by Larry Bond
Conners assumed that she was hinting that Kiro bribed the local commander, something that was not unheard of though obviously not condoned by the central authorities. While a bribe might not even be necessary — if the guerrilla wasn’t going out of his way to make trouble, he might not be attacked — it would explain why the FSB people hadn’t been able to obtain a lot of information about him — and why the CIA hadn’t then been able to steal it.
“I have a person who can guide you, but it will cost you money,” added Sister Baxter.
“How much do you need?”
“We need a lot. But the money’s not for us. One hundred dollars, as soon as it’s dark in front of the gas station going out of town.”
9
IRKTAN, CHECHNYA — SEVERAL HOURS LATER
Ferguson pushed another wad of gum into his mouth, continuing to chew furiously as he watched Guns approaching the rendezvous at the gas station. He had the NOD’s magnifier on max, but he still had trouble seeing in the distance beyond the corner. Conners was tagging along behind Guns, his MP-5 hanging down at his side. They’d decided the heavy weapons were necessary after dark, and Guns had his under his coat.
“Don’t see nobody,” said Guns, still walking.
“He’ll be watching you,” Ferguson told them. “Just keep going. Dad, you’re going to have to go in there with him so it doesn’t look like you’re waiting to ambush them. Tuck the gun beneath your coat. It should show a little, just don’t make it too obvious.”
“You gonna fuckin’ blow their noses for them, too?” said Rankin. He was sitting next to Ferguson in the passenger seat, his Uzi in hand. He had a grenade launcher and a dozen 40 mm rounds on the floor. Both men were wearing their vests.
“I will if I have to,” said Ferg. “What color snot you figure is in Guns’s nose?”
Rankin gave a little laugh. Ferguson pushed against the steering wheel, noticing something moving in the station.
“Okay, Guns, your man is in the station looking at a magazine. Look menacing.”
“Shoulda sent Rankin for that,” said Dad.
Ferg swung the NOD around, looking through the back window. The Russians tended to stay put once it got dark — they weren’t dumb — but there was always the possibility of a patrol.
Anyone else on the street could be assumed to be a rebel or a member of the local black-market gangs, or both.
Inside the gas station, Guns went to the clerk behind the counter and asked if he could buy some cigarettes. The clerk pushed a pack toward him on the counter. It said Marlboro on it, but instead of red the label was a sickish orange, an obvious counterfeit.
The price was a hundred rubles.
Without saying anything, Guns reached into his pocket for the money.
Connors, standing by the door, eyed the other man. He was about five-four, and his rib cage seemed to have been shifted permanently, as if his chest were twisted on his body. He had a scar at the base of his chin and a blank look in his eyes, as if he were staring at a spot far in the distance.
Guns dropped the bill on the counter, took the cigarettes, and went outside. Conners followed; the informant came out last.
They walked to the side of the building. The man held up his hands, seeming to anticipate a pat-down. Conners didn’t disappoint him, pushing his legs apart as he slid the muzzle of his submachine gun in the man’s back. He wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest, and he didn’t have a weapon. That worried Conners, because it implied that he was being watched by a bodyguard, even though they hadn’t seen one.
Ferg told him he was worrying too much.
“And you’re worrying too little,” said Guns.
“Nah, we’re cool,” said Ferg.
“Five-mile hike,” Guns said. “Up that road near the creek, then off the trail for another two miles.”
“What happens then?” Ferg asked.
“Won’t say. He’ll show us up the road, then that’s it.”
“Probably an ambush,” said Rankin.
“If it were, he’d have a vest,” said Ferg. “Go for it,” he told Guns. He watched with the NOD as they crossed the street, the Chechen in the lead. The man walked with a limp.
“I wouldn’t trust that fuck as far as I could throw him,” said Rankin as they watched them cross the street.
“You have a better plan?”
“Let him point it out on the map, we check it out tomorrow night.”
“Which only gives them more time to set up the ambush, or to shake information out of our guy,” said Ferguson. He waited a few minutes, then put the car in gear as Conners began to hum “A Jug of Punch” over the radio.
“You do ‘Danny Boy,’ and we’re not backing you up,” Ferguson threatened, parking the car. The two American soldiers and the Chechen source were behind them now; Ferg could see them in the rearview mirror.
“Hey, I like ‘Danny Boy,’” protested Conners.
Ferguson and Rankin waited for the others to pass before getting out of the truck. Carrying rucksacks with gear as well as weapons — Ferg had his shotgun and Rankin the Uzi — they gave the others a good start, then began trailing them. The truck would have been too obvious and an easy target besides.
The road twisted and turned as it climbed into the mountains. It took a little more than an hour to reach the turnoff that allegedly led to the guerrilla stronghold. Connors walked off the road about ten yards and promptly lost the trail in the rocks.
“He’s going to have to do better than this,” he told Guns.
Guns started to explain that the Chechen would have to accompany them farther. They weren’t going into the camp, but they wanted a better idea where it was.
The Chechen started to back away.
Ferg and Rankin had steadily closed the distance, and by then were only a hundred yards behind. As Guns continued to argue, Ferguson came up and put his Remington 870 against the back of the Chechen’s head. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out five one-hundred-dollar bills, pressing them into the man’s hand.
