The Baltimore field office was an unassuming brick building with an American flag and a few royal oaks to shade the complex. It also contained one of the FBI’s most valuable assets: a team of highly trained agents who worked exclusively on domestic terrorism. This team would actually hand over non-terrorist criminal activity they encountered down the road to FBI headquarters in D.C. since their focus was fine-tuned and strategic. J. Edgar Hoover had introduced the trend of specializing when he authorized a special squad of agents to track down John Dillinger back in the ‘30s.
As the team leader, Nick Bracco was assigned to the Baltimore office along with his partner, Matt McColm. They would travel to Baltimore from their Arizona homes once or twice a month. With telecommunicating and digital technology, they could be where the bad guys were and not have to sit in an office to discuss strategy.
Nick parked the car in the back of the field office, then he and Matt scanned their thumbprints on the receptor outside the employee entrance and entered the building. A security guard stood beside a walkthrough magnetometer, which beeped and flashed a bright red light as Nick and Matt passed through it.
The guard rolled his eyes as the two agents bumped fists with him.
“You’re wasting batteries, Herm,” Matt said, heading toward the elevator. “Every employee is armed.”
“Yeah, I put in a request to turn off the audio,” the guard said.
“Good thinking,” Matt said.
Nick and Matt were halfway down the corridor when the guard replied, “That was six years ago.”
They both chuckled as Nick pushed the button for the elevator.
In the basement, a dedicated team of agents worked diligently, staring at their computer screens and satellite images displayed on oversized wall monitors. The work was tedious and stressful, so the agents worked four-hour stretches at a time before taking long breaks. The ceiling displayed a real-time image of the sky piped in from a camera on the roof. It was like having a giant sunroof overhead. It helped mitigate any sensory deprivation.
The sky above them now was cloudless, but you could almost feel the cold. The bullpen of agents offered nods and waves as Nick and Matt headed toward the middle of the room where Stevie Gilpen sat at a long table with three giant computer monitors in front of him.
“What’s up, Stevie,” Matt said as the three exchanged greetings. There was a slight buzz from all the computers humming in a confined space.
“Thanks for the intel on that Chechen character,” Nick said.
“You get him?” Stevie asked, keeping his eyes attached to an image on his middle screen.
“Yeah, we got him,” Nick said. “What are you looking at?”
Stevie pointed to a small shanty of a brown house with an A-Frame roof and dented aluminum siding. “See that shed?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s where they keep their RPG Launchers. The White Brigade. This is just outside Shreveport, Louisiana.”
“I’m listening,” Nick said, well aware of the white nationalist group based out of Shreveport.
“What they don’t have are the warheads.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive,” Stevie said, then gestured to a blue stretch of tarp wrapped up and lying next to the shed. “Every week they receive part of the rocket launcher. The only thing left is the warhead. Today is delivery day.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that blue canopy has been in the shed all week. They just removed it, getting ready to hide their delivery from overhead surveillance. I’m guessing we have less than an hour.”
“These guys aren’t always as dumb as they seem,” Matt said. “Where are these images coming from?”
“The Smartbird 550,” Stevie said. “Our latest bird drone. Right now she’s hovering at three thousand feet. She’s safe. Looks like she’s gliding on a headwind.”
“Incredible.”
The room dimmed momentarily as a low-lying cloud passed overhead and the interior lights automatically compensated for the sudden darkness.
Stevie spoke into his headset. “Kremlin three, put the coffee down. We’re almost ready to roll.”
Nick understood the prompting. Surveillance like this went on for days, even months sometimes, and an agent could be lulled into complacency. They needed to gear up for combat.
“Kremlin?” Matt asked. “Where’d that come from?”
Stevie pointed to a dark-haired woman across the room, wearing a headset and staring at the same image on her monitor. “Abagail,” Stevie said. “She’s the one who spotted the operation, so we allowed her the call names. She studied Russian History at Moscow State.”
“Nice.”
Stevie pulled his headset down around his neck and pressed the speaker button so Nick and Matt could hear the agents in Shreveport.
“They’ll be exiting off of Market, so look for them on Addison,” Stevie instructed.
“We’re on it,” an agent said.
“How long have you been tracking this?” Matt asked.
Stevie looked up at Nick and Matt. “A couple of months. I’ve been waiting for the final delivery so we could reverse engineer this thing back to its source. I didn’t care about the launcher and the cylinders. We need to find the source of the warheads.”
Nick patted Stevie on the shoulder. “Smart.”
Matt moved over to Abigail’s cubicle and introduced himself, leaning over and pointing to her screen as they discussed the situation.
