Vengeance: A Derek Stillwater Novel (Derek Stillwater Thrillers Book 8)

by Mark Terry

  “The setup could have been by el-Sisi and Urabi,” Noa said.

  “You know anything about Urabi?”

  She nodded. “My people don’t think he or el-Sisi would be supporting Nazif. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t use you as bait.”

  “But you think O’Bannon did.”

  She shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past him, but it doesn’t have to go that way—”

  Her phone rang. She answered it, listened, and clicked off. “Schmuel’s all right.”

  Kadish breathed a sigh of relief. Derek said, “Schmuel?”

  “The driver. He ditched the car. He’s clear. He’s got an eye on the building and so far he thinks they’ve lost the scent. They’re nowhere in the area.”

  “Now what?”

  “Give it a little more time, then we’ll regroup.”

  Irina: Sholes is calling in.

  Before Derek could answer, Noa gripped his arm and held a finger to her lips. She said, “Roll with me. Let her on.”

  Sholes: Dear God, Stillwater. Where are you?

  Noa: This is Shoshan. Derek’s down.

  Static filled the line.

  Sholes: What?

  Noa: They were chasing us and shooting up the car. He got hit. He’s in bad shape. We’re getting him to a private doctor.

  Sholes: Where are you? Dammit, Shoshan!

  Noa: I’ll update you when I can.

  Sholes: There’s another video. We need to talk to Stillwater.

  Noa: He can’t talk to you now. He’s in bad shape. I’ll get in touch when I can.

  And she ended the connection, smiling at Derek.

  After waiting fifteen minutes, Noa led them out of the apartment. Out the door, down the stairs and out the front of the building.

  A black SUV with dark tinted windows pulled up. They climbed in. Schmuel was behind the wheel. “Egyptian military caught one of the vans. At least one of Nazif’s men survived. That’s all we have so far.”

  Noa looked at Derek. He shrugged. “At least using me as bait panned out for somebody.”

  Schmuel said, “iPad. Cued to the latest video.”

  Noa took it and tapped the screen as Schmuel pulled into traffic, keeping a careful eye on his rearview mirror.

  Mandalevo sat in a straight-backed chair in a back room. He wasn’t tied down this time. His head was bandaged. What was visible of his face was a mass of bruises.

  In a slow, slurred voice, he read off what must have been a prepared statement.

  “The Nazif Brigade demands video proof of Abdul Nazif’s impending release in sixty minutes. The video is to be provided to Al Jazeera, which will verify it and broadcast it on their website worldwide.” He paused, his voice like a steep rasp covered in wool. “If the video is not available at that time, they will cut off my right hand.”

  He swallowed, looked away from the camera to someone out of sight, then turned back. “I believe they will do what they say.”

  Someone off-camera spoke in Arabic.

  Noa said, “They said ‘stick to the script.’”

  “At that time we will provide a location for Derek Stillwater to be one hour later. If Stillwater—” Mandalevo shook his head, wincing.

  The Arabic voice again.

  “’Read it,’” Noa translated.

  “No,” Mandalevo said. “Derek, under no circumstances are you to do this.”

  The Arabic voice repeated the warning.

  Jaw firm, staring at the speaker off-camera, Mandalevo said, “No. I won’t.”

  Hussein Nazif appeared holding a black semi-automatic in his hand. He aimed it at Mandalevo’s leg.

  “Read it or I will shoot you in the kneecap,” he said in English.

  “Just read it,” Derek said, heart racing, the taste of bile on his tongue.

  Mandalevo glared at Nazif with his one good eye, then looked at the camera. “If Stillwater does not show up on time alone in the location specified, they will kill me.”

  The video ended.

  The room was silent.

  Johnston: NSA is on it.

  Konstantin: Our people are working on it as well.

  A hairball, thought Derek. But maybe the whole world was working on it.

  Derek turned to Noa. “There isn’t much we can do about the first deadline. But do you think your team could throw a net around me in the next two hours.”

  Johnston: Do not do that, Derek. Do not give him what he wants.

  “I’ve two hours to end this, one way or the other, Jim. We can’t let Nazif make the rules. What is the U.S. going to do about the video?”

  Johnston: I’ll find out. But do not go to the location he gives you. He’ll gun you down and then kill Mandalevo and disappear back into the desert.

  Noa sat up. “I think I have an idea.”

  38

  Captain Nora Bradley stuck her head into Captain Steve Wilshire’s office at Guantanamo Bay. “I’ve been following it, just like everyone else,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “Got a call from General Meade, who got a call from the SecDef and the President and Deputy Secretary of State. I’m to get going on a video of Abdul Nazif. You are helping me.” He looked at his watch. “And we’ve only got about twenty minutes. They’re sending us a script.”

  “There’s no way Nazif will agree to read anything.”

  Wilshire grimaced. “That’s why we’ve only got twenty minutes.”

  The videographer was a young Navy officer. He snapped to attention when the two captains appeared. “At ease,” Wilshire said. “Are you ready? We don’t have much time.”

  “I’m ready.”

  Into a radio, Wilshire said, “Bring him in. Start recording the second the door opens. Neither I, the guards or Captain Bradley are to be in the shot if at all possible. We’ll get blurred or edited out, but let’s make this easier for everybody.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The door cracked open. The videographer clicked on his camera and moved to the side of the room.

  Abdul Nazif shuffled in wearing an orange coverall and a matching orange taqiyah. His ankles and hands were shackled. He seemed confused. Two armed Marines stood on either side of him.

  Wilshire pointed to a table and chair. “Please sit.”

  Taking short steps, gazing around the room, locking onto the video camera, he sat in the chair. “What is going on?”

  “Mr. Nazif. You are Abdul Nazif, correct?”

  Nazif stared at him, his gaze flicking to Nora, over to the camera. “Yes. What is this about?”

  “We are releasing you today.”

  He stared at them. “What?”

  “Your release has been arranged immediately.” He nodded at one of the marines, who walked over and unlocked the shackles.

  “I don’t understand,” Nazif said.

  “Do you know what today is?”

  “June.” Nazif licked his lips. “June 27th.”

  “There’s a newspaper in front of you. Please pick it up and show it to the camera.”

  Hesitantly Nazif picked up the newspaper, looked it over, then held it up.

  “That’s good. Thank you. Please stand.”

  Nazif did so.

  “This way, please.” They led Nazif from the room and down a hallway to a physician’s examining room. A male doctor asked him to roll up his sleeve. The doctor swabbed his deltoid with an alcohol wipe, picked up a syringe and injected its contents into his arm. In a level voice the doctor said, “It’s a final dose of several vaccines.”

  From there, they led him out of the building into a Humvee, the videographer recording the entire thing. They drove to an airfield, where a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster sat like a massive hulking bird of prey. Three marines waited.

  To Nazif, Wilshire said, “These men will be with you on the plane. You’re going to Qatar. You will be met there by representatives of the Qatar government. They will record a statement from you immediately upon arrival. It’s very likely reporters from Al J
azeera will be there as well. We’ve done our part. Now it’s up to your brother.”

  Nazif stared at him, then turned to look directly at the camera. He spoke in Arabic. When he was done, the marines ushered him up into the plane.

  Once he was out of sight, Wilshire said, “Did I translate that right? ‘I’m coming home, brother.’”

  “Yes.”

  To the cameraman, Captain Wilshire said, “Let’s go. We’ve got to get that to NSA and Al Jazeera.”

  39

  Back at the original house where Derek had met Noa’s team, they went to work. Noa ordered him to take off his shirt and pants.

  “I bet you say that to all the guys.”

  “We don’t have much time.”

  All business, Derek thought. He complied. The other woman in the room, a middle-aged Israeli with graying hair cropped short, who had been introduced simply as Levia, said with a heavy accent, “This should be easy. You’re halfway to being dead as it is.” She turned to her makeup kit, saying, “Can we peel off the bandages? The one on the leg is soaked with blood already. We might leave that, but dress it up a little. What about this shoulder?”

  “Needs to be changed, I guess.”

  “Then lie down on your stomach.”

  He complied, face down on a bed.

  Noa said, “I’ll go check on how the messaging is working. You’re in good hands.”

  Unwrapping his shoulder dressings, Levia tsked. “Well, that’s healing nicely, but I can make it look much worse. And we’ll give you a couple wounds in your back, maybe close to your spine. How does that sound?”

  “You’re the pro.”

  She went to work with the makeup. Despite himself, he dozed off. He woke up a little bit later when Levia said, “I need you to sit up.”

  “That’s a real gift,” Noa said, “being able to sleep like that.”

  “It’s the stress-free life I live.”

  “That must be it. Are we about ready?”

  “Couple more minutes,” Levia said.

  “Good. Watch this.” She handed Derek an iPad. It was queued up to a video. Tapping the screen, he saw it was an Egyptian news program. A male broadcaster was speaking in Arabic over footage of their recent car chase.

  “Can you translate?”

  “He’s saying that Islamist militants had a gun battle in downtown Cairo only an hour ago with Egyptian forces and an American Embassy official, who was in the lead car.”

  “So far it’s more or less accurate.”

  “Keep watching.”

  Suddenly his own face appeared. He wasn’t sure where they got the shot of him. “What the hell?”

  Noa translated, “An American intelligence official, Dr. Derek Stillwater, was gravely wounded in the shootout. Sources indicate he is being stabilized at a private medical facility, but will be moved to a surgical center as soon as possible.”

  “Sources,” Derek said.

  “Between Sholes, Johnston and Konstantin, there’s a lot of traffic coming in from the U.S., and here in Cairo, but I think the Russian rumors are a stroke of genius.”

  “If Nazif thinks I’m dead he may kill Bob.”

  “You aren’t dead yet,” Levia said. “Now hold still.”

  Ten minutes later he looked like the walking wounded, which he was, but even more so. Moving quickly, Derek, Noa, Kadish and Schmuel returned to their escape car and drove to a deserted stretch of road near the desert. After a few minutes of discussion, two of Noa’s team stood nearby with smartphones.

  Sprawling in the car in the back next to Kadish, Schmuel drove back a hundred yards. Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  He stomped on the gas. The car rocketed down the road. It skidded to a halt, rocking on its shocks. Kadish burst out of the back door and rushed over to Derek’s side, ripping open the door. Derek, on cue, collapsed onto the ground. His shirt was soaked with fake blood.

  Schmuel shouted in English, “How bad? How bad is he?”

  Kadish tore open Derek’s shirt. Lavia’s makeup was miraculous. “Shit!” He tore off the shirt and pressed it hard to Derek’s chest. Derek moaned.

  “Help me get him back into the car. We don’t have much time.”

  Schmuel, hands waving in front of his face, shouted in English, “Turn that off! Turn that off!”

  Turning back to Derek, Schmuel and Kadish lifted him. Kadish put too much torque on his bad shoulder and he let out a real groan bordering on a shout. Then they were in the car and Schmuel raced away.

  They halted and everyone gathered. Noa and Derek watched the videos taken on the smartphones. They had done an excellent job of making them jerky and realistic, occasionally catching shots of the ground, and a voice saying in Arabic what Noa translated as, “Basically, ‘Oh my God!’”

  “That’s pretty good,” Derek said. “You never really see Schmuel or Kadish’s face. Now what?”

  “We need to modify the timestamps and the GPS, then we load it onto the ’net and send them at different times to different TV stations.”

  Derek nodded. “And now?”

  “A private medical facility,” she said. “That’s being set up.”

  40

  The Egyptian, one of the Nazif Brigade to be captured by the Egyptian Army after the car chase that started at the Cairo Marriott, lay on a metal table. Naked, his arms and legs were strapped down. His interrogators had started by asking him a set list of questions:

  Where was U.S. Secretary of State Robert Mandalevo?

