Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I'm borrowing her characters, dressing them up in MARPAT, and giving them some guns. BilliCullen and Scooterstale are making sure they're ready for inspection.
June 25
Just Outside Target Villa
Mogadishu, Somalia
"Jazz," the captain said, flashing the corporal a rapid string of hand signals.
The younger man quickly scanned the surrounding blocks, thinking for a handful of seconds, and signed back with a clipped nod.
Instead of immediately responding, Edward held up a single finger. Flipping his NVGs up to his helmet, he peeked over the rolled lip of the metal bin, eyeing the slow, easy saunter of the pale-haired enemy soldier as he moved in and out of the floodlight. Even from two blocks away, Edward could make out the familiar, dark flecktarn pattern of the man's fatigues. Coupled with the prowling gait and pair of high-powered German firearms slung across his chest – an upgraded G36 and a decked-out MP7 – that pattern told him everything he needed to know. These guys weren't just pros. They were pros, in the realest sense of the word.
"German?" Rosalie whispered as she duck-walked closer.
Edward shrugged, still following the man's slow, seemingly bored patrol. "Likely. Or Belgian. Maybe Austrian. Either way, I'd bet my next paycheck ex-Special Forces of some sort." Edward's eyes narrowed. "Look at the way he moves."
Wearing a pissed off scowl that never promised anything good, the gunny swapped positions with Emmett at the left edge of the bin to conduct her own assessment. When the soldier stepped out of the light and into the mouth of their street, angling toward their cover position with almost preternatural instinct, she whipped back around with a spat curse. "This shit just keeps gettin' better and better. Who the fuck are we dealing with?"
Even the dark couldn't hide the captain's hardened expression. "Don't know, but that's going to change very soon," he said, repositioning his rifle across his knee as he turned back to Jasper. "Where are you thinking?"
Jasper motioned up and to their forward left to where yet another sand-colored building stood half-finished and dark. Tallest on the block, the abandoned structure topped the target villa by at least three stories, and from a sniper's perspective, the bank of blacked-out, half-boarded windows across each of the four façades offered the best view in town. "Decent visibility of the surrounding area. Good cover. And the angle's fuckin' perfect… Need be," he said, patting his M110 like a lifelong friend. "I can start World War III from up there."
The captain eyed the Marine for a split second before nodding once. "Done." After another glance over the bin, seeing that the patrol had finally moved on, he asked Emmett, "We still got a way in?"
The big man signaled for Rosalie to take over covering the rear while he pulled out the same portable screen he'd used to navigate the complex web of streets and alleys coming in. With a quick swipe, a dim, black and gray inverted satellite image appeared. He double-tapped the image and swiped again, this time overlaying it with a time-sequenced series of thermals. "They're still rotating every 10 minutes or so." Pointing at the southeastern corner of the compound, the staff sergeant added, "That gap in the razor wire is still showing up. I estimate couple of minutes to get up there, then three max to clear that wall. Four if there's shit there I can't see that we have to cut through. Either way, we can make it inside that patrol window, no problem."
"Cameras? Sensors?" Edward looked over to his lieutenant, who was quietly monitoring the rooftops and upper stories for any hint of life.
Satisfied that they remained undetected, Alice slowly lowered her rifle and shook her head. "Got an update about an hour ago on the way in. We're still okay there, too." She held out her hand for Emmett's screen. "CIA's local asset on the ground scoped out the perimeter late afternoon. Says there's a pair of 180s equipped with night vision here," she told them, pointing at the dark line on the far eastern side that represented the main entrance into the villa. "There's a few more," she tapped the image, "here, here, and here. But that corner still looks like a blind spot. It's narrow – so narrow they probably don't even realize it's there – but it's our best shot."
"Inside?"
"As soon as we drop into the courtyard…" Alice dragged her fingertip along the route they'd all reviewed, step by tedious step, at least a dozen times over the past two days. "Remember, we need to aim hard right for that covered walkway along the inside of the eastern wall." Her fingertip circled the kidney-shaped pool. "We know there's some kind of motion equipment out here in the middle, so stay flat to the wall and underneath the canopy."
"Main house?"
Alice zoomed in, centering on the large, pitch-black block in the center of the screen. "That rooftop patio's still the best bet for hittin' that second floor. CIA's still saying that's where the office is. Seen that blond fucker coming in and out up there a few times."
Which, of course, meant they had to get past the guards that roamed the walls and roofs, 24/7.
"Then that's where we're heading." Edward asked the corporal, "How long you need?"
Jasper checked his watch, hitting a button on the side to dimly light the face, and then studied the twenty yards of broken up sidewalk to the building's recessed entryway. "Gimme four to clear it and get up there, maybe five, assuming I have to melt the lock. Just need a couple to set up." He paused for a second, tilting his head slightly toward the as yet silent woman crouched between him and the lieutenant. Despite the summer heat, her arms wrapped tightly across her chest.
With a barely perceptible dip of his chin, Edward's focus slid from his Marine to their scientist. "You ready, Doctor?"
Bella's eyes shot up from a dusty, flattened piece of cardboard litter at her feet to meet the captain's unflinching gaze. Her stomach somersaulted, worse than anything she'd experienced while practicing for their helo insertion, but she managed a soft, "Yeah, I'm ready."
"Remember the plan," Edward told her. "You'll be with Jazz, but you'll still be able to see everything I see."
Her brow creased, and even in the low light, Edward caught the flash of something hard and challenging in the woman's expression. "What if you find weapons plans?" she pressed, firmer than he expected. "Or what if they've got precursors in there? How are you going to know?"
