“Copy that, Jackrabbit, we’ve got eyes on you. We’ll alert you to anything in your way, over.”

  Jack kept the ride casual. There was no point in shaving thirty seconds off a ten-minute ETA. He could draw attention to himself or get into an accident that might take him out of the game. They were on a three-hour clock, but he had to think it was longer than that. Even if the Russians could get in country from their base in Syria in three hours, it would take time for them to get into position. That should add a minimum thirty minutes to the deadline, if not an hour.

  The Russian Spetsnaz Special Forces units were good at what they did, though brutal. There were no rules of engagement when it came to these guys. They were a shoot first, maybe ask questions later type of organization. If they killed hostages, they weren’t really concerned. As long as the bad guys were dead, they considered it a successful mission. Because of their lack of concern for consequences, the bastards could HALO jump straight into the neighborhood and hit the location within minutes.

  Langley’s theory was that the Russians had used their contacts in Tehran to find out the location of their hostages, and while that had apparently worked, he had to believe somebody in Tehran wouldn’t be happy about having their brothers in arms slaughtered by the Russians. The question was, what would they do about it? Nothing, like their religious and political masters would want, or would they warn their Yemeni brothers of what was coming?

  He chewed his cheek for a moment. There was a third option he hadn’t considered, nor, by the sounds of it, had Langley. What if the Russians weren’t coming in to assault a location at all? What if this was a handover? The Russians land at the appointed hour, the Houthis bring the two Russian hostages to them, and off they go. No guns, no bullets, no nothing.

  If that were the case, in theory, it shouldn’t affect the timeline at all. The concern back home, which he agreed with, was a surprise assault on one of the five locations would have the Houthis assuming all five were about to be targeted, so they would liquidate the hostages as punishment for daring to attempt to rescue them. But if everyone knew the Russians were coming, then there would be no reason. And that made a lot more sense than an attack which risked the lives of the hostages the Russian president, no doubt, wanted on TV tonight as a sign of Russian superiority.

  The more he thought about it, the more confident he became in his theory. But he needed a second opinion. “Control, Jackrabbit. I wanna run something by you.”

  39 |

  The Unit Fort Liberty, North Carolina

  Maggie pulled into the Unit’s parking lot, finding it fairly full. If the enemy ever wanted to know a major op was underway, eyes on the parking lot would be one good way of determining that. She supposed the only nations they had to worry about would be those with eyes in the sky, which was fairly limited. Russia and China for sure were monitoring Liberty, but she had no idea if North Korea or Iran had satellites. She would check just to satisfy her own curiosity.

  When she had first taken a job on the base, she was barely into her twenties. She had no interest in world politics and knew little about anything military. It wasn’t until she landed the position as Colonel Clancy’s assistant that she had taken an interest, prompted by something he had said to her in her first week.

  “Feel free to ask me any question you couldn’t have answered yourself.”

  At the time, she thought it had been rather mean. But now that she knew the man, she realized that wasn’t his intention at all. He was just busy, extremely busy, and didn’t have time for stupid questions like, why are we so concerned about what China’s doing in the South China Sea? Or, in today’s case, what’s a Houthi? All this information was out there. Anyone could get their own questions answered. They just had to be careful of the source.

  If it was on social media, it was probably a lie, or at least heavily slanted to one side. And if a friend told you, no matter how good a friend they were, you didn’t know what their source was. You had to go on to reputable news sites. They were still out there, especially non-American sites. Wikipedia was usually good for general information, though for things highly political in nature, it was worthwhile checking the edit history to see what back and forth was occurring between left and right, pro and anti. But a lot of things were just common sense. How could it possibly be good for Russia to conquer Ukraine, for example? How could you possibly think Israel doesn’t have the right to defend itself?

  Today, she would do whatever Clancy needed, though she suspected that would be little, and in her downtime, she would read up on everything she could find about the Houthis and Iran’s proxy war against Israel, the West, and what they called her own country, the Great Satan.

  She entered the building and cleared security, then headed for her boss’ office. She entered and found it empty, including his inner office. He was probably at one of the ops centers. She sat behind her desk and logged into her computer, prepping herself so she could respond quickly should the need arise. She sent a text to Clancy, letting him know she was here, and he responded moments later.

  Knock knock.

  She peered at the message, confused, and the door opened, Clancy poking his head in.

  “Sorry, couldn’t resist. The timing was too perfect.”

  She giggled and rose. “Does the fact you’re not in an ops center mean things have calmed down?”

  He stepped inside and closed the door, taking a seat in front of her desk. “Not how I would characterize it. It’s more the calm before the storm. All Delta units in the area assigned to hostage rescue have been seconded to the CIA.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Why’s that?”

  “That’s normal in these situations. We’re dealing with intelligence assets on the ground and from multiple nations. What a lot of people don’t realize is that the intelligence agencies of the world operate on a different level than the militaries. Militaries have to back their government’s political positions, whereas intelligence agencies don’t. They often do what’s best for the country, despite what the politicians would want. Agency head to agency head conversations will be a lot more honest and frank than between any two generals and certainly any two politicians.

