Pandora's Grave (Shadow Warriors)

by Stephen England

  And then he was gone, down the hallway.

  Carol sighed. Ron rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand and glanced speculatively at the empty coffee mug on his desk. “Well, that’s the end of sleep for the night. What’s the name of the new guy?”

  “Ames?”

  “Yeah, Ames. Send him down to the cafeteria for coffee. We’re gonna need it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  12:19 A.M. Pacific Time

  Beverly Hills, California

  There was a satisfied expression on President Hancock’s face as he stepped into the limousine. It had been a successful evening, a fundraising dinner attended by a who’s who list of Hollywood celebrities. He enjoyed a great deal of support on the West Coast, and this was turning out to be a good trip.

  Hancock took his seat and smiled into the eyes of the starlet who already sat within, his hand closing over hers. The evening was yet young.

  “Mr. President,” a voice broke in upon his thoughts. His head jerked up to see the head of his Secret Service detail, Curt Hawkins, with a phone in his hand. “I have David Lay on the phone, sir. He says it’s urgent.”

  “Isn’t it always,” Hancock retorted in disgust. “I have briefing in five hours, can’t it wait till then?”

  The agent shook his head. “That’s a negative, Mr. President.”

  “All right, give it here.”

  Hawkins shot a pointed look in the direction of the actress and the President sighed, kissing her on the cheek. “Give me a moment, darling.”

  Another agent escorted her from the vehicle as he picked up the phone.“Hello, David.”

  “Mr. President, we have a situation.”

  “More of your agents in trouble, director?” Hancock suggested. “You’ve already disrupted my evening, so get to the point.”

  “The Iranians have a commando team in Israel, planning to deploy the biological weapon within the next twenty-four hours.”

  “How did this happen?”

  “We’re still determining that. The fact is that they are in-country, and planning to hit the crowd worshiping at the al-Aqsa mosque during Friday prayers”

  “Killing Muslims? Why?”

  “It’s a casus belli, Mr. President. Remember the riots of ‘96? I was Station Chief Tel Aviv at the time. The murder of worshipers on the Temple Mount will unleash a wave of violence across the Middle East and Europe. Probably even here. It could lead to war, to the annihilation of Israel. With your permission, I will contact my counterpart in Israel so that he can employ necessary countermeasures.”

  “No.”

  There was a moment of shocked silence on the other end of the line, then David Lay asked, “Why on earth not, Mr. President?”

  “You speak of a casus belli, a cause for war, without realizing that it is a double-edged sword,” Hancock replied. “While you speak of Shirazi using this ruse as pretext, you overlook the fact that Prime Minister Shamir could and might use this information in exactly the same way. You know as well as I do that if Israel strikes Iran the world goes up in flames. We’ll handle this crisis ourselves.”

  “And how might we do that, sir?”

  There was an edge to Hancock’s voice when he spoke again. “Ever since I took office, I’ve heard you before Congress justifying the budget of your Clandestine Service, Lay. Maybe it’s time your men started earning their keep.”

  11:36 A.M. Local Time

  The hotel

  Beirut, Lebanon

  “So, we’re supposed to put a team on the ground within the borders of an allied country, take out the terrorists and escape without detection?” Harry asked, glancing across the lobby to where Asefi still sat.

  There was a faint crackle of static on the connection and then Kranemeyer responded, “That’s correct. Can you do it, Harry?”

  “Sure as there’s a Santa Claus. Why doesn’t the President just order a missile strike? Sat coverage shows the Land Rover to still be in the Golan, collateral damage would be kept to a minimum.”

  “We suggested that. Too much of a footprint, he says. Has to be people on the ground.”

  “Yeah, well, you might remind him that humans leave footprints too. That’s where the term originated.”

  “Tick-tock, Harry. Are we getting anywhere with this conversation?”

  “My men are still alive,” Harry shot back. “I want the President to understand the potential fallout of what he’s ordering. We don’t have the luxury of loose border security, so we’ll have to get creative.”

  “Is there anything you need?”

  “There is,” he replied. “We’re not using the team. Tex and I will go in, across the border. Contact Avraham Najeri and have him meet us in Hebron with the necessary equipment.”

  “Harry, we’ve got a minimum of five terrorists, possibly more, with a bio-weapon. Less than twenty-four hours to search and destroy. Can you do that with a team of two?”

  “It’s all about footprint, remember. Two people. Bring Najeri up to speed and we’ll work things from our end.”

  “What do you want him to deliver?”

  Harry glanced at his phone, his fingers dancing across the screen to bring down a menu. “Uploading a wish list presently.”

  “What are your plans concerning Asefi?” the DCS asked after a second.

  Harry looked across the hotel lobby in the Iranian’s direction, a cold look coming into his eyes. “Kill him, most likely.”

  “Then take care of it,” Kranemeyer replied calmly. “Your best option is to do it there in Beirut, before you leave.”

  “No, can’t do that.”

  “Why?”

  “He knows something he’s not telling us. And we don’t have the time to get it out of him. That’s what he’s betting on.”

