Chapter 51
DIA Headquarters
Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling
Washington, D.C.
“Eight,” Katie said.
“Eight so far,” Kyle corrected.
They were watching a split-screen display with four separate feeds—according to Kyle, the most relevant cameras from around the boardwalk that MAADN had been able to access.
In those disjointed scenes, eight individuals were being tracked as hostiles, each marked with a red diamond symbol.
The friendlies were also being tracked, blue circles tagged with the mission call sign of each element.
Katy easily recognized John Clark and Ding Chavez in the clearest feed—they were labeled as Blue 1.
“We need a more complete picture,” Kyle prompted.
“TIDE?” queried Moose, who was seated at an adjacent workstation.
“No better time.”
“TIDE?” Katie queried. “What’s that?”
“It’s a new program we’ve been developing.
Stands for Tactical Information Display Enhanced.
We brought in some DEVGRU guys a few months ago to help us with the design.
It’s based on the tactical situation displays you find on fighter aircraft.
Years ago, tactical aviation hit a point where the amount of information available to pilots began exceeding their ability to comprehend it.
It was classic information overload, a fire hose of data that just became noise.
There was a critical need to condense everything into a single, easily decipherable presentation—a big picture of the battle space that automatically prioritized what was important. ”
“And TIDE does the same thing on the ground?”
“That’s the idea. It’s designed for an urban environment, places where you have so many inputs the big picture turns to clutter. Cameras, overhead reconnaissance, mobile phone tracking, hacked feeds from other intel sources. It gets overwhelming fast.”
The four-field display of raw feeds was shunted to a secondary screen and the main monitor blinked to life with a new presentation.
Katie saw a high-res satellite map of La Corniche and the bordering city—roughly one square mile of Tangier in sharp detail.
The blue symbols representing Task Force 99 were spread across the waterfront.
On the surrounding boulevard and streets eight red diamonds hovered like a noose.
“That’s a lot of adversaries,” Katie said.
“Those are only the ones MAADN has positively identified. Chances are, there are more.”
Katie felt a churn in her gut. Clark and his team were surrounded, yet the best view of their situation was here.
She found her eyes glued to the symbol labeled Blue 1.
A little over a day ago she had been talking to John Clark at Incirlik.
Now here he was, a thousand miles away and back in the hunt.
The man did get around. She knew he was a legend in the spec ops community, but watching him work on a live feed, from half a world away, felt surreal.
Two new red diamonds appeared on the west side—more threats verified by MAADN.
“New hostiles near the marina,” Kyle announced. “Fifty yards north of the Sprinter.”
“Is there any way we can send this picture to Clark and his team?”
“No, the TIDE software is purely experimental. No way to relay the output to the field.”
“We need to find a way,” Katie said.
Before Kyle could respond a new symbol appeared. A lone man on the eastern boardwalk was highlighted by a flashing green circle. He was walking quickly, thirty paces behind two of the identified threats on the east side.
“Is that Fulcrum?” Katie asked.
Kyle referenced another screen. “It’s only probable right now—that’s why the tag is flashing. Somatic recognition only, no facial capture.”
“Somatic?” she asked.
“The way he’s moving—his gait, build, stance. We fed in some old video footage of Klaus from a financial seminar to use for comparison.”
“You can identify somebody by the way they move?”
“You’d be surprised at how accurate it is. But the face will confirm it—he’s about to move into the field of view on camera four.”
The man appeared on the bottom-right screen. The flashing circle went solid.
“It’s him!” Katie said.
“Yeah. And he has no idea who the guys in front of him are.”
“He’s going to walk right past them. We need to reach Clark! He needs to know what’s happening!”
“Katie, we’re doing our best—”
“Do better!”
Kyle glanced at his sister. They’d had a thousand dustups over the years, like any close-in-age siblings. He knew her moods and signals, and the tone she’d just used was a redline. He also knew that she was right.
Tangier, Morocco
“One, this is Gamer, do you copy?”
Clark’s thoughts stumbled for two reasons. First was that a new voice had entered the comm net. Second was that it was a voice he instantly recognized: someone he’d had an extended conversation with very recently.
“One copies,” Clark responded.
It struck him that Katie had done exactly as he’d suggested; she’d gone back to D.C.
, no doubt taking care of JC, and then dove right in with CC6.
Clark was impressed, but not really surprised.
It was precisely what her father would have done when he was her age.
He shunted away a fleeting urge to tell Katie as much. Now wasn’t the time.
“We have a positive ID on Fulcrum,” she said. “Gray hoodie, khaki pants. Moving fast sixty yards east of Two. He’s about to overtake two confirmed hostiles.”
Clark scanned the area and easily picked out the man in question.
He was a hundred and fifty yards away. Clark couldn’t see Klaus’s face to make a positive ID, but he trusted what Katie was telling him.
The two hostiles were obvious. From this distance he couldn’t see their faces, but they were moving with all the arrogance of strip-club bouncers—typical GRU swagger.
Both men were surveying the crowd openly, the way a policeman might—five seconds spent on every face.
This told Clark they weren’t experienced operators.
Five seconds was an eternity. Better to glance, take a snapshot, and decipher the picture later.
Success, however, wasn’t always about being a pro—dumb luck had put geometry in their favor.
He and Ding instinctively picked up their pace. “Two, One. Close in and be ready to intervene. No weapons if you can avoid it.”
“Two copies,” Wu replied.
“Gamer has new secondary threats IDed. Standing by to brief.”
Clark was thankful for Katie’s radio discipline. They needed the frequency clear to deal with the immediate tactical problem. Once that was under control, she could give them a broader picture for egress.
He saw Wu and Hyori take an angle to intercept Fulcrum.
It was a delicate balance. Move too slow and they wouldn’t reach him in time.
Move too fast and they would draw attention.
There was always a chance the Russians wouldn’t recognize Klaus—he was still wearing the hoodie and sunglasses.
But banking on an enemy’s incompetence was a fool’s game.
The most prominent feature on La Corniche was a series of tall glass monuments spaced along the broad path.
Clark zeroed in on the farthest one as Klaus passed behind it.
He was walking quickly, oblivious to the fact that he was overtaking a pair of Russians—the two Wu had pegged as being from a recruiting poster.
Clark said, “Two, can you get there in time?”
“Going to be tight,” Wu replied.
Klaus was a few steps behind the poster boys. Then, just as he was about to overtake them, he veered left. He’d decided to go around the opposite side of the glass monument, which resembled a twenty-foot-tall elevator shaft. He would end up right beside the GRU men when they reached the far side.
At that point the Russians would surely recognize him.
Clark and Chavez were fifty yards away when they saw Wu and Hyori begin trotting toward the Russians.
They had seen the geometry exactly as Clark had and apparently abandoned the idea of blending in.
Moments later, they did something Clark hadn’t seen coming.
They began talking animatedly and gesticulating toward the water.
“What the hell are they doing?” Ding said under his breath.
Clark was about to say he had no idea when Hyori made a move that changed the situation entirely. He reached into his pocket, removed something, and pointed it decisively at the Russians.
The two GRU goons stopped dead in their tracks.