  What condition was he in?

  How did he make contact with Hussein Nazif?

  What were the names of the others in the organization?

  How do they get in contact?

  Where were their safe houses?

  What were their short-term plans?

  What were long-term plans?

  It went on for a while, but focused on their obvious first priority, the location of Mandalevo.

  He was short and stocky, missing the pinky finger of his left hand. His name was Fenuku Salib. He was nineteen years old. He had grown up in Cairo.

  Fenuku resisted. He told them nothing.

  There were three other men in the room. Two were professional interrogators. The third was Ali Urabi.

  The two interrogators turned to Urabi, who nodded. One of the interrogators injected Fenuku with sodium amytal. This was the so-called “truth serum,” although it was of limited use, because subjects often could be implanted with false memories, similar to hypnosis. The interrogator had to be very careful not to lead the subject.

  The questions were repeated.

  “Where is U.S. Secretary of State Robert Mandalevo?”

  Fenuku, slowly, said, “Heliopolis.” It was a suburb of Cairo where the Presidential Palace and the Egyptian Army Headquarters resided.

  Urabi stepped away from the wall, nodding to the interrogator to continue.

  “Where exactly?”

  Hesitating, Fenuku finally said, “Can’t … say.”

  “Where is the Secretary of State?” the interrogator repeated.

  “Can’t … ” He shook his head.

  The interrogator frowned, then said, “Is he alive?”

  “Yes. Last … I knew.”

  “What condition is he in?”

  “ … bad.”

  “How bad?”

  “ … bad.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Heliopolis.”

  “Where in Heliopolis? Is he in a house?”

  Fenuku seemed to be thinking. Finally, “Truck.”

  “What kind of truck?”

  “ … big.”

  “What kind?”

  He seemed confused by the question.

  “What color is it?” the interrogator asked.

  “Army.”

  The interrogator asked more questions along those lines, but Fenuku didn’t seem to have answers. The interrogator moved on to ask questions about Hussein Naz
if and how they made contact. Nefuku, just before he had been captured, had destroyed his cell phone, grinding it under his boot. Urabi’s technical people were working on it, but so far it was a dead end.

  Urabi interrupted. “How does Nazif contact you?”

  “Phone.”

  “Do you contact him?”

  “No.”

  Glancing at his watch, Urabi made a hurry-up gesture to the interrogators. The two interrogators propped up Nefuku. They retrieved manacles and chains hanging from the ceiling, clamping them onto his wrists. Untying his legs, he was hauled upward, hanging by his wrists, feet off the floor. Nefuku moaned.

  The interrogator picked up a device from a mobile steel cart. He held it up in front of Nefuku. “You will answer our questions. You understand? You understand what I’m going to do to you?”

  “No! No! Don’t!”

  “So the first question,” the interrogator said. “Where is Robert Mandalevo?”

  “I told you! I told you! He’s in Heliopolis!”

  The device was a modified Taser. The interrogator pressed it to Nefuku’s testicles and triggered it. Body spasming, he screamed. When the pain stopped, he shouted, “Heliopolis! I told you!”

  “Where? Where in Heliopolis?”

  “In a truck! I told you!”

  More electricity. He jerked like a puppet on a string.

  “What kind of truck?”

  “Army! I told you! I told you!” He was panting, body soaked in sweat.

  “Where in Heliopolis!”

  Nefuku sobbed. “Please! Please stop! Please! I told—”

  Tears streamed down his face as his body jerked and twisted, screams filling the room. Then: “The mosque. The Armed Forces Mosque.”

  Urabi walked out of the room, down the hallway to another room. A table and chairs faced a monitor. The only occupant of the room was General el-Sisi, who was on a cell phone.

  “Yes,” he was saying. “The Armed Forces Mosque. I want the area saturated. Find him.”

  When the general had clicked off, Urabi said, “Should we tell the Americans?”

  “Give us a head start.”

  “And President Morsi?”

  “If we are successful.”

  “What do you make of Stillwater?”