Hunter Killer

by Brad Taylor

  Like I said before, that was sort of my specialty. While we were closer than blood on the friendship front, when he wore the commander hat, I was more than willing to tell him he was full of shit—and I was one of the few who could get away with it.

  Two minutes later I was pulling in behind a late-model rental car, our little drive now three-deep in vehicles. I exited, looked up, and saw Kurt Hale on my second-floor balcony, leaning on the rail and holding a beer. He said, “Running errands for the partner. How domesticated.”

  I smiled, reached in to grab the two small bags I had, and said, “Yeah, well, it pretty much ended in failure. I’ll be right up.”

  A minute later I’d given my bags to Jennifer. Kurt was still on the balcony with the door closed. She said, “He’s going to take Amena. That’s why he’s here. He pulled all those strings with the Oversight Council, and now he has to make it good.”

  The Oversight Council was the board that oversaw all Project Prometheus activities, which included my team. Nobody ever mentioned the program name out loud, calling everyone associated with it an innocuous nickname: the Taskforce. While GRS was doing pretty well on the commercial front—enough to let us buy this house—it’s primary purpose was as a cover to allow penetration of denied areas for one reason: to drive a stake into the heart of threats that could affect U.S. national interests.

  I knew the Council was not happy with my decision to bring Amena to the United States because it had caused too many questions about how she jumped the line, potentially exposing the cover of GRS. How does a barely there company bring home a refugee and pass through customs and immigration without a hitch? The answer was because I had some people on my side, very important people who’d greased the skids. And that was making the Oversight Council nervous, since it would take only one thread to unwind the GRS cover, which would then unwind Project Prometheus and jeopardize the careers of anyone associated with it. Because Project Prometheus was decidedly illegal. An extrajudicial killing machine that was sanctioned at the highest level.

  I passed Jennifer the bags and said, “I couldn’t find the damn cheese you wanted.”

  Amena came up, pointed at the balcony, and said, “Why is he here? Is it me?”

  She was like an animal that could smell a threat, having lived on the edge of survival for much of her short life. I looked at her and saw the pain of losing the first bit of sanctuary she’d ever experienced. And I realized I didn’t want her to leave. For the first time in close to a decade—really since the loss of my family—I was content with my life, and I wanted that feeling to remain.

  I brushed her cheek and said, “Don’t worry about it. At least for this trip.”

  “Promise?”

  I said, “Yes, doodlebug. I promise.”

  Jennifer heard me use the nickname that was once my daughter’s and smiled. Amena relaxed. I turned to Jennifer, saying, “Just keep getting ready. I’ll see what’s up.”

  I grabbed a couple of beers and exited onto my upper balcony. I shook Kurt’s hand, handed him another beer, and he said, “I hear Kylie is your new nanny.”

  I said, “I guess that depends. What’s up with the sudden visit?”

  He demurred, saying, “Looks like GRS is making more money than I remembered. This is a pretty nice house.”

  Which wasn’t really true. It was an old row house that required enormous maintenance against plumbing leaks, pests, and electrical problems, but it was on the peninsula of Charleston, which was pretty cool.

  I said, “So you want to cut my pay? Is that it? Because the Taskforce doesn’t pay me nearly what I’m worth. I get a fortune helping some university do nothing more than excavate a dig. Shit, the last three jobs I did bought this house. I get peanuts from you dodging bullets.”

  He laughed and said, “I should have never let you two go find that temple in Guatemala. I’ve never heard the end of it.”

  “You never would have had GRS without it. We’re the deepest cover organization you have.”

  He turned serious and said, “What’s the status with Brazil?”

  I said, “We’ve got the contract locked in with the university for the Jesuit UNESCO site, and it’s a stone’s throw from the triple frontier. Easy for us to work there and penetrate the area.”

