Patriot games - Tom Clancy [127]
"Wednesday morning. We must move quickly. Even with our contacts, it won't be easy."
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13
Visitors
he two men hunched over the blow-up of the map, flanked by several eight-by-ten photographs.
"This is going to be the hard one," Alex said. "This one I can't help you with."
"What's the problem?" Sean could see it, but by asking the question he could also gauge the skill of his new associate. He'd never worked with a black before, and though he'd met Alex and members of his group the year before, both were unknown quantities, at least in an operational sense.
"He always comes out by Gate Three, here. This street, as you see, is a dead end. He has to go straight west or turn north coming out. He has done both. This street here is wide enough to do the job from a car, but this one-too narrow, and it leads the wrong way. That means the only sure spot is right here, at the corner. Traffic lights here and here." Alex pointed. "Both these streets are narrow and always have cars parked on both sides. This building is apartments. These are houses-expensive ones. There isn't much pedestrian traffic here, oddly enough. One man can probably get by. Two or more, uh-uh." He shook his head. "And it's a white area. A black man would be conspicuous. Your guy has to wing this one alone, pal, and he's gotta be on foot. Probably inside this door is the best place, but he'll have to be on his toes or the target will get away."
"How does he get out?" Sean asked.
"I can park a car around this corner, or this one. Timing for that is not a concern. We can wait all day for the right shot. We have a choice of escape routes. That's no problem either. At rush hour the streets are crowded. That actually works for us. The cops will have trouble responding, and we can use a car that looks ordinary, like a state-owned one. They can't stop all of them. Getaway is easy. The problem is your man. He has to be right here."
"Why not catch him in his car at a different place?"
Alex shook his head. "Too hard. The roads are too crowded to be sure, and it'd be too easy to lose him. You've seen the traffic, Sean, and he never goes exactly the same way twice. If you want my opinion, you should split the operation, do it one part at a time."
"No." Miller was adamant. "We'll do it the way I want."
"Okay, man, but I'm telling you, this man is exposed."
Miller thought that one over for a moment. Finally he smiled. "I have just the right man for it.
"The other part?"
Alex switched maps. "Easy. The target can take any route at all, but they all come to this place here at exactly four forty-five. We've checked six days in the past two weeks, never been off by more than five minutes. We'll do the job right along here, close to the bridge. Anybody could handle this one. We can even rehearse it for you."
"When?"
"This afternoon good enough?" Alex smiled.
"Indeed. Escape route?"
"We'll show you. We might as well make it a real rehearsal."
"Excellent." Miller was well pleased. Getting here had been complicated enough. Not difficult, just complicated, involving six separate flights. It hadn't been without humor, though. Sean Miller was traveling on a British passport at the moment, and the immigration clerk at Miami had taken his Belfast accent for Scottish. It hadn't occurred to him that to an American ear there isn't much difference between a brogue and a burr. If that's the skill level in American law-enforcement officials, Miller told himself, this op should go easily enough.
They'd do the run-through today. If it looked good he'd summon the team, and they'd go in four days, he judged. The weapons were already in place.
"Conclusions?" Cantor asked.
Ryan picked up a sixty-page sheaf of paper. "Here's my analysis, for what it's worth-not much," Jack admitted. "I didn't turn up anything new. The reports you already have are pretty good, given the lack of real evidence to go on. The ULA is a really kinky bunch. On one hand their operations don't seem to have a real purpose that we can discern-but this kind of skill They're