The bullets hit in close proximity just to the left of his sternum, spinning him around and sending him crashing across the dining table. She hasn’t stopped moving and sees the remaining two lift from the ground as the combined rounds from three of her team connect with force. They are sent crashing into the wall before slumping slowly to the ground. She hears two of her team, who hit the room to the right by the entrance, call clear. Four hollow coughs follow as part of her team behind put rounds into the first four. The only sound is a low groan emitting from one of the men near the table.
The main room opens into another large room to the right, past the first one. Normally, she would toss a flashbang and enter. However, this is to be a silent op if they are to get out in one piece. She signals the others and they turn the corner together.
Another room opens, looking much like the main one with a kitchen on the far side. Nothing moves. She directs three of them in to search farther as she steps over to the table and nearer the four downed men. The man lying across the table is the one moaning. Putting a round into each of the others to ensure they remain quiet, Gav checks for signs of a grenade under the body of the groaning man. Yeah, she’s learned that one. Satisfied that he hasn’t booby-trapped himself, she rolls him off the table. He falls to the floor face up. She looks down at his pain-filled eyes. The pain turns to fear. With a wicked grin, she raises her weapon.
The room goes silent.
A Sighting
She shakes herself out of the memory of times past. The click of her heels echoes in the wide hall, off the polished white and black tiled floor, as she makes her way to the control room. The call asking for her presence had come moments ago, interrupting another meeting. Gav takes note of the mostly bare corridor painted in a calming sky blue. She was mostly responsible for getting this facility together and paid attention to every detail with its construction. After all, there was a chance that they were to be down here a long time — a chance that proved right.
The abandoned, underground government communication bunker was originally forty-five thousand square feet of below-ground real estate sitting beneath over two hundred plus acres that were located approximately twenty miles to the northeast of Denver. She oversaw the renovation of the facility for their purposes; enlarging it to over five hundred thousand square feet. That provided enough room to house the equipment and personnel required to operate as a command-and-control center, along with the battalion of troops on site for security. She also has several reconnaissance and special operations teams to deploy as needed.
Gav passes by large windows, looking into the offices and conference rooms along one wall as she makes her way down the long hall. Most are empty, the vacant chairs circling equally empty tables just waiting for bodies to file in and occupy them. Passing under one of the many air vents, she feels cold, filtered air as it is blown in from the surface after passing through the comprehensive nuclear, chemical, and biological filtration system.
Passing her card through the reader, she glances at her picture and name imprinted upon the white plastic: Gavriella Rosenstrauss. That name seems foreign to her as she had left it behind long ago…in her mind at least. The woman that person was had left the moment her parents were killed by a mortar blast fired from across the border of her old home. The girl who lived in fright from those attacks emerged from the rubble a changed person. After the initial shock — her parents being torn out of her life — the pain of what happened began to surface. Every day she felt that tearing within her heart; a physical pain that she felt she couldn’t bear any longer. But she endured and learned to suppress the agony within until her fear and grief turned to anger. A deep-seated anger without an outlet. She railed at the world. Over time, the fire of anger burned out and coldness was left in its place. At first, that was directed at those responsible for the cowardly attack; later, it was funneled into her operations against that very same enemy. Over time, it just became her job, one she enjoyed doing.
As for the picture, it was a recent one, and, although she never thought about her features much, she has to admit this was a rather good one. Her dark, almost black, flowing hair frames a narrow face with a strong chin. Her dark eyes stare from under thick, dark eyebrows as if daring anyone to cross her path. Her nose…yes, her nose, that part of her that identifies her as classically Jewish, is the part of her she likes the least. Her darker skin, just that color a shade deeper than a tan, blends nicely with her hair. Some have called her beautiful, but she never has paid attention to things like that. Hers is a world of death, and she has had little time or energy for anything else. She has had flings in her life, but they were merely that to her; flings. Her priorities have always been geared toward her work, and she just never wanted to devote the energy necessary to sustain a relationship.
No, that’s not entirely correct, she thinks.
She had actually fallen in love once, and thought her life would change along with those feelings. Her career in the special operations world was going nicely. It sustained her, but she was willing to give up even that. That was before the capture and arbitrary killing of the one she was willing to give up everything for. That event devastated her and killed any thoughts of all further relationships. She turned back to the dark world in which she circulated. It once again became her only family, and one that she felt secure in. Never again would she allow her feelings to go past the mission and her fellow operators.
The door clicks, accepting her card as valid, and she pulls it open. Entering the control room, she lets the door close behind her and surveys the room. Three large screens are set into the wall on her right with rows of tiered workstations set before them. Each workstation has its own large monitor, but each is wired to present information to the larger ones. At present, only the center screen is on, showing an overhead view of the United States and several satellite tracks. It’s the default view kept on screen and only replaced with other vital information during a planning sessions.
The workstations are only partially filled with operators at this time, primarily because nothing much is happening at the moment. They are in a pure monitoring status. The shift supervisor, the one who called her here, looks over when she enters and hurriedly makes his way to her.
“Nahmer, thank you for coming. We’ve picked up something you might be interested in. You know you said that we should—” he starts.
“Yes, yes. Show me what you have,” Gav interrupts.
The supervisor nods and opens his arm in a ‘if you’ll follow me’ gesture. She follows in his wake, her heels clicking sharply on the hardened floor. She always wears heels when she can. The sound of them on the floor adds to the force she already presents. Even though she is not a tall woman, her presence in a room commands attention. The supervisor guides her to one of the consoles where they stand over a lone operator.
“Pete, pull up the satellite feed from a moment ago,” the supervisor says, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder.
The operator’s fingers fly over the keyboard and his monitor goes dark momentarily. When it comes to life, they are looking down at some region of earth.
“Zoom in a little,” the supervisors instructs.
More fingers bounce across the keyboard and the monitor blurs for an instant before refocusing. There, in the center of the screen, is a C-130 flying across a mountainous landscape. Gav is startled at the sight of a lone Hercules aloft but conceals her surprise behind pursed lips.
“Do we have any idea who it is, where it’s going, and where it originated from?” she asks, her accent betraying her origins only slightly.