  The triple frontier—or tri-border region—was the juncture of the borders of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, a Wild West area heavy with Hezbollah activity. GRS always had to have a reason for operating, and we’d found one in the Rio Grande do Sul state in southern Brazil, an ancient Jesuit church called São Miguel das Missões that was slowly falling apart. A university, in coordination with the United Nations, wanted to stop the passage of time, and they’d hired us to help facilitate. Which was perfect, because we were going to use it to put some Hezbollah heads on a spike.

  Kurt said, “Sounds like it’s tracking.”

  “It is. Knuckles and Brett are already down there, prepping the battlefield. They head to Salvador in a couple of days, and Jennifer and I will link up with them there. But you know that. You’re the one who fought to keep them on my team.”

  I was unique in the Taskforce in that I was a pure civilian now. Brett was a paramilitary member of the CIA and Knuckles was in the Navy. It had been a fight to allow me—now a civilian—to be the team leader of active-duty guys, but neither Brett nor Knuckles would have it any other way. We were a family that had bled together when I was on active duty, and while others in the government fought the decision on purely bureaucratic grounds, Kurt understood what teamwork meant.

  In the end, the Taskforce was a strange beast, and it was just one more permutation from the norm. Kurt Hale had fought for me, and I’d regained my leadership position after I’d left active duty. After I’d crawled out of the abyss.

  He just nodded, and I could tell he was thinking about something else.

  I said, “Okay, sir, what’s the point of this visit? It isn’t our trip to Brazil, because you see those SITREPs. Just get it out.”

  He sighed, then looked at me, saying, “The Council has found a place for Amena. But you’re not going to like it.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “They want to repatriate her into the system. Put her into the refugee flow back in Syria.”

  He saw my face and said, “Wait, wait, she won’t be put back into danger. She’ll just be placed in a camp outside of Syria, either Jordan or Lebanon, and she’ll get preferential treatment. She’ll be back here in a year, maybe less.”

  I looked at him and said, “Are you fucking serious? Is that what you would do?”

  He frowned and said, “Pike, there is more at risk here than her. I’m trying to do the best thing for her, but you short-circuited that. Don’t blame me. You’re the one who brought her here on a covert aircraft after a covert mission. It’s hard to explain.”

  I leaned back and said, “So she’s not worth the destruction she will cause if anyone makes the connection.”

  He nodded and said, “That’s about it. I’m here on behalf of the Oversight Council. They wanted to jerk her ass outright. I told them to hold off.”

  I said, “How much time do I have?”

  “What? You have no time. This is it.”

  “Bullshit. I’m going to Brazil in the next few days. How much time can you get me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me get this mission done first. Give me some time to cushion the blow. Don’t take her tomorrow. Sell it as ‘Pike’s gone on a Taskforce mission. Can’t take her now.’ How hard is that?”

  He said, “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  I said, “Sir, I’m asking. I have never asked before. Give me this. I’ve given you my blood. She’s given you her blood. All I’m asking is for a trip. Fuck those assholes in the Oversight Council.”

  He nodded, not looking at me. He said, “Okay, Pike. I’m with you. I’ll delay it, but it’s going to happen. You need to get your head around that.”

 
I said, “I’ll get my head around it when I need to. She’s not going back to Syria. That’s the end of it. Fuck the Oversight Council.”

  He looked at me to see if I was serious, and Jennifer came out on the balcony, saying, “Pike, I have to go back to the store. You didn’t get everything I needed.”

  She’d clearly heard what I’d said and was trying to defuse the situation. And it worked. Kurt and I stared at each other for a beat, then he said, “I’ll go. You guys stay here.”

  I said, “Sir, you don’t want to try to find what she’s making. It’s impossible.”

  He laughed and said, “Not everyone is a Neanderthal. Let me go. You guys need to talk.”

  He walked back into the house, and Jennifer looked at me. I shook my head. Amena peered at me behind the door, and I felt crushed. All I’d done was give her hope, and now that was going to be devastated.

  Jennifer followed behind him, and I could see her giving him instructions on what to buy, the things that I’d missed. I watched him go down the stairs, and then saw him appear below me. He looked up and said, “I can’t get out.”

  I said, “Take my Jeep.”

