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  Lost Girls

  ( The Cellar - 2 )

  Bob Mayer

  Who polices the world of covert operations? Enter the Cellar, the most secret spy organization hiding deep within the United States.

  Deep in the forests of Kentucky, a girl is held captive.

  In Oklahoma, a young preschool teacher is murdered in front of her students.

  In the Panhandle of Florida, a college undergrad is kidnapped from a nightclub.

  These seemingly unrelated crimes catch the eye of the Cellar, the ultrasecret cell of operatives set up to police all other government agencies. Cellar operatives Gant and Neeley, along with profiler Susan Golden, must track down those responsible. But these are not ordinary criminals. They are a highly trained Special Forces sniper team. Crisscrossing the United States as new Cellar head Hannah Masterson calls the shots from up high, the Cellar operatives soon find themselves being targeted. Whoever is behind this knows the ultra top-secret Cellar's tactics all to well.

  Underneath this web of death, deceit, and revenge lies an even more shocking crime… a conspiracy that powerful men will sacrifice their lives — and the lives of their families — to protect.

  Bob Mayer

  Lost Girls

  PROLOGUE

  One Year Ago

  In the night there is death.

  It was one of the first lessons they had taught the Sniper and he had never forgotten it. Night is a common denominator regardless of terrain, enemy or mission. It will always come with the movement of the planet. He knew how to move unobserved, like a ghost, in daylight, but the night was his special friend.

  He was dressed in a one-piece flight suit dyed black, underneath the full body ghillie suit, which consisted of burlap strips woven into green elastic. The natural color and uneven surface of the ghillie suit allowed him to blend in perfectly with his surroundings. He’d been in the same position for three days. His urine smelled of the jungle as he’d eaten only local food procured from it for a month prior to this mission. He’d had no need to defecate because he’d stopped eating two days before being infiltrated by covert Nightstalker helicopter into this Operational Area along the Caribbean coastline of Colombia close to the border with Panama. On one mission he’d gone eight days without the need. It wasn’t just the lack of food either.

  His cheek was pressed against the stock of the sniper rifle, his shooting eye closed and resting on the rubber, his other, free eye, open. It was a position he could hold for a very long time.

  The other two members of his team were within ten meters of his position. His Spotter was to his left and slightly upslope with a better view of the road that approached the village across the valley. His Security was located on the back slope of the ridge-line, covering him and the Spotter from the rear. He had neither seen nor heard them since they’d settled into position. That ended as the small earpiece crackled with static, a signal from the Spotter.

  The Sniper’s open eye spotted the headlights along the narrow mountain road on the ridgeline across from him, over a mile away. Three sets which agreed with the intelligence. Another unusual thing as the intelligence had come from the CIA, a source he’d found to be notoriously unreliable. Working with any of the alphabet soup organizations always entailed a certain degree of carefulness and there were a tangle of them operating here in South America.

  He twisted the on knob for the satellite radio in his backpack. The small dish it was attached to was twenty feet over his head, set in the branches of the tree covering his position, with a clear uplink. It was the first thing he had done upon arriving at the site after determining it was secured. He had not moved since climbing down, winding the thin green connecting wire around a vine.

  “Falcon, this is Hammer. Over.” He knew his two teammates could hear the transmission also as he radioed back to their superior, as everything he said was picked up by his throat mike and transmitted over the short range FM radio they all had.

  The reply was instantaneous. “This is Falcon. Go ahead. Over.”

  “Three vehicles moving in. Over.” He closed the non-shooting eye as he turned on the thermal sight bolted on top of the rifle. He slowly opened his left eye and blinked, as it was flooded with a spectrum of colors. He could see the hot engines of the vehicles on the road. Shifting right, he noted the dull red glows of cooking fires damped low in the village. Orange forms indicated people sleeping inside of huts. He’d counted seventy-six the previous night.

  His earpiece came alive. “Close to dawn. Over.”

