Thief of Always

by Kim Baldwin

  “Nothing. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

  “Thousands, maybe millions of innocent people are going to die in a few hours, and he’s responsible for it,” Allegro told her. “Do you understand me? Innocent children are going to die because of him.”

  “My children are innocent, too,” the woman pleaded. “Why are you pointing guns at them?”

  “If we have to sacrifice two children to save millions, we will,” Domino bluffed.

  The woman looked up at her husband. “Stop them, Qadir. Is it true, what she says?”

  “Yes, it’s true. We’ve been monitoring and listening in on his conversations for weeks,” Allegro bluffed. The mole was too important to the U.S. government to be implicated, and she knew that by saying they had evidence against Qadir, it should scare him into thinking that not only was his career over, but his life was on the line as well.

  The woman stared at her husband like she was seeing him for the first time. “What have you done? Why would you do this to us, Qadir? And to your country? Haven’t we suffered enough?”

  “We’re running out of time. Either you tell us how to stop the missiles or you get to sit there and watch us kill your family in the name of whatever you think justifies your cause. What’s it going to be?” Allegro pulled hard on the girl’s hair, making her squeal.

  “Stop. Please, stop,” Qadir’s wife pleaded. “In the name of Allah, give them what they want.”

  “I am a dead man if I do,” Qadir said. “They will kill me if they find out I betrayed the cause.”

  “You’re a dead man either way,” Allegro told him. “If they don’t kill you, your government will.”

  “So why should I tell you anything?”

  “For our children!” his wife screamed, furious. “They are going to kill our girls unless you talk.”

  “Your destiny was out of your hands the moment you decided to work with these animals, and there is nothing that can change that.” Allegro pointedly looked from one child to the other. “But their destiny is still in your hands. Let them remember you as a father who made a big mistake but the right decision. The decision that saved countless lives.”

  “Do it, Qadir. Do it for them,” his wife begged, tears streaming down her face.

  The eldest girl, the spitting image of her father, was following the scene with rapt attention. Allegro could tell that though she understood little of what was going on, she could sense the danger, her mother’s distress, and that her father was doing nothing to stop it. “Daddy, why won’t you help us?”

  Qadir looked at the girl, and then at his other daughter, still crying, and then at his wife. He dropped into his chair and buried his face in his hands. “726272 237426,” he said wearily.

  Allegro repeated the numbers out loud to make sure that Monty picked everything up from her earpiece.

  “Lynx and Nighthawk are in position,” Pierce told her.

  “How do we access the computer?” Allegro asked Qadir.

  “My fingerprints.”

  “You know what that means,” she said.

  Qadir wordlessly pulled up his sleeve and stretched out his hand on the desk.

  “You’re not getting off that easy,” she told him. “Get up, you’re coming with us.” As he stood, Allegro spoke into her earpiece. “Nighthawk, join us.”

  A minute later, Nighthawk was standing next to them.

  “My friend here will stay with your family and wait for my call,” Allegro said. “What he does with them depends on how accurate the numbers and your prints are.”

  *

  Lynx was waiting for them outside in the sedan. Allegro pushed Qadir into the backseat, between her and Domino.

  “The MIS is halfway to Naghrak,” Pierce told the ops in their earpieces. “Go back to the airport. We’re going to helicopter you in. We have less than four hours to countdown.”

  “Blade and Cameo are being flown to Naghrak as well,” Lynx informed them as she headed toward the airport. “They may get there ahead of us.”

  “I was betrayed, wasn’t I?” Qadir asked.

  Allegro turned to look at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “Naghrak was the location we used in case someone leaked information about the mission to an outsider,” he said. “We have many people on our side, but very few can be trusted. For this reason, only the leaders know the actual location. The rest are just soldiers, most of them dedicated, but sometimes one gets an offer or threat and talks. The actual location of the missiles is revealed to the soldiers last minute.”

  There was a long silence in the sedan as the ops stared at Qadir in disbelief. The only sound Allegro heard was Pierce’s curse in her earpiece, then his shout to someone to get Major Norton on the phone.

