by Jack Mars
Luke stared at the black screen a moment. The reporter was no longer smiling. Behind him the boats continued to burn. As Luke watched, a new ball of black and red flame erupted from the third boat in line. The Helena was collapsing into the water.
How did it happen?
Last he knew, Swann was safe inside a hotel that was guarded like a fortress.
“They took his glasses away,” Ed said again. “How’s the man supposed to see?”
Ed’s eyes went to that bulging crazy place that Luke had seen before. His nostrils flared. His mouth pursed. His entire body was electric with rage. Without another word, he turned and stalked toward the skinny Brit lying in a ball on the ground.
“Ed,” Luke said.
He was there in five steps. He bent over the kid. “You!” he said. “You’re gonna tell me. How’s my brother supposed to see?”
“Please,” the kid Nigel said.
“NO.”
With his left hand, Ed grabbed the kid by his collar and yanked him off the ground. With his right, he punched the kid in the head. It was a devastating shot. The kid’s head bounced in the air.
Ed reared back and did it again. This time in the face. It was the hardest punch that Luke had ever seen.
Teeth flew. The kid’s mouth was instantly bloodied.
“Please,” he said, his voice a hoarse lisp now. “I didn’t do it.”
“Nah, man. You didn’t do anything. You didn’t do this, you didn’t do that. Why you fucking here if you ain’t doing anything?”
He hit him again.
Luke started walking toward them, taking his time.
Ed hit him again.
The kid was not trying to protect himself.
Ed pulled a pistol from his side holster. He smacked the kid in the side of the head with it. Then he pressed it to the kid’s head.
“Ed!” Luke said.
From the corner of his eye, Luke saw the long-haired cameraman. He had the camera mounted on his shoulder. He stared into the viewfinder. He was filming this.
Luke turned to him. “Put that camera down!”
The cameraman moved away from him, but kept filming. “It’s a summary execution, man. I’ve seen this before. He’s about to kill that guy.”
“I said put that camera down!”
The reporter tried to step between them. “Hey! Hey, it’s freedom of the press.”
Luke pushed the guy aside, took three steps, and grabbed the cameraman by the hair. He swung the guy around in a big arc, then let go. The guy stumbled away. Luke followed him, pulled the camera down off his shoulder, and smashed it on the ground. The he stomped on it.
“This isn’t America, you idiots. There’s no freedom here.”
He turned around and now the reporter had a gun out. He was pointing it at Ed. “Hey!” he shouted. “Hey, don’t you shoot that guy!”
Luke walked over. In one move, he punched the guy in the face and pulled his gun away. The reporter fell to the ground. He sat on his ass and put a hand to his cheek.
“Don’t make me hurt you,” Luke said.
His gun was a revolver—a six-shooter, stupid gun to take into a war zone. Luke opened the cylinder and dumped the bullets on the ground. Then he threw the thing away. He turned back to Ed.
Ed hadn’t moved. He still had the barrel pressed to the kid’s temple.
“I’m gonna do it, man. I’m gonna kill this ISIS punk in cold blood right now.”
The kid’s eyes were squeezed tight.
“Please,” he said, blood streaming down his jaw. “I know where they took him. I know where they took him. It’s the same place. They always use the same place.”
Luke walked over. “Ed. Wait a minute. Just one minute. Then you can blow his brains out. I don’t care. But what is he saying?”
Nigel’s chin was red with blood. His neck was red. His mouth hung open. Great thick bursts of blood poured from it. There were black spaces where his front teeth used to be. “I know where they took him.” Blood flowed down. It pattered onto the dusty ground and mingled with the dirt.
“Nigel, do you have any idea how badly we’re going to hurt you if we find out you’re lying? We killed all your friends. They’ll be the ones who got off easy.”
“I’m not lying. I know where it is. I know where they do the confession videos. I know where they do the executions. That wrecked building in the video. It was the headquarters. It got bombed, I think by the Americans—now they kill people there. You bomb us, we kill you. That’s the message.”
“Nigel…” Luke said. “This man is about to kill you.”
“I’m not lying. I know exactly where that video was shot. Look. I’m smart. I watch what’s happening. I know the places where Abu al-Baghdadi hides. I watch where his motorcade goes. I know which ones are the body doubles. I’ve been there. I’ve seen everything.”
“Where is all this?”
“Al-Raqqa, the capital of the caliphate.”
Ed dropped him on the ground. He put his big boot on Nigel’s head and pressed. “Say the word caliphate again.”
The kid’s eyes squeezed shut. “Aaaaannnhhhh!”
“Say caliphate. Say it! I’ll crush your skull.”
“Please—”
“There ain’t no caliphate, you punk. There’s never gonna be a caliphate.”
Luke looked at the reporter. He was still sitting on the ground, staring into space. He moved his jaw around, adjusting himself to the feeling of soreness. That thing was going to swell up in a little while.
“You. How far is al-Raqqa from here?”
“Two hundred miles. Maybe two twenty.”
“How long does it take to get there?”
