Page 14 of Into the Gray Zone

I laughed and said, “Well, the good news is we’ve got at least two days of advanced force work before anything happens, so you’re off from General Order One for two nights. After that, stand by for a call.”

The copilot blurt out, “Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!”

He held out his fist for a bump. I tapped it and said, “Don’t go overboard here. I might need at least one pilot available and I don’t want to be bailing you out of an Indian jail.”

I turned back to the cabin, seeing Veep and Brett removing panels in the walls of the aircraft, exposing weapons and surveillance gear. I saw Veep pull out what looked like a 1911 pistol with an integral compensator and a red-dot sight. He said something and Brett countered with another 1911, this one more compact, with a threaded barrel. Neither were the striker-fired guns we had used in the past.

I said, “What are those? Where are the Glocks?”

Veep turned to me, looking embarrassed. Not for him, but for me. Knuckles said, “You shouldn’t spend so much time laying on the beach in Charleston. They’re Staccato 2011s. We’ve gone to them as our standard firearm.”

That surprised me. “Forty-fives? We’ve gone back to old-school stuff?”

Honestly, I didn’t mind, as I’d grown up in the special operations world with a 1911 forty-five caliber. It was like pulling teeth to get me to switch to the Glock in the first place.

He said, “No, they’re nine-mil double stacks. But they’re sweet shooting. Trigger like an icicle and a recoil impulse that is about perfect.”

I took the compensated one, racked the slide, eyed the chamber to ensure it was empty, then let it ride home. I took aim at a screw in the wall and pulled the trigger. Itwascrisp. I said, “Leave this one. Take the compacts with the threaded barrel.”

Brett smiled, looked at Veep, and said, “Told you.”

Veep said, “But you won’t believe how flat this one shoots, and with the SRO, you can’t miss.”

I said, “I hear you, but we’re going for concealment over capability. And we might need to suppress.”

That ended the argument. I turned to Knuckles and said, “You got a surveillance package we can take out of here without looking like we’re setting up for a movie shoot?”

“Yeah. Already packed. One Pelican case with a little of everything. IP cameras, Growlers, GPS tags, and Wi-Fi penetration kits. Creed did a deep dive on the resort. It should all be plug-and-play on their own Wi-Fi system. All I need to do is log on, according to him.”

“Perfect.” I turned to Jennifer and said, “Transportation?”

She said, “Here now. Waiting on us.”

“Even more perfect.”

I got the attention of the group and said, “This should just be a walk in the park, but as usual, we won’t treat it that way. First order of business is to get a layout of the grounds. We’ll check in, then split up the property.” I handed out a sheet of assignments with a map of the grounds, detailing who was checking out what. “Teams are Jennifer and me, Brett and Veep. Knuckles, you’re on your own.”

“Why am I alone?”

“Because you’re so handsome. Work your magic on any female you see. Find out what you can.”

That brought out a laugh, but I was only half kidding. Knuckles was a man-whore of the first order, with women flocking to him for some strange reason I could never understand. He might actually find something useful by himself.

He scowled but took the assignment list without any other protest. I said, “Keep your eyes and ears open and we might just get to enjoy this trip.”

Brett rolled his eyes and said, “If they wanted a walk in the park, they wouldn’t have asked for you.”

Chapter10

Inside the seedy hotel room Kamal was incredulous. He said, “Do the operation? You mean capture the billionaire? Are you mad? I’m sure they’ve locked down the resort, and that’s if he’s even going to show.”

Mr.Chin said, “He’ll show. He’s looking at pre-wedding celebration venues for his daughter. This one and a place in Jaipur are the final two that made the cut. The RAW caught our man for terrorism, but they have nothing to do with his search for a wedding party site. He’s going to rent the entire place, if he chooses it. He’ll come.”

“How does that even matter? Sidak was captured before he could learn any important information. We have the outside schematics and the guards along the seacoast, but we have nothing for the interior. We don’t have the room number, the floor plans for the restaurants, the entry in and out of the kitchens, the parking structure, the security for the front doors, nothing. All we have is the back area by the ocean.”

“That’s all we need.”

“What? That’s theleastof what we need. The original plan was to infiltrate while he was at dinner, utilizing the kitchen access as staff. We don’t know anything about any of that. Ingress, egress, assault plan, it’s all a vacuum.”

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