by Brad Taylor
more day, then head out.”
The door opened, and Jennifer entered, sending a flutter to my
stomach I wasn’t used to feeling. I ignored Blaine.
“Jesus, what the hell have you been doing? I’ve been worried sick.” She gave me a wan smile and said, “I had some car trouble. A flat
tire.”
I noticed her hair was wet, and she was now wearing jeans and a
long-sleeve shirt rolled down to her wrists. “You changed clothes.
What’s up? You took the time to take a shower before contacting us?” She shifted back and forth and said, “I sent you a text. I sweated
like crazy changing the tire. I just wanted to freshen up a little.” She looked around and said, “What’s going on? Where do we
stand?”
I explained the situation, then said, “As for where we stand, I was
just asking that very thing.”
Blaine said, “What else is there? I told you what’s going to happen
in the next twenty-four hours.”
“What about Lucas?”
He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Pike, hey, I get the
guy tried to kill you, but he’s not a security threat. His information
panned out. He’s gone, and the Taskforce isn’t going to hunt him.” I saw Jennifer’s jaw drop. I said, “Are you serious? He killed Ethan
Meriweather, along with his entire family. He’s still designated as a
DOA target.”
DOA stood for Dead Or Alive and was a Taskforce designation
that was rarely used. Almost one hundred percent of the time, we
wanted the information inside the terrorist’s head. DOA meant the
target was a distinct and urgent threat to national security, and we’d
deemed the loss of information through interrogation less important
than neutralizing him. Very few targets met that definition in our little
world. Most terrorists like that were vaporized by a predator drone in
areas within which we couldn’t operate.
I’d never had a DOA target, but the teams that did jokingly said it
stood for “Dead On Arrival,” since nobody in their right mind would
continue trying to capture a guy when it was authorized to kill him.
Much, much easier to do. Lucas had earned the title when he’d murdered the family of a Taskforce member.
“Pike, I get that. If it was up to me, we’d go hunting right now, but
we’ve worn out our welcome on this op. Orders are to get everyone
home and let things cool down. No more overt actions. Period.” Before I could answer, Jennifer blurted, “You can’t let him go! He’s
a murderer. We need to catch him.”
Both Blaine and I jerked our heads to her, startled at what she had
said. An uncharacteristic outburst from someone who was as close to
a bleeding heart as the Taskforce had.
Blaine said, “I hear you. I really do, and we’ll get him eventually. He’s just not a strategic threat. I have to agree with Kurt on this one. Yeah, he’s a shithead, but he’s not a Taskforce shithead. He’s someone
else’s problem.”
I saw Jennifer clenching her jaw so tight the muscles rippled in her
cheek. She said nothing else, and honestly, I was good with it. “So get these guys to the Skyhook and call it a day?” “Yeah. Can you handle that?”
“No issues at all. We’ll use the same DZ that the equipment came
into. Jennifer can find it easy.”
“Then get moving. I’ll send the alert and the L-one-hundred will be
here three hours after nightfall.”
Thirty minutes later we had two four-wheel drive Nissan Pathfinders loaded up, Decoy and Brett in one with the two terrorists bundled in the back, and Jennifer and I leading the way to link up with the L100, the sun setting on the horizon.
The Skyhook was an extraction technique invented in the late 1950s. Used operationally only a few times, it had remained in the U.S. inventory until the 1980s, when the Department of Defense decided it was easier to fly in a helicopter than risk the damage to a human using the extravagant system. I’d done a lot of borderline things in my career, but testing this capability was at the top of stupid, which is why we only used it for terrorists.
The system had actually been used by Hollywood more than by the CIA or DOD—appearing in multiple movies—and had eventually been phased out when helicopters began to do aerial refueling that gave them the ability to reach over great distances.
It still worked for us because our problem wasn’t reach. It was explaining what the hell we were doing in the country. Thus, having a plane conducting an overflight on a registered flight plan, then dip for a span of seconds to intersect the package before returning to flight altitude, solved a lot of extraction problems for folks we couldn’t get through immigration.
Bouncing across the desert, Jennifer did nothing but steer and navigate, never once asking me about anything that had happened. That and her demeanor told me something was different. She had an aura melting off of her that permeated the entire vehicle. Maybe something only I could sense, but it was there, filling the cab with its stench. I said nothing, waiting for her to open up.
Eventually, she said, “What do you think about Lucas? You going to let that go?”
“What do you mean? I don’t really have a choice. He’s an asshole, but I’m not going to chase his butt all over the world.”
She looked at me for a long pause, reading my face. When she returned to the road, she said, “What about Ethan’s family? Isn’t that enough?”
Where was this going?
“Yeah, that’s definitely enough, but I don’t have the team or the intel to chase him. He’ll turn up.”
“What if I told you I had the intel? That inside his room I found where he’s going? Would that be enough?”
“What kind of game are you playing? Why are you asking?”
She looked at me again, and I saw a door slam closed. “Nothing. Just asking. It doesn’t matter to me either.”
