I'd Rather Be In Paris (30 page)

"Ah, Germany,” Christian said, looking north over the foggy hills. “Europe's problem child and a beer lover's paradise."

Mist fell on Lawson's face as he tugged on a pair of jungle fatigue pants over his jeans. To most people, especially travelers, the weather conditions were less than favorable. For the leader of Team Pegasus, the heavy fog and mist were welcomed. Like camouflage, Mother Nature's handiwork helped to shield his men from the enemy. Nightfall was still hours away, but the weather would allow him and his team to move up the timetable and launch their plan early. He hoped it was early enough.

Donning a matching fatigue jacket, Lawson glanced around at the other men inside their temporary defensive perimeter. Flynn was updating the members of Pegasus on the current situation. Alongside them, five U.S. Navy SEALs and their senior officer also listened and asked questions. Six other SEALs were already in place south of the perimeter doing surveillance on the compound where Dmitri and his group had disappeared. Built into the rocky hill, the enemy encampment was nearly impenetrable.

The group with him today would find a way in. They had to. The worldwide Islamic terror network was on the move. Intelligence services, including the CIA, had noticed a marked increase in chatter over the airwaves during the past twenty-four hours, much of it generating from Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was believed to be hiding out. Conversations between known militants had been intercepted by American and British electronic eavesdroppers.

Britain's specialists in Cheltenham had gathered information indicating preparations for new terrorist attacks, focused in Europe and the Gulf, were well advanced. Several of the communications suggested the militants already possessed surface-to-air missiles for use against targets in the United Kingdom. Others would be receiving weapons soon.

Arrests had been made in Pakistan after local police, assisted by American commandos, had raided a flat. Rifles, maps of Paris, Belgium and Frankfurt, and literature on the dissemination of biological weapons had turned up in the hands of an Afghan and a Yemeni.

In Italy and Spain, the previous chatter between the Italian Mafia deputies and bin Laden's al-Qaeda militants had completely ceased. Another warning bell.

The United Kingdom's alert codes had been raised from yellow to high-risk orange. America's as well. Politicians in France and Germany, as always, refused to raise an alarm until more information about the nature of the threats could be determined.

As he pulled a floppy camouflage hat down over his ears with one hand, Lawson adjusted the headset of his Motorola radio with the other. He secured his HK at his waist, strapped a KA-BAR knife to his ankle and slung the strap of a submachine gun over his shoulder. Armed to the teeth and looking at the men in his company, he suddenly felt better. More in control. He had a job to do and now he had the proper equipment and men to do it.

Flynn finished talking and looked at Lawson. He motioned Lawson over. “Before we go any further with this, I want to establish chain of command."

"Uh-oh,” Christian chimed softly in the background.

Lawson locked eyes with the SEAL lieutenant. Both of them were more than qualified to lead the show, and neither would willingly concede control to the other.

Flynn glanced between them. He addressed the SEAL leader. “Normally, I would hand command to you, Lieutenant Redington, because of your experience, but these are not normal circumstances. Commander Vaughn and the Pegasus team have more specific experience with this particular terrorist which gives Vaughn the upper hand this time. As we've already discussed, this is a delicate situation, not only due to the men we're going after but because a very important CIA operative, her sister and possibly an FBI agent, are being held hostage by this group.” Glancing between the men again, he continued. “However, Lieutenant, I'm sure Vaughn and his men would appreciate any input you can offer."

Lieutenant Redington nodded. “My men and I are ready to assist Team Pegasus as needed."

Lawson took Redington's outstretched hand and shook it, feeling another surge of relief. He was in charge. “Let's get down to business."

The rest of the men, including Christian, Flynn's Air Force pilot and the three bodyguards, were brought into the discussion. Intel from Del back at CIA headquarters offered the group a picture of what they were up against.

The structure had been built into the top and side of a steep and wooded hillside, a combination laboratory and bunker. Built and furnished with money from the Russian and German governments, it was suspected of being used intermittently for experimentation of drugs and vaccines on Jews and Muslims since the 1950s. Insertion points were limited to two. An entrance tunnel was located at the top of the hill near a helicopter pad. The other, an underground garage which led to the compound's main entrance, was controlled by electronic doors. These were controlled by keypad.