While there was iron in her voice and in her features, Edward didn't miss the white-knuckle grip Bella had on the side strap of her vest. "Like I said, you'll see everything I see." He tapped the pair of NVGs on his helmet, and then the shell of his ear, reminding her of her own in-ear radio receiver and the mike strapped around her throat. "And you'll hear everything I do."
Bella glanced back down, once more staring at the piece of faded red and white cardboard at her feet.
"Doctor, I'm not putting you up there just to get you out of the way."
She looked up again, and Edward added, his eyes piercing in their intensity, "I need you up there where it's safe so you can focus and use me to find the things only you know to look for. You will direct me if you see something – anything – you think is important. Understood?"
They stared at each other for a long moment, before Bella finally exhaled and slowly nodded. "I understand." She hesitated, chewing the inside of her cheek, and then quietly told him, "Be careful, okay?" Her stomach flip-flopped again, for the same yet different reasons, and she just resisted the urge to reach out and grab him by the sleeve. Instead, she said, "Don't make me have come down there and shoot people."
An out of place smile tugged on Edward's lips, and something warm and unexpected hit him square in the chest, but he didn't reply. To Jasper, he said, "As soon as you're inside, we'll reposition two streets over where we'll have a direct shot from the south to our entry point. Once you're set up, see if you can spot those patrols and verify the timing. We'll wait for your signal."
"You got it, sir."
An instant and an eternity later, Jasper tapped Bella's wrist, directing her to the dark, sheltered entryway twenty yards away and gesturing for her to follow. "Keep low and close behind me, okay, Doc? Just like when we came in, Bear-man and Blondie's going to cover us til we hit that entrance. So don't waste time or energy looking back."
Bella swallowed past her throat mike and took a deep, shaky breath. Holding it in, she watched the captain's gaze flit to her one last time, and then he issued another one of his silent commands to Jasper. The younger man's responding affirmative was sharp, his expression immediately intent and focused in way she didn't quite grasp.
Following the corporal's lead, Bella rose to a crouch. She copied him as he peeked over the bin, seeing nothing but a blank concrete wall in the distance and the shadowy, multi-story pillars that rose up on each side of the street. It was quiet, so very quiet that the soft creak of her vest when she moved sounded deafening.
From behind them, Emmett issued a quiet, "All clear," and without waiting a second more, they were moving.
Rifle up and searching the darkened windows above them, Jasper darted from behind their metal bin, across the sidewalk, and to the crumbling side of the closest building. Heart pounding in her chest, but with one hand down by her thigh, instinctively clutching the grip of the captain's sidearm, Bella trailed the sandy-haired Marine. Like the man in front of her, she kept her head down, hugging close to the stone and concrete building at her side.
It took mere seconds for them to pass the halfway mark – a triplet of stairs that they had to dodge – and only a handful more to reach their target. But each step, open and exposed, felt like they were wading through concrete. As soon as they ducked into the dark, relative safety of the recess, Bella's back slammed against the wall and her shoulders slumped in relief.
Like other similar buildings, this one's entry was a solid three feet deep, surrounded on all sides by two-foot thick blocks of etched sandstone. Angrily scrawled graffiti – in both Latin and Arabic script – covered one side of the vestibule, glowing bright, neon green through her NVGs. But that wasn't what grabbed her attention. Deep inside the pocket, a heavy-duty security door, ornately patterned in iron lace, blocked their way.
Bella sucked in a breath of pungent air – a mix of ammonia, garbage, and God only knew what else – and promptly wished she hadn't. "What do we do now?"
Without a word, Jasper gave her a sideways glance, as though she'd missed something obvious, reached into one of the pouches by his hip, and produced a slim, opaque vial that, like the graffiti, through her NVGs looked neon green. Slowly, careful not to lose its contents, the corporal unscrewed the white cap, tipped the vial toward the lock, and with a slender eyedropper she hadn't seen him draw from his pocket, squirted a full column of liquid directly into the keyhole. And then he waited.
"One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand," Jasper counted, while simultaneously recapping the vial and stowing it back inside his drop pouch. At ten, when a thin tendril of smoke swirled out of the keyhole, he reached inside another pouch, pulling out a small metal can, which he then aimed and sprayed on the door's top and bottom hinges. The faint hint of WD-40 cut through the stench of human waste.
After twenty seconds, sparing Bella another quick peek, Jasper gingerly turned the black iron doorknob, twisting it back and forth, and lifted the door by one of the horizontal bars in the center. There was a click, like something coming unstuck, a soft, metallic groan from the hinges, and the door swung wide, accompanied by a triumphant, whispered, "Ta-da!"
Her eyes shot wide. "What the hell?"
"Magic," was all the man said, shrugging like it was nothing.
"Holy shit."
The corporal just grinned, pressed his forefinger to his lips, and went in low, his weapon tight against his shoulder and scanning the plaster walls beyond. Bella followed a second later, hot on his heels. Three feet inside she hesitated, however, waffling a moment, before finally whirling around to carefully push the security door closed in case anyone else came along.
When she spun back toward the room, Jasper had already made it across what looked like the bones of a wide, open lobby with intricately laid tilework and a high, tray ceiling. In its center, hanging down a half dozen feet, Bella could just make out the twisted cables that would have held some kind of large central light fixture. Not wasting any time, she crept across the room to where the Marine waited at the foot of a set of flared concrete stairs.
"Hotel?" Bella mouthed.
