by Ty Patterson
Now!
Wiry was leaning forward, his left hand dipping down, his stance open for a fraction.
Zeb surged forward, his head moving away from the slice, left fist punching the knife arm at the elbow, right palm coming up and crushing the attacker’s throat.
He swiveled, his back turning, his hands sliding down the knife hand, grabbing it, using his momentum to heave Wiry over his hip and send him crashing against the bar’s wall.
A thin scream burst through the man before he slid down and lay motionless.
Zeb watched the three men for a moment. The first two were groaning and clutching their limbs. One of them had puked his guts out, the bitter smell carrying in the air.
Wiry rolled slowly to his knees, a hand scrabbling on the ground to find his knife. His head came up, baleful eyes staring at Zeb.
‘You had a choice,’ Zeb told him pitilessly. ‘You could have stayed out.’ He kneed him in the face and walked out into the darkness.
Chapter Four
Zeb was vacationing in the vastness of the Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho: more than two million contiguous acres of rivers, mountains, dense forests and plains.
The Main Salmon River ran near the wilderness’s northern boundary, and its canyon, six thousand three hundred feet deep, had earned it the name River of No Return.
The region was home to wolves, black bears, deer, elk, rattlesnakes and several other kinds of wildlife. What clinched it for Zeb was the scarcity of humans in the area.
He had set off from his hometown, New York, and driven across the Midwest and the northern states, and left his vehicle behind in Salmon, Idaho. He hiked into the wilderness for days until he found the largest ponderosa pines he’d seen, the farthest from any trails. And there he had set up camp.
Stanley, the nearest settlement, with a population of under seventy, was a good few hours’ walk away. The spot couldn’t have been more perfect.
There had been no missions for him at The Agency, the black-ops outfit he worked for. His crew, called the Warriors in some circles, were on their downtime too. That had made it easy for him to get away and enjoy the company of the elements of the earth and the wildlife.
And then it had come crashing down, on the day of the fight.
* * *
The argument had started for no reason and played out like they did in old Westerns.
He had hiked to Stanley to stock up on supplies. There wasn’t much to the town; there wouldn’t be, with that size of population.
There was Eva Falls Avenue, which seemed to double as Main Street, with various establishments on each side of the street: a chamber of commerce, a post office, a hotel, a general store, and a few other buildings.
He bought what he needed at the store and, when the sun dipped behind the mountains, went to the solitary bar for a drink.
There were a few pick-up trucks in the parking lot and a gleaming red SUV with New York plates. He didn’t pay it much attention as he headed inside.
There weren’t many people inside: three men lined up against the small, dark wood counter—Wiry, Sour Breath, and their friend—a couple of men playing cards at a table, and an older man snoozing in a corner.
Zeb eased himself up to the bar, his shoulder brushing that of Sour Breath’s.
The man muttered something unintelligible, turned his head to glare at Zeb, and reluctantly gave way.
Drunk, Zeb thought.
He ordered a freshly squeezed juice and heard a snigger from the three men.
‘Juice,’ Sour Breath mimicked and slapped his thigh in exaggerated laughter.
He turned when he felt Zeb’s stare. ‘What? You don’t like a man-like drink?’ he challenged.
‘Mind your own business,’ Zeb replied, curtly. He had a long hike ahead of him, in the dark, and was eager to get away.
‘I would, if you didn’t yell your order in my ear.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You did,’ Sour Breath’s face turned red.
The bartender returned with Zeb’s drink and interrupted them.
Zeb would have normally taken his time, soaking up the ambience.
Not now.
He emptied his glass and was headed to the door when a hand grabbed his shoulder.
‘I’m talking to you,’ Sour Breath said, following him, his friends close behind.
‘Buddy, I came here for a drink, just like you. Why don’t you get back to enjoying your evening?’
‘Not until you apologize.’
‘And pay for our drinks,’ the third man spoke up.
‘Why would I do any of that?’
‘Because you were rude,’ Sour Breath said with a smirk.
Zeb looked him up and down and sized up his friends.
Nope, he hadn’t seen them before. They seemed to be travelers. Their shoes were dusty, jeans stained. Their accents were unmistakable, from his state.
That SUV’s theirs.
Nobody in the bar was paying them any attention. The bartender had disappeared, presumably to the kitchen, while the card-players were engrossed in their game. The sleeping man hadn’t stirred.
Nope, can’t be a setup. Not in the middle of nowhere in Idaho. No one knows who I am, here. No one other than my team knows where I am.
He shrugged off Sour Breath’s hand and went swiftly to the door.
He was done talking. This was why he liked the wilderness. Blackbears and wolves didn’t ask him to pay for their drinks.
The men followed him to the parking lot, which was to the side of the bar, and that was when Zeb knew they were angling for a fight.
Chapter Five
After dispatching the men, he crossed the street and, from the shadows of a shuttered building, watched them.
There was no movement for a long while, and then Wiry stumbled out under the single light shining on the bar’s entryway.
