Rules of Engagement

by David Bruns

  A branch moved in the distance. Six.

  Rafiq bit his lip with anticipation. The table was set. Now for the main course.

  The target walked with quick steps, like a man with someplace to be. Rafiq had hired him to pick up a package at the ranch house and bring it back to Buenos Aires. He might have hinted that the package was full of money. He’d even given the man a handgun for protection.

  The man reached the bend in the road, where the two mercenaries intercepted him.

  “Hola,” one of the armed men said.

  The fighters on either side of Rafiq crept forward until they were a few meters from the edge of the road. The man in trail stepped onto the road. Their target was surrounded.

  Except for the man hidden in the brush on the far side of the road, Rafiq had a clear shot of all the players.

  “Where are you going, my friend?” the lead man called, stepping closer. The muzzle of his weapon hung midway between the ground and the man. “It’s late—or early, depending on your point of view.”

  “I’m here to pick up a package,” the bait said. His hand inched toward the pistol at the small of his back.

  “A package? At this hour, you must know the family very well to just show up, yes?”

  The bait went for his weapon.

  “Gun!” the man in trail shouted. His weapon snapped up and he ripped off a three-round burst. The target went down.

  “Stop!” the lead man called. He ran forward and rolled the body over. “Goddammit, Lem. There’s six of us and one of him. Couldn’t you have just wounded him?”

  “Sorry, Dickie. Is it Roshed?”

  Rafiq smiled from his hiding place. No.

  The lead man spoke into a throat mic. “All stations, report status.”

  The two men in Rafiq’s sight reported the area was clear. They made their way to the road.

  The brightness of a flashlight cut through the dark.

  “Is it him? Is it Roshed?”

  The man called Dickie, the leader, grunted. “Can’t tell.” He touched his throat mic again. “Nestor, bring up the biokit. On the double.”

  The brush on the opposite side of the road moved, and another mercenary stepped out into the open, lugging a bulky suitcase.

  Rafiq let out a sigh of relief and hefted his sniper rifle.

  Six.

  CHAPTER 26

  CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  Brendan’s admin poked his head inside his office door. “Sir, I’ve got Marco Gonzalez, Buenos Aires station chief, on secure VTC. He says it’s urgent.”

  Brendan dropped the report he was reading and swung his chair toward his computer screen. “Put him through, Tom.”

  He’d met Marco a few times and had always been struck by the man’s sense of style. Always dapper, impeccably groomed, and outfitted in the latest in men’s fashion, Gonzalez could have graced the cover of GQ. But the man who appeared on the screen was dressed in jeans and a dirty polo shirt, and his black curls were raked back from his face. Dark circles shadowed his eyes.

  “Bad night, Marco?”

  The man’s face twisted into a snarl. “Not funny, McHugh. I knew you had some op going on down here, but your boys stepped in some deep shit last night.”

  Brendan leaned toward the screen. “Estancia Refugio? Roshed?”

  Marco nodded wearily, grinding his hands across his stubbled chin. “Yeah, it’s a fucking bloodbath. Six men in paramilitary kit killed on the dirt road leading up to the ranch house. No ID, no serial numbers on the weapons, nothing, but it’s all top-of-the-line shit. Mercenaries? Really? I know how bad people want Roshed’s head on a plate, but I should have been told if you had a team in my backyard.”

  Brendan stayed silent. There was nothing he was allowed to say, and Marco knew it. Better to let the man vent.

  Marco looked like he wanted to spit at the screen. “Look, I don’t know who’s calling the shots up there in DC, but I’ve got seven bodies and the ambassador is crawling up my ass. I hope you guys know what you’re doing.”

  The screen reverted to the CIA logo, signaling the end of the call.

  Brendan gripped the armrests on his chair. Dickie Fucking Davis had gone off the reservation, that had to be it. Baxter was going to blow a gasket over this. They had been crystal clear with Davis that he was not to use Roshed’s kids as bait. Now, because of one rogue operator, they had the makings of an international incident on their hands.

