Reilly hoped his team leader’s confidence was well placed—for an objective that Duchess maintained would have a minimum level of overt security, the target ahead had a hell of a lot. You knew things were getting dicey, Reilly thought, when the team’s resident sociopath sounded more apprehensive with each transmission from his sniper position.
During his next one, Cancer said, “I don’t know how good these guards will be under fire, but you guys better be ready to rock and roll. Gotta be ten to fifteen security men based on what I’ve seen so far, and with that kind of manpower they don’t need to be good at their jobs to win.”
Then, before David could reply, Cancer added, “They just went inside. Get moving.”
Reilly sighed, then shouldered his cargo once more as David led the way down the row of sporadically placed houses.
Looking past his team leader, Reilly caught his first glimpses of their objective: a tight cluster of rooftops, some far too large to belong to a residential property, that loomed across the street ahead.
Okafor International was ostensibly a food distributor, and if not for the discovery of cocaine being hidden in cans of corn and routed to its commercial address, there was precious little reason to suspect the business of illicit activity.
According to Duchess, Okafor International’s records and accounting were in top form, with no digital traces of affiliation to any terrorist organization, least of all Boko Haram, who wasn’t known to be involved with any legal revenue streams. That wasn’t to say they weren’t well funded—extremist donors aside, the group enjoyed a steady income born of kidnappings, bank robberies, and forcibly taxing the population in their area of operations. But there was no evidence of Boko Haram ever using shell companies to facilitate its wider financial goals; and yet here Reilly was, approaching the heavily guarded compound.
Okafor International’s corporate headquarters consisted of a partially fenced compound complete with multiple warehouses and subsidiary buildings. It would have been a platoon-sized objective for anyone intending to clear it all, but tonight the focus was on the office building alone, the beating heart of whatever terrorist operation ran out of this seemingly legitimate business.
David halted between the final houses, stopping short of the street before transmitting, “We’re at the street—good to move to the drop-off point?”
Cancer replied, “You’re clear. Go.”
Reilly and his team leader broke into a shuffling run, moving as quickly as they could across the dirt side street. Their destination was twenty meters ahead, a remote shed that provided more concealment than cover from small arms fire—but at the moment, concealment was what they needed most given the active guard force. Cancer’s assurance that no security men were watching was only as good as his last update, and Reilly adjusted the heavy cargo on his back as he moved, muttering, “Damn you, Johnny.”
And while carrying a body was bad enough, it was made far worse by the need for two weapons, one a captured ISWAP AK-47 and the other his Agency-issued rifle. But David was managing the same with a considerable disadvantage in terms of size, and if he wasn’t complaining, then neither could Reilly.
Then again, he thought, this whole thing was David’s plan in the first place.
David reached the shed and tucked himself around the south side, with Reilly arriving seconds later.
Cancer transmitted, “You’re clear—no movement from the buildings. Hurry up and get them situated before that changes.”
David and Reilly spread the bodies out by a few meters, the rigor mortis leaving them contorted in awkward positions as they folded the bloody poncho wrappings and tucked them away in cargo pockets.
This was a morbidly gruesome affair, to say the least—though as far as deception operations went, planting dead bodies loaded with a competing faction’s propaganda was more or less the gold standard.
Since splitting from mainstream Boko Haram, ISWAP held a checkered past with their former organization. At some points they cooperated; at others, they attacked one another mercilessly. That kind of divisiveness was a dream come true for the counterterrorism community. After all, any effort the factions directed toward harming their counterparts meant energy directed away from the innocent civilians they normally thrived on terrorizing, and if the apparent ISWAP complicity in the wake of tonight’s attacks stirred up further infighting, then so much the better.
Still, he thought, there was something uncanny about planting dead bodies prior to a mission. The two ISWAP men had been dead too long to fool any actual forensic investigation, though Reilly doubted that type of thing either existed or would be committed to this part of Maiduguri. But there was nothing about this little deception measure to tie US forces to the action, and that’s what really mattered most right now.
Upon getting the thumbs up from Reilly, David transmitted, “Johnny and Walker are in position. Neither of them seem very enthusiastic, but they’ll serve their noble purpose. Me and Doc are standing by for our move to the final assault position.”
Cancer replied a moment later. “Wait one, you’ve got another security patrol exiting the building.”
Reilly peered out from behind the shed and scanned through his night vision, watching two men with their weapons at the ready making their way across the compound interior. It was yet another confirmation of what the sniper had observed for the better part of the last hour: these guys were well-armed, each man toting an assault rifle and wearing a magazine carrier. His hopes of finding a bored and complacent guard force were dashed—whoever they were, whether Boko Haram or security contractors, they patrolled with a degree of vigilance that came as an unfortunate surprise. It wasn’t impossible, of course, that they were chipping some of the cocaine that passed through the facility, and if that was the case, then Reilly and his team were in for some night.
Finally Cancer transmitted, “Guards just went inside Building Three. You’re clear to proceed to final assault.”
I stepped out from behind the shed, darting forward to the low cinderblock wall ahead.
At ten meters distant, I covered the open ground at a sprint—it felt good to finally be unencumbered by an enemy corpse, and I heard Reilly’s footsteps behind me before slowing to a halt and ducking behind cover. Reilly arrived in short order, breathing hard as he readied his HK417. I did the same with my Agency weapon, dropping to the prone and peeking out from the right side of the wall to get a clear look at the compound ahead.
Unlike the Gradsek port complex, Okafor International should have been a cakewalk. There were no CCTV cameras or motion sensors, not even a basic alarm as far as the Agency’s cyber operators had been able to discern. It made sense in a way; if you were hiding a command and logistics hub for a terrorist organization under the guise of a legitimate business, the last thing you wanted was for the police to be notified and come poking around.