Thin Line (19 page)

"Upper levels are dark in the rear."

So we had as close to confirmation as we would get that the terrorists were gathered downstairs. Or hanging out upstairs in the dark. The more of them in
one room, the better. I could take down three before they could react; Bear could do better. The trick for me would be to keep the al-Sharaa tunnel vision
at bay.

Laure's voice boomed through the earwig. "Going dark now."

At that moment, street lamps and houselights shut off like dominos in rapid succession from one end of the block to the other. The element of surprise was
ours. Inside the terrorists' house, men calm enough to detonate themselves would grow apprehensive. Some would search for flashlights, using their cell
phones to guide them. One or two might reach for a weapon, believing that there was no such thing as a random power outage. But mostly, they'd be out of
sync with each other. Eliminate comfort, disrupt routine - that's how you bring down a group like this. But they'd only be that way for a moment or two.
And that's why we had to act immediately.

THE COLD WINTER wind barreled down the street, hitting us from the side. For the first time I became aware of the sweat that lined my body. I blinked away
the tears filling my eye as a result of the gusts. The night vision goggles afforded no protection. Setting the chill aside, I climbed the porch steps and
looked through the cracks in the curtains. A sea of green lay before me.

No trace of anyone.

Bear joined me, with Pierre and Jean following close behind. The plan was for them to cover us as we entered.

Getting in was easy. The door was unlocked.

I went in low, clearing the first visible area. After Bear entered, I moved past the door. I had to trust that Pierre and Jean would act accordingly. A
feat more difficult due to the necessary silence. We'd never worked together, but tactics were tactics, and training was training. They'd done this before.

Room by room, floor by floor, we investigated the house. And we found it empty.

The thought of Bashir al-Sharaa slipping out of my grasp once again gnawed at my gut.

Returning to the first floor, Pierre spoke into his mic. "Teams, any activity on the street or behind the house?"

Four responses. All negative.

"The basement," I said.

We found the entrance off the kitchen. I split the blinds on a rear window and surveyed the backyard. It wasn't much of a space, running the width of the
home and about ten feet deep, enclosed by a wooden privacy fence. The grass was dead. A couple old tires were propped against the fence. No people. No
dogs. Empty.

Jean pulled a stun grenade from his pocket. He reached out for the basement door.

"What the hell are you doing?" I said.

"If they're here," Jean said, "they're hiding down there." He aimed his finger like a gun toward the door. "And I intend to neutralize them."

I grabbed his wrist and pulled him back. "You don't know what's down there. I once walked into the basement of a suspected terrorist's house and found a
dozen abducted kids living in a dirt pit."

Jean yanked his arm away. "I'm going."

I grasped the MP7 in both hands, stopped short of aiming at him. "It'll be the last thing you do."

The man took a step back. He looked toward Pierre and spoke in French. I translated what he said as, "Are you going to let him do this?"

Pierre nodded and extended his hand. Jean relinquished control of the grenade.

As a parting shot, the man said, "I'll go last, and you'd better duck if I have to shoot." He retreated to the corner. The night vision goggles shielded
our eyes from view. Despite that, I felt Jean's stare burn through me.

"We ready?" Bear said.

"Go," I said.

He reached out, grabbed the handle, and pulled the door open. We waited, outside of view, for a moment. I peeked down the stairs first. With Bear covering
me, I traveled halfway, lowered myself, and scanned the rest of the basement. The draft blowing up the stairs had told me what I would find.

Nothing.

"It's clear." I pulled a flashlight from my utility belt and switched it on. The stairs creaked under Bear's weight. I panned the light across the room,
freezing the beam on the open hatch in the corner.

"The hell is that?" Bear said.

"Escape hatch," I said.

Pierre hurried down the stairs with Jean close behind.

"Christ," the Frenchman said. "How?"

"They must've received advanced warning of the raid," I said.

Pierre cursed in French, then said something to Jean. He spoke so quickly I couldn't decipher any of it. Before I could ask Bear, Pierre brushed past us
with his flashlight out and switched on. He walked to the hatch and illuminated the hole in the floor.

