Enemy of Mine: A Pike Logan Thriller

by Brad Taylor

  Now all smiles, they took the money and began jabbering among themselves, coming up with a plan as they circled around to the front. When they entered, the Ghost waited to the side.

  In short order, he heard a commotion, followed by the desk clerk shouting. Something rattled to the floor, bringing on more shouting. Seconds later, the boys came flying out of the doorway, laughing and shouting. The clerk was a few steps behind them, but a lifetime of tobacco ensured he’d never catch up.

  As soon as his back was turned, trotting down the street, the Ghost slipped inside and bounded up the stairwell. He quickly looked at doors, finding the one that matched the key he had seen. Not wasting any time on an elaborate ruse, he simply knocked. When it was opened, he pushed the target back, entered, and closed the door.

  The man got out one exclamation of surprise before the Ghost hammered his windpipe with the knife-edge of his hand. The target collapsed to his knees, holding his throat. The Ghost threw him on his back, straddled his body, and trapped his arms to his side.

  He placed a hand over the man’s mouth and nose, and rode the bucking body until it quit moving. The Ghost held on for an additional minute, then checked for a pulse. Finding none, he searched the body, pulling out the man’s travel documents from a pocket. He opened the passport and was relieved to see the man was indeed from Jordan. The picture looked passable as well.

  He slowly stood, feeling shame at what he had done. He glanced at the corpse and consoled himself by remembering the cause he was serving. The fact that the target was Jordanian helped, as the Hashemite Kingdom had a long history of persecuting Palestinians.

  He was about to place the passport into his own pocket, when he noticed something that made him feel ill. There was no Jordanian national identification number. The target lived in Jordan, but wasn’t a citizen. Which meant one thing: He was a Palestinian, from the West Bank or somewhere else.

  The Ghost had killed one of his own.

  Lucas finished packing his possessions, deciding what he would take and what he would be leaving behind forever. He got it all down to a backpack and one duffel bag. It left him no room for any specialized equipment, but with any luck he’d be able to get that in Dubai.

  He had a list of Hezbollah contacts all over the world, and routinely used them as cutouts to get hotel rooms and operational equipment. He’d have to be careful setting up any meetings, but with the secrecy of the Martyrs Battalion and his little ploy with the forger, he was fairly confident he could leverage assets outside of Lebanon without them turning on him. It wasn’t like Hezbollah sent daily updates around the globe, and most of the contacts were simply part-time help with a specific skill-set. Hezbollah wannabes, as it were.

  He was sure the Ghost had gone to Yemen, but was equally confident he was headed to Dubai next, and he had the location of the hawaladar there, giving him a handle. At first, he’d worried that the assassin would attempt his attack in Yemen, but a review of the envoy’s itinerary showed Yemen wasn’t on the agenda. No, the Ghost was going to attack in Dubai, and that’s where Lucas would stop him. He was pleased at the Yemen delay, as it would give him time to travel to Qatar and begin building his own trap, before the inevitable clampdown in security for the peace conference.

  Finished packing, he toyed with the idea of going out on the town. He was leaving Beirut tomorrow, never to return, and hadn’t ever sampled the nightlife here. He’d seen it, of course, the loose women and brash men partying the night away, but had never entered that realm due to the secrecy of his job. In no way could he be entangled with a female inside Beirut. Although he’d often dreamed about it. Snooty little bitches from rich sugar-daddy Lebanese. He would have loved to show one a good time instead of the whores he’d had to pay while on assignment outside of the country.

  Why not tonight? It’s not like you’ll be here in the morning to worry about the consequences. And Hezbollah stays so far removed from the discos they’re no threat.

  Fuck it. He left the hotel and headed to Rue Monot in the Ashrafieh district. He looked for a disco that was dimly lit and not too loud. Dim, because he’d been told time and time again that his eyes were a deal breaker, and he didn’t want to scare away any potential partners on first glance. Years ago, a date had said they reminded her of a bruise—purple and rotting.

