Jad Bell: Bravo Part 30

"Radio chatter?" the Architect asks.

"You know it."

"It's interesting. I had thought about approaching you before."

"For?"

"I lost a good man in Tohir. I need to replace him."

"You wanted to recruit me?"

"I considered it. You have exceptional skills. You're smart, or at least smart enough. You're dogged. You don't posture. You're loyal, as evidenced by the trouble you went to in an attempt to preserve your marriage. Amy seems a remarkable woman, by the way."

"You're well informed."

"I had help."

"Brock."

"Obviously. I considered it, as I said. And rejected it. It's clear you would have refused."

"How would you know if you never asked?"

"Because you're a good soldier, Jonathan. Even if the people you soldier for aren't."

"You're telling me you're the good guy?"

The Architect waves a hand as if shooing a lazy fly. "I'm long past measuring things in terms of good and bad or, worse, good and evil. Frankly, I'd have thought you were, too. But I've never understood patriotism. It requires a willful blindness I find difficult to stomach."

"Zoya said she's Russian," Bell says. "She says she doesn't know where you're from."

"Where do you think I'm from?"

"I don't know." Bell considers everything he's seen of the man, everything he's heard him say, tries to collate the information into something that resembles an informed opinion. "Your English is excellent, accent sounds native. It's a little stiff, fluctuates between almost colloquial and formal. You've got some European manners. You've clearly traveled extensively, you're clearly educated. First World child."

"Would it surprise you to learn I'm American?"

"Are you?"

The Architect smiles at his coffee. "I'm going to need a bathroom. Can I go alone? Or do you want one of your men to follow me?"

Bell holds up his cell phone. "I think you'll come back."

"Yes, I certainly will."

The man rises, disappears into the building. Bell stretches, arching his back. The sunlight is too bright, hurts his fatigued eyes. He thinks he's slept all of four hours in the last forty-eight.

"Status?" he asks.

"You are prepped and fueled," Ruiz says. "Soon as we have the intel, you are go."

"Capture team?"

"Waiting on the word."

Cardboard, in his ear, cuts in. "What?"

"This is open for discussion?" asks Nessuno. "This is a debate?"

"Priority is his intel," Ruiz says. "We are waiting on the word to bag him."

There's something in the way he says it that makes Bell think there are others on the net, other people listening in aside from Heath and Ruiz and Nessuno and the rest of his team. Brock had a list, he remembers, and it wasn't one the colonel had been willing to share. Bell thinks again about the authorization required to go after Brock, about how high up the chain of command this must now reach. If everything they're doing now isn't feeding straight back to the White House Situation Room, he'd be surprised.

The Architect returns.

"Message?"

Bell shakes his head.

"You didn't do something stupid, did you?" the Architect asks.

"Stupid like what?"

"Put a tail on her. Try to track her. Bug her."

"We did not."

As if in answer, his phone chimes. He doesn't recognize the number.

Safe.

The Architect is leaning forward, he's responded to the noise, and Bell hands him the phone, watches the man's reaction. When Echo smiles, his face moves just a little wrong, and Bell can see the effects of cosmetic surgery, but only just. Whoever did it was very good and therefore very expensive. Bell would put the man in his forties, close to his own age, if he felt he could trust what was before his eyes.

"Happy?" Bell asks.

"Pleased, rather." The Architect hands him back the phone.

"Let's hear it."

"Before I do-"

"No," Bell says. "Now. That's our deal."

The Architect nods once, reaches into his coat, and comes out with a fountain pen that he uncaps. There's a paper napkin on the table, and he writes on it, the ink leaching through the fibers, spindly fingers crawling out from letters and numbers. He hands the napkin to Bell, screws the cap back on his pen.

"That is the address of a house in Las Vegas, Nevada. That is the staging house. Inside are six men. Those men are armed with fully automatic weapons, small arms, and twenty-four hand grenades. At eighteen hundred local, they will depart from the house in three vehicles, three teams of two, and proceed to the Strip. At eighteen forty, they will launch an attack from entry points to the north, east, and south of the major casinos on the Strip's west side, one team entering at the Bellagio, another at Caesars Palace, and the third at the Mirage. They will first attack the casino floors, where the sight lines are almost entirely un.o.bstructed, for maximum chaos, then they will move into the casino's shopping areas to group up and take defensive positions. Their targets are anyone who moves."

Bell puts a hand to his ear. "Got all that?"

"Confirmed," Ruiz says. "Second Team is rolling."

The Architect starts to rise, and Bell reaches out, takes his wrist, pins it to the table. "Hold on."

"I'm leaving," the Architect says.

"No, you're not."

The Architect sits heavily, sighs. "You've not thought this through. Hopefully others have."

"You're not walking away."

"I have given you exactly what I promised. As I said, you can stuff me in a van and cart me off and put me in irons and sweat me for months. You have that power, I recognize that. You will certainly shatter my network, you will certainly get more out of me than you have done already."

