In Sheep's Clothing (21 page)

Noah nodded. “That’s excellent,” he said. “It sounds like you guys have done this sort of thing before.”

Captain Hayes smiled. “On a couple of occasions,” he said. “This is the kind of thing we live for, Sir. It’s why we exist.”

“One more thing,” Noah said. “I hope not to see any of your men on the after-action casualty reports, but Nicolaich is one of the most dangerous men alive. He has absolutely no morals and no compunctions against using innocent civilians as pawns or distractions. This is not a time for heroism, I’m afraid. If you expose yourselves, you will be dead. You must understand that it’s necessary to do whatever it takes to eliminate this man, up to and including the destruction of whatever building he’s in.”

Captain Hayes nodded his understanding. “Yes, Sir, we get it. I can assure you that you’ve got the right people for the job.”

“Very good, then, Captain,” Noah said. “I’ll turn this over to you, then.”

Hayes turned to face his men and barked out fourteen names, instantly splitting the group into the teams they would be operating in. Two of them grabbed a folding table that was leaning against the wall and set it up, while Hayes produced a large map of the area. The men he had named gathered around the table as Hayes pointed out coordinates on the map, giving each team leader his position. As each man understood where he was to wait with his team for the word on Andropov’s location, he walked away and began talking with the four who would accompany him. It seemed that everyone had a cell phone in his hand, and they were all pressing buttons frantically with their thumbs, synchronizing the communication devices to one another.

Noah was still standing by the podium when Sarah appeared at his side. “Shouldn’t you be over there with the captain?”

Noah shook his head. “No, he knows what he’s doing. This is his end of the operation, ours is just to let them know where to go.”

Moose, who had been sitting beside the doughnuts, joined them a moment later. “These guys seem like they know their shit,” he said, “but I’d feel a little better if they were SEAL Team Six.”

Noah glanced at him. “Delta Force is their sister organization. Both of them get the best commando training in the world.”

“Ignore him, Boss,” Neil said. “He’s just prejudiced against these Army guys cause he flunked out of SEAL school.”

Moose playfully smacked Neil in the back of the head. “I did not flunk out,” he said. “I got fed up with the crap and got myself kicked out! There’s a difference!”

“Enough,” Noah said. “I need these men to respect my orders, so act professional.” He walked over to where Captain Hayes was speaking with four men of his own. “Captain, is there any way I can be of assistance to you?”

Hayes looked up at him with a smile. “You already have,” he said. “We’ve been sitting on our thumbs for the last three months, just wishing for a mission. We train every day, but sometimes the training gets old. Guys like us, we live for the real thing. As far as right now, Sir, I think we’ve got a grasp on the situation. Colonel Abrams will assign us some nice civilian-looking vehicles that we can stage in, so I think we got it covered.” He took out his phone and began punching buttons. “I’m texting you the broadcast number now. When you get a location, send it as a text message on that number and we’ll all get it at once.”

“I will,” Noah said, as his phone buzzed in his pocket. “I’m going to take my team back to our base of operations. You’ve got my number if you need me for anything.”

“Yes, Sir,” Hayes said. “If anything comes up, I’ll be in touch. If not, we’ll just wait to hear from you tomorrow.”

Noah shook his hand once more, then turned and gathered his team by eye. They walked out the door together and found Colonel Abrams standing just outside the building entrance.

“Everything taken care of?” she asked.

“It is,” Noah said. “Captain Hayes has everything under control, I think. I’m taking my team back to our base of operations so that we can relax for a bit and get ready for the action that will take place tomorrow, but I wanted to thank you for your assistance.”

The Colonel cocked her head to one side and gave him a half smile. “I suspect that I could make an educated guess about you, but I’m going to fight off that temptation. The only thing I’m sure of at this moment is that whatever you’re doing has to do with protecting our country. I’ll be glad to give you any kind of assistance I can, at any time.”

She suddenly snapped a perfect salute at him, and Noah returned it automatically. When he dropped his hand, he extended it and shook her, and then walked toward the car without another word.

