I stood over the hole and listened. Nothing. I swiped at a trickle of something wet running down my cheek and realized it was tears, not sweat.
The brush rustled behind me. “You going after him?” Jack said.
Embarrassed, I didn’t turn. Instead, I checked my sheathed knife, grabbed a flashlight with one hand and pulled my pistol from its holster with the other. I knew all the possible pitfalls that could lie at the bottom of that hole—spiders, scorpions, snakes, bamboo spikes, the enemy—but there was only one way I was going in this time.
“Fuck it,” I said, and jumped feet first into the black maw.
As skinny as I was from crappy army food and bouts of dysentery, the hole was a tight fit. The tunnels had been dug by a small race of people. Heights rarely exceeded five-and-a-half feet, and so narrow they often had to be traversed sideways. My hips and shoulders scraped the dirt walls, slowing my fall. I cringed, afraid of what I’d hit when I reached bottom. I landed no more than four feet down, boots hitting hard-packed dirt, not sharp spikes or soft body. Instantly, I dropped into a crouch and switched on the flashlight, holding it away from my body. An empty tunnel stretched into darkness. I swung the light the other direction and listened intently. Curving dark brown walls swallowed the beam’s illumination ten feet away. Not sound, exactly, but reverberations and a gentle waft of air came from somewhere around the bend.
Snapping the light off, I scurried forward, hands feeling the walls until they curved. I slowed, crouched down and felt the air from floor up, full hands searching for a trip wire. My heart hammered in its ribbed cage, seeming to echo off the tunnel walls. But over the pounding came a scratching, shuffling sound. My eyes had adjusted to the dark well enough to detect the barest glimmer of light from behind me from the open hole. Ahead was pitch black, and a living thing, maybe Sonny, maybe a real rat. I didn’t dare make a sound, even holding my breath while other senses attuned themselves to the underground world.
I smelled it then, sweat and fear not my own. I knew Sonny had come this way, but I didn’t think it was his scent I’d picked up. Not that he was incapable of fear, but we’d been in close quarters often enough that I knew his signature smell almost as well as my own. Something was different, the mixture faintly fragrant with garlic and fish. Charlie! Fear gripped me so tightly I could barely draw a breath. The walls seemed to close in on me, and I fought rising panic. Sonny was in trouble. He needed me.
The tunnel sloped downward, ceiling faster than the floor, until I bent nearly double to keep from bumping my head. A whimper sounded from somewhere not far ahead. Dropping to all fours, I moved forward as soundlessly as possible, the racing of my heart a drumbeat in my ears. The darkness shifted suddenly, both sound and air moving differently as the tunnel opened into a small chamber. A muffled mewl sounded a few feet away, chilling me to the core and tearing my heart out at the same time. It took all my willpower not to call out Sonny’s name. But the dark dread that filled me told me I was too late. If I made a sound or a wrong move, I’d be dead.
Stretching out prone, I rested my elbows in the dirt and aimed both the pistol and flashlight at the spot where the sound had come from, and froze. All of it rushed in at me—the smell of the enemy, the earthen walls closing in, and blood that had to be Sonny’s; the sounds of my pounding heart and the faintest breath of air from someone’s lungs between Sonny’s shallow pants; the darkness like a heavy blanket over my eyes. Like a tilted pinball machine, nothing functioned. Paralyzed by fear, I wanted to sink into the dirt and disappear, leave the war and the world behind.
A grunt of pain brought me back. I flicked on the light. Standing at the entrance of another tunnel across the chamber, Sonny blinked in the harsh beam. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and a red stain spread around the two-foot spear of bamboo angling up from his abdomen. His legs shook, and the light reflected off the bare brown skin of another pair of legs directly behind his.
Tears mixed with the sweat that streamed down my face. Sonny couldn’t possibly see me behind the flashlight beam, but he knew me. His lips worked like those of a fish as he mouthed the word, “No,” warning me away. I pulled the trigger, the dirt walls absorbing some of the loud pop of the revolver. Sonny’s face went slack, his knees gave out, and he dropped like a sack of potatoes, pulling the other end of the bamboo spear out of the hands of the little gook who’d been holding him up. I fired again, and the fucker’s face disappeared in a froth of red. I squeezed the trigger again, and again, until the cylinder contained nothing but empty shells.
