The Consultant

by TJ O'Connor

  Unless this was a pirate treasure, I’d found Oscar LaRue’s sarin nerve gas.

  The design was basic. The sarin was combined with compressed air to form a mist that would be sprayed silently beneath the bus as it moved along Baltimore’s streets. The movement of the bus would swirl the gas outward and into other cars, pedestrians, or buildings close by.

  Sarin wasn’t the only problem. There were wires that connected ten opaquely wrapped plastic bricks concealed beneath the seats—homemade plastic explosives. The bricks were packed beside the cylinders and connected to a wire harness that ran to a square metal canister the size of a child’s lunch box in the rear of the bus. There, the lunch box was connected to coax cable that disappeared out the roof. An antenna. An antenna for remote detonation.

  What, no thermonuclear bomb? No tarantulas or lethal pit vipers? Just homemade plastic explosives and sarin gas?

  Steady, Hunter. One, two, three. Oh crap … ninety-nine.

  Part of Special Forces training is explosives. Over the years, I’d seen my share of IEDs and even diffused a few when the bomb techs weren’t available. I’m no expert, but in a pinch, I can figure out the blue and red wire most of the time. “Most of the time” are the operant words here. There were three things wrong with this bomb design in front of me—I had no tools other than a pocketknife, the clock was ticking and I was surrounded by bad guys eager to kill me, and, the biggie, there was a gadget affixed to the tangle of wires that I was certain was a tamper switch.

  Time was against me.

  I left the explosives and sarin untouched. Besides, I didn’t want to get into that old argument, “The blue wire. No the red wire. Oh, what about the pretty pink one?” Am I right?

  Bus 219 was loaded and ready. Someone would drive to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and spray the sarin nerve agent everywhere. It might kill hundreds. Maybe thousands. When the sarin ran out, the explosives would be remotely detonated and kill even more. There were enough explosives for half a city block.

  Nice plan. Well crafted. Evil. Maniacal, even.

  Thus far, the IRGC had used young refugees—Arab faces carrying out violence—taken hostage and forced to carry out their attacks. It was a blue-ribbon trademark of the Taliban and ISIS to make the innocent kill the innocent. By midday, some Americans would be striking out in anger and hate at anyone who looked Middle Eastern. Even those who were not. The insane retribution would swell across our country like a rogue wave out of control.

  Unrest. Anger. Demonstrations. Revenge.

  Khalifah chose the refugee families very carefully. For some reason, he’d chosen Noor and Sam Mallory, too. Was it because of Kevin? Because of me?

  Oh, my God. Noor was going to be driving the bus, and Sam would be with her.

  CHAPTER 80

  Day 7: May 21, 0440 Hours, Daylight Saving Time

  Ellie’s Wood Development, McLean, Virginia

  I NEEDED A plan. A good plan. A damn good plan. Spectacular, even. Unfortunately, I didn’t have one, just an outcome—that bus could not leave this site. Since there wasn’t time, nor did I have the tools to disarm the explosives and sarin, there was only one choice left.

  Disable the bus.

  I eased off the bus to look for tools. I made it about three feet.

  A bullet smacked into the driveway inches from me. I dove for cover beside the bus’s front wheel. I tugged my .45 and twice tried to inch around the wheel to make a move for better cover. Bullets kept me pinned down.

  The pickup truck’s lights came on at the far side of the cul-desac and illuminated several figures. Kevin’s custom trike drove out of the darkness and headed straight for me. Ahead of it, Noor was being pushed toward me by two figures. She was gagged with her hands behind her. Saeed held a pistol to her head. Two more Pāsdārān, heavily armed, moved with him.

  “Hunter, do not move or she will die.” Saeed pushed Noor forward until they stopped at the end of the barren driveway in front of me. “Put down your weapon.”

  “Saeed, let them go and you can leave alive.” It was the lie from every shoot-’em-up movie I’d ever seen. “The FBI is on their way. They’ll bring an army.”

  Apparently, he’d also seen those movies. “I do not think this is so. Put the gun down.” He swung his gun around and fired near my head. “Now.”

  The shot whistled past and sent a shiver through me. I glanced at Noor, who straightened herself defiantly, refusing to give Saeed any satisfaction.