  “The SS-27 Topol can also be deployed with a mobile launcher,” Allegro said, almost to herself. Then to the other ops, “The missiles are somewhere on trucks. They can launch them from anywhere. There is no base.” Allegro pressed the gun hard against Qadir’s temple.

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Nighthawk, come in,” she said loudly into her earpiece while she stared at Qadir. “Start with the youngest.”

  “I swear I don’t know. They are scheduled to arrive in Mir Bacheh Kowt within the hour for preparation,” he said.

  “Where are they operating it from?” she asked next.

  “A big truck. It will be following behind the missile,” Qadir told her. “The equipment is on there.”

  “Who’s operating it?”

  “One of the leaders.”

  “The other missile?”

  “Charikar,” he said.

  “God damn it,” Pierce said into her earpiece. “The MIS is hours away from there now. They’ll never make it there in time.”

  “How far are these places from here?” Domino asked.

  “Mir Bacheh Kowt is forty-five minutes or so north of Kabul,” Pierce answered before Qadir had a chance to. “Chariker is another twenty miles farther, on the same road. The MIS is going to turn around, but it’ll take a while before they get to you.”

  Night fell as the sedan sped along the desert road to the first village as fast as Lynx could manage without losing control. They all braced themselves against the holes and gaps in the road, devastated from decades of war. At the speed they were traveling, stirring up the desert dust, they couldn’t see the bone-jarring potholes in their headlights until they were almost on top of them.

  They neared the outskirts of Mir Bacheh Kowt with less than two hours to go before the launch. From a distance, the village appeared to be a virtual ghost town. The Taliban had burned down ninety-eight percent of the homes and poisoned the wells, and al-Qaeda had moved in later, to use the ruins as a terrorist training ground.

  Lynx cut the headlights and slowed as they entered the village. There was no sign of the trucks.

  “Where are they supposed to be?” Allegro asked Qadir.

  “Just off this road, a little farther. There’s desert on one side, and huts on the other,” he said.

  “Take this street,” Allegro told Lynx, pointing to a road ahead that led upward to a hilltop that overlooked the area. Lynx parked as close to the crest as she could without their vehicle being seen from below. The three women shed their burkas, and Allegro and Domino got out. Allegro had her pistol and one of the Uzis, Domino the sniper rifle and a pair of night vision binoculars. Lynx remained in the car, her gun trained on Qadir.

  They’d chosen a good vantage point, and gotten there without much time to spare. A few minutes later, they spotted the two trucks coming toward them on the road below. The mobile launch vehicle, in front, was massive, some seventy-five feet long. Its missile was concealed beneath a tarp. The operations truck, a military troop carrier with a canvas canopy over the bed, followed close behind.

  The vehicles pulled off and stopped at the bottom of the hill. They had a clear view of both trucks. Domino scanned th
em through the binoculars as the men inside got out and stretched their legs. “Two men from the launcher, and nine from the truck.”

  “Domino, Lynx, stay here,” Allegro told them. “On my mark, take as many out from here as possible. Lynx, I’ll contact you when I’m ready for him. Bring him to me.”

  “You got it,” Lynx replied.

  “Be careful,” Domino added.

  “I will. I promised someone I’d call them soon.” Allegro ran quietly down the hill, using the ruins of the village as cover, careful of her footing in the dark.

  Once at the bottom, she got as close to the trucks as possible, taking up a position behind a half-burned hut. One of the men walked straight in her direction. She stayed very still and he finally stopped to empty his bladder a short distance from where she was hiding. She aimed straight for his head with her silencer. When he went down, she hurried over to drag him into the hut. She stripped him of his robe and scarf and put them on, covering her face. “I’m moving in.”

  “The driver of the launcher is sitting alone in the truck,” Domino informed her.

  She approached the truck casually, opened the door of the passenger seat, and got in. The driver was about to say something to her when Allegro shot him in the head. “Two down.”