Security would be tight. Ambushes would be unlikely—the design of the bunker would give Dmitri a false sense of security and he would rely mostly on cameras and infrared detection devices for perimeter breaches—but booby traps were still a possibility.

Using a rough blueprint of the compound Del had provided, Lawson divided the building into three sectors and assigned men to each. The three top snipers from the SEAL and Pegasus teams would take up positions in the hillside as a cover force along with Flynn, his pilot and his bodyguards.

"I want you in a secure position,” he said to Flynn, “where you can take in the whole picture and give us direction. In other words, do what you do best."

"Hoffman will be sending us more updates as the day goes on,” Flynn said. “I'll relay the pertinent information to you as it becomes available."

Christian piped up from behind Lawson's point man, Johnny Quick. “What about me?"

Lawson blew out a breath and looked Christian straight in the eye. “Stay out of the way and don't get shot. Zara will kill me if anything happens to you."

"Hmph.” He tried to look annoyed but only managed to look relieved.

Lawson reminded everyone that once they were inside the bunker, they would encounter both a heavily armed militia and a lab stocked with biological agents. Every man there had been trained in bioterrorism, but Lawson reviewed strategic responses to deal with the expected scenarios anyway. Emergency units in Germany and Switzerland, equipped with biohazard suits and clean-up kits, had already been alerted and were on standby in the event any biological or chemical weapon was released.

After an hour, a solid op plan was in place. The two teams had picked it apart step by step and given themselves several options as back up. Lawson instructed Lieutenant Redington to check in with the men in the field. The SEAL adjusted his lip mike and touched the transmit button in his radio. “Apollo, this is Zeus. Do you copy? Over."

"Zeus, this is Apollo. What's our situation?"

"We're about to move out and hook up with you."

"ETA?"

Redington looked at Lawson. Lawson held up five spread fingers and Redington said into his mike, “Five minutes. Sit?"

The situation report sounded favorable. “No one's moving. Liebe and Priest have circumnavigated the camp. Report footpaths but no tangos. No booby traps. Cameras stationed above garage entrance and on helo pad. Otherwise, security is minimal."

"Roger that, Apollo. We're on our way."

As per Lawson's instructions, the two teams divided up and fanned out, disappearing into the mist.

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Digging another handful of stuffing out of her mattress, Zara took it to the sink and shoved it into the drain. She turned the water on full blast and watched the sink fill. Satisfied, she returned to the mattress and dug out more of the musty-smelling stuffing. Holding it in her arms, she carried it to the door, knelt down and dumped it on the floor. She kneaded it into the small crack at the bottom, then positioned the mattress at an angle to the door.

Sliding down the far wall until her butt hit the floor, she closed her eyes for a few minutes, running her plan over in her mind. It was simplistic, but the element of surprise would at least gain her freedom from the cell. She estimated she still had two hours before Dmitri or one of his guards came for her.

The sound of water hitting the floor made her open her eyes. She watched a puddle grow on the floor. All her dreams and hopes for the future—returning to Paris to continue her work as a field operative, tackling dance in her off hours again, having a relationship with Lawson—could die with her in a few hours. No one would know how happy she had been the past few days. How alive she had truly felt.

Even Lawson didn't know. She'd never worked up the courage to face the truth herself, much less tell him. He'd become much more to her than a partner, more than just a European fling while caught in the adrenaline-pumping mission. He'd become her friend and she cared deeply what happened to him. She wanted to live—not just to get Lucie out alive, but to spend more time with Lawson. She wanted a relationship. Long-term, preferably, with lots of sex.

Was it love? She didn't know. With unsteady hands, she wiped tears off her cheeks. She probably would never know. For now all she could do was sit tight and wait.

Halfway up the hill, Team Pegasus and their SEAL counterparts met up with the men doing surveillance on the bunker. When everyone was assembled, Lawson and Redington briefed them on the specifics of the mission. Questions were answered and contingencies discussed. Small color snapshots of Alexandrov Dmitri, Jon Vos Loo and Stefano Biaggio were passed around.

The CIA preferred all three to be taken alive. Full-face photos of Zara, Lucie and Annette were also passed around and protocol for getting them out of the line of fire and secured was detailed. All the men had been through similar hostage situations before. All were determined to get the job done safely and efficiently.