  “It’s why you see a CIA director over in the Middle East involved in hostage negotiations. It’s because he can deal with the Egyptians, the Israelis, the Qataris, the Iranians, in a different way than the Secretary of State. In a situation like today’s, time is of the essence, and while the Pentagon could conduct an assault very rapidly, as soon as you get other nations involved, especially those outside of NATO, it tends to slow things down dramatically.

  “With the Russians and Chinese involved, things could slow to a crawl, and those poor girls don’t have time for us to negotiate with each other before we go in to save them. CIA, MI6, FSB, whoever it happens to be, can actually get things done much quicker because any negotiations are behind the scenes, never to be made public. Everything’s off the record. Don’t worry. You know as well as I do that our boys are in good hands.”

  “Whose Control Actual?”

  “Leroux.”

  Her shoulder sagged with relief. “Thank God. BD says he’s the best.”

  “I don’t know if I should be offended.”

  Maggie giggled. “I’m sure he meant at the CIA.”

  Clancy flashed a grin. “I’m sure he did. Anyway, like I said before, there’s not much for you to do here beyond getting a huge jumpstart on tomorrow. Now that things have settled down and we’re in the intelligence phase of the operation, I actually just sent everybody home.” He struggled and failed to stifle a yawn. “In fact, I’m heading home., and I suggest you do the same.”

  “I don’t think I could sleep.”

  He smiled at her. “Listen, I’ll put you on the call list so that if anything happens, you’re notified and you can get back in right away. At the moment, it looks like there’ll be nothing going on from an action standpoint for at least two hours. I suggest you go home, try to get some rest.”

  She frowned. The colonel was right. Her being here was pointless, and all she was doing was stressing herself out. And if the current op was finished from a Delta Control perspective, there was nothing she could really find out to set her mind at ease. “You’re right, of course. I’m going to head home. But if you need me, don’t hesitate to call.”

  “I won’t.” Clancy rose, as did she. “Now, get yourself home, get some sleep, and don’t worry about BD and the others right now. They’re on a ship out at sea, nowhere near the danger. When they’re going in, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.”

  He held open the door for her and she stepped into the corridor. “See you in a little while.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He closed the door, leaving her alone, though she wasn’t, the corridor filled with people just furloughed from the operation, everyone making a break for the parking lot before the situation changed and they had to go back into the ops center. She followed them out and forced a yawn in the hopes it might make her sleepy as she headed to her car. It didn’t work. There was no way she was sleeping, it was too early in the day and she had a decent rest last night.

  But she had the sense the next twenty-four hours would be hectic, fraying her nerves to no end.

  She had to at least try.

  40 |

  Operations Center 2, CIA Headquarters Langley, Virginia

  Leroux leaned back and stretched as they watched Jack and the others move into position on the second location. A map of the capital city, Sana’a, occupied the righthand side of the massive display, almost 2,000 red dots shown, each with a light red cone surrounding it, giving a possible range around the cellphone tower where the calls to and from Hostage Site Charlie had originated.

  Unfortunately, right now, they were looking at over a third of the city. A cluster of cones surrounded Jack’s destination, and their messenger had already arrived at a third location, also surrounded by a cluster. If she kept going, all the clusters on the screen could consolidate into specific target buildings. They could then focus in on them and review satellite and drone footage of when the hostages were being transferred. If they were lucky, within the next hour or so, they might have all five sites.

  But they had to get lucky.

  “I’ve got them,” announced Therrien from the back of the room. Leroux glanced over his shoulder to see the man pointing at the display. Leroux rose and smiled as footage played showing several burka-clad women and two men the computer identified as having been on the boats, hurrying into a building, the same one Jack was about to arrive at.

  He turned to Tong. “Let Jack know that we’ve confirmed this is one of the target buildings. Let’s redirect him to the third location. There’s no point in wasting time now that we know they’re there.” Tong raised a thumb as she activated her comms. Leroux’s eyes darted over to the map, several red dots having just disappeared. He pointed. “Explain.”

  Child replied. “I analyzed the data and all three were calls made to the same phone, but it was a single call over several minutes. It’s clearly somebody on a bike or in a car. The start and finish could be a target so I didn’t eliminate those, but the others, they’re definitely somebody in transit.”

  “Good thinking.” Leroux turned to the room. “Everybody watch for patterns like that. Every one of those dots we can eliminate is another one we don’t have to waste time on.”

  Packman tapped at his keyboard then gestured toward the display. “The Russians just cleared Syrian airspace. ETA two-point-five hours.”

  Leroux frowned. “You heard the man. Two-point-five hours.” He turned to the back of the room. “Marc, have you figured out what group of hostages you just found?”

  “Echo group.”

  “Nationalities?”

  “A Brit, an Indian, and a Canadian.”

