Deadly Force

by Chase Austin

  Majeed and his select mercenaries knew when the police patrolled the designated areas, when the newspapers were delivered, who jogged at what time, and most importantly: where their targets slept and what time they awoke. He and his men had stalked them for months, watching and waiting, patiently discerning which part of their daily routine could be exploited and when they would be most vulnerable. In the next four days, his men would start their mission to decimate the Americans on their soil. The time, places and targets had all been chosen. In less than a week, the course of America would be changed forever. Every minute detail was now stored in a USB flash drive hanging from a gold chain around his neck.

  Stuffing the files along with the newspapers into his prisoners’ clothes, Majeed turned to Farhad. “Burn them when I reach the convention center.”

  CHAPTER 10

  The minivan had stopped in an alleyway, some two miles from the convention center. First, Olivia and Elijah left the minivan to scope out the scene. Not a single person in sight. They opened the back door of the minivan and Wick stepped out.

  Inside the van, Logan sat with his eyes glued to small laptop screens, his earpieces in place. The team had clear orders from the TF-77 command center. They needed Majeed alive at any cost. There was no room for error, and that’s why they had Wick on the mission.

  As Wick walked away from the minivan, Logan decided to check the comms one more time.

  “Wick, can you hear me?”

  “Crystal. Over.” Wick checked his watch. He still had four hours before darkness set in.

  He had to cover the remaining two miles on foot. He already had the security details of the convention center imprinted in his eidetic memory, but he wanted to see it firsthand.

  Walking down the busy Tehran street meant leaving a lot of eyewitnesses for the police, but no one looked at Wick twice. The disguise was impeccable. The dirty, grey, unkempt beard, and a white headscarf rubbed with scum and now almost greyish black, hid his features. His clothes smelled as if he had shared a sty with a bunch of pigs. Most people refused to acknowledge his existence. The smell ensured they kept their distance. They never looked at the two mildly brown eyes on a face which, when cleaned and shaved and bathed, would be the most good-looking one on the whole street. For them, he was just another beggar, a normal sight on the city streets, a sight to be ignored.

  Wick walked towards the convention center, not too slow, not too fast, just the right shuffle of a person who was hungry and had difficulty walking.

  Three hundred yards from the convention center, the security started to thicken. Local uniforms crowded the area, deployed for security. The tight security cover was unusual for a religious convention, but he saw a few beggars loitering near the convention center. The sight gave him some hope.

  Wick saw two policemen on duty, standing and talking to each other at the corner of the sharp turn that led to the convention center.

  “Hundred yards away from the convention center. Over,” he whispered in the earpiece plugged in his ear, hidden by the headscarf. He kept walking.

  One of the two policemen glanced casually in his direction and then went back to his conversation.

  “Everyone ready?”

  The acknowledgements on the receiver assured him they could hear him. Everything was on track. He maintained a steady pace towards the policemen.

  As he neared them, both men turned to look at him, wrinkling their noses at the smell. Wick didn’t pause or stop.

  “Disgusting, how can anyone be so filthy?” one of the police officers commented to the other.

  “Shoo, shoo.” The other gestured with his hand for Wick to keep away, but Wick kept his head down and pretended not to hear. The distance was reducing. Soon both uniforms wanted nothing more than for the smell to go away. With one hand covering their mouths and noses, they started to yell at Wick. Wick continued to approach them, throwing his arms in the air, making a gagging sound like a retard.

  They had to make a decision soon. The stench was unbearable. One of the two policemen raised his baton at Wick, who made an unsure gesture with his hands to block the incoming blow.

  “Shoo!” his colleague yelled thinking Wick would bolt out of the fear of getting beaten up, but Wick wasn’t going to back out so easily. In his attempt to save himself, he knowingly tripped and fell on the ground, making wild howling noises. The moving baton hit his right arm but couldn’t connect properly due to Wick’s fall. The policeman raised the baton again but a man’s voice from behind made him pause.

  “Hashem, what the hell?” Both policemen whirled around and straightened perceptibly; the voice obviously belonged to their superior. “The caravan is arriving, why is that side of the street still not cleared?”

  The policemen forgot all about Wick as they rushed to clear the part of the street that had attracted their superior’s ire. Wick quickly got up and started to walk.

  Wick turned the corner and continued to shuffle on. He didn’t turn around to see what the two uniforms were doing behind his back, but he could imagine them directing the pedestrians and cars to clear the street.

  The turn opened into a new street that had more uniforms patrolling on both sides. A few of them glanced at him casually but no one paid much heed. They were busy with their superiors shouting orders at them to keep the streets clear.

  “Target is arriving from the north. Over.” Wick’s earpiece crackled.

  “Copy. Over.”