"Either that, or upper class apartments," Jasper said as they began to climb the steps, keeping tight against the wall. Like the rest of the building, the main stairway was unfinished, open on one side and rail-less. "Probably started before the civil war sometime and just never completed."
Recalling the densely packed clothes lines strung across the alleys, Bella's brow furrowed. "And no one claimed it?"
Jasper shook his head right as they reached the first landing. Dropping to one knee in a quick, lithe move that reminded Bella all too well of the captain down on the street, he nosed his rifle around the corner and repeated the same rapid inspection he'd done downstairs.
Directly in front of them, a long, empty hallway led to the next flight of stairs. On the left, another passageway branched out perpendicular, extending to the other end of the building, and on the right was a line of open-door frames and bent-up hinges, as though the doors had been installed but later ripped out. Bare bulbs hung from a string of ceiling sockets, some broken, the rest blackened.
"Not on this side of town and not this close to those villas." He swiftly moved from doorway to doorway to check the rooms, leading with his rifle. "The warlords and terrorist cells sometimes use old buildings like this to house their shit. Not many people are willing to claim squatter's rights against assholes like that."
Close behind him, Bella's breath caught in her throat. "Do you thi–"
"Nah," Jasper said, answering her question before she could even voice it. "Look down, Doc. What do you see?"
Bella's eyes immediately dropped to the floor to where a pale stream of moonlight came in from a small, opaque block-glass window at the far end of the hall. She lifted her NVGs, trying to understand what the corporal was telling her. "Nothing. I see nothing..."
"Exactly. Now look behind us."
She craned her neck around, eyeballing the dim, twenty feet of empty hallway behind them. Just as she was about to ask, it hit her. "Footprints," she said, barely making out two pairs of gray on gray, boot-shaped tracks.
"Yep," he said, already starting up the next flight. "No one's been in here for… I'd say at least a couple of months. Could have told you that from the door, though." When she would have asked, Jasper looked back with a wink that she could only call playful arrogance. "Hinges. They'd half rusted together. Same for the lock."
"Then why are you checking the rooms?"
Jasper frowned, pausing one step from the top of the next landing, and turned. That bit of playfulness vanished, replaced by the same expression she'd seen when he'd learned of her would-be attacker in that house in the Iranian desert. "'Cause I could always be wrong."
The remaining four stories went like the first, fast and quiet, without a sign of life, and by the time they exited the final stairway into a large, unfinished space that stretched across the entire width of the building, the layer of dust was so thick that Bella couldn't even see the rough-laid concrete floor below it. Everything was covered – a pair of flipped over chairs in the center, a pile of glass bottles in the corner, random boards and tools left here and there – and when she breathed, Bella could taste the silvery motes that hung in the air.
After clearing the space, Jasper crossed the room in a handful of purposeful strides, targeting the western bank of boarded-up windows. Instead of the center window, as Bella anticipated, he dropped his gear in front of the second one from the left. Like he'd done it a thousand times, he took a knee and began pulling equipment out of his pouches, laying out each piece with near-obsessive order and precision.
"Come on down," he said, waving her to the floor. As Bella dropped to her knees, he unfolded his M110's bi-pod, snapped on a long-range Leupold scope and high-powered night sight from his equipment stash, and mounted the suppressor. Positioning the rifle between a pair of cracked boards and the sill, the corporal performed a quick check and dialed in the elevation. As the villa came into view, he clucked his tongue once in annoyance and adjusted the sight and the angle of the bi-pod, before finally glancing down to his watch.
4 minutes, 17 seconds.
"Ghost, do you copy?" Jasper whispered, settling in behind his rifle.
There were a few seconds of tense silence, and then the captain's voice, low and eerily calm, was in Bella's ear. "Copy that, Jazz-man. How's the view?"
Jasper swiveled his NVGs out of the way, leaned forward, and stared through the scope to the compound below. Centering the reticle on a pair of black-clad mercenaries standing together in the middle of the courtyard, he adjusted his scope and smiled. "Fuckin' spectacular." He slowly swung the weapon to the right, and then to the left, stopping on another man in black fatigues lounging against a column and sucking on a cigarette. "I count 8 inside. They seem bored, too."
"Good."
Zeroing in on the team's target entry point at the southeast corner of the compound, Jasper swept up the nearest alleyway until he caught a hint of movement against a piece of slate-gray corrugated steel leaning against a wall. "Hidy-ho, neighbor."
Alice's soft, answering chuckle and subtle wave made Jasper's lips twitch. "Any trouble getting over there?"
"Negative," Edward replied. "Visibility of direct line to entry location is good, but periphery is shit. Can you advise?"
Sweeping back toward the corner, Jasper read out the cover positions. "Mid-80s Isuzu at twenty yards left… Old VW Microbus at thirty right." He adjusted his scope again, and the scene blurred before turning sharp as a razor blade. "Set of steps, forty-five right… And you got a stack of tires at fifty-five left. After that… you're going to have to go for it. You're in luck, too. Gap stands, so stow the cutters."
"And our friends?"
The corporal frowned as his barrel dipped and again moved in a slow arc, left to right. "Still spread out, still rotating," he said. Looping the beaten perimeter path around the outside wall of the villa, he pinpointed each patrol, rechecking spacing and body language, looking for any sign of unease. The pale-haired soldier they'd spotted on the ground stood at 3 o'clock – at the northwest corner – shoulders relaxed and talking to a gate guard. At 5, another soldier faced the compound wall, taking a piss. The next strolled at an even seventy yards from their entry point at 7 o'clock. "ETA three minutes. 6'0", early twenties, and pale like the first fucker we saw. He's wearing some heavy armor. Looks like the shit Spetsnaz wore a few years ago."
