The Infiltrator, page 15
All of this combines to ease Derek back. Not all the way. He can never fully release the alter ego, not in the field where he needs to be ready to meet a threat instantly. But it does take him away from the threshold. Just enough to let the tension drain from his muscles. For his nose to drink in the clean air and the smell of fresh pine. For his mind to relax, to slip around the wall and take a peek.
In those moments before sleep grabs him he thinks of Michael. Kim is there too, his longing to make things right with her ever present. Occasionally he remembers the happy moments with his father. But for the most part, Derek’s thoughts are of his boy.
Of protecting him. Raising him right. Caring for and loving and spending time with him. Soon. So soon. Once this mission is over Autumn’s Tithe will have been eradicated, and he can finally focus on what’s most important: getting back to his family and picking up the pieces.
14
Twenty-three days after entering the woods of Kentucky, Derek approaches TRP twelve from the north. The morning sun shines brightly. He had been moving since before dawn, his early start giving him an acute sense of his surroundings, as the birds and critters hadn’t risen yet. Now that the sun is up, he can see his objective clearly ahead.
At a thousand meters out he slows practically to a standstill. Every step is deliberately chosen. Every tree is a part of his cover. Every sound is as silent as possible.
A steep hill covered in trees and rocky outcroppings rises in front of him. Derek knows from his map and the intel brief that this is the key terrain feature marking the target reference point. On the other side of the hill will be the Saddle Oaks horse ranch. Lowering himself to the ground and lying prone, Derek searches out a suitable position. Seeing a tangle of brush fifty meters off to his right, he cradles his rifle across his chest and begins to painstakingly low-crawl.
Inch by inch Derek slides across the forest floor. He moves, a foot or so at a time, and then stops. Waiting. Watching. Listening. Looking for any sign of the enemy. Any sign that they have detected his approach.
It takes well over an hour to reach the brambles. With the same deliberate action, Derek slowly removes his pack. Holding his rifle in front of him with his right hand, and his pack by the carry handle in his left hand behind him, Derek shimmies and slides his way into and under the brush. Once sufficiently in the concealment, he keys up his radio.
“Central, this is Slingshot. LP, OP established just north of TRP twelve. Marking GPS and initiating surveillance now.”
After a moment the response crackles back in his ear. “Roger, Slingshot. Listening post and observation post established. Waiting on your signal.” Derek punches the requisite entry into his wrist-top computer. A blue dot emerges on his GPS map with rings emanating from it every ten seconds. “We’ve got you, Slingshot. Strong signal. Proceed.”
He waits. One hour. Two. Ants and other insects crawl over him. Down his sleeves. Across his gloves. Derek blinks away rivulets of sweat streaking into his eyes, refusing to move unless absolutely necessary. Confident in the coverage of the brush, he rocks onto his side ever so slowly and relieves himself before sliding back down into the prone position.
He radios in the passing of each hour so that they can adequately chronical the time and analyze any patterns in patrol lengths. Except no patrols come. Derek glasses the ridgeline at the top of the hill extending east and west from him in an attempt to locate any crow’s nests like the ones that were employed at the other camps. Nothing. He’s beginning to think he has another abandoned location, another victim fallen to the Kentucky economy, when a truck engine turns over.
Derek marks the time and calls it in, straining now to listen further. After the vehicle drives off he can just make out voices. Two men calling to each other. A woman’s shrill laugh. Perhaps children playing. At just before 8 a.m. it resembles the sounds of a site coming alive, although most functioning farms and ranches would have been well underway already.
“Central, Slingshot 6. No signs of any patrols or OPs. Confirmed there are people present at the TRP. I’m moving in for a closer look.”
“Slingshot, Grizzly 6,” comes Jason’s voice. “Copy. Proceed with caution.”
Low-crawling out from under the brush, he dons his pack again and moves as quickly and quietly as he can to the base of the hill. Ducking behind a thick oak, he glasses the ridgeline above with his rifle’s optic one more time before picking out the best route to ascend the steep hill. Derek spies a naturally occurring set of relatively feasible switchbacks and makes for them.
