Instigator_An Iniquus Romantic Suspense Mystery Thriller

by Fiona Quinn

  Christen tapped her elbow against her Glock. It was reassuring to know it was there on her hip if she needed it. “The Royal Airforce are doing a hell of a job though, precision strikes even with the buildings packed together the way they are on those narrow streets.” She caught Nick’s gaze. “Grey was darned lucky that his prison had the wide parameter. It’s definitely not the typical set up in this part of the world.”

  “You mean the Deltas were lucky. You’d have hovered above the compound, and they’d be trying to work the plasma torch while swinging on a rope ladder, slapping into the wall. That or they’d just have to go down and shoot the guy. I’m betting they couldn’t risk his intel getting out. Otherwise, why’d we get sent on that harebrained mission? Fly down the street and count windows. Shit.”

  “Shooting the guy would be a hell of a bad calling card for the intel community. Would you sign on if you thought someone from your team might show up and kill you by design?”

  Nick shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe. I’d appreciate a bullet from a buddy if I were about to be tortured to death.” He reached out to adjust the fabric on the peg. “Whatever Grey knows must be epic or this rescue would never have gone down the way it did. I bet your stunt-flying makes front page.”

  “That would be a disaster on so many levels.”

  They were both quiet for a moment, circulating their own thoughts.

  Nick stood and brushed dirt from the knees of his flight suit and hands. “Seriously? Humping sheep?”

  “The movie, 13 Hours.”

  “Ah so basically we were on the same page. Our collective subconscious has figured out this mission is FUBAR.”

  Chapter Six

  Gator

  Tuesday, The Dodoma Rock Hotel, Dodoma Tanzania

  “Gentlemen,” General Elliot said once the three Strike Force operatives were alone in the room. “We’ve signed a joint contract to provide CIA and the Department of the Treasury Office of Intelligence and Analysis operatives our support on an upcoming mission. You will be given the details of the operation that you need at each progression.”

  “Yes, sir.” Strike Force Commander Striker Rheas answered for their team, though he’d be flying home with the rest of their men.

  “The first stage is going to require some acting skills and seat-of-the-pants thinking. Our clients have identified a businessman, William Davidson, as a person of interest. We need to get you on his security team.”

  “He’s travelling without security?” Striker asked.

  “He has a five-man team with him. A chauffeur, and a man who watches his back. The other three cover his wife and three of his grown children, all males. To expand that team with two more operatives, the CIA is contriving to get the daughter and two of her friends to pay an unexpected visit to dear old dad. Our clients believe that given the time it takes to fly someone in from the US, if our target can find help readily at hand, he might take the bait and hire our guys on.”

  Blaze posted his forearms on his thighs and leaned in.

  “How do we finagle this?” Gator asked.

  “William Davidson, has to discover you. It has to be his idea.” The general said. “Imagine that you’re out and about. Suddenly, you find yourself in a situation where you’re separated from your security but two Americans, who happen to have close protection credentials, jump in and save the day.”

  “Impressive,” Striker said.

  The general’s face shifted ever so slightly to show the shadow of a smile. “We hope so. Right now, it’s our best opportunity. If this doesn’t work out then the operation will become a shadow detail and that becomes problematic, quick. The CIA operations officers will stage when an opportunity presents itself. There will be no comms between you two. Nutsbe with Panther Force will be your support while Deep Del Toro is on R&R. You have Nutsbe’s direct number.” He waited for a “yes, sir” from Blaze and Gator. “You know the security protocols, you can contact Nutsbe for mundane information with a simple phone call. Anything to do with sensitive materials will need to go through encrypted channels. We know for a fact that FVEY has ears on Davidson. While the members of Five Eyes are our allies, we don’t need them to be looking over our shoulder on this one.”

  “Yes, sir,” the men said.

