The Presence of Evil

by J. T. Patten

  Havens smiled. “Bet you’d like Drake to handcuff you?”

  This time it was Halliday who broke eye contact.

  “No, ma’am, I’m not looking for immunity. We’re looking for a partner. And we need you fast so we avoid another 9/11 terror event.”

  Chapter 30

  While the Uber driver navigated the southwest Chicago streets, Gebran fantasized about his future life as an anointed Hezbollah leader. He would have power and influence. He could travel throughout South America with a security team and have respect. No one would ever make disparaging remarks about his family’s trustworthiness. He would be unstoppable and renowned throughout the global Party’s ranks.

  They drove past the Cook County Department of Corrections on West 26th Street, and Gebran instinctively shrunk lower on his seat as if the perimeter was under heightened surveillance. They continued on to California Avenue, and the area’s poverty and destitute lives became increasingly visible. The corners were chock-full of kids and adults loitering with blank faces as potential drug-buying clients drove by. It was the same as Venezuela. A group like Hezbollah could provide these people with medicine, protection, and other services. Whether they followed the laws of God or not, substance abuse and other earthly debauchery would have to go. Hezbollah would never stoop so low as involving itself with drugs. Or so he naïvely thought.

  As they neared the self-storage facility, Gebran had the driver pull past and up a block where the budding Hezbollah soldier intended to get out. Curbside, however, Gebran received menacing looks from locals who swaggered up to the vehicle.

  “Go,” Gebran instructed the driver. “Go back around. Just drop me back at the storage building.” Trepidation rattled his voice.

  As they circled the block, Gebran viewed a large auto repair lot. Yellow school busses lined the fence, and gooseflesh popped along his arms. He was so close.

  Once they neared the storage building, sets of eyes peered through cracks from behind a brown sheet metal fence.

  * * * *

  “Neptune 1,” Mojo called. “The subject has stopped south of the city’s business district. I’m pulling up a satellite view.” Mojo paused. “Ew. Shitty neighborhood. Yeah, he’s in a serious red zone area that pops up with…damn. Major violent crimes. Shooting. Stabbing. Killing. Your kind of vacation spot.”

  “Sad but true,” Drake agreed. “I never get to work in the posh places. Just tell me where I need to be.”

  Chapter 31

  Contrary to what many believe about Iranian covert military activities, the specialized Qods Force is not an independent fighting force, but rather is a segment of IRGC elements and mercenaries that it has trained. In the case of dispatching two individuals to handle the US problem, both Eksandar Kordbacheh and Ghazi Farahmand were selected and thought to be reasonably capable.

  The two men had served in the IRGC’s 19th Fajr Brigade in Syria, proving themselves as formidable soldiers and resistance leaders before being transferred together to train foreign nationals at the main terrorist training camp in Iran, the Imam Ali Garrison, through the Qods Force training directorate 12000. From there, they requested a joint transfer to the Shahriar Garrison to train Afghan mercs who would be later deployed to Syria. At Shahriar, the duo trained surrogates on infantry skills in Kalashnikovs, mortars, tactical movements, and sniper skills.

  To reward their efforts, they were granted the opportunity to work in Venezuela and the Tri-Border areas. A reward signed off on by Brigadier General Hossein, Qods Force deputy Brigadier General Ghanni, and finally Soleimani himself. Indeed, the South American post was taken quite seriously.

  It was therefore with slight hesitation that Eksandar and Ghazi were tasked to travel to the United States last minute with orders to terminate members of the five-man Archangel cell. They were not clandestine assassins, but they knew the targets and had killed their share of men before. Most importantly, within twelve hours they could fly from Caracas to Colombia and then hop a direct to Chicago. Venezuelans at the Chicago embassy could provide the weapons upon the Qods arrival—courtesy of border transfers enabling arms transport through diplomatic pouch. The same method world intelligence agencies used as thoughtlessly as packing their toothbrushes and clean underwear.

  Eksandar marveled from his passenger-side window as they drove toward the city skyscrapers. “Ghazi.” He pointed from the back seat to the scene out the windshield. “Sears Tower.”

