It was the first time he’d thought about dying since meeting Marta. He saw her face, a tear slipping from her eye, a slow motion collapse to the ground. He went out of body in the next moment and looked down on himself, over at the guy shooting at him and then over at Fuchs. There was no time. He needed this thing over now.
Something strange happened next.
Standard procedure for Lance is going out of body to survey the situation, uncover details missed, and then jumping back into his head to take action. This time, instead of going back inside his head, he watched as Preacher rolled onto his back and pulled out his two remaining grenades. From the prone position, Preacher lobbed one in the direction of the first building, and then rolled back on to his front to rise up on a knee as the explosion erupted about 15 feet from the shooter. From up there, Lance thought it was an excellent throw.
He watched as Preacher got up from one knee to his feet and ran perpendicular to the building, taking him out of the shooter's view. He continued running, limping really, around the building. Lance rose higher into the sky to watch Preacher round the back corner of the building and find the shooter lying there shaking off the effects of the explosion. Preacher put two bullets through the back of the man’s head. He then stepped into the blown-out building to make sure no other men were inside recovering. Nope. The six men inside were dead.
Lance looked over at Fuchs attacking building four. He realized something in this moment. He shouldn’t be able to see Fuchs. He couldn’t see him from the building Preacher stood inside, so how could he be watching the scene unfolding a couple hundred feet below him like this?
The next thing that happened was also a first. The disembodied Lance stopped what he was doing and talked to himself, talked to Preacher. A third set of eyes watched this floating Lance come to a slow realization.
He was dying. Death was looking at him. Damn. Not now. Not with all this work to do, all these new first-time things happening. But Death didn’t care about plans or agendas or love or missions. Lance and Death, watching from on high, heard the explosions as Fuchs tossed two grenades into building four. At the same time, Preacher came limping out of building one. He looked bad, blood-soaked and weak. Didn’t look like he had long, but he kept going toward Fuchs to help mop up any remaining terrorists in training.
One final exchange of fire ended quickly as Preacher joined Fuchs. An eerie silence took over. Lance and his new friend Death moved down closer now that the shooting was over. They saw the look on Fuchs’ face when he turned to see Preacher.
The older CIA killer rushed over to Preacher and helped him to the ground. The spirits descended to just a few feet over their heads. Fuchs’ emergency medical skills took over. He tore off Preacher’s field jacket and ripped the shirt to get a look at the injuries. He then tore the shirt into strips and tied one around the shoulder entry and exit wounds and then he stuck his finger in the hole near Preacher’s ribs to stop that bleeding and feel for the bullet. It was too deep to pull out with fingers. He tied another strip of shirt around Preacher’s right thigh.
During all of this, Preacher lay there on the dirt. The early morning light now filled the sky. The oppressive heat had already kicked in. But Preacher wasn’t looking at the sky, or Fuchs, or his wounds. No, he was busy starring up at Lance Priest and someone he didn’t know. The two of them were floating right there over Fuchs’s shoulder as he worked to staunch the flow of blood from Preacher's many wounds.
“Doesn’t look good, does it?” Preacher spoke to Lance.
Fuchs thought he was talking to him, of course. “Not that bad, not any worse than Baghdad.”
Preacher ignored him. “What do you think bro?” He asked Lance.
“No problem.” Fuchs responded.
“No, not you Foxy. I’m asking Lance up there.”
Lance smiled at Preacher. “You look like shit, like one of those GI Joe’s you tore the hell out of when we lived in Florida.”
Preacher laughed at the memory. He turned to the other guy next to Lance and spoke in Russian, “How bout you? What do you think buddy?”
The ghost, who looked equal parts Seibel, Marta and Max von Sydow, smiled as well. “I can’t lie to you.”
“Oh, c’mon. Go ahead and lie. It’s what we do.” Preacher’s vision began to go fuzzy.
“Okay, okay. You are dead. No chance to pull through this time.” The spirit seemed to move into Lance and come out the other side.
“Crap. Lousy time to die, and not where I planned.”
“You never...” Lance responded.
“I know. I never had a plan. Never cared much about it before now either. Before her.”
Lance came down near the ground on the opposite side of Preacher from Fuchs. “Not much you can do about it bro.”
Preacher reached up to Lance. “No worries, right? She’ll be fine. She’s done fine without us up till now anyway.”
“Yep.” Lance the ghost took Preacher’s hand. “She’ll be fine. I think she really likes you though.”
“You or me?” Preacher laughed at the inside joke. He coughed and spat a little blood. Not good.
“Me. I’m better looking.” Lance cracked up as he said this.
“That will have to work for now my friend.” Fuchs butted into the conversation and brought his head down in between Preacher and Lance. “Let’s go.”
“No, that’s okay. We’re fine. Get out of here and go see if you can’t find our ghost bomber out there in the jungle.”
“Nope. Let’s go.” Fuchs straddled Preacher and pulled him up to a sitting position, then pulled him to his unsteady feet. He bent over and let Preacher fall onto his shoulder and then he proceeded to carry him to the beach and north the quarter mile or so to where their boat was waiting. Preacher was in and out of consciousness for the shoulder carry. But he did remember looking back at Lance and the other fella and wondered if he’d see them again.
