Viper Team Seven (The Viper Team Seven Series Book 1) (30 page)

“Your usefulness
for me has expired,” Siraj spat back. “As for vun Buvka, my usefulness to him
will be expired as well, in only a few hours. But, I will be remembered. You
will not if you make me kill you here.”

“I do not
understand. I am just an underling for vun Buvka. I don’t even pretend to have the
prestigious position that you do. No matter what happens, I will never be remembered
as you will be. And you really expect me to believe your vain threats about
killing me? I am not a child.”

Siraj took his
eyes off the man’s face and looked at the terrorist on the table who was staring
off into space and not saying a word. “You’ll keep him,” he decided, as anger
began to rise in him.

That’s when his
anger, frustration, and fear overcame him, driving him to gun-whip the sleeper
agent over the head.

Thursday, March 20
^th
– 1800 hours

JTTF Field Office, El Paso, Texas

“Mr. Somers,”
someone said, peeking his head in through the conference room doorway, “you
need to see this.”

The person was
ordered into the room and a small yellow paper was handed to Somers. As soon as
the man had entered the room, he left, and the agent-in-charge began to look
over the message.

“Hmmm. The nine
terrorists have nested,” he whispered just loud enough so all of the room’s
occupants could hear. “Everyone’s joined the party,” he then told Parks in a
normal tone of voice. “We don’t know how long they’ll be there so you’d better
get moving.”

“We will sir.”

“Oh, and
remember, you radio in and report to us about your success.”

Parks promised
he would and then he waved a finger as a goodbye and headed with his team out
for the van.

We’re goin’
in
, he thought to himself as the unusually-chilling evening air hit his
face.
Finally,
we’re goin’ in
.

After rechecking
the equipment a final time, Parks was certain that they had everything they
needed. He swung into the driver’s seat and started the van.

“You know how to
get to the house, right?” Solomon checked as he slammed the passenger’s side
door.

“Yeah. I’ve been
through that neighborhood once or twice I think. I lived here for two years,
you know.” Then Parks added, “I don’t remember that exact house though.”

Solomon didn’t
say anything more. He looked at the fogged over window – thanks to the
untypically cold day – and began to draw a smiley face with his finger. And he
didn’t just draw one; he drew five or six before he smiled to himself with
contentment.

“What are you
doing?” Parks questioned his deputy as he looked at the drawings.

“Nothin’,”
Solomon assured. “Nothin’ at all.”

Parks shook his
head and looked for the turnoff. When he found it, he turned onto it and began
to increase speed.

“Greg,” Parks
started, “I’m going to need you to find any and all escape routes that the
terrorists could use. Our teams will be in position, waiting while you’re doing
that. We won’t move in until you come and report to me. Got it?”

“Yeah, I do,”
Norse replied.

“Everyone
remember what has to be done?” Parks asked his team. “If anyone has any
questions, now is the time to ask.”

Every man seemed to understand his task so Parks kept quiet and
concentrated on driving. He knew the neighborhood was approaching fast, and he
needed to park a safe distance away. He decided he’d drive by the house once so
he could get a final lay of the land before they stormed it.

*          *          *

Parks tossed
Solomon an M4 and then grabbed one for himself. The team was a block away from
the sleeper’s house and Parks was distributing all of the equipment before they
broke off into the two teams.

“Everyone got
enough bullets?” he questioned as he took in a long breath. “Better too many
than too few.”

“I’ve got enough
to choke a horse,” Solomon declared, readjusting the carbine slung on his
shoulder. “I think we all do.”

“All right
then,” Parks approved, “Solomon, sneak your team up to the front door. Duck
down behind that hedge, and wait to move until I give the radio signal. When I
do, bust open the door and by then my team will join up with yours. If for some
reason we don’t make it in time, go ahead with the plans anyway. Got it?”

“I got it. Let’s
do it.”

Solomon gave
Parks’ shoulder a hard slap and then ordered his team – which consisted of Marler,
Corley, and Lee – to follow him.

Parks sent Norse
out to check on the escape routes and then he and Samuels took the long
roundabout way to the house. The route allowed them to skirt around and end up
on the west side of the house where all the windows faced. The blinds were all
pulled down so he couldn’t see into the house. He could see the light that
penetrated through them though. A red Suburban was parked in the driveway and
Parks hoped that meant the terrorists and the sleeper agent were still there.

