by Brad Taylor
I said, “Amena, why don’t you check out the chessboards? See if one’s available.”
She stood, the sadness spilling out from her eyes and running straight into me. I said, “Go on. I’ll be there. I promise.”
I watched her mingle with the groups around the chessboards, then answered the phone, glancing at Jennifer. The voice on the phone said, “Go secure,” and I did so, telling Jennifer, “This is it.”
Kurt Hale came through, sounding tinny with the encryption. He said, “We’ve found the bunker, and banking transactions show it’s wholly rented by the same LLC that rented the safe-deposit box in Geneva. There is no other tenant. It’s the one.”
I kept my eye on Amena, for the first time not feeling the rush of an impending mission. Feeling a tinge of sadness. I said, “Where is it?”
“Well, that’s the hard part. We don’t have a grid. We just have a mountain. It’s on the slopes of something called the Stanserhorn. It’s a national park near the town of Stans in the canton of Nidwalden. From what we can gather from the penetration of the bank website, it’s on the forward slope, near a hiking trail. That’s not a lot of help, though, because the place is crisscrossed with hiking trails.”
I saw Amena ask some guy a question. He pointed to a chalkboard. I said, “Is the Oversight Council still good with me cracking it? Or just put it under observation?”
“They want to know what’s inside. You gotta crack it. But they also want it under observation, to track who enters.”
I saw Amena put her name on the board, then saw a man move behind her. I said, “What’s my timeline?”
The man put his hand on Amena’s shoulder, and an Audi SUV pulled into the taxi stand adjacent to the playing boards. Kurt said, “Soon. I’d like you to get a positive ID by tomorrow morning at the latest, and crack the thing as soon after as possible. I’m afraid of missing the transfer.”
The man put a rag over Amena’s mouth, then clenched her to him. I said nothing into the phone, astounded at what I was seeing. I heard, “Pike, you there?”
I dropped the phone and started running. I saw Amena go limp and the man pick her up like a piece of luggage. He hustled to the Audi, the rear liftgate rising. Nobody around them seemed to have noticed. I shouted, and the people near the boards looked at me, not at the kidnapping. I pointed, running flat out, straight through the chess sets, knocking pieces to the side and screaming. Someone tried to block me, and I flattened him with a forearm, energizing everyone.
The man holding Amena turned and saw me coming. He tossed Amena into the back and then leapt in after her. The liftgate started to close, the vehicle screeching toward the thoroughfare at the end of the turnout. I gave up trying to reach the SUV where it was and sprinted to beat it to the end.
I reached the intersection with the road a split second before the vehicle, and jumped into the lane, blocking access. The driver floored the SUV and I vaulted into the air, landing on the hood and slamming into the windshield. I rolled upright and grabbed the edge of the door, blocking the driver’s view. I smashed the driver’s window and desperately jammed my hand inside, snatching the driver by the hair. He swerved hard, bouncing over the curb and throwing me off the hood.
I slammed into the road, leapt upright, but it was too late. The vehicle ran a red light and was gone, racing up the avenue.
I ignored everyone gawking and ran back to my phone, meeting Jennifer halfway as she sprinted to catch me at the road. She said, “What’s going on? Where’s Amena?”
I said, “Someone just took her.”
She said, “What!”
I ran past her, back to the patio and my phone. I picked it up, seeing a connection. I said, “Sir, are you still there?”
I heard, “Yeah, I’m here. What the hell are you doing?”
“Someone just took Amena. Ripped her right off the street.”
“What are you saying? She was kidnapped?”
“Yes, sir, that’s what I’m saying. I need a lock on phone Prometheus Three. Right now.”
“She has a Taskforce phone?”
Aggravated, I said, “Yes, sir, she does. Get me a lock-on.” I turned from the handset and said, “Jennifer, get the team mobilized. Get them ready to interdict.”
She started working her handset, and I heard, “Pike, I don’t know what’s going on over there, but we can’t do what you’re thinking. You have a mission.”
I was about to lose my mind at the pressure, something that usually didn’t end well. I took a breath and said, “Sir, get me the lock-on.”
He heard the tone in my voice, understood that he wasn’t going to get fidelity of what was happening, and like the good commander he was, he went to work.
Thirty seconds later, he said, “The phone’s off. Last location is a place called Bastions Park.”
I said, “Shit. That’s where I am.”
And then a picture of Amena appeared on my phone. With a ransom demand.
59
Back in my hotel room, surrounded by my teammates, we tried to make sense of what had happened. One minute I was thinking about how to find and penetrate a bunker, and the next minute I was trying to find my little refugee.
Brett, our CIA man, said, “So you didn’t get a look at the guy?”
“No, I saw him, but he was wearing a hat and sunglasses. I couldn’t make anything else out.”
“Did you get a license?”
I felt like a failure. I said, “No. I didn’t. I was too preoccupied with stopping them.”
He saw the disappointment on my face and said, “Hey, you might have stopped it right there. What about the driver?”
“I got a glimpse, but I have no idea what he looked like. I was too busy fighting to stay on his hood.”
