War Shadows (Tier One Thrillers Book 2)

by Jeffrey Wilson

  He heard a soft, shuddering sigh.

  He opened his eyes and inched forward . . . very slowly . . . very carefully. He spied a large-diameter tree several meters deeper into the woods. She was hiding behind that tree; he was certain of it. His eyes, now fully acclimated to the dark, could make out one gray running shoe sticking out past the trunk. A smile spread across his face.

  He looked over his shoulder toward the lights of the backyard, now perhaps eighty meters behind him. No movement. No sound. No pursuit. The Syrian had not followed him. He looked again at the shoe, which had not moved. If she screamed, he would be forced to kill her immediately. He needed to be quick; he needed to be silent. He reached the tree—raised a hand and rested it on the wide trunk, bending in a crouch. He could hear her breathing now, long and slow.

  He readied himself and took a small step, repositioning around the trunk. As he did, her denim-clad left leg and half her ass came into view, the skintight jeans leaving little to the imagination. From her position, he knew she was looking away from him, peering around the far side of the tree. He slipped the pistol back into his waistband holster; took a deep, silent breath; and lunged at her.

  At the sound of his attack she tried to spin, but tripped over a root and fell backward instead. She landed hard, her arms flailing. She grunted, but to her great credit—and his relief—she did not scream. He clamped his right hand onto her throat and squeezed. She gagged and her eyes went wide. He stretched his body long on top of hers, pinning her arms against her chest and pressing her into the ground with all his mass. She squirmed beneath him, terror-stricken and panicked.

  “Be still,” he whispered. “It’s going to be all right.”

  For a moment her eyes filled with a spark of hope. Perhaps he was here to save her from the fanatical al-Mahajer? Perhaps he would protect her? He knew she’d noticed his glances. She must now be building a fantasy in which he helped her escape—somehow got her to safety and away from the crazy Syrian. Rostami smiled a dark smile and slid a hand to unbuckle his pants. Her eyes widened with realization and a renewed terror. At the sight of her fear and helplessness, he had to exert all his self-control not to take her quickly.

  Not yet. Not like this. Not until I’m bleeding her life into the dirt.

  Unencumbered now, he drew his stiletto from its scabbard. Gazing into her eyes, he pressed the point a centimeter below the corner of her right eye. She whimpered, and he shushed her like a baby. Still pinning her with his full weight, he released her throat. She gasped and gurgled, while he fumbled to pull down her pants—finally snapping the button off and splaying open the short zipper by force. Grinning with anticipation, he tugged, but the fucking pants would not drop past her ass. The tight, hip-hugging jeans the Western whores loved to wear—a look that drove him sex crazy—was now working against him.

  He shifted his weight to the right to get more leverage.

  Her knee snapped up between his legs with impossible force. He grunted and somehow stifled the urge to yell. Long nails clawed his face—just missing his left eye. He released his grip on her jeans and went for her neck, but she had her chin tucked now. From the corner of his eye, he saw her right hand dart downward. Next thing he knew, she was clutching his scrotum. She squeezed, crushing his testicles and digging her fingernails into his flesh. Unable to control himself, he howled in pain, the knife slipping from his grip as he buckled at the waist and rolled off her. She released her vise grip, and he was aware of her squirming away, but the pain and nausea were incapacitating. As her footfalls disappeared into the night, all he could do was lie there and moan.

  CHAPTER 36

  Dempsey moved like a SEAL through the brush—deliberate, fast, and quiet. He was in his element now. He felt electric and invincible, which was a problem, because tonight he wasn’t kitted up like a SEAL. No rifle. No Kevlar vest. No radio. No NVGs.

  Given the choice of all those things, right now, he’d take the NVGs.

  His organic night eyes had gone to shit the last few years, along with everything else, it seemed. His back, his alcohol tolerance, his mental concentration—

  He heard a wail, but not a woman’s wail.

  This was the sound of a man in agony.

