Andrew Britton - The Operative

“What do you want with these individuals?” someone in front of him said through a bullhorn.

“That is classified,” replied a voice from behind. “Stand down.”

“Stand down? Hell, we just got here,” the bullhorn replied.

“We repeat. Stand down!”

Lord Jesus, Scroggins thought. You don’t talk to Texas lawmen like that.

The military unit continued to advance. Scroggins saw the men behind the doors growing restless.

“Gentlemen, I’m just going to step from the line of fire,” Scroggins said.

“You stay where you are!” the Texan bullhorn shouted back.

“You will step backward and surrender, or we will seize you with whatever force is required!” the airman insisted.

“I’m going to do what that guy says!” Scroggins pointed both thumbs backward after considering the two commands. The one from the air force definitely had a colder sound. He glanced at Bell, who nodded.

The two men started walking back. Several airmen moved around them, toward the van. They were dressed in what had to be miserably hot long-sleeve camouflage uniforms with bulletproof vests, helmets, munitions belts, high boots, and goggles. There were four men in all. While two kept their weapons trained on the THP vehicles, the others opened the back of the van and went inside. They came out less than ten seconds later. One of them stepped wide, faced the mission leader, and ran his hand sideways across his throat. Scroggins guessed that meant what he could have told them if they’d asked: the cargo bay was empty. The four men rejoined the others.

Scroggins continued moving backward. He was watching the Texans closely, his heart a solid mass in his throat. He saw one man-the man with the bullhorn-lean toward the man beside him. They seemed to be conferring.

“Oh, man, tell me they ain’t gonna rush us,” Bell said to Scroggins as they cleared the front of the van.

“If they do, dive for the fender and hug that baby.”

Suddenly, a pair of Texans shouldered their weapons-one from behind each of the two nearest police vehicles. They rose from behind the doors with their hands raised shoulder high and started walking forward.

“Now what the hell do they want?” Scroggins asked.

He never found out. He heard boots clomp on the ground behind him, felt hands grab the fabric of his shirt at the shoulders and arms and remain there. He was turned around and found himself facing a pair of fliers with M4 carbines pointed past them-ugly little mosquito-looking black guns with barrels that made his knees turn to liquid. He was glad the hands were propping him up.

The guns jerked in little sweeping motions. “Move!” one of the men behind him said.

Bell and Scroggins half walked, half stumbled forward on liquid legs. Scroggins squinted into the hurricane winds caused by the rotors, tucked his chin into his chest, and pursed his lips tightly as he felt the dust and pieces of twig bite his face. He was helped up a step into the helicopter, still not looking, only feeling the darkness enfold him. The prickling pain stopped, and the noise changed from something harsh to something deep and throaty. Even as he was thrust into a seat and felt himself rising and tilting, he thought of something his grandmother had once told him after a tornado hit her Arkansas community: “Something ain’t so bad if you live to get a good story out of it.”

He was praying again, hard, that this was something that would impress his grandkids one day.

Lt. Samuel Calvin of the Texas Highway Patrol Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division lowered his hands as the choppers took off. Behind his dark aviator glasses his blue eyes remained fixed on the Ospreys, with a look that was somewhere between contempt and amusement.

“Everyone stand down!” he said, half turning and shouting over his shoulders. “Except you, Munson.”

“Yes, sir, Chief.”

The men got to their feet, stretching cramped legs. They lowered their weapons, reached for bottled water, and stood at ease. Only Letty Munson remained where she was. She was still crouched, watching the retreating Ospreys through her binoculars, shielding them with one hand so the lenses wouldn’t catch and reflect the sun.

“Doesn’t look like they’re taking any action,” she reported. “Those boys are headed home.”

Calvin nodded. Low on his to-do list was hanging around-let alone walking over to the van-as the choppers cut loose with incendiary ordnance of some kind.

“You were right, Lieutenant,” said the other man.

“Appears so.”

The two officers were standing behind the Trask Industries vehicle, one man on either side, their crisp light brown uniforms stained with perspiration under the armpits and around the collar.

“They follow orders like they were written by the finger of God Himself,” the thirty-one-year-old said. “Sent for two individuals. They go back with two individuals.” The blue eyes lowered as he turned his sun-leathered face toward the van. “Check the cargo back, would you, Patrolman?”

“Yes, sir.”

Calvin was on the driver’s side and walked around it. People don’t always have the information you want, or else they lie, he thought with satisfaction as he approached the open door. Evidence does not.

From the moment the THP came within visual contact of the van-and the Ospreys-Calvin knew what he wanted. The van had Georgia plates. The men had been on the road awhile. Whatever they had done, whatever the navy wanted them for, it had most likely taken place during that drive. That meant the van would bear the fingerprints of whatever was at issue here. The military didn’t confiscate it because, Calvin-a veteran of four years in army intelligence-knew, HUMINT was prized above all. Get prisoners to talk. And they clearly didn’t want a showdown with the THP. Whoever was in charge of the operation snared the targets and got out.

Calvin bent and looked into the driver’s side. He saw what he expected to see: soda cans, candy wrappers, coffee cups, two newspapers, and an iPod. The GPS was still on. He checked their route. Atlanta to New York to White Sands.

They were headed there, anyway, Calvin thought. Why the rush? To keep them out of our hands, he decided.

“The bay is clean except for muddy footprints,” the officer reported.

“That’s why they were so shiny.”

“Sir?”

“The Ospreys,” he said. “They were cleaning them. Got the order to deploy real sudden.”

He grinned. High school kids at a car wash. “Thank you, Carter. Go back to the vehicle. I’ll be there in a minute.”

The patrolman left and Calvin climbed in. He took the keys; never knew what else they might open. He checked the glove compartment. No one used it for maps anymore. There was a flashlight and a small tool kit. A first-aid kit was attached to the underside of the dashboard.

There was one thing more. It was in the small compartment between the seats, along with a packet of registration material and a St. Christopher’s medallion. A cell phone, one unlike any Calvin had ever seen. He took it, and the charger, then used his Swiss Army knife to unscrew the GPS. He tucked it under his arm and went back to his own prowler. He was most curious about the phone but did not want to risk turning it on and triggering some kind of data self-destruct code in the phone’s program.

“Take us back to division,” he said to the driver. “On the double.”

The driver signaled the turnaround to the others, adding, “And put the spurs to the flanks.”

Calvin didn’t know what he had in his little trophy, but he knew that it made him smile. He imagined one of two things would happen next: the choppers would come back when HQ found out they hadn’t swept the vehicle, or they’d dispense with the vehicular pat down and toast it from the air.