When the last pop faded from my ears, I howled.
19
Claustrophobic since the day I’d killed my best friend, I fought the fist that squeezed my ribcage, prying loose its fingers with sheer will. Forcing myself to breathe, I mentally pushed against the walls, preventing them from closing in around me. The house had a daylight basement; dim light limned a window well directly in front of me. I squeezed past the furnace, then the old tank, and pressed my face to the cold glass, looking up into some bushes planted close to the house. I opened the box of ammo, dumped the shells into my hand and stuffed them in a pocket. I tossed the box aside and slowly opened the window, cold night air spilling in through the widening crack.
No shouts rang out, but muffled footsteps and creaky boards marked progress of men across the floor above me. I’d run out of time. I pushed the window up as far as it would go and climbed into a crouch in the window well. Raising my head above the ledge, I peered under the bushes into the yard. I’d have to make a break for the hedge separating the neighbor’s yard from mine, run like hell and hope no one saw me.
I pulled the snub-nosed revolver from my waistband and hefted it, weight and feel of it as familiar as some of the tools in the shop where I worked. A full-bird colonel had choppered out from the base at Long Binh one day to demonstrate this experimental gun the army was looking at. One of fewer than probably fifty in the world, the gun was a Smith & Wesson Model 29 modified by the AAI Corporation with a smooth bore, short barrel. Ammunition resembled .410 shotgun shells, and like shotgun shells each contained fifteen tungsten balls. The specially designed shells, however, absorbed the gases in a sealed piston when the gun was fired, essentially creating internally silenced ammunition. The army called it the Quiet Special Purpose Revolver, or QSPR. I called it the “qwhisper.” When fired, it emitted a relatively tame pop of about 110 decibels. That contrasted with about 165 dB for a .357 magnum.
The first ten prototypes landed in-country for field testing in ’69, and this colonel—Barrett? Bartlett?—had gotten his hands on one of them. Wanted to personally field test it before turning it over to the tunnel rats. Most of us had opted to use something other than the 1911, the army-issue .45, because it was a large, heavy gun that sounded deafening in the tunnels when fired. A lot of us carried snub-nose .38 revolvers.
Bartlett had heard our unit had a high success rate in the tunnels, meaning we hadn’t gotten killed yet, so he singled us out for this hush-hush field test. Trouble was that he wanted to test it himself. We all said sure—who was going to argue with a bird colonel?—as long as he knew what he was doing. Turned out he didn’t. We hadn’t gone half a klick when the stupid bastard had gotten out in front of us. We’d warned him, told him to follow our lead, but he hadn’t listened. He’d stepped on a land mine. Blew both his legs off, and he was dead before the rest of him hit the ground. The QSPR had landed at my feet. I’d taken that as a sign and had picked it up. I’d asked Sonny if he wanted it, but he said he was happy with what he had. I’d used it from then on, even putting Sonny out of his misery with it a month or two later.
I had no plan other than to get the hell out. I’d grabbed the weapons not to take on an enemy that far outnumbered me, but to defend myself if it came to that. If they wanted me dead, I wasn’t going to make it easy, and my having a weapon might give them pause, enough for me to get away.
I wriggled over the ledge on my stomach between two bushes and pull
ed myself up into a crouch. Still, I heard and saw nothing. Time had run out. I knew I had to go. Pushing up through the brush, I stood and stepped out into the yard within several feet of a man in a dark windbreaker and cap. He’d been staring up at the second-floor windows, and he startled at my sudden appearance. Almost as surprised as he was, I still had a half-second advantage on him. The sight of a sound-suppressed semi-automatic at his side sent another spurt of adrenaline into my bloodstream. He swung it toward me.
He didn’t identify himself! Just like the others.