"After?"
"The one you gotta beat just rounded the southwestern corner at 9 o'clock. 6'3", dark hair, short beard, and carrying a modified Steyr." Jasper paused. "Ghost, be advised, he's rocking a 203. He's got on an arm-band of some sort, too." Jasper flipped a switch on his night sight, and the image colored. It was dim, but there was enough residual light from the nearby floodlight that he could just make out the now familiar, red on black symbol. "Another one of those fucking scorpions. We're definitely at the right place."
"You say the word. As soon as Mr. Spetsnaz clears," the captain said, his voice lowering, transforming into steel. "We move."
"Roger that."
Down on the ground, the team crouched between a head-high sheet of roofing steel and an old equipment trailer propped up on wooden blocks, half on the sidewalk, half on the street. Like their previous position two streets over, the alleyway was desolate and dark. Overhead, a dozen cables stretched from building to building, decorated by worn bolts of fabric that swayed and billowed in the breeze. Here and there, old pairs of tennis shoes tied together by their laces hung across sagging power lines.
Three minutes and twenty-five seconds after the last communication, the corporal's voice whispered through their headsets. "Mr. Spetsnaz is clear. Ghost, you have a go."
With one last upward glance, Edward gave Rosalie the order, motioning for her and Emmett to assume cover positions. Shouldering her rifle, the gunny nodded with a grim, flat-lipped smile and pointed to Emmett to take the left. Without a sound, she simultaneously went right, traversed the sidewalk, and slipped behind a wide-bottom clay urn at the base of a set of steps that led up into one of the buildings.
As soon as Rosalie was in position and gave the go-ahead, Edward shot from behind the broken-down trailer, targeting the old Trooper sitting twenty yards to their forward left. Once there, he raised his hand and the rest of the team instantly followed, one by one, each moving with purpose and speed, darting out from the safety of the trailer just as soon as the previous had cleared the open alley.
Zigzagging back and forth across the pavement, they left the Isuzu for the rusted out yellow VW bus a few yards to their forward right, then to the wide set of steps, and finally to the double stack of knobby truck tires at the edge of the intersection opposite the southeastern corner of the villa's wall. Directly in front, their entry point and route inside rose sharply, a solid twenty-five feet in the air.
Edward glanced down at his wrist.
2 minutes, 17 seconds.
Less than 8 to go, he thought as he checked in with their eyes in the air. "Jazz, status?"
"Still good," the corporal came back. "ETA 7 minutes. Mr. 203's picked up the pace a little. You are clear to ascend."
With that, Edward signaled Emmett, who pulled two figure-eight coils of inch-thick black rope from his pack. The big man chucked one over, and without wasting another second, together, the two men raced across the intersection. At the base of the wall, Edward dropped the bulk of his coil to the ground. He flipped the release on the heavy matching matte-black grappling hook attached to the end, and four barbed arms sprang out with a soft, metallic pop!
With a calmness borne from years of field ops and repetition under pressure, Edward allowed the hook to drop, sliding his grip a few feet down on the rope, and with a quick flick of his wrist, he swung it until it gained enough momentum to be a singing blur. When he turned it loose, the hook shot out like a cannon, easily clearing the twenty-five feet of wall, looped around the post of an iron railing at the top, and bit into the concrete.
The captain looked over to the staff sergeant, whose line hung secure off the adjacent railing, nodded, and the two began a rapid ascent. Bracing their boots against the wall, they rappelled up, hand over hand and with full packs in tow.
The big man rolled over the lip of the wall first, aiming for the narrow gap in the double-strand razor wire that looped the entire compound. Once through and on the catwalk, he immediately moved to cover his commander and the two Marines that had already crossed the street to the base of the wall.
"Jesus, you're a beast," Edward huffed as he cleared the wall a few seconds later and copied the big man's position.
Emmett flashed him a blacked-out grin. "Yes, sir, I am."
Breathing a little harder than he used to, Edward just shook his head, even as he directed Rosalie and Alice to start their climb.
4 minutes, 26 seconds.
Where the two men and the gunnery sergeant muscled their way up, the lieutenant was a study in cat-like grace. Lithe and lightning quick, she took a slow step back before launching off the ground. Half-running up the wall, her hands moved almost too fast to track, and she scaled the thing even faster than the staff sergeant. At the top, Alice swung one leg over, slid through the gap in the wire, and was instantly back on her feet, rifle up and scanning.
Jasper's soft laugh came through their earpieces. "Float like a fairy, huh?"
"Damned right," Alice whispered back, and with a quick elbow jab at Emmett's ribs, she added, "And sting like a what?
"Yeah, yeah," Emmett said, rolling his eyes behind the NVGs. "I know, like a motherfucking hellfire missile."
"Don't forget that shit, either."
The corporal came in again. "Ghost, Mr. 203 is still 3 minutes out to your west, but you got a pair of mercs headin' your way along the northwestern wall. Don't see you yet, but might want to head on down and get under than awning."
"Roger that." As the sergeants retrieved their lines and repositioned them to descend into the villa's courtyard, Edward spared a quick look up to the abandoned building in the distance. "You okay, Doctor?"
When Bella answered a second later, her voice was soft and breathy, and there was an unmistakable tremble behind her words. "I'm fine. But don't waste your time worrying about me." He could hear her swallow. "Hurry up and get out of there."
