The Enemy Within

Helen held her breath until Brett stopped moving, dangling only a foot or so from the window, just out of the line of sight of anybody looking outside. She watched closely as he holstered his automatic and reached inside one of the equipment pouches on his assault vest. Then he leaned over, slapped the piece of electronic listening gear now in his hand onto the top part of the window and rolled away.

His whisper ghosted through her headset. “Probe active. Live on channel three.”

Helen switched the setting on her radio, shifting to the broadcast from the bug Brett had just put in place. Nothing.

Just the soft hiss of static and dead air. There was no one inside the room behind the window. She swallowed her disappointment. On paper, the senior rabbi’s office had seemed a logical spot for the terrorists to hole up in. According to the blueprints Tanner’s men had liberated from the county records, the room had just that one narrow window and only one easily guarded door leading out to a secretary’s office. Well, she thought coldly, they would just have to try again, somewhere else.

At her quiet command, Brett began climbing, hauling himself up hand over hand easily, despite the weight of equipment and weapons he carried.

“Romeo One, this is Romeo Five. I think I’ve got something.” Special Agent Frank Jackson’s normal stoic calm was gone.

Helen glanced behind her in surprise. She’d deployed Jackson and his partner, Gary Ricks, along the synagogue’s eastern wall, more to cover all the bases than from a real belief they might hear anything in that area. She could just make out Ricks hunched over near the edge of the roof. So Jackson must be suspended somewhere beside one of the two huge stained-glass windows that opened up into the temple’s worship hall. “Go ahead, Romeo Five.”

“I have audio on channel six.”

“Switching now.” Helen changed the setting on her radio again.

She tensed as a number of different voices suddenly boomed hollowly through her headphones. Some were higher-pitched children’s voices, several of them crying softly while others tried to console them. Others were deeper, but still identifiably belonged to women mothers trying desperately to hush their weeping sons and daughters. There were other voices too louder, harsher, and angrier. They belonged to men riding on the knife edge of sudden violence and bloody murder. The terrorists.

One guttural drawl in particular caught her horrified attention. “Tell those brats to shut up, or I swear to God, I’ll blow them and this whole damned Jew rat’s nest to kingdom come!”

Another masculine voice sounded in her headset, but this one was younger, calmer, and more educated. “I will do my best. But I tell you again this exercise is futile. Surely you must know that the police are all around this temple by now? What do you hope to gain by holding these children and their mothers prisoner? Let them go and I will stay behind. Surely I am hostage enough for you?”

Helen nodded to herself. That must be Temple Emet’s assistant rabbi. A brave man. She only hoped his courage didn’t get him killed before she and her troops could rescue him.

The guttural voice spoke again, even angrier now. “One more word out of you, Jew-boy, and I’ll splash your god damned brains across that organ there, you hear?”

Helen breathed out. She had heard enough. The terrorists and their hostages were in the synagogue’s choir loft. It was time to leave before they realised just how close the HRT had gotten to them. She switched back to her section command frequency. “All Romeo units, this is Romeo One. We’ve pinged ‘em. Pull back to RP Alpha. Verify.”

One after another the men in her recon team checked in and confirmed that they were moving back to the rally point to await further orders.

SEPTEMBER 28

FBI command post, near the Temple

Helen stood at one of the large windows in the principal’s office they had commandeered as a command post, staring out across the open ground that separated the high school from Temple Emet. The sun was going down, spilling gold and red light across the synagogue complex. Pushed by the setting sun, the shadows were lengthening. It would be dark in less than an hour. But the full moon would rise a short time later, again making it too dangerous for them to move in until the very early hours of the next morning.

“Special Agent Gray?”

Helen turned away from the window. One of Larry McDowell’s assistants stood there a young man, fresh-faced, and probably almost straight out of the Academy.

“Agent McDowell would like you to join them across the hall for a planning conference.”

“I’ll be right there.” Helen watched the young man scurry off and then followed him. She was almost amused. So the all-knowing agent in charge had finally decided to acknowledge her existence. That must mean he was starting to feel the pressure from above and was looking for possible scapegoats.