Knuckles said, “What the hell is this all about? Who wants a refugee from Syria?”
I said, “I thought maybe it was human trafficking, but that’s pretty bold for them to conduct a daylight seizure. And then I got this ransom demand. I don’t know.”
The message on the phone had been simple: Stand by in Geneva for further contact. Be prepared to pay. But why anyone thought I had money, or how they knew Amena was with me, didn’t make sense.
Veep broached the subject that was hanging over the room like the whiff of a decaying animal on the side of a road. “What are we doing about the bunker? We’re supposed to be planning that right now.”
I clenched my fist, wanting desperately to use it on whoever had taken Amena. I said, “Veep’s right. You have the data from the Taskforce. Knuckles, head that up. I want the satellite imagery analysis done by midnight, complete with the location of the bunker and OP locations for overwatch. Get on it.”
He said, “You got it, boss. What are you going to do?”
“Talk to the Taskforce. See if I can get a handle on the other problem.”
They left the room to go plan, and Jennifer took my hand. I said, “What the hell is going on?”
She saw the pain on my face and said, “Pike, we’ll find her.”
I said, “I don’t think so. I don’t think we’ll get the chance.”
I dialed up the VPN and saw Creed on the other end. I said, “What have you found?”
For once, there were no jokes. He was all business, understanding what this meant to me. He said, “Pike, they’re very good. They must have shut down her phone within seconds of taking her. They turned on the phone for fifteen seconds to send you the ransom demand, and then shut it off again. They didn’t use a separate phone for us to track. They used your own phone. We have absolutely nothing.”
I said, “That’s not good enough. Do a data search on Audi SUVs. Crack the cameras in this city. Get me something.”
He looked uncomfortable, then said, “Pike, I’ve been ordered not to.”
“What? By who?”
He
turned from the screen and said, “Hey, sir. I have Pike on the line.”
Kurt appeared and I immediately launched into him. “Did you order off Taskforce assets for Amena?”
He matched my intensity. “Pike, we have a danger of a deadly chemical munition by a state that’s a direct threat to the United States. You bet your ass I did. You have a mission.”
“Maybe they’re the ones who took her! Did you think of that? Maybe if we find her, we’ll find the North Koreans who are doing this whole thing. Fuck the bunker, if I kill them there is no threat and we can search that thing at our leisure.”
“You said you received a ransom demand.”
I leaned back, realizing how crazy I sounded, all of it to generate Taskforce help. I said, “Yes, sir, I did.”
“So, the North Koreans—who are very, very good about covert activities—kidnapped a Syrian refugee, and then sent you a ransom demand? Does that sound real to you?”
I took a breath and exhaled. I said, “No, sir.”
“Pike, we’ll try to find her, but you have a mission.”
I said, “Sir, they told me to stay in Geneva for further instructions. Get Johnny’s team here. Give them the data. It’s not like we’re on a thread that he doesn’t have. Give him the bunker information and let me deal with this.”
“Johnny’s team is in Mali. I can’t get him to you in time to do anything. I’m sorry, but it is what it is.”
I tried one more time, recalling Amena’s sadness. The look that said she trusted me. I said, “Sir, I can’t do that. I have to stay here.”
Kurt leaned forward and said, “Pike, you have a mission. The same mission you had before. These guys are going to try to kill a lot of people. You are the only one who can stop it. You need to choose. I know it’s awful, but you need to choose. Amena’s life, or the lives of hundreds of others.”
I pounded my fist on the table hard enough to make the laptop jump.
I said, “Okay, sir. I hear you. I’ll get it done, but when it’s over, and the smoke has cleared, I’m finding the men who did this. And I’m going to kill them.”
60
Colonel Lee hung up the phone and smiled. Colonel Park said, “Good news?”
“Yes. They got her. And they did so without compromise. I told you the ghost team was the way to go.”
“Good. Very good. But you have to admit, the ransom demand from Song was a stroke of genius. He’s not the buffoon you make him out to be.”
“I don’t know. We made contact with the American using the girl’s phone. They might be able to track it.”
“They can’t track it with it turned off, and we had to make contact somehow. How else would we get him to stay in Geneva? We couldn’t contact him ourselves and say, ‘We’re from the DPRK and we’d like you to stop.’ He’ll think it’s something other than what it is, and he’ll wait to sort it out.”
Colonel Lee nodded and said, “Should we tell General Kim what we’re doing?”
“No way. It’s working, and the last meeting with him wasn’t pleasant.”
Colonel Park felt the sweat break out just thinking about the appointment with General Kim. He had been decidedly displeased with the loss of Yasir, blaming both of them for waiting too long to alert the ghost team for the mission, but ultimately, he’d relented, telling a story when he, too, had failed because of timing.
Up until that point, Colonel Park had thought he was dead. His worry now was that someone on the ghost team would spill their secrets to General Kim upon their return.
He said, “You know when this is done, and we’ve recalled the team back to the DPRK, they’ll have to be eliminated. They know too much.”
Colonel Lee said, “I don’t think we have to worry about that. The ghost team will probably not survive the mission.”