  Saeed called, “Put it down or I kill you next.”

  Around the site, several Pāsdārān—a half dozen at least—emerged from houses and from behind pallets of bricks and masonry. His IRGC commandos were heavily armed and ready.

  I dropped my pistol. “Have it your way.”

  “Baleh.” Saeed turned to someone out of view and threw his chin. “Let us all get friendly.”

  A Pāsdār appeared through the dark and dragged Gianna with him. He punched her behind the head and sent her down onto the gravel beside Noor. She instantly got to one knee and refused to buckle further.

  “Jon Hunter.” Gianna looked up at me with disappointed eyes. “I am very sorry.”

  Saeed spat on her and then looked to me. “You will die very badly. You know this now, yes? Then I kill Gianna for betraying me. Maybe I keep your woman.” He leered at Noor and put his arm around her “Yes, for my men. For me, too.”

  “I’m gonna gut you like a fish,” I said dryly. “You know this, yes?”

  Saeed mumbled to his minions as he pushed Noor farther up the driveway ahead of him to within feet of me. He held her close but left Gianna behind him at the end of the drive as his men surrounded me.

  “You are a strong man, Jon Hunter. It will be enjoyable to kill you.”

  “Are you done with the cheesy lines yet?” I looked at Noor. Her face was tear-streaked and her big, beautiful eyes were dark and struggling. The last of her strength escaped down her cheeks. But when I winked, she straightened again. Perhaps she thought I had a big trap that Saeed had inadvertently sprung. Perhaps it comforted her that we’d die together.

  I tried another movie line. “Keep me, Saeed. I’ll drive your damn bus and do whatever you want. Let Noor go.”

  “Ah, you now negotiate?” Saeed threw his head back and laughed. “You are a funny man, Hunter. You have no idea. Noor will drive the bus for me.”

  “You mean for Khalifah and Caine.” I sidestepped toward the Pāsdār on my right. “You’re a flunky, Saeed. Khalifah yells shit and Caine asks how high. You clean the mess.”

  Saeed swung his pistol up and shot me.

  I half-spun away but gritted my teeth and took the pain. If Noor and Gianna could stay tough, so could I. My luck held, such as it was. The bullet passed through the fleshy part of my left arm, just below the shoulder. It missed the bone. Somehow, I stayed on my feet.

  Saeed grabbed Noor by the hair and shook her until I thought he’d yank it out. She cried out, but he shook her harder. With a coarse laugh, he hurled her to the ground, strode up to me, and pistol-whipped me across the face.

  I went down.

  Blood gushed from my cheek. The world spun and darkness flashed on-off-on-off. It took me a few moments to struggle back up onto a knee. “Pretty tough with an army, Saeed.” Yeah, I saw that movie, too.

  “I kill you now. It is a shame you do not know Allah.”

  “Let me ask you something.” I spat blood and a tooth. “Does Saeed mean camel dung or something else?”

  Rule six of mortal combat—don’t antagonize the winning side.

  Saeed drove a booted foot into my midsection and sent me backward, breathless and in damning pain. I refused to cry out. I couldn’t. I had no breath. I wanted to vomit and gasped for air, but I needed to be strong and arrogant. Show no fear. I struggled.

  He kicked me a second time and raised his pistol at my head.

  “Nah! Nah!” Gianna jumped to her feet, shoved Saeed aside, and came to me. She knelt and pulled my head up and hel
d me half-sitting. She began padding my bullet wound with torn pieces of my shirt and tatters from her blouse. “Khahesh meekomam nakoshesh!” She begged for my life.

  “Poor Jon Hunter,” he scoffed. “Women must save you? What big-shot CIA agent are you now?”

  I spit blood at his feet. “I’m a consultant, Saeed. What’s so hard to understand about that?”

  He laughed and grabbed Noor’s hair again, yanked her backward, and shook her off-balance. “I have a special surprise for you. You will love this, Hunter. I promise you this thing.”

  Gianna helped me to one knee and froze. She fixed on someone approaching through the dawn light. Her hands quivered, and she went rigid.

