BRAINRUSH 02 - The Enemy of My Enemy (35 page)

That’s gonna change.

The target warehouse was in the far corner of an industrial park filled with light manufacturing and distribution facilities. It was Sunday, and the parking lots were empty. Traffic was nonexistent. Situated down a private drive at the end of a cul-de-sac, the north side of the building backed up to a parking area lined with a thick copse of trees. That’s where Street and some of his boys were positioned. Railroad tracks separated the northeast corner of the lot from the adjacent Chevron refinery and water tower, where Snake and his spotter monitored the rooftop of the warehouse through high-powered lenses.

Tony focused on the only building that was adjacent to the target warehouse. “Ripper, you set?” he asked.

“Waiting on your mark, Sarge,” Ripper replied. He and six bangers were hidden inside the structure. During the assault, it would be their job to jump from their rooftop to the warehouse.

Tony felt their vehicle slow. On the screen, the taco truck rolled into view and came to a stop a half-block from the target. Freddie’s voice chimed in on the net, “I’m right behind you, Sarge.” His flashing dot emerged from an alley and took a cover position at the rear of the truck. He was tasked with protecting the command center once bullets started flying.

The last piece of the puzzle was in place.

Tony glanced at Lacey as he made his way to the rear of the truck. She nodded.

Chapter 62

Torrance, California

F
rom his perch on the interior balcony outside his office, Kadir watched the beehive of activity on the ground floor as his team made the final preparations for their departure. Six men loaded two vans lined up by the rear exit. Kadir saw the shadows of others through the semitransparent windows of the clean room. They were prepping the charges that would start the fire. He’d made sure the fire would burn hot by adding a few chemical elements from his own mix. The structure would be reduced to ashes, and the remains of the woman and her children would be unidentifiable.

 He was glad to be leaving this place. By tomorrow he’d be safely ensconced at the facility in Venezuela. He hoped the
sheikh
would permit his wife to visit him there.

He was proud of what they’d accomplished here, under the upturned nose of the Americans. Soon their lives would change. Soon they would share the fear that those in his homeland felt every day. Soon, they would be no more.

Down below, two men stood separate from the rest. Kadir watched as they unrolled their prayer blankets and knelt beside one another. They shared a unique kinship born of the final glorious task they had accepted.

Fools,
he thought. Yes, they will serve a purpose. But they are fools nonetheless. It was one thing to dedicate oneself to a noble cause—he understood that—but his implant had opened his mind to many things. Now he believed that Allah’s will is far better served by adding value in life rather than death. Still, their sacrifice would not be in vain. The specially constructed vests hung on a rack beside them—another of Kadir’s wondrous achievements.

He checked his watch. Omar should be arriving at his target soon. Then it shall begin.

“Someone approaches!” The shout went through the warehouse like a bolt of lightning. Men grabbed weapons. They ran to hidden cover positions at every exit in a well-practiced drill. Then silence.

Kadir hurried down the steps. The guard who’d issued the warning had flattened himself by the doorway leading to the front lobby. He motioned toward the building’s front entrance.

Kadir nodded, waiting. A moment later a buzzer sounded. The sound sent a ripple up his spine. He remained still.

The buzzer sounded again, several times in short succession. It was followed by several sharp poundings on the glass door.

The visitor would soon wish he hadn’t been so insistent, Kadir thought.  He allowed the tension to melt from his face and made his way to the lobby.

**

Tony watched as a figure entered the lobby interior. He wore a white lab coat that hung loosely on his sleight frame. His silver hair was combed back. He had a bulbous nose that supported Coke-bottle glasses magnifying his eyeballs. The man didn’t look like much of threat, but there were others inside. Lots of them. The bastards had his family.

The man hesitated halfway to the door. His head cocked to one side. A beat later his eyes widened in recognition. He shouted something over his shoulder and three men with AK-47s rushed to join him. Tony raised his hands high above his head.

The door swung open and two of the guards pulled Tony into the lobby. They held him fast while the third man patted him down. Tony tensed as the man slid his hands expertly down his shins toward his shoes. “Nothing,” the man said in Dari.

The leader seemed deep in thought. He studied Tony for a moment before striding past him to push through the door and step onto the sidewalk. He looked casually about. After a moment, the terrorist pushed back into the lobby and motioned outside to one of the guards. “There’s a man with an ice cream cart. Make sure it’s ice cream in that cart.”

The guard stowed his weapon behind the front desk and left. The leader strode past Tony without giving him a glance. He motioned to the two remaining guards. “Bring him.”

They shoved Tony down the hall and pushed him to his knees in the center of the warehouse. Nearly twenty armed men peeled from their hiding places to surround him. He shifted uneasily, making a point of facing the rear warehouse door. Half the bad guys were between him and the door; the rest were spread behind him. His face was full of fear, more real than feigned. It helped to bury his fury. He noticed that Battista wasn’t in the crowd. That worried him.

The first guard returned from his forage with the ice cream vendor. He carried a handful of popsicles. The leader nodded, satisfied. He turned to confront Tony.

“How did you find us?”

“Where’s my fam—”

He was cut off by a backhand across the jaw. Tony tasted blood on his lip as he glared at the bulbous-eyed asshole.

“How—did—you—find—us?”

“Not until I—”

A rifle butt struck the back of Tony’s head. It splayed him to the floor in a blaze of pain. He struggled to push himself back to his knees, shaking his head to clear it. “Listen up, you stupid son of a bitch,” he said. “I ain’t telling you a goddamn thing until I know my family is okay. Until then, you can kiss my ass and just wonder about the shitstorm that’s gonna follow.” 

