Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us
only the choice of brave resistance, or the most
abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer, or die.
George Washington (1732-1799), American general,
first President of the United States
The sky was sparkling clear and deep blue at 28,000 feet over Canada. The wind speed and direction were variable at altitude, but demanded a HALO release miles east of the warehouse objective today, well into Canadian airspace. Poppy Benedict’s coordination with Canada’s CIA ensured that air traffic control hand-off went smoothly.
The team would free fall nearly to the deck, pop the canopies at about eight hundred feet, and in seconds, all things going well, their boots would touch down on the white rooftop of the warehouse.
Kieszek keyed her intercom to Charlie. “Okay boss, time for you to go join the party.”
“Yep, it is.” He reached out and squeezed Kieszek’s right forearm. “See you when I see you, bud.”
“Copy that. Keep that big water-head down. Send Candy up front, please.”
“Will do.”
Charlie unbuckled the seat harness and unplugged his headset from the intercom system, removing the aircraft’s quick-don oxygen mask and donning the smaller O2 mask from his bail-out bottle. Then Bird climbed out of the position. Kieszek’s gaze may have lingered just a second or two long on her boss’s rear end as his form-fitting thermal suit edged between the seats.
Once in the back of the plane, Charlie tapped Candy Clark on the shoulder.
He gave her a thumb’s up and pointed forward. She unplugged her headset from the ICS, nodded, returned the upraised thumb, and clapped him on the back for luck as she left. Charlie got into the rest of his gear for the jump.
Kerry Baker doubled as jumpmaster for this mission. He stood and raised two thumbs in the air. Stand.
The team formed a single line. Starting at the back, every jumper checked the equipment of the person in front of him, patting the person on the butt to say You’re good. The procedure was repeated up the line until it reached Charlie, who said, “Okay, Jumpmaster!” Baker turned to face aft and Charlie checked him over. All jumpers were now breathing through their bailout bottles.
On the flight deck, Candy Clark announced on the intercom, “Oxygen on, one hundred percent for all crew.”
A few minutes later, a red light winked on in the cargo space and the aft ramp started its slow yawn open. It let in a torrent of wind, bright sunlight, and a panoramic view of the Earth that was breathtaking. There was precious little time to enjoy the view.
Baker turned toward the team and yelled, “One minute!” He raised an index finger into the air where everyone could see it because no one farther back than Charlie could hear him through the mask and the noise.
The entire team turned and faced the open ramp as a group. The morning light reflected into the cargo hold and illuminated the plexi facemasks and white jumpsuits brightly against the dark cavern. When the green light came on, Charlie led everyone off the end of the ramp at a dead run, and they flung themselves into their destinies.
Last man in the stick, Carlos Benavides held back a second, then ran toward the open ramp rotating in the air as he pitched himself into space. He wanted to snag a slow-motion video of the receding airplane on his helmet camera as he departed. It would be a fun addition to the debrief the next day. But as he spun in the air, the buckle holding his thirty-inch Rapid Assault Tools bolt cutter snapped and one-third of their bolt-cutting capability was flung away into space. A few minutes later, it dropped unnoticed with a large splash into the Detroit River.
In the plane, Amber, Tracey, Deb Hemme, and Poppy all clapped and roared their approval.
A free fall from five miles up happens frightening fast. At the terminal velocity of about 124 miles per hour, it only takes a few seconds less than two and a half minutes to get to eight hundred feet, and the ground comes at you so fast it can be deceptive. That’s why the team used digital altimeters and an automatic ripcord release mechanism to open maneuverable RA-1 special operations parachutes at the correct time and height.
The team’s ram-air chutes all popped within seconds of each other, causing enough noise that it would have been well noticeable on the ground without the powerful industrial din produced by the steel processing plant next door to the warehouse. With just a breath of wind at nearly ground level, all seven of the assaulters landed on the rooftop with the gentle impact of a leaf, safe and sound.
So far, so good.
Even Steve Harris, who had not trained on the new ram-air chutes, alighted as if he had just graduated from Airborne training. Fortunately, the new SPECOPS RA-1s are quite like the civilian free-fall parasails he’d flown before. Harris had no trouble steering his to the roof and an easy stand-up landing as if he had done it dozens of times.
Everyone shucked off their parachute harnesses, helmets, oxygen bottles, tool packs, and thermal suits, stowing the gear under some pieces of weathered plywood found on the roof so nothing would blow around. The air was tranquil in any case.
Under the thermal suits, the team wore black tactical ripstop with hoods and Taclite2 gloves. They stuck out like sore thumbs on the white rooftop, but they would be nearly invisible once inside the shadowy warehouse. Even their faces were obscured by Carbomask blackface camouflage paint—it’s easier to remove than a NATO camo stick, and you can buy it on Amazon.
Weapons, radios, and intercoms were checked and ready to go.
Charlie gave the go ahead hand sign.
Benavides and Cloud crept to each side of the open hole in the large metal enclosure that had been filled with a heating unit. Benavides cautiously extended a tiny video camera on a thin stalk to see inside the warehouse. He rotated the camera for a panoramic view and logged what it saw to a small recorder.
