The observer whispered the information to the sniper, who took aim with his suppressed .300 Win Mag long gun. After taking a few deep breaths, then one last controlled breath, he let it out and slowly squeezed his 2.5 lb. custom-milled trigger. The first man on Jansen’s team dropped before the crack of the round could have been heard if the rifle hadn’t been suppressed. With calm winds and a direct line of sight, there was no need for trajectory corrections, so the other five men were down within seconds of the first.
The sniper team now trained their view on the remote parking lot. It was the best vantage point for anyone wanting to establish a mobile command post. It was remote, provided a good view, was patrolled infrequently, and had a good means of egress. Just the kind of spot Jansen would likely use for his lookout. They were told to look for Jansen and find him if they could.
The rest of Red Two’s team got the report that Jansen’s team was down, confirmed dead by the spotter. They got ready to move. They had suppressed carbines that shot 5.56 mm hollow-tip rounds so as not to over-penetrate the body and risk hitting someone inside the plant. The rounds traveled at 3,200 feet per second supersonic speed.
The men wore gloves to protect their hands from the thickets and brush, but with the fingertips cut off their trigger fingers and thumbs so they could shoot more effectively. They humped in all the gear they would need to breach the fence, including a quickie saw, with a twenty-inch, diamond-studded, tungsten blade that could make quick work of a chain-link fence. Blowing a hole in the fence with explosives took longer and would definitely create more noise and attract attention. Minimizing attention and moving as quickly as possible would enhance their chance of success.
Each man had an earbud/push-to-talk comm link with the team leader. The team leader opened a comm channel with Nick and informed him of their success.
I put the phone down and turned to the Old Man.
“Jansen’s men were right where we thought they’d be. They’ve all been neutralized. He’s going to pick up on that when they don’t answer his comm check. Things are going to start to get serious around here. We aren’t out of the woods yet. I have to believe that Jansen isn’t counting on those guys. Even our report pointed out the risks of coming in that way. They could do it, but it wouldn’t be clean and they wouldn’t be unobserved.”
The Old Man nodded his head, saying, “I agree. We can be sure his primary plan still has some teeth in it. We’ve got to talk with Hector. Where the hell is he?”
“If Marti got to him, he should be along pretty soon. Let’s just hope he’s on our side when he gets here. As for Jansen, he’s doing pretty much what we’d expected,” I said. “This means we’ve been right so far, and, I assume, he still doesn’t know we’re here.”
The Old Man looked at me. “Let’s hope so.”
CHAPTER 48
Jansen looked at his watch. 0230. It was time to move his men into place. He got his comm link up and called his men in the field. No answer. He tried again, with the same result. A deep foreboding started to settle in. While he knew there was risk involved in trying to take over a nuclear power plant, he thought he’d had all his bases covered, especially now that he had Connor’s report.
He went over it one more time in his head. He had people inside the plant — both his men and a key member of the plant security force. He had men outside the plant. And he had access to all the sensitive information he’d needed. He had the element of surprise on his side. Nobody knew what he was planning to do. His forces could easily overwhelm the station security force. Once he’d taken control of the plant, all the installed security measures would actually work for him and against the FBI agents who would try to come in through the front gate.
He’d thought of everything. He’d been trained to. He didn’t like to think of the consequences of failure. His ego and arrogance wouldn’t allow for it. But now something had gone wrong. He tried his team one more time. No answer. Shit!
Jansen hoped it was just a comm failure. The hills and the fog might be interfering with communications, but he knew he couldn’t count on that. He looked around to see if anyone was in the parking lot. Seeing no one, he decided to get out of the car and try to locate the team through binoculars. If you knew what to look for, it should be possible to see them. Convincing himself the coast was clear and nobody was watching him, he got his binoculars out and carefully moved toward the edge of the parking lot to look for them. As he scanned the brush, he saw nothing and nobody. He tried to make contact once more via radio. Nothing. Slowly, he began to realize that something was seriously wrong. And standing around unprotected like he was only invited something else to go wrong. He concluded that he could no longer stay there and that he needed to move to his alternate location. If something was genuinely wrong, then his location there had probably been compromised.
Connor! The FBI wasn’t smart enough to figure any of this out. But if anyone could have, it would be Connor. But how could he know, and how could he have done anything about it so quickly?
Time to move. He got back in the car and started it up.
The sniper/observer team identified Jansen and watched him get back into his car. But before they could do anything about it, he’d moved off.
“Sniper to Red One,” I heard in my earpiece.
“This is Red One. Go.”
“Jansen just spotted in the upper parking lot. Something spooked him and he just moved out.”
“Copy that. Red Two, this is Red One. Prepare to breach.”
“Copy that. Red Two out.”
I turned to the Old Man and told him what had just happened. “Where do you think he’s going next?” I asked.
“It depends on why he’s leaving. If it’s part of his plan, that’s one thing. But if he feels compromised as your man suspects, maybe he knows his team is missing. So where’s the next safest place around here for him? You did the security analysis. Where would you go?”
I thought about it for a moment. So far, Jansen was doing about what I’d expected him to do. That was the good news. It meant that Jansen was predictable and that we were one step ahead of him. But if I were he, I’d know that I didn’t control everything. There were still a lot of variables. The trick was to minimize those variables. Based on my research and evaluation of the station’s vulnerabilities to attack, I’d already determined that the secure spot was now inside the plant where Jansen and Rob probably had additional assets of one sort or another.
“If it were me, I’d go into the plant where I had the security manager on my side. So far, he doesn’t know that we know about him or Rob. So he probably feels he has a back door out of here. If he leaves the site now, he won’t be able to control the outcome and then he’ll have lost this encounter — and, no doubt, his paycheck. No, he’s committed now. He needs a win. The only way left to him now is to come inside and make it happen himself.”
The Old Man nodded his head in agreement. “I think you’re right. It really doesn’t matter, though. If you’re wrong and he leaves the site, then this whole thing will unravel for him and all we have to do is pick up the pieces. But if you’re right and he comes inside, then we have our work cut out for us. I don’t see that we have a choice. We need to assume he’s coming in.”
“We’ve got to get to Hector. Conditions have changed. We can’t stay here any longer,” I said. “If Marti hasn’t gotten to him by now, we’ll have to go find him.”