by Brad Taylor
“Blind Tiger. On Broad Street.”
“Do they serve anything besides hamburgers?”
“Yeah. You’ll like it. I promise.”
4
I dropped Jennifer off out front and found a parking spot a block and a half away on Church Street. The Charleston weather was perfect, with a warm breeze and the will-o’-the-wisp smell of pluff mud hanging faintly in the air. I passed a wedding reception and had my short walk marred by a rowdy group breaking free and following me down Broad Street. As luck would have it, they came right into the pub with me, apparently deciding that paying for their liquor was more fun than drinking for free.
I scanned the inside of the pub for Jennifer, came up empty, and moved to the backyard patio. I spotted her at a table at the rear of the deck, two drafts of Guinness in front of her. I couldn’t fault her taste.
I pulled out a chair. “Great choice on the beer. Did I sit at the right table?”
She grinned. “I keep my word. You won the bet, so it’s your beer.”
She snaked a hand across the table. “How was last night?”
I knew why she asked, and was a little embarrassed at the attention.
“Fine. He didn’t come.”
Jennifer knew exactly who I meant. She knew everything that had occurred with my family, and I’d poured out my soul about the dream when I’d returned back to Charleston two months ago. The stalker had shown up a few times since, but only once with my family. Jennifer prodded me every day about it, and I was sure she was going to recommend some psychobabble therapy if it happened again. She stared at me like she was surveying my conscious for a lie, as if I was a chick who needed to vomit my feelings in a social group, which did nothing but piss me off.
“Quit that. You’re going to ruin the night. Can we talk about something else?”
She considered me for a moment, squinting her eyes. I waited her out until she finally shook her head. She held up her phone. “Our contact with the university called,” meaning the Taskforce. “Our visas have been approved. We can go as soon as we’re ready.”
Before I could answer, one of the drunk groomsmen rammed into the back of my chair, knocking me forward. I whirled around to see him standing with his hands in the air.
“’Scuze me. Sorry.”
His four other buddies and the two women with them were all laughing like they were watching a stand-up routine, drinking out of plastic cups that had been decorated for the wedding reception. I felt Jennifer grab my wrist, getting my attention.
“Let it go. They’re just having fun.”
I told the guy it was no problem, and sat back down.
“What did Kurt say?”
“Apparently the Syrian government is keen to get this dig going again. Prove to the world that they’re returning to normal. The Ministry of Culture pushed through the visas. The university isn’t prepared to deploy yet, but they want us to go over and do a site survey. If we say it’s good, they’ll follow.”
Site survey. Right. Chickenshits are afraid. Kurt must be laughing his ass off at the Syrian government helping the Taskforce penetrate their state.
“What about Knuckles and the crew? They’re supposed to go with us.”
Before she could answer, another drunk groomsman was standing by our table, swaying slightly.
“Hey, I want to apologize for my friend there. Let me buy you guys a beer.”
I smiled at him, “That’s okay. We’re fine. Thanks.”
“I want to. I really want to.” He listed forward, spilling some of the beer from his ridiculous pink cup onto our table.
I stood up. “I said it’s all right. Please leave us alone.”
My tone was nice, but my glare wasn’t. Jennifer saw the challenge going out and stepped between us, looking at me.
“Let’s go somewhere else.”
Why the hell should we leave? I thought about it. About the trouble we’d get in. About our trip coming up and the unwanted attention I’d draw if I mopped up the deck with all five of these assholes. And about the fact that Jennifer had asked—which meant more than the other considerations combined.
“All right. You get to pick this time, but walking distance from here.”
She took my hand and led us through the throng of the drunken wedding party. We were on the far side of the group when one of the men reached out and pinched her ass, then ducked back into the protection of the pack, giggling.
I couldn’t believe the audacity. Jennifer and I still didn’t know where we stood with each other, whether we were business partners, friends, or something more. One thing was for sure, though, our relationship had gone way beyond me letting anyone treat her like that.
I plowed into the group and snatched the culprit by the front of his shirt, ready to rip him apart. Before I could do anything, Jennifer was on us.
“Pike! Don’t! It’s not that big of a deal. Let it go. He’s drunk.”
I stared into his eyes. “You’re fucking lucky. If you apologize I won’t ruin the fun you’re having tonight.”
His friends closed in around us. Jennifer, having seen in the past where situations like this would end up, pulled me, saying, “I don’t need an apology. Come on. Let’s go.”
I hesitated, then pushed the man back, putting a cap on the anger and shame I felt at walking away. I knew they thought I was afraid of their numbers. That they’d won. I turned without a word and walked away. Jennifer took my hand again and grinned. “Thanks. You’re getting better at asshole control.”
Her smile took some of the sting out of my humiliation. I started to reply when one of the drunks groped Jennifer’s ass again. The ending was not exactly what he expected. Before he could withdraw his arm and get away, Jennifer had locked it up, causing instant compliance. She swept his legs out from underneath him and he hit the ground hard, cracking his head. She fell with him, rotating around and stretching out his arm with her legs over his body. He began to scream like a child at the pain she was giving him.
Now who needs some control?