Like it is with all his other movements this close to a target, Derek ascends with a blend of stealth and speed as he works his way up in elevation. He takes only a few breaks, crouching low under a rock ledge or behind another tree wide enough to hide behind. Here he’ll catch his breath, gulp some water, and glass one more time before picking his next formation out and making for it.
At the top of the hill the land flattens out. Just to his south, directly ahead of him, Derek can see breaks through the trees. Thinking that must be the clearing where the horse ranch is located, he begins low-crawling again, this time toward the open air. Edging over to his right, Derek finds a rocky outcropping jutting between the roots of two tangled oaks to either side of it. He moves to the spot, wedging himself into the tight space. Derek smiles as his intuition proves correct. He has a clear line of sight to the ranch below.
As steep as the proceeding side of the ridge was, the southern face of it is practically a sheer cliff. The ridgeline continues off to his right, curling around to the west and then running south. Off to his left he can see where the land slopes down to the clearing below. While trees are scarce on the cliff face, a thick wood line of oaks and pines surrounds the ranch on three sides, with only the south laid bare.
Below Derek, two structures sit to either side of his position. On the right is an open-sided pavilion with a corrugated, peaked roof. Various pieces of aged and rusted-out farm equipment sit underneath it. To his left is a farmhouse, dilapidated and weathered. Where the roof doesn’t sag it lacks in shingles, and where it doesn’t lack in shingles it’s covered with moss and decay.
Adjacent and to the left of the farmhouse is a three-story grain silo. Pockets of the sides are missing and the sliding door at the top of the structure sits open. To the left of the silo are a pair of stables running parallel with the eastern edge of the property. Like the farmhouse, the stables show signs of disrepair. A number of the stalls are missing the top halves of their doors, and the red and white paint is faded and flaking. A pair of men come out of the farthest stable, one of them producing a pack of cigarettes that they both begin smoking.
A horizontal two-post wooden fence marks the eastern property line and runs behind the stables from north to south, where it links up with the same type of fence running east to west and marking the southern edge of the acreage. The east-west fence runs parallel to a gravel road, not a hard ball but not a dirt track either. It’s the latter that leads through the property from the access road.
Twisted like a crooked trident, one branch breaks east toward the stables. The middle branch runs mostly straight north from the road to the homestead, while the west branch leads to a circular corral on its south side before bending north to the pavilion. The corral is constructed of the same fencing as the rest of the property, save for it having three horizontal posts compared to the two everywhere else. Four children run around inside of it playing tag.
Derek takes in the scene, slowly panning his rifle around to look more closely at each building. It’s on his second pass that he notices something he missed. Tucked behind the southernmost stable is the front end of the unmistakable orange, white, and green paint combination of a U-Haul truck.
At that moment an engine revs and a pickup comes into view from the wood line at the far southeast of Derek’s vantage point. A screen door slams and a moment later three men enter into view. They’re each wearing sidearms, and the middle man has an AK-47 slung across his back.
The pickup truck pulls into the space between the two stables. The driver gets out and lowers the tailgate. Derek’s heart sinks. The flatbed is laden with white sacks. The armed men link up with those smoking and start offloading the cargo, bringing them into the southern stable through an open stall door.
He checks his wrist-top computer to make sure his GPS is still transmitting. Derek swallows before keying up. “Grizzly 6, you still receiving my location?”
“Affirmative, Slingshot. You got something?”
“Roger that. Mark my grid and start the ISR right away. I’ve got eyes on.”
Derek knows the scramble he just caused on the other end. He uses the pause to let down the tripod on his rifle and to power on the video transmitter function of his optic. Derek gingerly slips off his pack and sets it up next to him, preparing to settle in for what could be several hours if not days of observation. He reaches into the appropriate compartment and removes his grenades, securing them on empty gear loops by their spoons. Should he need to scramble from his hide in a hurry, he would want the added capacity close at hand.
