Ops Files II--Terror Alert Read online

  JET – Ops Files

  Terror Alert

  Russell Blake

  Smashwords edition. Copyright © 2015 by Russell Blake. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact:

  [email protected].

  Published by

  Books by Russell Blake

  Co-authored with Clive Cussler

  THE EYE OF HEAVEN

  THE SOLOMON CURSE

  Thrillers

  FATAL EXCHANGE

  THE GERONIMO BREACH

  ZERO SUM

  THE DELPHI CHRONICLE TRILOGY

  THE VOYNICH CYPHER

  SILVER JUSTICE

  UPON A PALE HORSE

  DEADLY CALM

  RAMSEY’S GOLD

  The Assassin Series

  KING OF SWORDS

  NIGHT OF THE ASSASSIN

  RETURN OF THE ASSASSIN

  REVENGE OF THE ASSASSIN

  BLOOD OF THE ASSASSIN

  REQUIEM FOR THE ASSASSIN

  The JET Series

  JET

  JET II – BETRAYAL

  JET III – VENGEANCE

  JET IV – RECKONING

  JET V – LEGACY

  JET VI – JUSTICE

  JET VII – SANCTUARY

  JET VIII – SURVIVAL

  JET IX – ESCAPE

  JET – OPS FILES (prequel)

  JET – OPS FILES; TERROR ALERT

  The BLACK Series

  BLACK

  BLACK IS BACK

  BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK

  BLACK TO REALITY

  Non Fiction

  AN ANGEL WITH FUR

  HOW TO SELL A GAZILLION EBOOKS

  (while drunk, high or incarcerated)

  About the Author

  Featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Times, and The Chicago Tribune, Russell Blake is The NY Times and USA Today bestselling author of over thirty-five novels, including Fatal Exchange, The Geronimo Breach, Zero Sum, King of Swords, Night of the Assassin, Revenge of the Assassin, Return of the Assassin, Blood of the Assassin, Requiem for the Assassin, The Delphi Chronicle trilogy, The Voynich Cypher, Silver Justice, JET, JET – Ops Files, JET – Ops Files: Terror Alert, JET II – Betrayal, JET III – Vengeance, JET IV – Reckoning, JET V – Legacy, JET VI – Justice, JET VII – Sanctuary, JET VIII – Survival, JET IX – Escape, Upon a Pale Horse, BLACK, BLACK is Back, BLACK is The New Black, BLACK to Reality, and Deadly Calm.

  Non-fiction includes the international bestseller An Angel With Fur (animal biography) and How To Sell A Gazillion eBooks In No Time (even if drunk, high or incarcerated), a parody of all things writing-related.

  Blake is co-author of The Eye of Heaven and The Solomon Curse, with legendary author Clive Cussler. Blake’s novel King of Swords has been translated into German by Amazon Crossing, The Voynich Cypher into Bulgarian, and his JET novels into Spanish, German, and Czech.

  Blake writes under the moniker R.E. Blake in the NA/YA/Contemporary Romance genres. Novels include Less Than Nothing, More Than Anything, and Best Of Everything.

  Having resided in Mexico for a dozen years, Blake enjoys his dogs, fishing, boating, tequila and writing, while battling world domination by clowns. His thoughts, such as they are, can be found at his blog: RussellBlake.com

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  Chapter 1

  Nine kilometers south of Tel Aviv, Israel

  Maya ignored the bead of perspiration trickling down her forehead and blinked it away as it completed its inexorable descent and splashed into her eye. Her attention was riveted on the doorway to her right as she crept on catlike feet, her combat boots nearly silent on the dusty path between the dilapidated structures, the blazing sun creating an unbearably humid swelter amidst the crumbling buildings.

  Movement drew her gaze to the right for a split second before she dismissed it and refocused on the doorway, her new Glock 17 clutched in a two-handed grip as she moved in a crouch. It was just an errant bit of desiccated vegetation blown by the hot breeze, she thought, and then she rolled to the side as the door flew open and a figure filled the aperture.

  She held her fire. It was a student carrying a book bag – a boy no more than thirteen.

  Not a threat.

  Maya was already back on her feet by the time she’d fully processed the thought. Her pulse thudded in her ears as she willed her breathing back to its shallow norm. The pistol grip felt slick in her hands as her eyes roamed over the façade before settling on the rusting hulk of an ancient sedan abandoned near the curb. The windows were coated in a film of grime that made it impossible to see through them. She remembered her training and peered beneath the vehicle, looking for the telltale giveaway of feet, but only saw tires – not by any means proof positive that nobody was lying in wait, but sufficient to lower her threat evaluation by several degrees as she sidled toward the car.

  A window creaked almost imperceptibly above a storefront. Maya was already in motion at the sound, her senses hyper-tuned as she ducked for cover even as she brought her weapon to bear on the second story. Three windows, all open. The flutter of white drapes in the corner of one. Another squeak – a rusty hinge protesting the wind’s gentle push. No glint of a rifle barrel, no face pulling back into the shadows, no watchful eyes studying her, waiting for an opportune moment to strike.

  Get a grip. Focus. You’re better than this.