When presented with the knowledge that Yasir had escaped their net, and that the terrorists had done nothing as of yet, General Kim had directed that their original plan go forward, regardless of the Syrian efforts. That meant the team would be forced to leverage their diplomatic status to execute the mission, and in so doing, would be the ones releasing the poison. Colonel Lee had lied to the team, telling them that the Red Mercury properties were the inverse of reality—the nerve agent wouldn’t become deadly until an hour after release.
Colonel Park chuckled and said, “That was smart, telling them they were safe. I don’t know if they would have executed otherwise.”
Lee said, “Song is the one we should worry about. He holds the girl, and knows why we captured her. He knows that we missed Yasir, and has knowledge of the American team.”
“He will be easy to deal with. He’s not a killer like the ghost team. He thinks he’s immune to trouble because of his status.”
“His status is what concerns me. We can’t eliminate him unilaterally.”
“Then we let the state do it. When the mission is over, we expose his failures and transgressions. We blame everything on him, saying he’s been lying from the beginning.”
“You think that will work?”
“It’s worked before. It will work again. Until then, he is a useful idiot. He has the girl, and can contain the Americans for at least a couple of days. Long enough to succeed. Did he give a status on the ghost team?”
“Yes. They go to the mountain today. They should have the Red Mercury by the time we go to bed. Tomorrow, they attack.”
“Did he say anything about the Americans?”
“No, but they’ll stay in Geneva. Like you said, they want the girl more than they want the mission.”
61
It took close to four hours to get from Geneva to Stans, most of it on highway, but the last stretch had been on some winding mountain roads that would have made a billy goat give pause. We only needed our rental vehicles for this operation, but I’d sent Knuckles ahead with the Rock Star bird, landing in Zurich, the closest airport near our target. Ostensibly, his mission was to establish the infrastructure for our operation before we arrived, but he’d known why I was doing it. I wanted the bird ready, in case I needed to get back to Geneva. If something with Amena came up, an hour to an airport was better than a four-hour drive to execute whatever ransom was demanded. I honestly had no idea how I would be able to affect anything if I received the instructions for her, but I wanted to be prepared anyway.
We’d rolled into the small town of Stans a little before noon, and Knuckles had already established our hotel rooms and TOC, but we were going to execute immediately.
A quaint village of about eight thousand souls, it stood at the base of the Stanserhorn, the mountain that held our target. Knuckles and Veep had pored over the satellite imagery last night and had found one lone shack midway up the slope that they believed was the bunker. On the surface, that would sound insane, but the Swiss had hidden bunkers all over the place, some looking like barns, others looking like chalets with fake windows.
At least that’s what the research from the Taskforce had said. We were now going to test it.
Our mission was twofold: One, crack the bunker and see what was inside. Two, keep observation and then tag and track whoever entered. The two missions were a little bit counter to each other, because if we penetrated the bunker and found more WMD than we could evacuate, there was no way I was going to sit on it, waiting for the bad men to come claim it. Kurt had understood that, but told me that the initial mission stood, and we’d reassess if either parameter changed. And so I prepared for both missions.
We linked up with Knuckles at the train station, finding him with two small suitcases that blended in just fine. He said, “I took a look at the route up, and it’s rough.”
I said, “That’s why Jennifer and I are taking the cable car. You guys get the hike.”
The Stanserhorn rose six thousand feet from the base of Lake Lucerne, creating one of the best natural viewing t
owers in Switzerland. At the top was an observation deck, complete with a restaurant. At the bottom were two ways to get there: One, ride a funicular railroad built in the 1800s, then switch to a cable car built in the modern day, or two, run up the side of the mountain on a trail that zigzagged back and forth all the way to the top. Surprisingly, almost as many people took the trail as the cable car, some actually running to the top in an insane race against themselves. Brett had decided that’s what he wanted to do, and was dressed in running leggings and a thermal top.
Knuckles said, “So we hump a rucksack to the OP, and you ride a cable car like you’re on a date?”
“Yep. That’s pretty much the story. Brett seems to think it’s a challenge, not a chore.”
He laughed and said, “Yeah, well, he’s crazy. If I’d kept dating Carly, would I get the cable car?”
I said, “Nope. She’d be carrying a ruck. You got the gear?”
He unzipped the first case and said, “Basic TTL package for you. For us, some optics and netting for the observation post, along with the bunker penetration gear.”
He handed me a backpack that looked like a college book bag. Inside were various tagging, tracking, and locating devices that I would use if or when we found the men accessing the bunker. For them, it was three rucksacks full of camouflage netting, food, water, and day/night optics they’d use to keep eyes on the front door.
I said, “Okay, it’s two blocks from here to the start of the trail. We’ll take the train to the cable car and get eyes on the bunker from the air. You guys establish the OP, and then confirm or deny Creed’s information on the vault. If it’s solid, we’ll crack it tonight.”
They nodded, and we left the train station, walking up the street to the start of the mountain. We reached a narrow goat trail, old people with walking sticks and young ones wearing trail running shoes coming and going. I said, “That’s you guys. See you at the top.”