  He returned two hours later, a statuesque young Lebanese woman in tow. He’d convinced her to have a nightcap of coffee, although she’d said she didn’t have time to stay long.

  As soon as the door closed, he leaned in and kissed her. When she tried to pull away, he clamped a hand on the back of her neck. She broke free and slapped him hard across the face.

  He rubbed his red cheek, getting aroused at the exchange. Wanting to push it further. “That’ll cost you a little foreplay. Fuck the coffee. Take off your clothes.”

  She attacked him in fury, using her nails as claws. He blocked her amateurish attempts and slapped her hard enough to knock her down.

  From the floor, her anger dissolved into abject fear.

  “A fighter,” he said. “I like that in a woman.”

  32

  Jennifer flipped through the channels on the ancient television, but without cable all she picked up were local Beirut stations speaking Arabic. She turned it off and glanced at her watch for the umpteenth time. Still a half hour before hit-time.

  Footsteps in the hallway outside her door caused her to quit breathing. She glanced at the abaya dress she’d carelessly thrown on the bed, calculating how long it would take her to get it back on. When the footsteps receded without a knock on her door, she exhaled, wondering yet again how she had been talked into this. Pike had said there was no way they’d do a frontal assault into the Hezbollah communications node, but he hadn’t mentioned that the alternative was Jennifer infiltrating the place by herself.

  After getting picked up at the marina by Samir, they’d conducted a complete mission analysis of the communications facility from his house. Using all of the data the case officer could supply, which was considerable, they searched for a weakness.

  Situated above an electronics store that took up the whole bottom floor, there was only one way to access the top three floors: a stairwell in the back. The store operated as a legitimate business, but all of the people working there were Hezbollah, and half were armed.

  The computer in question was in an office on the third floor, surrounded by other offices. The server farm occupied the second floor, and the case officer was unsure what was on the fourth floor.

  The building had a small alley on the left and right that ran about seventy meters deep before dead-ending into a wall. The case officer had assured them that there was no secondary entrance. The building to the left was an apartment complex, the one to the right some sort of mix of residences and offices.

  Initially, it had looked like there was simply no way to infiltrate the place. Anyone entering the electronics store would be under immediate scrutiny and completely unable to enter the offices in the back that accessed the stairs. Trying to skip the first floor and enter through the second, using a ladder in the alley, was out as well, since the server-farm windows were all heavily barred. They kicked around the idea of bringing a ladder in that would reach the third floor, then realized they were talking insanity.

  They toyed with a concept of coming through the roof, but since the asset could give no information on the fourth floor, they tossed it aside. That option would simply be blind.

  In the end, it was Pike who’d made the connection. Jennifer remembered his question, and the chill it gave her. What about going from building to building? Work your way around the ledge on the third floor?

  The men had all started analyzing the photos of the exterior, seeing the six-inch shelf that went from the buildings to the left and right, around through the alley wall, and across the target. She had known where this was going. With her acrobatic skills, they would expect her to make the climb. She silently waited for someone to say this id
ea was also insanity. Instead, Samir read a sign in Arabic on the apartment building and stated they were advertising openings.

  Pike had looked at her then, a question on his face he didn’t need to verbalize. She said, “I can’t get in an apartment there! Come on, I’m a Caucasian female.”

  Samir said, “Nobody would know if you wore an abaya with a niqab veil covering your face. Just keep your eyes downcast to hide their color. You’ll look like every other pious Muslim woman.”

  “Who’ll get me in? What if someone asks me a question?”

  Pike said, “One step at a time. Let’s contact the case officer and see if his asset can rent an apartment on the third floor facing the building.”

  She felt sick to her stomach at the thought of the mission, but the pieces had rolled relentlessly into place. The asset had managed to rent a suitable space, had given the key to the case officer, who had passed it to the team at a hastily established dead-drop. From there, she’d dressed from head to toe in a black abaya, hidden her face with a niqab, and walked into the building behind Samir, moving straight up to the apartment.