  Her inner voice chided her for the false alarms. She was a professional now, supposedly cool under pressure, and her heart was trip-hammering like a debutante’s after a first kiss. That wouldn’t do – it could get her dead in a hurry.

  Her reverie was cut short by a scrape from near a truck a dozen yards further along the dusty way. A shoe on pavement. Maya was running toward it, closing the distance to improve her odds of a kill shot, when a figure ducked from around the front fender with the distinctive shape of an AK-47 gripped in its hands.

  The Glock bucked like a living thing as she fired four shots at the gunman’s torso, the grouping tight, she noted with satisfaction, even as another figure showed itself in the doorway by the truck. A woman wearing a long shapeless black burka stepped from the recess, and Maya relaxed.

  And spotted her error as the barrel of an assault rifle swung from beneath the woman’s robes.

  Maya’s weapon barked and two shots hit the woman squarely in the chest. Maya didn’t wait but charged the truck, only to change direction at the last second and sprint toward the far building, beyond which lay a vacant lot with the remnants of a demolished brick structure strewn in the tall grass.

  Grass that could easily hide an assailant.

  She was nearly to the edge of the lot when the truck exploded, the shockwave knocking her to her knees. The doors blew outward as an orange fireball soared into the sky, and her ears were ringing as she struggled to her feet. She hadn’t been expecting that.

  Which was another slip. She had to be prepared for anything and everything. The one that would kill her would be the one she didn’t see coming. That lesson had been drilled into her over and over, and she could hear her instructors’ voices repeating the mantra as she staggered toward the lot, shaking her head to clear it.

  The mission objective was located across the road – an innocuous hardware store, whose sign over th
e barred pictured window featured a painted hammer with a pair of overall-clad legs marching toward a running nail.

  According to the scenario report, she was to assume the owner was in the business of supplying the locals with more than tools.

  The carnage in the street was a good indication that was a safe assumption.

  Gunshots barked from the shop, and Maya bolted for the nearest doorway – she’d be a sitting duck in the field, with not enough time to take cover in the grass. She dismissed firing at the shooter as she ran, and instead slipped the pistol into her waistband. Maya took two running steps up the side of the arched doorway and catapulted herself to the far second-story terrace jutting from the front façade. Her hands caught the lip, and the momentum of her legs carried her torso up enough so she could haul herself onto the ledge and then swing over the iron banister, the months of parkour training naturally complementing the gymnastic skills she’d acquired in adolescence. The weapon across the road chattered again as she landed. Her abs and arms burned from the strain, but she ignored the pain and stayed in constant motion.

  She was already through the terrace door in a shower of broken glass, her pistol back in hand, when the gunfire stopped, leaving the street eerily silent except for the crackling of the burning truck. She cocked her head, listening, and swept the area with the Glock as she forced herself forward toward the rear of the unfurnished room.

  She’d been spotted, so the only possibility of survival was to do the unexpected.

  Maya spied stairs to the upper story, and within seconds was on the roof, running along the flat surface as she gauged the distance between the building she was on and the one adjacent. Probably three meters.

  Her body seemed to hover in the air between the rooftops, hanging in flight like a black-clad bird, and then she was rolling as she struck the far roof, the force of the impact absorbed by the momentum.

  She wasted no time heaving the wooden door open, and took the rickety rungs of the ladder two at a time as she lowered herself onto the landing.

  There was no sound. Nobody in the building, as far as she could tell.

  The rear service door hung off one hinge. The old wooden slab had decayed to the point of being useless, and a single blow from her boot sent it tumbling into the dirt. Maya was a dark blur as she streaked to the alley she’d just vaulted over, and she barely hesitated when she burst from the space. The hardware store was now only a few meters from her.

  Movement from inside the store caught her eye, so she fired into the recesses of the shop as she approached. She fished a grenade from her pocket, pulled the pin, and tossed it through the doorway before throwing herself sideways to avoid the worst of the blast. A door opened onto the street at the corner, slamming against the frame, and she fired twice even as she landed on the hard-packed red dirt, her eyes unblinking.

  A whistle blared from the other end of the lane.

  “Stand down,” a deep male voice called – Jaron, the head of training in the top-secret Mossad camp.

  Maya placed her nearly empty Glock on the dirt next to her and waited for three fatigue-clad figures to approach along the road. Two men and a middle-aged woman with a perpetual frown on her face: Jaron; Solomon, the camp second-in-command; and Elana, her instructor, who didn’t look happy.

  “Well, Wonder Woman, congratulations,” Elana said, her words dripping with mockery, her eyes on the target Maya had just drilled with two rounds spaced three inches apart. “You executed a nun.”

  Maya’s eyes moved to the aluminum cutout that had sprung from the doorway on a track – the nun habit and clutched Bible unmistakable.

  “And I took out the target,” Maya reminded them.

  Jaron nodded. “That you did. But what everyone would remember would be you butchering one of God’s special children.” His words were quiet, but his message was unmistakable.

  “You can’t behave as though there are no consequences to your actions,” Solomon added. “And what the hell was that with the terrace?”

  “If I’d stayed in the street, I would have been pinned down,” Maya explained as Elana offered a hand to help her up. “So I improvised.”

