Flawlessly Executed (Dark Horse Guardians Book 3) (21 page)

Some of the men eyed Ben and he felt comfortable enough in the burka to turn away feigning shyness and modesty. The men were not interested in him once they laid eyes upon the beautiful young prostitutes waiting for their arrival. They were ushered to the lounge area surrounding the dance floor.

On the dance floor a young woman slithered on a stripper pole. She was a regular and a warm-up for the main attraction. The sixteen patrons took their seats and started smoking the hookah. Drinks were served. Young prostitutes sat with the men and caressed their bodies beneath their robes. Occasionally, one man would yell to another asking if he could trade with him. The blue or green-eyed women were highly desirable and they fought over them in a good-natured way. The prostitutes were compliant.

Finally, the moment arrived for Nate to introduce the new talent, Anisa. In Farci, with great fanfare he explained her act would be risqué and filled with forbidden pleasures. Whetting the appetite for her performance, Nate explained there would be a surprise in the act and the men were to remain seated because it was important for Anisa’s safety. He went so far as to tell them that most men become so aroused by her act, they want to touch her and that was not allowed.

Rashida arrived right on cue and began her seductive dance while Nate controlled the lighting and music. He also had earlier instructed everyone except the prostitutes to leave the building due to a problem with the electrical system. The SEAL team had the kitchen cleared quietly in a matter of minutes. And the rest of the building was empty except for the terrorists, Rashida, Nate and Ben. The wild card in the scenario was the prostitutes. But Ben had a plan for them, too.

As Rashida’s dance became less traditional and much more erotic, the music changed and the lighting dimmed. Ben wheeled out a mannequin out to the performance area, but this was no ordinary mannequin. This was a robotic device that looked
exactly
like a human being. Programmed to move as a living human being. Ben entered the code remotely. Then he wheeled the seemingly beautiful young woman on a padded lounger to the center of the floor.

The android was the image of a strikingly beautiful woman, and the movements mimicked exactly those of a female writing in ecstasy. Rashida was now touching the android sexually and the sounds emanating from the two were dramatic. As the robotic beauty spread her legs, Rashida placed her hands on the thighs and the music changed. This was the cue for the prostitutes to make an excuse to go to the bathroom.

The men were enthralled with Rashida’s performance and barely noticed the prostitutes’ absence. They were high on hashish and so captivated with the scene, they were pleasuring themselves. Every one of them were mesmerized by the two women making love, doing forbidden things. The scene riveted their attention long enough.

Within sixty seconds the room went black. However, the music continued. The men in the audience momentarily thought this was part of the act. Rashida, Ben, Nate and the prostitutes were outside of the building and inside the armored van the SEAL team had waiting.

As they pulled away from the club all of the doors of the building were locked remotely by Ben. Sixty seconds later the ground beneath the van Ben was riding in rumbled. It had the feel of a significant earthquake. The beautiful android, filled with C4 exploded and the building imploded upon itself. Simultaneously, the charges set beneath the pier ignited. Projectiles of steel, glass and wood flew in all directions. Instantly the lights in the area went black. The armored vehicle sped away toward its destination ~ the safe-house in Syria.

In the blackness of night, the van dropped off the prostitutes and handed them neatly wrapped stacks of Syrian pounds. The van continued on to a seemingly normal home in the city of Aleppo, yet beneath was a bunker with an elaborate escape tunnel. Slipping silently into the place, the van pulled away and was parked out of sight. Ben was breathing a sigh of relief,
almost
. But knew the upcoming events could be fraught with hazards. The men ate and slept for a few hours.

At 6:00 AM, Ben received the text he was waiting for. Simply the number four. Ben donned his burka along with Nate and they walked the streets of Aleppo going into an alley that led to the back door of a small café. Two women with burkas cooking in the kitchen left and Ben and Nate replaced them for fifteen minutes. The human intelligence females entwined in the populace had gauged them correctly. They’d sell these bastards out for very little cash, more likely for revenge.