  A beat later, he heard uncontrolled breathing and footsteps moving toward him fast. He dropped into a low crouch, and glided in behind a low bush. He was itching to pull his Sig Sauer from the holster he was wearing, but he couldn’t risk a gunshot. Not here. Not now. Even if it turned out to be the devil himself, Rafiq al-Mahajer, Dempsey needed to show restraint. To locate and stop the other terror cells, Ember needed al-Mahajer alive. But if their paths crossed here in the woods, would he have the self-control? Probably not. A wave of dread washed over him at the realization. Was his thirst for vengeance that powerful?

  Suddenly, he was regretting his decision to leave the Yukon.

  The running figure came into view, and he saw that it was a woman. What the hell is she doing? he thought, as he watched her run while trying to hold her pants up simultaneously.

  When she closed within ten feet he could make out the expression of abject terror on her face. With no time to second-guess the decision, Dempsey exploded out of the brush and wrapped her up. He clasped his left hand tightly over her mouth and used his right arm to protect her torso from injury as he brought her to the ground and rolled with her into a dense patch of brush. He dragged her along with him, as he crabbed back behind the bush.

  Pressing his lips to her ear, he whispered, “I’m here to help you, Delilah. Be silent or we’re both dead. Nod if you understand?”

  She nodded inside his grip.

  “I’m going to let go. Don’t bite me.”

  She nodded again.

  He eased his hand off her face, and she immediately whipped her head around to look at him. They locked eyes, and he saw both surprise and uncertainty in her gaze. He kept perfectly still and felt her body shuddering against his, the adrenaline still coursing through her veins.

  A twig cracked nearby, and she jerked in his arms.

  He held a finger to his lips.

  She nodded.

  Dempsey looked over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of a figure through a little gap in the foliage—adult male, walking with an awkward gait, possibly due to injury. Dempsey couldn’t make out the face in the dark. He glanced back down at Delilah and saw that her blouse was torn and her jeans were ripped open at the hips. His mind quickly filled in the blanks—that motherfucker.

  He repositioned his hand to the hilt of his SOG knife clipped to his belt. Delilah saw this and immediately tensed, her respiration rate ticking up. She craned her neck around to look at him, and he shook his head: Don’t worry, not for you.

  The footsteps stopped.

  He felt her go stiff in his arms.

  Dempsey looked over his other shoulder. Through the leaves, he could just make out their stalker. The man dangled a blade in his left hand while dabbing at his left cheek and nose with the index and middle fingers of his other hand. He held up his fingers for inspection in the pale moonlight. Dempsey heard him sigh heavily and gaze up at the sky, as if saying a prayer to the heavens. Then, the figure looked in their direction. Dempsey tightened his grip on the knife and visualized how the hand-to-hand sequence would unfold.

  He waited for the footsteps.

  Waited.

  Waited . . .

  The figure looked away. Shoulders slumped, scanning the woods one last time, before heading back the way he’d come.

  Dempsey let out a long, slow breath but continued to hold Delilah. After several minutes passed, he whispered, “Listen to me carefully. I know who you are. I know you’re Suren. I know there are terrorists in your house right now planning to launch simultaneous attacks at the Old Market as well as in Atlanta and Seattle.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Then you also know what happened to Keyvan?” she whispered.

  Dempsey nodded. “I’m sorry about your husband.”
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  She began to sob. “They murdered him in cold blood.”

  “I know.”

  “Everything got out of control.”

  “It always does with these people.”

  “You work for the US government?”

  He nodded.

  “What are you going to do to me?”

  “That, Delilah, is entirely up to you. We can do things the hard way, or the easy way. Either way you’re coming with me and you’re going to tell me and my colleagues everything you know.”

  He sensed a wave of fatalism wash over her, and tears began to flow down her cheeks. “I made a terrible mistake, trusting these men.”

  “Yes, you did,” he said, and then let silence do the work for him.

  After a minute, she wiped her tears with the backs of her hands. Then, to his relief, she swallowed hard and said, “Okay, I choose the easy way.”