I could hear the wedding girls shrieking at what Jennifer had done. Probably wondering how they could learn to do it too. One of them began dialing a phone.
The problem with Jennifer’s choice of submission was she couldn’t do anything to defend herself without letting go of the man on the ground. But she knew she didn’t need to.
She shouted, “Pike!” as one of the men reached for her hair. He got a handful before I landed a perfect uppercut. He was bent slightly at the waist, his chin forward. I felt his jaw slam shut as his head snapped straight back. He collapsed onto the deck, unconscious.
I spun around and faced the group, Jennifer’s tussle to my back.
“Anyone else want a piece of us?”
The women just stared slack-jawed, but I could tell the men realized they had tangled with more than they had bargained for. Even in their drunken state. They were all looking for something interesting on the ground or in the trees. Anywhere but at me.
I caught flashing lights in my peripheral vision. The bridesmaid must have called the police. Out of time.
I slapped Jennifer’s hands, shouting, “Time to go!”
She released his arm and I jerked her to her feet, saying, “Can’t go out the front door.”
Jennifer looked at the ten-foot brick wall at the back of the patio and started sprinting.
Great…acting like a monkey to evade the law. No damn dignity whatsoever.
I sprinted after her and we hit the wall at the same time, me coming off a table and her running straight up it in a toe-kip. We landed in the parking lot behind it and kept going, Jennifer laughing like we had just thrown water balloons at a car.
Driving back over the Ravenel Bridge to Mt. Pleasant, I said, “You talk about me losing control, what the hell was that back there?”
She looked a little embarrassed, then indignant. “Enough was enough. I didn’t try to hurt him. I was just subduing him. If it had been you he’d be in the hospital.”
She tried to show how serious she was, but a grin leaked out.
“Well, what were you going to do after you subdued him?” I said. “With all those other guys around?”
She didn’t respond, because we both knew the answer. I was going to step in.
“Look, I’m good with it. Those assholes deserved it, but if there’s a learning point here it’s that you can’t go around doing that sort of stuff.”
“What? That’s what I’m always telling you.”
“No, no, I don’t mean because I think it’s wrong. I mean because you’re a woman. I can run around kicking ass all day and it won’t raise an eyebrow.”
She started to wind up and I rushed out, “It may be chauvinistic, but that’s just the truth. Word’s going to get out about that little scuffle, and people are going to wonder how a pencil-neck anthropologist managed to kick someone’s ass that was twice her size. You have the skills now, and you need to protect them. Protect what we really do. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”
I expected her to blow up, but instead I saw her reflecting on what I had said. I decided to drop it.
“Hey, in the end I’m just glad you’ll only take so much shit before you blow your top. I was beginning to wonder if you had to have a gun at your head before you’d defend yourself.”
She grinned again, and I knew we were beyond it, lesson learned.
“You never finished about Knuckles. Is he coming with us, or not?”
“Not. Apparently he has his hands full doing something else.”
5
Knuckles felt the heat radiating off the black pavement like an open oven, the sweat rolling down his face in a perpetual drivel, forcing him to wipe his nose every few seconds to keep the salty liquid from hitting the screen in his lap. For the first time, he began to wonder if the sensitive equipment could withstand the punishment. After all, almost all of it was specially constructed—without the military specifications that made the equipment look, well, military.
Taskforce spends bazillions on kit and I’m in a van with no AC. Blending in is one thing, but this is ridiculous. Johnny’s going to pay.
Johnny was the team leader of the Taskforce element that Knuckles was replacing, and as such, he was the one who’d coordinated all of the in-country assets. Not that Knuckles couldn’t have done so in his sleep. He’d been to Tunisia chasing Crusty on and off for damn near eight years, always waiting on Omega.
In truth, the rotations had grown boring, with only one bit of adventure when Crusty had moved from Tunis, the capital, to Sousse, farther down the coast, after the uprisings that brought down the government in the initial salvos of the Arab Spring. Crusty didn’t know it, but the move actually fit in better for the Taskforce cover. His desire to remain anonymous to whatever new government took over had inadvertently helped them out.
A couple of years ago, Knuckles had actually gotten Omega authority while he was on rotation—on the X and ready to go—when he’d been diverted to another mission, sparing the terrorist yet again. He had begun to think that Crusty would never go. That he had some lucky charm allowing him to evade the U.S. net, even though he stomped around in plain sight. Knuckles had deployed to Sousse with his team three days ago, and while transitioning with Johnny’s team, prepping for yet another collection mission, the mythical Omega call came from Colonel Hale.
The Bluetooth in his ear chirped, the voice coming through sounding sterile because of the encryption. “Knuckles, this is Decoy. We’re in.”
“Good to go…break, break, Johnny, you got eyes on Crusty?”
“Still at the office. No issues.”
Lieutenant Colonel Blaine Alexander, the element leader for Omega operations, had decided to continue with the collection mission first, before taking Crusty down. Knuckles had fought it, wanting to do the mission and get the hell out of Tunisia, but there’d been some chatter about an assassination attempt, and while an interrogation would collect invaluable data, there was the option to simply monitor Crusty for a few days. See what he said and who he talked to. So, they were planting clandestine cameras inside his residence, imaging his hard drive and wiring the place for sound. If it didn’t provide any benefit, they’d take him down.