That same warm something hit him in the chest all over again, and this time, as he grabbed the rope, set his boots against the wall, and leaned back to rappel down to the compound, a reply was out of his mouth before he could stop it. "Yes, ma'am."
The drop into the courtyard was far faster than their ascent, with each Marine rappelling down in mere seconds. The instant his feet hit the ground, Edward was already off the rope and spreading out to shield his team. Searching center-left, peeking between the leaves of an out-of-place orange tree, he located the power pole in the center by the kidney-shaped pool. Cabling ran from the main house to the pole, and then across the courtyard to the smaller building at the rear of the compound. But ten feet up sat the security camera they'd suspected was there, complete with a motion detector mounted beneath. A tiny LED in the upper corner blinked bright through his NVGs.
To the right, he found the awning-covered walkway that ringed the eastern wall. Tapping his throat mike once, Edward said, "Doctor, go ahead and start following with me. Jasper'll show you what switch to throw."
Bella's voice was even softer now. "I'm good. I've been watching since the second you started moving."
Rosalie's head swiveled toward him, and Edward could have sworn that he caught a slight upward curve to her lips. She didn't say a word, however. Instead, as soon as Alice's boots hit dirt, the gunny swept her rifle right and waved a silent go!
Single file, they crept under the canopy, hugging the far edge of the sidewalk against the concrete wall to stay inside the shadows. Eighty yards away, in the center of the compound, the main house rose up, a towering silhouette in the night. At two-thirty in the morning, it was silent and dark like the rest of the city, with its windows blacked out and blinds drawn. The courtyard itself was muted charcoal, with what little moonlight there was bouncing off the still surface of the pool.
A third of the way there, a pair of low voices came from somewhere to their left.
Edward's fist shot up, and the Marines froze in place and dropped down below the line of low desert shrubs that framed the sidewalk, their rifles instantly trained on a two-man team of unsuspecting mercenaries high up on the catwalk of the western wall.
Eyes glued to the patrols and with his finger poised on his carbine's trigger, Edward silently pivoted on his heel, tracking the soldiers' every move. These guys were tall and thin – locals, by the looks of them and by the old AKs sitting on their hips. Wearing ill-fitting fatigues and armor, they slowly strolled the wall, conversing in heavy, lilting accents.
"Ghost." Jasper's voice was a faint whisper. "You got two more at your 10 o'clock. Up high and parked on a half wall on the far left side of the main house's western addition. Looks like they're having a smoke break."
"Good," Edward mouthed back, his near-silent voice amplified by the sensitive throat mike. "Let's hope they stay there. Anyone else?"
"Another pair on top of the pool house in the back. You'll need to time it just right when you cross from the walkway to the side of the house."
"Where's those last two?"
"They're at the front, talking to the gate guards and passing around a bottle that I'd guess isn't Coke. They're not leaving anytime soon."
As soon as the two men on the western wall disappeared from sight, Edward motioned the team forward. They stopped again, this time twenty yards away, when a loud, metallic groan came from the rear of the compound – the unmistakable sound of a door swinging open and shut.
A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Edward's face.
"You got another one," Jasper said before he could ask. "Just came out of the pool house. Stay exactly where you are. He's climbing up to relieve one of the guys on the roof."
Edward flashed his lieutenant at the rear a silent query, Visual?
Staring down her scope at the young, baby-faced man climbing the narrow limestone steps built into side of the pool house, she signed back. And then again when a shorter, stockier soldier pounded back down those same stairs less than a minute later. The door groaned again, screeching in the dark silence of the courtyard, and snapped back with a bang.
Jasper's soft, "Go ahead," came through their earpieces, and they were off once more, stopping only when they reached the end of the canopied walk. Directly across a scant 10 feet of open space stood the main house, tall, imposing, and still completely dark.
Like most other villas in this part of the city, it was a large, rectangular stucco affair, a bastardized nod to Mediterranean luxury, with top-to-bottom columns adorning the front and decorative iron bars spanning the first story windows. More form than function, the second floor sat atop the first like a stacked wedding cake – smaller and easily accessible by the wide, flat roof patio that ringed it. A set of windowpane French doors led inside, and even from their position on the ground, Edward could tell that the left-hand door was slightly ajar.
The captain gestured to Alice and Emmett to split to cover their entry and exit route. Tracking the pair of men on the top of the pool house to their south, Alice waited, sucking in slow, even breaths, until they both turned their backs. She dashed across the open space to the edge of the main house, and then slinking against the wall, she positioned herself between a stack of pool chairs and a tall, bullet-shaped evergreen. The staff sergeant moved to her opposite side as soon as she signed ready, taking a similarly sheltered position tucked in between the house and another tall evergreen.
"Wait," Jasper told the two remaining Marines. "Those two Tangos at 10 just reversed. Looks like they're moving toward the pool house to have a little party. Hold position."
Five stories up and 600 yards away, Bella gripped the edge of the windowsill as she went back and forth between watching the shaky, moving images transmitted from the captain's NVGs to hers and that of her own rangefinder. Magnified and amplified by night vision, she could see everything – every step the mercenaries took toward her team, each change in direction, every single turn of a head. It was nerve-wracking, with each second closer to the villa making her heart pound a little faster and her lungs work a little harder.
Beside her, the corporal sat behind his scope in cool juxtaposition, as he quietly relayed locations and movements. "Twenty seconds. Wait for my mark."
