Washington, DC
The hot rays of the September sun shone through the tinted windows of the limousine. Novak set the open laptop on the seat of the limo and adjusted the screen so Meeks could see it. The replay of a blossoming orange mini-mushroom cloud danced once more. Leza Dean’s voice-over accompanied the scene.
“And here’s a video of the captured sarin nerve gas being destroyed in a remote area away from the city,” she said. “This was done purportedly to avoid contaminating the area where Muhammad Farouk was killed, although my sources inside US Intelligence told me that he was connected to the foiled terrorist attack.”
The screen shifted again and showed a telescoping close-up of a man dressed in camouflaged pants and shirt, standing in an alleyway, his head tilting back, a startled expression on his face as he looked directly into the camera. The surprise and shock deepened on his face seconds before the screen dissolved into black-and-white static.
“As you can see,” Dean continued, “Farouk was taken totally by surprise at the attack. The nerve gas had already been removed by American operatives prior to his arrival. He was then taken out by a drone strike, as was the sarin gas.”
The picture then switched to her full frontal shot, holding a microphone while standing against the dark backdrop of some desert city.
“Interesting footage, Leza,” the news anchor said. “And safe travels back to the US.”
Dean flashed a radiant smile and thanked the anchor, who then made a summarizing recap statement: “The Defense Department has refused comment on the operation, the apparent death of Muhammad Farouk, or the report that the controversial Aries drone, which has been under scrutiny in the recent congressional oversight committee headed by Congressman William Oglethorpe, was involved. We reached out to the congressman’s office, but he, too, had no comment.”
“That has to be a first,” Meeks said. “Oglethorpe not getting his face out there in front of the damn cameras.”
Novak didn’t mention that the son of a bitch had, in fact, gotten his name attached to the story. Instead he merely smiled.
“Maybe this will convince the Saudis to buy their drones from us instead of the Chinese,” Meeks said. “With all their damn oil money, they can afford to pay a little more.”
Novak didn’t tell him what he already had going with the Saudis. At this point it was still on a need-to-know basis and after all, Meeks was just a bishop in this anthropomorphic game of real-life chess. Well, Novak reconsidered, perhaps he should be a rook instead. He did have girth for it. “Well, our plan to get a little more private funding for the Aries worked perfectly. Our friends in Mexico were very impressed with the footage. I’m sure our friends in Riyadh will take notice, too.”
“Those bastards better.” Meeks laughed. “That was damn impressive, all right. How’d you get it all in such detail?”
“The Howler missile has a video camera attached right up front,” Novak said. “So you can monitor it all the way to the target. It transmits the images to the Athena, which in turn transmits it back to the drone pilot. It’s just like riding the bomb all the way down, like old Slim Pickens did in Dr. Strangelove, only in this case, the pilot’s a couple thousand miles away.”
Meeks clucked his tongue. “And your man leaked the footage to Leza Dean?”
“Of course,” Novak said. “Right before his unfortunate demise.”
Meeks smirked, then his face grew serious. “But what if Oglethorpe traces it back? Won’t he try to contact that Dean and ask how she got the videos?”
“He’s probably already trying. But knowing the press, they won’t tell him squat.” Novak shrugged. “Plus, there’s nothing to tell, really. A phone call to her hotel in Mogadishu, telling her to look out the window, and then a flash drive dropped off hours later with the videos. All done anonymously. And with the Agency team’s plane...” Novak paused to hold up his fingers to mimic quotation marks. “Going down in the Gulf, Oglethorpe can’t even try to follow up on his end. You can’t subpoena dead men, even if you could find out who they were.”
Meeks exhaled loudly. “I sure would feel better if that little two-faced prick was out of the picture. No telling when he’s gonna get around to trying to draw my good name into his dirty little committee hearings.”
“In due time,” Novak said. “Now, it’s almost nine thirty. Where do you want me to drop you?”
“Over there by Constitution and Delaware is fine,” Meeks said. “I’ll go in the back way to my office.”
Stony Man Farm
Virginia
Brognola greeted Bolan and Grimaldi when they entered his office and sat in the chairs in front of his desk.
The Justice Department honcho made a show of looking at his watch.
Grimaldi snorted. “Hey, cut us some slack. After the last couple of days we’ve had, we earned it. All I wanted to do is sleep for a week.”
“So I’ve heard,” Brognola said. “But before you do...” He picked up the remote and pressed a few buttons. The large retractable screen to his left slowly lowered into place. He pressed another button and the screen came to life with a frozen picture of the orange cloud blossoming in the nighttime sky. “Look familiar?”
“Isn’t that the blast we saw in Somalia?” Grimaldi asked.
“One and the same,” Brognola said, pressing the remote again, allowing the video to begin playing. “I thought you’d like to see how well the press covered it.”
The voice-over narration started and Grimaldi perked up. “Hey, I know that voice. That’s Leza Dean, that chick we rescued in Syria.”
The footage switched to a zooming close-up of a man in an alleyway looking upward directly into the camera with an expression of surprise and horror on his face. A second later the image dissolved into a profusion of static.
“Muhammad Farouk’s last moments,” Brognola said.