  Victoria Bacarro, armed with a handgun and wearing body armor, eased toward us in slow, measured steps. She pivoted her Sig among the henchmen around me. Twice, she shot a glance over her shoulder, and when she finally steadied her attention on us, she leveled her pistol dead-center on Saeed Mansouri’s chest.

  Gianna’s fingers cut the circulation in my arm. “Khalifah is here.”

  CHAPTER 81

  Day 7: May 21, 0455 Hours, Daylight Saving Time

  Ellie’s Wood Development, McLean, Virginia

  KHALIFAH?

  Saeed lowered his pistol and commanded his men to do the same. He turned to me and smiled a cold, deadly smile. “Now you will see.”

  Victoria stopped a dozen feet away and kept her weapon trained on Saeed and his men.

  “No one move,” Victoria ordered. She glanced at me. “What are you doing here?”

  “They have Noor and Sam.” Was she friend or foe? “Where’s your backup?”

  “A few minutes out,” she said. “You’re wounded.”

  Gianna nodded to Victoria. “The bleeding has stopped. He will be fine.”

  Maybe Saeed was wrong and the joke was on him.

  No, it wasn’t.

  I turned to find Saeed, but he had stepped back away from his men.

  A gunshot from out of the darkness made Victoria cry out and she went down hard. Blood instantly pooled around her where she lay motionless at my feet.

  “Victoria!” I started to kneel, but a figure walked from the darkness where Victoria had emerged moments ago. His gun was aimed at my head. “You?”

  Artie Polo’s gunsight locked onto my forehead. “Nothing personal, Hunter.”

  “Ha. You see, big-shot CIA man.” Saeed raised his gun again at me. “It all bad for you now.”

  One, two, three. Steady Hunter. Steady.

  Victoria laid still, the pool of blood growing beneath her.

  I looked at Artie and considered the odds I could snap his traitorous neck before someone killed me. “Khalifah?”

  “What’s in a name?” He prodded the air with his gun to back me away from Victoria. Then he grabbed Gianna by the arm, dragged her to Noor, and shoved her to the ground beside her. “General-Polkovnik Fedorov thought it clever. Make everyone think there was an Arab calling the shots. I’ve been Khalifah since before we met in Riyadh.”

  Riyadh? “So, when you and I—”

  “I tried to kill you then and it went wrong.” He laughed. “I had to make the Saudis think I was with you. If they didn’t, they would have discovered me for sure.”

  Saeed grinned. “It is a good story, Hunter. Now it is better. Now it is over.”

  “Bastard.” I spat at Artie.

  Artie threw a chin at Saeed who stepped back and took a position to guard us. Then, Artie went to the bus and did an odd thing. He stripped off his coat, shirt, and slacks and donned a dirty, dark-blue mechanics coverall. He tossed his clothes into the bus and returned to Saeed’s side.

  He grinned at me. “I don’t want to get my suit dirty, Hunter. You know, you helped establish my cover over there. If not for you, I’d have been caught in that trap. You stumbled into it and it all worked out for me.”

  “You’re a traitor. A terrorist son of a bitch.”

  “Perhaps.” His sarcastic grin bit. “But I’m a multimillionaire son of a bitch. These past years I’ve banked twenty million. There’s a two million bonus just for today.”

  “You’re going to kill thousands. You’ll start another war.”

  He shrugged. “My villa has no extradition.” Then he yanked Noor away from Saeed. He wrapped one arm around her and pressed his Sig to her throat. With his other hand, he produced a cell phone from his pocket.

  “Saeed, check the bus.” Artie waited for Saeed to walk off toward Bus 219 before waving the phone at me. “Recognize this, Hunter?”

  I said nothing.

  “It’s the phone that called Kevin that night. It’s mine, Hunter.”

  “You? You lured him to the river to kill him.”

  “Oh, no.” Artie laughed again. “To pay him.”

  The words filtered slowly into my head. Each one clicking on a piece of the puzzle that I’d refused to see before. All the clues started to come together. Kevin’s mood change, the cabin, the cash, and his disillusion with the task force. It was Kevin working with Artie Polo.

  My brother sold out. My friend was a terrorist. Jesus. What an ass I was.

  “You bought him?” I’d known for days but saying it now seared it into my brain.