  He stopped and turned towards the cavalcade's entry point in the north. There was a whirring sound of rubber on gravel and seconds later an entourage of three white Toyota Fortuners came down the street, headed for the convention center’s elevated entrance. The SUVs slowed at the stairs leading to the large gate of the center. As soon as the vehicles came to a halt, the minister and the mayor came hurrying down the stairs to welcome their guest of honor for the event. Ten gunmen rapidly got out of the first and third SUV and rushed towards the vehicle in the middle. The left side passenger seat door opened and Majeed leisurely stepped out.

  “As-salāmu Alaykum,” Majeed greeted the minister and the mayor.

  “Alaykum as-salām Janab,’” they replied in unison. ‘We are glad that you are finally here. Hope the journey was peaceful.’

  “Insha Allah, it was good, except for the traffic.” He smiled.

  Wick studied Majeed and his security detail from across the street. Majeed looked older than in the photo. But there was no doubt it was him. His target was finally here. A few feet away from him.

  Wick decided to linger at the same spot till the uniforms let him be. He had already earmarked a few places near the center where he might head if he was shooed away from here. Now he had to wait till the convention ended. Another seventy-five minutes or so.

  Once settled, Wick started to scope the area carefully. On the ground, the center was surrounded by uniforms, no snipers though. Wick had checked with Logan, too. No communication intercepted about any snipers. Still, for a religious convention, the security detail was unusual.

  Remaining where he was, he glanced at the predetermined exit routes. The alleyway left of the building was secured by three uniforms. They could be an issue, but if the plan went perfectly, he wouldn’t have to worry about them.

  His eyes swept the street from left to right to see if anything could derail the plan.

  The guests had arrived, and the convention had probably started. Traffic started to drip onto the street again.

  Wick sat in a nondescript spot on the footpath, head down. He took a stale piece of bread from his inner pocket and started to chew on it. If another uniform demanded to know what he was doing there, he could always point to the bread and begin a long, woeful story that would hopefully see him through the situation. No one did. Wick’s focus was on the large entrance of the convention center to his right and the exit road to his extreme left.

  It didn’t take long for traffic on the street to return to its chaotic norm. Pedestrians and cyclist
s made it worse. A sedan took the wrong lane and brought the entire traffic to a standstill. One of the uniforms, who looked like a higher-ranking officer, yelled at two of his underlings to clear the mess.

  The two uniforms grudgingly left their positions to take up traffic duty.

  Wick’s habit of continually scanning his surrounding area was in overdrive. His instincts checked for any anomaly on the crowded street. And then he thought he saw something.

  A seven or eight-year-old boy was walking on the opposite pavement. He looked sad, with eyes swollen from crying.

  After standing at attention for several hours, the uniforms were relaxing till the convention was over. The two officers busy on traffic duty were closer to the boy, but their focus was on unsnarling the traffic. Amid all the loud honking, innumerable vehicles and pedestrians, no one had the time to wonder what a boy was doing alone on that street. No one except Wick.

  He was trained to find anomalies in perfectly normal situations, and the lone boy was an anomaly. His wearing a jacket in the sweltering heat of Tehran under a blazing sun was an anomaly. And the swollen eyes—maybe he had been crying hard or sleeping less or maybe he was angry.

  Sadness with a strong hint of visible anger was an anomaly. The slow measured walk towards the center’s entrance was an anomaly.

  If one looked close enough, there were signs written all over the kid that he was about to derail months of intricate planning in seconds.

  But Wick was worried about one more thing. He was a child: a misled kid at the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn’t know what he was doing and to whom. Anger rose inside Wick. Who would do that to an innocent? He desperately wanted to save the boy, but he could see the bulge in his jacket, which could be a bomb. The bomb could be remote-controlled or pressure-triggered, in either case, it was already a checkmate. The boy was very close to the entrance. Any move now would be a wrong move. If he tried to save the boy or tried to take him away from the location, invariably the bomb would go off. There would be hundreds of casualties.

  He looked around for the person, who was bound to be somewhere close, who was keeping an eye on the child to make sure everything went as planned, to see if enough people died. For Wick, it also meant that his original timeline – to wait until the convention was over – had now gone kaput.

  He instinctively whispered in the earpiece. “Abort mission. I repeat, abort mission. Activate Plan B. Over.” A couple of surprised acknowledgements and the static resumed.

  Wick’s eyes scanned the three sides visible to him. His back was secured by a concrete wall. That was one area he could ignore to save time.

  He could go directly to the alleyway where the three uniforms he had seen earlier were still standing. It would take him five minutes to get there if he walked. He knew he couldn’t run. People would shoot him first and ask questions later.

  He could continue to his left, but it meant more uniforms and more impact if the bomb went off.

  That only left one option—retracing his steps and taking cover behind the concrete wall beyond the turn. He stood up and retraced his steps. Almost there. He sped up. He was at the corner and was about to turn when a powerful blow jolted him from behind. His body left the tarmac and hit a nearby car with insane force.