He said something, and presently, Sour Breath and the third man came staggering out.
They stood swaying for a moment. Then two of them jumped back, cursing, when Sour Breath bent over and retched.
They grabbed him and hustled him to their vehicle, the SUV, swearing all their way.
Zeb drew out his phone and snapped their pictures. He noted the SUV’s plate and waited till its red lights vanished in the night.
Then he set off for his camp.
* * *
His base was west of the Middle Fork Salmon River, a long distance from the Salmon Mountains to the west.
He reached it at one am and stood motionless against a ponderosa nearby, watching, listening.
There was a stream a couple of miles away, too far for him to hear the rushing water.
The forest was quiet, but not utterly silent. Wind blew through it and trees sighed. Nightlife rustled in bushes.
No hostile presence, however. His radar didn’t tingle.
He smiled wryly.
Just some tourists who had too much to drink.
He emerged from the canopy of trees and went to his dwelling, a crude hut fashioned from fallen logs, with a door woven from boughs and leaves. Strips of leather that he had carried with him to this spot served as hinges.
It had taken him three days of painstaking effort to build it, and he had loved every moment.
The floor of the hut was packed, hardened earth, and from its roof hung two battery-powered lanterns.
On the floor was a sleeping bag, and next to it his gear. A backpack that contained a spare Glock, ammo, a couple of knives, more combat and medical equipment, his screens and several battery packs. A larger bag held his hiking gear.
He removed his jacket and brought out one of his screens. He booted up his satellite phone to connect to Werner, the supercomputer in their Columbus Avenue office in New York. He ran the SUV’s plates and put his photos of the men in the bar through a facial recognition program.
Werner responded quickly. None of the three was on any watchlist. Sour Breath was a store
owner in the Bronx and had a few arrests for DUI, but nothing major. His friends were clean. One of them worked as a manager in a retail store, while the other was an insurance salesman.
No threat. Zeb shut down his devices and settled down to sleep.
* * *
The banging woke him up instantly, the Glock under his bag sliding into his palm as if by magic.
Three am, the dial on his wrist told him.
The door shuddered as someone pounded it again.
He turned off the lamps, plunging the room into darkness, stood to one side, and opened the door carefully.
His mouth opened in surprise when a figure stumbled inside, fell, and remained motionless.
He crouched down and froze.
It was a girl.
Young. He ran his eyes over her swiftly. No weapons.
She didn’t look like she was a threat.
He snapped a glance outside. Nothing. No movement. No other person.
He left the hut and walked around in widening circles, alert, prepared.
He didn’t come across anyone else.
He went back inside, and when he turned the lamps to full brightness, his insides clenched and a coldness gripped him.
The girl looked to be in her teens. Fourteen or fifteen years old, he guessed.
Her eyes were open, but she was clearly in shock.
He bent next to her, his lips tightening when he saw that her face and hands were scratched and bleeding. Her nails were muddy and a couple of them were torn.
He carried her gently—she was slim and didn’t weigh much—to his sleeping bag. She began to mumble as he laid her down, a continuous stream of sound that made no sense to him initially.
He bent his ear to her mouth, and when he finally made out the words, he knew his vacation was over.
‘Namir,’ she said, ‘He killed Dad. Many men. Behind me.’
Chapter Six
Several months earlier
* * *
Namir’s escape had been planned, but not solely by his men.
The plan had been hatched when five men met in a remote village in the Bekaa. Each had arrived in a dusty vehicle filled with armed gunmen.
If American intelligence or any Western nation had known of the meeting, a drone would have blitzed the venue. Because the five were some of the most wanted men in the world.
However, Western intelligence wasn’t aware of the meeting. Their satellites and drones were focused on the war in Raqqa. They had too much on their hands to pay any attention to a remote, lawless village in Lebanon.
* * *
The five were top commanders of ISIS who had fled to the Lebanese refuge, just over the Syrian border, once Raqqa, the terrorists’ bastion, had been surrounded by the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The commanders had read the tea leaves; they knew what no terrorist dared to speak aloud.
ISIS was finished in Raqqa. Those who were captured would face a brutal end. They wouldn’t receive Western justice. They would be lucky if their ending was swift and painless.
* * *
The eldest of them, Irfan Nawaf Safar, called the meeting to order. Their shooters had emptied the village and had ensured that their discussions wouldn’t be overheard.
‘Any news?’ the youngest leader, Ishaq Ghanem, asked before Safar could speak another word.
Safar’s face turned bleak as he shook his head. ‘There is no radio contact, but you know what’s happening. We are finished in Raqqa. The Americans and the SDF have won.’
‘What about the Supreme Leader?’
Safar’s lips thinned, his face closed, ‘He is alive, well. That’s all anyone needs to know.’
‘That’s it? We give up?’ Ghanem asked angrily.
He flushed when Safar’s eyes turned dark and zeroed in on him.
‘I mean, do we have any plans to hit back?’ he mumbled apologetically.
