Collateral (Tier One #6)

Dnieper River

One Hundred Yards South of Havanskyi Bridge

2145 Local Time

Dempsey looked at Grimes in profile—decked out in full scuba and kitted up like a SEAL—as she stared unblinking into the night. Tough as nails she was, this woman who never ceased to amaze him. No matter the challenge, no matter the risk, she wanted in the fight. Tonight, was no exception.

Feeling his eyes on her, she turned to look at him. “What?” she said with a half-accusatory smile.

For a second, he was about to quip that all the gear she was sporting had to weigh more than she did, which made her a drowning risk, but instead he said, “You’re a badass, you know that?”

“That’s not what you were going to say.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Spill it.”

“You’re right,” he said with a frat-boy grin. “With all that gear on, make sure you use your buoyancy compensator. This river’s so dirty, if you sink to the bottom we’ll never find your body.”

“Now that’s the kind of advice a girl expects to hear from you.” Under her breath she added, “And everything was right in the world.”

“At the drop,” the boat driver said over the comms channel.

Dempsey looked up, caught the pilot’s eye, and nodded as they slowed into a right turn, north and upriver of the industrial park. Dempsey gave the hand signal to his teammates to get wet, popped his regulator into his mouth, and slipped over the side and into the cold, oil-slicked water. He allowed himself to sink to a depth of perhaps fifteen feet, then stopped his descent by adjusting his buoyancy with the button on the side of the integrated buoyancy compensator. They were on regular scuba rigs tonight, as this mission didn’t call for bubble suppression in the dirty, turbulent waters of the Dnieper. He waited in a static hover, peering through his night-vision-capable hybrid dive mask, as Grimes swam up beside him. A moment later, Munn and Martin joined them. They all exchanged the obligatory underwater “okay” signs, then Dempsey rolled onto his side, extended his right arm, and began swimming. The navigation device he wore on his left forearm displayed a magenta track line—grey in his enhanced night-vision world—for him to follow. Submerge any deeper, and he would lose the satellite signal, but the navigation device had a memory function that made an intermittent signal less taxing, and for now the little triangle representing his team tracked on course as they finned toward the target.

The infil distance was much shorter than any SEAL mission, but nevertheless, Grimes stayed true to her word and never fell behind, finning with triathlete efficiency at his side, her long gun tight against her right flank. Eventually, Dempsey stopped checking on her, confident she’d let him know if she had a problem. After fifteen minutes of exertion, a yellow X flashed on the left side of his nav device. In his peripheral vision, he saw two shadows—Munn and Martin—peeling off. The pair would vector toward a preprogrammed point just north of the cargo bridge, designated “Rays,” while he and Grimes would continue on to “Dodgers.” It had been Martin’s idea to use baseball teams as the checkpoints for the op as a tribute to Smith. It was also the reason their mission call sign was Astros—Smith’s favorite team.

God, how Shane loved baseball, Dempsey thought, remembering the man who’d been both a brother and a mentor when he’d needed it most. He pushed the image of Shane’s smiling face out of his mind and finned a bit harder toward the checkpoint. As they neared shore, he gradually ascended until he was holding at five feet below the surface.

“Two and Four are Rays,” came the report from Munn in his ear.

Dempsey double-clicked the transmit button on his left upper chest, acknowledging the report.

Moments later, he reached a concrete pier and finned against the current to station-keep. He turned to Grimes and pointed up, and she nodded acknowledgment. With a gloved right hand, he grasped a rusted barnacle-covered ladder rung, loosened the sling securing his assault rifle to his chest, and pulled up. The barrel of his rifle broke the water just before his head. His vision cleared a heartbeat later as his mask breached the waterline.

He scanned the cement pier above him for targets, while letting his fin-covered boots find the crunchy ladder rungs below. Beside him, Grimes surfaced and began scanning over her rifle.

“Clear,” she whispered.

He signaled for her to shed her gear and covered her as she shrugged out of her scuba rig—submerging it and securing her tank and vest to the ladder underwater and out of sight. In all likelihood, they’d need to exfil quickly and would be forced to leave their gear behind. All of Ember SAD’s gear was stripped of serial numbers or potentially compromising markings, to facilitate this protocol. She swapped her dive mask, with its alien-looking built-in night vision, for a helmet and NVGs, then secured the mask and her fins to the ladder, too. Then they swapped roles, with her covering him as he did the same, finally getting his footing much easier with his amphibious boots unencumbered by the oddly curved fins.

