* * * * *
Mike walks beside and just behind his boss now, their footfalls echoing down a sterile hallway with no visible end.
“Okay, I’ll bite. Who’s this Dick guy?”
“Check your go bag,” James says. “You’ll want a shock laptop, tricked out with your sharp-edged stuff. And probably a rugged hand-held. And clothes for extremes of climate.”
“Where am I going?” Mike is getting the sense these questions don’t hold a lot of interest for the other man. “Am I going to get shot at again?”
Jim blinks noncommittally. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that.”
“Oh, yeah? Why not?’ Mike is starting to feel himself sag behind his eyes. He checks his watch and it’s six-thirty in the morning. He hasn’t slept since two nights previous – the night before the shootout, which was now last night. While off in his head, Mike realizes the other has stopped at an intersection of empty corridors.
“A bag for how long?”
“Call it indefinitely. Also pick someone to support you from see-woc.” CWOC, the CyberWar Ops Center, had been the tactical heart of ISD, ever since things picked up in that front of the GWOT (Global War on Terror).
“Someone who?”
“I’d go with Fred. Or maybe Dharmesh.”
Mike’s red-rimmed eyes open fractionally. “I can have Dharmesh?”
“You can have part of Dharmesh. Let’s call it two fifths of Dharmesh.”
Mike knows that if he is being offered nearly half of the Big D, this is a serious deal. Dharmesh is more in demand around ISD than coffee.
“Get some sleep while you can,” James says. “And drive safely.” This makes Mike think his stock has gone up. The department obviously wants him getting killed doing something smart, rather than something stupid.
James pats Mike’s shoulder once, then turns right, leaving him where he stands. Mike tries to remember the way out of the building from there.
UNMARKED MILITARY COMPOUND
NEAR FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA
08:38:52 EST 06 APR 2011
At the same moment Mike Brown is surrendering consciousness, Colonel Richard E. “Dick” Havering is pacing the narrow aisles of his Tactical Operations Center. He wears khaki fatigues with no insignia, Oakley assault boots, a stiff brush of grey hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and a wireless audio headset. He is commanding eight men and four women, all of whom stand or sit at glowing consoles arrayed around the room. But he is speaking to a man in a cave in the mountains of central Asia.
“How we doin’, Bo Peep?”
“The complex is down. It’s being cleared now.” This, the answering voice, speaks out into the room with no perceptible static or delay. “Only four rooms, but deep as hell.”
“Anybody get hurt?”
“No real people – except for one of the blocking force guys, who ate some shrapnel when a grenade took a funny roll. And he was only down as long as it took him to wrap it up with his Iraqi flag bandana.”
“Bad guys?”
“Two tangos down, two coming out.”
“What’s the haul?”
“Two machines, which we’re duping the drives, and BT’s trying to see who they’ve been talking to from here. Also a weapons cache – small arms and man-portable air. Nothing to put in a parade.”
“Okay, Sergeant. You bring ‘em home. And have a good ‘un.”
As Havering pulls off his headset, a female non-com touches him on the shoulder. He looks over the shoulder at her.
“General Buster for you,” she says.
“What channel?” he asks, turning away and bringing the device back to his ear.
She taps him again and points to the other end of the room. Behind thick glass stands a thick man with two stars on each shoulder.
“Whoah hoah,” Havering whispers, impressed, and strides across the room.
* * *
“What’s the good word, top?”
Sergeant Major Eric Rheinhardt, call-sign Little Bo Peep, looks over his shoulder, 8000 miles away. He’s standing on a 300-meter cliff edge, which overlooks a valley winding amidst snow-blanketed ridges. He folds down the antenna on his sat phone and turns back to face the mouth of the cave complex, and the person poking out of it.
“Clean up, pack up. Exfil in twenty.”
“Back to the FOB?”
“Back to The Ranch.”
“Nice. I’m freezing my nuts off up here.”
Rheinhardt smiles. “Ali, you really don’t have to take every opportunity to remind us of your enormous package.”
“Roger that, top.” Sergeant First Class Aaliyah Khamsi smiles in return. She slings her rifle – which is nearly identical in height to her – hitches a thumb in her tactical rig, and disappears back down the hole.
A dog barks in the distance. Rheinhardt calls after her, “Oh, and have one of the Rangers go get Mac.”
Rheinhardt turns back to face the valley. He pulls a palm-top from his duty belt to look up today’s code for a helo pick-up. He reflects that he spends most of his time these days inserting via helicopter onto frozen mountain tops, or belly-crawling through baking wadis. And trying to remember passwords.
The last sunlight glints blindingly off the snow on the ridge lines.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends