by D S Kane
He had business to attend to before returning their call, and, he needed to focus on his current task right now. He walked on and shook his head to clear it.
Chapter Twelve
Gilbert Greenfield’s office, unnamed US intelligence agency, 11th floor, 28 K Street, Washington, DC
July 1, 5:58 p.m.
The spacious office offered a view of Washington that Greenfield was fond of. He gazed out through the window, considering his options. The President was an idiot, but easily controlled most of the time. Now, however, something had spooked him. The budget request was still unsigned. Time had run out.
There were other sources Greenfield could use for funding the development, but they were risky and at the very least would require him to owe a vulture in Congress a favor. Not good.
He’d need to assemble a stronger case for funding. He picked up the landline and called Mark McDougal, one of his agency directors. “Mark, I need to talk to you, in my office. Now.”
He heard the one-syllable reply and hung up the receiver. He walked to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup. It tasted burnt. He clenched his lips and sat.
McDougal knocked on the glass wall and Greenfield waved him in. He motioned to the couch and McDougal sat. Greenfield was silent a few more seconds, organizing his thoughts. “Mark, I have a delicate situation. We have come into possession of several alpha models of a new tool. Some might call it a weapon, but that would be an exaggeration. It’s just a tracker with a few simple enhancements. I have two available for you to field test. They may not work to spec, and may have very adverse side effects. I need a report from you on your observations.” He handed the spec sheet to McDougal. “Read it and leave it.”
McDougal scanned the sheet. He nodded a few times. Then his eyebrows rose and his smile froze. “This isn’t just a tracker. This is—”
“Yes, Mark. It is. What I need is for two field subjects to have this administered to them. Should they survive, I need to know how the tests worked. If it all succeeds, the tests would be helpful in my attempt to fund full-scale development.”
McDougal’s eyes became inward-focused. He seemed concerned.
“Mark, this is important. Don’t screw it up.”
He handed McDougal a small amber-colored plastic jar containing two aluminum-foil packets and waved him from the office.
As dusk settled into night, Bob Gault’s cell phone buzzed. The noise of a cargo plane groaned as it lifted off the nearby runway at the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. The noise almost drowned out his cell. He viewed the screen. His caller was Mark McDougal, his boss, the director of Middle Eastern Operations. Gault punched the Accept button and held the phone tight to his ear.
“Status?” McDougal’s Southern twang rattled through Gault’s ears.
Gault placed a fingertip into his other ear and tried to ignore the nearby roar of aircraft engines. “Our little Middle Eastern slave is ready for action. He can walk, talk, and move almost as well as before Sommers put three slugs into his chest. And I might say he has a strong desire to wreak revenge.” Gault looked through the window of the busy military airport toward the nearby city. “What do you want him to work on first?”
“Nothing right now. We have a new toy coming in soon. Greenfield told me there’s a case of two hundred beta-test units of something called ‘Bug-Lok’ being developed. I want to see how it works. Come back to the office. I have two of them for you to try out. One has Tariq Houmaz’s name on it. It’s too important to have a courier dead drop to you. Be here tomorrow. McDougal out.”
Gault looked out the window of his makeshift office at the military hospital of the airbase. A doctor and her team of residents were parading past his door. The muffled noise of their conversation drew his attention back. He wanted to have one last look at his patient, Tariq Houmaz.
Gault wasn’t a doctor. He’d been trained to treat battle wounds in an emergency. It was standard training, nothing more. After the disastrous shootout at the Muttrah Souk in Oman, he’d saved the bomb maker’s life, and now, as far as he was concerned, he owned the terrorist.
Gault gathered his notes, made sure there was no trace of him left behind, and walked to the door. He took the elevator to a private floor where intelligence operatives were treated and terrorists were “looked after.” He stared through the wire-mesh-embedded window of the secure hospital room—more like a prison cell—and saw Houmaz sitting in a corner chair in a hospital gown. The bomb maker was reading a magazine. Guns & Ammo.