The focus was on four terrorists who ate breakfast at the café at the same time every week. They even ordered the same meals. Ben and Nate put droplets of Cyanide into the men’s tea and into their food. As expected, the waiter came to the kitchen and brought the meals out to the targets’ table. Once these bastards ingested the rapidly acting poison, they’d be dead within a matter of fifteen minutes. Ben and Nate nodded to the women waiting in the alley. They handed them each a batch of Syrian pounds with gloved hands and walked down the street. Three blocks away the van pulled to the curb and picked them up.

Their timing was impeccable. The four men in the café were on the floor twenty minutes later surrounded by concerned diners. Ben’s informant sent him a text that simply said,
gone
. He received another text giving him the heads up for the next hit. This one worried him most of all, even though the killing itself would be simple. He hated uncertainty, and this scenario had too many environmental variables.

The van stopped down the street from an ornate ten-story residential building in the city of Aleppo. People bustled around on the sidewalk during the early morning hours all seeming to be going somewhere. Nate and Ben, still dressed in burkas entered the lobby of the building and Ben approached the front desk and gave the man behind it an envelope.

Glancing at his watch, Ben noted it was exactly 7:00 AM. Ben and Nate stood waiting for the elevator and when it came down empty they got in and pushed the button for the tenth floor. Ben used his cell phone and his custom app to disable the security system for a few minutes. As the elevator doors opened, the target stepped inside. Once the elevator doors closed, Nate knocked the terrorist down to the floor and pinned him with his foot. With one swift action Ben slid the five-inch steel blade over the bastard’s jugular vein. Moving aside to avoid the spurting blood, Ben kept his foot on the target’s head.

Nate secured the dying man’s body as he kicked and squirmed for what seemed like two or three minutes. They stopped the elevator and prevented the doors from opening, waiting to make sure the target had bled to death. Then they programmed the elevator to go directly down to the ground floor and then back up to the tenth without stopping, thus giving them time for escape.

They hopped off at the street level. The elevator doors closed and traveled upward. They’d be long gone by the time it made it to the tenth floor and anyone found the son-of-a-bitch. Killing this man had been particularly satisfying for Ben and Nate. They knew his dossier of crimes was long, but among them was the taking off innocent lives, raping young boys and girls, and killing many Americans with much less mercy. Beneath the burka Ben smiled a little with the knowledge he had just killed a high profile murderer. There was some satisfaction in that.

Entering the sunshine outside, Ben and Nate walked a few blocks calmly stopping to peruse goods in a busy marketplace. Ben purchased a bag of fresh figs. A few minutes later the van picked them up. They had one more stop to make. This one had even more variables but he knew it was all a matter of timing. Every interruption or distraction had been accounted for,
so he hoped.

Ben received a text that simply said,
twenty-two
. That gave him the number of targets at the next stop. The van was now moving toward the mosque on the outskirts of town where radicals were planning their next moves to take over Syria and Iraq. The SEAL team was already on site disguised as Muslim men and Moshe’s men were positioned.

The mosque was filled with men, mostly young ones, and this was a big recruiting meeting for the cause. Europeans and Americans filtered into the mosque nodding at the men outside not realizing they were the last faces they’d see. Ben smiled as he realized this would be much better than twenty-two.

An unexpected high value target breezed through the entrance of the mosque and one of the Dark Horse Guardians recognized him and gave Ben the code name. Ben’s earpiece heard the voice of Tom Wilson whisper, “Popinjay.” This was unexpected. The mission would change slightly. Ben spoke softly into the tiny microphone, “Detain. Plan B.” The team and Moshe’s Unit all checked in with an Arabic text symbol. Somewhat relieved, Ben knew what he had to do.

Women were not allowed in the mosque, so Ben and Nate were dropped off a few blocks away. They walked by the building and noticed that the SEAL team and Moshe’s men were all in place. They had taken out all of the security men around the mosque quietly. The SEALs now stood in place of the guards, dressed exactly like them. The men nodded to Ben and Nate as they walked by. The insider in the mosque was a tiny mosquito drone. Ben viewed the images and sound on his phone as he watched Jake Wilson, garbed as an Arabic man, enter the mosque and hand the high value target a note. Abdul Rasin was alarmed by the note. It said his home was on fire and his wives and children were injured, possibly dead.

