingers hovering over their infrared illumination switches. They moved like deadly shadows, figures of the night stalking carefully forward, the muzzles of their weapons tracking each possible location for an opponent.

The team came on line at the side of the house, where the shadows came together from the lights on the front and rear of the house.

They were ready.

Harrison took a bottle of water out of the kitchen refrigerator and walked down the hallway to where Ford sat outside Uday’s room.

“Here you go, bro,” he said, handing his partner the bottle of water. “You got to take a leak?”

“Yeah,” Ford said. “Thanks.”

Ford took the bottle of water and set it down beside the chair, stood and stretched the kinks out, then walked down the hallway to the handicap-accessible bathroom. He went in and turned on the light.

The light from the bathroom window washed over Isabelle and Andre; the sudden brightness caused a flare in their night-vision optics, causing Andre to stumble for a moment and catch himself with one hand against the wall of the house.

Ford felt rather than heard the contact outside the bathroom. He zipped up his fly and turned off the light, then slipped back into the hallway.

“There’s someone outside,” he hissed to Harrison. “Right outside the bathroom window.”

Harrison drew his pistol, then opened the door and looked in at Uday—who slept soundly—then stood outside the door, his pistol held in a low ready. Ford drew his own pistol and went swiftly down the hallway and opened the door into the converted bedroom. He shook Dale’s foot and said, “Dale? We’ve got company.”

Dale sat bolt upright, blinking off his sleep. His transition from sleep to alertness was instantaneous. He slid his feet into his semilaced boots and stood up. Charley was right with him, opening his eyes first and taking it all in, then sliding his own shoes on. The two of them were already dressed in loose-fitting street clothes under their light blankets.

Dale opened the closet and took out two civilian AR-15s with short barrels and a flashlight mounted beneath each barrel. He handed one to Ford and one to Charley. The two operators took the carbines and charged the weapons, pulling the handles back and letting them go forward with sharp clacks.

“Those are stoked with hollow points,” Dale said. “They’ll break up in the walls, so remember that if you have to shoot through anything.”

“Roger that,” Ford said. He ducked back out into the hallway. Harrison saw him coming and nodded.

Charley and Dale came out into the hallway, weapons at the ready. They moved quietly and quickly to vantage points in the
hallway, then crouched down with their weapons covering the back door and the front entranceway.

They were ready.

Outside, Marie cursed silently. Andre covered the lit bathroom window, which went out quickly. Marie took stock of the team, all in position, and weighed her options. There was no sign of an alarm or any indication that someone had heard Andre fall against the building. She briefly considered calling it off to be safe and coming back another night, but dismissed the thought. She waved the team forward and they moved in a cautious line behind her as she went around the side of the house to the rear kitchen door. She paused, then carefully, setting each foot down delicately, mounted the stairs to the back door. She tried the handle. Locked. The doorjamb was reinforced, as she had expected. She covered the door with her submachine gun and waved Dougard forward and pointed at the lock.