Pacific Force, page 9
“That will possibly be evident only in retrospect,” he said. “For now, we have sufficient teams on call but around the edges of the city, plus this command post.”
“What do you have within fifty miles of One Chamberlain Square that might be a good primary target for Hoestler to hit?” Jake asked.
“Quite a number of facilities,” Steve replied carefully. “We have raised the alert status on several of them and had them bring in security patrols on their perimeters. If anyone attempts an attack, they will be prepared.”
“Nathaniel is not a terrorist,” Jake said.
“The devil you say, McNeil,” the Undersecretary slammed a hand angrily onto the table. “Hostage taking, bomb planting, assassinations. This man Hoestler is very much a terrorist and you had better begin thinking of him as such if you wish to remain part of this investigation.”
Jake closed his mouth on the theory that words unsaid right now wouldn’t have to be repeated in front of the Minister himself at a later date. Or an Ambassador. Or anybody important at the Palace.
Jake chose to simply ignore the outburst for now, rather than rising to the bait like a shark intent on tearing a hunk out of a swimmer. Much as he wanted to.
Oh, so much as he wanted to.
“Let us, for the sake of discussion, assume that Nathaniel has an operation in mind,” Jake offered to Steve. “He needs the authorities off-balance and removed from some location for a set period of time while he runs his op. Given the ubiquity of cellular phones, it will be a secured facility where nobody is allowed personal communications devices, probably one with an extremely small staff. Low profile, so he can get close, hit the place, and fade before anyone can react.”
“That does not narrow things down now, does it?” the Undersecretary replied, verging back over to his earlier bellicosity.
Jake again chose to ignore him, speaking for the crowd of soldiers and field officers around him, in the hopes that one of them might risk his or her career by speaking up right now.
“Nathaniel has always used a team of professional killers for things,” Jake continued. “Men who have been with him for years, know how to handle a gun, and when to rely on fists instead. Intimidation instead of bloodshed, which was why nobody ever put a significant-enough bounty on his head to bring him in.”
“Until you mercenaries decided to get involved,” the Undersecretary sniped.
“Mercenaries?” Jake rounded on the man again. He’d been pacing and was midway up the left now. “After our expenses, which weren’t much, the rest of the reward money for Nathaniel’s capture went to the JM Barrie fund. Children’s Hospitals, I believe is what they finance. We itemized our expenses, and they came in around roughly fifteen thousand pounds. What was Nathaniel worth that day?”
The last he fired at Grant, enough behind the Undersecretary to have that fuck-wit slightly surrounded, and maybe give him a small case of whiplash.
“Quarter of a million pounds,” Grant said simply.
Jake nodded and zeroed in hard on the Undersecretary
“That’s as much as I can tell you, without a better idea of where he’s going after,” Jake said flatly.
He returned to that first chair and sat.
“What do you need to know?” Steve asked, still standing and almost directly across the table from Jake now.
“Fifty-mile radius,” Jake said. “Facilities by location, purpose, and importance.”
“You are not cleared for that information,” the Undersecretary interrupted aggressively, again slapping his hand on the table.
That sort of thing probably worked with other civil servants he could bully. Jake just found it annoying and counter-productive.
“Not cleared?” he confirmed in a slow, almost mocking tone just this side of a sarcasm even an Englishman would appreciate.
The Undersecretary assumed an evil smile now.
“That is correct,” he intoned in a haughty, superior tone. “You people are civilian mercenaries and American. You are not even members of Her Majesty’s Forces.”
Jake considered things for a long moment. He nodded enthusiastically and turned to Hollyanne.
“He’s right, you know,” Jake said.
Her face had gone cold and still, so she understood what was coming. Just watching him for a cue.
Jake turned to the Undersecretary as he rose.
“I don’t believe that there is anything else we can do at this point,” Jake announced in a much brighter, breezier tone. “We’ve told you what we know. Hopefully, it will be sufficient. With that, we shall depart and return to Seattle. Good day.”
Rik was already moving before Spencer and Grant woke up and started walking. Hollyanne was out of her chair and in stride.
“What do you think you are doing?” the Undersecretary demanded loudly.
“Leaving,” Jake said distinctly. “This is, as you have said, your investigation. We are not privy to anything that might allow us to contribute. Best of luck.”
“I will not allow it!” the man thundered.
“That is entirely your choice.” Jake’s anger suffused him now. “Perhaps I should call Sir William at the Palace and ask him for an official opinion on your interpretation of the matter?”
If putting your feet up on a table was an insult, those words conveyed a level of deadly threat that sliced neatly through the fat man’s anger, real or not. Sir William might just have someone like the Permanent Undersecretary blackballed so brutally that taking an early retirement and getting a job tending bar for a publican in Inverness might be all he had left open to him.
Jake ignored the man now and whatever he wanted to say after that. Anything after this would begin with a formal apology and then get serious. Perhaps personal.
Jake was done.
He got into the Rover and leaned an arm and head out to literally snap his fingers at the men guarding the big door as Rik got the green beast in gear and began a sharp U-turn inside the garage, all five of them crammed in for now.