  “It wasn’t all that hard, Hunter,” Artie said dryly. “He was over his head in debt and wanted more and more and more. One of his own snitches found me out and came to me. Except I was ready. That secret file about the refugee who killed your folks was the push over the cliff. That and money. Sure, sure, chump change as they say. At first, anyway. Then he got greedy.”

  My gut knotted. “He’d never go along with all this.”

  “Kevin was one of us.” Artie read my mind. “Until he wasn’t.”

  “He changed his mind?”

  “It was too late. I’d already provided him new passports and money to run if things got hot. Of course, I had to retrieve all that and deliver Ghali to your cabin.”

  My face got hot. “I’m going to kill you, Artie.”

  “Sure you are. Anyway, Kevin was all in.” He forced a laugh and drilled his hateful eyes through me. “Then he realized we had sarin and the Russians behind us. He changed his mind.”

  Kevin tried to back out. Sanity returned to him and he tried to get out.

  Artie must have read my mind. “Your brother came to the river to call it off. I guess selling secrets and hiding illegals was one thing. Blowing up shopping malls and schools was something else. The fool pulled a gun on me.”

  “You murdered him.”

  Artie lifted a chin. “Law of the jungle. Too bad, too. I liked him. But not as much as Victoria did.”

  I glanced at Noor struggling against Artie’s grasp. She stilled when her eyes locked on me. Denial turned to sadness. Kevin Mallory—husband and father—was a dirty cop. Not the man she’d married. Not the man she’d hoped.

  I motioned to Artie’s cell phone. “You gonna order pizza or phone the WFO with your confession?”

  “Speed Dial 1.” He turned the phone to face me. “It blows that bus and twenty bricks of explosives. High-grade stuff, too. My recipe, I might add.”

  Twenty bricks? I’d missed ten.

  He continued. “But not until Noor sightsees. It’s a beautiful day. Should be thousands on the sidewalks by seven.”

  Saeed returned from the bus and nodded to Artie. “It is ready.”

  “Hear that, Noor?” Artie tightened his arm around her. It’s all ready for you.”

  Noor struggled to pull free but couldn’t. Her eyes raged and tears rained. She managed to work the gag free and cried out, but Artie jabbed his Sig into her throat harder.

  She still managed, “I will never do such a thing.”

  “No?” Artie said into her ear. “If you don’t do as I say, Saeed will fillet your kid.”

  Saeed grinned.

  “No. Do not do this.” She looked at him. “I beg you. He is a boy. Where is he? Where is Sam?”

  Saeed poked the air with his
pistol. “He is Sameh, bitch. Heritage is important.”

  “Please, do not ask me to do this,” Noor begged. “I cannot.”

  “Ask?” Artie sidestepped toward Bus 219, easily dragging her along. “There’ll be a beautiful Iranian behind the wheel for all the security cameras to record. Maybe if you’re good, I’ll let you run when the sarin is spent. Maybe you’ll make it. Maybe not. I’m feeling magnanimous today.”

  I stepped forward. “Artie, don’t do this. It’s not too late. Stop.”

  “Not too late?” He laughed and shook Noor again. “By nightfall they’ll be rounding up refugees and beating them in the streets. Every cabbie with dark skin will be fair game. Those the government doesn’t intern, the people will crucify. It’s already too late. Even if the President learns the truth, he’ll have to strike the Middle East. He has no choice. The people won’t accept anything less than revenge. And we all know he is more than willing to take revenge. He’s a bully.”

  I turned to Saeed. “You’re okay with Muslims taking the blame for all this? Getting more killed and another war?”

  “Baleh.” He glared at me. “The more innocents you kill, the more Muslims will rise up against you. You will bring about your own end. Allah promises your defeat of your own making.”

  Artie stopped at the bus door and laughed. “I’ll be sitting rich and watching.”

  “I’m going to kill you, Artie.” I aimed a gun finger at him. “See you soon.”

  Noor struggled harder and nearly broke free, but Artie smashed his pistol against her cheek and stilled her.

  She pleaded, “Jon, please.”

  I don’t know what shocked me more—Artie Polo as the infamous Khalifah, my brother as a traitor, or the gunshot that snapped Saeed’s head forward and dropped him dead on the ground.