Harrison grinned and stuck out his hand, which Naomi reluctantly shook, as did Superintendent Plesse. “Brett Harrison, good to meet you.” He stuck his thumb over his shoulder. “This is Al Maginnes, the HRT commander.”
“Maginnes?” Kharmai asked.
The commander smiled. “Ma, like mother, then Guinness, like the beer. Funny thing is, I can’t stand the stuff.”
Naomi smiled back at him. She didn’t like the heavy Irish brew, either. Maginnes was a lightly muscled man in his early forties, she guessed, with a bald spot on top, a thick brown mustache going to gray, and careful brown eyes. He was wearing camouflage GORE-TEX
pants and a black T-shirt. She saw that he had a heavy pistol riding in a leg holster, and there was an M4 carbine propped up next to him.
He looked competent enough, and she briefly wondered if Susskind had worked him in to keep an eye on the younger SAC.
“Where are we at?” Plesse asked, shifting his weight impatiently on the uncomfortable little seat.
Harrison pulled his headset down around his neck. “Your boys have both ends of the road sealed off, so we’re good there. There’s still no movement inside the house, and we’ve been up and running since . . . what, Al? A little after one this morning?” The other man nodded. “So that’s just over three hours without any movement. But there is something that I think you should see . . .”
Harrison placed the headset on top of his radio and swiveled to the center console. They all crowded around the low table, shoulders touching in the cramped space of the van. “These are the house plans. We got lucky and scooped them up from the owner, who built the place himself in ’88 before he decided to rent it out. This is key, right here . . .”
The area he was pointing at showed two levels on what should have been a one-story ranch. “A basement?” Naomi asked. “In Virginia?”
“Not only that,” Harrison said. “But the owner says it’s a finished basement, complete with furnishings. Vanderveen is aware of our tech-nology, which is something we need to keep in mind. He knows that the infrared can catch him through the windows, so he’s safer underground. In other words, he might very well be down there, and—”
“The thermals wouldn’t have picked it up,” Naomi finished.
Another grin from Harrison. “That’s right. So we’re still up in arms over how to make the approach. We’ll hold off on making a decision and see what trickles in from Norfolk. Until then, we’re waiting on the deputy director and a search warrant.”
Plesse asked, “Can you access the basement without going through the house?”
Harrison shook his head and the grin faded. “No, there’s only one door leading down from the interior. No basement-level windows either.”
“I couldn’t see the house from the trees,” Naomi pointed out. “I’d like to take a closer look.”
The SAC opened his mouth, but Maginnes was the first to speak.
“I’ll run her out there, Brett. I need to talk to Larsen anyway.”
The younger man nodded his consent, and Naomi followed the HRT commander as he snatched up his M4 and opened the rear doors to the van. Plesse didn’t move from his seat.
Outside, she shivered and said, “God, it’s freezing out here.”
Maginnes, still wearing only the T-shirt on top, didn’t seem fazed by the icy wind. “We can probably scrounge something up for you before we head out there. There aren’t any vehicles on the perimeter, so we’re gonna be outside for a while.”
He pulled open the rear doors of one of the Suburbans and dug through a pile of equipment. After a few seconds, he stood up with a pack in his hand and a triumphant look on his face. “This belongs to the smallest guy on my team, which means his stuff is probably only eight sizes too large for you.”
“Where can I change?”
He was already looking around. “Other side of that tree, I guess.”
He was pointing to a large oak about 20 feet away.
“There’s nowhere warm?”
“Nowhere that isn’t occupied. That’s fine, if you don’t mind twenty guys watching you strip.”
“I think I’ll pass,” she said with a laugh.
Ten minutes later they were moving slowly down Chamberlayne after passing the two VSP squad cars positioned at the end of the road. Naomi had changed out of her pantsuit into a pair of dark blue Columbia utility pants and a black half-zip pullover, under which she was wearing several long-sleeved shirts. Her feet looked slightly ridiculous in black combat boots two sizes too large. She’d had to put on three pairs of socks to make them fit; her feet were sweating a little bit in the warmth of the vehicle, but it was better than getting out of the truck and freezing to death twenty minutes later.
“I don’t want to take the truck any closer than we have to,”
Maginnes said. The Suburban’s lights were doused, and he was navigating through a pair of night vision goggles clipped to a harness on his head. “We’re going to have to hoof it the rest of the way.”
They moved slowly through the darkened fields. Maginnes would stop every 15 feet or so, and then, without explanation, suddenly move off again. He called in his position periodically so they wouldn’t get shot by his own men on their approach. It wasn’t until nearly twenty minutes after leaving the comfort of the Suburban that they arrived on the edge of the perimeter.
Maginnes knelt in the dirt and adjusted his lip mike. Naomi slumped down next to him, already exhausted. “TOC, this is Magpie, radio check, over.”
“Magpie, TOC,” came Harrison’s voice over the earpiece. “Read you Lima Charlie, out.”
He called in several other radio checks. The last one was to his assault team leader, Chris Larsen. “Alpha One, Magpie. Give me a quick sit rep, over.”
“Mags, this is Alpha. All weapons and personnel are accounted for.
Sierra team is running through their own list. Still haven’t spotted anything from our position, over.”
“I’m . . .” Maginnes glanced around quickly, “about 300 yards south of the nest, in the dip next to the third stand out from the road. Do you have eyes on, over?”
“Negative, Magpie, over.”
“Hold on a second, over.” Maginnes peeled off the AN/PVS-7 goggles and handed them back to Naomi, who was basically operating blind. The moon and stars overhead were obscured by leaden clouds heavy with snow, but when she slipped on the harness and turned the knob, the world around her suddenly reappeared in strange, unnatural colors. The house, which she hadn’t seen on the approach, now popped into view, pale against the darker green of the open air.
From the stand of trees opposite the barn, she saw white lines streaking out of the woods toward the walls of the house.
“Oh my God,” she breathed.
“You see them?”
She steadied the goggles against her face with her left hand and pointed with her right. “Over there.”
Maginnes stopped fiddling with his radio. He turned on the Aimpoint sight attached to his M4 and pointed the weapon toward the woodline. “Got me, Alpha One?”
“That’s a Roger.”
“How soon can you get here?”
A brief pause, and then his earpiece crackled. “Ten minutes, fif -
teen to be on the safe side.”
“Take your time, Chris. Magpie, out.”
The SAC was sipping coffee and talking with Plesse when Schu-bert’s Symphony No. 8 suddenly filled the air. He picked up his cell phone and frowned at the number before flipping it open. “Harrison.”