64
W
e reached the pickup grid without speaking again. I knew something was wrong, but was genuinely unsure of what to say or how to act. I let it ride.
Decoy and Brett unloaded the two prisoners while I laid out the kit, consisting of nothing more than a specially constructed rope and a helium balloon. Jennifer attached the battery wires for what looked like an ordinary pocket calculator to the antenna lead of the radio, giving us the ability to hear the aircraft’s encrypted transmissions through the stereo in the Pathfinder. It was a simple decryption device that translated the radio calls of the aircraft, transmitted using a standard FM frequency on the radio dial. The hitch was we couldn’t speak back verbally. That didn’t mean we couldn’t communicate.
Both of the terrorists had been sedated with a special drug that was not unlike controlled substances used on every college campus in America. It gave a sense of euphoria while inhibiting conscious thought. They were coherent, but just barely, looking around with glazed eyes like they were trying to understand what was happening. They had enough coordination to put on the special jumpsuits for the ride, completely oblivious as to why they were doing it.
Ten minutes out, Jennifer fired up the Pathfinder and dialed the radio to the correct frequency. I stood by with an infrared pointer, barely able to make out the terrorists thirty feet away in the dark, sitting backtoback in orange jumpsuits.
We heard nothing but static for four minutes, then a clear break. “Prometheus, Prometheus, this is Stork. You got a baby for me to
deliver?”
I fired up the IR pointer and began doing slow loops in the sky. “Roger, Prometheus, got your rope. Stand by. Be on target in ten
minutes.”
That was the call to release the balloon. I attached two inf
rared
ChemLights to the rope, separated by a hundred feet, then turned on
the helium. Within seconds, the rope began to rise in the air. Ordinarily, the plane would be able to see the line in daylight, driving right into it and capturing the rope with a special little “V” attachment in the nose. Since nothing was easy enough for the Taskforce, we
did the capture at night, blacked out, which called for the pilot to literally find the two IR ChemLights while wearing night observation
goggles and steer his nose toward them, keeping one high and one low,
hoping to snag the line.
There was one other difference the Taskforce had to heighten the
adventure. The old MC-130s used to have a cable running from the
nose to the outside edge of the wings to protect the propellers if the pilot
missed the rope, in effect preventing it from snarling in an engine. Since
that setup would look decidedly strange on a “commercial” airplane,
we didn’t use it. Scary shit I would never do. Taskforce pilots were
borderline insane.
We waited, getting no indication the plane was approaching, since all
lights had been dashed and it was now diving from a commercial altitude
to eight hundred feet. I kept my eye on the two passengers, making sure
they didn’t do anything stupid like try to jump up and run. We didn’t
flex-cuff them for the same reason we didn’t give them a drug that would
make them unconscious; if something went wrong, we wanted them to
be at least somewhat capable of helping to save their lives. Out of nowhere, I heard the four engines of the L100, a stretch,
commercial version of the venerable C-130 cargo plane. It raced overhead, and I watched the terrorists, knowing what was coming. Two seconds later, they were ripped from the ground and flying out
of sight. It looked violent as hell, but I knew from experience it had
less of a shock than a simple parachute opening.
I waited for the radio call, not wanting to go racing through the
desert for a crashed airplane towing terrorists. The stereo crackled,
and I relaxed from what came out.
“Prometheus, this is Stork. Baby’s in the crib, and we’re moving to
delivery.”
We high-fived for a moment, then packed up. Shortly, I was back
in the tomb with Jennifer, only she was now in the passenger seat. We
went for ten minutes, the silence getting so dense it was like cotton in
the cab, surrounding us both and starting to smother. Eventually, she
broke it.
“Do you think letting Lucas go is right?”
What is the damn fascination with him? She couldn’t stand the way
I acted in Bosnia when I captured him, now she wishes I’d smoked
him when I had the chance?
I turned, seeing her face illuminated by the lights of the dash. “Jennifer, what’s going on? Why do you keep asking about him?” She paused, then said, “Nothing. I was just wondering.” “Bullshit. You remember on the boat, when you said you could
read me? You were right, but it works both ways. Nobody else sees it,
but I do. Tell me what’s going on.”
She stared at me for a moment, then snaked her hand over mine on
the bench seat. “I have to tell you something.”
“Okay . . . I’m ready. I think.”
“It’s personal. You can’t tell anyone else. I mean that.” What the hell?
“Yeah, sure. You going to let me in on a big secret? I’m finally getting to see the real Jennifer or something?”
She said nothing, and I saw her eyes tear up. Holy shit. What is
going on?
“Lucas . . . Lucas did something. Something I want you to know about.”
I waited, only hearing sniffles, finally saying, “What?”
When she looked up, her eyes were still wet, but clear, and her voice was now firm. “You know what. He murdered Ethan. Slaughtered his whole family. We need to get him. We shouldn’t let it go.”
The change in tone raised a flag. She’d known about Ethan and his family when I had Lucas in Bosnia. Why get bloodthirsty now?