  “Is his information regarding the terrorists on the level?”

  A moment’s hesitation, then Harry responded, “No. He’s hiding something, like somebody bluffing with a pair of deuces.”

  “Is the Land Rover worth following?”

  “We back-tracked the Gulfstream to Tehran. They’re in Israel for a reason. We won’t know why until we hunt them down. So, yes, I think we need to take them down. And take Asefi along for the ride. As long as he’s useful.”

  “Do it.”

  11:43 A.M.

  Beer-sheba, Israel

  Avraham Najeri was reassembling a PSG-1 sniper rifle when his prepaid cellphone vibrated with an incoming call.

  A frown crossed his face as he glanced at the screen. The Agency. “Salaam alaikum,” he answered cautiously. Blessing and peace be upon you.

  He listened carefully for the space of five minutes, then closed the phone without another word, going to a safe on the other side of his workroom. Fingers moving over the biometric keypad, he pulled the door open and removed a pair of Galil assault rifles, laying them out on the workbench. Three magazines for each, followed by two sets of night-vision binoculars.

  Working quickly, he expertly field-stripped the rifles, dumping the components into a sack. The resulting jumble would have confused most, but not a man of his experience. He could have put them both back together in the space of five minutes if he had been so inclined. It wouldn’t baffle the men he was delivering them to either.

  Another glance around his workroom and he turned off the lights, running the beads of a rosary through his fingers as he headed toward the stairs. Time to make the delivery…

  12:01 P.M. Local Time

  The hotel

  Beirut, Lebanon

  The two men were no longer in sight, but he could feel their presence. They were watching. Asefi turned back to his food, picking at it with a fork. His appetite left something to be desired.

  The big man had been the sniper—or was there a third?

  He looked out the window of the hotel restaurant at the street outside, the sunlight streaming in through the glass. The fork trembled in his hand as he thought of the deception he was perpetrating. Hossein and his men didn’
t have the toxin—he knew that. But they linked him to the Ayatollah, and if they were dead…

  His eyes closed as he imagined the firefight between Hossein’s picked guerillas and the—Americans, maybe? It was not so much that the man looked like an American, but he acted with the confidence of one. A cowboy.

  A shadow fell across his plate and he glanced up. “Come on, Achmed,” the man announced in Russian. “It’s time to go.”

  A worried expression crossed Asefi’s face. “I thought our business together was concluded?”

  Harry smiled. “Nyet. I sincerely wish it was. But it is not our lot to be so fortunate. You’ll come with us until we’ve verified the information you provided.”

  12:13 P.M.

  The foothills of the Golan

  The patrol wasn’t going anywhere. Hossein came to this realization after half an hour of watching the Israeli Humvee through the lens of his binoculars.

  They had hidden the Land Rover about half a mile back, leaving two men guarding it. Now he, Mustafa, and another of the militants lay in the bushes on the outskirts of the village, their weapons trained on the four Israeli soldiers.

  No more time, Hossein decided, reaching for the pistol at his hip. Motioning for his men to stay put, he screwed a silencer into the muzzle and rose to a crouch.

  Forty yards. He could have made the shot, but there was no room for error. One shot and the remaining soldiers would react. With two of them inside the house beyond the vehicle, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

  He moved into an alley between the houses, marveling at the incongruity of modern Palestine. A donkey grazed in the courtyard of a house surmounted by a television aerial. The old and the new fused together in an inseparable bond.

  A wheelbarrow full of bricks stood in front of a house farther down the street and Hossein moved toward it, shoving his pistol into the load.

  One of the two soldiers on guard looked up at his approach, dismissed him as a common laborer and continued to scan the street.

  It was a fatal mistake. Five yards away, Hossein dropped the handles of the barrow and grabbed the pistol, his arm a blur as he brought it to bear.

  The pistol coughed, a bullet spitting from its cold muzzle to strike the soldier in the middle of the forehead. A young man, he observed dispassionately, almost young enough to be his son.

  His body fell backward, thudding softly against the metal of the Humvee. His comrade reacted, the muzzle of his weapon swinging upward in a sickeningly slow motion.

  Hossein squeezed the trigger again. Target down. He ducked and moved forward, unclipping a stun grenade from the belt of the second man.

  Alerted, the last two soldiers emerged from the door of the dwelling just as he pulled the pin on the grenade, lofting it into the air.

  Thunder and lightning. The major shielded his eyes as the stun grenade went off, a blinding flash lit up the area.

  He raised himself up, the pistol in both hands. Chaos. Surprise. The Israelis had been blinded by the blast and he shot both of them, one after the other, watching as their lifeless bodies crumpled to the ground.

  The way was clear. The path to Al Quds…

  4:25 A.M. Eastern Time

  NCS Operations Center

  Langley, Virginia

  “I need a sitrep, Carter,” Kranemeyer announced, bustling around the end of the cubicle. “Do we still have eyes on the Land Rover?”

  Carter didn’t respond for a moment, his eyes focused intently on the screen before him. A command prompt appeared and he clicked on it, the resolution of the image changing as it zoomed in.

