David Golemon - Ripper

Sarah felt the single car come to a whispering stop. She even heard the computerized voice of Europa announcing they had arrived at gate number two, sublevel three. The automatic cover of the car slid back and still Sarah sat unmoving. One of the security men, alerted at the pawn shop that a car had arrived but thus far no one had signed into the gate, greeted her.

“Lieutenant?”

Sarah finally looked up and seemed to be lost for a moment. Then she realized where she was. “Sorry,” she said, “it’s been a long day.”

“Are you signing out of the complex?” the air force sergeant asked as he gave Sarah a hand stepping out of the car.

“Yes, I’m signing off base for the next twelve hours,” she answered as she headed for the elevator that would take her up to the gate.

“Uh, ma’am?”

Sarah grimaced, stopped, and looked back, irritated that her leaving was being delayed by one of Jack’s former men. If she received one more look of sympathy from that department she was going to hit someone. “Yes?” she hissed.

“Lieutenant, you’re breaking about fifteen different regulations. You know you can’t sign out in that jumpsuit, right?”

Sarah looked down at her Group-issued military blue suit. She even had her ID tag still hanging from the pocket. She lowered her head when she realized she had to go all the way back and change into civilian attire. She started to return to the magnetized car on the single track that ran down the ten-mile-long tunnel far beneath the city of Las Vegas.

“Ma’am, we have clothing upstairs in the shop. It’s in the locker room and you’re welcome to it. Shorts and blouses is all we have.”

Sarah looked up at the sergeant and nodded her head. “Thank you,” she said.

“Going into town?” he asked as he escorted her to the elevator.

“No, I’m going to see someone.”

The team had been stationed in the nondescript van outside of the Gold City Pawn Shop for the past hour as they observed the comings and goings of customers. One saw a small woman step to the door escorted by one of the large men from the counter of the shop. He opened the door for her as she stepped out into the hot night air of downtown Las Vegas. The man inside the Tahoe raised his small camera with the miniature telephoto lens. He snapped off several pictures of the small dark-haired woman. He noticed she was wearing sunglasses even though the sun had slipped behind the western mountains hours earlier. He watched until she hailed a cab and left.

The man removed the digital chip and then inserted it into the laptop computer. He brought up the pictures of the woman in short pants and a black blouse. He recognized her from somewhere but couldn’t place her. He looked into the back of the van and waited for one of his technicians to give him some answers. The man examined the pictures of the woman and then shook his head.

“Nope,” he said shaking his head. “She never entered the shop through the front. I don’t know where she came from, but it wasn’t through this side of the building. And we can see that in the back there is nothing but an alley, and she doesn’t look the type to go strolling through an alley at night in downtown Las Vegas.”

“Right,” said the man in the front as he turned in his seat and examined the woman again. He shook his head as his memory failed him. “Send this on to Mr. Smith, and get a tail on that cab.”

The technician in the backseat started talking on a set of headphones, and as he did he e-mailed the blown-up pictures to Smith, who was observing the house where Colonel Jack Collins was.

As the cab holding Sarah turned away from the curb, heading toward Flamingo Road, a tan Plymouth pulled out of the pay parking lot across the street and quickly followed. The tail on the woman was on the move.

One minute later, parked only a block away from the house under surveillance, Mr. Smith looked at the photos that had been forwarded to him from his pawn shop team.

“Well, it seems we have confirmed that all of our eggs came from the same basket.” Smith smiled as he started to formulate a plan to finish what his team was paid to do.

“We may have just found our way into wherever this woman and Colonel Collins have been hidden away.”

“When do we move?” one of the men in the backseat of the car asked, eager to get moving toward a more action-filled night.

“I think when this little darling returns to her secret hideaway, she just may have company.”

The two men in the backseat exchanged looks just as the yellow cab pulled up in front of the tract home they were watching.

“Yes, indeed, it is a small world,” Smith said as he compared the photo on the laptop to that of the actual woman stepping out of the cab.

Smith closed the lid to the laptop and then watched as the small woman headed for the front door of the house.

“Inform our friend in Langley that we have a way in to this mysterious lair. And we should have the formula destroyed soon.” Smith was careful not to include the word recovered . He remembered the smoking corpse of Juan Guzman and what this material may have done to him. He knew he wouldn’t touch the stuff nor would any of his team.

As the call was made, Smith watched as the woman entered the house, and then he looked at the driver.

“Sound the alert for the assault team. We move at a moment’s notice,” Smith said as he turned back to the man on the phone in the backseat. “And ask for orders concerning American personnel at this location and the pawn shop.”

After a few moments, the man on the phone hung up and looked at the man who ran everything concerning the Black field teams.

“He says that the priority is the destruction of the formula. All trace of it is to be eliminated, and as far as collateral damage is concerned, he said you were supposed to be good enough to do this without killing. He suggests you do that. But elimination is authorized for self-defense … his words, Mr. Smith.” The man added the last part quickly when he saw the brief flash of anger in the dark eyes of his boss.

The man known as Smith shook his head in disgust.

“Sometimes the people we contract out to have the morals and patriotism of a pig.”

He reached into the glove compartment of the car, removed a handgun, and then pulled the magazine out and checked the loads. After reading the file on their main adversary, this Colonel Collins, he wanted to be ready for any surprises he may get from whatever the pawn shop was hiding.

“Okay, I want a flyover of the pawn shop. Get me thermal images of the personnel inside. Mark them expendables and number them for confirmation purposes after the raid.”

As the men followed his orders, Smith thought of the formula they were there for and the dangers that may exist in destroying it.

“Who in the hell would invent such a thing as Perdition’s Fire?”

Sir John Kinlow listened as their man inside CIA headquarters in Langley, Hiram Vickers, explained the situation. The call was a conference session between a secure phone in Langley and three others in London — MI5, MI6, and the Defense Ministry.

“Are you saying that the formula actually still exists?” asked the defense minister.

“That’s what’s being reported,” Vickers answered from his Virginia location.

There was silence on the three connections in London. Vickers was actually thinking that the three men had severed the connection with him.

“This could be a bigger bloody mess than we first thought,” said the defense minister.