No shock and awe from this team, only stealth. The way they’d come at me inspired a kind of fear I hadn’t felt in forty years. It tore open a scar that covered the paranoia I’d first felt after coming home from ’Nam, a distrust of a government that had lied to the men who fought to protect it. My instincts weren’t as rusty as the rest of me, though. Without thinking, I stepped in close to him, pushing my gun-hand out ahead of me while reaching for and unsheathing the combat knife with the other hand. Under the brim of his hat, his eyes widened, dim light reflecting off the whites, showing me the face of a scared kid.
For an instant, I found myself back in ’Nam again. Instinctively, I jammed the revolver up against his chest and pulled the trigger. He staggered backward, hand clutching the jacket where he’d been shot. His bulletproof vest had stopped the load of shot, but he probably felt like he’d been kicked in the chest by a mule.
Despite the surprise spreading across his face, his training kicked in and he started to bring the gun up again. His mistake was thinking it was still a gunfight. I’d gone into survival mode, reacting without conscious thought, the movements almost second nature to me. I advanced on him to get inside the gun, already bringing up my knife hand. I could have ended it with a headshot, but I was afraid my first shot had already attracted attention. I needed to put him down and get out of there.
I arced the knife up under his swing, instinct and muscle memory guiding it on a path that would plunge it into the side of his neck. The weapons in my hands felt right. For the first time in forty years I felt like myself. But in a micro-second I realized it was a me that had spent sweaty, sleepless nights shivering in the dark at the slightest sound, a me that caused my divorce from my first wife and estrangement from my kids, a me that I’d spent a lifetime trying to forget and forgive.
In mid-swing, I turned my hand over so the blade pointed away from him, and hit him in the side of the head hard with the butt end of the knife in my closed fist. He went down heavily, and I stood over him for a moment, panting, the thought slowly dawning on me that I might be too old for this shit.
I turned and ran for the cover of the hedge.
20
Amir crouched at the edge of a copse of trees behind the old man’s property. He raised the night vision glasses to his eyes. The house itself blocked some of his view of the street beyond, but he had a clear view of the back yard and both side yards. He’d been in place not quite an hour, and his joints had stiffened, the cold night air seeping into his bones.
Movement, finally, on the street in front of the house chased the discomfort from his mind. He watched as three figures stole noiselessly around the house, their heat signatures lit up in almost phosphorescent green by the glasses. One on each side stopped in the side yards. The third continued on to the back of the house, taking up position at the corner of the garage several yards from the back door.
Being right gave him some satisfaction, but he also worried. He understood al-Qadir’s intent to throw the authorities off his scent by trading identities with the old man. But the FBI, if that’s who they were, had reacted quickly, perhaps even more quickly than al-Qadir had anticipated. If they captured the old man now and questioned him, they would soon realize that they had the wrong person in custody. If that happened, al-Qadir wasn’t buying much time with this ploy. Amir was torn. Interfere or not?
With the odds so heavily stacked against him, interfering would be stupid. But the decision was made for him a moment later when he picked up activity on the west side of the house. A second figure appeared out of nowhere and engaged the sentry. A snap not even as loud as the sound of a child’s cap gun floated out into the night, and within seconds the sentry went down and lay still. The second man took off running toward the neighboring yard, and disappeared through a hedge with a rustle of branches.
Another second or two passed before Amir’s brain registered what he’d just witnessed. The old man! Somehow he’d gotten wind of the raid, and he’d found a way out that the feds hadn’t counted on. Amir had no way of knowing whether the sentry was dead or not, but either way as soon as they discovered the old man gone and their man down outside, all hell would break loose. They would comb the neighborhood for him, maybe even call in reinforcements, a chopper.
Amir wriggled backward until he was well out of sight and scrambled to his feet. He loped through the woods to the street, and picked up the pace back to his van. The man had obviously rabbited. The longer he was free, the longer al-Qadir’s ruse might work. But though he might lead the feds on a merry chase, on the run he was unpredictable. Amir needed to keep tabs on him so he wouldn’t upset al-Qadir’s plans. Amir’d thought his part in those plans foolish—watching a weak, harmless widower, a victim of identity theft—but he relied on the rest of al-Qadir’s plan to free his brother as well as wreak vengeance on the infidels. But he—they—had underestimated the old man. Amir couldn’t search for him. The feds would notice his van cruising the neighborhood and remember it from earlier. But he had to find the old man somehow.