  He knew what the Colonel meant. In less than thirty minutes they’d lose their friend, the darkness. He also knew what that sentence implied. They could pull out and leave the mission if they felt they couldn’t accomplish it without being compromised.

  The Sniper didn’t move. “Do I still have green? Over.”

  “Still green. Over.”

  People were stirring in the village as the sound of the approaching vehicles reached them.

  The Sniper wrapped his left hand around the stock, forefinger inside the trigger guard. The heavy barrel was supported by a bipod. His right hand was on the scope, adjusting the sensitivity. He’d zeroed in the thermal sight just before infiltration. He’d fired the weapon in many different situations so he knew how the bullet would act with the drop to the village. His nostrils flared as he sniffed and his eyes scanned the nearby vegetation for the slightest movement. No wind.

  Two trucks flanked a Land Rover as they pulled into the center of the village and came to a stop. He watched as a dozen men piled out of the back of each truck and began herding the people out of their shacks and into the common area. At this distance there was no noise from the village, just the sound of the jungle all around.

  They were efficient. In less than ten minutes all the villagers were corralled like cattle into a dark red blob in the center of the village. Except for two. He watched the heat signatures making their way through the village away from the crowd. Strange. One was human. A child from the size. The other was smaller, lower to the ground and leading the child.

  A dog. A half-smile crossed his lips as he realized that. And moving smart. Not dashing. Slinking, hiding, like a ghost leading a ghost. The kid was smart too, mimicking the dog. The Sniper visually followed them as they worked their way, avoiding the men with guns running around.

  “Good dog,” he mouthed, the sound not even heard by a rat five feet away or picked up by the throat mike.

  Very smart. It must be a very smart dog. And a very trusting boy. The Sniper tightened his left hand around the grip. His finger lightly touched the trigger as one of the men with guns was on an intercept course, but he held back as the dog paused, the boy right behind freezing, and the danger passed. They moved again.

  They were in the jungle.

  He abruptly shifted back to the village, the heat images getting blurred with the first rays of sun cutting horizontal lines across the scope.

  “Time,” Spotter said.

  The voice in the Sniper’s ear was flat, apparently without concern, but an unsolicited transmission like that from one of his teammates, the first word spoken since they’d settled into position, indicated the concern.

  “Hold,” he ordered.

  Three figures were at the forefront of the men holding automatic weapons, facing the villagers. The sniper pulled back from the rubber eyepiece and opened his other eye. There was no more than just the tint of dawn to the east. He pushed a button on the bulky sight on top of the weapon, shifting from thermal to telescopic.

  The gun was large, almost six feet long and weighed over thirty pounds. Thirty-two point five pounds without bullets to be exact. He had the number memorized along with many other strange facts that the vast majority of people walking
the face of the planet had never been exposed to. A ten round box magazine was fitted into the receiver, holding bullets that matched the gun in size, each round a fifty caliber — half inch in diameter, over six inches long — shell. A round that had been designed in the early part of the twentieth century for anti-tank use. Tanks were smaller and lightly armored then. Flesh and blood was still the same.

  Modern science had been applied to the weapon system though. These rounds were specially designed around a very hard, depleted-uranium core that gave them the capability to punch through lesser metal. On one mission he’d fired through a quarter inch steel plate taking out a thermal image on the other side.

  He pressed his eye against the rubber and waited as his pupil adjusted and the sun rose, accepting that he had lost the advantage of darkness.

  “Time,” Spotter repeated.

  The Sniper knew he was violating what they had agreed upon in mission planning, but he was in command and circumstances had changed. Spotter was simply doing his job with the reminder. The Sniper ignored the radio. He could see the three now. The center man was the target. The one on the right was also Colombian, but the face didn’t register. With a twitch he shifted left to the third. An American. He knew it as surely as the weight of his gun. Wearing khakis and a light bush jacket. LL Bean visiting the jungle.