  They’d passed another male on the stairs, and staring at the steps as she walked, she was certain the man could hear her heart thumping like a bass drum.

  Samir had left her there, waiting on nightfall, and had loaded Pike and the others into a panel van, parking it on the street outside the target. They were her only means of rescue should things go wrong.

  She looked out the window at the target building, dimly lit by streetlights, running through her mind the thousands of things that could go wrong and how she would counter them. She felt her cell phone vibrate and saw a text from Pike.

  How’s it going?

  She’d sent a status report every ten minutes, per their plan, but knew Pike was worried about her. As he should be. Asshole.

  She replied, Fine.

  PIKE: Hot as hell in van. No AC. Should have planned for that.

  JENNIFER: Serves right. Ur not doing any work.

  PIKE: Let’s f’ing hope not. If I am, things have gotten bad.

  She really didn’t need that reminder, and simply sent back K.

  Soon, much, much too soon, it was time to go. She texted that she was going off cell and onto radio comms, then prepped for the mission.

  Dressed in a black Under Armour second-skin top and bottom, she cinched her hair into a tight ponytail, affixing the covert earplug into her ear canal and the small transmitter/receiver to a nylon belt around her waist. After getting a communications check with Pike, she did one final scrub of the cloning device and mini-computer she would use to crack the system in the target, getting a green light. She placed it, two flashbang grenades, a lockpick kit, and a thermal imaging device into a backpack. Once she was satisfied at how the equipment was weighted in the backpack, she strapped on a shoulder holster with a suppressed Glock 30, her only means of defense. The last thing she did was place a circular glass cutter inside the neckline of her Under Armour shirt, trapped against her chest by the material.

  She shrugged into the backpack, took a deep breath, and said, “Exiting the building.”

  She heard a “Roger” as she was maneuvering the backpack through the small window opening. Standing on the thin shelf, she ran her hands up the rough wall, reaching for the shelf on the fourth floor. Once she made contact, she called, “Moving,” and began a slide-shuffle down the ledge toward the wall of the alley.

  The trip went smoothly until she made the final corner from the alley wall to the target building. Sliding her hand forward, she hit empty air as the ledge above her disappeared.

  She slipped backward and teetered for an eternity, held on to the wall by just two fingers of her left hand that still had contact with the upper ledge.

  She regained her balance and closed her eyes, getting her breathing under control. She looked up, trying to determine where the ledge began again. She knew it did from studying the target window during the day. The gap had to be small. Something that had just crumbled through time.

  She strained to see through the gloom, wishing she’d worn night-vision goggles. She had decided against them because of their lack of depth perception, but she could have used them now.

  A passing car spilled enough light for her to see the ledge, a mere foot away. But it might as well have been a mile.

  She took several deep breaths, working up her courage. When she was ready, she turned her feet left and right until they were flush with the wall, then dropped her left hand from the ledge. Spread-eagled, sliding directly against the rough brick, she inched across the gap. When she felt she had gone far enough, she slid her hands above her head and felt relief flood through her when they made contact.

  Minutes later, she reached the target window. Leaving one hand on the ledge, she pulled out the glass cutter and sliced a circle directly above the window latch. Popping it free, she reached inside to twist the latch. She hesitated. The asset had said the building wasn’t alarmed beyond the first floor, but she knew she was now betting her life on that information.

  So what are you going to do? Go back?

  She twisted the latch and popped the window an inch, holding her breath. Nothing outward happened. She rapidly raised the window, wanting to be on the inside if a silent alarm had been triggered. In one fluid move, she squatted, rotated around, and fell backward into the room.

  She rose in a crouch, drawing her Glock. When nothing happened, she reported, “Inside.”

  Pike came back on, “Jesus Christ, Koko. Took you long enough. We’re out here having a heart attack. How about some SITREPs?”