  The Venezuelan security diplomat in the passenger seat turned. “It’s Willis. Wil-lis Tower now,” he corrected in English, not knowing Farsi and having been told the Persians spoke limited Spanish.

  “Who is Willis?” Sandar asked.

  “A company. They do that in America. You know ‘company’?”

  Ghazi nodded. The word was basically the same in Farsi.

  “One day it’s one name, the next day it is bought and they name it another company name,” the diplomat shared. After a few minutes and their turn off, he said, “There is the Trump tower.”

  “Ah, Donald Trump. Build a wall,” Ghazi joked.

  Sandar chuckled. “Do we tell them where we need to be?” he asked in Farsi, his mind now shifting to the task at hand.

  Unsure of how the translations would go, Ghazi pulled a small piece of paper out and handed it up to the front. “You were told of our requirements?”

  Both Venezuelans nodded. “Change. No Makarov. We give you Russian 9mm ‘PYa’ Grach. And silencers.” The South American riding shotgun reached between his legs and raised a locked, zippered bag. “When we arrive, I will give. It is best I keep for now. Diplomatic security, you know.”

  Those driving along Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive wouldn’t have known that behind the black SUV’s smoked mirrors, the lethally trained soldiers inside protected by immunity were having a hearty laugh at the operational convenience of American liberties with or without physical barriers.

  Chapter 32

  Drake was cautious not to make his pursuit of Gebran or the two Hezbollah cell members look like—a pursuit. He was an ambling homeless man with nowhere to be and no rush to do it in, even if he was trying to prevent a disaster from occurring.

  “Ocean, I need you to do the best you can to keep eyes on these guys. I’m not going to make it around the corner without raising suspicion. Do you still have the view up to see if they’re going back to the target building?”

  “Neptune, it’s just me. I’ve got screens, but it’s taking me a bit to make sure that’s where they’re headed. I could use a drone right now. I’m not prepared to grab camera feeds or anything to enhance the ops spectrum.”

  “Do the best you can, buddy. This is the Olympics even if we’re the Jamaican bobsled team.” Drake couldn’t believe he just made a sports reference, and shifted thoughts to Sean Havens. After so long working alone, he missed having the older spook and sports enthusiast by his side.

  “They’re heading back into the building, Neptune. I’m getting a couple more hits on their phone. They called another number, and it’s tied to more known bad dudes.”

  “Ocean, there’s a mob brewing in the alleyway. I need to get in a side door.” Drake’s mouth clicked in anticipation of an escalating scene mobilizing potential combatants.

  Ocean laughed. “Dude, this is Chicago. There’s no mob.”

  Drake whispered, trying to be careful of alerting the men as he mounted the stairs. “Wait, what time is it?”

  “Oh, fuck, dude. Yeah, you have a healthy bunch of people. It’s prayer time. Let me just…a mosque. Hmm, thought I checked this,” Mojo said to himself. “I thought it was a parking garage. The mosque’s about a half block from you. It’s behind the main drag. The entrance is in a direct line to the street you’re on.”

  “I’m about to have my own Mogadishu Mile, aren’t I?”

  “Not if you’re quiet.” Mojo typed away on another keyboard. “
It’s Sunni. Not like these Hezbollah dudes are card-carrying members, so probably no threat of anyone calling them up to help. Just…be invisible.”

  “Gee. Thanks.” We’ll see. Drake ambled around the corner and opened the stairwell door. No one walking in parallel paid much attention to the bum heading into a low-income apartment complex. Woolf climbed deserted stairs and wider than expected muggy landings to the third floor. Still trying his best to be silent, Drake heard muffled shouting a few doors down.

  “Ocean. How many cellular signals are you getting from the apartment?”

  “Can’t really tell. There’s a pretty dense view of the complex. I can’t really make out different floors in the building. I’m showing on my screen well over a dozen conflicting cell phone identifiers near the numbers we tagged.” Mojo poured a handful of Mike and Ike candies into his palm as he worked the problem of sorting bad guys from good guys amidst the cell phone signals emanating from the target area.

