by Brad Taylor
Passing the one-and-a-half-hour mark, Knuckles began to feel the adrenaline pick up. One hour and fifty minutes into the dive, Knuckles felt sweat form in his wetsuit, and not from the exertion. By the calculations he had made from the release point, they should hit the boat in two hours. Which meant, traveling at two hundred feet per minute, they should now have been within range of the beacon.
Here we go. Fucking plan B.
If he reached two hours, he was going to conduct a grid pattern, traveling north for five minutes, then repeating the move south for ten minutes. Two race tracks like that, and he would be at a decision point: Continue searching, or use the remaining battery power of the DPV to reach shore.
The two-hour mark passed, and he waved his ChemLight, bringing the DPV to a halt. Decoy waved his as well, and cut by him to the south. What the hell is he doing?
He watched the bundle go by, a shadowy blob miraculously following Decoy as if it could swim on its own. He made sure Brett was ready to move, then turned and followed suit, getting a little aggravated at Decoy for not following the plan. He increased his speed to overtake the rapidly disappearing glow from Decoy’s DPV, intent on knocking some sense into the man, when his transducer pinged. He felt a subtle shift in the direction of the DPV and knew the computer was locking on.
Two minutes later, he no longer worried about the compass, the DPV driving on autopilot. They were on the outer edge of the bubble, and for whatever reason, Decoy’s transducer had picked up the signal first.
He gave a mental sigh of relief and began focusing on the next problem: how to survive a gunfight on the open water if it wasn’t Pike in the boat.
29
Sitting out under the stars, with the waves gently rocking the boat, I felt a sense of calm I hadn’t experienced in a long time. It was very pleasant. Something I wouldn’t mind doing at another time with Jennifer, only with a case of beer and some fishing poles. Not like the ones we’d brought when we’d rented the boat, which were simple props used to convince total strangers we were actually going fishing and not conducting secret missions in their sovereign country. Truth be told, if I did get out on a boat alone with Jennifer, I probably wouldn’t want to spend the time trying to catch some smelly, slimy animal with a brain the size of a pea. Although that would ultimately be her decision. I felt the boat rise again and glanced her way. She was giving me the look again, a painful I’m going to ask about it, but maybe not expression.
She’d come back from her PM with the sonic beacon and a host of different passports, looking a little grim about the information she’d received. I’d listened to her, then told her not to worry about it just yet. If we could penetrate the place, we would, but I wasn’t going to do it in a frontal assault. There’s always a solution. The trick is finding it.
I’d flipped through the documents, recognizing Decoy and Knuckles from their photos, but not their names, which stood to reason, since officially they were still in Tunisia. The third passport belonged to the new guy, Brett, and I was surprised to see he was black. I don’t know why, I just had a different mental image. He was short, at five feet seven inches, but either fat or full of muscle, because he weighed 185 pounds. Given our line of work, I was betting on muscle. He had an open face, with a smile in the photo, like he was enjoying a secret joke. That told me a lot about him. Usually, guys who think they’re some sort of badass try to project power in official photos. Very few will smile. I figured we’d get along fine.
Jennifer checked the GPS to make sure our little sea anchor hadn’t let us drift too far off, then said, “How much longer?”
“Should be here within thirty minutes, if Knuckles doesn’t screw up and head to Egypt.”
She nodded and sat back down, staring at me. Here it comes. She’s been working up the courage.
“You didn’t sleep last night.”
We’d stayed at Samir’s house, sleeping on the floor of his living room, which meant she’d had plenty of time to analyze me.
“I slept fine. I’m okay.”
Which wasn’t true. I had some bad dreams reliving the capture, but nothing that was making me catatonic.
“I heard you moaning…. It’s okay to talk about it.”
“Jesus! I’m fucking fine! Let it go. I know you want to play Florence Nightingale, but I don’t need it.”
I saw her snap back at my tone and felt like an ass. She turned to check the GPS again, and I said, “Hey. Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
She said, “Remember Cairo? What I did?”
