One Rough Man pl-1

by Brad Taylor

  He decided he needed to run, to go to the station and get on the first thing leaving, whether that was a train or a bus. If they could find him, it would be better to be a moving target. The greatest risk was the station itself. If something wasn’t leaving immediately, he would be vulnerable while waiting around. It was a chokepoint that he’d have to risk.

  100

  I crushed Kurt’s beeper underneath my boot, having just confirmed that’s how we’d been tracked. The man known as Lucas had pretty much spilled his guts in an effort to keep his ass from getting torn apart, and the beacon information had come as an unwelcome surprise. I didn’t need any more. I squatted down, getting eye-to-eye with the man.

  “You guys are like a bad rash. You keep coming back no matter how much I think you’re done. Is there anyone else in this country looking for us? Anyone else we have to worry about?”

  “No. Nobody else. Trident Global Threat Analysis is my company. I’d know if someone else was here. You killed everyone I had over here.”

  “All right, shithead. We’re leaving here. If you’re lying and we get in a gunfight, I’m going to pretend you’re a principle I’m protecting so that I can kill you in my own sweet time later. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Lucas nodded, but he didn’t look particularly scared. Hmm… need to keep an eye on him. I stood up, talking to Knuckles.

  “I don’t know where Carlos ran off to, but he can’t possibly have a ton of different safe houses here to choose from. My bet is he’s either running to a hotel, or running to the bus station. Either way, the station’s our first priority. If he’s not there, we can stake it out to ensure he doesn’t show up later, then begin working the hotels. What do you think?”

  “What about the airport?”

  “I don’t think he’ll go there. He won’t risk being on some watch list after he’s seen me.”

  “Sounds good to me. We need to get moving, though. We can’t prove a negative. If he gets on a bus or train before we get there, we’ll never know it and spend the next month trying to find him here in Sarajevo.”

  I bent down and jerked Lucas to his feet, showing little compassion for his discomfort. Knuckles called the team into the foyer and gave them the next potential mission at the station. I took over, giving the best description I could of Carlos, to include the pack he carried.

  We left through the back of the house, the men falling into an easy perimeter around Lucas. We reached the vehicles just as four police cars, sirens screaming, flew by us to the location of the firefight.

  Bull opened the trunk of one. I told Lucas to climb in. Lucas hesitated for a brief moment, starting to say he wasn’t a threat and would behave. I gave him a straight punch right into his mouth, splitting his lips against his teeth. Before he could recover, I grabbed him by the throat and shoved him into the trunk. Bull slammed the lid.

  * * *

  Riding the tram back to the bus station, Bakr scanned outside, looking for a threat. Pulling into the station, he saw two cars drive into the parking lot out front. One continued to the far side of the parking lot, the other stopped short about seventy-five meters from the entrance. He saw the men from the cars fanning out, two headed toward the train station up the street and two headed into the bus station. He saw the man from Guatemala. He began to believe the man was the devil. He began to sweat.

  He told the tram driver he had forgotten something at his hotel, then sat in the back, behind the crush of people boarding. Riding back to the city center, he considered his options. Beyond anything else, he didn’t want to waste the device. Using it here would only kill several hundred, mostly Bosnians or other Eastern Europeans. He’d be lucky to kill a single Zionist. The impact would be minimal. Even so, the thought was growing in his mind. It was an eventuality that had to be considered. The man from Guatemala wasn’t going to stop, and somehow he seemed to know wherever Bakr went.

  He left the tram one stop early and proceeded north into the city, pulling out the number Juka had given him. Maybe someone would answer and get him out of here. He listened to the phone ring, then go to voice mail. He hung up without leaving a message.

  He reached a walking promenade filled with people, all moving to the west, and remembered the ceremony. A germ of an idea began to form.

  * * *

  “Any ideas?” Knuckles asked.

  “Not really. Maybe it’s time to pull in the Bosnian authorities.”