  “This first stage will take place in Dar es Salaam on the Tanzanian coast. We have you scheduled to fly there this evening and get your bearings. Tomorrow, according to our intel, the wife and three sons will be going to Zanzibar for the day. If the family follows the protocol that’s been in place up until now, that will leave Davidson with his chauffeur/body guard and his close protection operative. My guess is that this is going to go down tomorrow. The family is scheduled to move to their next destination in two days’ time, so the window to get you onto their team is a small one. Don’t miss it. You won’t know the other operatives, but they’ll know you. You’re going to have to do surveillance and when you see things cooking, you need to go in and pull the pot off the stove, do your citizen-hero act.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gator and Blaze said.

  “Remember, you’re fighting CIA operations officers. You don’t break our client. Play nice. It’s an acting job. Handguns are illegal in Tanzania, I doubt they’ll flash one around. That doesn’t mean if they do, you let them put their sights on you and pull the trigger, so you can block the bullets with your Wonder Woman cuffs. Just last month some retired librarian was helping the cops in a shoot/don’t shoot training scenario, and the cop double tapped her in the chest only to find out he had live ammo. She’s dead. I don’t need to remind you, we never play around with bullets even in training.”

  The general paused, and the men filled in the space with a “Yes, sir.”

  “You are to behave as if everything is the real deal. Duck the punches. Soft taps instead of takedown slugs. Get them on the ground and tied up or get the executive bundled out the back. I don’t know how to advise you. But everyone should be able to brush off the dust and go home without injuries at the end of the day. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” Blaze replied.

  “Just follow along, wait for something to go down, run in, and play hero.” Gator said. “Then we wait for the job offer. Do we give them a card? Do we negotiate a contract?”

  “Give them a card. Announce that you’re Iniquus operatives. We’ve booked you into rooms in Davidson’s hotel, where he’s meeting with the Tanzanian Department of Energy. You can tell them you put your principal on a plane to Europe, and your assignment is over. You’re taking a week of R&R before returning to the States. Let them know what hotel you’re in. I’m sure they’ll be knocking at your door. If all works according to plan, they can sign a close protection contract with us here at Headquarters. We’ll just email it over to them to sign and hand back to you. The call from his daughter Christen won’t come in until after the staged event.”

  Blaze shot Gator a grin.

  “Once you’re in place, you’ll get your next step. As always, good luck. Make Iniquus proud.” The monitor went dark.

  Blaze slapped a hand across Gator’s chest. “Fighting in public on foreign soil. This should be well-received by the locals.”

  “I’m sure if law enforcement gets involved, CIA will pull you out of whatever jail they stick you in. Don’t fight the cops.” Striker said.

  “You serious, Striker?” Gator raised a brow. “The CIA will come to our rescue? That don’t sound plausible.”

  Chapter Seven

  Christen

  Tuesday, The wrong side of the Iraqi-Syrian Border

  The team from the Black Hawk were climbing the hill, looking like pack mules. Christen followed after them as they slid under the helicopter camouflage. Their supplies rolled out of the men’s arms onto the ground, and they plopped their packs down, then themselves. The heat of the sun was deflected by the reflective quality of their tarp that made a tent over the Little Bird’s rotors. It was demonstrably cooler under here. The July heat in Syria was no joke. It felt like i
t could bore a hole through your hat down into your head and fry the contents of your brain.

  Christen looked the men over. One Delta had his arm in a splint and was rigging a triangular bandage to hold it to his chest now that he’d dropped his pack. Christen moved over to give him an assist. Their uniforms had drying blood stains. White bandaging peeked out of the rips in their BDUs, abrasions, cuts, and bruising on their hands and faces, one guy looked like he’d broken his nose. All in all, a damned good outcome.

  Prominator was one hell of a pilot. She knew the Night Stalkers would debrief his landing, so they could all learn from this event. Christen was looking forward to that hot wash where they’d dissect the mission. But now? She wanted to hear what the Deltas had to say about their present situation.

  One of the operators from the Black Hawk caught her eye. “Where’s Jeopardy, Nitro and Grey?”

