15
Howard heard the
The tiny village was typical for the Mid East — a lot of adobe and concrete-block construction, some of the older stuff probably going back a thousand years. The streets had been made for pack animals — donkeys, camels, whatever — and not automobiles, and until recently the buildings had been designed to fit the terrain and not the other way around. The result was a third-world town that might have been created by giant rats, full of twists and turns, low overhangs, and alleyways no wider than two men walking side-by-side could traverse even without the garbage bins.
There were also a McDonald’s, a Starbucks, and even a Gap store.
“Able One, bring your aim to bear on that sniper in the second-story window on the northwest corner of the hotel,” Abe Kent said.
Despite the intermittent gun fire and occasional grenade going off, Howard didn’t have any trouble hearing the colonel’s clipped commands over the LOSIR headset built into the helmet.
“I want to see a metal hailstorm filling that aperture in five seconds. When it does, I want Baker Two’s AT man to cross the street and into that Starbucks. Everybody copy?”
“Able One copies.”
“Baker Two copies.”
“On my mark — five… four… three… two… and fire!”
Eight subguns spoke as one, and anybody in or around the mosque’s window who didn’t duck better be bulletproof.
Howard peeked around the edge of the Dumpster, a nice, thick, bullet-stopping steel-plated one, and watched as Baker’s antitank man scooted across the street, dodging and stutter-stepping, ending in a dive and roll. The man had some speed.
The subguns went quiet.
“Baker Two AT, put a rocket through that hotel window at your convenience.”
There were undoubtedly civilians in that hotel, and Kent wanted very much to minimize any unintended or “collateral” damage. But they were taking fire, and the first rule of engagement was always the right to self- defense.
Three seconds later, a new JAM-II antitank antisniper laser-guided smart rocket
Howard smiled. He was just here as an observer, and while he might have done it differently, there was no arguing with success. Abe Kent had been in combat as often as any man of his rank, more than most, and when you wanted the job done, he was your go-to guy.
“Nice shot, son, I owe you a beer. Able One, recon and report.”
Howard pulled his head back to cover and looked at Kent, who sat on his heels in a squat he had learned in some Southeast Asian jungle years before.
“Very neat, Colonel.”
“All in a day’s work, sir. Not like I haven’t been in this general vicinity before.” He waved at the street.
“Are we done?”
“Pretty much.”
“Computer, end scenario.”
Kent pulled off the headset and looked around the darkened training room. It wasn’t necessary for the troops to be here, they could have been anywhere in the country and logged into the communal VR scenario, but Kent liked his people together, so that he could talk to them face-to-face before and after a sortie. The center would allow sixty players to gear up at once, though there were only eighteen of them here now — Howard, Kent, and the two eight-person squads. Net Force seldom had large numbers in the field, though it was possible — they were much more like a Delta or SEAL team: small, portable, fast, hit-and-run and get out in a hurry.
Howard had done all right with them. Had some good officers and sergeants, and the troops were pretty sharp — their pay was better, and they had money for training — though he never trusted a VR scenario the same way he did reality. When you got shot in VR, you shook your head and tried to do better. When you got shot in combat, it wasn’t so easy. The map was never the territory.
Still, it was a good exercise, and it did instill enough sound and fury to keep you on your toes.
Howard would be gone soon, and it would be Kent’s command, and he needed to know what his people could do.
Colonel Kent went over the exercise with the troops, telling them what they had done right and what they had done wrong. Howard sat quietly in the background, nodding. That was good. It always helped if a superior officer backed you up. It wasn’t absolutely necessary if you knew you were right, but it was nice to have the acknowledgment.
When they were done and the troops had filed out to consider their performance, it was just Howard and Kent alone in the room.
“Anything new on the Gridley matter?” Kent asked.
“FBI has some info on the bug; they are sending it over. I figured we’d read it, then go show it to the Commander — if that’s all right with you.”
“Still your show, John.”
“Not really, but I’ll stay around long enough to see this one through. I like Gridley, he’s a good kid. But even if I hated him, he is one of ours. I want whoever did this to him to get nailed for it.”
“I understand.”
Natadze rolled past the impound yard. He avoided the temptation to look directly at the entrance and perhaps straight into the fiber-optic security cams surely hidden there. Who could know if that data might someday be strained by some curious and perceptive agent alert enough to recognize that a wolf had passed?
Part of preparation was eliminating such possibilities.
And he was prepared this time, better than before. Should he be noticed, he would appear to be a tourist; rental car in a phony name, travel tickets from Los Angeles, even a camera on the front seat, the perfect example of a patriotic citizen come to visit the capital of his great country.
Nobody to worry about.
He wanted very much to recover the tracking device which he had foolishly left on the target’s car. Like an amateur, his shock at the time had clouded his thoughts, and he had left
In his hand was a device that resembled an MP3 player, and could be used as such. But if certain buttons were pressed just
The device was yet more complex — it had the capability to receive GPS signals so as to track a transmitter across the globe. He could have punched a control on the tracker and had it send code out to the bug to activate a