  “How the hell are we going to do that? And not give up the Taskforce? What are we going to tell them? ‘Be on the lookout for a swarthy man with a backpack’? We don’t have a picture and we don’t even know his real name.”

  We had finished our search of the bus and train station, and Carlos was nowhere to be found. I was certain he hadn’t come here, and now we didn’t have a thread to pull.

  Knuckles said, “Maybe he went to the airport after all.”

  “Maybe, but once he got there he’d see all of the security for the dignitaries and go away.”

  We both stopped and looked at each other, a terrible truth dawning on us.

  “Shit — he’s got a perfect target right here. We need to find out about that ceremony.”

  Knuckles called the pilots and had them get on the SATCOM to the rear for some answers. Within minutes, his phone rang. When he hung up, I knew it was going to be bad.

  “It’s a formal ceremony for the fifteenth anniversary of the Markale mortar attacks. They’re putting up a monument. France, England, and Germany will all have representatives here.”

  Great. A perfect target.

  Knuckles continued. “Worse than that, the secretary of state is representing the United States. He’s on the ground now.”

  “What? How could you guys deploy here and not know that? Jesus.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to come here. He’s supposed to be with the president on a goodwill tour. I’ve got that schedule and this isn’t on it. Apparently, it just came up.”

  “Is it just him? Is the president here as well?”

  “No, it’s an entourage, but the SECSTATE’s the biggest name.”

  “If this is someone’s late-breaking good idea, the Secret Service didn’t have a lot of prep time for security. When’s the ceremony?”

  “It’s going to happen within the next hour.”

  Before I could say anything else, the phone we had taken from the safe house began to ring inside Knuckles’s backpack.

  * * *

  Bakr stopped a passerby, asking, “Who’s coming to the ceremony?”

  “A lot of people. President Silajdzic is going to speak.”

  “So it’s all Bosnians? Why all the security?”

  The man looked at Bakr with contempt. “Of course not. France and Britain have representatives here. The American secretary of state is speaking. The world understands the importance of this day.”

  All Bakr heard was the guest list, his mind now working in overdrive. He began following the crowds to the west on the Ferhadija promenade, plotting his options. He knew that the odds of crossing into Israel were now slim. They were probably on high alert. Even if he could make it, he had no way to implicate the Iranians. He would make the news, but little else.

  The deciding factor was the man from Guatemala. He was relentless, and Bakr felt in his heart the man would find him sooner rather than later.

  He made up his mind. An attack here would have more symbolism. He could strike at least three leaders of the far enemy. His weapon would mainly kill Bosniak Muslims at the ceremony, but that in itself would be symbolic. They were cozying up to the far enemy and literally thanking the Great Satan for his so-called help. Because of this, they invited takfir, and would feel the repercussions. The attack would show what happens to Muslim kafir who stray from the path. It might even fracture the relationship between the West and this Muslim community, forcing them to embrace their true heritage. Forcing them back onto the path.

  He reached within eyesight of the market and s
aw a crowd of about five hundred. Eighty meters away rested the raised platform the guests would use. A wall of security was checking everyone that entered into the inner ring. He recognized the security perimeter for what it was: standoff protection from a conventional man-packed explosive device. The distance was certainly good enough to thwart his blast, but the perimeter would provide no help at all against his poison.

  * * *

  Knuckles dug out the safe house phone from his backpack.

  I said, “Don’t answer it. That’s got to be him.”

  Once it registered with a number, Bull began working to find its location with his special phone. Wthin seconds, he had a grid. Plotting it with a GPS, he said, “He’s downtown.”

  I pulled out a tourist map, marking the location, then found the Markale Market. “He’s in that area. He’s going to hit the ceremony.”

  Knuckles said, “Maybe. Maybe not. If we go in right now and get compromised, we may spook him into using the device. Maybe we should wait and see if he beds down tonight, then hit him with his guard down.”

