Rising Tiger: A Thriller (63)
But on the flip side, if they were subcontracting to Beijing, why wouldn’t a criminal syndicate like G-Company inflate everything and try to get as much money out of the Chinese as possible?
That seemed like a perfectly rational explanation, but in situations like these, he always went with his gut. And his gut was telling him to be on guard.
Unlike with G-Company, manpower was where Raj’s operation fell down. Keeping the circle tight was good for operational security, but not for carrying out any actual operations. Asha might have had exceptional talents, but one against seven was not a fight you wanted to have if you could avoid it.
She had been determined, however, and now that the surveillance report was in, the odds of success may have just tilted in her favor. It all came down to how she used the information.
The best course of action would have been to wait until night, when she could operate under the cover of darkness. But she didn’t want to wait. She wanted to use the current intel and hit them now, ASAP. Gupta could only hope that she was making a sound tactical decision and not being motivated for revenge over what had happened earlier that morning.
* * *
Two blocks away, Asha had sat in the back of the tech company’s mobile command center, appreciating its air-conditioning and watching all of the countersurveillance unfold.
The sophistication of the equipment was impressive. Miniature hive-to-target drones, acoustic and thermal sensors, X-ray cameras, refraction arrays, and passive particle beam units were only a part of what the team had brought with them and had put into the field.
The 360-degree picture of the battlespace they created was like something out of a science fiction movie. The heights of the buildings, the thickness of the walls, the layouts of the apartments inside, as well as the positions of all the people, right down to the cars on the street—it all came together in a fully explorable, precisely accurate, three-dimensional digital rendering.
“Let me see here and here,” said Asha, pointing to two areas of the screen she was looking at.
One of the techs increased the magnification and zoomed in.
These people could literally see through walls. Now, thanks to them, so could she. Assessing all of the potential targets, she made her decision and contacted Raj.
She had a short but very particular list of gear she needed. “Give me an hour,” the man had responded.
One hour later, on the dot, her phone rang. It was Raj. “Three cars behind you is a red, four-door Honda. Everything you asked for is in the trunk.”
She thanked him and disconnected the call. As she did, one of the tech team showed her a small tablet. It was enclosed in a ruggedized polymer case by an American company called Juggernaut.
“This will allow you to continue monitoring everything. All I need to know is if you want it mounted to your forearm, or if you prefer flipping it down from your chest rig.”
The primary weapon she had asked Raj for was an H&K MP5. Per her training, she would need to maintain two hands on the weapon at all times. Letting go with one hand, in order to roll her forearm over, as if she were checking a watch, was not tactically sound and was instantly out of the question.
“Flipped down from my chest rig,” she replied.
The man set aside the straps he was holding and attached two mounts to the back of the Juggernaut case. “Just click these into your MOLLE webbing,” he said, “and you’ll be good to go.”
Asha thanked him, exited the vehicle, and walked back to the red Honda. She recovered the fob from where it had been hidden and popped the trunk.
Everything was there. The Heckler & Koch MP5SD submachine gun with an integrated suppressor, an M68 Aimpoint red dot scope, a stack of thirty-round magazines, a plate carrier with one ceramic plate loaded in front, a two-shot Taser 7 CQ designed for close-quarter engagements, a fixed-blade knife, zip ties, a couple of distraction devices, just in case, and a handful of other odds and ends that might prove useful.
After putting on the plate carrier and attaching the tech team’s tablet to the webbing on the magazine pouches, she distributed the rest of the gear across her body. Raj had also been kind enough to include a padded battle belt with Kydex holsters for her Glock and for the Taser. When she was done, she looked like she was ready to go to war.
Of course, she hoped that wasn’t the case, but after this morning, she was leaving nothing to chance. Closing the trunk, she climbed into the driver’s seat and activated the ignition. It was time to put her plan into action.
CHAPTER 39
If there was one thing Asha knew, it was her neighborhood. She knew it like the back of her hand because she had made it a point to.
Moving from Mumbai to New Delhi was a shock. She was used to a house always full of family and friends. And if she wasn’t in her own, she was at any of dozens of homes around her Mumbai neighborhood that were buzzing with just as much life.
While RAW had discouraged having too many casual relationships, there was nothing casual that Asha felt about her neighbors in New Delhi. Family, even adopted family, was like oxygen to her. She was thoroughly Indian, and Indians thrived on social interaction.
She had created a whole new “family” and friend group in New Delhi, all within the neighborhood. She had been to their homes and apartments and they had been to hers. She had helped take care of children and pets, driven people to doctor’s appointments and the airport, cooked for people when they were ill, and comforted people when they were sad or lonely. All of it she had done selflessly, and all of it had been returned to her in spades.