The sergeant glanced back at the main part of the group, got whatever approval he thought he needed, and let rip on the chain, opening it quickly.
The Rover emerged into mid-day gloom, and Rik floored it across the parking lot.
“Now what?” Grant asked after a few moments.
“Now, they get to decide how badly they want our help.” Hollyanne spoke before Jake could, but only to say the same thing with fewer sharp edges. “You’ll return with us to Solihull for now and maybe call some of your friends in London for updates, but we need to remain together. We can make arrangements for your other gear if we have to.”
“Should I update our transportation reservations for five?” Rik asked. “Just in case?”
“Yes,” Jake decided aloud. “I have a feeling that whatever they have planned is going to happen tonight. The bombmaker thought things were imminent when she sent her stuff on yesterday. Monday will be too busy for a good getaway.”
“We still gonna stop him? Rik asked.
“That’s no longer our call,” Jake said.
Then he lapsed into silence.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Nathaniel was having a bit of tea and something of a…well, not a nap, because he wasn’t asleep, so much as meditating quietly. He’d had to do that quite a bit in prison, focusing on quietness so that he didn’t give in and start ranting.
He hadn’t been the largest of the prisoners, nor the smallest. Perhaps among the highest profile within certain niche audiences.
Meditating was something he had learned to keep his sanity intact.
A knock at the door brought him fully to the surface of his mind. He was resting on a bed, seated upright against the headboard.
They were staying in a house that had been rented by an agency without ever meeting anyone in person. Just a credit rating, a credit card, and planning. Nathaniel had any number of perfectly serviceable identities he could use, the products of burrowing deep into the bowels of the internet in the very early days, when the Dark Web was still a wild west sort of place.
These days, at least every other person you were likely to find in such searches belonged to a government agency of some sort, and those tended to be much harder to subvert. Not impossible, mind you. Just a higher price.
The door opened and Lucky stuck his head in far enough to make eye contact. Nathaniel nodded and the man slipped in, closing the door behind him.
“Bit of a ruckus in Birmingham, sir,” he said without preamble. “You told me to pay attention, so I let the team know to be extra cautious.”
Nathaniel nodded. Lucky earning his stripes, as it were.
“What did they see?”
“Sniper team,” Lucky said with a shudder. “Close enough to our target zone that they aren’t random chance, but no significant build-up of forces otherwise.”
“What’s happening in London?” Nathaniel asked.
He had considered whether or not this mission needed to be scrubbed when the authorities got his bombmaker last night, but he couldn’t imagine that she’d have cracked so quickly. Must have left some sort of clue lying about and someone had guessed right.
If Jake was here, that was the sort of thing he routinely did, but he’d sent Grant ahead to scour London, never thinking to look up-country so quickly.
Because, truth be told, Nathaniel needed the money. Running a criminal enterprise like this required constant cash flow. Staff to maintain. Safe houses to keep. Bribes to pay.
Some days, he wondered if going straight would be less of a pain in the ass. A few early internet phreakers had paid their debts to society and then went about earning a living as security experts. ‘Captain Crunch’ was just one of the more famous.
Lucky was shifting his weight back and forth uncomfortably. Nathaniel’s face hardened.
“Can’t tell, sir,” the man said in his East End/East African sing-song. “Some of our contacts have gone missing today when we might have expected them to be at the pub or answering the phone. Others report a spot of busyness in places that should be slumbrous on a Sunday.”
Nathaniel was always a bit taken sideways when Lucky used such complicated language, but that innocent face concealed a great deal more formal education than was normal for the gang of hooligans Nathaniel had built and acquired.
“How so?”
“Lots of traffic inbound to certain ministry buildings we pay people to observe,” Lucky suggested. “On a Sunday. Normally, that suggests a major crisis requiring top players be consulted and make official rulings. You know, Whitehall and them folk peeing all over things so the scent is right.”
Nathaniel had to smile. Even with a woman in charge, not much had changed at the ranks below.
“On th’other hand, not much movement in the security folks what would be called upon if they were about to pop out of the woodwork,” Lucky continued. “Mayhap folks is already in place ’round Birmingham-way. Mayhap nobody knows better, but you specifically wanted a call at this time of day about whether we should scrub things and walk.”
Nathaniel nodded. He had. You always included a number of No/Go breakpoints in the plan, where it was necessary to determine if proceeding was a mistake.
Nothing had risen to that level so far. Grant Collingwood was in London, but that was part of Nathaniel’s plan, and would keep everyone’s focus south instead of north. Jake wouldn’t show up until Wednesday or so. Maybe sooner if Grant was in contact with the folks who had disappeared his bombmaker, but he’d still need a day in transit from Seattle. Longer if the others decided to come as well.
Time. He just needed twelve more hours and he’d be gone. Better, they’d never expect the way he was leaving, and he’d slip right through their net even if they did react in time.
“Anything stand out to you, Lucky?” Nathaniel asked now.
“No, sir,” the man hemmed a little. “Tight, but ya gotta almost be on top of us to intercept things, and we’d see that coming.”