Gault picked up the intercom and buzzed the hospital room. He saw Houmaz nod and pick up the receiver. “How are you feeling today?”
Houmaz sneered. “Ready to kill infidels. Come in and I’ll show you how healthy I am.”
Gault smiled. “Not yet. I’ll be gone for a few days, but when I come back, I’ll have a surprise for you.”
“Your head on a stick? A sharp knife so I can slice your throat?”
Gault closed his eyes for a second. “I saved your worthless life. You owe me.”
“Come in here and I’ll give you what I owe you.”
Gault shook his head. He turned and walked to the elevator. It would be a long trip back to Washington.
Gault wondered what Bug-Lok was.
Soon, he thought, I’ll send you back into the fray.
Part Three
Chapter Thirteen
Third Avenue and San Mateo Drive, San Mateo, California
July 2, 1:31 p.m.
As the weekday lunch hour ended, Cassandra Sashakovich walked toward the clinic on San Mateo’s Third Avenue. She stared at the placard-holding protesters blocking the entrance to the abortion clinic and stopped. “Fuck,” she whispered through gritted teeth.
It might be illegal to block such a clinic, but it hadn’t stopped the angry people who chanted at her as she walked toward them. She pushed her way through and opened the door. Then she looked over her shoulder as she entered the clinic. No one was following her.
As the door closed behind her, she took a deep breath, and her eyes fell to her swollen belly, getting larger by the day. She recalled the bitter memory of the assassin’s rancid breath as he held her down against the mattress, pumping himself into her in Riyadh.
She’d managed to get her hands free as he climaxed, her knees wrapping the man’s legs and twisting against his hips to flip him. She’d freed herself and moved away as she took a breath. The long cord attaching the room’s landline to the wall was an easy grab, and when he came at her holding the knife, she’d spun around him, wrapping the room’s phone cord around his neck. She’d tossed the phone’s base over the door. Before he’d realized what she was doing, she’d dived for the base of the phone and pulled its cord tight around his neck Using all her weight, with her hands gripping at the door’s bottom, she managed to hoist him up along the door just higher than his toes could support him. For several minutes, he struggled on the other side, his feet kicking the door behind him and the empty air in front of him. She remained with her hands under the door’s bottom, her feet wedged resolutely against the door frame, until his gurgling and spasms ceased.
She fled Riyadh. Two months later, while working her first independent mission in Hong Kong, she found herself with a bigger problem: the rapist’s child growing within her. It took her a week to complete her mission, ransacking William Wing’s computers.
As soon as she could, she’d found a trawler headed to San Francisco. She boarded it and hid under the tarp of one of its lifeboats, where it was unlikely the sailors would find her.
Yesterday, as the ship rolled into the Bay very close to the shore north of Pacific Heights, she dived off its rear deck and swam to land, a plastic bag holding her possessions from the mission.
This was her first chance to visit a clinic. She felt awful about murdering the tiny human inside her, but she had no option. Had she tried to care for an infant while running for her life from the assassins hunting her, they’d both die. A mother has to save her own l
ife first, she told herself. At least fifty times.
The waiting room was filled. Not a single seat available. She walked to the line at the receptionist’s desk and waited.
Cassie’s nose twitched at the abortion clinic’s antiseptic smell. She scanned the face of the receptionist and her hands moved to cover her breasts and crotch, as if she stood there naked.
When the receptionist called her turn, Cassie forced a smile. “Hi. I phoned yesterday. Emily Fishcallow.” She signed a sheet and pushed it back to the other woman.
“You have insurance?” The receptionist chewed a wad of gum and popped a bubble.
“No. Paying cash. My ex-boyfriend doesn’t want a record of this.” She flashed a pleading look at the receptionist, who nodded back.
“That’s okay. Fill out these forms. After you return them to me, I’ll put you on the schedule.” The other woman handed her a clipboard.