  I tossed the keys down, and he caught them, looked at the Jeep, and said, “This is probably the biggest risk I’ve taken since I was running shotgun with you in Iraq.”

  I laughed and said, “And I kept you alive then.”

  He crawled into my CJ-7, stuck in the key, turned the ignition, and an explosion erupted, shredding his life in a fireball that turned the Jeep into a shrapnel blast of flying parts.

  I was thrown back, feeling the shock wave of the explosion and dully hearing the tinkling of auto parts spackling the roof.

  I sat up, staring in shock at the inferno below me, the Jeep burning furiously. It made no sense. I couldn’t get my mind around it. I saw the body in the driver’s seat, slumped over with its hair on fire, an arm dangling outside the door by a piece of tendon still connected to the shoulder, and felt a helplessness. I placed my hands on the railing and began to squeeze, a white-hot rage coursing through my body.

  Kurt Hale was my mentor, my protector, and the man I always wanted to emulate. The one man I had always wanted to be. He had been family, and now he was dead. Because of me.

  Because I was the target.

  Chapter 5

  Nikita Voronin—aka Domingo—passed by Red Square and slipped down an alley two blocks from the Kremlin, cinching his jacket tight against the coming winter. He found the entrance to a liquor store, nodded at the man working the register, and went to the back, stopping at a small metal door without any labels. He glanced behind, saw the store was empty, and knocked, looking up at a camera affixed to the wall.

  He heard an electronic lock break free and entered, finding the interior distinctly different from the utilitarian shop on the other side of the door. Paneled in dark wood, with antique artwork on the walls and crystal chandeliers providing the dim lighting, it was as if he’d entered a museum.

  A hulking figure put his hand to his chest, and he allowed himself to be searched. The brute finished and waved him forward. He entered an office, seeing an ornate wooden desk. Behind it sat his boss, Dmitri Pavlov.

  Nikita said, “It’s done.”

  An older man slowly going soft, Dmitri still had the steel in his eyes from his days in the Spetsnaz forces of the old Soviet Union, but the chaotic world that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall had allowed him to leave his past of death, focusing on a future of profit. The ensuing years had been good to him, so much so that his gut had swollen as he exploited the fruits of the post-Soviet world, even as he paid others to do the fighting.

  Dmitri leaned back in his chair, lit a cigar, and said, “You’re positive? I don’t want this man messing up my operations a second time.”

  Nikita said, “You mentioned that before. What happened?”

  Dmitri blew out some smoke, waved his hand, and said, “We had a simple mission—in Monaco of all places. What the hell could go wrong there? Recover a phone from a child who’d stolen it. I sent a man against her, and he was thwarted. I sent a team to help him, and they were thwarted. Only two of them lived.”

  Nikita said, “Luca and Simon. The two who saw the men in Brazil.”

  “Yes. They recognized the same man who prevented them from accomplishing their mission. A black man who is uncommonly good at fighting.”

  “If he’s so uncommonly good at fighting, how did Luca and Simon escape?”

  Dmitri grinned and said, “This, I do not know. Someone did kill Tagir and the rest of the team, but not Simon and Luca. Could have been they were interrupted. Could have been something else. But that action did lead me to investigate further, and I found the company I gave you. They’re like ours, I’m sure; a hidden military effort cloaked in a legitimate corporation. I didn’t bother to do anything about it earlier because there is no profit in revenge, only downside, but now the black man has been spotted in Brazil, and that is no coincidence. Which is why I chose to interdict first. And it seems it went smoothly.”

  Nikita said, “Yeah, we found the company, then located the target’s house on the Charleston Peninsula, in the United States. He had a Jeep that my men observed, with the company logo. We rigged it, then waited. It didn’t take long. The target initiated the interdiction, and he was incinerated.”

  Dmitri sat up and said, “Wait, you used a car bomb?”

  Miffed, Nikita said, “Yes. It was the easiest way for a standoff attack. I didn’t want to engage with the target, with all the forensics, cameras, and other things around. You wanted an ‘accident,’ and interacting with the target is always messy. Too many ways to determine that a ‘fall,’ isn’t really a fall.”

