by Brad Taylor
Before I realized it, I had unconsciously hit redial on my phone to cancel the mission. I hung up before Knuckles could answer, physically shaking my head to clear the ghost feelings. Get a grip. Dubai is not Cairo. No Arab Spring here.
I inched my vehicle out of the alley I was hiding in anyway, wanting to see the route Knuckles would take. I reached the intersection and scanned left and right. Parking wasn’t allowed along this road, so if I saw a stationary vehicle, it might be a threat.
I exhaled. There was nothing but moving traffic. I put the car in reverse just as Knuckles passed me, heading west. He kept his eyes to the front, but gave me a one-finger wave from the steering wheel. As he passed I caught a glimpse of something hanging from underneath his left rear quarter panel, just behind the tire.
I leaned forward, trying to identify if it was my imagination or real. He kept going, but it wasn’t a trick of my déjà vu. Some small piece of metal was sticking out from underneath his car.
I hit redial, and it went straight to voice mail. Shit. I dialed Brett. When he answered, he was whispering.
“Pike, I can’t talk. Lucas is moving my way.”
“Fuck him. Dial Knuckles right now. Tell him to stop his car. Now.”
“What?”
252 ⁄ BRAD TAYLOR
My phone buzzed with an incoming call from Knuckles. I hung up on Brett without another word and switched over.
“Knuckles, stop your car. Get out of your car. I think it’s rigged with something.”
“Huh?”
“Get the hell out of your car!”
“Okay. Next intersection I’ll pull into an alley. I can’t stop on this road.”
“No! Get out now! It might be an IED.”
“Jesus Christ! I thought you meant a beacon.”
I heard a car door slam, then the sounds of him breathing as he moved away.
“I’m in an alley now. Vehicle’s shut down. I’m out. Now tell me what the fuck’s going on.”
I told him about the left rear quarter panel, leaving out the premonition that had made me look. He’d think I was nuts. While he checked it out, I called Decoy.
“You near your car?”
“No.”
“When you get to it, do a thorough scrub for IEDs. Knuckles has something he’s checking out now. Whatever you do, don’t just get in and crank it up.”
My other line buzzed with Brett.
“What’s up?”
“Lucas is on the move and I can’t stick with him. My heat state’s getting bad.”
“Forget him. Let him go. Link up with Decoy, but don’t start the car.”
“Why?”
“He’ll let you know. Lucas may have set us up.”
I hung up, thinking of the implications of an IED placed on Knuckles’ car. If it was real, then this whole day had been a charade. We thought we were the predators, when we’d been the prey. And Lucas had much more help than a simple driver. I prayed it was just my overactive imagination, with the biggest cost being me getting reamed at the after-action review and owing a case of beer for stopping the operation.
Knuckles called, and I found out I wouldn’t be driving all over Dubai searching for alcohol.
“It was an improvised shaped charge. Pretty ingenious. Most of it is homemade parts, but the detonator’s pretty damn sophisticated. No anti-tampering on it, though. A couple of snips, and it was rendered safe.”
“You got a plastic bag or something you can put it in?”
“Yeah, why?”
“We should have a biometrics kit in the equipment bundle. I want to print it and see if it’s Lucas who built the thing.”
“And?”
“And if it is, I’m done pussyfooting around. I’m putting a bullet in his head.”
51
D
ecoy looked over my shoulder at the computer screen and said, “Who the hell is that guy?”
“I have no idea.”
It had taken about an hour, but eventually we’d determined that all cars were clean, with me scrubbing mine just to be on the safe side. On my command, we’d let Lucas go, intending to find his bed-down site through his phone. After coming back to the hotel and helping Jennifer smuggle in the kit, we’d printed the funnel, sending everything we could back to the Taskforce. There ended up being four sets of fingerprints: two complete unknowns, Knuckles, and this guy, who had pinged in the database.
I unmuted the VOIP, with the entire team hovering around me. “Okay, one of you fifty-pound heads tell me what this is. Give me his history. Is he Hezbollah or what?”