  Knuckles had a point. We could make this a self-fulfilling prophecy if we screwed up. We now had a way to track him, as long as he kept that phone. It would be much, much easier to take him down in a hotel room than on a crowded street. On the other hand, any moment could bring a mushroom cloud. Decision time.

  101

  Bakr surveyed the wind patterns of the open air market. The entire area was covered by a high overhead roof of galvanized steel, but a slight breeze could still be felt coming out of the east. That is where he would set the weapon off. He moved around the crowd until he was situated as close as he could be to the security perimeter without gathering any undue curiosity. He stood for a few minutes, trying to appear as if he were just passing the time, when he noticed one of the security personnel glance his way a third time. He began to walk away, looking for somewhere he could wait that was close enough to allow him to get in position rapidly. Finding nothing, he kept moving. Eventually, he came upon a public restroom. It wasn’t nearly close enough, but would have to do as a staging point. He was sure he would be able to hear the announcements when the ceremony began. Moving into a stall, he sat down and locked the door, waiting to hear the Great Satan’s secretary of state taking the stage.

  * * *

  In the end, the potential for a massive amount of civilian deaths — at a ceremony commemorating the murder of civilians from a previous heinous act — made up my mind. The symbols of power from the United States and other European countries provided a target for Carlos to use, but as always, it would be the innocents who paid the price.

  “We need to take him out. Now. It’s a risk, but I don’t think he’s going to wait. The target’s too juicy, and he’s on the run.”

  Knuckles nodded. I knew he would see it my way. “Let’s load up.”

  We drove along the river toward downtown Sarajevo, then cut in north to the grid of Carlos’s last-known location. We were only allowed to go a short distance before hitting a roadblock, with all cars being turned away.

  “Should’ve expected this,” Knuckles said. “No way are they going to let a potential VBIED near the ceremony.”

  “At least they have some sort of security going on. Turn around and park it on the river. That’ll only be about three blocks south.”

  After we had parked the vehicles, while Bull worked to get a new grid for Carlos, I said, “What about Lucas?”

  “What about him?”

  “We can’t leave him alone. He’s no pushover and a slippery bastard to boot. Someone needs to cover him, or he’ll screw this whole thing up.”

  “I agree,” he said, “but we can’t afford to leave a teammate to babysit his ass. We need every man on this.”

  “Call the pilots. Get one of them to come here and swap cars.”

  Knuckles grimaced. “Pike, I can’t do that. I can’t risk the cover of the bird. Those guys are pilots, period. You know that.”

  “Shit, man, that guy’s running around with a damn bomb on his back! Fuck the damn rules.” I stopped, holding up my hands. “Okay, okay. I’ll tell Jennifer to come get him. She can switch cars and take him back to the 427. The pilots can guard him until we get there. Can they at least do that?”

  “Yeah, they can do that.”

  I called Jennifer and gave her instructions, a little piqued at Knuckles’s rigid adherence to procedures. This is one time he should be flexing like Gumby. I let it go, knowing he had a point. Compromise the pilots and we wouldn’t be able to fly out of here. Jennifer’s switched on enough to get the job done. For the first time I realized that I trusted her as much as the Taskforce members themselves.

  By the time I hung up the phone, Bull had pinpointed the new location. “He’s just south of the market. Maybe one hundred and fifty meters away from it.”

  I looked at the map and said, “That’s straight north from here. He’s about two blocks up.”

  Knuckles gave final instructions, splitting the team into two-man elements. “Bull, you and Retro come in from east to west. Pike and I will come up from south to north. The rest of you box in from west to east. Hopefully we’ll pin him in. Everyone, remember he’s got a WMD. Whatever you do, don’t hit the pack or his chest. If you have to shoot, go for the head.”

  The problem with the cell phone track was that it only gave us a snapshot in time. We couldn’t do any real-time tracking, so whatever we had was only as good as the time we had it. Knuckles and I began walking up the sidewalk to the north, scanning the crowds. The other men were quickly lost from sight as they began their part of the mission.

