rifle. A tiny switch inside automatically turned the scope on.
With little twitches, making sure she didn’t disturb the trash surrounding her hide site, she peered out the tunnel she’d poked clear with a stick just after dark to get a field of fire.
She had three positions identified from the previous night. She’d picked them up as she maneuvered into the alley. They were careless, but they could afford to be. They were in friendly territory and Neeley had picked up the distinct impression that they hadn’t expected any action the previous evening.
Which was interesting.
Actually,
disturbing
was a more accurate word.
If they knew which night to expect extract, it meant the mission was compromised. Which meant she should back out and call for exfiltration and forget about extraction of the package.
Neeley wasn’t a big rule follower for those other than the ones Gant had given her.
The Cellar did not have Protocols like the Nightstalkers.
It had Sanctions, which this wasn’t, so that didn’t factor into it.
Neeley didn’t ruminate on why or how the mission was compromised. The very fact the Cellar had been called in to do this had been an indicator. Hannah would deal with it.
There were four men in a second-story apartment across the street from the package. They had two light machine guns, AK-47s, and one RPG rocket launcher. Of more danger were the half-dozen “insurgents” in a minaret towering over the mosque at the end of the street. They had a cluster of RPGs and, ominously, at least two SA-24 Grinch shoulder-to-air missiles. The Grinch was the latest variant of Russian surface-to-air missiles, technically not available for export, but what were rules to bad guys? You could buy anything in Russia these days.
Who named a missile a Grinch?
Neeley wondered as she scanned the minaret. Really, not long till Christmas and she was literally going up against the Grinch? She rarely considered irony, since it was often the baseline of any operation she was on, but this time it seemed a bit over the top.
She counted six heat signatures in the minaret. All awake and alert, unlike last night.
They were waiting.
As were the last two. They’d come just after dark, like last night, and crawled into one of the Dumpsters next door to where the package was. They’d wedged the top open six inches and were peering out with night-vision goggles, the latest American version, most likely stolen by an Afghan soldier from his American counterparts and sold on the black market.
An old woman came walking down the street, the weariness in her step indicating a long day at work. She had little clue aboutthe firepower amassed all around her and disappeared into one of the buildings on the left side of the street.
A voice crackled in Neeley’s ear. “Status?”
She whispered her reply, picked up by her throat mike and encrypted and transmitted back to Hannah while being frequency hopped and relayed through several Milstar satellites. “Go. Status of Pakistani air defenses?”
That was the key question. How far up did the betrayal go and who was involved?
“Inactive. You’ve got a local problem.”
“Roger,” Neeley said. “But we kept this tight, so the only way word was leaked was via the Agency.”
“Naturally. I foresee a Sanction in the future, but for now it is your call whether to proceed or not.”
“I’m on mission,” Neeley said.
“The missile countdown has begun and exfil is inbound,” Hannah said and nothing more, because after so many years and so many missions, there was nothing they could say. It was all down to the execution now.
Neeley pulled her eye back from the rubber gasket, the ease of pressure automatically turning the scope off. She slithered one hand into a pocket and extracted a pill. She carefully put it in her mouth and, twisting her head to the left, took a sip of Gatorade from the CamelBak built into her MOLLE combat vest.
The pill would give her four hours on the edge.
With little twitches, making sure she didn’t disturb the trash surrounding her hide site, she peered out the tunnel she’d poked clear with a stick just after dark to get a field of fire.
She had three positions identified from the previous night. She’d picked them up as she maneuvered into the alley. They were careless, but they could afford to be. They were in friendly territory and Neeley had picked up the distinct impression that they hadn’t expected any action the previous evening.
Which was interesting.
Actually,
disturbing
was a more accurate word.
If they knew which night to expect extract, it meant the mission was compromised. Which meant she should back out and call for exfiltration and forget about extraction of the package.
Neeley wasn’t a big rule follower for those other than the ones Gant had given her.
The Cellar did not have Protocols like the Nightstalkers.
It had Sanctions, which this wasn’t, so that didn’t factor into it.
Neeley didn’t ruminate on why or how the mission was compromised. The very fact the Cellar had been called in to do this had been an indicator. Hannah would deal with it.
There were four men in a second-story apartment across the street from the package. They had two light machine guns, AK-47s, and one RPG rocket launcher. Of more danger were the half-dozen “insurgents” in a minaret towering over the mosque at the end of the street. They had a cluster of RPGs and, ominously, at least two SA-24 Grinch shoulder-to-air missiles. The Grinch was the latest variant of Russian surface-to-air missiles, technically not available for export, but what were rules to bad guys? You could buy anything in Russia these days.
Who named a missile a Grinch?
Neeley wondered as she scanned the minaret. Really, not long till Christmas and she was literally going up against the Grinch? She rarely considered irony, since it was often the baseline of any operation she was on, but this time it seemed a bit over the top.
She counted six heat signatures in the minaret. All awake and alert, unlike last night.
They were waiting.
As were the last two. They’d come just after dark, like last night, and crawled into one of the Dumpsters next door to where the package was. They’d wedged the top open six inches and were peering out with night-vision goggles, the latest American version, most likely stolen by an Afghan soldier from his American counterparts and sold on the black market.
An old woman came walking down the street, the weariness in her step indicating a long day at work. She had little clue aboutthe firepower amassed all around her and disappeared into one of the buildings on the left side of the street.
A voice crackled in Neeley’s ear. “Status?”
She whispered her reply, picked up by her throat mike and encrypted and transmitted back to Hannah while being frequency hopped and relayed through several Milstar satellites. “Go. Status of Pakistani air defenses?”
That was the key question. How far up did the betrayal go and who was involved?
“Inactive. You’ve got a local problem.”
“Roger,” Neeley said. “But we kept this tight, so the only way word was leaked was via the Agency.”
“Naturally. I foresee a Sanction in the future, but for now it is your call whether to proceed or not.”
“I’m on mission,” Neeley said.
“The missile countdown has begun and exfil is inbound,” Hannah said and nothing more, because after so many years and so many missions, there was nothing they could say. It was all down to the execution now.
Neeley pulled her eye back from the rubber gasket, the ease of pressure automatically turning the scope off. She slithered one hand into a pocket and extracted a pill. She carefully put it in her mouth and, twisting her head to the left, took a sip of Gatorade from the CamelBak built into her MOLLE combat vest.
The pill would give her four hours on the edge.
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