Scott Roarke 03 - Executive Command (41 page)

The three Black Hawks bore down on the target.

Directly above the Brazil-Paraguay border; about the midpoint in the Paraná, the lead helo cut to port side, flew another six hundred yards, then banked starboard, cutting over the Paraná Country Club. Twenty seconds later, another starboard turn brought it dead on to the southwest wall of Ibrahim Haddad’s compound.

Black Hawk Two made a coordinated mirror move up the river, with a sweep that put it on course for the northeast courtyard wall. Black Hawk Three had a straight-in flight path to the largest and lowest point, the southeast wall.

The moonless night, the noise suppression, and the perfectly coordinated maneuvering allowed the SEALs to sneak up on the target, manned with guards who were ready to leave their posts and unprepared for the surprise assault.

“It’s going to unfold fast from here on,” J3 explained. At this moment, he was more general again than vice president.

“They’ll hit exactly at the same time. The first copter will hover a few feet above the courtyard, drawing attention. Two and three will sit higher, and the SEALs will rappel down. Based on the intelligence and live pictures, they each have a specific target. The objective is to eliminate the external threats first and swiftly proceed inside.”

Katie now wished she weren’t there. This was too real; too scary for her. The president sensed her fear. He rose and walked around the table. “Scott’s only job is to report back to me,” Taylor whispered. “His audio is being fed to the computer in front of you. When this is over, you’ll be able to IM him. He’ll see it on a heads-up display.”

Katie reached back and took the president’s hand.

Haddad’s three-story compound provided natural objectives and some real problems. Surprise was the most important element, but surprise never dictated how real people would react. That was the X factor computers couldn’t plot. An added unknown—the civilian on the property. B.D. Coons radioed down the line to identify the non-com and remove him from the kill zone. If necessary by force. It added a variable that he did not like.

A red light flashed at the cargo doors of the Black Hawk. Time.

Roarke wanted to be part of the first wave, but that was not to be. He was in Black Hawk Two under orders to hold back.

It happened quickly. “They’re dropping now,” Roarke narrated for the White House. He described how Shayne rappelled down from Black Hawk Three, followed by SEALs Steve Smoller, Joe Hilton, and Anthony Formichelli. All coordinated; all focused on their specific target.

Meanwhile, the same was happening diagonally across from Roarke’s helicopter with Commander B.D. Coons’s team from Black Hawk One. The third-story master suite blocked much of his view, but he described what he could. “Team One hitting the deck and firing. Obstructed view, but seeing flashes. One fully in play. Three same. Hard targets being neutralized.”

The
snakebot
videos and the satellite images told the White House even more. In fifteen seconds, three teams took out all the men in the courtyard; kills that would never need their reliefs.

Roarke’s Black Hawk Two moved clear of the perimeter, taking up a position one hundred yards away and four hundred feet up. He had a clear view of the compound and continued his reports.

On ground, the objective was to get inside. Team One’s Walter Canby fired a M203 Grenade Launcher, underslung to his rifle. The single 40mm shot blew out the sidewall to the first floor, creating a much more dramatic way to enter than the door.

Two other SEALs followed the blast through the wall. Guns ready. But Canby had done the work for them. Three of Haddad’s men were dead on the floor and another on the stairway leading to the second floor.

The exact same move came from under Black Hawk Two’s squad when Formichelli fired his grenade launcher and opened up the northeast living room. Not that anyone in there was still living.

“Through second wall,” Roarke radioed. “SEALs taking up position in the courtyard. Others converging inside. More shots from first floor.”

It was apparent from his coverage that Roarke was itching to be in the middle of the action.

Commentary from Coons added to the coverage. “Ground floor secure. Eleven confirmed kills. Two floors to go. Sidekick cleared to proceed.”

Katie watched breathlessly 5,300 miles away as Roarke’s helmet cam went live.

“Roger,” Roarke replied.

Roarke’s UH-60 moved back into position. Through his point of view Katie saw a line check and then a fast rappel to the courtyard. The sight of the ground rushing up made her gasp. She felt like she was there with him.

