Running With The Big Dogs: Sybil Norcroft Book Six (8 page)

BOOK: Running With The Big Dogs: Sybil Norcroft Book Six
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The president asked Diane Radcliff, Chief of Police of the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington D.C., for her progress report.

“It seems to me that we must have more than our share of the mentally ill and chronic confessors. Besides the many hundreds of individual mentally ill and deluded folks, we have had demands from groups as diverse as the biker outlaw gangs, Black Knights of the Road, The Sons of Satan’s Daughters, and one that named themselves ‘The Uglies’ for some misguided reason. The leaders and most of the members of these gangs have long rap sheets; and we have them under surveillance and under investigation; but, frankly, I don’t think any of them have had anything to do with the kidnappings. They are proud to be criminals; and, in recent days, they seemed to have wrapped themselves in the flag as critics of the present administration; but the focus of their activities remains on rape, murder, human trafficking, intimidation, and the like.”

“And extortion?” asked D.C. Mayor Ceophus White.

“Of course,” Chief Radcliff added, “but essentially always for profit or as revenge for similar actions on the part of their rivals. I don’t remember ever hearing of a kidnapping of a government official by these gangs; it is bad for business.”

Senate Majority Leader Randolph Coombs took his turn.

“I, too, have more than an official stake in this set of crimes. My little two-year-old grand-daughter, Jane, was among those taken. My question is for Dr. Norcroft. Why do you think Russian criminals are the most likely culprits?”

“Leonid Zavlavsky is wanted for more than 300 murders in the United States; so, he can no longer travel here. The U.S. has no extradition treaty with Russia; so, Zavlavsky can operate with impunity in Europe, Asia, and the former Soviet countries. He has to depend on subordinates to run operations in America, and we know that he—as well as the top authorities of the Russian Federation—was furious when their plot to undermine the United States’ financial institutions was identified and frustrated. They took in millions, maybe billions, in ill-gotten gains; but that has never been enough for Zavlavsky. It is no stretch to believe that Russian president, Afonasii Glebovich Tikhondnko, gives behind-the-scenes support for the Russian mafia. Politically, it is a sticky wicket. Militarily, it is impossible. From a criminal justice point of view, it is naiveté in the extreme to think that anything like justice will come out of negotiations with the Russians. At this point, it is my opinion that Tikhondnko is still smarting from his loss of face from his part in the attack on U.S. stock markets and will not budge an iota to help us find our daughters, not even as a façade.”

“So, what are you, Madam DCIA, going to do about it?”

“It is under advisement, Majority Leader.”

“Do you have agents in Moscow looking into it or planning an action, Dr. Norcroft?”

“The CIA neither confirms nor denies such considerations, Majority Leader.”

She looked him straight in the eyes. Many an eye rolled at hearing the favorite of all CIA mantras.

Chapter Ten

Office of the Director, FBI, J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building, 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C., January 16, 2013, 0800 hrs

D
CIA Sybil Norcroft’s office assistant buzzed her that there was an incoming telephone call.

“Who?” Sybil asked.

“DFBI Wallace, Ma’am.”

It still chaffed Sybil to be referred to as “Ma’am”, but it was so ingrained into the Washington culture that she had stopped fighting it years ago.

“Hello, Director. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“We are going to stage a raid on the Michigan Militia tomorrow morning. Would you like to tag along?”

“Do you have a good lead?”

“I would probably characterize it as ‘a lead’ and let it go at that. But it gives us something to do. You never know what an FBI raid might shake out of the trees.”

“Sure, count me in.”

Grant Wallace gave her the details.

Office of the MMCW [Michigan Militia Corps Wolverines], Grand River Road, Farmington, Michigan, January 17, 2020, 0400 hrs

100 crack troops of the Critical Incident Response Group gathered in the sub-zero cold surrounding the militia headquarters building, a run-down warehouse alongside an equally seedy restaurant. Aside from the headquarters there were no other buildings anywhere within a mile. The logistics were perfect for the raid, other than for the bitter cold. No one dared to clap his or her hands or to stamp their feet to relieve the cold. The 100 breaths raised a fog that made any grouping look like a minor geothermal hot pot.

Sybil sat in the command van awaiting developments. She had a perfect high-definition television view which was yellow-green in color owing to the need for night vision optics. She and the other ranking officers—including Grant Wallace—could also follow squad leaders who had personal forehead cameras attached to their night-vision goggles.

