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“Copy that,” Liam says. “Tommy?”
Tommy Pulaski says, “Radio traffic relatively average. A corner store four blocks away was robbed. A guy got knifed in a lobby next street over. Typical night.”
Liam says, “Copy that. Mike?”
“Exfil van fueled and ready to roll on your signal, Liam.”
He checks the time and looks through the CLARK/K observation monitor. Two of the male subjects are sitting on a couch. The third one … is in the bathroom.
Liam thinks of these three, and the videos he’s seen of them in action.
Haji Omar al-Baghdadi, laughing as he beheads four bound female UN aid workers, one after another, taking his time as the hooded workers tremble with fear.
Abu Bakr, tossing a container of gasoline into a metal cage, the cage holding the American pilot of an F-22 aircraft, and then tossing in a lit match.
Abd Samir Muhammad al-Khlifawi, firing pistol shots into the heads of four children, grandchildren of a village leader who wouldn’t bow to ISIS.
“Boyd, get the bird into position.”
“Roger, that, Liam,” he replies.
Liam keeps view through the CLARK/K.
The third terrorist is out of the bathroom. In the kitchen. Now with his two companions in the small living room, each of them with only seconds to live. Within seconds the Thrasher drone will be level to those glass windows with the closed drapes and will fire off four rockets carrying highly classified warheads—Grinder—that minimize any collateral damage in the building. But foranyone in that apartment, the four rounds will explode in shards of fast rotating razor-sharp blades that will turn the place into a slaughterhouse.
Liam knows the specs of Thrasher and Grinder quite well. Two rockets would probably complete the job, but Liam likes to go for the overkill.
“Boyd, are you there yet?” he asks.
The three figures remain in place.
“Boyd, this is Liam. Status?”
A slight trickle of static. “Liam … this is Boyd. We’ve lost the bird.”
CHAPTER 36
LIAM DRAWS IN a deep breath, remembering the “Moscow Rules” that previous officers had devised while going up against the KGB on their hard and sealed home turf, and how one rule always sticks in his mind:
Technology will always let you down.
“This is Liam. Everybody hold,” he says. “Boyd, what the hell happened?”
Boyd says, “Not sure, Liam. The bird was heading to the target building when I lost control of it. She spun up and out. Last I saw she was heading to the Seine River, damn it. If we’re lucky the damn thing will dive in and sink. No evidence we were here.”
The radio net goes silent.
The rest of the team are waiting for his insight, his orders.
On a typical op, with their main weapon out of action, an abort would be the response.
Damn it, though, this mission isn’t typical,he thinks. It’s taken weeks of surveillance and monitoring to find a time when these three ISIS terrorists would be in one place for a while on this night. An abort would let them live … and in a few hours, all three might be gone out into the darkness, preparing to sell their bloody talentsto the highest bidder, either some other rogue group or even Russia or China.
Liam says, “All stations, we’re not aborting. Ferris.”
“This is Ferris, go.”
“You’re one building over. Can you make it to the roof of the target building?”