“On ground,” Roarke called in.

This was too intense for Katie. She was virtually watching through Roarke’s eyes. Hearing the gunshots. Seeing the carnage. Too much.

“I can’t,” she cried.

Attorney General Eve Goldman grabbed her arm.

“It’s okay, go outside.”

Katie nodded and exhaled a cleansing breath. “I’ll be okay.”

Goldman glanced over to the president and gave him an indication that Katie needed attention. The president returned to her side and pulled up a chair next to her. He put his arm on her shoulder and softly said, “He’s going to be okay. He’s the last man in and we’ll see to it that he’s the first out. How about that?”

Katie turned and said, “Please.”

The team converged on the first floor. They stepped over bodies and body parts, around shattered glass and utterly destroyed furniture. Three SEALs tagged items that they’d take home. That meant anything that might have intelligence value—computers, memory sticks, papers, cell phones, answering machines. Anything. The small items went into a duffle bag. The larger prizes would be hauled out by the other team members. On his own discreet channel Formichelli verbally logged what he saw, including three pizza boxes strewn across the floor with tomato sauce indistinguishable from the enemies’ blood.

Moving to the second floor, Shayne was surprised to meet less resistance. Two guards rushed out of adjoining rooms. They’d been shocked awake barely twenty-two seconds earlier. The moment they hit the hallway the SEALs gave them a way to make up for the sleep they missed.

Four seconds later, Black Hawk Two’s Rob Perlman and Jim Kaplan met on the first landing taking the lead up the next flight.

One by one, the shocked enemy combatants, no match for SEALs, fell. A drunk guard urgently and unsuccessfully trying to dial his cell. The cook with a knife. Another sentry on a toilet break. Another reaching for his gun.

There were all eliminated from humankind with extreme prejudice. None with the honor of a national hero. All destined to die because of the man who hired them. Some shot so cleanly it would be hard to find the bullet entry point. Others who lost their heads with a blast of the Benelli M4 Super 90 shotgun in the hands of SEALs from each copter.

Roarke cautiously followed the SEALs. As they made their way up to the second landing he realized he was not providing the commentary promised.

“Cleared the ground floor. Two minutes in. Sirens beginning outside.”

D’Angelo was very aware of the sirens. But thanks to the preparation by the advance team, the main road would be relatively impassable, buying extra minutes.

The SEALs scoped the second floor. Without speaking, Coons pointed,
There, there, there, there.
Four fingers. Four nods from his men. And with his command, four more of Haddad’s men would not go home tonight. It seemed like the only lucky ones would be those late for the guard shift change.

Next, the third floor. Here, resistance was stronger. Higher ground.

“We’re pinned down. I count six guards protecting the bedroom. Need cover. Hang on.”

Suddenly they were off the game plan. The SEALs were pinned down and cut off.

“Count?” Coons shouted to his men. “Whoever has a target.”

“One to the left top,” Shayne called out.

“Got another to right. Behind a post,” yelled Kaplan.

“Two more. One at the door to the right of the stairs, another firing from a room down the hall,” added Perlman.

“Saw a shadow duck into room at the end of the hall,” Formichelli said.

Two more SEALs reported what they saw.

“Enterprise, what do you see inside the bedroom?”

D’Angelo brought his binoculars into focus on the room. “Can’t say.”

Coons signaled to Shayne to take care of the easiest problems. The men directly above who had them immediately pinned down.

“Formichelli, Canby, left-right. He pointed to the cross shots for the men carrying the grenade launchers.

Affirmative nods. They backed down the steps. The guards above continued to fire across the hall, hitting the plaster on the walls and the stairs, but not the SEALs.

On the second floor landing, Formichelli and Canby took aim. It wasn’t going to be pretty. But it was going to be effective. A fraction of a second later, two dead guards fell through the holes in the floor created by the firepower of the M203s.

With momentary quiet Shayne heard a transmission from MacDill.

“Any sign of Target Alpha?” asked Command.

