Splinter Cell

6

I never pack much when I’m going OCONUS on assignment. An important component of my uniform is a slim custom-made Osprey backpack that fulfills a zillion functions. I can fit two or three changes of clothing inside, plus an assortment of Third Echelon equipment that I can pull out at a moment’s notice. I have a medical kit that contains painkillers, bandages, antiseptic, and atropine injections to combat exposure to a chemical attack. I have a limited supply of flares — both chemical and emergency — for various uses. Chemical flares glow in the dark when you crack the inner containers. They’re useful for attracting and distracting enemies. Emergency flares are standard road flares that emit heat, which can distract sensors like the ones found on automated turrets. I also keep a few frag grenades handy. These 14-ounce M67 babies consist of 2.5-inch steel spheres surrounding 6.5 ounces of high explosive. When these things go off, you don’t want to be close, believe me. The high-velocity shrapnel will rip you to shreds. In addition to the grenades I usually carry at least one wall mine. This is a motion-sensitive explosive device that can be attached to almost any surface. I’m able to improvise in the field, too — I’ve found that I’m pretty good at deactivating enemy mines and adding them to my inventory if I need more.

Other tools of the trade include a standard set of lock picks, wrenches, and probes for bypassing basic cylinder locks. For more difficult enclosures, such as safes, I use what we call disposable picks that can be adjusted to different strengths, depending on what it is you want to open. They contain microexplosive charges that deliver a quick impact to any standard lock cylinder, shattering the pins. The downside of these things is that they’re sometimes a little noisy. I’ve also got a nifty little camera jammer that emits microwave pulses. This is useful for disrupting the characteristic signals used in the microcircuitry of surveillance cameras. The only problem with the jammer is that it operates off a capacitor that you have to recharge. Then there’s the optic cable — kind of like those things doctors use to stick up your ass to look around with when you’re a lucky colonoscopy patient. It’s very flexible and I can slip it under doors and through holes to see what’s on the other side. There’s even a night-vision enhancement.

My standard issue weapon is a Five-seveN tactical handgun with a single-action trigger. The twenty-round magazine comes equipped with a silencer and flash suppressor. I’ve already told you a little bit about the gun, but I don’t think I mentioned that it has a T.A.K. integrated inside it. The Tactical Audio Kit is a laser-operated microphone that enables me to read the vibration off certain surfaces, mainly glass windows. The laser mic provides a zoomed camera-like field that can be aimed at different objects. It’s great for listening to conversations, but I have to be careful to make sure I use it only when I’m concealed. The damn thing lights up red when it’s on.

My uniform, which I’ve already described, folds up neatly and fits in a special pouch in the Osprey. My goggles are a lifesaver. They have two modes of operation — night vision and thermal vision. Night vision, of course, allows me to pick up illumination at the lower end of the infrared spectrum. This is great for exploring in the dark — the only drag is that the image is slightly grainy, so fine details are difficult to see. Thermal vision is an essential tool in darkness as well, for it captures the upper level of the infrared spectrum, which is emitted as heat rather than reflected light. This allows me to discern warm bodies through visual obstacles such as smoke and gas. One cool thing it does is that if I happen to examine a computer keyboard or keypad immediately after someone has touched it, the keys that were pressed will have a faint heat signature still on them. No well-equipped spy should be without thermal vision. A special fluorescent mode allows me to see fingerprints, stains, and dust disturbance that is normally invisible to the naked eye. This is useful when I’m searching for secret compartments.