He switched his radio to hot mike. “One and Three are Dodgers,” he said, while clicking his NVGs into place.

“Standby, One,” Munn came back in a whisper, his voice amplified in Dempsey’s earpiece. “We’ll clear north and cover your infil.”

“Check,” Dempsey said and quietly ascended the ladder until his head was just below the edge of the pier. He exhaled, popped his head up to eye level, and scanned the grounds for shooters and cover positions before quickly ducking back down.

“One, Two—I have the backside sentry at my corner, smoking a cigarette,” Munn said in his ear. “You should be clear, but we have a shot if he makes you.”

“Check,” he said and motioned to Grimes to climb up and crowd in beside him on the relatively wide ladder.

“Go now, One,” Munn said.

Dempsey climbed off the ladder and cleared right, knowing Grimes would perform in mirror image left, their movements as fluid and in sync as a ballet. He advanced in a low tactical crouch, clearing around the corner of the rear of the first of two parked trucks. A moment later, Grimes tapped his left shoulder and he surged forward again, this time clearing between the two trucks and taking a knee behind the corner of a metal shipping container.

“Clear,” she whispered, after clearing north from her covered position.

“Two, we’re set.”

“Roger that, One. We’ll drop the sentry on your call and move around the building.”

Dempsey double-clicked acknowledgment. Then, to Wang, who was in the TOC back in the Boeing, he said, “Home Plate, Astro One—ISR update.” He knew that calling targets and movement made Wang feel closer to the action, and the kid was becoming pretty damn good at it.

“Astros are clear except for Astro Two’s tango,” Wang said. “There’s a second tango at the front of the building, streetside beside the door. No additional players up moving or en route that I can see. We have a hot drone in place,” he said, confirming that the armed drone was not only circling overhead, but they were cleared to employ ordnance if needed, with administrative control via Mother coordinated through CIA.

“Mother, confirm interior battle space?” Dempsey said.

“Confirmed, Home Plate,” Baldwin reported from the Ember trailer in Tampa. “If you call for air, I will patch direct comms between you and the drone operator, but otherwise Mother will retain control. Total targets inside is nine, including the HVT, whose phone we are tracking. With your two sentries outside, the total threat is eleven.”

“Roger, Mother, and nice work, Home Plate,” Dempsey said, throwing Wang an over-the-air pat on the back. “Two, take the waterside sentry on my mark and sweep to the front. Take the other sentry and then call ‘Braves’ and set to breach. We’ll go on your call.”

“Hold, Astros,” Wang interjected. “The waterside sentry is moving north, hugging the rear wall of the building. Probably going to the other corner.”

“We’ve lost the angle for a clean kill,” Munn confirmed.

Dempsey flipped up his NVGs and peered around the corner of the shipping container. He spied the sentry, who was now strolling along the back of the building. More concerned about smoking his cigarette than keeping watch, the roving guard had his compact submachine gun tucked harmlessly under his arm rather than in a combat carry.

“We’ll take him, Two,” Dempsey said. “Standby.”

He motioned to Grimes, who joined him at his corner, and sidestepped behind her, giving her plenty of room to work.

“Not until he clears the corner, so we don’t risk a through bullet hitting the building and giving us away,” he said.

Grimes flashed him her best duh look, before shifting into a kneeling firing stance. Steadying herself against the side of the container, she raised her rifle—an MK12 Special Purpose Rifle, which, while very much similar to Dempsey’s assault rifle in appearance, had a longer barrel, a much larger Leupold illuminated scope, and side-mounted AN/PEQ-2A Target Pointer/Illuminator/Aiming Light. Grimes’s weapon was designed for snipers doing close-in work, whereas his variant was optimized for close-quarters combat. Grimes leaned in on the scope and made a two-click adjustment. He watched her breathing slow as her finger moved inside the trigger guard. She let out a last, long breath just as the shooter reached the corner.

Her weapon burped and the AEM5 suppressor hid the muzzle flash as she sent her round flying. Blood and gore spit out the far side of the sentry’s head and the man crumpled to the ground.

“Sentry one is KIA. Go, Two,” Dempsey said and automatically began a count in his head.