  “Nine to go,” Domino said in her ear. “There’s one alone on the right of the truck.”

  Allegro got out and quietly walked up to him. He was bent over, checking something on the vehicle. She shot him in the heart from the back, and he collapsed. She couldn’t leave the body there, the others would see it. She heard someone approaching in the dark, and hurriedly shoved the dead man under the truck.

  “Where is Mustafa?” the newcomer asked.

  “I don’t know,” she answered in his language, keeping her voice low.

  “Here, take this.” He held something out to her, but she couldn’t make out what it was in the dim light from the truck. She reached out for it, but the man stopped abruptly as he was about to give it to her, and seized her hand in his. “Blood. You have blood on your hands.” He looked closer at her, and when he saw she was a stranger, he pulled out his gun.

  Allegro moved faster, and shot him first, but he’d gotten off a shot as well, and the sound of it echoed through the desert. All was still again for a few seconds, then she heard people running toward her. “Domino, now!”

  Bullets started to fly in the dark. She saw another man go down, but most had taken cover from the hill where Domino was positioned.

  “I’m coming in,” Domino relayed. “I can’t see them from here.”

  Six were left and it sounded as though all of them were shooting. Men had started to move around the back of the truck from both sides, coming toward her. Allegro ran forward to the nearest hut to take cover, threw down her gun, and ripped off the robe to grab the Uzi that hung around her shoulder. She opened fire the moment one came around the corner of the truck and took him down. The others with him scattered, most bolting up the hill where the shots were coming from. Bullets flew from all sides now.

  “Another one down,” she heard Domino say. That left four. Just then, an explosion shook the earth and lit up the sky on the hilltop where they’d parked their car.

  She stared up at the ball of fire and felt her heart constrict in her chest. “Lynx! Are you okay?”

  “I’m in one of the huts,” Lynx replied. “I have Qadir with me, but they blew up the car. Grenade launcher.”

  “Stay where you are,” Allegro told her. More shots rang out in the dark.

  “One more down,” Domino reported.

  “Three left.” The words were barely out of Allegro’s mouth before she heard a twig snap behind her. Automatically, she turned and fired a rapid burst with the Uzi. One of the terrorists stumbled forward out of the darkness, clutching his chest, and collapsed a yard from her.

  “Two left, and that was a close one,” she said.

  “Make that one.” Domino had gotten another. They waited where they were five more minutes, all of them silent.

  “We don’t have time to fuck around trying to find the last one,” Allegro said. “I don’t hear anything. He probably took off.”

  “I don’t hear anything either,” Domino reported.

  “All clear here,” Lynx confirmed.

  Allegro stepped out from behind the hut. “Lynx, bring him out.”

  Lynx came into view, one hand dragging a tied and gagged Qadir, the other holding an Uzi. Domino emerged from the darkness to the right of her, covering her back with the rifle. Allegro moved to the front, covering them from there.

  Domino glanced at her watch. “We have a little over an hour left.”

  “Let’s go.” Allegro led them to the operations truck and cautiously opened the back to make sure it was empty.

  Lynx cut Qadir’s bindings and Allegro grabbed him by the arm and hauled him roughly up into the truck. The other two ops stayed outside to make sure there were no surprises. Keeping her gun on him, she shoved the minister into a chair and fired up the computer. When the screen asked ENTER ID, she pushed the chair forward until Qadir was in front of it. “Do it.”

  He placed his palm on a plate next to the computer and accessed the missile control program. The screen read: TARGET: ROME. 59 MINUTES TO LAUNCH, and asked for a password to access the deactivation control. She didn’t wait for him to start typing. She pulled the chair away and looked at him.

  “Remember, their destiny is in your hands.” Allegro said, a final reference to his family in case he had lied to her. He didn’t blink.

  She punched in the numbers he’d given her, and bright red letters flickered on the screen. DEACTIVATE MISSILE? She confirmed by hitting the Enter key, and the program asked for the password again. She typed in the numbers a second time. MISSILE DEACTIVATED. TERMINATE OPERATION? the screen read.

