Taking Fire

by Cindy Gerard

  He both dreaded the call yet hated Hakeem ten times more for keeping them on tenterhooks this way. The animal was a true terrorist. And the true definition of terror was not facing down the enemy. The true definition of terror was feeling helpless to protect or save those who were most important to you.

  A tear trickled out of the corner of his eye and ran down the side of his temple, completely blindsiding him. He wiped it away. Blinked away the burning behind his eyelids. Understanding, for the first time, what a parent went through every time a child was deployed. What a wife went through every time a cop took to the streets. Every time they received word that someone they loved had been injured or had been declared MIA or, worse, KIA.

  His situation was different. Yet so much the same. And as he lay here, his gut knotted with this horrible feeling of helplessness and impending loss, he swore that no matter the outcome, he would somehow make it up to his own mother for all the hell he’d put her through over the years.

  * * *

  His subconscious must have been waiting for Hakeem’s call, because when the phone rang at four o’clock, Bobby woke up fully alert. He’d never gotten around to a shower. He’d more or less passed out. Still dressed in the dishdasha and barely able to move because of all his aches and pains, he muscled his way upright. Rising stiffly, he hobbled over to the kitchen counter, where Talia had left the phone plugged in and charging.

  She almost beat him to it. She came flying out of the bedroom, barefoot, sleep-mussed, wearing boxers and a T-shirt again. Her eyes met his, frightened but resolved.

  “You can do this,” he said.

  With a nod, she picked up the phone and switched it to speaker before answering. “Hello.”

  “Do you have the money?”

  “I . . . I have half of it,” she lied, carrying out their plan to stall until they found the hideout. “I can have the rest by tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” It was more of a snarl than a question. “You want your son released alive? You will have the money today.”

  This was what they’d been afraid of. That Hakeem would renege on his two-day time frame. And this was where Talia had to be particularly careful.

  “You said two days. That was only twenty-four hours ago.”

  “I grow impatient.”

  “I want my son released alive. I’m doing everything I can as fast as I can to get the money. I’m not a rich woman. I have to reach out to family and friends. The time difference between Oman and the States is complicating things. International banking laws, every­thing is taking additional time.”

  Bobby nodded in encouragement. She was doing fine. Even though it killed them both to stall, killed them to leave Meir in Hakeem’s and Amir’s bloodthirsty hands for another second, they had to draw this out long enough for the team to find the Hamas hideout. Everything hinged on finding them before the ransom deadline.

  “Please,” she added, her voice trembling when Hakeem didn’t respond. “I have to be careful, or I’ll raise alarms and draw the wrong kind of attention. The U.S. NSA will be all over money transfers of any sizable amount. Israeli intelligence also. Then we both lose.”

  “How much time?” he asked, finally accepting that he was beaten in this one thing.

  “I need that other twenty-four hours.”

  Another long silence. “Twenty-four hours. No more,” he said, his tone grudging but conceding. “I don’t have to tell you what will happen to your son if you attempt to delay.”

  “I won’t. I’ll have the money. Where do I meet you?”

  “You do not yet need to know. I will call again with the time and the address.”

  “I need to talk to Meir,” Talia said quickly, before Hakeem could disconnect.

  “As before, the boy is sleeping.”

  “I must talk with him. I must know he’s alive. That he’s unharmed—not one bruise on his body, do you understand? Or not only will this deal not happen, but I’ll track you down and kill you myself.”

  Bobby cupped her shoulder, steadying her. The tension, the lack of sleep—it was all crashing down on her.

  “Brave talk from a dead woman.”

  “Let me talk to my son!” she demanded, her small body shaking with rage. “And I will talk to him again tomorrow when you call, or there will be no exchange.”

  Hakeem didn’t respond. Finally, they heard his voice in the background yelling at someone to bring the boy.

  “Keep it together,” Bobby whispered when her trembling became so violent he was afraid she’d pass out.

