Covert Kill: A David Rivers Thriller

Worthy did so with his suppressed Glock tucked into his chest, elbows low to his sides as he anticipated obstacles in his path. Instead, he found a center hallway opening into a lit room at the far end of the building.

He moved forward into the hall, seeing an open doorway on either side as he instinctively cut right, tucking his body near the wall and maintaining forward security for Cancer to enter behind him. With his senses on high alert, he detected no movement but immediately heard the faint sound of classical music playing from the room at the end of the hall, along with the distinct scent of fresh coffee brewing—so much for their hopes of catching the building’s sole occupant asleep.

Part of the Agency’s cyber assessment had been analyzing Gradsek’s shift rosters for the entire dock facility. That had led them to yet another glaring discrepancy—despite this building comprising 3,200 square feet, only four Gradsek employees had access. All of them were high-level officials in the company’s import and export branch.

Because of that, and the fact that those four individuals maintained continuous rotation in six-hour shifts, Worthy knew that only one man would be present in the building, though both his exact location and level of vigilance remained to be seen.

He held his position as Cancer gently closed the door behind them, then moved to his backside. This was a tactical nightmare, betraying every instinct of close-quarters battle training, but with Reilly posted outside the building to cover their backside, the entry team was reduced to two men conducting surreptitious clearance, and that involved a different set of rules entirely.

The moment he felt Cancer’s hand upon his shoulder, Worthy flowed forward and slipped into the room to his right.

Moving slowly and methodically to minimize the sound of his footfalls, he cleared the doorway, then pivoted right and extended his arms into a firing position. He swept the room from right to left, collapsing his sector with Cancer mirroring the process on the opposite side.

The room was empty, at least of people.

But they’d come for intelligence and this space revealed a treasure trove, too much for them to possibly exploit. One wall was lined with file cabinets, more than they could search under the circumstances. Another wall, however, held paydirt—a massive dry erase board split into rows and columns by strips of electrical tape, the lines filled with neat text that appeared to denote shipment and container numbers, contents, and dates.

Cancer rotated to pull security on the doorway, leaving Worthy to holster his pistol and replace it with the Android phone in his pocket. He held it steady and took a snapshot of the board, the room momentarily illuminating with a blinding camera flash. Checking the display to ensure that the text was clearly visible, he texted the image to Ian and then performed a hasty visual sweep of the room, looking for any exposed documents to photograph.

There were none, the remaining information safely ensconced in the row of file cabinets that Worthy couldn’t check. Even if they were unlocked, the racket he’d make in trying to open and close drawers was too risky.

Worthy pocketed his phone and drew his suppressed pistol as he moved to Cancer’s rear and whispered, “Done here.”

He waited for the sniper’s response, wondering what was about to transpire. While the lit office emitting classical music was obviously off limits, they still could potentially enter the room across the hall. It was on the west side of the building, meaning it had the rolling service door on its far wall, presenting tantalizing prospects for what cargo might lay within.

But examining it presented a higher risk of compromise, and the fact that they’d snapped a photo of the dry erase board was a victory in itself. After all, they had no specific intel parameters beyond securing whatever they could without getting caught. Because if they were found, they’d have no choice but to render the offending Russian unconscious and restrain him. With over three hours remaining before the next shift change, that scenario would hold the singular advantage of allowing Worthy and Cancer to collect more intel, possibly going so far as to break into the file cabinets.

The catch, however, was that the value of any intel was only as good as Gradsek’s continued ignorance that anyone else had acquired it. Once that happened, they’d suspend all illicit activity and cover their tracks however they could.

As the entry team’s senior man, Cancer would make the call on whether to exfil now or press their luck in moving to the next room. He did so with three whispered words.

“We’re taking it.”

Worthy gave his shoulder a squeeze to indicate he was ready. A moment later Cancer swept into the hallway, rotating right to assume a firing position facing the end of the hall and pulling security for Worthy to cross.

The point man took slow, measured steps toward the opposite doorway, turning right and searching for targets. Cancer flowed into the space behind him, clearing the left side of the room as Worthy swept his aim across his sector. All but a narrow swath of the room was filled with wooden shipping crates atop shipping pallets, and the far corner held a half-open door. Advancing toward it, Worth angled his aim to visually clear the space beyond, which turned out to be a small bathroom.

Spinning in place, Worthy saw that Cancer had picked up security at the doorway, leaving him to search for intel.

The wooden crates before him were four-foot cubes, and Worthy began photographing the room to document the total number packed in front of the rolling service door. They were lined up four across and three deep, and Worthy momentarily regretted not bringing a tape measure to get their exact measurements.

That regret dissipated with a closer look at the nearest crate, which held a stamped label containing the unit’s outside and inside dimensions, weight capacity, stacking strength, and weight. He photographed that with his phone, checking that the text had been captured clearly against the camera flash. Showing the picture to Ian would have to wait; now that Worthy had obtained evidence of the number and size of crates, only one thing remained.

But determining the contents proved troublesome—the top panels were sealed on each crate that he swept with his phone flashlight. Worthy hit paydirt at the far corner of the room, finding a single crate whose lid was ajar. He approached to see that this one alone had numbers written on the side with marker, and he knelt to snap a picture of the sequence: 250, 246, 238, 222, each crossed out except for the final number, 216. So they’d kept this crate open for transfer of smaller units of whatever was inside, he thought, standing.

Then, phone in hand, Worthy eased the lid aside to view the contents.

Jason Kasper's books