  “But a car bomb is messy. It’ll beg all sorts of questions. Charleston isn’t Beirut.”

  Nikita smiled and said, “You pay me for a reason. He drove an old CJ-7 Jeep, and we built a special device. When it’s explored forensically, it’ll look like the Jeep had a compromised fuel system. There is no evidence of foul play.”

  Dmitri nodded. Nikita said, “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “It is. As long as he’s dead.”

  Nikita laughed and said, “He is, I promise. Unless he can walk out of fire.”

  “The men?”

  “Still in Charleston. I’m going to let the scrutiny die down a little bit before they leave. I don’t want to give anyone a reason to look for a connection, unlike what happened in Dubai or Turkey. I’ll keep them in reserve there. Unless External Branch considers that too expensive.”

  Dmitri smiled and said, “External Branch won’t care. If they’ve succeeded. But Global Engagement might have an issue, since they’re still on that account.”

  Nikita scoffed and said, “Then get them off of the Global Engagement pay line. That entire contract in Myanmar was a waste of time anyway. We made a pittance and I had to suffer every day because of it. I work for External. I give a shit about Global.”

  Dmitri laughed and said, “So you don’t enjoy the ‘hearts and minds’ of our global strategy?”

  “No, I don’t. I enjoy the sharp edge of the spear.”

  Dmitri leaned forward and said, “Good. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear, because the target set has expanded. It’s no longer three members of Petrobras.”

  Nikita perked up and said, “That could be a problem. You can’t add a target at this late date. It takes months to build up a pattern of life, and we need to eliminate them within a week. We already have the data on the others.”

  “Calm down. In this case his pattern of life is advertised.”

  Dmitri passed across a picture and Nikita recognized it.

  “No way. A politician? That’s insane.”

  Dmitri tapped the picture and said, “Unfortunately, the other three deaths matter little now, unless we remove this man.”

  “Why? You’re talking about killing a potential head of state. Corporate attacks are one thing, but this is political. We don�
�t do that.”

  “We do when it serves our interests.”

  Nikita put his hands on Dmitri’s desk, leaned forward, and said, “You have to help me out here. I get I have no need to know, and I was good with that for the Petrobras executives, but this is another order of magnitude. I could expect some help if I were caught doing the executives, but if this one goes bad, I know I’m getting gutted.”

  Dmitri started to retort at the insolence and the lack of trust, and then held back. He knew Nikita would see it for what it was: a lie. And he needed Nikita to execute.

  He said, “Okay. This doesn’t leave the room. You know Operation Harvest as the killing of the Petrobras men in order to gain some oil concessions, but it’s much larger. In a nutshell, it’s the control of the entire Lulu oil fields off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, and with it, the de facto control of the country. For Mother Russia.”

  Nikita took that in, then said, “How?”

  “Brazil has found the largest deposits of crude and natural gas in the twenty-first century, but they can’t get it out of the ground. There are plenty of people competing to help, and our national company, Rosneft, has been shut out. They don’t want to work with a Russian institution because of Rosneft’s deep ties to Venezuela. That’s where we come in. We have some people in Petrobras who are not, shall we say, squeamish about Rosneft’s less than stellar reputation. But they are thwarted by others.”

  Nikita nodded and said, “Okay, okay, I get that. It explains the other targets. But why the politician?”

  Dmitri took a deep drag on his cigar and said, “Have you heard of the Carwash scandal in Brazil?”

  Nikita studied the wall for a moment, searching his memory, and said, “Yeah, I think so. The one that caught a few Brazilian politicians flatfooted?”

  Dmitri laughed and said, “Yes. But it was much more than a ‘few’ Brazilian politicians. It was pretty much the entire political class. Everyone in the party in power was involved in the bribes. Everyone had their hand in the till, taking bribes from all manner of oil companies funneled through Petrobras, which means we’re a little late to the show.”