Wallace called the community line, got a “ready” response and gave the order to proceed. Eerie green figures carrying weapons ran in an orderly pattern towards the headquarters building. They were hunched over, keeping a low profile. The planning, coordination, and precision was part of their training since 1993—all to be as sure as possible that they would avoid another Waco incident. The action leader raised his hand and tapped his mike three times.

What appeared to be pandemonium erupted. Actually, it was executed with admirable precision and control. The front and rear doors of the building were battered down in half a second. A second later the front shock agents judo-rolled into the building and rolled flash/bang grenades across the floor. Following them, agents poured into the building through the doors alternating left and right directions and through smashed in windows. All of the lights in the first floor came on, then the second floor, then the third floor. Two dozen dazed, light-blinded, and temporarily deaf men and women, began to be herded out into the freezing cold. None of them had coats or shoes on. The sudden exposure to the shocking cold further challenged their nervous systems. As a result of those measures, the FBI team started with and retained complete control.

The warrantless, no-knock entry and containment of the building’s occupants went off in a fashion worthy of a text-book entry. The only problem was that there were no kidnap victims in the place, no evidence that there had ever been such victims there; and none of the MMC Wolverines appeared to have the slightest idea what the FBI interrogators were talking about. Sybil and Director Wallace observed the questioning and agreed that they were telling the truth. The raid was a bust which only served to increase the profound distrust and loathing of the rural Minnesotans for the federal government.

Over the next two days, half a dozen additional raids were carried out in rural areas of Florida, Tennessee, south Texas, red-stone country of Utah, northern Idaho near the Canadian border, northern California and Washington State. All duds.

Sybil and Director Wallace made command decisions not to continue the program of raids. The cost and risk vis-à-vis the benefit was too high. The FBI, state police, and city cops went back to what they did best—wear out shoe leather checking door-to-door, following leads, and recruiting and learning from confidential informants. Sybil was not much of a hunch person, but she gradually began to put all of her eggs into one basket—a Russian basket. It was driven by deadly exasperation. She and Charles had to fight back the urge to scream when they huddled together at bedtimes. Cerisse’s boyfriend—who would have been her fiancé in another week—spent most of his evenings with them following the news. The news came from people who did not know what they were talking about. During the day, Sybil had to be the picture of professional composure, and it was maddening. Her many efforts to make contact with Cerisse’s imbedded GPS tracker were not exactly futile; they were confusing. Almost every time she tried to get a signal, the apparent position of her daughter seemed to have changed in an entirely random fashion.

It was not until January twenty-second when the first break in the do-nothing frustration came.

Office of the SAC, Washington Field office, 601 4
th
Street NW, Washington, D.C., January 22, 2020, 0900 hrs

A homeless man walked up to the front door of the blocky yellow-beige eight story Washington FBI field office and presented himself to the desk agent at exactly nine o-clock when office hours started.

“How can I help you?” the bored agent asked, well aware of the bodily perfume emanating from beneath the man’s unwashed clothing.

In his mind’s eye, he could visualize the fleas and lice crawling around in the man’s unruly scalp hair.

“I have a message for the FBI agent,” the man said, his voice mildly slurred.

“I am the FBI agent,” the duty officer told him.

“All right, then. I got to give you this.”

He pulled a slightly crinkled envelope from his coat pocket. His hands were filthy, and they trembled as he held the envelope out to the agent across the desk. A crumpled hundred dollar bill fell out on the floor as he did so. The agent glanced at the bill, then took the envelope.

“What’s in it?”

“Dunno. The man what give it ta me said I was not to look inside, just do what he says and give it to the FBI man. He told me he would know if I looked at it, and he would come and take back the money and give me a whuppin’. So I never took even a peek.”

“Can you tell me what the man looked like?”

“Nope. He had one of them hoodie sweatshirts on and a big heavy beard. So big, maybe it was fake. I dunno. He talked kinda funny.”

After a few more questions, the agent let him go, convinced that there was no more information available from the man. He had building security take the envelope for evaluation before anyone touched it or opened it. The article cycled through the system for eight hours before it finally got to the addressee, “SAC, Washington Field Office”.

It was five minutes short of quitting time when the envelope landed on the SAC’s desk. He wanted to put in the “in” box for tomorrow—or even the “out” box—so, he would not have to deal with another piece of junk mail from some homeless junkie. But, he loved a clean desk and as often as possible obeyed the late, great, J. Edgar Hoover’s dictum to clear off your desk at the end of every day. He sighed and opened the envelope.

The message was simple: To DCIA, Majority Leader of the Senate, DUSCYBERCOM, SecHHS.