  Mercenary?

  He’d served with men who’d gone for the green, flag be damned. His right hand twisted the focus, closing the visual distance until he was next to the man.

  The man reached inside his jacket and pulled out a cigarette. A flash of gold. A badge.

  The Sniper pulled back from the sight. “ID the man on the left?”

  “He has a badge,” the Spotter replied. “But I don’t recognize him. I think the badge is DEA but hard to tell at this range.”

  The Sniper keyed the satellite radio. “Falcon.”

  “Roger?”

  “I’ve got an American agent here in the village with the target. Possibly DEA. Over.”

  “Wait one.”

  A minute passed. The Sniper leaned forward and looked. Two of the armed men had pulled an old man forward, forcing him to kneel in front of the center man. The Sniper knew what was coming. It was as inevitable as the sun coming up. The silence in his ear stretched out.

  “Falcon?”

  Silence.

  The fact that neither of his teammates spoke either was a testament to their training as they dealt with a situation that was deteriorating with every passing minute.

  In the village, the center man pulled out a pistol, pressed it against the old man’s forehead and pulled the trigger all in one movement without hesitation. The blossom of blood and brain was highlighted in the scope as the body slowly fell backwards, landing awkwardly, the knees still tucked under. The Sniper had seen much death and it was never dignified.

  “Red.”

  The word from the satellite radio hit the Sniper almost as hard as the shot had the old man. “Say again. Over.”

  “Red. I repeat. Red. This is no longer your Operational Area. I say again, not your OA. Over.”

  A woman was dragged forward. The Sniper could see her mouth open, screaming. The center man put the muzzle of the gun against her forehead. The Sniper could see her speaking quickly, telling the gunman whatever it was he wanted to know.

  After a minute the man turned to a couple of his cohorts. Two came forward, grabbed an arm each and dragged the woman into a hut. Again, what was going to happen was almost pre-ordained.

  “Sir?” The Sniper said the word as if it were a question.

  “Command Authority says red. They’ve redrawn the lines. DEA has this area. Over.”

  The Sniper watched as a young man broke from the cowering group running toward the hut and was gunned down with a burst of automatic weapon fire. “You know what’s happening, sir?”

  “I can imagine.”

  “This is our mission. We owe these people. They did what was asked of them.”

  “Somebody’s running something. Something high level. This mission is the DEA’s now with no interference. Politics.”

  “That’s bullshit,” the Spotter said, the voice picked up by the satellite radio and transmitted. “People are dying. People who trusted you.”

  “Orders,” the Colonel repeated. “The line has been drawn. You’re out of your area of operations. Exfiltrate immediately. Out.”

  Other women were being dragged into huts to be raped. Sunlight glinted off a machete as one of the invaders brutally beheaded a cowering old man. That released them all like sharks smelling chum and the blood flowed.

  “We need to go,” Spotter said.

  The Sniper shifted the scope away from the rape and carnage to the far hill. He adjusted the thermal sight to accommodate the growing sunlight and then turned it on. He searched, the sight penetrating the jungle until he spotted the two small red dots. He scanned the space between the escapees and the village, freezing when he saw three men moving in the jungle. Professionals. He knew that. Making sure there were no witnesses to the massacre. These were a different caliber from the men raping and hacking in the village.

  “Hammer?” The Colonel’s voice had an edge to it. “Are you pulling back? Over.”

  “In a second,” the Sniper replied.

  “Damn it, Hammer. Don’t screw this up. This is bigger than you.”

  “Let’s go,” the Spotter said, echoing Spotter.

  The Sniper centered the reticules on the trail man’s head. He then adjusted ever so slightly for the lateral movement. He let out his breath, didn’t inhale, felt the rhythm of his heart. In between beats he squeezed the trigger. The round was just out of the muzzle as he shifted to the second, waited as his heart surged once, became still, pulled the trigger, shifted, heart-beat and then fired for the third time.