“Negative,” answered Shayne. “Stand by.”

Those in the Situation Room watched it all via live, hi-def, streaming video. Only one other administration had witnessed such similar startling video. It was a world apart from the way war used to be fought. And it was episodic, hypnotic, and compelling.

“I’ll take a new count,” yelled Coons.

The report came immediately. Four visible; others unseen.

The captain checked his watch. It had seemed like an hour. But so far, only four minutes.

“Let’s light up the tower, Dog One. Southwest,” Shayne keyed into his mic.

“Roger that,” Milt Frome, the pilot of the Black Hawk One responded.

Captain Frome eased his helo back 250 yards, targeted the roof of the third floor, and let loose with his two machine guns.

In ten seconds, twenty-five hundred rounds plowed into and across the roof. Portions of it caved in over the hall. The remaining guards on the third floor scrambled for safety. But there was none within the crosshairs of the Navy SEALs.

For the first time since the men rappelled, there was quiet.

“Up to the third floor,” Roarke radioed. “Visible assets taken out. Alpha ahead.”

The SEALs stepped over bodies on the stairs that would remain there until the local police got through. They took a particularly large step over two dead, one on top of another, their blood flowing down to the second floor landing below.

Coons silently signaled for Shayne and Smoller to flank the door to the master bedroom suite ahead, ten feet on either side. This was the scenario they’d run dozens of times in the Virginia Beach mockup.

Now Shayne held up five fingers for his men to see; then squeezed them into a solid fist. He held that in the air, getting nods from his forward team. Roarke remained behind him.

Ascertaining that everyone was ready, he returned to a five finger count, each second dropping one finger starting with his thumb.

On four, Shayne and Smoller took aim on their cross shots. On three, Shayne aimed his HK MP5 at the left side of the door frame and the hinges. Smoller had the lock and the right side. On two, they took a deep breath. On one, they released and fired.

It was an unbelievable experience for Katie Kessler. She witnessed the SEALs’ precision kills. She watched as they meticulously pushed forward, eliminating the enemy, blowing down walls and floors, taking strides over dead bodies. She stopped counting at fifteen. Katie jumped at the thundering noise as part of the roof collapsed under the heavy fire from the Black Hawk. And now she grabbed Eve Goldman’s hand hard, preparing herself for the worst. This was beyond anything she had ever been subjected to; a horrific reality playing out on video monitors, Bose speakers, and computer screens. Death everywhere.

The 9mm rounds spit out of the submachine guns at a rate of 800 rounds per minute. But coming from two SEALs simultaneously, it only required ten seconds and roughly 528 rounds. What had been a solid oak door splintered away, looking like it had been devoured by a Japanese movie monster. On plus eleven seconds, facing no immediate resistance, Shayne and Smoller moved in and cross-scanned their quadrants. The four other SEALs on the stairs proceeded forward.

“No resistance,” Roarke whispered. He followed the assault team up the stairs. Out of sight—six other SEALs downstairs. There were pulling computers and files into the courtyard and transferring the cache into metal litters which were lifted up to Black Hawk Two.

As the smoke cleared in what had been a bedroom and office, it was apparent that the second phase of the operation was complete. Maybe not exactly to script, but complete.

Ibrahim Haddad was dead. He was sprawled across his desk; shards of wood and shrapnel from the door were lodged in his body. His head was dangling off the end of his workspace.

“We’re clear,” reported Shayne.

“Clear,” added Smoller.

Coons entered the room. “Alpha down. Repeat, Alpha is down.”

Roarke added the grace note. “Haddad is dead.”

The rest of the squad carefully surveyed the room. “Three on the floor,” Shayne said. He checked for signs of life. There were none. Coons okayed the techies in the squad to secure the computers. A Sony desktop computer had crashed on the floor. An Apple laptop was open and still running on a coffee table. Both would be transported to the helicopters along with a room safe that was beside the bed and four file cabinets.

Roarke walked around the desk to examine Haddad. He gasped at the sight.