They would wait until Munn took the second sentry before moving toward the door. Wang had done a full electronic survey of the warehouse an hour before they launched and had identified only a single security camera at the rear, which he had hacked and put on a loop. The other concern was high-flying Russian ISR aircraft, drones, and satellites. Zeta was orders of magnitude more sophisticated an enemy than the terrorists living in caves and compounds he used to hunt.

“If they had high-flight or satellite ISR, I assume we’d be in a gun battle by now . . . you agree?” Grimes asked, cheek still pressed to her rifle and scanning through her sight.

Dempsey smiled. The team—what was left of it—sometimes seemed to think with one shared brain. Especially him, Grimes, and Munn.

“Agreed,” he said. “Unless they have a standoff QRF en route we don’t know about.”

She looked back over her shoulder, a scolding look on her face, and shook her head.

“Just sayin’,” he whispered, shrugging and smiling. “Either way we’re gone with our bad guy in the next five minutes.”

“Two and Four are Braves,” Munn announced in his ear. “Sentry two is KIA.”

“See,” he said with a grin, then tapped her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

They moved into the open, traveling a straight line to the rear door as they sprinted in combat crouches from cover to the warehouse. Dempsey scanned left as Grimes scanned right, but they encountered no resistance. The only sound was the pounding of their feet on the pavement and the raspy sound of their breathing, both greatly amplified by their comms gear.

“Our breach is your go,” Dempsey reminded Munn as they made the door.

“Check,” Munn answered.

“Astros is Braves,” Dempsey announced, informing all listening that both breacher teams were in position.

“Roger, Astros,” Wang said softly. “Godspeed, guys.”

Dempsey tipped his NVGs up and worked quickly, pressing a small wad of preformed explosive into the groove between the door and metal frame. Grimes covered him while he worked, scanning over her rifle. He pushed the detonating charge into the lump and moved right, forcing Grimes ahead of him. Holding the detonator box in his right hand, he fished a flash-bang grenade out of his kit with his left. Then, pressing his back against the wall, he turned his head toward Grimes and pushed the red button on the small black box.

The breacher charge detonated with a loud whump and a flash of orange that penetrated his closed eyelids. A split second later, he was moving back toward the door, breathing through the smoke and dust. He took a knee at the threshold, tossed the flash-bang through the gap, and brought his rifle up. Sporadic gunfire echoed inside the warehouse, but no rounds were striking near him. The flash-bang popped and the shooting inside stopped. He felt Grimes cross behind him, and in his peripheral vision she appeared on the other side of the door in a crouch, aiming her rifle into the smoke.

“Going dark,” Wang said and, almost in synchrony with a second explosion from Munn’s entry, the entire warehouse complex plunged into darkness.

Nice work, kid.

Dempsey popped up, clicked his NVGs back into place, and moved through the door, turning immediately right along the wall.

Normally, he would move left, clear the left rear corner, and surge forward with Grimes mirroring him to the right, but not this time, because Munn and Martin had entered from that side. With the other team clearing their six, Dempsey and Grimes’s only charge was to sweep right toward where Skorapporsky’s cot was located, as determined by Baldwin, who’d triangulated his mobile phone’s static position during sleeping hours.

Only, the Ultra leader wasn’t there.

With the shock of the breach and flash-bang wearing off, a half-dozen Ultra fighters were regaining their wits. Most were on the floor, scattered among upended cots and folding chairs, but a few were already on their feet pulling weapons. In the grey-green night vision, Dempsey saw the men’s panicked expressions as clear as day. While he could see perfectly, the young revolutionaries couldn’t make out anything in the pitch black, and they were unsure where to point their weapons. It was this moment of confusion that he and his teammates depended and capitalized on for victory in engagements like this.

Dempsey put his green dot on the closest threat, squeezed twice, and watched two black holes appear in the man’s chest as he pitched backward. He shifted the dot to the next shooter and dropped him with a headshot just as he heard double taps of suppressed 5.56 fire coming from Munn and Martin to his left. Grimes added her own volley of fire as she moved right.

Three tangoes plus the HVT remaining.

It was a blacked-out turkey shoot.

“Orioles,” Grimes called out behind him, indicating she had eyes on their HVT. Dempsey shuffled to join her as Munn and Martin finished off the Ukrainian paramilitary extremists who had helped assassinate the Vice President of the United States. He followed her IR targeting laser to where the toe of a large boot was sticking out past the corner of a metal cabinet. Also sticking out was the barrel of a large handgun held at chest height. Dempsey angled left, creating separation as Grimes moved in.