Cassie found a newly emptied seat and made up lies, scribbling on the forms. The facts she constructed meshed with the driver’s license she’d forged for “Emily Fishcallow” so long ago.
She expected she’d be defenseless for at least a day after they finished scraping her womb. She’d bought a Beretta in Hong Kong. At least she’d be able to shoot the fuckers if they found her.
As the afternoon sky dimmed toward dusk, she watched the last patient leave, except for her. A nurse popped through the door to the examining rooms and called, “Fishcallow? Emily Fishcallow?”
Cassie rose and walked toward her. She looked at the nurse and nodded. “That’s me.” As she followed the nurse through the door, tears budded in the corners of her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Then she thought about the people who had left this as her only option, murdering her child, her baby. Her teeth clenched in unbridled rage. “Fuck!”
Tariq Houmaz knelt on the filthy prayer rug in his cell at the Incirlik Air Base brig. He gave alms to Allah, the most benevolent. He acknowledged the power of Mohammed, the Prophet, Allah’s right hand. Before he rose after prayer, he made a promise. “Allah, should you favor me, granting me freedom, I will do what I believe is your heart’s desire. Infidels roam freely through our lands. They plunder your resources and murder your people. I will return the favor, poisoning their lands and giving them cause to shrink from your power. Please, oh Allah, give me the power to avenge you.”
He stood and bowed.
Outside the cell, doctors and soldiers of the United States Army walked the halls, oblivious to the heart’s desire of their prisoner. Houmaz knew they were merciless and well-trained. No matter. He would kill them when he escaped. They were nothing to him.
Hidden in a stand of brush near the K-4 traffic circle, two kilometers from the port district of Mogadishu, Avram Shimmel viewed the decrepit building through field glasses. At least seventeen possible hostiles paced in front of what served as a mosque.
He’d need to destroy the mosque to eliminate the weapons. And he was alone. No plan the former major in IDF could think of would accommodate his survival for this task. Luck might be adequate, but he’d need more than his share.
He decided to pray a final Kaddish for his dead wife and child before he started this part of his mission. He knelt and whispered before he walked toward the mosque. “Oh heavenly spirit, please hear me, though I have little merit. Battle is hard and I am weak, nothing more than a lone mortal. Please accept my soul, should I perish this day. I am unworthy, a murderer of murderers. And yet, for my people to survive, I have killed and will kill, until I am dead. All my murders were righteous. Until…until…” He stood with his eyes pointed toward the sky. “Until Tariq Houmaz murdered my pregnant wife and young daughter. But please forgive me for what I did in return, and what I am about to do now. Please give me the strength to do what you warned me against in your commandments.”
He wondered if God listened to murderers. He closed the distance to the mosque.
He scanned his wristwatch. Less than five minutes more and the evening prayers would end. Innocents would leave. Dusk had already set, and he switched the infrared feature of the binoculars on. As he watched, a parade of believers exited the building.
Behind a tree, Shimmel opened his backpack and removed fresh clothing. First he donned a white, loose, long-sleeved, ankle-length thobe, then folded a square, cotton ghutra across his head, over a black tagiyah skullcap. Last, he placed a thick doubled, black agal on top of the ghutra to hold it in place. He looked like a native, and a well-off one at that.
He chambered a round in his PX4 Storm SubCompact F Beretta, snapped the clip of 9mm rounds into it, and dropped it in the inside pocket of his thobe. He armed the packages of C-6 strapped to the inside of his belt. He hid his backpack in a patch of brush, under some loose-packed soil, and took a deep breath.
Three armed men scrutinized him as he approached. One asked him, in Arabic, “What’s your business here?”
Avram spoke, his voice just above a whisper, slurring his words to hide his Israeli accent. “I was sent here by Mohamed Farah Aideed to meet General Katobi. I have an arrangement with Omar.”
The guard examined his face. Avram expected his mention of the subclan’s leader would establish his creds. He could see the guard mull the implications as the seconds passed. The guard shook his head. “He isn’t here now.”
