Voeckler took his lady onto the floor and began to waltz. They looked dramatic and stunning, and Brent frowned. Voeckler was taller and better looking and had a better job. He could pick up women with ease, and his organization seemed to have better intelligence than Brent’s.
“Brent, Schleck here,” began the team’s sniper, positioned in the hills overlooking the castle. Schleck was a bird with long torso and pointy jaw, the “string bean” Brent had called him on his cheat sheet. But the bird ate like a pig and gained nothing. “Car just pulled up. Got three guys in tuxedoes getting out. Looks like the Mafia or the Secret Service. You hear anything about added security, Captain?”
“Negative. Stand by.”
Brent slipped off toward the back of the room, where he discreetly donned his Cross-Com: an earpiece with integrated camera, microphone, and attached monocle that curved around his eye. He tapped a button on the earpiece and whispered, “Cross-Com activated.”
Brent’s monocle glowed with screens displaying his uplink and downlink channels and icons representing his support elements, among other bits of data. These images were produced by a low-intensity laser projecting them through his pupil and onto his retina. The laser scanned horizontally and vertically using a coherent beam of light, and all data was refreshed every second to continually update him.
The system was connected via satellite to the entire Joint Strike Force’s local — and wide-area networks LAN/WAN) so that even President Becerra in the White House could see what he was doing and speak to him directly on the battlefield (not good, according to Brent). That level of Network Centric Warfare — all part of Ghost Recon’s Integrated Warfighter System (IWS Version 9) — was just a leash of technology. But that’s the way the game was played. Fortunately, the old tricks still worked: “Uh, sorry, command, uh, you’re breaking up. What was that order? Oh, I think the signal is dropping…”
He issued a subtle voice command to bring up the camera built into Schleck’s Cross-Com. Now he took in the scene from the sniper’s point of view. “I see your boys, Schleck. What do you think?”
“I think I don’t know what to think. Heads up, though.”
“Roger that. They could be team security.”
“Okay. Standing by.”
Brent removed the Cross-Com and shoved it back into his inner jacket pocket, replacing that earpiece with the one issued to him by the French security force.
The guys Schleck had spotted now moved toward the security line and metal detector. They would have to pass through those checkpoints before they could get anywhere near the main banquet room. Schleck was just being paranoid, but you wanted your sniper to be hypersensitive to his surroundings.
Brent retuned his gaze to the banquet room.
Voeckler was now wooing the entire crowd with his dance moves; he could probably win a national contest, billing himself as the “dancing spy” after he retired. His partner was fully in lust with him, and again, Brent thought of murder.
Riggs was now surrounded by Eskov and two other cyclists, and if the Snow Maiden wanted to get near her cousin, she’d now have to rub shoulders with a very sexy Ghost Recon operator.
Once more Brent scrutinized the guests, focusing on each female. He assessed, dismissed, and moved on. He took a deep breath, and something ached deep down in his gut.
The first salvo of gunfire — originating somewhere outside near the security checkpoint — sent his head jerking back. The second drove him toward the wall and reaching for his pistol as the three men Schleck had spotted burst into the room, brandishing snub-nosed machine guns.
They opened fire.
With a gasp, Brent dove onto the floor and looked up, trying to get a bead on the shooters, but the party guests were scrambling in all directions, legs shifting and blocking his view. He had no time to check on Eskov, Riggs, or Voeckler and only seconds to try to stop these bastards.
Finally, Brent had a shot as a heavyset man took a bullet in the chest and tumbled, exposing the shooter behind him. All three men had donned green balaclavas, and one cried in French, “We are the Green Brigade Transnational! We are your doom!”
Brent took out the lead terrorist with a single head shot and was about to shift fire to the next guy when a wave of rounds exploded from the French security guys, so much fire that their wider shots were striking guests cowering just behind the terrorist.
Another terrorist flailed under all that fire, dropped his weapon, and thudded to the floor as the screams and groans lifted and the sulfur stench of gunfire overpowered the room.
The third guy suddenly ducked around a table and bolted, vanishing past the doorway.
“Lakota, we got fire, two Tangos down. I’m chasing a third. He might be coming your way!”
“Roger that. Lock and load. Schleck? Get ready!”
“Ready!” cried the sniper.
Brent stole a quick look back, trying to find Riggs and Voeckler, but he couldn’t see them. He darted outside the hall and saw the thug bounding up a stone staircase just ten yards off to his left.
He scissored past dazed and frightened guests, reached the stairs, and took them two at a time, hearing the thumps of the terrorist above as the staircase jogged left. At the same time, he tugged out his Cross-Com and jammed it over his eye and ear.
On the next landing, Brent spotted the terrorist, who turned back and raised his pistol.
Brent fired a shot, missing the guy, even as the terrorist raised his machine gun. Brent dove back out of the guy’s bead as rounds stitched into the stone behind him and ricocheted wildly. Dust swirled as Brent rolled back and squinted.
More footfalls. The thug was still ascending. Something crashed to the steps above, and as Brent rounded another corner, he saw his prey ripping art and tapestries from the wall and dropping them down across the stairs to block the path. Brent slid his way past a tattered painting, its frame splintering across the stone, and kept on.
Meanwhile, the security guard earpiece still jammed in Brent’s other ear crackled with Lakota’s voice. She had taken over the rest of the team, as she was trained to do, and they were collapsing back in on the castle; however, Schleck would remain in his perch for overwatch.
Brent reached what he believed was the fourth-floor landing, where he found a narrow door hanging open. He dodged past it, coming into one of the circular towers.
He glanced up at the spiral staircase constructed of heavy oak planks. Thud, thud, thud. His boy was heading up, and unless he’d grown wings or had some other escape plan on the roof, Brent figured he had him. You never run up into a building to escape — unless the chopper’s up there waiting for you. .
And that thought made Brent prick up his ears, listening for the whomp-whomp. .
More gunfire rained down from somewhere above, and Brent crouched and returned fire, just to keep the bastard looking.
Then he resumed his charge upward, growing breathless now, the dress shoes hurting. He longed for his automatic rifle and a little Kevlar to catch stray rounds.
As he climbed, he popped out his near-empty magazine and slapped home a fresh one. Twenty steps later, a cool breeze filtered down toward him, and as he finally reached the top, he kept low, paused, saw the area was clear, then came into a small room whose single window hung wide open.
Brent spoke into the Cross-Com: “He’s on the roof.”
The window was barely wide enough to fit a person, and Brent resisted the temptation to stick his head out first to steal a look. The guy could be waiting just on the other side, out of sight and ready to blow Brent’s head off.
Instead, Brent came at the window from a sharp angle, able to see if anyone was standing just beside the edge. Then he dodged across it and checked the other side. Satisfied he was clear, he leaned forward, pushed the window all the way open, and looked down.