The Devil's Ransom, page 6
Jennifer said, “Do I need to use bolt cutters? What’s the lock like?”
Carly said, “It’s just a padlock. Why?”
“Because if I walk out with a four-foot skeleton key and cut that lock, I’m going to draw attention. Attention we don’t want. We want to look like we belong there, on that road. What’s the lock like?”
Carly said, “I don’t really know. I didn’t look at it.” And I saw the embarrassment form on her face. She was supposed to be planning the perfect mission, but she’d missed a key ingredient.
Jennifer saw it, too, and said, “No worries. I can pick any padlock they have. It’ll look like I have a key and am supposed to be there. I’ll take the bolt cutters just in case.”
She flicked a glance at me, wondering if she had overstepped her bounds, and I winked. She was spot-on, as usual.
Brett said, “If I see someone tracking you, what’s the call? Blow off the meeting, or continue? Do you want me to interdict them?”
Carly said, “No. Definitely not. If you spot something, let me know, and I’ll wave off the meeting. We’ll reengage at a later time. But I don’t think that will happen. He’s only been here for a day.”
I said, “And us? If we pinpoint the site, call it clear and you enter, and then we see a threat approaching, what do you want from us? What’s the ROE?”
“If Jahn has not shown up yet, I’ll wave him off. If we’re in the meet together, just keep eyes on. But you need to make sure it’s actually a threat. There are a lot of people who wander around the memorial for picnics, and it’s also apparently a little bit of a lover’s lane for the Tajiks. Don’t go calling a threat just because you see some MAMs wandering about. They’re probably just drinking.”
MAM was an acronym for Military Age Male, and she was letting me know there would be plenty running around.
She saw my face, not liking that answer, and she said, “Look, your primary role here is getting him exfiled on the Rock Star bird. The meet itself is secondary. Don’t get in a gunfight because you think a couple of teenagers are a threat. Once I have him in the box, you call for exfil and we all leave as a happy family. The only thing I want from you is early warning of anyone spoiling the meet site. I picked the gazebo because it’s off the beaten path, but if someone’s coming up to it, just give me a call. When they pass, let me know and I’ll enter the kill zone.”
“Kill zone?”
“Sorry. I’ll enter the meet site.”
I looked at her hard, then said, “Why’d you call it that?”
“Pike, no reason. It was just a slip of the tongue from dealing with you knuckle draggers.”
I said, “Yeah, well, don’t use that phrase. It makes me skittish.”
She laughed and said, “Sorry, but this is going to be a walk in the park, literally. I promise.”
Chapter 11
Shakor dialed the phone and waited, hearing it ring endlessly. He thought for a spastic second that the split team had been arrested. And then someone answered, saying, “Who is this?”
“It’s Shakor, you idiot. Couldn’t you see that from the number?”
And then the backpedaling began: “Sorry, sir. I wasn’t sure if I should answer. What’s up?”
“We’ve had to move my team to Uzbekistan. The treasure left on a plane from Tajikistan to parts unknown, but wherever it went, we can’t get there by driving cars without passports. Haqqani is making us some documents from Turkey with a Schengen visa, so we should be able to travel at will, but it will take a day or two.”
“So you’ll travel as Turkish citizens?”
“Yes, that will be the easy part. The hard part will be finding out where that plane landed. We have the tail number of the aircraft that left with the treasure and the national security advisor, but we haven’t tracked its flight path as of yet. We were simply going to track his phone, but we can’t, because your man has it.”
“Jahn Azimi has a government phone? How does that help us? Because I’ll be honest, we have no leads. They didn’t detain him at the airport, and he’s either somewhere in the city, or he’s trying to find a way overland to get out.”
“He’s not getting out overland. He has help from the CIA.”
“How do you know this?”
“Through some light interrogation of the Ghani people who didn’t make it out. They’re doing anything they can to keep their head attached to their neck. It turns out that President Ghani infected every phone on his staff with tracking software in an effort to slow the corruption of his inner circle. Jahn’s phone has something called Pegasus, from Israel, of all places.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means his phone is literally a geolocation recording device. Whoever uses that handset can be tracked. We were stalking the phone through that app because it would lead us to the treasure, but Ahmad Khan gave the phone to Jahn. He’s been communicating with a CIA case officer, and we saw it all. He’s got a meet tonight to flee the city.”
“How sure are you that this is correct?”
“It’s ironclad. We have his phone because Ghani didn’t trust anyone. He installed the spyware, and now we get to see what it’s doing. We have the meet site location. All you have to do is roll him up.”
“Send me the meeting location.”
“I will. But don’t make a grand show out of this. Just take him and be done. The meet site they’ve chosen is away from where the usual tourist crowds hang out. You need to get in and get out.”
“If he’s meeting a CIA controller, it won’t be that easy. They’ll have protocols in place precisely to prevent what you want me to do. What about them?”
“They’ll have overwatch for sure, but I don’t think they’ll treat this like a meeting at a hostile site. The CIA man will be the first to arrive, so it would be better if you could take Jahn before the meeting, but if you can’t, eliminate the threat and then get out.”
“Why can’t I just kill both of them? Be done with this?”
“Haqqani wants Jahn Azimi alive. He wants to administer justice personally. That is your mission. If he is killed, don’t bother coming back, because Haqqani will do to you what he wanted to do to Jahn.”
Chapter 12
Jennifer circled the cable car parking lot, letting us get a quick shot of the atmospherics of the area. The sun was beginning to set, throwing shadows everywhere, but I could still see about twenty cars in the lot, meaning it was going to be crowded up top. Hopefully, the gazebo was as off the beaten path as Carly seemed to think it was. I most definitely would have liked an earlier trip just to conduct a reconnaissance of the area, but the time was too short, so I’d be seeing it for the first time like everyone else.
Jennifer parked, and Carly pointed to an alley leading up the hillside, blocked by a simple length of chain on two steel poles. Carly said, “That’s the road. You can go get a visual of the lock once the team is set and I leave.”
Driving the Rover behind us, Veep pulled into the parking slot to the right. I exited the vehicle and waved him and the rest of the team over to the hood of Jennifer’s vehicle. I said, “Okay, nothing in the plan has changed. Knuckles and I will go up top and get eyes on the gazebo. Veep and Jennifer stay down here to conduct exfil. Brett, you head to the restaurant at the old cable car terminal. Keep eyes on until you see the target take the stairs and give us a call.”
I turned to Carly and said, “I’ll give you a call once I’ve cleared the area and see no threats. You’re the stationary element, right?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the wave-off?”
She held up a hat, saying, “This on my head. No hat, and meeting is a go.”
Every meet had a stationary element that set up the site—usually the one who’d called the meeting, in this case, Carly—and a moving element, the source or asset that was coming to talk. Once the site was set up, an intricate dance would play out, with a far signal indicating whether the meet site was secure or dangerous. In this case, it was a simple hat. Carly bareheaded meant the man could approach. The hat on her head would tell him to keep moving and reestablish contact because there was a threat, which was my job to determine.
His far-side recognition was simply a male with a child. He’d approach, and then the near-side dance would commence. A give-and-take of verbal phrases that would ensure both were who they said they were. Once that was done, Carly would signal me on the radio, and I’d call Jennifer. Twenty minutes later, we’d all be happy campers headed back to our aircraft at the dig. Two hours after that, we’d be in the air, mission complete.
At least that was how it was supposed to work, but the enemy always got a vote, no matter how hard you planned.
I looked at my watch and said, “Guess we’d better get going. Comms check.”
Individually, one by one, each team member called me, ending with Carly. I said, “Good to go.” I turned to Knuckles and said, “Ready?”
“Yeah. Let’s roll.”