  “Okay. Send that to the task force. The Canadians and the Brits can figure out who they want to send in. Now let’s see if we got lucky on target number three. We need to find the Russian hostages before they arrive. If we can put eyes on them, we might be able to figure out what’s actually going on. Is it an assault or a handover? Because, like Jack said, that could change everything.”

  41 |

  USS Roosevelt Red Sea

  Dawson stood on one side of the smart table, detailed imagery of their target displayed, the computer piecing together drone and satellite imagery along with photos and video taken by Jack, Sherrie, and the Yemeni asset. It gave them a 3D view of exactly what they would be facing. But inside was a black box. The building had no windows. There was a door on the front and on the back, and that was it.

  They would be going in blind.

  The enemy had already shown it had tunneling capability. They had to expect that once they were through those doors, they could be facing an extensive underground complex. The leader was there, and he was there for a reason. This was their headquarters. Dawson, for the moment, was more concerned with how they would reach the location undetected.

  “If we could go in at night, things would be a whole lot easier,” said Red from the other side of the table.

  Dawson agreed. “That’s why it’s so critical Langley finds those Russian hostages. If we see them being taken from the location, then it’s a handover. If we see the Russians heading to the location, it’s most likely an assault.”

  “If only the bastards would stop thinking of just themselves and let us know what the hell’s going on.”

  Dawson brought up a map of the area and indicated the capital. “If we insert at night, we can come in pretty much anywhere except in the immediate vicinity of the city. But if it’s daytime, we’re going to either have to insert well outside the city, or take choppers in to each location.”

  “And we have to assume they’ve got lookouts throughout the city watching the skies, especially right now, when they know we’ll be coming.”

  Dawson had to agree with his second in command. “We can’t use choppers for insertion. We’ll be spotted from the ground almost immediately. We’ll have to reserve those for extraction after the shit’s already hit the fan.”

  Niner peered at a display on the wall showing pictures of all five groups of hostages. “Do you think the Russians would be heartless enough to leave behind the French girl that’s with their two citizens?”

  “Considering the French just said they’d be open to sending NATO troops into Ukraine, my guess is if they know she’s French, she’s not part of any deal. But if they go in on an assault, they’ll take her with them and use her as a PR weapon against the French government. The French have deferred to the Brits for any extraction of their citizens, though I have a feeling that was decided before they knew who she was partnered with.”

  “And the fact the Russians are going in.”

  “Well, that’s not our problem. We’re concerned with Charlie Site and Charlie only. Wherever the Russians and this French girl are, it’s out of American hands. We just need to make sure everything’s coordinated. But if we identify that location before the Russians arrive, I wouldn’t be surprised if the French want to go in themselves, which screws up everything just as if the Russians went in.”

  Atlas frowned. “Is that a possibility? Could the French actually go in, ignoring our schedule?”

  “They do have a history of acting on their own, but we can’t worry about that for now. Whether it’s a Russian deadline or a French, who the hell knows? For now, my only concern is how do we get in there during the day and during the night? We need to have both contingencies ready.”

  “Well, considering we might have only two hours to figure out the daytime and four hours to figure out the night, I say let’s focus on the day.” Red pointed to a spot west of the city. “I say we insert by chopper here and hope Paladin can get us a ride.”

  Dawson rejected the idea. “You have to remember, it’s minimum two vehicles per extraction team. That’s assuming he can get SUVs, which are few and far between. Twelve men per team, extracting three hostages. We have to plan for fifteen. Now, in the heat of the battle, on the way out, we can have hostages on our laps. My guess is, we won’t be getting SUVs. At best, we’re doing two cars, and we have no idea what condition these cars are gonna be in.”

  Niner jerked a thumb at the massive Atlas. “We might have to fit eleven guys in one car if the shocks are shit. This guy’s gonna have rubber scraping tire wells.”

  “Keep in mind, time’s up in two hours. There’s no way Paladin can put together ten-plus vehicles in time.”

  “Then what are we going to do?”

  “I think we’re going to have to go in undercover.” Dawson scratched his chin. “I think we take a page out of the great film catalog of classic Nick Cage.”

  Niner brightened. “Please tell me they invented the face-off machine.”

  Dawson chuckled. “No, I was thinking more along the lines of Gone in 60 Seconds.”

  42 |

  Morrison’s Office, CIA Headquarters Langley, Virginia

  Morrison’s eyebrows shot up. “He wants to do what?”

  “We’re planning this on the fly. We don’t have a contingency for a massive operation like this in Yemen. We barely have any assets on the ground, and Paladin’s the only one who’s proven reliable. But he’s just one man. Even with Sherrie and Jack there, there’s no way they could acquire the ten to fifteen cars needed for this operation. There’s just no time. If we were going in on the Chinese deadline, or better yet, our own, in which we could take forty-eight hours, then things would be different, but on the Russian deadline, this is the only option. And if they’re going to do it, they have to do it now. Everybody has to do it now.”

 

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