Operation Sheba (29 page)

Chapter Forty-Four

Allah is great.

Raissi thought of his son, too young to die and too young to live alone in a country torn apart by war. There were only those two choices for his son and so many other young men. Death by either was inevitable. What was a father to do? Take his son with him? Or leave him behind?

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Raissi pulled in a deep breath. So much was at stake now he had to be sure, as the messenger of his faith and his country, that he didn’t lose his concentration. He stopped pacing, gathered his posture erect. Drawing in another deep breath, he closed his eyes and pictured himself completing the final two objectives of his plan. Envisioned himself, tall and proud, speaking not only to America, but to the world, with Muammar, his son, by his side. The newsman, Heller, would be there within a half hour. Raissi would wait until dawn, when Americans were waking up to their morning news, to give them something newsworthy.

Another breath and he focused his thoughts on the speech itself.

Keep it simple.

Keep it short.

End with a bang.

Julia knelt in the woods and uncovered her tote bag from the pile of leaves and brush. Finding her penlight, she turned it on, brushed the last of the wet leaves off the bag and started moving toward Michael’s house. She wasn’t as worried this time about making noise, but she still moved as stealthily as possible. Buchanan had the edge of the woods and the path to the lake staffed with his men and women for security purposes, and while the windbreaker with FBI in bold yellow letters across the back might keep her from being shot by one of them, she was still treading on very dangerous ground.

As she maneuvered through the trees, keeping the flashlight’s beam pointed at the ground, she thought about the twists and turns her life had taken in the course of the last few days as well as the last few years. There had been a lot of pain and grief, but there’d also been a lot of peace and happiness. She had felt great passion and great heartbreak. She had survived everything the world had thrown at her and, more than survived, she had thrived in her life. She had defended the innocent and worked passionately at keeping her country safe. She knew what it felt like to love and be loved by two good men.

Listening to the wind whisper in the leaves above her, she decided her life had been a good one overall, and if she had to die in these early morning hours, it would be okay. She would take the chance if she could save Michael.

She reached under her shirt and pulled the mic off her stomach and the transmitter off her back and shoved them in her bag. She had to do this and there was no way Conrad would understand. “Sorry, Con,” she whispered in the dark. She knew Raissi and didn’t trust him. The terrorist had cut his teeth on military strategy and had studied the FBI and SEAL team tactics for years. Julia was sure he would wait until Heller got in the door and the SEALs were descending on him and then blow everybody to kingdom come. But she could create a diversion and prevent that, giving Buchanan’s men and the SEALs much better odds.

Her cell phone vibrated on her hip again. Julia shut off the penlight, turned her phone off and slowed her steps as she neared the tree line. Raising the night vision goggles, she looked for security officers and found none in her general vicinity. She checked her watch and saw it had taken almost twenty minutes to cut through the woods. The HRT snipers would already be in position. She was running out of time.

Setting her bag on the ground, she felt for the tools she would need to get into the house and pocketed them. Then she edged closer to the property line, lay on her stomach and watched the area through her binoculars, keeping her body shielded behind a tree. Several human shapes showed up on her lenses in various spots around the property within her view. Like her, Buchanan’s team was laying low.

She saw Pongo, standing up in his kennel on alert. He seemed to be looking right at her. She moved closer and heard his soft whine. He definitely knew she was there. The faint smell of cigarette smoke made her shift her gaze to the balcony. One of the glass French doors was open. Raissi’s man was enjoying a last smoke, and Julia wondered at his stupidity to expose himself to a sniper’s bullet for such a pleasure.

A second later, the secure radio headset she was wearing crackled in her ear. Then a man’s voice. “Bluebell, this is Morning Glory,” Lt. Diamond murmured. “Do you read? This is a test. Over.”

Nick Worley’s voice responded, “Roger, Morning Glory. We read you loud and clear.”

Diamond continued his test until all SEALs and HRT personnel had responded.

“Take positions,” Diamond’s voice commanded. “Helo due in four. Bluebell out.”