“Yeah.” She’d been forced to kill a guy with a lamp, literally beating his brains out.
She took my hand in hers. “Well, I had issues with it like you said I would. And you helped me through it. I’m just returning the favor. I know you. Your capture was more than just a firefight. It hurt. I can tell.”
I was thinking up a witty comeback, something to deflect this little probe into my psyche, when I caught sight of my other hand. The one with less than a full deck of fingers. I realized I just didn’t have the energy.
“Okay. It was more than a firefight. Much more. It’s probably a phobia I’ve had since I joined the Army.”
Her mouth dropped open. I continued. “The problem is I’ve had years to worry about that situation because of my job, building it up in my head, petrified of it ever coming to pass. It did, but truthfully, now that it’s over, my time was less than what Daniel Pearl experienced. Or William Buckley. I’ll be okay.”
She searched my face, trying to ascertain if I was being genuine or just placating her. Her eyes reached mine, and I held fast, daring her to question the veracity of what I had said. We spent a second in silence, then she smiled and patted my hand, apparently convinced we’d turned some corner in our relationship, which confused the shit out of me because I didn’t know what our relationship was.
She said, “I know you’ll be okay. I just wanted to let you know I’m here.”
Please. Stop this before my manhood flees. I decided to turn it up a notch.
“Here for what? As my therapist, or something else? We never did have that big talk you kept threatening.”
The smile was replaced by confusion, then embarrassment. Before she could say anything, the beacon squawked.
I grinned. “Saved by the bell. Get ready to pull in some tired swimmers.”
She said, “Pike…I’m not trying to hide anything.”
I checked the sonar echo on the little display attached by wire to the beacon thirty feet below. Two blobs were about five hundred meters out and closing fast.
“Seriously, this’ll have to wait. Get out the clothes and blankets.”
She did nothing for a moment, then turned to a duffel bag at the stern of the boat. I opened up the giant cooler we’d brought, now full of lead weights and a fishnet.
I laid the fishnet on the deck, attaching the weights to the corners. I checked the sonar again and saw the blobs were fairly close. When I was operational, I hated using the sonic beacon because nobody could tell me its effect on marine life. Yeah, it worked fine guiding in clandestine infils, but I wasn’t convinced it didn’t sound like a dinner bell to sharks. Glad I’m in the boat.
I saw the blobs were right underneath us now. As anal as Knuckles was, I knew he would be concerned about surfacing. He didn’t get to plan any of this, and I’m sure he was convinced during the whole damn trip that he was doomed. Now, he’d be positive I was some haji itching to blow his head off. I toyed with the idea of playing a joke on him, but figured he wouldn’t take it the right way.
I suppose I should have passed along some final bona fides when I’d provided the grid to the link-up, like flashing a light six times followed by two or some other method to prove we were who we said we were, but I always figured that sort of stuff was overkill. I mean, really, if there was a boat out here with a top-secret beacon mated to a Taskforce DPV, didn’t that pretty much say it all? Keep making up signals, and it just creates more chances for scr
ewups when someone makes a mistake. Of course, Knuckles didn’t see it that way. We were complete opposites, with me being all about free-flow and him being the guy who organized his sock drawer alphabetically.
Jennifer came up next to me, saw the sonar, and said, “What are they doing?”
“Probably playing rock-paper-scissors to see who gets to poke their head up first. This is ridiculous.” I decided a joke wasn’t off the table-and to give Knuckles the bona fides he was looking for. “Take off your bra.”
“What?”
“Take it off. You can do it underneath your shirt. I’ve seen you. Wrap it in one of those fishing weights and drop it overboard.”
She caught why I had asked and gave me her disapproving teacher look, but with the hint of a smile. She reached underneath her shirt. I turned and faced the bow until I heard a splash, then looked overboard. Ten seconds later a head broke the surface, followed by two others. One held her bra in the air.
