David Golemon - Ripper

The sergeant was soon joined by another army sergeant and the two marines.

“Sir, can we—”

“No,” Jack said and then softened somewhat. “No, Sergeant. This is a job for a small regiment, or two or three men, and I’m afraid the FBI and the Mexican government have a chokehold on the small-regiment thing today. Stay here and protect this aircraft.” The sergeant nodded his head. “Your volunteering is duly noted,” Jack said while looking at the marines also, “all of you.”

At that moment they heard the four engines of the old and venerable 707 start up. Everett closed the black bag and then gave Jack a thumbs-up.

“Boss, thanks for this,” Jack said holding his hand out to the director.

“Get her back, Colonel, we’ll hold off discussion of anything else until we get home to Nevada — if we have a home after this.” He smiled and shook Jack’s hand and then Mendenhall’s and Everett’s. “You better get below.”

With those last words the army sergeant and the two marines tore away a section of the carpeting just outside of the cockpit and then opened a small trapdoor.

“I sure hope the pilot has it in him,” Mendenhall said as he looked down into the blackness of the avionics compartment.

“Don’t worry Lieutenant, the pilot and Ryan are flying buddies,” Everett said as he tossed the second black bag down to Collins far below in the belly of the plane.

Mendenhall watched Everett slip down the small ladder and then looked at the director. “Is that crack about Ryan and this pilot supposed to make me feel better about all of this?”

Outside the aircraft the head of the Laredo FBI field office stepped from the hangar where the planning for the joint raid was being finalized. He saw the large 707 start to roll as one of his men handed him the phone. He was connected directly to his director in Washington, who in turn was relaying information to the president.

“Yes, sir, their aircraft is preparing for takeoff. They filed a flight plan for San Antonio,” the special agent said into his secure cell phone. “No, sir, no one left the aircraft. The colonel and his men are still onboard, yes.”

Suddenly the 707 started rolling and made a sharp turn in front of the hangar where the HRT unit and their Mexican counterpart were preparing for their raid across the border. The words of the FBI director and the president of the United States were drowned out by the piercing scream of the Boeing aircraft. With a smirking Niles Compton looking out of one of the passenger windows, the pilot applied his brakes when the 707 was directly in front of the agents and the hangar. He throttled all four of the large GE engines to near full power, making the wings shake and flutter. The special agent in charge was pushed back toward the open hangar door as a small hurricane of wind and noise buffeted everyone in the building. Men scrambled to close the hangar doors and the agents on the outside ducked behind the cover of the cars lining the front.

As the agents sought protection from the man-made gale force winds pummeling them, they failed to see three men scramble from the nose wheel compartment of the large plane where they had just torn away the insulation from the avionics room to enter. They ducked and ran for the cover of an idle Blackhawk.

The 707 pilot, a true friend of Jason Ryan, applied the last of his power to the four engines when one of the FBI agents braved a look over the hood of his Chevrolet. The wings were threatening to be ripped from the aircraft as they wagged up and down as if it were a giant bird. The brakes were overheating as the pilot saw three men scramble to a waiting car.

Inside the passenger compartment Niles Compton and a grinning Pete Golding watched as Jack, Carl, and Will Mendenhall pulled quickly out of the secure area just as the pilot pulled back on the aircraft’s four throttles. He cracked his window and then waved at the agents as if in apology. Fifteen field men of the FBI’s Laredo office finally stood after the man-made windstorm had stopped.

“Where did that bastard learn how to taxi an aircraft,” the lead agent asked as he placed the cell phone back to his ear. “Yes sir, sorry. No, their aircraft is taxiing and no one left the plane.”

Niles turned away from the small window and looked at Pete.

“Well, they’re on their way.”

Pete smiled as he took in his boss.

“Do you think I’ll be able to have access to Europa from the jail cell we’ll be sharing when the president finds out about this … again?”

“What makes you think the president will stop at throwing us in jail, Pete? It’s more likely he’ll line us up against the wall and shoot us.”

Pete nodded his head and smiled.

“Now that’s the way to go out.”

The most successful counterintelligence operations in history are conducted out of a state-of-the-art building that, thanks to the James Bond films, is currently one of the largest tourist attractions in all of London. From the outside, American, European, and Asian visitors to London can take snapshots and wonder how such a marvelous building could house a brilliant intelligence service and not somehow be much darker because of its intent.

Housed deep in the subbasement of the giant concrete and glass structure was a small and little-known office that housed several supercomputers that had but one function and one function only — to spy on the best friend that the United Kingdom had today — the United States of America. Certain protocols have been handed down from minister to minister over the years that have remained secret for over a century, long before America and Britain were allied together in a mutual defense mode that was brought on through necessity since World War II. Although spying on each other has been a foregone conclusion since the beginning, no one in either government would ever say the words to confirm it — it just wasn’t Cricket.

The code-breaker section of MI6, actually titled MI1, has a sub-branch that sits off in a far corner in the darkest recesses of the basement. This section had one specific reason for operations — spying on the cousins across the sea in their communications between law enforcement and intelligence services. It was here that three men were hustling about the room after several red-flag, coded communications from Langley, Virginia, the home of the Central Intelligence Agency, America’s version of MI6, had come in. Two key words and one name had been deciphered from five different communications from a field operation being conducted by the American Federal Bureau of Investigation and relayed through the CIA command center. One of the three men shook his head and slapped the keyboard on his computer.

“We get a red flag on the two words and one name and there’s nothing in the computer on it,” the man said in exasperation. “And what’s this bloody icon attached to the flag? I’ve never seen this before.”

Another man walked over with a computer printout and looked over the operator’s shoulder.

“You dolt, that flag means this whole thing gets bumped upstairs to ministry level.” The man frowned and looked closer at the icon that was flashing next to the red flag beside the two words and one name in the American communiqué. “What’s this?” he said as he reached for a book that listed all the department numbers and their corresponding computer terminals. “This is bloody strange,” he said as he laid the large book on the desk, “it says it not only goes upstairs, but we are to copy Department 1106, that’s SIS.”

“You mean it’s connected to not only internal security, but foreign as well — the Secret Intelligence Service?”