“Five more when we see it. We won’t cause trouble,” he said in Russian. “But you have to earn your money.”
* * *
The guerrilla camp was bigger than they’d expected, and housed enough men to spare six guards on the perimeter that faced the road and town below. Rankin saw at least one ready but unmanned gun emplacement, and the configuration of the hills suggested there would be any number of weapons trained on the approach. He also thought there was also a minefield across a valley that flanked a large rock outcropping commanding the approach.
“No way we’re sneaking in the front door,” said Rankin when he returned to the copse off the road where the others were waiting. “And the way the ridge runs off to the right and left, I don’t know if we can get in at all.”
“We’ll have to rethink this,” admitted Ferguson. He pulled a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and gave it to Guns, then pointed to their informant. “Tell our friend this is just extra rent — he’s our houseguest for the evening.”
“He’s not going to be pleased,” said the Marine. “Claims he has to get back to his wife.”
“Tell ‘em we’ll kill the person she’s sleeping with for no charge when we’re done.”
* * *
It took them more than an hour to get back to the car and drive the five miles to the abandoned building Ferguson and Rankin had found earlier. The ramshackle farmhouse had a few small holes in the roof but was otherwise intact. The road to it was another story — pockmarked by bomb craters and two rubble barriers, it was so bad they had to leave the car about a mile from the house. They slipped it in under some trees, obscuring it from the Russian helicopter patrols; as a precaution against thieves Rankin pulled the wire from the coil and took it with him.
Conners gazed at the stars as they walked, trying to orient the unfamiliar sky against his faded memory of an astronomy course he’d taken in high school a million years before. There was a time when knowing
the stars would have been a critical talent on a deep insertion like this; compass, sextant, and a clear sky would help you work out where you were. But GPS gear had made the math obsolete; now the stars were just pretty things to look at.
When they were a little less than a half mile from the farm building, they spread out into the field, approaching slowly to make sure they weren’t walking into an ambush. Guns told the Chechen to stay with him — and to stay nearby. He didn’t bother threatening the man with his submachine gun; their informant wasn’t happy but had already proven he was the sort of man who would stick around as long as the hundred-dollar bills kept appearing.
Even when the infrared glasses told them the building was empty, they moved in cautiously, looking for booby traps and signs that someone had been there. They found neither. Ferg divided them into two shifts — him and Conners, Guns and Rankin — and told them they’d catch some Zs, Guns and Rankin first. Their guest took a sleeping bag and curled up in the corner of the basement; Guns and Rankin tied his hands and feet together, then positioned themselves so he’d have to step on one of them to sneak out.
Upstairs, Ferguson swung the antenna up on the sat phone and called home.
“Ferg?” asked a female voice on the other end.
“Actually it’s Joe Stalin,” he told Lauren DiCapri, Corrigan’s relief on the desk. “If I sound a little faint, it’s because it’s damn hot down here in hell, even with the air conditioners cranked.”
“You’re real late checking in. Major Corrigan was worried. I’m supposed to call him at home.”
“Major’s not an honorary title,” Ferguson told her. “You don’t keep it after they kick you out, especially on a dishonorable discharge.”
“How are things going?”
“Shitty. I have some GPS coordinates on a guerrilla camp near here where our source is. I need satellite snaps ASAP. Not just library stuff — I need an 8X,” he added, requesting an up-to-date and detailed satellite image of the target area.
“This is where you think Kiro is?”
“Yeah.”
“I have more information on him.”
“Let me read you the coordinates first,” said Ferg. He actually didn’t “read” them — he’d recorded them using the phone’s GPS gear earlier and merely had to hit a key combination to send them over to her.
“Got ‘em,” she said, as the transmission went through.
“So how come the camp wasn’t in our brief?” he said.
He could hear her checking back through their files to see.
“Um, you’d have to ask Corrigan,” she said. “The notes here are that there was activity and probably a base.”
“Cross out ‘probably.’”
“It’s possible that the Russians don’t know.”
“Right.”
“FSB doesn’t.”
“That I believe.”
“Let me tell you about Kiro,” said Lauren.
“Make it dirty.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“It’s late over here.”
“Kiro is on the FBI wanted list. He’s gotten al-Qaida funding and blew up the Carousel Mall in Syracuse, New York, more than a year ago. We want him. Slott’s already approved an extraction.”
“I think we just got hit with a sunspot,” Ferguson said. “I’m in Chechnya, but you just said something about New York.”
More patiently than Corrigan would have, Lauren explained that Kiro was believed to be Muhammad al Aberrchmof, an Islamic militant thought to have escaped from Afghanistan during the American action there in 2002. He had gone to Pakistan, where he was responsible for a bombing in a Karachi nightclub. Then he had managed to slip into the United States through Canada, masterminding a suicide attack on a Syracuse shopping mall. Following that, he had been spotted in Georgia — the one next to Russia, not Florida — and was now believed to be leading some of the Chechens.
