46
Alexandria, Virginia
USA
NO SIR. WE DON’T HAVE details yet on how it happened.”
James Whitfield sat in the office at the back of his home, staring into the darkness as he listened over an encrypted line.
“Davis was killed and we lost communication with Craighead over the course of a few seconds,” his man continued. “Miller’s Merge started sending garbled data right before that and then went offline. We’re trying to make sense of that now.”
Whitfield didn’t respond. Had he made the same mistake again? Had he underestimated his adversaries? No. Smith and Russell had repeatedly proven themselves in the field and he’d responded to that with overwhelming force: three well-armed, Merged-up special forces operatives benefiting from the element of surprise.
“So they both survived?” he said finally.
“It appears that way, sir. A helicopter touched down on top of Miller’s last known position. It was on the ground for less than five minutes and we believe picked up Smith and Russell, as well as our people.”
“You believe?”
“Our man on the ground has confirmed that they’re all gone, but he didn’t personally witness the transfer.”
“And where did the helicopter go?”
“We weren’t prepared to track an aircraft. I hope to have that information soon.”
“We don’t have the luxury of hoping, Captain. Call Andrews and get surveillance planes in the air.”
“That’s going to be difficult, sir.”
“I don’t care if it’s difficult,” Whitfield said, momentarily losing control of the volume of his voice. “Do whatever you have to do and find that goddamn chopper.”
“Sir, we could expose—”
“No more excuses, Captain! Get those planes in the air.”
Whitfield broke the connection and threw his headset into the wall. This was a complete, unmitigated disaster. If Miller and Craighead were still alive, they’d hold out for a while, but eventually would talk. They wouldn’t know anything more than the fact that they’d been sent to take out two people involved with a homegrown terrorist network, but if the right questions were asked, the carefully crafted anonymity of Whitfield’s Pentagon contacts could begin to show cracks.
How had they defeated his men? Where had the helicopter come from? But most important, who were these bastards?