The SAC might have ignored it as another crank message, but the sender had to know about the exact government officials whose children had been abducted. The impression that this was more than a crank letter was verified when he pulled out five 3 × 5 glossy photographs of children. Each child was seated on a chair holding a sign with his or her name and the date of his or her abduction. Every child looked terrified. Little Jane Coombs-Hartvig sat on Cerisse Daniels’s lap. Cerisse was barely larger than the two-year-old, but the little girl clung to Cerisse as if her life depended on it. There was no writing and no indication of where the letter came from or where the pictures were taken.


This is the real thing
,” he said to himself, and then he roused himself to action, the torpor of the day having evaporated.

Within minutes he had calls put through to each of the parents or grandparents of the children and to the heads of the law enforcement agencies charged with getting them back. Sybil and Charles Daniels were just finishing breakfast when they got the news.

“She’s alive!!!” they said almost in the same breath.

A similar scene played out in all of the other homes and offices. But, the same sobering questions followed: Where is my child? What do the kidnappers want? How can I get him or her back and when?

Sybil said to Charles, “I am more than ever convinced that this comes from the Russians, but through so many cut-outs that the envelope will not be of any real use to us. I am going to send Mac Young and his deep-cover covert action team to every Mafioso house and hangout in Moscow. Ed Simonsen can mind the shop. I am going to Moscow as well. I am going to use my training and will be so disguised and have such a good cover that no one—not even you—would recognize me. I am going to find our daughter if I die trying.”

Charles said, “Sybil, the president will never approve that. If you were to fall into the hands of the KGB or whatever they call themselves now, it would be a diplomatic and intelligence disaster. Think about what you know and the lengths to which those monsters would go to get that information out of you.”

“I have considered all of that, but I have to go. All I have been trained for would be wasted if I did not use that training for this, the most important mission of my career, past or future. I have put lots of thought into what would happen if I got caught. I have my second lower molar cyanide capsule which I can get reinserted tomorrow.”

“Well, Sybil, that certainly makes me feel a lot better,” Charles said, his face in a tight-lipped expression, “have you considered me in your social equation?”

“Oh, Charles, please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is. I want you on my side. The CIA and the president will be after my hide when they learn that I’m gone. I will need your help and support.”

Charles could never deny Sybil anything she really and objectively wanted. He had no better option for how to get their daughter back either. He nodded his head in submission.

“How about if I go with you to give you a more convincing cover?”

“You know that’s impractical. First of all, we can’t risk both of us dying in the attempt to get her back. Think of what our little traumatized girl would think or do if both of us were to be dead when, by some miracle, she was brought back to Georgetown. Second of all, let’s be frank. I have a certain skill set that you don’t. I have killed people. I know how to do that.”

It was the first time he had heard that. He tried not to be, but he was shocked. That statement of hers seemed to be the ultimate trump card, and he folded.

Sybil made her preparations over the next four days. On the third day, another letter came which was the clincher. It arrived at the Senate Majority Leader’s office. It was a simple text: “You get your daughters back when you call off your dogs at the stock market. Give us a free hand, or you will never see them again. What’s money in comparison to a man’s daughter?”

That was all Sybil needed. The Russian mafia had her daughter. This was no bluff and no hoax. As soon as she received a copy, she called Mac Young, her faithful partner in most of her most dangerous missions in the past.

“Mac, you have already agreed to go with me and to bring along a dozen operatives. I want to add a couple of more experts in hostage rescue. Does the CIA have some real cutthroats who handle that sort of thing? I mean, the FBI is limited to the U.S., right?”

“Not exactly, but the FBI always has to get legal permission from the host country and won’t go in without it. They are pretty obvious as they enter the involved country—they stand out like military sore thumbs. And yes, we have a few guys we don’t talk about. They get things done; they don’t get public credit; and they don’t answer questions. If you go with them and me, you can’t make objections. They will do what they have to do, and that’s all there is to it. You up for that, Sybil?”

“For my daughter, I am. If I go to Russia without permission, I will likely be out of a job at the very least or go to prison for a very long time if the winds really shift against me. I will be in all the way, and I have to be the final arbiter of what the plan is. We can’t expose our country to an international hostile incident. Russo-American relations are too tenuous already. Every one of us has to be prepared to lay down our lives to avoid being captured or identified as Americans.”

“That’s a given. Let me make a couple of calls. I will see you tomorrow at Andrews AFB at nine sharp. Come prepared with ninja stuff, disguises, nasty toys, and leave your heart at home. This is where you know you have to get off the porch to run with the big dogs.”

BOOK: Running With The Big Dogs: Sybil Norcroft Book Six
12.64Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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