"We need to follow it," he said.

"I think the better idea is to wait until you get another team in here and send them down," Bear said. "No telling where that leads, if anywhere. These
guys could be long gone, man. That might be a trap."

Pierre activated his mic and relayed instructions in French. From what I translated, he wanted a team to start combing through the house, looking for
computers and any paper documentation.

"I'm going down there," he said. "Switch to channel four, and I'll relay everything I see."

Bear and I adjusted our comms and watched as Pierre descended into the hole.

"I'm down about ten feet," Pierre said. "It goes one way, further than my light can illuminate. It's maybe six feet high, three feet wide. Uneven. Smells
stale." His breathing grew loud and ragged.

"What is it?" I said. It was no use. He had his mic activated, shutting us off.

A few tense seconds passed, during which time Pierre's breathing became labored. Finally, he spoke. But the words were garbled.

The line went silent.

"Pierre?"

Ten seconds passed. Nothing. Another ten. I called for him again. A burst of static blared through the earwig.

"I'm here," he said.

"What's down there?" Bear and I had inched our way forward and were now hunched over the hole in the floor, fingers dug into the cool, damp dirt, staring
down into the darkness.

When Pierre spoke again, we heard his voice through the tunnel and the communications device. "You three need to get the hell out of here."

"What is it?" I said.

"Explosives!"

I emerged from the house, arms waving, yelling for Laure to call the local police and fire department, and to start evacuating the neighborhood. Pierre
hadn't responded to my attempts to contact him while rushing up the stairs and out of the home. I switched back to the original comm channel and heard him
frantically barking orders in French.

Within minutes, blue strobes were bouncing off the clouds. Police cars parked sideways at the end of the street, blocking access. Cops emerged from the
darkness, running toward us. Soon they would go door to door, rousing people from their lazy evenings and directing them away from the detonation area.

Only they didn't make it in time.

The fireball blinded me, and the force of the blast knocked me back. I was unconscious. Perhaps stunned. My skin burned. My nostrils, mouth, and throat
felt scorched. Regardless, when I pushed myself off the ground and wiped the dirt and ash away, I saw a pile of rubble where four homes had been strung
together. To either side were standing structures, engulfed in flame. The smoke and wall of fire made it impossible to tell what the street a block over
looked like.

Pierre stood a few feet away, his hands wrapped behind his head. Looked up at the orange sky. Yelled. A primal sound. I didn't need a translation to feel
the pain. The team in the house next door hadn't escaped. Pierre had lost five men.

THE VAN APPEARED out of nowhere. Perhaps the driver had traveled on the sidewalk, or maybe he'd pushed parked cars out of the way with the bumper. I didn't
know. Hadn't seen. He stopped in front of us. Laure got in, asked us to grab Pierre. Bear and I dragged the Frenchman to the van and lifted him onto the
middle seat. Tear tracks snaked their way down his soot-covered face, which remained in a state of distraught rage the entire trip back to his office.

We pulled through the security gate, into the square courtyard. Laure slipped out first. She opened the rear door and waited for the rest of us.
Pierre kept his gaze fixed on a spot on the ground always a foot ahead. That was the only way I knew how to get through something like this: keep taking
that next step.

Laure, Bear, and I entered the situation room. She went to one of the pods, tapped on the keyboard. Six monitors on the wall flickered to life, each
relaying a separate news feed. They all ran footage of the explosion's aftermath. It looked like a terrorist bombing because it had been one. Bodies
covered with crimson stained sheets lined the street in front of the home. A charred foot stuck out from one. The fires had spread. Several houses stood
ravaged and gutted. Men and women wept openly in the street, mourning the loss of neighbors and loved ones and people they had never met.

Pierre entered the room and came up to me. Said, "Speak with you for a moment, Jack?"

I followed him into his office. He rounded his desk, fell back in his chair, letting his head rest against the padding. For a moment, he stared at the
ceiling and his eyes misted over. Finally, he glanced at me.