Like the younger man by her side, when the captain's voice came through, it was rock steady, as though this were nothing more than a training exercise. "Roger that, Jazz-man. Waiting for your mark."
Counting down, Jasper's lips silently shaped the words. At ten, his trigger finger twitched, repositioning and readying if needed. "Four… three… two… now!"
Heart somewhere in the pit of her stomach, Bella stared through her NVGs, following the captain's feed, as he and Rosalie bolted from the edge of the awning to the bare, stucco wall between the lieutenant and the staff sergeant. There, slinging his rifle around, Edward dropped to a knee and cupped his hands together. Without a second of hesitation, the gunny stepped into the basket of his hands and took the assist. He shoved up, and stretching every bit of her 6'1" frame, Rosalie made it just high enough to grab the bottom rung of the white railing circling the roof's patio so she could pull herself up.
"Go!" Jasper whispered the second the gunny's boots hit the tile.
Emmett stepped out from his spot between the wall and the tree and copied the captain's assist position. With a clipped nod, Edward stepped up, just as the staff sergeant lifted, and latched onto the railing above. He was up and swinging his leg over the top with a single pull.
Ducking low and silent as church mice, Edward and Rosalie crept across the patio and approached the pair of French doors located dead center. Back against the wall on the left-hand side, Edward pulled a small black device that Bella couldn't name from one of his pouches, flipped it open, and slowly – carefully – extended it out in front of the door. He angled it right, then left, and then right again.
"Intel was right," he said, so quiet that Bella could barely hear him, even with the throat mike's amplification. "Looks like an office of some kind. Stacks of papers on a desk, and there's some sort of print or map hanging on the back wall. A couple of comps on the left-hand side." He looked toward their building, his eyes unerringly finding their window. "How are we?"
"Still good," Jasper answered, as he slowly swept his rifle from the team's position on the roof to the rear of the compound. "Villa's still dark too."
"Then we're goin' in." Edward paused. "You there, Doctor?"
Bella's throat bobbed. "Mm-hm."
"It's your turn, okay? When I go inside, you won't hear me anymore – can't risk it – but I'll still hear you. You see something, you just say the word and tell me which way to go. Alright?"
Gripping the sill harder, Bella's nails dug into the suede liner of her gloves. "Yeah, okay."
Still plastered to the outside wall by the door, Edward raised the device again, performing another rapid scan of the room through the glass, and then motioned to Rosalie.
Belatedly, covering her throat-mike, Bella whispered to Jasper, "What's he doing?"
"It's a thermal camera," the corporal said back, though he didn't dare look away from the compound below. "It'll pick up body heat, sure, but it's sensitive enough to register even residual electronic signatures."
"Like alarms?"
"Yep."
A few seconds later, the captain issued another one of his nonverbal communications.
"What does that mean?" she asked
Continuing his sweep of the courtyard and walls, Jasper said, "He just signed that the room's clean."
"Isn't that strange?" Bella's brows angled into a sharp 'V' and her fingers drummed against the sill. "Considering, I mean, that they were sophisticated enough to… kidnap Riley and steal my weapon?"
Jasper's lips settled into a grim line, made more so by the olive and charcoal camo paint covering his face, and Bella wasn't sure if it was because she was right or because he didn't want her to know it. A low, "Maybe," was all he said.
"Does… he… does the Cap– Ghost know that?" she asked, her voice rising in both pitch and volume.
Jasper's eyes narrowed. As if trying to decide how much to tell her, he blew out a heavy breath. "Of course he does." What the Marine didn't say, but what Bella heard as clear as day was, Why do you think you're up here?
Her blood drained, and she swayed a little, leaning back on her heels. "Oh, God."
"It's alright, Doc." Jasper pulled his rifle tighter against his shoulder. "We've done this shit a thousand times. No one knows how to do this better than the Ghost." His lips suddenly quirked. "Did you catch that last sign?"
Bella shook her head.
"He just told you to take it easy."
Bella's eyes – wide and liquid in the low light – squeezed shut. "Sorry…" she whispered. "I didn't mean for you to hear that."
When she opened them again, through the captain's feed lens, she saw his right forefinger and thumb touch and make an 'O'. Okay.
Without waiting a second more, Edward slowly opened the door, swinging it out just wide enough for him and Rosalie to slip through. Unlike the pool house's, this one moved noiselessly on its hinges, and before Bella could blink, the outside scene through his NVGs disappeared, replaced by one that could have come from anywhere in the world.
Drenched in shades of green, the room was a large office or small library of sorts. Floor to ceiling bookshelves occupied the right-hand wall, filled with technical texts in a dozen languages: French, English, German, Arabic… Opposite, a long table sat against the chair rail, with a pair of late-model desktops and a single laptop, open and blinking, sitting on top. A heavy, ornate desk on a patterned Persian rug occupied the center of the room, and on it were a half dozen 4-inch stacks of papers, spread out as though the owner had stopped working and just left everything until he returned. An ashtray, overfilling with cigarette butts, kept a large 24x17 blueprint unrolled.
"There," Bella directed without thinking, straining to see the familiar lines. "Go to that print in the middle of the desk."
Without a word, Edward moved further inside the room, targeting the desk in the center. He glanced left to Rosalie, issuing her the command to keep watch. When she took sentry position, he propped his rifle against the desk and pulled out the same LED flashlight that Bella had used only days ago, when she'd built her temporary darkroom to read the burned up stubs they'd found in the garbage. Blocking most of the pale light with his hand, he lit the print just enough that the video feed could pick up its contents.