I said, “Man, you guys are careless. Anybody could have known you were meeting a woman out here and brought an American bra to drop overboard.”
One head said, “Fuck you, Pike. Hello, Jennifer. Help me with the bundle.”
I recognized Knuckles’ voice and kicked over the ladder. Within thirty minutes we had the DPVs broken down and the wetsuits shredded, all now lying in the fishnet. While the men got warm under dry clothes and a blanket, Jennifer and I transferred the kit from the bundle to the fish cooler that had held the net.
Most of the equipment in the bundle was the usual weapons and tech gear. Cameras, H amp;K UMPs, Glocks, beacons, and assorted other stuff Knuckles thought we’d need. We reached the bottom, and Jennifer held up an item I’d never seen, saying “What’s this?”
It appeared to be one of those gun-type mounts that held an SLR camera with a long telephoto lens. It had a shoulder stock and a trigger grip with a rail extending out. On top of the rail was a cylinder a foot and a half long with four metal rods running parallel to its length. Hanging to the left side was an offset scope. At the base was a square box with a host of buttons and dials.
I took it and held it up to Knuckles. “What the hell is this thing?”
“It’s an EMP gun. You sight through the scope, pull the trigger, and it’ll knock out electrical components. At least it’s supposed to. It’s worked fine in testing, but had some issues on our predeployment training. I didn’t use it in Tunisia, but figured it might come in handy here.”
“Who’d we steal this from? Microsoft?”
“Actually, the Department of Defense. They have a request for proposal to develop an EMP gun that can disable a car. You know, so instead of using snipers with anti-armor rounds or spike strips, they simply zap the car with the EMP and cause it to shut down. Electronic fuel injection, computers, all that shit that’s in a car nowadays is vulnerable.”
“This thing will stop a car?”
“Hell no. We just stole the technology. The one they’re working on right now is about the same size as a car. They’re still trying to make it small enough to be useful. Ours is much less powerful. It’ll only take out small electrical components, like a computer, alarm switch, or a radio. It’s pinpoint and limited to about fifty feet, but might be useful.”
I held it up to the light of the cockpit for a better look, and Decoy noticed the bandage on my left hand. More precisely, he noticed the length of the bandage.
“Jesus,” he said. “Somebody shot off your pinky?”
I raised my hand so they could all see it. “Didn’t shoot it off, but it’s not as bad as it looks. They only took the first joint. Most of it’s still there.”
The boat grew quiet, the truth of my statement sinking in. Nobody was sure how to respond. I saw Jennifer wanting to say something to help, but I shook my head. Brett broke the silence.
“You should put some Monkey’s Blood on it. That’ll fix it.”
Everyone looked at him incredulously. I said, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know. Monkey’s Blood. Didn’t your mom put that on every single boo-boo you ever got? You don’t see it much anymore, but man, that stuff was a miracle worker. At least that’s what my mom says.”
“You mean Mercurochrome? The red shit they put on kids’ scabs?”
“Yeah. That’s it. Monkey’s Blood. It works on everything.”
At first, I was wondering how such an idiot could have reached the Taskforce. Then I saw the same inside-joke smile from his passport photo, and I started laughing. Before I knew it, everyone was giggling and snickering, even Jennifer. Brett had managed to defuse the entire discussion, without making an overt attempt. I was right. We’d get along fine.
I stood up and tied the fishnet closed, attaching a final twelve-pound anchor in addition to the other lead weights. Decoy and I shoved the net overboard, watching to make sure it sank with the evidence of the infiltration.
I said, “Come on. Let’s get back to Lebanon. We’ve wasted enough time on mothers’ remedies.”
Jennifer fired up the engine and got on a heading back to the Beirut marina. Knuckles said, “Well, now that you mention it, I have no idea why we’re here. Originally it was to rescue you. What is it now?”
“Somebody’s trying to kill the new Middle Eastern envoy, and we’re going to stop it.”
“Any leads, or are we working from scratch?”