Knuckles couldn’t fault Blaine’s logic, especially since Crusty had evaded capture for damn near ten years. Interrogations were fine, and Crusty would get plenty of them, but you never really knew if the subject wasn’t just stringing you along, telling you a bald-faced lie to protect himself. As Blaine had said about the cameras, “one-eye don’t lie.”
A few more days won’t hurt…if I don’t melt.
He looked at his watch and called Johnny again, wondering why Crusty was breaking his pattern, today of all days.
“Johnny, this is Knuckles, what’s his status? He should have broken the box ten minutes ago.”
“Easy. I’ve got the place locked down, and a beacon on his moped. He’s still inside. If it changes, I’ll call you.”
Knuckles paused, wanting to remind Johnny who was in charge out here on the ground. He took the high road.
“Roger. Standing by.”
The call aggravated him. The light admonishment of “easy” was a direct slap in his face. Made more glaring because everyone on the net knew that he’d just spent the last eight months in physical therapy from a catastrophic wound sustained on a mission similar to this one. It was an unspoken question of whether he was still capable. Like I’m about to panic or something.
In truth, Johnny’s team should have been headed home right now, but with the additional mission tasked by Blaine, they’d stayed behind, their whole purpose to keep eyes on Crusty while Knuckles’ team did the breaking and entering. It made sense, because Johnny’s men had the most recent pattern of life on the target, but the call still grated.
His earpiece crackled, bringing him back to the mission. “Cameras and mikes in place. Going to image the hard drive now.”
“Roger. No movement on the target. Plenty of time.”
Johnny cut in, “Crusty’s on the move. Got a trigger on the moped.”
What?
“Say again? The moped’s moving? Who was the trigger on the office? Did you get positive ID that he left the building?”
“Uhh…no. No PID. But the moped’s leaving now. I’ve got the beacon track. I’m getting someone on it. I’ll have a visual ASAP.”
“How’d he get out without you triggering?”
He got no response and knew there’d been a screwup. He saw no reason to drive the blade home a second time, and simply waited. He was in a position to react, should he have to.
Still plenty of time. Let it play out.
Knuckles called Blaine in the Ops Center, giving an update and letting him know they were in motion.
Retro, the other operator with him, analyzed the beacon track and said, “He’s doing the usual pattern. No issues there, but how the hell did he get out of the building without Johnny seeing him? Something’s not kosher.”
“I don’t know, and I don’t trust this tech surveillance bullshit. All we know is that his moped is moving. No idea if he’s on it or not.” Knuckles thought about it for a second, then said, “We’re still good. He’s either in the building or on the moped. We got that track, and he’s still a good twenty minutes away from his house.”
Knuckles was about to check in with Decoy, when he was beaten to the punch. “We got an intruder. I say again, we got an intruder.”
What the hell? In all the time they’d tracked Crusty, he’d gone to this apartment alone.
“Say again?”
Decoy’s breath came in pants as he sprinted somewhere Knuckles couldn’t see. “His mistress just entered the building. We’re moving to the roof. We’ve got the cameras operational on WiFi. She’s on the ground floor, and searching. I don’t know what she’s searching for, but it had better not be us.”
“Get out of sight. Get gone.”
Seconds later, Decoy came back,
no longer out of breath. “She’s packing up. She’s got some luggage and she’s shoving things in.”
“What do you mean? She’s packing his clothes? How’s she acting? Is she taking a trip with a friend, or running from the law?”
“She’s definitely running from the law. She’s packing like someone’s going to kick the door in. And it’s all of his shit. There isn’t any women’s stuff in here. She’s on the second floor now, and ripping his laptop apart from the docking station.”
Knuckles remembered the mission. “Did you image it?”
“No time. She came in before we could.”
It took a moment for the full ramifications to hit home. He knows he’s being hunted. He’s going to run.
He called Blaine and gave a SITREP, getting authority for an in-extremis takedown of a fleeting target. It was risky, because they weren’t set for a perfect hit, but they did know his habitual route. Knuckles was positioned to intercept if necessary. The only problem was that Crusty was now going to pick the kill zone. Not optimal.
Retro gave him a location of the beacon track, and he saw it was only a few blocks away, on a street headed to the P12 highway. Still inside the residential area where the roads were no more than alleys, ribbons that wandered aimlessly, hemmed in by wall-to-wall buildings on either side.
Got to get to him before he hits the thoroughfare.
He gunned their van, swinging it around the narrow street, ignoring the bleating horn from the vehicle behind him as he hopped the curb to complete the U-turn.
“Retro, give me a lock-on.”
“Two blocks back. He’s on a one-lane road right now. Take a left, and we’ll intersect his line of march behind him. What’s the play?”
Knuckles thought for a moment, driving like a madman, then said, “Push his ass over with the van. If anyone’s on the road, let him go.”
“Vehicles aren’t the only threat. You can’t predict who’ll see this from the buildings. You sure?”
“No. But he’s running, which means we’ve been blown somehow. We need to get his ass for that as much as anything else.”
