While Max stuffed his intel bag, Tom fired up the PC to bypass the password and hack the computer. Something was wrong. Tom shook his head. He couldn’t get in.
C’est la vie. Such is life.
Max cautiously approached the door leading to the surgery room. He opened it slightly and looked and listened. It was too dark to see, but he could hear a dripping sound. He shined his flashlight inside.
On a wall were faded photos that appeared to be of various stages of medical operations. In the middle of the room was a primitive wooden operating table, and on it was a man’s body. Beside him was a dolly with trays containing a scalpel and other tools. Max checked the man for signs of life, but there were none. His leg was missing, and blood painted the table and floor. Poor bastard.
On a low table was a safarta, an Arab lunch box made of three stacked bowls. Max undid the side latch and examined the top bowl. Empty. He checked out the next bowl. It was empty, too. He dreaded what he’d find in the bottom tier, but he looked inside anyway. There he found a bowl of half-eaten rice.
Tom opened a small refrigerator and removed an aluminum vial. He mouthed a silent gasp and showed the vial to Max. It was marked: BK-16. Tom opened the refrigerator door wide so Max could see inside. There were more vials with the same markings.
Tom grinned hard.
Max did, too. Finally! He wanted to cheer out loud, but they weren’t out of danger yet, so he did a quick fist pump. Then he took the safarta to the freezer, pulled out some ice, and packed it in one of the bowls. He handed Tom the bowl and signaled him to put the vials in it—Max would stand guard while Tom gathered the BK-16.
A door opened, and a light came on in the office/waiting area outside the operating room. Tom still had more vials to pack.
Footsteps followed. Max turned off his red light, drew his Glock, and posted himself next to the door to the surgery room. With the flick of a switch, Max shifted from foraging mode to hunting mode.
More footsteps came. Now it sounded like two to three men. The footsteps became louder, closer. Tom stuffed vials into another bowl, but he still had to close the contraption. Their only way out was through the office. We’re trapped.
The light came on in the operating room, temporarily blinding Max. He quickly recognized the old man from the picture that Azrael sent—the Surgeon—who was flanked by two armed Syrian military men, one with longish hair and the other with short hair. Max aimed at Long Hair and popped two rounds into his chest, knocking him down. Short Hair stepped back and raised his pistol. Max unleashed two rounds to his chest and finished him with one to the head, toppling him like a big domino. Max had fired five shots within a second and a quarter—surprise, speed, and violence were key to winning a gunfight.
Long Hair lay on the deck grabbing his chest and moaning. He was still alive. Max aimed at his head and pressed Mute. His brains leaked onto the floor.
The Surgeon froze. Max pointed his pistol at him and said in Arabic, “Get on the ground—now.”
The Surgeon lowered to his knees and held his hands up. Max wanted him prone and didn’t waste time with words; instead, he gave the Surgeon a kick to the back, flattening him. “Unngh.”
Max bound the man’s hands behind his back with flex-cuffs and gagged him.
Tom latched up the safarta with the vials in it. “Let’s go.”
Max kicked the Surgeon in the crotch to demand his undivided attention. “On your feet.”
The Surgeon groaned but moved more quickly this time. Even so, he was too slow. Max shoved him out the door, through the office, out another door, and up the steps.
Max held his pistol down at his side to partially conceal it. Tom did likewise. A nurse and a woman in civilian clothing stopped in the hall and watched them, but Max ignored the pair and escorted the Surgeon the opposite way—the way they’d come in. He didn’t like exiting from the same door he’d entered. If enemies had seen them come in, enemies would be waiting for them on their way out. But Max didn’t want to exit through the front door or a side entrance and risk being seen by a lot of people. So he chose the lesser of the two evils and hoped an ambush wasn’t waiting for them. He pushed the Surgeon through the door, using him as a shield in case they met a hailstorm of bullets. They departed the building.
