Deadly Force

by Chase Austin

  Logan complied.

  Wick remained where he was, in a bid to reassure Hiba till she reached the reception.

  At the reception, Hiba’s first two knocks on the table yielded nothing, but then a woman’s silhouette appeared.

  Hiba extended her hand to give her the paper. The woman looked at the child with surprise and then read the note.

  “My name is Hiba. My mother is missing. Police and UNICEF are on their way here to help me find her. They will be here in a few minutes. Can you stay with me till then?”

  “How did you come here?” The woman gave her a motherly smile.

  The girl turned and signaled at the road. The woman looked in the direction. There was no one there. Wick was gone. The van was gone.

  She looked back at Hiba. “Are you hungry?” The girl nodded in affirmation. “Let’s go and get you something to eat,” the woman offered.

  CHAPTER 22

  Inside the minivan, Wick sat in silence, waiting for the second email to be triggered. Logan looked at Olivia to say something.

  The team was baffled by the way Wick was going about Majeed’s case. As if he didn’t care about orders. They couldn’t say much to him; they didn’t know him well enough. They had heard about him, of course, but this was the first time they were working with him and, watching him from close quarters, his mannerisms worried them. There would be an inquiry on this, and that would include them, too. They were his accomplices in the mission. What would they say? They had little or no information of what had transpired between Majeed and Wick alone in that room in those crucial moments when Wick had decided to shoot him. Hiba was gone and, anyway, they didn’t know enough Farsi to have even asked her basic questions. So that opportunity was long gone.

  “Wick, what did Majeed tell you before dying?”

  Wick told them about the attack briefly.

  “Wick, you sure you want to send this email. I think you should talk to Helms first.” Olivia sounded both worried and skeptical.

  “I'll talk to him when the time comes. I know what you guys are thinking, but I’m alone in this, no one will point a finger at you. There will be an inquiry and I want each one of you to say whatever you think is right. I’m ready for the consequences but I don’t want to burden you guys with my conscience.”

  “But why send an email and raise this shitstorm?” Logan asked.

  Wick looked at him for a moment and took the image out of his pocket.

  “Do you know who this man is?” Wick extended the image he had grabbed from the refrigerator. They studied it in the dim light of the van.

  “No.”

  “Baitullah Maksud.”

  “Baitullah Maksud!” The two words captured everyone’s attention. They looked at the picture with renewed interest.

  “This is the only image of Maksud that US intelligence agencies ever managed to get their hands on.”

  “Where did you find this?”

  “In Majeed’s house.”

  “You think there's a connection between Majeed and Maksud?”

  “I’ve a theory.”

  “Care to elaborate?” Olivia said curtly.

  “Few years ago, a group of German doctors visited Iraq on a humanitarian mission. Their group was attacked. While a few of them managed to escape unhurt, a few doctors from that group were abducted. The German government managed to get them released safely, except one: a German surgeon who died of a heart attack in mysterious circumstances.”

  “I remember that,” Elijah said without looking back.

  “Maksud’s terrorist group was identified as the one behind the attacks and the abduction. This image of Maksud was taken a week before that attack. And after this attack, he went underground. His terrorist group is still active though.”

  “What does this have to do with Majeed?”

  “Before embarking on this journey tonight, I asked my contacts in the NSA and CIA for intel on the group who abducted and burned the two American soldiers.”

  “And?”

  “Ninety-three percent chances are that Maksud’s group did it.”

  Everyone in the van knew what ninety-three percent meant in their profession. Some of them had executed missions even with far lower chances of certainty. Ninety-three meant that the intel was extremely credible.

  “You think Majeed had some connection with the killing of the US soldiers?” Elijah asked. He was now interested in where this was going.

  “I asked my contacts to check the coordinates of Farhad from the day the US soldiers were abducted. He had always been at locations close to where, per our estimates, the US soldiers were possibly kept, till the day we lost track of them. That was a week ago.”

  “Why wasn’t this done earlier? How can the agencies miss a man like Farhad?” Elijah asked.

  “Because our complete focus was on Majeed. He’s the face for us. Everyone, including me, thought that Farhad was just a sidekick, but when I saw that Farhad wasn’t with Majeed at the convention, I thought of checking his digital footprints.”

  “So, you think Majeed and Farhad are both working for Maksud?”

  “I think Farhad is working for Maksud.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think Majeed is Baitullah Maksud, and the German doctor who supposedly died of a heart attack was in fact murdered.”

  “How are these two things connected?”

