Стивен Хантер - Game of Snipers

“Six, then. And second: tunnels. These Mexicans, they make their living in tunnels. Illegals, drugs, whores — what have you — they move it underground. They are also escape-obsessed. They worry about the Americans, they worry about their competitors, and now that they’re involved with us, they worry about us. They fear surprise attack at any moment. When Menendez took this place over, the first thing he would have done is move his engineers and construction people in and had tunnels dug. Do you know about them?”

“I know areas I have been advised to avoid.”

“I need more than that.”

“And I need an incentive.”

“How about this? If you don’t help me, I’ll behead you.”

“Or, how about this? You take me with you. This whole thing is beginning to feel more and more fragile. When it collapses, many will die. I have no desire to be among them. Only with that in mind can I act … heroically.”

“I appreciate your lack of grandeur. No false idealism for the translator.”

“Call me what you will, I understand that translators have a short life expectancy around here.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“No. Too soon. My explorations must be tomorrow. I will have no results till the day after, maybe the day after that.”

“Work swiftly, little man.”

Staging area, Jackson, Wyoming

The NSA intercept, a garbled satellite pickup in which someone called a number in New Jersey, which was shunted to a serving station in Manila and on to a receiver in Gstaad, Switzerland, and appeared to be confirmation for “picking up a package” three days on, at “the ranch,” was pay dirt. It became an imperative, actionable at the utmost dispatch, when the ultimate address was linked via a computer deep-mining operation, with a drop site for Iranian Ministry of Intelligence operatives in Europe. It came together fast after that.

Nick got Counterterrorism’s number one and number two assault teams, plus the Bureau’s SWAT from L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, and Minneapolis to augment them. As a bonus, Ward Taylor himself was on the operation, so that the assaulters wouldn’t fidget taking orders from someone they didn’t know. Briefed with extremely revealing drone photos of the ranch, they put together a good plan, modeled on the SEAL raid on bin Laden, which was the gold standard. Nobody mentioned Mogadishu.

“Expect resistance,” Nick briefed them. “It will be hot. His security people are drawn from Mexican Special Forces. They are hardened professionals and, in the past, have fought to the death. Check the reports from Wichita, if you doubt. That’s why the full body armor, especially helmets. That’s why it’s shoot to suppress from the first encounter of fire and, if necessary, full automatic. Take a lot of ammo. Waste bullets, not men. That’s why night vision, for all tac advantage. But I say again, the point here is to take down one guy, not even Señor Menendez, though he would be a very nice bonus. Our guy is Arab, early forties, another extremely capable character. But he’s the bonanza. Prefer him alive, but I’d rather kill him than lose any of you. The point is to stop him, not interview him. That’s a good day’s work.”

Afterward, Nick and his team gathered at a National Guard Armory in Jackson Hole. Here, he’d assembled his ground component, mostly personnel from Salt Lake City and Denver. They would engage simultaneously with the air assault, crashing the fake gate, then the real gate, and hitting the compound as the commandos moved through the structures. Their task was perimeter containment, to stifle any escape, seal the place off and put it out of business in a hurry, under mandate from FISA, which allowed “any and all law enforcement activities deemed necessary to halt a terrorist threat.” A U.S. Attorney was along with them to issue legal advice on the fly, if need be, and to help move stretchers to ambulances.

“Have I forgotten anything?” Nick asked Bob.

“Yeah, me,” said Bob.

“Sorry, pal. You’re sitting this one out. Explicit orders from Washington.”

“Come on, Nick …”

“Nope. Believe it or not, they treasure your brain over your trigger finger. A first, I’m sure.”

Bob didn’t lose it marine NCO style, but his his gray face, his narrowed eyes and slit mouth, his measured breathing, all equaled rage.

“I am going along.”

“I guess you are. In a government sedan. We will need you to examine and make identification fast. I’m told he looks just like Dr. Zhivago, so that should be easy. Have you seen it recently?”

“I never saw it in the first place.”

“Maybe you’ll get to interview him. I hope, at least, that you get to ID the body. And following that, you’ll provide assessment on any sniper activities found in place and begin to assemble data for the after action report.”

Bob nodded without enthusiasm.

“Anyhow,” said Nick, “you will hold well behind the perimeter and will be reached by radio and notified to come forward when the area is secured. Tomorrow, at first light, we’ll be traveling to the shooting area to see what we can see. Hopefully, that’ll be more like a picnic than a mission, and we can draw on that for the after action report. Hopefully, it’s all over by tonight.”

“Sitting out the big fight don’t make me happy,” said Bob.

“You will hold on the perimeter until notified. Do I need to put a three-hundred-pound babysitter on you?”

“No.”

“That’s a good boy.”

Disgruntled, he didn’t bother to listen to the radio commands tying the whole op together. He just climbed into the backseat of the last vehicle in the convoy, one of three sedans following the SUVs and armored assault trucks with FBI emblazoned on them. His driver was a rookie agent out of Denver, the guy next to him in the front seat was the U.S. Attorney, and not one of them had a thing to say to the other two, as each was in his own private stew. All wore body armor and Kevlar helmets and were linked by radio, and only Bob had his set to OFF.

The convoy left at 1715, proceeding south on Wyoming 193 from Jackson toward Rock Springs, by way of Pine Valley, where there were no pines. On the other side of the road, western scrub seemed to roll away, showing nothing, hiding nothing. To the west, farther, the crags of the Tetons could be seen, magnificent and artistic, the perfect ideal of The Mountains, as many art directors of the American western movie had discovered. Bob did not pay much attention. He was the eternal wallflower at an orgy, feeling both frumpy and invisible at once. The fun would be over by the time he got there. He didn’t even have a weapon.

The convoy did not proceed under siren or at high speed. It poked along, opening and closing like an accordion, trying to stay under the speed limit, though any passersby knew that it represented government action at its apogee of force. That was the information truckloads of men in armor carried.

It took about an hour of stop and start, and when they approached, Wyoming State Police set up the roadblocks to halt civilian traffic just before and after the ranch entrance.

“Should be any second now,” said the FBI driver, pulling to a stop on the road at the rear of the convoy, which had halted.

Bob flicked on the radio just in time to hear a last-minute checklist run by Nick, each vehicle okaying its position and status.

“Hammer Fifteen, green for go,” said the young driver.

“You got it, son? You pull up at the inner gate, and we hold there, waiting for the all-clear.”

“Mr. Swagger, my orders are to bring Mr. Heflin in by foot two minutes after the airborne drop.”