My favorite weapon and tool has to be the standard issue SC-20K, a modular assault weapon system. This is something I can’t carry with me when I travel. It usually needs to be drop-shipped by the NSA — along with my toy-filled Osprey — and left someplace where I can pick them up. Sometimes that can be a tricky maneuver in a country where we have no embassy. The SC-20K looks like a stocky rifle, but it’s much more than that. The Bull Pup configuration makes it light and compact without sacrificing firepower (it uses 5.56×45mm ss109, 30 rounds, and it can be fired in semiautomatic or full automatic modes). There’s a flash/sound suppressor combined with a multipurpose launcher that makes it an ideal appliance in the field, and for long-distance shots I can use the scope. The launcher is beneath the main barrel and it utilizes a number of different devices. I can shoot off a ring airfoil projectile, which incapacitates an enemy rather than kills him. A good head shot will knock a guy out, or if I hit someone in the torso, it’ll stun him. I can launch sticky cameras that attach themselves to surfaces I can’t climb to. These miniature cameras have full pan and zoom functionality plus night and thermal vision modes. The images are fed directly to my OPSAT. An adaptation of the sticky camera is the diversion camera. This honey has had its zoom motor as well as its vision enhancement apparatus replaced with a noisemaker and a CS gas canister. I can trigger it with my OPSAT from a distance, attracting enemies with sound and then dispensing the gas to stop them in their tracks. Similar to the sticky cameras are the sticky shockers, high-voltage discharge devices coated in adhesive resin. They stick to enemies and give them an incapacitating shock. Smoke grenades come in useful as well. These are standard CS gas canisters that stop groups of enemies cold. I like to treat them like bowling balls and aim for strikes. I have additional smoke grenades without CS that just produce black smoke to cover my tracks.

Finally, I need to activate my subdermal implants. These are transmitter/receivers that Third Echelon put in my neck next to my vocal cords and in my inner ear. When the devices are activated, I can receive voice messages from Lambert via satellite that only I can hear. It works best outdoors, naturally, but in most buildings it works pretty well. If I’m underground, it’s not worth crap. By the same token, the PTT — Push To Talk — transmitter translates data for use with a voice synthesizer located at Third Echelon. All I have to do is press the area of my neck near my Adam’s apple and talk, or whisper, and what I say is sent to the synthesizer. Therefore, I can communicate with Third Echelon from just about anywhere. Pretty cool. The only drawback is that the signals can be picked up by the enemy pretty easily, so Lambert and I have an understanding that we communicate with text messages via the OPSAT first and use the implants only for urgent contact.

Once I’m packed, I make arrangements for my bills to be paid automatically for as long as I’m away. I confirm that I have plenty of cash in various accounts I can access just about anywhere in the world. I also make a phone call to the Krav Maga Studio and leave a message on Katia’s answering machine, explaining that I was called away once again. She’ll probably think I’m some kind of a nut. Alas.

I’ll leave the Grand Cherokee at home. Lambert arranged for a car to pick me up and take me to Dulles. I wouldn’t be comfortable with the idea of leaving my beloved Jeep in a long-term airport parking lot for what could very well be months.

There isn’t much left to do when the house phone rings.

“Dad?” It’s the sweet voice of my not-so-little-anymore girl.

“Hey, Sarah, I’m glad you called!” I say. I’m very happy to hear from her so I do my best to control my feelings about her going abroad against my wishes. Our last conversation wasn’t a pleasant one. “Are you in Israel?”

“Uh-huh. It’s the middle of the night, but we can’t sleep. Rivka and I are still on Chicago time.”

“How was the flight over?”

“Long, so I was glad that Rivka was with me. That made it more interesting. Hey, Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry about the misunderstanding. You know, about me going.”

Misunderstanding? In my mind there was no misunderstanding. She disobeyed my wishes but it was too late now.

“I’m sorry, too, honey.”

“Dad, we had the most beautiful sunset tonight. It was all orange and red, and from Rivka’s rooftop it looked like something out of a movie. It’s beautiful here.”

“And her parents are there with you?”

“Uh-huh. Her mom and dad are real nice.”

“That’s great to hear. Listen, honey, I have to go out of the country tonight, too. It’s for work.”

“Again? Didn’t you just get back?”

I sigh. “Yeah. But you know how it is.”

There was a bit of the old frustration in her voice. “No, I don’t know how it is. You’re so secretive about what you do. Where are you going this time?”

“I’m… I’m going to the Middle East, too. But don’t worry, I won’t be anywhere near you.”

I hear Sarah talk to someone in the background and I distinctly hear a male laugh.

“Sarah, who’s that with you?” I ask.

“Huh? Oh, that’s Rivka.”

“I thought I heard a boy.”