“Really?” Stevie said, watching Matt.
“Leave him alone,” Nick whispered. “He’s in between relationships right now.”
Stevie grinned, then pressed his mouse as the image on the screen zoomed in on the house. Three guys in jeans and jackets came hustling out the front door and began unpacking the canopy and setting up the frame.
“All right, folks,” Stevie said to the Shreveport agents. “This is happening. Let’s start creeping toward the target.”
Nick couldn’t see the agents moving toward the home, but his heartrate began to rise as the operation commenced. Even a thousand miles away, Nick understood the danger those agents were about to face and he never took their sacrifice for granted.
The White Brigade crew was now assembling the canopy on its frame over the driveway to avoid any overhead surveillance. It was becoming a popular theme whenever dealing with the transfer of large material in urban areas. Big Daddy was watching overhead.
As soon as the canopy was upright, the crew milled around on the front yard, lighting cigarettes and checking their phones. The yard was mostly dirt with a few clumps of grass and a lone oak tree covering the middle of the yard.
“You guys almost there?” Stevie said into the microphone.
“Kremlin three, two blocks away.”
“Kremlin two. We’re at the end of the block.”
“Kremlin one. Around the corner.”
“Okay,” Stevie said, hunching over and squinting at the oversized monitor. “Wait for my signal.”
“Stop!” Matt yelled from across the room.
Stevie and Nick both looked at him as Matt scurried over and jabbed a finger at the screen. “You see that?”
A black metallic device could be seen between the branches of the oak tree by the front door. It was long and seemed to have appendages by its side.
“What is it?” Nick asked.
“Oh shit,” Stevie said, just as a fourth guy came out of the house and picked up the metal device. “Get away from there, Kremlins. Everyone move away. Go in the opposite direction. Now.”
“Roger,” came the response from three separate voices.
“They have their own drone,” Matt answered. “They’re going to surveil the vicinity before their delivery arrives.”
Stevie was furiously pounding his keyboard while the guy handling the drone stepped back with the controller and watched the mechanical device take flight.
“You going to disable it?” Nick asked.
“I’m going to do better than that,” Stevie said, moving his mouse over the newly airborne drone. My Smartbird 550 will allow it to fly, but I’m going to jam the visual frequency. Let’s hope those guys will see their drone flying normally and just figure it’s a glitch in their camera.”
On the monitor, a green circle appeared around the White Brigade’s drone, then Stevie clicked his mouse a couple of times and the circle turned red. They all saw the guy holding the controls talking to his crew as the group began to form a semicircle around their tech guy.
“C’mon now,” Stevie whispered to the monitor. “Nothing to be concerned about.”
One of the White Brigaders moved away, waving the back of his hand dismissively and the rest of them followed him back to the driveway.
“Yes.” Stevie gave a short fist pump. “Kremlins one, two, and three, get back into position.”
On the monitor, the drone guy was staring at his handheld screen trying to see something but coming up empty. He shook the device, frustrated by its lack of surveillance. The rest of the White Brigade crew stood next to the driveway anxiously looking down the street.
“Kremlin one, call locals to back up the perimeter,” Stevie said. “I don’t want any neighbors getting hurt.”
Nick stood behind Stevie and watched the operation unfold. On the monitor, a dark blue delivery van pulled up to the driveway, then aimed its nose toward the street and backed into the White Brigade’s driveway, the rear of the van disappearing under the blue canopy.
“Red Dog,” Stevie shouted into the microphone. “Red fucking dog!”
A couple of members of the White Brigade glanced around suspiciously at a noise. Maybe several noises. Before anything showed up on the monitor, the crew began to scatter. One pulled out a pistol as he ran and ten steps into his journey, he was down.
At the bottom of the screen a large gray panel truck came into view. Five FBI SWAT officers rushed out of the truck with dark green fatigues, helmets, and assault rifles, and the experience to know exactly how to handle this type of high-risk event. They had Stevie’s drone camera displaying images inside of their truck, so they knew exactly where to go.
One of the SWAT teams would be in the backyard to capture any stray White Brigaders trying to escape. The third team was already covering the perimeter. Within ninety seconds of their arrival, the operation was over. A handful of bodies lay on the ground and a few other White Brigaders stood with their arms straight up in the air.
“This is Kremlin one,” a voice said over the speaker. “Operation is complete.”
A loud cheer erupted throughout the basement, high fives, and fist bumps. Another successful mission.
Nick ruffled Stevie’s hair.
“The way it’s supposed to be,” Stevie said with a big smile.