  Without any traffic, the streets were teeming with people going toward the ceremony. Great. Rush hour. The crowds were a definite problem. For one, it forced me to hide the UMP under my jacket, the folding stock jammed into my armpit. I’m not going to be the fastest gun in the West running around like this. For another, I could be walking right by the terrorist and not see him. Moving closer to the market, Knuckles and I both heard the loudspeakers signaling the start of the ceremony.

  * * *

  Bakr heard the announcer droning on and on about the significance of the day, first in Serbo-Croatian, then in English. Bakr waited, straining to hear any announcement that the dignitaries had arrived. He couldn’t afford to leave and return. The man from Guatemala was somewhere close. He could feel it. When he left this bathroom, it would be straight to the eastern corner of the security perimeter. Once there, he’d continue on, past any demands that he halt. Only when someone drew his weapon would he trigger the device.

  He heard a different voice, then the words he was waiting for: the introduction of the guests of honor. He squeezed his eyes shut and said a silent prayer. Pulling the detonator from his pack, he conducted a self-test of the system. When it registered green, he opened the door and stepped into the light.

  He was shocked by the number of people who had shown up in the time he had spent in the bathroom. He would have to fight his way through the crowd to get close enough to ensure a successful strike. Setting off the device this far away would kill a lot of people but would most likely miss the targets, as they would vacate before they were hit with the downwind hazard. Pushing his way east, he continually scanned for anyone not focused on the stage. His confidence grew as the crowd cheered the speaker, with no threat in sight. He saw the perimeter fence with the security personnel ahead. Even the guards were staring at the stage. He pushed around a happy group, clearly having started the celebration early, and saw two men at the edge of the perimeter, both scanning the crowd as if they were looking for a friend.

  He studied them before continuing, looking for anything out of place. They wore jackets, which wasn’t unusual, but the bulges on their hips told a different story. Panic began to close in again. How had they tracked him so successfully? He backed up into the group and turned around, considering his options. Before he could decide, one of the drunks in the group pushed him, demanding he get ou
t of the way. He bumped into another man, who pushed him back again. The scuffle was drawing attention he didn’t need, making his choice for him.

  He fought his way clear and went back the way he had come, attempting to get out of the crowd and circle to the west just to get close to the perimeter. He felt sweat popping out all over his body, thinking about what he was going to do if he was seen. Should he simply run? Attempt to make it inside the perimeter? No. They would kill him. He had heard the gunfire and seen the rifles from earlier. The only thing worse than killing a few measly hundred Eastern Europeans with his device would be dying with it strapped to his back, unfired.

  He pulled the remote detonator out of his pocket, holding it tightly in his hands. Breathing deeply, he skirted the crowd. He saw the bathroom he had used to hide. He saw the door open about fifteen meters away. He instantly recognized the person exiting. The man was looking away, but he would soon turn and see him. Bakr frantically searched but there was nowhere to run, no way out through the crowds. Swiveling back, he met the eyes of the devil. Time slowed. The man reached underneath his jacket, bringing something out. Bakr raised the detonator, whispering, “Allahu Akhbar.” He pressed the button.

  * * *

  I felt a shock of adrenaline fire to my soul. I was staring straight into the face of the terrorist. I began to draw the H&K UMP, seeing the terrorist raise his hands with the detonator I had seen in the hotel room. Why the fuck didn’t I smash that thing? My weapon snagged on the interior lining of the leather jacket. I knew I was dead. I might survive the blast, provided the man hadn’t embedded the device with shrapnel, but couldn’t get away from the poison, whatever it was. I yanked the weapon, tearing the lining, watching the terrorist with morbid fascination, like a man stuck on the tracks and seeing the train bearing down on his car. I saw him press the detonator, but nothing happened. The idiot forgot to arm it first. The terrorist realized it as well, frantically working the buttons on the device.