“Oh, that’s Noel, Rivka’s boyfriend. He and Eli came over since we couldn’t sleep. They’re helping us party. You remember me telling you about Eli?”

“Is he that music student you were dating at college?” I ask.

“Yeah, that’s him. He’s back home in Israel this semester. So is Noel. He used to date Rivka. That’s how Eli and I met, remember?”

I seem to recall hearing something about it last year. During Sarah’s sophomore year she dated a foreign student from Israel. Rivka, a foreign student herself, knew a whole group of them.

“What’s Eli’s last name, hon?” I ask.

“Horowitz. Eli Horowitz. He says he wants to meet you someday.” I hear a male laugh again in the background and Sarah giggles.

“Well, I’d like to meet him, too,” I say. I try not to sound too much like a father. “Why isn’t Eli at school this year?”

“Oh, his student visa expired and he didn’t renew it,” Sarah answers. “Same with Noel. There was some kind of stupid technicality with them.”

I don’t know why, but I suddenly hear alarm bells in my head. Perhaps it’s because of all the circumspection that foreign students have been receiving since 9/11. Immigration has cracked down on student visas since then and is ferreting out undesirables.

“Sarah, how much older is he than you?” I ask.

“Dad, please. He’s just a couple of years older. Um, three.” She sounds annoyed.

“Do his parents live there in Jerusalem?”

“Dad, what is this? What’s with the third degree?”

“Honey, it’s not a third degree,” I say, trying not to sound exasperated. “I just want to know who you’re hanging out with in a foreign country, that’s all. And Israel can be a dangerous place sometimes. You can’t be too careful. I’m your father, after all.”

“But I’m also an adult, Dad.”

“You’re not drinking age yet,” I counter.

“Oh, gee, like I have seven more months to wait,” she says sarcastically.

I almost point out that that is nearly a year, but I let it go. I don’t want the call to turn into one of our teenager vs. parent battles. Sarah and I went through some real knockdown drag-outs when she was in high school.

“All I’m saying is that you should find out a little more about him and his family before you get more involved, that’s all,” I say. I know it sounds lame.

“Dad, please. We dated for three months last year, but I guess you don’t remember that. I know him pretty well already.”

“All right, all right, I’ll stop being a dad. Do you have plenty of money?”

“Sure, Dad. Thanks.”

“And you remember the phone number in case you need to reach me?”

“I’ve got it memorized,” she answers. This is a special toll-free number that she can call from anywhere in the world whenever I’m on assignment. It actually goes to Third Echelon and is then transmitted as a text message to my OPSAT, wherever I happen to be. No one but Sarah and I know the number. I instructed her long ago on how to use it, but only if it’s an emergency situation. Anything trivial can wait until my return to Maryland.

“So, when do you fly back to Chicago?” I ask.

“Next Saturday. Just when I’m about to get over the jet lag I have to turn around and go back,” she says.

“Yeah, that’s the way it usually is.”

“Look, Dad, I gotta go now. It’s great to talk to you.”

“Sarah, honey, you be careful, okay?”

“I will. You, too, with whatever it is you do.” There’s that touch of sarcasm again. She doesn’t like that she knows nothing about my work and has said so on several occasions.

“Okay. Have fun. I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

She hangs up.

I begin to wonder if my uneasiness about her boyfriend is simply the normal reaction a father might have to his twenty-year-old daughter becoming intimate with an older boy, or is it something else? I probably shouldn’t worry. Eli Horowitz lives with his parents. They’re probably wealthy, too, in order to afford to send him to America to study. I wonder what really happened with his student visa? I might have to make an inquiry about it.

There’s not a lot I can do about it now, I decide. I need to focus on the assignment at hand and study the documents that Lambert gave me this afternoon. They will reveal who my contact in Iraq will be and where I can pick up transportation, my SC-20K, the Osprey, and other equipment I may need. I imagine it’ll be through the army. Someone at the top of the food chain there will have been briefed.

As I finish preparing for the trip, I glance at the photo of my daughter on the bedroom nightstand. I feel a sudden urge to hug her and give her a kiss. Instead, I lightly touch my lips to my index finger and then touch the portrait.

That’ll have to do for now.