Julia looked through the darkness at the spot, ten feet in front of her, where Pongo now paced, stopping to scratch at the kennel’s wire fence. The sound of her pulse pounded over the blood roaring in her ears. She was about to take the biggest chance of her life, and she suddenly felt like she was back in her dream, sinking in quicksand.

Drawing in her breath, Julia forced herself to think of the things she loved.

Music, poetry, sex
. Breathe.

Cherry blossoms, emerald earrings, hot showers
. Breathe.

Michael’s smile. The brush of Conrad’s fingertips down my back
. Breathe.

Cognac
and poker. April in Paris
.

She stopped her mental list and blew her breath slowly out through her lips.

It was raining again, or was the wetness on her face tears? She wiped it away with the heels of her hands and pulled a flattened cinnamon roll out of her pocket. The balcony terrorist had tossed the last of his cigarette over the railing and disappeared back into the bedroom. “Hi, Pongo,” she whispered to the dog and laid the roll on the ground.

She definitely had his attention. He wagged his stubby tail and danced in circles, lifting his front legs up and spinning. “Hang tight, buddy.”

Pulling her iPod out, she slid it into the pocket of her portable armband. She used this when she was exercising to listen to her music. Now it was going to help her distract Raissi.

She shimmied a few steps back into the woods and ran through the trees ten yards south, using her binoculars to locate the laser beam base unit partially hidden by some landscaping at the southwest corner of the property. The laser unit sent out two electronic beams to the northwest end and was mounted to the post of a solar landscaping light. Julia Velcroed the armband into a circle and lifted her binoculars to the balcony’s doors. No sign of the terrorist. He’d probably left his post for a pee or to find another cigarette.

She dropped to her belly and crawled through the small muddy ravine. Coming up to the stones and bushes of the landscaping, she dropped the iPod over the post, knocking the beams out and, hunched over, ran back across the ravine and into the woods.

“What the
hell
,” Conrad said, barely above a whisper as he watched Julia run down the hill through his night-vision goggles.

Smitty crouched on the ground nearby. “What’s she doing?” It was too dark to see anything without his binoculars which were missing, and Conrad had their only pair of goggles.

“She’s setting off the house alarm.” Conrad’s voice was flat.

“Why?”

Conrad handed the binoculars to Smitty. “To create a distraction. She’s going in.”

“I knew she would. Didn’t I call it?”

Conrad was up off the ground and moving in the blink of an eye. Stealthily, but quickly, he began to move in between trees. Smitty moved behind him. “You can’t go after her, Con,” he whispered.

Conrad registered Smitty’s comment but kept moving. All his senses were trained on Julia. He was never going to get to her before she went in the kennel and his mind was ticking through his options.

“Conrad!” Smitty grabbed his shoulder.

Conrad pulled away, intent on his quest. Smitty tackled him from behind, sending both of them crashing face down in the slimy, wet undergrowth of the woods. Conrad brought an elbow back and caught Smith on the side of the head.

“Ouch,” Smitty barked, giving Conrad a hard shove as he moved off of him and stood up. “What the hell’s the matter with you? You cannot go after her.” His breath was coming fast and he reached down to help Conrad to his feet. Wiping slime off his pants, he rubbed the side of his head with his left hand.

“You don’t understand.” Conrad took a step backwards.

“I do understand. You love her. But you have to know when to let go, Con. You have to put your emotions aside this time. Julia just made a choice. She’s chosen Stone.”

Conrad cursed, slamming his hand against the nearest tree. He stood for a moment, letting the fact sink in. Damn, his stomach hurt. It didn’t matter what choice she’d made, he wasn’t ready to let her go. Not again.

She’s mine
.

He looked at his best friend. “I don’t care who she’s chosen. I have to go after her.” He stuck his hand out. “Take care, Ryan.”

Smitty put his hands on his hips. “Oh fuck, Conrad. You’re both going to get blown to kingdom come. Don’t do this to me.”

“I’ll be damned.” Conrad stared at his partner. “You have been hanging out with me too much. You’re swearing like a true sailor.”

“Conrad,” Smitty started, but Conrad was already running toward the edge of the tree line. Ahead of them, a floodlight came on. Smitty ran after him.