  “Filter it,” Drake whispered, but the sound came through loud and clear with the Molar Mic. “Take out all main carriers from the spectrum like Verizon, Sprint. The biggies. Our bad guys won’t be filling out a two-year contract.”

  “Okay. Give me a sec. All right, that cut the population in half. I can see signals from MetroPCS, Cricket, but the lines are still connected through the carriers, who are using AT&T or T-Mobile networks, so I really can’t tell. And dude, that area you’re in for a square mile is full of Middle Easterners and Southeast Asians. A lot have prepaid phones. Culturally, us sorting this way isn’t going to work. My parents use burners just so they can load prepaid minutes to call family in India.” Mojo waited for Drake’s response while sorting the candy. Greens from yellows and oranges and pinks.

  “Shit. This whole thing isn’t going to work. I figured I could take out two by surprise, but there could be half a dozen armed men in there. How far out is Starfish?”

  “She’s about…”

  Drake heard two all-too-familiar mechanical clinks. “Shhh.” Two more. Suppressed shots. Woolf flipped his mind from Mojo to full battle mode. Residents wouldn’t have thought much about the sound, but a trained operator knew it like an old-school ringtone. He was just feet from the apartment entrance and heard footfalls coming toward the door. The language had shifted from Arabic to Persian. Iranians. Someone’s pissed about the fuckup.

  We can take them, Drake. The inner voice was confident but not disparaging or hostile. New? The mental voices had been silent with the new meds and Drake’s self-prescribed dosage. OCD also moderated. There can’t be more than a couple. We were ready to take down two. They killed the Lebanese men you’re following. You know they did. Let’s go.

  There’s another way, Drake offered as a suggestion to himself.

  Drake dropped to the ground on his back. “Mojo, I’m going to be busy. Out for a while.”

  The door handle turned, and he could hear the door mechanism unlatch.

  Drake quickly unzipped his pants, exposing that which he would not normally pull out on a mission.

  As the men walked out, Drake prayed that he wouldn’t get stage fright, and like a baby on a changing table, he started the waterworks with an arch of urine streaming like a fountain. Woolf slurred his words as he sprayed the hallway.

  The Qods Force assassins giggled like elementary school boys when they saw the spectacle.

  The bum was blocking their exit.

  Drake assumed they would wait a moment to finish laughing and pointing and readying themselves to jump over the unexpected sight before them. But when the pissing stopped, they scolded Drake. Their voices turned menacing.

  Drake lolled his head around, getting a good look at the two Iranians and their position. Their weapons were not in hand, but if they were assassins, most assuredly they were trained men and would still get the drop on him. Until he could get them close, he didn’t have a chance.

  One Persian prodded the other to get going. The man closest to Woolf moved his hand back toward his side. Drake was unsure if the Qods soldier was contemplating putting a bullet in his head.

  Desperate times call for desperate measures. Woolf slid his hand down toward his crotch and started to laugh a drunken man’s cackle.

  Fearing the bum was going to start jacking off in front of them, Eksandar and Ghazi turned to the wall, lifting their hands as they tried to slide past the wall.

  Drake quickly pulled from his pants pocket a half foot of scrap steel that he scrounged on the street. With a rapid outward sweep, he caught the first man under the kneecap. Drake flipped his legs up, pushing with his hands on the ground to thrust a solid kick to the point man’s face. Spinning on his lower shoulders, Drake whirled and exploded a flurry of kicks into the second man, then swept the guy’s legs out from under using a rigid arm.

  Unfortunately, the more Drake moved, the further his pants moved up his legs and bound his knees.

  Before Drake could get up, the first man had enough presence of mind to pull a firearm and direct it to the raging vagrant on the ground.

  Drake identified the immediate threat and shot a frontward donkey kick with both feet. The impact sent the weapon into the wall, and it dropped within reach of Woolf.