  “First, the German doctor who died was a world-renowned plastic surgeon. Second, Majeed came into prominence only after Maksud was gone. If you check Majeed’s history, there is a backstory about him, but there are no photos before a certain time which can corroborate that backstory. Due to international pressure, Maksud probably decided to take on a new identity, and the one who could help him do it at the time was the German surgeon. My assumption is that the attack on the German doctors was also planned to hide the fact that there was a plastic surgeon in the group, so that no one would see this connection. And the plan worked because no one did point it out.”

  “This seems very farfetched,” Olivia said. She wasn’t convinced.

  “I told you this is just a theory. I’m still awaiting a few more details to connect the dots,” Wick responded without taking any offence.

  “Why didn’t you tell us? We could be of help to you,” Logan said, ignoring Olivia’s skepticism.

  “If I had told you, and if my theory bombs, then your careers would be compromised. You were assigned only for this mission. Maksud is a different ball game altogether, and I’ll deal with it my way.”

  “Then why tell us now?” Olivia asked.

  “I think I owe you guys at least this much, if nothing more. Mentally I’m ready for anything from here on but cannot expect the same from you.”

  Logan checked his email server. The second email about Majeed’s killing had been triggered a minute ago. He looked at Wick who checked his watch and tacitly understood what Logan’s expression meant.

  To put things in motion, Wick made a few calls from his burner cell. The reaction to the revelation that Majeed was dead meant that the things would move very fast. News in Iran already had a field day in progress. First the blast and then Majeed’s death, two big breaking news items within a few hours of each other was something that would need no further push.

  The minivan raced towards the safehouse. From there, they would leave for Turkmenistan separately. And then to Maryland, USA. What they didn’t know was that Wick had just changed his plans. He had decided to stay in Iran for a few more weeks.

  He knew now that the news of Majeed’s death was out, Maksud’s terror group would start squirming, if indeed Majeed had been their leader. Wick had enough ears on the ground to map this activity, but for that he needed to be here in person. But before anything else, he needed to convince Helms, and he wanted to do that without the distraction of Olivia, Logan and Elijah’s questioning eyes. They didn’t need to know he would be staying.

  Wick checked the live news telecast on the Tehran-Press
TV. Hiba was already on live TV and anchor was talking about her missing family. At least the process of finding Hiba’s family had been set in motion before this tiny news drowned in the avalanche of Majeed’s news.

  Logan checked other news channels; they had all started to broadcast the image of Majeed that he had emailed them from the encrypted server. Even if anyone found the server, its location was Tehran. He had made sure that nothing from the email would point to the US. Not only that, the email about Hiba and the email on Majeed couldn't be linked to each other. That would have made life difficult for that little girl.

  After checking the news on multiple channels, Wick dictated the next email with the video that was promised in the first email. Once Majeed’s news was live on TV, he sent the next one too. After everything was done, Logan closed his laptop.

  Elijah stopped the minivan in a deserted alley two-and-a-half miles from the safe house.

  Everyone dumped their weapons and everything that could get them in trouble into an open tin box and torched them along with the minivan. Then they took out their American passports and IDs. Fakes, but the airlines wouldn’t know that. Once they were sure that everything was in order, they separated from each other. Oliva and Logan left first. Wick and Elijah waited a few minutes before Elijah took off. Wick waited for Elijah to disappear before heading towards a secluded corner. He had to talk to Helms now.

  Wick made contact with William Helms, his boss, on the first attempt.

  “There is a chemical attack planned in DC in four days.” Wick repeated whatever Majeed had told him. He had already given the pen drive to Logan who had uploaded the data to the NSA server for decryption. Helms listened to everything in silence without interruption.

  “Where is Majeed?” he asked finally, after Wick had finished.

  “Dead,” Wick responded.

  “How?” There was a slight hint of a surprise in his voice, but not an overt reaction.

  “I shot him,” Wick spoke in a plain tone. No apology, no guilt, no nothing.

  “We needed him alive.” Helms said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Wick said nothing.

  “What now?” Helms continued. He had considered the possibility that Majeed might get killed in the operation, but Wick’s response meant that he had had the opportunity to capture him alive and had still chosen not to.

  “The support team is following the itinerary. I need more time here.”

  “Why?”

  Wick explained his plan and theory to him.

  “How confident are you of this theory?”

  “About seventy percent.”

  “That’s not enough,” Helms said.

  “That is why I have to stay here to get the evidence.”

  “You’ve made up your mind?” Helms asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What if it doesn’t pan out the way you think it will?”

  “I’m ready to face any inquiry or termination.”

