by Brad Taylor
Wolffe saw the brows furrow and Hannister said, “What?”
“It’s just a tactic. For some reason, pedophilia causes certain websites and twitter handles to go crazy. The Russians did the same thing with PizzaGate. They’re trying to generate interest in Grolier Recovery Services with this wild conspiracy idea in the hopes that mainstream press will pick it up and investigate. Whether they’re investigating to debunk the story or investigating for real, it’ll lead to the Taskforce.”
The secretary of defense finally spoke, saying, “I thought we were shielded from all of that? I thought we were completely black?”
Wolffe said, “There is no such thing as completely black when operating in the world. We’ve covered our tracks well from a cursory exploration, but if they start digging into GRS, they’re going to find some connections. Just like that staffer did with me. It’s a digital world now.”
The room took that in, and Palmer said, “We need to call off Pike. Get him home, and then shut down the entire experiment.”
Wolffe said, “I think that’s the wrong approach. Pike is hunting the men right now, and terminating his efforts will still leave a threat, one whose breadth will be unknown. It’s exactly what they want.”
Hannister said, “I’m inclined to agree with Palmer. We have no imminent threat to national security in Brazil. Let the Russians do what they’re going to do, and call it a day.”
“Sir, you do that, and you’re calling it, period. We can’t operate around the world knowing that there is a Russian agency that might have enough information about how we operate to thwart our efforts. Best case, the terrorists we hunt are tipped off. Worst case, they actively set traps to kill us. We can’t function that way.”
“So what’s your solution?”
“Find the guy releasing the information. He’s involved with the Russians, but from what we can glean, he’s an American citizen—or at least he’s operating from the United States. He’s covered his digital tracks well, but whoever he is, he’s in contact with the Russians. We need to stop him before some mainstream press element starts to look.”
Hannister said, “An American citizen. One expressing his First Amendment rights. That’s where you want to go?”
“Yes. Whoever it is is hell-bent on destroying us, and he’s doing that with information fed to him by the Russians. He’s a traitor.”
Hannister took that in, then said, “I’m not sure I want to step across that Rubicon. We did what we did, and because this guy is spouting on conspiracy websites, we should silence him? Isn’t that proving his point? I mean, he’s actually telling the truth.”
Wolffe sensed the room and relented. At least out loud. He said, “Okay, so we let him go. If that’s what we want to do, we need to be prepared for the fallout, because if he persists, and a real news organization picks up the scent, it’s going to be ferocious. We need to begin rolling up all of our cover organizations and start building some firewalls.”
Palmer said, “First thing is to get Pike back home. Get GRS out of Brazil before he makes more noise for the press to dig up.”
Wolffe unconsciously grimaced at his words. President Hannister saw the reaction and said, “Is that going to be a problem, George?”
Wolffe took a deep breath, let it out, then said, “Yes, sir.”
Miffed, Hannister said, “Why? Just call him back home.”
“Sir, we told Pike that the Taskforce was done, while leaving Knuckles in the wind to die. We told him to stand down when he knew that Kurt’s death wasn’t an accident. We told him his family was safe even as the Russians were hunting them. We’ve told him nothing but lies.”
Palmer said, “I don’t get it. This isn’t a debate. Who cares what we said before? Give him an order. Get his ass home.”
Wolffe remained focused on the president. He said, “There’s a difference between following an order and doing what’s right. He won’t listen to an order from an organization we’ve told him no longer exists. He’s going to do what he believes is right.”
Palmer said, “What does that even mean? ‘What he believes is right’?”
Wolffe said, “He’s going to destroy whoever killed Kurt and tried to kill his family.”
President Hannister said, “He’s already done that. Hell, you’ve already done that.”
Wolffe reflected on the president’s words for a moment, then said, “After all of this time, I don’t think you understand Pike. Because of what happened to his family, he takes protecting those he loves to a level you and I can’t comprehend. When I say destroy, make no mistake, it will be total. He’s not concerned about low-level soldiers. He’s hunting the control, and when he finds it, he will rip it apart like a grizzly protecting her cubs.”
Palmer said, “Then we get everyone else back. He can’t operate by himself. Order Knuckles and Brett home.”
Wolffe chuckled and said, “Did you not hear what I said about family? You people in this room come together out of a shared sense of duty. The people with Pike follow him because of him.”
Palmer said, “It sounds like you want him to continue. Like you believe in what he’s doing.”
“Sir, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate avenging Kurt’s death, but how I feel is irrelevant. Pike is with his family. They won’t listen to us, either.”
Wolffe turned to the president and waved his hand toward the couch, saying, “The people in this room have an inflated sense of their own power. Pike does not care what you think. He does not care what you order. Trust me, nothing we say will stop what’s coming.”
Chapter 60
Sitting on a park bench in the shadow of the famed Manaus Opera House, I began to regret taking the outdoor position instead of the bumper locations inside in the air-conditioning. It wasn’t overbearingly hot—yet—but I could feel the sweat building on my neck.