Neither man was expecting the blows that knocked them both to the ground. Conrad, his head ringing from the side attack, felt a knee dig into his back as his assailant pushed him face down into the mud and leaves and handcuffed his hands in two swift movements. He’d been so distracted thinking about Julia, he’d been taken by surprise.

“State your names and business,” the man said in a low voice next to his ear.

Conrad spit debris from his mouth. “CIA operator Conrad Flynn. Special assignment for Titus Allen, confidential.”

Smitty confirmed the same, God bless him, and the man, a SEAL Con guessed, radioed in to his boss.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Conrad said into the muck under his face.

“Ditto,” came Smitty’s reply.

Julia didn’t stop to watch the floodlight over the balcony light up the hillside or see the guard slide open the balcony door and raise his AK-47 at the woods where she had emerged and then disappeared again. She sprinted past trees and pushed aside saplings as she ran back up the hill parallel to Pongo’s kennel. In her ears, she heard the HRT and SEALs addressing each other, trying to figure out what was happening, and she knew inside the house, Raissi was doing the same.

If he sent his men out to look for her and remove the block from the laser unit, they would be easy targets for the HRT to pick off. If he didn’t send them to investigate and remove the iPod, he would leave himself open to attack on the west side even if he left the alarm system activated. If he left the alarm system activated, the constant blare would put him and his men on edge. If he deactivated it, the whole property would be vulnerable to intruders.

As partial chaos distracted both sides, Julia pulled the headset off her ears and laid it on her neck. She cut across the few feet of side yard, hunched over to avoid the camera mounted above the dog kennel and fell on her knees to greet an ecstatic Pongo.

Chapter Forty-Five

Michael, hope racing though his veins, recited the alarm’s deactivation code to Fayez Raissi, and watched as the terrorist entered the numbers on the keypad with one hand while pointing a handgun at him with the other. The house’s pulsing alarm stopped as Raissi’s men radioed in from their various locations throughout the house. They saw nothing, heard nothing to indicate the FBI was moving on them. None knew why the alarm was triggered. Muammar watched the video screens and shook his head at his boss. He spoke to Raissi in what Michael thought was a Pakistani dialect, but his meaning was clear. Nothing unusual showed there either.

“It could have been a raccoon,” Michael volunteered, “or skunk. Animals often trip the sensors.” But he knew it wasn’t a nocturnal animal that had breeched the tripwires.

Raissi ignored him, moving to stand over Muammar’s shoulder and studying the video coming in from the cameras. Again he contacted each of his men stationed around the house and again the reply was the same. No one had seen anything.

Moving back to the keypad, Raissi reactivated the alarm. The pulsing resumed and Raissi narrowed his eyes at Michael.

Michael continued to offer reasons. “Maybe a tree branch blew down and is blocking the wire sensors. You’ll have to send one of your men out to move it if you want to keep the system activated.”

Raissi studied the video monitor for a moment, and even Michael could see there was no tree branch or other object blocking the wires. He guessed one of the base units had been damaged, but if the HRT had taken out one, why not the others? Why were they not storming the house?

“The system could be malfunctioning,” Michael said, still trying to divert Raissi’s brain from suspecting a failed rescue attempt, and his own as well.

Raissi moved to Brad Kinnick and pulled him up off the couch. Removing a KA-BAR from a leg holster, Raissi sliced the duct tape from Brad’s wrists, while holding the gun level with his temple. “You will check the tripwire base units on the west side,” he told Brad. “The man upstairs will have his gun trained on you. If you try to run or cause any distraction”—he pointed the end of his gun toward Michael’s chest again—“your boss dies, you die, everybody dies. Understand?”

Brad locked eyes with Michael, and he nodded. “I understand.”

Agent Koburn kept her rifle’s night-vision scope trained on the balcony terrorist even as the men talking on her headset demanded to know what was happening in her corner of the world. The backyard’s floodlight was on and she’d had more than one opportunity to take out the gun-slinging terrorist on the balcony’s deck but had not been given the okay from her boss to do so. “I saw nothing before the light came on,” she spoke into her headset. “Tango on balcony smoked a cigarette, threw it out and disappeared into the dark bedroom. He only reappeared when the floodlight activated. He’s antsy now, watching the backyard with his finger on the trigger. He is in full view. Orders?”

