When the digital highlights screen appeared, Reeves first thought the system had experienced a glitch. Five months of reviewing night feeds had never yielded anything more interesting than an aborted break-in attempt through one of the building's side windows. Annoyed, he sat up in the chair. The system had highlighted multiple audio, video, and thermal irregularities. In fact, the Windows-based system provided a two-page list of anomalies for him to review.
He clicked the first one in the queue, which started a recorded digital feedback stamped "2:24 AM," sending video to two of his screens. He watched the screen on the right, which showed three figures emerge from the back of the target building's backyard and approach the rear deck. The second screen zoomed in on each of the figures in rapid succession, intelligently deciding to capture close-up images. Oddly, all of them were dressed in dark clothing, wearing ski masks.
"What the hell?" he muttered.
"You say something?" Howard called from the kitchen.
"Dave, get over here!"
Reeves leaned forward in the chair and watched the three figures pause at the bottom of the deck on the screen.
Howard appeared in the opening and leaned against the white, paint-chipped doorframe. "What?"
"Take a look at this. I think our friends had visitors…holy fuck! Someone took out our guys!" he yelled and shot up from the chair.
"Take it easy, Ethan. What did you see?" said Howard, who calmly walked over to the card table hosting all of their computer equipment.
"Multiple flashes inside the house. We need to get over there now!"
Reeves scrambled around the chair and moved quickly across the room. He reached into a black and gray nylon backpack lying next to the opened sleeper couch, removing his badge, service pistol and a spare magazine from a hidden compartment. Howard leaned over the table and started working the computer mouse.
"Will you settle down? What are we looking at…what the?"
His voice trailed off as he replayed the video and watched the figures disappear from sight. The camera panned out, and everything looked normal for a few seconds. The first flash came from the front window, followed immediately by flashes from the side windows, which they had previously determined were bedrooms.
"Shit!" Howard yelled.
He nearly fell backward over the chair, colliding with Reeves as they both sprinted for the kitchen. Howard grabbed his holster and badge from one of the kitchen cabinets and followed Reeves out the back door and down the crumbling stairway to the cracked, weed-filled concrete patio. They sprinted across the street with their guns drawn and approached the rear deck.
"We're fucked," Reeves hissed when they reached the back door.
"Nobody's fucked here. This…"
"This kind of shit happens all the time? You were about to say that, weren't you?" Reeves said.
"Maybe. Let's throttle back and do this by the book. I'll go first, staying low. You cover. We'll work our way through the rooms. No assumptions. Someone might still be alive in the house, and they won't be happy to see us," Howard said.
Reeves took a deep breath. "Got it. I'm good," he said and adjusted the grip on his Glock 23.
"Ready?" Howard said.
"Ready."
Reeves watched Howard turn the doorknob and push the weathered door inward. They both braced themselves against the doorframe and aimed into the duplex. The door led into the kitchen.
"You smell that?" Howard whispered.
"Smells like someone took a shit on the floor," Reeves replied.
"That's what dead people smell like before they start rotting. Cover me."
Howard crouched and moved slowly through the kitchen, aiming at the only doorway leading further into the house. When he reached the doorway, he took up a position on the left side of the door, staying low. Reeves followed the same path and stacked up behind Howard. Once in position, Howard aimed through the opening into a long hallway. Reeves stood up and aimed over Howard's head. He saw two doors on the left, which they knew were bedrooms, and a door on the right, which had to be a bathroom. Howard edged into the hallway and nodded at the first door on the right. They moved up to the closed door. Once in position, Reeves pressed up against the left side of the hall and aimed down the hallway. Howard slowly worked the doorknob before quickly pushing the door open, pistol extended forward with both hands.
"Bathroom's clear," he whispered, leaving the door open.
He turned to face the first door on the left, repeating the process as soon as Reeves took up a position on the right side of the hallway. Instead of pausing at the door, he followed it into the room, feet scuffling just out of Reeves' sight.
"Clear," he heard from inside the room.
Reeves moved into the bedroom doorway and braced his forearms against the doorframe, focused on the hallway leading to the front room.
"One of our subjects is dead. Al Farouq. Two shots to the forehead. We call this in and wait," Howard said.
The smell of feces had worsened after Howard opened the door, activating his gag reflex. Reeves turned his head and glanced into the room, taking small breaths through his mouth. He had to see this. He'd imagined shooting these guys in several of his daydream scenarios, and simply couldn't believe someone had actually beat him to it. The image took his breath away, almost forcing his coffee back up.
A single figure lay on the bed, perfectly arranged for sleep. The pillow looked dark brown under Farouq's head, clearly soaked with coagulating blood. The fitted mattress sheet at the head of the bed was similarly stained, along with the top sheet, which was still pulled up to the man's chin. A small puddle of blood had started to form on the floor under the corner of the loosely hanging top sheet. He could imagine a much larger pool spreading under the bed, where the blood had surely soaked through the mattress. He snapped his head back to the hallway, which Howard was counting on him to cover.
"Shit. We're screwed," Reeves whispered.
"This is not going to be good. That's for sure," Howard replied.
"What do we do?"
"Not much we can do. We call this in and check the rest of the bodies."
"Look on the bright side," Howard said.
"There's a bright side to this?" Reeves asked.
"Yeah, we won't have to spend another night in that rat-infested shithole. Let's get this over with," he said and moved back into the hall.
They had three more dead bodies to confirm.
Chapter 2
Frederick Shelby sat in one of the prime seats at the long conference table. Two seats away from the president of the United States, he was content to be included in the upper echelon of attendees. The conference table had been reconfigured to seat an expanded group of the most important people in the U.S. government, in what could easily be described as the most important conference room in the entire world. Technicians had worked feverishly yesterday to configure the room exclusively for the command and control of the government's response to the terrorist plot uncovered by the CIA.
Video conference cameras adorned the table, next to each imbedded computer terminal. Flat-screen monitors covered nearly every square inch of eye-level wall space, each presenting a different map, data table or news report. The constant flow of information on the screens brought the static walls alive with vivid, high-definition colors. The information flowing to these screens was controlled by analysts sitting at the mobile "watch floor" station in the far corner of the room.