  “Momma.” Tears and sleep filled the little boy’s voice, and a strength that Bobby hadn’t thought Talia capable of at this juncture washed over her.

  “Hi, baby.”

  “You said I could come home soon. You promised. I want to come home.”

  “I know, baby. I know you do. And I did promise. Don’t I always keep my promises? You are coming home,” she assured him, with an excitement that the boy could translate into trust.

  “When?”

  “Very soon now. Tomorrow. If I could come for you sooner, you know I would. But these . . . men. These men have promised to take care of you until I get there. Do they take care of you, baby? Are you hurt in any way?”

  “I’m okay. Rami takes care of me.”

  “Rami?” Her clear relief at Meir’s quick okay was evident in her deep breath.

  “Rami stays with me. He brings me food. And he sleeps beside me so I don’t get scared.”

  Her face drained of blood. “S-sleeps beside you?”

  “On the floor, yes. Rami likes American football, too.”

  “Oh . . . oh, good. He sounds like a g-good friend,” she choked out, her shoulders sagging with relief.

  Bobby knew she was doing everything in her power to keep him on the line for as long as possible.

  “And don’t be afraid, Meir. Everything is fine. I will see you tomorrow, okay? You stay close to Rami until then.”

  A small silence on Meir’s end told them both that tomorrow was not soon enough. “I have to go,” the boy said in a whisper.

  “No, not yet.” She gripped the phone tighter. “Meir!”

  But he was already gone, the connection broken.

  She stood so silent, for so long, that he finally had to pry the phone out of her hand.

  “You did fine. He sounded fine.”

  And his words sounded empty. Felt empty. As empty as her reserve of strength. She’d had to tap into it too many times.

  She turned tear-filled eyes to his. “I can’t do this anymore. I . . . I need him back with me. I n-need my son. I need him back. I need him back. I . . . need . . . him.”

  He didn’t think about his needs when she leaned numbly against him. He didn’t think about past or present or promises broken. He walked her back to the bedroom.

  But he didn’t stay. He couldn’t. Not again.

  He covered her up, told her to get some sleep. Knew she probably wouldn’t.

  Then he walked back to the living room, sank down on the sofa, and lay awake in the predawn darkness for a long, long time before he finally fell asleep.

  31

  Amir al-Attar stumbled out of the elevator and into the hotel lobby.

  “Got eyes on,” Bobby whispered into his collar mike as he sat in a corner at the back of the bar, with Lauren from London snuggled up beside him like a proper date.

  From his vantage point, Bobby could see Amir walk across the lobby toward the entrance doors. He moved too carefully to be sober as he tossed his keys to the valet.

  “Target’s at the front door; valet’s getting his car.”

  “Roger that.” Coop’s voice sounded hollow through his earpiece. “Took his damn sweet time.”

  Coop and Brown had taken first watch starting around two o’clock this morning. They were relie
ved by Jones and Green around two p.m., and now both pairs were double-teaming Amir. As Lauren had promised, the man was as regular as clockwork.

  He’d shown up at the bar around nine; Bobby had made certain to be in place by seven. After what had been one of the longest days of his life waiting for Amir to show, he wouldn’t risk losing him after all this trouble.

  “Run, you rat bastard,” he muttered. “Run back to your sewer, and I’ll bring you some rotten cheese. Better yet, a nice shiny bullet.”

  He waited until the valet brought Amir’s blue Golf around, then unwrapped himself from Lauren’s arms. “Thanks, Lauren.” He handed her a bundle of rial notes.

  “My pleasure, love. Easiest money this bird’s ever made. ’Urt ’im once for Peg, would ya? Then ’urt ’im again for me.”

  Bobby dropped a kiss on her forehead, then headed for the door and watched the Golf pull away. A few seconds later, Green and Jones pulled out of the parking lot in a newly rented white Honda and eased into traffic behind Amir. When Coop and Brown pulled up under the portico in a four-door silver Camry, Bobby jumped into the backseat. The two black Land Cruisers were parked tonight. Both would be too conspicuous, and they didn’t want to give Amir an opportunity to make them as tails.