Knuckles and I left the vehicles and went toward the cable station. We passed the rusting ticket room, going up some concrete stairs past the defunct cable car, still hanging on its steel towline, stoically waiting on someone to board. Something that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
Knuckles pointed to a second staircase, one that was much wider, with flagstones of granite instead of concrete. It snaked up the hill less steeply than the one next to the cable car, a landing after every tenth step or so. We started up it, seeing at every level a marble monument to the left and right, the pictures of soldiers embedded into the rock like a tombstone. Knuckles said, “What do you suppose that is?”
I said, “I think it’s the pictures of Tajikistan soldiers that received the Soviet Union’s version of the Medal of Honor. But I could be wrong. Either way, it’s dead guys from the war.”
Fifteen minutes later we reached the top, seeing the World War II monument spilled out in front of us, the area having a large amphitheater with the monument itself a long dark granite wall running down the length, gold Cyrillic lettering under a hammer and sickle describing what I assumed was the valiant fight during the war. The amphitheater had a little bit of a crowd, with families eating picnics on blankets and packs of teenagers sitting around like stray cats, smoking cigarettes and sneaking nips from bottles.
I pointed at a path leading away from the memorial, the single track disappearing into the foliage, saying, “Gazebo is supposed to be down that way.”
Knuckles and I took the path and entered the woods, the sounds from the amphitheater becoming muted by the vegetation. Eventually, we reached a small open area on a cliff, the gazebo right on the edge.
Small, maybe fifteen feet across, it was made of black iron with a wooden bench running around the circumference inside. To the left of it was a one-lane blacktop road, running to the back of the memorial itself. To the right the path continued on deeper into the woods, the setting sun causing shadows that made it hard to see. Which was good for us.
I pointed at the road and said, “That’s exfil. Let’s find a place to set up.” We left the path, went behind a patch of scrub, and Knuckles got in the prone, looking under the foliage toward the gazebo. He said, “This’ll work.”
I got down next to him, looking not at the gazebo, but at any avenues of approach behind us. I didn’t want a surprise lurking here in the bushes. The wooded area became much denser behind our position, to the point that we’d definitely hear someone coming from the rear.
The path to the right of the gazebo gave me some concern, but we could see down it a fairly long way, about fifty meters, and it was coming from the bottom of the hill, which meant it wouldn’t be in play. Any threat coming up from the bottom would be pre-planned, which wasn’t in the cards. The only threat we had to worry about was someone following our target into the meet site because they knew who he was. Anyone using that path would be a pack of teenagers sneaking around after sunset, and we were only early warning. All I’d have to do is call off the meet if someone came up.
I got on the net and said, “Meet site is clear. Nobody in the gazebo, and nobody around.”
Carly came back and said, “Thirty minutes until linkup.”
“Then you need to start moving. It took a good fifteen minutes to get up here.”
We settled down behind the copse of bushes and began to wait. I heard Brett call that he saw Carly on the stairs, then after a few minutes saw her coming down the path. By now the sun was below the horizon, but there was enough nautical twilight to see clearly. She sauntered down the dirt track not looking around, not trying to find us, which was expected.
Once she was in the gazebo, she wouldn’t be able to see anything. We were her eyes.
She took a seat on the bench, pulled out a paperback, and began reading. She looked a little out of place—a single female in the gazebo—but not unduly so.
Ten minutes later, Brett called again, saying, “I’ve got the target. Male, about five-ten, with a preteen girl holding his hand. He’s looking around like he’s trying to find the bad man. It’s him.”
Carly said, “Roger that. Pike, status?”
“You’re still good. Nobody on the road or the path. All activity is at the memorial. Brett, any trailers?”
“None so far. He’s leading the child alone. Nobody’s shown any interest.”
Good.
Eventually I made out a man and a child walking down the path in the darkening gloom. I keyed the radio and said, “Target inbound. Walking slow.”
The man stopped short of the gazebo, and Carly stood up, running her hand through her hair, telling him it was okay. He approached, entered, and sat the girl on the bench. He turned to Carly and said a few words. She responded, and I saw him smile in relief.