Except for a handful of parked cars, the lot was clear. Max thrust the Surgeon forward until they reached the Kia. Tom pressed the remote, the doors clicked unlocked, and Max opened the back door, stuffed the Surgeon in, and sat with him.
Tom hopped in front and fired up the engine before spinning out of the parking lot.
Max bagged the Surgeon’s head with a black hood. Next, he reached under the seat, pulled out a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, and put them on their captive before cramming him onto the floorboard. The Surgeon groaned, but Max couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the twisted old man’s discomfort.
Tom drove them to the M5 Motorway, the backbone of Syria, and took them out of Damascus. Max texted Willy: hvt secure. They’d captured their high-value target. Max experienced some relief, but they weren’t out of the danger zone yet.
He wanted to interrogate the Surgeon now, but he needed to help Tom keep watch for thugs, Daesh, Syrian troops, and other dangers. The interrogation would have to wait until they reached their extract.
TWO HUNDRED MILES OUT of Damascus, Max’s phone rang. He looked at the caller ID: Sami. “Hello,” Max said in English.
There was no answer.
“Sami?” Max asked.
“Sami cannot come to the phone,” an ominous voice said in English.
Max’s stomach sank. Sami wasn’t a best friend or a tactical genius, but they were on friendly terms, and he delivered good intel. “Who is this?”
“I am the man who is going to kill you.”
Max’s stomach sank further, but he buoyed it with hubris and levity: “Now why would you say a silly thing like that?”
“You killed one of our men.”
“The list is long, buttercup—maybe you can be a bit more specific, jog my memory.”
“The sniper in Damascus.”
Max swallowed hard. Then he took a moment to swallow normally. “Ah, your Russian buddy. I didn’t kill him.”
“Then who did?”
“Not who—what. It was the bullet that killed him.”
“No matter. I’m going to kill you. And your partner.”
Threatening Max was one thing, but threatening his brother made Max’s blood boil. He concealed his irritation by piling on more hubris and levity. “I’ll come right to your door—just tell me where it is.”
The caller ignored Max’s sarcasm. “I will meet you in the ring, but I will not throw the fight for you.”
“I’d like that,” Max said.
“Likewise, I would like that a lot.”
“I’ll bring a present for you. Just like I gave your comrade.”
“You know that is not going to happen. But you know what will happen.”
“What name should I put on your present?”
“Put you and your friend’s names on it. I’ll be quick, I promise.”
“You can dream on, fool, but don’t waste my time telling me about it. I have not yet begun to fight.” Max ended the call, then immediately contacted CIA to trace it.
MAX HAD DRIVEN THE remaining three hundred miles northeast to the outskirts of Kobani, hard on the Turkish border, where the site of a former cement plant owned by France’s largest industrial company, Lafarge, was located. When Daesh took control of Syria, Lafarge paid off the terrorists in order to keep on doing business there. Eventually, the payoffs weren’t enough, and Daesh commandeered the plant—until American troops and local Kurds arrived and kicked them out. The US transformed it into their forward operating base (FOB) in support of combat and counterterrorist operations in Syria.
The FOB stood like a shadowy apparition in the morning light. HESCO barriers and concertina wire formed a wall around the compound.
“Feels strange coming back here without Dad,” Max said.
“I miss him,” Tom said.
“Ditto.”
Unlike the last time they’d been at the base, the FOB’s howitzers weren’t booming out artillery shells, and there were no other signs of combat.
A pair of hardened CIA Ground Branch officers in a pickup truck escorted Max, Tom, and the Surgeon to the helo pad.
Max parked near a Chinook helo with its rotor spinning. He left the keys in the ignition and got out of the SUV. “Smells like the stink blowing in from the city has gone, as well.”
Tom opened his door, grabbed the Surgeon, and hauled him out like he was a sack of fertilizer. “Can’t say I miss the foul odor.”