  She grinned at the stupid call sign she’d earned on their last mission, but said nothing, settling for a double-click of the transmission button.

  She moved to the door of the office and drew the thermal imaging device, placing it directly on the wood. She turned it on, hearing the soft whine as it warmed up. Within seconds, she could pick up any heat source in the hallway on the other side. And she saw at least two. Moving.

  Not good. According to the asset, there were no guards in the building after nightfall. Just one lone sentry in the electronics store downstairs.

  Maybe that’s him. Maybe he’ll move back downstairs in a little bit.

  She pulled back to the far corner of the room and gave Pike an update.

  He replied, “You said two? There shouldn’t be two. If that’s the sentry, it should just be one.”

  She said, “Yeah, I know. Let me give it a few minutes and see what happens.”

  Pike came back again, repeating himself, “Koko, you copy? There shouldn’t be two.”

  She replied again, only to hear, “Koko, Koko, this is Pike, you copy?”

  She keyed the mike again, but didn’t get through. She realized her radio was dead.

  She heard a squeak and saw the door opening inward.

  33

  I tried one more time to contact Jennifer, then hammered the floor of the van.

  Knuckles said, “Easy. She didn’t say she was in trouble. She sounded calm. It’s just a radio issue.”

  “Maybe. Decoy, get up in the front. Get eyes out and see if there’s any sort of reaction coming.”

  My imagination was taking on a life of its own, spurred by the thoughts of what I had been through in the Palestinian refugee camp.

  Decoy said, “No reaction yet. Dead as a cemetery out there.”

  I picked up my suppressed H&K UMP and turned on the holosight, checking the reticle.

  Knuckles said, “Hold on. Stick with the plan. Don’t jump the gun here.”

  Brett read my expression and started working his UMP.

  I tried to reach her again and failed. My mind flashed to the pruning shears, the absolute terror of captivity, superimposing Jennifer in the hands of those monsters. No fucking way.

  I dialed her cell phone and got voice mail. That was the last straw. I said, “Kit up. We’re going in.”

  Decoy scrambled into the back, strappin
g the EMP gun to his side while Knuckles said, “Pike, you sure about this?”

  I powered up my night-vision goggles and said, “You don’t know what they’ll do to her. I’ve been there.”

  He stared at me for a second more, then started kitting up. When everyone was ready, I said, “No change to the plan. Brett leads the way. Any questions?” Nobody said a word, and I slid open the van door. We hit the ground running, reaching the front door in seconds.

  Decoy, Knuckles, and I pulled security outward while Brett went to work on the lock of the wrought-iron gate covering the glass door. Within seconds he had it open, swinging it out of the way. He turned back to me, his NODs looking like cat’s eyes caught in a flashlight. I tapped Decoy, and they switched places, Decoy handing his UMP, radio, and NODs to me. He swung the EMP gun around while the remainder of us moved out in a semicircle about ten feet away.

  Knuckles had said the EMP worked fine, but it had a tendency to backsplash, and the last thing I wanted was to short-circuit all of our electronics while we destroyed the alarm leads.

  There was a short hum, then nothing. Decoy whirled back around, pumping his fist up and down. I tossed him his kit as we collapsed back onto the glass door.

  Brett went to work on the lock just as I noticed movement inside. A flashlight hit us full on, lighting up the alcove and blinding our NODS. Decoy fired over Brett’s shoulder through the door, and the light dropped.

  Brett quit working the lock and simply kicked the bullet holes, shattering the pane of glass and rushing through the gap. We all followed suit, fanning out to cover the room.

  Jennifer rolled to the right, in the direction the door opened, using it to block the view of the person entering. She heard a man speaking Arabic, answered by another. She leveled her Glock at the opening, wanting to wait until the man fully entered before pulling the trigger. She hoped that the darkness and the fact that her pistol was suppressed would allow her an element of surprise, letting her get the jump on the second man before he realized what had occurred to the first.