“Well . . . uhhh . . . he’s a complete mystery. He came up in a BATTS sweep in Yemen three days ago. He was in an AQAP torture house getting brutalized, along with fourteen or fifteen other guys. The house was hit by an American-trained CT force looking for Khalid al-Asiri. It was a dry hole, and they scanned him just as routine SOP. He wasn’t the target, and he didn’t pop after the scan as anyone of interest.”
“Is he Yemeni? Or Lebanese?”
“Saudi. And we ran an airline data search. Nobody by this name and nationality has left Yemen since the hit.”
Saudi? What in the hell is going on?
“Any chance of a mistake?”
“Zero.”
I glanced at my Timex and saw it was closing in on four p.m. So it
would be almost seven a.m. there. Kurt would be working out right now, and I needed some guidance before I did something that caused serious heartburn.
“Go to the gym and find Colonel Hale. I need to speak to him ASAP.” I heard nothing but silence. I switched windows on the computer, hiding the picture of the Saudi and bringing up the camera. I saw two analysts looking at each other, neither of whom I recognized. New hires since I had left operational status.
“What are you doing? Did you hear me?”
One said, “Yes, but the section chief told us we had to go through him before seeing Colonel Hale. We aren’t allowed to hit up the boss directly.”
Behind me, Decoy said, “Who hired that ass-clown?” “I don’t know,” I said, “but he’s working on a short career.” I knew Kurt very well, and there was no way he would want to be
cut out of the loop like that. Filters were fine, and even necessary, but a blanket edict was stupid. That’s how bad things slip through the cracks, because decision makers don’t have the information they needed.
“One of you go to the damn section chief and the other one get
Colonel Hale.”
“He’s not at work yet. He’ll be here in a couple of hours. Eight
thirty, along with the dayshift guys.”
“Look, I know that most of your stuff is slow-burn, but I have a
crisis going on. I realize I’m far away from you right now, but I’m a
much bigger threat than your stupid-ass section sergeant. Now go get
Colonel Hale or I’m going to rip off your fucking head.” The threat of violence seemed to do the trick. One of them scurried
off while the other looked sick. I blacked the camera and microphone
on our side, grinning at the results. I turned around and saw everyone
256 ⁄ BRAD TAYLOR
else grinning too. Until I got to Jennifer. She was scowling at me, shaking her head.
“What? Come on. That was a little bit funny, wasn’t it?”
“Nobody likes a bully, Pike.”
That comment hurt a little bit, because I really did get along great with all the support folks. I just didn’t like little Napoleons preventing me from doing my job. I started to say something back to her when the computer squawked.
“Pike, you there?”
I saw Kurt and opened the mike and camera.
“Yes, sir. And I have a little issue I need some guidance on.”
“Yeah, I got the rundown from the analysts. So you think Lucas has a posse over there?”
“What else could it be? And not an amateur one either. That IED was well constructed. H
e’s had training.”
“What do you want to do?”
“It’s not what I want, it’s more what you’ll let me do. I’ve got Omega authority for Lucas, but I’m not sure he’s the primary threat. He could just be the handler, and taking him out only cuts the leash on this Saudi guy.”
“So you want Omega for an unknown? A target we can’t identify? I agree on the threat, but I don’t think that’ll fly. The Oversight Council will see right through this request to the next one, worried about the precedent.”
“Yeah, that’s my point. I hope they do. Remember when we set up the Taskforce? Your initial take was for a primary target and the authority to flex to a secondary target on any perishable intel we got from the first hit. That thought was right then, and it’s right now. No telling how many unknown bad guys Knuckles could have rolled up once he had Crusty, but he had to send all that bullshit back to the rear, then go through this huge vetting process. It’s not the best way to run a railroad. Especially after you’ve put all the time and effort into developing the cover to get in-country.”
“Yeah, yeah, but that’s all water under the bridge. I didn’t get what I wanted, and now we operate within a different framework.”
“That’s what I mean. This is the perfect opportunity to show them you were right. The perfect justification.”