Knuckles kicked my leg, saying, “Someone coming up the path.”
I focused there and saw three males walking up the trail and talking. Not trying to hide their appearance.
I keyed the radio and said, “Three MAMs inbound. Dressed like locals, talking and laughing. Don’t think they’re a threat.”
The age was a concern. If it had been two males and a ninety-year-old female I’d feel more comfortable.
Carly put the target on the inside of the gazebo bench, then sat next to him, her body the closest to the opening of the iron gazebo. She called the girl forward and began to pretend she was engaging her in conversation.
I got on the net and said, “Koko, Koko, ready for exfil. Start your move. We’ve got activity here.”
Jennifer came back, saying, “We’re on the way. Lock is already defeated. Five minutes out.”
Knuckles said, “MAMs are slowing down outside the gazebo.”
I looked at them and saw the lead man pull something out of his pants. It was long, like a section of pipe, and I recognized it immediately. A suppressed pistol. On the net, I shouted, “Gun, gun, gun!” and saw him put the barrel right between Carly’s eyes.
He pulled the trigger and I saw her beautiful face crater open, the bullet splitting her eyes left and right like someone had driven a spike into her skull. Then her head jerked back, hitting the grating of the gazebo, and I saw her hands fly up.
She flopped over and I stood up, Knuckles right behind me. I heard a car screaming up the hill and yelled into my radio, “Hostile force! Hostile force! Koko, Veep, take them down!”
I burst out of the bushes, Knuckles tearing through to my right, both of us drawing our Glocks from a holster.
Jennifer came back, saying, “We’re not there. Still a minute out.”
I realized the vehicle wasn’t Jennifer just as the window of the car came down. It was the enemy. I felt the wasp-snap of rounds coming by my head. I dove behind a tree, rolled to the right around the trunk, and saw the target and his child being crammed into the back seat. In seconds, it was heading back the way it had come.
Knuckles stood up, running flat out behind the vehicle, blazing away with his pistol in the night, eventually taking a knee and continuing to fire, to no avail. I ran to the gazebo and saw Carly’s shattered body. She was slumped over as if she’d had too much to drink, her head leaking blood in a slow stream like a faucet that hadn’t been turned off all the way.
I heard Knuckles behind me and turned, pushing him away. He tore at my arms and I slammed him like he was a blocking dummy, getting him away from the gazebo, saying, “No, no, no. You don’t want to see it. She’s gone.”
He screamed in my face, a visceral, lethal wail, and I put my leg behind his and flipped him on his back. He hit the ground and began to fight me. I trapped his arms and leaned above him, saying, “Stop. Stop. Stop. We have to get out of here.”
He gained control of his rage and said, “Carly.”
I said, “She’s gone. She’s under diplomatic cover. The CIA is going to have to sort this out.”
I saw headlights, then Jennifer was out of her car, running to me. She saw the body in the dusk of the gazebo and said, “Is that . . . ?”
I hoisted Knuckles to his feet and said, “Yeah, it is. Let’s go.”
Chapter 13
Ahmad Khan shivered on the marble bench, not used to the chill in the room. Sitting in a large foyer of a mountain chalet the size of a castle, there was one other person seated across from him on a duplicate marble bench, the hallway large enough to drive a car through. A younger man of about twenty-five, he didn’t fit the décor—but then neither did Ahmad, his rumpled suit showing the stains from his flight out of Afghanistan.
The guy was dressed in a denim jacket, jeans, and a T-shirt proclaiming some rock band’s tour, with greasy black hair that came down to his shoulders and a pockmarked face from childhood acne. The man never looked up, simply staring at his cell phone as he scrolled through one app after another.
The same Russian with the scar who’d transported him from Tajikistan had brought him here, and like he’d told him when he dropped Ahmad off at the hotel after the final flight, he was simply instructed to wait. Ahmad had plopped down on a bench, and had been sitting ever since.