He froze the picture just as Leza Dean’s image came on.
“Man, she’s hot,” Grimaldi said. “She’s got this killer British accent and she speaks French, too.”
“Yeah, well, she’s also running a series of exposés regarding the war on terror by drones,” Brognola said, “which by itself is not too curious, considering that ongoing congressional inquiry that’s been burning up the airwaves about them recently.”
“Why do I get the impression that you’re burying the lede?” Bolan asked.
“I’m curious about what happened over there in Somalia.” Brognola leaned forward. “How the hell did she get that kind of up-close-and-personal footage? I mean, it had to come directly from the drone strike itself, right?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” Bolan said. “Plus, she’s always Johnny on the spot. How did she know to go there in the first place? Obviously, someone in the Agency food chain tipped her.”
“But who?” Brognola asked. “Could it have been one of the Raptors?”
“We could track them down and ask them,” Grimaldi said. “Didn’t they say in Somaliland that they were homeward bound, just like us?”
Bolan and Brognola exchanged glances.
“What?” Grimaldi asked.
“They didn’t make it,” Bolan said.
The pilot’s face registered shock.
“Their plane went down,” Brognola said. “Rumored that they tangled with a Russian MiG over the Gulf.”
“Damn, that’s too bad,” Grimaldi said.
“Not a good way to go, that’s for sure,” Brognola said. “But at least they died with their boots on.”
None of them spoke for several seconds, then Brognola continued. “There’s something we’ve been trying to run down. An unsubstantiated report that the nerve gas that showed up in Somalia was apparently from the same batch as the one from Yemen.” He looked at Bolan. “And it was apparently originally disseminated from Syria.”
“Man,” Grimaldi said. “We were literally running around in circles.”
“Leza Dean was in Syria investigating that alleged conne
ction when she got grabbed,” Brognola said. “Those UN aid workers allegedly had some information from the people they were treating. Apparently, she’s got an uncanny knack for showing up at the right time, or...”
“Somebody’s been continuing to leak information to her,” Bolan said.
Brognola nodded. “I’m having Aaron look into the matter. I just thought you two might want to know. I’m thinking it’s necessary to plug that leak. Next time it might jeopardize operational security.” “Aaron” was Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman, head of Stony Man Farm’s cyberteam.
“Hell,” Grimaldi said. “I should’ve gotten her number. I could just call her up, ask her out to dinner, and find out everything that way.”
“Well, maybe Aaron can find it for you,” Bolan said dryly as he got to his feet. One of the few constants in his life was Grimaldi’s predictability when it came to overestimating his effect on women. “But in the meantime, it might not hurt to shadow her.”
“I’ll volunteer for that duty in a heartbeat,” Grimaldi said.
Bolan looked at Brognola. “Keep us posted on everything. Right now, Jack and I have got an appointment on the firing range for that training.”
Constitution Avenue
Washington, DC
Novak watched the ripples in the Potomac as they rode across the bridge toward George Washington Memorial Parkway. The water was dirty brown in the fading afternoon light, and Novak recalled the legend that John Adams had skinny-dipped in the water every morning during his presidency until a female reporter confronted him and asked for an interview. It was too bad the old guy hadn’t had the Secret Service to protect him, but even now those glorified idiots wouldn’t be able to keep the President safe. Not with technology like the Aries available.
He felt the vibration of his sat phone and checked the number even though he already knew whom it would be.
“Greetings from the Lone Star State,” Ted McMahon said.
“You’re sounding robust for someone no longer with us,” Novak said.
“Make that a soon-to-be very rich someone. I hope you saw to it that I had a nice funeral.”
“Oliver has already scheduled your blue star to be placed on the wall.”
“And one for Redmond and the others, too?”
“Of course.”
“Ah,” McMahon said. “The anonymous thanks of a grateful nation.”
“I assume you’re all set?”
“We are, but...”
That wasn’t something Novak wanted to hear. “But what?”
“But some glitches popped up in the facial recognition software again during the African strike. And we’re going to need that upgrade for that anti-ra—”
“Hey!” Novak cut him off. Even though he was sure that this phone was equipped with a scrambler, when they were this close they couldn’t be too careful. “Remember Orwell.”
“Who?”
“Big Brother could be listening.”
Novak heard McMahon sigh. “Yeah, yeah, but I’ve been going for the last forty-eight hours on about three hours’ sleep, so cut me some slack.”
Novak glanced at his watch. Showtime was still an hour and a half away.
“Anyway,” McMahon continued, breaking the silence. “I just wanted you to know everything’s on track.”
“Good. Remember, this is going to be crucial for setting up the mother lode.”
“Yeah, yeah,” McMahon said. “But when a man’s partner is killed, he’s supposed to do something about it.”
“Partner? What the hell are you talking about?”
“We are partners, aren’t we?”
“Of course.”
“Like our old buddy Mustapha was. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten him already?”
Mustapha... He’d been instrumental in acquiring that sarin and abducting the reporter and the others, but Novak hardly considered him anything more than a pawn. He served his purpose advancing the plan, and then was sacrificed, like any good foot soldier.