  “Do not lose that car,” he said, sitting forward on the middle of the backseat with his head between Coop and Brown.

  “Always with the backseat driving,” Coop sputtered, and fell in a block behind Green and Jones, who were three car lengths behind Amir.

  For the next fifteen minutes, they took turns peeling on and off Amir’s tail, sometimes even passing him so as not to raise any suspicion.

  “Anyone up for a quick game of I Spy?” Coop wanted to know, and he looked at Bobby in the rearview mirror. “I’ll start. I spy someone who needs a hug.”

  “I’d be up for a game of Stuff a Sock in the Bald Guy’s Mouth,” Bobby muttered.

  Coop grinned at him. “Chill already, okay, bud? Sit back. Enjoy the ride. There’s not a damn thing you can do that we aren’t already doing.”

  Okay, fine. Coop was attempting to dull the razor-sharp tension. And he was right. Alert, prepared, in control—all made for successful ops. But there was such a thing as being too pumped, too wired, too ready. Bobby had passed that point the second he’d seen Amir stagger out of the elevator.

  On a deep breath, he sat back and slouched against the seat. And thought about Talia.

  He’d finally fallen asleep sometime after five a.m. When he’d come around, she was up and had already brewed coffee.

  “Thanks,” she’d said, pouring him a mug.

  “For?”

  “Last night. For not judging.”

  Judging? Hell, he couldn’t judge her for wanting her son back. Not for that. And he couldn’t judge her for falling apart. He’d been damn close himself. So close he’d almost caved. Almost let himself crawl into bed with her again and respond to her soft hands and willing body. It would have been easy. So easy to lose himself again in her. To give them both escape.

  I loved you . . . I still love you,

  Her words lingered. Long after they should have. Maybe she did love him. Maybe she just thought she did. Either way. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t let it matter. Because he couldn’t forget. Maybe that made him an ass. Probably, yeah, it did. But for six years, her betrayal had eaten at him like poison in his blood. The taste wasn’t going away in a matter of hours. Dangerous, stressful, revelation-filled hours.

  Maybe when this was over and they got Meir back—and they would get him back—maybe then he could look back and think about forgiving.

  But not now. Not after he’d seen her face this morning, the moment it had registered in her eyes that everything was the same between them.

  By the time Carlyle had picked them up and driven them back to Royal Brit, they’d both shaken it off, and Talia was back in operator mode. She’d not only recovered, but she’d been royally pissed when she’d found out he was leaving her with Nate, Steph, Carlyle, and Santos while he joined the hunt for Amir.

  “I want to be in on this,” she’d said, her dark eyes flaring with fire.

  “Not a chance,” he’d said.

  Nate had been more diplomatic. “I’m sorry, Talia. We can’t afford to have you anywhere near Amir until we’re ready to breach the hideout. They might make you. And then it’s all over.”

  She’d settled down but still hadn’t been happy.

  “You know we can use you here,” Nate continued. “And I know it’s been a drag because you’ve been at it all morning, but we need to keep digging for the blueprints on this warehouse our CIA asset pointed us toward.”

  Earlier this morning, the guys had been able to make brief contact with the undercover CIA agent. He was aware that a Hamas cell had recently arrived in the city. Had gathered that they were holed up somewhere in the warehouse district, but other than that, he didn’t have anything concrete.

  Still, the team had run with it. Because the warehouse district was so huge, they’d worked all day doing title searches and locating the names of owners who might have ties to the al-Attars or Hamas.

  Just before Bobby had left for the hotel to help with surveillance on Amir, Stephanie had hit pay dirt.

  “I’ve got something.” Her fingers had flown across the keyboard. “Look at this. I’ve found a company—Mideast Blades—that provides site security for various petroleum companies in the Mideast. One of those companies is Ultramar PLC. And Ultramar happens to own a warehouse-slash-office complex here in Muscat. Guess who owns Mideast Blades?”