“Oh, God! Coons! Come over here.”

Roarke’s helmet cam broadcast the picture to the White House before the SEAL leader saw it.

Coons crossed the room never expecting a discovery like this.

Roarke radioed D’Angelo. “Enterprise, are you still with me?”

“Enterprise here.”

“Subject is dead.”

“Roger that, Sidekick. Caught the traffic.”

“But not by us.”

The president’s first thought watching the live streaming video was
Poetic Justice.
Then came
who
and
when
, which were the same questions the SEALs had.

Roarke knew. It was crystal clear. As crystal clear as the half-empty three-litre water bottle stuffed into Haddad’s mouth and sealed tightly around his head and nose with duct tape.

“He drowned to death,” Roarke reported. “Likely only minutes ago.”

D’Angelo cut in. “The pizza man. Damnit. I should have realized.”

“Realized what?” Roarke asked.

“The British guy at the hotel. The teacher. Wasn’t British and wasn’t a teacher!”

“Cooper,” Roarke declared.

“Cooper,” D’Angelo confirmed.

He moved closer. Haddad’s eyes bulged out in fear; fear and desperation. He was a man not prepared to die tonight, at least not this way. He was a murderer himself who was incapable of fighting off a killer so personally intent on revenge.

“Shit!” Roarke bolted upright. “He’s still gotta be here.”

Roarke ran out of the room.

“Careful, soldier,” Coons yelled. The commander told his SEALs to continue their mop up and joined the Secret Service agent on the hunt.

Katie stood up; her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands.

Roarke and Coons ran down the stairs nearly tripping over a body between the third and second floors. When they reached the first floor, Roarke scanned the premises. The ST-6 team members assigned to removal were shuttling take-away to Black Hawk One.

Suddenly a distinct picture came to Roarke.

“Quick, back up!” he shouted.

Roarke took two steps at a time, making the first flight in three seconds. Four more leaps and he was there. At
the
body he had stepped over moments earlier. At the single body where there had been two dead men; one on top of another only minutes before.

“Enterprise, Cooper is alive! Scan the second floor.”

“On it!”

D’Angelo trained his Night Optics USA/TG-7 Digital Thermal Imaging Binoculars on the windows and porches. Nothing.

Meanwhile, MacDill, listening on the comm line, remotely redirected the
snakebots
to the second floor.

“No movement, Sidekick,” D’Angelo reported.

“Stadium reports negative as well.” The second view came from MacDill, code named
Stadium
for the mission.

“Back me up,” Roarke said to Coons.

Katie tightened her grip on Eve Goldman’s arm. She shot an anguished glare at the president who had assured her Roarke would be fine. Now, Roarke was fully in the mix of it and no one could put her mind to rest. Not until he got out safely.

Coons radioed for additional support. Formichelli and Smoller rushed down from Haddad’s suite. They took signals from Coons and lined up on two sides of a second floor door, one of three.

Weapons at the ready, night vision goggles on, they moved forward. Formichelli, on the right, turned the knob and pushed the unlocked door open. Smoller knelt down and angled into the room at a lower perspective. Coons, standing, scanned the opposite side high. Roarke moved forward in the center, following Shayne’s hand signs.

No heat signatures on the infrared. The team edged forward in complete synchronization. Nobody in the public space. Nobody in the single closet. No one under the bed. And the window was locked.

They backed out the same way they entered, then proceeded to the neighboring bedroom in the same manner.

“Clear,” Coons whispered. He motioned for his men to check the bathroom.

“Clear,” they responded thirty seconds later.

One more room. Shayne gave the signal silently. Palm down. Go slow. They moved even more cautiously. High, low, cross covering the room. Roarke was prepared to fire, to end his chase once and for all.

“There!” Roarke spotted the open window. He broke rank and ran forward. No ledge. Two floors up. He calculated the jump.
Twenty, maybe twenty-two feet.
Then he heard some rustling below and to the left.