Once on the boat, Fuchs put Lance on the floorboards and broke out the first aid kit. Minutes later he was on the sat radio talking with Seibel who had been busy arranging for Special Forces to mop up, and a forensics team for onsite evidence collection.
Seibel wasn’t thrilled to hear Lance had been shot multiple times but was happy Fuchs had a good grip on him this time. They arranged for a helicopter pickup in the village of Parang, on the western tip of Jolo Island. The helicopter would get Lance to the hospital in Zamboanga in about 50 minutes. He might just make it.
Lance, floating overhead, didn’t think Preacher had a chance.
Chapter 23
Tuesday, October 1, 1991 — Yugoslavia, Egypt, Chechnya
Three explosions, one massive, two medium, ripped through a train station in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, a crowded open market in Cairo, Egypt and on a bus outside Grozny, Chechnya.
The October morning was six weeks and two days after the morning raid on the terrorist training compound. It was a well-planned and executed operation. The combined explosions killed 211 humans. Very effective terror events.
He watched the images on the screen and knew each of the explosions were sufficient to achieve their goals. The bus in Chechnya was just a husk on melted wheels. The Cairo market’s stone and dirt floors were stained red. The train station could only be seen from a quarter mile away. It was the largest of the bombs. He could tell by the spray of glass, brick and metal that the explosion ripped off a third of the north side of the building. It was indeed massive. Amazing that a common travel trunk sitting on a loading dock could hold enough explosive material achieve such results.
Anwar personally constructed each bomb and traveled to every destination to work with separate teams. But he was nowhere near any of them when they detonated. He was in Syria, surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert. A television antenna brought him news of the carnage. He took no pleasure. But he was satisfied with the results, the message delivered. That message was simple – change is coming. Freedom from oppression will be born from ashes.
&
nbsp; Anwar prayed at noon and then again at 2 pm. He thanked Allah for the skills, the patience and the commitment to follow through with the plans he and others devised in mountain villages in Afghanistan. He was truly a soldier for jihad. He was a vessel through which Allah will bring justice to the world.
He was doing his duty, his job. And he had much to do. This was only the beginning. This was war.
Watching a television screen in his office thousands of miles away in Moscow, Gregor Smelinski saw the pattern in the separate incidents. He didn’t need to work hard to see it. He was frustrated by the lack of his, or anyone else’s, ability to detect and derail these terrorist acts. He was especially disappointed that one of the acts occurred in his backyard, albeit an ugly backyard in Chechnya. Again, without any advance warning. None.
Smelinski needed to act quickly, decisively. He had already placed half a dozen calls to resources in or near Grozny. Nobody had anything. The perpetrators were a complete mystery. He had a few ideas. If this had been the bus in Grozny only, he would have assumed, along with everyone else, it was Chechnyan separatists. But explosions in three separate cities, all taking place within the same hour made this an international event. It would undoubtedly bring together international law enforcement and intelligence forces.
He had a number of resources he could put on the case. They would do a fine a job. They would undoubtedly find traces, tracks. But he didn’t have at his disposal a ruthless hunter and tracker who would stop at nothing to get her man. He turned away from the television at the ringing of the phone on his desk. Smelinski was lost in thought, seeing her face. He had a tinge of regret in his voice as he picked up the receiver. The person at the other end of the phone likely took his faraway tone to be reflective of the day’s tragic events.
Four TV screens played news footage from around the world. Geoffrey Seibel watched each. CNN had the best compilation of all three incidents. The news anchors on the cable news channel were now recognizable in the aftermath of CNN’s coverage coup of the brief Gulf War earlier in the year.
Seibel didn’t have to ask who could have done this. He knew, maybe more than anyone else. This was Anwar's work. This was precision and patience and payback for the raid on Tapul. Seibel could see the pattern behind all three. He could see the separate events were adapted to new timelines to put them on the same day, the same hour.
The latest footage coming in from Chechnya was as bad as the images of Cairo and Zagreb that had been played dozens of times now. “This is big news,” one of the anchors said. Seibel took that as a sign and muted the volume. He had already been on the phone with the Director of the CIA, NSA and the White House. He told them all the same thing – Anwar. The world's elite terrorist bomber announced that he had come down from the mountains of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda was now a force to be reckoned with, everywhere.
He shook his head. They’d almost gotten him. They were so close, closer than they’d likely be again for a long time. Anwar would become a ghost after this. Seibel, like Smelinski, would put resources to work alongside other nations in an attempt to track and kill him. But he, like Smelinski, was without one of his greatest resources. He’d lost Lance more than three weeks ago when he limped out of the military hospital in Hawaii and fell off the face of the earth.
He had disappeared. No doubt he was still pissed about the whole Tapul scene and the bad intel that nearly got him killed. But more than that, Lance was just plain different. He didn’t have any passion for finding Anwar anymore. The two times Seibel had visited him in the hospital, Lance had been gracious but empty. He probably should have died on that island, probably would have preferred that to the surgeries and recovery he was working through before he disappeared.
