Rainbow Six

The thermal viewers relied on difference in temperature to make an image. The evening was cooling down rapidly, and with it the stone walls of the house. Already the windows were glowing more brightly than the walls, because the house was heated, and the old-style full-length windows in the building's many doors were poorly insulated, despite the large drapes that hung just inside each one. Dieter Weber made the first spot..

"Lead, Rifle Two-Two, I have a thermal target first floor, fourth window from the west, looking around the curtains at the outside:"

"Okay! That one's in the kitchen…" It was the voice of Hank Patterson, who was hovering over the blueprints. "That's number one! Can you tell me anything else, Dieter?"

"Negative, just a shape," the German sniper replied. "No, wait… tall, probably a man."

"This is Pierce, I have one, first floor, east side, second window from east wall."

"Captain Altmark? Could you call Osterma

"Osterma

"This is Captain Altmark. Who is this?"

"This is Commander Gertrude of the Red Workers' Faction."

"Excuse me, I was expecting to speak to Commander Wolfgang."

"Wait," Petra's voice told him.

"Hier ist Wolfgang. "

"Hier ist Altmark. We have not heard from you in a long time."

"What news do you have for us?"

"No news, but we do have a request, Herr Commander."

"Yes, what is it?"

"As a sign of good faith," Altmark said, with Dr. Bellow listening in, a translator next to him. "We request that you release two of your. hostages, from the domestic staff perhaps."

"Wofur? So they can help you identify us?"

"Lead, Lincoln here, I have a target, northwest corner window, tall, probably male."

"That's three plus two," Chavez observed, as Patterson placed a yellow circle sticker on that part of the prints.

The woman who'd answered the phone had remained on the line as well. "You have three hours until we send you a hostage, tot, " she emphasized. "You have any further requests? We require a pilot for Herr Osterma

"Please, we respect your seriousness here," Altmark assured her. "We are looking for the flight crew now; and we have discussions underway with Austrian Airlines for the aircraft. These things take time, you know.".

"You always say that, people like you. We have told you what we require. If you do not meet those requirements, then their blood is on your hands. Ende, " the voice said, and the line went dead.

Captain Altmark was both-surprised and discomforted by the cold decisiveness on the other end of the phone and by the abrupt termination of the call. He looked up at Paul Bellow as he replaced the receiver. "Herr Doktor?"

"The woman is the dangerous one. They're both smart. They've definitely thought this one through, and they will kill a hostage to make their point, sure as hell."

"Man-and-woman team," Price was saying over the phone. "German, ages… late thirties, early forties as a guess. Maybe older. Bloody serious," he added for Bill Tawney.

"Thanks, Eddie, stand by," came the reply. Price could hear the fingers tapping on the keyboard.

"Okay, lad, I have three possible teams for you. Uploading them now."

"Thank you, sir." Price opened his laptop again. "Ding?"

"Yeah?"

"Intelligence coming in."

"We have at least five terrs in there, boss," Patterson said, moving his finger around the prints. "Too quick for them to move around. Here, here, here,. and two upstairs here. The placement makes sense. They probably have portable radios, too. The house is too big for them to communicate by shouting around at each other."

Noonan heard.that and went off to his radio-intercept equipment. If their friends were using hand-held radios, then their frequency range was well known, determined by international treaty in fact, probably not the military sets the team used, and probably not encrypted. In seconds he had his computerized sca

"So, what's the score, Ding?"

"Not all that good, Mr. C." Chavez turned to survey the building again. "Very difficult. to approach the building because of the open ground, therefore difficult to spike and get tactical intelligence. We have two primary and probably three secondary subjects who seem professional and serious. I'm thinking in terms of letting them out to go to the helicopter and taking them down then. Snipers in place. But with the number of subjects, this might not be real pretty, John."

Clark looked at the display in his command center. He had continuous comm links with Team-2, including their computer displays. As before, Peter Covington was beside him to kibitz. "Might as well be a moated bloody castle," the British officer had observed earlier. He'd also noted the need for helicopter pilots as a permanent part of the team.

"One other thing," Chavez said. "Noonan says we need jamming gear for this cell phone freaks. We have a few hundred civilians around, and if one has a shoe phone, he can talk to our friends inside, tell them what we're doing. No way in hell we can prevent that without jamming gear. Wine that one down, Mr. C."

"Noted, Domingo," Clark replied, looking over at David Peled, his chief technical officer.

"I can take care of that in a few days," Peled told his boss. Mossad had the right sort of equipment. Probably so did some American agencies. He'd find out in a hurry. Noonan, David told himself, was very good for a former policeman.