“Roger that, Major,” said her SAPS second-in-command through our comms, a captain named Emory Dombkowski. “We have eyes on one small drone in the master bedroom. No sensor or visual readings on anything else, electronic or human.”
Hearing Tessa addressed as “major” was strange. I knew of her past intellectually, but that didn’t square with the person I knew. She was the gentle, loving woman of my dreams. And while I had witnessed her demonstrating a keen tactical and strategic mind, I wondered if this would be the first time I’d see her transform from lovable Bruce Banner into the decidedly more dangerous Hulk.
“This drone might be part of a surveillance exercise only,” continued Tessa, “but we have to assume it’s on a recon mission to pave the way for nearby hostiles. Once they confirm the presence of the target, and that the coast is clear, I expect them to move in. I’m guessing within minutes.”
“Agreed,” said the captain. “I have cameras and men watching the roads leading to the house, along with approaches from the woods. I have several drones in the sky. No way they can get in and out without us knowing.”
Tessa caught my eye and sighed. Captain Dombkowski was the only one of the mercs to whom she had given the full story, yet he was stubbornly clinging to human assumptions.
“If the hostiles are aliens,” she pointed out to him, “or control alien tech, anything is possible. Invisibility. Teleportation. An ability to send fake feeds to sensors, cameras, and even observers. And so on.”
Tessa tilted her head in thought. “Given the drone’s lack of mind-blowing tech,” she continued, “I don’t think ET is involved in this—probably too busy phoning home,” she added with just the hint of a smile. “Still, make sure you and your team stay frosty, Captain. Have your men report anything and everything that’s even the slightest bit strange or suspicious.”
“Roger that, Major.”
“Assuming they breach as expected,” she added, “and aren’t wearing masks, I’ll trigger the gas from here. In that case, your job will be to mop up and bring them to the warehouse. If they are wearing masks, you’ll have to earn your pay. Just remember. Non-lethal force only. We’re drawing them in so we can interrogate them.”
“Major Barrett,” said a new voice through our comms, “this is Sargent Tobias Henry. I have eyes on a large Mercedes SUV turning onto the access road leading to the target residence. Six men are inside.”
“Why am I not seeing a video feed?” demanded Tessa.
“None available, Major. Electronic video and photography has been blinded. Best guess is that the SUV’s windows emit some kind of IR signal that throws a wrench into the works.”
“What’s your personal assessment of the hostiles, Sergeant?” she asked him.
“As you might expect. Clean-cut, military types in plain clothes. With mission faces on. All Asian. In my view, likely Chinese.”
Tessa and I exchanged surprised glances. We had baited a trap in America and had expected the first nibbles to be from the natives. But apparently not.
Attracting the American military—some super-secret organization like Majestic-12 or Men in Black—was one thing. Attracting a contingent from our country’s most dangerous rival on the world stage was quite another.
7
The op went off without a hitch, which I could tell bothered Tessa quite a lot, as if she didn’t trust anything that came too easily. The six hostiles entered my rental home, Tessa remotely released the gas she had installed there, and they dropped like bags of wet cement.
And that was that. All that was left was for the team on site to secure my home and the fallen hostiles, which took almost an hour.
First the unconscious Chinese trespassers were frisked and their comms removed. It turned out they each had more hidden compartments in their clothing than a magician, compartments containing an array of common and advanced weapons both. Captain Dombkowski ended up with quite a pile when they were done, almost comical in size, which he put in a large rucksack for Tessa’s later inspection.
Then Dombkowski and his men hit their prisoners with enough sensors to choke a whale, checking for beacons, or bugs, or explosives, or a dozen other electronic gadgets that could make them dangerous, or allow them to be found by reinforcements.
The captain and a lieutenant named Mike Connelly brought the prisoners to the warehouse, secured and unconscious inside a moving fortress made to look like a standard Amazon delivery vehicle, complete with armaments that a tank would be proud to own.
We had borrowed this vehicle from SAPS, one that Colonel Schoenfeld admitted he had commissioned after getting the idea from one of my novels—which I thought was cool. Not that I patted myself on the back too much. It had been pretty obvious. Amazon maintained a massive fleet of these vans, and daily sightings of these delivery vehicles had become about as certain as death and taxes, so a perfect fake would never arouse suspicion. Besides, they were the ideal size for a stealth military transport, and their cargo sections were windowless.
Three other SAPS’ mercenaries escorted the fake Amazon van in three separate vehicles, making sure Dombkowski wasn’t ambushed, and others continued to man access points to my rental home, with the drones and sensors still in place.
I had chummed the water, and it was possible the Chinese were only the first fish I had attracted.
The six prisoners were then secured with multiple zip-ties to six identical steel chairs bolted to the floor of the warehouse. The place was brightly lit, at Tessa’s insistence, and was largely an uninterrupted empty space, broken only by a small bathroom in one corner.