Then there was the matter of Marta. Lance gave nothing away of his involvement with her, but Seibel could see with eyes closed the effect their relationship, regardless of how insane it was, had on Lance. Seibel held that she had changed him more than being shot a second time in eight months. Fuchs had confirmed the changed Preacher he encountered in Manila. Seibel didn’t want to use terms like “beyond salvage” and “no longer applicable” that members of Account One were muttering. He had too much invested in Preacher. The kid was just getting started. "Give him some time," he whispered to no one.
Seibel screwed up sending just the two of them into the compound. But hell, they killed all but three of the two dozen men in the small complex. He knew it wouldn’t be the last time he'd send them to their death.
Chapter 24
“Damn, you couldn’t have picked a Rockefeller or the Sultan of Brunei or maybe even Prince Charles?”
He was reading an in-depth article from The Economist about Russian oligarch Kirill Cherzny. And, even though it was written primarily from a financial point of view, the article detailed fairly intimate aspects of this man from Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border, who rose to local and regional power through politics before turning to oil, minerals, transportation and now technology to build incredible wealth.
“His little empire touches everything.” Preacher looked up from the magazine to watch her move across the floor with the beach, waves and palm trees gently waving behind her. Every time he looked at her it was like a dream. Words didn't work to describe what she did to him, what she meant. Love was far too tame a description of his feelings for her.
“I think I've said that a few hundred times.” She was wearing a bikini top and khaki shorts -- a mix of beauty and tomboy.
“I know, I know. I’m just restating so it will settle in my brain. I’m like that, you know.”
“I’m beginning to see how you are.” Marta leaned against the railing of their balcony. A gentle breeze blew through her hair. Lovely, he thought.
“He’s basically in charge. The president is his lapdog. It’s all right here. He has his hand, or at least his little pinky, in everything. Like a web.” Preacher added.
She laughed and came back inside to sit beside him on the rattan sofa. “It is exactly like a web. And that is precisely why Gregor should have wanted him isolated and contained.”
“But he was already turned.” Preacher reached out a finger to swipe at a small insect that had landed on her lovely shoulder. “I wonder how long ago?”
“Years, at least. The way I see it, Cherzny identified players like Smelinski a decade ago and systematically brought them into his sphere. It is just like everywhere else, everyone is in someone else’s pocket. He just happens to have the biggest and deepest pockets.”
Preacher snickered. “You are on a tear today, on fire with the metaphors and analogies. I’m loving it.”
She moved her hand to rub his chest, the non-bandaged side, of course. “I’m loving you.”
“See, right there. You are too quick for me today. On fire.” He grasped her hand in his and brought it to his lips. This, all of this, was too easy. Like Vienna, only with more severe injuries this time.
They’d been here 16 days. The island of Yap in the Philippine Sea was their floating fortress of solitude from the world. He didn’t know where they were going nearly three weeks ago when she stepped into his hospital room on Oahu. He didn’t much care, as long as it was away from the hospital, and somewhere they could be alone.
He’d heard of Yap, but never looked at it on a map because there were so few roads to memorize. The islanders were very respectful of their privacy, believing the two of them were on an extended honeymoon. Which, in certain ways, it was, except for a significant decrease in amorous activity as a result of Preacher's wounds.
Lance held up the magazine again. “Says he lives in the same apartment he moved into when he came to Moscow 13 years ago. He does not surround himself with the trappings of extreme wealth. He and his wife live simply, without extravagance. Downright homey. Sounds like rags to riches.”
“Yes, he does keep that apartment. But the rest of the apartment building has been cleared out, except for his flunkies, bodyguards and consorts.” She ran her hands th
rough her hair and leaned her head back on the colorful cushion atop the rattan framework of the sofa. She brought her feet up onto the ornately carved wooden table in front of them. “The apartment building, located on Utkeski Prospect, has 88 units on 6 floors, two elevators, which both work – an amazing thing in Moscow. There are three entrances, all secure. The front entrance has a rotating security detail. Access to each floor requires a card key. The codes for these keys change weekly, requiring issuance of new cards to the building's few tenants.
“Cherzny’s apartment has been expanded to integrate security applications, including reinforced walls and doors and bulletproof windows. Hidden stairs provide access to units above and below. Backup generators located in the basement of the structure could power it for three months. The roof features a helipad. The perimeters of the building and adjoining properties are under constant video surveillance, with roving teams of security personnel dressed as business people, police and street vendors.”
She opened her eyes and leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees.
“I would say you went somewhere else right there,” Preacher put the magazine on the table and he leaned over to rub her back. “And my guess would be Moscow. When were you there last?”
“Nineteen days ago.”
He thought that through. “So you went to Hawaii straight from Moscow.” He knew she had been busy after they separated six-plus weeks ago, but he wasn’t thrilled she had gone right into the lion’s den without him. But he stopped that thought immediately. Marta was more comfortable in dangerous situations than anyone he’d ever met.
The Perfect Weapon Page 14