Several minutes
later, Norse came running up and skidded on the grass next to Parks.

“Find anything?”
Parks demanded.

“No,” Norse
responded, out of breath. “There ain’t nothing. No sewers, tunnels, nothing. I
knew there wouldn’t be.”

“It sure didn’t
take you long to look. You’re sure you searched everywhere?” Parks asked,
knowing that Norse had argued about the necessity of having to look for escape
routes.

“I said, there
was nothing,” Norse snapped. “And that means there’s nothing.”

Parks nodded and
double-checked everything just to make sure that nothing would go wrong.
Everything appeared to be okay so he looked at the other two to see if they
were ready. Their gas masks were already strapped on and a thumbs-up from both
of them told him that it was time to begin.

He took in a
deep breath and aimed the grenade launcher at the top, right window. His plan
was to shoot two grenades into all four windows, going clockwise, and then run
to the front door double-quick to meet up with Solomon. He had gone over this
in his mind many times and he knew what to do.

Without a
further thought, he pulled the trigger twice and dropped down to the bottom
right window and did the same. Then he scooted to the bottom left, repeated the
process, and finally moved to the top left window and emptied the last two
grenades into the house.

“Let’s go!” he
yelled as he stood up and bolted for the door.

As he ran he
reached for his radio and shouted for Solomon to bust open the door. He then
struggled to pull on his gas mask and grasp a concussion grenade for each hand.
He heard grenades from Solomon’s team go off inside the house just as he began
to come onto the driveway. He pulled the pin on his right grenade and threw it
through the open door. He slid up to the threshold and without pausing, pulled
the pin on his last grenade and tossed it into the smoking, chaotic house.

“Come on guys!”
he shouted as he slung his carbine from off his shoulder and into a ready
position.

Parks dove into
the house and rolled on his right shoulder to what he hoped would be a safe
hallway. A second later, he popped his head up and looked around for a target.
When he found nothing, he jumped up and rolled into the living room, followed
by his entire team who were ready to shower any moving thing with bullets.

Parks’ eyes
darted to the left where he found a man in the dining room, hunched over a table,
puking violently. The terrorist pulled out a pistol and fired at Parks. Parks
didn’t even bother to aim for him, he just fired off several rounds in the
man’s general direction. He figured that his shots – coupled with the dozens of
rounds fired from his team – would do the job.

It obviously did
because Parks saw the man’s hands fly to his neck, and then his stomach. Finally
he jerked to the floor and lay motionless.

Parks immediately
searched for another terrorist, and that’s when he took sight of the man on the
table. He too was armed and firing at the team. Quickly and precisely this time,
Parks dispatched the man. Parks rolled on his side and scanned up the stairs
and around the second story. To his utter surprise it seemed that no one else
was around.

Using an arm
motion for one man to come with him, Parks tore up the stairs and kicked open
the master bedroom’s door. The room was clear.

Feeling a sense
of uneasiness spread over him, he doubled back to the loft and found that room
was also lifeless.

Parks didn’t
bother to take the stairs down when he decided that he needed to get back to
the main floor. He swung himself over the railing in the loft and hit hard on
the first floor.

Solomon ran up
with a couple guys trailing him from the back rooms and he shook his head. “The
rooms are clear back there!” he yelled to Parks. Even while screaming at the
top of his lungs, his voice was muffled and barely decipherable. “Which is
weird because I saw more guys in here when I first busted open the door!”

Parks didn’t
need to read the clock on the wall to know that he had to get his team out of
there fast. Time was running out but question marks kept on filling his mind as
to where the terrorists were if not there. He knew he needed to make a quick
decision. He could either take the risk of staying in the house and search for
the terrorists, or he could get out and assume they were gone.

“Search
everywhere!” he ordered. “We’ve got two minutes, so let’s find them!”

The team searched
through the entire house. When the two minutes elapsed, it became obvious that
the terrorists were indeed gone. With dread Parks motioned for his team to
follow him.