“I’ll wait.”
Both guards both lowered their weapons, to let Avram pass. He entered the mosque and knelt on the prayer rug. Every IDF officer knew Islam’s prayers by heart. Avram said them, admiring the beauty of their sounds. When he was finished, he found the stairs to the basement and hurried down. In a minute or two, someone would come looking for him. There were several rooms below, all carved into the hard-packed soil. He nodded to the single guard and smiled as he approached. “Salaam.”
The guard raised his rifle and took aim. “Who—”
Avram’s foot connected with the weapon, and he swirled around. As he landed, his other foot smashed the guard’s throat hard enough to crush the man’s esophagus. He twisted the guard’s neck and dropped the corpse to the ground.
He took the bump-key set from his pocket and unlocked the door. He dragged the dead man’s body inside. There was nothing stored in the first room. He left, closed the door, and sprinted to the second room. It was filled with furniture and prayer books, as well as other items the mosque’s attendees would use for prayer. It had to be the third room. He moved fast, entered and scanned it for the wooden boxes that would hold the Stingers and AK-74s from the shipment. They sat in cartons stacked against the wall. He’d brought a remote, but it failed when he tried its test button. Instead, he’d took a backup remote timer from the thobe’s inside pocket, and set the timer with five minutes left on it. He molded a strip of C-6 against it, and dropped it into the slim space separating the wall from a line of weapons in boxes.
He took a deep breath, and drew from his pocket a note he’d written. It wouldn’t survive the blast, but if he was discovered, it might help him buy a few moments to escape from the storage room. He placed the scrap on one of the cartons and turned to leave.
The guard who’d questioned him outside stood blocking the way, with his weapon pointed at Avram. He looked as if suspicion had led to anger. “Why are you in this room?”
Avram pointed to the paper. “None of your business. I left a note for the general. He should be here soon. I cannot wait.”
“Who are you?” The guard craned his neck toward the note, but then his voice rose in volume and tone.
Avram realized he probably couldn’t read. “I am here to help the general by funding his operations.” He shrugged. “Read the note.” Avram scanned his wristwatch. Four minutes, ticking down. He must hurry.
The guard’s eyes and his weapon never left Avram’s face as he approached. When the guard examined the paper, Avram used a Krav Maga slap to the man’s throat, crushing his windpipe. As the guard went limp, Avram twisted the hand that held the gun, snapping the bones in the guard
’s fingers. The dying guard released his weapon.
Avram saw the guard writhe as he struggled to breathe. It might take a minute or more for the man to suffocate and die, but less than four minutes time remained before the mosque lit up and vanished into rubble. He dropped the guard’s weapon at the door and hurried up the stairs.
The other guard eyed him as he exited the mosque. “I’ve left a note for the general. Please give him my apologies.”
Avram walked toward safety. He needed to be at least twenty meters away to avoid death, and more than one hundred fifty meters distant to avoid injury. He could hear the other guard shout to him just as he estimated he’d reached about the fifteen-meter mark. He turned but continued stepping backward as he spoke. “I have another appointment. Have the general call me.” Seconds passed. He was now near the fifty-meter mark.
The guard said something but Avram pretended he didn’t understand. He asked, “What? Can’t hear you?” Avram held his hand up to cup his ear even as he picked up his pace. The guard ran toward him, but he wasn’t pointing his gun.
Avram eased his hand into the thobe and fingered the Beretta. It would be close. The guard was already near the end of the fatal zone.
The explosion was a muffled pop, followed by a second of silence. The guard turned back to see what had happened.
Avram drew the Beretta and assumed a shooter’s stance. As the guard turned back to face him, Avram put three rounds into his face. Then he dived behind the tree where his backpack was stashed, just as the Stinger warheads started to explode.
Chapter Fourteen
Jon Sommers’ apartment, Ottobrunner Strasse 17, Munich, Germany
July 2, 5:56 a.m.