Past him, Bell can see Nessuno is moving up. He sees her mouth move, hears her saying, "Take him."

"But you will not get much more," the Architect is saying. "And you will lose what I can provide you. You will lose the intelligence I can gather and would be willing to share. You will lose an a.s.set."

"You're an enemy of my country," Bell says.

"No. Your country was just the arena in which I was paid to operate."

"Hold," Ruiz says. "Hold."

"I'm going to walk away, now, Jon."

"You're not going anywhere."

Chaindragger's voice, soft, "I have transport, exfil north side."

"Hold," Ruiz repeats.

"Take him down." Nessuno's voice, hissing. "Jesus Christ, take him down!"

The Architect doesn't move, doesn't pull, just looks at Bell with surprising resignation.

"They're going to order you to let me go, Jon," he says.

"Cut him loose," Ruiz says.

Nessuno's voice comes from behind the Architect as much as in Bell's ear. "Are you f.u.c.king kidding me?"

"This is from the shiny on-high," Ruiz says. "You are ordered to release target Echo and clear your AO; repeat, you will release target Echo and clear your area of operations. Proceed to ANG local for immediate loadout and transport. I require confirmation."

n.o.body moves.

"Warlock, I require confirmation."

Echo smiles sympathetically.

"Warlock, confirm."

"Warlock," Bell says. "Confirmed."

He lets go.

Chapter Thirty-Two.

THE GULFSTREAM G650 eats the sky at a top speed of 704 miles per hour, covers the distance from Burlington to Las Vegas in just under four hours, sets down at McCarran just after 1500 local. Bell, despite thinking he wouldn't, manages almost three hours of sleep on the plane, then leads the team off and into the back of the waiting van. His team is light. There will be running, there will be gunning, and this will be a speed strike, and that means Jorge-Bonebreaker-is once more out of the action on this deployment because of his injured ribs. The Second Team, once commanded by Tom O'Day and now being led by Sergeant Josiah Henry, is waiting for them at a staging area four blocks from the house, at the edge of the perimeter established by local law enforcement.

Bell, Chaindragger, and Cardboard are all geared and ready to roll by the time the van comes to a stop. In the absence of Steelriver, and with Henry's consent, Bell has command. He steps up to the command post-more precisely, another unmarked van-and Henry gives him the briefing book.

"By-the-numbers parakeet op," Henry says. "If it's not a friendly and it moves, it dies."

Bell looks over the blueprints. He reviews the plan of attack. He reads over the list of operator call signs, the number of Indigos in each element. Eight men could do this job well. Doctrine says that twelve would be ideal. They have seven, and Bell took the house in Tashkent almost a week ago with only four.

Seven will be more than enough.

"We're b.u.t.toned up on this?" Bell asks.

"We've had command as of fourteen fifty local." Henry understands what he's asking without needing explanation. This is an Indigo op, he's saying; we are secure.

Bell takes the secure phone handset from its rig, keys the mike. "Indigo oh-one actual, we are in position and standing by."

"Brickyard, actual." It's Ruiz, not the duty officer, not some CWO or staff sergeant, in the TOC. "You are go."

The Second Team makes their breach at the front, hydrocharge on the door and following with their 9-bangs. Bell, Chaindragger, and Cardboard take the back; this was Bell's call, made because he's still missing Bonebreaker and because he expects lighter resistance at the rear of the house. He effects entry with a ram, knocks the back door clean off its fittings. He drops the ram and pivots, Board, then Chain, taking the entry as he swings up his own submachine gun to follow. There's steady chatter on the radios, the dulled concussion of the grenades. Their weapons are suppressed, and Bell can hear no gunshots, but Henry comes through almost at once with a "Tango down," and another on his team gives a "Clear."

He steps in, weapon ready, hears Cardboard calling a splash, sees the man Freddie has killed laid out on the floor. The tango is in a vest, threat level II, possibly identical to the one found in Michael Ledor's apartment back in Provo, and a combat harness, and his dead hand rests on his chest, half an inch at the most from one of four fragmentation grenades worn there. Cardboard took him down with a shot to the face.

Chain hooks left, and Board has his slice covered, and Bell takes the door. The banger goes in but fails to detonate, and Bell snaps one of his own free, sends it through after. The blast comes, chasing another man, same vest and harness setup as before, a pistol in his hands. He never makes it through the door; Chaindragger drops him with a double-tap.

Bell makes his sweep, Chain on him, then Board. They're hearing the calls from the Second Team, no more vibration from gunfire or grenades. Clear, clear, clear, clear.

"Clear," Bell says.

The house is secure.

He checks his watch.

Sixteen seconds.

Bell emerges through the front, steps out into a Las Vegas twilight. He pulls his mask from his face, inhales the fresh air. He feels like he's been here before, the twilight not so far removed from predawn in Tashkent.