  “Hakeem would be too easy,” Jones had said.

  “Yeah, it would. But Hakeem has a cousin who’s married to a guy named Qasim Nagi. Nagi owns Mideast Blades. He also happens to be on a terrorist watch list. His specialty? Money laundering for Hamas.”

  “So most likely, Mideast Blades is actually a shell company?” Black had concluded.

  “I’d bet on it. Bet real big that Nagi’s company allows him to move people and money around in ways that can’t be traced by international security analysts, and that’s why he hasn’t been picked up or charged yet. I’ve uncovered patterns of money transfers that make it obvious to me that Ultramar is paying protection money so they’ll leave the company and its people alone.

  “Like they always say,” Stephanie had added, “follow the money. And in this case, the money points to payoffs funneled directly into Hamas bank accounts.”

  “Of more immediate importance, following the money may have found Meir.” Black had smiled. “It’s a damn big coincidence that Hakeem has a cousin who provides security for Ultramar. I say we look at this warehouse really hard. Nice work, Steph.”

  “NSA’s going to love me when I get back and play show-and-tell with them. They’ve been after this guy for a long time.”

  “Wish I could tell you your work was done,” Black had added. “But now I need you to see what you can do about finding the blueprints for this warehouse and whether it’s currently operating as an active business. If it turns out to be our Hamas hideout, we’re going to need that info ASAP to plan the rescue. And Talia, we can use you to help us set up our driving route and action plan. If Ultramar turns out to be our target, we’ll be one step ahead of those bastards.”

  They all knew that time was running out. Anything they could do to speed up the prep process went in the win column for Meir.

  “And if it doesn’t?” Talia had asked. “If Ultramar turns out to be a near miss?”

  “Then we keep looking.”

  At that point, Bobby had to get out of there. He’d felt Talia’s frustration as keenly as if it was his own. And if he’d hung around much longer, he might have caved and tried to talk Nate into letting her come along on surveillance duty.

  “Hold on, ladies and gents.”

  The veiled excitement in Coop
’s voice snapped Bobby back to the moment. He sat forward in the backseat again. “What? What’s happening?”

  “Amir just turned into that lot up there.” Coop drove on by so as not to draw any attention.

  Bobby craned his neck around as they passed the security gate. Spotted the sign identifying the company on the tall chain-link fence that surrounded a warehouse roughly the size of a football field.

  Sonofabitch. We got him!

  His hand was unsteady when he reached into his pocket for his phone. “We’ve found them, Talia.” He wished he could be there to see her face. “Amir led us to the hideout. It’s Ultramar.”

  He barely heard her whispered, “Thank God.”

  “It’s almost over,” he promised. “We’re getting him back. Make no mistake, we are bringing him back to you.”

  32

  As much as Taggart wanted to follow Amir straight into that warehouse, put a bullet in his head, and fight his way to Meir, he knew he had to keep himself reeled in. If there had been any chance that he could have taken on the terrorists by himself, he wouldn’t have needed the team.

  Wired and impatient, he sank into the backseat, prepared for another wait, as Coop headed back to Royal Brit. Jones and Green stayed behind and set up surveillance on the Ultramar warehouse. Finding the hideout was only the first phase. It would take the entire team and careful planning to pull off Meir’s rescue—and even then, it was going to be dicey.

  Complex snatch-and-grab ops were generally preceded by days, sometimes weeks, of precision training drills. Hours and hours of running and rerunning the infiltration and extraction plan until each operative had their individual and their team members’ tasks embedded in their psyches. Until muscle memory took over and they could run the routes in their sleep.

  They didn’t have weeks or months. He checked the time on his phone. Felt a double tap from his heart. One forty-five a.m. They had mere hours. Two hours and fifteen minutes exactly if Hakeem stayed true to form and called at four a.m. to give Talia the time and place where she was to give herself up to them in exchange for Meir. Only everyone knew there would be no exchange.