Buchanan ordered her to stand down and sweep the yard with her scope to see if she could see any reason for the security light to be on. Elaina did as ordered and just as she was ready to return her rifle scope to the balcony, she saw the back door of the house open. A man, as broad as a linebacker for the Steelers and dressed like a Secret Service agent, stepped out from the shadows and made his way across the yard. Elaina knew in an instant this was security officer Brad Kinnick. She’d seen his picture ID along with the others. On the balcony, cigarette man kept his AK-47 trained on Brad’s back.

Her finger itching to pull the trigger, Elaina drew a deep breath and relayed what she saw into the mic of her headset. She identified Brad and described his advance across the property. He scanned the trees, the ravine and the yard before stopping at the southwest corner. As he crouched and examined the laser tripwire base unit, she saw him pull something from the post. He rose, turning the item over in his hands.

Watching him through her scope, Elaina zoomed in on his hands. The floodlight was still on, and even in the far corner of the yard, it gave plenty of light for her to identify the object Brad was looking at. She had an identical one in her backpack.

“There was an iPod in an arm holster hung over the base unit,” she told Buchanan. “Kinnick has removed it from the post and is returning to the house.”

Diamond’s voice now came to Elaina. “Repeat, Rosemary. Did you say an iPod? Over.”

Earlier, Elaina had thought she’d heard movement in the woods off to her right. She’d taken her eye from the scope for only a second, but had seen nothing nearby. It was most likely one of her own team members, but Elaina wondered where the CIA analyst, Abigail Quinn, had disappeared to, if she were in the woods with the HRT watching the impending takedown. Elaina liked the spook. In fact, she understood quite well Abigail’s need to be off the bench and in the middle of the playing field. She’d always been the same way and on many levels it galled her that she and other women in her ranks were as skilled as the SEALs but could never be one of them. Someday, she hoped to see that rectified.

The appearance of the iPod confirmed Elaina’s suspicions. Agent Quinn was indeed in the middle of the playing field. No one but a spook would pull such a stupid maneuver. “I repeat, an iPod in an arm holster.” She watched Kinnick disappear into the house. She wondered if Agent Buchanan was thinking the same thing as she was. “Orders, sir?”

Buchanan’s voice, calm and clear, came back to her. “Everyone remain engaged but do not move until my command. Helo will land in two minutes. Proceed as planned.”

In the distance, Elaina heard the sound of helicopter blades.

She was in.

Julia had given Pongo the first cinnamon roll and cut the outside rubber curtain off at the top of the doggie door before Agent Buchanan had radioed the team’s sniper and asked her to scope out the grounds. She’d spit in her hands, rubbed them together and stuck them like suction cups to the Plexiglas door and slid it up before Elaina had responded.

Even through the Plexiglas, Julia had heard the house’s alarm blaring a warning. She’d paused, her ears straining to hear movement over the rhythmic alarm on the other side of the second rubber curtain. Cautiously, she’d pulled the inside curtain through the hole and checked for tripwires crossing the entrance. There were none. She’d pushed herself through the doggie door, given Pongo the other cinnamon roll, and shut the Plexiglas to keep him out, letting the rubber curtain fall back into place.

Hearing voices in the kitchen, Julia crouched in the unlit mudroom connecting the garage to the main house. Several of Michael’s jackets hung on one wall. A basket of dog toys sat at the end of a barn board bench. Rubber boots and an assortment of Michael’s favorite running shoes were lined up on black rubber mats just inside the garage door. A stacked washer and dryer sat silent next to the bench.

Julia listened as one of the terrorists gave someone else instructions and the familiar voice of Brad Kinnick responded. Raissi was sending him out to check the tripwires and see what the problem was. There was rustling by the back door, it opened and the screen door screeched. Julia sat tight, scrunching down and holding her breath. She pulled the headset back onto her head and listened to Elaina Koburn describe Brad’s trek through the yard and the identification of her iPod. She heard the screen door screech again. Brad said nothing, but she heard his footsteps as well as the terrorist’s leave the kitchen as Agent Buchanan’s voice on her headset told everyone to proceed as planned.

