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“You’re going to have to move to another location that will enable your view of the tail. We need that number,” Garcia ordered.
“Damn it,” Jackson swore. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”
“Proceed with caution, team,” Cooper chimed in. “I’ll bet it flew her from Biggs. And that makes the visitor military brass.”
“Fuck, it figures,” Roth remarked.
The two men drove their ATVs to the fence at the second location they’d selected to try to view the helicopter. They climbed over the wire fence and dropped onto Wells’ property. “I’m watching you from our eye in the sky,” Garcia broadcast. “So far, no heat signatures are near you or moving to intercept. I’ll let you know if that changes.”
“Roger that, Razor,” Jackson replied.
With every step, Roth was silently cursing. This was a stupid plan. He was sure Wells’ men already knew they were on the property. The man probably had his own satellite watching his property as well as a high-tech security system. The only question was, did he have countermeasures they’d encounter? Or were there underground tunnels his men were moving through right now to pop out of and surprise them? The more he’d thought about it, the surer he was that was how his men had appeared and disappeared so quickly when they were planting the surveillance equipment.
Somehow, they made it to the rise they’d picked as location number two. Cresting it, they both dropped to their bellies to remain out of the view from the half-dozen men surrounding the helicopter. The first rays of the new day were teasing the horizon behind them.
“We still clear, Razor?” Roth broadcast.
“Roger that, Crash,” Garcia replied. “Something is up, though. There were a dozen heat signatures near the craft. More than half of them disappeared into that building to the north.”
“That’s not a building. It’s a metal bunker,” Roth said, his binoculars trained on it. It looked like a barn or a shed from the satellite, but with the door open as it was, it was clearly a metal structure, and the foundation indicated a basement beneath it.
“Son of a bitch,” Jackson said, focusing through his binoculars on the helicopter. “That chopper has no tail number. It’s military and so are the men on the ground guarding it. They’re in suits and ties, but they’re with the Army Protective Services Battalion, I’m sure. I’d bet my left nut on it.”
“So, why in the hell is he visiting Wells just hours before our surveillance is supposed to begin?” Garcia asked. Everyone on comms knew who the ‘he’ was that he referred to.
“Get out of there, now,” Cooper ordered.
Roth and Jackson army crawled down the little hill. Once they knew they were out of sight, they pulled themselves to their feet and ran in a low crouch. Roth’s heart pounded in his chest as hard as it had on any covert mission in Afghanistan.
They had made it two-thirds of the way back to the fence when Garcia broadcast what they didn’t want to hear. “I’ve got eight Tangos just appear from nowhere. Four to your east and four to the south. Move it! You can outrun them.”
Garcia gave them a running dialogue of the Tangos’ locations and distance from them as they ran full out towards the fence and their awaiting ATVs.
As they mounted the wire fence, shouts came from behind them. “Hold it! Stop! Stop where you are!” multiple voices called.
When Roth’s feet hit the dirt on the far side of the fence, shots rang out. “Fuck,” he moaned, dropping to the ground, thankful he wore his bulletproof vest. He wasn’t struck though, and he heard no impacts of bullets anywhere nearby. At this range, they wouldn’t be able to miss. They were warning shots probably fired over their heads. He scrambled to his feet and jumped on his ATV. Jackson fired his up a split second before he did.
The sound of the automatic weapons fire muffled and became less distinct, drowned out by the roar of the ATVs’ engines as they put distance between themselves and the private security force behind them. Roth pushed the ATV to its top speed. He and Jackson quickly put distance between themselves and John Wells’ property. The security men did not follow them from the property, but they knew they were being tracked some way by them.
Ten minutes later, Jackson pulled to the side of the road. Roth followed. “Is Coop on comms?” Jackson broadcast after they were a distance from the property.
“Affirmative,” Cooper’s voice replied.
“I’m sure they’ve got eyes on our location. Do you want us going back to our home base?”
As Jackson spoke, Roth scanned the sky, watching for anything incoming. He expected a drone had been launched to follow them if Wells didn’t have his own satellite watching over his compound. He could only hope that nothing with armament on it was seeking them out.
“Negative, Jax,” Cooper replied. “Big Bear is evaluating. Hold for direction.”
Jackson nodded to Roth as he disabled the transmit function on his comms. Roth did the same.
“What the fuck?” Roth asked. “Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“No. Big Bear will get to the bottom of it,” he said confidently. “There has to be an explanation. SecDef wouldn’t have set us up or used us. He has too much respect for Shepherd or, in the very least, fears what his response will be if that is ever the case. There have to be extenuating circumstances.”
“At least we know now why the start date of our Op was such an issue.”
“Big Bear knew or suspected something,” Jackson said. “I’d love to sit in on that call. It’s not going to be pretty.”