I’d been outside for more than four hours, and my hand was itching to click on to the net for a situation report. My subconscious mind—like every commander I’d ever known—believed that a radio call would magically cause something to occur. My conscious mind knew better. All that would do was clog up the radio net and annoy the team. There was nothing worse than getting bugged by a team leader for a status update when none was required, as the implicit thought would be, “You don’t trust me?”
With Brazil rolling into springtime, the weather had been pleasant in Salvador, but Manaus was a different story. A large city at the head of the Amazon basin, it was much warmer here, and not in a soothing, wrap a blanket around you in front of a winter fire sort of way. It felt more like a sauna. Lacking the sea breeze of Salvador, the air held a cloistering humidity that caused your clothes to cling to you like wet toilet paper.
I thought about calling Jennifer off the net just to break the boredom, when, like magic, my radio came alive. “All elements, all elements, this is Carrie. Both targets are on the move. Leaving the hotel with a purpose.”
About time.
I came back, “This is Pike. Roger all. Blood, you ready?”
“Roger.”
“Good copy. All elements, feed the beast. Give Brett a vector. When the target breaks the box, he needs to already have a lock-on. If we lose them here we’re aborting.”
In the movies, surveillance is either depicted as a clown-fest of cars chasing each other through red lights and racing the wrong way down one-way streets, or a secret arcane art that the average human can’t understand, full of tradecraft that only the men on the screen know. In truth, surveillance is nothing more than any other skill, and, like an NBA basketball team, there are certain principles that are always in play.
The primary one is identifying the target at an endpoint to initiate the operation. While it seems like common sense, more surveillance efforts fail at the start because the target escapes undetected, making the trigger the linchpin. Because the trigger is usually exposed to the target, he or she never, ever begins the follow. As the name suggests, the trigger does one thing: trigger the
surveillance effort.
Once the target is acquired, the next step is simple: cover all possible avenues of escape in what is called the “box.” Not knowing the intent of the target, he could go in any direction, but eventually, he’d break the box, and when that happened, the true surveillance could begin. Done correctly, there is no way the target will know that he’s being followed.
In this case, the targets could go in one of three directions: Right, down the street and deeper into the concrete mess that was Manaus. Left, toward the opera house and the square it sat on. Or around to the back of the hotel and down an alley. I had the left bumper position because that’s where I thought the target would come. We knew they had a car, and the only parking near the hotel was at the square where I was located.
I’d put Knuckles on the right position, down the road toward the city center, and Jennifer at the rear of the hotel, where the alley spilled out. If they chose either of those directions, we’d pick them up. But I didn’t think that would happen.
The triggers were Aaron and Shoshana. They were in the lobby sitting around a table and drinking coffee. It cost me an extra man—or woman in this case—but two people were less memorable than one.
One person on a lobby couch makes everyone passing by wonder why he’s there. Waiting on a friend? Burning off time for a cab? Room not ready yet? Or, worst case, waiting on me to leave the hotel? No matter what the target thought, a singleton would potentially be remembered, but a couple was much less likely to register.
I stood up from my park bench and walked to a trailer serving gelato on the edge of the square, the line of people waiting helping me to blend in. I couldn’t be involved in a surveillance effort if I was wasting time on a frozen treat, right? I mean, who gets gelato prior to tracking a guy for a hit?
I glanced back at the hotel and saw the targets exit, then take a left toward me. On the net, I said, “All elements, all elements, this is Pike. I have the eye. Targets are moving east, toward the square. I’ll let you know if it’s a restaurant or a vehicle.”
The opera house was surrounded by bars and restaurants ranging from a hole-in-the-wall pizzeria to an upscale Brazilian steak house, so while I believed they were moving to a vehicle, they could just as easily be going to lunch.
Jennifer came on, saying, “What do we do if they don’t get in a car and leave? We’re going to need at least an hour to access both rooms.”
“I’ll send Brett in to whatever restaurant they enter. We’re still good.”
I heard nothing back, and knew she wasn’t convinced. I said, “Relax. I’ll bring you a gelato when we break into the rooms. You’ve earned it for that beacon placement.”
It had taken some time to extricate ourselves from the Salvador crisis site, not least because the police chief who’d sanctioned our actions was now dead, but eventually we’d managed to get a clean break through the confusion and fog, leaving the fallout to the police on the ground.
We’d reconsolidated, and I’d taken a little straw poll about our next actions. I most definitely wanted to continue hunting the men who had made the mistake of killing those I held dear, but I couldn’t order everyone else to do that. I knew Jennifer was on my side, and suspected Shoshana and Aaron would do whatever I asked, but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t demand they help me, and I most certainly couldn’t order Brett or Knuckles to follow me, because we were way outside of the Taskforce charter. It had to be their choice. I wasn’t going to force it.
I’d sent Brett and Knuckles on a reconnaissance to see if there had been any change to the story of a unilateral BOPE raid, and after they’d left the hotel, I’d asked the Israelis. I’d expected some hesitation. Some waffling or questions about the mission, but I got none of that. Aaron had looked me in the eye and said it didn’t even need to be asked, and Shoshana had actually been insulted.
She said, “I want to talk to you alone.”
I felt her reading me and said, “I don’t have time for this.”
She said, “Make the time.”