Safar weighed him for a long while. The young commander had risen fast because he had smarts. He could think strategically and was ruthless; the two qualities didn’t often go together.
‘Why do you think I called this meeting?’ he said, smiling grimly when the others leaned forward in anticipation.
‘Where? How? We hit them in Raqqa? From behind?’ One of them asked.
‘In Mosul. Let’s go there,’ another argued.
‘Let’s attack in Turkey,’ yet another chimed in.
Safar held up a hand to silence them.
‘Do you know why our attacks are successful?’
‘No one can predict them,’ the four answered as one.
‘Yes, but if we want to make their people feel really scared, where do we hit them?’
‘London or America,’ Ghanem answered promptly.
Chapter Seven
Safar nodded. ‘That’s right. But London has already been attacked this year. We need a new target.’
‘America,’ Ghanem’s eyes lit up. Rubbing his hands together unconsciously, he said: ‘I will lead it.’
A disturbance at the door interrupted Safar before he could reply. His head rose angrily when a fighter entered the room unannounced.
‘Shall I bring lunch, sayidi?’ the man stammered.
The older leader relaxed and nodded.
The five commanders waited until their food had been served, a simple meal of lamb and rice with water to wash it down.
Safar wiped his lips when their plates had been cleared and they were alone again. ‘We need a crazed killer. Someone who is capable of doing anything.’
His eyes glittered. ‘Because this attack will have no rules. Our killer will have all the freedom to select his targets.’
‘All our attacks are like that,’ one of the men protested.
‘Yes, but this will be like a series of attacks. Across America.’
‘Like a serial killer on the loose?’ one man asked stupidly.
Safar stared at him balefully. ‘We are terrorists, not serial killers.’
Ghanem snapped his fingers excitedly, ‘You mean our man will move from place to place, killing randomly?’
‘Yes. Everyone will know these are terrorist attacks. But no one will know when the next one is coming, or where.’
‘Isn’t that dangerous?’ one of the leaders shifted uneasily. ‘Our man will be caught sooner or later.’
‘Not if we plan it right. It’s not as if the attacks will continue for months. Just a couple of days. Each one will be violent. They will be spectacular. Our flag will be left at each site.’
He looked around at the men facing him and could sense their excitement, their eagerness.
Each of them had drawn blood in war. They had killed innocents as well as soldiers. They had tortured and raped.
Their ability to kill in cold blood was one reason they had risen to the top of ISIS’s ranks.
‘This one will be in the remote parts of America. Where everyone thinks they are safe. That will make them realize they will never be safe as long as we are alive.’
‘I want to be that killer,’ Ghanem breathed, his face alight. ‘I want to go to America and wreak such savagery on them that they will never forget. You know I can do it.’
Safar regarded him for a moment. Yes, Ghanem was capable of such terror. But he wasn’t who the elder man had in mind.
‘I heard you the first time,’ he told Ghanem sternly. ‘It will be none of us. The killer will be someone not associated with us.’
‘Who, then?’
‘Namir.’
Chapter Eight
It took some time for Safar to convince the remaining commanders of his choice.
‘He’s Hezbollah. Shia. They are our enemies. Why should we use him? We have our own killers,’ Ghanem responded furiously.
‘He was Hezbollah. Everyone knows he hates Christians. He doesn’t care about any other religion. Shia, Sunni, that doesn’t matter to him. And that’s why he is perfect. He is ruthless. He is vicious. He is interested only in money. And no one will s
uspect he is our man,’ Safar retorted.
He spent another hour outlining his case, at the end of which his fellow commanders were on board.
Events moved rapidly after that. Namir’s men were approached, and secretive discussions began.
Namir himself was reached in prison. The Lebanese jail was a highly secure one, but finding prisoners sympathetic to ISIS wasn’t difficult. There were such people in every corner of the world. The prisoners conveyed an oblique message to Namir, who understood it immediately.
He signed up promptly.
Hezbollah and ISIS didn’t see eye to eye and had fought each other in Syria, but to Namir all that didn’t matter.
He had broken away from Hezbollah and formed his own cell, hadn’t he? He was a drug warlord. He wasn’t into feudal warfare.
Getting out of prison? Going to America to kill? Freedom to choose his targets? He would be a free operator once he escaped from prison.
What was there to debate?
So what if it was planned by ISIS? So what that they had threatened to hunt him down if he didn’t carry out his killings in America?
He knew the threat was genuine and that the terrorist organization had long arms.
He also knew he was being used by ISIS. However, none of that mattered.
He had planned to go to America in any case, once he had served his time. The ISIS plan meant that he would be going to the Great Satan sooner rather than later. He could pursue his own agenda.
It all tied up neatly.
He had planned a meeting in America. That meeting could now become part of the ISIS agenda of killing.
‘I am in,’ he replied through the prison pipeline, and began making plans.
ISIS wanted vicious, crazed killings?
He would give them that.
But his meeting would come first.
With Kenton Ashland.