Think! Think like your quarry. Where would he go?
Amir let his breathing and churning legs focus his mind. By the time he reached the van, he was sure of two things.
He had to dump the van and find another vehicle, and he was almost positive he knew where the old man would go next.
21
Roberts saw tension and irritation mounting on Hunt’s face as he pressed the ear bud tighter into his ear canal. The voices of the SWAT team members checked in one by one with a barely murmured “Clear!” as they went from room to room inside the house. Something didn’t add up.
“All units, report in,” he said quietly into his mic. “Machowski, what have you got?”
“Nothing, boss,” Machowski replied. “All quiet back here.”
“Quinlan? Jameson?”
As he spoke, Roberts heard a muffled crack, like a branch breaking. “Wait! What was that? Anybody else hear that? Someone fired.”
“Who engaged?” Hunt said.
“This is Four, Team Leader,” Peters said. “The house is clear. I repeat, all clear. There’s no one here.”
“Damn it!” Hunt said, yanking his Glock from its holster.
Roberts pulled her service weapon, too, and broke into a run in the direction of the sound she’d heard. Hunt fell into step behind her. As soon as she rounded the corner of the house she saw the inert form on the ground.
“Man down!” Hunt shouted behind her.
Roberts crouched and slowly pivoted, scanning the side yard for any sign of an attacker. Hunt pulled up and stood over her, mirroring her movements. Footsteps receded faintly off to their left. Roberts perked up at the sound, and at a nod from Hunt took off across the yard. When she reached the edge of the lot she stopped to listen, and knew from the silence greeting her that she’d never catch the suspect in the dark. She chided herself for not suggesting to Hunt that they leave a couple of team members out on the periphery for exactly this circumstance. She turned and trotted back, unanswered questions bouncing around in her head.
Hunt knelt next to Jameson, gently pressing two fingers to the agent’s neck when she returned. Roberts leaned over and put her hands on her knees.
“Got a pulse,” Hunt said.
Roberts breathed a sigh of relief and turned as Machowski strode up briskly from the rear of the house with the other junior agent in tow. A glance over his shoulder showed Peters coming up behind him.
“It’s Jameson,” Roberts said. “He’s alive. Not sure what happened, but he’s out cold.”
Hunt stood up and turned on Peters. “What the hell happened? How’d he get by you?”
Peters pulled off his helmet and tucked it under his arm. “He didn’t. We cleared the house according to protocol, and he never slipped past any of my team.”
“What about you?” Hunt said, eyeing Machowski.
Machowski shook his head. “Uh-unh. You’re not putting this on me.”
“Found it!” a voice called from somewhere close by. “He went through a basement window.”
All four of them turned toward the house, trying to locate the disembodied voice. Peters walked over to the bushes and crouched down. “That you, Wallace?”
“Yes, sir. Crawlspace in the furnace room down here in the basement. I’m guessing the window comes in handy when the heating oil truck has to make deliveries.”
A groan turned their attention back to the agent on the ground. Jameson stirred. Hunt knelt down again and put a hand on Jameson’s shoulder as he opened his eyes and tried to sit up.
“Easy now, Jameson. Where are you hurt?”
Jameson groaned again. “Head and chest,” he gasped. “Got shot.”
Hunt ran his hand across the front of Jameson’s jacket. Jameson yelped at the touch.
“You’re lucky to be alive. Damn good thing you had a vest.”
Jameson groaned again. “Don’t feel so lucky. Feels like I got hit by a Mack truck.”
“I need to know what happened. You up to it?”
Jameson nodded and gave him a brief run-down of how he’d been surprised. As he talked, Peters crouched down and played his flashlight on Jameson’s jacket.
Peters fingered Jameson’s jacket. “You see this? Holes, plural. Not just one.”
Stolen Identity Page 8