"Damn it," Bella muttered, seeing exactly what she didn't want to see. "That's almost exactly what Riley drew on the whiteboard. See that bifurcated cone head with the cabling runs? They're building it so that it'll arm in the air, mid-flight. The way they're doing it, though… it's worse. It's going to give them more range." The view moved up and down, blurring, and she realized that Edward was nodding in agreement. "Get that whole thing, okay?"
Edward nodded again and slowly began to video the entire print, skimming it from right to left, carefully blocking most of the light so that no one could see from the outside. He then moved to the papers, rifling through each stack, searching for anything that looked even remotely familiar.
"Stop there," Bella told him. "What are those? Invoices?" The view zoomed in tighter, and her stomach took a nosedive. "Chemicals orders…" she murmured, recognizing all-too-familiar reactants, ones that she and Riley had spent the last two years using to create their weapon. "Get all those. I need to see everything they're buying – everything they're even thinking about buying. That'll tell me how far away they are." Though from what she saw, from the complex reaction mechanisms she knew like her name, they were only days away. The only thing missing… the final synthesis step.
The next few stacks went quickly – more invoices, some copies of calculations, a few more sketches. When Edward moved to the last stack of papers, Bella's spine went ramrod straight. Her teeth clamped down on her lip, biting down until she tasted copper, holding in something between a scream and a cry as Riley's photo – the same one that used to decorate his security badge – came into view.
But it was when the captain flipped to the next packet of pages that she froze, and as time ground to a stuttering halt, her veins turned to ice.
While she couldn't see his face, in the video feed, Edward's fist instantly tightened, and there was a slight tremble to his grip, as though he were trying very, very hard not to crumple the papers he held. A long, slow second passed. Then another, and another, until he finally stilled and placed the stack back on the desk, exactly like he found it.
Another few, precious seconds went by.
And then there was a light tap! in Bella's ear. It made her look right. Confused, eyes glassy and dazed, Bella swung her head toward Jasper, who now eyed her in his periphery.
"Doc? You okay?"
She looked at the younger man for a long, dragging moment before answering, hoarse and shaky. "They know who I am." Her mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. "They have my picture. My address. Where I went to school. They know what grocery store I shop at." She licked her lips. "They're… or the– they were going to come after me, too."
Jasper's jaw turned to stone and that trigger finger of his locked at the first knuckle. "Listen to me, you don't think about that shit right now." His rifle dropped to one of the narrow spots between the villa's wall and tall evergreens, and in his scope, he saw bloody murder written across the staff sergeant's camo'd-up face. Worse was on Alice's. "We'll take care of that later. Don't you worry about that at all." Itching to lay waste to the soldiers below, his teeth grinded. "You focus on that feed."
"I–"
Another light tap! in their earpieces interrupted, and Jasper told her again, his voice now gravelly, "Doc, right now, you need to stay calm and direct traffic down there. Ghost's calling you."
Bella sucked in a deep lungful of air, letting her chest swell against the heavy weight of her SAPI plates. "Right." Her hands dropped to her knees, squeezing hard enough that she knew she'd have finger-sized bruises tomorrow. When her fingertips brushed across the captain's thigh holster, she straightened. "Video the book collection," she said, forcing herself to temporarily un-see that image of herself. "There's probably nothing there, but let's get a shot anyway. Get the map. And there was a small file folder on that little table by the window." She blew out a slow breath. "And then let's see if we can get in this asshole's computers."
The view bobbed up and down, but Bella didn't miss the fact that Edward's fists were still balled, and even through his NOMEX, she could see the hard, flexing, pissed-off twists of the muscles and tendons of his forearms.
Moving from one end of the room to the other, he followed her lead, capturing images that she'd spend hours poring over later. Exactly fifteen minutes after topping the villa's outer perimeter wall, Edward slid a thin, USB stick into the first of the three computers, depressing a small black button on the end. A pale LED about the size of a pinhead lit and began to slowly blink, gaining speed as it deposited the Trojan and began siphoning away data. He did the same to the second desktop. Just as he was about to insert the third USB stick, however, Jasper muttered a loud, "Fuck!" and the captain stilled.
With quick, nimble fingers, the corporal adjusted his sight, zeroing in on the bottom floor of the villa where one of the back windows was now lit up bright yellow. "Be advised," he said, his words holding a dangerous edge. "You have company." Another light came on. And then another, and another. Jasper's barrel ticked left, following the path of the lights. "Goddamnit, Ghost, get the fuck out of there right now. Someone's moving in that house. They're heading for the stairs with purpose. Op is blown."
Fumbling over to her rangefinder, Bella watched as Rosalie and Edward slipped out of the French doors a blink later, targeting the same path down that they'd just come up.
"Get down!" Jasper ordered.
All of a sudden, hell broke loose in the courtyard.
At some kind of unknown command, two of the perimeter guards on the western wall spun toward the villa, while at the opposite end of the courtyard, the men on the pool house's roof flew down the stairs. A split-second later, the building's door abruptly banged open, and four guards – off-hours by the state of their fatigues – poured out, armed and moving fast.
Frantic, heart slamming against her sternum, Bella scanned the entire length of the compound and found three of the six out-of-place, well-armed soldiers in dark, flecktarn patterned fatigues rushing inside the front gates.
And they were all converging on the villa.
Where two Marines laid low and prone on the patio roof and two more stood guard at the bottom.