“Well, maybe perfect on the enemy side because of the envoy’s visit, but they’re not going to be keen on turning you loose to dig around. Especially you.”
“What the hell does that mean? Me? I’ve put more terrorists away than anyone—without any compromises.”
Kurt laughed. “Calm down. You just tend to scare people.”
“Bullshit. If they think my operations are scary, they can sit on their hands and see what’s really frightening: a YouTube video of this unknown terrorist standing over the body of a dead American envoy.”
52
T
he director of the CIA started the rock-throwing first. “Colonel Hale, do you really expect us to give you a blank check? You brief that you ‘think’ there’s a bad guy in Dubai in addition to Lucas, and you ‘think’ he’s working with Lucas, and that’s enough? I’ve seen no evidence at all to indicate that, either in your brief or through my station assets in UAE.”
This was stupid. No way am I going to win this fight. He’d called the emergency session right after hanging up with Pike—only the third time he’d ever done so. He knew he had little chance of getting a quorum, but he had hoped the president would override the veto. Unfortunately, the president was unable to break away from a previous engagement.
Before he could respond, the secretary of defense cut in. “Last time we met, you said I knew you and that you never cried wolf. That may have been true a year ago, but lately it seems you do that every few days.”
“Sir, I can’t control the threat. I don’t make this stuff up. It’s real, and it’s in Dubai. I understand the need for vetting so we don’t go off half-cocked. I’m the one that asked the president to create this body for that very reason, but sometimes you need to throw out the rules. I’m not talking about setting a precedent. I’m talking about saving the envoy’s life.”
“Get Lucas, and I think you’ll be doing that. Get him into interrogation, find a new thread, then come back to us to assess whether
we want to go Omega again.”
“Sir, the envoy’s going to be in Dubai in less than twenty-four
hours. There’s no way we can do that swiftly enough to protect him.” The D/CIA addressed the secretary of state. “John, what’re your
thoughts? It’ll be your mess to clean up if this goes to shit.” The secretary of state leaned forward. “I talked to McMasters last
night, and he’s completely comfortable continuing to Dubai. He said
he didn’t even care if we let Lucas run free. He’s sure that the Dubai
authorities can protect him, and I tend to agree.”
Kurt said, “With all due respect, I don’t think he’s got the same
information we do. He’s not the man that should be making judgments on whether Dubai can protect him. He has no idea how dangerous Lucas is.”
“Not the man to make judgments on Dubai? He spent four years
there as the ambassador. If anyone should know, it’s him. Anyway,
Dubai’s not Yemen or some other country going through a volcano.
They’re wired pretty tight.”
Kurt started to say something else, and the SECSTATE held up his
hand. “Look, Lucas I’m still okay with. If there’s any fallout from taking him down, I’m sure we can contain it. I’m not so sure about this
unknown. We have no idea who he’s connected with or how it will
unravel. I’m not willing to risk it.”
I awoke before dawn, having gotten little sleep. The impending operation against Lucas had run continuously in my mind, with my subconscious trying to assess where the curveballs would come from. When we’d have to flex.
Lucas was no ordinary target. He was a predator at the top of the food chain and deserved respect. He’d come close to killing me a couple of years ago, something that few men could claim. I’d decided to keep the plan simple, assuming risk on compromise instead of risk on him turning the tables on us. It wasn’t the usual way an Omega operation went down, because we ordinarily placed Taskforce exposure above all else, but in this case we were pressed for time, and I could only leverage the few facts we had.
We knew two solid things about him: the make and model of his vehicle, and, thanks to his phone, his bed-down location. Which is where we would take him down.
Not much of a surprise, he was staying in the same hotel as the envoy. I’d sent Brett and Decoy out on a recce, and they said the place was now a fortress, leading me to believe he wouldn’t strike there. He just wanted to get close for surveillance purposes. The hotel gave him a perfect staging point, complete with a parking garage that, as a registered guest, he could use without raising a signature.