Parks ran out
the door and stopped only to retrieve his black utility hat that he had thrown
off while he was putting on his gas mask. No one waited for him. They were all
running at top speed back to the van.

Parks started to
run after them, and he glanced back over his shoulder to look at the house. He
couldn’t believe what had happened. In fact, he wasn’t sure what had happened.
He was positive that was the sleeper’s house, but why then were there only two
men inside? Where were the others Solomon had seen?

Then he made the
connection. In the heat of the battle he hadn’t really wondered why one of the
men was on a table. But now he knew why, and also who he was. It had to be the
terrorist with the wounded leg, and the small man standing by the table must
have been trying to doctor him. That man was the sleeper agent.

A sick feeling rose from deep inside Parks. He had just let the
terrorists escape and now they were free to carry out their operation. And
Parks had no idea where that would take place.

*          *          *

Siraj now had
only a few concerns. He had picked up the C4 and the vehicle and was now safely
heading for San Antonio. But he couldn’t help but worry about getting across
the Border Patrol checkpoints that guarded every major highway. He was debating
whether he should take a back country road around them, or if he should just
try going through them. Both options were extremely risky and dangerous.

He also worried
about the Viper Team Seven that vun Buvka had warned him about. He knew they were
following. They had to be. He and his men had managed to escape from the house
just as the team had begun to storm it. But if this counterterrorism team was
as good as vun Buvka had said, they could take his team out quickly if they
ever found them again.

Then, like an
ocean wave, the same feeling of dread and fear swept over him. He didn’t want
to die. He did want to kill Americans but he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to
do that at the cost of his life. He didn’t feel like he was a coward. Nor did
he carry any shame about his feelings. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to be one
of those “suicide bombers” that the American news always talked about.

Siraj knew that
if he were going to back out it would have to be now. Yet he wasn’t certain how
he could when seven of his partners – just as skillfully trained as he was –
were in the backseats ready to stop him. Siraj didn’t want to hinder their
success; he just wanted out of the deal himself. But what then? The FBI would
surely be on the hunt for him, and he couldn’t hide. He couldn’t go back to the
Middle East – facing the FBI would be a more pleasurable fate than that.

The more he thought, the more sure he became of the fact that he didn’t
want any part in this scheme. Somehow he had to find a way to escape without
ruining the others’ plans. But as of yet, how to do so was still a mystery to
him.

*          *          *

“STRONGHOLD,
this is VIPER ALPHA, do you copy? Over.” Parks was on his way back to Biggs and
he was radioing in to the JTTF Field Office to explain the bad news.
“STRONGHOLD, this is VIPER ALPHA, do you copy? Over.”

“VIPER ALPHA, go
ahead, this is STRONGHOLD. Over,” a woman said on the other end of the radio.

“Look, I’ve got
bad news. Break,” Parks started out, wishing he didn’t have to say this. “We
stormed the house and everything went fine. Break. Only one thing. Not all of
the terrorists were in the house, only the sleeper and the wounded man were.
Over.”

“Oh no.”

“STRONGHOLD,
listen. Sleeper and Wounded are back in the house; we took them out. Break. We
need to intercept the others before they get to their target. Break. Could you
have some of your FBI guys take a look around the house and see if they can
find an escape route that the terrorists would have used? Over.”

Parks knew that
the terrorists could not have left the house any regular way without the CIA
team knowing about it. It was impossible. The only way for them to have escaped
without being seen was for them to have gotten out via some underground tunnel.
The sleeper agent must have parked a vehicle that no one else had seen – maybe
one that was stored in his garage out of sight – by the end of that tunnel so
the terrorists could use it. It made perfect sense. The sleeper’s red Suburban had
stayed in the driveway, making everything look normal, and then he’d given a
hidden vehicle that no one would recognize to the terrorists.

After explaining
that, Parks told the woman where he was heading. “My team and I are heading to
Biggs. We’re going to stay there and wait until the terrorists are found and
then we’ll fly to an intercepting point. Break. Let’s hope they don’t intend to
strike in El Paso.”

The response was
long in coming. “All right, VIPER ALPHA, we’ll keep you informed. Over.”

“Sounds good,
STRONGHOLD. Thanks. Out.”

Parks dropped
the radio and put both hands on the wheel.