  “Tom!” he roared out. “Get me Rick Baxter on the phone. Secure line.”

  It had to be Roshed, he reasoned. Six operatives dead, and not just ordinary hired guns. These were highly trained ex-military, many with special ops background. It would have taken a cunning mind to outwit a group with those kinds of skills. A mind like Rafiq Roshed’s.

  Brendan sat back in his chair, struck with a sudden thought. If it was Roshed, then they knew where he’d been. If they had a starting point …

  “Tom! Cancel Baxter. Get me Don Riley on VTC.”

  A minute later, Don’s round, freckled face filled the screen. “Brendan, to what do I—”

  “No time for chitchat, Don. We’ve got a lead on Roshed.”

  Don’s face went serious. “Really? Where?”

  “Our covert team in South America was wiped out last night. All of them.”

  Don’s face slackened in surprise. “All of them? And we know it was Rafiq?”

  “Not exactly,” Brendan replied. “Details are still coming in and the local station chief has his hands full, but who else could have pulled off that kind of stunt?”

  “What about the kids, Brendan?”

  “Don, wake up! We know where Roshed is”—he looked at his watch—“or where he was, at least, less than twelve hours ago. You’ve been trying to track him down, right? Well, here’s your chance.”

  Don sat up, his face alert. “I’m an idiot. Of course, you’re right. If I have a starting point, I can find him, and I’ve got just the team for the job. My three midshipmen,” he said with a note of pride in his voice.

  “Midshipmen? Don, this is serious. You’re tracking the most wanted terrorist in the world and your crack team is three midshipmen?”

  “You wouldn’t believe these kids, Brendan. They’re perfect for this job.”

  “Whatever you say, Don. Just find him.”

  “Will do.” Don hesitated. “You didn’t answer my question. What about Rafiq’s kids? Are they okay?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll find out and get back to you.” Brendan ended the call.

  He stared at the blank screen, collecting his thoughts. He realized he hadn’t asked Marco about Roshed’s children. He hadn’t even really cared about the covert team, either. None of it mattered; his only interest was Roshed.

  He reached for the file on Roshed, the one that never left his desk, and flipped it open to the old picture of Rafiq, before he’d had cosmetic surgery.

  The most wanted terrorist in the world had the fine, clean-cut features and ice-blue eyes you might see on one of those ridiculous overpriced-perfume commercials that aired around the holidays. He could have been anything in this world, and he’d chosen to be a killer.

  He flipped the page to the pictures of Roshed’s children. They were teenagers now, a few years older than his and Liz’s kids. How could a man with so much evil in his heart produce children so beautiful? The girl—her name was Consuela—had her father’s chiseled good looks, right down to the cleft chin and the striking blue eyes. The boy, Javier, was the spitting image of his mother, with a mass of loose, ebony curls and flashing dark eyes.

  He slapped the file shut. It was his job to make sure they both grew up fatherless.

  Tom’s face appeared in the window of his closed office door. Baxter, he mouthed, miming a phone with his hand. Brendan waved him in.

  “Put him through, and then call back Marco Gonzalez in Buenos Aires and ask him if the children are safe.”

  “That’s it? Are the children safe? He’ll kn
ow what I’m asking about?”

  Brendan nodded. “Just that: Are the children safe?”

  CHAPTER 27

  US Cyber Command, Fort Meade, Maryland

  The man sitting next to Don Riley in the conference room had a visitor’s badge clipped to the lapel of his dark blue business suit. Janet saw that Ramirez and Goodwin had left the seat between them empty. She shut the door behind her and slid into the waiting chair.

  They were back at CYBERCOM, this time giving up their spring break. She knew she should feel like she was missing out—her roommates were headed to Utah for spring skiing—but this was really where she wanted to be.