“I need eyes over there!” He pointed. Formichelli came up to the northwest window and peered out where Roarke was pointing. He caught a man on the run. He was on his way into the woods, some thirty yards away.

“Enterprise, moving north on the ground, your three o’clock!” Roarke shouted.

D’Angelo blew a confirmation into his microphone saving the time to speak.

It didn’t matter. Roarke jumped the two stories concentrating on not breaking his legs.

The ground looked as if it were rushing up again. It was. Katie gasped; then screamed as the view jostled and went out of focus.

Roarke cushioned his jump rolling on the ground. Safe, he sprung to his feet and radioed, “Dog Two what do you see?” Dog Two was the second Black Hawk.

“On point, sir. Recovering the packages,” the pilot said. The same response came from the other helicopters when Roarke asked if they could pick up the target.

“Enterprise?”

“Catching up.”

Roarke ran at breakneck speed toward the Paraná River, Cooper’s obvious destination.

He cut through the woods. Branches slapped at his face. Night vision would have helped him on the moonless night. Now he relied on the crunching sound of leaves ahead of him and his own personal radar—skill.

Roarke checked his constantly updating position against D’Angelo’s. They both showed up as blips on his handheld PDA dubbed DAGR for Defense Advanced GPS Receiver He saw that D’Angelo was not going to be able to close the distance. Cooper kept up maximum distance between them. But the sound was getting louder to Roarke. He was gaining on his prey.

Richard Cooper always had an exit strategy. Sometimes it was a quick-change disguise. Other times, a diversion; a shot in the air, an explosion; a scream. He lived longer because he planned his escapes to the same detail that he planned his assassinations.

This time he had a Zodiac 150 horsepower inflatable launch ready. He jumped in his hidden craft, powered up, and set a straight course for Ciudad del Este where he could disappear among the other thieves and murderers.

“Damnit. I need help here!” Roarke exclaimed. “Calling an audible. Someone get me authorization.”

Command could see exactly where he was. The trouble was authorization. Black Hawk One, nearly packed, could rise, swing east, and pick him up in the basket at river’s edge. But it would cost time and it was not on the playlist.

“Mr. President, Stadium is asking how you want to respond?”

Morgan Taylor quickly got thumbs down and negative nods from Jack Evans and Secretary Grigoryan. Secretary of State Huret felt he didn’t have a vote.

“The mission was the kill and exfil with the computers and files. That has been accomplished. Mr. President, let’s get everyone out as planned,” Evans stated.

“J3? Your vote? The man tried to kill you. If we abandon the pursuit your life will still be at risk,” Morgan Taylor asked.

“Yes, Mr. President, but I agree with Jack. Get the boys out. Get them out now.”

Katie, however, realized that the decision made in the Situation Room would not deter Scott Roarke. Not now. Not ever.

“Mr. President, I want Scott out, too. But if you don’t help him, he’ll do it on his own. So you better back him up.”

As right as she might be about Scott, the president made a decision for the sake of the mission. “Everyone gets out now. That’s an order.” Roarke was alive and Morgan Taylor wanted to keep it that way.

“Stadium,” the vice president stated over the line, “Tell Sidekick to return for extraction.”

“Yes, sir,” came the relieved response from Vice Admiral Gunning at MacDill AFB. He also wanted his SEALs safely out. “Affirmative.”

The order was relayed to Roarke.

“Negative, Stadium. Need to pursue.”

“Repeat, return to Field Goal.”

“Negative, Stadium,” Roarke repeated. “New objective in view.”

“Overruled Sidekick.”

Roarke understood what
overruled
meant. His request went to the top. “Damn,” he said aloud.

Just then, Roarke heard another boat coming up river and a flashlilght signaling in Morse Code:
…/../-.././-.-/../-.-./-.-

Sidekick.

D’Angelo had commandeered a docked Pride Cheetah Ski Boat powered by a 115 Mercury outboard motor. Just another thing stolen in the crime capital of South America. He honed in on Roarke on his DAGR. A half minute later, Roarke was his passenger in pursuit of Richard Cooper.