Black Flagged Redux

EPILOGUE

Later that evening
South 20th Street

Newark, New Jersey

Three figures hid toward the back of a crumbling driveway tucked between two duplex houses, keeping close watch on the driveway entrance and the adjacent backyards. They wore dark street clothes and black ski masks to blend into deep shadows. A few feet away on the decaying back porch of the battered two-story structure, a woman concentrated on picking the locks to a door that led directly into the first level apartment.

Her mask was pulled to the top of her head, exposing a portion of her shoulder-length blonde hair. She tested the doorknob, which turned slightly, and whispered into the shadows next to the two-story deck. The three men guarding the area walked carefully up the deck's rickety stairs and produced suppressed pistols. They silently entered the darkened apartment and split evenly into two groups. One group headed for the hallway leading to the bedrooms, and the other proceeded through the kitchen into the front room.

If the two FBI agents assigned to watch the apartment had been awake, they would have witnessed several flashes rotating quickly through the windows of the ground floor apartment. Ever diligent, their surveillance equipment recorded the light show, along with close-up images of the four masked intruders behind the duplex.

Deep in the backyard of the apartment, one of the men removed his ski mask within sight of the powerful night vision enhanced camera lens. The smart lens whirred as it made a few minor adjustments, allowing it to take focused pictures of each figure, while continuing to capture a wider framed video of the apartment. The surveillance camera clicked several times, causing the agent sleeping on the nearby couch to shift. Across the street, a tall black man tightened the straps on his backpack and disappeared with his group through the backyards.

The two agents would rise early and review the digital playback from the camera, eventually catching the only unusual thing they had ever seen at this location. So far, the stakeout had proven to be as boring and mind-numbing as every other. They had been told that more agents would arrive at some point tomorrow morning to bolster each watch section. This news had been the only interesting development in the five months they had been assigned to the stakeout rotation. They weren't told why more agents had been assigned, but everyone had heard rumors about a coordinated effort between the Newark and New York Police Departments to map out Muslim neighborhoods in the Tri-State area. With three mosques within walking distance, the West Side neighborhood definitely qualified for extra attention.

The End