“Back to the hotel?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah,” Noah said. “Neil can go over the setup for tomorrow and then we can try to relax for a while tonight. Take a roundabout way getting back there; we don’t want to pick up any more shadows today if we can avoid it.”

Sarah nodded and put the car in gear. She followed the blue stars back to the gate and the guards waved as they passed through it. When she got to the interstate, however, she didn’t bother to get on but continued straight until she came to a large intersection.

The ride back to the hotel took slightly over an hour, but there was no sign of any surveillance by the time they got there. A quick pass through the parking lot didn’t reveal any sign of clandestine observation so they parked and headed up to their rooms. Moose and Neil followed Noah and Sarah into their room, and Neil set up his computer on the table.

“Just on the off chance that anything were to happen to me,” he said to Noah, “I want you to see how this works. I’ve created a bot that will handle the whole trace, and it will generate a report as soon as it begs the location of the originating phone. That report will cause this little red star to flash, so if for any reason I’m not here to read for you, all you need to do is touch that icon to see the report come up.”

Noah laid a hand on his shoulder. “That’s good, but I have no plans on letting you go anywhere.”

Neil grinned up at him. “I was kind of hoping you’d say that,” he said. “Trust me, if you let anything happen to me I can guarantee I will haunt you for the rest of your life!”

“Nothing is going to happen to you, Neil,” Moose said. “You’re our baby brother, anybody who wanted to hurt you would have to go through all of us, first.”

“Got that right,” Sarah said. “We gotta take care of the kid, right, Noah?”

“Of course,” Noah said. “I know we’re all supposed to be expendable, but this team isn’t ever going to leave anyone behind. We stick together and do our jobs, because we’re the best.”

All three of the others looked at him for a moment, but then Sarah grinned. “I’m all for that,” she said. “Nobody gets left behind, and nobody gets killed.”

“E
verything’s set for tomorrow, Boss,” Neil said. “I’ve checked and double checked and triple checked, and even double checked my triple checking. If he actually makes that call, we’re going to know where he’s making it from.”

It was almost ten o’clock and Noah had just announced that they needed to get plenty of rest. While the action would be handled by Delta Force, there would undoubtedly be a lot of after-action issues for the team to handle, and he wanted them to be at their best. Moose grabbed hold of Neil and dragged him out the door, while Sarah announced that she was going to the shower. Noah waited for a moment to see if she would invite him in, but then he decided it didn’t matter and followed her through the door.

Noah awoke five minutes before his alarm was set to go off at six and rolled out of bed as quietly as he could. There was no point in waking Sarah so early, so he sat in one of the chairs and used his phone to check for emails or messages.

There was one email, and Noah’s eyebrows went up when he saw that it was from Allison.

Camelot,
it said,
I wanted to let you know that I’m still in possession of all my mental faculties and will be returning to my office sometime in the next week or ten days. Dr. Parker has been keeping me updated on what’s going on, and I completely support his decision to let you go after Andropov. I realize that you aren’t one who needs encouragement or back patting, but I think it’s important to let you know that I have the utmost confidence in you to get this job done.

Incidentally, I spoke with the President yesterday (can you believe the son of a bitch actually flew out here and visited me in the hospital? Wonder how they kept that out of the press!) and he let me know that he also supports what you’re doing. As a first-year operative, you were originally designated a Q4, which means that you are expected to remain within mission parameters at all times according to specific orders, but you have shown such initiative and aptitude that he has authorized moving you all the way to Q2. That rating means that you are authorized to go off mission on your own discretion, the American equivalent of James Bond and his “license to kill.” Any action you take will be considered to have been sanctioned by me, or by the government of the United States.

All that said, I want you to know that I expected you would rise quickly, but you’ve outshined even my most imaginative speculations. Good job, Camelot.

“What are you doing?” Sarah asked sleepily. She was peeking at him under half-lidded eyes as she lay there on her belly.

Noah looked up at her. “Got an email from Allison,” he said. “She expects to be back at work next week sometime.”