Ben watched as Abdul walked swiftly with Jake Wilson to the front of the mosque. The moment the two emerged they got into a waiting vehicle that sped away. Ben knew Jake and Elvis would drug Abdul and take him to the black site for interrogation. This man was holding hundreds of young girls and selling them as sex slaves. Ben wanted to personally interrogate him. Jake and Elvis had their orders. Ben focused on the task before him; the mosque and its occupants and sending them to Allah.

With eyes riveted on his watch, Ben noted it was exactly 7:45 AM. With the high value target removed, he and Nate were now far enough away to watch the explosion. The SEAL team made their exit and The Unit wasn’t far behind. Two armored vehicles picked the men up a block away.

They felt it before they saw it; the concussive wave was impressive. If viewed from afar, it appeared as if a giant meteor struck the building and it exploded. Ben smiled. There would be nothing left to pick through. There was a pile of rubble in a concave hole, the size of half an acre, and an acrid smell blew past them. The air was thick with dust and dirt. Cars and trucks nearby were toppled and alarms were sounding. It was a cacophony of sound that was pure music to his ears. Adrenaline coursed through him and every breath he took, every step, each movement had purpose.

Right after the initial explosion there were several others, diversions set by the team on their way out. The men were split into two vans. Both vehicles were now prepped to look like delivery trucks for a food service. They traveled South in the direction of the safe house located in Jordan. The guards at the checkpoint had been paid well to allow the vans to pass through. The trip was 300 miles along back roads. Most of the men slept from exhaustion. After three and a half hours and making it through each checkpoint, the men scrambled into the Jordanian safe house and made it to the bunker beneath. Exhausted and hungry they ate with little discussion and crawled into a sleeping area.

Ben had never been this tired in his life since BUD/S training and Hell Week. He was dehydrated and jacked on adrenaline. His head was throbbing from the level of concentration he had maintained since daybreak. Although he was exhausted, he couldn’t immediately fall asleep. There was one more task at hand, Abdul Rasin. Ben looked at Moshe and said, “Let’s do this.”

The interrogation room had a dirt floor and smelled like a freshly dug grave. Abdul Rasin was bound in a chair, his forty year old face highlighted by one fluorescent light on the ceiling. When Ben looked at the man sitting before him, he felt no remorse for what would come.

In the early morning hours after enduring several hours of Ben’s special brand of truth serum, Abdul Rasin was crying like a baby. Moshe brought cold water and a cup of coffee for Ben while he did what he had to do. This was never pleasant. It was akin to gutting a deer after the kill. It was a gory messy task but necessary to get to the meat of the matter. Abdul was on the floor tied to the chair. The chamber they were in was soundproofed and felt like a tomb. Exhausted, Ben looked at Moshe.

“Thanks for the coffee, bro. So, what do you think? Do we have enough information?” Ben queried.

“I think we do.” Moshe nodded.

Ben lifted his H&K MK23 and put two bullets straight through Abdul’s skull.

“I’ll get a couple of guys in here to get rid of this mess.” Moshe said.

“Yeah, I need some sleep.” Ben sighed. “We have a long day ahead tomorrow. Make sure that information gets to the spec op guys over here pronto.”

“I’m sending it to them now. Get some sleep.” Moshe replied. “The commander said a raid is being planned as they are receiving these coordinates. You did your bit, man, let it go. They will handle it.”

The men were in their bunks, some snoring loudly. Ben curled up on his cot, stiff from the long night and exhausted. He turned on his cell phone to view his home security system, his only connection to Lara. He wanted so much to call her, to hear her voice, to make her laugh. Instead, he took her sweatshirt out of his bag and buried his face into it. The moment he closed his eyes he fell asleep.