“I agree,” Nathaniel decided. “Check in with both teams one last time and then we’ll go to radio silence if they haven’t seen any reason to stop.”
“On it.”
Nathaniel was alone again. Not unusual. Most of his team were poorly educated career criminals more at home at a pub with the telly tuned to a Premier match than to planning or accounting. Even Lucky was just better educated.
Nathaniel had no one with whom to share any portion of the burden of command and strategic operations. Not that he’d trust a spouse, but perhaps he needed a partner?
Where in the world did you find such a thing in this industry, though?
Certainly, something he’d need to consider, but not until Tuesday.
Right now, he needed to embarrass the British government yet again, draw a ransom with his right hand while selling his hostage with his left for a double payment, and then vanish into the night.
Maybe he needed to poke Jake next month, just to finally win one against the man. It had been twenty years stewing.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
Hollyanne was in the kitchen. Normally, she’d putter and maybe make cookies or something, just to have something to do and to dissipate the mad energy that had accumulated, but she wasn’t home and hadn’t felt like stopping at a market for the things missing from the rental.
They’d gotten curry instead and eaten. Spencer and Grant were busy doing their own forms of research, Grant on the back porch on the phone and Spencer in his bedroom, diving headlong into the electronic pathways of the world.
Jake had retired to the living room and was reading, last she looked.
Rik wandered in and sat at the small table.
“How stupid is the fat guy in the tie?” she asked right off the bat.
“Highly educated,” Hollyanne replied. “Excellent private schools. Eton and Oxford, but I’m not sure which college.”
She paused there as Rik smiled.
“No, he probably has never met anything like Jake,” Hollyanne continued. “Nor will he know what to do when his bluff has been called like that. Zero street smarts outside the ivory towers and marble halls.”
“They got any leverage on us they might use?” Rik perked up.
“Not off the top of my head,” Hollyanne decided. “They might send someone around to pick us up and haul us back to Northampton, but that would really piss Jake off, and the fat man’s head on a chopping block is probably the dead minimum Jake would demand for ever again taking another phone call from the government or the Palace. I suspect that several people are having a number of quiet conversations around the country right now.”
Rik nodded.
“Bear traps are ugly things,” she said. “Especially the ones marked Bear Trap in big neon letters. How soon until the boss accepts an apology or decides to blow town?”
Hollyanne paused on that one. That was the rub. Jake had been absolutely correct that Pacific Force, at the end of the day, were private vigilante mercenaries that worked for reward money.
But they required the assistance of the governments they worked with. If that was withdrawn, there were any number of ways that the same government might throw roadblocks in the way.
Of course, if those same governments could do these things themselves, they wouldn’t have needed Pacific Force in the first place. The US and UK had both—along with several others more quietly—militarized their responses to a number of issues and mostly done away with soft diplomacy over the last generation. Didn’t matter which party, both had decided that it was simply easier to bomb people than bothering to talk to them.
“How soon?” Hollyanne repeated as a way to gain a few seconds. “I don’t know. Someone really stuck his dick in this one, and I don’t think Jake’s willing to offer him an out that isn’t painful.”
“Yeah,” Rik said, rising suddenly. “Think I’ll go call the airport and ask them to standby on prepping the jet for a return flight. Pilot’s holed up at a nearby joint, but he knows us, so he’s sober enough to fly if we need. Or I could take command and get us in the air well enough for the autopilot to take over. Then he’s sobering up quickly enough.”
“When did you get multi-engine jet certified?” Hollyanne asked, shocked.
But then, she hadn’t spent that much time just with Rik in the last two years. With any of the boys, sure, but they had both been self-contained women, and neither of them did much socially. Only in the framework of Jake or Pacific Force.
Hollyanne decided that she needed to do something about that going forward.
“Last year.” Rik smiled as she made it to the door. “Needed something to do that got me out of Jake’s garage and hunting east of the mountains. Got enough friends and contacts that own jets that I could borrow for flight time to do it, just never wanted to own one. Too expensive a hobby, you know?”
“Says the woman who rebuilds cars and trucks constantly,” Hollyanne replied with a laugh.
“Still Jake’s money,” Rik laughed with her. “Or Pacific Force’s, which is the same thing. Let someone else spend theirs.”
“You never spend any of yours?” Hollyanne asked, a little surprised.
“Hardly any, no.” Rik was in the doorway now. “Got a job that pays reasonably and includes room and board, so it’s not like I need much. And I make as much of my gear as I might buy, so its raw materials and time mostly.”
“Huh,” Hollyanne said. “Good to know. There were a few times over the last couple of years where renting a jet and having a friend who could fly it would have saved me some grief. Might see if you want to take a girl’s vacation sometime.”
“I look horrible in a bikini.”
“Lies,” Hollyanne laughed. “You make great bikini bait when we need a buxom blonde to distract people. I’ve seen it.”
She watched the woman blush furiously now, but Rik didn’t argue. Hollyanne wouldn’t have given her an inch, anyway.
She just wasn’t into girls, and Rik didn’t like boys. But past that, Rik was just another one of the guys at the end of the day. Another big brother she’d known for twenty-odd years.
