OUTCAST Ops: Red Ice

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The staging area was at a farm ten miles from the lab.

Tanner and the team climbed out of their vans and took a moment to survey the site. Several portable floodlights had been set up, most of the light shielded from the road by the farm’s buildings. In the light, half a dozen Bradly Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFVs), and twice the number of Cougar Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles were lined up near the barn. A dozen other vehicles, ranging from vans to Chevy Suburbans, were also parked in neat rows. Around them, soldiers in full combat load were mixing with heavily armed federal and state agents — DEA, FBI, ATF, U.S. Marshals, California Highway Patrol, and even a couple of special agents from the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division. On the far side of the barn, in an empty field, a couple of UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters sat, rotors still.

“Some party,” Liam said.

“Casey knows how to throw them,” Tanner replied with a nod.

“Tanner! Nay!”

They turned to see Sarah Vessler walk toward them. She was dressed in full combat gear— armored vest, knee and elbow pads; her helmet was tucked under one arm. Her LAR-15 hung over her shoulder from a sling, and the team could see a cluster of flash-bang grenades hanging from her harness.

“Vess!” Naomi said, going to her friend. “What about Danny?”

“He’s in the hospital. Three broken ribs, bruised sternum, and a shoulder with a bullet still lodged in it. The vest took the worst of it. When I left him, he was surrounded by the entire stateside Choi clan, twenty people talking to him all at once. But he’s pissed he can’t be here.”

Tanner shrugged. “He’s where he needs to be.”

Vessler motioned to the large weathered structure a hundred feet away. “The command post is in the barn.”

They walked across the road to the post. The team was dressed much as Vessler was — black BDUs, Dragonskin armor, balaclavas pulled up so they looked like caps, MP5 slung over their shoulders, with load harnesses and gun belts with SOCOM pistols in tie-down holsters. The two soldiers on posted guard duty gave the group a careful look-over as they walked into the barn.

Casey, looking out of place in a three piece suit among a sea of armed and uniformed people was standing at a table with a group of military officers. DuPree was nearby Casey, hand still bandaged. Behind her, two visibly armed Secret Service agents stood guard.

Casey looked up. “You’re here!” He motioned to the officer next to him, a bulldog of a man — short, stocky, with a graying hair cut close to his scalp and an oak leaf on his collar. “Lieutenant Colonel Mulkerin, commanding officer in charge of the military assets. Colonel, Tanner Wilson and his team.”

Mulkerin lifted his head and stared at the team from under brushy gray eyebrows. “I hope you can prove your information,” he said in a gravelly voice. “Bad enough the military’s involved in a civilian matter. I’m sure as hell not going to be happy if these turn out to be some potheads tending to their happy garden.”

“Far from it, Colonel,” Tanner said. He looked at Casey. “You didn’t tell him?”

Casey smiled innocently. “I thought I’d let you have the fun.”

Tanner spoke for ten minutes, telling Mulkerin everything about Rhee, his men, the Red Ice production facilities and the stolen ammonia nitrate. Mulkerin’s expression darkened as Tanner told him about the terrorist attacks in San Francisco that morning. “Son of a bitch,” he snarled. Then he looked at Casey. “The president’s sold on this?”

“He is.”

The colonel looked at Vessler. “Do you know what you’re going up against?”

Vessler nodded. “I certainly do. One of Rhee’s men put my partner in the hospital.”

Mulkerin looked at Casey. “Sir, my soldiers should be leading this. No offense to Agent Vessler and her people, but this isn’t a bunch of half-drugged losers who barely know which end of a gun the bullets come out of. These are highly trained, disciplined fanatics who won’t surrender and won’t be taken alive. They’re enemy soldiers, and I shudder to think what type of firepower they have.”

Casey shook his head. “I need your people to surround the ranch. We can’t let any of them get away, exactly for the reasons you mentioned. We’re going to be borrowing your armor though, and your helicopters.”

The military officer frowned, then looked up at Tanner. “What’s your role?”

“We’re going to extract Dr. Mori. According to our information, the drug lab is underground. I want my team to slip in and get her out while the enemy is distracted by Agent Vessler and her assault.”

Mulkerin stared down at the high-definition photos placed on top of a topographic map in front of him. Finally, he looked up at Tanner and slid the pictures over to him.

“Here’s Rancho Negro Estrella. Twenty-five hundred acres right here.” He stabbed a thick finger on the map. We’ve identified four buildings on the property: A covered horse corral near the road here, a barn behind the corral here, a ranch house across the dirt road from the barn, here. It’s flat, open land with absolutely no cover, and that includes the corral, barn and ranch house.”

“You mentioned a fourth building,” Liam prompted.

“I was just getting to that. The back third of the property is rolling hills, scrub brush, a few trees and rocks. There’s another building in the hill behind the ranch house here.” Mulkerin moved his finger a couple of inches away from the other structures he had pointed out. “That building dominates the approach from the road and anyone sitting up there can see for miles in every direction.” He looked at Tanner. “Does your intel tell you where the underground lab is?”

“It mentions that there’s a mine shaft somewhere in these hills, here.” Tanner put his hand palm down on the map where the colonel had his finger.

“That does make some sense. There’s a couple of dozen mines scattered around the area — we’re only ten miles from Sutter’s Creek. But those shafts are dangerous — most are one good sneeze from caving in.”

“We were told that the mineshaft has been rebuilt, fortified with fresh timbers and the shaft cleared out, in case they have to use it as an escape route.”

“Busy little shits,” Mulkerin said.

Tanner nodded. “The information indicates Rhee imported his own workforce from his country’s prison camps. That’s another reason why we’re going in separate from the main attack.”

The colonel stared at him in disbelief, then eyeballed Casey. “On the level?”

“I wouldn’t be wasting your time if I thought this was a wild goose chase, Colonel Mulkerin.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” He looked up at Tanner. “How are we going to do this?”