The catwalk looked intact. As expected, a large work table under bright fluorescent lights was in the northeast corner of the building, in the end of the long rectangular building that abutted the Detroit River. On a table in the southeast corner was a stainless-steel tank with a lid, maybe three feet square. There was a man climbing out of a HAZMAT suit. He hung the suit from a peg on a wooden pillar and walked to the other end of the building to join a second man at a table.
After a moment, the men started a loud and energetic card game, filled with invective and the sound of cards being slapped forcefully on the table. Curiously, the video feed showed no presence of guards at the two doors, one a regular man door, the other a sliding vehicle access portal.
Benavides and Cloud returned to the team.
“I thought we were going to see more people,” Cloud said. “There are only two guys down there.”
Benavides played back the video recording he’d made of the reconnaissance for Charlie Bird and General McCandless. The sweep of the warehouse showed no other people in the building, and the floorplan was clear except for occasional pillars supporting the roof. No office spaces, no rooms of any kind, no other objects on the floor large enough to hide enemies. The catwalk looked sturdy enough, and it extended left and right to both sides of the warehouse, with ladders down each wall.
Charlie looked at his watch.
“It’s 0934. Maybe the rest of them are gone to breakfast?”
The general said, “I don’t know if they’re gone to get breakfast burritos or to the can or what, but if we only have two assholes to deal with, let’s get ’em dealt with and blow this pop stand.”
Everyone looked at McCandless with a concerned face.
“Not literally blow it, of course. Charlie, how do you want to proceed?”
“Smaller folks in first. Benavides, Baker, that’s you guys. Step through the hole and onto the catwalk. Baker first, he’s probably the lightest. That catwalk has been hanging there since the damned Depression, and we don’t know what shape it’s in.”
He spoke directly to Baker.
“Man, listen, be careful on that damned thing. If it lets go, I expect you to start shooting and keep shooting all the way to floor, copy?” He smiled. “And land on your feet.”
“You got it, skipper.” Baker hurried away to enter the metal enclosure.
“Those guys are almost two hundred meters away, the entire other end of the building, playing cards and a loud radio, which helps us a ton. If we can keep the noise down, we might even get in there without them hearing us. I’d rather be on the ground when the shooting starts and not in the air. When Baker gets on the catwalk and assesses it good to go, then Benavides, me, General McCandless, Crosby, and Zave will follow.”
Nodding heads all around.
“If the catwalk sucks, we’ll rappel in, but that’s the noisy and messy option. Each person in turn scoots to opposite ends of the catwalk, then start descending the ladders. We don’t want to load up the catwalk with more weight than it can handle.”
Charlie pointed at Steve Harris.
“You’re overwatch. Take a position over there on the far west end of the building and watch the inbound driveway for vehicles. If there are other folks coming back from lunch, or maybe it’s even a shift change, sing out on the comms. If you see weapons, don’t wait, start taking those folks out wholesale. Controlled fire. We aren’t here to shoot up the neighborhood.”
“Roger that, boss,” Harris said. Secretly, he was happy that he didn’t have to test the catwalk with his weight today.
Charlie keyed his radio link to the orbiting drone and it relayed the call via satellite back to the CIA office spaces in Greektown.
“Acrobat, Dropzone-actual.”
The MQ-9L SuperReaper pilot responded. “Dropzone-actual, Acrobat. Go ahead.”
“Acrobat, do you have a visual on our position?”
Charlie looked up involuntarily. He knew the powerful laser-equipped drone was loitering up there somewhere, watching. After the drone’s autonomous action against Rudy Wolf in the Shelby County forest, Charlie hoped it knew his team was the good guys.
“Dropzone-actual, Acrobat. Copy that, sir, we see you. Give us a big wave.”
Charlie lifted an exaggerated wave at the open sky.
“Good copy, Dropzone, we got you, sir.”
“Okay, Acrobat. Our overwatch is on the roof at the west end of the building. The rest of us are going inside. Our DIG emitters are operational at this time.”
The assault team members carried experimental self-powered radio emitters that would detect, identify, and geolocate each man to the drone’s electronic intelligence sensors as good guys. The ELINT receptions showed up on the Monroe Street control pod’s monitor and in the pilot’s 3D helmet display as blue triangles, along with a wireframe of the building and surrounding grounds. Other humans not equipped with DIG chips would show up as red triangles. If it came to using the drone to attack the building—or to defend the team—the emitters told the drone pilot who not to shoot.
Kerry Baker spoke into the intercom from inside the rooftop enclosure.
“I’m in, skipper. This catwalk is solid, hard as Chinese arithmetic. I think even Steve Harris could get down here A-OK.”
“That shit ain’t funny,” Harris said on the intercom.
“No unnecessary traffic, people. Benavides next, then the rest in order,” Charlie intercommed. Then, on the radio link, “Acrobat, Dropzone-actual. We’re going in. Keep an eye out for vehicles inbound from the street. There are only two tangos here. Others are probably coming back at some point, so keep your eyes open for new arrivals. Out.”
On the intercom, Charlie gave the move-out order. “Okay, let’s go. Weapons are free. Stay frosty.”