“Slingshot, this is Grizzly. Can you say again?”
“TRP twelve is our location. Start ISR and prepare to receive video feed from my location.”
“Roger,” comes Jason’s excited voice. Another hole on his promotion belt has just been punched.
“And Grizzly?”
“Go ahead, Slingshot.”
“Get a move on with mission planning. We’re running out of time.”
* * *
Eleven hours later, the conference room in Quantico is filled with a bevy of agents, analysts, and other support personnel. The most senior of them sit at the elongated oval table, while the assistants and other essential contributors line the walls, ready to present any information that falls within the parameters of their expertise. Carafes of coffee and Styrofoam cups are as plentiful on the table as the maps, still photos, targeting packages, and satellite images.
The group is weary and strung out on caffeine. At the snap of the SAC’s fingers their day had turned from a pedestrian nine-to-five to a blistering flurry of analysis and planning. Operating with speed and alacrity to coordinate all the necessary requirements, Liu insisted on being presented a full mission brief before any of the proposed elements were moved into place. As it stood, the men and women in the room would be working long into the night once they received the senior agent’s approval.
The chatter is rambling and forced. Intel and operations were two different sides of the same coin. Offensive and defensive players on the same football team. Yes, they all wore the same uniform, but their roles were vastly different. The groups rarely mixed well together under normal circumstances. The intel analysts begrudging the field agents for their brawn-over-brain tendencies. The agents, especially HRT, scowling at the keyboard warrior’s lack of experience out in the streets.
Drysdale watches the scene unfold via video conferencing, his image and that of some others displayed on a monitor facing the head of the table. In the hangar behind him his team sits in a loose semicircle, close enough to hear the proceedings but far enough away not to be seen by the camera. The team leader wants them present for the briefing despite the SAC’s predisposition toward junior personnel in the room.
When Liu enters with his aide in tow the banter doesn’t immediately break off. He stops dead in his tracks, his disgust plastered across his face in a condescending sneer. “Excuse me. Time is of the essence here, people. Let’s cut out the chitchat.”
No shortage of eye rolls ricochet around the room as the SAC settles into his seat and his secretary spreads the mission brief materials in front of him. “Now, perhaps we can get on with this briefing,” Liu says while his secretary sits in the chair against the wall behind him. “Lord knows it took you all long enough to put it together.”
He leans forward and puts his elbows on the table, interlocking his fingers. “Ladies and gentlemen, the situation is this. At approximately zero nine hundred hours today our infiltration asset in the field located and identified another camp. Our intelligence leads us to believe that this is the last bastion of Autumn’s Tithe. Once again, we have gained the advantage on them, but time is short. If our asset is correct, the group is within hours of attempting an attack.”
He lets the statement settle a while longer, making eye contact with each of those at the table before continuing on. “That attack will not occur on my watch. Make no mistake, there will not be a repeat of the failure at the church. It’s fitting that it was once a house of worship, because it was a miracle that no one on those teams were killed,” Liu says with a sideward glance at Jason and Rob. “But there isn’t going to be some far-fetched cover story about a natural gas leak or some other bullshit no one believes, because this is going to go down my way. By the numbers, with audacity and aggression. We are going in hard and fast and hitting them with a knockout blow. Have I made myself clear?”
Several murmured responses in the affirmative populate the space while head nods abound. “Very well then. The mission is to conduct an interdicting raid that will detain, dismantle, and ultimately destroy Autumn’s Tithe once and for all. I cannot stress enough to all of you in this room the importance of speed and efficacy in this endeavor. Seizing this last known camp will not only deny the enemy of their objective—an objective, ladies and gentlemen, that is to take innocent lives—but it may finally provide us with the necessary information we need to complete our investigation as to who in our own government is funding and supplying this group.” Again he pauses. After long moments the SAC turns to his left. “Intelligence, let’s start with you.”
