By the time they reached the stone wall surrounding the Palace, the fog had reduced the visibility to less than fifty feet. Glancing down from the hilltop, the landing site and the gliders were no longer visible.
“Jake, grab the RTI bag and let’s set it up.” Wiley whispered.
“On it.” Jake replied.
“RTI?” Kaplan said to Jake. “What the hell’s he talking about?”
“Radio tomographic imaging. After I set up the nodes…” Jake held up four small knobby balls. “…Radio transceivers, we’ll be able to see, identify and track everything in the Palace.”
“That’s impossible.” Kaplan said.
“You Army boys don’t know much.” Jake said. “I used the system at Wiley’s lab in Belgium. It works. And it’s cool.”
“Is there anything the old man can’t do?” Kaplan asked.
Jake smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“I can’t bring someone back to life after they’ve been shot for talking too loud.” Wiley interrupted. “Your voices carry. Now shut up and get to work. Jake, go place the nodes around the palace. Quietly.”
Wiley turned to Kaplan. “Stay here. I’ll show you how this works as the nodes come online.”
Kaplan watched as Wiley fired up the mini-computer monitor and activated a program icon he’d never seen before. The dark screen showed a small bar graph and the words “SEARCHING FOR NODES.”
“Now pay attention.” Wiley said. “As Jake positions each node, the bar graph will give us signal strength.”
Kaplan watched as four bars relayed signal strength to Wiley’s computer terminal. Then the words “BUILDING CARTOGRAPHY” appeared.
“What’s it doing now?” Kaplan asked.
“It sends radio waves throughout the Palace and gathers data. This takes about two minutes then it will build a 3D image of the interior of the Palace.” Wiley pointed to another small icon in the upper right hand corner of the monitor. “After it builds the architectural database, I’ll tell it to image life forms. Then we’ll locate and tag everyone in the Palace. If anything moves that isn’t a life form then the computer will adjust and annotate.”
“How does something that’s not alive move?” Kaplan said.
“Think about it, Gregg.” Wiley said. “Anything inanimate that isn’t moving when the database is built will show up as fixed…a permanent part of the structure, like a desk or a box. But say some one moves the box. The computer will compensate and tag it by changing the box’s color denoting it as movable.”
“And you invented all this?” Kaplan asked.
“No.” Wiley said. “Just substantially improved it.”
Baraka stepped over and pointed to the monitor. “Is Hajjah Palace. I have been there before.”
“That’s good.” Wiley said. “Because when we locate Ms Hunt, you’ll have to lead them to her.”
Wiley clicked the “LIFE FORM” icon. The words “THERMAL SCAN IN PROGRESS” popped up in the center of the screen.
Kaplan studied the monitor.
“THERMAL SCAN COMPLETE.”
“IMAGING LIFE FORMS.”
Kaplan watched as the computer populated the 3D image with depictions of every living body in the Palace. “Now what?”
“Now comes the hard part.” Wiley said. “We have to figure out which one of these is Ms Hunt, tag her as friendly and then tag the rest as unfriendly.”
Jake returned with the empty RTI bag. “I see you’ve already imaged.”
“Looking at this,” Wiley said. “We have six life forms. The two outside we know are sentries. Which leaves three unfriendly and one friendly inside. So who is who?”
“I help.” Baraka pointed to the ground floor on the monitor. “No place here for hostage. All open space. Like museum. Two on bottom are guards. They have guns.”
“Then I’ll tag these as unfriendly as well as the sentries out front.” Wiley clicked and each life form turned red and was designated with a number. “Which means one of these two is Ms Hunt.”
“Well that’s easy then.” Jake said. “One image is in a hallway here.” Jake pointed to an image on the second floor. “The other is inside a room. That has to be Isabella. They wouldn’t leave her in the hallway.”
Wiley tagged the other life forms, one red, and the other green. “Now when you enter the compound.” He pointed at Kaplan and then to Jake. “You go first and Jake, you go second. I have to tag you as well so I don’t turn you the wrong way. Baraka will already be in the compound distracting the sentries and I’ll have tagged her by the time you two enter.”
Jake checked his weapons. “Anything else?”
“You two keep this in mind,” Wiley said. “If you don’t do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you, this mission will fail.”
CHAPTER 31
The drive southbound on Interstate 85 from Atlanta to Newnan didn’t take Ian Collins as long as he’d anticipated. Atlanta airport traffic was light and he’d made good time on the interstate, reaching Newnan ahead of schedule.
Collins took the Col. Joe M. Jackson Medal of Honor Highway exit and pulled into the drive-thru at Arby’s. After paying for his food, he drove east then turned south on Shenandoah Boulevard. A few minutes later Collins turned into the parking lot of the Heatherwood Baptist Church. The parking lot was empty so Collins pulled behind the church and backed his rental car into a corner spot near a tree line.
At this hour there was still a stream of traffic on Shenandoah Blvd. and Lower Fayetteville Road. Too many cars to make the quarter-mile walk to the mansion without running the risk of being noticed. He needed to make sure he wasn’t seen by anyone. No one could have any recollection of a pedestrian in the area late at night. That might raise suspicion and, for now, this needed to be considered an accident.
So he waited.
He sat in the dark car, ate his Arby’s sandwich, and waited.
Waited for the traffic to wane and for the elderly occupants of the mansion to settle in for the night. For them to start their nightly routine and drink the sleeping agent that would render them unconscious.
Then they would sleep.
Until they died.
Jake crouched behind a boulder and signaled to Kaplan that Baraka was approaching the two sentries. He motioned for Kaplan to move across the walkway for a better vantage point. A clear line of sight was needed to eliminate the two guards.
Before Jake and Kaplan advanced toward the Hajjah Palace, Wiley handed them each a tranquilizer pistol equipped with its own version of a sound suppressor. Wiley’s tranquilizer gun was virtually silent, even quieter than a silenced handgun. No one in the village would be alerted to their presence.
Baraka’s task was to distract the sentries and lure their attention away from the path leading to the Palace so Jake and Kaplan could take their shots and move to the next stage of the mission.
“All right men, get ready.” Wiley’s voice crackled in Jake’s headset. “Baraka is almost there.”
Jake didn’t know what distraction Baraka would use only that she said she could handle her assignment. From his vantage point, he could see both guards. One much shorter than the other, both dressed in uniform attire.
Jake watched the woman move toward the palace, stop, and pull something from the shrubs next to the walkway. A small bag. Without hesitation, she held the bag in front of her and continued toward the palace.
As she approached the entrance, one of the guards, the taller of the two, raised his hand signaling her to stop. The woman ignored him and kept walking toward the entrance. The short guard raised his rifle. Jake felt his stomach tighten. Then she spoke and the man lowered his rifle.