Another guard cocked his arm for the next blow, but the leader stayed his hand. “Wait.”

Every plan has a choke point, Tony thought, and this was it. Success or failure depended upon what happened next. The leader glanced up. Tony followed his gaze to a guard standing on the balcony above.

The leader nodded to the guard. “Bring them out.”

The man’s words were barely out of his mouth when Tony shouted, “Second-floor balcony, center office!” He closed his eyes, lowered his hands to his ears, and clicked the heels of his shoes together.

Chapter 63

Torrance, California

Two minutes earlier

“E
asy now,” Becker said over the com-net. He and three of the bangers were crouched behind a hedge across the street from the target. It was his job to coordinate the assault. “They’ve taken the bait. Keep your heads down.” The muzzle of his M4 assault rifle was hidden within the hedge. He watched through the magnified lens of the scope as two armed guards pulled Tony into the lobby.

A moment later a middle-aged man wearing a lab coat exited the building. He stopped five paces out and surveyed the area.

Becker turned his attention to Papa and the ice cream cart. “Keep moving,” he whispered. “Take it nice and slow. You’re just a weary guy trying to make a few bucks selling ice cream to the poor blokes who had to come into work today.”

Lab Coat watched for a moment, then returned inside.

Papa kept coming. He pushed his cart down the sidewalk that fronted the building. As he turned toward the parking area that skirted the west side of the structure, a guard pushed through the lobby door and walked toward him. Becker tensed. He centered the red dot of his scope on the man’s head.

“Stay breezy. The tango’s got no visible weapons.”

Papa grunted in acknowledgment. The guard was behind him, approaching slowly. One hand reached in his pocket.

“You there!” the man shouted.

Papa stopped the cart and turned to face him, a hopeful expression on his face.

“
Si, señor?
Ice cream?”

Becker was amazed at Papa’s transformation. The leader of one of the toughest fire teams on the contract circuit—a soldier who had killed dozens in the performance of duty—

looked about as threatening as a newborn puppy.

The guard’s posture relaxed. He said something Becker couldn’t quite make out. Papa nodded in reply. A smile brightened his face as he lifted the lid on the cart and pulled out a handful of popsicles. The other man handed over some bills, took the treats, and returned to the lobby.

“The
pendejo
didn’t even leave a tip,” Papa muttered. He rolled across the parking lot and along the edge of the building. Fifty yards later he positioned the cart in front of the warehouse roll-up door. Then he ran like hell.

“Stand by,” Becker said. He flipped the safety cap off the remote detonator attached to his web belt and waited for Tony’s signal.

**

Marshall held his breath. He and Lacey watched the scene unfold on the wall-mounted monitor. The high-def video stream from the overhead drone displayed everything in exacting detail. Marshall adjusted the mouse and tapped a key to center the image on the ice cream cart. Then he zoomed out so that the teams surrounding the warehouse were in view.

Any moment now.

Lacey sat beside him. Her hand gripped his forearm. She was a coiled spring.

A brief squawk on the com-net preceded Tony’s booming voice. “Second-floor balcony, center office!” 

Marshall’s skin twitched in anticipation. An instant later there was a muffled explosion inside the warehouse. It was followed two seconds later by a massive blast outside the warehouse door. It rocked the taco truck like a 6.0 aftershock. The C-4 that Becker had embedded within the cart had done its job. The expanding smoke from the blast obscured most of the scene on the monitor.

Only the green dots were visible now. They converged on the warehouse from all directions.

Chapter 64

Torrance, California

T
he rear-vectored blasts from the plastic explosives molded into the bottom of Tony’s sneakers jolted every bone in his body. He was thrust forward on his knees across the floor. His arms windmilled and his upper body torqued backward from the force. The leader leapt from his path and stared behind Tony. The shocked expression on his face was the first clue to the devastation wrought by the explosion.

The thick soles had been hollowed out and fashioned after the design of a claymore mine. A steel inner sole shielded his feet when the deadly payload of lead pellets blasted in a directed spray toward the enemy. From the sudden smell of blood and offal, he could tell the shoes had performed as advertised. Tony didn’t need to look. He’d seen shredded flesh before.

The nine or ten terrorists in front of him recovered quickly. The sudden look of outrage on their leader’s face echoed their intentions. Weapon muzzles shifted.

Tony sprawled forward, cupped his ears, and squeezed his eyes shut.

The second blast shook the entire building and sent a ripple of energy through the floor that knocked over crates and men. Tony opened his eyes to see streams of sunlight pouring through the bus-sized hole ripped through the roll-up door. The terrorist leader scrambled away on hands and knees and clambered up the staircase.

Tony pushed himself to his feet and bounded after him, the shredded remains of the shoes flopping at his ankles. His bare feet slapped against the blood-slickened floor. The burns from the C-4 made it feel as though he were running across a hot skillet. Spasms of pain shot up his legs.

He shoved the sensation aside with a grunt and took the steps two at a time. Half-seconds mattered. The guard who had been posted on the balcony was gone. He and his boss had ducked into the open doorway leading to his family. Racing forward, Tony caught a glimpse of a man above the skylight aiming his assault rifle in Tony’s direction. He jinked to one side, expecting the burn of hot lead. Instead there was a shatter of glass. The guard plunged through the skylight, a quarter-sized hole in his temple.