Recall

  All appeared a typical warehouse for a low-class military outfit. He’d seen worse in Afghanistan. Rockets, grenades, and anything else that could go bang should be in a special fire-protected portion of the building. Even better, a separate structure altogether, with blast walls to direct an explosion upward. Though disorganized, it was well funded, and certainly shouldn’t have been unlocked. Too big of a mistake to be overlooked.

  They did a quick sweep, only glancing down the aisles. The major hadn’t said anything about clearing the mezzanine before going into the offices. Probably good because their footsteps above might give away their presence. All was quiet. Too quiet.

  Lanyard walked backwards, keeping a watch on their six, but had to glance behind to ensure the major was still there. The only thing that gave him away was the water pumping out of his wet boots. Lanyard couldn’t even hear him breathe, like a ghost. Harmon was a nutcase, but had skills. A soft mover. When they’d done their gear check, he had pieces of felt sewn in his vest between the ammo clips so they wouldn’t rub. It was a brand-new vest, so he must’ve done it last night while everyone else had been asleep. At dinner, he’d wrapped his rifle sling clips with black tape to keep them from rattling.

  Three minutes of careful moving and they reached the middle of the warehouse. Lanyard peered down the aisle. At the end was the rusted metal door where E2 had entered, two bullet holes above the handle looking like eyes on a smiley face. “South half clear,” the major whispered into his comm.

  “North half clear,” came the captain’s reply.

  A shrill cry rang from the mezzanine, the sound echoing from the metal walls. Lanyard scanned it frantically. An AK-47 opened fire from the far side, pointed down at the other team. Muzzle blasts from a second shooter boomed, coming from above the doors they’d entered. Lanyard squeezed a three-shot burst in that direction when a strafing run blew across his belly. The projectiles hit the SAPI plates with a loud tunk tunk. Did they make it through? Lanyard tried to inhale but nothing would come, like the time that Army scum had kneed him in the balls at Fort Bragg. An old instructor’s warning, Shock can deceive you, shot through his mind, but he forced it out. Duty first. He was going to bring the shooter down, even if it was with his last breath. He knelt behind a crate, took aim at the muzzle flashes pulsating in his thermal scope, and squeezed several more bursts. The fire kept coming.

  The major returned shots behind him. Both their weapons’ only sound came from the sliding bolt and spent brass hitting the floor.

  He gulped for air and finally got some. “I’m hit,” he squawked.

  The major squeezed off a few more rounds, then spun and grabbed Lanyard’s vest, yanking him down one of the aisles. He shoved him against a crate and thrust his hand under his Kevlar. “Didn’t go through.”

  Lanyard gasped for air.

  The major leaned to his ear. “Hit anywhere else?”

  “No. Just the gut, I think,” he wheezed.

  “Your vest did its job. Maybe got a cracked rib. First time shot?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Pissed off yet?”

  “Gettin’ there.”

  Harmon slapped him across the face with an open hand. It stung almost as bad as getting hit.

  “What the hell was that for?”

  “Tradition, first time shot.” He slapped him again, this time harder, smiling.

  Lanyard felt for his sidearm. “And that one?”

  “You didn’t look pissed. Now you’ll be okay.”

  The major wasn’t right in the head. Maybe he’d cracked under the fire. Before he could react, the major yanked Lanyard’s KA-BAR, turned, and slashed across a pistol that suddenly protruded around the corner of the aisle. The hand dropped to the floor, finger still on the trigger. He pulled the screaming victim around the corner and knifed him through the throat, cranking the KA-BAR sideways to sever the spinal column. The knife was back in his sheath before the corpse hit the ground.

  The major glanced back, eyes squinting. “Good edge on that. Just the closest thing I could grab. Mine’s in my cloak. Now strap it up. Rearm with Det ammo and cover me.”

  Lanyard swallowed hard. Gladly.

  He was in a different league now. He’d talked with a friend that was drafted in the fourth round by the Denver Broncos. He’d said pro ball was at an entirely different level than his Division 1 Hok-ies, like learning a whole new game. Like him, Lanyard was going to have to step up the pace.