"Ghost, you got the world coming down on you. Something must've tripped in there. Some alarm or some shit. You gotta get off that roof in a hurry. You want me to start laying down fire?"
"Negative," the captain came back, tight and clipped. "Can't afford that kind of firefight, not with Wolf still in that shit position up at the main mountain compound. And I'm not risking them coming at you when they see your flash go off, especially considering what I just saw in there. What else you got? Give me options!"
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," the corporal muttered, as he searched for another outlet. "You and Blondie head to the northwestern corner… Tink, you and Bear are gonna have to shadow on the ground. Keep your head down!"
"No can do," Alice came back. "I see two more coming out the side door over here. They don't see us yet…"
"Got two more coming out my side, too. Jesus, they're like rabbits, fucking and multiplying," Emmett chimed in. "Blondie, get your ass off that roof."
"Doctor," Edward said, even as he lifted himself off the patio and began hauling ass to the opposite corner of the patio. "You get out of that building right now. You remember where the vehicles are. Go there. Wait ten minutes, no more than that, and you take off like a bat out of hell."
Bella jerked away from her rangefinder with a hard, resounding, "No!"
"That's an order, Doctor. You will do as I say, and I say move!"
He then addressed his Marines. "Tink, wait for my signal. When I jump down, I'm going left and will directly take the courtyard." He yanked out a pair of flash-bangs from his drop pouch. "I'll draw them away. You, Bear, and Blondie move to the right and stay tight to the wall. When they've cleared the house, you get the fuck out through that front gate. Understood?"
"Fuck that, Capt–"
Edward barked a hard, "I didn't ask for commentary, Lieutenant. I asked if you understood. Your job is to get everyone out and take this." Bella couldn't see what he threw down to Alice. "Clear?"
Fear pulsed like electricity.
On her feet before she realized it, Bella's eyes flew across the massive, unfinished room around her. It was empty and dark, with nothing but a few piles of construction debris and boarded up windows. She twisted around, and a scrap 2x4 caught and tugged on her thigh holster.
Jasper looked over for a split second. "Doc, you do what the captain said. Get moving down those stairs."
Instead, she went the other way.
Before the corporal could stop her, Bella raced across the room, aiming for the opposite wall of boarded-up windows – facing away from the villa. Even with the weight of her gear and armor, she crossed the space in seconds. Lungs heaving, she skidded to a halt in front of one of the far right windows and looked once across the room, back to Jasper who again yelled at her to leave.
Recalling too well the way the earth had stopped when those gunrunners' rifle shots had gone off on their way in, and how the echo between the buildings had made it impossible to know where the shooters were, Bella whipped her sidearm out and hoped for more of the same.
A single thought passed through her mind. If she could just divert their attention… for just a moment, it just might be enough of a break for the Marines to get their asses out of harm's way.
Clamping her eyes together and angling the .45's barrel out through a crack in the boards, Bella squeezed the trigger with a deafening boom!, and then emptied her entire clip into the dark, Somali sky.
.
.
.
Notes:
Glossary:
203 – pronounced, "2-Oh-3", or M203 grenade launcher, which can be mounted onto a variety of assault rifles.
Flash-bang – kind of like a grenade, but instead of live ammo, they produce a bunch of noise and light. They're really good for scaring the crap out of people and freezing them with indecision. .
Flecktarn – name of the camouflage pattern used by the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces), as well as some other countries' militaries. It comes in 3, 4, 5, or 6 colors. The pattern resembles overlaid spots of varying sizes and shapes, which, like the USMC's digitized MARPAT pattern, help it easily blend in with surroundings.
G36 – is an assault rifle manufactured by Heckler and Koch. It fires a 5.56 x 45mm NATO round. It was originally deployed by the Bundeswehr as a replacement for the G3, but is now used worldwide.
MP7 – is another H&K weapon. It's categorized as a submachine gun or a personal defense weapon, which means it's designed more for close proximity battle relative to the above G36. For example, a G36 has an effective range of around 800m, whereas an MP7 has an effective range of only 200m. But with its high rate of fire (900 rounds per minute) and armor piercing cartridges, it's a force to be reckoned with in close quarters. Hence why SEAL Team Six sometimes uses the weapon in some of their operations. It fires the HK 4.6x30mm round.
Rangefinder – recall from a previous chapter, is a device kind of like a pair of binoculars, but with the built-in ability to measure distance.
Reticle – also called crosshairs, is the cross-shaped aiming aid that you often see when looking through a riflescope, telescope, rangefinder, etc.
Spetsnatz – or "spetsialnogo naznacheniya", is a general term used for Russian Special Forces units. The most well known was Spetsnaz GRU, which was housed under military intelligence. That group was reorganized back in 2010.
Steyr – is an Austrian firearms manufacturer which manufactures military grade assault rifles similar to the M4A1, G36, 416, etc., in function and use. Personally… I find their weapons to be rather… ugly, lol. A little too Jetsons for my taste. But they're solid and do the job.
Tango – military speak for the letter "T", which is sometimes used for "target" or "enemy".
WD-40 – is a magical, ingenious compound, which I'm only including here for the sake of those who might be reading overseas where it may not be available (or it may be sold under another name). It's basically a type of high viscosity lubricating oil that's been cut with lighter hydrocarbons such that it can be applied via a spray can. It's used for a variety of things: unsticking rusty hinges, cleaning and protecting gun barrels, cleaning tools, removing gum and scuff marks, loosening plumbing joints, silencing squeaky doors and drawers, etc. WD-40 has a distinctive, but not unpleasant smell to it.