John Gilstrap - Threat warning

“Even if it means dying.”

Jonathan chose his next words carefully. Gail had been a shooter on the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, and she’d seen her share of firefights both as a sworn officer and as a member of Security Solutions, but she’d never been part of an 0300 mission with Boxers and him, and for the first time, he wondered if she might have become more a liability than an asset.

“Dying doesn’t happen to us if we stack the odds enough in our favor, and we get our heads in the right place.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Don’t do that,” Jonathan said. “Please don’t do that. We’re a couple of hours away from going hot on this op, and I will not tolerate doubt.”

“You won’t tolerate it?” At what point in her life had she started seeking permission from Jonathan Grave?

“That’s what I said. Gail, you’re damn good at what you do. I’ve seen you perform in the shit, and I admire the hell out of you, but those times were all reactive. Someone took a shot at you, and you fired back. Tonight might not work that way. The reason why Box and I are still alive is because we don’t hesitate to do what needs to be done in support of the mission, and the mission is always one hundred percent about getting the PC home whole and healthy.”

He allowed the weight of his words to settle, knowing that she would recognize PC as the acronym for precious cargo, the universal term for hostages needing rescue.

“The quickest way to die is to hesitate,” he went on. “Microseconds matter. If the bad guy tickles his trigger before you do, his bullet leaves the muzzle first. After that, nobody has an edge. I need you to tell me that you can shoot first, or I’ve got to leave you behind.”

Gail didn’t know what to say. In her world-you know, where the grass is green and the water wet-what Jonathan described was murder. For him, the elements of the law didn’t matter because he saw a world that was divided into good and evil, and he could compartmentalize the illegality into irrelevance.

Back when she first met him in the hills of Pennsylvania, just hours before the ground would be littered with blood and bodies, and the world would seem to be on fire, Jonathan had told her with an utterly straight face that he was on the side of the angels. She’d taken such a corny line as prima facie evidence that he was mentally disturbed. Then she witnessed his skills as a warrior, and his warmth and mercy as a human being, and she realized that he was merely stating the truth. That was the moment when she first thought she might be in love with him.

“I won’t let you down,” she said. She didn’t have a clue how she would pull it off, but if it came to a choice between shooting a bad guy in cold blood or letting Jonathan die, the bad guy wouldn’t have a chance.

“Has your assistant sent you the satellite images we pulled down?” Rollins asked over the satellite link.

On the screen, Jonathan could see Venice’s jaw lock. She was nobody’s assistant, and he halfway expected her to tear into the colonel. He admired that she restrained herself. “It’s coming up now,” she said. “While we wait, can I get you some coffee, or maybe take your shirts to the laundry?”

The team at the CP roared with laughter while Rollins remained silent. Jonathan assumed that he didn’t get the joke.

Overall, the image on their computer screen was more or less identical to the one they’d been studying, but with ridiculously greater detail. The trees had been digitally removed by top-secret software, revealing a level of nuance that was at least two generations of sophistication beyond anything Jonathan had seen previously. He said, “Wow,” and then was surprised that he’d spoken aloud.

“Wow is right,” Rollins said. “See what happens when you leave the Community? I want you to know that we just spent about fifty million taxpayer dollars to get you these pictures. If I wanted to, I could zoom in and count freckles. In a shoot-out, we can mark individual GIs and opfor and track them in real time. We can take any one of them-or more than one of them-and convert the image to ground-level view and beam it to whoever we want. If we’ve got a shooter in a window waiting for a target, he can watch the computer image of the guy approaching in his left eye while he aims through the scope with his right. He’ll have range and windage data dialed into his scope and be able to meet the bad guy with a bullet as soon as he steps into the target window. This shit’s amazing technology.”

Amazing didn’t touch it, Jonathan thought. This was the stuff of science fiction. Rollins’s willingness to share it openly with Jonathan’s team-and risk a significant prison sentence to do it-told Jonathan that he’d been too distrustful of his former colleague.

The satellite imagery mostly confirmed what they’d already put together, although the compound had roughly twice the number of buildings that Jonathan had estimated.

“Before we get to the audio,” Rollins said, “I want to point out a few major features that you’re looking at.” An orange dot appeared in the middle of the screen. “Do you see my cursor?”

Jonathan said, “Yep.”

The cursor moved, and so did the picture. It paused on a spot, flashed once, and then the image grew rapidly, as if they were falling toward the ground, to reveal the head and shoulders of a man standing near a fence. The image flashed again, and the virtual camera swung down to a ground-level view of a man in his twenties dressed in black with an M16 assault rifle slung across his chest. From there, the camera pivoted to reveal individual features on the man’s face. You couldn’t count the pores in his skin, but you could certainly pick him out of a lineup.

“These are satellite images?” Venice asked. Her tone spoke of pure admiration.

“Yes, ma’am,” Rollins said. “And please don’t ask me for details. You folks are the first people without compartmentalized clearances ever to see this.”

Jonathan understood the significance. These guards were well-equipped. “They’ve got the right toys,” he said. “Do we know if they know how to use them?”

“You need to assume they do,” Rollins replied. “There appears to be a shooting range there at the facility. I figure why have a range but to teach people how to shoot? I can show it to you if you’d like.”

Jonathan shook his head. “Later.”

“How many of these guards are there?” Boxers asked.

“I count six, but you’re free to do your own analysis. I can only send you a static picture, but it’s fully functional. You can zoom in or out as you wish. But first, I want you to really study this guy. Each of the sentries wears the same kit as far as I can tell, and to me it looks like they’re not wearing any body armor. Or if they are, it’s light and under their coats.”

Jonathan nodded and pointed to the screen. “I don’t see any reloads, either.”

“Look closer,” Rollins said. “They’ve got their mags taped together, ’Nam-style.”

Jonathan saw it. Back in the day, soldiers taped ammo mags more or less end-to-end to make for quick reloading during a firefight. The theory was that they would merely flip the empty mag and reinsert the other end to keep the volume of fire intense. In practice, it created more problems than it solved. First of all, the ammo in the bottom mag was always exposed to the elements. In a jungle environment, that meant mud and spiders and assorted junk that would foul the action of the already-cantankerous M16, and in cold weather like this it meant potential accumulations of ice. Plus, in a combat environment, when adrenaline is flowing like a river, flipping a mag is no easy trick with nervous hands.

It did look kinda cool, however, when the guys in the movies did it, and wherever guys are involved, the coolness factor is a very important consideration.