“Okay,” Sam said.
“You’ll probably end up falling off the chair in any case,” Dodge said. “But at least it’s not so far to fall.”
Tyler came over. “Any last questions?”
“What’s our entry point?” Dodge asked.
“Stay here till I tell you,” Tyler said. “Then head across the road, thirty yards to the north, to the reddish- colored door. Take the stairs, not the elevator—the power will be out—to the third floor. Our guys’ll meet you at the top of the stairs. Wear these.” He handed them both a small round device with a metal clip. “Infrared strobes. Just in case they don’t recognize you in the dark.”
Tyler moved away and sat at a long table that was covered in screens and other equipment. He produced a thick nylon strap, a little like a seat belt, from somewhere and strapped himself to the chair, placing both hands firmly on the table. In the dim light, Sam could not see Tyler close his eyes but knew that he had, from the sudden shift in the posture of his body.
Dodge put on his headset and Sam followed suit. The moment he shut his eyes, a grid appeared with sixteen thumbnail videos, one for each member of the Tactical team.
Some of the videos showed the roof of the building. Another showed the balcony of the apartment from across the interior courtyard. Others showed dark interior passageways.
He selected one of those, and it expanded to fill his vision, leaving just a few control icons at the bottom of the screen. As he watched, an arm reached up in front of the camera and a leather-gloved hand unscrewed a lightbulb in a ceiling fitting. When the bulb went out, the hand stopped, leaving the bulb in the fitting. It was too dark to see more than vague outlines in the corridor now, and he selected Night Vision from the control icons at the bottom. His world turned into a strange, green-glowing video game as the viewpoint moved farther down the corridor.
He clicked on a grid icon and was rewarded by the thumbnail videos again. He selected one of the rooftop soldiers and found himself on a low parapet-style roof where a small group of soldiers was readying ropes and strong metal clips.
“Move to strike positions.” Tyler’s voice sounded in his head. “Okay, we have final mission confirmation from CDD HQ. Targets are confirmed. Weapons free. Ready to breach. On my go, stand by, stand by …”
The view in Sam’s head swung around wildly as the soldier clambered over the parapet, looking down into the courtyard and glancing up at the night sky as he did so.
There was a loud thud somewhere nearby and a sharp pain in his elbow. Sam opened his eyes to find himself lying on the floor.
“Cut the power,” Tyler said. “And go.”
25 | THE APARTMENT
Sam closed his eyes again but stayed on the floor—at least he couldn’t fall any farther. The image from the soldier’s camera flickered back into vivid green life.
The side of the building turned into a blur, and the rope slithered through the fingers in front of his face. He could hear a zizzing sound and realized it was the rope. He was on full audio as well as video feed.
A voice shouted, “Go! Go! Go!”
Large glass sliding doors approached rapidly, leading in from the balcony.
Tyler’s voice in his head: “Glass crusher, now!”
There was a loud explosion, and the doors shattered into a thousand tiny fragments, a rain of strange green confetti in the night vision.
From inside the apartment came flashes of lightning and a sound of thunder that Sam could hear with his own ears from across the street, as well as through the neuro-headset.
Then he was on the balcony and rolling forward through the pulverized doors, rising up, a pistol at eye level seeking targets.
More voices all around him.
“Clear left!”
“Hallway clear!”
“Friendlies to your right.”
There were two figures in this room, lolling backward in their chairs as if unconscious, knocked out, surely, from the stun of the flashbangs.
The computers in front of them were on, the screens glowing greenly in the night-vision viewer, but the figures made no attempt to reach for the keyboards.
There was something about the shape of their heads, though … neuro-headsets! Just as Sam had predicted.
Cut the cables, he willed the soldiers. Kill the connections before they can wipe the computers. One of the figures appeared large in his view, and a glint of metal flashed from the end of a pair of cutters as the cables at the back of the headset were disconnected.
From the terrorist there was no movement, no sign of resistance. Nothing, in fact, at all.
“Room one, clear,” a voice sounded. Then, “Room three clear, two tangos neutralized.”
Why had the terrorists not moved? Sam wondered.
The soldier secured the man’s hands behind the chair with PlastiCuffs. He moved to the computer and began scanning the case with a handheld device. Sam didn’t have to be told to know he was looking for explosives.
“Something’s wrong.” It was Tyler’s voice, and Sam opened his eyes to see him looking at them. “Someone’s beaten us to it.”
“What do you mean?” Dodge asked.
“The terrorists were already down before we got here. They’re unconscious. They’re barely alive. Someone’s been here before us.”
“What happened to them?” Sam asked.
“We don’t know yet,” Tyler replied. “They’ve been gassed, poisoned, something. Ten to one, whoever did this has also been into the computers. Get in there now and see if they left us any scraps.”
The lights were back on by the time Dodge and Sam entered the apartment. Faded wallpaper peeled back from the walls. There might have been carpet once, but it was long gone, and grimy floorboards were covered only by a hard-knotted but threadbare rug.
Some jackets, and other indeterminate clothing, hung from a row of wooden pegs inside the door, and a faded photograph of a sailing ship hung lopsidedly in front of the door.
The two dark figures they had seen were stretched out on the ground, receiving medical attention from the soldiers. Their computers were in pieces on the table.
“Any explosives?” Dodge asked the first soldier he saw.
“None,” the man said.
“I thought we sniffed out ammonia?” Dodge said.
“We did, but it wasn’t explosives,” the man said, and didn’t elaborate.
As per his instructions, Sam cloned the drive before starting the computer up and analyzing the hard drive.
It took him just a minute to confirm the extent of the disaster. The computer was wiped clean. The operating system was there, and some basic programs, but nothing else. It was as if it had just been taken out of the box. There was a scattering of code fragments near the boot sector of the disk, but it was garbage.
“This has been wiped,” Dodge said.
“Same here,” Sam murmured.
“Bleedin’ hell, what’re we going to tell Jaggard?” Dodge asked in a loud voice, then leaned over, talking quietly for Sam’s ears only. “Who else knew the location of the terrorists, do you think?” he asked.
“The insider!” Sam realized with shock.
“And who knew we were on our way here?” Dodge pursed his lips and answered his own question. “Same person.”