  He laid down fire using crates and shelving for cover. The pounding intensity of Det ammo muffled the gunfire coming from the enemy shooters. A roaring came from behind as Richards and Ali opened up as well. In his periphery, a ghostly figure ducked low behind a stack of tires. Neither team had clear shots. The major ran farther down the aisle. Where was he going? The only thing they could do from here was to keep the shooters’ heads down. They needed to reposition.

  Lanyard squeezed off another three-shot burst, the thunderous rhythm scattering pieces of cinderblock next to the tire stack.

  * * *

  The magazine release stuck. Red pushed till it dug into his thumb. It let go and he racked in a fresh one of Det ammo. With everyone’s weapons clamoring away the silent loads were no longer needed. He peered around the corner of the aisle, trying to make out either shooter. Both were well covered. Thermal highlighted the arm of the one who’d hit Lanyard. The edge of his sleeve stuck out behind a milling machine. There was no way to lob a grenade that far, not accurately, and they didn’t have launchers. It couldn’t be long before others showed up on the mezzanine and routed them out, down the center of the aisle.

  He commed in. “Two shooters on the mezzanine. E1 is covered.” Captain Richards confirmed the same, between bursts.

  Red looked down the center aisle but there was no way to get to the mezzanine stairs without exposing himself. Thermal showed the yellow glow of a rifle barrel coming up from behind the milling machine. He pulled back and shots ricocheted off the shelving above. He looked up to where they hit, then to the ceiling. Jim hadn’t ordered them to pull out, not yet. Even though there were only two shooters waiting, the ambush would validate his fears about Mossad having a security leak. If so, they’d need any remaining time to exit before reinforcements showed up. Not much time.

  Red closed his eyes for a split second. There it was again. He felt her close. Lori was in the building. The burnt aroma of spent gunpowder hung in the air like it had last Fourth of July when he’d held Penny on his shoulders underneath the fireworks show. A thin cloud of it floated atop an orange shelving unit twenty-five feet up. He slung his rifle, cinched it tight, then ran farther down the aisle and climbed up a metal post using the shelving as steps. At the top was a single flat bar running toward the mezzanine, but at the end was a twenty-foot aisle gap.

  Lanyard’s fire kept the shooters’ heads down. The boisterous rhythm of Det ammo was a welcome contrast to the hushed plinking of the subsonics. In thermal, the white-hot rounds looked almost like tracers after they cut through the crates, blocks, and machinery the shooters were using for cover. A ricochet twanged, piercing the metal roof, smelling like a hot toaster oven.

  “The op is off,” Jim ordered through the comm. “Move to point Echo for pickup.”

  Red was atop the flat bar accelerating to a full sprint like a runner after the starting pistol. At the end of the bar he threw himself across the aisle toward the mezzanine, arms extended. Near the middle he grabbed a thick electrical conduit and, using it like a gymnast’s high bar, swung his body forward. His trajectory took him on an awkward backflip, but he landed upright on the mezzanine, in an open line between the shooters. Pain shot through his ankles.

  From a dark corner, a boy in olive green fatigues braced against his AK-47, firing down at E-2. His tight curly hair vibrated and his teeth shone white in a grin, or maybe pain. Red pulled his sidearm as he tucked his shoulder and rolled forward, stopping in a crouch. Bullets hit behind him. He’d counted on the shooters holding fire si
nce they’d be facing each other. Instead, shots hit cinderblock in front of the boy. A little more luck and Red wouldn’t have even had to kill him. The kid startled at the fire and turned. Red dropped him with a double tap, though only one was needed, hitting him square above the white grin.

  He tucked his shoulder and rolled again, this time coming up to bear on the other. Three more shots whipped behind him. Moonlight glinted from the shooter’s tall forehead as he swung his rifle and sprayed rounds haphazardly. Red double-tapped him through the brow and neck. The bullets continued undaunted on their course through the wall of the building, leaving twin rays of dust-refracted moonlight as the body dropped to the floor.

  Red made his third roll, this time behind cover, anticipating fire from another shooter, but none came. He switched to night vision, then back to thermal. There were stacks of tires, a press brake, and other pieces of metalworking equipment, but everything looked cold.

  It had been only a few seconds since Jim’s order. Maybe Red could change his mind. He commed in, “Both hostiles down. Request permission to clear the mezzanine and proceed below.”

  “No activity here,” came Marksman’s voice.

  “The op is off. I’m calling it in now. Move to point Echo.”

  Red shot to his feet and started clearing the mezzanine, checking behind the equipment and stacks of tires. Beyond everything he feared he might find Lori. She was in the bunker, he hoped, if there was a bunker after all. Maybe they’d only broken a few bones. She’d be walking again in a couple months. God, let her be alive. He came around a corner of a crate and put a three-shot burst into what ended up being a car seat with a parking brake sticking up next to it. He shook his head. I’ve got to tighten up.

  The ground vibrated and he swung his rifle toward the stairs. Lanyard peered over the edge of the floor and Red waved him up. His barrel glowed like a neon sign in thermal. Lanyard made a circling motion with his finger and pointed to the door where they’d come in.

  Red shook his head.

  Lanyard nodded, but turned toward the stairs. It was hard to tell someone’s expression when only one eye was visible—the other was covered by night-vision gear. Lanyard was looking at the gaunt figure of the boy, lying sideways atop a white metal footlocker. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen. “Good shooting,” he mouthed, then lowered his rifle and looked away.

  Chapter 17

  Clearing

  Jim made a quick scan down the frontage road in both directions from atop the rock pile. Still empty. The vans waiting to pick them up courtesy of Mossad were barely in view, tucked close to a wooden fence and partially hidden by a holly tree. The wind had picked up a bit, almost balmy against his face. He shouldn’t be warm, not now, wet, in the breeze. The firefight had been muffled by the brick and metal walls, but not completely. The warehouse was relatively secluded, and the wind helped silence the shots.

  The shooters had been waiting. Someone had been tipped off. But why only two? They must be trying to draw them in, setting an ambush. If his team was captured, it would be hell. If they were lucky, the Iranians would just kill them. Maybe they’d leak it to the press, maybe not. Maybe the team would be buried in a common grave and the entire thing denied. Where were the other soldiers, the main attack?

  He pointed to Carter, then back across the road. Carter nodded. Jim turned and crouched with his sat phone to his ear, whispering. His orders had been clear, stopping short of the Spartan motto With your shield or on it. Higher was watching from a Predator drone circling three miles above, below the clouds, courtesy of the CIA and the Air Force. He didn’t want to send out any radio waves, but needed to get their exit plan in motion.

  A click in the speaker meant they picked up the line in the control center, this time at Langley. He pictured a bunch of suits drinking black coffee, watching good men risk their lives on flat screens, and his stomach soured. He didn’t wait for a greeting. “We’re pulling out. Have the—”

  “Negative.” Jim didn’t recognize the voice, but English was the speaker’s second language.

  “I’m not asking permission. We’re pulling out.”

  “Your orders are clear, colonel. All your men are still alive. You’ve got assets to recover.”

  “Rules of engagement. I call the shots in the field. I’m pulling out.”

  “We’re not picking you up till it’s done.”

  “Who the hell—”

  “Jim, do it,” came Admiral Javlek’s stern voice. He was vice chair of the JCS, the one who had given a thumbs-up to the op and dozens prior, his only contact with Higher. “We’ll explain later. Plug this security key into your locator: uniform, mike, niner, foxtrot, yankee. You’ll get two extra tags. They’re your target. If it was an ambush, they wouldn’t be there.”

  Javlek spoke for another minute, then Jim slapped the phone shut. Carter turned toward the noise and Jim clenched his jaw, looking away toward Marksman’s position. That was his first BTO, a black tie override. Something wasn’t right. Javlek had never pulled one before. It was Mossad. They were worse than the Mafia. BTOs only came up when intel sources insisted. The excuse was in case the team was captured. You can’t leak what you don’t know.

  If they ran into a heavy ambush that would confirm a leak, at which point he couldn’t use Mossad’s vans for their getaway. They might have to find a hole to hide in until he put together another exfil. The stench from the river blew across the rock pile. Jim grimaced, lifting his head. He pulled down his night vision and zoomed it out as far as it would go, scanning the service road. Still nothing was moving.