  Don Riley cleared his throat. “Midshipmen, this is Joe Quigley from the CIA. He’s here to read you into what’s known as a special access program. Do you all know what that means?”

  Ramirez raised her hand. “I’ll ask the dumb question, Mr. Riley. What’s a special access program?”

  Quigley spoke in a low, intense voice. “The United States government has a number of activities that are not public knowledge.”

  “Like a covert action program, sir?” Goodwin asked.

  Quigley nodded. “An SAP offers an added level of security. The information is compartmentalized such that very few people know the entire scope of the operation. That way, if someone in the field is compromised, they can only give away a piece of the puzzle.” He opened a file and distributed a sheet of paper to each midshipman. “You have been selected to be read into an SAP so that Mr. Riley can utilize your skills. What you have here is a nondisclosure agreement. I urge you to read it very carefully before signing.”

  The tone of his instruction made Janet slow down and absorb the contents of the page. Her eyebrows went up as she read further. As excited as she was to be doing real work for CYBERCOM, the NDA gave her pause. This was serious stuff.

  Janet was aware that the younger mids were watching her. She took a pen from her breast pocket and signed the document. As she handed it back to Quigley, she said, “Thank you, sir. You can count on us.”

  Quigley met her gaze. He had hard brown eyes that matched the intensity in his voice. “Yes, Midshipman Everett, I believe I can.” He collected the signed sheets from the other two mids and stood. “They’re all yours, Don. Good luck.”

  Riley waited until Quigley had closed the door behind him. “Do you remember the terrorist attack at the Mall of America?”

  Janet nodded. She’d been entering high school when that happened.

  “That was planned by a man named Rafiq Roshed, the most dangerous man no one’s ever heard of. The Mall of America attack occurred at the same time as attacks in Helsinki and London. Dozens of civilians died. A trusted friend of mine was killed trying to bring Roshed down in Africa.” Riley paused.

  “He escaped, unfortunately, and disappeared. Recently, we believed him to be hiding in North Korea, but we had no way of taking him down until he left the country. The game has changed.” Riley opened his laptop and spun it around to face the mids. It showed a map of South America.

  “Less than twelve hours ago, Roshed killed six people near a ranch in Argentina.” He tapped a key that zoomed in and dropped a pin on a remote countryside location. “We know where he was, and we know he will eventually head back to North Korea. I want you three to pick up his digital trail and track him down. Passport records, flight manifests, border crossings, private jets—if you can think of it, I want you to check it out. To travel internationally, Roshed has to be on the grid somewhere. I want you to find him for me.”

  Janet stared at Riley. This was real spy stuff. “Why us?” she asked.

  Riley grinned. “I’ve seen you three work together. You’ve been here enough times to know the systems and what we can do. I’ve seen Ramirez write some kick-ass code and feed Goodwin three streams of data at once. I’ve seen you, Everett, keep this team on task for days at a time. You three are a unit. Three brains, one output.” He slapped the laptop lid shut.

  “Look, I’ve been hunting Roshed for years. I’ve seen good people die. I know that we’re not going to catch him by following the same old playbook. He’s too smart for that. You guys are different. I’m hoping that’s the edge I need to win.”

  Janet set her chin. “We won’t let you down, sir.” Ramirez and Goodwin nodded.

  “There’s one more thing you should all know. Remember in class at the academy when we did the case study of the power grid hack?”

  The three mids nodded.

  “Everett asked me if I really thought ISIS was responsible. I gave her the party line about claiming responsibility and appropriate retaliation. Well, I lied.” He gave them a rueful smile. “Occupational hazard. The truth is that ISIS only claimed the credit, but the hack was done by North Korea. I firmly believe Roshed was behind that attack. I’m telling you this because he’s planning something new, something big. I can feel it.”

  Riley leaned across the table. “Roshed will stop at nothing to bring us down. Track him down and figure out what he’s up to. Whatever he’s got planned, you can bet it will hurt a lot of people.”

