“It can intercept thousands of cell phone calls. You know there’s not a lot of land lines here, everyone uses cheap cell phones. Instead of tapping cell-towers, this scans all cell phones within a thirty kilometer range. It can also pull data from the phones, including text and pictures,” Neil said.
Deion’s eyes widened. The drone would be a game-changer for SIGINT and would allow JSOC unprecedented flexibility in tracking high-value targets. He shook his head. Of course AQ would be terrified of the Sentinel.
Neil led them out of the building and they got back in the Humvee and headed south-west to the DIA headquarters.
As Neil drove, Deion watched off-duty soldiers playing soccer, no field in sight, just a bunch of men, black and white and brown, stirring up dust and kicking the ball. He sighed. Nothing had changed since he left. The rest of Afghanistan was a powder-keg of hostility and resentment, thousands of years in the making. They were still no closer to achieving a stable and democratic Afghanistan. “Did you make those calls I emailed you about?”
Neil nodded as they drove past a no-parking fire-lane sign. “I did. The local Taliban commander is named Azim. He’s more concerned about maintaining power than repelling the infidel horde. He fights just hard enough to keep AQ off his back. His man will talk to us, but we have to go to him. His man said you’d know the location.”
Valerie cleared her throat. “Is that safe? I mean, how could that possibly be safe?”
“Hell no, it’s not safe,” Deion said. “We have to go to the middle of Kandahar. If we go in heavy, Azim’s man will be in the wind.”
They entered the brown tent, the feeble air-conditioning barely making a dent in the heat. Nancy tapped Deion on the shoulder. “Is this the same cowboy shit that got you sent to Gitmo?”
“Yeah.”
She stared at him quizzically. “You sure about this?”
He nodded.
She shrugged “It’s your show.”
They greeted the officer on duty and set up temporary desk space on a wooden table near the back. The tent was a beehive of activity, with countless missions in progress, but no one paid them any attention as Neil produced a map of Kandahar and circled a residential section. “Here’s where we need to go, about two blocks from a market. Deion knows the area. The ladies will have to wait in the truck.”
“No way,” Nancy said. “We’re going in with you.”
“That might be a problem,” Deion countered. “You know how the Taliban are about women.”
She glared at him. “It’s not open for discussion.”
He started to argue, then realized it was pointless. “Val, what about you?” He hated to put her in danger, but it wasn’t her first time on operations deep in enemy territory.
She frowned, then slowly nodded. “I’m in.”
“How do we do this?” Neil asked.
Deion pointed to the surrounding buildings. “We’ll have guys here, here, and here. I want choppers spun up and ready, and drone support if we can get it. Once we enter the building, it’s just the four of us.”
Valerie pursed her lips. “When does this happen?”
“At dusk,” Neil answered.
Deion glanced at the digital clock at the front of the tent. “Shit, that’s not a lot of time.”
Neil smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ve got Delta there and waiting. The site is as clear as it’s going to get.”
Deion snapped his fingers. “Let’s make it happen.”
CHAPTER NINE
Eric’s teeth rattled as the C-17 touched down on the Buckley AFB runway. He missed the Gulfstream, but it lacked the capacity to carry the two black Ford Econoline vans that were strapped down in the cargo bay. The plane taxied to the hangar and the crew got busy unloading the vans.
He shivered in the morning chill, his light windbreaker providing little comfort. He took John aside. “We’ve got a few minutes. You ready for this?”
John nodded. “This is what I’ve been training for, right?”
“This isn’t like missions in the Army. We’ll be mingling with citizens. We don’t want any screw-ups, we just need to get to the storage unit and find the caesium.”
“Got it,” John said.
Eric introduced him to the other former Operators he had recruited with Nancy’s help. Taylor Martin, a black man with massive hands, had worked with Eric years before in Afghanistan and was second-in-command. Martin had an easy sense of humor, with intelligent, deep-set eyes. He trusted Martin and knew the man would rather die than fail his commanding officer.
Roger Johnson, a thin young man with a receding hairline and jutting chin would be their third, followed by Mark Kelly, a bland looking man with sad brown eyes.
They were all dressed in civilian clothes, and none would look out of place on the street, unless you noticed their eyes. They all had the thousand-yard stare.
“Martin, John, and I will be in the first unit. Johnson, you and Kelly will follow in the second. Any questions?”
“We have a location?” Kelly asked.
“What we have,” Eric replied, “is the location for a storage unit, rented to Jeff Fletcher. He’s a known associate of the APR, and a drone overfly detected unusual amounts of radiation.”
Martin spoke up. “We’re ready, Steeljaw.”
“Remember, we don’t have any firm intel, so be careful.”
The crew chief of the C-17 approached and saluted. “Your vehicles are unloaded and ready to go.”
Eric saluted back. “This is it, gentlemen. Once more unto the breech.”
They loaded into the vans and Martin headed west on I30 toward downtown, John in the passenger seat, Eric in the back.
“Why does it have to be a white power group,” Martin grumbled. “I hate white power groups.”
Eric smiled. “Don’t be full of the black hate.”
Martin looked up in the rear-view mirror, a wide smile on his face. “Smart-ass.”
Eric laughed, then turned serious. “Remember, there’s enough caesium to light up Denver.”
All three men looked at each other, the laughter gone. They followed the GPS coordinates to a storage complex on the southern edge of downtown Denver, the landscape dotted with pawnshops, nail salons, and check-cashing services.
“This is it,” Martin said. He pulled the van over a block from the storage shed and Kelly wheeled in behind them.
John opened a black plastic case and removed the FGRD, a Fast-Cooling Germanium Radiation Detector.
Eric interrupted his fiddling. “Didn’t you check that thing before we left Groom Lake?”
“Yeah,” John said, “but it’s finicky. Never can be too careful.”
“Good point,” Eric agreed. He pulled his M11 from his shoulder holster, checked it, then put it back, covering it with his windbreaker. John did the same.
They checked their ear-pieces, and after ensuring the MBITR radios worked correctly, Eric exited the van. John followed, clutching the FGRD case. Traffic was light and no one noticed as they headed to the front of the storage property.
They stopped in front of the gate and Eric peered at the numeric keypad that controlled the front gate. “It’s a SSW — iLW unit,” he said over the radio.
“Hang on, Steeljaw,” Martin replied over the ear-piece. “We’ll have the override code momentarily.” There was a pause. “The override code is 12#45*. That should unlock the gate.”
He gave a silent prayer to modernity, keyed in the code, and was rewarded when the green light blipped and the gate opened.
They headed for the second row of concrete storage sheds and John removed the FGRD and computer from the case and started the FGRD’s cooling cycle. After several minutes the display turned blue.