Sarah’s eyes opened wider and she smiled. “That’s awesome,” she said. “You know, if anyone had ever told me that someone as nice as she is could do the kind of job she does, I would’ve said they were crazy. I mean, I know she has to make decisions on who lives and who dies, and I’m glad she’s strong enough to do it, but in spite of all that she’s a genuinely nice person. I really, really like her.”

“She’s definitely strong,” Noah said. “I think she must have some incredible control over her emotions. Not like me, I know that she actually has emotions because I’ve seen them. She just seems to have the ability to turn off parts of them when necessary.”

Sarah rolled over onto her back and rubbed her eyes. “Are the boys up yet?”

“I haven’t heard anything from them. I woke up before the alarm so I thought I’d let you get an extra few minutes of sleep.”

She yawned and then threw off the covers. “That’s sweet of you, but I need to get up. Our late lunch yesterday meant we didn’t get dinner, and I’m ready to go have some breakfast. Call Doofus and Goofus and get them up. Nothing’s supposed to happen until eleven, and this place has waffles downstairs. I want waffles, give me waffles.” She stood up and headed for the bathroom.

Noah punched the speed dial button for Moose and wasn’t surprised when it was answered almost instantly. “Sarah wants waffles,” he said.

“Waffles will work. We’re both up. Meet you guys down in the breakfast room?”

“Sure, we’ll see you there,” Noah said. He ended the call as Sarah came out of the bathroom and began pulling on her clothes. “The guys are up. I told them we’d meet them down in the breakfast room.”

She looked at him with a grin on her face. “Then you better get some clothes on.”

They walked into the breakfast room ten minutes later to find Neil standing by the waffle maker. Moose was already at a table, eating a waffle that seemed to be swimming in syrup.

“Good grief,” Sarah said to him, “how are you not diabetic?”

“It’s because I burn the calories up so fast,” Moose answered. “My body never has time to realize I’ve eaten anything.”

Neil’s waffle was done a moment later and Sarah took over the machine. She made one for Noah and set it in front of him before starting one for herself, but the machine was quick and the waffles came out hot. Noah waited for hers to be done before he began eating, and both Moose and Neil went back for seconds as soon as they could.

They talked about inconsequential things as they ate, killing the hour they spent there the best they could. Other hotel guests were all around them, so they couldn’t discuss the mission or the upcoming likely action. Moose told them a risqué story about his days in the Navy that made Neil snort waffle through his nose as he tried not to laugh with his mouth full, and Sarah simply covered her eyes and refused to look at him for the rest of the time they were there.

They finished up at a little after seven thirty and went back up to Noah’s room. Neil brought his computer and set it up, then checked to be sure Nicolaich hadn’t called his daughter yet. He had not; there had been a few calls to her number in the past few hours, but they all came from within Moscow.

“So, now we just wait,” Neil said. “Too bad we don’t have a deck of cards, we could...”

Noah’s phone rang suddenly, and he glanced at it to see Captain Hayes’s number on the caller ID.

“This is Camelot,” he said.

“Sir, this is Captain Hayes. I’m reporting all units on station. We’re ready to go whenever you give us the word.”

“Very good, Captain,” Noah said. “I’ll send the location to the number you gave me as soon as we have it.”

“Yes, Sir, we’ll be waiting.” The line went dead.

“Delta Force guys are all in position,” Noah said to the team. “Like Neil said, now we just wait.”

“It’s frustrating that we have to sit back and do nothing while the commandos take Nicolaich out,” Moose said. “He should be ours, don’t you think?”

Noah shrugged. “As long as they get him, I’m not gonna worry about missing my own chance to take a shot at him. Last time you and I tried to take him out alone, he got away. If only one of these teams gets to him, he’ll be up against five of the deadliest fighters in the world. From what I’ve read and heard about Delta Force, any one of them is a match for a whole squad of regular soldiers. We’ll do our job and let them do theirs.”

Sarah, sitting on the bed, looked from Noah to Moose and back again. “This is one time I agree with the big guy,” she said. “I was hoping we’d get to him ourselves. Even after yesterday, I’d still like to watch you put a bullet through his head.”