Dale Brown - Act of War

“I hope you know what you’re doing, dude,” Ari said as she hurried off to pack some equipment. She loaded up a portable test system, a case of tear gas, and smoke grenades for the grenade launcher backpack—the only weapons she could find that she had ready access to—plus the GUOS drone backpack with six drones and some tools and spare parts to work on the CID unit, and within minutes they were in a truck heading out to Clovis Municipal Airport. Meanwhile, Richter got on his secure cell phone to Sergeant Major Jefferson. The phone conversation was very short: his instructions were simply to “stay put.”

At the airport, a Bombardier Learjet 60 business jet was parked outside the general aviation terminal being fueled. Jason hugged Kristen Skyy and resisted giving her a kiss, but she gave him one anyway. “I thought you couldn’t get us a cool ride, Kristen,” he said.

“You have no idea how many chips I had to cash in to get this,” she responded. “You got the rear baggage compartment for the CID unit—if your dimensions were accurate, it should fit.”

“I won’t be able to work on it in the rear baggage hold, J,” Ari said.

“What’s wrong?” Kristen asked.

“We had a little accident,” Jason said. “It’ll be okay. Hopefully we won’t be going into battle.”

“Is it serious?”

“Could be, but CID has redundant systems so it should be okay.” Jason admitted to himself that his tone wasn’t all that positive; Kristen obviously noticed it but said nothing. “Was it difficult getting clearance to fly with all the security precautions in place?” he asked.

“It took a few phone calls to Washington from the CEO of SATCOM One to get us just from Teterboro to here,” Kristen said, “but it was surprisingly easy to get clearance out of the country. We’re nonstop to Manaus, Brazil, where we’ll meet up with some company agents who’ll take care of customs formalities. We’ll also pick up a PME officer who’ll talk on the radio for us as we head to the rendezvous point.”

“What do you trade for no questions asked at customs?” Jason asked.

“The one thing more valuable than money, booze, gadgets, sex, or drugs: American press credentials,” Kristen said. “Six-month work permits for SATCOM One, unlimited entry and exit into the U.S., and no monthly check-ins with Homeland Security as long as their status can be verified by the network. Government officials will sell them for tens of thousands of dollars each.”

It was a tight fit, but the folded CID unit just fit in the rear baggage compartment. The jet’s cabin was choked with equipment but was still comfortable enough. Kristen had brought a sound engineer and a cameraman, and they had more gear than Richter and Vega. Minutes later they were loaded up, and the pilot received his clearance to depart. “We have to wait,” Jason said after Kristen was told by the pilot they were ready for takeoff.

“We can’t wait, Jason,” Kristen said. “It’ll almost be dawn by the time we get there as it is.”

“We need clearance from our supervisor,” Jason said.

“I thought you were the commanding officer.”

“I’ve never commanded anything more than a four-person laboratory or project office,” Jason said.

“Are we waiting for the same person who gave you your ‘political roadblocks,’ as you put it before?”

“Not quite,” Jason said. “This guy doesn’t believe in ‘political roadblocks’—if there’s a roadblock, he’d prefer to smash it in…”

“Which is what he’s going to do with our heads, once he finds out what we’re doing,” Ariadna said.

“So you’re talking about Special Agent Kelsey DeLaine then?” Kristen asked. Jason and Ari looked surprised—they had been careful not to mention the names of any other Task Force TALON members around Kristen Skyy. “I did a bit more checking and put two and two together. A combined military and FBI task force—very, very cool. DeLaine is one of the Bureau’s up-and-comers, but she’s not known for fieldwork—she’s an administrator.” She paused, looking at Richter carefully. “Interesting pick of persons to lead this task force. I would’ve expected a few more hairy-armed snake-eating ‘Rambo’ types to go after nuclear terrorists.”

“Me too,” Jason admitted. “But we have CID.”

“Why not give my information to Special Agent DeLaine and the rest of the task force? Why not do it as a team?”

“Because she won’t act on it, and they’ll shut down our source of information and most likely throw me in jail for involving the press in a classified government program,” Jason said. “Then the terrorists get away, the task force gets shut down or reshuffled, and no one wins except the bad guys.”

“You don’t trust her to share information or support your task force, is that it?”

“She would probably form an FBI task force herself to go down there and get the bad guys.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Kristen asked. “The goal is to get the terrorists, right? We could use all the help we can get.”

“This might not be the best way to do this,” Jason said, “but we’re going to do it anyway because we have actionable information and the means to respond.”

Ariadna sat beside Jason and lowered her head confidentially toward his. “This would be a good time to head to Fort Polk, J,” Ari said quietly. “We haven’t done anything really wrong yet, and CID One is really broken. Once we step off this plane in Brazil, we’re swimming in deep shit.”

“What do we do with Kristen’s hot tip?” Jason asked. “Should we just ignore information like she says she’s got?”

“We pass it on to DeLaine and the rest of the task force,” Ari said.

“We’re pressing on,” Jason said immediately. “Do the best you can with the replacement power pack and reattaching the door once we reach the target.” Ari looked at him carefully, silently questioning his judgment, but nodded and fell silent.

But Jason could feel her concern, and she knew after years of working together that Ariadna was rarely wrong. He pulled out his secure cellular phone and pressed some buttons.

“Go ahead, Jason,” Kelsey responded moments later.

“I need to talk with you, Kelsey,” Jason said.

“We’re in the middle of a briefing. Can’t it wait?”

“No.”

Kelsey sighed and said something to the others in the room with her. “Okay, go ahead.”

“I saw something on SATCOM One News about a connection between a terror cell in South America and the attack on Kingman City,” Jason said.

“I saw it too,” Kelsey responded after a noticeable pause. “We’re still checking, Jason,” Kelsey went on. “The Bureau’s got nothing to go on yet.”

“Kelsey…” Jason paused a moment, then went on: “Kelsey, I’ve received some information about a group calling itself GAMMA that might have had a…”

“Have you been tapping my computer and phone conversations, Richter?” Kelsey blurted.

“No, I haven’t,” Jason said.

“Then where did you hear about GAMMA?”

“It’s no secret, Kelsey…”

“Where did you hear about a connection between GAMMA and Kingman City?”

“My source doesn’t want to be revealed just yet,” Jason said, “but I think it’s good information, and I have enough that I think we should act on it. This group GAMMA was involved in Kingman City—how, I’m not sure yet. But my source may know where one of its leaders may be hiding in the next few hours. But they only stay put for a day at the most—we’ve got no time to waste if we want a chance to catch him.”

“How specific is your information?”

“Location down to one or two harbors; time, down to twenty-four hours.”