A lean man in his late forties with horn-rimmed glasses and chestnut hair begins speaking. “Sir, ISR as well—”
“Please stand while you’re briefing me, Donaldson.”
The senior analyst flushes but complies with the order. “As I was saying, sir, since the alert by our field asset we have allocated ISR drones and satellite coverage to gain both imagery and an estimation of the group’s disposition. The asset’s live feed from his weapon’s optic has also added to this information, allowing us to cross-reference what was discovered from our surveillance over the last few hours.”
“What can you tell me about the site itself?”
Donaldson picks up a controller and points it at the monitor. The screen changes from those on remote access to an overhead image of the camp. “It’s called Saddle Oaks horse ranch. Historical deeds and tax records show that the site was originally founded as a prospective coal mine in the thirties, but switched over to horse breeding and sales. Several factors led to the ranch’s eventual bankruptcy twenty-plus years ago. From there it was foreclosure and eventually abandonment. Between its circumstances and remote location, the site fits the profile as one that Marshal would have targeted for acquisition.”
“All right,” Liu replies. “What is HRT facing here?”
Donaldson nods and begins using his laser pointer. “The camp sits in a horseshoe clearing that only allows for one approach along the road to the south. The terrain to the north and west is dominated by the steep ridgeline and oak trees. A thick stand of oaks along with a bog hampers any possible approach from the east.”
“Not ideal, but it will have to do. Weather?”
Donaldson defers to one of the analysts sitting behind him. The young woman stands up, following her superior’s lead. “Before morning nautical twilight is zero six three seven hours, sir. Temperature will range between fifty-two and sixty-three degrees. We can expect partly cloudy skies and no precipitation, although there is a sixty percent chance of scattered showers in the afternoon.”
Liu lifting his hand is the only acknowledgement he gives to the woman. The SAC inclines his chin toward Donaldson. The analyst flushes and looks at the carpet as she takes her seat.
“Sir, the optical footage provided from the field asset along with these satellite images,” he says while the screen changes, “show at least twenty-eight adults. Sixteen men and twelve women. There are also a dozen children on the site. We’ve observed various small arms, typically AK-47s and AR-style rifles. There is also at least one rifle that would qualify as a long-range sniper weapon. We’ve no indication of crew serve weapons or other munitions at the camp. This, along with the drastically decreasing amount of these types of firearms we’ve seized from the previous camps suggests that their supply chain has been disrupted. It is likely that long rifles and pistols are their only armament. The absence of vehicles, save for this pickup and the U-Haul we believe they rented or stole to perpetrate their bombing supports this theory. Previous sites planned on utilizing caravans for their attacks, plus several other vehicles and ATVs to act as logistical support in and around their properties. We believe that the lack of weaponry and transport corroborates the information received from Mr. Graelish that this is in all likelihood Autumn Tithe’s last camp.”
The SAC nods once. “Very good, Donaldson.” The man sits while Liu shifts his gaze to the right side of the table. “Commander Herschel, the floor is yours.”
The HRT commander stands, albeit more slowly than his predecessor. Tall and broad in the shoulders, he wears his gray hair in a close-cropped high and tight. Dressed in an olive drab flight suit, the man is as picturesque of a life in military operations and law enforcement as one can get. He chews on a piece of peppermint gum as he speaks, turning to the monitor to present his portion of the briefing.
“Sir, the enemy’s probable course of action is to have guards posted in the stables here with a rotating shift. This is to keep close watch on the stacks of fertilizer and likely other bomb-making materials. We can expect at least one guard at the top of the silo, more than likely their qualified sniper, with a possible second gunner. That would provide them with three hundred and sixty degrees of observation. The bulk of their force will be here, in the homestead. The optic footage has captured the shift changes observed to this point as well as the women, children, and men all returning to the farmhouse for meals and sleep rotations. If this is truly their last camp, we can expect any heavy opposition to come primarily from this building as the adults will be armed and will look to defend the children.”