"Sorry for getting you into this. I used you, and in doing so, put your life in danger."

I leaned back against the wall and crossed my left leg over my right. Stuck my hands in my pockets. My fingertips traced the piles of dirt that had ended up
there when I was knocked back.

"I… Bear and I knew the risks going into this. Had the targets been there, it could have been worse for us. That was a chance I was wiling to take in
exchange for your assistance helping us bring Taylor in."

His eyes rolled back in his head. He brought his hand to his face and shielded them. "I lied."

I took a step forward. "About helping us?"

The first admission of guilt out of the way, Pierre looked at me. "I'd help if I could, Jack. But the truth is, we know nothing of this Brett Taylor. He's
not associated with these terrorists. Someone tossed out feelers, and we went with our story because we thought it would mean American intelligence sharing
information with us. Hell, they knew about these men." He paused and allowed a thin smile to form. "Instead, it brought you and your large partner to me."

"Fair trade." I hid my anger. "At least I had a moment where I thought al-Sharaa would be stopped."

Pierre laughed, briefly. His somber demeanor returned. "I figured we'd do the dance for a while, then that'd be it. You'd lose interest, or your real
purpose for being here would be revealed. Then, the cell decided to leave after today's incident. You and Bear provided me the opportunity to prevent that,
so I took it."

"And now five of your men, not to mention who knows how many citizens, are dead."

Pierre's eyes misted over as he nodded. "I'm sorry, Jack. I deceived you for my own gain."

"No honor among thieves. That's what they say, right?"

Pierre said nothing. The distant gaze had returned. His thoughts obviously turned toward the men he'd lost and the families he would have to face, knowing
it was his slip-up that had cost their loved ones their lives.

I turned and reached for the door handle.

"Jack?"

I stopped, but didn't look back. "Yeah?"

"If there is anything I can do to help, anything at all, don't hesitate to ask."

I looked over my shoulder. We shared an awkward stare for a moment. Then I said, "I think you've done enough."

A moment before the door fell shut, I heard Pierre sob. Tonight would be a long one for him. He'd take solace somewhere. A line, a bottle, a woman. Or
perhaps a bullet, if he didn't have the fortitude to carry on.

Bear and Laure were the only ones occupying the control room. The ghosts of the slain remained in the shadows. The others had yet to return.

Bear met me halfway across the room. "How's he doing?"

"Pretty shaken up."

"Imagine so."

"He lied to us."

"What?"

"About Taylor. They've got no intel on him. Nothing at all. The whole thing was a song and dance to see if we were holding back information on the cell
they'd been monitoring."

Bear turned away, toward the monitors on the wall. For a moment his expression became one of remembrance and sorrow. The blast, the shockwave, the death.
He looked back at me. Anger crossed his face.

"So what now?" he asked. "Call Frank?"

I shrugged. Said nothing.

"He might be in on it, Jack."

"I don't think he'd have gone to this much trouble. Why send us away from his target?" I thought of the mentally weakened man hiding in the back office.
Pierre would be easy to get information out of; he had little to hold onto at the moment. "We can go ask him, but I think it's a waste of time. I'm willing
to bet that Frank thought Pierre could help us out."

"Let me handle him." Bear pushed past me and walked toward Pierre's office. His heavy footsteps competed with the resting computer towers. Outside the
door, Bear looked back, and added, "Who knows what kind of moment you two shared in there."

I suppose it was meant to be funny, but neither of us laughed.

Laure looked down as I turned toward her. Her fingers pecked at the keyboard. I wondered how much she knew. Was the whole set up Pierre's doing? Or was his
team involved?

I approached her. She ignored me. Behind her, I asked, "How well did you know them?"

Laure's hands froze over the keyboard, each arched at the middle knuckle. She turned her head to the side. Her damp cheek answered my questions. A tear
fell from the corner of her right eye, gliding easily down a path that had been made by several tears before it.

"I see." I grabbed her shoulder, squeezed, then walked across the room, toward the entrance, where I pulled out a chair and waited.