“Jennifer, you heard the boss. The Taskforce isn’t going to do anything about it unless he becomes a threat to national security. We don’t chase murderers.”
“I’m not talking about the Taskforce. I’m talking about us.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
She reached into a pocket of her pants and brought out a card. An ID of some sort. She said, “Pull over.”
“Why?”
“Please.”
I did so, getting a radio call from Knuckles behind me. I told him we were fine and to continue on. He protested, and I barked at him. He slowly disappeared ahead of us. Jennifer turned on the dome light and handed me the card.
It was my friend’s driver’s license. Ethan, with that same goofy grin. Now gone, tortured to death by Lucas. The picture caused a spike of anger at his loss.
She said, “I found that in Lucas’s luggage, along with other things from people he’s killed. I also found out where he’s going and what hotel he’ll be staying in. We can do this.”
I wanted to. It felt right. But I knew it wouldn’t work.
“Jennifer, I’m with you, but Lucas knows both you and me on sight. There’s no way we can get this done. He’s a hard target, not like some of the losers you’ve seen us take down. Shit, just look at what he did in Dubai.”
She said, “So convince the team. They’ll listen to you. They’ll help.” “Why? Why do you want this so much now?”
She looked out the window at the stars, saying nothing. I was about to ask again when she said, “I realize this isn’t like me, but I knew Ethan. I caused his death by showing up at his house. The ID made it real. And I need to make it right.”
I looked at the license again, seeing Ethan alive in my mind’s eye, then running through implications of a nonsanctioned hit. The logistics involved, and the repercussions. I thought we could do it, but only a DOA mission. There would be no way to exfiltrate a live prisoner, and no one to transfer him to if we could. I knew that would end the operation for Jennifer. Her sense of fair play wouldn’t allow it, but I’d let her come to that conclusion.
“Okay. I’ll talk to the team. See if they’ll go along, but we’re going to be limited on our options. We’ll have no support team to take custody.”
“I get that. I understand.”
“Well, what do you want to do with Lucas when we find him?”
She locked eyes with me, her teeth clenched together, the muscles in her jaw vibrating.
“I want you to fucking kill him.”
65
L
ucas Kane searched one more news story just to be sure and read the same results with a sense of relief. The peace conference in Qatar was going ahead as scheduled. Which meant the money transfer would go ahead as well.
When he’d arrived yesterday afternoon the news had been full of reports about the “failure” of one of the Burj Khalifa’s elevators, with sensational stories about the excruciatingly protracted length of time the people floated inside, knowing they were going to die, screaming all the way down until they impacted at terminal velocity with the force of an out-of-control freight train.
The fact the sheikh of Dubai and the United States Middle East envoy were in the building made it that much more salacious, with newscasters breathlessly repeating what little they knew over and over again, adding nothing to the knowledge of what had occurred, but driving the story to a fever pitch. He’d assumed the worst, but finally, the Dubai government lifted its censorship blanket, and the news began reporting that both men had lived.
Not really caring about their corporeal status, Lucas focused on the political results of the attack, trying to
find the standing of the envoy’s mission in Qatar. He’d checked back online several times during the day until he had finally found the story in front of him.
It made him both relieved and a little jealous. While all news outlets were reporting a simple mechanical failure, he knew for a fact what had happened. No wonder I had such trouble killing Pike. That guy’s a fucking predator. He couldn’t help but be impressed with the operation, precisely because it hadn’t made the news. With a pang of envy, Lucas realized that Pike and his team were better than anyone he had ever served with. He would have liked to recruit the man as a partner. We could really clean up.
He wondered if Pike had reflected on how he’d been able to prevent the deaths of the sheikh and the envoy. If he’d given a little thanks to Lucas for his help. Probably not, after talking to Jennifer.
He smiled at the memory, then reflexively moved his hand to his broken nose, the light touch bringing a stab of pain. Serves that bitch right.
Now sure his own mission hadn’t been sabotaged, he typed a different address into the computer. After it loaded, he typed in an administrator’s password, then began scrubbing the list.
He knew the envoy himself wouldn’t be trudging around the Middle East carrying a suitcase full of cash. No matter how much VIP treatment he got, it just didn’t make any sense. The risk of loss or discovery was simply too great, and he knew it wasn’t coming from the State Department’s budget in the first place.
If the envoy was truly transferring black cash, it would be coming from the CIA. Nobody else had the architecture or experience to bury a large sum of money from the scrutiny of Congress. Which meant a separate flight for the escorts, most likely ground branch case officers from the Special Activities Division.
Whoever was coming, he knew they’d be traveling as State Department employees. That being the case, they’d be using the State Department’s travel website to book their tickets in an attempt to blend in with the myriad other moves State did on a daily basis.
Before he’d had to flee the United States, he’d developed a solid business solving problems for various people, including a man named Harold Standish on the National Security Council. Standish had passed him administrative rights to the State travel website, and they had proven useful on several different operations. In the end, Lucas had ended up killing Standish, but had kept the administrative privileges.