“Viktor Skorapporsky,” Dempsey boomed. “Drop your weapon and step out with your hands over your head. Resist and you will be shot.”

When the man didn’t move, Grimes fired a three-round burst into the wall beside the cabinet, letting their prey know they did, indeed, see him.

“Place your weapon on the ground and come out with your hands over your head,” Dempsey barked. “We know you speak English, Viktor. This is your last warning.”

He watched a hand lower the pistol to the ground and then slide it across the cement floor toward them. A heartbeat later, two hands appeared and Skorapporsky stepped out from behind the cabinet, eyes wide in the dark, mouth turned up in an angry snarl.

Dempsey closed the gap quickly, forcing the big Ukrainian face-first onto the cement floor. He jammed his right knee into the back of Skorapporsky’s neck and pressed the muzzle of his rifle into the man’s temple. Grimes was beside him in a flash, flex-cuffing the ultranationalist leader’s wrists behind his back. With the cuffs secure, she expertly searched the man for other weapons—tossing a large pocketknife and then a compact pistol onto the floor beside them.

“He’s clean,” she said, and together they pulled him roughly to his feet.

“Walk,” Dempsey said, tugging the Ukrainian by his restrained right arm.

Grimes held her sights on the back of the man’s head as Dempsey guided their crow toward the exit. Skorapporsky shuffled his feet, unable to see in the pitch black, and was panting from the fear and residual adrenaline dump.

“Two, One—secure anything of value and meet us at the primary in two mikes,” Dempsey said. “Home Plate, Astros is Orioles. Headed to primary exfil.”

“Roger, Astro One. Exfil at primary in three mikes. Still all clear, and no response detected or indicated,” Wang said.

“Astros, Stingray,” came a less familiar voice—the boat driver who had dropped them. “Pickup in two. Wagon Train is in position.”

“Roger,” Dempsey said and pulled up short of the warehouse’s rear door, which hung half off its heavy metal hinge. He scanned the open pier and observed no movement, no threats. He did, however, see the wake of the approaching Boston Whaler 420. “Thirty seconds, Two,” he said.

In lieu of responding, Munn joined him at the doorway with Martin in tow. The former Marine had crammed a bunch of mobile phones and two laptops into a plastic bag and was shoving it all into his backpack.

Dempsey chopped a hand forward and they exited, with Grimes taking point, Munn moving and scanning left, while Martin covered right. Dempsey herded Skorapporsky in the center of the triangular formation. When they reached the edge of the pier, Dempsey retrieved a black hood from his cargo pocket and pulled it over the Ukrainian’s head. Grimes took a knee and covered their six as Munn and Martin fell in, just as the Whaler expertly docked pierside.

Dempsey leapt the five feet down to the deck of the boat and slung his rifle on his back. Standing on the gunwale, Munn passed their captive roughly down into the boat. The landing didn’t go so well; Skorapporsky wailed in pain after his shin smacked the top rail of the gunwale.

“Shut up,” Dempsey barked and pushed the terrorist down into the cuddy cabin with the sole of his boot. When he turned around, Grimes was standing on deck, scanning for converging threats up and down the river through her scope. Munn and Martin jumped aboard, and the pilot buried the throttle. The boat sped away, having been pierside less than ten seconds.

“Astros is Blue Jays,” Dempsey reported, indicating their exfil to the boat was complete.

“Wagon Train is Yankees,” their exfil SUV driver reported from where he waited at the next rally point.

“Four mikes out,” the former Special Warfare Combat Crewman replied, handling the boat, comms, and mechanics of the op like only an ex-SWCC could.

“Going below to keep an eye on Viktor,” Grimes said, squeezing past him.

“Roger that,” he said and gave her shoulder an attaboy squeeze.

The satisfaction of victory spread over him like a warm embrace. It was rare for a real-world op to go off without a hitch. Even training ops usually hit some sort of snag or wrinkle, but this one had been flawless. He looked at his teammates—Grimes covering Skorapporsky, and Munn and Martin sighting over their rifles fore and aft respectively.

Oh hell yeah, he thought and ran his fingers through his hair, raking it out of his face in the wind. Zeta may have knocked us down, but Ember will never be out of the fight . . . So long as I have this crew, I can do anything.