“I’m pissed off, too. I’ve never heard of this reporter. Even if it were true, which I don’t believe it is, it would be wrong to publish this bullshit. Now is there somewhere we can talk?”
She followed him out of the newsroom, leaving behind a whirling vortex in their wake.
Matt Garrett paced the floor of the Special Operations joint operations center, or JOC. He would stand at the large plasma-screen television that was displaying the Predator satellite feed and then break away, walk across the room, and stare at a map that included Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“You see that bullshit article on Zach?” Matt fumed.
“That’s the point. It’s bullshit. Settle down,” Rampert said.
“Easy for you to say, General. Not your brother.”
“Not your solider. So, it affects both of us. I’m going to have some pasty white inspector general over here seizing all of our computers and investigating us probably by sundown.”
Matt stared at Rampert and nodded, ceding the point.
“We think Rahman leaked it, but we can’t be sure. I mean, why the Charlotte Observer?”
“North Carolina maybe? Make it seem more homespun kind of thing. It’s already gone viral,” Matt said.
“Or you’ve got a mole in the CIA that knows about Searing Gorge.”
“Always a possibility,” Matt said. “Also you may have a mole here. No matter how much it pisses me off, though, the story helps in a way, you know? I’m sure some of this is already leaking out from AQ central”
Van Dreeves interrupted, pulling them to the map.
“Matt, we’ve got about twenty AQ with flashlights moving up this ridge here.” Van Dreeves was talking to him at the map, pointing with a stick at the exact location. To Matt, on the map it looked less than a few inches. So close, yet so far. “It’s about five miles into Pakistan from the border of Kunar Province. We’re violating all kinds of shit by looking over there.”
“Who gives a rat’s ass?” Matt paced back to the Predator feed.
“Sir, see that right there, that’s enemy looking for something,” Hobart said, pointing at the screen.
“Maybe they’re just infiltrating, you know, coming this way,” Matt countered, not wanting any hope to blossom too soon.
“Too far away,” Van Dreeves chimed in. “Bastards usually take an SUV up to the border area, some small village, get their weapons, and cross into the country in tough terrain.”
“Okay, so what are we going to do?”
Rampert turned away from studying the map and walked over to the group. “Let’s see if we can get closer with that Predator.”
“No way, sir. Paks will shoot it down. I’m flying over the Afghan border and angling in.” Matt knew that the Predator operator was actually at an air force base in the United States. Van Dreeves was on the phone telling the guy what to do. The wonders of technology.
“Can we look ahead of the group to see if they really are chasing someone?”
“We can try. I’ve already done one scan, but it’s hard to find just one. I’m not sure we would have found the twenty if they didn’t have flashlights.”
The group listened to Van Dreeves give a “Move to the left, okay, that’s it, now up some” to the operator over the secure phone. They watched the camera slide to the left of the screen and then toward the top where it was obvious, even in the darkness, that a trail led up the mountain.
The camera rotated back and forth between hot white and hot black, showing anything that had a heat signature — an animal, a warm vehicle engine, or even a rock retaining the sun’s heat — as white or black respectively. Switching between the two helped the observers determine living from inanimate objects.
“What’s that?” Hobart was pointing at the mountain ridge. The anonymous operator at the unknown air force base in the United States had selected hot white as his heat signature of preference.
All eyes focused on a white spot. Really, that was all Matt could make out. It was moving slowly, carefully along the spine of the mountain ridge.
“Could be a sheep, camel, anything,” Rampert said.
Matt was holding his thoughts closely. He wanted to be circumspect here amongst these warriors with whom he had so far shared two battlefields. Having personally saved Rampert, Hobart, and Van Dreeves during the Ballantine action in Canada, his stock was as high as it could possibly be within this clandestine community. He did not want to abuse what really amounted to authority. Though these men did not work for him or even in the same organization as he did, he knew that if he gave the order, as he had done last time, “Let’s go,” they would grab their weapons and say, “Where to?”
They continued to watch the white figure slide across the screen, moving now perpendicular to the axis of advance of the flashlights. They could clearly see about fifteen to twenty white spots moving up the trail. The lone white figure was moving toward the bottom of the screen, toward the Predator flying over the Afghan border.
“The one by itself looks similar to the ones moving up the mountain. I think it’s him.” Matt’s words hung in the air, reverberating like a gunshot echo. He had pointed out the most obvious thing of all. If they believed the twenty figures moving up the valley were people, then the one moving by itself along the ridge must be a person also.
“Good point,” Rampert noted. He ran a leathery paw across his gray crew cut and turned to Hobart. “What’s the grid?”
There was a tone of resignation in his voice. He did not relish doing two unauthorized missions across the border into Pakistan in less than a week, but he would. He had a soldier on the ground, and it was his responsibility to bring him home alive.
“Grid’s actually about eight kilometers east of the border, right here.” Hobart handed a map to Rampert while Matt looked over his shoulder. Matt could see that the white heat signatures were on a ridge, about two kilometers away from where they had done their previous raid.
“We know the flight route most of the way. We can use the same crew. We’re going to need Van Dreeves to stay here and talk us through the Predator feed.” Matt’s words came out rapid-fire, machinelike.
“Roger. We’ll take Eversoll in Van Dreeves’s place,” Rampert added. “VD, why don’t you go find Eversoll? Tell him to be ready in fifteen. Hobart, give the pilots a call, let them know we need blades turning in ten.”
“That’s fine. I’m broke dick anyway,” Van Dreeves responded. “As much as I hate to miss the action.”
“Are you monitoring Rahman and our two friends in Yeman and Dubai?” Rampert asked.
“Roger that, sir. Rahman’s not come up on the computer. I’m guessing he’s involved in this hunt, at least from a command and control perspective.”
“Let me know if something breaks there,” Rampert directed.
“We’re pissing away time, General, let’s go,” Matt barked. “Once VD gets a bead on Yemen and Dubai then we’ll focus on that, but until then my brother is the priority.”
The team began moving quickly around the joint operations center. Matt stood motionless, watching them. He looked over his shoulder as Eversoll came in, slinging his packed gear over his back. Matt nodded, thinking that it didn’t take Van Dreeves too long to find Eversoll, who he surmised was most likely waiting directly outside the JOC in anticipation of this exact mission.
“We ready, sir?” Eversoll’s voice was firm.
“Think so. Think we’ve got him pegged.”
“Count me in.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Soon Van Dreeves and Hobart reappeared. Rampert walked in the door with his M4 in his hand. Matt looked over at his weapon and rucksack.
“Let’s go get my brother.”