Removing her gun from her waistband, she moved quickly and quietly into the kitchen. She slipped past the refrigerator and between the cooking island and the sink. At the back door, she noticed Raissi’s man had left a sheet of Semtex on the threshold. Carefully, she removed the blasting cap from the sheet and stuck it in the fridge. She checked the windows and found wires that she knew led to bricks of C-4. These she left alone. It would take too much time and there was too much risk involved in disabling those.

A moment later, she opened the Plexiglas door and brought Pongo inside. As she descended the carpeted stairs to the basement on cat feet, her hand holding his collar securely, she heard the distinctive
thump, thump, thump
of helicopter blades.

“This was hung on the solar light post,” Brad said, holding out something in his hand to Raissi. “It was blocking the sensor for the tripwire.”

When Michael saw the iPod his heart slammed like a sledgehammer against his ribs.
Abigail.

Julia.

What the hell was she doing?

But he knew the answer. She was letting him know she was there.

Raissi examined the iPod and met Michael’s gaze for a brief moment. If he thought the arrival of the iPod strange, he didn’t show it. He simply dropped it on the desk and moved to the security panel to deactivate the alarm.

In the abrupt silence, Michael heard a helicopter nearing his home. While Raissi reset the alarm, Muammar duct-taped Brad’s hands again. Michael caught his security guard’s gaze, and Brad winked at him over Muammar’s shoulder.

Michael dropped his attention to the carpet and felt his heart continuing to pound like a sledgehammer, its rhythm matching the approaching helicopter’s thumping blades.

Julia.
Jesus, what was she doing?

Worley and Harris lay on the ground at the edge of the woods, waiting for the HRT sniper to drop the dog.

Worley and Harris were pissed, but neither let it interfere with their concentration. They were supposed to be in the house already, in position, but the little stunt someone had played setting off the security alarm and the floodlights had delayed their secret entrance into the house. Now they’d be a few seconds behind everyone else but it wouldn’t matter. Raissi was going down.

IR thermal imaging showed the hostages were in the northeastern quadrant of the house, all contained in Michael Stone’s study, and all sitting down. No telltale signs of bombs rigged to their bodies could be seen.

Two human figures could be observed standing and moving freely around the room. Two more on the main level covered the front and back doors. One upstairs guarded the balcony. Tangos. With guns, but similarly free of body explosives.

Lt. Diamond advised his men of the location and the apparent lack of booby-trapped bodies. The two SEALs shared a quiet high-five.

And then, as the men returned their vigilance to the kennel, the dog disappeared into the house.

Koburn’s voice spoke in their ears, addressing Buchanan. “The dog has been taken into the house. Do you copy? Over.”

Buchanan was silent for a long moment. “This is Bluebell. I copy. Proceed as planned.”

Worley and Harris took off for the kennel. They had just found the cut rubber curtain when a somewhat familiar, but out-of-place voice came over their headsets. They both froze.

“Special Agent Buchanan,” the woman’s voice said, “listen closely. The odds we talked about are now stacked in your favor. I have removed Semtex from the back door that enters the kitchen, but there are wires across the downstairs windows attached to bricks of C4. Ditto on the basement windows and probably those on the second floor. Do not, I repeat,
do not
send the SEALs in through the windows. Come in through the back door. It’s clean and unlocked. Do you copy?”

“Agent Quinn!” For the first time, Buchanan raised his voice. “Get the hell out of there. You are jeopardizing this mission.”

“Your mission needs to be a covert operation, no guns going off until your men have Raissi in their sights, no explosions. Do not let Heller approach the house or drop anyone on the roof,” she continued. “I’m about to give you all the diversion you need to simply walk in the kitchen door and resolve this conflict. Are you ready? Here it comes.”

A microsecond later, the house went dark.

Another microsecond and Buchanan’s voice came through loud and clear. “Back door. Go!”

Worley and Harris crawled back out of the kennel and, staying low to the ground, entered the back door.