“What’s he got to do with anything?” Novak asked. He didn’t like where this was going.
“I just don’t want to be considered another loose end down the road.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Novak said. “Mustapha was a pawn. You’re an indispensable part of the team.”
“I’d better be.”
“We’re wasting time,” Novak said. “Call me tomorrow when it’s done.”
He terminated the call without listening to anything further.
But McMahon was suspicious, which wasn’t good. Novak reached into his pants pocket and took out his Glock G19. It was a good, concealable piece. He’d be ready for McMahon, should the need arise. But it would be better to have Burke do it, when the time came. He couldn’t worry about that now. They were down to their last set of prototype drones. That meant they had to pick their shots carefully. And they also had to be sure the anti-radar feature was in perfect working condition.
Even though they hadn’t needed to use it thus far, the fact that some of the software had failed was more than troubling. As much as he disdained the Secret Service and all its equipment, Novak knew it was quite adept at tracking and jamming any satellite or drone frequencies over the DC area. To be able to defeat the Secret Service would be essential for the final act. He pocketed the sat phone and the gun and tapped on the screen. It lowered and he saw Burke’s eyes flash in the rearview mirror.
“What’s up, boss?” Burke asked as he drove the limo.
“We’re going to need some insurance,” Novak said. “The human kind. As soon as you drop me off at the Rook, assemble a capable team and start getting ready to pay a visit to our buddy Marco Cerillo first thing tomorrow morning. You’ve got his address, right?”
“Roger that. He lives in Alexandria.”
Novak thought for a moment more, then added, “Let’s make it a family affair. You can never have too much leverage.”
Chapter Seven
The Firing Range
Stony Man Farm
Virginia
Bolan crouched behind the hood and left front tire of the pickup truck and waited for Grimaldi to catch up. The pilot was breathing hard as he ran from his last cover point, his SIG Sauer in his right hand pointing downward. Bolan waited to see if he was going to do a combat reload.
He didn’t. He just kept trying to catch his breath as he sweated profusely in the early-afternoon sunshine.
“You okay?” Bolan asked.
They were both wearing the same specially designed earplugs that allowed for normal conversation, but automatically blocked out any sudden noises above a harmful decimal level.
Grimaldi nodded and brought his left arm up to wipe the perspiration off his forehead.
“We’ve been at this all afternoon. I’m just not in as good of shape as you are.”
“Then that’s the time to push,” Bolan said. “We’ll go for a run after we finish the course.”
Grimaldi snorted and shook his head. “You can let me know how it was when you get back.” He took a deep breath, turned and tapped his head in a “cover me” gesture, knowing that Bolan, who was in the superior cover spot behind the engine block, would be obliged to provide suppressing cover fire.
Bolan aimed his Beretta 93R at the building in front of them and moved his index finger inside the trigger guard as Grimaldi shot around the rear of the truck, moving across the street toward the structure. No hostile targets appeared in the windows or on the roof. Bolan rolled around the front of the vehicle as his partner flattened against the front portion of the building.
The Executioner covered the distance in seconds, holding his weapon at a combat-ready position in front of his chest as he moved. He joined Grimaldi on the other side of the front door. Bolan reached for the doorknob and twisted, finding it locked. Stepping backward, he delivered a swift kick to the bottom portion of the door below the locking mechanism. The door flew open and they both entered.
A target of a man holding a p
istol flipped out on the left side of the room.
Bolan shot the target twice, once in the chest and once in the head.
A second target popped out on the right side and Grimaldi extended his weapon and fired twice. The slide on his SIG locked back, indicating his magazine was empty.
A third target appeared on the left, and a split second later another flipped into view on the right. Both were hostile images of men holding guns.
Bolan shot his target twice, then swiveled and fired two more rounds into the other target as Grimaldi fumbled to drop his empty magazine and insert a fresh one. Bolan waited until his partner had completed the reload, and they moved forward and cleared the rest of the house, firing several more times. When the buzzer sounded Bolan flipped the selector switch to Safe as Grimaldi decocked his weapon.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he said. “I should’ve done a combat reload by the damn truck.”
Bolan said nothing. The fact that his partner had recognized his error needed no further elaboration. The Executioner knew that it was far better to make mistakes during training exercises than in a real firefight.
“I know what you’re thinking. I should switch to something with a higher mag capacity,” Grimaldi said, staring down at his SIG before slipping it into his level 3 tactical holster. “And no, I’m not gonna get rid of my SIG, and I don’t want to run through it one more time. All I want to do is say that to a bartender somewhere. ‘One more, please.’”
Bolan allowed himself a smile as he holstered his weapon. He turned and began checking where the rounds had hit on their targets.
“I’ve been thinking about that video Hal showed us,” he said. “Of the explosion in Mogadishu.”
“You know,” Grimaldi said, “I have, too. It was strange. Almost the same distance away that we were from it when McMahon was filming it with his cell phone. You think he sent it to her?”
Bolan nodded, suspecting the same thing.
“And don’t forget how he jumped into action when those two Somali slickie boys tried to make off with her cameraman’s bag,” Grimaldi said. “It was almost like he wanted to make sure she’d be able to broadcast a report.”
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