  “You could have killed yourself jumping across the alley,” Elana said, but Maya thought she detected a faint trace of admiration in the stern woman’s voice.

  “I didn’t,” Maya said. “I took out the target. And yes, with regrettable collateral damage. But the target’s neutralized.”

  Jaron shook his head. “I’m not sure what we’re going to do with you, Maya.”

  “How did I score?” she asked.

  “Top of all ranges…until you blew a hole through Mother Theresa there,” Solomon admitted.

  “Then the lesson here is don’t kill nuns,” Maya said, brushing dirt off the knees of her pants. Elana tossed her a towel and she wiped her face. “I wasn’t expecting the truck explosion.”

  “I’m glad our obstacle course is still capable of serving its purpose and surprising our recruits,” Jaron said drily. “All right. We’re done for the morning. Get cleaned up and meet Elana in the mess in twenty minutes.” He regarded Maya. “Are you hurt?”

  Maya’s face was unreadable. “Just a few scrapes and bruises.”

  “Very well. You’re dismissed.”

  The three Mossad instructors watched Maya’s fluid stride as she left the scattering of buildings located in the remote reaches of a military base off-limits to anyone without a top-secret clearance. When she’d turned the corner, Jaron glanced at Elana. “Have you ever seen anything like that?”

  “Never. She made it past every hurdle without incident. Nobody’s ever done that since we started using this simulation. The highest anyone ever scored was Itzhak last year, and he got tagged outside the shop. She actually ran the gauntlet and placed the grenade. That’s theoretically impossible.”

  “Let’s not forget the nun, though,” Solomon said quietly.

  “No, let’s not,” Jaron agreed. “Our Maya poses an interesting conundrum for us, doesn’t she? We all know what would happen in real life if she’d shot a member of the clergy. It would be in the papers for months. We’d be skewered. Heads would roll, regardless of how successful the mission was.”

  “Perhaps her activities should be limited to more…surgical missions?”

  Jaron nodded. “A sanitizer.”

  “Some show more aptitude than others,” Elana said.

  “We have no high-level female sanitizers. There hasn’t been one since you hung up your spurs,” Jaron said to her.

  Elana nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I know. It’s a specialized skill set that’s far more demanding than those possessed by our field agents.” Elana paused. “She’s too young and too green to be able to say for sure. She needs more field time, to be stressed in real-world scenarios, tested by life. Then…if she survives…perhaps.”

  “What’s your formal recommendation?” Solomon asked her.

  “For now? Continue with the training until an opportunity arises for her to go into the field again. I can believe her account of the mission on the island, after watching her for the last few months, but she still has much to learn.”

  Jaron grunted, eyes fixed on the smoldering truck chassis. “Hopefully circumstances will cooperate, and she’ll get the time she needs.”

  “Hope is rarely an effective strategy for anything,” Elana chided.

  “I know.”

  Chapter 2

  Hat Yai, Songkhla Province, Thailand

  Chains of dry lightning flashed through plum-colored clouds that loomed over the distant jungle, illuminating the night sky above Hat Yai, a vibrant metropolis in the south of Thailand and the capital of Songkhla Province. The city was modern and prosperous by area standards, and shared the region’s racial and cultural diversity due to its proximity to the Malaysian border.

  Pedestrians roved the teeming sidewalks as three-wheeled tuk-tuks buzzed along the clogged streets, their whin
ing singsong engines like the atonal mating cries of gigantic insects. A string of multicolored lights streamed up the side of the mountain the city surrounded, at the top of which a golden Buddha silently watched over the sprawl.

  The city center boasted a plenitude of multistory buildings, hotels, offices, banks, and government edifices vying with one another for prominence. Office workers heading home after a grueling day streamed along the arteries, mingling with tourists and pleasure-seekers out on the town for dinner or cocktails. Horns honked in protest as indifferent motorcycles jockeyed for advantage in the dense traffic, the boulevards a kind of controlled pandemonium of near misses and suicide acceleration. Outraged shouts and squeals of brakes punctuated the din of motors and horns.

  The Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel was a white monolith that towered over the neighboring buildings, its oversized beige marble columns framing the entryway with palatial splendor. Outside on the sidewalk, street vendors hawked their colorful wares, indifferent to the security forces lounging near the McDonald’s at the side of the hotel entrance.

  The narrow cobblestone street that provided access to the hotel was swarming with humanity at rush hour. Waves of pedestrians hurried on their way home, and nobody noticed the scarred motorcycle with a delivery box mounted on the back when it pulled onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel and parked near the restaurant. The rider took his time shutting off the motor and checking the area before making for the far corner and sauntering into the intersection on foot.

  Abreeq Zulfi checked his watch as he crossed the street. His timing couldn’t have been better. The security forces were usually lazy, he knew from days of painstaking surveillance, and the police stationed in the area were even more so, especially at dinnertime when their minds were on filling their bloated bellies rather than protecting their flock.

  He’d been in Hat Yai for a week, planning the series of bombings that would rock the city, as part of his contract with the BRN – a local Islamist extremist group that, while lacking nothing for motivation, didn’t possess the necessary skills to conduct an effective reign of terror.