  * * *

  Red braced the stock of his M4 against his other shoulder, angling it around a bale of burlap bags. His boots had stopped squishing. He carefully placed his steps. A few empty cans were cemented in place by a petrified pool of blue paint on the floor. It was the last pile on the mezzanine he had to clear. No one other than the dead shooters had been waiting for them.

  He turned and headed back toward the stairs, past a picnic table with a rusty engine block stacked on top. Thick dust covered everything except the narrow aisle between piles of junk. He stifled another sneeze. It was good he hadn’t found Lori up here. He signaled Lanyard to head toward the stairs.

  Jim commed in, “On your locator type security key uniform, mike, niner, foxtrot, yankee.”

  Red crouched behind a stack of tires and leaned over the small screen, fingering in the security key. Sweat dropped from his nose onto the display, or maybe it was still wetness from the Pardis. Lanyard kneeled beside him, but kept his head up. I’ll tell him how good he did later, keeping the shooters occupied while I was on the shelving. The screen flashed and two extra tags appeared, but they weren’t identified. They glowed green, so they were validated, meaning they weren’t tag ghosts. Still, the locator didn’t say who they were.

  “These are our targets,” Jim said. “We don’t know their identity, but Lori is with them. Take them alive. We may be fighting our own kind. The building has no power and the CSS is making sure no radio gets out, so we’re still covert as best we know. We’ve lost four minutes. Get moving.”

  When Red had joined the Det, the surgeon had showed him the tag before he put him under and implanted it deep into his right buttock. It had looked like a piece of aluminum foil, but more polished, half the size of a stamp. He’d asked their CIA liaison about it, and the only thing he’d said was that it didn’t give out any signal. Something about reflecting a band of light that no one knew about. He hoped it didn’t give him cancer. Only U.S. assets were supposed to have the technology.

  The middle stair down from the mezzanine flexed when he stepped on it, as if it were going to give way. The enhanced auditory gear amplified the rubbing of Lanyard’s ballistic vest behind him. It was how he heard the soldier whose hand he’d sliced off earlier before he came around the corner of the aisle. Yet it hadn’t amplified the firefight.

  “Mezzanine clear,” Red commed in.

  “Wareho
use clear,” came from Captain Richards.

  Yeah, as clear as it could be in a hurried sweep. Hostiles could still be anywhere. Red’s feet touched the warehouse floor and the cold came through the boot soles. At the far end of the aisle Captain Richards and Dr. Ali stood beside a door leading into the offices. The foot of the dead boy stuck out from under the mezzanine handrail above their heads.

  Red pointed to Richards and then to another door underneath the stairs, pumping a fist in a breach signal.

  The offices were going to be dark, so he switched back to night vision, tapping the button so that Lanyard could see. Thermal was good to highlight warm bodies, but wasn’t as good to see your way around. Lanyard had said they were getting new gear next month that combined the two somehow.

  Clearing doors was like signing your name. It was learned by rote, but each time looked different. The occupants always had the upper hand. They could wait for the door to open and ambush. Lanyard stood on the side with the handle and Red to the other. Lanyard pushed it open a few inches and they waited to ensure no fire erupted. Red stooped low and led through with his weapon, sweeping the sides and down a long dark corridor. No movement.

  The hall looked like it ran to the other end of the building, but it was difficult to see that far. Only the slightest green glow came from that end. Red kept his breathing slow, then started down. There were offices, storage, even a mailroom. They cleared each in turn. He paused in one that had a global map taped on the wall with colored dots pinned to it. The most heavily marked were England, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the U.S. There was a separate map for Israel, but only a few dots on it. He made sure his video camera got it. All was clean, even lemon scented, but empty and with a light coat of dust. His soles squeaked on the waxed cement floor.

  Halfway down the hall he could see it ran all the way to the end of the building. After they cleared the last room Lanyard was at point to clear around the corner. Footsteps came from the other end where they’d first entered and Red turned back. His night vision made out two figures. He switched to thermal and let out a long breath. It was Marksman and Ali.