The mist turned to solid rain. Lawson gave instructions to his cover force and gave the order for each element to move out. Standard operating procedures, including radio silence, were to be followed until all the teams were in place. Crawling on their bellies because of the slippery footing, Lawson and his men moved slowly to their position on the west side of the helicopter pad.

While they waited for the other teams to check in, he could no longer block thoughts about Zara from his mind. Images of her bruised and battered swam in front of his eyes. He had never had patience for bullies, hated them in fact. Those who lived to inflict pain and suffering on others were worthless in his book. If Dmitri or one of his thugs had hurt her...

At the thought, pure hate crawled into his chest. Like a boa constrictor, it squeezed his lungs and stole his breath. Anger, sharp and white hot, flooded his body. Anger beyond anything he had ever felt before. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to kill someone.

But before he killed them, he wanted to pull their balls out by way of their throat.

Flynn's steady voice cut through the sound of blood pounding in his ears. “Commander Vaughn, I have orders for you to hold your position. Do you copy?"

Lawson forced his anger down a notch in order to answer. Too much emotion of any kind led to poor judgment calls and at that moment, he couldn't afford to make a bad call. “Orders from whom?” he said. “Over."

"High command. Our Pakistan prisoner is beginning to remember information which may be critical to this mission. Hold your positions until further orders are received."

As far as he was concerned, the men and women of high command, sitting in their comfortable chairs and staring at their computer screens while he was laying on the ground in no-man's land with rain pouring off the brim of his hat, could kiss his ass. The time was right and his group needed to move. Nothing the Pakistani prisoner would tell them would be worth sacrificing Zara's life.

He glanced over at Johnny Quick, lying three yards away painting his face with mud from the ground underneath him. The two exchanged a silent look communicating their frustration. There couldn't possibly be anything worse than having their boss and his bosses calling the shots for them in the field.

The SEAL lieutenant's voice interrupted Lawson's reply. “Teams three and four are in position, Commander, and waiting for your signal."

As someone who had commanded teams of soldiers many times, Lawson knew what it took to be a good leader. It wasn't the extra bar on the sleeve of his uniform. He earned the respect of the men under him by being calculating, decisive and intuitive.

He'd left Flynn in charge of the overall operation because he was the right man for the job. It would have been easy to overrule his boss's orders but undermining Flynn served no purpose. Every good leader knew how to follow the chain of command. “All teams hold position."

Seconds ticked by. Then minutes. The rain continued to pour, its rhythmic sound dulling Lawson's senses. He looked through the scope of his suppressed MP5 to see the entrance near the helo pad. The fog gave them incredibly good cover, but it also cut his visibility to almost nothing. He could barely make out the solid door a scant twenty feet away.

Trying to keep his mind off Zara and what was happening to her, he ran through the infiltration and takedown scenarios again. He knew the other men were doing the same to keep themselves focused and pumped for the job ahead. Rescuing Zara, Lucie and possibly Annette, and subduing the terrorists, was the main objective, but staying alive was too. Everyone needed to be aware of their counterparts, lest they shoot one of their own.

Lawson mentally dissected the interior of the bunker, trying to figure out the most logical place for the women to be held. The blueprint Del had provided was based on a model of other bunker-style laboratories built in Europe around the same time. The cells where human guinea pigs were imprisoned were on the second floor close to the lab itself. The garage and disposal areas were below and living quarters were on the floor above. Lawson and his two teams would work from the top down while Redington and his two teams came through the garage and worked their way up. The scenario was less than ideal for getting to the hostages quickly, but it was the only logical way in.

"Commander Vaughn, I have new information,” Flynn said.

Lawson raised his eye from the scope and lowered his mike. “Go ahead."

"Not over the radio. I am sending a man to deliver the information. He will be coming up behind your position."

Lawson felt Johnny's gaze on him. “Not advised, sir.” The last thing he needed was for Christian or one of the other men with Flynn to slip on the hillside and alert the terrorists inside the bunker. “I'll send a man to you. Hold your position."

Pointing at Johnny, Lawson motioned for him to retrace their steps and retrieve the message. Johnny nodded and disappeared back down the hill.

While he was gone, Lawson wondered what information was so valuable Flynn refused to give it to him over the radio. They had already determined there was little chance Dmitri, Vos Loo or the other men with them had the technology to decipher their transmissions even if they were monitoring the airwaves. The only reason for Flynn to worry about the secrecy of his latest information was if he believed the Germans or some other country's intelligence service with the proper equipment and technology was listening.