  CHAPTER 37

  The bitch was gone.

  And it was al-Mahajer’s fault.

  Rostami slammed the kitchen door. He wanted to scream. No, he wanted to take his blade and plunge it into the Syrian’s fucking neck. He paced the kitchen, walking donuts around the Shirazis’ granite-topped cooking island. He paused and looked at himself in the reflection of the stainless-steel espresso machine on the bar. There were two shallow gouges on his cheek and a third along his eye socket that oozed blood down along his nose. The burning between his legs made him almost desperate to check himself out below, but he couldn’t risk the Syrian coming up and finding him with his bloody manhood in his hand.

  He pulled his gaze away from the distorted reflection, grabbed a paper towel, and began dabbing away the blood on his face. Killing al-Mahajer is a legitimate option, he told himself. Without al-Mahajer, the operation would proceed as planned in Atlanta and Redmond. Those cells were on autopilot now. Carnage in two out of three target locations was still a victory. He could fabricate a grand fait accompli about discovering that the Shirazis were double agents and serve up this entire debacle in rich detail to Amir Modiri once he was safely back in Tehran. He was so tired of cleaning up other people’s messes. This circus should never have been his responsibility in the first place. This was supposed to be Parviz’s operation, but no, Parviz had to go and get himself captured by the Americans in Iraq. Gritting his teeth, Rostami made a silent vow to slit the other agent’s throat if the fool somehow managed to make it back to Iran alive.

  “Is she dead?” al-Mahajer asked.

  Rostami whirled to find the terrorist standing behind him, just inside the doorway to the basement stairs. “Yes,” he said, glaring at the Syrian.

  “What happened to your face?” al-Mahajer said with a scowl.

  “I wanted it to look like a rape. She fought back.”

  “What did you do with the body?”

  “I shoved it down a sewer culvert,” he lied. “We need to sanitize this house and go.”

  “The elite Suren Circle you promised me is a farce. I would have been better off executing this mission alone,” al-Mahajer growled as he turned his back on Rostami and headed back downstairs. “I hope my men aren’t facing similar issues with their Suren hosts in Seattle and Atlanta.”

  Rostami followed al-Mahajer while shaking his head. “Keyvan was a coward, but he was no double agent. And Delilah was serving faithfully and obediently until you decided to bludgeon Keyvan in front of her.”

  “Did you not see what I saw? Keyvan was gathering information to betray us. Delilah was playing the same charade—only she was a much better actor than her husband. If you weren’t so stricken by her womanly charms, you would have seen the plain truth as I did.”

  Rostami decided to ignore the jab and hurried over to where Keyvan’s body still lay oozing on the carpet and began rifling through the pockets. “Where is Keyvan’s phone?”

  “I smashed it,” the Syrian said. “We’re out of time. A SWAT team will be here within thirty minutes. I packed everything while you were gone. We must leave immediately.”

  Rostami agreed. He had no intention of ending up in a CIA black site cell next to Parviz, his testicles hooked up to a car battery. He looked at al-Mahajer. “If they were compromised, what is your contingency plan? Do you intend to postpone the operation and reassess?”

  Al-Mahajer hoisted a large duffel bag onto his shoulder and laughed. “Postpone and reassess? Oh, Persian, you really are naïve. I’m not postponing anything. On the contrary, I’m going to accelerate the timetable.”

  “How soon?” Rostami asked and quickly finished packing his own duffel.

  “We strike tomorrow . . . at noon.”

  There was a mania in al-Mahajer’s eyes. Rostami’s stomach lurched at the implications. “How can this be accomplished without notifying the other two teams?”

  “I will contact the other two teams and advance the timeline.”

  “Would it not be safer to maintain EMCON and strike at the scheduled time?”

  Al-Mahajer grinned. “We’ve prepared and trained for this exact scenario. The equipment is prepared, the target locations set. The time between when I pass the order and they execute is too short for the Americans to react, insh’Alla. Besides, for this operation, the other cells require an authentication from me before they act.”