“On the ground?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, man. What’s the old saying? You can’t get there from here. The siege of Aleppo is in the way. It’s a freak show. Assad and the Russians are bombing all the time. Almost nothing can get in or out. People in there are starving. If you somehow slip through, you’ll pass through government-held territory, rebel-held territory, contested territory, then into wide open desert. The highway is a killing zone out there. You’ll see Raqqa in the distance. It’s the only thing for miles. There’s nowhere to hide. You will never make it.”
“You’ve been there?” Luke said.
The guy nodded. “We’re the press, man. You see those big letters TV all over the truck? It’s magic. People think twice before killing us. Don’t ask me why. They kill everybody else without hesitating.”
Luke looked at the news truck, and really saw it for the first time. It was a Mad Max–style contraption, the black windows covered with steel grates. It was tall. It had a high suspension and heavy-duty knobbed tires.
“What is that thing?”
“The truck? It’s an old ambulance from Paris. We gutted it, swapped out the medical stuff, and put communications stuff in. Plus a couple of cots suspended from the walls. The tires are triple-steel-reinforced run-flats—there’s a lot of junk lying around on the roads, and most of it is sharp. Those tires go over anything. We also dropped in a bare bones three-hundred-horsepower engine. Easy to maintain—just add water. It’s a beast.”
“How fast does it go?”
“I’ve pinned it at one eighty kilometers per hour. That’s as high as the speedometer goes. What’s that, about one ten? But you can’t maintain that speed. We just use a burst of power for fast getaways.”
He looked at Luke. Then the reality hit him. “Hey, no way, man. No. You can’t take the truck away.”
Luke shook his head. “I’m not taking it away. You’re coming with us.”
* * *
“Hold for the President of the United States.”
It took half an hour to get through on the reporter’s satellite phone. They were already on the road, Luke in the shotgun seat. The cameraman was at the wheel. He was quietly seething about his camera—he said it cost him five thousand dollars.
“Don’t worry,” L
uke had told him. “Your Uncle Sam will pay for it.”
“We’re Canadian.”
Luke sighed and shook his head. “I don’t care what you are,” he said. “Put your foot on the gas. Never mind the brake.”
Now Luke was holding the phone, watching the ruined buildings pass outside his window. The sky was pale blue and wide open. The ground was tan and brown. Everything man-made was bombed out. Everything was crumbling.
Luke felt very little about the devastation. He’d been in war zones before, many times. Things got broken, and this was what broken looked like. The only thing he did feel was a sense of time urgency. Swann was out there, being held by remorseless animals. Swann was a talented man. Maybe there were things he could tell them, or do for them, that might buy him a few extra hours. Luke hoped so.
Please let me get there.
Luke didn’t know of anyone who had been rescued from ISIS. But he and Ed, if they got inside that city… and they hit as hard as they could… and they caught a few breaks… maybe.
A voice came on the phone.
“Hello?” She sounded small and far away.
“Susan, how are you?”
“I’m okay. How are you?”
“Terrible. But Ed and I are alive and we’re still operational.”
“Where are you?”
“We’re in Syria. I’m calling to make a report. We reached the wharf where the boat the Helena was docked. There were no warheads. There were two tractor trailers in the hold—both were damaged in a way that was consistent with a gun battle. Both were empty. We encountered ISIS fighters at the dock, and the boat was destroyed in the ensuing firefight. But there was nothing on board.”
She was saying something, but her voice cut out for a moment. A few seconds of static, then she faded back in. Luke didn’t ask her to repeat herself.
“Next point,” he said. “We captured an ISIS fighter at the scene. He told us that the Helena was a decoy. The warheads stayed in Turkey. He believes they are en route to Russia. Repeat… warheads en route to Russia. His claims the plan is to launch the warheads at Russian cities from inside Russia. That way, what? Nobody will know who did it, I guess.”
“Do you believe him?” a male voice said. Luke couldn’t tell who was who. He glanced down at the crumpled form of Nigel, curled into a ball on the floor of the truck, holding a small towel to his mouth, his lower leg in a splint that Ed had made for him. He was about as pathetic a soldier as you’d expect to see in a war zone.
“I don’t know what I believe,” Luke said. “But I think it’s worth pursuing.”
“Okay,” the male voice said. “We’ll look into it.” Luke suspected the voice belonged to Kurt Kimball.
“Kurt?”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t something you look into,” Luke said. “What you do is the following. You pull in about a hundred analysts, FBI, NSA, CIA, large municipal police departments, wherever you can scare them up on a moment’s notice. Have them go back through as much satellite data as is available over the past two days—both before and after the theft. The warheads must have been switched to different trucks, and probably big ones. If those trucks are headed to Russia, there’s really only a couple of ways they can go. There used to be a direct Black Sea ferry between Turkey and Russia—”
“Trabzon to Sochi,” Kurt said. “It’s been closed since the Russian incursion on the Turkish islands.”
Luke nodded. “Good. Then the trucks either have to go on a private craft—which means that someone has to commandeer such a craft and land it at a Russian dock, with Russian inspectors. Or they have to travel through Georgia and cross into Russia at the Georgian-Russian border.”
“Considering the tensions between Georgia and Russia in recent years…” Kurt began.