Benavides, Bird, McCandless, and Crosby negotiated the wide hole in turn and scurried to opposite ends of the catwalk. Cloud brought up the rear. The first two men stood overwatch, weapons trained on the two happy card players, while the rest of the assaulters quietly climbed down the access ladders to the floor.
Now the lack of objects in the warehouse worked against the team—there was nothing to hide behind but the support pillars, and they were only about eight inches thick. There was no light to speak of between the card table and the bomb table, opposite ends of the long building, so the assaulters hugged the walls and merged with the darkness as they crept forward, weapons up.
Then the radio crackled to life.
“Dropzone, Dropzone, this is Acrobat. Vehicles are approaching your position from the Great Lakes Ave side.”
Charlie clicked his radio mic twice, acknowledging. The intercom came alive with Steve Harris. “Boss, I got vehicles arriving. Two vehicles, six—seven tangos. No weapons in view.”
It was then that McCandless reached forward and tapped Bird, pointing forward to the card table area where many long guns and handguns were left on a picnic table.
“Dropzone, Acrobat. I can see weapons under some shirts on these guys in close-ups.”
Charlie clicked his radio mic twice and switched to intercom.
“Listen up. We’re going to let the rest of those guys join the party, and then we’ll engage and take them all down at once. No run-and-guns here. Let’s take these jokers down and be home in time for lunch. A runaway tango in the neighborhood is bad COMREL.”
Just then, instead of entering through the man door, the new arrivals flung the rusty metal vehicle door wide open, flooding the west end of the building with the hot light of mid-morning. The third man through the door saw the assault team against the wall on the right side and drew a deep breath to make a wide-eyed shout of alarm.
A suppressed combat carbine shooting on full automatic is not noiseless, despite how Hollywood often portrays it. Rather, it has an almost pleasing, muted mechanical sound as it spits death and destruction at an enemy, roughly like a well-oiled sewing machine operating at an insanely high speed. That’s what the team heard when Kerry Baker, across the building on the still dark side, fired his silenced MP4 on full automatic and stitched the third terrorist from knees to eyes in one controlled burst.
From firing positions along both walls, the entire team opened up at once in the same pleasing mechanical harmony. The two card players fell next, pasteboards flying into the air along with hair and brain matter. A few playing cards were hit by rounds and exploded into chaff on their slow-motion flights through the air.
The other two bad guys who entered from the parking lot ducked behind the picnic table, snatching weapons off the top as they went down. But since they were clearly visible behind the table, they became instant bullet sponges before they got off a shot. The last guy ducked back out toward the cars.
On the roof in overwatch, Harris heard the shooting inside the warehouse and saw the a man rush back out of the door. The terrorist screamed warnings in Farsi to his companions and herded the other three back to the vehicles. Harris shot two of them, but two made it to the front seat of a Jeep Cherokee.
Just as Harris aimed at the driver through his side window, the entire vehicle was bathed in cherry red light. In less than a second, the men inside were engulfed by their own flaming bodies, writhing and screaming loud enough to be heard by Harris on the roof.
The metal all around the vehicle sagged like hot putty and the paint blistered and peeled. Tires blew out explosively, and the ruby red laser disappeared when the fuel tank erupted with a fiery roar, blowing apart the entire rear section of the Jeep and lifting it briefly into the air. The windows shattered and the interior roiled furiously in cascades of black-tipped orange flame. There was no more screaming from the two men in the Jeep.
Harris was impressed and shook his head in admiration. He keyed his radio.
“Acrobat, Dropzone-seven. That’s some fancy, ah, shooting, I guess.”
“Dropzone-seven, Acrobat. Copy that, sir.” The SuperReaper pilot’s voice had a little chuckle to it. “It’s science, sir, but damn, it works like magic.”
Benavides emerged from the warehouse sliding door, alert and weapon up, scanning the west parking lot. He swept the area with a quick glance up to Harris, who covered him. Benavides checked the two dead men on the ground, and then walked around the full perimeter of the Jeep at a respectful distance, his MP4 trained on the interior. But there was no need.
The vehicle burned hotly from the inside out. The two black husks in the front seats no longer presented threats greater than air pollution as they burned.
“Dropzone-actual, Dropzone-six. Sir, we’re clear out here.”
“Dropzone-six, roger that.” Charlie looked up to see through the open doorway the misshapen inferno that used to be a Jeep Cherokee, hot flares of fire still hissing forcefully.
“We’re clear inside, too. Break-break. Acrobat, Dropzone-actual. Send the HAZMAT teams and Security One to the warehouse, and send Security Two to the safehouse to grab the other tangos.”
He paused for a moment, considering.
“Security Three is clear to hook up those white nationalists in Taylor. And maybe ask for a fire truck and the medical examiner for our warehouse location.”
That’s when Charlie Bird stepped into the parking lot and viewed the sad shape of the former Jeep Cherokee, now a raging bonfire inside a wilted lump of metal that looked like nothing more than a kindergarten child’s sculpture project.
“Dropzone team, Dropzone-actual. Everyone assemble in the west parking lot. You gotta see this.”