“The man on the screen behind me is Nicolaich Andropov, a former director of wet work for the SVR in Russia. For the past several years, he used his position to allow him to gather incredible amounts of information, a lot of which was designed to force political figures to cooperate with him at his discretion. He was behind an attempt four months ago to force the government of Mauritania to enter into an alliance they didn’t want. To facilitate that plan, he arranged for the abduction of the daughter of the president of that country. My team was sent in to find the girl and recover her, which we did. In the course of doing so, I killed Vasily Andropov, Nicolaich’s youngest son. Nicolaich then used his SVR forces, in violation of Russian law, to attempt to exact revenge against me. He abducted one of my team in an attempt to draw me into a trap, but I was able to recover her and we escaped with our lives. Unfortunately, Nicolaich also survived.”
Noah stepped out from behind the podium and leaned on it with his elbow. “Several days ago, a team of mercenaries attacked a small town in Colorado. Their aim was to inflict damage on the organization that I work for, as part of yet another plan of Andropov’s to seek his revenge against me. Our investigation has led us here, where he had apparently been planning to either abduct or murder one of my childhood friends. He is currently running a team of hired guns who seem to be doing little more than surveillance. They had been watching my old friend, but I let them see that I was in town and their efforts seem to be more focused on myself, now. My team and I cornered three of them earlier today and learned that Nicolaich will be making an international phone call to Russia at just about 11 tomorrow morning.
“My intelligence officer,” he said, pointing at Neil, “is prepared to trace that call and determine the location from which it was made. My plan is to divide you into response teams that can be dispersed around the metro area, so that at least one team can hopefully arrive at that location before Nicolaich can get away.”
He stood there for a moment, just looking over the men in front of him. “It is absolutely imperative,” he said at last, “that Nicolaich Andropov does not escape. This man is a master of manipulation; if you get the shot, take it. Any attempt to take him alive will only increase the possibility that he will escape, and we cannot allow that.”
The men were silent, staring at the photo displayed on the screen. Each of them, Noah knew, was committing every detail of Andropov’s face to memory.
“As I mentioned earlier, Nicolaich has a team of mercenaries working with him. It is highly unlikely that you will find him alone, and it is possible that he may even have innocent civilians in the area, potential hostages. I expect you to make every reasonable attempt to avoid or minimalize collateral damage, but the elimination of Nicolaich Andropov must take precedence over anything else. This man has set himself up as a power and weapons broker, and he is in possession of enough extortable knowledge to topple governments or start wars. He presents an even greater danger to the world than Osama bin Laden ever was, and absolutely must be eliminated if at all possible, even if it means endangering civilians. Any questions?”
Captain Hayes, sitting in the front row, stood up. “Sir, how many teams do you want to set up? My men can operate well in three-, five-or seven-man teams.”
“Five-man teams would probably be ideal,” Noah replied. He looked at Neil and nodded, and a Google map of the area appeared on the screen. “We need to position five teams in DC itself, two in Alexandria, two more in Arlington and we’ll space the others out around the perimeter of the area. I’ll need a line of communications through you, Captain, to each team. As soon as we have a location, the nearest teams will immediately move to converge on it, and the rest can move in to assist as possible.”
“Yes, Sir. As soon as you’re done with us, we’ll move to strategy planning and start getting this set up. You said this call is scheduled for 11 AM?”
“That’s correct.”
“Then we’ll bunk down here tonight, and I’ll have the teams in place by six. This facility has a number of vehicles, and we brought our weapons with us. It won’t be any problem to have them on station by six AM. As for communications, I’ll give you a special secure cell number that you can send a text message to. That message will go to every team at the same instant. If you send a street address or GPS coordinates, their phones will instantly tell them how far they are from that location and offer them directions. With the spacing you seem to have in mind, there should be two or more teams within only a few minutes of any spot within that region. The closest team will take lead, and the others will coordinate with them.” He handed Noah a small handheld radio receiver. “This is set to our secure channel, it will let you listen in when things start happening.”
Noah nodded. “That’s excellent,” he said. “It sounds like you guys have done this sort of thing before.”
Captain Hayes smiled. “On a couple of occasions,” he said. “This is the kind of thing we live for, Sir. It’s why we exist.”
“One more thing,” Noah said. “I hope not to see any of your men on the after-action casualty reports, but Nicolaich is one of the most dangerous men alive. He has absolutely no morals and no compunctions against using innocent civilians as pawns or distractions. This is not a time for heroism, I’m afraid. If you expose yourselves, you will be dead. You must understand that it’s necessary to do whatever it takes to eliminate this man, up to and including the destruction of whatever building he’s in.”