  “Bet your life we do. More than that, we’ve got a situation.”

  “What’s going on?” the DCS asked, shifting his weight on his prosthetic leg to lean toward the screen.

  “Watch this—three minutes ago.”

  The view was uncanny, a true top-down birds-eye view. The perspective of the gods. It always reminded Carter of the original Grand Theft Auto games he had played as a teenager.

  A figure moving down the street, toward a patrol of Israeli soldiers. The analyst clicked another button and slowed the scene down. “Watch here—between frames 2375 and 2394.”

  “He pulls a pistol,” Kranemeyer announced slowly, narrating the video as it continued. “One man, two men down. Stops. Whoa!”

  The explosion spread out over the satellite imaging, concealing the scene from view for a few seconds. The DCS grimaced. “Flash-bang. It’d have to be. There. Two more men down. He utilized his element of surprise to the fullest—we’re dealing with a professional. What’s their present heading?”

  “Currently—south-southwest. Toward the West Bank. At their present rate of speed, they’ll be within the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority in two hours.”

  “We’re going to break a lot of laws today,” Kranemeyer observed, shaking his head.

  The comment drew an ironic look from the analyst. “When don’t we?”

  1:13 P.M. Local Time

  Mossad Headquarters

  Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel

  “It’s a match?” General Shoham looked from the analyst in front of him down to the grainy surveillance photo on the desk.

  “The computer says the match is 83% positive.”

  “The computer?” the Mossad chief asked, more than a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “And what say you?”

  The analyst hesitated and Shoham waved his hand impatiently. “Make the call. Is it Nichols?”

  A brief nod, then the man replied, “Yes. It’s him. I’m certain of it.”

  “I concur,” Shoham acknowledged, picking up the picture and transfixing it with a hard glance. “The question is—what is he doing crossing the border from Lebanon an hour ago, and who is the man with him?”

  “I don’t have that answer, sir. We should have information on their identities within the hour.”

  “Or who they said they were,” was Shoham’s brief retort. “Lies within lies. Bring me what you know as soon as you know it.”

  2:01 P.M.

  The road to Nablus

  “Who are you?”

  Harry sighed with irritation. It was the third time Asefi had asked him the question, and his mood had not improved with the repetition.

  “A friend,” he responded sarcastically.

  “They’ll be looking for us,” the Iranian observed, glancing out the window of the car as he drove. “Tradecraft says that you don’t steal a car unless you have to.”

  “I had to,” was Harry’s brief reply. “And I seriously doubt the Israeli police go looking for cars stolen in Beirut.”

  “I don’t understand why we can’t go our separate ways.”

  Harry’s gaze shifted from the road in front of them to Asefi, giving the man a hard look. There was no way the man didn’t understand the rationale behind the situation. There was an object in his chatter, an ulterior motive.

  “What if we’re stopped and I’m like this?” the Iranian demanded, gesturing with the right hand that Harry had cuffed to the steering wheel. “They’ll search the vehicle and us.”

  “Then I suggest you drive in such a manner as not to attract attention.”

  “It would be safer if you would uncuff me.”

  “Safer for whom, Achmed? I’ve read your file. The Spetsnaz you killed in Chechnya, three men with your bare hands?”

  “You have my word.”

  Harry spat out the window of the car. “That for your word. Trust does not exist between men such as us.”

  Asefi opened his mouth in protest, but Harry cut him off. “Be quiet and drive.”

  Time was short…

  2:37 P.M. Local Time

  The Al-aqsa mosque

  Jerusalem, Israel

  “They are coming.”

  Harun’s breath caught in his throat and he glanced up and down the length of the hall before responding. They were alone, the faint whirring of the ventilation fans the only sound disturbing the silence. On either side of them the stone w
alls of the Masjid al-Aqsa’s lower level rose into the vaulted ceiling, mute witness to their presence there. “Who?”

  “The Americans,” the Hezbollah leader replied, calm pervading his features.

  Harun recoiled from him in shock. “How? When? Where are they?”

  “Control yourself, my brother. Rest in the might of Allah and He will be your strength. This is our moment.”

  “How did they find out?”

  Farouk seemed to ponder the question for a moment. “The how is not important, Harun. Rather, it is the why that matters.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” the older man repeated, seeming amused by the question. A man in Western clothing entered at the far end of the hall and Al-Farouk raised his cellphone, snapping a picture of the stonework like any typical tourist.

  “The answer is simple. That Allah might deliver them into our hands. It is His will.”

  “Inshallah,” Harun replied after a moment, fighting down the fear that rose in his throat. As Allah wills it.

  6:51 A.M. Eastern Time

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  “What’s our status, gentlemen?” David Lay asked, taking his seat at the head of the conference table. To his right sat Ron Carter, to his left the DD(I) Michael Shapiro. An analyst from the Intelligence Directorate rounded out the meeting.

  Shapiro folded his hands, a grim look on his round face. “We’re picking up increased chatter from the Middle East.”

  “What type of chatter?” Lay asked.