I looked at Aaron, then Jennifer. Jennifer touched my arm, whispering, “Let her talk. Go with her.”
I realized that Jennifer had sensed something I had not. I’d followed Shoshana into the bathroom of our hotel, and she closed the door.
She’d turned her weird glow on me and said, “Aaron and I are here for you. You and Jennifer. Like you were for us. That bond is sacrosanct, but you need to understand why.”
Exasperated, I’d said, “Look, I don’t need a lecture. You’re either in or you’re out.”
Her face as cold as a granite wall, she said, “I will not let you destroy yourself. I will kill who you ask, but only if it is necessary. I will not take a life for vengeance alone. I am done with such things. Is that understood?”
Her words hung in the air, and I felt the anger grow inside of me. I said, “Don’t give me a sanctimonious speech. Don’t you do that. You and I know what this is about. You alone understand. You are me. Don’t make me the bad guy.”
She said, “You don’t even know what you’re asking of me. I see it in you. You want to kill to quench a fire, but the men you are slaughtering are not the reason for the fire.”
I said, “What the fuck kind of babble is that? They murdered my friend and commander and tried to kill me. They attacked Kylie and Amena. Are you telling me to quit? Let them go? Turn the other cheek or some other bullshit?”
She’d become supernaturally calm, saying “No. But you’re on the edge, and you’re taking Knuckles with you. I saw Knuckles when the woman was killed. He wants to slaughter anyone, guilty or not, just to release the pain, and he will do so, but the damage to him will come later. He hasn’t seen what the abyss can do. Very few can look into it and return. I have. And so have you. Don’t make him do the same, because he might not come back.”
I said, “Look, I don’t even know if Brett and Knuckles are on board to continue. They may just go home.”
She said, “You know that’s not true.”
I clenched my fists and said, “They killed our men. They murdered the woman on the boat. Don’t ask me to stop, because I’m not going to do that.”
She slid close to me and cupped my chin, the gesture surprising me. She said, “I’m not asking you to stop. I’m asking you to have some control. Watch out for Knuckles. Just keep him in check.”
I said, “He can take care of himself.”
She ignored me, saying, “When I was a child, I lost my parents in a suicide attack on a bus. One minute I had a family, the next I did not, and because of it, all I wanted to do was kill. I learned I had a talent for it, and I ended up in a unit that exploited my skill, ordering me to kill whoever they targeted.”
I saw her face grow stern. “And I did so, but all the people I killed didn’t bring my family back. All it did was twist me, and I won’t let that happen here. You are me, but Knuckles and Brett are not. I’ve already seen you lose control on this mission. Don’t let them do the same. Do not let them become me.”
Aggravated, I said, “What do you want from me?”
“I want Pike. Nothing more. I want the man I respect. Not the one I want to kill.”
I held up my hands in surrender, saying, “Okay, okay, calm down. I get it. What I did in the alley was bad, and it won’t happen again. I won’t murder someone, but I am going to take these guys down. Whatever the Russians are doing, it’s not good, and I’m going to stop it.”
She studied me for a moment, then said, “Okay. We’re in.”
Chapter 61
Relieved to be away from the conversation, I smiled, saying, “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I still have to ask the others, and then there’s that little problem of talking to the Taskforce.”
I opened the bathroom door and saw that Brett and Knuckles had returned from the reconnaissance mission I’d given them. I was pleased to learn that there were no conspiracy theories swirling around about English-speaking hostage rescuers. Brett was as easygoing as ev
er, but he flicked his eyes to Knuckles when he saw me, letting me know that something was amiss.
Shoshana had been right. Knuckles wasn’t himself. The death of the woman had hit him hard, as if he believed it was his fault she’d perished, and because of it I could sense a simmering rage.
He said, “We are getting payback, right?”
Which answered my question of whether he was in, but not in the way I’d hoped. I wanted vengeance for Kurt and what they’d tried to do to Kylie and Amena, but I needed Knuckles on an even keel to do so. Both of us having a bloodlust might be asking for trouble.
Calmly, I said, “Yes, but before we go off half-cocked, we need to develop a plan.”
He said, “The beacon Jenn placed is in Rio. What more do we need? We wait, and it’ll run out of juice. It’s the one lead we have.”
Before I could answer, my Taskforce phone went off, with a ringtone that told me it was an encrypted call.
I looked at my screen and saw it was from George Wolffe.
Speak of the devil.
I answered, “Hey, boss. I was just about to call you.”
He went straight to business, “What’s your status?”
“Still in Salvador. It looks like we’re clean from the hostage rescue. BOPE are taking credit.”
“So you’re coming home?”
“Soon, yeah.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You know what it means. I’m not going to spell it out because then you’ll just order me home. Leave it at ‘soon.’ Go report that back.”
“Pike, I have to give you a direct order to come home, right now. No further actions. The Russians have started an information operation up here that can potentially expose us. It involves you and GRS. Every time you do something against the Russians, it gets reported up here on a conspiracy site. Nobody’s picked it up mainstream yet, but if it goes viral, we’re done.”
He then told me about the discussions with the Oversight Council and the information that had been leaked. I said, “Seems like the solution is to stop the leak, not run from it.”