“His friends are even worse. He seems to have met with Allah’s Fist, the people who tried to blow up Independence Hall and got the IRS center in Massachusetts,” said Lauren. “Nasty bunch.”
“How associated?” asked Ferg.
“Not sure. Allah’s Fist hasn’t done anything since the attack on the IRS center. The leader, Samman Bin Saqr, disappeared right after that attack, just fell off the map. He might be dead. In any event, you have a green light to bring Kiro out. They want this guy, Ferg. They want to put him on trial for murder.”
“I can’t clip him?” said Ferg.
The term, taken from the American mafia, was slang for an assassination. It had to be approved by Slott and the CIA director, either from a list of high-level terrorists or on the president’s direct command. An extraction generally applied to a lower level of terrorist or enemy prisoner of war, though there were exceptions.
Three people had been killed in the mall attack, and dozens wounded. Ferguson shook his head — that ought to be enough to have the bastard’s heart cut out, no questions asked.
Five hundred people had been killed or wounded in the IRS attack. Was that what it took?
“They really want him, Ferg. They want a scalp. We don’t have a positive connection,” Lauren added. “But the people at the NSA have a voice match that we think is good, and there’s one photo. We’ll upload them.”
“The Russians know who he is?” Ferguson asked.
“Not as far as we know.”
“We’re going to tell them?”
“Not until you bring him home. Slott has been on Corrigan’s back since we made the connection. He wanted to call you right away. Corrigan held him off.”
Ferg held the phone down and took a few steps along the front of the building, scanning in the distance of the road. The team was getting a little ragged; they’d been out in the field for about two weeks.
If Kiro really was Aberrchmof, he ought to be grabbed.
Then castrated, burned, and pissed on.
He put the phone back to his ear.
“Ferg?”
“Yeah, I’m here, Beautiful.”
“Colonel Van Buren has already been alerted.”
“OK,” said Ferg, even though he knew an all-out assault on the fortress would be out of the question, even if they were absolutely sure Kiro was there. Too many Russian troops were nearby, ready to gum up the works. They’d either have to get the Russians in on the game or find a way to finesse it. “I’ll get with him,” he told her.
“You need anything else?”
“Well my inflatable doll sprang a leak last night.”
“Very funny.” She killed the connection.
10
IRKTAN, CHECHNYA — TWELVE HOURS LATER
Rankin spotted it, staring at the images upside down.
“They run out that tunnel, then pick up the vehicle there,” he said, pointing at the laptop screen. “You can see the wheel in the hide.” Everybody squinted over the screen.
“So we knock on the front door, they run out the back?” said Ferguson.
Rankin snorted. “Yeah, right. They could take two companies on before they felt the heat. Even then, you don’t have armor, you’re not getting in.”
“What do you think, Dad?” Ferg asked Conners.
“Got to figure they have at least one guy inside the cave at all times,” he said, pointing at the escape route. “I have to tell you, I don’t quite see the cave, let alone the tire or even the hide Skip’s talking about.”
“It’s there,” said Rankin.
“I’m not arguing with you. I just have older eyes.” Conners smiled at him. Rankin reminded him of a racehorse that had been shot up with amphetamines for a race, always jittery, sensitive to the touch. Great in the race, but hell before and after. “Be booby traps, probably twists and turns. You’d never get in that way.”
“I don’t see us getting in at all,” said Rankin.
“Yeah, Skip’s right on that. We’re going to have to make him come out,” said Ferguson. He got up and star
ted pacing around, thinking over the situation. It was now almost noon. Every hour they stayed there increased the chances they would be found by either the Russians or the Chechen rebels, or both. They still had their informer, but even holding on to him was not without risk.
The Russians had two companies in Irktan. That was probably the reason they didn’t attack the camp; they figured it wasn’t worth the effort.
That would have to be changed.
“Rankin, you see any guard posts on that back end there?” Ferguson asked.
“They have people on this road way the hell over here,” he said, pointing at a highway nearly two miles from the rear of the fortress area. “The thing is, there’s no way in from the roads. So if they’re dealing with the Russians, they probably figure they don’t have to guard along this area here. Terrain’s for shit, and the Russians never go anywhere without either a caravan of armor or helicopters, or both. If you’re in the fortress, you don’t need to be anywhere else.”
“And this?” Ferguson pointed to a ravine that ran out the back of the fortress.
“The escape route,” said Rankin, repeating what he had told Ferguson earlier. “Got a bike right there.”
The hide for the bike was visible on an earlier photo; the area was not quite as sharp in the most recent shot. But Ferguson decided it must still be there.
“Why only one bike?” asked Guns.
“Only one person is important enough to escape,” said Ferg.
“Only one’s chicken enough,” said Rankin.
“Maybe it’s for a messenger,” said Conners.
“Could be,” said Ferguson. One of the briefs on the rebel organization that Lauren had posted with the satellite data emphasized that the leaders looked at the war as a long-term affair — survival was important. In his opinion, the bike was Kiro’s parachute, nothing else.
“We might be able to sneak in that way, take them by surprise,” said Rankin.
“We don’t know what’s beyond that opening,” said Conners. “Assuming it is an opening.”
“Got to be,” said Rankin.