  “Pulling back now. Send in our ride. Out.” The Sniper tugged on the antenna wire and the satellite dish toppled out of the tree into his hands. He folded it and slid it into his rucksack with one practiced movement. He could hear yells and knew the men below were heading his way, reacting to the shots. He pulled the ghillie suit off and shoved it into a stuff sack, which went inside the rucksack. He placed the three bullet casings in the sack.

  His fingers were steady as he knelt and unscrewed two butterfly nuts holding the bulky barrel to the gun’s receiver. He slid the two parts into padded plastic containers on either side of his rucksack, and then retrieved an MP-5 sub-machinegun that had been strapped to the top. There was nothing left at the site as he threw the sixty pound pack holding gun, radio and other gear over his shoulders and set off into the jungle at a controlled sprint, the Spotter and Security falling in beside him without a word.

  They could hear shots as the mercenaries fired wildly while giving chase.

  The Sniper’s right hand held the MP-5, finger resting on the trigger guard, the safety off. “Falcon, this is Hammer. Over.”

  The helicopter pick up zone was less than a kilometer ahead. The chopper was supposed to be on station just over the border in Panamanian airspace. Less than five minutes flight time. If the Colonel, who was on board the chopper, had ordered the pilot to move when the Sniper had asked, it should be in FM range.

  He heard only the slight hiss of static indicating the radio was on.

  “Falcon, this is Hammer. Over.”

  “You screwed up, Hammer, damn-it.”

  The sniper abruptly stopped. The other two men came to a sudden halt also. They heard some more shots. Closer now. And from the noise they could tell a large group was moving through the jungle about three hundred meters to their left.

  “Say again? Over.”

  “I ordered you not to take action. We can’t cross the border now. Orders. We’re returning to base. You’re on your own. Out.”

  “Falcon? Falcon, this is Hammer. Over.”

  There was no reply.

  The Sniper considered their options. The pickup zone was no longer a viable destina
tion. The mercenaries were between his team and the border. But any other direction took the three of them further into Colombia.

  Both men were watching him, waiting.

  “North,” he ordered.

  They turned to the right, for the sea, and began running.

  The 5.45 mm round hit the Sniper just behind his left temple at such an angle that the bullet ricocheted along the skull and exited off the back of his head without penetrating.

  The Sniper fell to the jungle floor, blood pouring from the wound just as a Claymore mine exploded, knocking the other two men down.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Present

  Emily Cranston was tired. It was the last night of spring break, and even returning to class seemed bearable as long as she could get some sleep. She watched her friends, and wondered again where they got the energy. All three of them were dancing in what appeared to be a huge conga line of pressed bodies. You couldn’t have slid a toothpick between any of the dancers, except the occasional couple of guys who had poorly timed their rush to join, and found themselves without a female buffer. Emily noticed Lisa waving her over, but she pretended not to see. Lisa was sweet, really the best one of her friends, but even she couldn’t inspire Emily now.

  The week had been a disappointment, and Emily wasn’t sure of the reason. She had tried hard the last few nights to join in the dancing and drinking, but there was something wrong. She felt separate and alone, even in this crowded room. She watched her friends gyrate with abandon, their slender tanned bodies, and their shiny navel rings proof that they had done their vacation homework. They had endured the months in spin classes, the endless stomach crunches and the hours sweltering in a tanning bed. At the time, Emily had been too depressed to bother with the fifteen pounds she had gained eating cafeteria food.

  It seemed as soon as she left for college her parents announced that they had been separated for some time, and were getting a divorce. Emily had been shocked. She had always believed they were the happiest of families. Apparently, she had been happy alone. Her mother had even admitted their problems were longstanding, and that they had waited for Emily to leave home before separating. She, the last child of three, had postponed the split by a few years. It was a horrible thought. She tried not to dwell on it, but occasionally the odd memory would pop up, and she would wonder how she could have been so naive.