The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [125]
"Thoughts?"
"Pete called up from Charlottesville. Care to guess where our two trainees were?" Jerry Rounds asked.
"You're kidding," Tom Davis responded.
"No, I'm not. They whacked the bad guys for fair, without outside assistance, and they're back at the house now. Bonus: Brian-the Marine-had been having second thoughts about his function. That, Pete reports, is a thing of the past. He can't wait to go out on some real missions. Pete thinks they're just about ready, too."
"So, we just need some solid targets?" Hendley asked.
"My people will be checking the feed from NSA. You gotta assume that the bad guys will be talking back and forth now. Their downtime in chatting back and forth should be coming to an end even now," Rick Bell thought aloud. "If we're ready to go active, then we can go active, and soon."
That was Sam Granger's department. He'd kept quiet to this point, but now it was time to speak.
"Well, guys, we have two kids ready to go out and service some targets," he said, using a phrase the Army had invented twenty years before. "They are good kids, Pete tells me, and from what happened today I think they will be properly motivated."
"What is the opposition thinking?" Hendley asked. It wasn't hard to figure out, but he wanted additional opinions.
"They wanted to sting us cleverly. The objective here manifestly is to strike at Middle America," Rounds led off. "They think they can strike fear in our hearts by showing us they can attack us anywhere, not just at obvious targets like New York. That was the element of cleverness in this operation. Probably fifteen to twenty total terrorists, plus some support personnel, maybe. That's a fairly large number, but not unprecedented-they maintained good operational security. Their people were well motivated. I would not say that they were particularly well trained, though, they just decided to toss a mad dog in the backyard to bite some of the kids, as it were. They've demonstrated their political willingness to do some very bad things, but that's not a surprise; also to throw dedicated personnel away, but that's not a surprise either. The attack was low-tech in nature, just some bad guys with light automatic weapons. They have demonstrated viciousness, but not real professionalism. In less than two days, the FBI will have them tracked down to their point of origin, probably, and maybe their routes of entry. They did not learn to fly or anything like that, so they probably have not been in-country all that long. I'd be interested in learning who scouted out their objectives. The element of timing suggests some preplanning, but not much, I'd guess-it's not hard to read the time off a wristwatch. They didn't plan on getting away after doing their shooting. They probably came in with their objectives already identified. At this point, I'd bet a few bucks that they've only been inside our borders for a week or two-even less, depending on their method of ingress. The Bureau will have that one nailed down pretty soon."
"Pete reports the weapons were Ingram sub-machine guns. They look pretty-that's why they show up in TV and the movies," Granger explained. "But they are not really efficient weapons."
"How did they get them?" Tom Davis asked.
"Good question. Figure the FBI already has the ones from Virginia, and is busy tracking them down by serial number. They're good at it. We should have the information by tonight. That will give them leads on how the weapons got into the terrorists' hands, and then the investigation will get going."
"What's the Bureau going to do, Enzo?" Brian asked.
"It's a major case. It'll have a code word assigned, and every agent in the country can be called in to work on it. Right now, first thing they're looking for is the car the bad guys used. Maybe it's stolen. More likely it's rented. You have to sign for those, leave a copy of your driver's license, credit card, all the normal stuff you do in order to exist in America. It can all be followed. It all leads somewhere, bro. That's why you chase them all down."
"How are you