  “I’ll still need a full report in my email inbox. Don’t mention anything about your theory right now.”

  “You’ll get it.”

  “Be safe.”

  “I will.” Wick disconnected the call.

  The attack on US soil was troubling, but Wick was confident that it would now be taken care of.

  CHAPTER 23

  William Helms was pacing back and forth in his office. He had called an emergency meeting, and also informed the CIA, Homeland Security, and the FBI about the potential attack. They had already started to raid the locations specified in the data Wick’s team had uploaded. Till now Wick’s intel was on the mark.

  But there was something else. He had allowed Wick far too much latitude, and this angered him. Although he hadn’t shown any of it during the call, and while much of his anger was directed at Wick, a lot of it was also directed at himself. How had he not seen the signs earlier?

  This place, this operation, all of it was his responsibility. People had tried to warn him as respectfully or as forcefully as they could, but his days were filled with hundreds of other pressing issues of national importance. And he had developed a blind spot when it came to Wick’s abilities and his mental strength. Especially on the operational side of things. He’d known Wick longer than anyone else at TF-77. He knew his long list of talents as well as his short but potent list of faults. There’d been a few bumps over the years, but there was never an occasion when Wick had let him down. He still remembered the day Wick was recruited. He had been in his early twenties, fresh out of tours from Afghanistan and Iraq, trained and thirsty to reach greater heights, ready for a fight. Helms had seen his hunger firsthand when they had operated together on a mission involving the extraction of a North Korean General. Wick had a real aptitude for mayhem. He was talented, remarkably perceptive, favored with an elephant memory and calculative; a lot of other things too, some good and some bad. But one thing was undeniable—he knew how to get to his targets, engage them, upset them, get them, and somehow make it back with nothing more than a few scratches. Wick was meant for this deadly business. He was an artist. Minimum bloodshed and maximum impact. He rarely used bullets, and always focused on figuring the best possible way to isolate the target before pouncing. He had few friends in the TF-77 group, but instead of choosing a desk job and falling into a safe rut, he had chosen his current life.

  Wick had never thought much about his own life. He was always ready to jump into the eye of the storm. When he landed in a new place, he headed straight for the rough part of town. He got to know the prostitutes, the barkeeps and, most importantly, the black marketeers who despised their overlords. He was the best field operative they had. Indispensable.

  Tonight, however, the director was having his doubts. Looking back, he could see where the mistakes had been made. He had allowed Wick to create a personality cult down here. Even on this mission, he had been adamant about going solo until Helms had intervened. It was time to correct the mistakes.

  “Elena, what do you propose?” The director looked at TF-77’s deputy director, who was sitting in his office examining a thick file about Wick’s failure to get Majeed alive. “What does the protocol say?”

  “We should wait for him to come back with credible intel,” she replied.

  “But the rules say that there has to be an inquiry on this.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who do you suggest should head the inquiry committee?”

  “David Scott would be a good choice,” Elena said.

  Helms knew about David. The man’s reputation preceded him—tough as nails and unwavering in his commitment to TF-77. He shrugged, indicating he was fine with the decision.

  “Elena, start the work but go slow. I want to give Wick a chance to redeem himself. If his theory is correct, we don’t want to look stupid. Give him enough time before you conclude anything. Supervise this yourself. I don't want to be involved since this is about Wick, but I would like to see the final report before it goes into the records.”

  “Okay,” Elena said.

  “What about the White House? They must have checked the news on Majeed’s death.”

  “The Secretary of Defense is not happy, but his priority is stopping this chemical attack. This botched mission has already put our position with Iran in jeopardy. Russia has joined Iran in insinuating that the killing was our doing. The President has denied any links and has also promised his support to bring the perpetrators to book even though the two countries are not on good terms. Looks like this will take a long time to go down, and not without some collateral damage. We have also found some incriminating evidence of the attack originating from Iran and we’ll respond at the right time. At the moment though, the White House is still working on a foolproof strategy to corner Iran.”

  “Elena, everything eventually comes down to two things: influence and money. One of those will be used to settle this as well.”

  Elena said nothing. The director looked out the window. Why had Wick allowed this to happen?
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  CHAPTER 24

  Four weeks later

  Wick walked down an empty corridor. The plain white walls were designed to give the building an air of truthfulness, even as they hid the dirty secrets of surveillance and espionage. His appointment with the director was in fifteen minutes. He had just got out of his hearing with the inquiry commission. David Scott had been prepared to the hilt and had taken a lot of time grilling Wick, but Wick’s poker face had given him nothing more than the routine answers he was expecting.