“You remember that guy who tried to kill us in Bosnia two years ago? The one that got away?”
Knuckles’ face turned grim. “Oh yeah. I remember him. I wish I’d put a bullet in his head when I had the chance.”
I pulled out the screen capture we’d taken in Samir’s house.
“How’d you like a second shot?”
30
Lucas Kane took notice of the atmosphere surrounding him as he walked toward the photography shop. It was located in south Beirut, still in a prominently Shia area, but outside the hard-core Hezbollah state-within-a-state. Nasrallah posters adorned every other street corner, but that was it. No paranoid gunmen or street toughs with radios. Still, he was generating interest. He could feel the eyes on him from every direction, all wondering what this infidel wanted here. Wondering if maybe he was lost.
He wasn’t. The photo studio was the location of the Hezbollah asset that had helped the Palestinian assassin with his documents. Probably the same one that had built Lucas’s own. He didn’t know. All he’d done was provide passport photos to Majid, and Hezbollah had done the rest.
He’d driven by earlier in the day on a reconnaissance, noting the business hours. He wanted to ensure that nobody else was in the studio when he entered, so he’d waited until just before closing. For what he had to do, he couldn’t afford anyone else being present. Well, he could, but it would just make things messier.
The killing of the Martyrs Battalion leadership was on the street, and Lucas knew his time in Beirut was done. Luckily, from what he’d heard, nobody knew who had done it and the routinely paranoid Hezbollah immediately began ranting about Zionist infiltrators. It would only be a matter of time, though, before he was questioned. He had no illusions about how that would go, having watched the interrogation of loyal Shia who were suspected of working with the CIA. In November of 2011, Hezbollah rolled up the entire CIA network inside Beirut. In so doing, they hammered any and all they thought were working with the enemy. Hezbollah didn’t care if they killed thirty innocents if it meant getting one guilty party.
He’d already been called twice on his private cell phone from a number he didn’t recognize. Since the phone only worked on the parallel Hezbollah communications architecture, he knew it wasn’t good and had ignored both calls. He figured he had twenty-four hours at best before Hezbollah made a concerted effort to find him. The only thing going for him was the fact that the Martyrs Battalion was so secretive, not many in Hezbollah even knew he existed. Not many, but enough to cause him concern. One in particular worried him: Abu Aziz, the head of security for the Battalion. The ma
n had never trusted Lucas and was probably the person who’d found the bodies.
He entered the studio, a small bell tinkling above the door. He heard someone shuffling from the rear and waited.
An old man of about seventy rounded the corner and came up short when he saw Lucas, a spark of recognition in his eyes.
He’s seen my passport photos. He’s the same forger.
“Can I help you?” the man said in English.
“I’m looking for Abu Bari.” Lucas used the Hezbollah kunya of the forger, letting him know he was in on the secret.
The proprietor shifted uncomfortably and looked out the window, whether to ensure nobody was about to enter or hoping someone would, Lucas was unclear.
“There’s no one here by that name.”
“Yes, there is, and I’m looking at him. Perhaps we should talk in the back.”
The man considered the request, then shuffled by Lucas. “Let me lock up.”
Instead of producing a key, he reached for the door handle, and Lucas knew he was about to run. If he made it to the street, he would be free. No way could Lucas take him down in this neighborhood.
Lucas slammed his body against the door, feeling nothing but skin and bones. The storeowner wailed.
“I’m here on Hezbollah business. Don’t make me report you.”
He nodded over and over again, then said, “I am Abu Bari.”
“Lock up.”
He did so, and Lucas followed him to the back. He positioned a chair to block the door and took a seat.
“Anyone else here?”
“No.”
“Good. I’m sure you’ve heard of the deaths of Majid and Ja’far, correct?”
Bari nodded, his eyes growing more fearful.
“Well, I’m trying to find out who killed them, and I believe you helped that man flee the country.”
“No! In no way would I have done this!”
