The Red Cell André Gallo (essential reading .txt) 📖

with a pool. On her right was a fireplace topped by a tall mirror going up to the high ceiling. Two large, olive-drab duffel bags lay in front of the fireplace. “Two big, black suburban SUVs and three motorcycles like you see on an ultra-sports TV show parked in front is probably going to trigger an emergency board meeting of the condo owners. The Knolls will never be the same.”

“They will handle it,” Steve said. “I’m not worried.”

He stood facing his team in the living room of the honeymoon condo. “I got two calls during the night. One was from Marshall and the other from Bob Trent. The message was the same. The Iranians have something cooking in the D.C. area, as well, a double-agent operation, I’m guessing. Anyway, headquarters thinks the Iranians are planning to pull the trigger on both operations at the same time. Tomorrow. Friday.”

Al Costantini, the new member of the team, tall, dark-haired, and tanned, weighed in. “I’ve never been this close to an OGA operation before. I’m impressed. Good information and nice digs. I’m surprised you don’t have the time of the attack against the bridge as well as the mother’s maiden name of each terrorist.”

“What’s ‘OGA?’” Kella asked.

“That’s the military term for CIA, an acronym never mentioned in the field – Other Government Agency,” McCabe said. “I’ve never had to sleep in the mud ever since I started working for this outfit.”

“Our quarters in Brussels weren’t bad, either,” Hunter added.

“Based on the time of the operation on the East Coast,” Steve said, “we should expect this shoe to drop tomorrow morning between 0600 and 0630. How did your mini UAV trials go yesterday evening, Al?”

“All my equipment is A-Okay, but the wind is something else. I hope we have better weather tomorrow morning. I brought three mini UAVs, two Skylark 2s, and one Skylark 3. The 2s have sensors, real-time imagery, and forward-looking infrared, which basically will tell us what’s in front of and below the plane, day or night. They also have laser designators, which can direct a missile on the target. The 3 is a beta model. It’s bigger than the 2 has real-time imagery as well, plus a small missile the size of an RPG. Each can stay up about six hours; but with the wind outside it might be closer to four.”

“I contacted Spencer at JTTF yesterday afternoon to give him a heads up,” Steve said. “They’re still convinced the airport will be the primary target and that’s where law enforcement is going to focus. They were debating closing the airport last night. They’ve got the Federal Building as number two, and the other bridges, the Bay Bridge and the Richmond Bridge, as number three.”

He took a swig from a plastic bottle of water. “You wouldn’t believe the number of SWAT teams in the San Francisco area. There must be well over a hundred. Seems every police department worthy of the name has to have at least a dozen. And they’re all armed for bear. And as soon as daylight breaks, the police helicopters will be swarming like locusts.”

Steve turned toward Kella. “Were you in touch with the bridge authorities?”

“Yes, I was,” she said. “Guess who the big boss is? Margo. She never told us when she let us go up in the tower. She said they were as ready as they could be, but they don’t have a lot of security people. They have two police cars that patrol the bridge and the two overlooks about once an hour. During the day, they also have a team of six guards on foot and on bicycles.”

“What about at night?”

“She’ll keep one car and two other guards on duty. Everyone else is on call. And she’s very confident. The San Francisco PD is very responsive, she said. If the security guard on duty sees anything suspicious on one of their six cameras, he will report it immediately.”

“She sounds brainwashed by law enforcement thinking,” McCabe said. “Allow the attack to occur then pick up the pieces, gather evidence, and treat it like a 7-Eleven robbery. That’s the Benghazi model. It’s been a year and the FBI is still sifting through nonexistent evidence. Instead of finding, fixing, and finishing the terrorists, they’ll Mirandize them.”

“What about the radio?” Al asked. “Remember that once we turn on the jammer, cell phones and radios on the usual frequencies will become nonoperational. Only landlines will function—except for those radios I brought.”

“Yes, I gave Margo one of them, so her security guard can stay in touch with us and vice versa. She’s confident nothing will happen. She said she’s been with the bridge administration for fifteen years and nothing ever has.”

“What did I tell you,” McCabe said.

“When are we issuing the weapons?” Hunter asked impatiently.

“In a minute,” Steve replied.

At that moment, “Dixie” began to play on Hunter’s cell phone. He went out the sliding doors saying, “It’s Kristen.”

“Hunter’s beautiful CIA girlfriend,” McCabe told Al, who looked puzzled.

“Cut it short, Hunter,” Steve said.

He returned a moment later and said, “We should have brought her with us. She could have really been useful. You know what she did yesterday at The Farm? She ran five miles with a sixty-pound pack and she only weighs a hundred and ten.”

“Okay, let’s wrap it up,” Steve said, standing by the duffel bags. “We know Yosemani and his bodyguard are here. They were spotted in New York. We know they’re somewhere nearby. Kella and I saw the bodyguard on the bridge. If he’s here, the general can’t be far. We also know from a double agent that Iran is planning two attacks tomorrow morning, one in the Washington area, and we deduce the other will be here because of Yosemani’s presence.”

“Yeah, but our intelligence on the enemy,” said, standing up and stretching, “isn’t exactly solid.”

“It’s a hell