Read F Paul Wilson - Sims 05 for Free Online

we’re tying up.
Let me get this straight: You’ve got five cars and twelve men involved in this
surveillance?”
                 “Correct:
four cars stationary, one on patrol, with rotating twelve-hour shifts of six
men each.”
                 Suddenly
Maria’s face hovered above him, grinning as she dangled a glistening sliver of
chicken over his lips. He opened his mouth and she dropped it in. Delicious. He blew her a kiss and she swayed back to the
kitchen.
                 Damn,
he was going to miss her.
                 “And
you think that’s the way to go?”
                 Luca
chewed and swallowed quickly. “That’s what all our sim experts advise. They say
she’s got to eat, so that means if we don’t catch her wandering around or
trying to sneak back into the sim crib, we’ll find another sim sneaking out to
bring her food.”
                 “Makes
sense to me, but upstairs is complaining about the manpower commitment.”
                 “It’s
not as if these guys have anything better to keep them busy.”
                 “Oh,
but very soon they will. Guillotine is a go.”
                 Luca
stiffened. “When?”
                 “Can’t say more now. Maybe in person.”
                 Luca
understood. Even a hard-encrypted phone wasn’t secure enough for a conversation
about Operation Guillotine. Because Guillotine was what SIRG was all about, and
the neck scheduled to be placed under that blade was Aazim Saad’s.
                 Al
Qaeda was gone, but its goals and methods lived on in various smaller
offshoots. The most active was the Malaysian Mujahideen led by Aazim Saad.
                 One
of his men had ratted out the Omani terrorist kingpin, and his headquarters had
been traced to a rubber plantation in Borneo .
Operation Guillotine would drop three commando teams of specially trained mandrilla sims into the surrounding jungle and have them raid
the compound, killing anything that moved. All their gear—weapons, clothing,
communications—would be foreign-made to obscure their point of origin. Even if
one were captured alive, it couldn’t give anything away, because it wouldn’t
know anything, and couldn’t tell if it did. The Malaysian Mujahideen would be
wiped out, and no one would know by whom.
                 This
had been the Old Man’s dream: an anonymous strike force that could operate with
greater efficiency and ferocity than any human equivalent. All SIRG had needed
was clearance from the Pentagon to proceed. Now they had it. And if Guillotine
was a success, Conrad Landon would be the toast of a very small, very elite
inner circle in the Department of Defense.
                 Luca
had seen the mandrillas in training. Their ferocity awed him. They knew no
fear, and gave no quarter. Their downside was the difficulty controlling them,
and stopping them once they got started. Heaven help any innocent bystanders
near the Saad compound.
                 “All
I can say,” Lister said, “is that some of those surveillance men are going to
be needed back in Idaho for the launch.”
                 “I
don’t think I’ll need much more time. It’s been only forty-eight hours. She
can’t go—”
                 His
PCA rang. “Just a sec. That’s from the surveillance
team.” He put Lister on hold, snatched up the phone, and recognized Snyder’s
voice.
                 “Guess
what just happened?”
                 “What?”
Please, Luca thought. Nothing bad. Don’t tell me
anyone’s dead.
                 But
Snyder sounded pleased with himself; almost happy.
                 “I’m
pulling up to the drive-thru window of this McDonald’s near the crib to get
coffees for the guys when I see this beat-up old van with New York tags pull
into the lot. And I’m