Max helped his brother drag the flex-cuffed Surgeon, who made a guttural sound, to the helo, and they all climbed aboard. Soon the bird lifted off and rose above the FOB’s concrete buildings, guard towers, and sandbag-fortified Conex boxes.
Max stood behind their prisoner and watched as Tom removed his noise-reducing headphones, black hood, and gag.
“Help me!” the Surgeon cried out in Arabic.
Tom shouted above the noise of the helo in Arabic: “Up here, no one can here you scream!”
“Is that supposed to scare me?” the Surgeon asked.
“It should,” Tom said. “What do you know about BK-16?”
“Nothing,” the Surgeon said.
“You don’t want to lie to me.”
“I’m telling you: nothing.”
Tom sighed and stepped back. “If you don’t want to tell me...”
Max grabbed a handful of the Surgeon’s hair and jerked him onto his back, bouncing his head off the deck. Bam!
“Aagh!” the Surgeon yelled. He winced and turned in Max’s direction. “Good cop, bad cop—you don’t think we have TV in Syria.”
Max spoke Arabic, too. “For a smart man, you’re not very smart!” He sat the Surgeon upright again. “What do you know about BK-16?”
The Surgeon whined. “My head hurts.”
Max didn’t like how this piece of shit toyed with lives. He bounced him off the deck again, this time knocking him out.
Seconds later, the Surgeon’s eyes opened and he said, “People are going to die.”
“What do you know about BK-16?” Max demanded again.
“I just want to go back to being a doctor.”
“You’re not a doctor,” Max said. “Doctors help people.”
“I help people.”
“You help evil people do evil things.”
“This is Syria. We do not have much choice in such matters.”
Max sat him up again—only to punch him in the face and knock him down. “Tell me about BK-16.”
Blood trickled out of the Surgeon’s left nostril, but he said nothing.
Max kicked him in the gut, making him cry out in pain. “Tell me about BK-16.”
The Surgeon laughed. “People are going to die.”
Tom moved in, propped the Surgeon up, and said, “We could turn you over to FSA so they can get their men’s organs back.”
The Surgeon frowned. “I don’t have their organs. I sold them.”
“But you do have your own organs, don’t you?” Max said. “Inside your body.”
The Surgeon didn’t reply.
Max smiled. “I can’t promise that the removals will be as neat as your surgeries, but I’m sure the FSA will do their best with what they have.”
The Surgeon stiffened up.
Max watched and waited.
The Surgeon cleared his throat, spitting up blood. “BK-16 is a manmade virus to be used for assassination. After the target is infected, he loses consciousness—I’m not exactly sure why. Soon he regains consciousness and seems normal, but in about five days, the virus dies and decomposes into kuznetsovine, a poison that kills the person. Because BK-16’s deadly effect takes about five days, it’s difficult to figure out who first introduced it to the target or how it was administered.”
“Is there a cure for it?” Max asked.
“I don’t know.”
Max and Tom just glared at him.
“I really don’t know,” the Surgeon said. “Dr. Kuznetsov would know—he created it.”
Tom looked over at Max, a surprised look on his face. “Where is this doctor?” he asked.
“Sorrento, Italy,” the Surgeon said. “He lives with the Russian mafia there. Their godfather is a former KGB officer who might still be working for Russia.”
Max considered the players and their roles in this. After the fall of the Soviet Union, numerous intelligence officers were suddenly without jobs, and many went to work for various mafia factions or created their own. He pressed the issue. “I thought the Syrian government was behind this, not the Russians.”
“Russia controls Syria,” the Surgeon said. “Russia says jump; we say how high?”
“Can you give us the names of the Russian mafia members?” Tom asked.
“Some of them, yes,” the Surgeon said.
As the Surgeon gave the names, Max recorded them on his phone and sent them to Willy.
“What else can you tell us about BK-16, Dr. Kuznetsov, or this Russian mafia?” Tom asked.
“That’s all I know,” the Surgeon said.
Max raised his hand to strike him again. “That’s not good enough.”