  The Deltas hadn’t introduced themselves by name. They never did. Sometimes Christen would catch a call name, but, for the most part, they were just “the customer.”

  “Someone took off in that direction.” Christen pointed. A Delta she hadn’t met stood next to her. His eyes travelled along her arm and out into the distance as she pointed. “And another took off down by the copse of trees behind the boulder with your PC.” Christen used the term for precious cargo, a non-military person that needed rescue or security while moving from Point A to Point B. “My turn,” she said, turning her attention to the Delta to her right. “Where’s your pilot and co-pilot? Are they okay?”

  “They’re banged up like the rest of us. They’re down with the Black Hawk figuring out if they can call for some parts and get it up in the air again. I’m told you’re here instead of in the air because of a fuel problem. You’re completely dry?” he asked.

  “No, but I don’t have enough to get to base. Better that we stick together. Consolidate weapons and manpower.”

  He nodded.

  They didn’t call them the silent professionals for nothing.

  Moving over to the open door on her bird, he looked the fuel tank over. “I thought these were supposed to withstand handgun fire.”

  “Not withstand. Resist. Up to a fifty-caliber round. Looks to me like the shooter knew that too. See here? He was aiming for a single target on the tank. He hit it repeatedly, weakening the structure until he finally got some rounds through.”

  He grimaced. “Good thing it didn’t explode like in the movies.”

  “Impossible,” she said. “But you knew that already.”

  He winked and stretched out his hand for a shake. “T-Rex.”

  “D-day,” she said.

  He moved his hand to the fuel container and slid his finger into one of the holes. He ran his hand over the surface, around the sides. “This is it for damage? Maybe we could patch it and haul the fuel from the Black Hawk. Are you running the same kind of fuel through these engines?”

  “Same. JP-4. We’d need at least thirty gallons, forty would be better. Safer.”

  “Dogs,” a whisper came over the radio.

  “Crap,” would be the nicest of the exclamations that was muttered by the men around her.

  Christen could hear the ting ting tinging of bells echoing through the craggy hills. It didn’t seem to her like they were coming any closer.

  “We’ve got two five-gallon containers we could syphon into,” T-Rex said. “A couple of trips, and we can get you and your co-pilot, Grey and four of my worst wounded out of here. I’ll send Ty with you to be your firepower.” He pointed at another giant of a human-being. It looked like Ty could scoop up an adversary and eat him for breakfast, no weapons necessary.

  Christen looked around T-Rex’s broad shoulder at where his team splayed out in the dirt, working with their weapons. “How badly are they injured?” she asked under her breath.

  “Walking wounded, they could fight if need be.”

  “So that leaves you with—”

  “Plenty. We’ll do fine. Let’s figure out—”

  “Kid,” a man’s whisper rose from the radio into the air.

  Again, with the curses.

  “Who is that?”

  “Jeopardy.” T-Rex’s shift was microscopic, but his energy brightened, became more intense, focused.

  He tapped two men on the shoulder as he walked by. “You’re with me. Ty, you figure out how to keep some fuel in this bird. I don’t care if someone has to ride back to base with their fingers shoved in there like the Little Dutch Boy with his thumb in the dyke. A fat wad of chewing gum if it comes down to it,” he said over his shoulder.

  T-Rex and his two men took off down the hill.

  Christen looked around. She felt like she should be doing something, but the something she should be doing didn’t occur to her. She’d already done everything she could to set up her helicopter for the refueling bladders she expected the rescue crew to bring in from base. She checked her watch. It was thirteen hundred hours. She didn’t expect help before twenty-two hundred hours when it would be dark enough to hide the Black Hawks in the night sky. The next nine hours stretched in front of her felt like an eternity. Could they stay hidden until help arrived?