  The Man from Orange grabbed what by the touch could have been a suppressed SIG Sauer or Makarov service-type pistol. He raised it not knowing the caliber nor caring, but the weight told this experienced shooter that there was at least a ten-round magazine. Four shots had been fired by someone in the apartment, so worst case there were three bullets for each dude. Drake squeezed off three rounds in rapid succession. Killing the man or not mattered little at that point.

  “Ghazi!” Sandar shouted as his friend collapsed.

  Drake swung his arm backward, his head following the turn to see the second Qod scrambling. Woolf popped off three more. Two in the man’s chest and one in the bean. No doubt about the life expectancy of this one as the money shot painted the wall with a horror-show spurt of red.

  Turning his attention, Drake’s first adversary was on hands and knees. Drake cranked back his leg and launched it into the man’s neck, seeking the jawbone as target. The Iranian’s head snapped back and flopped to the side. Arms and legs folded to the floor.

  Exhausted, Drake lay on the ground panting, then realized his junk was still flying free. Woolf pulled up his pants, got himself situated, and started rummaging through the men’s pockets, stuffing whatever they had into his own.

  “Dude?”

  Drake spun to the noise, forgetting the internally integrated commo system for a moment. “Shit, I forgot you were there.”

  “Dude, you okay? I heard a ton of grunting and voices.”

  Drake also noticed heads peering out of the hallway doors.

  “I’m okay. I’ve got company so need to do a quick site ex, to see if I can grab any intel.” Drake collected himself and entered the apartment, unsure of what he may find, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be surprised. The fact that no one else had poured out in the melee was a good first sign.

  The room was as he suspected.

  Drake may have been in America, but the way that tangos lived in a safe house the world over was all the same. It was as though they were single college kids minus the beer cans. And of course, instead of being passed out like collegiates, these two Hezbollah jamokes had been stone-cold executed.

  Drake did a quick toss of the place, finding phones and passports but not much more. There were pistols on each man, which told him they weren’t expecting to die. Now, why Hezbollah was being killed by Qods before an operation was very odd. Even if he thought they could be executed to remove loose ends, the IRGC Qods Force didn’t work that way. They built trust and networks. Hezbollah assets weren’t smoked, especially if they were low enough in the ranks where they ran headfirst into battle or suicide missions. Drake was examining the passports, both Venezuelan, wh
en he heard loud voices from outside in the hallway.

  Woolf closed his eyes, placing the language that resonated like his own tongue, but to label it for a second threw him off. Being home, CONUS, and in combat with Middle Easterners was throwing off reality despite dealing with it the past weeks. Still, as a balding heavyset man wearing a wife-beater tank top and baggy traditional Southeast Asian pants screamed at him in Urdu, Drake pulled one of the firearms and double-tapped him. Another man charged in wearing pretty much the same thing but hefted a steel cleaver. Drake popped him twice, as well.

  Drake heard sirens from the windows behind. The high-pitched emergency noise still sounded a ways off, but first responders were no doubt coming toward his position.

  More male voices were gathering in the hallway. Some shouting. They were drawing near his position. To go back into one of the adjoining rooms would leave him trapped. There was one way out. Through the front. He was back in the sandbox. Drake’s mouth clicked as his eyes and mind processed combatants pouring through the narrow door.

  The Man from Orange raised two handguns and started firing at the residents. They dropped easily. One after another. Head shots. Chest shots. Drake threw elbows and shoved falling men off as he fought to get out of the hallway and into the apartment.

  The men tried to grab him, but Woolf kept firing. As his arm was pushed down, he still pulled the trigger, popping people in the hips, thighs, ankles, and feet until they fell away. Drake dropped empty firearms when he could no longer shoot them or bash the people in the head. He looked back for a moment down the darkened hall to see children yanked back into door openings. Women shrieking, as they too entered the corridor to see what the ruckus was about.

  Amongst the clamor, Mojo’s voice found its way to Drake’s attention. “Dude, what the fuck is going on?” Mojo shouted.

  “I’m clearing a path!” Drake shouted automatically in Urdu to Ocean 1.