  “I’m gonna go with yes,” she said, and pressed the Enter key.

  “Mission accomplished here,” she told Pierce in her earpiece. “Missile one deactivated, crew dead.”

  “Roger that,” Pierce replied. “I’ll divert all MIS to second location except for a crew to pick you up.”

  Minutes later, the sound of an approaching plane broke the silence.

  “Stay where you are,” she heard Domino say. “I can’t see if it’s MIS.” Thirty seconds passed before Domino reported, “A small MIS cargo plane.”

  Allegro hauled Qadir to his feet and took him outside, and the four of them took cover behind the truck.

  “We still have time. We can make it.” Lynx had to nearly shout to be heard over the roar of the small plane as it touched down on a flat bit of packed sand at the edge of the village.

  Eight MIS soldiers emerged from the plane, all but one quickly taking up positions around the two trucks. The other remained by the plane, and they ran toward him. “Well done,” he said. He had lieutenant’s bars on the collar of his fatigues. “All of you get in. We need to get him,” he gestured toward Qadir, “to Charikar for the other missile.”

  Lynx pushed Qadir forward. They were a few steps from entering the cargo plane when a shot rang out and Qadir dropped to the ground. They all took cover as a voice nearby screamed “Traitor!” in Farsi, and then all was silent again.

  “Come on,” the lieutenant said, “We have to go.”

  “Probably the one that got away,” Domino said.

  “We need him,” Allegro said, looking down at Qadir’s body. “But not all of him. Lynx?”

  Without hesitation, Lynx pulled out her heavy combat knife and with one swift movement chopped off Qadir’s hand at the wrist. Then she sliced a piece of material from Qadir’s robe to wrap around it. She gave the gruesome package to Allegro and turned to the MIS officer. “Now we can go.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Amsterdam

  In a private room at the Academisch Medisch Centrum hospital, Kris gently stroked her uncle’s hand, comforted by the steady beeping of the machines tracking his heartbeat and breathi
ng. He’d come to, briefly, when they’d brought him back from the operating room, but was so heavily sedated he’d immediately drifted off again. Hans Hofman’s face was so swollen and covered with bandages he was nearly unrecognizable, and his left arm and right wrist wore casts from broken bones. He’d also been bleeding internally, but the surgery had been a success and the doctors said he would fully recover.

  “I’m so sorry, Uncle,” she whispered. “I never meant for this to happen to you.”

  The guilt she felt, however, took a backseat to worry, both for him and for Misha. Where was she now? It was torture not knowing. She prayed for God to protect the woman she’d come to love with all her heart. Just be all right. Even if I never see you again. Just be all right.

  The television was on, playing an old film, the volume turned low. A blare of noise from it drew her eyes to the screen. A news bulletin, interrupting the regular broadcast.

  “Millions are fleeing London and Rome in a panic at this hour,” the commentator announced soberly. “Mass evacuations have been ordered because of a confirmed imminent terrorist attack, involving nuclear missiles.” Live video popped up on the screen, showing massive road jams from both locations. “U.S. officials in Washington alerted British and Italian authorities to the threat, and said efforts are underway to disarm the missiles, or intercept them if they are successfully launched.”

  Kris stared at the screen in shock as the report continued. My God. It’s all true. Oh, Misha.

  *

  Near Charikar, Afghanistan

  The MIS lieutenant informed them that their men were already in position in Charikar, and they would land as close as possible to the missile launcher to get Qadir’s hand delivered. Blood was seeping through the robe material, so Allegro had placed the hand beside her on the bench seat. The plane was above the location in twenty minutes, flying low. She looked down. This village had also been hit hard by the war and was mostly black from above, but here and there were cooking fires and other lights where residents had returned to rebuild. The mobile launch vehicle and operations truck had parked in the desert, outside the northern edge of the city. All around them were flashes of light, and several small vehicles were on fire.