  CHAPTER 11

  Sections of the thick concrete wall disintegrated, destroying a large part of the wall structure at the turn.

  The ear-splitting blast knocked the wind out of Wick’s lungs. At such a close range, he was lucky to still be breathing. Shrapnel flew everywhere. Something grazed the side of Wick’s head, causing him to black out for a few seconds. When he regained his senses, the world had changed.

  Pieces of debris still showered down on him. His ears were ringing. He couldn't hear a thing. It was as if the world had gone to hell. He tried getting up. A jolt of pain ran up his right arm, but his legs still seemed to be functioning.

  He turned towards the convention center. Dust and smoke engulfed the street. Burnt dead bodies lay strewn on the ground. There were shadows of people, some of whom were like walking ghosts. Others moved as though in great pain, like scarecrows, their arms held out from their bodies, forearms and hands dangling. With a sudden flash of understanding, he realized that they had been burned and were holding their arms out to prevent the painful friction of raw surfaces rubbing together. Dust and the smell burning flesh filled his lungs.

  When the dust finally settled, he saw that the front part of the large convention center building had been destroyed.

  Then he saw Majeed being ushered by his bodyguards towards an alleyway opposite the convention center where his SUVs suddenly appeared, possibly summoned by one of his bodyguards.

  Wick ignored his pain and sprinted towards the SUVs. His Glock was out, barrel pointing down. By the time he turned in the alleyway, the three vehicles were already in motion. The middle SUV’s door opened and Majeed almost flew inside.

  “The target is moving. Over,” he shouted but there was no response. He lifted a hand to his ear. The earpiece was missing. There was no time to find it. The target was moving, and Wick had no clue where he was headed.

  CHAPTER 12

  Wick followed the SUVs on foot as they maneuvered through the dead bodies and the debris. He was still disoriented and stumbled every few steps. But the ringing in his ears was mellowing down.

  The SUV crossed the location where Wick had seen the boy. There was a large pool of blood where the boy had been. No body parts.

  With a sense of detachment, Wick noticed severed limbs, a blood-soaked watch, flip-flops, and a pair of shoes. He did not have time to think about the devastation he had just been a part of. The three SUVs were picking up speed. He had to find his rhythm. Majeed was going to get away. Plan B wouldn't work if they didn’t know where he was going.

  He checked his pocket. The GPS tracking device was still there. If he could attach it to the second SUV in line, the plan could still work. But the cavalcade was fast getting out of reach. He tried picking up his pace, but his legs were not ready for a longer sprint. The pain in his right hand was growing too. The explosion had been too close. The realization hit him that his body was in no state to chase a moving vehicle on foot, and he desperately looked around for a deserted vehicle.

  He searched around, anything to take him further. A Yamaha lay on its side; there were no keys. He snapped the wires from beneath the engine and hotwired the ignition. The engine coughed twice, refusing to start. He tried once more and succeeded.

  No one was looking at him. People were busy saving themselves. In a few minutes, the streets would be crowded with the bomb squad, local police, and every other government agency.

  He revved the throttle. The Yamaha started slowly, then picked up speed. Maneuvering through the by lanes, he sped towards Majeed’s SUV.

  Wick knew that if anyone checked the rearview mirror, not only would they be alerted, but Wick would probably find a bullet heading for him.

  His scummy robe flowing back in the wind messed his balance. He thought of getting rid of it but then decided against it.

  He still didn’t know how he was going to attach the GPS tracker. Between him and the rearmost Fortuner was another car shielding him from a direct line of attack.

  He was focused on maintaining a steady speed when the traffic ahead of him started to slow. Two hundred yards ahead was an intersection and the signal was red. As Wick slowed his motorcycle, a plan started to form in his head.

  CHAPTER 13

  By the time the traffic came to a complete halt, Wick was already on his feet, leaving the stolen Yamaha in the middle of the road. The wind and the maneuvering had made him temporarily forget his pain. Once he was back on foot it returned, and he started stumbling again. The good thing was that his senses were back to normal, and he was able to think straight.

  Perhaps because of the blast, the traffic at the red light was extremely slow. The signal was working intermittently, and a traffic policeman was manual
ly managing the traffic.

  Wick’s walk changed as he neared the rearmost SUV. He sauntered as if his left leg was hurt. His hand in front of him begging for alms. The GPS tracker was in between his right index and middle finger.

  He knocked on the driver’s side of the windshield. The driver glanced at him and gestured impatiently for him to move on. Wick didn’t knock a second time. He moved forward toward Majeed’s SUV.

  Majeed was in the middle row of seats surrounded by two gunmen on both sides. He knocked on the windshield and all three men looked at him with disgust. His eyes met Majeed’s, and he knew that Majeed had looked through him as he would any homeless beggar. The gunman sitting on Wick’s side waved him away. Wick continued to stand there, looking at the three of them, begging for alms.