True Faith and Allegiance

57

Midas was nearly halfway through the ten-p.m.-to-one-a.m. watch, which consisted of little more than gazing bleary-eyed at a few images from low-light security cameras and listening to a mechanical droning sound — the slight vibrations of Dalca’s snores from his bedroom, into his living room, picked up by the laser on the sliding glass door, and translated through the headphones Midas had hooked over his right ear and the back of his head, giving him room for the Campus-encrypted earpiece he kept in his left in case he needed to talk to the team.

He sipped water from one of two bottles he had on the floor next to him. The other was empty, for now. He had a standard two-water-bottle system; one full of water and one to use as a receptacle so he wouldn’t have to leave the storage room and take the several-minute walk to the apartment to relieve himself in the bathroom there.

He was just about to make use of the empty bottle when he noticed the headlights of a vehicle moving up the street. As it rolled under a street lamp he thought it might be some sort of delivery van on a late-night run, but it slowed even more in the intersection, then backed into the side alley between Dalca’s apartment building and the adjacent fenced parking lot. Here it turned off its lights, but Midas could tell the engine was still running.

Midas watched the vehicle in silence for several seconds, thinking it would shut down and the driver would get out, but to his surprise the side door opened. Four men climbed out, all wearing different types of dark clothing: tracksuits, cotton work pants, and hoodies.

Midas snatched his secure mobile off the desk and dialed Chavez. He assumed Ding was sacked out on a cot in the safe house apartment on the other side of the building, but this event across the street warranted waking him up.

Midas’s earpiece came alive in his left ear with Chavez’s voice, and though he answered quickly, it was clear he’d been sound asleep seconds earlier. “Yeah?”

“I’ve got a vehicle in the alleyway alongside the target location, a driver behind the wheel with the engine running, and the nose out to the street. Four pax climbed out and entered through the lobby doors.”

“What’s our boy doing?”

“Dalca is snoring. He’s coming through loud and clear on the laser mic.”

There was a delay, presumably while Chavez woke himself up. Then he said, “Okay, I’ll be right there.”

“You want me to call the others?”

“How does it feel? Tell me your intuition about the guys you saw. The way they moved.”

Midas thought about it a couple seconds. “It feels squirrelly, Ding. These guys look like trouble.”

“Shit. Okay, I’ll wake everybody up.”

After a long afternoon and evening, and now a late night of static surveillance, suddenly Midas could feel the familiar surge of adrenaline coursing through his body. He had no idea what was going on across the street — but the arrival of this group of men felt significant. The team hadn’t been expecting anyone else to show interest in their Romanian target, but whoever these guys were, unless they were up to no good at one of the other apartments in the building, Midas was pretty sure things were about to get interesting for Dalca.

He heard the sound through his headset now. The unmistakable heavy pounding on a door.

Quickly he transmitted to anyone who was up on comms. “I’ve got someone banging on the target’s door.”

Chavez responded instantly. “Roger that. Felix and I are on the way to you. Jack is heading downstairs to street level. I’ve got Gavin coming to relieve you ASAP.”

There was another set of knocks at the door to Dalca’s apartment, and Midas focused on the main monitor in front of him, displaying the image from the low-light camera pointed at Dalca’s balcony.

Just then Dalca appeared through the drawn curtains, opening the sliding glass door to the balcony the laser audio device was focused on. The opening door made a scratching noise through the headphone so loud Midas had to pull it off his ear and drop it on the desk.

Across the quiet intersection, Dalca had a backpack on his back and he carried a big bag in his arms. Midas had to look closer to the monitor to be certain, but the Romanian also had a black bike helmet on his head.

Midas said, “The target is on the balcony, looks like he’s gonna try to bolt.”

As Midas watched, Dalca knelt down behind the cover of the balcony railing, then returned with the huge bag in his hands. He tossed the bag over the side of the balcony, and it spiraled down, spooling out a long emergency fire ladder behind it. The chain-link ladder spun down, almost all the way to the ground. Dalca attached the hooks at his end to the edge of the balcony.

Chavez and Felix entered the storage room and knelt down next to Midas. Together they looked at the monitor. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s got a chain ladder, one of those things you buy to get out of a building on fire. He’s climbing down. This guy was ready for a quick getaway.”

Chavez spoke into his headset. “Jack, be aware, he’s going to be at the street when you get around the building to his side. Gavin, we need you in here to relieve Midas, now!”

“Going down,” Jack called over the radio. “I’ll go foot mobile.”

Midas added, “Target’s wearing a bicycle helmet.”

“Then I guess I need to find a bike.”

Dalca was halfway down the ladder, having trouble with it in places where it dangled in the open space between the balconies on each floor, when a man stepped out onto the balcony. Midas, Chavez, and Negrescu looked in silence at the figure, dressed head to toe in black. He looked over the ledge and down to the street, but Dalca was climbing down on his right, and he couldn’t see him.

A second man stepped out onto the balcony now, and this man had a silenced pistol in his hand.

Chavez spoke silently. “Everybody listen up. We want Dalca, but more importantly, our primary objective is keeping these guys away from him. I don’t know who they are, but I don’t want them getting the intel that he possesses.”

Dalca dropped the last six feet to the sidewalk and collapsed in a heap with a grunt audible all over the intersection. The men on the balcony had started going back inside, but it was clear they heard the noise, even four stories above, because both spun back to the balcony. Looking down, the man on the right saw Dalca as he raced around the corner of the building.

Without hesitation, the man raised his pistol and fired, missing just to the left. The suppressed handgun made plenty of noise in the dark and quiet environment of the street, more than enough to be heard without audio equipment in the Campus overwatch position forty yards away.

Dalca disappeared into the dark alleyway, and the two men ran back inside the apartment.

Chavez said, “Jack, these guys have no problems going lethal. Subject is heading north on foot through the alley west of his building.”

Gavin came into the storage room now, filling the space. He was panting hard, and still held his shoes in his hands.

“What was that noise?”

Chavez said, “Gav, take Midas’s position. Record everything you can until there’s nothing going on, then break everything down as fast as possible. Exfiltration plan, Alpha.”

“Alpha, got it. What about you guys?”

“We’re going after the target, but even if we don’t get him, he won’t be coming back here.”

“Okay,” Gavin said.

Chavez slung his ready bag over his shoulder, and Midas lifted his. Felix had the keys to the van in his hand, and all three men ran for the hallway to take them to the stairwell down to street level.