“I swear, that’s all I know,” the Surgeon insisted.
Max and Tom glared at the Surgeon, but he seemed to be telling the truth. Max put the gag, hood, and earphones back on their prisoner. The gag wasn’t necessary here, high in the sky, but Max didn’t want to forget it later.
“We could be infected,” Tom said.
“I’m not going to let you die,” Max said. “I promised Dad that I’d take care of you.”
“I can take care of myself,” Tom said. “And you need to take care of yourself.”
“Maybe we’re not poisoned.”
“Does Willy have the results of our blood and urine analyses yet?”
“Still waiting,” Max said.
“He better hurry.”
THE CHINOOK SWIFTLY crossed into Turkey and flew five hundred klicks in less than an hour and a half to Incirlik Air Base, where it landed. Off to the side of the helo pad were parked two black SUVs. Inside one sat two buff dudes. From the other SUV stepped a man wearing blue jeans, long hair, and a bandana. He looked like Willy Nelson in his late forties. His real name was Willy Madison, and he was their boss and a family friend. Uncharacteristic for Willy, his neck and shoulders sagged as if he were carrying a heavy load.
Max humped his kit off the helo and watched Willy from the corner of his eye. “Something’s wrong.”
Willy approached them with open arms. “Bravo, bravo.”
Max and Tom loaded their kit in the back of his truck before Willy gave each of them a fatherly hug, but his hug seemed tired. “What’s wrong?” Tom asked.
Willy hesitated. When he spoke, his New Orleans twang lost its spring: “I’ll tell you in the brief.” He motioned for them to load up in the van.
Max road shotgun. Sounds serious.
Tom hopped in back. “What about the Surgeon?”
Willy started the engine. “My guys in the other vehicle will take care of him.”
The two buff dudes left the other truck and boarded the helo, but Max was too concerned about the results of the blood and urine tests to give them a second thought.
Max feared for his brother but hoped for the best.
“Any luck with tracing the Russian who threatened to kill Max and me?” Tom asked.
“The caller spoofed a cell number in Damascus, but we’re still working on trying to find the original source,” Willy said.
Chapter Fifteen
Charcoal-like clouds formed in the morning sky as Max, Tom, and Willy rode past hornbeam and Lebanese cedar trees. After passing some office buildings, they went through a roundabout. Black pines stood as ominous sentinels. Willy turned onto a road
with a soulless strip of bars and restaurants with English names like Aqua Bar and Red Onion Restaurant that catered to US servicemen. They rolled through a residential area for a few blocks before pulling up to an isolated gray house, its yard decayed and its windows facing out like vacant eyes.
Willy parked the SUV, and Max and Tom grabbed their bags and got out. Willy walked up to the door with them. Thick cobwebs hung from the eaves, and fungi spread over cracks in the wood.
Willy unlocked the front door, and they passed through an arched doorway. The floors were dark brown, as were the walls and ceiling, and the air tasted stale. Even with the curtains open and the lights on, the place was dark. It felt like walking into a tomb.
In the living room on a sofa sat a man who Max hadn’t seen before and a woman he recognized. She was unpardonably pretty. Max had worked with her years ago in Syria, when he was a Navy SEAL in Team Six. Tom had been there, too, as an Army Ranger. In the winter of last year, she’d briefly helped Max and Tom again.
“Hannah!” Max said.
She stood, and her smile brightened the gloom. “Max! And Tom!”
Then she introduced the man Max hadn’t seen before. “I’d like you to meet my teammate and good friend, Chris Paladin.”
“Good meeting you,” Chris said.
Max nodded politely, but he preferred talking to Hannah.
He was about to ask her a question when Tom blurted out like a machine gun, “Chris Paladin, it’s an honor. You were a SEAL with Team Six in western Iraq. I was with the 75th Rangers. We came later as part of the same task force to stop Syrians from smuggling terrorists and IEDs across the border into Iraq.”
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