Ten minutes later, Lawson started at Johnny's voice behind him. “Coming up behind you, Commander,” he whispered. The man must have double-timed his belly crawl to make it back so fast.

"What have you got?” Lawson asked.

"Pakistan's InterServices Intelligence reports their prisoner broke. He claims a squad of al-Qaeda sub-bosses are headed this way to meet with Biaggio and Dmitri this evening. They're planning on buying biological agents and the weapons to disperse them.” Quick looked toward the helo pad. “It's a big deal. Sheikh Jaradh Abdul Mohammed is supposedly among them."

Sheikh Mohammed was described by CIA counterterrorism experts as one of al-Qaeda's operation chiefs. An intimate of bin Laden's, he'd also been instrumental in designing the attacks on the World Trade Center according to some reports.

Lawson shifted his gun. “Why would one of al-Qaeda's most important leaders venture out of hiding?"

"Biaggio insisted he wouldn't work with anyone else. Since he holds the strings in Europe right now on the type of munitions al-Qaeda needs for putting anthrax and other shit into the air, I guess Mohammed didn't have a lot of choice. Plus, here in Switzerland, the antiterrorist laws are pretty weak. The most these guys will get if they're arrested is ten years in jail."

Lawson considered what Flynn and the high command back in the States were planning. Mohammed was the catch of the century if they could pull it off. “Are we sure this prisoner is telling the truth?"

Johnny smiled, his teeth white against his mud-caked face. “Interrogators wired the guy's balls to a 110-volt generator and the minute they turned the crank, he babbled like an auctioneer."

Lawson's scrotum tucked up into his body. “Jesus. I would, too, even if I made it all up."

Johnny raised his hand and made a clamping motion with his thumb and fingers. “Alligator clips. Vietnam-era torture technique."

Torture didn't always work. People would say anything to make the pain stop. “So how long do we wait to see if Sheikh's party shows?"

"Our guy claims before prayer this evening."

Glancing at his watch, Lawson blew out a breath. “If they're running on Eastern Europe time and they plan to have the deal done in time to pray, that means we've potentially got less than an hour."

"Yep. Flynn wants you to reconfigure the groups so there is one to meet the al-Qaeda liaison. Our new primary goal is to take Mohammed alive."

Lawson didn't like what he was hearing. “The minute we descend on the al-Qaeda group, Dmitri will know we're here. We'll lose the element of surprise for taking the bunker."

And getting Zara out alive
. The unspoken words ran through Lawson's brain, and he could see by the way Johnny nodded he was thinking the same thing.

The two lay side-by-side for several long minutes. Finally, Lawson told his friend, “I think I'm too close to this one, Johnny. I'm not sure I know what the right call is."

Silence hung in the rain between them as Johnny took awhile to answer. “What's your gut say?"

Lawson chuckled. “My gut says, ‘fuck Mohammed'. We don't even know for sure he and his entourage are going to show up. We need to take the bunker and take it now before Dmitri gets wind we're out here. Flynn can take care of the Sheikh."

"I agree."

Lt. Redington's voice half-whispered over both of their headsets. “Tango at four o'clock."

Lawson spoke into his lip mike, “Copy that. What's our boy doing?"

"Sentry duty on the footpath by the perimeter. Southwest side. Cell phone in hand. Probably shitty reception inside the bunker."

Unspoken communication passed between Lawson and Johnny. Lawson spoke again into his mike. “Who is in position to take him out?"

"This is Apollo,” came the reply of the SEAL sniper. “I have him in my sights."

He didn't hesitate as he gave the command. “When the tango is out of camera range, take him out even if he's still on his phone. Whoever is closest, conceal the body."

"Roger, Commander,” Redington answered.

Ten seconds later, the SEAL lieutenant's voice spoke over Lawson's headset. “Tango down and concealed. Combat vest holds a radio and a remote control garage door opener."

Bingo
. There was no reason to use a sledgehammer when you could use a garage door opener. “Where did the tango emerge from, Lieutenant?"

"Funny you should ask, sir.” Lawson could tell Redington was smiling. “I think we just found another way into the bunker."

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