“That’s right,” Luke said. “A tall order. So analyze the satellite data, and isolate any large trucks—tractor-trailers, delivery trucks, construction vehicles—that have crossed into Georgia. Narrow it to the most likely suspects from there. See if the Georgians will cooperate with security footage. If they won’t, then have the Russians interdict at the border. They have skin in this game.”
There was a long silence over the phone.
“It’s a good idea,” Kurt said finally.
“It’s not an idea, Kurt. It’s how you do it. So do it, okay?”
Luke stared at the phone in his hand. He had just given an order to the President’s National Security Adviser, probably in front of twenty people. Those were tired people. It was still the middle of the night there. And Luke was… who exactly?
“Hello?” he said.
“Luke,” Susan said. “We are negotiating your surrender with the Syrian government. They will transfer you to the Turkish border, where you can catch a helicopter back to Incirlik.”
“Uh, negative, Susan. We have another mission here before we can leave.”
“What mission?”
“I’d prefer not to discuss it over this connection.”
“Luke, your current mission has been a disaster. We are trying to defuse an international incident with Russia on this end. We lost three men. They lost six. We can’t have direct combat with the Russians, Luke.”
“Then I suggest you find those nukes,” Luke said. “They’re on their way to Russia, if what I hear is right. I think I mentioned that, didn’t I?”
“Agent Stone,” Susan said. “I know what you’re planning to do. And I’m ordering you to turn around and return to the base in Turkey.”
“I need to speak with Mika Dolan,” Luke said. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine, yes. Very upset, but okay, and being transferred to the Incirlik Air Base as we speak. Which is where I’d like you to go.”
“Can someone get a message to her? Please ask her to call me at this number.”
“Stone!” Susan said. “You’re not listening to me. I went out on a limb to send you in there. It was a mistake. We are in a very tense situation. I realize that Mark Swann was your friend. Believe me when I say we are expending every resource available to—”
“Mark Swann is my friend,” Luke said. “Present tense.”
“Stone,” Kurt Kimball said. “The President of the United States has just given you a direct order. You can’t—”
Luke looked at the telephone again. It was a simple one. Big numbers on the keypad. Green button for call. Red button for hang up.
He pressed the red button.
“Damn satellites,” he said. “I lost the call.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
8:15 a.m. Eastern European Time (2:15 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
Incirlik Air Base
Adana, Turkey
Mika was alive.
It was all that mattered. She sat cross-legged on the floor in a far corner of a half empty office, her belongings piled around her. There were no windows in this office. Windows would be hard because the office was several stories underground. It was inside what had appeared to be a squat building on the American side of the Incirlik Air Base. The building was indeed squat when observed from above ground—below ground, it was ten stories tall.
At the other side of the office, people in military uniforms sat at computer terminals, or paced around, yelling into telephones. The country was in crisis, and the base was under attack. These people seemed to be doing something important about it, or thought they were.
Mika shivered. The drive here had been something out of a nightmare. They had traveled at high-speed in a three-SUV convoy, racing past angry mobs of people running in the streets. Flames and smoke rose from a dozen fires on the horizon. The security contractors leaned out the windows and fired indiscriminately whenever traffic slowed down. They drove on sidewalks. They drove through the middle of a deserted open air café, scattering chairs and tables everywhere
Mika didn’t mind what they did. Anything to get here, where it was safe.
She didn’t know if she was going to lose her job. She wouldn�
��t mind if she did. She might even quit. It didn’t matter. She was Mika Dolan, and she was alive.
She remembered how she used to take long walks on the beach with her dad. She enjoyed that. If she made it home alive, she would do that again. Maybe that’s all she would ever do.
A man in tan battle fatigues approached her. He was young and smiling.
“Mika Dolan?”
“Yes. Is my plane ready?”
The smile faded somewhat. “What plane is that?”
“I’m supposed to be evacuated.”
“Oh. Yeah. That. No one is being evacuated at the present time. Everything non-combat-related is grounded. Believe me, you wouldn’t want to be on a plane taking off from here right now. I’ve been sent to let you know that people are trying to reach you. You have a call from Amy Pooler, aide to the President’s National Security Adviser. She told me to relay to you that you should call Agent Luke Stone immediately. I have the phone number for you.”
Inside her jacket pocket, Mika felt the weight of the hard drive the mysterious woman had given her. She hadn’t told anyone about it. It occurred to her now what an obvious breach of security protocol that was—a stranger had given her a small black box, and she had carried it onto the base. It certainly looked like an external hard drive, but…
“Why didn’t Amy call me directly?” she said.
“You’re using a satellite phone, and you’re too far underground for the signal to reach. You have to go upstairs to make or receive calls. Better if you go outside.”
Outside? She didn’t like the sound of that.
The man handed her a slip of yellow paper. “That’s the number,” he said. “Please give Agent Stone a call.”
“Okay,” she said.
After he left, she sat still for several moments. Certain feelings washed over her. Sure, there was the job thing. But she was young, and she graduated from MIT. She had been heavily recruited by private industry coming out of school. She would get another job. She had thought she wanted to go into real spy work, but if this was how it went… they could keep it.