  Riley sat back in his chair. “Now, get to work, Midshipmen.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan

  Lieutenant Commander Weston Merville’s mobile phone rang just as he was crossing the brow of the USS Blue Ridge on his way home. Certain it was the duty officer with some stupid question about the maintenance work for the night shift, he answered without looking at the caller ID.

  “Hello,” he barked into the receiver. It was best to be gruff with his department, so they thought twice about calling him after-hours.

  “Do you recognize my voice, Weston?”

  Merville felt a chill run up his spine. Him. He’d waited in agony for weeks, wondering what the man from the SkyCity hotel would want him to do. And the woman, Sabrina, with the bruises around her neck and the chill of her skin …

  It took him a few days to figure out how he’d been set up. The woman’s special flask, with the sweet liqueur, had been drugged. He’d been roofied. And then they—whoever they were—had killed the girl and put her in his bed.

  They were willing to kill someone to force him to cooperate, so he knew they were serious, but who was behind it all? The man pretending to be a cop, with his dark hair and olive complexion, looked Middle Eastern, but his English had a Hispanic accent. Then again, maybe these clues were all designed to throw him off and the Russians were behind the whole thing.

  In the weeks after the Blue Ridge left Australia, Merville wrestled with whether to turn himself in. He’d been compromised, that much was clear, but he hadn’t actually done anything yet. A dozen times he’d approached the XO, but he always chickened out at the last minute.

  His crewmates had seen him with the girl, and the fake cop had pictures of him with the girl’s body. In any scenario, there would be an investigation, a scandal; his career would be over. And when he was really honest with himself in the dead of the night, his career was all he had. He had no wife, no friends, no strong family ties to speak of. If he couldn’t get up every day and put on his uniform, he truly had nothing.

  And besides, if he turned himself in, the guys in the Blue Dog Bar would know the truth about Sabrina, the girl he had flaunted in front of them that night. When he got back to the ship the next morning, still shaking from his encounter with the cop, they had looked at him with newfound respect. And despite the sick feeling in his stomach, he’d played along, making sly double entendres about sex during dinner in the wardroom that same night. The woman was dead! What was wrong with him?

  “Weston? Are you still there?”

  He’d stopped walking. People were flowing around him like he was a rock in a stream. They were all going home to their families, to people who cared about them.

  “I’m still here,” he whispered.

  “You have a reservation at the Hitorizawa driving range in an hour. Don’t be late.”

  The phone went dead.<
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  * * *

  Merville threw his car keys on the table and went straight to the liquor cabinet. He poured himself a healthy measure of whatever was closest at hand and drank it off in one go. The burn of the alcohol revived his brain.

  He poured another shot and carried the glass to the counter. He slipped out his phone and thumbed to the XO’s personal number. This was it. He was officially compromised. It was time to turn himself in.

  Drink in hand, Merville poised his thumb over the call button. He waited so long the screen dimmed and went dark. Finally, he swallowed his drink and went to find his golf clubs.

  Normally, the drive to the golf club was relaxing, but this afternoon Merville hunched behind the wheel of the car, barely seeing the road. He arrived early and parked, intending to stay in the car until the very last minute, but nervous energy drove him to movement.

  He stalked through the aisles of the pro shop, buying a glove he didn’t want and a box of tees he didn’t need. As he was paying, a teenaged boy came up to him and bowed. “Lieutenant Commander Merville?”

  Merville froze. Good God, were they going to make contact with him right in front of everyone?

  The boy handed Merville a slip of paper. “Your reservation is for box twenty-eight. I can carry your golf clubs, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Merville managed to reply after his heart stopped hammering.

  The boy admired his custom KZG clubs as they made their way down the row of tee boxes facing the driving range. “Very nice golf clubs, sir. Very expensive.”

  Merville smiled at him. “I appreciate the finer things in life,” he said. The set had cost him over four thousand dollars and he didn’t even like golf all that much. But every time he took those clubs to the range, someone noticed.