The plan was a template we used as an in-extremis solution. A battle drill we called a mugging. Basically, we’d simply hide in the shadows waiting for our prey. When he arrived, we’d thump his ass, giving him a little wood shampoo with some clubs like a couple of muggers from New York. It wasn’t imaginative and was usually used as a last-resort, snap-decision thing when the original plan went to pieces. In this case I liked the simplicity. Fewer things to control, like the variables on Samir’s rescue, so fewer things Lucas could manipulate.
The key to the template was getting him to come to us. I didn’t want to crouch in a corner like a Peeping Tom, only to have him head the other way. In this case, I figured we had an ace in the hole with Jennifer.
Lucas had tried very hard to kill her a couple of years ago and would recognize her on sight. An irresistible lure. She would position in the lobby, with eyes on the elevators. When he appeared, she’d simply get up and walk through his cone of vision. I had no doubt whatsoever that her appearance would cause a reaction.
He’d either beeline to his vehicle or try to follow Jennifer, assuming she had something to do with the envoy’s visit. I was betting on the follow-Jennifer option. He’d want to know what the hell she was doing there, a complete wrench thrown into his operation. He’d want to interrogate her, then plug the holes in whatever plan he had created.
Decoy and Brett would position in the lobby to give early warning of his intentions, since Jennifer couldn’t look behind her. She had to act like she didn’t know he was there. Knuckles and I would take him down.
The choice wasn’t random. We hadn’t drawn straws. Lucas had come close to killing both Knuckles and me and had tortured and killed a friend of ours, along with his entire family. His capture was a little personal, to put it mildly.
I rolled out of bed and turned on my laptop, logging into the hotel’s Internet. Lucas was the twenty-five-meter target, but he wasn’t the endgame. We still had the Saudi
to contend with, a threat that would have to be removed as well, like stomping out all the embers in a fire to prevent a flare-up.
I pulled up our encrypted “company” e-mail and saw a message from Kurt. The first part was something I should have expected; especially since Kurt had said me running around loose gave the Oversight Council irritable bowel syndrome.
Blaine and support package on the way. ETA eighteen hours. LTC Blaine Alexander, the element leader for Omega operations, was a pretty good man. He’d been working Omega for a few years, and we got along fine, although I hadn’t done anything with him since I’d left the Taskforce. He’d probably wonder how I would act, since the last time he’d seen me I was literally a catatonic mess. He was the one who had the job of telling me my wife and daughter had been murdered. The one who brought the stalker to my dreams.
The second part of the message I had to read twice before the words sank in.
No Omega for the Saudi. Lucas only. Work it, then send back status. I’ll re-engage for further operations with what you find out.
I couldn’t believe it, wondering if they got the SITREP about the shaped-charge IED. If they understood the implications of that little device. Whoever made it was imaginative and ruthless. The fact that he hadn’t pinged in any databases until now told me he had been very, very successful. He didn’t wake up with the knowledge of how to create that IED. He’d done it before. Probably many times, and in such a manner that he hadn’t ever come up as a threat. The Council was playing checkers against a man who was a wizard at chess.
And they were betting the envoy’s life on the outcome.
53
T
he room’s mounting heat caused the Ghost’s thin veil of sleep to dissipate. He fought it, knowing he needed the rest. He threw off the threadbare sheet in a final attempt, but it did little to help. The seedy hotel had no air-conditioning, and the fan in the room was doing nothing to overcome the swelter of the rising sun.
Yesterday afternoon, after getting across the river on a dhow, he had returned to his friend’s flat and waited to hear the news of the car bomb. After four hours, he’d heard nothing, either on the television or on the streets outside. He’d decided to relocate. He knew that simply because he hadn’t heard anything didn’t mean there wasn’t an explosion, but he was taking no chances. If he had been under surveillance, they probably knew where he’d been sleeping. He’d found a small hotel nearby and urged his friend to move as well for the next fortyeight hours. Hamid had said he’d think about it, then had gone to work, apparently unconcerned, showing the Ghost how little experience he really had.