  Rostami held his tongue and kept packing his bag. He’d learned there was no point in debating anything with the man, for al-Mahajer was a man whose opinion was immune to influence.

  “But I still need your help, Persian.”

  “My help?” Rostami said, finding the grip of his pistol inside his duffel bag. He looked up and gave the insane Syrian a placating smile.

  “Yes, you must fill the void left by your dead Suren companions,” al-Mahajer said. “You are responsible for getting me to downtown Omaha and recording my glory. You must promise me to upload the video to the Internet, so that it may spread around the world. Once you have done this one last thing for me, then you are free to return to your life of decadence and impiety in Iran.”

  Rostami hesitated. Was al-Mahajer telling the truth, or was this some new trick to draw him into a position of involuntary martyrdom by entangling him in the events at the target location? He wouldn’t be surprised if al-Mahajer had rigged a video camera with C4. Rostami slid his index finger off the trigger guard and onto the trigger. The safest course of action was to simply kill the Syrian now. “You want me to film you?” he asked.

  “Yes. You will be witness to my sacrifice. You will record it and spread it around the world so that it may inspire others to have the courage to strike the Great Satan as well. My name will be remembered forever, and I will be given a seat at the great table with the prophet in Paradise,” al-Mahajer said, looking up as if the prophet himself were floating overhead.

  Rostami scowled as the implications of al-Mahajer’s command and control plan sunk in. He let go of his pistol, leaving it concealed inside his duffel bag. Unless al-Mahajer personally made the call, the other cells would not activate. If the other cells did not activate, then the mission would be a failure. Until al-Mahajer made that call, Rostami would have to bide his time and continue to play the game.

  He stood and took al-Mahajer by the shoulders. “Your reward will indeed be great, my brother,” he said. “I know we’ve had our differences, but I swear you can count on me to spread the glory of your sacrifice around the world.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Dempsey shoved the trembling Delilah Shirazi into the back of the SUV.

  “Hey, I didn’t know we were allowed to bring dates to this party,” Wang said, looking up from his laptop.

  The joke fell flat.

  “Flex-cuff her,” Dempsey said to Grimes, brushing the dirt and leaves from his 5.11 Tactical cargo pants.

  “Anybody see you?” Smith asked.

  “No,” Dempsey said, climbing into the Yukon and shutting the door behind him. “But we had a close call. I’ll fill you in on that later. What’s going on inside the house? What are they saying?”
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  “They smashed the phone,” Wang said with a grimace. “We lost our ears five minutes ago. I’ve been trying to find another way in ever since. No joy so far.”

  “Shit,” Dempsey mumbled.

  “But before we lost the signal, it sounded like they were packing up to leave,” Adamo said from the front. The man’s jaw was set and confident. “Which means it’s time to kit up and go do that Navy SEAL shit you love.”

  Dempsey raised an eyebrow. He was slowly gaining a grudging respect for the man—just as he imagined Jarvis predicted—but right now, Adamo had him at a loss. “What are you talking about?”

  Adamo looked at him with surprise. “We have to hit the house,” he said, as if perhaps Dempsey had lost touch with reality. “They’re going to get away.”

  “We can’t hit them now,” Dempsey said. “We don’t know the other two targets.”

  “Atlanta and Seattle.”

  “Where in Atlanta and Seattle? Those are two big fucking cities. There are millions of people there.” He swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut. He had hurt Kate and Jake so much already—the thought that they might be anywhere near what was coming was unbearable. “We need to know the exact target locations. We need details on the other players. We don’t know any of that.” His voice was rising to a fevered pitch, and he felt the eyes of his team on him.

  “But she does,” Adamo said, looking at Delilah.

  All eyes shifted to their new guest.

  “The intelligence on the operations in the other cities is compartmentalized. They kept it from us. My husband tried to—” She stopped midsentence, epiphany slapping her across the face. “Oh my God, Keyvan was working for you?”