  ***

  Christen lay on her stomach peering through her binoculars under a slim space that separated their camouflaging invisibility fabric from the ground. A little girl tipped her head to the side and blinked. Her little brown toes were dusted with grey dirt. The sandals she wore were too big for her feet. Her eyes were dark and filled with curiosity. “Curiosity killed the cat,” tumbled over itself in Christen’s brain as she wished the girl would get the wayward goat and go away. The girl tipped her head back, her mouth wide. Christen anticipated a scream. But the child’s head dunked forward in a powerful arc as she sneezed violently then wiped her nose on the sleeve of her cotton dress with faded roses dancing around the hem. She adjusted the red bandana, that was folded into a triangle and tied around her cascade of tangled black curls, as she focused once again on the expanse in front of her.

  Christen held her breath as she watched the child try to interpret what she was seeing. Christen’s mind went back to one of her first interviews when she was applying to the Night Stalkers.

  “You’re on a mission of vital importance.” The colonel had said. “A child stumbles upon your position. What do you do? Do you kill her? Take her prisoner? Or do you let her go?”

  Christen had said, “It depends on the circumstances, sir. All are viable answers just not equally so. During a mission, I expect I will weigh the choices and come to the best conclusion I can, given the circumstances.” What Christen had thought was: I’ll be in the air. It’ll be night. All the kids will be sleeping. This scenario doesn’t pertain to me.

  One of the Deltas crouch walked toward her, whispering into his comms. A sniper rifle in his hands. A silencer screwed into place.

  If he took that child down, the sound from the suppressed rifle might blow away with the wind. It just as easily might echo off the rocks and throw the rest of the people who were with the herd into a panic. Then the search party. Then the retaliation. This Delta wasn’t on the elite team for nothing. He knew all the ramifications of his actions. And all the rules of engagement. Christen trusted his expertise. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t feeling the adrenaline. And not the happy rush that she loved so much. This was the crappola kind that comes when she was truly at risk of life and limb, or when she watched an innocent get caught up in the event.

  They lay there, side by side, watching the child. In this moment, their fates were intertwined, and Christen didn’t even know the guy’s name.

  Christen wondered what the helicopter looked like from where the girl stood. Did the breeze ripple the fabric making it look like a portal between the worlds? Did it glisten, somehow, in the intensity of the sunlight, making this space look enchanted? The child looked up at the sky as if she were pondering. She pointed a finger then traced it down to the ground over to the right. That’s where the Black Hawk had dr
opped. But Christen knew the Black Hawk was too far down the hill for it to be in the child’s view. The girl turned and faced toward Christen again and scratched at her bandana, pointed at the sky and traced her finger down until she was pointing just to the left of where Little Bird rested.

  That was strange. Maybe this child saw the helicopters land, and she wondered how they had disappeared. If not, why the pointing?

  Maybe their camouflaged helicopter didn’t look like anything at all from where she stood.

  Maybe she just happened to stop there.

  Just happened to look in their direction.

  Just happened to pause.

  The child turned and ran away.

  Sigh. Maybe not.

  The sniper guy was reporting into his radio, so his team was up to speed.

  “Move it,” T-Rex growled under his breath. Two of the operators who had been bringing up fuel cans scrambled out under the corner that had been unpegged. They carried an empty five-gallon container with them. T-Rex turned and pointed and emphatic finger at the plastic jug, filled with fuel they’d left behind. “Get that into the funnel. Go.”

  One man stood holding the funnel steady, another lifted the forty-pound canister and tilted it slowly.

  “Are you ready to go?” This time T-Rex’s finger stabbed the air in front of Christen.

  “As soon as we’re fueled,” she said. This canister was the fourth to go in. Twenty gallons was half of what she needed in place. She wasn’t a hundred percent about the holding power of the patch Ty had rigged. Especially as the weight and pressure inside the fuel tank increased.

  “Son of a bitch,” Jeopardy was back on his comms. “We’ve been spotted. The girl ran to a man. He pulled her up on his shoulders and now they’re all high-tailing it.”